<![CDATA[Trackpads Community - Point/Counterpoint & Politics]]> http://www.trackpads.com/forum/ en Mon, 06 Sep 2010 08:38:27 GMT vBulletin 60 http://www.trackpads.com/forum/images/misc/rss.png <![CDATA[Trackpads Community - Point/Counterpoint & Politics]]> http://www.trackpads.com/forum/ For G.O.P., Tea Party Wields a Double-Edged Sword http://www.trackpads.com/forum/point-counterpoint-politics/944097-g-o-p-tea-party-wields-double-edged-sword.html Mon, 06 Sep 2010 01:02:18 GMT *For G.O.P., Tea Party Wields a Double-Edged... For G.O.P., Tea Party Wields a Double-Edged Sword
By KATE ZERNIKE

Christine O’Donnell, running in Delaware to be the Republican nominee for the Senate seat once held by Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., is a perennial candidate with a history of financial problems, including unpaid taxes and a home in foreclosure. Representative Michael N. Castle, her opponent in the primary, is a veteran congressman and former governor who has won statewide elections more than 10 times.

But Ms. O’Donnell has the backing of the Tea Party, and suddenly Delaware has become the latest Republican civil war battlefield. National Tea Party groups are pouring money into Ms. O’Donnell’s campaign, while establishment Republicans are attacking her with more ferocity than they have shown toward the Democrat in the race, worried that Ms. O’Donnell is the bigger threat to the party’s winning the seat in November.

The battle in Delaware is just the latest reminder that as much as the Tea Party fervor is expected to help Republicans in November, it may also create problems for them — and opportunities for the Democrats.

So far this election season, the Tea Party has brought a huge amount of unexpected energy into the campaign, and that fervor could drive sufficient Republican turnout to become a major and perhaps decisive factor in many races. But the movement has also forced Republicans to spend precious time and money on primary races they should have won easily and has produced some inexperienced candidates who have stumbled in the early going.

In some House races, Republicans have all but given up hope of winning after local Tea Party groups helped conservative candidates win primaries in districts that historically prefer moderates. And in some districts, Tea Party candidates are mounting third-party challenges that could allow the Democrats to maintain or even win some seats.

“When we talk about what kind of an impact the Tea Party is going to have on the midterms, what I’m watching are these seats where the Tea Party has nominated candidates over more viable Republican candidates — that’s my measuring stick,” said Jennifer Duffy, who watches Senate races for the nonpartisan Cook Political Report. “It could be the difference between getting the majority or not.”

Of the 18 Senate races that The New York Times considers competitive, there are 11 where the Tea Party stands to be a significant factor. While it is harder to predict the Tea Party’s influence in the House races, given the diffuse nature of thousands of local groups across the country, there are at least 48 out of 104 competitive seats where it could have a major impact.

In many places, the impact will be from Tea Party groups — local, national or both — that are working to mobilize voters. In others, however, the Tea Party is complicating what should have been easy Republican primary victories.

In the Eighth Congressional District in Arizona, for instance, a seat held comfortably by Republicans until 2006, Democrats had worried that their incumbent, Representative Gabrielle Giffords, would lose. They rejoiced when the Tea Party candidate, Jesse Kelly, beat Jonathan Paton, who had been backed by Republicans in Washington.

In the 10th Congressional District in Illinois, the Tea Party may have created a rare opportunity for the Democrats to pick up a seat, helping Robert Dold win against a more moderate Republican in the primary. The seat is now held by Mark Kirk, a moderate Republican who is running for the Senate seat vacated by President Obama. Democrats believe they can portray Mr. Dold as too conservative for the district.

With the economy still working against Democrats, they say they are hoping to benefit from concerns about Tea Party extremism.

Allen West, for example, the Republican nominee in Florida’s 22nd Congressional District, has become a Tea Party sensation. He has raised more money than any other House challenger — and his opponent — collecting donations from people across the country who have followed him on YouTube as he thunders against the “tyranny” of the federal government.

But to Democrats, he is an opposition researcher’s dream, captured on video rallying his audiences to “get your musket, fix your bayonet,” questioning whether Mr. Obama is a citizen and urging his supporters to make his opponent “scared to come out of his house.”

Democrats said they were trying to make the same case against Tea Party candidates who are the Republican nominees in Senate races: Rand Paul in Kentucky, Sharron Angle in Nevada, Ken Buck in Colorado and Ron Johnson in Wisconsin. (The candidates the Tea Party helped nominate in Utah, Mike Lee, and Alaska, Joe Miller, are considered all but certain to win — even in a year when uncertainty is the rule.)

The Democrats are playing up the candidates’ support for things that are standard Tea Party positions, but unpopular among most Americans: getting rid of the Departments of Energy, Commerce and Education; phasing out Social Security and Medicare; and instituting a 23 percent national sales tax to replace the income tax.

The arguments seem to be gaining the most traction in Kentucky and Nevada, where the nominations of Tea Party candidates have helped keep Democrats in the running — particularly Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader, who is considered among the most vulnerable incumbents. In Kentucky, the Democrat, Jack Conway, gained the support of the state’s police union last month after raising concerns about Mr. Paul’s opposition to federal antidrug efforts, a position unpopular among rural voters whose communities have been ravaged by methamphetamine.

All of those Senate races are close. And Republicans and, increasingly, independent analysts believe that the Tea Party candidates can prevail.

Delaware is a different story. Republicans, though they backed Ms. O’Donnell when she ran against Mr. Biden for the Senate, say she is unelectable, and in recent days they have attacked her for “repeatedly lying to voters” and “manipulating her own political history.” They said they had considered Mr. Castle a shoo-in until Mr. Miller defeated Senator Lisa Murkowski in the Republican primary in Alaska.

The Tea Party Express, a national group that helped secure Mr. Miller the nomination and helped Senator Scott Brown win in Massachusetts, then said it would spend $250,000 on television and radio advertisements for Ms. O’Donnell in advance of the primary Sept. 14.

Other trouble spots for Republicans are Tea Party-backed candidates mounting third-party challenges in several close House races. These include the Fifth and Second Congressional Districts in Virginia, where Republicans had controlled the seats until the last couple of years and had hopes of taking them back.

In Florida’s 12th Congressional District, where the seat is being vacated by a Republican, independent handicappers say that Randy Wilkinson, who registered to run on an official Tea Party line, could take a sizable chunk of voters from the Republican, handing the election to the Democrat, Lori Edwards.

And In New York’s 23rd Congressional District, Tea Party groups are backing Doug Hoffman, who created trouble for Republicans in a special election last year by mounting a challenge to the moderate Republican nominee, ultimately pushing her to quit the race. She threw her support to the Democrat, Bill Owens, and he won the district despite Republicans having controlled it for 150 years.

This year, Mr. Hoffman has said that if he does not win the Sept. 14 primary against Matt Doheny, who has the support of establishment Republicans, he will run as a third-party candidate again. And many Tea Party activists are supporting his bid even though they understand that this would probably result in the seat’s remaining in Democratic hands.

“Sometimes being principled doesn’t always get you what you want,” said Jennifer Bernstone, an activist who supported Mr. Hoffman last year and does again. “That’s part of being principled.”

But analysts say third-party candidates will affect 10 House races, at best, in a year when 100 are competitive. And Republican strategists say it is wishful thinking on the Democrats’ part to hope that they can combat Tea Party enthusiasm with concerns about Tea Party extremism.

“Enthusiasm in an off year is absolutely critical,” said Whit Ayres, a Republican pollster. “I’m not disagreeing that there are places where the nontraditional Republican nominee may face a greater challenge than would a traditional Republican nominee, but I do not agree that ergo the Democrat is going to win.” ]]> cato2 http://www.trackpads.com/forum/point-counterpoint-politics/944097-g-o-p-tea-party-wields-double-edged-sword.html 7 cartel clashes at root of drug war http://www.trackpads.com/forum/point-counterpoint-politics/944096-7-cartel-clashes-root-drug-war.html Sun, 05 Sep 2010 22:34:22 GMT *7 cartel clashes at root of drug war* by Diana... 7 cartel clashes at root of drug war
by Diana Washington Valdez / El Paso Times


Attachment 9626
Federal Police escort Texas-born suspect Edgar Valdez Villarreal, alias "La Barbie," center. He is wanted in the United States for allegedly smuggling cocaine, and he is blamed for a brutal turf war as he and a rival fought for control of the divided Beltran Leyva cartel. (AP Photo/Alexandre Meneghini)

Mexico's bloody drug war can be traced to seven cartel-related conflicts, the Mexican government recently reported.

And a Texas-born drug kingpin recently arrested in Mexico, Edgar "La Barbie" Valdez Villarreal, said Juárez was the flash point for the fighting.

The government report, titled "Information on the Criminal Phenomenon in Mexico," says 80 percent of the drug-related homicides (22,701 out of 28,353 ) took place in 162 communities, Juárez among the highest.

The biggest number of drug-related deaths involves Joaquin "Chapo" Guzman Loera's battles against four other drug-trafficking organizations.

As of July 30, the Guzman and Carrillo Fuentes cartels had waged the bloodiest battle in Mexico, with 8,236 dead between the two groups.

Guzman's cartel is also fighting the Beltran-Leyva, Gulf cartel-Zetas and Arellano Felix cartels, in attacks and counterattacks that killed an additional 10,861 people.

"Currently, Chihuahua, Sinaloa and Baja California are the states where the most homicides linked to organized crime are concentrated," the report said.

Since January, Juárez has had 2,006 homicides that authorities said are connected to the cartel wars.

The report also said the federal government early on identified serious
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problems that led to weakened police and judicial systems, which created the conditions for organized crime to grow.

Police were poorly paid and equipped and lacked effective coordination, and some were threatened or bought off by criminals, the report said.

Unprofessional or ineffective prosecutors and courts and obsolete laws were other factors.

"These multiple deficiencies caused some law enforcement and justice institutions, particularly at the local level, to opt for explicit or (implicit) arrangements with criminals," the report said.

On the day that Valdez was captured, Mexican Federal Security Ministry Commissioner Facundo Rosas announced that the federal agency had fired 3,200 officers (10 percent of the force) for failure to perform their duties. He did not accuse the fired officers of having links to organized crime.

Rosas said an additional 1,020 officers would be investigated for failure to complete their confidence exams.

Federal law officers have become frequent targets for gunmen in Juárez, as well as for complaints from residents and fellow officers.

Since January, more than 90 police officers have been killed in Juárez; a third of them were municipal police, and the rest were federal and state officers.

Spikes in violence seemed to occur whenever a ranking drug lord or a relative was captured or killed, the report said.

Such events included the 2008 arrest of Alfredo Beltran Leyva (brother of Arturo Beltran Leyva), and the murder that year of Guzman's son, Edgar Guzman, a former Juárez resident.

Mexican President Felipe Calderón began the crackdown against the drug cartels in his home state of Michoacan, an area the report said was ideal for growing marijuana and opium poppies. Michoacan also provided a key trafficking route between the Pacific coast and 12 Mexican states, including Chihuahua.

The report gave statistics for the seizures of drugs, weapons, vehicles and money and for the arrests of alleged drug-traffickers.

According to the report, Calderón had a better record in the first four years of his administration than his predecessors Vicente Fox and Ernesto Zedillo had in their first four years in office.

For example, since Calderón took office, 115,604 suspects were detained between December 2006 and July 31 compared with 58,818 under Fox and 64,187 under Zedillo.

One of the biggest arrests made recently involves Valdez, a U.S.-born alleged drug trafficker who is said to know the top leaders in the drug trade in Mexico.

Last Sunday a judge in Mexico ordered that Valdez held for 40 days pending an investigation into organized crime and other possible charges, The Associated Press reported.

Valdez revealed many things after his recent capture that pulled back the veil from the activities of Mexico's warring drug cartels.

Valdez alleged that Guzman was responsible for the spiraling violence in Juárez. He said Guzman broke a pact the cartels had forged in 2007 in Cuernavaca, Morelos, by killing Carrillo Fuentes cartel operatives in Juárez.

Guzman, Juan Jose "Azul" Esparragoza, Ignacio "Nacho" Coronel, Ismael Mayo Zambada and Arturo Beltran Leyva were among those who were at the gathering. Two of them are dead now. The Mexican navy killed Beltran in a shootout Dec. 16 in Cuernavaca, and police shot Coronel to death on July 29 in Guadalajara.

In a videotaped interview with officials, Valdez said the leaders at the 2007 summit wanted to end the bloodshed and to agree on how to divide certain drug-trafficking regions among themselves. But problems began soon after the meeting.

Valdez said Guzman insisted on certain conditions. One of them was for the Carrillo Fuentes cartel to get rid of Juan Pablo Ledezma. Ledezma, alias "J.L." and Eduardo Ledezma, allegedly is Carrillo's operations chief in Chihuahua state.

"It all started because of Juárez," Valdez said. "(Guzman) did not want "J.L.," who handled everything for Vicente Carrillo. Supposedly, they had agreed that (Guzman's people) would pass through Juárez, and then they started to fight because they gave each other dirty looks - they just started to fight, because that's the way it is."

Valdez said the Beltran Leyva cartel, which he used to work with, is not at war with the Carrillo Fuentes cartel because they agreed to not attack each other.

Mexican federal officers detained Valdez on Aug. 30 in a small town near Mexico City, along with six others, including Jorge V. Landa Coronado, 28, also of Laredo, Texas. Mexican authorities accused Valdez of dealing up to a ton of cocaine per month and of running a major drug-trafficking operation that extended to several states.

Officials also alleged that Valdez created a school in Honduras to train hit men. He is also wanted in the United States on drug-related charges.

Before he was detained, Valdez said, he was creating his own drug organization. He said he had drug-related investments in Colombia, moved cocaine through Panama, and transported currency from drug proceeds in tractor-trailers.

He also spoke with contempt about the Zetas, former enforcers of the Gulf cartel that broke away.

"Well, they (Zetas) are a danger because they have no respect," Valdez said. "The truth is they are dirty. For me, not even their mother wants them."

Valdez also said he paid about $900,000 to have a movie made about himself, according to a government transcript of his statement. He did not disclose the film's name or producer.

Movies and telenovelas featuring drug traffickers, such as Telemundo's "El Cartel," have become popular fare. A new Luis Estrada film, "El Infierno," which satirizes Mexican drug-traffickers debuts this week.

Diana Washington Valdez may be reached at dvaldez@elpasotimes.com; 546-6140.



Drug cartels
The Mexican government linked 28,353 homicides in Mexico to the drug cartel wars. Of those, it said 22,701 homicides occurred in regions with the heaviest fighting as follows:


# Guzman Loera cartel v. Carrillo Fuentes cartel: 8,236 (36%)
# Guzman Loera cartel v. Beltran Leyva cartel: 5,864 (26%)
# Guzman Loera cartel v. Gulf cartel/Zetas: 3,199 (14%)
# Guzman Loera cartel v. Arrellano Felix cartel: 1,798 (8%)
# Familia cartel v. Gulf cartel/Zetas: 1,744 (8%)
# Gulf cartel v. Zetas: 1,328 (6%)
# Familia cartel v. Beltran Leyva cartel: 56 (0.2%)
# Unknown: 476 (1.8%)

Source: Mexican government; December 2007 to July 2010.
Attached Images
]]> cato2 http://www.trackpads.com/forum/point-counterpoint-politics/944096-7-cartel-clashes-root-drug-war.html Sharron Angle hit with R-J copyright infringement lawsuit http://www.trackpads.com/forum/point-counterpoint-politics/944090-sharron-angle-hit-r-j-copyright-infringement-lawsuit.html Sun, 05 Sep 2010 03:45:02 GMT *Sharron Angle hit with R-J copyright... Sharron Angle hit with R-J copyright infringement lawsuit

The Las Vegas Review-Journal’s copyright infringement lawsuit partner on Friday sued U.S. Senate candidate Sharron Angle over R-J material posted on her website, allegedly without authorization.

The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Las Vegas by Righthaven LLC, seeks damages of $150,000 against Angle personally and forfeiture of her website domain name sharronangle.com.

The Democratic Party of Nevada, which has also been sued by Righthaven, charged in an Aug. 23 press release that the Review-Journal had a double standard to “hold Angle harmless while suing the Democratic Party and progressive organizations.”

Steve Friess, a Las Vegas freelancer writer and columnist for Las Vegas Weekly, a sister newspaper to the Las Vegas Sun, has been supportive of Righthaven because Friess has seen material owned by him and other freelancers infringed on.

In a blog post last month, Friess said Righthaven had to sue Angle. Friess posted several screenshots of R-J stories on Angle’s website and wrote that “thousands of readers have seen these stories on SharronAngle.Com and not ReviewJournal.Com; that’s a clear loss of the eyeballs that translate into advertising revenue.”

“Righthaven must sue. It took effort to find the cat blogger (a notorious Righthaven case), but this one was on a major candidate’s site, there in plain sight. If they don’t sue Angle, they provide dozens of infringers with a clear example of the company’s inconsistency in defending its copyright. And there goes the whole enterprise, right there,” Friess wrote at his blog site.

In its suit, Righthaven charged, “Ms. Angle did not seek permission, in any manner, to reproduce, display, or otherwise exploit the Works (stories)...Ms. Angle was not granted permission, in any manner, to reproduce, display, or otherwise exploit the works.”

In most of its suits, Righthaven detects the infringement, then obtains a copyright and sues the infringer on a retroactive basis. The suits usually seek damages of $75,000 for a single copyright.

The Angle suit, however, included two copyrights for material published on July 21 and Aug. 3. Righthaven didn’t indicate why it sued over two copyrights and is seeking double the usual amount in damages.

A request for comment was left with the Angle campaign.

Records filed with the lawsuit show the Review-Journal received full credit for a July 21 editorial posted on Angle’s site, “It’s the jobs, stupid,” which was critical of Angle’s election opponent, Sen. Harry Reid; and for an Aug. 3 story displayed on Angle’s site headlined “Angle: Reid’s clout misguided.”

Righthaven, which has now filed at least 117 lawsuits, has sued both liberal and conservative sites around the country ranging from the Democratic Party of Nevada, the Democratic Underground and the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada (liberal) to the Free Republic (conservative). ]]> cato2 http://www.trackpads.com/forum/point-counterpoint-politics/944090-sharron-angle-hit-r-j-copyright-infringement-lawsuit.html Sarah Palin: The Sound and the Fury http://www.trackpads.com/forum/point-counterpoint-politics/944089-sarah-palin-sound-fury.html Sun, 05 Sep 2010 03:38:42 GMT *Sarah Palin: The Sound and the Fury* Even as... Sarah Palin: The Sound and the Fury
Even as Sarah Palin’s public voice grows louder, she has become increasingly secretive, walling herself off from old friends and associates, and attempting to enforce silence from those around her. Following the former Alaska governor’s road show, the author delves into the surreal new world Palin now inhabits—a place of fear, anger, and illusion, which has swallowed up the engaging, small-town hockey mom and her family—and the sadness she has left in her wake.
By Michael Joseph Gross•
Illustration by Edward Sorel
October 2010

Attachment 9624
PALIN’S PALADINS
Erratic behavior and a pattern of lying matter little: “Such falsehoods never damage Palin’s credibility with her admirers, because information and ideology are incidental to this relationship.”

Backstage in the arena, a little girl in Mary Janes pushes her brother in a baby carriage, stopping a few yards shy of a heavy, 100-foot-long black curtain. The curtain splits the arena in two, shielding the children from an audience of 4,000 people clapping their hands in time to “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” The music accompanies a video “Salute to Military Heroes” that plays above the stage where, in a few moments, the children’s mother will appear.

When the girl, Piper Palin, turns around, she sees her parents thronged by admirers, and the crowd rolling toward her and the baby, her brother Trig, born with Down syndrome in 2008. Sarah Palin and her husband, Todd, bend down and give a moment to the children; a woman, perhaps a nanny, whisks the boy away; and Todd hands Sarah her speech and walks her to the stage. He pokes the air with one finger. She mimes the gesture, whips around, strides on four-inch heels to stage center, and turns it on.

And how. Palin and the crowd might as well be one. She’s glad to be here with the people of Independence, Missouri, “where so many of you proudly cling to your guns and your religion”—the first laughline in a 40-minute stump speech that alludes to many of the perceived insults she and her audience have suffered together, and that transforms their resentments into badges of honor. Palin waves her scribbled-on palm to the crowd, proclaiming that she’s using “the poor man’s teleprompter.” Of the Obama administration, she says, “They talk down to us. Especially here in the heartland. Oh, man. They think that, if we were just smart enough, we’d be able to understand their policies. And I so want to tell ’em, and I do tell ’em, Oh, we’re plenty smart, oh yeah—we know what’s goin’ on. And we don’t like what’s goin’ on. And we’re not gonna let them tell us to sit down and shut up.”

Attachment 9625
“Sarah Palin’s Shopping Spree: Yes, There’s More...,” by Michael Joseph Gross.

The crowd’s ample applause at these lines swells to something vastly bigger when Palin vows defiantly that “come November, we’re taking our country back!” The phrase plays on the name of this event, “Winning America Back,” which has been billed as a Tea Party rally organized by a grassroots Missouri political-action committee that no one had heard of until a few months ago, when the event was announced.

Behind the curtain, Piper plays with other children, oblivious to the speech. She runs in circles, plays hide-and-seek, poses for snapshots, and generally acts as if she were in another world—until she gets the signal to do her job: march to the podium, pick up Palin’s speech, and allow Palin to make a public display of maternal affection.

On cue, Piper parts the curtain. As the child appears, a loud and doting “Awww” melts through the crowd.

Sarah Palin’s connection with her audience is complete. People who admire her believe she is just like them, and this conviction seems to satisfy their curiosity about the objective facts of her life. Those whose curiosity has not been satisfied have their work cut out for them. Palin has been a national figure for barely two years—John McCain selected her as his running mate in August 2008. Her on-the-record statements about herself amount to a litany of untruths and half-truths. With few exceptions—mostly Palin antagonists in journalism and politics whose beefs with her have long been out in the open—virtually no one who knows Palin well is willing to talk about her on the record, whether because they are loyal and want to protect her (a small and shrinking number), or because they expect her prominence to grow and intend to keep their options open, or because they fear she will exact revenge, as she has been known to do. It is an astonishing phenomenon. Colleagues and acquaintances by the hundreds went on the record to reveal what they knew, for good or ill, about prospective national candidates as diverse as Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Al Gore, and Barack Obama. When it comes to Palin, people button their lips and slink away.

She manages to be at once a closed book and a constant noisemaker. Her press spokesperson, Pam Pryor, barely speaks to the press, and Palin shrewdly cultivates a real and rhetorical antagonism toward what she calls “the lamestream media.” The Palin machine is supported by organizations that do much of their business under the cover of pseudonyms and shell companies. In accordance with the terms of a reported $1 million annual contract with Fox News, Palin regularly delivers canned commentary on that network. But in the year since she abruptly resigned the governorship of Alaska, in order to market herself full-time—earning an estimated $13 million in the process—she has submitted to authentic, unpaid interviews with only a handful of journalists, none of whom have posed notably challenging questions. She keeps tight control of her pronouncements, speaking only in settings of her own choosing, with audiences of her own selection, and with reporters kept at bay. (Despite many requests, neither Palin nor her current staff would comment for this article.) She injects herself into the news almost every day, but on a strictly one-way basis, through a steady stream of messages on Twitter and Facebook. The press plays along. Palin is the only politician whose tweets are regularly reported as news by TV networks. She is the only one who has been able to significantly change the course of debate on a major national issue (health-care reform) with a single Facebook posting (in which she accused the Obama administration, falsely, of wanting to set up a “death panel”).

Palin makes speeches before large audiences at least a few times a week, on a grueling schedule that has taken her to as many as four locations in three states in one day. She’s choosy, restricting herself to Tea Party gatherings; fund-raisers for charities and Republican organizations and candidates; and moneymakers for herself, mainly business conventions and “Get Motivated!” seminars. Judging from the bootleg videos that sometimes turn up, her basic speech varies little from venue to venue. She presents herself as the straight-shooting, plainspoken, salt-of-the-earth advocate for “hardworking, patriotic, liberty-loving Americans” and as the anti-Obama, the lone Republican standing up to a federal government gone “out of control.” Last July, the quarterly filing by Palin’s political-action committee, SarahPAC, revealed a formidable war chest and hefty investments in fund-raising and direct mail, the clearest signs yet that she may indeed run for president. Republican leaders privately dismiss her as too unpredictable and too undisciplined to run a serious campaign. But on she flies, carpet-bombing the 24-hour news cycle: now announcing her desire to meet with her “political heroine” Margaret Thatcher (the better to look like Ronald Reagan, presumably, though Palin seemed unaware that Thatcher is suffering from dementia); now yelping in theatrical complaint (“I want my straws! I want ’em bent!”), to shrug off revelations that her speaking contract demands deluxe hotel rooms, first-class air travel, and bottles of water with bendable straws; now responding (in a statement read on the Today show) to reports of her daughter Bristol’s re-engagement to Levi Johnston; and all the while issuing scores of political endorsements and preparing a fall media blitz. A TV show, Sarah Palin’s Alaska, for which Palin is being paid $2 million, will have its premiere on the TLC network in November. A new book, America by Heart: Reflections on Family, Faith, and Flag, will be published the following week.

This spring and summer I traveled to Alaska and followed Palin’s road show through four midwestern states, speaking with whomever I could induce to talk under whatever conditions of anonymity they imposed—political strategists, longtime Palin friends and political associates, hotel staff, shopkeepers and hairstylists, and high-school friends of the Palin children. There’s a long and detailed version of what they had to say, but there’s also a short and simple one: anywhere you peel back the skin of Sarah Palin’s life, a sad and moldering strangeness lies beneath.
Fist of the North Star

It was a baking-hot Kansas afternoon, and from the lobby I watched as three slender, solemn young hairstylists and makeup artists approached a front-desk clerk at the Hyatt Regency hotel, in Wichita. The tallest of them said, “We’re here for North Star.” The desk clerk understood. He nodded and directed the three women to the Keeper of the Plains suite, on the 17th floor, where North Star herself awaited. The North Star is mentioned in Alaska’s state song and appears on its state flag. Fairbanks lies in a region called the North Star Borough. Palin is on the way to making North Star a personal brand. If she ever does run for president, it might well serve as her Secret Service code name.

Hours after the styling session, three bodyguards and one aide accompany Sarah, Todd, and Piper to a $1,000-a-plate V.I.P. dinner to raise money for Wichita’s Bethel Life School. Each guest has a photo taken with Palin and receives a “personally autographed bookplate copy” of Palin’s autobiography, Going Rogue. (The autographs are fake, made with an Autopen.) After dinner, Pat Boone, his skin a taut orange against the trademark white suit, leads the crowd in the singing of a spiritual. Congressman Todd Tiahrt, who will receive Palin’s endorsement in his race for the U.S. Senate, tells everyone to buy a copy of Palin’s book—“so Sarah can buy a Learjet!” (Learjet is based in Wichita.)

Palin delivers basically the same speech she gave 18 hours earlier to the Tea Party group in Independence. You could pretty much replace the word “constitution,” from yesterday’s remarks, with “Bible,” and be good to go. Then Palin departs from the script and speaks as if from the heart, describing her fear and confusion upon discovering that Trig would be born with Down syndrome. “I had never really been around a baby with special needs,” she tells her listeners. For what it’s worth, this statement is untrue. Depicting the same moment of discovery in her own book, Palin writes that she immediately thought of a special-needs child she knew very well: her autistic nephew. Such falsehoods never damage Palin’s credibility with her admirers, because information and ideology are incidental to this relationship. Palin owes her power to identity politics, pitched with moralistic topspin. She exploits the same populist impulse that fueled the career of William Jennings Bryan—an impulse described by one Bryan biographer as “the yearning for a society run by and for ordinary people who lead virtuous lives.”

Palin does not always treat those ordinary people well, however—it depends on who is watching. Of the many famous people who have stayed at the Hyatt in Wichita (Cher, Reba McEntire, Neil Young), Sarah Palin ranks as the all-time worst tipper: $5 for seven bags. But the bellhops had it good in Kansas, compared with the bellman at another midwestern hotel who waited up until past midnight for Palin and her entourage to check in—and then got no tip at all for 10 bags. He was stiffed again at checkout time. The same went for the maids who cleaned Palin’s rooms in both places—no tip whatsoever. The only time I heard of Palin giving a generous tip was in St. Joseph, Michigan, after the owner of Kilwin’s chocolate shop, on State Street, sent a CARE package to Palin’s suite, and Palin walked to the store to say thank you. She also wanted to buy more boxes of candy to take home. When the owner would not accept her money, Palin, encircled by the crowd that had jammed the store to get a glimpse of her, pressed a hundred-dollar bill into the woman’s hand, saying, “This is for the staff.” That Ben Franklin was the talk of State Street the whole rest of the day.

Warm and effusive in public, indifferent or angry in private: this is the pattern of Palin’s behavior toward the people who make her life possible. A onetime gubernatorial aide to Palin says, “The people who have worked for her—they’re broken, used, stepped on, down in the dust.” On the 2008 campaign trail, one close aide recalls, it was practically impossible to persuade Palin to take a moment to thank the kitchen workers at fund-raising dinners. During the campaign, Palin lashed out at the slightest provocation, sometimes screaming at staff members and throwing objects. Witnessing such behavior, one aide asked Todd Palin if it was typical of his wife. He answered, “You just got to let her go through it… Half the stuff that comes out of her mouth she doesn’t even mean.” When a campaign aide gingerly asked Todd whether Sarah should consider taking psychiatric medication to control her moods, Todd responded that she “just needed to run and work out more.” Her anger kept boiling over, however, and eventually the fits of rage came every day. Then, just as suddenly, her temper would be gone. Palin would apologize and promise to be nicer. Within hours, she would be screaming again. At the end of one long day, when Palin was mid-tirade, a campaign aide remembers thinking, “You were an angel all night. Now you’re a devil. Where did this come from?”

The intensity of Palin’s temper was first described to me in such extreme terms that I couldn’t help but wonder if it might be exaggerated, until I heard corroborating tales of outbursts dating back to her days as mayor of Wasilla and before. One friend of the Palins’ remembers an argument between Sarah and Todd: “They took all the canned goods out of the pantry, then proceeded to throw them at each other. By the time they got done, the stainless-steel fridge looked like it had got shot up with a shotgun. Todd said, ‘I don’t know why I even waste my time trying to get nice things for you if you’re just going to ruin them.’ ” This friend adds, “As soon as she enters her property and the door closes, even the insects in that house cringe. She has a horrible temper, but she has gotten away with it because she is a pretty woman.” (The friend elaborated on this last point: “Once, while Sarah was preparing for a city-council meeting, she said, ‘I’m gonna put on one of my push-up bras so I can get what I want tonight.’ That’s how she rolls.”) When Palin was mayor, she made life for one low-level municipal employee so miserable that the woman quit her job, sought psychiatric counseling, and then left the state altogether to escape Palin’s sphere of influence—this according to one person with firsthand knowledge of the situation. The woman did not want to be found. When I finally tracked her down, her husband, who answered the phone, at first pretended that I had dialed the wrong number and that the word “Wasilla” had no meaning to him. Palin’s former personal assistants all refused to comment on the record for this story, some citing a fear of reprisal. Others who have worked with Palin recall that, when she feels threatened, she does not hesitate to wield some version of a signature threat: “I have the power to ruin you.”

Palin’s public voice is an instrument of great versatility. In a few moments, she can turn from kind to hateful, rational to unhinged. At her best Palin can be folksy and pungent. But she needs outside help to give her voice its national range. For messaging strategy, Palin relies on William Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard, and Fred Malek, who was an aide to Presidents Richard Nixon and George H. W. Bush. The lawyer Robert Barnett, the most successful literary agent in Washington—his clients range from Hillary Clinton to Dick Cheney to Tony Blair—negotiated Palin’s reported $7 million advance for Going Rogue, and he helps oversee her speaking schedule, which is arranged by the Washington Speakers Bureau. The small inner circle that shapes Palin’s voice day to day includes lobbyist Randy Scheunemann, a director of the neoconservative think tank Project for the New American Century, who advises Palin on foreign affairs, and Kim Daniels, a lawyer with the Thomas More Law Center, which has been called “the Christian answer to the A.C.L.U.,” who advises her on domestic issues. Palin’s speechwriter is Lindsay Hayes. Doug McMarlin and Jason Recher, both of whom did advance work for George W. Bush, serve as body men and confidants. Both Hayes and Recher were on Palin’s 2008-campaign road team, and both were known for indulging her whims, according to their colleagues. (When John McCain decided to pull out of Michigan, a decision Palin disagreed with, Recher and Palin hatched a plan one day to make an early-morning drive to Michigan anyway. The Secret Service, becoming aware of the plan, asked the McCain campaign what it should do. The answer came: “Shoot out the tires.”) Campaign e-mails indicate that Recher was disrespectful of field staff and support workers. “Our volunteers don’t want to do Palin trips because of the way they are treated by Recher,” wrote one of his supervisors. Of all those who have professional relationships with Palin, only Robert Barnett is generally considered to be at the top of his game, and he is basically just cutting deals, as he would for any client.

Palin’s most unconventional hire is a novice media consultant, Rebecca Mansour, a 36-year-old Los Angeles resident who has been identified in news stories as a screenwriter. Mansour has said that she volunteered for Obama early in the 2008 campaign and then became disillusioned. Not long after the election, with Joseph Russo, a then 23-year-old college student from New Jersey, who would also go to work for Palin, she co-founded the most popular pro-Palin blog, Conservatives4Palin, known informally as C4P (and not to be confused with the “adult swingers” Web site of that name). C4P functions as a hybrid news service, discussion board, and field headquarters for a virtual army of Palin supporters, who pride themselves on brute devotion. “Who We Are and What We Stand For,” a post written by Mansour, declares, “We’re ordinary barbarians here. No one controls us. We’re a horde.” A prominent C4P contributor, Nicole Coulter, told CBS.com this summer, “We would literally walk across hot broken glass for this woman… She’s our family, and you protect your family; it’s like the mafia.”

On C4P, any journalist or public figure who questions Palin in any way is flicked off as a “creep,” a “hack,” a “loser,” a “storm trooper,” a “liar,” or as just plain “slime.” “I assumed the governor was above that,” says Jay Ramras, an Alaska state legislator who has been a frequent target of the site. “Or at least that there was a Chinese wall between her and these people. But then they crossed over—she hired them.” Mansour’s words have continued to appear on the site occasionally, even after she was formally taken on board by SarahPAC. She used to police C4P message boards for dissenters from the party line and, under the name RAM (her initials, shortened from her earlier, more descriptive handle, RAM Hammer), rip them mercilessly: “Now you are banned for life, you sick son of a *****.” In one comment string, a woman named Sandra wrote, “I wish Sarah would tell us more about what is involved with caring for Trig. I understand there are many professionals involved in his education and training. If we knew more about this there would be more support for organizations that are involved.” Mansour shot back, “Sandra, what are you implying?,” and the comment string went dead. The nastiness on C4P exists alongside an idealization of the former governor, as displayed in the closing lines of “Who is Sarah Palin?,” an 8,000-word posting by Mansour: “C4P has your back, Governor. And when you finally ride out from the north with your banner lifted high, we’ll rally.”

These words resonate with the code name Palin used in Wichita. Palin has invoked the North Star in several of her most important speeches, including her July 2009 farewell address, when she resigned as governor of Alaska (“Wherever the road may lead us, we have that steadying great North Star to guide us home”), her January 2009 state-of-the-state speech (“United, protecting and progressing under the great North Star, let’s get to work”), and her December 2006 inaugural address, in which she used the North Star concept to frame Alaska’s relationship to the rest of the country, much the way Ronald Reagan used the “city on a hill” image to portray America’s relationship to the rest of the world. “America is looking for answers. She’s looking for a new direction; the world is looking for a light,” Palin said. “That light can come from America’s great North Star; it can come from Alaska.” According to an account on US for Palin, another pro-Palin blog, Palin recently told a Christian audience in Georgia that “in Alaska they refer to the North Star a lot,” and indicated that this is sometimes meant as a reference to God.

Palin’s rooms in Wichita were booked by NorthStar Strategies, a Virginia company registered to Jason Recher. When a man in Wichita asked Palin how he could get involved if she decides to run for president, Doug McMarlin offered him a business card identifying himself as a partner in NorthStar. An Amazon.com store called the North Star Group, maintained by a Palin blogger, “sells Governor Palin’s books, and numerous products she has referenced or is known to use,” such as the red Naughty Monkey Double Dare pumps she often wears. As a side project to Conservatives4Palin, Joseph Russo in 2009 contributed to a separate pro-Palin blog called Fist of the North Star. The blog shares its name with a Japanese manga series set in a post-apocalyptic world devastated by nuclear war, in which a faithful remnant work to save their Heavenly Empress, who has been imprisoned by the corrupt Imperial Army. The Fist of the North Star blog once featured a staggeringly obscene mock news item about one of Palin’s Alaska nemeses, the activist Andree McLeod, who had filed a series of ethics complaints against the then governor: “On Friday, an international team of doctors successfully removed the world’s largest parasite from her desperately overstretched colon. One must wonder what kind of freaky **** this ghetto ***** was ingesting… You never know what else that Harpies Twat is carrying!”

As late as April 2009, Palin’s press spokesperson contended that C4P was “not affiliated in any way with the governor.” Mansour’s reaction to that statement suggested otherwise. The next day on C4P, she wrote, “Some readers have wondered if I felt tire tracks on my back this morning,” and went on to say, “I understand” why Palin’s spokesperson denied any connection, adding, “I’m not hurt … much.” Twelve days later she told a reporter for a McClatchy newspaper a different story: Sarah Palin, Mansour said, “has nothing at all, whatsoever, to do with any of what we’re doing here.” In early July, Mansour made a trip to Alaska to meet with Palin, according to a source in Anchorage. By mid-August, her byline, long the most prominent one on C4P, had vanished from the site.

But her voice, or at least a voice that sounds much like hers, was about to turn up in another venue. When it was first set up, in January 2009, Palin’s Facebook page might as well have been a file cabinet for official press releases (“Palin Pushes Parental Consent Legislation”) written mostly in a stiff, third-person form. The same was true of her Twitter feed, which went live in April. After Mansour’s voice disappeared on C4P, however, Palin’s voice on Facebook and Twitter started sounding increasingly provocative and irascible. A company called Aries Petra Consulting was formed in September and registered to Mansour’s home address, but under someone else’s name. (In astrology, Aries is the ram—or “RAM.”) SarahPAC’s first payment to the firm was made in October, about two weeks before Palin began her book tour. By then, Palin’s new virtual voice was growing in intensity. The more shrill it became, the more news Palin made: “QUIT MAKING THINGS UP DNC” … “OBAMA ADMINISTRATION’S ATROCIOUS DECISION: HORRIBLE DECISION, ABSOLUTELY HORRIBLE” … “ARE YOU CAPABLE OF DECENCY, RAHM EMANUEL?” The payments to Mansour were not made public until February 1, 2010, when SarahPAC had to disclose its quarterly filings with the Federal Elections Commission. The day before the disclosure, knowing what was coming, C4P made an official announcement acknowledging that both Mansour and Russo had left the site months earlier and gone to work for SarahPAC. This summer, in her capacity as a SarahPAC staffer, Mansour insisted to a reporter that “anything that goes out under [Palin’s] name is hers.” Palin’s virtual voice does sometimes have the ring of authenticity. But often it sounds less like Palin herself than someone else’s fantasy version of Palin at her most vitriolic. On one occasion Palin’s virtual voice contradicted remarks she made in a TV interview two days later.
Angels and Demons

Early in the 2008 campaign, when John McCain’s aides discovered that Alaska-size gaps existed in Palin’s general knowledge (among those previously unreported: she had no idea who Margaret Thatcher was), they from time to time would give her some books to read in hopes of improving the candidate’s learning curve. On one such occasion, Palin accepted the books, set them aside, and for the next 25 minutes was held rapt by one of her three BlackBerrys.

Eventually, an aide asked, “What are you working on?”

“I’m reading these great e-mails,” she said, “from the prayer warriors.”

On the road, Palin gives “prayer warriors” regular shout-outs. She did it in Wichita and again in June during “An Evening with Sarah Palin” at Chicago’s Rosemont Theatre. Standing in front of a 50-foot-long American flag, wearing a black leather jacket, Palin thanked prayer warriors in the audience, just as at other events she has thanked them for keeping her “covered” and “providing [a] prayer shield.”

The term “prayer warrior” describes a person who offers a specific kind of supplication: asking God to direct an unseen battle between forces of light and darkness—literal angels and demons—that some Christians believe is occurring all around us. A leading member of Wasilla’s Church on the Rock, the non-denominational evangelical congregation where Palin sometimes attends worship, confirmed this understanding of the term. When Palin thanks prayer warriors for keeping her covered, she is thanking them for calling on angels to shield her from demonic attacks. On the night of the vice-presidential debate with Joe Biden, Palin received an e-mail marked “URGENT … Urgent for Sarah to read … ” The e-mail came from pastor Lou Engle, a prominent right-wing activist who identifies himself as a prayer warrior and is a central figure in dominionist theology. (Dominionists believe that, until Jesus Christ returns to earth, society should be governed exclusively by God’s law as revealed through a literal reading of Scripture.) In the e-mail, Engle compared Palin to the biblical Queen Esther. “This is an Esther moment in your life,” he wrote. “Esther hid her identity until Mordecai challenged her to risk everything for such a time as this. Your identity is ‘Sarah Barracuda.’ Esther removed corruption from the Persian government and Haman fell. She didn’t have experience, she had grace and favor. Sarah, don’t hide your identity tonight.”

Palin has often stated that the strokes of luck propelling her political success were divinely ordained: “There are no coincidences” is a favorite maxim. In Going Rogue, Palin casts herself as a reluctant prophet, accepting providential election against her wishes. The reluctant prophet is a character trope found throughout Hebrew and Christian scripture. (Jesus prays, “Father, if it is Thy will, let this cup pass from me.”) The opening scene of Going Rogue, at the 2008 Alaska State Fair, ends with Palin’s BlackBerry ringing. As she reaches to answer, Palin prays, “Please, Lord, just for an hour, anything but politics,” only to find John McCain on the line, “asking if I wanted to help him change history.”

Whenever I heard Palin speak on the road, her remarks were scored with code phrases expressing solidarity with fundamentalist Christians. Her talk of leading with “a servant’s heart” is a dog whistle for the born-again. Her dig at health-care reform as an expression of Democratic ambitions to “build a Utopia” in the United States is practically a trumpet call (because the Kingdom of God is not of this earth, and perfection can be achieved only in the life to come). But it is Palin’s persistent encouragement of the prayer warriors that most clearly reveals her worldview: she is good, her opponents are evil, and the war is on.

Palin’s belief that evil surrounds her may account for the secretive nature of her business arrangements. SarahPAC staffers and contractors have made what seem like concerted efforts to disclose an absolute minimum of information. Palin’s tours around the country are supported by a network of organizations that are not always what they claim to be. The Winning America Back conference was organized by a Missouri political-action committee called Preserving American Liberty (PAL-PAC). The group’s Web site states that “Members of Preserving American Liberty are from the Kansas City metropolitan area and are all unpaid volunteers who want to make a positive difference in the community.” Yet when I asked local politicians (including state representatives, a Senate candidate, and a congressional candidate) and local journalists about who had organized the event, I found that they knew nothing about the sponsors—“maybe because they’re Tea Partiers,” one reporter guessed, “and they’re all new to politics.”

PAL-PAC seems to have been created for a single purpose: to pay Sarah Palin to give a speech. PAL-PAC announced the Palin event at the same time that it announced its own formation. After the Palin event was over, most of the information on PAL-PAC’s Web site disappeared. In effect, PAL-PAC was a disposable entertainment company, set up to put on a one-day show that collected the contact information of thousands of people who came to see Palin in the flesh, and to give her their money. The organization has not been mentioned again anywhere online or in local newspapers. The group’s financial statements are curious. PAL-PAC was registered in Missouri last November; as of April 15, 2010, when it made its second quarterly disclosure report to the Missouri Ethics Commission, two weeks before Palin arrived in Independence, PAL-PAC had only $3,202 in the bank. This was not nearly enough money to reserve the venue, much less cover security, printing, advertising, or any of the other expenses associated with throwing an event for 4,000 people. PAL-PAC’s third disclosure report, filed on July 14, reveals large payments to Wayne Graves, a Kansas City physician, whose wife, Karladine, also a doctor, is the president of PAL-PAC. Wayne Graves performed a key service for Winning America Back: he personally paid the speakers’ fees and travel expenses. On June 23, according to the report, he was reimbursed for these outlays: $15,134.83 for “Reimburse Speak[er],” and $126,000, also for “Reimburse Speak[er].” By fronting the money for these expenses, Graves made it possible for PAL-PAC to keep details such as Palin’s precise fee under wraps. But the lion’s share of that $126,000, it seems safe to assume, went to Palin—that would tally with verified reports of what Palin has been paid elsewhere. When reached by phone, Karladine Graves refused to answer any questions about PAL-PAC: “I’m—we’re just a tiny little group, and we’re not really anything, I just, oh, no, I can’t talk about this.” (Palin is on track to earn well over $3 million in speaking fees for events this year. Washington Speakers Bureau did not respond to an interview request.)

Other stops on Palin’s road show raise questions similar to those surrounding Winning America Back. Palin spoke to a group in Dallas that claimed to be a 501(c)(3) nonprofit group but is not registered as one. That event was advertised as a fund-raiser for the Uptown Women’s Center, whose eponymous U.R.L. redirected visitors to a Web site selling tickets for the event, palin4life.com, which has since disappeared. In June, Palin was scheduled to go to Charlotte, North Carolina, for two events, a $300-per-ticket “Evening with Sarah Palin” and the free “Complete Woman Expo 2010.” Both were sponsored by a newly formed organization, the Blue Ridge Educational Resource Group. Like PAL-PAC, the Blue Ridge group had sprung up from nowhere, and also like PAL-PAC, it somehow landed one of the country’s most-sought-after female speakers to headline its very first event. Local officials eventually expressed skepticism that Blue Ridge was competent to manage the logistics for an expected crowd of 30,000, and at the last minute both events were canceled. The Blue Ridge group’s Web site, like PAL-PAC’s, was reduced to a shell.

Timothy Crawford, the treasurer of Sarah-PAC, presumably has some responsibility for the byzantine structures undergirding Palin’s travels. Before joining Palin, Crawford was the interim finance director of the Republican National Committee. He is currently being investigated by the Ohio secretary of state for his role in Let Ohio Vote, a state-referendum campaign bankrolled in its entirety by New Models, a Virginia organization Crawford owns, which calls itself a nonprofit. Earlier this year, he refused to respond to a subpoena—issued under state laws that prohibit concealment of campaign money—that sought to discover where New Models had gotten the $1.6 million to fund Let Ohio Vote. Ohio secretary of state Jennifer Brunner has called New Models “a ‘straw-person’ out of state corporation.” Also, according to the Cleveland Plain Dealer, New Models “was behind controversial automated calls to Pennsylvania voters made during the 2008 presidential election. The calls told voters that Barack Obama’s aunt was living in America illegally and that he accepted campaign contributions from his ‘illegal alien aunt.’ ”

If Satan and his associates top Palin’s list of enemies, the legions of anti-Palin bloggers may rank a close second. After the 2008 presidential campaign, when she returned briefly to the governor’s office, Palin became so obsessed with responding to criticism from bloggers that it sometimes paralyzed her administration. In the year since her resignation, independent bloggers have produced some of the most robust reporting about her—for instance, revealing that the Palins did not pay taxes for years on two vacation cabins, and pointing out that, during the “bus tour” to promote her book, Palin in fact sometimes traveled by private Gulfstream. The Anchorage Daily News no longer has a beat reporter assigned to Palin. Owing to newsroom cuts, the paper has no staff to spare, and editors reportedly see Palin as “a nonentity” in Alaska now—a phenomenon primarily of concern to the rest of the country (collectively referred to as “outside”). The blogs that keep closest tabs on Palin include Palingates, Mudflats, the Immoral Minority, and Shannyn Moore: Just a Girl from Homer. Andrew Sullivan’s Daily Dish and Arianna Huffington’s Huffington Post serve as the main conduits of information from the blogs to the mainstream media. Palingates is run by a German attorney who will identify himself only as “Patrick.” Jeanne Devon, who owns an Anchorage retail store, runs Mudflats. Jesse Griffin, a part-time assistant teacher in Anchorage, is the Immoral Minority.

All attend to Palin’s every move with a focus that could be called obsessive, and all are given, in varying degrees of intensity, to juvenile outbursts that can rival C4P at its worst. For instance, among the Immoral Minority’s fictional captions for screen grabs from a Palin interview with Sean Hannity was the following: “Yeah I tole Levi to place his nasty sperm filled nuggets right here before he started his apology to my family. And every time he did not look sorry enough to me, I just gave them a little squeeze.” Still, without these blogs, the world would have much less information about Palin’s life right now.

Of the group, only Shannyn Moore, an Anchorage radio and TV personality, has any experience as a journalist. Moore and Devon, who consider themselves political activists as well as reporters, have become close friends and share a dream of persuading wealthy donors to give them millions of dollars to renovate an old Anchorage theater as headquarters for a foundation, where they would study Alaskan politics and do proper investigative work on Palin. For now, they do what they can with the meager resources they have, which means they spend a lot of time reading tea leaves. Moore, a green-eyed blonde who, like Palin, was once an Alaska beauty queen, albeit a few stripes more self-aware, drives her Subaru through downtown Anchorage, steering with one hand, holding a cigarette and her smartphone in the other. When Devon calls to tell her that Glenn Beck has booked the Dena’ina Center, the largest venue in Anchorage, for a speech on September 11, 2010, she sits bolt upright and yells. Immediately, they start trying to figure out what the news might mean. “Listen, listen, listen: Why in the world do you imagine Glenn Beck would come to Anchorage on 9/11? You think he might have a special guest? With a special announcement? Oh,” she says, her whole face falling as the implications of a Palin campaign kickoff hit her, “Jesus Christ.”

The best-known investigative reporter to insert himself into Alaska is Joe McGinniss, the author of The Selling of the President and Fatal Vision, who moved to Wasilla in May to spend the summer reporting for a book about Palin to be published next year by Random House. McGinniss rented the property next door to Palin, who, upon learning his identity, wrote a scathing Facebook post, accompanied by a snapshot of McGinniss standing outside on his deck: “Wonder what kind of material he’ll gather while overlooking Piper’s bedroom, my little garden, and the family’s swimming hole?”

Overnight, C4P, Glenn Beck, talk-radio hosts, and many other Palin allies rallied around. Within 24 hours, McGinniss had received 5,000 hostile e-mails. Death threats were investigated by the F.B.I. A local man who helped move some furniture into McGinniss’s house had one of his truck’s windows shot out. The author, with his disingenuous response to all this, did himself no favors. On the Today show, McGinniss absurdly claimed that he “didn’t expect any publicity at all” for moving in next door to Palin. On July 3, the first anniversary of Palin’s surprise resignation, I had dinner with McGinniss on the deck of his rented house. “I can’t even see her windows!” he said, gesturing across the way. Actually, from where I stood on the deck, even with the 14-foot-high fence the Palins put up the week McGinniss moved in, it was possible to see several of the Palins’ windows, a fair bit of the yard, and much of the lakefront edge of their property.

McGinniss told me his version of the story of the night Todd came over to ask who he was and what he was doing there. After a tense conversation, McGinniss says, Todd left, and Track Palin, Sarah and Todd’s older son, came out to the front yard “to do sit-ups” while holding what McGinniss assumes was a digital camera—which he figures Track used to take the picture that Sarah posted on Facebook. While McGinniss and I talked, there was no sign of life in the Palin house, and the only noise on the water came from squawking grebes—until about 8:30, when a floatplane roared in for a landing on Lake Lucille. It slowed to a stop directly in front of the Palins’ house, turned, crept closer to the shore, then idled for a long moment in front of us before taking off and heading back in the direction whence it came. The airplane was too far away for me to read the tail number, but it was a white Piper PA-18 Super Cub with red stripes: the same model and colors as Todd Palin’s airplane.

The Palins that night were in Todd’s hometown of Dillingham, about a two-hour flight southwest of Wasilla. If this was Todd’s plane, and if he was flying it, the choice to make the trip up here seemed odd. Given that this was the anniversary of Sarah’s resignation, it perhaps made sense that the Palins would want assurance that no curiosity seekers would trespass. But why make such a long flight, just for a quick look at the house? “Wouldn’t it be easier to hire a guard?,” I asked aloud. McGinniss, whose reporting has put him in the frame of mind of his subject—where everything is fungible, and everyone is suspect—replied, “A guard would have a story he could sell.”
City of Fear

You might be tempted to dismiss such a thought as the product of paranoid contagion—and it does seem at odds with the way Wasilla likes to present itself. Outsiders’ descriptions of the town (population 7,245) usually highlight the strip malls and the drug problems—which are real, but are less salient features of life here than the townspeople’s connection to the landscape, especially the majestic peaks of the Chugach Range to the southeast, visible from almost everywhere. The people of Wasilla, in the main, are reflexively generous and open. During coffee hour after worship at Church on the Rock, where a moose head is mounted over the sanctuary entrance, a member of the congregation invites me to join him for a three-day fishing trip a mere 15 minutes after we meet.

When I ask about Palin, though, a palpable unease creeps in. Some people clam up. Others whisper invitations to call later—but on this number, not that one, and not before this hour or after that one. So many people answer “Off the record?” to my initial questions that it almost seems the whole town has had media training. They certainly have issues with the press. Some tell of reporters who seduced them with promises—Don’t worry, I’ll make you look good—and then published stories that made them out to be hicks, stupid, less-than. “These were people we let into our house,” one Wasilla resident says. “We served them food.” But the real concern is with Palin herself—they don’t want her to find out they have talked with a reporter, because of a suspicion that bad things will happen to them if she does. The salty, seen-it-all bartender at one of the town’s best restaurants says, “I wish you luck—but I like my job.” Has Palin actually had people fired for talking about her?, I always ask, and the answer always comes, Remember that trooper? The reference is to Mike Wooten, a state policeman who fell out with the family after divorcing one of Sarah Palin’s sisters and ended up at the center of the scandal known as Troopergate. The Alaska Legislative Council found in 2008 that Palin “abused her power” as governor in attempting to get Trooper Wooten fired.

Even Palin’s strongest supporters say they feel confused by what their former governor has become. “She quit us,” says one Wasilla woman. “We elected her, and she left us,” says another. (“Sarah was my babysitter,” she later adds, as an indication of goodwill.) Yet they are too nice to turn me away, and they are too honest to completely suppress what they themselves feel unable to tell. After one local Republican delivers 90 minutes of uninterrupted praise for Palin, I ask whom else I should talk to, and the answer comes so fast it’s like a cry for help—which is how, the next day, I end up in the living room of Colleen Cottle, who is the matriarch of one of Wasilla’s oldest families, and who served on the city council when Palin was mayor. She says she and her husband, Rodney, will pay a price for speaking candidly about Palin. Their son is one of Todd Palin’s best friends. “But it is time for people to start telling the truth,” Colleen says. She describes the frustrations of trying to do city business with a mayor who “had no attention span—with Sarah it was always ‘What’s the flavor of the day?’ ”; who was unable to take part meaningfully in conversations about budgets because she “does not understand math or accounting—she only knows buzzwords, like ‘balanced budget’ ”; and who clocked out after four hours on most days, delegating her duties to an aide—“but he’ll never talk to you, because he has a state job and doesn’t want to lose it.” This type of conversation is repeated so often that Wasilla starts to feel like something from The Twilight Zone or a Shirley Jackson short story—a place populated entirely by abuse survivors.

To appreciate how alien Palin has become in Wasilla, how inscrutable to her own people, you have to wrap your mind around the fact that Sarah Palin is more famous than any other Alaskan, ever, and to remember that mass-media fame is a property of “outside.” It still does not quite seem real to most Alaskans that there are all these thousands of people in the Lower 48 turning out for … Sarah. It seems all the more unreal because Palin’s image as an engaging, down-to-earth small-town hockey mom was more or less accurate until two years ago. To be sure, some elements of that image were never true to life. “This whole hunter thing, for Sarah? That is the biggest fallacy,” says one longtime friend of the family. “That woman has never hunted. The picture of her with the caribou she says she shot? She got out of the R.V. to pose for a picture. She never helps with the fishing either. It’s all a joke.” The friend goes on to recall that when Greta Van Susteren came to the house to interview Palin “[Sarah] cooked moose chili and whatnot. Todd was calling everyone he knew the day before—‘Do you got any moose?’ Desperate.” In any event, her life is very different now: flying by private jet, driving a gleaming new Escalade ESV with tinted windows, and speaking to the whole world via a Fox News feed from her house until the network installs a TV studio on her property, where contractors are now also finishing a 6,000-square-foot stone-clad château that will contain an airplane hangar for Todd’s Piper Cub, two private apartments, and an office for Sarah.

Almost any small-town person who makes it big has some slight edge of ruthlessness, or an above-average ability to cut and run. The nickname “Sarah Barracuda” doesn’t come from nowhere, and Palin’s edge was always harder than most people’s. Her sense of entitlement, fueled by persistent feelings that she was underappreciated, came to full blossom in the heat of the 2008 race. In late October, when stories of Palin’s exorbitant campaign clothing budget surfaced, Todd Palin dismissed the criticism in an e-mail (subject line: “Cloths”) to several campaign aides: “How many fundraiser’s has she done for RNC, how much money has she raised and how much has voter registration increased for RNC since she was announced. So what if RNC purchase’s some cloths for her for the work she has done for the party.” Though the clothing issue has been discussed at length, internal campaign documents reveal new information that contradicts the account Palin has given. The shopping sprees continued through late October and were not, as previously claimed, mainly undertaken to clothe the family for the unexpected emergency of the Republican National Convention, in St. Paul. The number and range of items purchased for the entire Palin family—more than 400 in total—is mind-boggling. For Sarah, the campaign bought about 30 pairs of shoes, roughly $3,000 worth of underwear (including many Spanx girdles), a pair of Bose headphones costing more than $300, and even her incidentals and toiletries. Charging a campaign for underwear would appear to be unprecedented. A campaign e-mail shows that one of Sarah’s senior aides requested that an outfit be purchased for Bristol for her birthday, explicitly stating that the items should be charged “via the campaign.” Todd Palin received as much as $20,000 worth of clothing—a wardrobe that would last most men for many years, if not for life.

Even after the campaign was over, and Palin had returned to Wasilla, she continued to try to get what she could. In an e-mail, she wrote, “Remember the five black leather Flyers bags w sweatshirts and jerseys and Flyers propaganda in each bag? Anyone know where they ended up?” At the same time, she was scrambling to contain the damage to her image: “Absolutely amazing … now the negative coverage that is on our local news, all regarding these campaign clothes that are not even mine. Amazing. Where are all the campaign spokespersons on all this?”

During these post-campaign days, according to insiders, Palin’s temper veered wildly. It was as if something had snapped. Visitors to her house witnessed her in core meltdown. To one of her children, she cried, “We weren’t good enough for America. We’ll never be good enough for America.” Sometimes when she went out in public, people were unkind. Once, while shopping at Target, a man saw Palin and hollered, “Oh my God! It’s Tina Fey! I love Tina Fey!” When other shoppers started laughing, the governor parked her cart, walked out of the store, and drove away.

After starting her new career as a national figure, Palin disengaged from the community. When in Wasilla, she rarely leaves the house. At her favorite coffee shop, Mocha Moose, Palin has been seen only once in the past three months. On those occasions when she goes to Church on the Rock, she usually arrives late, leaves early, and sits in the back. For runs to Target, she waits until it’s almost closing time. She has never darkened the doorway of Wasilla’s one independent bookstore, Pandemonium Booksellers, which took part in her Going Rogue book signing at the Curtis D. Menard Memorial Sports Center. Sarah’s mother, Sally Heath, is a charter member of the Valley Republican Women’s Club, which sells a batch of Palin-family recipes for $5, but Palin has not been to any of their meetings since resigning as governor.

Her Wasilla social circle has narrowed practically to nothing. People who know Kristan Cole and Kris Perry, her closest local friends and advisers of longest standing, say that the relationships have deteriorated. Her former aides Meg Stapleton and Ivy Frye are said to have parted with Palin on bad terms. (None of the four responded to requests for comment.) Palin’s only employees in Alaska appear to be the staff of True North L’Attitudes, a small scheduling firm in Anchorage. Someone must give the family a hand with errands; the rumor around town is that the Palins have “a Mexican” who helps out, though nobody knows his name. Palin does lean on her parents. Chuck and Sally Heath, together with at least one of Palin’s church friends, handle the mountains of mail that arrive for Palin at the post office. When Piper and Willow are not traveling with their mother, they go to schools east of Wasilla, not far from where the Heaths live in a house that gives some idea of how Charles Addams might have imagined Old MacDonald’s farm. It is full of stuffed and mounted animals ranging from a tarantula to a mountain goat. The license plate on Chuck’s truck reads “EIEIO.” One person at Church on the Rock said that the girls frequently sleep overnight at their grandparents’ because the Heaths’ house, unlike the Palins’, is near their schools. When Trig joins Sarah on the road, Palin’s mother sometimes goes along to take care of the baby.

Every year on July 4, a parade marches through downtown Wasilla, ending at a city park, where the mayor throws a picnic. When I saw Chuck and Sally Heath marching in the parade, behind the campaign float for the current governor, Sean Parnell, I jumped from the curb to say hello. Chuck wouldn’t—couldn’t—talk about his daughter; the strict rule in the family now is no interviews, ever, without Sarah’s permission. After we had been walking for a while, he looked around and asked where Sally had gone. “Sally’s upset,” said the woman marching next to him, glaring at me, “because you are not following orders.”

In whatever remains of Palin’s inner circle, however, most people are following orders. Some details of the Palins’ private life, however, suggest a reality at odds with Sarah’s image. In speeches, Palin pays tribute to the man she still calls “the First Dude.” One of the strangest passages in Going Rogue concerns post-election rumors that the couple was considering a divorce. “That day in sunny Texas when the divorce rumors were rampant in the tabloids, I watched Todd, tanned and shirtless, take the baby from my arms and walk him back to the ranch house,” she writes, like a frontier Barbara Cartland. “Dang, I thought. Divorce Todd? Have you seen Todd?” Locally, much speculation surrounds the marriage. Some say Todd is henpecked, and others see him as the heavy. One person who has been a frequent houseguest of the Palins’ says that the couple began many mornings with screaming fights, a fusillade of curses: “ ‘**** you,’ ‘**** this,’ ‘You lazy piece of ****.’ ‘You’re ****in’ lucky to have me,’ Sarah would always say.” (This person never saw Todd and Sarah sleep in the same bed, and recalls that Todd would often joke, “I don’t know how she ever gets pregnant.”) Whatever the nature of the relationship, Todd is now as much a part of Sarah as Hillary Clinton is of Bill. Whether they like it or not, the Palins, like the Clintons, are probably stuck with each other.

There’s a general consensus in town that, at least since the start of the 2008 campaign, Todd has been shouldering the bulk of the parenting and that Sarah’s relationship with her children has grown more distant. The children did not, as Sarah has claimed, have a chance to weigh in on her decision to run for vice president. She did not even deliver the news to them personally; as has been reported, she asked McCain’s campaign manager, Steve Schmidt, to do it for her. Todd reportedly told Sarah that, if the children spent too much time on the campaign trail, they would pay a price: grades would tumble and discipline would fall apart. When she agreed to serve as McCain’s running mate, one of her children was already failing in school, according to campaign aides. But Sarah, these aides say, seemed comforted by having the children around, and she seemed lonely when they were gone. An aide overheard conversations between Sarah and Todd in which Sarah tried to make a self-serving argument sound selfless, holding that the campaign was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, one that she could not deny the children. “I don’t care what it costs,” she said. “I want them here.” Although the couple hired a nanny to help the children with their homework, little homework got done.

On the road, aides say, Sarah spared the rod. When one child refused to sign autographs unless she was provided with pink or purple Sharpies that had been custom-printed with her name, the staff tried to argue that black Sharpies—the only kind they had—would do just fine. But Sarah ordered them to do what the child said, and personalized pink and purple markers were produced. Another time, when one daughter wanted to have her hair and makeup done by Palin’s campaign stylists (the children’s grooming was not part of their job), Palin’s initial response seemed like an old-fashioned lesson in manners. According to an aide, Palin told the daughter that, since she was seeking a favor from the stylists, she should ask them nicely herself and see what they said. When the stylists apologetically told the girl they didn’t have time that day, Palin, incensed, sent the child back to give them a message: “Tell them they don’t have a choice. They have to do it.” And so they did. Despite railing at the press for invading her family’s privacy, Palin showed little ambivalence during the campaign about making some aspects of the childrens’ private lives public to serve her interests. Soon after her nomination, she brought up with McCain aides the subject of Bristol’s out-of-wedlock pregnancy by Levi Johnston: “Would it be good for the campaign if they got married before the election?” she asked, and went on to wonder whether one weekend or another would be more advantageous for media coverage.

Sometimes the children rebelled. A campaign aide remembers that one of the Palin children found her mother’s public displays of piety especially grating. Though Palin prayed and read the Bible every night, aides never saw the family join her for devotionals. “You’re just putting on a show. You’re so fake,” one of the children said when Palin made a point of praying in front of other people. “This is not who you are. Why are you pretending to be something you’re not?”

Managing the Palin family is an increasingly unwieldy business. Track was discharged from active duty in the army at the end of January and now reportedly lives at the Palin house. Bristol, who has said she works as a dermatologist’s assistant, also generates a healthy income from her celebrity and bought a $272,000 condominium in Anchorage. She enrolled in a certified-nursing-assistant program at a local technical school last year but quickly dropped out, according to one of her high-school classmates. In addition to TV appearances, including a guest spot on The View and playing a teen mom on an episode of The Secret Life of the American Teenager, she reportedly received $100,000 from In Touch magazine for rights to photographs of Tripp on his first birthday. The New York Post reported that she and Johnston received another $100,000 for giving the story of their re-engagement to Us Weekly.

A week prior to the engagement announcement, Johnston, who has been critical of Palin, told People magazine that, “against my better judgment, I publicly said things about the Palins that were not completely true. I have already privately apologized to Todd and Sarah. Since my statements were public, I owe it to the Palins to publicly apologize.” It was an odd pronouncement, never indicating which statements were not “completely true,” or where he had said them. (Johnston’s October 2009 article in Vanity Fair, “Me and Mrs. Palin,” was one possibility.) The negotiations that led to Johnston’s statement, like almost everything else about the family’s life, were more complex than may ever be fully known. According to a source close to Johnston, Levi met with Sarah Palin in June in hopes of burying the hatchet. Palin opened the meeting with two questions: “Are you recording this?” and “Are you wearing a wire?” When Johnston said he wasn’t, the source says, Palin told Johnston that burying the hatchet wasn’t good enough. He had to publicly recant his critical remarks about her. Asked whether this account is accurate, Johnston answered, through his attorney Rex Butler, “I do not want to respond to that… I don’t want to stir up that fight again.”

In a conference call involving Johnston, Butler, and representatives of the Palin family, Butler proposed that Johnston make a statement to the effect that “a maturing Levi has decided to reach out to the Palins and end an ongoing feud to bring the families together in the best interests of his son.” That formulation did not go far enough. Butler’s understanding is that Todd Palin wrote the statement that eventually was issued. Johnston, through his lawyer, now says, “I had nothing to do with putting that statement together.” Nor, in the end, did it secure the desired rapprochement. On the day the couple’s US Weekly cover hit newsstands, Bristol called the whole thing off, as she later explained in an interview with People. After that, an agreement for joint custody of Tripp, filed in Alaska Superior Court, forbade both Bristol and Levi to “speak badly about the other parent in front of the child… [or] allow anyone else to speak badly about the other parent or members of their family in front of the child.” A few days later, Johnston declined further comment on his relationship with the Palins, but suggested that the story is far from over. “If I am going to marry Bristol,” he said, again through his lawyer, “responding to that situation doesn’t help anything.”

Why are you pretending to be something you’re not? That is the question so many Alaskans have asked this year as they’ve watched Sarah Palin travel the nation. According to almost everyone who has ever known her, including those who have seen the darkest of her dark side, Sarah Palin has a great gift for making people feel good about themselves. Her knack for remembering names and faces and the details of her interactions with people—and for seeming to be present to the person in front of her—constitute an extraordinary power of engagement. Now she is using that power in a fundamentally different way. In part she is using it in the service of her own ambitions. But she is also planting the idea with audiences that they might not be good enough, by telling them she thinks they’re plenty good, no matter what anybody else may say. (“They talk down to us… They think that if we were just smart enough … ”) To some, the message sounds like an affirmation. But is it really? Or does it seed self-doubt and rancor among her partisans, and encourage them to see everyone else as malign?

Those who once felt close to Palin have followed her public transformation with a confused range of emotions. The common denominator is sadness. “People who loved Sarah Palin are disappointed,” said one woman in Wasilla, “because they found out that Sarah Palin loves Sarah Palin most of all.” I remembered that remark every time I drove past the Palins’ property. The entrance runs through a grove of birch trees, at least eight of which have NO TRESPASSING signs nailed to them. For all that, police have been called to the property only once in the past year, when someone at the house reported a Peeping Tom. The investigating officer found nothing.

The freshly paved driveway is blocked by a new, spiked gate, which, though forbidding, is ornamental and freestanding, and not connected to a fence. From a thin piece of wire looped over one of the gate’s central spikes hangs a large metal decoration. It is five-pointed and two feet high and wide. The North Star has long been seen as a symbol for Alaska—and for God. They can both move over now. It belongs to someone else.

Clarification: Lindsay Hayes, identified in this article as Sarah Palin’s speechwriter, left that position in April.
Attached Images
]]> cato2 http://www.trackpads.com/forum/point-counterpoint-politics/944089-sarah-palin-sound-fury.html The Governor of AZ http://www.trackpads.com/forum/point-counterpoint-politics/944083-governor-az.html Sat, 04 Sep 2010 13:35:10 GMT Well after watching the video, reading "analysis" from both sides, I have come to the conclusion that the ex-president known by many as just "W" realized he was not among the intellectual savvy, and therefore gently applied an education program for our youth.

The right wing nuts had a hey day with Hank Johnson and his tipping over of an island.

Now, I present you with the governor from AZ. Anybody here to defend her?
My conclusion after research is, "Papers Please"!

Quote:
PHOENIX — It will go down as one of the most painful openings to a political debate in recent memory.
Gov. Jan Brewer stumbled and stammered through her opening statement during a televised debate Wednesday night, suffering through an embarrassing, cringe-eliciting pause that lasted more than 10 seconds.
With her hands clasped in front of her, she looked at the camera, then down, possibly at notes, and back up at the camera. She smiled, let out a loud exhale, then resumed her statement with a pronouncement of her record as governor.
Do yourself the favor and click the video, there is not a journalist about that can apply spin and make-up to this travesty.


Arizona governor stumbles during debate - Politics - Decision 2010 - msnbc.com ]]> CoopMGI http://www.trackpads.com/forum/point-counterpoint-politics/944083-governor-az.html Mexican Immigrants: How Many Come? How Many Leave? http://www.trackpads.com/forum/point-counterpoint-politics/944024-mexican-immigrants-how-many-come-how-many-leave.html Fri, 03 Sep 2010 14:29:13 GMT *Mexican Immigrants: How Many Come? How Many... Mexican Immigrants: How Many Come? How Many Leave?

By Jeffrey Passel and D'Vera Cohn
Report Materials

Complete Report
Other Resources



Updated July 22, 2009 to include expanded Methodology Appendix
The flow of immigrants from Mexico to the United States has declined sharply since mid-decade, but there is no evidence of an increase during this period in the number of Mexican-born migrants returning home from the U.S., according to a new analysis by the Pew Hispanic Center of government data from both countries.

The Mexican-born population in the U.S., which had been growing earlier in the decade, was 11.5 million in early 2009. That figure is not significantly different from the 11.6 million Mexican immigrants in 2008 or the 11.2 million in 2007.

The current recession has had a harsh impact on employment of Latino immigrants, raising the question of whether an increased number of Mexican-born residents are choosing to return home. This new Hispanic Center analysis finds no support for that hypothesis in government data from the United States or Mexico.

Mexico is by far the leading country of origin for U.S. immigrants, accounting for a third (32%) of all foreign-born residents and two-thirds (66%) of Hispanic immigrants. The U.S. is the destination for nearly all people who leave Mexico, and about one-in-ten people born there currently lives in the U.S.
Patterns of migration between the U.S. and Mexico are varied. Many immigrants come from Mexico to settle permanently, but large numbers also move both ways across the U.S.-Mexico border throughout the year, sometimes staying for only a few months, a pattern known as circular migration. Mexican-U.S. migration also tends to be seasonal, with larger northbound flows in the spring and summer and larger southbound flows in the fall and winter.

This report examines whether the recent annual volume of movement between the U.S. and Mexico has gone up or down in either direction. It relies on major national population surveys from Mexico and the U.S., as well as on U.S. Border Patrol apprehension figures. No single source presents the full picture of migration flows between the two countries, but the three sources examined here point to similar conclusions.

Data from population surveys taken in the U.S. and Mexico indicate that in recent years there has been a large flow of migrants back to Mexico, but the size of the annual return flow appears to be stable since 2006. Mexico's National Survey of Employment and Occupation estimates that 433,000 Mexican migrants returned home from February 2008 to February 2009. For the same period in 2007-2008, 440,000 did, compared with an estimated 479,000 from February 2006 to February 2007.
As for immigration to the U.S. from Mexico, data from several sources attest to recent substantial decreases in the number of new arrivals.

The inflow began to diminish in mid-decade, and has continued to do so through early 2009, according to an analysis of the latest available population surveys from both countries. This finding is reinforced by data from the U.S. Border Patrol showing that apprehensions of Mexicans attempting to cross illegally into the United States decreased by a third between 2006 and 2008.

Quote:
The Pew Hispanic Center is a nonpartisan research organization that seeks to improve public understanding of the diverse Hispanic population in the United States and to chronicle Latinos' growing impact on the nation.It does not take positions on policy issues. The center is part of the Pew Research Center, a nonpartisan "fact tank" based in Washington, D.C., and it is funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts, a Philadelphia-based public charity. All of the Center’s reports are available at Pew Hispanic Center.

The full 27 page report can be found here.
http://pewhispanic.org/files/reports/112.pdf
 ]]> cato2 http://www.trackpads.com/forum/point-counterpoint-politics/944024-mexican-immigrants-how-many-come-how-many-leave.html Cutting veteran benefits is not the way to cut the deficit http://www.trackpads.com/forum/point-counterpoint-politics/944004-cutting-veteran-benefits-not-way-cut-deficit.html Fri, 03 Sep 2010 04:43:28 GMT Any resident Neo-Con care to explain this? Where... Any resident Neo-Con care to explain this? Where should we start cutting, and why?

Cutting veteran benefits is not the way to cut the deficit (Rep. John Hall)
By Rep. John Hall (D-N.Y.)

This week Mr. Simpson blamed disabled veterans for adding to our nation's budget deficit. His comments came just days after a Veterans Administration announcement that it is expanding eligibility for disability compensation to veterans suffering from three diseases associated with exposure to Agent Orange, correcting a long running injustice.

This is a change I have long advocated for and strongly applaud. But Mr. Simpson, a veteran and former chairman of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee said, 'The irony (is) that the veterans who saved this country are now, in a way, not helping us to save the country in this fiscal mess.'

I recognize the need to bring deficit spending under control but cutting funding for those that have helped to build and protect this nation and its ideals is unacceptable.

If he thinks the way to balance the budget is to cut health care benefits for disabled veterans whose diseases were caused by exposure to toxic chemical during service they were drafted into, then I call for President Obama to replace Mr. Simpson with someone better capable to serve him and the nation. ]]> cato2 http://www.trackpads.com/forum/point-counterpoint-politics/944004-cutting-veteran-benefits-not-way-cut-deficit.html <![CDATA[Obama's Iraqi Speech, Rewritten]]> http://www.trackpads.com/forum/point-counterpoint-politics/943950-obamas-iraqi-speech-rewritten.html Thu, 02 Sep 2010 17:45:46 GMT Obama's new speech on Iraq, as written by me. My future as a speechwriter starts here. I like to capture the true essence of the one's positions and personal beliefs in writing for others.

My Dear Americans, I have chosen this moment to declare the "combat mission" in Iraq is over. Our Troops will still be in harm's way and there will still be shots fired by and at them, but I made a campaign promise to "end the war" and have ALL Troops out within 16 months, without precondition. This speech is designed to claim my promise fulfilled, though I did nothing to achieve the current successes in Iraq, nor to overcome the challenges that persist there. In fact, the current Troop levels were not my doing either. I inherited that from President Bush, just as I did the decreased violence there.
As such, I will stick with my strong suit. I would like to apologize on behalf of myself, my party, and the partisan divide which opposed the Strategy that brought us the Sustained Success and allows us to reduce the number of sacrifices of Our Troops in Iraq. I would like to apologize for stirring up anti-Iraq and anti-Victory partisanship that divided Our Nation and nearly caused a defeat despite those sacrifices and Victories.
I would like to extend a special apology to General David Petraeus, who, despite my insolence, my resistance, and my profiting from personal attacks on him, refused to give up. I owe the General great respect, gratitude, and apology because despite my partisan inspired attacks, he maintains integrity to this Nation and a commitment to Victory. Bottom line is that he believes in these values sufficiently to take a demotion to achieve them when my butt was in a sling.
I would like to apologize to the Iraqi people, who are on the precipice of peace and democracy, but that my own stubborness prevents me from changing from my course. I have to admit I am at a loss for words on how to spin the current political logjam in Iraq into what I want to claim as a personal victory. I did after all say that Iraq needed a political solution and during my tenure it has fallen into political disarray. To speed that along, I sent the master of political gaffes to Baghdad, where he can claim that I didn't use the key phrase "turn the page," in my previous speech. I apologize because Biden is the best we can do to end the political impasse and we sent him at a time of our convenience rather than recognize the cultural significance that now is not the time. We hope that if we threaten them with either increased visits or a long term stay by him, they'll break down and form a government, just to get him out of Baghdad. Having to deal with him on a regular basis, I can tell you, this is a workable strategy.
I feel a special need to apologize to the Iraqi people, because Saddam was truly a sadistic tyrant and I know for a fact he had WMD, because I've suppressed reports that we're still finding them. We're leaving the destruction of those munitions to the Iraqis now. And the fact that all crime and terrorism in Iraq kills half of what Saddam averaged in every month, in Iraqi Civilians alone, of his reign is not my fault. I inherited that from Bush.
And I apologize to the Iraqi people because I opposed efforts to afford them the ability to change their government peacefully. I apologize to them because I thought they were too barbaric to consider a vote more effective than a bullet. I apologize because I refused to admit that Al-Qaeda and Iran were the ones killing unarmed civilians and will leave it up to the Iraqis to finish the job of rooting them out. I have ordered Our Military to label those blowing up unarmed civilians "criminal associates" so as to not implicate Iran and to require Our Troops to get a warrant from an Iraqi Judge before capturing Al-Qaeda operatives.
I apologize to the victims of "manmade disasters" here in the states, but I still refuse to label those that do it "terrorists" or recognize they are motivated by "islamism," even when they print business cards claiming it. On the other hand, I've charged Janet Napolitano with finding us some real terrorists and she is looking through every VFW for some far right wing loons sporting "Don't Tread on Me" flags, like those the Colonial Navy flew over the ships that won Our Independence. In the absence of such, one pro-Ground Zero Mosque group martyred one of their own in a cabbie attack gone bad. He was a "Veteran Journalist" of Afghanistan, and almost got away with the incitement.
Did I apologize to General Petraeus? Let me apologize again, because I will continue to encourage the enemy in Afghanistan by stubbornly insisting on a timeline for withdrawal, no matter how bad that will hurt his efforts to do what I've sent him to do. In fact, I have no plans to listen to him any more than I listened to the last two I fired. And I apologize to my party because I can't afford to fire him too, even though we all opposed him when he was winning in Iraq. I apologize to him because I expect him to do the same in Afghanistan, even though I said it wouldn't work when it was Iraq and will insist on him doing it with less than he needs to do so, even though I claimed on the campaign trail it would be my top priority.
But I would like to thank Our Troops, because while I will continue to make life hard for them, they continue to serve with Honor and Integrity. And because they have Honor and must obey orders, I will continue to use them as a backdrop when I can find an excuse, even if I have to say a speech is about something other than what I plan to emphasize. I do plan to order them to look interested and impressed with my words, because I've begun to notice they look like they want to be anywhere else, even Iraq or Afghanistan, than on the stage behind me.
To my detractors, who claim I don't know anything about the military, let me point out how wrong you are. I know they make great backdrops in their uniforms. I know they must obey orders, even my orders. I know I can silence them if they disagree. And I'm looking for a way to do the same with Veterans. Afterall, the oath they took doesn't have an expiration date, so neither should the UCMJ ban on them talking bad about me. If you don't believe me, ask McKiernan and McChrystal what happens when you fail to mimic my party line. And don't think that having voted for me is enough. McChrystal learned that one.
But let me also take a moment to tell you the real purpose of my speech tonight. As you know, I like to spend money, other people's money. I just learned that 7+ years in Iraq cost taxpayers less than my single "Economic Stimulus" bill, and we just can't afford to spend on such a slow, long term scale. Besides which, the pork project of the Stimulus rewards my supporters and they don't like competing for debt dollars with a people seeking stability and democracy. Spending a thousand dollars a student on an Afghan school doesn't buy me the support of the Teacher's Union. It takes Ten Thousand a student per year to get that kind of support. Let's face it, I don't get a lot of votes from those fighting our wars, even with my apologies. And I'm getting more votes from the planners of the Victory Tower and illegal immigrants, than I am from the Iraqi Interpreters President Bush allowed to come here legally.
For that reason, I've directed Secretary Gates to cut the long term procurement projects that would keep us from having to compete with the military technology of opposing Nations. I would say I have the full support of Rep Frank, but he is actually proposing even greater cuts than I feel politically comfortable proposing. If he can ram them through, I'll sign it, but the fight on the Hill to slash our military further in this time of "contingency operations" is his. For my part, I'll try more subtle means of changing our focus, such as insisting that DoD dollars be spent on stateside construction projects, suicide prevention campaigns far from military bases, green energy initiatives, and adding to the rolls of PTSD paychecks by making all eligible, even psychiatrists serving at Walter Reed. Some people actually still call it a war, but I'm looking for a way to silence them.
I should apologize to President Bush for questioning his integrity, his patriotism, and his decisiveness in deposing Saddam, as well as Charles Taylor, and the Taliban, while dealing with the "Tech Bubble," 9/11, and other issues he inherited from his predecessor, but if I apologize to him, it would be an admission I was wrong and I'd not be able to blame him for the rest of my actions. Sure, I should recognize that his actions caused Libya to give up their WMD program, without a fight, but that's not good for my campaign trail. And I should note that Iran behaved itself for a while, until I started my anti-Iraq rhetoric, because they reasonably thought they might be next, until I gave them hope that partisan politics was more important than National Interests in DC. Though I will claim Bush successes as my own, I will blame him for all the failures until the end of my life, and that is why I remodeled the oval office in time for this speech.
Having worked so hard reading this speech from the teleprompter in front of pictures of my family, it is time for me to take a vacation. As you know, Michelle was not with me for my birthday, but I haven't decided which, if any family members should go on the next one. I was thinking that perhaps it was time to catch up with Medea Benjamin, Blagovich, Rev Wright, and Bill Ayers, but I fear I need keep such things out of the public eye, until after November 2012. I hope they understand.

Obama Speech on Iraq, Rewritten - War On Terror News ]]> ptco911 http://www.trackpads.com/forum/point-counterpoint-politics/943950-obamas-iraqi-speech-rewritten.html Washington POLITICAL HOT TOPICS: Thursday, September 2, 2010 http://www.trackpads.com/forum/point-counterpoint-politics/943924-political-hot-topics-thursday-september-2-2010-a.html Thu, 02 Sep 2010 11:56:19 GMT POLITICAL HOT TOPICS: Thursday, September 2, 2010... POLITICAL HOT TOPICS: Thursday, September 2, 2010
Posted: September 2nd, 2010 04:28 AM ET

From CNN's Greg Clary
ALT TEXT

The CNN Washington Bureau’s morning speed read of the top stories making news from around the country and the world.

WASHINGTON/POLITICAL
For the latest political news: Political News, Analysis and Opinion from CNN.com

CNN: Israeli-Palestinian conflict takes center stage in Washington
Ahead of direct talks between Israel and the Palestinians on Thursday, President Barack Obama said Wednesday night that he was "hopeful - cautiously hopeful" that the talks could achieve a two-state solution to the long running Mideast conflict.

CNN: Egypt might host second round of Mideast peace talks
If this week's Mideast peace talks brokered by the Obama administration go well, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak is offering to host a second round of talks later this month in his country, according to two officials close to the talks.

CNN: Three-way race to become two-way contest in Florida
Bud Chiles is giving up his independent bid for Florida governor and will endorse the Democratic candidate in the race. Wednesday Chiles' campaign put out a statement "Lawton "Bud" Chiles will hold a news conference tomorrow with Alex Sink, the Democratic nominee for governor, to announce the end of his independent gubernatorial bid and to endorse Sink."

CQ Politics: Some Democrats See Competitive Opportunity in Alaska
With Sen. Lisa Murkowski conceding the Alaska GOP primary Tuesday night to lawyer Joe Miller, some Democrats now believe they have a chance to pick up a seat in a state no one thought could be in play in a cycle where Democrats are facing a significant loss of seats.

Anchorage Daily News: Murkowski defeat costs state seniority in US Senate
U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski's defeat in last week's Republican primary ends a 30-year-reign of Murkowskis in Alaska politics, and political experts say it will weaken Alaska's political clout in Washington, D.C.

CNN: Miller questions GOP 'courage and leadership'
A day after his opponent conceded the Republican primary for Senate in Alaska, Joe Miller took on both President Obama and the Republican political establishment Wednesday, warning that the nation is headed towards socialism and facing a dire fiscal crisis.

CNN: Clinton returns to Arkansas for Lincoln, Causey
Former President Bill Clinton heads back to his home state of Arkansas next week to campaign for two Democratic candidates. Clinton is scheduled to appear at events for incumbent Democratic Sen. Blanche Lincoln and congressional candidate Chad Causey on September 8.

San Jose Mecury: Boxer, Fiorina clash in hard-hitting debate
U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer and former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina clashed Wednesday night in a hard-hitting debate that highlighted their sharp ideological differences over a range of fiscal and social issues - from jobs and the environment to abortion and gun rights.

Arizona Republic: Brewer, Goddard spar over immigration, state budget
Republican Gov. Jan Brewer and Democratic challenger Terry Goddard attacked each other's views on the economy and illegal immigration during a televised debate Wednesday night that will likely be the gubernatorial candidates' only face-to-face matchup before the election.

Charleston Post and Courier: Graham, Tea Party square off
U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham began his meeting with the Charleston Tea Party by asking members of the news media to leave. “We had an understanding that this would be a private meeting," Graham, R-S.C., told the crowd of more than 100 people Wednesday night in North Charleston City Hall. To the departing media, he said, "You can see me outside."

Miami Herald: Candidates for Congress can't escape Cuba factor
The campaign websites and stump speeches of congressional hopefuls David Rivera and Joe Garcia don't mention the defining issue of their careers: Cuba.

NATIONAL
For the latest national news: CNN.com - Breaking News, U.S., World, Weather, Entertainment & Video News

CNN: Gunman at Discovery Channel HQ shot dead, hostages rescued
Three hostages were rescued from the headquarters of the Discovery Channel in Silver Spring, Maryland, Wednesday afternoon after police shot and killed the man who was holding them, officials said. The hostages were unharmed, said Police Chief J. Thomas Manger of the Montgomery County Police Department.

CNN: Earl, restrengthened to a Category 4, heads toward East Coast
Hurricane warnings and watches stretched from North Carolina to Delaware and covered parts of Massachusetts on Wednesday as forecasters upgraded Hurricane Earl to a Category 4 storm and warned it will be approaching the East Coast by late Thursday.

CNN: Federal agents visit Iowa farms that recalled eggs
Federal agents visited Hillandale Farms and Wright County Egg, which have recalled more than half a billion eggs in the wake of the salmonella outbreak, a U.S. Food and Drug Administration spokeswoman said Wednesday.

CNN: Number of illegal immigrants drops, study finds
The number of illegal immigrants living in the United States continues to decline from a peak in 2007, according to a report released Wednesday by the Pew Hispanic Center. The center estimated that in March 2009 - the most recent figures - there were 11.1 million unauthorized immigrants in the country, compared to 12 million in March 2007.

Los Angeles Times: BP shelled out big bucks for advertising
As BP oil spread across the Gulf of Mexico this summer, the company spent more than $93 million on advertisements to counter images of the mounting disaster. That was more than triple the amount the company spent on ads during the same period last year, from April through the end of July, leaders of the House Energy and Commerce Committee's spill investigation reported Wednesday.

INTERNATIONAL
For the latest international news: CNN.com International - Breaking, World, Business, Sports, Entertainment and Video News

CNN: This year's U.S. death toll in Afghanistan the highest
In only eight months, 2010 has become the deadliest year for U.S. troops in Afghanistan, according to a CNN count of Pentagon and NATO figures. At least 321 troops have died so far in 2010, the highest yearly toll since the conflict began nearly nine years ago. The previous high was last year's 313 American deaths.

CNN: Suicide bomb blasts rock Lahore; at least 28 dead
At least 28 people are dead and at least 218 others were wounded Wednesday after three blasts during a Shiite procession here, authorities in Pakistan said. Khalid Ranjha, a Lahore government official, said two of the dead are children and two others are women, and seven of those injured are in critical condition.

CNN: U.S. offers $5 million reward for Pakistani Taliban leaders
Hakimullah Mehsud, a key leader of the Pakistani Taliban, has been charged for his alleged involvement in the killings of seven U.S. citizens at an American military base in Afghanistan in 2009, the U.S. Justice Department announced Wednesday. A $5 million reward is being offered for information leading to the capture of Mehsud and another top Pakistani Taliban leader, Wali Ur Rehman, U.S. officials announced.

BBC: Chilean miners receive first hot meal in three weeks
Chilean miners trapped underground after a rock collapse have received their first hot meal in 26 days. Meatballs, chicken and rice were piped through a tube to the 33 miners, who are stuck 700m (2,300ft) below the surface.

Los Angeles Times: Mexico's crackdown on organized crime is working, Calderon says
Fresh off this week's capture of a notorious drug lord, Mexican President Felipe Calderon declared Wednesday that his sustained assault on organized crime and efforts to clean up the police were paying off.

Der Spiegel: Fighting to Survive in Sadr City
Iraq's poorest people live on trash heaps, sleep amongst the rats and drink polluted water. In the country with the world's third largest oil reserves, a million people live in misery, despite the fact that the US has spent $53 billion on the country's reconstruction efforts.

BUSINESS
For the latest business news: Business, financial, personal finance news - CNNMoney.com

CNN Money: September surprise: Stocks soar
The bulls are back on Wall Street. After a bearish August, stocks roared into September with a major rally Wednesday, as investors cheered signs of strength in the manufacturing sector.

Wall Street Journal: U.S. Car Sales Plunged in August
U.S. auto sales fell 21% in August compared to a very strong month a year ago, when the federal government's "cash for clunkers" program sparked a surge in new-car buying. General Motors Co., Toyota Motor Corp. and Honda Motor Co. all reported declines of 25% or more while Ford Motor Co. saw its sales drop 11%.

Detroit News: Old GM files liquidation plan
The estate of "old" General Motors Corp. has filed a plan to liquidate its remaining assets, aiming to win bankruptcy court approval by early next year. The plan would divide the remaining assets into four trusts, including an $836 million environmental cleanup program at 90 former GM sites in 14 states - 47 of them in 14 Michigan communities.

In Case You Missed It

The President announced that negotiations will begin Thursday in an effort to secure peace in the Middle East.
Video - Breaking News Videos from CNN.com

Alaska Sen. candidate Joe Miller tells CNN's John King that President Obama is "bad for America."
Video - Breaking News Videos from CNN.com

Subscribe to the CNN=Politics DAILY podcast at CNN.com - Podcasting

And now stay posted on the latest from the campaign trail by downloading the CNN=Politics SCREENSAVER at Show Pages - The Situation Room - CNN.com

Filed under: Political Hot Topics

CNN Political Ticker: All politics, all the time Blog Archive - POLITICAL HOT TOPICS: Thursday, September 2, 2010 ]]> Jacklou59 http://www.trackpads.com/forum/point-counterpoint-politics/943924-political-hot-topics-thursday-september-2-2010-a.html Arkansas Clinton returns to Arkansas for Lincoln, Causey http://www.trackpads.com/forum/point-counterpoint-politics/943923-clinton-returns-arkansas-lincoln-causey.html Thu, 02 Sep 2010 11:53:30 GMT September 1, 2010 Clinton returns to Arkansas... September 1, 2010
Clinton returns to Arkansas for Lincoln, Causey
Posted: September 1st, 2010 08:08 PM ET

From CNN's Charles Riley
Former President Bill Clinton will hit the campaign trail next week in Arkansas.
Former President Bill Clinton will hit the campaign trail next week in Arkansas.

Washington (CNN) – Former President Bill Clinton heads back to his home state of Arkansas next week to campaign for two Democratic candidates.

Clinton is scheduled to appear at events for incumbent Democratic Sen. Blanche Lincoln and congressional candidate Chad Causey on September 8.

Clinton backed both candidates in the Democratic primary, with the former president repeatedly hitting the trail for Lincoln as she fought to survive a tight Democratic primary process against the more liberal Lieutenant Gov. Bill Halter.

The Lincoln campaign billed its Clinton event as a "celebration in honor of her one-year anniversary as Senate Agriculture Chairman."

And Causey campaign spokesman Anders Reynolds told CNN that Clinton would appear on the congressional hopeful's behalf on the same day, at an event to be held in Little Rock.

Both Causey and Lincoln face tough challenges in the general election, with Lincoln squaring off against Republican candidate Rep. John Boozman in the Senate race, and Causey facing Republican Rick Crawford for the seat left open by the retirement of Rep. Marion Berry.

Filed under: 2010 • Arkansas • Bill Clinton • Blanche Lincoln

CNN Political Ticker: All politics, all the time Blog Archive - Clinton returns to Arkansas for Lincoln, Causey ]]> Jacklou59 http://www.trackpads.com/forum/point-counterpoint-politics/943923-clinton-returns-arkansas-lincoln-causey.html Washington Former Bush official says he is gay http://www.trackpads.com/forum/point-counterpoint-politics/943922-former-bush-official-says-he-gay.html Thu, 02 Sep 2010 11:49:36 GMT Former Bush official says he is gay Posted:... Former Bush official says he is gay
Posted: August 25th, 2010 06:47 PM ET

Former RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman has told The Atlantic he is gay.

(CNN) – Former chairman of the Republican National Committee and 2004 campaign manager for President Bush's re-election, Ken Mehlman, has told The Atlantic magazine he is gay.

The article published Wednesday by The Atlantic's politics editor Marc Ambinder quotes Mehlman extensively on his experience coming out to friends and family.

"The process has been something that's made me a happier and better person. It's something I wish I had done years ago," the article quotes Mehlman as saying.

Mehlman goes on to tell Ambinder that now that he is in private life wants to be an advocate for gay marriage. He said he realized his timing – waiting until he was outside the inner power circles of the Republican Party – may have hurt the very issues he now hopes to address.

"I wish I was where I am today 20 years ago. The process of not being able to say who I am in public life was very difficult. No one else knew this except me. My family didn't know. My friends didn't know. Anyone who watched me knew I was a guy who was clearly uncomfortable with the topic," Mehlman told the publication.

Mehlman's announcement is being welcomed in the gay community.

"Poll after poll shows the most powerful thing we can do to change hearts and minds about gay issues is to come out. I applaud Ken for having the courage to take this important step. I think everyone should remember that each of us has our own personal journey as it relates to coming to terms with our own sexuality and coming out," conservative gay organization GOProud's Christopher Barron told CNN.

- CNN's Evan Glass contributed to this report

Filed under: Ken Mehlman

CNN Political Ticker: All politics, all the time Blog Archive - Former Bush official says he is gay ]]> Jacklou59 http://www.trackpads.com/forum/point-counterpoint-politics/943922-former-bush-official-says-he-gay.html <![CDATA[US Government Critics say Obama's message becoming 'incoherent']]> http://www.trackpads.com/forum/point-counterpoint-politics/943920-critics-say-obamas-message-becoming-incoherent.html Thu, 02 Sep 2010 11:30:13 GMT Critics say Obama's message becoming 'incoherent'
By Ed Hornick, CNN
August 18, 2010 8:05 a.m. EDT

Washington (CNN) -- President Obama's comments on a plan to build an Islamic center in the shadow of ground zero are not only giving opponents an opportunity to attack him but also reveal a messaging problem from the White House, a communications expert said.

"The danger here is an incoherent presidency," said David Morey, vice chairman of the Core Strategy Group, who provided communications advice to Obama's 2008 campaign. "Simpler is better, and rising above these issues and leading by controlling the dialogue is what the presidency is all about. So I think that's the job they have to do more effectively as they have in the past [in the campaign]."

Obama has faced a torrent of criticism for what was called mixed messages on the controversial plan. On Friday, Obama said Muslims "have the same right to practice their religion as anyone else in this country ... That includes the right to build a place of worship and a community center on private property in Lower Manhattan, in accordance with local laws and ordinances."

The following day, Obama told Ed Henry, CNN's senior White House correspondent, that he was "not commenting on the wisdom" of the project, just the broader principle that the government should treat "everyone equal, regardless" of religion. Then a White House spokesman clarified those comments.

"There is no question they are having messaging problems at the White House," Morey said. "They've lost control of the dialogue, and they've gotten pulled down by the extremes on the left and right. They've just not had a coherent set of themes."
Video: Islamic center on the move?
Video: Obama mum on 'wisdom' of center
Video: Obama comments stir debate

Critics say Obama's message becoming 'incoherent' - CNN.com

New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd wrote in a recent column that Obama's clarity and successful messaging during the campaign are gone. In place is a "incoherent president," who's "with the banks, he's against the banks. He's leaving Afghanistan, he's staying in Afghanistan. He strains at being a populist, but his head is in the clouds."

But Obama has the ability to sharpen his messaging skills by being less of a law professor and more of a communicator in chief, Morey said.

"Communicating as a law professor does not work as president. It's not worked," he said. "You're drawing fine distinctions and speaking in long enough paragraphs that they can be misconstrued and taken out of context and frankly, handed to your opposition to exploit. And that's clearly what's going on here [with the Islamic center/mosque comments]."

While many poked fun at former President George W. Bush for mispronouncing words and stumbling through sentences, observers note that he rarely had to backtrack on his answers because he employed a simple and direct messaging approach.

But it's not just Obama who is seemingly off-message. White House press secretary Robert Gibbs' recent criticism of the "professional left" in a newspaper article highlighted, some noted, a growing rift between the administration and the Democratic Party base.

The candid remarks show a frustration coming from not only the White House's top spokesman, but the president himself, said Julie Mason, White House correspondent for The Washington Examiner newspaper.

"It was rare for Robert [Gibbs] to go on the record about this, but part of the reason why this electrified the White House press corps so much is because Robert and Obama are so close, that when Robert does speak out of school, it's like you're getting the unvarnished opinion of the president," she said Sunday on CNN's "Reliable Sources." "So that's why we were all geeked up about it last week."

Gibbs' criticism of the left wing and Obama's recent comments on the mosque may have the potential for harming Democrats as the midterm election approaches.

"Whenever you have an explosive issue like this come to the forefront, it really spreads out wide and far," said Mark Preston, CNN senior political editor. "House Democrats are very frustrated by this. ... They are saying to themselves, 'Why did the president bring this up? All that he is doing to us right now is forcing us to have to weigh in on this very thorny issue.' "

Nearly 70 percent of Americans oppose the mosque plan, according to a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll released last week. In terms of party affiliation, 54 percent of Democrats, 82 percent of Republicans and 70 percent of independents oppose the plan.

Preston said that at a time when Democrats are trying to localize the midterm election by talking about the things they've done back home, Republicans are trying to nationalize the recent religious debate.

"They are trying to bring the president into the debate. ... It only helps Republicans to continue to talk about this issue," he said

Critics say Obama's message becoming 'incoherent' - CNN.com ]]> Jacklou59 http://www.trackpads.com/forum/point-counterpoint-politics/943920-critics-say-obamas-message-becoming-incoherent.html Straight from the Wing Nut Left: The Manifesto of James Jay Lee http://www.trackpads.com/forum/point-counterpoint-politics/943908-straight-wing-nut-left-manifesto-james-jay-lee.html Thu, 02 Sep 2010 06:39:35 GMT *The Manifesto of James Jay Lee* ... The Manifesto of James Jay Lee





The Discovery Channel MUST broadcast to the world their commitment to save the planet and to do the following IMMEDIATELY:

1. The Discovery Channel and it's affiliate channels MUST have daily television programs at prime time slots based on Daniel Quinn's "My Ishmael" pages 207-212 where solutions to save the planet would be done in the same way as the Industrial Revolution was done, by people building on each other's inventive ideas. Focus must be given on how people can live WITHOUT giving birth to more filthy human children since those new additions continue pollution and are pollution. A game show format contest would be in order. Perhaps also forums of leading scientists who understand and agree with the Malthus-Darwin science and the problem of human overpopulation. Do both. Do all until something WORKS and the natural world starts improving and human civilization building STOPS and is reversed! MAKE IT INTERESTING SO PEOPLE WATCH AND APPLY SOLUTIONS!!!!

2. All programs on Discovery Health-TLC must stop encouraging the birth of any more parasitic human infants and the false heroics behind those actions. In those programs' places, programs encouraging human sterilization and infertility must be pushed. All former pro-birth programs must now push in the direction of stopping human birth, not encouraging it.

3. All programs promoting War and the technology behind those must cease. There is no sense in advertising weapons of mass-destruction anymore. Instead, talk about ways to disassemble civilization and concentrate the message in finding SOLUTIONS to solving global military mechanized conflict. Again, solutions solutions instead of just repeating the same old wars with newer weapons. Also, keep out the fraudulent peace movements. They are liars and fakes and had no real intention of ending the wars. ALL OF THEM ARE FAKE! On one hand, they claim they want the wars to end, on the other, they are demanding the human population increase. World War II had 2 Billion humans and after that war, the people decided that tripling the population would assure peace. WTF??? STUPIDITY! MORE HUMANS EQUALS MORE WAR!

4. Civilization must be exposed for the filth it is. That, and all its disgusting religious-cultural roots and greed. Broadcast this message until the pollution in the planet is reversed and the human population goes down! This is your obligation. If you think it isn't, then get hell off the planet! Breathe Oil! It is the moral obligation of everyone living otherwise what good are they??

5. Immigration: Programs must be developed to find solutions to stopping ALL immigration pollution and the anchor baby filth that follows that. Find solutions to stopping it. Call for people in the world to develop solutions to stop it completely and permanently. Find solutions FOR these countries so they stop sending their breeding populations to the US and the world to seek jobs and therefore breed more unwanted pollution babies. FIND SOLUTIONS FOR THEM TO STOP THEIR HUMAN GROWTH AND THE EXPORTATION OF THAT DISGUSTING FILTH! (The first world is feeding the population growth of the Third World and those human families are going to where the food is! They must stop procreating new humans looking for nonexistant jobs!)

6. Find solutions for Global Warming, Automotive pollution, International Trade, factory pollution, and the whole blasted human economy. Find ways so that people don't build more housing pollution which destroys the environment to make way for more human filth! Find solutions so that people stop breeding as well as stopping using Oil in order to REVERSE Global warming and the destruction of the planet!

7. Develop shows that mention the Malthusian sciences about how food production leads to the overpopulation of the Human race. Talk about Evolution. Talk about Malthus and Darwin until it sinks into the stupid people's brains until they get it!!

8. Saving the Planet means saving what's left of the non-human Wildlife by decreasing the Human population. That means stopping the human race from breeding any more disgusting human babies! You're the media, you can reach enough people. It's your resposibility because you reach so many minds!!!

9. Develop shows that will correct and dismantle the dangerous US world economy. Find solutions for their disasterous Ponzi-Casino economy before they take the world to another nuclear war.

10. Stop all shows glorifying human birthing on all your channels and on TLC. Stop Future Weapons shows or replace the dialogue condemning the people behind these developments so that the shows become exposes rather than advertisements of Arms sales and development!

11. You're also going to find solutions for unemployment and housing. All these unemployed people makes me think the US is headed toward more war.

Humans are the most destructive, filthy, pollutive creatures around and are wrecking what's left of the planet with their false morals and breeding culture.

For every human born, ACRES of wildlife forests must be turned into farmland in order to feed that new addition over the course of 60 to 100 YEARS of that new human's lifespan! THIS IS AT THE EXPENSE OF THE FOREST CREATURES!!!! All human procreation and farming must cease!

It is the responsiblity of everyone to preserve the planet they live on by not breeding any more children who will continue their filthy practices. Children represent FUTURE catastrophic pollution whereas their parents are current pollution. NO MORE BABIES! Population growth is a real crisis. Even one child born in the US will use 30 to a thousand times more resources than a Third World child. It's like a couple are having 30 babies even though it's just one! If the US goes in this direction maybe other countries will too!

Also, war must be halted. Not because it's morally wrong, but because of the catastrophic environmental damage modern weapons cause to other creatures. FIND SOLUTIONS JUST LIKE THE BOOK SAYS! Humans are supposed to be inventive. INVENT, DAMN YOU!!

The world needs TV shows that DEVELOP solutions to the problems that humans are causing, not stupify the people into destroying the world. Not encouraging them to breed more environmentally harmful humans.

Saving the environment and the remaning species diversity of the planet is now your mindset. Nothing is more important than saving them. The Lions, Tigers, Giraffes, Elephants, Froggies, Turtles, Apes, Raccoons, Beetles, Ants, Sharks, Bears, and, of course, the Squirrels.

The humans? The planet does not need humans.

You MUST KNOW the human population is behind all the pollution and problems in the world, and YET you encourage the exact opposite instead of discouraging human growth and procreation. Surely you MUST ALREADY KNOW this!

I want Discovery Communications to broadcast on their channels to the world their new program lineup and I want proof they are doing so. I want the new shows started by asking the public for inventive solution ideas to save the planet and the remaining wildlife on it.

These are the demands and sayings of Lee. ]]> cato2 http://www.trackpads.com/forum/point-counterpoint-politics/943908-straight-wing-nut-left-manifesto-james-jay-lee.html Report: Illegal Immigration Down After 20 Years http://www.trackpads.com/forum/point-counterpoint-politics/943904-report-illegal-immigration-down-after-20-years.html Thu, 02 Sep 2010 01:09:58 GMT *Report: Illegal Immigration Down After 20 Years*... Report: Illegal Immigration Down After 20 Years

WASHINGTON -- The number of illegal immigrants in the U.S. has decreased for the first time in 20 years, according to an independent research group.

The study by the Pew Hispanic Center found that fewer undocumented workers from Latin American countries, including Mexico, and elsewhere are crossing the border to search for jobs.

The analysis also suggested that these changes are caused by the U.S. economic recession and increased border enforcement.

This could also be due to the unemployment rate for illegal immigrants, which was 10.4 percent in March, 2009, higher than the average unemployment rate of U.S. citizens, according to the study.

Data by the U.S. Census Bureau showed the number of illegal immigrants in the U.S. peaking in 2007 at 12 million, and decreasing to 11.1 million in 2009, roughly 4 percent of the population.

This now puts the number of illegal immigrants in the U.S. around where it was in 2005, according to the study. ]]> cato2 http://www.trackpads.com/forum/point-counterpoint-politics/943904-report-illegal-immigration-down-after-20-years.html US Government Israeli-Palestinian conflict takes center stage in Washington http://www.trackpads.com/forum/point-counterpoint-politics/943894-israeli-palestinian-conflict-takes-center-stage-washington.html Wed, 01 Sep 2010 23:42:47 GMT Israeli-Palestinian conflict takes center stage... Israeli-Palestinian conflict takes center stage in Washington
From Ed Henry and Alan Silverleib, CNN
September 1, 2010 7:10 p.m. EDT

Washington (CNN) -- In advance of direct talks between Israel and the Palestinians on Thursday, President Barack Obama said Wednesday evening that "this moment of opportunity may not soon come again."

"The hard work is only beginning--neither success nor failure is inevitable," Obama said in remarks from the White House Rose Garden. "But this much we know: If we do not make the attempt, then failure is guaranteed."

With the U.S. war in Iraq drawing to a close, the Middle East moved front and center for administration officials Wednesday as President Barack Obama held a series of high-stakes meetings with Israeli and Arab leaders.

Obama huddled behind closed doors at the White House with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, Jordan's King Abdullah II and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

On Wednesday night, Obama called the talks "very productive."
Video: Key players in Mideast peace talks

Israeli-Palestinian conflict takes center stage in Washington - CNN.com

But he also pointed to challenges ahead. "We are under no illusions," he said. "Passions run deep... there's a reason that the two-state solution has eluded previous generations --- this is extraordinarily complex and extraordinarily difficult."

"But," he continued, "we know that the status quo is unsustainable."

Obama and Netanyahu met first on Wednesday, briefly addressing reporters to condemn, in Obama's words, the "senseless slaughter" of two men and two women Tuesday near the West Bank city of Hebron.

"Terrorists ... are purposely trying to undermine these talks," Obama said earlier Wednesday. "The message should go out (that this attack) is not going to stop" the United States from backing Israel and the peace process.

Later, after meeting with Abbas, he said that "we are making progress" in negotiations.

During his meetings with Abbas and King Abdullah, according to the White House, Obama was joined by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, National Security Advisor Gen. James Jones, and former Sen. George Mitchell, among others. Mitchell is Obama's special envoy for Middle East peace.

On Wednesday night, Obama will host a dinner for the leaders, along with Middle East Quartet Representative Tony Blair. The Quartet consists of the United States, Russia, the United Nations and the European Union.

At stake is a unique "window of opportunity" for a breakthrough in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict within the next year, according Mitchell. Talks have been stalled for a year and a half.

The hurdles, however, remain steep. One immediate threat is the looming September 26 expiration of Israel's 10-month freeze on settlement construction in the West Bank.

Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat indicated to CNN this week that if Israel does not extend the freeze, direct talks may quickly fall apart.

Netanyahu will have "closed the door in my face" if settlement construction resumes, Erakat said. Pressed on whether the Palestinian delegation would walk out of talks at that point, Erakat said that "we will not be able to go."

Netanyahu can have settlements or peace, but he can't have both, Erakat said.

Another roadblock to any comprehensive deal is the Palestinian view that any two-state solution must include a handover of all the land Israel captured in the 1967 war, along with East Jerusalem as the Palestinian capital. While Netanyahu has expressed openness about a Palestinian state, he has expressed strong opposition to a Palestinian takeover of East Jerusalem.

The issue of Hamas control of Gaza, Erakat noted, also remains a "major problem." While Gaza is generally considered to be part of any future Palestinian state, Hamas has refused to recognize Israel's right to exist and is not a part of the talks. Hamas leaders are frequently in conflict with the more moderate Abbas and his Fatah organization, which has the upper hand in the West Bank.

Mitchell, however, told reporters Tuesday that both Netanyahu and Abbas are noting polls showing fear of intensified conflict if negotiations fall apart.

This is "a moment in time within which there remains the possibility of achieving the two-state solution," Mitchell asserted. "The alternatives ... pose far greater difficulties and far greater problems in the future."

Several top officials close to the negotiations conceded to CNN that it is hard to be optimistic about a peace deal at the moment. They downplayed expectations, saying that nobody directly involved in the talks expects a deal to be reached this week. But simply resuming talks was a critical step, and a comprehensive Middle East peace deal has been one of Obama's top foreign policy goals, they said.

"The biggest breakthrough would be an agenda [emerging Thursday] for a second round of meetings soon to move forward," one top official actively engaged in the talks said.

Clinton is set to play the main role in the talks on Thursday, hosting a meeting at the State Department with Netanyahu and Abbas.

CNN's Hala Gorani and David Molko contributed to this report

Israeli-Palestinian conflict takes center stage in Washington - CNN.com ]]> Jacklou59 http://www.trackpads.com/forum/point-counterpoint-politics/943894-israeli-palestinian-conflict-takes-center-stage-washington.html