Palin billed government for sleeping in her own home

What a brave and fearless, fiscal reformer. Palin regularly used the "per diem" food expenses of eating at home as well as the travel expenses for the family, including the kids. Heck, why should they pay for anything when the state can foot the bill?
Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has billed taxpayers for 312 nights spent in her own home during her first 19 months in office, charging a "per diem" allowance intended to cover meals and incidental expenses while traveling on state business. The governor also has charged the state for travel expenses to take her children on official out-of-town missions. And her husband, Todd, has billed the state for expenses and a daily allowance for trips he makes on official business for his wife.Palin, who earns $125,000 a year, claimed and received $16,951 as her allowance, which officials say was permitted because her official "duty station" is Juneau, according to an analysis of her travel documents by The Washington Post.The governor's daughters and husband charged the state $43,490 to travel, and many of the trips were between their house in Wasilla and Juneau, the capital city 600 miles away, the documents show.
Now THAT’S a fiscally conservative Republican! Look how well she conserved her own funds and leveraged someone else’s!

Oh, she also revictimized rape victims when she charged rape victims for their own forensic tests as mayor of Wasilla.

Whether or not Sarah Palin agrees with abortion in cases of rape is no excuse to slap rape victims in the face by charging them to gather evidence of a crime. This goes beyond revictimization, it’s a government-sanctioned assault against rape victims. With treatment like this we wonder why rape victims do not want to go to the police.

In fact, rape victims in Wasilla may not be going to the police, because contrary to Fannon’s lament that the 2000 bill would cost Wasilla some $5,000-$14,000 per year (each kit costing between $300 - $1200 to process), SevenR at the Great Orange Satan, notes Wasilla reported only one rape during the same year (2000). So, either women are not reporting rapes in Wasilla, because they do not want to be assaulted by the agency that is supposed to protect them, or Fannon, and by extension, Palin, are greatly inflating the costs. Either way, lipstick doesn’t help these pigs.


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The dead caribou bounce:

WaPo poll has white women favoring McCain/Palin over Obama 53 to 41.
Gallup: McCain 49, Obama 44
CBS: McCain 46, Obama 44

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Rewarding bad behavior

For most Americans, it's a mystery how CEO's can fail so badly yet receive so much money.

Fun fact: Yesterday on the trail, Sarah Palin did not know that Freddie Mac and Fanny Mae were private entities and instead accused them of being a burden to taxpayers. Well, not yet Sarah dear, but thanks to Bush and GOP policies, they will now. I wonder how much that will raise my taxes? Sarah, it seems, does not have a clue about much of anything but earmarks, loyalty oaths, slogans, and smears.

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Obama's "No Maverick" ad:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBtbG5xjFBY&eurl=http://www.americablog.com/

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You've lost that volunteering spirit since 9/11. So says someone who should know all about not showing up when needed:
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush challenged the nation Monday to rekindle the volunteer spirit it had after the worst terrorist attacks in U.S. history, when people rushed to help others however they could.

"The truth of the matter is, the farther we've gotten away from 9/11, that memory has begun to fade," Bush told an audience of volunteers on the South Lawn. [...]
Gosh, all that work by Mr. Bush and his Republican friends shouting 9/11 9/11! every other second over the past seven years and still the memory of 9/11 has faded? I guess Americans have a worse attention span than I thought.

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The Alaskan Independence Party, whose secession work Sarah Palin has cheered for years and of which Todd Palin has been a long-standing member, has ties not just to white supremacists, but also to the Chechen separatists who in turn have ties to Al Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden. I wonder what Jim Inhofe, who demands that Barack Obama prove that he loves his country thinks of this?

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Politico: On the campaign trail, John McCain likes to brag that he went after corrupt uber-lobbyist Jack Abramoff as some sort of high-minded reform crusade. Well, according to a new book by Boston Globe reporter Gary S. Chafetz, McCain’s war against Abramoff was motivated more by revenge than any sort of noble principle.

ThinkProgress has more.

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Jesus' General Speaking to the base using God's love language:
http://patriotboy.blogspot.com/2008/09/speaking-to-base-using-gods-love.html

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Sarah Palin's secret emails:
http://www.pensitoreview.com/2008/09/08/sarah-palins-secret-e-mails/

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Gearing up for armageddon

The Bush administration is planning to sell the United Arab Emirates an advanced U.S. missile defense system valued at up to $7 billion that could be used to defend against Iran, people who have attended briefings on the matter said on Monday.http://rawstory.com/news/2008/U.S._plans_7_billion_missiledefense_sale_0908.html

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If you hadn't heard of last year's Free Rice site, it worked this way: you answered vocabulary questions, and for every question you got right, the site sponsors donated to the UN World Food Programme. Well, the site has now expanded subjects. You can now answer questions on:Famous PaintingsChemical SymbolsEnglish GrammarEnglish VocabularyWorld CapitalsFrenchGermanItalianSpanishMultiplication Table So go and enjoy a new time suck while also helping out others!

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This isn’t being reported in the mainstream media, but you probably know the Pentagon won’t admit it even if it’s true:
Sixteen US troops from the 57th Unit of the Airborne Division have committed suicide inside a military base in Iraq, security sources say.

Iraqi security sources have revealed that 21 US troops had committed suicide inside a former Iraqi air force base 27 days ago, Fars News Agency reported on Monday.

According to the sources, the 21 troops were treated in a hospital but only five soldiers have survived and they are in a critical condition.

Security officials said they used potent narcotics to kill themselves.

The troops’ motivations for suicide are not known but according to Iraqi sources the servicemen belonged to the 57th Unit of the US Airborne Division that was behind the massacre of several Iraqi families– mostly women and children– in northern Baghdad, said Ali al-Baghdadi an Iraqi security official.
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Congress reconvenes today from yet another undeserved vacation.

Repukelicans apparently used their time off to plan for continued obstructionist tactics:
Even that might not be easy. Republicans are threatening to block the spending bill if Democrats do not give them a vote on ending a quarter-century freeze on new offshore drilling.
Well done.

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Bushies name McCain National Finance Chairman to take over Fannie Mae:
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/09/08/mccain-herbert-allison/

I just can't believe what's happening to this country.

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Sarah Failin has consented to have multiple interviews with ABC gelded lapdog Charles Gibson in Alaska over two days later this week. Because if he screws up and asks a toughie on the first day, there won't be a second.Remember, the self-proclaimed pitbull-barracuda has to be treated with "respect and deference," so she will not be asked about the Bridge to Nowhere, whether her son cut the brakes of schoolbuses, whether she asked a library to ban books, the Troopergate investigation, her nutty pastor, her 5 colleges in 6 years, her embrace of federal pork and earmarks for Alaska, why she uses her baby and pregnant daughter as photo ops, whether she really did say, "Sambo beat the bitch", or why she didn't have that redneck arrested for statutory rape.

Instead, we'll lhear all about how a gutsy working mother combined family with blah blah blah blah blah... what its like hunting moose... where she got those awesome glasses... how her faith in Jeebus helped her deal with family problems, the awful mean media...

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How many people do we have to kill in Pakistan before it's considered a war?

This morning two US Predator Drones attacked a small village two miles north of Miramshah in Pakistan’s North Waziristan Agency, killing at least 23 and wounding 20 others. Ten of those killed were said by officials to be militants, although a previous official was quoted as saying "no foreign militant was killed" in the strike. At least 4 women and 2 children were reported among the dead and most of the wounded are also reported to be women and children.

http://news.antiwar.com/2008/09/08/at-least-20-civilians-killed-as-us-drones-attack-school-in-north-waziristan/

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