Bristol Palin’s Baby Daddy Revealed (Photos)

By- Suzie-Q @ 11:00 PM MST

Levi Johnston: Bristol Palin’s Baby Daddy Revealed (PHOTOS)

Huffington Post |   September 1, 2008 11:38 PM

***SCROLL DOWN FOR PHOTOS OF LEVI JOHNSTON AND BRISTOL PALIN***

Bristol Palin’s baby daddy has been revealed to be 18 year-old Levi Johnston. Sarah Palin announced that her 17 year-old daughter is five months pregnant Monday. Read More at HuffPost’s Sarah Palin big news page.

According to The NY Daily News:

Doe-eyed Bristol Palin, 17, and ruggedly handsome Levi Johnston, 18, have been dating for about a year, locals in their hometown of Wasilla, Alaska, told the Daily News…

…”They’ve been together quite a while, more than a year,” she said. “I hope everything comes out well. These are local kids.”

Johnston, broadchested and wearing a No. 15 jersey, can be seen in photographs hitting the boards as a Warrior in action.

A closeup shot shows the handsome teen with a light dusting of whiskers on his chin – his dark brown hair curly and wet.

“Levi has got huge potential,” Jennie Johnston said. “He’s a smart kid.”

The New York Post has excerpts from Johnston’s MySpace page:

On his MySpace page, Johnston boasts, “I’m a f – – -in’ redneck” who likes to snowboard and ride dirt bikes.

“But I live to play hockey. I like to go camping and hang out with the boys, do some fishing, shoot some s- – – and just f – – -in’ chillin’ I guess.”

“Ya f – – – with me I’ll kick [your] ass,” he added.

He also claims to be “in a relationship,” but states, “I don’t want kids.”

A recent photo of Bristol Palin (first on the left), her family (brother Track is absent), John, Cindy and Meghan McCain.

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Secessionist Sarah: VP pick Sarah Palin and the Alaska Independence Party

By- Suzie-Q @ 10:15 PM MST

Daily Kos- by Liz Arnett

Mon Sep 01, 2008 at 01:13:05 AM PDT

In spite of the rethug efforts to delete Sarah Palin’s history, particularly between 2004 and 2006, we found a real gem on you tube this evening.
The clips show the connection between Sarah Palin and the Alaska Independence Party. (We downloaded the clips and re-uploaded them into our own you tube account in case they get taken down.)

• Liz Arnett’s diary :: ::

In the first clip we see Palin address the AIP convention earlier this year:

This next clip is the 1st of 2 parts from the convention itself. About half way through the speech(at 6:00), the Vice Chairman of the AIP, Dexter Clark,  says this of Palin: “Our current governor who I mentioned at the last conference, the one we were hoping would get elected, Sarah Palin, did get elected . . . .and there was a lot of talk about her moving up. She was an AIP member before she got the job as mayor . . . ”

This last clip is a continuation of the speech from Dexter Clark, the Vice Chairman from the AIP.  In it, he talks about the necessity of infiltrating the major national parties in order to further the goals of the AIP.

The AIP’s main aim is to secede from the United States, becoming either a territory or a sovereign nation.  They aim to be entirely “self-sufficient” using profits from the oil and gas resources of the state.

On
their website, you’ll see this:

The Alaskan Independence Party can be summed up in just two words:
ALASKA FIRST!

And their 2008 platform:

To seek the complete repatriation of the public lands, held by the federal government, to the state and people of Alaska in conformance with Article 1, Section 8, Clause 17, of the federal constitution.

Governor Palin’s connections with the AIP are also furthered by her connection to Wally Hickel, a former Alaskan governor.  Hickel was elected on the AIP ticket.  He served as the co-chairman of Governor Palin’s campaign in 2006
Here is a quote from an interview Hickel did with the Alaska Dispatch:

When Palin was running for governor in 2006, Hickel appeared in advertisements supporting her and the Alaska pipeline.
“I made her governor,” Hickel told me.

When asked earlier this year on CNBC about whether she’d be picked for McCain’s VP, Palin said, “We wanna make sure that that VP slot would be a fruitful type of position, especially for Alaskans, and for the things we’re trying to accomplish up here for the rest of the US, before I can even start addressing that question.”

So, besides the fact that she doesn’t know what the VP does everyday, Palin wants to be VP only if it’s a good thing for Alaska?

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‘JackBoots’ Goes Insane at RNC Convention…

Amy Goodman Violently Arrested Today at RNC

Story from Democracy Now site:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Democracy Now Site

September 1, 2008

Contact:
Dennis Moynihan
Mike Burke

ST. PAUL, MN–Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman was unlawfully arrested in downtown St. Paul, Minnesota at approximately 5 p.m. local time. Police violently manhandled Goodman, yanking her arm, as they arrested her. Video of her arrest can be seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYjyvkR0bGQ

Goodman was arrested while attempting to free two Democracy Now! producers who were being unlawfuly detained. They are Sharif Abdel Kouddous and Nicole Salazar. Kouddous and Salazar were arrested while they carried out their journalistic duties in covering street demonstrations at the Republican National Convention. Goodman’s crime appears to have been defending her colleagues and the freedom of the press.

Ramsey County Sherrif Bob Fletcher told Democracy Now! that Kouddous and Salazar were being arrested on suspicion of rioting. They are currently being held at the Ramsey County jail in St. Paul.

Democracy Now! is calling on all journalists and concerned citizens to call the office of Mayor Chris Coleman and the Ramsey County Jail and demand the immediate release of Goodman, Kouddous and Salazar. These calls can be directed to: Chris Rider from Mayor Coleman’s office at 651-266-8535 and the Ramsey County Jail at 651-266-9350 (press extension 0).

Democracy Now! stands by Goodman, Kouddous and Salazar and condemns this action by Twin Cities law enforcement as a clear violation of the freedom of the press and the First Amenmdent rights of these journalists.

During the demonstration in which they were arrested law enforcement officers used pepper spray, rubber bullets, concussion grenades and excessive force. Several dozen others were also arrested during this action.

Amy Goodman is one of the most well-known and well-respected journalists in the United States. She has received journalism’s top honors for her reporting and has a distinguished reputation of bravery and courage. The arrest of Goodman, Kouddous and Salazar is a transparent attempt to intimidate journalists from the nation’s leading independent news outlet.

Democracy Now! is a nationally-syndicated public TV and radio program that airs on over 700 radio and TV stations across the US and the globe.

Update on Arrest Of Amy Goodman and DN! Producers

Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman and producers Sharif Abdel Kouddous and Nicole Salazar have all been released from police custody in St. Paul following their illegal arrest by Minneapolis Police on Monday afternoon.

Read more…

Monday, September 1 11:57 pm EDT

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my theory as to why the rnc is all but cancelled

by betmo

it certainly wasn’t because they gave a tinker’s dam about the gulf coast region. no, my thought is- the convention simply fell apart. mccain had to downsize fundraising venues due to disinterest; leading rethuglicans decided not to attend; thousands of protesters (versus hundreds at the dnc) was bound to be an embarrassment; and the death knell to the convention:

mccain’s pick of palin

guess the disgruntled feds and rethugs have decided to get even- they are arresting people who haven’t done anything but meet in private residences– and arresting people who simply want to document the truth.

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McCain Campaign Sends A Dozen Lawyers And Communications Operatives To Alaska

By- Suzie-Q @ 6:30 PM MST

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's daughters from left, Piper, Willow and Bristol are seen Dec. 8, 2006, at the Governor's mansion, in Juneau, Alaska. John McCain's running mate Sarah Palin said Monday, Sept. 1, 2008, that her 17-year-old unmarried daughter is five months pregnant, an announcement campaign aides said was aimed at rebutting Internet rumors that Palin's youngest son, born in April, was actually her daughter's. (AP Photo/Juneau Empire,Brian Wallace)* * MAGS OUT, NO SALES

McCain Campaign Sends A Dozen Communications Operatives, Lawyers To Alaska

LIZ SIDOTI | September 1, 2008 08:40 PM EST |

ST. PAUL, Minn. — Sarah Palin’s path to the Republican ticket started with her name on a list _ and a team of some 25 people poring through public records searching for trouble spots without her knowledge. Then came the 70-question survey and a nearly three-hour interview.

The review officially ended Thursday, when John McCain asked the Alaska governor to be his running mate.

In the days since, Republicans and Democrats have privately questioned whether the Arizona senator chose the first-term governor without fully looking into her background. McCain’s campaign has vehemently defended the review.

Arthur B. Culvahouse Jr., the lawyer who conducted the review, told The Associated Press in an interview Monday that Palin underwent a “full and complete” examination before McCain chose her. Asked whether everything that came up as a possible red flag during the review already has been made public, Culvahouse said: “I think so. Yeah, I think so. Correct.”

Stoking the notion of a rushed examination, a timeline issued by the campaign indicated that McCain initially met Palin in February, then held one phone conversation with her last week before inviting her to Arizona, where he met with her a second time and offered her the job.

Raising additional questions was the campaign’s disclosure Monday that Palin’s unmarried 17-year-old daughter was pregnant, and reports that Palin’s husband, Todd, had been arrested in 1986, when he was 22, for driving under the influence of alcohol.

McCain’s campaign has dispatched a team of a dozen communications operatives and lawyers to Alaska.

Steve Schmidt, a senior adviser, said the campaign always planned to send a “jump team” to the eventual running mate’s home state to work with the nominee’s staff, help with information requests from local and national reporters, and answer questions about documents that were part of the review.

Culvahouse said Palin’s review, like others, began with a team of two dozen people culling information from public sources. The team reviewed speeches, financial records, tax information, litigation, investigations, ethical charges, marriages and divorces, for a number of potential running mates.

For Palin specifically, the team studied online archives of the state’s largest newspapers, including the Anchorage Daily News, but didn’t request paper archives for Palin’s hometown newspaper for fear the secret review would become public.

Among the findings: Palin had once received a citation for fishing without a license.

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McCain Campaign Didn’t Search Palin’s Hometown Newspaper Archives

By- Suzie-Q @ 4:00 PM MST

McCain Camp Didn’t Search Palin’s Hometown Paper Archives

Huffington Post- Sam Stein

August 31, 2008 05:00 PM

UPDATE: Some readers have noted that the Frontiersman website includes a small archive of stories about Palin. However, as our original source informed us, and a second Democratic researcher with access to the same records confirms, there have been hundreds of stories on Palin by the Frontiersman dating back over 15 years, only a handful of which are posted online. More important to the story, the Democratic researchers, not the McCain campaign, were the first to request access to these archives.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The McCain campaign has gone to great lengths to present the selection of Sarah Palin as one made after a careful, meticulous vetting process. But evidence continues to suggest that the Arizona Republican made his VP choice with surprising haste.

On Saturday, a Democrat tasked with opposition research contacted the Huffington Post with this piece of information: as of this weekend, the McCain campaign had not gone through old newspaper articles from the Valley Frontiersman, Palin’s hometown newspaper.

How does he know? The paper’s (massive) archives are not online. And when he went to research past content, he was told he was the first to inquire.

“No one else had requested access before,” said the source. “It’s unbelievable. We were the only people to do that, which means the McCain camp didn’t.”

The Frontiersman did not immediately confirm the revelation. And there is no indication from the Democratic source that anything nefarious or problematic will be found in the archives. But officials with the paper did not recall inquiries by the McCain campaign.

“I cannot confirm that information at this time,” said publisher Kari Sleight. “I am not aware of the McCain campaign researching our archives, but archive requests do not usually go through me.”

If true, the failure of the Arizona Republican to access the newspaper clippings becomes another in a growing list of revelations that calls into question just how and why he made his decision to choose Palin. A rudimentary clip search, such as this, is presidential politics 101 as campaigns not only look for the majority of background information on any high-level appointee, but also try to prepare themselves from future attacks.

It has been previously reported that the McCain campaign did not contact Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan, who Palin pushed to have fired after he refused to remove her sister’s former husband from the state’s police force. That controversy, an investigation of which will be made public in late October, could cause major headaches for Palin in the days leading up to the election.

In addition, the former Republican House Speaker of Alaska, Gail Phillips, admitted to reporters that she was shocked by McCain’s choice of Palin, as “his advance team didn’t come to Alaska to check her out.”

Even McCain’s own aides seemed unprepared by the choice. After Palin’s name was announced, spokeswoman Nancy Pfotenhauer was asked about the governor’s relationship with the Senator.

“You’re running flat into the wall of my ignorance here,” she said. “I truly have no indication whatsoever the extent of a relationship that exists with the Governor of Alaska.”

In light of these reports, the McCain camp has sought to dispel the notion that Palin was un-vetted or chosen out of purely political motives. Even though the presumptive Republican nominee met his now-running mate only once before choosing her, aides have begun arguing, the two are “kindred spirits” and have shared ideological bearings. In a Washington Post piece Sunday, Rick Davis, McCain’s campaign manager, said the Palin chose was not a last minute call. The process, he added, was rigorous and involved sifting through financial and other personal data, as well as an FBI background check.

“Nobody was vetted less or more than anyone in the final stages, and John had access to all that information and made the decision,” Davis said. “It’s really not much more complicated than that.”

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Protesters At RNC Convention Swell to 50,000 Media Kept Away!

GEF @ 6:08 PM ET

FULL FRONTAL FASCISM IN AMERICA UNLEASHED!

GOP Convention Protests 50,000 Strong On First Day And Media Kept Away!

BREAK OUT!!

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Abramoff, McCain, Palin, Corruption & the GOP…

By- Suzie-Q @ 2:45 PM MST

Daily Kos- by dengre

Sun Aug 31, 2008 at 10:11:35 PM PDT

I’ve written about the McCain/Abramoff link often (like in this Diary).

John McCain is not a reformer, a “maverick” or even a honest man. ALL of this is a carefully crafted myth!

And now McCain has a Mini-Me—a younger version of himself. The Republican Party has manufactured yet another “reformer with results’ in the mold of McCain and his patron, George W. Bush and now she is on the ticket.

I’m talking, of course, about the Governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin. And to become Governor, she defeated the only Republican ever to oppose Jack Abramoff BEFORE the Abramoff scandal became news.

Like McCain, Palin’s reform credentials are built on a carefully constructed myth. On closer examination, her record is all hat and no cattle. And yet, we can count on McCain’s well trained sycophants in the media to sing her praises and believe whatever line of BS Curveball John and his cadre of lobbyists feed them.

Palin, McCain and their Republican Party are mired in corruption. They can not clean up Washington or anything else. They are the problem.

To the jump…

• dengre’s diary :: ::

This week will be a news cycle of high content and hype. Another hurricane, a Republican Convention held in the shadows, an energized Democratic party and a world situation that is desperate for change on so many levels.  Many stories and details will be lost in such a news cycle.

In the fast moving news cycle, I hope that one story can filter through:
Jack Abramoff will be sentenced for his crimes on September 4, 2008.

This is important. In September 2006 it became clear that the November Election would turn on the issue of corruption. All signs point to the same thing happening this year.

I’ll try and put this in the simple language of politics:

It’s The Corruption, Stupid

That is what we need to understand if we wish to elect Barack Obama and defeat John McCain. It is what we need to understand if we wish to increase our margins in the House, Senate and State Capitals across our Nation or to have any hope for progressive legislation in 2009.

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Palin Served As Director On ‘Ted Stevens Excellence In Public Service, Inc’

By- Suzie-Q @ 2:15 PM MST

Palin Served As Director Of 527 Group Called ‘Ted Stevens Excellence In Public Service, Inc.’

Think Progress- By Faiz at 2:14 pm

The Washington Post’s Matthew Mosk reports that Sarah Palin “began building clout in her state’s political circles in part by serving as a director of an independent political group organized by the now embattled Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens“:

Palin’s name is listed on 2003 incorporation papers of the “Ted Stevens Excellence in Public Service, Inc.,” a 527 group that could raise unlimited funds from corporate donors. The group was designed to serve as a political boot camp for Republican women in the state. She served as one of three directors until June 2005, when her name was replaced on state filings.

Last October on Fox News Sunday, John McCain said, “The 527s need to be eliminated.”

Stevens is hardly a model of “excellence in public service.” He was indicted in July “on seven felony counts of failing to disclose gifts that he received from an oil services company,” VECO. That same oil company has ties to Palin, contributing 10 percent of her total campaign fund when she ran for lieutenant governor in 2002.

After Stevens was indicted, Palin vocally defended him. In turn, Stevens endorsed Palin as McCain’s vice presidential pick last week, stating that he has worked with her “for over a decade.”

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Thousands Greet ‘JackBoots’ To Protest GOP Convention!

GEF @ 4:58 PM ET

Thousands march in protest; some arrests, vandalism

Police officers line up against protesters marching against the Republican National Convention today.

The anti-war protesters made their way from the Capitol to the Xcel Energy Center, where the Republican National Convention is being held.

Star Tribune

Last update: September 1, 2008 – 3:26 PM

Protesters get pepper sprayed

Matt Rourke, Associated Press

Video: Police confront protesters

Photo gallery: Monday protests at the RNC

Antiwar demonstrators marched today from the State Capitol to the site of the Republican National Convention, despite the big-name cancellations and following an earlier march by a smaller group that sparked a minor conflict.

The ad hoc group of protesters departed early from the Capitol and was met near the Xcel Energy Center, site of the convention, by counter-demonstrators and under the watch of police.

All told, two news media photographers apparently caught pepper spray from law enforcement, and sporadic vandalism was inflicted in downtown St. Paul as a handful of arrests were reported.

The last of the protesters, their numbers not coming close to matching organizers’ hopes, cleared the area near the Xcel at 2:45 p.m. and headed back to the Capitol.

Protest organizers had said their passion would remain strong even though President George Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney are skipping their convention speeches because of Hurricane Gustav.

As demonstrators passed by a fenced-in area near the Xcel, 10 helmeted riot police holding long wooden batons stood at attention on the other side.

“What country do we live in?” said Patrick Swinehart, 20, a protester from Plymouth. “I’ve never seen anything like this. It looks a hell of a lot like a police state.”

At the tail end of the march was a group of about a dozen women from Crawford, Texas, dressed as cheerleaders and calling themselves the “Missile Dick Chicks.” They did high kicks and sang “Stop in the Name of War,” a takeoff from the Supremes’ 1960s hit.

As of 1:45 p.m., authorities reported five arrests, all stemming from property damage at Smith and Grand avenues. Five people were arrested for lighting a trash bin on fire and pushing it into a police car, said police spokesman Tom Walsh.

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