Democratic vice-presidential nominee Joe Biden said earlier this week that he and running mate Barack Obama could pursue criminal charges against the Bush administration if they are elected in November.

I think Palin said it best tonight.



I like this lady and in 2012 It will be tough to chose between her and Thune.

Stein says that as mayor, Palin continued to inject religious beliefs into her policy at times. "She asked the library how she could go about banning books," he says, because some voters thought they had inappropriate language in them. "The librarian was aghast." That woman, Mary Ellen Baker, couldn't be reached for comment, but news reports from the time show that Palin had threatened to fire Baker for not giving "full support" to the mayor.

Palin's Troopergate Posted: Saturday, August 30, 2008 11:22 AM by Mark Murray
Filed Under: 2008, McCain
The Washington Post reports, “Republican presidential candidate John McCain's running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, is an ethics reformer under an ethics investigation that is plowing through private domestic matters. Palin is under investigation to determine whether she pressured and then fired the state police chief in July because he refused to dismiss her former brother-in-law. At the time, the governor's younger sister was involved in a bitter divorce and child custody dispute with the man, a state trooper. A bipartisan committee of the state legislature voted unanimously to hire a retired prosecutor to investigate. His report is due in October.”

More: “Gov. Palin's husband, Todd Palin, met with Monegan [the fired state police chief] in January 2007, a month after his wife took office, to say that the trooper was unfit for the force. Monegan also said the governor sent him e-mails, but Monegan declined to disclose them, saying he planned to give them to the independent prosecutor. Palin initially denied that she or anyone in her administration had ever pressured Monegan to fire Wooten. She said she had raised the matter with Monegan just once, relaying the allegation that Wooten made a death threat against her father. But this summer, Palin acknowledged that a half-dozen members of her administration had made more than two dozen calls on the matter to various state officials

And: “Monegan, 57, a former chief of the Anchorage Police Department, said in an interview Friday that during his 19 months on the job the governor repeatedly mentioned Wooten but ‘never directly asked me to fire him.’ Monegan said Todd Palin told him that Wooten ‘shouldn't be a trooper.’ ‘I've tried to explain to him,’ Monegan said, ‘You can't head-hunt like this. What you need to do is back off, because if the trooper does make a mistake, and it is a terminable offense, it can look like political interference. I think he's emotionally committed in trying to see that his former brother-in-law is punished.’”

Family history is one of the best indicators of predisposition to many, many medical conditions heart disease is for sure one of them.

Any one can die in office, get incapacitated through illness, or even resign or be impeached.  So, sure, the VP candidate counts.  So McCain selected someone with more experience than Obama, and less than say, the current standing VP.  Obama chose someone with more experience and more connections in the party and government than he himself has.  In this, he seems to have taken a page from GW's book.  Not really sure why he would want to do that.  It would appear McCain wants it clear that he will be in charge and will not be planing to take ques from his VP.

Which of these two stances looks more like the current administration?

John McCain's suicide attempt and his resulting PTSD
By Ted Sampley
U.S. Veteran Dispatch
December 23, 2007
Presidential candidate John McCain's recently released Christmas ad depicting him as a tortured POW survivor underscores a reoccurring theme McCain's handlers have, for decades, carefully intertwined deep into his public persona and political campaigns.

McCain says because he survived 5½ years of brutal torture, while a prisoner of the communist Vietnamese, he is better qualified to be president of the United States than any other candidate. McCain claims his POW sufferings included three years in solitary confinement where he was tortured so badly that he "broke," causing him to attempt suicide.

What McCain's promoters have carefully edited out of their McCain-for-president equation is his post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Department of Defense psychiatrists have evaluated McCain for PTSD several times, the results of which remain locked by privacy laws.

PTSD can develop after exposure to a terrifying event or ordeal in which physical harm occurred or was threatened. U.S. government studies have concluded that former POWs "may remain embroiled in a harsh psychological battle with themselves for decades after returning home."

An outcome of PTSD is a subtle web of personal problems including difficulty in controlling intense emotions such as anger and an inability to function well under stress.
 Psychologist Patricia B. Sutker of the New Orleans Veterans Administration Medical Center and her colleagues reported in a 1991 issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry that as many as nine of 10 surviving U.S. servicemen taken captive during the Korean War may suffer from PTSD and other mental disorders more than 35 years after their release.

In a follow-up study, VA experts concluded that POWs suffer "a much greater risk of developing PTSD than combat veterans."

PTSD Causes Early Death From Heart Disease, Study Suggests
ScienceDaily (July 8, 2008) — Vietnam veterans who experienced posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) were twice as likely to die from heart disease as veterans without PTSD, a new Geisinger study finds.


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In a study published in the July issue of Psychosomatic Medicine, Geisinger Senior Investigator Joseph Boscarino, PhD, MPH examined the prevalence of heart disease, PTSD and other problems in more than 4,000 Vietnam veterans.

The more severe the PTSD diagnosis, the greater the likelihood of death from heart disease, the study showed.

Vietnam veterans with PTSD--like chronic smokers--are at higher risk of early death from heart disease, Dr. Boscarino concluded. Boscarino equated PTSD to smoking two to three packs of cigarettes per day for more than 20 years.

Given the multifactorial nature of an individual’s risk, it can be argued that an individual’s familial risk of disease may, in fact, be a better indicator of the many complex interactions among predisposing genetic and environmental factors than can be captured by an individual’s own risk factors.

Scientists using powerful new genetics research methods have for the first time identified a snippet of DNA common to many people that dramatically increases the chances of developing heart disease.

As a result of the atherosclerotic process, cardiovascular disease is due to the interaction between environmental risk factors, such as diet, physical inactivity, smoking, and an individual's genetic makeup. Hundreds of genes are believed to be involved in the process of atherogenesis and the susceptibility to cardiovascular disease. These include genes that regulate lipid metabolism, inflammatory and immune responses, endothelial function, and coagulation. Other genes involved in obesity, insulin resistance, diabetes, elevated homocysteine levels, and hypertension have been identified, but their mechanisms in the atherosclerotic process are not well understood (Lusis, 2003). The genes involved in lipid metabolism have been extensively studied and identified, specifically the gene coding for the low-density lipoprotein (LDL) receptor.

a 19 year son joined the military on sept 11th 2007 and will be deployed to Iraq in two weeks on Sept 11th.

I really like this lady...