Daily Nonsense

I just found this comic and squirted milk out of my nose.  Dodged that shoe, yes he did!

Original image found on Telegraph.co.uk

A YouTube video that was pulled for “inappropriate content”. That’s right, there is no questioning the legitimacy of organized religion in America. As you all remember, Bush effectively negated your rights. It was all in your best interests (as defined by the radical republican christian right), so don’t worry too much about it. OK? OK! (I guess this is slightly older news, but it’s new to me.)

Religion – watch more funny videos

God slammed another door shut in Sarah Palin’s face today when incumbent Republican Senator Ted Stevens conceded the race to Democratic contender Mark Begich, thus bringing an end to 40 years of unethical behavior and malfeasance.

Good riddance to another piece of Republican garbage and good riddance to the fragile hopes of EX vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin.  No Washington for you.  You might want to try sucking up to Bill O’Reilly or some other NeoCon Radical Right jackhole.  Someone’s got to want you aside from the Alaskans, don’t cha’ think?

Stevens: ‘It is apparent the election has been decided’
Posted by Alaska_Politics
Posted: November 19, 2008 – 11:48 am

E-mail from Sen. Ted Stevens office:

Senator Stevens’ Statement on Recent Vote Tallies

ANCHORAGE, AK – Senator Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) today released the following statement regarding his campaign and the most recent vote tallies in Alaska:

“Given the number of ballots that remain to be counted, it is apparent the election has been decided and Mayor Begich has been elected.

“My family and I wish to thank the thousands of Alaskans who stood by us and who supported my re-election. It was a tough fight that would not have been possible without the help of so many Alaskans – people who I am honored to call my friends. I will always remember their thoughts, prayers, and encouragement.

“I am proud of the campaign we ran and regret that the outcome was not what we had hoped for. I am deeply grateful to Alaskans for allowing me to serve them for 40 years in the U.S. Senate. It has been the greatest honor of my life to work with Alaskans of all political persuasions to make this state that we all love a better place.

“I wish Mayor Begich and his family well. My staff and I stand willing to help him prepare for his new position.”

[Thanks, Anchorage Daily News]

The length of my comments are commensurate with the length of the article which is oddly enough, commensurate with the length of the ‘Press Conference’.

7.5 minutes, 3 questions, and 3 run on sentence answers.  That’s my girl, keep opening your mouth.

Sarah Palin’s first press conference
9:05 AM Thu, Nov 13, 2008
Christy Hoppe

In Miami at the Republican Governor’s Association, Sarah Palin held her first national press conference. About 100 reporters gathered. The bank of TV camera were two-deep on the risers. And — drumroll please — it lasted three questions and about seven and a half minutes.

Palin when asked what message and motivation she might have for the press conference, as well as interviews in the past two days to Matt Lauer of the Today Show as well as Fox’s Greta Van Susteren and CNN’s Wolf Blitzer and Larry King, she intimated that she would have liked more freedom during the presidential campaign. “I don’t want to talk about the strategy of a campaign that is over,” Palin said.

She said she stood with the other red state governors because she thinks states will offer the solutions of balanced budgets, nonpartisanship and the ideas that will lead the GOP out of the wilderness.

[Thanks, Dallas Morning News]

Am I the only one who sees the irony in this article published in the Politico web site?  Two years ago, when McCain decided to run yet again for president, Palin was still trying to live down having been Mayor of Wasilla in her bid for the Governors office.

Status quo is one thing, but being the cause of the GOP failure as a virtual unknown is another.  Sarah, it’s time to fade back into the woodwork.

And yes, to answer your question, we would LOVE to see your real medical records, not a note scrawled in purple crayon on a cocktail napkin by a family friend.  Or, maybe some less invasive DNA testing, how’s that for a compromise?

Palin: GOP ticket was too ‘status quo’

By ANDY BARR | 11/10/08 11:19 AM EST

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin said Sunday that she and running mate John McCain lost because the Republican ticket “represented too much of the status quo.”
In an interview with the Anchorage Daily News posted on the paper’s site Monday morning, Palin pointed a finger at the Bush administration for souring the GOP brand, adding that it was “amazing” that the McCain campaign did as well as it did.

“I think the Republican ticket represented too much of the status quo, too much of what had gone on in these last eight years, that Americans were kind of shaking their heads like going, wait a minute, how did we run up a $10 trillion debt in a Republican administration? How have there been blunders with war strategy under a Republican administration?” Palin said.

“If we’re talking change, we want to get far away from what it was that the present administration represented, and that is to a great degree what the Republican Party at the time had been representing. So people desiring change, I think, went as far from the administration that is presently seated as they could. It’s amazing that we did as well as we did.”

Looking back on the race, the Alaska governor said that she was “frustrated” by misinformation spread about her, especially related to her family.

“Some of the goofy things, like who was Trig’s mom. Well, I’m Trig’s mom, and do you want to see my medical records to prove that? And banning books. That was a ridiculous thing also that could have so easily been corrected just by a reporter taking an extra step and not basing a report on gossip or speculation,” Palin said.

“Just looking into the record. It was reported that I tried to ban Harry Potter when it hadn’t even been written when I was the mayor. So, gosh, we have so many examples, I mean every day, especially the first few weeks, every day something that was thrown out there.”

After railing against earmarks and congressional spending on the campaign trail, Palin promised “fewer earmark requests” for projects “that can help on a national front, not just on a state front.”

Asked about running for the Republican nomination in 2012, the Alaska governor seemed cool to the prospect, pointing out that current polling showing favorable prospects in a potential GOP primary field are likely to shift.

“Look how fickle poll numbers are,” Palin said. “Look where I’ve gone, up and down, up and down, even in the state of Alaska the last couple of months. We can’t pay attention to those numbers.”

[Thanks, Politico]

Wow!  150,000 dollars!

$150,000.00 of Republican donations going to clothe the pit bull.  Wow………  I’ll say it again, WOW!

Albert Einstein once said “If most of us are ashamed of shabby clothes and shoddy furniture, let us be more ashamed of shabby ideas and shoddy philosophies… It would be a sad situation if the wrapper were better than the meat wrapped inside it.” .  And in this case I would say that the wrapper around Palin is much, much better than the ‘meat’.

Or, to put it another way, there is a proverb that says “A pretty face and fine clothes do not make character” and as we race toward the November 4 finish line we see that Sarah Palin is characterless indeed.

As to the last statement in the article below, that the clothes will go to charity after the campaign, I don’t believe that for an instant.  For someone who has lied and stolen in the past to give up all the swanky clothes would be unbearable for her.

Ethics campaigners cry foul over Palin shopping spree

17 hours ago

WASHINGTON (AFP) — Political ethics campaigners lodged a formal complaint Thursday over the 150,000 dollars the Republican Party spent to dress vice presidential hopeful Sarah Palin in fashionable new clothes.

In a submission to the Federal Election Commission, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington alleged that the shopping spree was a violation of the Federal Election Campaign Act by Palin, the Republican National Committee and RNC "operatives".

"It is ridiculous that the RNC would spend 150,000 dollars to outfit a vice presidential nominee and her family at any time," said the group’s executive director Melanie Sloan on its website (www.citizensforethics.org).

"But it is more outrageous given the dire financial straights of so many Americans and the state of our economy."

With the November 4 election less than a fortnight away, it emerged Wednesday that the Republicans splashed out for Palin — the moose-hunting governor of Alaska and self-described "hockey mom" — after John McCain picked her as his running mate.

The Politico website said chic designer outfits from such top-end retailers as Neiman Marcus and Saks Fifth Avenue, plus hair care and make-up, cropped up as "campaign accessories" in a monthly RNC financial disclosure statement.

McCain’s campaign said the clothes will go to charity after the November 4 election.

[Thanks, Google News]

We either have a faux Fox News story that it trying to diminish the impact of any "Incite to Riot" litigation against Palin or we have a cover-up.  What’s your guess??

Report: Secret Service Says ‘Kill Him’ Allegations at Palin Rally Unfounded

A Secret Service agent called charges that a man yelled "kill him" in reference to Barack Obama during a Sarah Palin rally "unfounded," .  

FOXNews.com

A senior Secret Service agent said allegations that a man yelled ‘kill him" when Barack Obama’s name was referenced Tuesday during a Sarah Palin rally are "unfounded," reports the Timesleader.com, a Northeastern Pennsylvania news agency.

Agent Bill Slavoski — who was standing in the audience along with other Secret Service agents during the rally in Scranton, Pa. — said neither he nor the other officers heard the comment, according to the report published Thursday.

The charges — first reported Tuesday on the Scranton Times-Tribune’s Web site — claimed that a male audience member shouted "kill him" after congressional candidate Chris Hackett mentioned Barack Obama’s name at the rally. 

Slavoski reportedly said he was "baffled" after first reading the report on Wednesday. 

Slavoski — who is charge of the Secret Service’s field office in Scranton — launched an official investigation into the charge and said he could not find anyone other than the Scranton Times-Tribune’s reporter to corroborate the story.

A Secret Service spokesman told FOXNews.com that the investigation is not closed and asks for anyone with information on the allegations to contact the agency.

[Thanks, FauxFoxNews]

While Todd Palin was otherwise unemployed and hanging around in the Governors Office, the deputy commissioner of public safety in Alaska told Todd that their pushing to get their ex brother-in-law fired could create "some extreme amount of discomfort and embarrassment for the governor".  Thankfully for us, their arrogance wouldn’t allow them to listen.

The real central theme here is how the profound failings of Alaska’s First Family keep piling up.  Separationists, book burners, anti-abortionists at any cost, ethically challenged, and outright liars.  Are these people we want one heartbeat away from the presidency of this once great nation?  Is this really someone we want to follow in the Bush/Cheney footsteps.

I think not…..

Sarah Palin’s husband was warned about Troopergate

Sarah Palin’s husband was warned by a top police official to stop trying to have her ex-brother-in-law fired, it has emerged.

By Jon Swaine
Last Updated: 11:53AM BST 15 Oct 2008

John Glass, Alaska’s deputy commissioner of public safety, told him the move could result in "an extreme amount of discomfort and embarrassment," a state inquiry into the so-called "Troopergate" incident found.

Mrs Palin, the Republican vice-presidential candidate, was found by the inquiry to have abused her power in personally pushing for the dismissal of Mike Wooten, a state trooper and her sister’s ex-husband.

The report discloses a warning given to Todd Palin by Mr Glass in the spring that disciplinary action had already been taken against Mr Wooten and that "we could not fire him".

"I also warned him that it was going to cause some extreme amount of discomfort and embarrassment for the governor if they pursued this and it should never have become public," Mr Glass told the inquiry. "That it would just be not good for the governor if it continued, and that they needed to cease and desist."

The inquiry was sparked by Mrs Palin’s dismissal of Walt Monegan, Alaska’s Public Safety Commissioner, which he claimed was due to his refusal to sack Mr Wooten.

While he admits he never received a direct order to fire the trooper, Mr Monegan claimed his refusal to do so was the "central theme" of his 17-month spell as Commisioner.

The inquiry’s report found that Mr Monegan’s refusal to sack Mr Wooten was "likely a contributing factor" to his own dismissal.

The report found that Mr Palin used her wife’s office and its resources to push Mr Monegan to fire Mr Wooten, which Mrs Palin did nothing to prevent.

Mr Palin told the inquiry that Mr Glass said to him: "I’m telling you as a friend, I love the Governor, but I am telling you, stay away from this Wooten situation."

Mrs Palin described Mr Wooten as a "rogue trooper" and claimed he made threats against her family amid his 2005 divorce from her sister.

[Thanks, The Telegraph UK]

Staunch Republicans waited hours in the sun for the opportunity to glimpse their Vice Presidential Pit Bull at the Richmond International Raceway yesterday.  Once Palin did show up, she mistook groups of chanting supporters for hecklers and stopped her prepared speech to try and humiliate them with some of her ’scathing’ remarks.

To be fair, the supporters who caught the lashing from Palin were more than 100 yards away and we can only assume that Sarah has eyestrain from staring towards Russia watching for the invading Red Menace.

The AP reports:

Palin mistakes fans for protesters at Va. rally
By BOB LEWIS – 12 hours ago

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin mistook some of her own fans for hecklers Monday at a rally that drew thousands.

A massive crowd of at least 20,000 spread across the parking lot of Richmond International Raceway, and scores of people on the outer periphery more than 100 yards from the stage could not hear.

"Louder! Louder!" they began chanting, and the cry spread across the crowd to Palin’s left. Some pointed skyward, urging that the volume be increased.

Palin stopped her remarks briefly and looked toward the commotion.

"I hope those protesters have the courage and honor to give veterans thanks for their right to protest," she said.

Some in the crowd tried to shout toward her what was really being said, but she couldn’t hear them.

[Thanks, Google & AP]

Here are two articles which describe the fear that I have regarding an Alaskan family that has a rather lengthy history of excessive abuse of power and ethics violations (hey, Todd’s in on this too!).  They both illustrate how Palin could very well be an un-worthy but capable successor to the evil that is Cheney.

These kinds of commentary should bring pause to any rational American.  Obviously McCain and the majority of the Republican election/political machine could care less.

But I care – We must resist, not as a last act of defiant desperation, but as the first act of change and creation.  Incite Hope!

Editorial: Palin’s Troopergate actions disturbing

04:12 PM CDT on Monday, October 13, 2008

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin claims the Troopergate investigation clears her of wrongdoing in the firing of her public safety commissioner, which it does not.

The state ethics panel investigation – a bipartisan effort started by a Legislature controlled by her own Republican party – found that though she was technically within her rights to fire the man, she violated state ethics law and abused her power in doing so.

Specifically, the report found, the governor allowed her husband, Todd, to strong-arm government employees in an effort to get someone to fire a state trooper, Michael Wooten, who was going through an ugly divorce with the governor’s sister. The state investigator rejected the Palin family’s claims that Trooper Wooten was a personal threat, concluding that the governor misused her authority "to advance a personal agenda."

Ms. Palin would be wise to quit trying to spin her way out of this mess. It would be far more plausible if she admitted error but said she and her husband acted out of fear – perhaps misplaced – for the family’s safety. But to claim vindication when the report is actually fairly damning should give even McCain-Palin supporters pause.

The temptation to use public power to settle private accounts bedevils all politicians. This Troopergate imbroglio is eerily reminiscent of the 1993 Travelgate scandal involving first lady Hillary Clinton. Her behind-the-scenes machinations against the White House Travel Office – engineering the dismissal of career employees, apparently for the benefit of the Clintons’ Arkansas cronies – were legal but unethical.

Just because something is legal on paper, of course, doesn’t make it right.

This story would be confined to local newspapers in the moose belt if the Alaska governor weren’t running to become vice president. Since she is, Americans have a right to expect that politicians asking for their votes will be good stewards of their trust.

Ms. Palin’s best move would be to assure voters that she and her husband take to heart a line from the Alaska report: "Compliance with the code of ethics is not optional."

[Thanks, Dallas Morning News]

And:

Palin Too Close for Comfort

It’s time to start taking Sarah Palin seriously.

Though the latest polls show the Obama-Biden ticket ahead, the Alaska governor is still uncomfortably close to becoming vice president of the United States. The thought should concentrate the mind of every American who remembers the abuse of executive power by the administration of Richard Nixon. Just look at what Palin has done, in a short time, with the authority delegated to her by Alaskans.

The "Troopergate" report, conducted by an independent investigator and released Friday by a bipartisan legislative committee, tells the tale. It documents the campaign that Palin and her husband Todd waged to get her former brother-in-law fired from the Alaska state troopers.

Palin did, indeed, have the authority to dismiss the state’s public safety commissioner, the report says. But she violated a state law, the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act, which prohibits state officials from taking actions that benefit personal interest. According to the report: Palin abused her power as governor when she "knowingly permitted a situation to continue where impermissible pressure was placed on several subordinates in order to advance a personal agenda, to wit: to get Trooper Michael Wooten fired."

I shudder to think of the Internal Revenue Service, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Central Intelligence Agency and the Pentagon at her beck and call.

The role played by Todd in carrying out his wife’s vendetta was highly unusual. He had no official duties in government. He acknowledged, however, that he made numerous calls to state officials to press his case against the governor’s ex-brother-in-law.

It’s been well reported that Todd Palin’s involvement in his wife’s official business unsettled some Alaskans. He has been known to sit in on the governor’s meetings, use her office for his own meetings and intervene in state business using his status as "First Gentleman." Clearly, he’s a man with a lot of time on his hands.

What if he assumed the same role in Washington? Imagine Todd in a town that has no use for snow machines (which he loves to ride) or work for commercial fishermen (of which he is one, during the summer months). What would he do? Would he follow the vice president to her White House office? Join her meetings in the Situation Room? Sit in on her daily national security briefings?

Where does Todd Palin stand on America anyway? Neither he nor Sarah Palin ever explained his seven-year membership in the Alaska Independence Party, a group that seeks a vote on secession from America. "I’m an Alaskan, not an American" was the slogan of the party’s founder, Joe Vogler, who also said "I’ve got no use for America or her damned institutions" and "I won’t be buried under their damned flag." What made Todd Palin hitch his wagon to that anti-American train when Alaska offered the Democratic and Republican parties?

Troopergate shows the Palins to be small-bore people unable to distinguish selfish personal interests from official responsibilities. Imagine the power of the U.S. government at their disposal.

The prospect of Vice President Sarah Palin is no laughing matter.

By Colbert King |  October 13, 2008; 12:58 PM ET

[Thanks, Washington Post]

Wow, if you want to read critical reviews of the Republican Vice Presidential candidate you apparently have to cross outside of our national borders.  Foreign media outlets could care less about protecting Palin’s fragile ego and are reporting the news and not the spin.

Last week I was lucky enough to have found an article in the Irish Times that discussed Palin’s deserved lack of respect and her ‘performance’ in the debate against Joe Biden.  Today I found this gem on the Ottawa Citizen web-site which again points out Palin’s utter lack of skills which could enable her to be ready to lead this country on her day one.

And that’s something I haven’t seen any reference to in the mass media, there has been no discussion of Palin’s ‘Day One’ ability to lead.  Why have Barack and Hillary been subjected to intense scrutiny regarding this and Palin ignored?  Is it because everyone KNOWS she’s been brought on for something less than her political acumen?  Is Sarah Palin just all legs and a tawdry wink with so substance? 

Palin is pitifully unprepared

Lorne Gunter, The Ottawa Citizen

Published: Monday, October 13, 2008

An American friend with a long history of involvement in presidential races once told me (and there is nothing new about this), "The only thing you want from a vice-presidential nominee is someone who doesn’t scare voters when they ask ‘Could I imagine X as president?’"

Regional balance doesn’t matter as much as American voters’ comfort level with the idea of the VP nominee perhaps someday becoming president.

Regional balance was once crucial. John Kennedy likely wouldn’t have won in 1960 without Lyndon Johnson as his No. 2. But the shift of manufacturing from the northeast and Midwest to the Sun Belt and West Coast has helped hammer the sharp edges off the regional differences that used to define America. Now the big geographic difference is the infamous red state-blue state divide. Starbucks nation versus Budweiser nation.

It is less important now that a southern presidential candidate, for instance, pick a northeastern, Midwestern or western running mate to "balance" the ticket than it is for him to pick someone who can help carry a large swing state — such as Florida, Ohio, Illinois or Pennsylvania — or energize the party’s base.

No candidate since Kennedy has won the White House without carrying Ohio, for instance. And few have won without Florida. So it’s a wonder Americans don’t see Veep nominees from one or the other of these two states every election.

Vice-presidential candidates are also often selected because they reassure essential groups of voters who are somewhat dubious of the person at the head of the ticket. George Bush, Sr. was made Ronald Reagan’s running mate because the worry was that the Western conservative Reagan would not appeal to what used to be known as the Rockefeller wing of the Republican party — northeastern, patrician, socially liberal.

But all of these considerations are secondary to voters’ willingness to accept the vice-presidential candidate as a possible stand-in president. In the postwar era, three vice-presidents — Truman, Johnson and Ford — have become president because the presidents they served were unable to complete their terms in office. So a vice-president’s credibility for the higher job is critical.

Presidential candidates so seldom pick running mates who don’t possess at least the basic skills to be commander-in-chief that the secondary factors — geography, demographic, ideology — are now mistakenly assumed to be the most important considerations. But Americans are only too aware that their president may not finish his term, so even if only in the back of their minds, they must satisfy the nagging concern about every VP candidate’s fitness for the Oval Office.

This is why Sarah Palin, the Alaska governor who is the Republican nominee for vice-president, is such a puzzling choice. There is no question she energizes the Republican base. She is a red-state shoo-in. Without her presence on the ticket, John McCain would have been an also-ran a month ago.

Having played legislative footsie with Democrats all his political life, McCain never energized his party’s bedrock supporters — the kind of people Republicans need to spend long, volunteer hours with to get their candidate elected.

McCain is not reliably pro-family. He co-sponsored a campaign spending law that most conservatives view as anti-democratic. He is a global warming true believer and he thwarted efforts to appoint more conservative justices to the U.S. Supreme Court.

But from the moment Gov. Palin opened her mouth at the Republican convention in early September, the party’s base has rushed to help the ticket. Her performance in the vice-presidential debate gave the base a booster shot.

Still, that is about the extent of her positive contributions, mostly because a lot of swing voters — independents and conservative Democrats — simply can’t see her as president.

When she is before the media and not scripted, she is dreadful. This is not a real slam on her. Until two years ago she had never aspired to be anything more than the mayor of a town of 10,000. Until a month ago, she was the governor of a state with a population just two-thirds that of Edmonton.

She simply has no preparation for national office. Frank Capra’s Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, about a naive, but pure neophyte going to D.C. and setting the whole system on its head is only a movie.

It was once joked that if an aide came in to tell Dick Cheney that George W. Bush had died and he was now president, Cheney would have replied, "But I thought I already was the president."

As much as I understand Palin’s appeal, I can imagine an aide telling her President McCain was dead and her replying, "Oh, who’s president now?"

If you want to know why McCain is now trailing in all the key swing states, it’s because voters are answering "No" to the silent question, "Could Sarah Palin take over as president?"

Lorne Gunter is a columnist with the Edmonton Journal.

Thanks, OttawaCitizen.com]

Or at least there will be an attempt at bringing the criminal mastermind behind ‘Troopergate’ to justice.  The Alaska Supreme Court has heard the evidence and decided that the ethics investigation against the Republican Vice Presidential candidate can continue.

Palin is being investigated by an independent investigator, hired by a unanimous vote of a bipartisan committee of the Legislature, to investigate the circumstances surrounding Walt Monegan’s termination as the Public Safety Commissioner for the State of Alaska. Also under investigation, potential abuses of power and/or improper actions by members of the executive branch. The results of a probe conducted by independent investigator Steve Branchwater will be presented to a legislative hearing later today.

It’s interesting reading about all of the allegations.  You can get a pretty good summary over at Wikipedia.

Court allows Sarah Palin Troopergate inquiry

October 11, 2008

ANCHORAGE: The Alaska Supreme Court has refused to halt an ethics investigation into US vice-presidential contender Sarah Palin.

The ruling clears the way for legislators to release a report on their probe into whether Ms Palin abused her power as Alaska Governor by firing her public safety commissioner.

Legislators are investigating whether the Republican candidate used her position to settle a family dispute. The former commissioner says he was sacked after resisting pressure to fire a state trooper who had gone through a divorce from Ms Palin’s sister.

Republicans had sued to block the report. Ms Palin refused to join that lawsuit. Her husband, Todd, and some of her top aides are co-operating in the inquiry.

In affidavits submitted on Wednesday, Mr Palin and two top aides for his wife’s administration portrayed the firing as the result of wrangling between the Governor and her public safety commissioner over control of the agency.

The affidavits portray Ms Palin as uninvolved while her husband repeatedly tried to spread the word that their former brother-in-law was unfit to be a state trooper.

In yesterday’s ruling, the Supreme Court refused to block the legislative investigation.

For years – before his wife became governor – Mr Palin told state officials and the couple’s advisers stories about Mike Wooten, their former brother-in-law, allegedly threatening and emotionally abusing his family.

Walter Monegan says he was fired as commissioner for not dismissing Mr Wooten, a claim that led to the probe just before Republican presidential candidate John McCain chose Ms Palin as his running mate in late August.

Ms Palin said she fired Mr Monegan over a budget dispute.

Mr Palin said he had not pressured anyone. He says that after repeatedly talking with her about the matter, she finally told him to "drop it".

"Anyone who knows Sarah knows she is the Governor and she calls the shots," Mr Palin wrote. "I make no apologies for wanting to protect my family andwanting to publicise the injustice of a violent trooper keeping his badge."

[Thanks, The Australian]

It’s a crime to incite a riot.  Covered under US Code 18, ‘Urging or instigating other persons to riot’ is apparently a no-no.

I wonder when Governor Palin is going to be arrested by either the FBI or the Secret Service?  It’s a foregone conclusion, isn’t it?  While Sarah was blindly vomiting Party Dogma in speeches this week, her rabid followers started screaming racial epithets and death threats against Barack.

I wonder if this makes her an accessory or co-conspirator to the crime of making death threats against a presidential candidate?  Really, is this who we want in the white house?  Someone who lacks so much substance as a candidate that she needs to stoop this low to make the news?  And do we want the senile old man who chose her in the first place to take office this January?

Biden Calls Palin’s Comments ‘Mildly Dangerous’

October 08, 2008 1:05 PM

Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., today began criticizing the GOP ticket for the tone they’re setting by attacking the character of Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill.

At rallies this week where Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin made sinister insinuations about Obama, attendees yelled out "Treason!" "Terrorist" and "Kill him!" in reference to Obama. At a Florida rally for Palin, a supporter used a racial epithet to attack an African-American member of the media.

In Tampa, Fla., this morning, Biden said, "to have a vice presidential candidate raise the most outrageous inferences, the ones that John McCain’s campaign is condoning, is simply wrong…..This is beyond disappointing. This is wrong."

Paraphrasing a pledge McCain once made of something he would not do, Biden said of the Republican ticket, "they’re gonna try and take the low road to the highest office in the land, and that’s exactly what they’re doing."

"I think it goes way too far," Biden told Diane Sawyer on ABC News’ "Good Morning America." "Look, this really is a case where when you don’t have anything to talk about, attack.  And it gets really over the edge.  I mean, some of the stuff she’s saying about Barack Obama and the stuff that people are yelling from the crowd, if she hears it, she should be at least saying, ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa; that’s overboard.’"

Biden added "this is volatile stuff."

Asked on NBC’s "Today" show to explain what’s going on, Biden said, "They’re losing.  She’s been told to go out and pull out all the stops. … I think it is ugly."

Biden said he "heard that a couple of people hollering from the audience, you know, semi-vile things about, you know, ‘terrorist’ and things like that. And the idea that a leading American politician who might be vice president of the United States would not just stop mid-sentence and turn and condemn that, you know, I just — this is — this is a slippery slope.  This is a place we shouldn’t be going."

On the CBS "Early Show" this morning, Harry Smith noted that Palin has "been going to these rallies, tens of thousands of people showing up, talking about a friend of your running mate’s as a domestic terrorist. Does your campaign have an answer for that?"

"Yes," said Biden, "It’s just malarkey, flat malarkey.  Barack Obama was 8 years old when this guy was engaging in activities he was engaged in.  He is no part of our campaign.  He will be no part of anything having to do with the White House.  The guy Barack Obama is going to turn and ask opinion is me, not that guy.
"You know, the idea here that somehow these guys are, once again, injecting fear and loathing into this campaign, is — is — it’s — is — I think is mildly dangerous," Biden continued.

"I mean, here you have out there these kinds of, you know, incitements out there — a guy introducing Barack, using his middle name as if it’s some epitaph or something," Biden said. "This is over the top."

Presumably, Biden meant "epithet," not "epitaph." Though perhaps it was a Freudian slip indicating larger, unspoken fear of Biden’s.

– Jake Tapper and Matthew Jaffe

Thanks, ABC News]

As if she deserved any respect.  But that’s not what I’m talking about.  I’m actually talking about the pseudo-respect that the Republican party insists upon.  As Rick Davis put it to none other than FOX news (!), that until the press is going to treat Palin with ”some level of respect and deference”.  Yeah, right.  Respect is earned buddy.

So, while the American media is handling the whole issue with kid gloves the foreign press has taken the gloves off and started a bare-knuckle brawl then does my heart good.  It’s important that someone asks the tough questions to a candidate the is one melanoma cell away from the presidency, don’t ya’ think?

What follows is a brilliant little article published in the Irish Times.

Away from her friends on Fox, Palin folds like a cheap suit
KEVIN CULLEN

MEDIAWATCH: MIDWAY THROUGH her debate with Joe Biden, Sarah Palin began dropping her Gs and channelling Marge Gunderson, the plain-speakin’, pistol-packin’ pregnant police chief in Fargo.

Palin declared, in no uncertain terms, that she needn’t answer questions put to her by the moderator, that Obama-lovin’ Gwen Ifill, who works for the ultraliberal Public Broadcasting Service, or anybody else in the mainstream media. She was gonna talk straight to the American people.

It was great theatre, but in a Beckett-like absurdist way. It is a tried and true tactic of the American right to blame any and all their problems on the "mainstream media". They even have an acronym for it: MSM, as if it’s some malevolent Chinese food additive. According to the right, the only place the American people can get fair and balanced news is from the likes of Fox, Rush Limbaugh, and the rest of the right-wing ideologues who clutter the airwaves on talk radio.

The truth is, Sarah Palin and John McCain should thank their lucky stars for the dreaded MSM because, aside from the aforementioned ideologues, it is only those members of the MSM who uphold minimal journalistic standards of fairness and relative objectivity who are looking at Palin these days for anything but a punchline.

Even some right-wing pundits have had the temerity to point out that the nice lady from Alaska is an empty suit. Peggy Noonan, Ronald Reagan’s speechwriter, got into trouble with her fellow Republicans when, while commenting on McCain’s cynical sop to the religious right, she described Palin’s selection as "political bulls**t" into a TV microphone she didn’t know was on. Noonan’s dismissal of Palin as a serious politician in a Wall Street Journal column after the debate was even more devastating, because it came with time for reflection, and after Noonan had withstood withering attacks from Republicans who accused her of aiding and abetting the enemy.

The McCain campaign is blaming the MSM for Palin’s steadily sinking poll numbers. An interesting tactic, given that Palin’s handlers have steadfastly refused to let journalists from that mainstream media question her. They are especially wary of letting newspaper reporters have a go at her. She has done only a few sit-down interviews with handpicked TV presenters.

One of the interviews, with Sean Hannity, a right-wing pundit on Fox, was cringe-inducingly obsequious, like watching Ryan Tubridy interview Jesus Christ.

The interview with Katie Couric, an avowed liberal who gets paid $15 million a year to read the news on CBS, shouldn’t have been much harder for Palin, but Couric asked a couple of questions that required speaking beyond rehearsed talking points, and Palin folded like a cheap suit. Palin fumbled around like a child caught stealing biscuits. At one point, she rambled on for more than a minute in a stream of consciousness that sounded like a cross between a paragraph in Finnegans Wake and Robert De Niro’s last, apocalyptic words as he sank beneath the water’s surface at the conclusion to Cape Fear .

So worried were Palin’s handlers about how she’d perform in the debate that, just days before it, they launched a pre-emptive strike on Ifill, a widely-respected journalist who just happens to be black.

You know, like Barack Hussein Osama. Wink, wink.

The conservatives had a point: Ifill is writing a book called The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama , so she has a personal and financial stake in Obama getting elected.

But when Ifill was selected as moderator two months ago, she disclosed that she was writing the book, and no one complained then. Of course, McCain had not yet selected Tina Fey as his running mate. As it turned out, no one beyond the loony right-wing blogosphere suggested Ifill was anything but impartial during the debate.

It’s sad but true that the mainstream media will carry on with the charade, all the way to November 4th, that Sarah Palin is a serious candidate, that she resonates with ordinary voters because she’s just so gosh darn ordinary, even if the Republicans have no intention of letting said ordinary voters hear what she has to say in anything but a stage-managed interview. Objectivity is a beautiful thing.

It was beyond ironic, then, when Palin said she was taking the gloves off the other day and accused Obama of "palling around with terrorists".

As her indisputable source for this specious accusation, she cited none other than the New York Times , America’s greatest newspaper, which she and the rest of the right constantly deride as a biased, bigoted mouthpiece of the liberal left.

Apparently, Governor Palin didn’t read the article in its entirety, because the exhaustive piece concluded that Obama and William Ayers, who was a member of a violent radical group opposed to the Vietnam War, are acquaintances at best, and that Ayers became a respected professor of education after his radical youth.

In a media week when, aside from the more mundane news that the American economy is collapsing, it was all Palin, all the time, the best description of Sarah Palin’s utter cluelessness about anything outside her own small, provincial Northern Exposure existence came from a caller to a talk radio show, albeit a show not typical of the usual American talk radio fare.

National Public Radio’s " On Point " is one of the more thoughtful call-in shows in America, and one caller told host Tom Ashbrook that after listening to the debate she had come to the conclusion that Sarah Palin is George Bush in a skirt.

No doubt, Governor Palin would find comfort in her belief that anyone who listens to NPR is a God-hatin’, Obama-lovin’ commie.

Kevin Cullen, who will be writing a weekly media column through the elections, is a columnist for the Boston Globe.

cullen@globe.com

[Thanks, Irish Times]

Very interesting discussion at AlterNet about the drivel that Sarah Palin was spewing during a speech in Colorado after her ‘debate’ with Joe Biden.  The big question to me is just how much of the ‘information’ that is being force fed to her does she understand?

The arrogance of America on the world stage is ignored by many countries yet feared by many as well.  For America to get away with the violent overthrow of foreign governments without censure has been amazing to me.  A short list of US insurrections include Iraq, Panama, and Grenada.  And these are just the ones YOU know about.

But when Sarah, a community college graduate, starts dropping phrases like "We see an America of exceptionalism." in speeches and you should be asking yourself if she understands the ramifications of that idea?  She doesn’t seem like much of a critical thinker to me. 

Sarah Palin spends a lot of time attacking the Democratic campaign and using smoke and mirrors to conceal the role that her party has had in bringing Americans to their economic knees.  She would be better served to start thinking about what her tutors are cramming into her head.

How Low Will Palin Go in Her Mudslinging?

By Robert Parry, Consortium News. Posted October 8, 2008.

Palin may not even understand the significance of her baseless attacks on Obama that are straight out of the neocon playbook.

Sarah Palin’s charge that Barack Obama is "palling around with terrorists" may mark the descent of Campaign 2008 into the sewer that has marked so many other recent U.S. elections. But her comments operate on another level, too, continuing to brand anyone who criticizes George W. Bush’s neoconservative foreign policy as un-American.

The Alaska governor’s larger point — made in her Oct. 2 debate and on the campaign stump since then — is that Obama is a person who dares to find fault with U.S. policies overseas and thus deserves to have his patriotism questioned.

"Our opponent," Palin told Republican supporters during a post-debate speech in Colorado, "is someone who sees America, it seems, as being so imperfect, imperfect enough, that he’s palling around with terrorists who would target their own country."

Palin added about Obama, "This is not a man who sees America like you and I see America. We see America as a force of good in this world. We see an America of exceptionalism."

It’s unclear if Palin understood the full significance of her reference to American "exceptionalism," the theory preached by the neoconservatives who led her debate prep. They argue that the United States has the exceptional right to operate outside international law. But Palin does grasp the political usefulness of smearing an opponent in the style of Jeane Kirkpatrick, who in 1984 famously defined critics of Ronald Reagan’s aggressive foreign policy as people who would "blame America first."

Palin is, in effect, labeling Obama a blame-America-firster. In the vice presidential debate, Palin twisted Obama’s 2007 analysis of U.S. military strategy in Afghanistan — which called for more troops on the ground to reduce reliance on air strikes that had killed civilians — into him condemning everything the U.S. military has done in Afghanistan.

[Thanks, AlterNet.com]

Ripped in it’s entirety from the Ace Online Schools web site.  Ace Online schools is a guide to useful online resources for students and professionals.  And boy don’t they wield a sharp pen!

Sarah Palin Would Be a Disaster for Education

We all know Sarah Palin isn’t running on brains, but just for fun I decided to research her academic background:

• In 1982, she enrolled at Hawaii Pacific College but left after her first semester.
• Next she transferred to North Idaho community college, where she spent two semesters as a general studies major.
• Transferred to the University of Idaho for two semesters. During this time Palin won the Miss Wasilla Pageant beauty contest, then finished third in the Miss Alaska pageant, at which she won a college scholarship and the “Miss Congeniality” award.
• She then left the University of Idaho and attended Matanuska-Susitna community college in Alaska for one term.
• Returned to the University of Idaho where she spent three semesters completing her Bachelor of Science degree in communications-journalism, graduating in 1987.

For those of you not keeping score, that’s 4 different schools in 5 years, two of which were community colleges. Her greatest “academic” achievement was 3rd place in the Miss Alaska beauty pageant.

Call me an elitist, but I’d feel safer if the person a John-McCain-stroke away from the presidency had more education than the average waiter at Denny’s.

Next I did some research into the educational policies she hopes to impose on America. This where it gets scary. A few of her favorite educational ideals:

• Teach creationism alongside evolution in schools. (Aug 2008)
• Supports teaching intelligent design in public schools. (Aug 2008)
• Committed to providing strong education, including morals. (Jan 2008)
• Faith-based materials ok in homeschooling. (Nov 2006)
• I believe we have a creator; and many theories of evolution. (Oct 2006)
• Let parents opt out of schoolbooks they find offensive. (Jul 2006)

In summary, Palin believes that Creationsim, a religious ideology, should be given equal weight with a theory based on scientific observation and analysis, that schools should impose their own morals on children, and that parents should be able to censor books that don’t align with their world view.

If you care about the future of America and our role as innovators and intellectual leaders, register to vote and make sure we aren’t sent back to the dark ages.

From across the pond, a gloves off commentary of how the press needs to, well, take off the gloves when it comes to dealing with Sarah Palin.  I love the last bit that explains how Tina Fey used Sarah’s own words in the most recent sketch because ‘they were beyond imitation’.

From The Times
October 7, 2008

Shallow, fake… Sarah Palin is beyond parody

The kid-glove treatment of the Republican vice-presidential candidate is an insult to women

Martin Samuel

There is a time when it is necessary to take the gloves off and that time is right now, said Sarah Palin in Colorado. Interesting that she did not want the gloves off before her vice-presidential debate with Joe Biden. Oh, gloves on then. Headgear, too. Maybe some of those big shoulder pads that quarter-backs wear; and throw cushions for a softer landing. In fact, Palin and her minders could not have demanded a safer arena for debate when the opposition was within striking distance. Biden appeared with his hands tied, his intellect muted, his manner subdued, lest he should seem smarter, better informed or more competent than his opponent, a move which was inexplicably deemed undesirable. This shows how far we have come. Intelligence is now viewed as a threat. Isn’t that how Pol Pot operated?

Meanwhile, the Republican lobby put pressure on the debate moderator not to go heavy on foreign policy, perhaps fearing that Palin would repeat her view that experience in this area was linked to proximity to a coastline, and expectations were lowered so that just avoiding intellectual humiliation would be seen as victory. And it worked. She got the name of the Nato commander in Afghanistan wrong and Biden smiled politely. She pronounced nuclear the same way that Homer Simpson does and he had to find it charming. She failed to answer direct questions, while advancing a carefully moulded image as a straight-talking maverick, and it went unquestioned. Now, from a safe distance, Palin wants the gloves off. Of course she does, with no chance of instant scrutiny.

Palin is the queen of misinformation, delivered with faux folksiness as authentic as a three- dollar bill. She is not the pitbull in lipstick of popular myth; she is Deputy Dawg with a forked tongue, engaged in a war against intelligence. Those falling for this act are her collateral damage. Barack Obama did not pal around with terrorists. He did not vote to increase the tax burden on families making $42,000 a year, or vote 94 times to increase taxes. Palin’s statements on these subjects are not a reality bulletin from Main Street, Wasilla. Palin’s statements are lies. Madeline Albright did not speak of a place in Hell reserved for women who do not support other women. Palin misquoted her. Albright said help, not support. And there is no such place as Hell.

Even so, for those American women who worry that they risk damnation if they don’t vote the Republican ticket, it should be explained that eternity with a pitchfork impaled in your rear is still preferable to a vote for a politician who aided her political career by using her Down’s syndrome child to cover her daughter’s pregnancy bump. And it is at this point that we need to talk to the Democrat women considering joining Palin’s ranks and ask: what the hell is wrong with you? People were imprisoned and trampled to death by horses for this? They marched, they demonstrated, and for what? A vote cast on the basis of a Y chromosome?

You go, girl. Go? Go where? Go to college? Go back to that Republican cramming camp to be told what newspapers to say you read and be fed another set of fake statistics where real knowledge and opinions should be? It is easy to parody Sarah Palin, wrote one commentator last week. No, it isn’t. It is near impossible because so much of what she says reads like a satirical script anyway. Tina Fey, the finest Palin imitator, was reduced on Saturday Night Live to using Palin’s exact words in response to a question about the bailout package last week, because they were beyond imitation.

“That’s what I say that I like every American I am speaking with we’re ill about this position that we have been put in where it is the taxpayers looking to bailout, but ultimately what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the healthcare reform that is needed to help shore up our economy, um, helping the, oh, it’s got to be all about job creation, too, shoring up our economy and, and putting it back on the right track; so healthcare reform, and reducing taxes and reigning in spending has got to accompany tax reductions and tax relief for Americans and trade we have we got to see trade as opportunity not as, a, a, competitive, um, scary thing, but one in five jobs being created in the trade sector today we, we’ve got to look at that as more opportunity, all of those things under the umbrella of job creation, this bailout is a part of that.”

Genuine answer from potentially the second most powerful politician in the free world. How can anybody parody that?

Tina Fey is at least attempting to do the job of nailing Palin’s shallowness, her falseness, her studied populism and the way the standards and expectations of public debate have been lowered to accommodate her. Yet if there truly were this liberal media elite to which Palin makes constant reference, it would have bounced her out of the building by now. Anyone who thinks Palin’s performances since her catastrophic CBS interview have been adequate must also believe the American public are stupid. By any normal yardstick of political discourse – substance, accuracy, coherence – she is a bust.

Against Biden she was judged a success, not on what she said, but on the connection she is believed to have made with a fictional Joe Six-Pack: so those giving the thumbs-up must also believe Americans to be simple suckers for a wink, a dropped “g” on a verb, and the use of the odd folksy phrase. You betcha. Doggone it. She’s a bump on a log. Darn right.

[Thanks, Times Online]

Lacking any real substance in her recent speeches, Sarah Palin spent some quality time with Republicans attacking Barack Obama and some of his acquaintances.  Referring to rumors regarding a relationship between Barack and Bill Ayers, Sarah launches ’swift-boat’ style attacks on Obama as a tactic to divert attention away from the failing economy.

Unable to speak coherently on any subject other then hockey, Ms. Palin is being used as an attack dog to worry away at the commanding lead that Obama is showing in the polls.  And any attempt to get coherent statements out of Palin on any of the real important issues is useless.  Just look to the Couric interviews and the debate to see the lack of substance in what Palin has to say.

"Sen. McCain and his operatives are gambling that they can distract you with smears rather than talk to you about substance," Obama said. "They’d rather try to tear our campaign down than lift this country up. That’s what you do when you’re out of touch, out of ideas and running out of time."

As McCain and company start to lose battleground states like Michigan we begin to see that maybe the country is a little more involved and focused that the McCain campaign thought.  That will be a good thing come November 4.

Palin says voters don’t know ‘the real Barack Obama
By Mary Anne Ostrom
Mercury News
Article Launched: 10/05/2008 04:18:19 PM PDT

The road to the White House is heading for a nasty turn.

Sarah Palin, in her first trip to the Bay Area as the Republican’s vice presidential nominee, charged Sunday that Americans don’t know "the real Barack Obama," a signal that John McCain’s campaign will sharpen its attacks on the Democratic nominee’s character and judgment in the final month of the race.

Attending a fundraiser at the Burlingame Hyatt Regenc, the Alaska governor stuck by her claim that Obama is someone who "would pal around with, and work with, a former domestic terrorist." She was referring to Bill Ayers, founder of the Vietnam-era Weather Underground, blamed for bombings and the death of a San Francisco policeman when Obama was still a child. She initially made the charge on Saturday at a fundraiser and public Southern California rally.

Obama, who says he knows but does not have a close relationship with Ayers, on Sunday called the McCain campaign’s "launching of swift-boat-style attacks on me" a tactic to divert attention from the failing economy. Since the nation’s financial crisis took the election-year center stage two weeks ago, Obama has overtaken McCain in nationwide polls and, more crucially, in several key swing states.

Most of the sparring between the two camps has been on issues, but now it appears each is ready to ratchet up the character attacks. Obama on Sunday released a new television ad, deriding McCain for being "erratic" and "out of touch" on the economy, as backers sought to remind voters of McCain’s links to Charles Keating.

The Arizona savings and loan operator, a McCain friend and campaign contributor, was convicted of securities fraud and became the face of the S&L crisis in the late 1980s. McCain met with banking regulators on behalf of Keating twice and was cited by a Senate ethics committee for "poor judgment."

[Thanks, Mercury News]

Sarah Palin, Republican eye candy and Vice Presidential candidate tried her best to hold a good, old fashioned book burning back in Alaska a couple of years ago.  Thankfully, her Nazi-esque aspirations were rejected out of hand by the school librarian.

This weekend, Fox news had no librarian to hinder them and was able to hold the online equivalent to a book burning with one of their own stories!

Yesterday morning I stumbled across an Associated Press article that had been published on the Fox News Elections site.  This article was honest criticism regarding the ill advised selection of Sarah Palin as John McCain’s vice presidential running mate.  I was so astounded to find the AP piece on the Fox web site that I posted about it.

Citing and quoting from an impressive list of rabid, far right neo-conservative republican personalities, Sarah Palin was hung out to dry.  I guess the truth of the matter is, she’s gonna’ be useless as a Veep and god forbid and have mercy on us all shouldMcCain should draw his last breath as president….

But I digress.

Apparently someone higher in the food chain than the original poster decided that the truth stings a little too much.  The result?  They pulled the article!  What a bunch of jackholes.  If you are one of the thirteen people left in America that believes you can get fair, un-biased news from anything Fox, please think again.

1. In case you missed it, my original article is HERE.
2. A note over at the Daily KOS that references the Amazing Disappearing Criticism.