Obama supporter Alice Butler

AV’s traveling elections correspondent, Jon Winet, writes in from northern Nevada:

We had hoped to catch up with Erie County GOP Chair Domagalski Jim to get his views on the Biden-Palin VP debate, but were unable to reach him.

We were able to chat Sunday evening on the phone with Oakland California resident and retired Social Security Administration Regional Human Resources Director Alice Butler, (also featured in an earlier video interview).

Butler is an active Obama supporter. Listen to her reaction to the debates here.

Erie County GOP Chair Jim Domagalski

AV’s roving elections correspondent Jon Winet spoke to Erie County GOP Chairman Jim Domagalski at about 4pm this afternoon, to get his prognosis on tonight’s Palin v. Biden VP showdown.

Once the on-hold muzak stops (who has that on their phone system?), Domagalski stays pretty tightly on message. Listen to it here. Note his comments on Katie Couric, who, he insinuates, probably doesn’t have much to say about specific Supreme Court cases either.

Winet is checking in with Domagalski after the debate as well, so check back to see whether her performance improves his mood.

The Associated Press reports that Alaska governor Sarah Palin is defending her boast that her state’s proximity to Russia gives her foreign policy experience. “They’re our next-door neighbors, and you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska, from an island in Alaska.” She added that “we have trade missions back-and-forth.”

Hard-nosed reporter Katie Couric asked Palin how that closeness benefited her foreign policy experience. Palin replied, “Well, it certainly does because…our next-door neighbors are foreign countries.”

Well, I can see Canada from Niagara street. I could walk across the Peace Bridge this afternoon and eat some Chinese food at Ming Teh, but I don’t expect Condoleezza Rice to call me up and ask my opinion about putting strategic missiles in Poland.

Seriously, how many of us have the nerve to claim we have enough foreign policy experience to be Vice President of the United States by virtue of the fact that we went to Sherkston this summer and brought back a case of Canadian beer? Isn’t that a back-and-forth trade mission? Those frat boys from UB heading up to watch the Canadian ballet are on par with Henry Kissinger, I guess.

And how’s this for old time religion?

“You can’t blink,” Palin is fond of saying. Apparently, you can’t think, either.

Check out the VP candidate in this 2005 video where she’s being blessed by whacko Bishop Thomas Muthee at the Wasilla Assembly of God Church, where she was an active member until 2002. She’s not speaking in tongues—which is an accepted form worship at the church—but she is holding her hands up to heaven while being blessed and anointed against “every form of witchcraft.” Muthee, according to an MSNBC report is responsible for inciting an actual witch hunt against someone in Kenya. No joke.

Great. Her global experience is limited to gazing across stormy seas at a distant land mass, and she practices old-fashioned christian values…like Salem, Massachussetts, 1692.

AV’s IT guy has posted snapshots of Sarah Palin’s email inbox on his tech blog. Check it out.

Abbreviated from the New York Times

NEW ORLEANS — A mostly smooth evacuation from Hurricane Gustav turned sour on Tuesday as many New Orleans residents trying to return home were refused entry at roadblocks into the city or stranded in parking lots across the region.
On Tuesday, power remained off at nearly 80,000 homes in New Orleans and tree limbs littered the streets. City officials listed these and other factors as reasons that they were not ready for the return of hundreds of thousands of residents.

SARAH PALIN, WASILLA, Alaska — In 1996, the year Sarah Palin ran for mayor, Wasilla got its first local lesson in wedge politics. Anti-abortion flyers circulated. Palin played up her church work and her membership in the National Rifle Association. The state Republican Party, never involved in the past because city elections are nonpartisan, ran ads on Palin’s behalf.

Shortly after becoming mayor, former officials and Wasilla residents said, Palin approached the town librarian about the possibility of banning some books, though she never followed through and it was unclear which books or passages were in question. Palin fired the librarian, Mary Ellen Emmons, but changed course after residents made a strong show of support. Palin also asked many of the former mayor’s backers on the city payroll to resign — something virtually unheard of in Wasilla. The public works director, city planner, museum director and others were forced out. The police chief, Irl Stambaugh, was later fired outright.

“HONOR KILLINGS” in Pakistan

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — The government has ordered an inquiry into reports of the deaths of five women buried alive in so-called honor killings in Baluchistan Province. The reports have set off countrywide protests.
News of the killings, which occurred six weeks ago, trickled out of the tribal area with sketchy details. As described in an Aug. 21 statement by a French human rights group, the victims were three young women who had planned to marry men of their choice — a blot on family honor — and two older female relatives.
All were kidnapped July 13 by several men from their village, Baba Kot, in the department of Jafferabad, and taken to a deserted area in a vehicle bearing provincial government plates, according to the group, the International Federation for Human Rights. The young women were beaten and shot, and, still breathing, covered with earth and stones. The two older women tried to intervene and were buried alive as well.

EGYPTIAN TYCOON CHARGED WITH MURDER

CAIRO — A wealthy Egyptian businessman and lawmaker was charged Tuesday with paying
$2 million for the contract killing of Suzanne Tamim, a Lebanese pop star who was found dead in her apartment in Dubai on July 28. The tycoon, Hisham Talaat Moustafa, 49, is one of the country’s
largest real estate developers and a member of President Hosni Mubarak’s governing National
Democratic Party.
Moustafa was charged with hiring a former police officer, Mohsen al-Sukary, to kill Tamim in what authorities described as an act of revenge. The authorities did not elaborate, but it has been widely reported that he was infuriated with Tamim after a failed love affair. When her body was was found, she had been stabbed and her throat had been slit.

The case was front-page news everywhere in the region except Egypt, where the authorities prohibited newspapers from reporting on it.

OUSTER PROCEEDINGS AGAINST DETROIT MAYOR
Lawyers for Mayor Kwame M. Kilpatrick of Detroit failed in an effort to halt proceedings set for Wednesday that could lead to his removal. A panel of the Michigan Court of Appeals ruled that Gov. Jennifer M. Granholm may proceed with the hearing.