Sarah Palin

Alaska Journo: Palin's Banned Media List Written By Todd Palin

Eric Kleefeld | December 24, 2009, 4:59PM

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin

Further details have emerged about the banning of undesirable reporters from the Sarah Palin book tour event in Palin's hometown of Wasilla, after Alaska-based photojournalist and videographer Dennis Zaki found himself on the list.

We reported that Zaki was turned away from Palin's homecoming event in Alaska on Tuesday. Zaki checked in at the media window with a blogger friend, and they were told they had to leave. "They were anxious to get us out the door quickly," blogger Jesse Griffin told TPMmuckraker. The two men didn't fight the decision.

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Birthers

Orly Taitz And The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Year

Justin Elliott | December 24, 2009, 2:43PM

Orly Taitz

When we began following Orly Taitz's Birther litigation back in September, we never thought we'd end up with her cell phone on speed dial.

Well, it turned out to be the beginning of a beautiful relationship. But the last year (OK, fine, half year) has been full of bumps and setbacks for the attorney/dentist who is the country's most prominent purveyor of the conspiracy theory that President Obama is not a natural born U.S. citizen.

Here, in chronological order, are some of the low points of Taitz's year:

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Health Care

GOP State AGs Prepare To Challenge Health Care Provision

Justin Elliott | December 24, 2009, 9:50AM

South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster

Here's one that bears watching in the new year ...

South Carolina's attorney general is leading nine other state AGs -- all Republicans -- in threatening to sue over the provision of the health care bill that exempts Nebraska from new Medicaid costs, a measure secured by Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE).

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David McKalip

Obama-As-Witch-Doctor Activist's Latest Effort Makes Maddow (VIDEO)

Justin Elliott | December 23, 2009, 2:40PM

Yesterday we told you about tea party activist-cum-neurosurgeon David McKalip's new attempt to convince progressives to unite with the Right to kill health care reform. Last night, Rachel Maddow examined the question of where exactly McKalip, who famously mass-emailed a picture of President Obama as a witch doctor, fits in the ever-changing anti-reform bill caucus.

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Alaska

Media On Palin's 'Banned List' Ejected From Going Rogue Event

Justin Elliott | December 23, 2009, 12:45PM

Sarah Palin at a book signing in Columbus, OH on November 20, 2009.

Sarah Palin's war on the media continues?

The woman who once called on the press to "quit makin' things up" took it a step further yesterday by allegedly banning four members of the media from a book event in Wasilla, Alaska.

On a four-person "banned list" -- yes, that term was actually used by police -- were a blogger, a videographer, a local radio host, and another person who hasn't been identified. TPMmuckraker reached two of the four by phone in Alaska this morning. Here's what happened.

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Larry Klayman

Conservative Attorney: Secret Service 'Violated My Civil Rights' Outside White House

Justin Elliott | December 23, 2009, 9:38AM

Larry Klayman

Attorney Larry Klayman, the founder of Judicial Watch who first attained gadfly status during the Clinton years, is alleging that the Secret Service mistreated him when he went to the White House last week as part of an effort to force President Obama to reveal details of closed-door meetings with health care lobbyists.

It all went down last Wednesday as Klayman, who is also spearheading a legal fight against the Washington Times, decided to directly deliver a letter to President Obama arguing that White House health care meetings constituted a "de facto advisory committee" under the Federal Advisory Committee Act.

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ACORN

Report Finds No Recent Funding Violations By ACORN

Nick Pinto | December 22, 2009, 5:31PM

ACORN has been investigated 46 times by federal, state, and local agencies as of October 2009, and 11 of those probes are still pending, according to a report by the Congressional Research Service released today. But the report finds no cases in which ACORN violated the terms of federal funding in the last five years.

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Health Care

Asked About Charge Of Meddling, Gibbs Says FDA Drug Imports Stand Hasn't Changed

Justin Elliott | December 22, 2009, 1:32PM

Robert Gibbs and Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-ND)

Asked about a Dem senator's accusation that the White House pressured the FDA to send a letter that helped kill a drug importation measure, Robert Gibbs did not directly address the charge, but maintained that the FDA has had safety concerns for years.

After his drug imports amendment was defeated last week, Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-ND) asserted that an FDA letter raising safety concerns about the measure may have originated in the White House.

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Maurice Joseph Schwenkler

Activist Pleads Guilty In Window Smashing At Colorado Dem Headquarters

Nick Pinto | December 22, 2009, 11:51AM

Maurice Schwenkler

The transgender anarchist charged with smashing windows at the Colorado Democratic Party headquarters last summer has entered a guilty plea, the Denver Post reports today.

Maurice Joseph Schwenkler, who goes by Ariel Attack, will receive a year of probation and must pay $5,000 in restitution for the 11 windows Schwenkler and an unnamed accomplice smashed with hammers on August 25.

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Bush Administration

Maddow On 'The Incredible Magic Al Jazeera Scam' (VIDEO)

Justin Elliott | December 22, 2009, 10:50AM

Rachel Maddow last night interviewed journalist Aram Roston about the finer points of the revelation, published in Playboy, that a December 2003 Orange terror alert was prompted by supposed decoding technology that revealed terrorist communications in Al Jazeera broadcasts.

Maddow plays some remarkable media reports from 2003, complete with scare quotes from Tom Ridge about catastrophic attacks "against the homeland."

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David McKalip

Hail Mary: Racist E-Mail Doc Reaches Out To Liberal Critics, Quoting Dean, Greenwald, Ed Schultz

Justin Elliott | December 22, 2009, 9:37AM

David McKalip

Tea Party activist David McKalip, who sent out the now-famous picture of Obama as a witch doctor, is now reaching out to the very progressives who sent him hate mail, calling on them to unite in a left-right coalition to "Stop the Final Corporate Takeover of Medicine."

In what he describes as "a call to action from an unlikely ally," McKalip, the Florida neurosurgeon who recently appeared as an anti-reform expert on Glen Beck's show, tells progressives to call their House representatives and "tell them 'No to the Senate Bill!'"

"Last July many of you emailed me to express your anger over an email I forwarded on that was offensive. ... Clearly you take action when the time is right and you follow the debate closely," he writes. "I kept your email addresses because I identify with fighters like you and I know that you are likely as worried as I am about insurance companies being in charge of your medical care and our health care system." (Read the full e-mail here.)

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War In Afghanistan

Blackwater, Already On The Ground In Afghanistan, Now Gunning For More Contracts

Justin Elliott | December 21, 2009, 12:23PM

A Blackwater Aviation crew member prepares to drop supplies to an outpost in Bandar, Afghanistan, in 2007.

It looks like the Obama Administration just can't quit the company formerly known as Blackwater.

A Xe official told the Commission on Wartime Contracting Friday that the company has contracts for security as well as for training Afghan police and a "drug interdiction unit." Xe is also in the running for more work in Afghanistan. The comments of Xe Vice President Fred Roitz were first reported by the Virginia Pilot.

It's been a difficult year for Xe, with several former guards facing manslaughter charges over the shootings in Baghdad's Nisour Square that left 17 civilians dead, and company founder Erik Prince declaring he plans to leave the business.

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Bush Administration

Report: Bush Admin Raised Terror Alert Based On Con Man's Al Jazeera 'Decoding' Scam

Justin Elliott | December 21, 2009, 9:32AM

Then-Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge making an announcement about the Code Orange terror alert in December 2003.

A self-styled Nevada codebreaker convinced the CIA he could decode secret terrorist targeting information sent through Al Jazeera broadcasts, prompting the Bush White House to raise the terror alert level to Orange (high) in December 2003, with Tom Ridge warning of "near-term attacks that could either rival or exceed what we experience on September 11," according to a new report in Playboy.

The report deals another blow to the credibility of the Department of Homeland Security's color-coded terror alert system, and comes after Ridge's claim that the system was used as a political tool when he was DHS secretary.

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