There is a Hilarious Jon Stewart piece that he did this week which shows  Lieberman as Droopy dog and Thompson as Foghorn Leghorn.  It is hilarious.  If you want to see the segment of that show that features Lieberman and Thompson.

It is funny how much Lieberman looks like Droopy Dog and how much that Fred Thompson not only looks but sounds like Foghorn Leghorn.

http://iflizwerequeen.com/

I just read an interesting piece by John Nichols in THE NATION.  Here is part of it and the link to the rest:

ST. PAUL – Forty years ago, mounting a comeback campaign after losing a presidential race eight years earlier, Richard Nixon secured the Republican nomination and then selected as his running-mate a former local official who had served a scant twenty months as the governor of a small state.

The choice was questioned by pundits and mocked by Democrats. They called the vice presidential nominee: "Spiro Who?"

But when Maryland Governor Spiro T. Agnew hit the campaign trail, he did so as "Nixon's Nixon" – the attack dog the party needed to take the opposition apart while making the Republican presidential nominee look presidential.

It was the same role that Alaska Governor Sarah Palin assumed Wednesday night at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul.

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat/354163

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the Republican vice-presidential nominee who revealed Monday that her 17-year-old daughter is pregnant, earlier this year used her line-item veto to slash funding for a state program benefiting teen mothers in need of a place to live. Inking her initials on the legislation — “SP” — Palin reduced funding for Covenant House Alaska by more than 20 percent, cutting funds from $5 million to $3.9 million. Covenant House is a mix of programs and shelters for troubled youths, including Passage House, which is a transitional home for teenage mothers.

SOURCE:
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/09/02/palin_slashed_funding_to_help.html

It is irrelevant whether the trooper, Palin's brother-in-law "deserved" to be fired or not (and judging from his alleged behavior, I would not argue that point).

However this is what is at question here--Palin's use of the influence of her office in a way that is certainly not in accordance with ethical behavior, if not perhaps even the law.

1.  She told her brother-in-Law's boss to fire the brother-in-law.
2.  When the boss did not, Palin fired her brother-in-law's boss.

She claims it was because of a budget issue.

LOOKS TO ME LIKE WE HAVE ANOTHER DECIDER ON OUR HANDS--ANOTHER ONE WHO FEELS FREE TO USE THE POWER OF THE OFFICE TO TAKE THE LAW INTO THEIR OWN HANDS.

 "We can keep giving tax breaks to companies that ship jobs overseas, or we can give tax benefits to companies that invest right here in New Hampshire,"

"We can have a tax code that rewards wealth and hands out billions of dollars more to big corporations and multimillionaires. Or we can provide a USD 1,000 tax cut to 95 per cent of families in America, start rewarding work and not just wealth, and eliminate income taxes for seniors making USD 50,000 a year or less," Obama said, adding that's an agenda for change that we can believe in. That's the choice that we can make in this election.

"We can allow millions of Americans to work full-time but still not make enough to support their families, or we can raise the minimum wage, index it to inflation, and ensure that hard work pays off in America."

"I don't care black, white, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, young, old, rich, poor. It doesn't matter. There's this sense of what this country is fundamentally about, a fundamental goodness, and that if we tap into that, I am absolutely convinced that we can lift this country up to new and greater heights. "

"This is one of those moments in our history when we have to tap the decency of the American people. This is our chance to turn the page on the policies of the last seven and a half years. This is our chance to bring a new energy policy to America and new ideas to America," Obama said at a historic moment during the campaign trail.

"So here's the choice in this election. If you like the direction America is going, then vote for Senator McCain, because you'll definitely get more of the same. But if you think we need a new course, a new agenda, then vote for Barack Obama and you will get the change that you and we need and deserve," Senator Clinton said in her opening comments.

McCain and Palin:  MORE OF THE SAME IN A NEW SKILLET
No matter how hard they try to sling it, their claptrap is more of the same leftover hash from the last 8 years.  I’m not eating it.  Are you?

How many different ways can the RNC sling the same sorry hash of half-truths and lies? This week Americans listened to the same Rovian exaggerations and half-truths coming out of the mouths of both McCain and Palin. For example we listened to the same tired Republican claptrap about taxes. The big question is: Will the Americans be fooled for a third time?

If working class people don’t want CEO’s and shareholders of corporations like Wal-Mart deciding for them what are “fair” wages and benefits, they better wise up and vote for the Democrats. If you are close to social security collection time, you better vote Democrat if you don’t want your retirement squandered under a Republican “Privatization” scheme. If you are a young person who can’t afford a college education, better vote Democrat. If you are for closing tax loopholes for the rich and for corporations, then you better vote Democrat. If you are for affordable healthcare, you better vote Democrat. If you want to see more jobs at home instead of more jobs shipped overseas, then you better vote Democrat.

Of course, if you are among the few lucky ones like McCain with multiple homes, then go ahead. The RNC is for you–unless you also happen to care about issues such as global warming, the energy crisis, and the deterioration of the American image worldwide.

If you only have 30 seconds to decide which one you will choose, chew on this:

1.  DO YOU WANT YOUR SALARY AND WAGES LEFT ENTIRELY UP TO THE DISCRETION OF CORPORATE CEO'S SUCH AS THOSE WHO HEAD UP WAL-MART?

or

2.  DO YOU WANT TO PARTICIPATE IN THE DETERMINATION OF WHAT CONSTITUTES FAIR PAY FOR YOUR WORK?

It's a free country.  If you trust Wal-Mart to pay you fair wages, then vote Republican.  If you want a better life for yourself and your family.  If you want a better life than the last 8 years, then vote for BARACK OBAMA AND JOE BIDEN.

AGAIN, IT IS THE CLASH OF CONSERVATIVE RIGHT-WING IDEOLOGY AGAINST A MORE PROGRESSIVE LEFT WING IDEOLOGY

Both John McCain and Sarah Palin's acceptance speeches may have claimed to the promise of change, but that they both did nothing but promise more of the same failed neo-liberal economics that the Bush Administration has been shoving down our throats for the past 8 years.

I hope that Americans see through their theater to the truth of what they were offering which is MORE OF THE SAME, and possibly even worse. You hear a lot about "individual responsibility" and very little about community.  People like the McCain's think they have done their work if they adopt one child from Bangledesh. I was struck by the irony of Cindy McCain talking about helping to start programs to clean up unexploded munitions and the fact that the legislation that her husband voted for did a lot to put them there in the first place.

HERE IS ONE OF THE CORNERSTONES OF THE REPUBLICAN ECONOMIC NEO-LIBERALISM:

ELIMINATING THE CONCEPT OF “THE PUBLIC GOOD” or “COMMUNITY” and replacing it with “individual responsibility.” Pressuring the poorest people in a society to find solutions to their lack of health care, education and social security all by themselves — then blaming them, if they fail, as “lazy.”

Interesting the Pets that Presidents and their children bring to the White House.   For example, Teddy Roosevelt had a parrot.  John Kennedy’s family brought a pair of pet hamsters Debbie and Billie; a gray cat Tom Kitten; a canary named Robin.  Eventually ponies Macaroni and Tex; Welsh terrier Charley, German shepherd Clipper; Cocker spaniel Shannon; parakeets Maybelle and Bluebell and Wolf, an Irish wolfhound.

Of course we have George Bush’ English Springer spaniel Spot.   There was Thomas Jefferson’s magpie, one of four birds send back from the Lewis and Clark Expedition. The Nixon family had King Timahoe, an Irish Setter. Then there were the famous Lyndon Johnson Beagles Him and Her.

And if McCain wrangles the presidency, the McCains will bring their pet pitbull.