Top 10 Secrets Revealed In Plouffe's 'Audacity To Win'

By GottaLaff

TPM goes into detail about David Plouffe's The Audacity to Win and 10 of its revelations. I'll just entice you with the headlines. Go here to read the rest:

• Plouffe and David Axelrod "got into a heated shouting match"
• Plouffe never planned to stay through the general election
• During the whole "suspend the campaign, fly back to Washington" scuffle between Sen. John McCain and Obama, there was a convo with then-President George W. Bush
• Joe Biden as choice for vice president announcement via text messages to supporters went wrong
• Bayh wasn't sure he could deliver Indiana
• Initial battleground state list was bigger
• Obama really didn't recall Wright's controversial sermons + bonus Obama's consideration of "ending candidacy" tidbit
  
• Jaw-dropping fundraising numbers, and Palin was one of the reasons
• Attacks on McCain's proprosal to tax health care was too dramatic for Obama
  
• Wasn't crazy about the slogan "Change We Can Believe In"

Now that you know the Top 10, go read the details. They're fascinating.

The more I know about Team Obama, the more impressed I am, especially after having seen HBO's documentary "By the People", which I highly recommend.

Solving the Last Riddle of Watergate

By GottaLaff

I'm going to reveal a deep, dark secret I've kept for years. Right here on TPC, yes, I shall tell you all something I've never told anyone... ever. However, for security reasons, I'm going to delete the last 18 1/2---

Sometime during the Watergate scandal, 18 1/2 minutes of a taped conversation between President Nixon and his chief of staff, Bob Haldeman, were suspiciously erased, becoming "one of the great political mysteries of the 20th century."

Mother Jones says Haldeman took "meticulous notes on a tablet of yellow lined paper with a ballpoint pen" and now a one time NSA analyst says he may be able to resurrect Haldeman's notes "via a CSI-ish technology that can extract information from the imprints made by a ballpoint pen."

Ooo, what's Lindsey Graham hiding?

By GottaLaff

Gee, anyone wanna take a wild guess?

"I've got plenty of sins that I'm not going to share with anyone else."

-- Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), quoted by Politico, when asked to comment on Sen. John Ensign's (R-NV) admission of an affair with a staffer.

Apollo Astronaut Makes Case For UFOs

The hearing is live here.

Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell believes the U. S. government is withholding information regarding the truth about the unidentified flying objects and extra-terrestrial life, and he's making his case at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., on Monday morning.

Sarah Palin's secret pregnancy

By GottaLaff

Am I the only one who didn't know that Publicize-Me Palin kept her pregnancy a secret?

Sarah Palin's 'Secret' Pregnancy – & How Family Found Out

A new biography of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin reveals that her secret pregnancy with son Trig was nearly uncovered when one of her daughters discovered Trig's prenatal ultrasound scan and confronted Palin with the picture.

"Sarah made one slip-up – but [she] dampened suspicion by explaining it away," reports Trailblazer: An Intimate Biography of Sarah Palin, by PEOPLE Assistant Editor Lorenzo Benet and being published Tuesday by Simon & Schuster's Threshold Editions.

Why would she hide a pregnancy, especially from her own family?

That aside, isn't it just swell to see that Publicize-Me has yet another excuse to get back into the limelight?

US military conducts a dozen secret strikes in four years: report

By GottaLaff

Believe it or not, Iran was not one of the countries that was targeted:

US special forces have conducted about a dozen secret operations against Al-Qaeda and other Islamic militants in Pakistan, Syria and other countries under broad war-waging authority given them by the administration of President George W. Bush, The New York Times reported on its website.

Citing unnamed senior US officials, the newspaper said the authority was contained in a classified order signed by then-defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld in early 2004 with the approval of President Bush.

The order gave the military permission to attack Al-Qaeda and other hostile targets anywhere in the world, even in countries not at war with the United States, without any additional approval, the report said.

Now they tell us. Okay, so they didn't zap Iran. But...

The paper said, however, that US forces had carried out reconnaissance missions in Iran using other classified directives.

About a dozen additional operations have been canceled in the past four years because they were deemed too risky, too diplomatically explosive or relied on insufficient evidence, the paper said.

Before the 2004 order, the Pentagon needed to get approval for missions on a case-by-case basis, which could take days, the paper recalled.

But Rumsfeld was not satisfied with the status-quo and pressed hard for permission to use military power automatically outside the combat zones of Iraq and Afghanistan, according to The Times.

That Rummy. What a funster, always keeping us on our toes. If only we had known, right? Because, you know, "there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns -- the ones we don't know we don't know."

Judge: Palin must preserve e-mails on private accounts

By GottaLaff

I posted this earlier. Here's the ruling:

Andree McLeod just stopped by the Legislative offices, after the hearing this morning on her lawsuit against Gov. Sarah Palin and the state.

Looks like McLeod won at least parts of what she’s asking for – to force the governor to retrieve or preserve any e-mails she’s written on private accounts that deal with government business.

She carried a copy of the order signed by Superior Court Judge Craig Stowers.

“Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and the office of the governor of Alaska … are ordered to preserve all e-mails (including attachments thereto) sent between December 4, 2006, and the resolution of this litigation…”

But the judge didn’t approve another of McLeod’s requests, which would have forced Palin to stop using private accounts to talk about state business.

Now if only Bush/Cheney would produce their e-mails. You know, the ones that they haven't deleted yet.

Bush III, Cheney II.

Lawsuit over IWRC* Palin's e-mails gets under way today

By GottaLaff

That wacky, screechy, hockey puck IWRC* Palin is sure-as-shootin'-busy these days:

A lawsuit aimed at forcing Gov. Sarah Palin to preserve any private e-mails she wrote involving state business hits the courtroom today.

Former state employee Andree McLeod filed the suit a week ago. The goal, she said, is to make Palin retrieve e-mails from her private accounts that involve state business and make them part of the state's public records.

McLeod has filed a records request for the e-mails and other records. The lawsuit also calls on Palin to stop using private accounts for state business, she said.

Palin spokeswoman Sharon Leighow said Thursday she can't comment on pending litigation.

A hearing is scheduled for 10 a.m. today in Anchorage Superior Court.

Bush III, Cheney II: Super duper ultra mega top secret e-mails. Meanwhile...

I hope she can keep up. I'd hate to see her break a heel:

The Alaska Supreme Court has cleared for possible release to the public today the Legislature's highly anticipated investigative report on whether Gov. Sarah Palin abused her power.

I'm sure I'll be at work when the news breaks on that one. Phooey. I miss all the fun.

*"In What Respect, Charlie?"

Bush---er, Palin--- wants complete secrecy in TrooperGate probe

By GottaLaff

Bush III/Cheney II/IWRC* Palin:

Of the two Alaska investigations into abuse-of-power allegations against Sarah Palin, the governor has chosen to cooperate with just one: the one that guarantees secrecy.

Sidebar: Here is a brief recap of who is investigating, the second being who IWRC favors:

Bipartisan, unanimously endorsed, Palin-sanctioned investigation by the Alaska State Legislature

vs.

Republican, 3-member board, governor appointed, working directly for Palin, McCain sanctioned investigation.

Continuing:

But that investigation, unlike the more public legislative one, would require the investigation to be conducted in complete confidentiality. Under Alaska law, those who are part of such an investigation are unable to acknowledge even its existence until the Personnel Board decides there's enough evidence to hold a hearing.

If the complaint is dismissed, the probe and all the information related to it remains confidential.

Palin can waive confidentiality. The McCain campaign -- which is fielding all questions about Troopergate on the Palins' behalf -- on Tuesday said the governor originally did so but that the investigator, Anchorage attorney Timothy Petumenos, requested she not speak publicly.

McCain spokesman Ed O'Callaghan later acknowledged that the state's confidentiality laws still apply.

Alaska law also allows a Personnel Board investigation to last for up to two years. It's unknown how long Petumenos will need. [...]

Also, Palin might be able to have the complaint dismissed simply by refusing to cooperate. State law says that if the person who filed a complaint is unwilling to assist in the investigation, that can justify the probe's termination.

O'Callaghan said he did not know whether that interpretation of the law was correct, but Palin intended to cooperate fully with the Personnel Board investigation.

An e-mail request for comment to the three members of the state Personnel Board was not answered on Tuesday.

To me, this is like a someone busted for drugs cooperating with his dealer.

*"In What Respect, Charlie?"

Sydney Schanberg Writes Massive Piece on John McCain Hiding 'POW Secrets'

By GottaLaff

Look what's coming to a Nation near you (apologies ahead of time for the length of the post):

Sydney H. Schanberg, the longtime New York Times reporter and editor and Newsday columnist -- and author of "The Killing Fields" -- has written a 9000-word investigative piece on John McCain and his longstanding efforts to, as Schanberg asserts in his lede, "hide from the public stunning information about the live Vietnam prisoners who, unlike him, didn't return home."

Part of the piece has just gone up at The Nation web site (www.thenation.com) and will appear in its Oct. 6 issue. A full version, with graphics, appears at The Nation Institute site. [...] Now Schanberg criticizes the press for allowing this whole subject to be swept under the rug for so long.

The new piece details the evidence that hundreds may have been left behind, along with McCain promoting federal prohibitions that keep key evidence classified. Schanberg also reveals that he received a personal briefing in 1992 from high-level CIA officials who said intelligence suggested that many men were not freed -- and later executed. He raises several questions about why McCain has acted the way he has but, in any case, strongly believes that McCain owes the voter "some explanations." He also urges reporters to "dig into" the archives and complete "the historical record."

The Nation:

Thus the war hero people would logically imagine to be a determined crusader for the interests of POWs and their families became instead the strange champion of hiding the evidence and closing the books. [...] McCain doesn't talk about the missing men, and the press never asks him about them. [...]

This imposing body of evidence suggests that a large number--probably hundreds--of the US prisoners held in Vietnam were not returned when the peace treaty was signed in January 1973 and Hanoi released 591 men, among them Navy combat pilot John S. McCain. [...]

Two defense secretaries who served during the Vietnam War testified to the Senate POW committee in September 1992 that prisoners were not returned. [...T]hey based their conclusions on strong intelligence data--letters, eyewitness reports, even direct radio contacts. Under questioning, Schlesinger chose his words carefully, understanding clearly the volatility of the issue: "I think that as of now that I can come to no other conclusion...some were left behind."

It goes on in some detail. More eye-popping excerpts:

McCain, whose POW status made him the committee's most powerful member, attended that hearing specifically to confront Alfond because of her criticism of the panel's work. He bellowed and berated her for quite a while. His face turning anger-pink, he accused her of "denigrating" his "patriotism." The bullying had its effect--she began to cry.

After a pause Alfond recovered and tried to respond to his scorching tirade, but McCain simply turned and stormed out of the room. The PAVE SPIKE file has never been declassified. We still don't know anything about those 20 POWs. [...]

McCain has insisted again and again that all the evidence has been woven together by unscrupulous deceivers to create an insidious and unpatriotic myth. He calls it the work of the "bizarre rantings of the MIA hobbyists." He has regularly vilified those who keep trying to pry out classified documents as "hoaxers," "charlatans," "conspiracy theorists" and "dime-store Rambos." Family members who have personally pressed McCain to end the secrecy have been treated to his legendary temper. In 1996 he roughly pushed aside a group of POW family members who had waited outside a hearing room to appeal to him, including a mother in a wheelchair.[...]

It's not clear whether the taped confession McCain gave to his captors to avoid further torture has played a role in his postwar behavior. That confession was played endlessly over the prison loudspeaker system at Hoa Lo--to try to break down other prisoners--and was broadcast over Hanoi's state radio. Reportedly, he confessed to being a war criminal who had bombed a school and other civilian targets. The Pentagon has copies of the confessions but will not release them. Also, no outsider I know of has ever seen a nonredacted copy of McCain's debriefing when he returned from captivity, which is classified but can be made public by McCain. [...]

But even without answers to what may be hidden in the recesses of someone's mind, one thing about the POW story is clear: if American prisoners were dishonored by being written off and left to die, that's something the American public ought to know about.

This guy has so many secrets and is unscrupulous in so many ways, it makes one's head spin. Yet he's being portrayed as a war hero and fawned over endlessly. His military service should not make him immune to questions, and we should not be deprived of honest answers, if that's even possible.

Palin won't meet with 'Troopergate' investigator

By GottaLaff

Why should she? Bush III, Cheney II:

A campaign spokesman says Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin won't speak with an investigator hired by lawmakers to look into the firing of her public safety commissioner.

McCain campaign spokesman Ed O'Callaghan told a news conference Monday that the governor, the Republican nominee for vice president, will not cooperate as long as the investigation "remains tainted." He said he doesn't know whether Palin's husband would challenge a subpoena issued to compel his cooperation.

The campaign insists the investigation has been hijacked by Democrats. It says it can prove Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan was fired because of insubordination on budget issues — not because he refused to fire a state trooper who had divorced Palin's sister.

More of the same: Secrecy, antagonism, obstruction, arrogance, duplicity, and thuggery.

When in doubt, escalate

By GottaLaff

Bush's default position: Secrecy and military action:

Pakistan army ordered to hit back at U.S. forces 13 Sep 2008 The Pakistani Army has been given orders to retaliate against any unilateral strike by the Afghanistan-based U.S. troops inside the country. Army Spokesman Maj Gen Athar Abbas confirmed the orders in a brief interview with Geo News on late Thursday night.

US officials evade queries on Bush's approval to Pakistan raids 13 Sep 2008 Amid strong reactions from Pakistan to US-led coalition forces' raids against militants on its soil, the Bush administration has refused to comment on the issue, evading queries on the reported go-ahead given to American special forces by President [sic] George Bush. Asked whether the forces operating in Afghanistan had the powers to launch cross-border attacks, Defence Secretary Robert Gates refused to address the issue but said the commanders had the authority to protect their troops in Afghanistan.

H/t: CLG

John Sidney McCain's impulsiveness: "A cause for concern"

By GottaLaff

Just now on CNN, Rick Sanchez was hearing from a reporter who rounded up several CEOs, executives, and recruiting experts, and asked them about John Sidney McCain, Sarah Louise Palin, and all that "executive experience" they like to bandy about. The results:

"Mixed on McCain."

He went with a gut decision, a whim, in picking Palin, they said. They went on to say that the last thing you want is a surprise.

Rick Sanchez then brought up, on his own, Bristol's out-of-wedlock teen pregnancy, and Sarah Lou's small town mayorship with all of its many of earmarks... and then described her as "someone not trying to stop waste of government money".

It is cause for concern, the reporter says. The chief executive of the U.S., the CEO, shouldn't go about it in this manner, say the CEOs, etc., that he talked to. Again, he said, it's cause for concern.

Rick: And they kept it a secret. He didn't want us at CNN to know about this. History will tell us whether it worked well, especially after the REAL vetting process results come in.

I do believe this is the first time I've ever appreciated Rick Sanchez.

Sensitive Sarah

By GottaLaff

Sarah Louise Palin is the best candidate ever! Except when it comes to getting to know anything more about her or her positions on major issues:

How sensitive is Sen. John McCain's campaign about his presumptive running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin?

Well, there's the fact that they appear unwilling to let her be alone with the media. God forbid anyone should ask about her views on, say, global warming -- she doesn't believe that human activity has anything to do with it. Perhaps they don't want anyone to hear her explain why she opposes hate-crime laws?

When CNN's Campbell Brown asked McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds mildly aggressive questions about Palin's pregnant teenage daughter [view video here], and about the governor's lack of experience with national security issues, the campaign's response was to angrily cancel the senator's scheduled appearance on Larry King's show on Tuesday.

That'll show them. (It had the ancillary benefit of sparing McCain the awkward experience of answering direct questions, albeit it avuncular King-like ones, about Palin.) The McCain campaign's major defensive effort on Palin's behalf, however, has been the categorical insistence that any discussion of her 17-year-old daughter's pregnancy is out of bounds, an unacceptable invasion of the family's privacy.

As has Obama's campaign.

Both the McCain campaign and Obama are partly right. [...]

That said, the fact of Bristol Palin's situation and the way in which she and her family have chosen to deal with it are legitimate issues, because they involve public policy issues on which Sarah Palin, candidate for vice president, has taken political positions. Palin, for example, opposes sex education in schools, including all access to contraceptive information for adolescents. Similarly, she believes that abortion should be illegal.

The piece goes on to make the point that they are free to make these decisions.

The point is that the Palins were able to make all these decisions according to the dictates of their own consciences, formed by their own religious convictions, within the privacy of their own family and according to its values and traditions. What they decided is nobody's business but theirs; the fact that they were free to arrive at their own decision is everybody's business.

The particular brand of social conservatism in which Sarah Palin quite evidently believes deeply would deny other American families and other American women the freedom to make these same intimate decisions according to the dictates of their own consciences, religious convictions and traditions.

Freedom to choose only goes so far, you know. The cut-off point is obviously the kinds of choices that Democrats support.

The McCain campaign would like to cut off discussion of Palin's views as quickly and as completely as possible. [...] He picked a vice president he hardly knew -- and now, his campaign would like to buffalo the electorate into doing the same.

That's unlikely. Reporters are beginning to work their way across Alaska, reconstructing Palin's personal history. [...]

If McCain and his people think they can obscure this sort of record behind an appeal to privacy, they're kidding themselves even more than they're trying to kid the voters. Palin is beginning to look less like Dan Quayle and more like Tom Eagleton...

Secrets have a way of leaking out. The question is, how forgiving and/or tolerant will voters be? Or have they been desensitized to secrecy after having to endure the past 8 years of the Bush presidency?

Seems Cindy Lou Hensley McCain has a secret, mystery sister, and she's a Democrat

By GottaLaff

Kathleen Hensley Portalski displays newspaper clippings of her father in World War II, as well as snapshots of herself as a child with her father.

Who's that mystery woman in the photo? And why does she look so familiar? Hmmmm?

Last Tuesday, NPR broadcast a story about Cindy McCain's business and charity work. In it, Ted Robbins described McCain as the only child of Jim Hensley, a wealthy Arizona businessman. The next morning, NPR received an e-mail from Nicholas Portalski of Phoenix, who heard the story with his mother.

"We were listening to the piece about Cindy McCain on NPR, All Things Considered, and it just struck us very hard," Portalski said.

His mother, Kathleen Hensley Portalski, is also Hensley's daughter.

::brakes screeeeeeeeeech!!:: Huh? Cindy Lou has a sister? Since when? And where, why, has she been hiding her?

The Portalski family is accustomed to hearing Cindy McCain described as Hensley's only child.

She's been described that way by news organizations from The New Yorker and The New York Times to Newsweek and ABC.

McCain herself routinely uses the phrase "only child," as she did on CNN last month. "I grew up with my dad," she said then. "I'm an only child. My father was a cowboy, and he really loved me very much, but I think he wanted a son occasionally."

McCain's father was also a businessman — and twice a father.

Why oh why are they shunning Kathleen? Are they ashamed of her? She's not Republican or wealthy enough for them? Not enough face lifts? No P.O.W. creds?

"I'm upset," Kathleen Portalski says. "I'm angry. It makes me feel like a nonperson, kind of."

Uh, yeah, one might be a tad upset if one's very famous, dare I say "celebrity", sister of beer wealth/presidential nominee wife fame is ignoring her very existence.

Documents show Kathleen Anne Hensley was born to Jim and Mary Jeanne Hensley on Feb. 23, 1943. They had been married for six years when Kathleen was born.

Jim Hensley was a bombardier on a B-17, flying over Europe during World War II.

He was injured and sent to a facility in West Virginia to recuperate. During that time, while still married to Mary Jeanne, Hensley met another woman — Marguerite Smith. Jim divorced Mary Jeanne and married Marguerite in 1945.

Wowzers! He's just like Cindy's husband, John Sidney McAdulterer! They have so much in common, you'd think they'd be the closest sisters ever, wouldn't you?

Cindy Lou Hensley was born nine years later, in 1954.

She may have grown up as an only child, but so did her half sister, Kathleen, who was raised by a single parent.

Portalski says she did see her father and her half sister from time to time.

"I saw him a few times a year," she says. "I saw him at Christmas and birthdays, and he provided money for school clothes, and he called occasionally."

The monetary gifts lasted 10 years. And then daddykins got really rich and the payments stopped. But wait! Our soap opera, "As the Beer Ferments", is only just beginning:

When Hensley died in 2000, his will named not only Portalski but also a daughter of his wife Marguerite from her earlier marriage. So, Cindy McCain may be the only product of Jim and Marguerite's marriage, but she is not the only child of either.

She was, however, the sole inheritor of his considerable estate.

Kathleen Portalski was left $10,000, and her children were left nothing. It's a fact Nicholas Portalski says his sister discovered the hard way.

"What she found in town — on the day of or the day before or the day after his funeral — was that the credit card didn't work anymore," Nick says.

Looks like they treated Kathleen the way J Sid treats most of America.

They also say they are Democrats, but Nicholas Portalski says he had another reason for coming forward.

"The fact that we don't exist," he says. "The fact that we've never been recognized, and then Cindy has to put such a fine point on it by saying something that's not true. Recently, again and again. It's just very, very hurtful."

Kathleen Portalski says she'd like an acknowledgment and an apology.

NPR asked the McCain campaign — specifically, Cindy McCain — to comment or respond. Neither replied.

Lying and deception is everywhere in the John Sidney McCain/Cindy Lou Hensley household. No telling what you'll find if you look hard enough.