And here I was ready with popcorn, highballs and Beanie Babies.*

*to throw at the Tee Bee

We watched the first debate with neighbors. When the frustration level got a little too high they broke out the dry-markers and we set to drawing devil horns, mustaches and other (less appropriate) things all over the screen. It was a blast and a great stress-reliever.

My husband was a second baseman for a Czech national baseball team that traveled and played in eastern Europe when he was much younger. Even Beanie Babies aren't soft enough. Nerf might work though... ;-}

Well, well. Looks like an verbal avalanche has occurred in my absence.

We're having a very informative and substantive discussion here.

Please do the right thing (for a change) and don't interrupt any further.

Palin and McCain campaign are exploiting an incoherence in the report. It reaches three conclusions. First, it finds that Palin violated the Ethics Act by knowingly permitting Moneghan to fire Trooper Wooten. Second, it finds that Moneghan's refusal to fire Wooten was a contributing factor in Moneghan's firing. Third, it concludes that Moneghan's firing was not unlawful.

The third conclusion is not consistent with the first two. The report says that the firing was not unlawful because the Governor has unfettered discretion to remove executive officials. As a legal matter, this is plainly wrong. An executive's removal authority is subject to any restrictions that the legislature constitutionally places upon it. The President's authority to remove executive officials, for instance, is no doubt limited by anti-bribery laws. If Palin had removed Moneghan because an oil company paid her to do so, his firing would have been unlawful. So, too, with the Ethics Act. The Act is undoubtedly constitutional and constrains Palin's official acts, including removal. Because Moneghan was fired, in part, because of Palin's personal interests, it violated the Ethics Act and was illegal.

Palin, of course, picks up on the report's erroneous legal conclusion that the firing itself was lawful. Of course, she ignores that wholly apart from the firing the report finds that she committed and was responsible for numerous other acts of pressuring which *did* violate the Ethics Act and were an unlawful abuse of authority.

Our lazy and ignorant press, of course, will not pick up on any of this. Palin will be permitted to assert that she was cleared. Dahlia Lithwick on Slate published an article on Saturday -- less than one day after the report was released -- declaring the scandal to be over.

If Palin becomes Vice President, then there perhaps will be some hand-wringing about why this did not receive more attention. And we will again here 1,234 excuses why it did not. Sort of like the Iraq war.

Even on as progressive a site as this, filled with all these brilliant people, almost all of you refuse to see the stark, hard truth: both parties are mere propaganda fronts for corporate thieves, for greedy upper crust parasites.

That may be putting just a little strong, but your fundamental point is well taken. I doubt anyone here seriously believes everything will be righted after January 6th, 2009, or that we'll necessarily see a major reversal of the general decline we've all experienced since January 2001. We certainly can't hope for a fundamental economic reorientation or redistribution of wealth.

But we're less likely to see President Obama firing off nukes at imaginary enemies than we're likely to under President McCain. And even if that's the minimum we can hope for, there's nothing to stop we the people from agitating and demanding more of our leaders.

And this time around, it looks like they might actually be prepared to listen.

It's not like she got money from Fannie and Freddie like Dodd, or is being investigated for mob bank ties, like Obama, or had a lover run a brothel of his house like Frank.

It's embarrassing for the student to have to remind the teacher of the basic principles of his practice.

The principle to apply here is misdirection.

Not flailing about helplessly, pointing in every direction at nonexistent demons and little boys who've cried wolf a few too many times. It tends to draw attention.

And even pity.

...than Monica asserted that they were concerned with the truth and not sex.

Well, their reaction to Troopergate reveals that that assertion was a lie.

Another "end justifies the means" rationalization for Palin's unlawful behavior promulgated by the rightist hack Shooter.

Look, son...there is not much in the way of dispute concerning Trooper Wooten's status as something less pure than a choir boy, however, it's interesting to note that for some reason, all of the allegations against him pimped by the Palins as an excuse for breaking Alaskan law, as the Branchflower report asserts, are indisputably accepted as "fact" by you and your ilk.

Of course, testimony in divorce/child custody cases is generally regarded in most legal circles as sacrosanct. Heh.

So, we have a woman who left the city of Wasilla $23 million in debt, is arguably a tax cheat, is a verified liar in regard to her Bridge To Nowhere fantasies, and her seccesionist loving America doubting Mayberry Machiavelli of a spouse "saying" that Wooten "threatened" to kill Palin's daddy?

I guess that's why Palin decided to reduce her security detail upon attaining the Alaska governorship.

Distilling it down, the Bush-McCain-Palin paradigm of rationalization states that if you just kind of "say" you have a good "reason" to break the law, then, by God, you can!

Due process be damned. Just make sure you have an acceptable excuse.

And to think, the Repulicans used to promote "accountability" and "personal responsibility.

They lie like this, because they know that outside of Glenn, and a few others like Olberman (maybe), Mike Malloy, and the like, no one will contradict their version. These lies, these BIG LIES, are simply fodder, i.e. scripts, for their enablers in the media to repeat over and over and over. Just watch TV for the next couple of days, it will be Palin and her pals, repeating the exact opposite of the truth endlessly. The small proportion of the population that reads Glenn or other bloggers will know the truth, but the vast majority will hear only the lies. Only the lies. They don't worry about getting caught, because there is virtually no one left to catch them.

Besides what else have these freaks got left?

Maybe Diebold can fix the problem, Sarah's been on the phone all day...