McCain Campaign Sells Info-Loaded Blackberry to FOX 5 Reporter
Private information at bargain prices. It was a high-tech flub at the McCain-Palin campaign headquarters in Arlington when Fox 5’s Investigative Reporter Tisha Thompson bought a Blackberry device containing confidential campaign information.
It started with a snippet we read on page A23 in Thursday’s Washington Post. The McCain-Palin campaign was going to sell its used office inventory at low prices.
But when we got there, it didn’t look like we were going to get much. It was lunchtime and most of the good stuff was gone, picked over by early birds looking for deals on file cabinets, white boards, sofas– anything headquarters could sell to get back some of their campaign dough.
We saw laptops ranging between $400 and $600 with logins like “WARROOM08.” We couldn’t log on without a password, but staffers assured us the hard drive would be zapped before it was sold, and the computer would probably work.
The hottest item? Blackberry phones at $20 a piece. There were only 10 left. All of the batteries had died. There were no chargers for sale. But people were snatching them up. So, we bought a couple.
And ended up with a lot more than we bargained for.
When we charged them up in the newsroom, we found one of the $20 Blackberry phones contained more than 50 phone numbers for people connected with the McCain-Palin campaign, as well as hundreds of emails from early September until a few days after election night.
We traced the Blackberry back to a staffer who worked for “Citizens for McCain,” a group of democrats who threw their support behind the Republican nominee. The emails contain an insider’s look at how grassroots operations work, full of scheduling questions and rallying cries for support.
But most of the numbers were private cell phones for campaign leaders, politicians, lobbyists and journalists.
We called some of the numbers.
“Somebody made a mistake,” one owner told us. “People’s numbers and addresses were supposed to be erased.”
“They should have wiped that stuff out,” another said. But he added, “Given the way the campaign was run, this is not a surprise.”
We called the McCain-Palin campaign, who says, “it was an unfortunate staff error and procedures are being put in place to ensure all information is secure.”
But we wonder– Did we get the only Blackberry with personal campaign information in it? Or did you get one too?
Credits: Written by Tisha Thompson and Rick Yarborough.
More Info: http://www.myfoxdc.com/myfox/pages/News/Politics/Detail;jsessionid=486251F0D62FE4E5CC0E774BF78B77D2?contentId=8055902&version=1&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=TSTY&pageId=3.14.1&sflg=1
Sarah Palin Doesn’t Know Africa Is A Continent.
Now that the 2008 election is over, reporters are spilling all the juiciest, and previously off the record, gossip from the campaign trail. Much of it is about the infighting between Palin and McCain’s staff.
However, perhaps one of the most astounding and previously unknown tidbits about Sarah Palin has to do with her already dubious grasp of geography. According to Fox News Chief Political Correspondent Carl Cameron, there was great concern within the McCain campaign that Palin lacked “a degree of knowledgeability necessary to be a running mate, a vice president, a heartbeat away from the presidency,” in part because she didn’t know which countries were in NAFTA, and she “didn’t understand that Africa was a continent, rather than a series, a country just in itself.”
Palin was apparently a nightmare for her campaign staff to deal with. She refused preparation help for her interview with Katie Couric and then blamed her staff, specifically Nicole Wallace, when the interview was panned as a disaster. After the Couric interview, Fox News reported, Palin turned nasty with her staff and began to accuse them of mishandling her. Palin would view press clippings of herself in the morning and throw “tantrums” over the negative coverage. There were times when she would be so nasty and angry that her staff was reduced to tears.
Thanks Fox News for not sharing that our could have been VP doesn’t even know the difference between a country and a continent until the election was over, real cool. It blows my mind that people actually VOTED for this dumb cunt.
More Info: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/11/05/palin-didnt-know-africa-i_n_141653.html
Palin Says She Considers Herself Intellectual
Does vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin consider herself intellectual? You betcha!
“And you have to be up on not only current events, but you have to understand the foundation of the issues that you’re working on,” Palin said in an interview with People magazine. “You can’t just go on what is presented you.”
Although Palin didn’t name a single newspaper or magazine when CBS News anchor Katie Couric asked where she got her information, the Alaska governor told People that she has always been a “voracious reader” and named reading _ anything from biographies to historical works _ as her favorite thing along with her children and sports.
Besides author Lawrence Wright’s terrorism history, “The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11,” Palin said she’s reading a lot of briefing papers.
“I appreciate a lot of information. I think that comes from growing up in a family of school teachers,” she said.
Palin said if she and husband Todd had had a sixth child, they had already picked a name for a boy joining siblings Track, Bristol, Willow, Piper and Trig.
“I always wanted a son named Zamboni,” she said.
The magazine will be on newsstands Friday.
ASDFLKJASDFLKASJFD Sarah Palin, you talk like the mom from Bobby’s World, go away.
More Info: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/22/AR2008102201645.html?referrer=reddit
Sarah Palin Debate Flow Chart.
Hm… sounds about right.
…AND THAT’S THE ULTIMATE BRIDGE TO NOWHERE! HAHAHAHHA.
Palin Porn- Oooh Yeah
Calling all Sarah Palin look a likes! Calling all Sarah Palin look a likes! Oh, sorry Tina Fey, you might not be into this. Leave it up to good ol’ Larry Flint to place a Craigslist want add for a Palin look a like for his new adult movie. Everyone’s capitalizing on Palin why not the porno industry? She already has her own action figure (hm, wonder which parts are detachable). Fans are already throwing out catchy titles for the flick like “Gettin’ Palin Wailin’”, “Doggystyle? I Dunno, Alaska”, “Northern Overexposure” and “Idickarod”. Well, yes it’s cold up there in that Alaskan wilderness and even a sexy little Govna needs a little warming up. I’m thinking a good title would be “The Hockey Mom: stick it to her good” Brilliant.
Sarh Palin Corn Maze… LAME!
An Ohio farmer would like to invite you to get lost inside the head of Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin.
A 16-acre corn maze near the town of Whitehouse has been carved in Palin’s likeness, complete with her familiar updo hairstyle and eyeglasses.
Farmer Duke Wheeler says that Palin created a lot of excitement in the campaign and that he was hoping to generate some for this year’s maze.
Wheeler says it took an artist from Idaho at least eight hours to mow down stalks for the maze.
Sarah Palin Protest Scheduled for 6:30 pm, 20th and Walnut sts., The Irish Pub
Sarah Palin has decided that it would be a good idea to make an appearance in Philadelphia. Let’s prove her wrong. There will be a protest tonight at the Irish Pub, 20th and Walnut sts., 6:30 pm. All are welcome to show up for this peaceful but energetic protest of Sarah Palin and John Mccain’s deceitful campaign tactics. For all of those who are Mccain/Palin fans, you may like to show up to see Sarah Palin watching the debate. Feel free to spread the word via many technological means, SMS Messaging, IM’s, Phone calls, etc.
Palin Watching Debate In Philadelphia Bar
How important is Pennsylvania to the Republicans?
GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin will arrive today in Philadelphia and make a very limited public appearance, before an extended stay in the Delaware Valley.
Palin will be at the Irish Pub on Walnut Street on Friday night for a public debate watching party, if the debate between John McCain and Barack Obama continues as planned.
On Thursday, Palin will arrive at Philadelphia International Airport at 12:45 p.m.
She had planned to appear at a rally at the airport, bur Palin suspended her campaign on Wednesday night along with John McCain, in response to the current economic crisis.
So the vice presidential candidate will head to an unspecified location in our area.
Palin had planned to stay in Philadelphia for the weekend to prepare for her October 2 debate with Joe Biden.
But all her plans might be on hold, if the debates are rescheduled.
More Fun with Sarah Palin!
Everything you ever wanted in a Vice President?Available now!
To buy your own Sarah Palin or various other political action-figurines check out:
http://www.herobuilders.com/08.htm
And to watch a video about the Sarah Palin Dolls click HERE!
More Info: http://www.cbs2.com/video/?id=77808@kcbs.dayport.com
More Sarah Palin Bashing
Gov. Sarah Palin is being asked by a local Republican activist to release more than 1,100 e-mails she withheld from a public records request, including 40 that were copied to her husband, Todd.
Palin had claimed executive privilege for documents copied to her husband, who is not a state employee, in responding to an open records request in June made by Andrée McLeod, an activist in Anchorage. The administrative appeal filed yesterday by McLeod’s attorney, Donald C. Mitchell, argued that by copying Todd Palin on sensitive state correspondence, the governor and her aides shattered the privilege rightly afforded elected officials.
“She has allowed Todd Palin — who has not been elected by the people of Alaska, who is not a state employee — to entangle himself apparently as he sees fit in the operations of the executive branch of the state government,” Mitchell said.
“From the case law, if government voluntarily opens up that internal decision-making to what I would call civilians, then that is waiver of that protection of the government policy decision-making process. That is what happened here, and it happened because Sarah Palin doesn’t understand it,” he said.
Todd Palin was frequently copied on e-mails relating to Alaska State Troopers and the union representing public safety employees, according to McLeod, who received four boxes of redacted e-mails in response to her request. At the time, both Sarah and Todd Palin were complaining to the state public safety commissioner about a disciplinary matter involving Sarah Palin’s ex-brother-in-law, a state trooper.
Palin also routinely does government business from a Yahoo address, gov.sarah@yahoo.com, rather than her secure official state e-mail address, according to documents already made public.
“Whoops!” Palin aide Frank Bailey wrote, after addressing an e-mail to the governor’s official state address. “Frank, This is not the Governor’s personal account,” a secretary reminded him.
Calls seeking response from the governor were not immediately returned by a Palin spokesperson. Palin last month described McLeod as a disgruntled former employee, though in 2004 Palin endorsed her as a state House candidate “not afraid to stand up for what’s right.”
Mitchell’s appeal, addressed to Palin in her capacity as the decision-maker on the earlier records request, questions the wisdom of the governor and her aides shipping messages about state business between their public and private e-mail accounts “with complete and total abandon,” he said.
“There’s a reason the governor should be using her own official e-mail channels, because of security and encryption,” the lawyer said. “She’s running state business out of Yahoo?”
On March 17, minutes after peppering a state official about whether e-mails about state business contained on a personal BlackBerry could become public, senior Palin aide Ivy Frye addressed a message to both Palins and two other aides: “In sum, it’s just as I thought — questions of confidentiality are still unanswered by law.”
McLeod, a former state employee who once was close to Palin, filed an ethics complaint last month against Palin and others. She cited e-mail traffic that appeared to show that the governor’s office improperly helped a Palin fundraiser obtain a civil service position.
“By withholding these emails, Sarah Palin has broken on her promise of being open, honest and transparent,” McLeod said in a statement. “It’s old-school politics and not the kind of reform she pledged to Alaskans.”
By Karl Vick
The bitch actually does government business on her Yahoo account. My mind=blown. She’s like… border-line retarded, right?
More Info: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/09/AR2008090903044.html
