Sarah’s Stalwarts

Spelled out in detail here:

From Michelle’s blog:

Sometime early this morning, between approximately 3:00am - 4:00am, members of an infamous group of hackers broke into Gov. Sarah Palin’s private Yahoo e-mail account. The incriminating discussion threads included screenshots of Palin’s e-mail and private e-mail addresses of her contacts. The threads have since been deleted.

Hacking e-mail is a federal crime. A TV anchor who broke into his colleague’s e-mail account recently pleaded guilty and faces a maximum five years in prison.

The law will catch up to the hackers, but what about the lowlifes who are now gleefully splashing the alleged contents of Palin’s private e-mail account all over the Internet?

The Gawker smear machine — see here for all the background you need — has posted private family photos of Palin’s children that were apparently stolen from the e-mail account.

They have used Bristol Palin’s illegally obtained private cell phone number from her mom’s private account, recorded her voicemail message, and posted it on their website.

They have reprinted her husband Todd’s private e-mail address and son Track’s private e-mail address.

You think this is just a harmless prank? Those of you who have had to deal with break-ins and identity theft know exactly what a burdensome process it is to recover from crimes like this.

Gawker knowingly and deliberately published illegally obtained photos of the Palin children.

Where are the privacy absolutists now?

More on Michelle’s site. Sickening that the Democrats would stoop this low.

Impressive:

The salient quote:

Now I believe America’s best days are ahead of us. Governor Palin and I are going to reform Wall Street. We’re going to reform Washington. I’m going to fight for you and I’m going to lead our nation forward in the greatest periods of prosperity in its history. And let’s have some straight talk. Senator Obama is not interested in the politics of hope, he’s interested in his political future and that’s why he’s hurling in insults and making up facts about his record. Today, he claimed that the Congressional stimulus package was his idea. That’s news to those of us in Congress who supported it. Senator Obama didn’t even show up to vote. He talks a tough game on the financial crisis, but the facts tell a different story. Senator Obama took more money from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac than anyone but the chairman of the committee they answer to. And he put Fannie Mae’s CEO, who helped create this problem in charge of finding his Vice President. That’s not change, that’s what’s broken in Washington. He talked about siding with the people, siding with the people, just before he flew off to Hollywood for a fundraiser with Barbra Streisand and his celebrity friends. Let me tell you, my friends, there is no place I’d rather be, than here, with the working men and women of Ohio. I’m going to fight for you and together we’re going to win in November.

The Democrats pushed, and Governor Palin fights back. In today’s Anchorage Daily News:

Walt Monegan lost his job as public safety director because he resisted Gov. Sarah Palin’s budget policies and showed “outright insubordination,” say papers the governor’s lawyer filed Monday with the state Personnel Board.

It was Palin’s strongest effort yet to snuff allegations she sacked Monegan because he refused to fire a state trooper involved in an ugly divorce with the governor’s sister.

Along with the papers filed Monday were a slew of e-mails from the governor’s office purporting to show Monegan’s “rogue mentality” as a member of Palin’s Cabinet.

In one message, the governor’s budget director, Karen Rehfeld, wrote that she was “stunned and amazed” that Monegan appeared to be working with a powerful state legislator, Anchorage Republican Rep. Kevin Meyer, to seek funding for a project Palin previously had vetoed.

More can be read on here.

In another development, the Alaska Republican Party has gotten fed up too:

Five Alaska Legislators, Rep. Wes Keller, Rep. Mike Kelly, Rep. Bob Lynn, Sen. Fred Dyson, and Sen. Tom Wagoner, will file suit in state superior court in Anchorage tomorrow morning (9/16/08) at 9:00 am (Superior courthouse 4th Avenue) against Sen. French, Sen. Kim Elton, Stephen Branchflower and the Alaska Legislative Council in order to halt the investigation of Governor Sarah Palin and others because the investigators have lost the appearance of impartiality required under the Alaska Constitution. The Legislators will ask for declaratory and injunctive relief in the investigation, stating that it is an attempt to use the Alaska Legislative Council to further partisan politics.

The Legislators cite in their lawsuit that the investigation into the firing of former Commissioner of the Alaska Department of Public safety Walt Monegan, led by Sens. Hollis French and Kim Elton, with Stephen Branchflower and the Alaska Legislative Council, is being driven by partisan politics in an attempt to unlawfully smear Gov. Palin and others.

“The Partisan actions of Sen. French, Sen. Elton and the Legislative Council have tainted the investigation beyond the appearance of impartiality required under the Alaska Constitution,” said Kevin Clarkson, Esq., of the firm Brena, Bell & Clarkson, P.C., and counsel in the suit.

The investigation, which began after Monegan’s dismissal in July 2008, is being led by outspoken supporters of Barack Obama and members of the Democratic Party. Sen. Elton, the Chair of the Legislative Council donated $2,000 to the Obama campaign but has failed to disclose this to the Legislative Council and he continues to preside over the Council with respect to the investigation, refusing to convene meetings of the Council at the request of a majority of the Council’s membership. Sen. French the investigation “project manager” failed to disclose to the Legislative Council the comments he made on a radio program criticizing the Governor’s conduct regarding the termination of Monegan as “criminal” prior to being appointed as the investigation “project manager” and even prior to a vote to investigate at all. Sen. French also failed to disclose to the Legislative Council that he had a personal bone to pick with the Governor over the Monegan firing because Monegan was a friend and because he had worked closely with Monegan during the 2008 legislative session regarding attempts to include in the state budget items that Governor Palin had vetoed.

Excellent.

Amazing:

From Newsbusters.org:

Do you think the recent stock market collapse or troubles in the banking system are good news?

Well, according to CNN’s Candy Crowley, the Obama campaign does.

On Monday’s “Anderson Cooper 360,” after CNN senior political analyst David Gergen said “what happened over the weekend with the economy and the bottom falling out of the financial markets…is the opportunity for Obama to seize the momentum back on his side,” Crowley actually said, “[J]ust as foreclosures were showing up on B-17, or in the real estate section, along comes this horrific headline out of Wall Street…I mean, this is what they wanted.”

See the video by clicking here.

There are no words for this level of incompetence:

LINK

Distressing, but true:

More information can be found by clicking here.

I, like many others, enjoyed the introduction to the most recent Saturday Night Live programme, which featured two actresses impersonating Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton. In particular, the Governor Palin impersonator was spot on, not only capturing her look and mannerisms, but also her accent.

Perhaps it is a peculiarity of the British, but here we have a particularly strong sensitivity to not just what is being said, but also to how one speaks. An accent can not only state where one comes from, but it also delineates class boundaries: it’s easy to tell who is upper class and who is not. There are even some individuals who can discern what school someone may have attended, merely by hearing a few phrases.

This capability is not nearly so prominent in the United States, but it may be one of the factors which is enabling John McCain and Sarah Palin to connect with the wider public. It may also be partially what is driving the liberals mad.

When he is not attempting to put on the pronunciation and cadence of a South Side preacher, Barack Obama’s accent is neutral, unadorned. It speaks of no particular origin, apart from the occasional Midwestern consonant that slips through. In this sense, his words are “cosmopolitan”, rootless: it dovetails nicely with the same “masking” of accents that flows through the lips of many in the liberal elite. Charles Gibson speaks this form of “received English”, as does Katie Couric and George Stephanopolous. For all of his ballyhooed working class origins, Joe Biden suffers from a similar neutrality in his speech: it is usually just his content which is far from typical and not altogether in a good way.

Sarah Palin is not like the media or most politicians: her accent is definitely regional, and it contains echoes of a number of influences. Some of her pronunciation sounds akin to the vowels one would find in the upper Midwest. The way she draws out some of her words has a definite Western tang. However, all these factors combined produce someone whose words are reassuringly normal. The popularity of “I Am Sarah Palin” t-shirts is likely not because she is solely a candidate whose position in life was similar to that of many working women, it may very well be because she also speaks the same language and in the same way.

The fact that Sarah does not adhere to the elite-defined “standard” speech pattern is doubtless a factor in what is driving liberal rage against her. The attempts to smear her as somehow “small town” contain familiar archaic British elements of class snobbery and derision. This is an old game they’re playing; the elites mocking her may as well call her accent “provincial”, and refer to her as an “upstart” for all the difference it would make. The situation is worsened because of her education was at an institution the liberal aristocracy does not recognise (the University of Idaho) as it is not part of the vaunted Ivy League, a set of universities which has consistently produced more traitors to the United States than any other. Indeed, she is so far outside of what they expect, they automatically question her qualifications, no matter how much her life and practical experience may have prepared her for the Vice Presidency. In their crude calculations, she did not attend the right schools, does not know the right people, does not speak in the right way, and therefore, she’s a “rube”.

All this may sound very troubling to Americans who are reared with the idea that their nation is a meritocracy. Any palpitations should be limited; America remains a meritocracy, if only partially; it is mostly so in places where people sound more like Sarah Palin than they do Barack Obama. If you show determination, passion and ability, these places will reward you with high office, but once there, you’re expected not to forget those who elected you.

In the latte-drinking environs of the liberal aristocracy, the scenario is altogether different; your accent, education, breeding and reading habits are all determinant of your social standing. What you do is less important than where you were: if you are related to the Kennedys, went to Harvard, and worked as an aide to Frank Lautenberg, you’re made. In short, your respect flows not from deeds but heritage and adherence to a particular set of values. If it didn’t wear Birkenstocks and reside in small flats in Greenwich Village or Haight-Ashbury, we could just as easily be talking about landed gentry.

It can seem somewhat daunting for those who remain in the truly American parts of America that there is such a powerful, narrow class to overcome in achieving political victory. After all, they do control many of the streams of popular culture as well as the educational establishment. However, disdain is a double edged sword; as Governor Palin showed in her acceptance speech, the idea of storming the Bastille of the liberal gentry can be a powerful motivation. It was similar forces at work that allowed a Texan with a down home accent and vocabulary to overcome left wing hauteur and outwit it for eight years, much to the chagrin of the elite. You may have heard of him: George W. Bush.

Very good: