Sarah Palin Slams Northern Virginia

Resident village idiot of the Republican Party, Sarah Palin attacked Northern Virginia in one of her anti-government diatribes. In Palin's distorted world view, Northern Virginia represents the image of corrupt government lobbyists who suck off the teat of government programs. The problem, of course, is that Palin ignores the fact that many of the groups firmly based in Northern Virginia are some of the foulest far right/Christianist organization s which run the gamut of Chuck Colson's so-called prison ministry to the Arlington Group, to Mike Farris' lunatic Patrick Henry University, to others who make up the Who's Who of the Christian Right. And lest we forget, Northern Virginia is home to Republican extremists like Ken Cuccinelli and the always foul Del. Bob Marshall who wants to force LGBT citizens from Virginia. One can only assume that Palin - not that it's a surprise - has failed to do her homework before shooting off her mouth. Blue Virginia looks at Palin's verbal diarrhea. Here are some highlights:

It might be Labor Day. But Tim Kaine's campaign should be hard at work preparing for a press conference tomorrow, calling out George Allen and the VA GOP as to whether they agree with the 2008 Republican VP nominee's attack on the good people of Northern Virginia. Mrs Palin's belittling of the "permanent political class" got a lot of headlines over the weekend.

I went on her PAC's web site to get the text. As the headline stories reported, the former Alaska Governor did indeed deliver a scathing condemnation of the political class. That she happens to be one of the highest paid members of this posse - did she think we thought the FOX political gig was for free, not to mention her two political books and paid speeches - is of course amusing.

She took her Republican brand of criticism much farther however. This is what she said, the text taken from her PAC's web site, defining the "permanent political class" as opposed to the "rest of America" in a deep economic morass. No, they don't feel the same urgency that we do. But why should they? For them business is good: business is very good. Seven of the ten wealthiest suburbs are suburbs of Washington, D.C. Polls there actually - and usually I say polls, nah, they're for strippers and cross country skiers - but polls in those parts actually show that some people there believe that the economy has actually improved. See, there may not be a recession in Georgetown, but there is in the rest of America.

Palin is telling the GOP to lock and load against a bigger target, to run the class warfare attack against residents of Northern Virginia (Maryland commuters and Metro riders too), since it is easy to make them villains in the eyes of the rest of the country.

But the most troubling aspect of her Saturday speech is this: here we are, 48 hours later, and no Virginia Republican has stepped forward to call her out over this type of anti-Virginia demogoguery politics.

Does George Allen actually think he can win in NOVA by staying silent about this type of language? How does Governor McDonnell believe his remaining silent helps his hopes for getting on the GOP ticket? Cut to the 2012 bottom line: By remaining silent in the face of this latest Palinism, the VA GOP has given the VA Democratic Party a huge opening.

Sarah Palin lost Virginia in 2008 in part due to a big loss in NOVA. She is not the person the VA GOP wants to have to defend in NOVA. Bottom line: VA Democrats need to make the VA GOP take a clear and definitive position on the Palin attack of NOVA. Hello: We have some key state Senate races in NOVA in 60 days. Is anyone at DPVA paying attention?

In all candor, someone needs to call out Sarah Palin for her anti-Virginia comments. As note previously, some of the biggest hogs lined up at the government trough are Republicans and far right politicians, groups and "foundations." They condemn "big government" while they suck up every available penny of government largess - e.g., Marcus Bachmann sucking up Medicare funds for his "ex-gay" therapy or Michele Bachmann's family sucking up agricultural subsidies. These folks talk a good game until one looks at the real fact. Once you know the truth it soon becomes apparent that they are lying.

Navy Prosecutes More Sailors Who Married to Hide Sexuality

The Virginian Pilot is reporting that the Navy is continuing its witch hunt for LGBT service members who married to hide their sexual orientation and local individuals have been arrested. The Navy's premise is that they unlawfully received benefits that married couples receive when a spouse is a member of the military. Sadly, the same effort to weed out sham straight marriages doesn't seem to be materializing. I don't necessarily condone the actions of these sailors, but had they not been faced with potential persecution and expulsion from the Navy because of religious based discrimination, they likely would never entered into these marriages. And compared to the huge amounts of money ripped off by military contractors - who mostly go completely unpunished - and the monies squandered daily by the military (e.g., the senior brass constantly redecorate their offices and discard the old furnishings), we are talking pennies on the dollar. Here are highlights from the Pilot story:

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Two men pleaded guilty Monday to arranging three phony marriages, including one with a Navy doctor, so they and their wives could get more pay and health care benefits and so they could conceal their sexual orientations from the Navy. The men, long-time live-in boyfriends, received tens of thousands of dollars in benefits they weren't entitled to.
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Jeffrey H. Marshburn, 50, and retired Navy Chief Petty Officer Kristopher Graham-Marshburn, 45, both of Hampton, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court to conspiracy to make false claims against the United States. Graham-Marshburn had his name legally changed, court records say.
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The conspiracy began nearly 20 years ago while Marshburn and Graham-Marshburn, then a petty officer third class and a corpsman, were living in Beaufort, S.C. Marshburn arranged a phony marriage with an unidentified woman so the woman could obtain health care benefits and Marshburn could get an additional housing allowance.
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In 1995, Graham-Marshburn arranged his own phony marriage for the extra housing pay. His then-wife, who was not identified, received health benefits for her and her son. In 2000, he listed Marshburn as his brother and named him a beneficiary of his death benefits.
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Graham-Marshburn admitted that he remains married but has never lived with or had sex with his wife and that his primary motivation to marry was to conceal his sexual orientation from the Navy."

Pulling the Curtain on Sarah Palin

As news stories in the Washington Post and elsewhere are running about the manner in which Alaska Governor Sarah Palin charged the state for the better part of a year of nights she stayed in her own home (can I get that deal?), E.J. Dionne has a great column that looks at not only Palin's unfitness for the VP slot, but also the idiocy of John McCain selecting her in the first place. First, here are highlights from the WP on the billing issue:

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ANCHORAGE, Sept. 8 -- Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has billed taxpayers for 312 nights spent in her own home during her first 19 months in office, charging a "per diem" allowance intended to cover meals and incidental expenses while traveling on state business.

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The governor also has charged the state for travel expenses to take her children on official out-of-town missions. And her husband, Todd, has billed the state for expenses and a daily allowance for trips he makes on official business for his wife.

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The governor's daughters and husband charged the state $43,490 to travel, and many of the trips were between their house in Wasilla and Juneau, the capital city 600 miles away, the documents show.

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Whether or not technically legal, the charges surely do not set a good example for cutting government costs and waste. If Palin's family did not want to move to Juneau - Virginia governors and their families move to Richmond - it would seem that the costs of voluntarily "commuting" and staying in one's own home should not be a cost to taxpayers even if Alaska is awash in oil money. As for Dionne's column, here are some highlights:

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John McCain's campaign acknowledged this weekend that Sarah Palin is unprepared to be vice president or president of the United States. Of course, McCain's people said no such thing. But their actions told you all you needed to know.

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McCain's advisers clearly don't trust Palin to answer questions about policy and don't want her to answer many of the questions that have been raised about her tenure as governor of Alaska. Rick Davis, McCain's campaign manager, gave the game away when he said on "Fox News Sunday" that she would not meet with reporters until they showed a willingness to treat her "with some level of respect and deference."

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Deference? That's a word used in monarchies or aristocracies. Democracies don't give "deference" to politicians. When have McCain, Obama, Biden or, for that matter, Hillary Clinton asked for deference?

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A week ago, Elisabeth Bumiller of the New York Times cited McCain sources questioning "how thoroughly Mr. McCain had examined her background before putting her on the Republican presidential ticket." She reported that Palin had been selected "with more haste than McCain advisers initially described." (She also mistakenly reported that Palin belonged to the Alaskan Independence Party. It was her husband, Todd, who had been a member.) It turned out that the McCain side misled journalists. Bumiller was right about the vetting. The lesson is that McCain's counselors are not interested in fair treatment, and they are certainly not interested in the truth.

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[W]hat matters is not Palin's personal life but whether she is prepared to assume the presidency if called upon. The actions of McCain's lieutenants suggest that they know the answer. And they are doing everything they can to keep the media from finding it.