The South Carolina State Ethics Commission combed through Gov. Mark Sanford’s records and came up with 37 ethics charges involving air travel and campaign funds.

The married governor, who went AWOL for nearly a week this past summer only to return and acknowledge he had been with his Argentinean “soul mate,” was cited by the State Ethics Commission for a number of alleged transgressions, including use of state aircraft and expensive commercial airline tickets when cheaper seats were available.

South Carolina lawmakers, some of whom have been itching to give the Republican governor the boot, have been waiting for the Ethics Commission to act. But the governor’s lawyers say the allegations are minor and technical, and predicted there won’t be any criminal charges — a decision that’s up to the state’s attorney general. A hearing on the ethics allegations will be held next year; Sanford’s term ends in January 2011.

For a fiscal conservative, Mark Sanford sure doesn't appear to care about being fiscally conservative with his taxpayers' dollars. Some of the things Sanford allegedly used state aircraft for:

—transporting a staff member from Columbia to North Myrtle Beach, and then both Sanford and the staff member back to Columbia “to participate in a personal event, receiving a haircut.”

—attending a book signing party.

—attending a birthday party for a contributor.

—a personal weekend with family members.

—attending a son’s sporting event.

—going to “the ‘soft’ opening of the Hard Rock Park.”

h/t: Wall Street Journal

Constantine can move quickly because he doesn't face a huge learning curve.

Unlike the dingbat they endorsed.

The trick [of regaining power], some Republicans said, is to guide populists’ energies toward an optimistic agenda built on those themes. “If we don’t take this anger and frustration, as legitimate as I believe it is, and channel it into a good, a positive, then we won’t be successful,” said Rick Santorum, a former Republican senator from Pennsylvania.

Gov. Haley Barbour of Mississippi, who was chairman of the Republican National Committee from 1993 to 1997 and is a potential 2012 president candidate, cited the 1994 House elections as a model for what the party can accomplish now. In that election, he said, Republicans attracted voters who in 1992 had backed H. Ross Perot’s third-party candidacy.

The one thing Bush did right? To attempt to adapt his party to this reality:

(FiveThirtyEight.com) Gallup has data out suggesting that 89 percent of self-identified Republicans are white; the comparable figure among Democrats is 65 percent.

This, however, is not exactly anything new. 88 percent of George W. Bush's voters in 2004, and 91 percent of them in 2000, were white. And nearly 98 percent of Ronald Reagan's voters in 1980 were white as were 96 percent of Gerald Ford's in 1976. The GOP is, in fact, slightly less white than it once was, as they do relatively better among Hispanics and Asians than among blacks (if still not particularly well), and Hispanics and Asians are starting to make up a larger fraction of the nonwhite (and overall) voting pool...

...Consider this remarkable statistic. In 1980, 32 percent of the electorate consisted of white Democrats (or at least white Carter voters) — likewise, in 2008, 32 percent of the electorate consisted of white Obama voters. But whereas, in 1980, just 9 percent of the electorate were nonwhite Carter voters, 21 percent of the electorate were nonwhite Obama voters last year. Thus, Carter went down to a landslide defeat, whereas Obama defeated John McCain by a healthy margin.

(CNN) — By 2050, minorities will be the majority in America, and the number of residents older than 65 will more than double, according to projections released Thursday by the U.S. Census Bureau.

The Census Bureau looks at 2000 results and assumptions about future childbearing, mortality rates and migration.

Minorities, classified as those of any race other than non-Hispanic, single-race whites, currently constitute about a third of the U.S. population, according to Census figures. But by 2042, they are projected to become the majority, making up more than half the population. By 2050, 54 percent of the population will be minorities.

This version, like the House bill that passed earlier, contains a public option. The senate's bill allows states to opt-out of the public option.

Lieberman, the ass, has stated he will not vote for any bill containing a public option. He has agreed to vote to open, but not close, debate on the bill—helping Reid achieve the sixty votes he needed today.

Below is video I shot of the speech—which also serves as a great primer on the huge budget mess this state is now facing.

"It goes without saying, today has not been my best day," Gregoire began, nodding toward the news of the state's $2.6 billion budget shortfall. "But you know what, I gotta tell ya, If it was ever a time to have a Democratic governor, a Democratic house, and a Democratic senate, now is the time." She promised her proposed budget would be brutal ("It will be nothing like you have ever seen in your life") and then she declared:

An all-cuts budget is not the value of the people of the state of Washington. We must step up to our responsibility to this state and look for revenue to get the job done.

For the declaration, start at 3:37. Or, to learn all about the $2.6 billion shortfall and get up to speed on Gregoire's thinking about how to deal with it, watch the whole damn thing:

At Kohl-Welles event, Gov. Gregoire stated that another cuts-only budget would not be acceptable.

This could be the first sign that the Democratic super majority could show some guts and raise revenue to balance the budget. They might not have a choice, since there is so little left to cut:

70% of the state budget is protected through constitutional, federal, contractual and other mandates, which means the Legislature would need to slash 27% from the remaining $9.6 billion in unprotected spending in order to achieve an all-cuts budget. I suppose that could be done, but only at the expense of great human suffering.

If the legislature leans on a cuts-heavy budget in 2010, General Assistance Unemployable (or GAU) could be toast. According to their website, GAU is described as a "state-funded program that provides cash and medical benefits for persons who are physically and/or mentally incapacitated and unemployable." Since GAU is only available for individuals who don't qualify for other government assistance, without GAU many of these people would be on the street. It survived elimination in last year's budget, largely because Speaker Frank Chopp defended the program.

I guess the Noblesville, Indiana Going Rogue book signing didn’t go very well yesterday because 300* or so of the 1000 people with wristbands were asked not to tread on Sarah Palin and then she tried to make a getaway with Baby Trig and several duffel bags full of cash but wingnuts have learned to protest about everything these days, so they were having none of it. This is the best thing you will see about horrible, horrible Sarah Palin on the internets all day and until the end of time.

Go to Rumproast to read angry comments left on Sarah Palin's Facebook page by some real disappointed real Americans.

Sarah Palin is rolling her "Going Rogue" book tour into Fort Hood, the site of the Nov. 5 shooting that left 13 dead and dozens wounded.

"I'm especially looking forward to meeting our brave men and women in uniform at Fort Hood," Palin, 45, wrote on her Facebook page.

Republicans warn that going to the tax well now is a bad idea, with the economic recovery still fragile.

When times are bad and budgets are in the red, the GOP says we can't raise taxes because people will suffer. When times are good and budgets are in the black, the GOP says we have to cut the taxes of people who aren't suffering. See how that works? Thank God we've got a Democratic governor and Democratic supermajorities in the legislature! With Dems in charge the state budget won't be balanced on the backs of the most vulnerable and those who are already suffering...

The governor says she's seriously looking at eliminating entire programs to close the budget hole. Cuts may include state subsidized health insurance for the working poor and a welfare program for single adults with mental or physical disabilities.

Jesus—why do we bother electing Democrats at all?

Progressives have tried to knock off a moderate-leaning incumbent from Seattle before. In 2004, labor unions targeted pro-choice Democrat Helen Sommers in the primary because she failed to halt corporate tax breaks and opposed raising pay for home health-care workers. The challenge fell short; Sommers was easily reelected.

Seeing this, a local labor leader wrote me to point out that while the 2004 challenge did indeed fall short (in the primary), and Sommers was easily reelected (in the general), a closer look at that year's primary results is useful.

In that 2004 primary, labor's candidate, Alice Woldt, very nearly beat Sommers, earning 48.4 percent of the vote to Sommers' 51.6 percent.

This was back before the top-two primary allowed members of the same party to run against each other in the general, so in November of 2004, with Woldt out of the picture, Sommers stomped all over her Republican and Libertarian opponents, earning nearly 79 percent of the vote and easily retaining her seat.

But the key thing to note here is that this was before the top-two primary. If labor's primary challenge to Sommers had taken place this year, she'd have been in the general election with a "surging" Woldt, and it would have been much tougher for her to hang on to her spot in the house.

In other words, the lesson of the challenge against Sommers, applied to today's election rules, cuts both ways. Yes, it's still hard for a Democratic challenger to take down a well-known Democratic incumbent. But thanks to the top-two primary, it's also easier than ever before.

Get into the debate over whether, as commenter West Seattle Walter says...

Frank Chopp will not lose.

...HERE.

Says commenter wellstonewasright:

"Progressive discontent" against the speaker who has kept the minimum wage the highest in the country and just recently presided over the most significant legislative expansion of gay and lesbian civil rights in the state's history? You have got to be kidding me.

Says commenter shaneleopard:

"His campaign coffers would be filled by Wal-Mart, BIAW, and other corporate entities." That's enough for me. Vote him out. We didn't elect Mallahan in Seattle, we can get this guy out too. It's not nearly as impossible as Chopp's supporters would have you believe. If you ignore the your constituencies and don't do something with the power you have, you deserve to lose it.

Chopp was only able to e-mail a statement about the frustration in the 43rd in time for our paper-edition deadline yesterday. But he was eager to talk about his record, and so last night I met up with him at Vermillion on Capitol Hill for drinks and a long conversation.

More to come on this, but for now, here's five minutes of bar time with Chopp:

Get into the discussion HERE.

A group of state lawmakers has endorsed building a wider Montlake interchange and a second north-south Montlake drawbridge as part of their plan to replace the old Highway 520 floating bridge.

But both House Speaker Frank Chopp and Rep. Jamie Pedersen—who represent the 43rd District—voted against the option, saying there state has more time to take input from neighbors to avoid a potential lawsuit. Here's WSDOT's video of the option selected:

Speaker Chopp is rumored to be a big supporter of a key element not included in the selected option: a tunnel under Montlake. Instead, the workgroup recommendation is a more traditional cloverleaf with a similar footprint to what's there now.

Martin Duke over at Seattle Transit Blog also isn't thrilled with the proposal:

This option is bad news for transit in two ways: it doesn’t provide a good connection from SR520 to the UW Light Rail station, and it’s underfunded by $2 billion.

I'm not sure if Option A is worse than the others. The Husky Stadium light rail station will be a brisk walk from SR-520 freeway bus stops no matter which option is chosen. (But wouldn't it be nice if the guys building our freeways were communicating with the guys building our mass transit system?) Also, the 520 bridge plan is at least $2 billion dollars in the hole regardless which plan is chosen. Option A is less expensive. I'm curious to see if Speaker Chopp throws a wild-card design option in there like he did with the viaduct. A 520 bridge with retail built in? I'd like to see that.

• Robert Ullman

House Speaker Frank Chopp has long pissed off progressives with his plodding, centrist ways. Now they're threatening to run a liberal challenger against him in Seattle's 43rd District.

Read about it HERE.

(And come back later today for a post-press-time video interview with the speaker, conducted last night at a bar in the 43rd.)

This is only the second time in its nearly ten-year history that the Dish has gone silent. The reason now is the same as the reason then. When dealing with a delusional fantasist like Sarah Palin, it takes time to absorb and make sense of the various competing narratives that she tells about her life. There are so many fabrications and delusions in the book, mixed in with facts, that just making sense of it—and comparing it with objective reality as we know it, and the subjective reality she has previously provided—is a bewildering task.... There is a possibility here of such a huge scandal that we would be crazy not to take our time either to debunk it or move it forward for further examination. We have only one commitment: to get this right. Please bear with us as we do the best we can.

Fingers crossed.

For the record: those of us who've criticized the president from the left—because he's not delivering the change he promised—are the same people out there condemning the assholes who are trying to get the president killed. I've been a prominent critic of the president for his inaction on his promises to the gay community—as has Rachel Maddow—and here I am months ago on Countdown calling out the haters on the religious right. We can do both: hold the president accountable, express our displeasure and impatience in reasoned and reasonable ways, while condemning and marginalizing the haters on the right. We can't let the worst people in the world get away with threatening the life of the president—where's the Secret Service?—and allow their threats to hold us and our politics hostage too. That's what they want.

And remember, kids: there is no morality without religion.

The out-of-context Newsweek approach is sexist and oh-so-expected by now. If anyone can learn anything from it: it shows why you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, gender, or color of skin.

However much Playgirl paid Johnston, it's not enough. Most people thought Playgirl—which ceased publishing in print a couple of years ago—was dead and gone. Prior to this photo shoot with Johnston, who even knew that Playgirl had a website? Or that Playgirl had a publicist? A publicist who had this to say after the shoot...

"We were talking in the greenroom about gay categories: bear, cubs and Levi asked what his type would be. We decided a twink, but older, so we anointed him a 'twunk'."

I love the idea of a twunk—an older twink—but Johnston is nineteen. How old is a twink supposed to be if a 19-year-old is already an aged twunk? No, no: Johnston was never a twink. He was a jock—the hockey variety, to the delight of gear fetishists—and he still is. More interesting than sorting Johnston into his exact gay entomological category is watching Johnston, once a major homophobe, become increasingly comfortable with teh gays. He's having to hang out and work with (and work for) more and more out homos—big-city homos—and he surely knows by now that women won't be masturbating to those pictures on Playgirl. Levi just can't afford the luxury of his homophobia anymore.

And if you're only doing Playgirl because it drives your former future mother-in-law crazy, Levi, imagine how she'll feel if you do a little gay-for-pay porn?

Some of the new sexy photographs that have been unearthed Prejean allegedly took herself, of her own reflection in a mirror, alternately topless and completely naked.

Carrie Prejean is young, beautiful and not very bright. And she wasn't politically active until she gave a convoluted and inaccurate answer to a question about same-sex marriage at the Miss USA pageant. Here's the answer that launched a hundred billion blog post. From her response it's clear that Prejean believed same-sex marriage was already legal in all 50 states:

"I think it's great that Americans are able to choose one way or the other. We live in a land where you can choose same-sex marriage or opposite marriage. And, you know what, in my country, in my family, I think that I believe that marriage should be between a man and a woman, no offense to anybody out there. But that’s how I was raised and I believe that it should be between a man and a woman."

Carrie thought it was great that Americans were free to choose between same-sex and opposite marriage—we're not, of course, but she thought we were—but she personally believed that marriage should be between a man and a woman. I can live with that. In fact that's all gay people really want. Gay people should be free to marry and other people should be free to believe that our same-sex marriages are wrong because their religion forbids it or because that's how they were raised or because they just think it's icky. Just because same-sex marriage is legal doesn't mean that everyone is required to approve. Interracial marriage is legal despite the disapproval of some; inter-faith marriage is legal despite the strong and sometimes violent disapproval of most religious traditions; divorce is legal despite the disapproval of Jesus Christ himself and despite being forbidden by the Roman Catholic Church. Gay people want the same deal interracial couples, inter-faith couples, and divorced-and-remarried couples all have now: our marriages should be legal even if some people disapprove.

Anyway, back to Prejean: I thought Perez Hilton went too far when he labeled Prejean a bitch for her response to his question. But I quickly came around to Perez's position—she is bitch—after Prejean leapt into bed with Maggie Gallagher and the National Organization for Marriage. (Did you know that Gallagher had a child out of wedlock? And that she's currently in an inter-faith marriage?) It seemed like a transparent effort on Prejean's part to cash in, to parlay her loss at the Miss USA pageant into a career as a spokesmodel for the religious right. Prejean's sudden passion for anti-gay politicking seemed insincere and opportunistic—she hadn't been publicly religious, politically active, or rabidly homophobic until after the pageant—and that's why she drew the scorn of mean-spirited bloggers everywhere.

And now we have proof that the person Prejean pretended to be after that pageant—the good Christian girl with a strong moral code who was chosen by God to stick it to the homos—doesn't jibe with the person she was before the pageant, i.e. a highly sexual and sexually active young woman with breast implants and a string of ex-boyfriends to her name. Carrie Prejean was not the very model of modern right-wing Christian conservatism that she pretended to be to ingratiate herself with the likes of Maggie Gallagher. She was an average young American woman, a little prettier and dimmer than most, with sexual urges and desires and agency. She was just another young woman aware of her own erotic power, a young woman with a digital camera, another young woman sexting her boyfriend because it turned her on to turn him on.

This aspect of Prejean's life—her ownership, control and delight in her own sexuality—is newsworthy because Prejean was working to deny others the same ownership and control over their sexualities. Prejean endorsed discrimination against others based on sexual expression and that invited scrutiny of her own sexual expression. Prejean wasn't exposed as a "hobby pornographer," as Dave put it, because she believes that same-sex marriage is wrong; the woman who replaced Prejean as Miss California also opposes same-sex marriage and no one has pried into her private life. (I can't even recall her name.) Prejean was exposed because the only justification she was able to give for her opposition to equal rights for gays and lesbians was her good Christian upbringing (her parents had an ugly divorce), the way her Christian values shaped her worldview, and her moral superiority. None of that stood up to scrutiny.

And now the gig is up: Carrie's new friends—her hater friends—are dropping her and scrubbing her from their websites. Her book tour ended before it began and the only thing anyone is going to remember about her book is that Prejean—with all her sex tapes and dirty pictures—condemned pornography and urged young women not to show too much skin.

And honestly—now that this is all over—I feel kind of sorry for Prejean. She thought she was being attacked by All Gays and Lesbians Everywhere (AGLE) after one gay dude, Perez Hilton, called her name. And then Maggie and NOM and the conservative Christian movement offered her a chance to get back at the homos and make herself a huge pile of money in the process. The praised her, advised her, and pretended to be her friends. All she had to do was play the martyr and tell her story. But when her real story got out—when those pictures and videos got out—Maggie and NOM and her new friends dropped her. Perez abused her, Maggie used her, and now she's done.

This political art-and-science, much beloved by government and election techno-geeks, is called “redistricting.” Every 10 years, the Constitution requires that our districts be redrawn so they’re of basically equal population — nine U.S. House districts and 49 legislative districts. [...]

The new website describes how a voter-approved, bipartisan commission will do the actual work. Short version: The four legislative caucuses each names a citizen commissioner and the four appoint a non-voting member as chair, such as a law prof or geographer/demographer. Neither side can “jam” the other, since the maps must be approved by at least three of the four voting members. The governor gets no vote and the Legislature must accept the plan up-or-down, with very little room for moving any of the lines.

Even though this commission has good guiding principles—e.g., "Districts should be convenient, contiguous (share a common land border or transportation route), and compact"—the damage is done. This deadlocked little committee can't fix a district that's already been gerrymandered to all hell. I live in the 37th Legislative District (click image to enlarge), which is anything but "convenient, contiguous ... and compact." Granted, there are worse examples of gerrymandering.

PS — There's a re-districting board game!

Lindy West and Christopher Frizzelle are liveblogging Sarah Palin's appearance on Oprah today. Join the discussion below.

Jeanne Kohl-Welles, state senator from the 36th District, will host her 16th annual post-election analysis fundraiser from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Nov. 19 at Hale’s Ales Brewery and Pub.

Gov. Christine Gregoire, Seattle Mayor-Elect Mike McGinn, King County Executive-Elect Dow Constantine, Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown and House Majority Leader Lynn Kessler will speak on the election results.

It'll be fun to see the Governor publicly meet and greet McGinn, the guy she didn't endorse for mayor. Will McGinn challenge the Governor over the viaduct? I expect McGinn to shy away from the big issue from the campaign and instead focus on 520, transportation mobility, and the state's obligation to Seattle's public schools. I also expect that Gregoire will be the wet blanket for the roomfull of Democrats who will be hot for pledges of new taxes to soften the blow of further budget cuts.

Lucky for me, and you, and anyone else who is a fan of the massive black pit of failure into which Palin continues to furiously and roguishly dig herself (every day brings a new gift!), she's about to be on the Oprah Winfrey Show. TODAY. The only thing that could make this better is if it was the Tyra Show. Ohhhhhh, Tyra.

Christopher Frizzelle and I will be live-Slogging the event—in which Palin discusses Levi Johnston's upcoming public penis unveiling—right here from 4 to 5 pm. Please join us. Thank you.

Liz Cheney says that whoever runs for the White House on the GOP ticket in 2012—and, gee, why not her father?—that person, if he or she wins, "will have to undo a lot of the damage... that this president has done to our national security, to our economy, to our health care system, to our standing around the world." She's referring to the damage done by Barack Obama in 10 months, not the damage done by George W. Bush over eight years. Says Sullivan:

We are nine months into Obama's first term. He inherited two disastrous and failed wars, a recession steeper than any since the Great Depression, countless prisoners of war imprisoned in a gulag in Cuba and largely unprosecutable because of torture illegally authorized by the former president, $5 trillion of debt accrued in eight years by Dick "deficits don't matter" Cheney, alliances frayed to near-collapse, and a total failure in eight years to do anything about climate change. And she actually says that a Republican in 2013 will have to cope with the damage Obama has done to the country! And she talks about America's "standing in the world"! Yes, this is the world she inhabits, a world of shamelessness, cynicism and contempt for this country's stability and health. She is her father's daughter.