The National Enquirer is Hard At Work

I see that everybody's favourite supermarket magazine is hard at work in Alaska. (H/T TPM)

Things Are Looking Up For Obama

538's stats are showing that the mood has swung in Obama's direction since the Democratic convention and Sarah Palin's selection.  We'll have to see if there's much of a swing back in the other direction after the Republican Convention, though I can't see it myself.

Flickr Of The Day

Untitled united
Originally uploaded by laura e

Reflections of the 2008 Colorado Balloon Classic

McCain Hires the 2000 South Carolina Smear Merchant

It's a sign of McCain's desperation that he has hired Tucker Eskew, one of W's operatives in South Carolina during the 2000 campaign.

Eskew’s talent notwithstanding, he was loathed by McCain’s 2000 campaign team. When the media first reported push-poll phone calls from Voter/Consumer Research, a company hired by he Bush campaign, asking South Carolinians if they knew about McCain’s role in the S&L crisis and his scandal as a member of the Keating Five, it was Eskew -- Bush’s South Carolina spokesman – who acknowledged, and defended, the calls.

I read today in White House Watch that Eskew is taking a major role in Palin's team.

Tucker Eskew, another senior Bush White House communications aide, is serving as senior counselor to Palin's operation.

I understand that McCain and his wife both despise those who were responsible for the smears of 2000. It's a sign of how far McCain will go for the presidency and how much integrity he will shed. 

Flickr Of The Day

LEAL 304
Originally uploaded by Carlos Ros

What a great shot, or more accurately, sequence of shots, of a plane landing at Alicante, Spain.

Now We Know What The Domestic Spying Without Warrants Was For

I've just read the posts here and here from Glenn Greenwald of house searches and arrest by full-blown SWAT teams on potential protesters at the Republican Convention.

I can't believe that this hasn't been picked up anywhere else. As Glenn says himself

After all, if you don't want the FBI spying on you, or the Police surrounding and then invading your home with rifles and seizing your computers, there's a very simple solution: don't protest the Government. Just sit quietly in your house and mind your own business. That way, the Government will have no reason to monitor what you say and feel the need to intimidate you by invading your home. Anyone who decides to protest -- especially with something as unruly and disrespectful as an unauthorized street march -- gets what they deserve.

Isn't it that mentality which very clearly is the cause of virtually everyone turning away as these police raids escalate against citizens -- including lawyers, journalists and activists -- who have broken no laws and whose only crime is that they intend vocally to protest what the Government is doing? Add to that the fact that many good establishment liberals are embarrassed by leftist protesters of this sort and wish that they would remain invisible, and there arises a widespread consensus that these Government attacks are perfectly tolerable if not desirable.

During the Olympics just weeks ago, there was endless hand-wringing over the efforts by the Chinese Government to squelch dissent and incarcerate protesters. On August 21, The Washington Post fretted:

Six Americans detained by police this week could be held for 10 days, according to Chinese authorities, who appear to be intensifying their efforts to shut down any public demonstrations during the final days of the Olympic Games. . . .

Chinese Olympic officials announced last month that Beijing would set up zones where people could protest during the Games, as long as they had received permission. None of the 77 applications submitted was approved, however, and several other would-be protesters were stopped from even applying.

This is particularly troubling.

We are suffering a preemptive video arrest. For those that don't know, I-Witness Video was remarkably successful in exposing police misconduct and outright perjury by police during the 2004 RNC. Out of 1800 arrests, at least 400 were overturned based solely on video evidence which contradicted sworn statements which were fabricated by police officers. It seems that the house arrest we are now under and the possible threat of the seizure of our computers and video cameras is a result of the 2004 success.

The 'Land Of The Free' indeed. This is why the next election is so important.

Quote Of The Day

Not only is President Bush keeping atop the reports of Tropical Storm Gustav, but the White House press office is keeping atop efforts to report that he is keeping atop the reports.

James Gerstenzang blogs for the LA Times (H/T Dan Froomkin)

Flickr Of The Day

Hurricane Gustav Prep - French Quarter Deserted
Originally uploaded by Maitri

Saturday Night, New Orleans. A deserted French Quarter ahead of the expected arrival of Hurricane Gustav on Monday.

Troopergate

TPM has been following the 'Troopergate' story for a long time before the vice-presidential selection. A good summary is here.

Just yesterday, Monegan gave an interview to the Washington Post in which he said that not only Palin's aides, but Palin's husband and Palin herself had repeatedly raised the Wooten issue with him and pressured him to fire him. And now he says he has emails that Palin sent him about the matter. (In an interesting sidelight, that may end up telling us a lot, Monegan says no one from the McCain campaign ever contacted him in the vetting process.)

The vetting, or lack of it, is turning into another major story.

Sarah Palin's First 'Misspeak'

So, she said 'Thanks, but no thanks' to the 'Bridge To Nowhere' did she?

According to the Alaskan Press that's not quite how it happened.

Check out these entries from the Ketchikan Daily News:

“People across the nation struggle with the idea of building a bridge because they’ve been under these misperceptions about the bridge and the purpose,’ said Palin, who described the link as the Ketchikan area’s potential for expansion and growth.

Palin said Alaska’s congressional delegation worked hard to obtain funding for the bridge and that she ‘would not stand in the way of the progress toward that bridge’.
8-8-06

‘We need to come to the defense of Southeast Alaska when proposals are on the table like the bridge and not allow the spinmeisters to turn this project or any other into something that’s so negative,’ Palin said.”
Ketchikan Daily News 9-28-06

Mudflats is probably going to me the most read Alaskan for the next couple of months.