Category Archives: Politics: US: 2008 Elections

Jewish Daily Forward, Michelle Obama Has a Rabbi in Her Family

Which reminds me of the old, old joke of the little old Jewish lady in NY city trying to cross Broadway, only to find a police barricade.

“Why,” she asked the cop standing there, “can't I cross the street?”

“It's because of the parade,” he replied.

“The parade? What parade?”

“The Jewish Lord Mayor of Dublin is coming to visit Hizzoner, and they're doing a parade to welcome him,” he said patiently.

“The Jewish Lord Mayor of Dublin?” [*]

“Yes.”

(long pause)

“Only in America.”

The item to which Andrew Sullivan links in Here We Go is slashdotted, so I don't know what this is all about, but other people seem to be seriously tantalized. Here's all Sullivan said,

Todd Palin's former business partner files an emergency motion to have his divorce papers sealed. Oh God.

Myself, I'd rather people were talking about how the more war, less jobs candidate has tried to become Richard Nixon, and run as a candidate of peace and prosperity. Or maybe how weird it is for McCain to try to run away from the same George Bush he (literally) embraced and voted with 90-95% of the time for each of the past four years.

Update: Thanks to the helpful Coralize function, I've got what seems to be the docket to which Sullivan linked, reproduced in full below. What's all the fuss about? In any case, the motion seems to have been denied, so I guess we'll know…

Update2 (9/6): Thanks to reader mcg, whose comment points us to The Smoking Gun, in which the motion to seal seems to be about protecting phone numbers and addresses from the prying eyes of a hoard of reporters.

It seems to me that while the court was surely right in denying the full sealer request, there ought to be a mechanism that would allow a party to request redaction of phone numbers, and perhaps even addresses, in these sorts of circumstances.

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FL-21: Republicans for Raul —Elected Republicans backing Democrat in South Florida Congressional race. (That’s Raul Martinez.)

Watching the Palin speech last night, I kept thinking of this:

And I bet I'm not the only one.

Then again, Tracy Flick won her election.

Just in case you were wondering, here's the GOP rule on filling vacancies in nominations.

RULE NO. 9
Filling Vacancies in Nominations

(a) The Republican National Committee is hereby authorized and empowered to fill any and all vacancies which may occur by reason of death, declination, or otherwise of the Republican candidate for President of the United States or the Republican candidate for Vice President of the United States, as nominated by the national convention, or the Republican National Committee may reconvene the national convention for the purpose of filling any such vacancies.

(b) In voting under this rule, the Republican National Committee members representing any state shall be entitled to cast the same number of votes as said state was entitled to cast at the national convention.

© In the event that the members of the Republican National Committee from any state shall not be in agreement in the casting of votes hereunder, the votes of such state shall be divided equally, including fractional votes among the members of the Republican National Committee present or voting by proxy.

(d) No candidate shall be chosen to fill any such vacancy except upon receiving a majority of the votes entitled to be cast in the election.

I think only celebrities make the cover of US magazine, don't you?