republicans

OK, there’s a great article in the latest New Yorker magazine with the title, The State of Sarah Palin, which happens to be online. I finished reading it yesterday and it gives a fine insight into not only her but Alaska as well: Alaska, that far-out state where Mastodon teeth are no big deal. Well, over 50% of the population are Independents, 25% Republicans, 15% Democrats, and they do have running water most places.

The article is by Philip Gourevitch who spent a few weeks up in Alaska interviewing her and discovering the lay of the land. The article has the sub-title, The peculiar political landscape of the Vice-Presidential hopeful. I came away from the reading with a better grasp of her personality and also that of Alaska.

OK, now that her popularity is in decline (see the chart below), I can say this will be my last word on this distraction. From now on it should be all about Obama! I agree with Anne Lamott in her post A Call to Arms.

Thanks to Matthew Yglesias for this chart from Research 200 Tracking and Poll Data.

Mudflats latest post is a storm warning! A legal blizzard is hitting Alaska. Suddenly five Republicans on the Legislative Council, consisting of eight Republicans and four Democrats, are bringing suit against the other members and the Council itself to delay the investigation until after the November 4th election, plus they are suing to remove two of the Democrats. This is the investigation of Palin’s dismissal of the Public Safety Commissioner, Walt Monegan. Originally, the Council had voted unanimously to perform the investigation. Here’s what Mudflats says about Walt Monegan:

Walt Monegan was, in a word, beloved. He was beloved by the troopers he lead, the people he served, and basically anyone who had the privilege of working with him. He cared about people, the important issues, and he was the real deal. There are many Alaskans today thinking, “Who do these people think they are to come here, and tear down the likes of Walt Monegan?” You have to remember, the rest of the country is “outside”. We are “inside”. That feeling defines Alaskans. We don’t like the government coming in here and telling us how to run things, dammit. And we don’t like outsiders ripping apart respected public servants in our town.

Read the whole thing. It’s fascinating, very well written, and humorous to boot in spite of everything, or maybe because of it. There are already 133 371 405 responses.

See the typical moose below from which Sarah makes her burgers! This great moose picture comes from a Garrison Keillor article today, A liberal in moose country.

UPDATE: For a great slide show with music of the 50 photos taken at the anti-Palin rally in Anchorage on Sunday, Sept. 14, see here.

The NYT has a great editorial today, Mississippi’s Ballot Trick, and this is one of the 150 comments so far, an editor’s pick:Wow, what a shock! Republicans trying to rig an election! Since the 2000 election, which saw the Supreme Court violate the law to stop the vote counting and appoint our President, we’ve discovered voter rolls purged of legitimate (democratic) voters, voter challenges, voter caging lists, voter registrations thrown in the trash, letters sent to the homes of voters to mis-inform them of the election date, phone banks jammed to prevent voters from contacting campaign offices for rides to the polls, students told they can’t vote in the districts where they attend school, and of course the continued use of notoriously flawed touch screen, paperless, voting machines which flip votes, lose votes, crash, and were invented to throw elections to the republicans. Has there been any serious investigation of these tactics by the mainstream media? Only now you’re offended? Eight long and tragic years late, but better late than never, though not by much.

— Kenneth D. Brown, Redondo Beach, CA

Here’s Barack Obama’s South Carolina victory speech:

It was a slam dunk victory. Obama received more votes (295,091) than all Democrats in the 2004 South Carolina Democratic Primary (292,383), and he received more votes in this primary than George W. Bush received (293,652) in 2000 when he beat John McCain. And South Carolina is a “deep red” state where Republicans greatly outnumber Democrats. Interesting!

Juan Cole this morning lists the Top Ten Middle East Policy Challenges for the US in 2008. Worth a read. Here’s the third one:

3. The US Congress must allocate substantial funds, on the order of $1 billion or more, for Iraqi refugee relief in Syria and Jordan. UNO relief funds are running out. Iraqis’ own savings are running out. Children are not in school and are going hungry. People are being exploited, including young girls forced into prostitution. A majority of the 1.5 million Iraqis in Syria went there in 2007, nd almost all of them have been forced out of Baghdad and other areas because of the political instability that the United States unleashed in their country. The surge is being touted as a victory in the US press, but it seems to have displaced 700,000 Iraqi civilians! The US is spending $15 billion a month on the Iraqi and Afghanistan Wars. It can afford $1 billion a year for refugee relief. This is our responsibility. How future generations of Iraqis view the United States will in part depend on whether we do this. I ask all Americans to write your congressional representatives and press them on this humanitarian issue.

How long will it take congress to act on this? Will it act? Will Bush and the republicans block it if enacted? Answers: Who knows?, Maybe, Yes.