From a recent Sarah Palin campaign stop:

See, under a big government, more tax agenda, what you thought was yours would really start belonging to somebody else, to everybody else. If you thought your income, your property, your inventory, your investments were, were yours, they would really collectively belong to everybody. Obama, Barack Obama has an ideological commitment to higher taxes, and I say this based on his record... Higher taxes, more government, misusing the power to tax leads to government moving into the role of some believing that government then has to take care of us. And government kind of moving into the role as the other half of our family, making decisions for us. Now, they do this in other countries where the people are not free. Let us fight for what is right. John McCain and I, we will put our trust in you.

Now that's a bit more of a stretch than the new McCain/Palin ads, but, from FactCheck:

Echoing a recent McCain theme, Crist says, "McCain knows that people don't want to 'spread the wealth,' " condemning Obama's use of the phrase when he talked to "Joe the Plumber." Actually, McCain has supported taxing high earners more than low earners. Not so long ago McCain said, "Wealthy people can afford [to pay] more." Obama's tax plan would "spread the wealth" more than McCain's, but it's not as though McCain wants to do away with the progressive tax system we currently have.

Besides that it's fiscal madness and so far beyond the means of "Joe Six-Pack" that the McCain/Palin campaign cares so much about?

Well, there's the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform Act:

SEC. 313. USE OF CONTRIBUTED AMOUNTS FOR CERTAIN PURPOSES.
(a) PERMITTED USES-

...
(b) PROHIBITED USE-

(1) IN GENERAL- A contribution or donation described in subsection (a) shall not be converted by any person to personal use.

(2) CONVERSION- For the purposes of paragraph (1), a contribution or donation shall be considered to be converted to personal use if the contribution or amount is used to fulfill any commitment, obligation, or expense of a person that would exist irrespective of the candidate's election campaign or individual's duties as a holder of Federal office, including--

(A) a home mortgage, rent, or utility payment;
(B) a clothing purchase;
(C) a noncampaign-related automobile expense;
(D) a country club membership;
(E) a vacation or other noncampaign-related trip;
(F) a household food item;
(G) a tuition payment;
(H) admission to a sporting event, concert, theater, or other form of entertainment not associated with an election campaign; and
(I) dues, fees, and other payments to a health club or recreational facility.

So buying clothing is deemed a conversion for personal use and prohibited. It doesn't matter that Palin's giving it all to charity after this is over.

But wait, it's the RNC spending the money, not the McCain/Palin campaign!

Sec. 323
'(a) NATIONAL COMMITTEES-

'(1) IN GENERAL- A national committee of a political party (including a national congressional campaign committee of a political party) may not solicit, receive, or direct to another person a contribution, donation, or transfer of funds or any other thing of value, or spend any funds, that are not subject to the limitations, prohibitions, and reporting requirements of this Act.

'(2) APPLICABILITY- The prohibition established by paragraph (1) applies to any such national committee, any officer or agent acting on behalf of such a national committee, and any entity that is directly or indirectly established, financed, maintained, or controlled by such a national committee.

Nope, they're subject too.

So the RNC and the McCain/Palin campaign are violating the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform Act? The same act that McCain uses to shore up his flagging "maverick" status? Sure looks like it.

The McCain/Palin campaign spent $150k of contributor dollars (or was that public financing dollars?) to spruce up Sarah Palin's wardrobe for the campaign.

$150,000. That's "pay off the mortgage" money for folks outside California. It's half our mortgage.

Palin's make-up artist is the highest-paid member of the McCain/Palin campaign staff, coming in at over $22k for the first two weeks of October.

$22,000. That's "replace a crappy old car" money with change left over.

I understand that Palin has to look good for the camera; it wouldn't do for a former beauty queen to repeat Nixon's mistake of 1960. This, though, is irresponsibility on a grand scale (by "little peoples'" standards). It's so far beyond John Edwards' $400 haircuts and Hilary Clinton's $3,000 beautician visits it's not funny, and it's all for less than 8 weeks of the end of the campaign.

Yet some people trust these candidates with their tax money.

A "No" vote on Proposition 8 will annul no marriages.
A "Yes" vote on Proposition 8 will annul over 10,000 marriages.
Which vote is really protecting marriage?

The Michigan Republican Party just settled a lawsuit over a voter registration fraud scheme.

The terms of the settlement (allegedly, the terms are not actually public) include the Michigan Republican Party admitting they were engaging in an illegal scheme to use mortgage foreclosure lists to disenfranchise voters.

Strangely enough, the Michigan GOP press release claims this was a frivolous lawsuit. It doesn't deny the existence of the scheme, but instead claims there's no proof that the scheme existed.

While this statement may be legally correct, it doesn't actually contradict the Democrats' statement. Neither side has an interest in violating the settlement; that would be bad.

So the McCain/Palin campaign is all "Waah! Waah! The Democrats are attacking Joe the Plumber! They held him at gunpoint and made him ask Obama questions on TV! Now they're being mean to the honest working man! Waah!"

There's a difference between attacking and fact-checking.

There are lots of folks who use their middle names rather than their first names. I'm intimately familiar with this; it complicates maintaing employment and directory data. Other than its annoying impact on my professional life, I so don't care.

I do care about his lies.

Joe "The Plumber" Wurzelbacher told Obama that he's been a plumber for 15 years.

Now there's the technicality of his not being registered or licensed as necessary where he's working as a plumber. "But Ohio doesn't license plumbers!" Tell that to The Ohio Construction Industry Licensing Board. Tell that to Lucas County Building Regulations. Tell that to the Toledo Division of Building Inspection. It's a technicality, but a substantive one for his business prospects (more on that later).

The "15 years" is a clear and utter fabrication, though. Wurzelbacher was hired by A & W Newell Corp (or Newell Plumbing & Heating, depending on how you look at the business) 6 years ago. In November of 2003 he registered for an apprenticeship with the Ohio State Apprenticeship Council (hardly 15 years ago). The Ohio State Apprenticeship Council reports that he should have completed his apprenticeship last year, but they have no record that he completed it.

Joe "The Plumber" Wurzelbacher told Obama that he was getting ready to buy a Toledo plumbing company that made something over $250k/year and was worried about the tax impact.

There are so many levels on which this is a fabrication it's not funny.

"Getting ready to buy" apparently translates to Al Newell having mentioned during Wurzelbacher's interview the possibility of his buying the company some day. Wurzelbacher admitted he has no plans to buy A & W Newell anytime soon. Investigative reporting uncovered that his annual income is around $40k/year, hardly means to buy such a successful company. And, of course, he has no contractors licenses, which kind of kills that plan.

There's also the question of the success of the business. Is A & W Newell, the firm he was "getting ready to buy" a $250k/year firm? Public records show that Newell grosses a little over $100k/year. That's well under the ceiling for Obama's tax breaks. It's also gross; the taxable income of A & W Newell is going to be much lower if Newell's accountant is any good.

Finally, in from the McCain/Palin Campaign, Joe "The Plumber" Wurzelbacher didn't ask for any of this attention.

While it's true that Obama made a quickie campaign stop in Wurzelbacher's neighborhood, it's stretching things to say Obama came up to Wurzelbacher's house.

Wurzelbacher admitted he chose to approach Obama with his question. He could have kept his mouth shut and continued to live in obscurity, a face in the crowd. Instead, he tried to catch Obama with a loaded "gotcha!"

Rather than frame his question as a hypothetical situation (which would have been fine) he turned it into a fabricated personal narrative. Now you can't fact-check a hypothetical question. It's not a real situation, it's a construct. You can fact-check a personal narrative, it's not supposed to be a construct. Wurzelbacher did, in fact, ask for this attention.

So there's the Acorn hoo-ha. While registration fraud is bad, there are three reasons this isn't the big scandal that the Republicans are making it out to be:

1. Voter registration groups are required to submit all registration forms they collect, even if the canvassers are certain that the person filling them out is lying on them. It's the law. It's normal. In itself, it's not suspicious
2. Registration fraud is a losing game. It's very difficult to translate to effective polling-place fraud. You need tens of thousands of people to pretend to be the fake registrants, and that's impractical at best.
3. The current investigations indicate that rather than widespread concerted registration fraud at Acorn, what happened with the few large concentrations of bad forms was some minimum wage slackers faking their work.

It's much easier to engage in wholesale disenfranchisement by denying masses of legitimate registrations. The Supreme Court just prevented Republicans in Ohio from doing just that.

There's "Joe the Plumber" who turns out to not really be a plumber, turns out to have lied about his plumbers' union membership on his Facebook page, turns out to be an in-law of Charles Keating, turns out to be a registered Republican, turns out to owe a few grand in back taxes...

There's John McCain's use of the same robocalling company (FLS-Connect) and tactics that he condemned when W used them against him in the 2000 South Carolina primary (then it was John McCain's interracial child and Cindy McCain's drug abuse, this time it's "palling around with terrorists").

There's the "natural born citizen" bullshit. It doesn't matter what "evidence" the folks making this claim manufacture. Obama's mother is a US citizen, he's naturally born to her, he derives his citizenship from her, regardless of where it happened, regardless of his father's nationality.

Then again, maybe that last one isn't a bad argument.

Get John PanaMcCain out of the election! We don't want a Mexican President! That's why he's so soft on illegal immigration! And that Palin chick, I bet her Idaho birth certificate is a fake! She can see Russia from her house! She's really a natural born Russian! It's illegals and commies trying to take over the White House!

Visit the California Secretary of State's Voter Registration page to find out what you need to do. You've got until October 20 to fix any registration problems you might have.

Can someone show me a "Republican to English" dictionary?

I want to see where "violated Alaska Statute 39.52.110(a) of the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act" translates to "cleared of any legal wrong-doing… any hint of any kind of unethical activity there."