Palin the Reformer uses a little of the old-fashioned pressure and payola.

The Alaska National Guard Commander who repeatedly said over a period of several days that Palin plays no role in command of Alaska’s National Guard units, much to the embarassment of McMaverick and Paylin, changes his story on Friday to compliment Paylin on her wonderful leadership skilz, and his promotion to Lt. General of the State Guard is announced by the governor’s office on Monday.

Via Balloon Juice.

Sounds like McSame old politics to me.

Is Michael Mukasey as nutty as Alberto Gonzalez is dishonest?

Congress should explicitly declare war against al Qaeda to make clear the United States can detain suspected members as long as the conflict lasts, U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey said on Monday.

Mukasey urged Congress to make the declaration in a package of legislative proposals to establish a legal process for terrorism suspects held at Guantanamo, in response to a Supreme Court ruling last month that detainees had a constitutional right to challenge their detention.

“Any legislation should acknowledge again and explicitly that this nation remains engaged in an armed conflict with al Qaeda, the Taliban and associated organizations, who have already proclaimed themselves at war with us,” Mukasey said in a speech to the American Enterprise Institute.

“Congress should reaffirm that for the duration of the conflict the United States may detain as enemy combatants those who have engaged in hostilities or purposefully supported al Qaeda, the Taliban and associated organizations,” he said.

I don’t recall recall Francis Biddle telling Congress that December 7th was a date which will live in infamy and asking it to declare war on Japan. Presumably, if President Bush actually wanted a declaration of war against a non-state actor, he could have asked for such a declaration at any point in the last 7 years. A declaration of war is obviously a serious matter, and not one which should be taken to make an attorney general’s task of defending unwise and unconstitutional detention schemes any easier.

Who knows, maybe they’re thinking of issuing some Executive Orders and repopulating Manzanar? I do know that asking Congress to give the Bush administration even more executive powers after his systematic abuse and usurpation of power aided by a largely supine Congress is a non-starter.

Via Sadly No, Pat Boone writing for World Nut Daily compares Barrack Obama to the ever-dangerous Pied Piper of Hamelin:

On the citizens then refusing to pay the money, the piper took up his pipe once more and led the way out of the town followed by 130 children [who] vanished forever.

Another very sobering, troubling similarity: This Illinois magician seems to have captured the imagination and adulation of a large segment of America’s young. Where he says he’ll lead, they are lining up to follow – though nobody knows where that is. He hasn’t been there himself, but he paints a mystical, attractive picture of a united, harmonious, progressive land where all needs are magically attended by a loving government. Almost socialistic nirvana, though he doesn’t use those words.

~~~

And to my real dismay, I’ve heard from mature, knowledgeable people, even some Republicans, who are so impressed with the magician’s ability to “involve our young people in the political process” that they’re endorsing his candidacy, all the while confessing that they disagree with him on “many fundamental issues”! What in the heck is going on? Some kind of voodoo?

~~~~

And now, defending his staunch support for abortion for any woman or girl who wants it, he has uttered, “I’m going to teach [my daughters] … about values and morals, but if they make a mistake, I don’t want them punished with a baby!” His ideas of morality and right behavior don’t include accepting responsibility for “making mistakes,” apparently. No, let the innocent unborn pay the price, not his daughter.

It’s not entirely clear on whether Pat thinks Obama will make America’s youth mysteriously disappear, is using Unwholesome African Witchcraft to mesmerize good, upstanding White People, and will drown the unborn in a river, or if he figures the Pied Piper was somekind of pinko bastard who led the children of Hamelin into a heretofore unknown form of communist enslavement.

Hillary has an explanation about why video of her landing in Bosnia doesn’t show her dodging sniper fire:

Sen. Hillary Clinton said she “misspoke” last week when she gave a dramatic description of her arrival in Bosnia 12 years ago, recounting a landing under sniper fire.

Clinton was responding to a question Monday from the Philadelphia Daily News’ editorial board about video footage of the event that contradicted her assertion that her group “ran with our heads down” from the plane to avoid sniper fire at the Tuzla Air Base.

~~~

“I say a lot of things — millions of words a day — so if I misspoke, that was just a misstatement,” she said.

A misstatement? She meant to say “I casually stood on the tarmac and pretended to kiss a little girl” but accidentally said “I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base.”

She should have just said she “misremembered” the whole thing. Happens all the time — just ask Roger Clemens.

NESS CITY, Kan. - A man whose girlfriend authorities say spent nearly two years in a bathroom in their house, sitting on the toilet so long that the seat adhered to her body, has been charged with mistreatment of a dependent adult.

Sgt Whipple … “dependent” … I’m just sayin’ …

Sheriff Bryan Whipple has said that he used a pry bar to remove the seat from the toilet, and that the woman was taken to the hospital with the seat still attached.

“She would have to be sleeping on the toilet,” Whipple said.

Source

I walk on in n see em there
Gonna give them all a thrill
When they see me comin
They all steps aside
They has a fit while I commit
My social suicide, Im a
Dancin fool, Im a
Dancin fool
The beat goes on
And Im so wrong
The beat goes on
And Im so wrong
The beat goes on n Im so wrong
The beat goes on n Im so wrong
The beat goes on n Im so wrong
I may be totally wrong, but Im a
Dancin fool, Im a
Dancin fool

– Frank Zappa, Dancin’ Fool

I can’t believe this.

“My brother went to war tonight with the government,” Gerald Thornton said in an interview with a local television station after the incident. “He decided that he could no longer verbally work it out.”

More reasons:

On CNN, Mr. Thornton seemed to confirm reports that ticketing of his brother’s commercial vehicles were at the core of the dispute. Violations of his “constitutional protections” was also cited, without elaboration.

NYT

MR’s girl reporter on assignment yesterday.

Read all about it here.

Does turning down what surely was to be a large payday enhance investigative reporter’s Don Yaeger’s credibility?

Other than as a reader of Sports Illustrated, I don’t know much about Yaeger’s work. And I don’t in any way mean to imply that he lacks credibility in any way or that there was ever any question about his credibility.

But I must admit, I’ve been awaiting the release of his book about New Orleans’ Saints running back Reggie Bush — aka the Heisman Trophy winner out of USC — with a bit of skepticism.

If you haven’t followed the story, Bush (and his family) are accused of receiving payments from a sports agent while Reggie was still playing at USC. Technically, this is not illegal, but it is a violation of NCAA rules and regulations. (Not paying taxes on the money might be illegal — I’m not a lawyer and I don’t want to proclaim something true when I’m not sure.) If it were to be proven that Bush and Co. received the payments, theoretically USC could forfeit the games Bush played in, could forfeit a National Championship and Bush could be stripped of the Heisman award.

If I recall correctly, a lot of the work on this story originated on the Yahoo sports web site. (I wish I could find the old links to the stories.) Now, Yaeger is out with a book called Tarnished Heisman: Did Reggie Bush Turn His Final College Season into a Six-Figure Job?

This is from the Amazon listing:

Don Yaeger, a former Sports Illustrated investigative reporter who documented the Duke University lacrosse case in the shattering New York Times bestseller It’s Not About the Truth, reveals the heated controversy behind Bush’s high-flying rise before turning pro for the New Orleans Saints, going back to his first taste of fame, when Bush landed in the pages of Sports Illustrated and all eyes were watching to see what was next for the USC sophomore. What few eyes saw, however, were the ties between Bush and two San Diego men, cofounders of a fledgling sports agency, who claim to have paid Bush and his family in cash and gifts to ensure his endorsement — benefits including a vintage car, lavish trips, and an upscale home where Bush’s family lived rent-free. Don Yaeger exposes the NCAA-prohibited activity in which Bush allegedly engaged, and also shows how USC and its coaching staff appeared to have turned a blind eye to the increasingly luxurious lifestyle of their star athlete and his family.

With the explosive information revealed in Tarnished Heisman, Bush stands to be ruled ineligible — a decision that could cost his alma mater the 2004 national championship title, force the forfeit of every game Bush played in after losing his eligibility, and potentially strip Reggie Bush of the shining prize of his college career: the Heisman Trophy.

photo from the Amazon web page

Until now, I’ve remained skeptical of the story. The feeling had nothing to do with Yaeger or the reporters for Yahoo. And it’s not that I don’t believe that any given star college football player would receive improper benefits. Part of me would be more surprised to hear that they didn’t. And the issue of whether or not these players are unfairly exploited by the school’s and the NCAA and that this exploitation leads to the accepting of these benefits is a valid discussion for another time and place. But I am very surprised that someone as prominent as Bush could get caught and that there might actually be real penalties for him and his school and it’s there that my skepticism lay.

Things like this just don’t happen to players like Bush and to NCAA football flag bearers like USC.

But Yaeger made news recently for another story and oddly enough, it impacted my feeling on the impending Bush book.

From the New York Daily News, via ESPN.com:

Former Sports Illustrated associate editor Don Yaeger, who had initially planned on collaborating on Jose Canseco’s next book, has decided against working with the former slugger, according to a published report.

“I’m passing,” Yaeger told the New York Daily News. “I had a chance to review the Jose Canseco [material] that he provided me. I don’t think there’s a book there. I don’t know what they’re going to do. I don’t think he’s got what he claims to have, certainly doesn’t have what he claims to have on A-Rod. There’s no meat on the bones.”

The fact that Yaeger would turn down the opportunity to work on the Canseco book — sure to get a lot of attention and I presume a nice fee for whoever decided to ghostwrite for Jose — suggests to me that he felt there was “meat on the bones” in the Bush story.

I haven’t read the Bush book yet. I’m a bit confused about the release date, actually, since it’s supposed to be coming out next week while Amazon says it’s already available. One way or the other, I’ll get to it soon enough.

And the author’s most recent decision makes me more ready to believe what he has to say about Bush.

QUICK UPDATE: There is a discussion of the book and some of the issues surrounding it at Adam Rose’s USC blog with the Los Angeles Times.

WTF?