What goes up....

Let's see... Let's try to get through all the interesting stuff that have emerged in the past day or so. I'll start off with a couple things that aren't entirely fair or that are non-stories in my opinion.

-Sarah Palin's negatives went up 5 points in only two days. Her positives went down by 4. That's what happens when you toss a bucket of fluff that high in the air. It's going to come down pretty hard.

- It was revealed that Palin had a tanning bed installed in the Governor's mansion.

Big deal. She didn't use state funds for it, so it's a big nothing. Except she apparently didn't spend much time there anyway, preferring to charge the state thousands in per diems to stay in her own home.

-Palin's voice causes seizures in some people. Well, it hasn't been reported yet. But her God-awfully grating tone of voice has actually caused some people's earlobes to spontaneously morph into little fingers which then plugged their ears.
I was listening to her at the town hall yesterday and her voice actually loosened one of my filings and dogs all around the neighborhood errupted in spontaneous howling.

- Carly Fiorina said that McCain isn't qualified to run a company.

And she said neither are any of the candidates on either slate. Sure, she'll get canned, and I couldn't be more pleased. She was an unpleasant person to begin with, and had a decidedly checkered past, being known for laying off thousands of workers on her way to dragging down Hewlett-Packard while she was CEO.

But this is piling on. It's another instance of someone getting crucified for telling the truth. She was clearly trying to say that running a large corporation and being President are two entirely different things. CEOs probably wouldn't be good Presidents, and visa-versa. It was an honest observation, and the only thing she was guilty of was not somehow looking into the future and realized how her valid comment could be distorted.

I can't stand Fiorina, but what she said was more than likely true, though I have to admit that if all four candidates DID run a company, I'd sure the hell buy stock in Obama's over any of the rest and I'd likely do quite well.

- More lies. Palin lie regarding teleprompter at convention speech.

Within 20 minutes of the finish of Sarah Palin's screech, er.. speech to the RNC, the McCain camp was spreading the story that the teleprompter had screwed up mid-speech but Palin, in an example of just how brilliant and talented she is, had effortlessly ad libbed and gotten past it.

Well, that turns out to be not true. What most of us call a "lie". Press risers were in direct line of sight of the teleprompter and no one saw any glitch in the teleprompter at all. Also sources who ran the teleprompter confirmed that there was no problem with it at all.

Why do these people lie when they don't even have to? Pretty bad.

- The coverup is worse than the crime.
Apparently no one told Palin and the McCain campaign goon squad which has been deployed to Anchorage to try to make her "Troopergate" problems disappear.

In a weird legal twist, Palin's state lawyer had filed a motion with the state's personel board arguing that they, and not the bi-partisan committee organized to investigate the issue, were the proper body to determine if there'd been any misconduct. (The personnel board happens to be appointed by Palin, natch.)

Then the Republicans took a Justice Dept. lawyer who was in the anti-terror division, got him to quit his job, then hired him and sent him to Alaska to "help" Palin's lawyer with the case.

He promptly filed a motion arguing AGAINST the motion Palin's lawyer had just filed, arguing this time that even the personnel board had no jurisdiction as there wasn't enough probably cause to justify an investigation by ANYONE or ANYTHING, period.

In other words, they're trying to shut down the entire thing before it's even started, thus giving the obvious impression that they're afraid of something VERY bad emerging if it's allowed to continue. They don't even trust Palin's hand picked personnel board to handle it!

The bi-partisan committee recently voted (tie broken by a Republican) to subpoena state witnesses in the investigation. But Palin's appointed State Attorney General has chosen to defy the subpoenas and forbid ANY Alaskan state employee to cooperate or testify.

The Republicans, bless 'em, have just ensured that this story, which appeared to not a big deal and likely to not have much of an impact on the race, will now become a huge story in the press and convince the public that Palin had indeed done something so wrong that the McCain campaign had to bring in the thug squad to try to shut it down completely. Amazing.

- John McCain invented the Blackberry.
Yep, hahahaha! What a jerk, claiming to have invented the Blackberry! Hahahahahaha!

Well, actually, he said no such thing. But then again, neither did Al Gore say anything remotely like he'd invented the internet. But that didn't stop the press and Republican boobs from repeating it with giddy glee for years.

As a matter of fact, the comment by one of McCain's economic advisors (at least the one that they can still send out in public, unlike the REAL economic guru, Phil Gramm.) is even worse than Gore's.

When asked what accomplishments McCain had ever made regarding economic matters while in the Senate, Douglas Holtz-Eakin held up his Blackberry device and said, "He did this. You're looking at the miracle John McCain helped create and that's what he did."

What Gore actualy said essentially similar, "During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the internet. I took the initiative in moving forward a whole range of initiatives that have proven to be important to our country's economic growth and environmental protection, improvements in our educational system."

As it was in Gore's case, trying to say that McCain claims to have invented the Blackberry is a ridiculous distortion of the truth. But hell, you simply could not count the millions of times the "Gore invented the internet" falsehood was repeated on a daily basis for literally years, so as long as the Republicans have no shame (and that's clear) why not give 'em a taste of their own medicine?

So next time you talk on a cell phone or use e-mail, thank John McCain. (but don't thank him by e-mail or blackberry, he doesn't know how to use it yet.)

- McCain, who makes up his position as to the economic collapes on an hourly basis, turns out to have employed as top campaign staff, current or former lobbyists for Lehman Bros, AIG, Merill Lynch, and Bank of America.

-In yet another wild-ass flip-flop, McCain, a guy who's argued against any suggestion that the financial markets should be regulated in any way, is now out there calling for more regulation. Talk about shutting the barn door AFTER the cows have all gone.

The last experience with the country's financial system was being caught up in the Keating 5 scandal where he used his position in congress to PREVENT regulation of Charles Keating's S&L in exchange for money.

-Pakistan's president announces that his troops will shoot any U.S. troops who engage in any military actions within their borders, thus essentially protecting with military force, al Queda and Osama bin-Laden.

- Several U.S. servicemen and women were captured during the first Gulf War and held in, of all places, abu Garaib prison, where they were mistreated and abused. Now they want to sue the government of Iraq (which has something like an $80 billion dollar surplus these days) for the suffering they experienced.

Well, not everyone likes that idea. Some are fighting to prevent it. The Iraqi government? No, guess again.

The Bush administration is actually fighting to deny the former military POWs the right to sue Iraq!!

So afraid of the possibility that they themselves could be hauled to court for their numerous war crimes and perhaps being held responsible for the abduction and torture of thousands of innocent people, the Bush administration is now spending hundreds of thousands of you tax dollars fighting to prevent the heros they constantly trot out for political gain, the very troops they've accused others of not supporting as much as they patriotically do, from being able to try to get some compensation for the abuse and horrible mistreatment they suffered.

Support the troops indeed. Assholes.