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She didn’t visit Ireland, which is what the McCain-Palin campaign claimed to Politico’s Ben Smith on Saturday. She had a short refueling stopover, which means at best her extensive Irish diplomacy amounted to buying a sweater and a beer mug in the Shannon airport.

Why does Sarah Palin’s duty-free-diplomacy matter? Because John McCain, who is 72 and has had 4 bouts of cancer, just picked Sarah Palin to replace him as commander in chief should he die or be incapacitated in office. Sarah Palin, in an effort to bolster her non-existent national security expertise, claimed she had visited 3 countries: Germany; Kuwait; and Ireland. Now we find out that one of those three, 33% of her experience, was pretty much a lie. Did the McCain campaign know that Palin basically lied to the media and the American people? Or did this Irish blogger do the vetting that the McCain campaign couldn’t be bothered to do?

Oh, the McCain-Palin campaign now alleges that Palin visited Canada too. Sure, if you count buying a Celine Dion CD.

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Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin was not subjected to a lengthy in-person background interview with the head of Sen. John McCain’s vice presidential vetting team until last Wednesday in Arizona, the day before McCain asked her to be his running mate, and she did not disclose the fact that her 17-year-old daughter was pregnant until that meeting, two knowledgeable McCain officials acknowledged Tuesday.

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In the first and most telling executive decision of his potential presidency, John McCain makes a rash, reckless decision that, God forbid he falls ill while in office, will be disastrous for this country. Is that the kind of judgment we need in the White House for another four years?

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A traveler reaches a river at the point A and wishes to know the width across to B. As he has no means of crossing the river, what is the easiest way of finding its width?

Answer below the fold

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What you can expect from John McCain as President is precisely what he has done this week

Ah. In that case, I’ll pass.

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Joe Lieberman might have trouble getting a Senate parking pass next year.

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The problem is fairly widespread; Google searches turn up 3,810 results for “clbuttic”, 5,120 for “consbreastution”, and 1,450 for “Buttociated Press”, a corruption of the US news agency the Associated Press.

Perhaps the most celebrated instance of the Clbuttic Mistake comes in an article currently visible on the website jucee.org .

It contains mentions of a “series of previously secret Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) plots to buttbuttinate foreign leaders”, a law “pbutted by Congress”, and new powers “butterted” by the US administration.

It looks like the Republicans are worried about losing control over what is being said in the media…

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Yesterday, Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) campaign spokesman Tucker Bounds appeared on CNN for an interview with Campbell Brown. Brown was tough on Bounds, refusing to let him spout typical campaign talking points. She repeatedly pressed him on Palin’s foreign policy experience and qualifications, asking him to name one decision that she made as commander-in-chief of the Alaskan National Guard. Bounds was unable to do so.

Today, CNN’s Wolf Blitzer revealed that because of that tough interview, the McCain campaign has canceled the senator’s appearance on Larry King Live tonight:

The McCain campaign said it believed that exchange was over the line and as a result the interview scheduled for Larry King Live with Sen. McCain was pulled. CNN does not believe that Campbell’s interview was over the line. We are committed to fair coverage of both sides of this historic election.

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Across the Andean region, the size of the coca crop has increased 18 percent in the past five years, a period during which the United States has spent $4 billion on anti-drug programs. With farmers turning to pesticides and modern irrigation to improve crop yields, the amount of cocaine produced in Colombia, Peru and Bolivia — source countries for nearly all of the global supply — hovers at 1,100 tons a year, according to a recent U.N. report.

Thirty-seven years of an official “war on drugs”, billions spent, overflowing prisons, political and police corruption.

Great job, guys. I suggest making it legal and taxing it. Drug usage will go down overnight…

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The Richland County, South Carolina Sheriff’s Department (that’s them above) just obtained an armored personnel carrier, complete with a belt-fed, .50-cal turreted machine gun.  Sheriff Leon Lott has charmingly named the vehicle “The Peacemaker,” and insists that using a caliber of ammunition that even the U.S. military is reluctant to use against human targets (it’s generally reserved for use against armored vehicles) will “save lives.”

Can we call this overkill, yet?  Is there any weapon people like Sheriff Lott would consider inappropriate for use against American citizens?

Like most of these military toys obtained by local police departments, the Peacemaker will inevitably be used on drug and gambling raids—that is, to enforce laws against consensual activities.  Or, as we’re now seeing in Minnesota, perhaps on raids against leftist political activists. 

Can’t be too careful, you know.

Take a look at the schedule for today on the official convention site:

here

and for tomorrow:

here

They don’t have a clue what’s going to happen…

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In addition to being a mayor and raising four children, Sarah Palin found time for another venture in her Wasilla years — she was part-owner of an Anchorage car wash.

Palin and husband Todd each held a 20 percent stake in Anchorage Car Wash LLC, according to state corporation records filed in 2004.

A review of Palin’s gubernatorial disclosure filings indicates that she failed to report her stake in the company on the form that requires candidates for governor to disclose any interest in a nonpublicly traded company.

The car wash venture was not entirely smooth sailing. State records show the business ran into trouble with Alaska’s division of corporations business and professional licensing after Palin became governor of the state in 2006.

A Feb. 11, 2007 letter to the governor’s business partner advises that the car wash had “not filed its biennial report and/or paid its biennial fees,” which were more than a year overdue.

If Palin shows such disregard for following state law as governor, perhaps we can look forward to her showing a similar disregard for federal law as vice president. It’s a good thing McCain vetted Palin so thoroughly, otherwise we might be finding out some pretty crazy things about her.

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Christian-right leaders and conservative stalwarts have praised the decision of Bristol Palin, the daughter of Governor Sarah Palin, to carry her child to term. She is 17 and conceived this child out of wedlock. Now imagine she wasn’t the daughter of a prominent Republican politician but an average person. Now imagine she was black.

What do you think conservatives would have to say about her? “Typical, urban youth with no sense of responsibility raised with loose morals who plans to depend on the state to take care of her child.” You know it. It’s not within dispute. That’s exactly what they would say.

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“This is what the permissive liberal attitude gets you. If you allow your children to think everything is acceptable, they have no boundaries. They wind up getting themselves in trouble like this. It’s a predictable result of the liberal lifestyle.”

And that’s before the subtle and not so subtle racial implications are brought into this. There is a constant double-standard of how black and white people and politicians are covered in this country. When a young black girl gets pregnant, she’s looking to get money from welfare. When a young white woman gets pregnant, she made an unfortunate mistake and her family is being supportive in trying to help the make the best of it.

Cindy McCain was addicted to drugs and stole from her own charity to feed her addiction. Now what do you think the Republicans would have done if Michelle Obama had done that? How do you think the press would have covered it? You think they would have called it a simple mistake and moved on?