A Lawyer Writes About Judge Sonia Sotomayor, While Her Supporters Launch Warfare Against A Firefighter Opponent.

Check out "The Judge Sotomayor I've Faced
Her questioning is tough and fair, demanding and acute.
By FLOYD ABRAMS" below:

Having argued cases before Judge Sonia Sotomayor on a number of occasions, I have been struck by the assertion by some lawyers that her questioning has been too harsh, even abrasive. True, Judge Sotomayor once described herself in a speech as a "bear on the bench." And her questions can lead some lawyers to wish they had been quizzed in a far more cuddly manner.

But in my experience her questions are tough and fair, demanding and acute. One could say worse things about a judge.

Consider two of the cases I have argued before her. One arose after a jury had been chosen in federal court to hear accusations that a prominent Wall Street investment banker, Frank Quattrone, had obstructed justice. Days before Mr. Quattrone's trial commenced in April 2004, a state court judge in another widely publicized case ordered a mistrial after two New York newspapers published the name of (and much critical and personal commentary about) a juror who'd behaved in a manner that led many to think she favored the defendant. Concerned that the same might occur in his court, the federal judge in the Quattrone case entered an order barring the press from publishing the name of any juror.

President Barack Obama and Supreme Court nominee Judge Sonia Sotomayor

Well-intentioned as the judge was, his action ran directly into a First Amendment wall. The order was not only a prior restraint on the press, and thus very likely unconstitutional. It also barred publication of juror names already referred to in open court. If anything, this was an even clearer basis for the Second Circuit of Appeals in New York to strike down the lower court's ruling. Many cases had held that what occurs in a public court is public property, and that the press may not be punished for publishing it.

I pressed the latter point in my oral argument on behalf of a number of press organizations. This was, I said, one of the rare legal rules that were truly absolute.

Judge Sotomayor quickly responded with a series of questions about whether I really meant that the rule was absolute. Yes, I said, I meant it.

What if, she asked, there was some emergency that required a brief halt on publication and to do otherwise would cause grave harm? If the information was already revealed in open court, I said, neither the press nor anyone else could be prevented from revealing it.

Suppose, she said, a hired mob assassin stood up in open court and announced that 20 minutes later a particular person would be killed if the information were made public. Did I really mean that even in that circumstance the courts were without power to act?

Good question. Too good. I paused, concerned that I was wearing out my welcome by taking what increasingly seemed (because of Judge Sotomayor's questions) a far too extreme position.

I made a last try. If that occurred, I said, you could lock the doors of the courtroom to keep the press and everyone else from leaving, but you could not enter an order barring them from publishing what they had heard in court.

She looked at me in a bemused way. I looked away and started talking about something else.

We won the case a few weeks later. Judge Sotomayor's opinion concluded that the order barring publication of the juror names was unconstitutional because it was a prior restraint on speech and because the information had been revealed in open court.

Then she added two elegant lines. "We need not address what exceptional circumstances, if any, could justify a departure from the doctrine barring restrictions on the publication of information revealed in open court. It suffices to hold that the record is devoid of facts that could justify creating such an exception in this case."

Another encounter was in the 1999 Brooklyn Museum Case, arising out of then Mayor Rudolph Giuliani's efforts to strip the museum of all city funding and evict it from its home because it refused to remove a painting the mayor found offensive.

The questions Judge Sotomayor asked the city's lawyer were the judicial equivalent of hard left jabs in a boxing match. The U.S. Constitution generally bars sanctions against speakers based on their viewpoint. So she asked the lawyer:

"I'm still having difficulty understanding how this is not viewpoint discrimination. Please explain to me what the difference between this is and viewpoint discrimination by a state actor. There's a legion of Supreme Court cases holding that viewpoint discrimination can't be upheld."

And then:

"Give me an example of what is impermissible viewpoint discrimination."

Judge Sotomayor was no easier on me. She pressed me hard on my contention that the museum needed an injunction to protect it against the mayor. She pointed out that if we won the case the museum would get back all the money Mr. Giuliani had withheld. She required me to concede that the museum would suffer no immediate financial hardship if there was no injunction. She asked a series of increasingly difficult questions testing my contention that the case could be in federal court in the first place.

We never had a ruling in the Brooklyn Museum case, since Mr. Giuliani threw in the towel before the court could rule and abandoned his efforts to pressure the museum to remove the painting. But hardball questioning of both sides was precisely what good judges do.

Long before Judge Sotomayor was appointed a federal appellate judge, the single most honored and esteemed member of the U.S. Court of Appeals was Learned Hand. Routinely described as the single greatest American jurist never appointed to the Supreme Court, Hand could terrorize counsel who appeared before him.

When counsel made an argument Hand thought was inadequate, he was notorious for turning his chair around so his back faced the hapless lawyer who was arguing. Hand's questioning, his biographer wrote, led lawyers "to blanch and shake." That's how a bear in a courtroom behaves.

Mr. Abrams is a partner in the law firm of Cahill Gordon & Reindel LLP and the author of "Speaking Freely: Trials of the First Amendment" (Viking, 2005).



Then check out her supporters warfare here.

Wanna Hear More About Michael Jackson. Check Out Some Drug Stories Below.

Check out here.

NO Brotherly Love Here, As Philadelphia Swim Club Is Concerned About "Changing Complexion" Of Black Visitors. Watch Video.

A Republican Senator Showing Brotherly Love? Watch Video.

Kentucky Administrative Office Of The Courts (AOC) Hires Felons. WTF.

AOC's puzzling hire at the jail

The Administrative Office of the Courts deserves credit for hiring felons, a class of people who are particularly at risk of dropping into permanent, debilitating unemployment.

That said, the AOC will perform a much greater service in the future if it avoids the mistakes made with Francis Baker.

Baker is the persistent felony offender (18 convictions over almost two decades on charges ranging from burglary to facilitating the trafficking of controlled substances) who the AOC hired in July 2007 as a pre-trial officer while he was still on parole.

Assigned to the Lexington-Fayette Detention Center, Baker met with new inmates, reviewed their records and made bond recommendations to judges.

He was also stationed at the Fayette County courthouse where he worked in a program that involved drug screening of defendants who will be released with electronic monitoring.

One of those defendants made complaints about Baker, as did a corrections officer at the detention center, Doris Zirbes.

In a lawsuit against the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government, Zirbes alleges that she was punished for telling law enforcement officials about Baker's background, that he had access to law enforcement databases that were supposed to be off-limits to him, and that he gave some female inmates special treatment.

The AOC has moved Baker to a job in Frankfort where he will have no contact with people in custody, noting his "inability to effectively perform his job duties," as a pre-trial officer.

This situation, reported by Herald-Leader staffer Valarie Honeycut, is packed with unanswered questions but the biggest ones revolve around this: What was the AOC thinking?

Baker is not a guy who got into trouble once or twice and just seemed to need some help getting back on the right track. His criminal history record goes on for pages, stretching back to 1981 when he was convicted of receiving stolen property.

While the AOC may have had some job that would suit Baker and help him get settled in society, it's hard to understand how anyone could think that, while he was still on parole, it made sense to put him in a job that required judgment and discretion and involved access to both vulnerable people and their histories.

Equally puzzling is the question of how much supervision Baker received from the AOC. The Lexington government, responding to Zirbes' lawsuit, contends that while he worked in our local jail, Baker was an employee of the AOC, which was responsible for his supervision. Did someone in Frankfort keep close tabs on Baker? Who knew what he was doing day in and day out in his job?

Finally, while the AOC contends that hiring Baker and other felons stems from it's commitment to rehabilitation — an admirable goal we fully support — it has no data on how many it has hired.

Presumably that also means it doesn't keep track of how many have fared well in their assignments, what support systems help them make the transition or other data that could inform and guide the AOC as it pursues that goal.

Politico.com Names Kentucky Senator Jim Bunning A Political "Dead Man Walking".

Read more here.

In Kentucky, Bill Londrigan, Head Of AFL-CIO, Wants Steve Beshear To NIX Idea Of Having Louisville Mayor Jerry Abramson As 2011 Running Mate.

Read more here, or excerpts below.

The head of Kentucky's largest labor federation has asked Gov. Steve Beshear not to consider Louisville Mayor Jerry Abramson as his running mate if he seeks re-election in 2011.

"I am writing to express our strong opposition to Mayor Abramson for Lt. Governor," Bill Londrigan, president of the Kentucky State AFL-CIO, said in a letter dated Thursday. "Mayor Abramson has established a long record of antipathy towards organized labor, both during his tenure as Mayor of Louisville as well as the merged Metro Government."

Beshear, a Democrat, is believed to be considering Abramson to replace Lt. Gov. Daniel Mongiardo on the ticket. Mongiardo is running for the U.S. Senate seat held by Republican Jim Bunning in next year's election. ...

Abramson has had a difficult relationship with labor unions during his three terms as mayor of the old City of Louisville and his two terms leading the merged Louisville Metro Government.

Londrigan said in an interview that Abramson has a long record of opposing unions and that some unionized metro government workers have gone years without contracts.

And he noted that Abramson vetoed union-friendly legislation tied to downtown arena construction and even crossed a picket line several years ago when the Aegon Tower was being built.

The labor federation, which represents about 100,000 members and affiliate members around the state, is not threatening to withdraw support from Beshear if he chooses Abramson but simply wants the governor to understand the intensity of their opposition to the mayor, Londrigan said.

"We would be very concerned having … (Abramson) one heart-beat away from the governor's office," he said.

As Louisville's budget woes have deepened, Abramson has found himself increasingly at odds with the unions that represent city workers.

Earlier this year, the Teamsters union sued the city over proposed worker furloughs that weren't negotiated as part of a contract. And the Fraternal Order of Police, the labor union that represents city police officers, sued over the mayor's decision to charge officers who take their patrol cars home with them.

More recently, Abramson vetoed an ordinance that would have required prevailing wage to be paid on all projects involving $500,000 in city funds.

Beshear has said he plans to announce this summer whether he's running for re-election and, if so, who his running mate will be.

Reporter Joseph Gerth can be reached at (502) 582-4702.

Levi Johnson Of Bristol Palin's Fame: SILLY Sarah Failin' (Palin) Is All About Taking The Money And Running; Not Qualified For Job. OUCH. Watch Video.

SILLY Sarah Failin Is Lyin'. Watch Video.

Peggy Noonan: "Palin Was Bad For The Republicans—And The Republic."

A Farewell to Harms
Palin was bad for the Republicans—and the republic.
By PEGGY NOONAN

Sarah Palin's resignation gives Republicans a new opportunity to see her plain—to review the bidding, see her strengths, acknowledge her limits, and let go of her drama. It is an opportunity they should take. They mean to rebuild a great party. They need to do it on solid ground.

Her history does not need to be rehearsed at any length. Ten months ago she was embraced with friendliness by her party. The left and the media immediately overplayed their hand, with attacks on her children. The party rallied round, as a party should. She went on the trail a sensation but demonstrated in the ensuing months that she was not ready to go national and in fact never would be. She was hungry, loved politics, had charm and energy, loved walking onto the stage, waving and doing the stump speech. All good. But she was not thoughtful. She was a gifted retail politician who displayed the disadvantages of being born into a point of view (in her case a form of conservatism; elsewhere and in other circumstances, it could have been a form of liberalism) and swallowing it whole: She never learned how the other sides think, or why.

In television interviews she was out of her depth in a shallow pool. She was limited in her ability to explain and defend her positions, and sometimes in knowing them. She couldn't say what she read because she didn't read anything. She was utterly unconcerned by all this and seemed in fact rather proud of it: It was evidence of her authenticity. She experienced criticism as both partisan and cruel because she could see no truth in any of it. She wasn't thoughtful enough to know she wasn't thoughtful enough. Her presentation up to the end has been scattered, illogical, manipulative and self-referential to the point of self-reverence. "I'm not wired that way," "I'm not a quitter," "I'm standing up for our values." I'm, I'm, I'm.

In another age it might not have been terrible, but here and now it was actually rather horrifying.

McCain-Palin lost. Mrs. Palin has now stepped down, but she continues to poll high among some members of the Republican base, some of whom have taken to telling themselves Palin myths.

To wit, "I love her because she's so working-class." This is a favorite of some party intellectuals. She is not working class, never was, and even she, avid claimer of advantage that she is, never claimed to be and just lets others say it. Her father was a teacher and school track coach, her mother the school secretary. They were middle-class figures of respect, stability and local status. I think intellectuals call her working-class because they see the makeup, the hair, the heels and the sleds and think they're working class "tropes." Because, you know, that's what they teach in "Ways of the Working Class" at Yale and Dartmouth.

What she is, is a seemingly very nice middle-class girl with ambition, appetite and no sense of personal limits.

"She's not Ivy League, that's why her rise has been thwarted! She represented the democratic ideal that you don't have to go to Harvard or Brown to prosper, and her fall represents a failure of egalitarianism." This comes from intellectuals too. They need to be told something. Ronald Reagan went to Eureka College. Richard Nixon went to Whittier College, Joe Biden to the University of Delaware. Sarah Palin graduated in the end from the University of Idaho, a school that happily notes on its Web site that it's included in U.S. News and World Report's top national schools survey. They need to be told, too, that the first Republican president was named "Abe," and he went to Princeton and got a Fulbright. Oh wait, he was an impoverished backwoods autodidact!

America doesn't need Sarah Palin to prove it was, and is, a nation of unprecedented fluidity. Her rise and seeming fall do nothing to prove or refute this.

"The elites hate her." The elites made her. It was the elites of the party, the McCain campaign and the conservative media that picked her and pushed her. The base barely knew who she was. It was the elites, from party operatives to public intellectuals, who advanced her and attacked those who said she lacked heft. She is a complete elite confection. She might as well have been a bonbon.

"She makes the Republican Party look inclusive." She makes the party look stupid, a party of the easily manipulated.

"She shows our ingenuous interest in all classes." She shows your cynicism.

"Now she can prepare herself for higher office by studying up, reading in, boning up on the issues." Mrs. Palin's supporters have been ordering her to spend the next two years reflecting and pondering. But she is a ponder-free zone. She can memorize the names of the presidents of Pakistan, but she is not going to be able to know how to think about Pakistan. Why do her supporters not see this? Maybe they think "not thoughtful" is a working-class trope!

"The media did her in." Her lack of any appropriate modesty did her in. Actually, it's arguable that membership in the self-esteem generation harmed her. For 30 years the self-esteem movement told the young they're perfect in every way. It's yielding something new in history: an entire generation with no proper sense of inadequacy.

"Turning to others means the media won!" No, it means they lose. What the mainstream media wants is not to kill her but to keep her story going forever. She hurts, as they say, the Republican brand, with her mess and her rhetorical jabberwocky and her careless causing of division. Really, she is the most careless sower of discord since George W. Bush, who fractured the party and the movement that made him. Why wouldn't the media want to keep that going?

Here's why all this matters. The world is a dangerous place. It has never been more so, or more complicated, more straining of the reasoning powers of those with actual genius and true judgment. This is a time for conservative leaders who know how to think.

Here are a few examples of what we may face in the next 10 years: a profound and prolonged American crash, with the admission of bankruptcy and the spread of deep social unrest; one or more American cities getting hit with weapons of mass destruction from an unknown source; faint glimmers of actual secessionist movements as Americans for various reasons and in various areas decide the burdens and assumptions of the federal government are no longer attractive or legitimate.

The era we face, that is soon upon us, will require a great deal from our leaders. They had better be sturdy. They will have to be gifted. There will be many who cannot, and should not, make the cut. Now is the time to look for those who can. And so the Republican party should get serious, as serious as the age, because that is what a grown-up, responsible party—a party that deserves to lead—would do.

It's not a time to be frivolous, or to feel the temptation of resentment, or the temptation of thinking next year will be more or less like last year, and the assumptions of our childhoods will more or less reign in our future. It won't be that way.

We are going to need the best.

Editor's comment: This piece IS why I love Peggy Noonan; You should, too.

Those Who Find Reason To HATE Potus Barack Obama Claim He Was Lusting After A Young Woman At G8 Summit. WRONG They Are! Watch Video.

Evian Water Rollerskating Babies. Watch And Smile.

Below is one from 1998:

"Shattering The Smoke And Mirrors Of Cap And Trade".

Shattering the Smoke and Mirrors of Cap and Trade
Submitted by John Walsh

In the last month, there has been a very heated debate of the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 otherwise known as cap and trade. During these debates, we have heard many reasons why we should not do more to protect our environment. One of the most outspoken opponents against this momentous environmental program was Congressman Geoff Davis who labeled it a “National Energy Tax” and based his claims against this bill partly because, “the plan could increase the cost to average Kentucky family as much as $1798.23 annually.” This statement by Davis is dubious at best and outright falsehood at worst. The question is according to what source would the cost be this much? The answer, not surprisingly, is the fossil fuel industry and its benefactors.

Davis further states, “In addition, this proposal could result in hundreds of thousands of lost jobs.” This time he did not even bother to be specific, which is quite deliberate, the vagueness of these numbers is itself designed to create anxiety and fear in the population. It is a scare tactic plain and simple and it is dishonest. When a sitting Congressmen tries to create fear for his own political gain, that brings into question his integrity and fitness to hold office.

Davis adds to this egregious claim by stating that, “Kentucky families deserve a better solution that will protect our energy future, reduce our dependence on foreign oil, protect our environment through improved technology and incentives for cleaner energy production. With the right plan, we can achieve these goals and stimulate job creation.” If Davis has “the right plan” then why is he not willing to tell us what it is instead of hiding behind vague promises he hopes nobody questions, a tactic all too familiar with the Republicans in Washington D.C.

The truth about clean energy is it will create more jobs versus fossil fuels. The comparison between clean energy and fossil fuels is stark considering for every $1 million spent on clean energy would create 16.7 jobs versus 5.3 jobs for every $1 million spent on fossil fuels. An investment of $2 billion in clean energy in Kentucky would create 25,705 new jobs while lowering our unemployment rate to 5.2 percent (Center for American Progress).

The ultimate question is why exactly did Davis vote against cap and trade if the facts are clear that moving towards green energy is good for Kentuckians. It appears that special interest money influenced this decision and the money trail speaks for itself, which shows the lifetime contributions from various interests: Energy Sector $366,296, Oil and Gas $162,485, Electric Utilities $34,865, Coal Mining $119,400, Construction $363,167, Automakers $2,250 (Open Secrets)

America can once again show that we are global leaders by producing innovative legislation where other nations such as China, India, and other rapidly developing nations will be influenced to follow. If we move towards green technology, other nations will be more likely to follow but if we continue to do nothing our manufacturing sector will once be left behind again.

Our manufacturing sector has been decimated over the last thirty plus years and is one of the key parts of our economy in Kentucky. Right now China is already ahead of the curve in clean technology manufacturing and it is time to start a green revolution for our manufacturing sector. We can do this by providing incentives to attract new companies that can utilize factories that have been closed to spark our manufacturing sector once again in Kentucky.

America can once again show that we are global leaders by producing innovative legislation where other nations such as China, India, and other rapidly developing nations will be influenced to follow. If we move towards green technology, other nations will be more likely to follow but if we continue to do nothing our manufacturing sector will once be left behind again. This move towards clean energy technology can be an essential key to revitalizing our economy and ultimately will benefit generations to come.

Lexington Herald Leader Editorial: "More Scrutiny Appreciated".

More scrutiny appreciated

Officials at the state Department of Insurance rightly have begun a review of operations at the Kentucky Association of Counties and the Kentucky League of Cities.

In addition to the other services these two organizations provide for the state's counties and cities, both offer various forms of insurance to their respective members.

And as recent Herald-Leader stories have detailed, KACo and the League have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in the last few years on travel, entertainment and gifts.

Put these circumstances together, and there is reason for state insurance officials to step in and make sure the portion of the two organizations' wining and dining that benefited officials of their member local governments did not take the form of improper inducements designed to influence those local governments' decisions concerning insurance.

As the recent articles have detailed, both KACo and the League have been rather cavalier about justifying all their entertainment and travel expenses.

That sloppiness may make it difficult to determine whether either organization crossed the line in this regard.

But even if the state review turns up no evidence of improper inducements, it is still a worthwhile exercise if it impresses on KACo and League officials the importance of erecting some kind of fire wall between their insurance operations and those portions of their organizations where entertainment expenses of a limited nature might seem more appropriate.

Their free and easy spending habits suggest that the need for such bright lines of division may not have been evident to them in the past.

But it certainly should be in the future.

From Our Friend, Mark Wilson, The Organizer Of The Fancy Farm Kentucky Political Event, Through Our friend KYKURMUDGEON, Here's Your Schedule.

Fancy Farm schedule

Thanks to Mark Wilson for sending along a schedule of activities for the 129th Annual Fancy Farm Picnic. All times are Central Daylight Time.

Friday, July 31:

7 a.m. Mass on the picnic grounds.

8 a.m. Meat goes on the pits (8,500 pounds of mutton and 10,500 pounds of pork).

RV parking begins: $100 good through noon Monday. (Contact Sherry Jones at 270-623-8181.)

5 p.m. Knights of Columbus Fish Fry. (Adults: $10, children under 12: $5, children under 4:free.)

6 p.m. One-Mile Classic Run.

7 p.m. 5K Picnic Eve Run.

7:30-11 p.m. Music by Jennifer Fox & the Pillow Fighters.

Saturday, Aug. 1:

8 a.m. Barbecue goes on sale at $8 a pound.

10 a.m. Picnic officially begins with bingo, games, crafts, music and food.

10:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m. Music by Care Free Highway Band.

11 a.m.-8p.m. Home-cooked meal in the air-conditioned Knights of Columbus Hall. Lots of pork, mutton, fried chicken, fresh veggies and home-made deserts for $10 for adults and $5 for children.

1:30 p.m. Pioneer Awards presentation at the political stand.

2 p.m. Political speaking emceed by Al Cross, director of the Institute for Community Journalism & Community Issues at UK and former political reporter for The Courier-Journal

6 p.m.-10 p.m. Music by Mid-Life Crisis.

10 p.m. Drawing for a 2009 Dodge Journey. Second prize of $1,000.

"Off The Wall", By Nick Anderson. This Is Very Funny.

Happy Birthday To My Significant Other, Dr. Anne.

Episcopal Bishop: Heresy To Believe Individual Can Be Saved Through A Sinner's Prayer Of Repentance.

ANAHEIM, CA - Episcopal Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori says it's "heresy" to believe that an individual can be saved through a sinner's prayer of repentance.

In her opening address to the church's General Conference in California, Jefferts Schori called that "the great Western heresy: that we can be saved as individuals, that any of us alone can be in right relationship with God."

The presiding bishop said that view is "caricatured in some quarters by insisting that salvation depends on reciting a specific verbal formula about Jesus."

According to Schori, it is heresy to believe that an individual's prayer can achieve a saving relationship with God. "That individualist focus is a form of idolatry, for it puts me and my words in the place that only God can occupy."

Editor's comment: what says ye?

Watch Sahel Kazemi, Steve McNair's Lover And Killer, Do The DUI "Perp. Walk" Before The Killings.

According To Anchorage Daily News, SILLY Sarah Failin' Not Quitting For Taxpayer Expenditure.

Palin defends 'millions' ethics price claim

TALLY: Record requests, ethics complaints, lawsuits, troopergate given price tag.
By SEAN COCKERHAM
scockerham@adn.com

Gov. Sarah Palin, explaining her stunning resignation announcement, has repeatedly said attacks on her since she ran for vice president have cost state government "millions" of dollars.

"That huge waste that we have seen with the countless, countless hours that state staff is spending on these frivolous ethics violations and the millions of dollars that Alaskans are spending, that money not going to things that are very important, like troopers and roads and teachers and fish research," Palin said this week.

Palin administration officials provided the Daily News with a breakdown of what it says are $1.9 million in costs. Most if it is a per-hour accounting of the time state employees, such as state attorneys, have spent working on public records requests, lawsuits, ethics complaints, and issues surrounding the Legislature's "Troopergate" investigation last summer of Palin.

"Is it a check that we wrote, no, but is it staff hours, yes," Sharon Leighow, spokeswoman for Palin, said of the expenses related to state employee work.

Those state employees would have been paid regardless.

What about helping teachers, benefitting troopers, making roads safer or "soldiers' benefits" -- the kinds of alternative uses of the money that Palin has described repeatedly?

Asked about that, Leighow said staffers from multiple state agencies had to set aside their normal duties. State lawyers were also pulled off cases, she said.

"Important legal issues involving the state's interests were delayed in order to respond to these complaints. That means lost value to the state, which is measurable in dollars," she said. "There were also hundreds of thousands of dollars spent on equipment and outside legal counsel -- dollars that could have been used to benefit the state."

UNPRECEDENTED REQUESTS

The Palin administration has experienced a volume of information requests and public ethics complaints beyond those of any previous Alaska governor. Most came after Aug. 29 of last year, the day that John McCain chose Palin to be the Republican party's vice presidential nominee.

"I've never seen anything like this before. It's unprecedented," said Linda Perez, who handles the requests as Palin's administrative director and has been in state government since the Sheffield administration in the 1980s.

She said the Palin administration in its two and a half years has received 238 public records requests -- 189 of them coming since McCain chose her as his running mate last August. The previous governor, Frank Murkowski, had 109 in four years.

The public records requests to Palin are largely from members of the Alaska and national press, although some are from people who have filed ethics complaints against the governor. A large portion of the money Palin talks about as she explains reasons for her resignation is state employee time on public records requests.

The biggest chunk of that, more than $600,000, represents hours state lawyers spent reviewing requested information. They decide how much to release. Records can be withheld for reasons like an individual's privacy or for "deliberative process" -- an executive privilege generally limited to the governor and close advisers, covering internal deliberations before a decision is made.

CITIZEN WATCHDOGS

Anchorage activist Andree McLeod is suing in an attempt to obtain state e-mails sent to Palin's husband, Todd, who Palin critics have claimed is a "shadow governor." The e-mails have been withheld based on the claim of executive privilege, with the argument that Todd, while not a state employee, is an adviser to Palin. McLeod also filed a lawsuit meant to force the administration to abandon use of private e-mail accounts, like Yahoo messages, saying that can put state policy information off limits to public records requests.

"The high cost Palin keeps talking about is a function of Sarah Palin's refusal to secure, preserve and protect the state of Alaska's public records and (her circumvention of) state servers and public record laws," said McLeod, who said she offered to drop the suit over private accounts if Palin would ban them.

McLeod is one of the main people Palin is describing when she complains about what is going on. McLeod has had three ethics complaints against Palin dismissed and has another one pending, although an investigator did recommended ethics training for a close aide as a result of one of her complaints. She has filed numerous public records requests as well as the two lawsuits against the state. McLeod describes it as using the tools available for a citizen watchdog to hold the governor accountable. The state has charged some people thousands of dollars for e-mail requests dating from last fall's campaign that still haven't been filled. State officials say that they are big requests that require more time.

DIVERTED ATTENTION

The governor's office said that pulling state lawyers away from their work to deal with public records requests and ethics complaints has a cost. For example, Leighow said, the paralegal responsible for tracking down and billing "parties responsible for releases of toxic materials" wasn't able to devote enough time to do it because of time spent instead on public records issues.

"There is an estimated loss to the state this year of about $400,000, most of which the administration ultimately hopes to recover, though some will inevitably be lost in the delay," according to a breakdown sheet Leighow provided.

Other examples included state lawyers having to delay their work or pass it on to colleagues. A state attorney was apparently required to relinquish an Alaska Supreme Court oral argument on food-stamp repayment case to a colleague less familiar with the case in order to work on a series of public records requests directed at the governor's office. The state won the right to recoup the payments, although the court found issues with the notice provided to the plaintiffs.

THE TROOPERGATE COST

A large part of the Palin administration's $1.9 million cost breakdown is $560,800 for state personnel board work on ethics complaints. But the board itself recently gave a much smaller figure -- $300,000 -- for hiring outside investigators for the complaints, nearly all of which have been dismissed. Perez said the difference is the larger number represents contracts for services not yet billed.

Around two-thirds of the $300,000 that has been spent was in addressing the "Troopergate" issue last fall. Palin herself initiated the personnel board investigation on "Troopergate," saying that the state Legislature's investigation of the matter was politicized and she was seeking the appropriate venue to deal with it. The Palin administration cost breakdown also includes what's calculated as more than $100,000 worth of per-hour state lawyer time related to the Legislature's investigation of the "Troopergate" affair. The Legislature's report found Palin abused her power, while the personnel board's investigator disagreed.

Another significant chunk of the $1.9 million that Palin talks about is what her administration says is over $415,000 worth of staff time in the governor's office.

Perez said that represents an estimated 5,773 hours of staff time doing tasks related to public records requests and ethics complaints, whether it be Palin's spokeswoman answering questions about complaints, staffers making copies, or time the head of the governor's Anchorage office, Kris Perry, spends reviewing documents.

"Kris Perry, at least half of her time is spent dealing with ethics complaints and public records requests," said the governor's spokeswoman, Leighow.

Find Sean Cockerham online at adn.com/contact/scockerham or call him at 257-4344.

Joining SILLY Sarah Failin' As GOOD Riddance is Illinois U. S. Senator, Roland Burris, Who Won't Get To Keep His "BOUGHT" Seat. Read More.

Read more from from Chi Town Times.
Yea, you heard me correctly: GOOD riddance.

Update: Rachel Maddow has a video update, watch it below:

Here's A Quick "Shout Out" To Our U. S. Marshalls. Read Why.

Yes, read why here, and give them a shout out.

The Parents Of Lover Boy, Senator John Ensign, Paid His Married Mistress One Hundred Thousand Dollars In HUSH Money, CREW Urges Criminal Probe.

Read more on Fox, and on Politico about CREW's urging.

You haven't heard the last of this, I assure you.

Update: Watch video below:

Lover Boy, Nevada Senator John Ensign, Exposed Further. Read More Below.

Below is the letter 'Lover boy" John Ensign said to his married mistress. Please read the whole letter and see how manipulative the Senator is, even using God in his "David" scheme to steal "Uriah"'s wife, with the ONLY difference being that NO one died!:


.”

Now watch the video, and read the story by J. Patrick Coolican by going here, or below:

Doug Hampton spoke publicly for the first time today about the affair his wife had with Sen. John Ensign, saying the Nevada Republican continued his pursuit even after intermediaries tried to get him to stop.

Hampton said that Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., and others urged him to end the affair and help the Hamptons pay off their home and move to Colorado. But Ensign was so infatuated that he continued, Hampton said.

John Hart, Coburn's communications director, released a statement Wednesday afternoon saying Ensign should have ended the affair.

"Dr. Coburn did everything he could to encourage Senator Ensign to end his affair and to persuade Senator Ensign to repair the damage he had caused to his own marriage and the Hampton’s marriage," according to the statement. "Had Senator Ensign followed Dr. Coburn’s advice, this episode would have ended, and been made public, long ago."

Hampton’s comments came during an exclusive two-part interview with Sun columnist Jon Ralston, to air tonight at 5:30 p.m. and tomorrow on “Face to Face with Jon Ralston.”

Cynthia Hampton was the treasurer of Ensign’s political action committee and re-election campaign, while Doug Hampton served as a senior aide on Ensign’s Senate staff.

Hampton said Ensign paid the woman more than $25,000 in severance when she stopped working for the senator.

If true, Ensign faces a possible felony violation of campaign finance law if he paid the severance but failed to report it as an in-kind contribution to the campaign committees where she worked, according to ethics complaints filed against him.

Knowingly and willfully failing to report a contribution of more than $25,000 is a criminal violation subject to five years in prison, according to complaints filed last month by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

Campaign reports show no such in-kind payment from Ensign to either his personal campaign committee or his Battle Born leadership Political Action Committee, according CREW, which filed complaints June 24 with the Federal Elections Commission and the Senate Ethics Committee.

The severance was just one of several new revelations that arose from part one of the two-part interview with Ralston.

Hampton said the affair began while his family was staying at the Ensign home. Hampton said his family’s house was broken into just before Christmas 2007, at which time the Ensigns invited the Hamptons to stay with them in a nearby Summerlin neighborhood.

The families each have three children and their friendship goes back decades.

Hampton discovered the affair when he saw an incriminating text message, he said.

The families confronted the issue in full on Christmas Eve.

Still, Hampton told Ralston, Ensign continued to pursue Cynthia Hampton with text messages and phone calls.

Hampton seemed to suggest his wife Cynthia was powerless to prevent the continuing affair.

Hampton and Ensign were bonded by their conservative evangelical faith. Hampton said he reached out to intermediaries involved in a Christian fellowship home in Washington, D.C., where Ensign and several other powerful Washington figures live.

The group, including Coburn, a well-known conservative, confronted Ensign and suggested that the Hamptons needed to be given financial assistance -- in the millions of dollars -- to pay off their $1 million-plus mortgage and move them to a new life away from Ensign.

During the confrontation, Ensign agreed to write a letter to Cynthia Hampton expressing remorse, Hampton said.

The letter, which was authenticated by Ralston’s executive producer Dana Gentry, is filled with contrition: “I was completely self-centered and only thinking of myself. I used you for my own pleasure not letting thoughts of you, Doug, Brandon, Blake or Brittany come into my mind,” he wrote, referring to the Hampton children.

But after sending the letter, which bears the date “Feb. 2008,” Hampton said Ensign quickly disavowed it in a conversation with Cynthia Hampton and continued to pursue her.

Hampton said that on that same February weekend, Ensign told him, “I’m in love with your wife.”

Some time later, according to Hampton, Ensign’s wife Darlene Ensign reached out to top Ensign political aide Mike Slanker, asking him to set up Hampton with political and lobbying work.

Hampton said he tried but failed to extricate himself from the situation.

“John is so focused, hyper-focused on what he wants….that he’s not seeing the collateral damage that’s going on in people’s lives,” he said.

Ensign declined to comment Wednesday afternoon.

With respect to the possibly illegal $25,000 severance, Melanie Sloan of the ethics watch dog group CREW, said, “This is exactly what we alleged. The FEC will certainly be asking questions.”

Ensign could argue that the payment was a gift, not a severance, which would make it not subject to campaign finance laws.

Or Ensign could have split the payment into two parts, say $12,500 to each committee, Sloan said, which would lower the penalty for failure to report to a misdemeanor.

Editor's comment: Let's play Hardball:

How Nick Anderson Sees The Media Coverage Of Michael Jackson's Death. LOL.

And Yet Another Michael Jackson Weird News: Corpse Had Needle Marks All Over Arms, Family Hands Over List Of His Doctors -- Drug Pushers, Perhaps?.

Check out the latest news here, or excerpts below:

Michael Jackson's Arms Marred by Track Marks Consistent with Potent Sedative Use
Several Hollywood and Beverly Hills Doctors Now Part of Investigation, Sources Say
By VIC WALTER and RICHARD ESPOSITO

Both of pop superstar Michael Jackson's arms were scarred with track marks, investigators probing his death say, and the marks are consistent with the finding of the potent sedative propofol (trade name Diprivan) in his home -- a drug that is increasingly at the center of their probe into what caused Jackson's death, ABC News has learned.

According to sources involved in the death investigation, several Hollywood and Beverly Hills doctors are now part of the investigation.

The probe is being led by the Los Angeles Police Department in cooperation with the Drug Enforcement Administration. The California Department of Justice has offered technical support in terms of its powerful searchable data base of patient information that includes drugs, doses, the doctors that administered them and the patients that received them.

Prescription medications were found inside Jackson 's $100,000 per month rental home that included ones in his name and ones in other names, including ones that appeared to investigators to be aliases. The medications had been prescribed by multiple doctors.

Jackson was addicted to the analgesic Demerol and to Oxycontin, investigators have told ABC News, and took the drugs daily. Medical experts have reported propofol "blocks out the world."

Those addicted to it routinely report that their abuse began with using the drug to treat insomnia -- an ongoing problem for Jackson.

Medical experts point out that the abuse of Demerol could have set the stage for cardiac arrest, by increasing Jackson 's risk.

One pharmacologist blogged about Propofol this week and explained in his science blog how Demerol abuse could have caused cardiac problems and could have increased his risk for heart rhythm disturbances from the Propofol: "As I wrote last week in my blog post on Demerol ® (meperidine), Jackson's reported long-term use of this analgesic for back pain may have already primed him for cardiac problems due to the accumulation of a toxic metabolite, normeperidine," Dr. David Kroll said. "However, most relevant to the Jackson case is that propofol can cause cardiac tachyarrhythmias (rhythmic disturbances at high heart rate), especially in people predisposed to cardiac problems."

Drugs Found in Michael Jackson's Home

Medical experts contacted by the ABC News Medical Unit said that the list of 20 drugs reportedly found in Jackson's rented home was "jaw-dropping" and "amazing."

"That list is enough to put down a swarm of zombies," said Richard Bradley, Chief, Division of EMS and Disaster Medicine at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston.

"The list &would be typical for an anesthesia cart in an operating room or what you might find in a recovery room, ICU, ED, etc.. Definitely not what you'd expect to find in a home," said Joseph Ornato, Chair of the Department of Medicine at Virginia Commonwealth University.

ABC News has reported on a number of those drugs including Demerol and Oxycontin, which the experts note are "cousins to morphine."

All of the following drugs reportedly found in Jackson's home are in that same category of opioid narcotics found in Jackson's home: methadone, Fentanyl, Percocet, Dilaudid and Vicodin. Generally prescribed as painkillers, the drugs are similar in mechanism -- taking a combination of these medications is like overdosing on one drug alone.

"Any of these can kill," said Marcel Casavant, Chief of Pharmacology/Toxicology at Ohio State. "Usually [they kill] by stopping breathing and lowering blood pressure, so the heart and the brain don't get oxygen."

The stash of drugs raises ethical questions about any physician or physicians involved in prescribing and administering them.

"There is a very high standard for appropriate use of narcotics and Mr. Jackson's doctors are required to follow that standard. If not, then the care they provided is negligent," said Lloyd Saberski, Medical Director, Advanced Diagnostic Pain Treatment Centers at Yale University.

Medical Experts Weigh In

Medical experts consulted by ABC News cautioned that the track marks could not by themselves conclusively suggest Jackson abused propofol.

"Given the list of medications that were reported to be found [in Jackson's home], it may be difficult to qualify these as purely propofol-induced track marks," said Lina Matta, Clinical Pharmacy Practice Manager at Brigham and Women's Hospital.

Those contacted said that while the track marks may be attributable to propofol, it's impossible to know that just from the marks themselves. They could have come from abuse of other drugs.

The Sun has reported there were at least 20 drugs found in Jackson's home, and many of these can be injected, including Methadone, Fentanyl, Demerol, Versed, and Lidocaine.

Propofol is a serious general anesthetic that should only be administered by a trained professional because it can cause the patient to stop breathing, even when used correctly, according to medical experts.

"Propofol at doses used in operating rooms causes the cessation of breathing in 8-30 plus percent of patients at the initiation of anesthesia," said Joseph Tobin, Chairman of the Department of Anesthesiology at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center.

Hospitals like it because it is short-acting. If a patient is having a brief procedure, they do not have to be knocked out for a long period of time. Recovery is quicker. But while the patient is under propofol, he or she must be continually monitored.

"Propofol is mind boggling that [Jackson] would have that in the home," said Chris Cannon, a cardiologist at Brigham and Women's Hospital. "It is used for short term anesthesia for procedures... For this however, we have an anesthesiologist (actually 2) at the bedside monitoring [heart rate, blood pressure] breathing, airway competency, careful dose monitoring etc"

Cindy Kuhn, Professor of Pharmacology and Cancer Biology at Duke University Medical Center further explains: "The difference between a dose that is sedating and one that can be lethal is very small - you would want to have the ability to support breathing (with a respirator for example) in case of overdose- that is why it would not be used outside of a hospital. This drug could be lethal on its own - it would slow breathing to the point that it stopped&"

Indeed, just last year, researchers published the first known report of a murder due to propofol. A 24-year old nurse in Gainesville, Florida, was killed by an overdose of propofol. A male nurse acquaintance was convicted of the crime.

"Propofol has no place in a household," agreed Lloyd Saberski, Medical Director at the Advanced Diagnostic Pain Treatment Centers at Yale University. "This alone is a deviation and many laws were likely violated just to get the Propofol there."

Editor's comment: Well, we all suspect "the King of pop" popped too many pills/drugs and killed himself -- with the aid of a few drug pushing doctors!

Nashville, TN. Police Confirm What I Already Predicted Here: Jealous Lover, Sahel Kazemi, Shot Steve McNair While He Slept Then She Committed Suicide.

Read more here, or below:

Police: Jealous Kazemi shot Steve McNair while he slept
By Kate Howard

Police have determined that Sahel Kazemi murdered former Titans quarterback Steve McNair last weekend with four shots while he was asleep on the couch, then sat down next to him and shot herself in the temple.
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Metro Police Chief Ronal Serpas said at a press conference this afternoon that their interviews with Kazemi's friends and coworkers showed that in the last five to seven days of her life, the 20-year-old felt her life was unraveling.

She had recently saw signs that McNair may be involved with another woman, and she might have been worried about making rent payments and payments on two cars, including a Cadillac Escalade registered in both her and McNair's name.

“We do believe there was evidence that she was spinning out of control,” Serpas said.

Serpas said Kazemi shot McNair in the right temple. That was followed quickly with two shots to the chest from about two to four feet away. Then she shot him in the left temple, which Serpas said was a "contact shot" within two inches from his head.

Then she sat next to him on the couch, Serpas said, in such a way that police believe she tried to stage her suicide to fall into his lap. She shot herself in the temple. Police think she fell into McNair's lap, then gravity pulled her to the floor.

According to preliminary results from the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, the 9-mm pistol found underneath Kazemi's body was the same that killed both of them. While blood contaminated the gunshot residue test, there was trace evidence of residue on her left hand.

Serpas said Kazemi had become very distraught, and on two occasions told friends and associates that her life was all messed up and she "was going to end it all." Several things were overwhelming her, including financial problems, Serpas said. Her roommate was moving out, meaning her rent payment was about to increase. She was also making payments on the Escalade she co-owned with McNair.

Serpas said Kazemi saw McNair with another woman days before the murder and attempted to follow the woman, whom police said they talked to but Serpas did not identify.

Police also believe Kazemi purchased the gun in the parking lot of Dave & Buster's, where she worked, in the middle of a shift.

Serpas said there was no evidence that anyone else was involved, or that the crime scene had been tampered with by the men who found their bodies and called police that morning.

Serpas said they did not exact time of the shooting, but believed it happened sometime after 1 a.m. or 1:45 a.m. The next-door neighbor was not home that night, and arrived home between 6 a.m. and 6:30 a.m., and heard nothing after that.

Serpas said there were no drugs found at the scene or drug paraphernalia, but were awaiting toxicology reports on the bodies.

A state medical examiner has said that preliminary testing from the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation points to the likely conclusion of murder-suicide in the deaths of Steve McNair and Sahel Kazemi.

Feng Li, the assistant medical examiner who conducted the autopsies, said he will wait for the investigation to be closed before he completes Kazemi’s death certificate to reflect that she died of suicide.

“The results were very consistent in supporting our decision,” Li said.

Gunshot residue and ballistics testing are also consistent with a ruling of murder-suicide, Li said.

“With the lab tests to be obtained combined with the autopsy findings, we will put a final opinion on the death certificate,” Li said.

... .

Editor's comment: Oh, btw: listen to the 911 tape; View the crime scene; the condo; Steve Mcnair had NO plans to divorce; estranged wife, Michelle, did not know of lover; and, Kazemi listed her furniture on Craigslist for sale day before she bought the gun (can you say premeditated murder?).

Update: a reader, Darryl Mathews, Sr., sent me this Youtube video appropo. for the news story. Enjoy:

SILLY Sarah Failin' Quitting Her Governor Job May Have NOTHING To Do With Looking Out For Taxpayers' Money. Read More.

Read plum or this excerpt:

Key Reason Palin Gave For Quitting May Be False

One of the chief reasons Sarah Palin has given for resigning as Governor of Alaska is that her state’s taxpayers are being forced to spend money defending her government against ethics complaints that would otherwise fund teachers, cops, and road repair.

But in response to our questions, a spokesperson for the Alaska governor’s office just gave us new information that casts serious doubt on this assertion. The revelation makes the resignation episode even stranger, and raises fresh questions about the real reasons for her abrupt departure.

During her resignation speech last week, Palin presented herself as a heroic defender of the taxpayer. She said that money being spent on government lawyers to defend against these “frivolous ethics violations” could be “going to things that are very important, like troopers and roads and teachers and fish research.” Palin repeated exactly the same point this week.

But David Murrow, a spokesperson for the Governor, said in an interview that much of this money was budgeted to the lawyers in advance and would have gone to them anyway, even if state lawyers hadn’t been defending against these ethics complaints.

In response to our questions, the Governor’s office provided us with a detailed breakdown of the millions Palin has claimed has gone to defending against ethics complaints. It does list roughly $1.9 million in expenditures.

But Murrow, the spokesperson, acknowledged to our reporter, Amanda Erickson, that this total was arrived at by adding up attorney hours spent on fending off complaints — based on the fixed salaries of lawyers in the governor’s office and the Department of Law. The money would have gone to the lawyers no matter what they were doing. The complaints are “just distracting them from other duties,” Murrow said.

In other words, while these lawyers might have been free to do other legal work for the state, the ethics complaints have apparently not had the real world impact Palin has claimed, and didn’t drain money away from cops, teachers, roads and other things.

Similarly, TPM reports that there are only three ethics complaints outstanding against the Palin administration in any case — which, combined with the above, casts serious doubts on one of her chief stated reasons for quitting.

No wonder David Letterman is back on taking on Silly Sarah. Watch video:

"What Is She Talking About?"

'What is she talking about?'
By Eugene Robinson

WASHINGTON — What can you say about a public official who ridicules those who would take the "quitter's way out" — as she faces reporters to announce that she's quitting? A governor who claims that "the worthless, easy path" would be to serve out the remaining 18 months of her term? An ambitious politician who says that "life is too short" to worry about, you know, boring things such as responsibility or duty?

You can say that all of us who ever took Sarah Palin seriously — or pretended to take her seriously — should be deeply ashamed. And you can say that John McCain should publicly apologize for putting the nation he loves at risk by choosing Palin as his running mate. Imagining Palin within a heartbeat of the presidency should be enough to make even diehard Republicans shudder.

The reasons she gave for stepping down are not just contrived or implausible but literally nonsensical. She can most effectively serve the people of Alaska by ceasing to exercise the powers of chief executive? She worries that as a lame duck she would somehow be compelled to waste taxpayer money on useless junkets? In her "Don't Cry For Me, Alaska" news conference announcing her departure, the folksy non sequiturs — "Only dead fish go with the flow" — were like nuggets of Cartesian logic amid a tub of mush.

But I'm stating the obvious. The thing is, Palin's unsuitability for high public office has been obvious all along. Tina Fey got it right; the rest of us were far too reluctant to state plainly that the emperor, or empress, has no clothes.

There are basically two reasons why the political class and the commentariat continue to speak and write about Palin as if she were a substantial figure whose presence on the national stage is anything but a cruel, unfunny joke. The first is fear — not of Palin and her know-nothing legions, but of being painted as elitist and sexist.

From the beginning, Palin has been a master at maneuvering her critics into this trap. Like most Americans, she didn't go to an Ivy League school; like most women, she deals every day with the challenges of juggling work and family. She highlighted these aspects of her biography, then used them to portray herself as a victim whenever anyone had the temerity to criticize anything she said or did. The most recent illustration is what she posted on her Facebook page last weekend on the reaction to her announced resignation:

USA TODAY/Gallup Poll: Strong Support For SILLY Sarah Palin Among GOP, Other Groups Demur.

Poll: Palin's support still strong among GOP
By Susan Page

WASHINGTON — Sarah Palin's bombshell that she is resigning as Alaska governor actually has boosted her a bit among Republicans, a nationwide USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds, though it also has dented her standing among Democrats and independents.

Two-thirds of Republicans want Palin, the party's vice presidential nominee in 2008, to be "a major national political figure" in the future. Three-fourths of Democrats hope she won't be.

Independents by 55%-34% would prefer she leave the national stage.

The findings underscore how polarized opinions of Palin were even before Friday's surprise announcement. Seven in 10 polled say their views weren't affected by her decision. Among those whose opinions shifted, Democrats by a 4-1 ratio and independents by 2-to-1 view her less favorably. Republicans are somewhat inclined to see her more favorably.

"For independents and Democrats, she's already not their candidate, and with Republicans her support is not based on her record as governor of Alaska," says GOP consultant Alex Castellanos.

The poll Monday of 1,000 adults — including 321 Democrats, 323 independents and 316 Republicans — has a margin of error of +/–3 percentage points for the full sample and 6 points for the partisan subsamples.

Palin's complaints about unfair treatment by the news media resonate with many respondents. Three-fourths of Republicans, more than half of independents and a third of Democrats say coverage of Palin has been unfairly negative.

When it comes to a potential presidential run, the USA TODAY Poll displays Palin's strength in the Republican base and weakness among swing voters, who traditionally decide national elections. Republicans by 71%-27% say they'd be likely to vote for her if she ran for president in 2012, while independents by 51%-44% would not.

Editor's comment: OK, so Republicans are drifting towards another election drubbing with SILLY Sarah Palin? Well, it's the party's political funeral not mine!

Just In Case You Are Interested In Political Fundraising News: Jack Conway Raises Nearly One And Half Million Dollars For Democratic Senate Race.

Follow this link >>>>>>>>>> Conway raises $1.325 million for Senate, or excerpts below (by Joseph Gerth):

Attorney General Jack Conway announced Wednesday that he has raised $1.325 million during his first quarter of fundraising for his U.S. Senate campaign.
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The campaign claims to have had the best fundraising quarter of any Democratic challenger or candidate for an open U.S. Senate seat.

In a press release, Conway's campaign notes that he more than tripled the amount that his chief opponent, Lt. Gov. Daniel Mongiardo, raised in his first quarter of fundraising.

It's also the most any Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate in Kentucky has ever raised in the state.

Conway is seeking the seat held by Sen. Jim Bunning, a northern Kentucky Republican. In the release, Conway notes that he has raised $125,000 in Northern Kentucky.

"Why Palin Quit".

Why Palin Quit
Death by a Thousand FOIAs

People close to Sarah Palin say national political reporters and pundits have missed the real reasons for her surprising decision to resign as Alaska governor. The national media have dismissed or downplayed her real motives, which had little to do with any plans to run for president in 2012.

Contrary to most reports, her decision had been in the works for months, accelerating recently as it became clear that controversies and endless ethics investigations were threatening to overshadow her legislative agenda. "Attacks inside Alaska and largely invisible to the national media had paralyzed her administration," someone close to the governor told me. "She was fully aware she would be branded a 'quitter.' She did not want to disappoint her constituents, but she was no longer able to do the job she had been elected to do. Essentially, the taxpayers were paying for Sarah to go to work every day and defend herself."

This situation developed because Alaska's transparency laws allow anyone to file Freedom of Information Act requests. While normally useful, in the hands of political opponents FOIA requests can become a means to bog down a target in a bureaucratic quagmire, thanks to the need to comb through records and respond by a strict timetable. Similarly, ethics investigations are easily triggered and can drag on for months even if the initial complaint is flimsy. Since Ms. Palin returned to Alaska after the 2008 campaign, some 150 FOIA requests have been filed and her office has been targeted for investigation by everyone from the FBI to the Alaska legislature. Most have centered on Ms. Palin's use of government resources, and to date have turned up little save for a few state trips that she agreed to reimburse the state for because her children had accompanied her. In the process, though, she accumulated $500,000 in legal fees in just the last nine months, and knew the bill would grow ever larger in the future.

"The Alaska ethics elves had painted such a target on Sarah's forehead that she had begun turning down pretty much every invitation she got -- even though they were pouring in every day by the dozens," a confidant of the governor's told me. "It is not throwing in the towel. It is deciding that she was ineffective in fighting for her principles and could do more in another role."

Family considerations also played a role. Ms. Palin gave birth to a baby with Down's Syndrome in 2008, and also has a six-year old. Everyone in the family was weary of endless personal attacks, including mean-spirited suggestions on liberal blogs that all of her children should have been aborted and that she would run on a presidential platform promoting retardation.

Governor Palin tried hunkering down. She ignored offers of help from outside and kept media outlets at a distance. "Palin had become so suspicious of the media that she rejected hundreds of requests by even friendly reporters to interview her. Her press aides say that before considering interviews, she insists that they comb through reporters' work, even if they write for a friendly, conservative publication," writes Ron Kessler of NewsMax.com. I can also attest to the difficulty of reaching Governor Palin's staff and getting simple requests answered -- the problem is that such standoffishness can sometimes result in more negative coverage rather than less.

Karl Rove acknowledges the unusual battering Ms. Palin has endured in recent months, but told Fox News that GOP leaders are still puzzled by her decision. "If she wanted to escape the ethics investigations and save the taxpayers money, she's now done that," he said. Unfortunately, he added, her decision "sent a signal that if you do this kind of thing to a sitting governor like her, you can drive her out of office."

But Palin friends say such commentary misses the real point. "The Beltway media can't understand someone not consumed with presidential ambition," one told me. "Maybe Sarah Palin won't run for president and maybe her family situation made it tougher to handle the barrage of attacks that come with that territory. The real issue that should be asked is why a mean-spirited system has to treat people who run like that, instead of why someone may choose not to go through it."

All good points, and they lead me to conclude that Ms. Palin mostly likely will not run for president -- in 2012, at least. She made many mistakes after suddenly being thrust into the national spotlight last year, but hasn't merited the sneering contempt visited upon her by national reporters. She simply was not their kind of feminist -- and they disdained the politically incorrect life choices she had made.

In helping to convince Sarah Palin that her road forward in national politics would demand even more sacrifices and pain than exacted from most politicians, the media did nothing to encourage women or people of modest means to participate in politics. By sidestepping her critics, Sarah Palin is now moving to another playing field where she has more control over the rules of the game. Her friends say her critics may call her a "quitter" now, but they should wait and see what new role she decides to fill. She may wind up having the last laugh.

-- John Fund

In Kentucky, 2011 Governor's Race Begins As Gatewood Galbraith Makes Independent Bid.

Galbraith runs again for governor; Dea Riley is his running mate
FRANKFORT – Gatewood Galbraith is going to run again for governor.

Galbraith, a Lexington attorney who has run unsuccessfully for governor four times, has filed a slate with the Kentucky Registry of Election Finance to run as an independent for governor in 2011.

His running mate is Dea Riley, a political consultant in Frankfort who has managed several campaigns in the state. She formerly was married to state Supreme Court Justice Will T. Scott.

“I believe we can raise over a million dollars and win this race,” Galbraith said Tuesday in a telephone interview.

Galbraith said he was running for governor “to combat Kentucky’s electile dysfunction. Nothing has happened in this state for years and it’s the fault of both major political parties. I want to help the electorate change that.”

Galbraith, 62, has maintained that he has no concerns about being a perennial candidate. “Kentucky has perennial problems,” he said.

Galbraith ran for governor as a Democrat in 1991, 1995 and 2007 and as a Reform Party candidate in 1999. He also has run for agriculture commissioner, U.S. representative and attorney general.

He has been a vocal advocate for legalizing marijuana, but that issue has played a smaller role in his recent campaigns.

Riley, 41, is making her first bid for public office.

“I knew this day was coming,” she said. “When I was first introduced to Gatewood, I was told of his advocacy for legalizing marijuana.

“His advocacy on that has overshadowed his campaigns. I believe I can be of help to him. He’s honest, the best man for the job.”

The current governor, Democrat Steve Beshear, has not yet said if he will seek re-election in 2011.

Mike Lukovich Has This Cartoon Penned Right. LOL.

Final Farewell To Michael Jackson. You Can View Death Certificate, Too.

View the casket below:



View the death certificate below (click on image to enlarge it):



Update: More video:

Al Franken Sworn In As U. S. Senator From Minnesota. No Kidding! Watch Video.

Paper: Judge Sonia Sotomayor: "Conservatively Liberal"; American Bar Association: Sotomayor "Well Qualified". Read More.

Conservatively liberal

As an appeals judge, Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor sided with "a lone black child" against his school in a racial discrimination case; voted against two men who claimed their property was illegally seized by the government to benefit a private developer; would have voided a New York law that denied felons a right to vote; and essentially sided with environmentalists against power plants and other business interests.

The results in all four of these rulings are solidly liberal, yet in each case Sotomayor, whose confirmation hearing is scheduled to begin July 13, was well within the bounds of the law. She came to some of these liberal conclusions using legal approaches most commonly associated with conservatives, and — as the Supreme Court has recently done in some of its more potentially explosive cases — declined to venture into constitutional territory if a case could be decided on narrower grounds.

For example, Sotomayor concluded that a literal reading of congressional statutes bound her to nullify the New York law that prohibits felons from voting. She read the Clean Water Act in much the same way to conclude that power plants had to use the "best" technology available — not just the most cost-effective — to prevent harm to aquatic life. (The Supreme Court, by 6 to 3, disagreed with Sotomayor in Entergy Corp. v. Riverkeeper . Justice David H. Souter agreed with her.)

In the property rights matter, she joined a unanimous panel decision that affirmed a lower court judge's decision to throw out the men's complaint in large part because they missed a filing deadline; the panel also concluded that a 2005 Supreme Court decision also compelled that result. (The justices declined to hear the men's appeal in Didden v. Village of Port Chester .) She exercises more discretion — as do most jurists — in cases where neither previous rulings nor congressional dictates are clear. In Ray Gant Jr. v. Wallingford Board of Education , Sotomayor dissented from a panel decision that dismissed an African-American schoolboy's claims of racial discrimination after his school demoted him to kindergarten after only nine days in the first grade; one judge in the majority called the matter "a very close case."

While agreeing with the majority that the boy's claims against most school officials should be dismissed, Sotomayor would have kept intact claims against the officials directly responsible for the demotion after concluding that the boy had made a plausible discrimination charge. Sotomayor noted that white students with similar learning difficulties had been given remedial help or placed in transition classes and their teachers and parents were consulted, something that did not occur in Ray's case. "In my opinion," Sotomayor wrote, "Ray was entitled to an equal opportunity to learn, and failing that a full hearing in court."

Sotomayor stirred controversy by suggesting in speeches that at times it may be proper — if not inevitable — for a judge to take into account personal experience and identity when deciding cases. It is clear, however, that in her work thus far she has consistently and appropriately let the law dictate the results.

An editorial in The Washington Post

You can read more about the ABA's "well qualified" rating and check out her page.

Is SILLY Sarah Failin' The "Dead Fish [Floating] With The Flow"? Watch Video.

SILLY Sarah Failin': One Term Was Enough. Ahem, Sarah. You Mean Half Term, Don't You? Watch Video.

In Kentucky, Jim Bunning Declares He Is Staying In The Senate Race.

Bunning says Grayson may raise more funds but he plans to stay in U.S. Senate race


FRANKFORT – U.S. Sen. Jim Bunning said Tuesday he doubts that his campaign fund-raising for the second quarter of the year will match Secretary of State Trey Grayson’s, but he still plans to stay in the 2010 race for U.S Senate.

Bunning, who has been in the Senate since 1999, also said he does not think fellow Republican Grayson will run for his job if he stays in the race.

Grayson’s exploratory committee reported Monday that it has raised $602,699 since May 6. Bunning raised $262,980 in the first quarter of this year and has said he will need about $7 million to run against a Democratic challenger. Bunning has until July 15 to file his campaign finance report with the Federal Election Commission.

Bunning’s comments about the race were made during his regular weekly telephone conference with reporters.

Kevin Broghamer, a spokesman for Grayson’s exploratory committee, said it will have “no comment” on Bunning’s remarks.

He said he does not have the luxury to spend every day raising funds but expects to have “more cash on hand than any other Republican in the race.”

Bunning had $375,747 on hand at the end of March. Grayson’s committee said it has $572,103 on hand at the end of June.

“This job keeps me a little busy,” said Bunning, who started the conference by railing against the so-called “cap-and-trade” bill dealing with carbon emissions that the House passed last week.

Grayson initially said he has no plans to run for the office if Bunning seeks re-election. He has modified that stance in recent weeks by saying he has no plans at this time to run if Bunning stays in the race.

Bunning also said he is going to “make every effort” to be at the Fancy Farm political picnic Aug. 1 in Graves County. The annual picnic traditionally kicks off the election season.

Other Republicans seeking the U.S. Senate seat are Rand Paul, a Bowling Green ophthalmologist and the son of 2008 U.S. presidential contender Ron Paul, and Bill Johnson, a Todd County Navy veteran and businessman. Cathy Bailey, a former ambassador to Latvia and a Louisville philanthropist, has expressed an interest in running.

Paul reported last week that he had raised more than $100,000 for his campaign.

Democratic candidates in the race are Attorney General Jack Conway, Lt. Gov. Daniel Mongiardo and Darlene Fitzgerald Price, a former U.S. Customs agent from McCreary County.

Price’s husband and campaign chairman, Austin Price, said Tuesday she has raised about $15,000.
“She’s not going to sell out and be tied to any special interests,” he said.

– Jack Brammer

POTUS Barack Obama Corrects Joe Biden, Says "We Misread The Economy" Not "We Had Incomplete Information". I Suspect This Will NOT Be Last Correction.

"No Black Reflection In Jackson's Mirror".

No black reflection in Jackson's mirror
By Merlene Davis

Since Michael Jackson's unexpected death in Los Angeles on June 25, I've watched in amazement the number of black people who have come out of the woodwork waxing eloquently about him and claiming him as one of our own.

Yes, he was an exceptionally talented entertainer and should be honored for the influence he has had on the music of our era.

But I hesitate to claim him as a black man when he didn't seem to embrace that label.

For some reason, we black folk have a need to publicly stake racial dibs on people if another race or culture can also present claims on them.

And there is no greater poster child for racial ambiguity than Michael Jackson. He had said for years that he had vitiligo, a rare skin condition that discolors the face and body and affects 1 percent to 2 percent of the world's population. I have no reason to doubt him.

But that condition wouldn't also narrow the nose and lips or give the nose an upward turn that wasn't there from birth.

And, more than anything else, it would not cause those with the condition to produce children who don't bear the slightest resemblance to the offspring of a black man.

Along with many other demons he had yet to conquer, Jackson had a problem being black.

He's not alone. I know many, many black people who distance themselves from the negative effects of being black, especially in America. Each of us has to deal with racism as best we can.

The man in the mirror Jackson saw was white. And that white man, when coupled with a white woman, can only produce white children. That's how Jackson dealt with it.

Does that detract from his genius? Of course not. Talent knows no color. Does that diminish his humanity? Why would it? We humans come in every color under the rainbow, just as God planned, and we all have our issues.

Michael Jackson simply wanted to be Michael Jackson, and he succeeded. There was no one else quite like him.

The problem with Jackson's race is our problem, not his.

We black people raced to claim him as our own after his death when he had 50 years to claim his blackness and chose not to. We rushed to claim O.J. Simpson, too, during his murder trial and acquittal. I didn't understand that, either.

That need to weight the scales of famous black people on our side might stem from our need to bask in a positive media limelight for a change. Newspaper and electronic journalists of all kinds have devoted column inches and precious air time to Jackson, his death, his children, his wealth or lack thereof, his past and his problems.

That is a diversion from the normal news of black people having much higher rates of unemployment, imprisonment, illnesses, poverty and educational shortcomings.

Besides, if the world loves Jackson, who was noticeably black in his early years, maybe they will love the rest of our race as well.

There seems to be a need to say, "See, he's black and so are we. He was talented and so are we. He is loved; why aren't we?"

This is the same Michael Jackson whom black folk derided when his skin faded and his nose and lips thinned. It's the same one we talked about under our breath once we saw the first pictures of his children.

Maybe claiming him now, while the media is watching, will make up for the untold number of black children and black women who don't make national news when they go missing.

Maybe claiming him now, while his death has brought such grief to so many, will make up for the deaths of other black men dismissed so easily.

Then again, maybe claiming Jackson now is just our way of welcoming the prodigal son back home.

I choose to mourn Jackson as a troubled human being who didn't seem to find personal solutions to a number of problems he had while on Earth.

As Jackson said, it doesn't matter whether he was black or white. And it shouldn't matter for anyone else, either.

May you finally rest in peace, Michael.

Reach Merlene Davis at (859) 231-3218 or 1-800-950-6397, Ext. 3218, or mdavis1@herald-leader.com.

Editor's comment: Marlene: you have touched on a subject, and spoken the truth about it, when many thought like you did, but kept silent.

Thanks.


Excerpt from lyrics to Black and White by Michael Jackson:

"See, it's not about races

Just places

Faces

Where your blood

Comes from

Is where your space is

I've seen the bright

Get duller

I'm not going to spend

My life being a color."

Watch Michael Jackson's Funeral "LIVE". RIP.

More Weird Michael Jackson News: Fans Are Hawking Tickets To His Funeral. How Macabre. Watch Video.

Is Spurned Love The REAL Reason Sahel Kazemi Killed Steve McNair And Herself? I Suspect So.

I believe either Steve McNair was going back to his wife, and therefore no divorce and no marriage in his and Sahel's future, or that Steve flirted with another woman at the club the night before the slayings, which provoked the outrage.

Like I said in an earlier: NOTHING worse than a woman scorned -- or as a reader corrected me -- especially one with a gun!


You did know that Sahel bought the gun that was used in the slaying, right?

Watch video:

More Weird Michael Jackson News: He Is To Be Buried WITHOUT His Brain. EEEEKKKKKK! Spooky, Spooky!!

Read more here.

This Cartoon By Joel Pett Is Right On The Money, So To Speak. So ... Laugh Your Head Off!

Even Fox News Commentators Are Starting To Speak The Truth About SILLY Sarah Failin'. Watch Video.

"With Palin, Keep Your Eye On That Audible".

With Palin, Keep Your Eye on That Audible

Sarah Palin’s speech on Friday announcing her resignation as governor of Alaska will go down as historic: truly, it was one of the zaniest moments in American political history. It made Richard Nixon’s famous “this is my last press conference” episode in 1962 look coherent, statesmanlike and carefully considered.

That’s why there cannot be any real debate over whether her strange and meandering statement hurt her: of course it did. The only open question is whether her means of exit closed off her political future entirely. I’m inclined to think that it’s a career ender, despite the insistence of so many that you never say never in politics. Yes, Nixon did come back after that last press conference of his. But Nixon had political gifts that Palin doesn’t.

I understand that the standard rules of journalism require an on-the-one-hand-on-the-other-hand treatment of this event by way of finding some potential silver lining in all this for Palin. But I honestly believe there is no on-the-other-hand here. Her perfomance was -- to use a word my friend David Brooks taught me -- shambolic.

If there was one thing you could always give Palin credit for, it was her knowledge of and passion for sports. That’s why it’s worth paying attention to her badly fractured and impossibly mixed sports metaphors. When her sports references went astray, you really knew something was wrong.

Consider this passage:

A good point guard drives through a full court press, protecting the ball, keeping her eye on the basket... and she knows exactly when to pass the ball so that the team can WIN. And I'm doing that -- keeping our eye on the ball that represents sound priorities -- smaller government, energy independence, national security, freedom! And I know when it's time to pass the ball -- for victory.

Now wait a minute: First, she tells us that a good point guard keeps her eye on the basket -- and one sentence later, she’s telling us it’s the ball she’s watching. Maybe that passage explains her difficulties perfectly.

And she wasn’t done with the sports metaphors. There was also this:

We need those who will respect our Constitution where government's supposed to serve from the bottom up, not move toward this top down big government take-over... but rather, will be protectors of individual rights -- who also have enough common sense to acknowledge when conditions have drastically changed and are willing to call an audible and pass the ball when it's time so the team can win! And that is what I'm doing!

I’m not sure how to parse that mouthful, but we have clearly moved out of the world of basketball and into football. I keep re-reading those words and have to conclude that Palin called an audible here that no one can understand.

Let me confess that I was a Palin skeptic from day one, so I wasn’t shocked by her display on Friday. I continue to be surprised, however, by those who insist that she has a real chance of becoming president. Neither a buzzer beater nor a Hail Mary pass will make that happen -- especially after Friday.

"Palin's Parting [Pot]Shot"

Palin's Parting [Pot]Shot

Sarah Palin denounced her critics after announcing her plan to step down from the governorship of Alaska.

Even though I live in an obscure corner of Eastern Europe, I recognize that it is impossible to escape the assumption that, by writing in this space, I belong to the "mainstream media." I therefore feel it incumbent upon me to respond to Sarah Palin's Fourth of July Facebook message, in which, among other things, she attacked the "main stream [sic] media" for their reaction to her surprise announcement that she would resign as governor of Alaska -- a reaction that, she wrote, "has been most predictable, ironic, and as always, detached from the lives of ordinary Americans who are sick of the 'politics of personal destruction.' " How "sad," she continued, "that Washington and the media will never understand; it's about country."

Let's take those comments one by one. Was the media reaction to Palin's resignation "predictable"? It's hard to see how it could have been: No one can react "predictably" to a total surprise, and in fact the initial comments were all over the place. What about "ironic"? As I say, most of the "reaction" involved wild speculation: Was she leaving politics for good? Was she launching her 2012 presidential campaign? Or could there be a looming scandal? No one knew, since Palin herself used vague and enigmatic phrases to justify her decision -- "because it's right," because "sacrificing my title helps Alaska most," because she has a "higher calling." But what is that higher calling? If you don't tell us, we have to guess -- or make jokes about it.

Palin's third charge -- namely that the media are "detached from the lives of ordinary Americans" -- is more serious, since it implies that she is "ordinary," whereas people who formulate opinions about her are not. Given the numbers of people who work for the "media" nowadays, not all of whom can possibly be non-ordinary, and the fact that Sarah Palin's life is pretty far from "ordinary," this seems well off the mark. I do concede, however, that there is something to her fourth point, namely that the army of writers, broadcasters, bloggers and Twitterers who now constitute the opinion-making classes -- and with whom she also communicates directly -- has indulged heavily in the politics of personal destruction since her announcement Friday. Though here I should note that the reaction among "non-mainstream" commentators was far more personally destructive than that of the ever fewer, ever less influential and ever more badly paid mainstream professionals.

The mainstream Washington Post, for example, published a rather straightforward account of Palin's resignation ["Gov. Palin Says She Will Quit, Citing Probes, Family Needs"], but reader comments on The Post's Web site responding to yesterday's follow-up ranged from nasty ("Palin is addicted to attention and displays all the signs of a hopeless addict" . . . "If she can't handle the job of Alaskan Governor what makes anyone think she could handle anything more demanding") to nastier ("good riddance to bad rubbish") to unprintable in a family newspaper. There were reactions of enthusiastic support, too, but Palin does have a point: No ordinary political resignation would inspire the veritable tsunami of scorn that has poured into cyberspace the past few days.

But perhaps the explanation for this lies in the final part of one of Palin's statements: that "Washington and the media" cannot understand her decision because "it's about country." In other words, for the past nine months, Palin has avoided difficult questions, preferring Runner's World to another Katie Couric interview; she has dragged her family into the spotlight when it suited her (baby Trig was in Runner's World, too) and grown angry when the spotlight became too strong; she has eschewed reason and logic (not to mention spelling and grammar), yet reacted in horror when her critics were unreasonable and illogical in response. Then, after all that, she smugly asserts the right to decide who is a patriot and who is not. It's not about "country," in other words, it's about hypocrisy. And Sarah Palin is full of it.

applebaumletters@washpost.com

Update On White Powder Thought To Be Anthrax: Inmate Sent Them. Read More Below.

Check out H-L, or excerpts below:

Authorities: Inmate sent anthrax threats to courthouses
By Bill Estep and Dori Hjalmarson

Federal offices around Kentucky received letters Monday that contained anthrax threats, leading to lockdowns and safety checks in several places, authorities said.

The threats turned out to be false. Tests showed the letters contained no harmful substances, authorities said.

Mike Klein, U.S. Marshal for the Eastern District of Kentucky, said he understood an inmate at the Big Sandy federal prison in Martin County mailed 25 to 50 letters.

Klein said that the letters he was familiar with said whoever opened them had been exposed to anthrax.

Klein said he was told the inmate later admitted the substance in the letters was Sweet 'N Low artificial sweetener.

A spokesperson from the prison was not available to confirm information about the inmate, including his name.

Letters arrived Monday at the federal courthouses in London, Frankfort and Pikeville.

Threatening letters also arrived at the offices of U.S. Reps. Brett Guthrie in Bowling Green; John Yarmuth in Louisville; Geoff Davis in Northern Kentucky; and Ed Whitfield, according to the Associated Press.

It wasn't clear Monday that those letters came from the same source as those at the courthouses, though Davis' spokeswoman, Alexandra Haynes, said the letter to his office apparently came from a prison inmate.

A staffer in Guthrie's office opened one of the letters and immediately called authorities, said Guthrie's spokesman, Nate Hodson.

Officials said the letters had been turned over to the FBI.

Doug Baker, chief of the Somerset-Pulaski County Special Response Team, said U.S. Rep. Harold "Hal" Rogers' office in Somerset received a similar threatening letter last week.

In Pikeville, Pike County emergency director Doug Tackett said several people who were exposed to the white substance were taken to Pikeville Medical Center as a precaution, but there were no reports of injury or illness.

The federal courthouse and adjoining post office were closed for about three hours Monday, Tackett said, but on-site tests conducted by a hazardous-materials team did not indicate that the white substance was a biological or chemical threat.

In London, threatening letters reached the clerks' office in the federal courthouse and an office used by the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, said Tiger Robinson, public-safety director in neighboring Pulaski County.

Editor's comment: I thought inmate mails were checked, or is it just incoming mails?

"Panicked Over Palin".

Panicked Over Palin
By William Kristol

I like Sarah Palin (though I don't know her well). I respect her (though I'm aware of some of her limitations). I wish her well (though I'm not convinced she should be the 2012 Republican presidential nominee).

I am convinced, though, that she should have a chance to compete and make her case. In this, I seem to differ from many of my friends in the mainstream media and the Republican establishment. They tend not only to dislike and disdain Palin, they also want to bury her chances now as a presidential possibility. What are they so scared of?

It's silly to claim Palin has no chance to win the nomination or the presidency. The fact is, despite a rough campaign in 2008, Palin has been (for what it's worth at this stage) a co-front-runner in polls of GOP primary voters for 2012, along with Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee. In a recent Pew survey, she had the strongest favorable-unfavorable numbers of the likely candidates among Republicans.

She has fervent supporters, which would presumably help her in primaries and caucuses. Among the general public, she has a not-great but not-unmanageable 45-44 favorability rating.

Will her poll numbers fall because she has opted to step down early from the Alaska governorship? Perhaps. But the short-term effect of that decision will soon be swamped by judgments people make as they see her out and about, speaking and opining on the issues of the day.

She'll be able to make the case effectively that she should be the nominee, or she won't.

The odds are that she won't -- just as the odds at this point are against any one of the GOP candidates. It's a wide-open race. And Palin may not even run. But the panic among mainstream media commentators and the GOP establishment suggests real worry that if she does, she might pull off an upset. Why else the vehement assertions that she's clearly made a terrible mistake? Why else the categorical insistence that her political career is finished? Aren't they all protesting too much?

The media establishment didn't protest much about the presidential candidacy of Barack Obama. He gave a good speech at the 2004 Democratic convention, was elected to the Senate that fall, and immediately started running for president. He didn't accomplish much in his four years in the Senate (nor could he have been expected to). But that didn't seem to hurt his standing. Isn't Palin about as well positioned for the 2012 GOP nomination as Obama was in 2005 for the 2008 Democratic one?

I think so -- except that her own party's establishment fears and even loathes Palin, while the Democratic establishment wasn't set against Obama. The hostility of the GOP establishment may be an obstacle to her success. On the other hand, given the performance of GOP operatives and pols over the past few years, maybe their opposition isn't a bad thing.

In any case, this is the same GOP establishment that rallied behind first-term governor George W. Bush in 1997-98 and then propelled him to the nomination in 1999-2000. Had Bush accomplished more than Palin at that point?

Texas has a lot more people than Alaska does, but the Texas governorship is a weaker office -- and some of Bush's first-term initiatives went down in flames, while Palin's have largely succeeded.

It's true that Bush didn't quit as governor and successfully ran for reelection. But why is it more admirable to run for national office while a sitting governor (or senator), spending a fair amount of time out of your state (or away from Congress), necessarily neglecting or delegating some of your duties -- than to turn the office over to your constitutional successor so your constituents have someone working full time on their behalf? Palin will have to endure some fair criticism for abandoning her office before her term ended. But she should also get credit for not using her state office as a means of campaigning for a higher one.

She won't get that credit. For psychological and sociological reasons too deep for me to grasp, a good chunk of elite America hates Sarah Palin and what they've decided she stands for. But if she wears their scorn as a badge of honor, comports herself with good cheer and personal dignity, studies up on national issues and takes the lead in selected debates on behalf of conservative principles against Obama administration policies, she has a shot.

If she's as foolish, erratic and even nutty as her critics claim, then of course she'll fail. If she performs well, she may succeed. If you have an anti-mainstream-media and anti-GOP-establishment bone in your body, it's hard not to root for her at least a bit.

William Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard, writes a monthly column for The Post.

"A Decision, Not A Mistake".

A decision, not a mistake
By Leonard Pitts

Next time some politician goes before the cameras with his figurative pants down around his metaphoric ankles and says, "I made a mistake," let's form a mob and drag him from the podium. You bring the lanterns, I'll bring the pitchforks.

South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford is, of course, the latest. Having bought plane tickets, told his staff he would be away hiking the Appalachian Trail, left his wife and kids behind and flown to Argentina to rendezvous with his paramour, he apologized by saying he'd made a mistake.

Before we go any further, let me concede the obvious. Yes, all human beings make mistakes. That's how you know they're human beings.

But surely I'm not the only one to notice how "I made a mistake" has become the go-to explanation for every human hound dog in public office. It's been dragged out by or on behalf of everyone from Jesse Jackson to Kwame Kilpatrick to John Edwards to L.A. mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to former Pennsylvania Rep. Don Sherwood to Gary Hart to Eliot Spitzer to Sen. John Ensign to Bill Clinton.

It isn't the cheating I'm complaining about. Nor is it the lying (which is, after all, an integral part of the cheating.) And for our purposes today, we can even ignore the hypocrisy of self-proclaimed moral champions — particularly family values conservatives like Gov. Sanford — getting busy with women who are not their wives.

No, what incites this diatribe is those four words of putative explanation: "I made a mistake." There is to them a connotation of honest error, unwitting miscalculation, accidental omission and "Oops, my bad." They allow the offender to appear to accept responsibility for his offense while at the same time, minimizing it. He just misjudged. It just happened. He was just careless, inattentive or forgetful. He couldn't help it.

The excuse has never been flimsier than it is in the post-Bill Clinton era. I mean, if I put my hand into a fire because I've never seen fire before and I get burned, that is a mistake. If you see me get burned and then put your hand into the same fire, that's not a mistake. That's an idiotic calculation that somehow, the rules do not apply to you.

Steve McNair's Girlfriend, Sahel Kazemi, Recently Bought Gun Used In Slayings.

Read these excerpts:

Cops: Kazemi bought gun found at scene of Steve McNair death
By Kate Howard, The Tennessean

NASHVILLE — The gun recovered at the scene of the deaths of Steve McNair and Sahel Kazemi was purchased by Kazemi recently, Nashville police said.

Kazemi, 20, died Saturday of a single gunshot to the head alongside former Tennessee Titans quarterback McNair, who had two gunshots to the head and two to the chest. The gun was found under Kazemi's body.

"We believe the pistol recovered from the apartment was purchased by Kazemi," police spokesman Don Aaron said.

The Associated Press reported that Kazemi's nephew, Farzin Abdi, said that Nashville police told him they are almost certain that Kazemi was the shooter. Abdi maintainted she had no motive.

"There was no way she was depressed and wanting to do this," Abdi said. "She was so happy. ... She just had it made, you know, (with) this guy taking care of everything."

Police said the possibility of a murder-suicide is still on the table, but there are several other theories of the crime still possible.

Kazemi's ex-boyfriend, Keith Norfleet, was questioned for several hours by police yesterday. Aaron said he is not a suspect, and there are still no suspects being actively pursued.

"He was cooperative during questioning, then he went on his way," Aaron said.

Norfleet told the Tennessean on Saturday that he went to police headquarters on his own Saturday, looking for answers on whether the woman he broke up with five months prior was the one who died alongside McNair. He was not questioned that night, but asked to leave his contact information, Aaron said.

"We know Norfleet was a former boyfriend of Kazemi's, and he obviously had his opinion of the relationship between she and McNair," Aaron said. "He was a person who needed to be interviewed in detail."

Aaron said the testing to see if gunshot residue was present on Kazemi's hands has not yet been completed.

Federal law prohibits anyone under 21 from purchasing a handgun.

Tennessee requires a person to be 21 to have carry permit.


More excerpts below:

Girlfriend had hoped to wed McNair
Woman's family was leery of affair with former Titan
By Chris Echegaray and Kate Howard

By all accounts it was a whirlwind romance.

It started about six months ago, when former Titans quarterback Steve McNair exchanged phone numbers with Sahel Kazemi, a then-19-year-old waitress working at Dave & Buster's restaurant at Opry Mills. Saturday, the relationship ended in tragedy, as the couple was found shot to death in a downtown condominium.

Police continue to investigate the circumstances of the events leading up to the deaths, but according to friends of Kazemi, she was smitten and so was McNair.

For her 20th birthday in late May, McNair got her a black Cadillac Escalade. Her family met him over sushi dinner that same weekend. Before that, Kazemi zipped around in his Bentley, telling family and friends about the generosity of her new beau — a former professional athlete.

"We met him because I don't watch football and didn't know who he was," said Farzin Abdi, Kazemi's nephew, who was in town from Jacksonville, Fla. to retrieve the body. "We went out to dinner and she was so happy and was having fun. Were we happy about the relationship? No."

Kazemi's family and friends pieced together a portrait of their relationship — one they were leery of because of her age — as police confirmed on Sunday that McNair was shot four times. Police have stopped just shy of calling it a murder-suicide at the Second Avenue condominium where both of them died.

"It's hard right now to imagine what people are saying," Abdi said. "I can't believe it because she was a sweet girl. This is hard on us."

Marriage anticIpated

There were trips, dinners, a promise of living together and ultimately marriage, according to Abdi, 27.

"I don't know if he had filed for divorce but I thought it wouldn't happen," Abdi said, adding that Kazemi was a child when adopted into the family after her mother died in Iran. Abdi's mother is Kazemi's sister.

McNair took Kazemi, known as Jenny to friends, on trips to Key West in Florida, Las Vegas, California, Hawaii and McNair's farm in Mississippi, with the couple seeing each other often, Abdi said. ...

Editor's comment: Looks like Steve McNair was not REALLY planning on going the marriage route.

NOTHING WORSE than a woman SCORNED.

BREAKING NEWS: Warren County Justice Center Evacuated, White Powder Sent To Congressman Brett Guthrie's Office And Others.

I left the Justice Center in Bowling Green a little while ago because the building had to be evacuated as some IDIOT sent a package containing white powder suspected to be anthrax to Congressman Brett Guthrie's office.

Actually, I was standing outside with Brett Guthrie before the evacuation started, and we inquired what was going on, only to be told that the white powder package was delivered to his office.

How awful.

Idiots everywhere I tell you.

Update: It appears that offices of Kentucky's three Republican Congressmen, Brett Guthrie, Ed Whitfield and Geoff Davis.

There is also report that the Federal Courthouse was hiit.

A word to the wise: even though these acts appeared to be directed at Republicans, the other Democratic Congressmen, Ben Chandler, John Yarmuth and Republican Hal Rogers probably need to take extra precautions.

Probably so do other Federal courthouses.

I have heard that the substance was sent from someone in prison, and is possibly SOAP.

Still one has to be very CAREFUL, indeed.

Stay tuned.

Update #2: John Yarmuth's office also received the suspicious material.

POTUS Barack Obama And The First Family Have Russia On Their Minds.

Mississippi Is No Longer Burning? Watch Video.

Why Did SILLY Sarah Failin' QUIT In Wasalla? Watch Video.

"Sarah, Big Girls Don't Quit".

Sarah, big girls don't quit
By Ruth Marcus

WASHINGTON — Note to soon-to-be-former Gov. Sarah Palin: Big girls don't quit.

Just ask Hillary Clinton. Crying — or at least misting up a little — you can get away with these days. But quitting? Not until you absolutely have to, and even then you might hold on for a few extra weeks.

Just ask Serena Williams, or, more to the point, her older sister Venus. Their first set in the Wimbledon women's final Saturday went to a tie-breaker, which Serena won. But even when she was down 5-2 in the second set, Venus battled back against three match points only to lose on the fourth.

Just ask Jenny Sanford, who's doing her best not to quit her marriage even though her husband has declared that he has found another soul mate. (And, by the way, if there's a governor who ought to be quitting, it's the one from South Carolina, not Alaska.)

But Palin didn't just quit. She quit — and proceeded to praise herself for doing so. This took a quintessentially Palinesque form, combining an unjustified air of selflessness with an unjustified sense of self-pity. "I thought about how much fun some governors have as lame ducks: travel around the state, to the Lower 48, maybe, overseas on international trade — as so many politicians do," Palin mused. "And then I thought: That's what's wrong. Many just accept that lame-duck status, hit the road, draw the paycheck and 'milk it.' I'm not putting Alaska through that."

Right. So when she was campaigning around the Lower 48 in pursuit of the vice presidency, or, later, setting up SarahPAC to pay for her political travel and turning up everywhere from Washington's exclusive Alfalfa Club to the Vanderburgh County (Indiana) Right-to-Life dinner, that was fine — not putting Alaska through anything. But it's not fair to the state for her to be a lame-duck governor? What, someone's going to hold a moose gun to her head and force her to go on a trade mission?

If you didn't understand that, Palin had a basketball analogy for you: Palin as point guard with "the national full-court press picking away right now." A good point guard, she said, "drives through a full-court press ... and she knows exactly when to pass the ball so that the team can win." I'm no basketball junkie, but after the point guard passes, is it customary for her to walk off the court?

Palin followed up with a Facebook posting complaining that she was being held to a higher standard than others who left their jobs for a "higher calling." The media fail to understand "it's about country," Palin wrote — and then suggested, a sentence later, that it was about family. "Every American understands what it takes to make a decision because it's right for all, including your family." I'm confused: Is she planning to stay in the spotlight or get out of it?

It's fair to say that I've been no fan of Palin's since John McCain picked her as his running-mate, and my estimation of her has only gone downhill from there. I think my hostility has to do with our shared gender: I'm anxious to see women succeed in the political arena, as elsewhere, and I think McCain's cynical choice of Palin and her faltering performance since has served to set back that cause.

On the day she was announced as the vice presidential nominee, Palin gave a shout-out to Hillary Clinton's campaign and added, "It turns out the women of America aren't finished yet, and we can shatter that glass ceiling once and for all." Yes we can, but Palin hasn't helped.

This latest twist in the Perils of Palin soap opera only makes matters worse. The unconvincing explanation combined with refrigerator-magnet wisdom — "Don't explain: Your friends don't need it and your enemies won't believe you anyway" — underscores the image of women unable to withstand the heat of political pressure. The notion that this is some kind of "brilliant" (Mary Matalin) or "crazy like a fox" (Bill Kristol) move strikes me as ludicrous.

If her fellow governor Mark Sanford proved anything, it's that a male politician can be as flaky and overemotional as any woman. So is it unfair that Palin's performance would reflect poorly on other female politicians? Of course. But Palin's move — not retreating, she said, but "advancing in another direction" — is no advance, for her or any other woman.

Ruth Marcus is a columnist for The Washington Post. Her e-mail address is marcusr@washpost.com.

"We Are The World".

Words To Live By.

"It should be the highest ambition of every American to extend his views beyond himself, and to bear in mind that his conduct will not only affect himself, his country, and his immediate posterity; but that its influence may be co-extensive with the world, and stamp political happiness or misery on ages yet unborn."

-- George Washington