AK Muckraker managed to get somebody to sneak into the brand new Denaina Convention Center, to take this inspiring picture at the height of the Sarah Palin rally today. Brings tears to my eyes. The people around me are wondering why I'm laughing so hard, I'm crying. The Mudflats once again managed to cover both the McCain-Palin event, and the Obama event.Three progressive Alaska bloggers noted the right-wing, racist organization backing the legal challenge to the Branchflower investigation, now headed to the Alaska Supreme Court. Mudflats did a big eye roll, upon looking into the past of the Liberty Legal Institute.
Gryphen, at The Immoral Minority, quotes from the mission statement of the Liberty Legal Institute:
The Lone Star Ministry Connection exists to protect the freedom of our churches and ministries throughout the state of Texas to impact the lives of their families, attenders, and congregants with the truth. We are guided by the principles which limit government, promote free enterprise, and uphold Judeo-Christian values.
Gryphen asks:
Now Liberty Legal Institute is a non-profit organization. So they are apparently offering their services for free. But why? How does the Troopergate investigation infringe on anybodies religious freedoms?
Are you confused?
Good point, Gryph. And Shannyn Moore, who has yet to accept Jane Hamsher's maxim of "Never neglect to say "FUCK," when you might regret it later, posted an essay on the case, called "GET THE F*%# OUT OF MY STATE!"
Linda Kellen gets right to the heart of this new development in the outside-of-Alaska takeover of our state's governmental apparatus, in her essay, "Supreme Court appeal by the Religious Right lawyers Part I -- Who are they?"
Linda notes that the rise of Palin and her inclusion on the McCain ticket might stem from forces yet to be covered authoritatively, and along the way (the essay is, after all, Part One), cites Kelly Shackelford, the lead attorney in the Alaska Supreme Court appeal, as having been observed thusly:
It was when [Palin] beat Republican Gov. Frank Murkowski in the 2006 primary that Clarkson got a call from Focus on the Family asking him questions about the strength of her social conservative credentials.
"There had been some entries made under her name in Wikipedia that were of concern to them (Focus on the Family)," Clarkson said. "The main one cited in Wikipedia was her veto of a bill that would've limited marriage benefits to married couples."
Clarkson explained that it was a convoluted process that led to the veto. Acting as legal counsel, Clarkson advised Palin to veto the bill that he said, because of confusing legislative machinations and existing court challenges, would've had the opposite effect and locked in benefits for all couples.
Clarkson said he had to explain the whole decision to Focus on the Family to put minds at ease.
This past week, Alaska bloggers, led by Kellen, had the honor of representing, on behalf of Alaskans for Truth, over 2,000 signatories to a petition seeking a new look at Attorney Talis Colberg's job performance. Those of us there for the presentation of the petitions at the Anchorage offices of he Department of Law, to McPalin's press flack, Bill McAllister, got to watch the Anchorage mainstream media try to figure out how to deal with us as we do what we must. Heh....
After the presentation/semi-press conference, a group of progressive Alaska bloggers, met for lunch at the Organic Oasis. What a crew. I'd go with these guys and gals anywhere!
Bent Alaska posted a great YouTube, a product of one of the many journalistic teams who have come up to Alaska over the past six weeks:
My two favorite progressive Alaskan essays this past week were posted by Steve at What Do I Know?, and by Polar Bear, at Celtic Diva's Blue Oasis.
Steve attended Thursday's debate at the UAA Campus Center. Read his observations. They're the best local take on this well-covered subject.
And Polar Bear's essay, Joe Biden Writes the Textbook on Sarah Palin, is good too, without Steve's added information as observer of the students who watched with him. But Polar Bear hits the nail on the head - several times - with words like these:
Throughout the Vice Presidential debate, Palin could not provide a direct answer to a direct question. Palin's answers were noticeably scripted. When Joe Biden spoke, Sarah would affect her standard grin, look down at the podium, read her script as quickly as possible, finally responding with as much of her false folksie put-on as she could muster. The problem was, her debate script was an attack script, so Palin was unable to say how the McCain platform differs from the Bush administration. Conditional responses are not part of a script. Senator Biden sensed her difficulty about halfway through the debate, and from that point forward, Palin struggled, because the script notes could not help.
Alaska's progressive bloggers are probably growing weary of some of the incredible focus and attention directed toward our logs. We're growing, though, far more thn we're growing weary.
Oh, yeah. Ishmael, at Kodiak Konfidential, posted this Veep Debate Palin cheat sheet flow chart/response triage thingie:
Judy took this picture at today's Obama Rally in Anchorage (I was working):
Oh - I almost forgot to mention it. Shannyn's essay, Life Begins at Rape, has now inspired people to donate almost $1,000,000 to Planned Parenthood.In Sarah Palin's name.
2 comments:
i'm out of town thru 10/20 and i miss being engrossed in all this on a daily basis, and haven't kept up at all for more than a week now.
[i'm totally engrossed with working on the affairs of my parents' estate and it's taking almost all my time.]
i did watch the VP debate and discussed it the next day with a couple friends here in sequim, wash. they were amazed to hear about the mc cain campaign's involvement with state govt and the finer points of troopergate.
I love the picture of the empty chairs at the pro-Palin rally.
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