The GrassCity Gazette

[AK Infinity]

YouTube - Neda Agha-Soltan Shot Dead in Tehran...

Every time I see a video released from Iran I cry my eyes out. While the Iranians are struggling and dying for freedom in their country fucking loonies in this country continue with their baseless idiotic and deranged rhetoric about our current president. People are truly suffering in this world and the Right is trying to use every opportunity to play politics. If there's a hell I hope Fox News, and a large contingent of Congressional Republicans burn there.

[WARNING: This video is very graphic, but I want people to understand the price some are paying just to have a voice.]

[aaronman]

Originally Posted by AK Infinity

While the Iranians are struggling and dying for freedom in their country fucking loonies in this country continue with their baseless idiotic and deranged rhetoric about our current president. People are truly suffering in this world and the Right is trying to use every opportunity to play politics. If there's a hell I hope Fox News, and a large contingent of Congressional Republicans burn there.

No, we're just concerned with our own problems and not trying to start wars with Iran.

US troops kill two Iraqi protestors - 2003

US troops kill 13 Iraqi protestors - 2003

5 US troops rape and kill Iraqi family - 2006

Palestinian child shot dead by Israeli Soldiers - 2008

Palestinian shot dead at non-violent protest - June 2009


These are all our problem, not Iran. If we don't want to suppot theocracies maybe we should withdraw our subsidies from Saudi Arabia and Egypt? Or maybe we should place destructive economic sanctions on them?

[aaronman]

World's Most Popular US congressman?: Ron Paul

Months after his long-shot bid for the Republican presidential nomination ended, Rep. Ron Paul has become a hot ticket on the international stage. Unlikely as it may seem, Paul, a Texas Republican, is the most popular member of Congress outside the United States, if foreign television appearances are any indication.

Paul expected his international influence to diminish after the quixotic presidential campaign. In fact, it's gone the other way.

"It's actually building," he told the Huffington Post. "It really truly baffles me. I see myself as somebody who's been saying the same thing for about 30 years and not too many people paying any attention."

How much international media does a typical member of Congress do? "Practically none," says a top House GOP communications aide. Foreign media appearances are so rare, he says, that the party doesn't track them.

Paul says he doesn't go looking for the appearances. "I have a low resistance, because they pester me to death and I usually get talked into it. I don't usually look for 'em, but if somebody wanted to honestly ask me questions and express myself, because they relate to international affairs, I'm on [the] international relations [committee], and so they ask me," says Paul, pausing, probably realizing there are 46 other members of that committee who get nowhere near the number of foreign requests. "I don't know how it came about," he concludes. "It certainly isn't planned, because I'm not looking for more interviews."

Turn on Russia Today any given afternoon and you're likely to see Paul waxing political. A Paul-seeking viewer could also find him on the BBC and other outlets in Great Britain -- "too many to count," says the spokesman, Jesse Benton, for his ongoing Campaign for Liberty) -- or on stations in Canada, Holland, Sweden, Australia, Brazil and Argentina.
He's also routinely asked to appear in person. "Dr. Paul currently has invitations to speak all over the world, including Turkey, The Czech Republic, the U.K and Hong Kong," says Benton.

"Yes, we do get more foreign media requests than we can accommodate," affirms Rachel Mills, his congressional spokeswoman. In the last month, she says, he's appeared on Italian National Television, Russia Today, BBC and Iran's Press TV. A number of others were declined for lack of time, she said.

Told of Paul's foreign popularity, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) lets out a chuckle. "He's a great member of our caucus," he says, smiling.

Stepping back, it's not hard to guess why Paul is so popular among foreign producers. He's a fierce critic of American policy from top to bottom -- foreign policy, fiscal policy, monetary policy, civil liberties. And he's popular with audiences.

"When he is a guest, ratings increase. He is huge on the internet and CNN, Fox are trying to utilize that as well," said a journalist who works for a foreign network. "Also, when Dr. Paul was running for president, a lot of his interviews on the mainstream made him look like a lunatic...that has changed dramatically."

Paul reads the Constitution strictly and votes against any bill he thinks goes outside Congress' authority as granted within it. He strongly opposes sanctions and U.S. military interventions in foreign affairs and favors legalizing drugs, gambling and other vices. He deems the American government "broke."

Those are popular positions for viewers with anti-American sentiments and if Paul's popularity abroad is any evidence, those sentiments are alive and well, despite President Obama's international outreach. Take Russia Today, a network with an undercurrent of hostility toward American foreign policy -- though also a station independent of the Kremlin and not in the tank for its own authoritarian tendencies.

Paul, a regular on Russia Today, tells its audience the same thing he says on the House floor: that the U.S. and its puppet, NATO, should stop meddling in Russian affairs or in nations nearby. That's just what they want to hear.

Russia Today reporter Dina Gusovsky is happy to tee one up for Paul in a typical interview. "[C]an you comment on the NATO exercises in Georgia that are supposed to take place in early May?" Gusovsky asks. "There's already the bad blood between Russia, the U.S. and NATO. Is this going to exacerbate tensions? I mean, why is the United States spending so much money and effort in that region?"

Paul knocks it straight down the middle of the fairway, telling Gusovsky, "you're right to say United States because NATO is United States, and that's our policy. I think it's a waste of money especially since we don't have any. We have to borrow that from the Chinese in order to go and do these things and pretend it's a NATO operation. But I think that is just antagonistic. I strongly oppose it. I don't even think we belong in NATO. I think if they need a pact of countries in Europe then they should do it, but not with our help. Because my position is that not only should we back off from moving in that direction of getting involved in the countries and republics that are very close to the Russian border, I think we should leave Europe. And we'll have to, just like how the Soviets had to break up their system for financial reasons, eventually the United States will have to do the same thing and that's why I've always been preaching that the best way to follow fiscal conservative views is to change our foreign policy and not spend so much money just getting ourselves into more trouble."

The interview goes on for nearly eight minutes, a lifetime by U.S. cable standards. The more deliberative format appeals to Paul.

"The interviews are always very friendly. There's less noise and less gotcha type of stuff and no shouting," he says. While he's generally willing to do foreign shows, he's less eager to do American ones, he says, because of the crossfire setup that engenders confrontation.

"The format we have now isn't very healthy, where we just yell and shout at each other," he says. "I try to turn down these things where they put two people on a screen and to try to explain your position you have to yell louder than the other guy. As a matter of fact, I tell me staff I don't even want those. But if people are serious and want to ask me a question and want to know why I want to legalize marijuana and bring the troops home I'll tell them and try to explain it."

Paul's popularity extends to the ground level in foreign countries. His website draws readers from all over the globe, as this graphic world map shows. Paul's YouTube videos get high in Ireland, Great Britain, Australia, the Czech Republica, New Zealand and Poland. During the campaign, there were Paul MeetUps in 118 countries. And there are still Campaign for Libertry groups almost everywhere - from Afghanistan, the Aland Islands and Albania to Zaire, Zambia and Zimbabwe (where there are three). Benton says the campaign doesn't solicit foreign involvement, yet it continues to grow.

That kind of foreign entanglement -- the voluntary kind -- is the type that Paul, often derided as an isolationist, seems fine with. And much of the rest of the world seems fine with it, too.

"It has nothing to do with isolation," he says. "I want to talk and travel and trade with people, before we start boycotting and bombing and embargoing. And I guess that falls on receptive ears internationally."

[stoned budda]

Originally Posted by AK Infinity

YouTube - Neda Agha-Soltan Shot Dead in Tehran June 20 2009

Every time I see a video released from Iran I cry my eyes out. While the Iranians are struggling and dying for freedom in their country fucking loonies in this country continue with their baseless idiotic and deranged rhetoric about our current president. People are truly suffering in this world and the Right is trying to use every opportunity to play politics. If there's a hell I hope Fox News, and a large contingent of Congressional Republicans burn there.

[WARNING: This video is very graphic, but I want people to understand the price some are paying just to have a voice.]

Um, where were you when the left was bashing president Bush? Damn i must have missed that post somehow. The left politicized every issue under the sun no matter how trivial or serious it was for 8 years man. Oh that's right i forgot about the double standard for liberals.

[stoned budda]

une 23, 2009
Who's Funding the Obamacare Campaign?

By Michelle Malkin
If you believe the White House, there are 30 million Americans who support a government health care takeover. But if you look at the funding behind the Obamacare campaign, it's the same few leftist billionaires, union bosses and partisan community organizers pushing the socialized medicine agenda. Let's connect the dots.
On Thursday, a national "grassroots" coalition called Health Care for America Now (HCAN) will march on Capitol Hill to demand universal health care.

The ground troops won't have to march very far. HCAN, you see, is no heartland network. It is headquartered at 1825 K Street in Washington, D.C.—smack dab in the middle of Beltway lobby land.

In fact, 1825 K Street is Ground Zero for a plethora of "progressive" groups subsidized by anti-war, anti-Republican, Big Nanny special interests. Around Washington, the office complex is known as "The Other K Street." The Washington Post noted in 2007 that
"its most prominent tenants form an abbreviated who's who of well-funded allies of the Democratic Party. … Big money from unions such as the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, as well as the Internet-fueled MoveOn, has provided groups like those at 1825 K Street the wherewithal to mount huge campaigns."

MoveOn, of course, is the recreational political vehicle of radical liberal sugar daddy George Soros. The magnate's financial fingerprints are all over the HCAN coalition, which includes MoveOn, the action fund of the Center for American Progress (a Soros think tank) and the Campaign for America's Future (a pro-welfare state lobbying outfit).
HCAN has a $40 million budget, with $10 million pitched in by The Atlantic Philanthropies—a Bermuda-based organization fronted by Soros acolyte Gara LaMarche. Also in the money mix: notorious Democratic donors Herb and Marion Sandler, the left-wing moguls who made billions selling subprime mortgages and helped Soros fund his vast network of left-wing activist satellites. By their side is billionaire Peter Lewis of Progressive Insurance, whose "Progressive Future" youth group has dispatched clueless volunteers armed with clipboards and literature bashing Rush Limbaugh and Fox News to scare up support for Obamacare.

And two more left-wing heavyweights joining the HCAN parade: the corruption-plagued SEIU (which has battled numerous embezzlement scandals among its chapters across the country while crusading for consumer and patients' rights) and Obama's old chums at fraud-riddled ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now.

ACORN and HCAN are linked by left-wing philanthropist Drummond Pike, who heads the nonprofit Tides Foundation/Tides Center. As the tax disclaimer for HCAN discloses, "HCAN is related to Health Care for America Education Fund, a project of The Tides Center, a section 501(c)(3) public charity." For decades, the Tides Center and its parent organization, the Tides Foundation, have seeded some of the country's most radical activist groups of the left, including the communist-friendly United for Peace and Justice, the jihadist-friendly National Lawyers Guild and the grievance-mongering Council on American-Islamic Relations.

Pike is the same philanthropist who assisted ACORN founder Wade Rathke after his brother, Dale, was caught embezzling nearly $1 million from the group. Wade Rathke sits on the Tides Foundation board of directors. In a conspiracy to cover up Dale Rathke's massive theft of funds, Pike volunteered to buy a promissory note worth $800,000 to cover the debt. These are the populist do-gooders supposedly looking out for you and your health.
Why do they want Obamacare? An internal ACORN memo I obtained from August 2008 makes the motives clear: "Over our 38 years, health care organizing has never been a major focus either nationally or locally for ACORN," wrote ACORN Philadelphia regional director Craig Robbins. "But increasingly, ACORN offices around the country are doing work on health care." The goal: "Building ACORN Power."

The memo outlines the ACORN/HCAN partnership and their strategy of opposing any programs that rely on "unregulated private insurance"—and then parlaying political victory on government-run health care "to move our ACORN agenda (or at least part of it) with key electeds that we might otherwise not be able to pull off."

The objective, in other words, is to piggyback and exploit Obamacare to improve and protect their political health.
The "grassroots" movement is not about representing Main Street. It's about peddling influence and power at 1825 K Street.

[aaronman]

Guardian Council: "No major irregularities" in Iran vote

Though Iran’s Guardian Council requested and received an extra five days to make their final determination regarding their investigation into the disputed elections earlier this month, council spokesman Abbas-Ali Kadkhodaei says the council has found ‘no major irregularities’ in the election.

The claim comes as something of a shock, considering earlier this week spokesman Kadkhodaei confirmed that voter turnout in 50 cities was over 100% and suggested that roughly 3 million votes were potentially affected by this.

Kadkhodaei sought to address this concern by noting that there was no regulation forcing Iranians to vote in their home cities and suggesting the over-vote could be explazined by “travelers.”

All three opposition candidates had filed election complaints, but the dispute over the excess voter turnout was reported by Mohsen Rezaei, a conservative candidate with close ties to the Iranian military. Rezaei announced today that he was withdrawing all complaints, citing the “security situation” since the vote. Mir-Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, the two reformist candidates, vowed to continue their opposition to the contested vote.

[stoned budda]

Cap-and-Trade Is About Power and Control

Friday, June 26, 2009
By Glenn Beck


It's Friday! What are your plans? Dinner? Blockbuster movie? Hey, you could always read the 1,500-page cap-and-trade bill — that's 1,200 plus 300 in amendments.
Here's the one thing tonight: While America enjoys a Friday watching "Transformers," the country is being transformed behind our backs.

The House is sneaking in a vote on the mammoth 1,500 page Waxman-Markey climate change bill.

Why are they burying this vote on a Friday?

It could be because earth's temperatures have flat-lined since 2001 — despite an increase in CO2 emissions (that's an inconvenient stat), helping to swell the number of skeptical scientists to over 700 — or 13 times the scientists who wrote the supposed consensus.

It could be because more Americans are figuring out that this energy policy is just an energy tax and guaranteed to do only one thing: Raise energy prices for consumers.
But don't take my word on that claim, take it from President Obama:

THEN-PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE BARACK OBAMA: You know, when I was asked earlier about the issue of coal, uh, you know — under my plan of a cap-and-trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket.

Why, in the middle of a global economic crisis, would we even consider a bill that the Wall Street Journal says would be "the biggest tax in American history"?
Because it's not about saving the cute, fuzzy, man-eating polar bears, the spotted owl, the cumulus clouds or the caribou. The science is not settled on this at all — not even close.

This is about power, money and control.

But America is caught up with "Hey, did you hear? Michael Jackson is dead!"

Concentrate on things that are important, like those who are pushing this energy bill stand to gain the most from it:

• Nancy Pelosi has $50,000 to $100,000 in Clean Energy Fuels Corp.

• Rep. Edward Markey — hmm, why does that name sound familiar? — has investments between $51,000 and $115,000 in the Firsthand Technology Value Fund (which as three solar-energy manufacturers)

• Al Gore — Mr. "Inconvenient Truth" himself — his venture capital firm is heavily invested in a new software company that's making software to help companies track their carbon footprint. He, and companies like his, will make a fortune.
Not only will this bill make politicians rich, it will increase their power as well. The government will control what you can and cannot do.
Want an SUV? Oh, sorry. Gas mileage isn't good enough.
How about incandescent light bulbs? They use too much energy.
Quarter-pounder with cheese? Meat is even more harmful than the SUV!

This bill is a gateway; it will be used as justification to regulate every industry or product the government can get their grimy little fingers on.

Politicians get rich. Government gets more power and control. Businesses just pass on the cost — so there is only one loser: you, the consumer.

The worst part is, we aren't breaking new ground here. While we're busy marching towards more socialism, the rest of the world is running away from it because they've tried it.

Australia is killing their carbon tax proposals and it's already a complete failure in Spain, where it's resulted in an 18.1 percent unemployment rate (more than double Europe's average) and they are losing 2.2 jobs per every one "green job" created.

I think The New York Times quote on the European Union's cap-and-trade program (that started in 2005) says it all: "Their plan unleashed a lobbying free-for-all that led politicians to dole out favors to various industries, undermining the environmental goals. Four years later, it is becoming clear that system has so far produced little noticeable benefit to the climate, but generated a multi-billion dollar windfall for some of the continent's biggest polluters."

They are voting on this bill today. Call your representatives now, while you can still afford to have the lights on and actually see the phone numbers.

[aaronman]

Civil Rights Group Requests Martial Law

The Harrisburg Chapter of the NAACP is calling on Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell to suspend some civil liberties and impose martial law in the city to halt the wave of recent lawlessness.

Chapter President Stanley Lawson also called on Rendell to bring in the state National Guard for at least 30 days and to impose a curfew. In June, there have been at least 12 shootings, many of them in the daytime, including a man killed Wednesday at a busy city intersection during the lunch hour.

[MountyBounty]

Could your post office be closing?

As mail volume declines, the US Postal Service could shutter up to 3,200 post offices and retail outlets. Most people say they understand -- unless it's their post office.
[Related content: budgeting, economy, financial crisis, recession, savings]
By The Big Money

A rallying cry can be heard across the country, from the swanky streets of New York's SoHo to the tiny town of Randolph, Kan.: "Save our post office!"

As the United States Postal Service, weighed down by a crippling multibillion-dollar deficit, shrinks its operations, post offices across the country are on the chopping block. Each year, hundreds of postal operations shutter, but this coming fall could be the single biggest consolidation in Postal Service history.

Over the next three months, more than 3,200 post offices and retail outlets -- out of 34,000 -- will be reviewed for possible closure or consolidation.

* Tell us: Economy getting you down?

Downsizing is a business imperative, says Linda Welch, acting vice president of delivery and post office operations at the Postal Service. "Revenues have declined, and mail volume continues to decline," she says.

Not only have e-mail and electronic bill paying made for a skinnier mail stream, but the recession has caused a sharp pullback in advertising mail that has hurt the Postal Service even more.

In March, Postmaster General John Potter asked Congress for the right to reduce the mail week from six days to five, for a savings of $3.5 billion. Shutting down post offices will have similar cost-saving effects. And most Americans say they're OK with the cutbacks, as long as they don't have to pay more to send mail. A recent USA Today/Gallup poll found that more Americans would rather the Postal Service curtail services than seek a bailout or raise stamp prices.

At least, that's what everyone says -- until it's their beloved post office at stake. For various reasons, people tend to react with great fervor when their local offices are endangered.

[stoned budda]

Book Buzz: What's new on the list and in publishing


By Craig Wilson, Carol Memmott and Bob Minzesheimer, USA TODAY

Conservative commentator Glenn Beck takes the No. 1 spot.

Beck takes 'Control': It's a first for conservative commentator Glenn Beck: the No. 1 spot on USA TODAY's Best-Selling Books list. Glenn Beck's Common Sense: The Case Against an Out-of-Control Government, Inspired by Thomas Paine, a paperback original, has 1.1 million copies in print. Beck's novel The Christmas Sweater entered the list at No. 6 last November. His 2007 best seller, An Inconvenient Book, is out in paperback and moves up to No. 44. "What I think I'm tapping into is honesty. There's a feeling Americans have that something is not right," Beck says. "Both (political) parties are taking us to a place that is absolutely unsustainable. Common sense has not gone out of style except in Washington."

Book Buzz: What's new on the list and in publishing - USATODAY.com

[MountyBounty]

Honduran president arrested in coup

By Freddy Cuevas,Will Weissert, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras - Soldiers seized the national palace and sent President Manuel Zelaya into exile in Costa Rica early Sunday, hours before a highly disputed constitutional referendum. Zelaya called the action a coup and pledged to serve out the remaining five months of his term.
Zelaya, a leftist allied with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, was arrested shortly before polls were to open in a referendum on whether to change the constitution. The Supreme Court ruled the referendum illegal and everyone from Congress to members of his own party opposed it. Critics said Zelaya wanted to remove limits to his re-election.
It was not immediately clear who was running the government. Tanks rolled through the streets and hundreds of soldiers with riot shields surrounded the presidential palace in the capital, Tegucigalpa. The constitution mandates that the head of Congress is next in line to the presidency, followed by the chief justice of the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court said it supported the military action, which it said was aimed at defending the constitution.
But Zelaya, arriving at the airport in the Costa Rican capital, San Jose, called the military action illegal.
"There is no way to justify an interruption of democracy, a coup d'etat," he said in a telephone call to the Venezuela-based Telesur television network. "This kidnapping is an extortion of the Honduran democratic system."
Zelaya said he would not recognize any de facto government and pledged to serve out his term, which ends in January.
President Barack Obama said he was "deeply concerned" by Zelaya's expulsion and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the arrest should be condemned.
"I call on all political and social actors in Honduras to respect democratic norms, the rule of law and the tenets of the Inter-American Democratic Charter," Obama's statement read.
Soldiers took Zelaya into custody at his house outside the capital while he was in his pyjamas, he told a Costa Rican television station. A police officer outside the house, who would not identify himself by name, said soldiers disarmed Zelaya's security guards without any injuries.
Zelaya ally Rafael Alegria, a labour leader, told Honduran radio Cadena de Noticias that shots were fired during the president's arrest, "but we really don't know much about what happened."
About 100 Zelaya supporters, many wearing "Yes" T-shirts for the referendum, blocked the main street outside the gates to the palace, throwing rocks and insults at soldiers and shouting "Traitors! Traitors!"
Honduras has a history of military coups: Soldiers overthrew elected presidents in 1963 and 1972. The military did not turn the government over to civilians until 1981, under U.S. pressure.

[MountyBounty]

Billy Mays Dead At 50

AMPA, Fla. — Billy Mays, the burly, bearded television pitchman whose boisterous hawking of products such as Orange Glo and OxiClean made him a pop-culture icon, has died. He was 50.

Tampa police said Mays was found unresponsive by his wife Sunday morning. A fire rescue crew pronounced him dead at 7:45 a.m. It was not immediately clear how he died. He said he was hit on the head when an airplane he was on made a rough landing Saturday, and Mays' wife told investigators the TV personality didn't feel well before he went to bed that night.

There were no signs of a break-in at the home, and investigators do not suspect foul play, said Lt. Brian Dugan of the Tampa Police Department, who wouldn't answer any more questions about how Mays' body was found because of the ongoing investigation. The coroner's office expects to have an autopsy done by Monday afternoon.

Mays' wife, Deborah Mays, told investigators that her husband had complained he didn't feel well before he went to bed some time after 10 p.m. Saturday night, Tampa police spokeswoman Laura McElroy said.

"Although Billy lived a public life, we don't anticipate making any public statements over the next couple of days," Deborah Mays said in a statement Sunday. "Our family asks that you respect our privacy during these difficult times."

U.S. Airways confirmed Sunday that Mays was among the passengers on a flight that made a rough landing on Saturday afternoon at Tampa International Airport, leaving debris on the runway after apparently blowing its front tires.

Tampa Bay's Fox television affiliate interviewed Mays after the incident.

"All of a sudden as we hit you know it was just the hardest hit, all the things from the ceiling started dropping," MyFox Tampa Bay quoted him as saying. "It hit me on the head, but I got a hard head."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtYdDK1uTDI

[stoned budda]

US top court rules against city on race promotions

Mon Jun 29, 2009 10:08am EDT

WASHINGTON, June 29 (Reuters) - The U.S. city of New Haven, Connecticut violated the law by throwing out a promotion exam after it yielded too many qualified white applicants and no acceptable black candidates, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Monday in a major civil rights decision.

By a 5-4 vote and splitting along conservative and liberal lines, the justices overturned a ruling for the city by a U.S. appeals court panel that included Judge Sonia Sotomayor, who is President Barack Obama's Supreme Court nominee.

The appeals court's ruling in the New Haven firefighters case is expected to be an important focus of questioning by Republicans at Sotomayor's Senate confirmation hearing scheduled for next month. (Reporting by James Vicini, Editing by Deborah Charles)



US top court rules against city on race promotions | Markets | Markets News | Reuters

[hoodie]

Court rules for Franken; Coleman won't appeal

Republican Norm Coleman ended his bruising eight-month court fight over Minnesota's U.S. Senate seat this afternoon, conceding to Democrat Al Franken after the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled in Franken's favor.


The justices ruled today that Franken won the U.S. Senate election and said he is entitled to an election certificate that would lead to him being seated in the Senate.


"Affirmed," wrote the Supreme Court, unanimously rejecting Coleman's claims that inconsistent practices by local elections officials and wrong decisions by a lower court had denied him victory.


Two hours after the decision was released, Coleman said he would "abide by the results."

It's about damn time.
EDIT: Provided Pawlenty signs the certificate.

[AK Infinity]

"It Came from Wasilla"

"Despite her disastrous performance in the 2008 election, Sarah Palin is still the sexiest brand in Republican politics, with a lucrative book contract for her story. But what Alaska’s charismatic governor wants the public to know about herself doesn’t always jibe with reality. As John McCain’s top campaign officials talk more candidly than ever before about the meltdown of his vice-presidential pick, the author tracks the signs—political and personal—that Palin was big trouble, and checks the forecast for her future."

By Todd S. Purdum August 2009