In case you haven't yet seen it, the website Mudflats is turning out to be the must-read site about Sarah Palin.

Written by a muckraking Alaskan who seems to know Wasilla first-hand, Mudflats is packed with good gossip that rings true, unlike the Trig-as-Bristol's-son rumor (fake but titllating) or recent affair allegations (although The National Enquirer was right about that last affair rumor they ran with...).

Warning: this Times Online story will make you really angry. The Metro Hotel in Woking, Surrey, refused to give Corporal Tomos Stringer, 24, a room for the night, because, he was told, it's "company policy not to accept members of the Armed Forces as guests."

How insane is that? It's like not allowing guests who are members of the priesthood or doctors.

Apparently, there had been some incidents involving soldiers from a nearby barracks, and the policy wasn't a blanket ban but an at-the-manager's-discretion rule, but nevertheless, denying shelter to a member of the armed forces is an outrage. And it gets worse!

Meet Bristol Palin's baby daddy, Levi Johnston. Everyone's going gaga for him in his hockey uniform. New York magazine has gone so far as to call him "sex on skates."

The New York Daily News got even more erotic in its description: "A closeup shot shows the handsome teen with a light dusting of whiskers on his chin - his dark brown hair curly and wet."

Ew.

So let's compare. Sarah Palin has a 17 year old daughter who is pregnant. Does this mean that Sarah Palin is a hypocrite for championing family values? Does this make her a bad parent? Here is what Palin has to say about the matter: "We have been blessed with five wonderful children who we love with all our heart...Our beautiful daughter Bristol came to us with news that as parents we knew would make her grow up faster than we had ever planned. We're proud of Bristol's decision to have her baby and even prouder to become grandparents. As Bristol faces the responsibilities of love and adulthood, she knows she has our unconditional support."

This to me is the true humble and Christian response. No one is perfect. And there are consequences for actions which people have to live with. Even so, parents can admire the young girl's decision not to take the easy way out and have an abortion. They love their daughter unconditionally, and accept the grandchild unreservedly. I predict that this will strengthen Palin's support both with evangelical Christians and with the American people.

Now let's contrast Palin's behavior with that of Barack Obama. Here is Obama, from his speech at the Democratic National Convention. "It's not because John McCain doesn't care. It's because John McCain doesn't get it." Obama faulted McCain for his cruel and insensitive philosophy, which he defined this way: "Out of work? Tough luck. No health care. The market will fix it. Born into poverty? Pull yourself up by your boot straps, even if you don't have boots. You're on your own."

Obama rejected the bootstraps philosophy in favor of a Christian alternative. In his interview with pastor Rick Warren, Obama said his favorite passage in the Bible is the one where Jesus says: whatever you do to the least of my brethren, that you do unto me. Obama has actually used biblical language to make the point that we are our brothers' keeper. Obama insisted that these are the ideals that have guided his life and the ones that he would bring to the Oval Office.

Now how can Obama's self-description be reconciled with news reports that Obama's younger half-brother lives in a hut in a shanty town on the outskirts of Nairobi? Vanity Fair caught up with twenty six year old George Hussein Onyango Obama, and what he had to say is as shocking as it is pathetic. "No one knows who I am. I live here on less than a dollar a month." George's shack measures 6 feet by 10 feet, and yet he says that Barack Obama has done nothing to reach out to him or to help him. "I live like a recluse. If anyone says something about my surname, I say we are not related. I am ashamed." The two Obamas only met twice, once when George was five and then again in 2006 when Senator Obama visited Nairobi. "It was very brief," George says. "We spoke for just a few minutes. It was like meeting a complete stranger."

So far what has Obama said about his half-brother? Absolutely nothing. Yet the Obama campaign has not denied the story. And Obama's supporters, attempting to cover up for their man, have basically said that young George Obama is trying to benefit from Barack Obama's success. Their argument is that Obama owes his sibling nothing. So the Obama camp has a message for George: "Pull yourself up by your bootstraps, even if you don't have boots. You're on your own." Obama's accusation against McCain turns out to be an accurate description of his own practical philosophy.

Could there be a more striking contrast between Palin's loving approach to her family and Obama's stern rejection of his own half-brother? The media seems to be implying that Palin is hypocritical because she stands for "family values" while her daughter is pregnant out of wedlock. But parents don't have full control over their teenagers' actions. Moreover, isn't Obama an even bigger hypocrite for championing aid to the down-and-out while his own sibling lives in an African hut on pennies a day? By the way the Obamas made several million dollars last year! They are certainly in a position to relieve George's condition if they cared enough.

The major newspapers and networks know about George, and they seem to recognize how damaging this story is for their favorite presidential candidate. So they are not reporting it, even though it is one of the most revealing stories about the candidate's character. And thus, with the GOP convention under way, we have the ridiculous spectacle of Obama getting credit for talking about compassion while Palin gets criticized for practicing it.

A slightly different version of this article appears in the online edition of National Review.

John Edwards's New Age-y mistress Rielle Hunter gave an interview to Extra (watch it here), in which she giddily describes him as "real." It is a profoundly dopey interview.

That was apparently in February 2007, and she found out she was pregnant in May 2007. You can see her delirious enthusiasm for Edwards in the Extra video, in which she was discussing the four "webisodes" she made about him, for which she was paid more than $100,000.

This lie by the McCains about Mother Teresa was so brazen, I couldn't quite believe it myself:





You can read the story for yourself here, including the part where the McCain campaign revises their story to admit Cindy McCain never met Mother Teresa on that trip. And this story has the timeline of when they started to lie about their daughter and Mother Teresa.

You have to confess that if Michelle Obama had lied about adopting a daughter from Mother Teresa or stolen drugs from her own charity because she's a drug addict, Obama would have had no chance of winning. Yet Cindy McCain gets a free pass on all this. The double standard applied to the candidate's wives are overwhelming. No logical person can deny the hypocrisy in how these stories are covered.

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There have been plenty of embarrassing sex emails and IMs in the news from politicians to underlings, but this one by married New York Assemblyman Hoyt to a nineteen-year-old intern has to be the ickiest ever. The New York Post printed it today (it was originally posted in full on the blog PoliticsNY.net). Here's an excerpt:

Subject: Re: what i wish...
that our relationship was not as complicated as it is...
that i could be with you at will...
that I could be painting your toenails right now...

So there are ever more leaked photos of Miley Cyrus in panties thanks to some jerk who's invaded her privacy by hacking into her cell phone.

Why is there such an outcry about these photos? Is Miley supposed to stay 12 forever? She's almost an adult and if she has private photos of herself posing a little sexily or kissing her boyfriend, why does this make her some kind of harlot?

It just seems like everyone has a really short memory for what it's like to be a teenager.

Seems like we have a bit of a pattern here. First, it was Bob Packwood, sexually harassing a slew of women but then trying to escape condemnation on the grounds that he was a consistent champion of women's rights.

Then Bill Clinton took advantage of his office, both as governor or Arkansas and then president of the United States, to have a series of sleazy affairs. He too tried to cover these up and then excuse them on the grounds that they were minor private offenses, small distractions from his noble dedication to the causes of equality and global uplift.

Eliot Spitzer took time out from his crusade against Wall Street malefactors to indulge himself in high-priced prostitutes. He too saw himself as excused from the normal canons of morality because of his commitment to the cause of common man.

And now Edwards. By all accounts here is your typical legal sleazebag, who got rich through ambulance chasing tactics and had a sordid affair while his wife was battling cancer, possibly producing a little bambino in the process. Even the term "love affair" is inappropriate here: Edwards himself says he didn't care about the woman, so he was apparently just using her for the same reason that Clinton said he used Monica Lewinsky: because he could!

Secret meetings, financial payoffs: is there any limit to how low this gets? Yet John Edwards has, at least until now, been considered a wonderful, upright, admirable guy. How is this possible? To put the question in its broadest form: How does the liberal sleazebag come to be viewed so favorably?

The short answer is that the liberal tries to cover up his despicable character by appealing to his virtuous political stances. Shameless and reprehensible behavior is dubbed "private," as if it were nobody else's business, and contrasted with public social stances. "Yes, I cheated on my wife and abandoned my kids, but this is of little significance compared to my environmental work and my donations to the United Way!"

There are many problems with this, but perhaps the most obvious is that there are certain jobs, like governor and president, where being an example and representing a dignified office are part of the job description. Unlike a carpenter or a broker, a president doesn't just do things but he also stands for things. Pastors and presidents cannot afford to be moral reprobates because then they dishonor their position and the people they lead and represent.

Still, the liberal morality-evasion scheme does on, and it has been going on for a while. In fact, the inventor of this liberal scheme was Rousseau, whose autobiography presents himself as a wonderful and sincere guy even though the man fathered five children out of wedlock and abandoned them all to an orphanage. Lacking personal moral decency, what Rousseau appealed to was moral opinions and moral posturing.

The good news is that the American people, who fell for it during the Clinton era, aren't falling for it any more. We shouldn't feel sorry for people like Spitzer and Edwards, nor should we fear that their causes will suffer. Poor people in America could use a more decent champion than the lecher with the $500 haircut.

John McCain had a well-documented series of affairs on his first wife after he came back from the war. She had been severely injured in a car accident and after cheating on her several times with several different women, John McCain eventually left her for a much younger, much richer woman.

Now, it seems like I am condemning John McCain for his actions, but actually I'm not. I wasn't in his situation and no one really knows what happens inside someone else's marriage. I think the personal lives of politicians are absolutely irrelevant, especially their sex lives.

So, I say this not to rub this in John McCain's face, but to defend John Edwards. Now that Edwards has admitted to an extramarital affair, everyone will now condemn him and say he has no political career left. I want to ask all of those people, how is Edwards' affair any different John McCain's? If Edwards is disqualified from running for office because of this, isn't McCain as well?





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Of all the dumb and hateful things Michael Savage has ever said, it turns out the one that has gotten him in the most trouble is the one he made about autistic kids the other day. That's because he was, as usual, totally ignorant and mean-spirited in attacking people's children. Listen to it here:




As a result of this outburst, some stations, including a station group in Mississippi, have dropped his show. Some advertisers, including AFLAC, have pulled ads from his program. So, now Michael "Weiner" Savage is in full backpedal mode. All of a sudden he's not such a tough guy. And, of course, he blames Media Matters for quoting him. How dare they run audio of his radio show, don't they know he's crazy and you can't listen to a word he says?

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Not one but four teachers at the Helix High charter school in California have allegedly had inappropriate sexual relationships with teenage students in the last couple of years, reports KFMB News 8 in San Diego:

• Former music teacher Frank Palumbo was accused of having sex with a 17-year-old female student and was sentenced to five years probation.
• Ex-band director Jessica Kahal got three years probation after pleading guilty to having unlawful sex with a 17-year-old male student.

Authorities in the Czech Republic have discovered two beaten and abused boys, who have been victims of their own family's cannibalism. The boys were locked in the dark basement of their home by their own mother, Klara Mauerova, who fed off their raw flesh.

Seven-year-old Onjreh, and his brother Jakub were discovered chained-up in cages after a neighbor purchased a baby monitor to keep track of his own child. The monitor turned out to pick up signals from the Mauerova household, because Klara had purchased the same monitor to keep an eye on her sons.

Authorities arrived at the home to find the two boys partially skinned, sexually abused, and severely beaten. In court, Onjreh testified that he had been locked in the basement by his mother for months. His mother admitted to all charges, and wept in court as her son testified against her.

Klara Mauerova is said to be part of a cult known as The Grail Movement, and she would refer to a "doctor," who was really a leader of the cult, to receive instructions on how to abuse her sons. The worst part of the story is that her 34-year-old sister participated in the activities, and helped to abuse and literally consume the boys' flesh.

The Young Turks had a brief discussion on the topic, which can be viewed in the video below:


Watch TYT! What are you waiting for?

R&B artist Robert Kelly is currently on trial for allegedly engaging in sexual relations with an under-aged girl. A video released by the Chicago Sun-Times in February of 2002 displays a man who resembles R. Kelly taking part in vile sex acts with a 13 year old. Prosecutors finally played the tape for the jury, and reports claim the identity of the man on the tape is questionable. Watch the following video for more details on the R. Kelly tape scandal.
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Marche Taylor was convinced her custom-made dress would not only turn heads, but also serve as a big hit at her senior prom. However, school officials were not amused when she showed up to the dance wearing a little more than a swimsuit with heels. After Taylor was confronted and asked to leave due to her scandalous dress code violation, she reluctantly did so...wearing handcuffs. Should she have been kicked out of prom? Watch the video and tell us what you think.