Former Gitmo Detainee Now Working for U.S.

By GottaLaff

Wait. What? A former Gitmo detainee is running around loose? Where there are homes he could break into, children he could kidnap, families he could terrorize?

For Americans haunted by reports of Gitmo detainees being released only to resume their terror tactics, [Taj] Mohammed offers the rare opposite of a one-time detainee who instead of hiding from the Americans or openly despising them, now works for them.

Oh come on. What could a former Gitmo prisoner possibly have to offer? What does he know that any American wouldn't? Right?

He now speaks English, Spanish, Arabic, Farsi, Urdu and Pashto.

Wrong.

Well, he must have been thrown in the clink for a reason. America would never, ever imprison someone for absolutely no reason. Like what they did to Fayiz al-Kandari (see below). That would be wrong.

"He never did anything to deserve the detention to which he was subjected," his lawyer Rashkind to ABC News in an email. "When I was appointed to represent him, after years of his detention, we demonstrated to the government that he was simply a goat herder. Shortly after, he was released without explanation."

Oh.

Okay, fine. But what could possibly qualify him for a job?

His village of 30 people is not far from an American base, so he attended a veterinarian clinic held by Agribusiness Development Team from California National Guard 40th ID.

Yeah, but how essential could he be to anything we'd be doing?

[Lt. Col. Max Velte] knew that Mohammed's live stock skills were essential for the work his Agribusiness Development Team, which is helping to improve the local economy by providing agricultural support, including free veterinarian clinics which offer vaccinations and medicine for farm animals. [...] Now, he works at U.S.-run clinics off the base several times a month.

Big deal. I bet he's really unpopular, cranky, and worthless.

Mohammed works as a translator when needed, and he is prized for his good humor, animal skills and understanding of American culture.

****

All my previous posts on this subject matter can be found here; That link includes one specific to only Fayiz al-Kandari's story here. Here are audio and video interviews with Lt. Col. Wingard, one by David Shuster, one by Ana Marie Cox, and more. My guest commentary at BuzzFlash is here.

Lt. Col. Barry Wingard is a military attorney who represents Fayiz Al-Kandari in the Military Commission process and in no way represents the opinions of his home state. When not on active duty, Colonel Wingard is a public defender in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

If you are inclined to help rectify these injustices: Twitterers, use the hashtag #FreeFayiz. We have organized a team to get these stories out. If you are interested in helping Fayiz out, e-mail me at The Political Carnival, address in sidebar to the right; or tweet me at @GottaLaff.

If you'd like to see other ways you can take action, go here and scroll down to the end of the article.

Then read Jane Mayer's book The Dark Side. You'll have a much greater understanding of why I post endlessly about this, and why I'm all over the CIA deception issues, too.

More of Fayiz's story here, at Answers.com.

The AP DESTROYS the Phony Climategate Scandal

By GottaLaff

Neener. Nanner. NeenernannerNeenernannerNeenernanner. And yes, I'm being immature and childish because I am sick to death of wingy memes monopolizing the media and accepted as truth:

This is significant because it sweeps away any quasi-legitimacy the Global Warming deniers have had in isolating or trumpeting certain doubts that individual scientists may have had.

The 1,073 e-mails examined by the AP show that scientists harbored private doubts, however slight and fleeting, even as they told the world they were certain about climate change. However, the exchanges don't undercut the vast body of evidence showing the world is warming because of man-made greenhouse gas emissions.

There is more fun over at Kos. Go visit, then dance in circles, point and laugh at the Deniers, and call everyone you know.

I will resume adulthood after I post this. So there. Pfft.

VIDEO: Ambushing O'Reilly's Ambush Guy

By GottaLaff


Here's a compilation of O'Reilly's ambush journalism.

I've said it before, I'll say it again... they can dish it out, but they sure can't take it:

You may not know Jesse Watters, but you likely know his work. He produces the ambush-interview segments for The O'Reilly Factor, in which he stalks some bête noire of Papa Bear, then rushes them asking hostile questions, in a theatrical effort to "get some answers" out of supposedly-stonewalling people who, in fact, weren't invited to appear on the show and answer questions in the first place.

So Gawker writer John Cook and some associates drove out to Long Island Saturday morning to ambush Watters in his driveway and asking him some questions about his own interviewing techniques.

His hurried departure leaves no doubt in our minds that his ambush tactics have nothing to do with the answers he claims to be seeking from O'Reilly's enemies and everything to do with the theater of humiliation that Fox News thrives on and the us-against-them "culture war" that his boss believes he is waging. If Watters honestly believed that people like [Amanda] Terkel and [Hendrik] Hertzberg have an obligation to answer for the things they do and say in the name of journalism, he would have recognized that obligation in himself

Enjoy (the last 40 seconds are the neener-nanner-worthy parts):

Sotomayor gets boost from two conservative judges

By GottaLaff

Judge Sotomayor wants to take our guns away! Lock up the stash! Hide the buckshot!

Wait. What's that I hear? Well, lookee here NRA and the half-cocked (pun intended) Rushpublic Party of Blockage: A 7th Circuit ruling backed Chicago gun restrictions, and gave a little boosteroony to the Sotomayor nomination in the process. Two conservative-- yes, two; yes, conservative-- judges ruled the way she did":

Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s best defense against firearms owners mobilizing to oppose her U.S. Supreme Court nomination may come from an unlikely source: two top conservatives on the federal bench.

Sotomayor was labeled “anti-gun” by Gun Owners of America for refusing to extend to the states the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2008 decision overturning a Washington, D.C., handgun ban. The group said a January ruling by a three-judge panel that included Sotomayor displayed “pure judicial arrogance” for declining to throw out a New York state weapons law.

Today, Richard Posner and Frank Easterbrook, appointed to the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago by President Ronald Reagan, took the same hands-off as Sotomayor.

Damn. Don'tcha hate when that happens?

They joined a 3-0 ruling that upheld weapons ordinances in Chicago and suburban Oak Park, Illinois, and rejected challenges by gun rights advocates.

Them judges better hightail it outta there. Before they know it a posse'll come a-gunnin' for 'em. (Pun intended)

“The Supreme Court has rebuffed requests to apply the Second Amendment to the states,” Easterbrook wrote for the three-judge court.

There goes that wacky Easterbrook. Doesn't he realize he was a Reagan appointee? Crazy, radical activist judge!

“It’s nice to have two leading conservative judges” for support, said Washington lawyer Patricia Millett, a Supreme Court specialist. It “will really take the steam” out of accusations Sotomayor, 54, is hostile to gun rights, she said.

Whaddya wanna bet the two conservative judges have that empathy thing going for 'em, too...

Florida Gov’t Cancels Tea Party Fearing ‘Too Many Attendees’

By GottaLaff

From the Department of Neener Nanner:

See, Big Government is infringing on all those Tea Parties, see, because they're so gosh-durned popular that they have to be shut down. The injustice! Whatever happened to free speech and freedom to spontaneously assemble?! Why... why... this is absotively unAmurkin!

[T]today in Cape Coral, Florida [...] city officials canceled a tax day tea party gathering because they “feel too many people could show-up.”

That’s right, folks, the God-given, long-held American right to assemble and protest the actions of our government has been canceled due to too much popularity of the protest.

And what does it come down to? Money. You see, the city officials want an insurance policy taken out so that organizers can cover any loss that might occur as a result of the rally. And those insurance policies cost hundreds of dollars.

The tea party organizers of Cape Coral, though, aren’t the only ones to find this restriction of their free speech and rights to assemble. Tea party organizers all across the country have begun to find out just how difficult, if not impossible, it is to be “allowed” to exercise their God-given right to speak their minds against government excess and criminality. City governments all across the country are charging fees for “permits,” forcing organizers to pay out huge sums for “insurance policies,” and binding tea party organizers in all sorts of government red tape.

In many instances, organizers are being told that they aren’t “allowed” to hold rallies on government property. Imagine that? We, the taxpayers of the city/state/federal government aren’t “allowed” to gather on property that our own taxes paid for.

Thinking back... hmmm. What does this remind me of? Oh yeah! This , this, this, and this.

And then there are the “permits” required to reserve the day, arrange the police protection, and clean up afterward. Often those “permits” can only be applied for at certain times a year, precluding any spontaneous assembly. Also, these “permits” can be denied with no reason stated quashing at birth any plan to exercise the right of assembly.

Welcome to our world.

Here one might wonder how it is that we so often see those lefties appearing on our TV sets engaging in their many organized protests? Don’t the flotsam and jetsam of the far left seem to have large protests all the time? One might be drawn to imagine that the government is involved in some sort of grand conspiracy to allow those with anti-American sentiment, the moonbats of the left, to march with impunity. But, hold the tinfoil hats, won’t you? Because the wackjobs of anti-war ilk and the shrill, circus acts of the Code Pinkos are expected to cut through the same red tape the tea party organizers have been confronted with. The lefties are just better at it.

Well, yeah. ::blushing:: There is that superiority factor. But, ahem, that aside, see previous links to a few little setbacks we've experienced.

Your new president is one of them. Being part of government, these leftie protest marchers help write the rules, being intimately associated with government they are quite well informed about what is required and how to get around or satisfy those rules. [...]

Americans do not have the rights they always thought they did. There is no right to protest government. There is no right to assemble. The people have no rights at all to voice their displeasure. Shut up people. Go home. Nothing to see here. Go quietly back to your IPods and DVDs. Big daddy government will take care of you. The Obemmessiah will decide what’s best for you. Don’t worry your little heads. Oh, and thank you for your payments on April 15th.

Oh, sorry. For a minute there, I thought they said Bushemessiah. Big Bush daddy government. My bad. That was so 2001-2008 ago, remember? We've got the bruises, scars, illegal search and seizure marks, and prison records to prove it.

Put away the tar and feathers, won’t you? There’s a nice fella.

Wow.

Oh, and what's that saying about the shoe and the other foot?

VIDEO: Α Δ Φ vs. Westboro Baptist Church-- a gay old time

By GottaLaff

A wonderful, edible, shiver-up-the-leg neener-nanner moment:



And the winner IS: Α Δ Φ/!!

75% of ex-Bush officials can't get hired

By GottaLaff

Gee, who wouldn't want to hire someone who was connected to known liars, frauds, and criminals?

While the market for job-seekers in the United States might be sour, for most it isn't as impenetrable as it is for the nearly 3,000 former members of the Bush administration.

Between 70-75 percent who are looking for full-time work still haven't found new jobs, according to a Saturday report by the Wall St. Journal.

"That 'is much, much worse' than when Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton left the White House," Carlos M. Gutierrez, who served as Bush's commerce secretary, told the paper. [...]

The think tanks "lack interest in hiring high-profile Republicans when Democrats control the White House and Congress," said the Journal. "Mr. Bush's low approval ratings at the end of his term don't help, said Leonard Pfeiffer IV, a Washington recruiter for nonprofits."

In that case, I'm sure that the former Bushies will more than appreciate, support, and take full advantage of, President Obama's tax cuts. In the meantime, maybe they can spend some of their spare time volunteering at homeless shelters before, say, enlisting in the military.

Dick Cheney in wheelchair for Inauguration

By GottaLaff

Photo via

Ed Henry just reported that the Nation of Dick pulled a back muscle while lifting moving boxes, and will be in a wheelchair for the Big Event.

Imagine how short and insignificant he'll look next to the very tall, very upright crowd around him. He'll be depending on someone to push him around, literally. Poor Little Dick. He'll be more impotent than ever.

Talk about going out with a whimper.

GOP Defeat in Tennessee; State House in "Absolute Chaos"

By GottaLaff

Schadenfreude, courtesy of DKos:

The Republicans -- who had just finally won control of the State House for the first time in 40+ years – were suppose to elect their Speaker of the House today. And failed!

Anaxamander has the details [...] The Tennessee State House has 50 Republicans and 49 Democrats. Well, Rep. Kent Williams (R-TN) got the support of all 49 Democrats plus his own vote to put himself in the Speaker’s chair. [...]

In the last election, a bunch of belligerent right-wing radicals tried to bully Rep. Williams (a moderate) into taking far-right stands -- going so far as to threaten boycotts on his family business, etc.

Well, Rep. Williams had had enough of bullies and blowhards destroying the Republican Party from within. And the Democrats knew it. So the Democrats approached Rep. Williams about being the new House Speaker.

Rep. Williams said, "yes," and history was made [...]

House Speaker Williams promises to select committee chairs based on ability and seniority -- mostly ability. He promises that at least half will be Republicans. But many will be Democrats. That's something no one saw that as a remote possibility just a few hours ago -- except maybe the engineers of this shocking political twist.

A lobbyist at Legislative Plaza is calling it "absolute chaos" up there right now.

The GOP was promising all sorts of abortion votes, 2nd amendment votes, anti-immigrant votes, anti-gay votes, etc. - your basic nightmare right-wing nutjobs run amuck scenario. Not so fast!!

Psyche!

Obama presser: Fox News Shut Out Again

By GottaLaff

Awww, couldn't happen to a more despicable bunch:

Fox News hasn't gotten a question in during President-elect Obama's five press conferences since the election, according to Fishbowl DC.

Today's questions were from Liz Sidoti (AP), Caren Bohan (Reuters), Jake Tapper (ABC News), Peter Baker (New York Times), John McCormick (Chicago Tribune) and Dean Reynolds (CBS News).

Obama Won McCain’s Home Precinct by 13 Points

By GottaLaff

From the With Friends Like These... Department:

John McCain may have won Arizona by nine points over Barack Obama, but he lost his home precinct. Election data from Maricopa County shows that the state’s very own presidential nominee lost to Obama by 13 points in McCain’s Colonnade precinct: 42 percent for McCain, 55 percent for Obama.

But we're not gloating. That would be rude. Especially when Obama is reaching out to Gramm-pa, meeting with him, and such. So I'll stop now.

Conservatives boycott Fox

By GottaLaff

"This thread would do really well at Daily Koz. They think this is a great idea. They even have the artwork ready…" Yes, that’s [Mark's] artwork posted by a Freeper.

Via our pal Mark at News Corpse, we find that Bloggers at Free Republic (aka Freepers) are leaving comments, and what comments they are! They're mad and they're not gonna take it any more. Wardrobe Barbie has been betrayed, and the Freepies are standin' up for their gal!

The treatment of Sarah Palin by Fox reporter Carl Cameron and others has incensed them to the point where they are vowing never to watch again. [...]

• I propose that we punish the FOX Network for its hatchet job on Sarah Palin. For one week beginning at 3:00 PM today no one tunes them in. We will demonstrate the power of conservatives when their ratings plummet dramatically. Will you join me? [FYI: their boycott will have no affect whatsoever on the ratings unless a significant number of them are Nielsen families]
• I’m done with Teevee. Let them all go to hell.
• I am with you all the way my friend…i hope FOX goes off the air…hate em now…
• It would be easy. Nearly every show on FNC is unwatchable these days. ….for quite a while, in fact.
• fauxNEWS - We Distort, You Comply
• too late………I wrote them off months ago
• GO TO EVERY RIGHTWING BLOG AND TELL THEM TO TURN OFF FOX.
• Tell him he’s no better than the “smear merchants” and “bombthrowers” he holds in such contempt. Allowing Carl Cameron to spew unmitigated hearsay and garbage without one shred of supporting evidence or fact makes O’Reilly just as bad as the supermarket tabloids.
• Life without FOX is good.
• It’s not a secret that 81% of Fox News reporters and employees donate money to the Democratic party - that’s a crazy high number for an allegedly conservative TV channel. It’s no secret to the gay community that Shepard Smith is “one” of them.
• FOX now SUX bigtime!
• Screw them too. I have watched very little since their recent maniacal swerve left.
• If FOX wants me back they will bring on Glenn Beck and Rush. I have had it with weasels like Hannity and O’Reilly.[Beck is on the way]

And looky here, kiddies! The Freepers have company!

The folks at RedState are weighing in as well with Operation Leper:

We’re tracking down all the people from the McCain campaign now whispering smears against Governor Palin to Carl Cameron and others [...] We intend to constantly remind the base about these people, monitor who they are working for, and, when 2012 rolls around, see which candidates hire them. Naturally then, you’ll see us go to war against those candidates.

This may become a new Democratic spectator sport. Maybe we should build a coliseum.

Right-Wing Attack Group Funder Goes Bankrupt

By GottaLaff

Schadenfreude. July 2008:

Sheldon Adelson, the 74-year-old casino billionaire who has become the third richest man in America and who has strong ties to the hard-line Likud Party in Israel, has emerged this year a major benefactor of the American right. Past evidence suggests that Adelson will capitalize on his ascent to the top of the Republican money elite to try to build opposition in America to any Middle East peace settlement calling for the division of Israel into two states, one Jewish, the other Palestinian. [...]

Here in the US, Adelson is the single largest source of cash for two 501(c)4s: the Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC) and a sister organization, Freedom's Watch, an Iraq War advocacy group largely run by top officials of RJC. Freedom's Watch intends to spend substantially more than $30 million for "independent" ads and phone banks designed to undermine support for Democrats. ...

On top of that, Adelson, according to the National Journal, has begun channeling cash and fundraising support to Vets for Freedom, which is expected to use the influx of money to finance what it claims will be a multimillion dollar "Four Months For Victory" ad campaign.

November 2008:

Las Vegas Sands Corp., billionaire Sheldon Adelson's casino company, fell the most in New York trading since going public after saying it may default on debt and face bankruptcy. [...]

The reversal of fortune is a black eye for the 75-year-old Adelson, who was once America's third-richest man on the strength of his Las Vegas Sands holdings. The Las Vegas-based company's dwindling cash flow is threatening $16 billion worth of developments in Macau, China, and Singapore, where Las Vegas Sands is building resorts to cater to wealthy Asian gamblers.

It feels so good to be on the winning side after so long.

H/t: Ellen

Arizona neck and neck

By GottaLaff

Via Ambinder, an e-mail forwarded from an Arizonan to Obama supporters:

I had to write you to share some news you may not have heard.

The Arizona Republic is now reporting that a series of new polls show us "neck and neck" with John McCain in Arizona. According to the Republic, Senator McCain is "struggling in his own backyard."

Arizona is his home state. He should have a comfortable lead with voters who've known him for nearly three decades. That says all you need to know about the strength of Barack's message and the grassroots movement we've built.

With Election Day just 5 days away, this surge of support for Barack couldn't come at a better time. But we have to act immediately to take advantage.

Sign up right now to join our grassroots effort. Help turn out voters any time between now and Election Day, November 4th.

In response to the news, John McCain is now blanketing Arizona -- his own home state -- with negative and misleading "robocalls" to voters.

It's a desperate move, but we need to respond and keep our momentum going. If enough of you take the time to get involved and do your part, we could pull a real upset.
The way to do that is to talk to Arizonans face to face, and let them know the importance of their vote in this election. But we've only got 5 days left to do it.

Supporters like you have put us within striking distance. Now it's time to pull off what no one expected.

Sign up and join in the final push to make history in this election:

http://az.barackobama.com/AZvol

We've got a real chance now, but we can't do this without you.

Thanks,

Jon

Jon Carson
National Field Director
Obama for America

Could this be why the media is pushing the "buyers' remorse" and "race tightening" headlines? Pshyeah! Without a close race, there would be excitement, no cliffhanger, no ratings.

It's all about the bottom line. And Gramm-pa's bottom is certainly on the line.

Court: Michigan must return purged names to voter rolls

By GottaLaff

Yes!

A federal appeals court has agreed with a lower court and ordered the state of Michigan to add the names of 5,500 voters back onto the voters rolls.

The names were purged when mail sent to the voters by local election officials was returned as undeliverable. Purging the names was permitted under Michigan law but violated the federal National Voter Registration Act which limits the circumstances under which a state may remove a voter from the rolls.

The appeals court explained that Michigan’s practice caused affected voters to “face wrongful disenfranchisement.”

Click here to read the appeals court's opinion

National Security Experts Agree: Biden Was Right; Enemies Likely To ‘Test’ Next President

By GottaLaff

Remember when Gramm-pa McCain made such a big deal out of Biden's statement (the same one Joe Lieberman made) that if Obama is elected, there will be “an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy”? Wow, that meant that Obama was a weakling who would entice crises right to our doorstep! What a gaffey gaffe that was!

Via Think Progress:

“I’m gonna test them,” Republican John McCain said at a campaign rally in New Mexico this morning. “They’re not gonna test me.”

Increasingly, national security experts are disavowing McCain’s comments. They agree that an international crisis confronting the next president is not a sign of weakness, but rather a very likely occurrence no matter if Obama or McCain wins:

– “I think the enemy could well take advantage” of the transfer of power in Washington, said the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Michael Mullen, who launched preparations for the transition months ago

– Veteran Pentagon consultant Michael Bayer, chairman of the Defense Business Board, told his fellow panelists that the new president’s inner circle should “set aside time in transition to identify the planning, gravitas and interagency process necessary to respond to a likely first-270-day crisis.”

– Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff says the federal government is monitoring “dozens” of potential terrorists in the U.S. … Chertoff says there is a risk that some would see opportunity during the transition between administrations.

– In its Administration Transition Task Force Report issued early this year, DHS’s Homeland Security Advisory Council placed the peak threat period from 30 days prior to the change in administrations, to six months after.

[...] As all these experts pointed out, preventing such an attack from being catastrophic requires extensive planning and preparation. So far, McCain has dismissed talk of transition planning, and it doesn’t appear that he has prepared anything except tough rhetoric.

Gramm-pa might do well to just stop talking until November 5th.

Court ruling: Thousands of flagged voters can vote in Georgia

By GottaLaff

Great news! My favorite kind of story. Georgia Secretary of State Karen Handel is a Republican and is not happy. Tsk, tsk, tsk:

Georgia must allow thousands of people whose citizenship was questioned by the state's new voter verification system to vote in the upcoming election, a panel of federal judges ruled Monday.

The court ruling will affect about 4,500 people in Georgia who had been "flagged" by the new voter verification system and faced being denied a chance to vote Nov. 4 because their citizenship was questioned.

It could also affect more than 50,000 other registered Georgia voters also flagged by the new system because of mismatches in their personal identification information, such as discrepancies in addresses. [...]

The issue was raised in a lawsuit filed on behalf of a Georgia college student who claimed that the secretary of state's voter verification system violated the Voting Rights Act and the National Voter Registration Act and caused an illegal purge of voters in the weeks before the election.

Federal law prohibits widespread voter purges within 90 days of the election. In Georgia, that has become a heated issue with some calling the purge "voter suppression."

Handel, a Republican who began working on purging voter rolls from the time of her election in 2006, said the act of verifying voters is not voter suppression.

I hope there are more happy endings like this one. So far, we've done well with these court cases. Too bad Bush is sticking his nose into one of them... Ohio no less. Big surprise.

Say Buh-Bye to Idiotic Republican Obama Birth Certificate Lawsuit

By GottaLaff

Via Oliver Willis. From the Dep't. of Neener Nanner:

A federal judge in Philadelphia last night threw out a complaint by a Montgomery County lawyer who claimed that Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama was not qualified to be president and that his name should be removed from the Nov. 4 ballot.

Philip J. Berg alleged in a complaint filed in federal district court on Aug. 21 against Obama, the Democratic National Committee and the Federal Election Commission, that Obama was born in Mombasa, Kenya.

Berg claimed that the Democratic presidential standardbearer is not even an American citizen but a citizen of Indonesia and therefore ineligible to be president.

He alleged that if Obama was permitted to run for president and subsequently found to be ineligible, he and other voters would be disenfranchised.

U.S. District Judge R. Barclay Surrick had denied Berg’s request for a temporary restraining order on Aug. 22 but had not ruled on the merits of the suit until yesterday. [...]

In a 34-page memorandum and opinion, the judge said Berg’s allegations of harm were “too vague and too attenuated” to confer standing on him or any other voters.

Surrick ruled that Berg’s attempts to use certain laws to gain standing to pursue his claim that Obama was not a natural-born citizen were “frivolous and not worthy of discussion.”

The judge also said the harm Berg alleged did “not constitute an injury in fact” and Berg’s arguments to the contrary “ventured into the unreasonable.”

To all the Commenters who have been asking about it, that should finally put the matter to rest.

H/t: Chris

Republicans Disgusted By $150,000 IWRC* Palin spree

By GottaLaff

Pantsuits and blouses and heels, oh my!

"With all of the important issues facing the country right now, it's remarkable that we're spending time talking about pantsuits and blouses. It was always the intent that the clothing go to a charitable purpose after the campaign." --McCain-Palin spokesperson Tracey Schmitt on this Politico story.

There is already an attempt to blame the media -- as in, the liberal media would have looked askance at Palin if she wasn't clad in Neiman Marcus, but this won't wash. Republicans, RNC donors and at least one RNC staff member have e-mailed me tonight to share their utter (and not-for-attribution) disgust at the expenditures.

This sort of spending is without precedent -- the closest approximation for any campaign I've ever covered is make-up expenses for television interviews and commercial shoots -- , and Schmitt's weakly defensive response tonight indicates that the campaign is deeply embarrassed by it and has nothing to say in their defense. Spokespeople have clammed up, a sure sign that they're trying to figure out who authorized the expenses and who knew about them. Did Palin wear all of the clothing? Where is it kept?

[T]he heat for this story will come from Republicans who cannot understand how their party would do something this stupid ... particularly (and, it must be said, viewed retroactively) during the collapse of the financial system and the probable beginning of a recession.

Ambinder said it so well, all that there is left to do is nod in agreement.

UPDATE (via Kerry), IWRC's newest accessory supports the wrong party:

H/t: Bucky

*"In What Respect, Charlie?"

Alaska Supreme Court won't halt Palin probe

By GottaLaff

Things are popping all over the place today. And this is one of the best poppers... or should I call it, "snappers":

An investigation into Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's firing of her public safety commissioner can proceed, Alaska's Supreme Court ruled Thursday, clearing the way for a Friday report to the state Legislature on the issue.

The justices rejected an effort to halt the probe by the Republican vice presidential nominee's allies in the Legislature, who called the investigation an attempt by partisan Democrats to sabotage the GOP ticket.

The justices unanimously upheld an Anchorage judge's ruling last week that dismissed the Republican lawsuit and upheld subpoenas for top Palin allies.

Read it and weep, IWRC* Palin.

*"In What Respect, Charlie?"

UPDATE, via Mudflats:

This is one hurdle overcome, but remember, the Legislative Council still needs to vote to release the results of the report to the public. So if you’re emailing those Legislators, keep it coming. Visit Alaskans for Truth for details and emails.