Lindsay Beyerstein

The contents of the inbox confirm that Palin was using her private account for government business. We already knew that Palin’s advisers urged her to use private accounts, a la RNC email accounts, in order to circumvent FOIA requests and skirt subpoenas.

I guess she’s qualified to be a Republican vice president after all. Her disregard for the legislative branch would make Dick Cheney proud.

The official death toll for Hurricane Ike creeps upward, while photos reveal the catastrophic damage inflicted by the storm. So far 51 people are known to have died in the storm. Authorities have banned the press from many of the hardest hit areas, but they can’t stop the steady stream of images appearing online showing the true extent of the damage.

As governor of Alaska, John McCain’s running mate Sarah Palin faced a dilemma. She wanted a federally-funded bridge to her home town of Wasilla, but project threatened a population of endangered belugas in Cook Inlet. So, Palin fought to keep this genetically distinct and geographically isolated population of belugas unprotected by the Endangered Species Act, publicly urging federal officials not to protect the whales.

The McCain campaign has released documents purporting to show that Sarah Palin fired Alaska’s much-admired public safety commissioner because he was “insubordinate” over budget issues. Palin has been accused of firing Walt Monegan because he didn’t yield to pressure by the governor and her husband to dismiss Palin’s ex brother-in-law, a state trooper involved in a bitter divorce with Palin’s sister.

As the US financial system totters on the brink of collapse, serious and responsible people are asking: How will this help Republicans?

There’s no question that financial Armageddon will help the GOP is axiomatic. Everything does.

For you skeptics, I’m including an severely abbreviated list of things that are known to help Republicans: terrorism, lack of terrorism, strong Democrats, weak Democrats, domestic spying, MoveOn, gay marriage, expensive gas, snowmobiles, Hillary Clinton, and rain.

Intimidating messages did not deter a group of strong progressive Alaskan women from expressing their opposition to Sarah Palin. As many as 1700 women rallied in Anchorage to oppose Sarah Palin and John McCain on Saturday–an impressive turnout, considering the official Sarah Palin rally in Anchorage only drew about 1500 people.

he State of Alaska later passed a law outlawing the practice. Ironically, the state had to ban victim-pay rape exams in order to qualify for funding under the Violence Against Women Act, one of Democrative vice presidential nominee Joe Biden’s signature legislative achievements.

John McCain used his appearance on ABC’s “The View” to lie about Sarah Palin’s record on earmarks.

McCain claimed that Palin had never requested earmarks for pet projects. In fact, as governor of Alaska, Palin requested $200 million in earmarks this year alone.

Sarah Palin has been cc’ing her husband on privileged government emails. And now she wants to claim executive privilege over their release.