Gridlock News

Could have been worse, it could have been an ad for acne free clear skin treatment showing Hoyle all pimpled up.

This morning I received this funny little attack ad in the mail. At first I thought this was a piece of junk mail. Then I realized that it was supposed to look like junk mail, but it was actually a political attack ad focused on one of our local politicians, State Senator David Hoyle.

  The claims against this local politician, a state senator, said he bought a bunch a land then joined government and steered some road projects rate through his land so they could sell it at a profit to a number of strip malls and other types of businesses that would like to pop up next to this new interstate area.

So they're basically Photoshop is headed on to that guy that you see on infomercials on TV late at night that walks around in a green jacket with dollar bills all over it, actually I guess those are dollar signs not actual dollar bills.

There's nothing else remarkable about this particular ad, I decided to share some of the local flavor that were seen in Gastonia, North Carolina these days as we get closer and closer to the election in November.

Image via Wikipedia

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It would appear that the US has dropped the last straw on the camel before that camel's back will break in Pakistan.  Pakistan issued orders to its military to fire on any US troops that cross the Pakistan border from Afghanistan, following US commando raids last month and missile attacks as the US fought to chase rebels on the western border of Pakistan where it is thought Osama Bin Laden is hiding.

Charlie Rangel found himself embroiled in a Mini Tax Scandal and as far as I can see this is primarily relevant in that the US tax system is so complex that not even a member of Congress with several accountants and advisors is unable to stay on top of things.

Obviously, there is indeed a need for a change, but a change that simplifies the tax code instead of adding additional layers, exceptions, and breaks.

If reading through those articles don't make you feel like fixing washington politics and the tax code is impossible, making you just want to scurry under the closest rock, I don't know what is. But we have to crawl out dust off, hit the tub with some beautifeel and get to work doing something. Or else victims of a broken code and government we will remain.

This report just came in off the AP Wire.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Capitol Police arrested a man Friday after they found a grenade and several weapons in his car several blocks from the Capitol building.

Christopher Shelton Timmons, 27, of Orange, Va., was charged with carrying a deadly weapon and possessing unregistered firearms and ammunition, said Capitol Police spokeswoman Sgt. Kimberly Schneider.

Timmons was detained after he stopped to ask a police officer for directions and the officer saw a rifle case in the car.

A search of the car, a Jeep Cherokee, turned up a rifle, a live grenade, a pistol, ammunition, magazines with ammunition in them and several other "items of concern," Schneider said.

Police closed nearby streets for several hours while conducting the search. The incident occurred near the Library of Congress southeast of the Capitol.

The FBI, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and District of Columbia police assisted in the investigation.

AP

During the week of the convention it seems like the crazies have really come out of the wood work on all sides. That was probably to be expected but I think we have to hand it to law enforcement for being on top of things, strapped in on the streets and roof tops picking out the loons with Nikon binoculars and so far arresting them before anything bad happened.

We do need a major over haul in this country, but I do not believe that it should be spurred on about violence.

So now Republicans are going to show case teen parents at the Republican National Convention.  For a Governor that vetoed benefits for teen mothers in her own state, believes in abstinence and does not believe in providing teens with birth control, this RNC event is shaping up to be either the height of hypocrisy for Republicans or possibly the opportunity of a political lifetime for Republicans to get real, grow up, and take a step towards the middle ground of America when it comes to teen sex and teen pregnancy.

Regardless, the Republicans have finally figured out how to get back in the saddle and they didn't do it by placing a lady on an english saddles riding sideways, they went straight at the thing with a down to earth woman charging into the fight riding bareback on a Mustang).

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Governor Sarah Palin is John McCain's new Vice Presidential Pick. Here are over 20 videos, most featuring important actions she has taken as Governor that will likely demonstrate her position on a large number of important areas.

Here are the Wikipedia details on Sarah Palin as of Aug 29th, 2008. You can bet this profile is going to update fast an often over the next few months

Sarah Heath Palin (born February 11, 1964) is the current Governor of Alaska, and a member of the Republican Party. She is the youngest and first female governor of Alaska. She is the Republican vice presidential candidate for the November 2008 election. Brought to statewide attention because of her whistleblowing on ethical violations by state Republican Party leaders, she won election in 2006 by first defeating the incumbent governor in the Republican primary, then a former Democratic Alaskan governor in the general election.

On August 29, the Associated Press reported that "speculation [has] moved to [Palin as a] darkhorse" pick for the vice president running mate slot by presumptive Republican nominee John McCain. The CNBC news service is now reporting that Palin will in fact be the GOP vice-presidential nominee. She is reported to be a possible choice for the Republican Party's nomination as Vice President of the United States in the 2008 election. Formal announcement of the presumptive nominee will be made in Dayton, Ohio on August 29, 2008, by Presidential candidate John McCain.

Family and personal background

Palin was born as Sarah Louise Heath in Sandpoint, Idaho, the daughter of Charles and Sally (Sheeran) Heath. Her family moved to Alaska when she was an infant. Charles Heath was a popular science teacher and coached track. The Heaths were avid outdoors enthusiasts; Sarah and her father would sometimes wake at 3 a.m. to hunt moose before school, and the family would regularly run 5k and 10k races.

Palin was the point guard and captain for the Wasilla High School Warriors, in Wasilla, Alaska, when they won the Alaska small-school basketball championship in 1982; she earned the nickname "Sarah Barracuda" because of her intense play. She played the championship game despite a stress fracture in her ankle, hitting a critical free throw in the last seconds. Palin, who was also the head of the school Fellowship of Christian Athletes, would lead the team in prayer before games.

In 1984, Palin was second-place in the Miss Alaska beauty pageant after winning the Miss Wasilla contest earlier that year, winning a scholarship to help pay her way through college. In the Wasilla pageant, she played the flute and also won Miss Congeniality.

Details of Palin's personal life have contributed to her political image. She hunts, eats moose burgers, ice fishes, rides snowmobiles, and owns a float plane. Palin holds a lifetime membership with the National Rifle Association. She admits that she used marijuana when it was legal in Alaska, but says that she did not like it.

Palin holds a bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Idaho where she also minored in politics. She briefly worked as a sports reporter for local Anchorage television stations while also working as a commercial fisherman with her husband, Todd, her high school sweetheart. One summer when she was working on Todd's fishing boat, the boat collided with a tender while she was holding onto the railing; Palin broke several fingers. Outside the fishing season, Todd works for BP at an oil field on the North Slope and is a champion snowmobiler, winning the 2000-mile "Iron Dog" race four times. The two eloped shortly after Palin graduated college; when they learned they needed witnesses for the civil ceremony, they recruited two residents from the old-age home down the street. Todd is a Native Yup'ik Eskimo. The Palin family lives in Wasilla, about 40 miles (64 km) north of Anchorage.

On September 11, 2007, the Palins' son Track joined the Army. Eighteen years old at the time, he is the eldest of Palin's five children. Track now serves in an infantry brigade and will be deployed to Iraq in September. She also has three daughters: Bristol, 17, Willow, 13, and Piper, 7. On April 18, 2008, Palin gave birth to her second son, Trig Paxson Van Palin, who has Down syndrome. She returned to the office three days after giving birth. Palin refused to let the results of prenatal genetic testing change her decision to have the baby. "I'm looking at him right now, and I see perfection," Palin said. "Yeah, he has an extra chromosome. I keep thinking, in our world, what is normal and what is perfect?"

Pre-gubernatorial political experience

Palin served two terms on the Wasilla City Council from 1992 to 1996. In 1996, she challenged the incumbent mayor, criticizing wasteful spending and high taxes. The ex-mayor and sheriff tried to organize a recall campaign, but failed. Palin kept her campaign promises, reducing her own salary, as well as reducing property taxes 60%. She ran for reelection against the former mayor in 1999, winning by an even larger margin. Palin was also elected president of the Alaska Conference of Mayors.

In 2002, Palin made an unsuccessful bid for Lieutenant Governor, coming in second to Loren Leman in a four-way race. After Frank Murkowski resigned from his long-held U.S. Senate seat in mid-term to become governor, Palin interviewed to be his possible successor. Instead, Murkowski appointed his daughter, then-Alaska State Representative Lisa Murkowski.

Governor Murkowski appointed Palin Ethics Commissioner of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, where she served from 2003 to 2004 until resigning in protest over what she called the "lack of ethics" of fellow Alaskan Republican leaders, who ignored her whistleblowing complaints of legal violations and conflicts of interest. After she resigned, she exposed the state Republican party's chairman, Randy Ruedrich, one of her fellow Oil & Gas commissioners, who was accused of doing work for the party on public time, and supplying a lobbyist with a sensitive e-mail. Palin filed formal complaints against both Ruedrich and former Alaska Attorney General Gregg Renkes, who both resigned; Ruedrich paid a record $12,000 fine.

Governorship

Governor Palin visits a wounded soldier in Landstuhl, Germany, July 2007

In 2006, Palin, running on a clean-government campaign, executed an upset victory over then-Gov. Murkowski in the Republican gubernatorial primary. Despite the lack of support from party leaders and being outspent by her Democratic opponent, she went on to win the general election in November 2006, defeating former Governor Tony Knowles. Palin said in 2006 that education, public safety, and transportation would be three cornerstones of her administration.

When elected, Palin became the first woman to be Alaska's governor, and the youngest governor in Alaskan history at 42 years old upon taking office. Palin was also the first Alaskan governor born after Alaska achieved U.S. statehood. She was also the first Alaskan governor not to be inaugurated in Juneau, instead choosing to hold her inauguration ceremony in Fairbanks. She took office on December 4, 2006.

Highlights of Governor Palin's tenure include a successful push for an ethics bill, and also shelving pork-barrel projects supported by fellow Republicans. Palin successfully killed the Bridge to Nowhere project that had become a nationwide symbol of wasteful earmark spending. "Alaska needs to be self-sufficient, she says, instead of relying heavily on 'federal dollars,' as the state does today."

She has challenged the state's Republican leaders, helping to launch a campaign by Lieutenant Governor Sean Parnell to unseat U.S. Congressman Don Young and publicly challenging Senator Ted Stevens to come clean about the federal investigation into his financial dealings. Palin supports holding occasional legislative sessions outside the state capital, and municipal revenue sharing to help local governments.

In 2007, Palin had an approval rating often in the 90s. A poll published by Hays Research on July 28, 2008 showed Palin's approval rating at 80%.

Energy policies

Palin's tenure is noted for her independence from big oil companies, while still promoting resource development. Palin has announced plans to create a new sub-cabinet group of advisors, to address climate change and reduce greenhouse gas emissions within Alaska.

Shortly after taking office, Palin rescinded an appointment by Murkowski of his former chief of staff Jim Clark to the Alaska Natural Gas Development Authority, one of thirty-five appointments made by Murkowski in the last hour of his administration that she reversed. Clark later pled guilty to conspiring with a defunct oil-field-services company to channel money into Frank Murkowski's re-election campaign.

In March 2007, Palin presented the Alaska Gasline Inducement Act (AGIA) as the new legal vehicle for building a natural gas pipeline from the state's North Slope. Only one legislator, Representative Ralph Samuels, voted against the measure, and in June Palin signed it into law. On January 5, 2008, Palin announced that a Canadian company, Transcanada, was the sole AGIA-compliant applicant.

In response to high oil and gas prices, and in response to the resulting state government budget surplus, Palin proposed giving Alaskans $100-a-month energy debit cards. She also proposed providing grants to electrical utilities so that they would reduce customers' rates. She subsequently dropped the debit card proposal, and in its place she proposed to send Alaskans $1,200 directly and eliminate the gas tax.

Social issues

Palin is strongly pro-life and belongs to Feminists for Life. She opposes same-sex marriage, but she has stated that she has gay friends and is receptive to gay and lesbian concerns about discrimination. While the previous administration did not implement same-sex benefits, Palin complied with a state Supreme Court order and signed them into law.

She supported a democratic advisory vote from the public on whether there should be a constitutional amendment on the matter. Alaska was one of the first U.S. states to pass a constitutional ban on gay marriage, in 1998, along with Hawaii.

Palin's first veto was used to block legislation that would have barred the state from granting benefits to gay state employees and their partners. In effect, her veto granted State of Alaska benefits to same-sex couples. The veto occurred after Palin consulted with Alaska's attorney general on the constitutionality of the legislation.

Matanuska Maid Dairy closure

When the Alaska Creamery Board recommended closing Matanuska Maid Dairy, an unprofitable state-owned business, Palin objected, citing concern for the impact on dairy farmers and the fact that the Dairy had just received $600,000 in state money. When Palin learned that only the Board of Agriculture and Conservation could appoint Creamery Board members, she simply replaced the entire membership of the Board of Agriculture and Conservation. The new board, led by businesswoman Kristan Cole, reversed the decision to close. The new board approved milk price increases offered by the dairy in an attempt to control fiscal losses, even though milk from Washington was already offered in Alaskan stores at lower prices. In the end, the dairy was forced to close, and the state tried to sell the assets to pay off its debts but received no bids.

Budget

In the first days of her administration, Palin followed through on a campaign promise to sell the Westwind II jet purchased (on a state government credit account) by the Murkowski administration. The state placed the jet for sale on eBay three times. In August 2007, the jet was sold for $2.7 million.

Shortly after becoming governor, Palin canceled an 11-mile (18-kilometer) gravel road outside of Juneau to a mine. This reversed a decision made in the closing days or hours of the Murkowski Administration.

In June 2007, Palin signed into law the largest operating budget in Alaska's history ($6.6 billion). At the same time, she used her veto power to make the second-largest cuts of the construction budget in state history. The US$237 million in cuts represented over 300 local projects, and reduced the construction budget to nearly US$1.6 billion.

Commissioner dismissal

On July 11, 2008, Governor Palin dismissed Walter Monegan as Commissioner of Public Safety and instead offered him a position as executive director of the state Alcoholic Beverage Control Board, which he subsequently turned down. Monegan alleged shortly after his dismissal that it may have been partly due to his reluctance to fire an Alaska State Trooper, Mike Wooten, who had been involved in a divorce and child custody battle with Palin's sister, Molly McCann. In 2006, before Palin was governor, Wooten was briefly suspended for ten days for threatening to kill McCann's (and Palin's) father, tasering his 11-year-old stepson, and violating game laws. After a union protest, the suspension was reduced to five days.

Governor Palin asserts that her dismissal of Monegan was unrelated to the fact that he had not fired Wooten, and asserts that Monegan was instead dismissed for not adequately filling state trooper vacancies, and because he "did not turn out to be a team player on budgeting issues." Palin acknowledges that a member of her administration, Frank Bailey, did contact the Department of Public Safety regarding Wooten, but both Palin and Bailey say that happened without her knowledge and was unrelated to her dismissal of Monegan. Bailey was put on leave for two months for acting outside the scope of his authority as the Director of Boards and Commissions.

In response to Palin's statement that she had nothing to hide, in August 2008 the Alaska Legislature hired Steve Branchflower to investigate Palin and her staff for possible abuse of power surrounding the dismissal, though lawmakers acknowledge that "Monegan and other commissioners serve at will, meaning they can be fired by Palin at any time." The investigation is being overseen by Democratic State Senator Hollis French, who says that the Palin administration has been cooperating and thus subpoenas are unnecessary. The Palin administration itself was the first to release an audiotape of Bailey making inquiries about the status of the Wooten investigation.

Wooten and the police union alleged that the governor had improperly released his employment files in his divorce case. However, McCann's attorney released a signed waiver from Wooten demonstrating that Wooten had authorized the release of his files through normal discovery procedures.

She has had a great deal of interesting types of experience, and with that kind of background, it is hard not to like her. She has appeal to almost every category or lifestyle of people like someone created a checklist of characteristics of everyone from the Democratic and Republican parties and then went down the checklist confirming that she met the qualifications:

• Moose Hunting - Check
• pilot a plane - Check
• kick out corrupt republicans - check
• fight the oil industry - check
• Have 5 kids - check
• Sports Jock - check
• Public Speaking education and skills - check
• couple decades of public service - check

• worked as a nun
• served in the military
• brokered an international peace accord
• Brought a lawsuit against retailers for buying dollhouses, and then marking them up to overpriced levels and selling them to orphans at christmas time