The Hoffmania July 4th Fireworks Spectacular!

We somehow spaced on this the last two 4ths. Grab the mouse, put on some Souza and go nuts.

The Hot Cheerleader in High School That Crushed Your Heart

That's what Sarah is now to Jonah.

Hoffmania.com is Switching Hosting Services

We might be down for a spell when that happens, so please bear with us. The insanity should commence Monday.

Thanks!

D-Bag of the Week

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa).

After sharing his family's personal struggle with the burden of high health care costs, an audience member asked, "My question is... why is your insurance so much cheaper than my insurance and so better than my insurance?"

The question made Grassley cranky.

He responded, first, by suggesting the questioner "go work for John Deere," since they "don't pay anything" for their insurance plan.

When the questioner refused to let the senator wriggle out of answering the question, Grassley revealed how little he knew about his own insurance plan.

Another audience member had to help the senator out by describing the details of the plan. After she finished, the original questioner again asked, "Okay, so how come I can't have the same thing you have?"

Grassley's response: "You can. Just go work for the Federal government."

Is it wrong to believe the Republicans are being megadouchebags on purpose as a plan to make the Democrats more comfortable and complacent? Or have I been following politics too damn long?

Build the Hockey Rink...and While You're At It...

Looks like Sarah 'n' Todd learned how to build a house from Ted Stevens.

The suddenness of her announcement raises the question about whether Palin resigned to avert a major scandal. One logical place to start looking is the affair that has Alaska political circles buzzing: an alleged scandal centered around a building contractor, Spenard Building Supplies, with close ties to Palin and her husband, Todd.

Many political observers in Alaska are fixated on rumors that federal investigators have been seizing paperwork from SBS in recent months, searching for evidence that Palin and her husband Todd steered lucrative contracts to the well-connected company in exchange for gifts like the construction of their home on pristine Lake Lucille in 2002. The home was built just two months before Palin began campaigning for governor, a job which would have provided her enhanced power to grant building contracts in the wide-open state.

SBS has close ties to the Palins. The company has not only sponsored Todd Palin's snowmobile team, according to the Village Voice's Wayne Barrett, it hired Sarah Palin to do a statewide television commercial in 2004.

Though Todd Palin told Fox News he built his Lake Lucille home with the help of a few "buddies," according to Barrett’s report, public records revealed that SBS supplied the materials for the house. While serving as mayor of Wasilla, Sarah Palin blocked an initiative that would have required the public filing of building permits—thus momentarily preventing the revelation of such suspicious information.

Just months before Palin left city hall to campaign for governor, she awarded a contract to SBS to help build the $13 million Wasilla Sports Complex. The most expensive building project in Wasilla history, the complex cost the city an additional $1.3 million in legal fees and threw it into severe long-term debt. For SBS, however, the bloated and bungled project was a cash cow.

Kristol Keeps the #Palin Torch Lit

Eeeyeew. He's really hoping they'll name their next kid "Kristol." And that he'll be the dad.

William Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard, told Fox News that Palin's resignation now, three years before the next presidential election, "is real unconventional."

"It's a huge gamble -- but some of her gambles have paid off in the past," he said.

He'll get back to us as soon as he can name one.

Quote These

"If you're a serious politician and you're seriously interested in higher office, the best thing you can do is as good a job as possible in the current office. I suppose it frees her from the responsibility of a full-time job. It does nothing to enhance the image she has that she's not material for the president of the United States."

-GOP pollster Whit Ayres on Sarah Palin

"...if it's a political move geared at 2012, it's one of the most politically tone-deaf moves in years."

-GOP consultant Stuart Roy

How Could I Let This Slip? (ahem) HA HA!

Sarah Palin!

Way to Stick to Your Guns, Sarah #Palin

Goddamn cut-and-runner.

A spokeswoman for Sarah Palin blamed the swarm of ethics complaints that have dogged the Alaska governor for Friday's surprise announcement that she would be leaving office by the end of the month.

When the former Republican vice presidential candidate returned to Alaska after the campaign and pressed her agenda, "she found…resistance, and she found as she looked up more and more that state time and resources were being just wasted with just frivolous ethics complaints coming in, and FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) requests and lawsuits — but to an extraordinary extent, and from literally those doing opposition research," spokeswoman Meghan Stapleton told CNN's Suzanne Malveaux on The Situation Room Friday. "And so she said really, is this good for Alaska? Is this what a governor is supposed to do, sit and watch money going down the drain?"

I might suggest that in order to avoid ethics complaints, you might want to act ethically to begin with.

#Palin Taking Steele's Gig?

Basically, it's like this: She's ditching being the elected governor of a goddamned state to lead the Republican party - and to us, this sounds like she's gunning for Michael Steele's job. Or more precisely, she's already nailed it.

If it's true - DUMBEST. CAREER MOVE. EVER. Right in her wheelhouse.

If Bill Kristol is masterminding this, what's left of the sane faction of the GOP has got to be PISSED OFF at this guy.

Us? No complaints here!

The head of the Republican Governor's Association said on Friday that in emails sent to him moments before she announced her resignation as governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin discussed expanding the role she played in the Republican Party.

"Part of her decision is she wants to spend more time campaigning for candidates," Nick Ayers, the executive director of the RGA, told Fox News.

"She felt like she needed to make her colleagues around the country aware, so she had given us a brief heads up," Ayers said of getting the emails. "We have known for a couple of days she was considering not running for re-election but it was news today that she had gone ahead and made the decision to fully step down and resign."

In relaying his conversation with Palin, Ayers provided one of the most direct, on the record explanations for what exactly drove the Alaska Governor's decision to step aside. Palin's announcement seemed to come as a complete surprise to officials in the state as well as those close to her. Her brother said he had no clue what she was planning prior to the mid-day press conference. The Weekly Standard's Bill Kristol, one of Palin's strongest backers, said he initially felt shock and bewilderment at the Governor's decision to step down from her post at the end of July. Moments later, however, he was playing up the move as, perhaps, the opening move in the 2012 Republican primary - and a sage one at that.

"Haven't conservatives been lamenting the lack of a national leader?" he asked, in a post on the Standard's site. "Well, now she'll try to be that."

Crush much, Billy? Yipes. He's gold-plating this turd of a story as fast as he can. Meanwhile, if I were Sarah Palin, the thought of Bill Kristol wanting to get into my thermal panties would creep me the hell out. But that's me.

If he succeeds in making her the head of the GOP, we're breaking out the Dom Perignon.

A Big Hoffmania Howdy

...to all the newspeople who thought they were going to have today off. Welcome back to your desks!

The Tweet from #Palin

Bottom line: If she can't handle fighting the media, she went into the wrong business. If she's going to blame them for her difficulties, she was never engineered to be in politics.

#Palin Buckled Under Pressure?

Holy crap, suppose McCain won? Andrew Sullivan:

Once the klieglights hit, it was only a matter of time before she imploded or exploded or some gruesome combination of the two. The librul media will be blamed for everything on her inexorable path to becoming a Fox News celebrity. Maybe a reality show? Someone hire her for The View!

In the end, I think, the one thing to say is that the Republican party is in such a total state of collapse and incoherence that it actually believed she could be a future president; and that John McCain was so reckless, so cynical and so cavalier that he was prepared to rest the national security of this country on her shoulders if he, in his seventies, were to become unable to fulfill his duties or die. In some ways, this is a moment to reflect on McCain, and his irresponsibility, not Palin and her drama.

I'm too stunned to say anything else, to tell you the truth. And yet not surprised at all.

#Palin Official Press Release

Click here. (PDF file)

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE       No. 09-167
 
 
GOVERNOR PALIN ANNOUNCES NO SECOND TERM
 
NO LAME DUCK SESSION EITHER

 

July 3, 2009, Anchorage, Alaska – Governor Sarah Palin announced today that she
will not seek a second term as Governor of the State of Alaska and will relegate the
power of governor to Lieutenant Governor Sean Parnell in order to serve Alaska’s
best interests.  Lieutenant General Craig Campbell will move into Parnell’s current
role.

“People who know me know that besides faith and family, nothing's more important
to me than our beloved Alaska,” said Governor Palin.  “Serving her people is the
greatest honor I could imagine.”

Standing outside her home in Wasilla, Alaska, Governor Palin reflected upon some of
the administration’s accomplishments for Alaska as she approaches her final year in
office.

“I am determined to take the right path for Alaska even though it is not the easiest
path,” said Governor Palin after the announcement.  “Once I decided not to run for
re-election, I also felt that to embrace the conventional ‘Lame Duck’ status in this
particular climate would just be another dose of ‘politics as usual,’ something I
campaigned against and will always oppose.  It is my duty to always protect our
great state.  With that in mind, my family and I determined that it is best to make a
difference this summer, and I am willing to change things, so that this
administration, with its positive agenda, its accomplishments, and its successful road
to an incredible future, can continue without interruption and with great
administrative and legislative success.  I look forward to helping others – to fight for
our state and our country, and campaign for those who believe in smaller
government, free enterprise, strong national security, support for our troops, and
energy independence.”

The transfer of power will occur following the Governor’s picnic in Fairbanks on July
26.  At that point in time, Lieutenant Governor Sean Parnell will be sworn in and
Lieutenant General Craig Campbell will assume his role as Lieutenant Governor.

Governor Palin will spend July 4th in Juneau.

###

Selected Accomplishments of the Palin Administration

General
·         Transferred more control of public issues to the local level
Natural Resources
·         Created the Petroleum Systems Integrity Office to oversee responsible
development
·         Held the line for Alaskans on Point Thomson that encouraged drilling
·         Restructured the state’s oil taxes to create a clear and equitable valuation
formula for our oil and gas
·         Initiated and implemented the largest energy project in the world through the
Alaska Gasline Inducement Act 
·         Removed government from the dairy business and put it back into private-
sector hands
Ethics
·         Ushered in ethics reform
·         Cleaned up previously accepted unethical actions affecting development
Fiscal Notes
·         Slowed the rate of government growth
·         Worked with the Legislature to place billions of dollars in savings
·         Vetoed hundreds of millions of dollars in capital budget line items
·         Reduced Alaska’s dependence on federal earmarks by nearly 85%
·         Eliminated state-funded personal luxuries like the jet, the chef, and junkets
·         Refused a pay raise, along with the Lieutenant Governor
Education
·         Provided unprecedented support for education initiatives
Public Safety
·         Filled long-vacant public safety positions over the last year
Corrections
·         Broke ground on the new state prison
Fish and Game
·         Maintained biologically-sound wildlife management for abundance
Environment
·         Established first sub-Cabinet on climate change
Legal
·         State’s rights protected in two recent victories handed down by the U.S.
Supreme Court

PALIN'S RESIGNING? #palin

Yes. Yes she is. From the Anchorage Daily News Palin ticker:

Palin to quit as Alaska governor

Gov. Sarah Palin announced today that she will resign in a few weeks. Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell will take over at the Governor's Picnic in Fairbanks on July 25.

11:46 AM

Health director says she was forced out

One of the state's top public health officials says she [the health official -H] was forced out of office because Gov. Sarah Palin felt she wasn't in step on social issues.

Ethics investigations cost state $296,000

Ethics complaints against Gov. Sarah Palin and top members of her administration have cost the state personnel board nearly $300,000 over the past year, almost two-thirds of which appear to be from the Troopergate investigation of the governor.

This is completely baffling. If she's planning a run in 2012, why would she abdicate her power as an acting governor? She'd be running from a position of no power...an outsider, if you will. But there's being an "outsider" and then there's being an OUTSIDER. Citizen Palin has much less stroke than Governor Palin.

CNN's John King says she has a lot of name recognition. So does Donald Duck. He's speculating that Bill Kristol (who fell in lust with her which led to her VP nod) make take her under his weakened wing. Great. Sarah will be a chairperson of PNAC. Perfect.

We're also finding it curious this happens the same week as not only the Vanity Fair article, but CBS News' elaboration on that story. Was someone getting close to...something? Stay tuned.

Where Is My Vote?

Still sitting in a library in Shiraz. Four boxes full - untouched and uncounted. Pictures here. We're guessing this is pretty common.

Media Whores Defined: WaPo Sells Access to Lobbyists

Hang a red light (and a "For Sale" sign) on the door. This scheme can only expedite their demise.

For $25,000 to $250,000, The Washington Post has offered lobbyists and association executives off-the-record, nonconfrontational access to "those powerful few": Obama administration officials, members of Congress, and — at first — even the paper’s own reporters and editors.

The astonishing offer was detailed in a flier circulated Wednesday to a health care lobbyist, who provided it to a reporter because the lobbyist said he felt it was a conflict for the paper to charge for access to, as the flier says, its “health care reporting and editorial staff."

With the newsroom in an uproar after POLITICO reported the solicitation, Executive Editor Marcus Brauchli said in a staffwide e-mail that the newsroom would not participate in the first of the planned events — a dinner scheduled July 21 at the home of Publisher and Chief Executive Officer Katharine Weymouth.

The offer — which essentially turns a news organization into a facilitator for private lobbyist-official encounters — was a new sign of the lengths to which news organizations will go to find revenue at a time when most newspapers are struggling for survival.

And it's a turn of the times that a lobbyist is scolding The Washington Post for its ethical practices.

McCain Campaign's Strategy: Just to Shut Her Up

CBS News elaborates on one episode during the 2008 campaign - when it became known that Todd joined the secessionist Alaskan Independence Party. She essentially wanted them to lie, and Steve Schmidt - in a rare moment of integrity - refused.

Palin blasted out an e-mail with the subject line "Todd" to Schmidt, campaign manager Rick Davis and senior advisor Nicolle Wallace, copying her husband on the message (all of the e-mails are reprinted below as written).

"Pls get in front of that ridiculous issue that's cropped up all day today - two reporters, a protestor's sign, and many shout-outs all claiming Todd's involvement in an anti-American political party," Palin wrote. "It's bull, and I don't want to have to keep reacting to it ... Pls have statement given on this so it's put to bed."

Her reference to a single protestor's sign and "many shout-outs" was indicative of Palin's occasional tendency to take anecdotal evidence of a minor problem and extrapolate it into something far more menacing. The final of the three presidential debates was just hours away, which would mark the unveiling of the soon-to-be canonized Joe The Plumber.

The Joe The Plumber narrative was the Republicans' secret weapon -- the last chance to put a chink in Obama's seemingly impervious armor. It was not a time for distractions, but the campaign was compelled to deal with the drama that seemed to follow Palin wherever she went.

Schmidt hit "reply to all" less than five minutes after Palin's e-mail was sent. "Ignore it," he wrote. "He was a member of the aip? My understanding is yes. That is part of their platform. Do not engage the protestors. If a reporter asks say it is ridiculous. Todd loves america."

This clear cut response from the campaign's top dog carried an air of finality, but it did not satisfy Palin. She responded with another e-mail, adding five more names to the "cc" box, all of whom traveled on her campaign plane. They included her senior political adviser Tucker Eskew, senior aide Jason Recher, the lone traveling aide from her Alaska office Kris Perry, press secretary Tracey Schmitt and personal assistant Bexie Nobles.

Palin's insertion of the five additional staffers in the e-mail chain was an apparent attempt to rally her own troops in the face of a decision from the commanding general with which she disagreed. Her inclusion of her personal assistant was particularly telling about her quest for affirmation and support in numbers, since the young staffer was not in a position to have any input on campaign strategy.

"That's not part of their platform and he was only a 'member' bc independent alaskans too often check that 'Alaska Independent' box on voter registrations thinking it just means non partisan," Palin wrote. "He caught his error when changing our address and checked the right box. I still want it fixed."

Palin was attempting to bend the facts ever so slightly to fit neatly into her version of events. In truth, the box that Alaskans have the option of checking when registering to vote states the full name of the party, "Alaskan Independence Party," not "Alaska Independent," which would make an error by uncommitted voters more plausible.

Clearly irritated by what he saw as Palin's attempt to mislead her own campaign and apparently determined to demonstrate that the ultimate authority rested with him, Schmidt put the matter to rest once and for all with a longer response to everyone in the e-mail chain.

"Secession," he wrote. "It is their entire reason for existence. A cursory examination of the website shows that the party exists for the purpose of seceding from the union. That is the stated goal on the front page of the web site. Our records indicate that todd was a member for seven years. If this is incorrect then we need to understand the discrepancy. The statement you are suggesting be released would be innaccurate. The innaccuracy would bring greater media attention to this matter and be a distraction. According to your staff there have been no media inquiries into this and you received no questions about it during your interviews. If you are asked about it you should smile and say many alaskans who love their country join the party because it speeks to a tradition of political independence. Todd loves his country

We will not put out a statement and inflame this and create a situation where john has to adress this."

Schmidt's rebuttal to Palin's suggestion that reporters had asked her about the issue was particularly blunt in that it implicitly questioned her truthfulness. Furthermore, his unwillingness to budge an inch on the matter was a remarkable assertion of his power to pull rank over the candidate herself.

Palin was silent after his second e-mail and the campaign did not issue the statement she demanded.

Knocking on 10's Door

Unemployment is at 9.5%.

The American economy shed 467,000 jobs last month, and the unemployment rate rose to 9.5 percent from 9.4 percent, the Labor Department reported on Thursday. Job losses were widespread among the construction, manufacturing, and business and professional services sectors.

The losses were sharply higher than economists’ expectations of 365,000 lost jobs.

Economists said a decline of 322,000 jobs in May had raised expectations that the market was bottoming out as the economy struggled to right itself, but the numbers on Friday dashed some of those hopes.

Citi's Latest Douchebaggery

Sticking it to their customers to beat a deadline.

Citigroup has sharply increased interest rates on up to 15m US credit card accounts just months before curbs on such rises come into effect, in a move that could fuel political anger at the treatment of consumers by bailed-out banks.

People close to the situation said that Citi, which is about to cede a 34 per cent stake to the US government as part of its latest rescue, had upped rates on between 13m and 15m credit cards it co-brands with retailers such as Sears.

Citi’s rate increases emerged on the day the government proposed legislation to create a new regulator with sweeping powers on consumer protection and a week after the bank was attacked by some politicians for raising employees’ salaries.

Holders of co-branded cards who failed to pay their balance in full at the end of the month saw their rates rise by an average 24 per cent – or nearly 3 percentage points – between January and April, according to a Credit Suisse analysis of data from the consultancy Lightspeed Research.

After FT.com broke news of the hike, Citi issued a statement saying: ”We have adjusted pricing and card terms for some customers as part of our regular account reviews. This is an ongoing process to ensure we offer terms, interest rates, credit lines and products based on individual needs and risk profiles. These changes also reflect the dramatically higher cost of doing business in our industry as we work to preserve the broad availability of credit.”

Seriously. Douchebags.

Your Read of the Night

It Came From Wasilla - Todd Purdum's riveting look into the mind of someone who bought into her own hype. It's a long read, but a very important one if you're still dismissing Sarah Palin's blind ambition. One glimpse into her character:

In a climate where the sitting Republican governor, Frank Murkowski, had become the most unpopular figure in the state, and where the F.B.I. was swarming over Alaska, pursuing the corruption probe that later ensnared the state’s senior U.S. senator, Ted Stevens, Palin seemed like a breath of fresh air.

Yet Palin herself cut corners. Ruedrich, Palin’s target on the Conservation Commission, was forced to resign, but in 2006, as Palin was beginning her campaign for governor, a conservative columnist dug up e-mail messages showing that she too had conducted campaign business from her mayoral office. Confronted by the columnist, Palin acknowledged that she had erred. Then she turned around and issued a press release, demanding to know why the columnist was publishing smears.

Palin won the crucial support of Walter Hickel in her campaign for governor in part by supporting one of his longtime hobbyhorses, an “all-Alaska” natural-gas pipeline that would pump gas to the port of Valdez for export worldwide. As the campaign wore on, Palin backed away from that idea. “I helped her out, she got elected,” Hickel says now. “She never called me once in her life after that.”

Sanford Successfully Makes Clinton Look Like a Monk

Quite the horndog, he.

59! (60 If You Count Lieberman)

Senator Al Franken sounds good to us. Coleman finally conceded. And we now officially close the "Election 2008" category.

#persiankiwi Is Safe?

Andrew has a sign of hope.

T...I...M...P...A...You're doing fine...W...L...

As soon as Tim Pawlenty decides to sign his name - which can happen "within days" - Al Franken becomes the junior senator from the great state of Minnesota. Wow. Amy Klobuchar is the senior senator. That sounds weird.

(And we can finally put the Election 2008 category into retirement.)