A Saturday funny:
Saturday, September 06, 2008
Friday, September 05, 2008
Deep Thought
So, if McCain becomes President, and he has to drop a bomb on Russian troops in Georgia -- what if his lackey googles the wrong Georgia, and we drop a bomb on Atlanta?
It could happen. You know it could.
McCain and Walter Reed Middle School?
Obama/Biden '08.
People Who Live In Glass Houses
Mudflats: This is Getting Ugly. New Palin Rumors Fly.
Maybe that's why Caribou Barbie had to run back to Alaska?
The latest story the National Enquirer is working on is that Palin had an affair with Todd’s ex-business partner in an Anchorage Car Wash venture. This was an interesting twist because it was also rumored that Todd Palin had an “Edwards problem”. Maybe he has an Elizabeth Edwards problem. I generally try to resist getting too caught up in the smarminess, unless it becomes impossible. It just did.
Two days ago, Todd’s ex-business partner filed an emergency motion to have his divorce papers sealed. Yesterday the motion was DENIED.
Maybe that's why Caribou Barbie had to run back to Alaska?
This Poisonous Mushroom Was Cultivated
Nina Burleigh, HuffPo: Who is the Handler?
...Sarah Palin's entry into politics and subsequent rise has all the hallmarks of having been engineered, coached and groomed by bigger outside forces with a bigger plan.
Her first election to mayor in 1996 was based on "wedge Issues" - abortion, gun control, and proof of hard-core religiosity - issues that had never been discussed before in the town of 7,000, where politicians had run on where they stood on bingo revenue and fixing muddy roads.
[]
There was a time when America's small town governments were about local civics and its churches really were mainly about spirituality. That quaint era vanished, within living memory, with the rise of the "Christian right" which literally infected mainstream American Christianity with hateful brochures about gays, guns, and abortion.
The movement didn't emerge from within those little country churches, either. It was brought to them by a sophisticated set of well-funded groups and foundations, many with ties to the Republican Party and its copious moneybags. These organizations are based a long ways from Wasilla, in places like Washington, D.C., Arlington, Norfolk -- the state of Virginia, in fact, seems to have spawned or hosted most of them.
But they have a long reach and they are run by cautious, clever, watchful men.
I learned never to underestimate these right wing Svengalis involvement in small things....
Not A Serious Student of Anything
LATimes: Republican vice presidential nominee Palin attended 5 colleges in 6 years
It wasn't like she was bouncing between Stanford and Harvard, either.
Hawaii Pacific University, a private, nonsectarian school in Honolulu....North Idaho College, a two-year school in Coeur d'Alene....the University of Idaho....Matanuska-Susitna College in Palmer [Alaska]....[back to] the University of Idaho....
The more I learn about this woman the more I question John McCain's brain function. Dementia or just his usual recklessness?
Green Screen Mystery Solved
Why was John McCain speaking in front of yet another green screen last night?
Talking Points Memo thinks they have the answer. That was Walter Reed Middle School in North Hollywood, California.
Some Republican flack is probably catching hell today for putting that photo up instead of a photo of Walter Reed Army Medical Center.
Maybe they had the computer illerate McCain himself search for the image?
Now that's change you can believe in, my friends.
Where's Waldo Sarah?
Apparently she's gone back to Alaska to study her briefing books. Let's call her Sarah Not Ready For Prime Time. From the excellent Alaska blog, Mudflats:
Palin Leaves Campaign Trail. Flees North.
Palin Leaves Campaign Trail. Flees North.
Ellsbury Is a Human Highlght Film
(AP Photo/Winslow Townson)
Robs Aubrey Huff of a home run.
I can't put mlb.com videos directly onto my blog, so once you get to MLB.com, click the "Jacoby Ellsbury" tag next to the video for more great catches.
I'm so glad we didn't trade him in the offseason.
"John Bush"
Sometimes evem Republicans accidentally tell the truth. Tome Ridge talks about his friend "John Bush":
Thursday, September 04, 2008
Republicans Obscenely Show 9/11 Victims Dying as Their Convention Backdrop
Monsters.
The Republican Party has reached its basest nadir. The party of George W. Bush, the man who ignored the CIA's warning "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US", the party that let 3,000 people die on 9/11/01 and then used 9/11 to destroy the constitution, that party has reached a yet another low.
That party has now shown footage of the 9/11 attacks including graphic footage of the Twin Towers burning and collapsing.
During the family hour here on the east coast, 8:40 EST.
They are nothing but a bunch of sickos.
Boston Globe:
Here's Keith Olbermann's commentary:
If you have the stomach for it, here's the obscene video the Republicans blew up on the big screen for everyone to see. How must the 9/11 families be reacting to this obscenity?
The Republican Party is a national disgrace. First they kill us; then they put us up on the big screen for entertainment.
The Republican Party has reached its basest nadir. The party of George W. Bush, the man who ignored the CIA's warning "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US", the party that let 3,000 people die on 9/11/01 and then used 9/11 to destroy the constitution, that party has reached a yet another low.
That party has now shown footage of the 9/11 attacks including graphic footage of the Twin Towers burning and collapsing.
During the family hour here on the east coast, 8:40 EST.
They are nothing but a bunch of sickos.
Boston Globe:
[A]t approximately 7:40 CST, when a video aired before delegates at the Republican National Convention included slow-motion footage of a plane striking the World Trade Center, the towers' subsequent collapse, and smoke emerging from the Pentagon.
Here's Keith Olbermann's commentary:
If you have the stomach for it, here's the obscene video the Republicans blew up on the big screen for everyone to see. How must the 9/11 families be reacting to this obscenity?
The Republican Party is a national disgrace. First they kill us; then they put us up on the big screen for entertainment.
Sarah Palin Is a Token
So sez one of the great feminists of our time, Gloria Steinem:
Gloria Steinem, LATimes: Palin: wrong woman, wrong message
Sarah Palin shares nothing but a chromosome with Hillary Clinton. She is Phyllis Schlafly, only younger.
This isn't the first time a boss has picked an unqualified woman just because she agrees with him and opposes everything most other women want and need.
McCain's Speech If He Had a Hot Mike
Remember Peggy Noonan and Mike Murphy getting caught saying that Sarah Palin was a disaster for the Republican ticket? If John McCain ever got caught by a hot mike, this is what his speech would be:
Sarah Palin Can't Handle a Press Conference; How Can She Handle the Vice Presidency?
Sarah Palin is too ignorant of the issues in this campaign to be allowed to speak with the press. That's the only conclusion I can draw from the McCain campaign's bizarre decision not to allow her to be questioned by the media.
Governor Empty Dress can read George Bush's speechwriter's speeches.
No talking to the press on her own, though.
Nothing sexist about that. They're not shutting her up because she's a woman. They're shutting her up because she doesn't know what she's talking about. Not sexist. Just practical.
Name me one other vice presidential candidate in history who couldn't answer questions. One. You can't. No one in American history is as inexperienced or as unqualified for this job as Sarah Palin. Even Dan Quayle and Spiro Agnew were allowed to do their own press conferences. Geraldine Ferraro spoke to the press many times during the 1984 campaign.
If McCain let her talk to the press, she might demonstrate her monumental ignorance.
Because if she could handle the press, they'd have her out there answering questions.
Her being their big star and all.
Like Jack Nicholson would say: YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE PRESS!
And if you can't handle the press, you can't handle the job of Vice President.
They may as well hang a sign on her neck that says "Not Ready To Lead."
"Hottest VP, Coolest State"
New DNC Ad
McCain is 90% of Bush. It's a little cutesy for me, and doesn't make the point strongly enough.
Time to play hardball. This ad is the political equivalent of bringing the knife to the gun fight. Dumb.
Political Contributions by Sports Figures
ESPN: Pro sports figures more invested in this presidential campaign
Database of pro sports donations
Most of the athletes (except for golfers) donate to Obama; most of the owners to McCain.
Most athletes don't give to either political candidate despite their enormous salaries. What do they care?
Here are some things to read about my favorite political athletes, Tommie Smith and John Carlos, and the price they paid for a simple gesture which was meant to convey their support for civil rights:
[W]hile the gesture was redolent of the militant Black Panthers, it was actually a plaintive cry for civil rights. Indeed, the athletes were figurehead members of the Olympic Project for Human Rights, a non-violent student organisation that transposed racism in sport into the civil rights agenda.
BBC ON THIS DAY: 1968: Black athletes make silent protest
Times (uk): Olympics: Tommie Smith and John Carlos warn of the price of protest
Times (uk): America finally honours rebels as clenched fist becomes salute
Tommie Smith and John Carlos were hailed as heroes this week but it was not so 37 years ago
JohnCarlos.com
SI: John Carlos
Party to one of the most incendiary moments in the history of sports, he's gone from pariah to hero over the course of four decades—but not without paying a high cost
SI: A matter of civil rights
Dr. John Carlos supports, speaks out on the 'Jena 6'
Counterpunch: The Living Legacy of Mexico City
an Interview with John Carlos
Racist Republican of the Day
All the sheets are coming out of the linen closet.
TheHill: Westmoreland calls Obama ‘uppity'
Georgia Republican Rep. Lynn Westmoreland used the racially-tinged term "uppity" to describe Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama Thursday.
Westmoreland was discussing vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin's speech with reporters outside the House chamber and was asked to compare her with Michelle Obama.
"Just from what little I’ve seen of her and Mr. Obama, Sen. Obama, they're a member of an elitist-class individual that thinks that they're uppity," Westmoreland said.
Asked to clarify that he used the word “uppity,” Westmoreland said, “Uppity, yeah.”
Other Democrats have charged that the Republican campaign to paint the Illinois senator as an “elitist” is racially charged, and accused them of using code words for “uppity” without using the word itself.
In August, Rep. Shelley Berkley (D-Nev.) told reporters, “When I hear the word ‘elitist’ linked with Barack Obama, to me, that is a code word for 'uppity.' I find it extremely offensive and John McCain should know better.”
Political consultant David Gergen, who has worked in both Republican and Democratic White Houses, said on ABC’s "This Week" that “As a native of the south, I can tell you, when you see this Charlton Heston ad, 'The One,' that's code for, 'He's uppity, he ought to stay in his place.' Everybody gets that who is from a Southern background.”
[]
“Sounds like Rep. Westmoreland should be careful throwing stones from his candidate's eight glass houses,” said Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor.
Go back in your hole, you racist boor.
Why Jon Stewart is the Most Trusted Name In News
You didn't see this on your local news last night, but you should have. Jon Stewart on Sarah Palin and the bogus gender card:
I saw this at one of my favorite blogs, Boltgirl on the Loose.
I saw this at one of my favorite blogs, Boltgirl on the Loose.
Not Pat Nixon's Republican Cloth Coat
Vanity Fair: Cindy McCain's $300,000 Outfit
One of the persistent memes in the Republican line of attack against Barack Obama is the notion that he is an elitist, whereas the G.O.P. represent real working Americans like Levi “F-in’ Redneck” Johnston.
It caught our attention, then, when First Lady Laura Bush and would-be First Lady Cindy McCain took the stage Tuesday night wearing some rather fancy designer clothes. So we asked our fashion department to price out their outfits.Laura Bush
Oscar de la Renta suit: $2,500
Stuart Weitzman heels: $325
Pearl stud earrings: $600–$1,500
Total: Between $3,425 and $4,325
Cindy McCain
Oscar de la Renta dress: $3,000
Chanel J12 White Ceramic Watch: $4,500
Three-carat diamond earrings: $280,000
Four-strand pearl necklace: $11,000–$25,000
Shoes, designer unknown: $600
Total: Between $299,100 and $313,100
More Video From Sarah Palin's Church
Wasilla Assembly of God Clip
When I was a kid, the local community church hired me & my friend to babysit kids while the church hosted a revival. Only one kid got dropped off in the kids room, so we had plenty of time to watch the revival. I remember vividly watching an elementary school teacher of mine drop to her knees in the aisle and begin wailing in tongues. It just seemed so false to me. Like the wandering zombies in this video.
John McCain is certainly a POW: Prisoner Of Wingnuts.
UPDATE: Edited to add link to BoingBoing, where I saw this video.
When I was a kid, the local community church hired me & my friend to babysit kids while the church hosted a revival. Only one kid got dropped off in the kids room, so we had plenty of time to watch the revival. I remember vividly watching an elementary school teacher of mine drop to her knees in the aisle and begin wailing in tongues. It just seemed so false to me. Like the wandering zombies in this video.
John McCain is certainly a POW: Prisoner Of Wingnuts.
UPDATE: Edited to add link to BoingBoing, where I saw this video.
Jesus Was A Community Organizer
Jesus was a community organizer, and John McCain is a POW: a Prisoner of the Wingnuts. Only a Republican wingnut like Sarah Palin would have the chutzpah to mock community organizers in her first major speech on the national stage.
Hey, you know another community organizer? John Lewis, Congressman from Georgia, chair of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee fighting for civil rights during the 1960s; beaten to a bloody pulp by police during the Selma march in 1965; recently cited by Republican hypocrite John McCain as someone he would look to for advice. So, McCain would look to community organizer and American hero John Lewis for advice, but he sends out his pitbull in lipstick Sarah Palin to attack Obama as a lowly community organizer.
The Rethugs have nothing. They don't have any policies to offer except for four more years of George W. Bush's failed policies. So they're on the attack. We're not falling for it this time.
Insightful diary from organicdemocrat at dailykos.
Jesus Was a Community Organizer
Martin Luther King was too. So was Gandhi. Mandela. Also John Hancock, who organized a boycott of [t]ea imported from China.
The Republican Party is run by powerful corporate interests who feel threatened by any citizen organization. Mitt Romney made money at his East Coast hedge fund by taking over companies, firing his workers and looting their pension fund. (While Mitt was talking, Nero called. Wants his fiddle back.) Rudy Giuliani, as Mayor, lived in fear of community organizers from Harlem and Brooklyn who held him accountable for his brutal tactics. They have no credibility even with their base. Even Huckabee's "Aww shucks" act falls flat.
So they go out and hire an attractive young spokeswoman. Write a speech for her. Attacking Obama at his core. Before even introducing her properly to the public. It is not going to work either. Because Obama's brand is more established than hers.
[]
The proper response is not to go after Sarah Palin. Instead, hit McCain at his core. If Obama is a community organizer, the defining trait of McCain is POW. Take over that word. Own it. Mock not his war record, but the way he has been exploiting it for cheap political purposes. Obama cannot do it. Nor even Biden. But the rest of us can. We are the community they are mocking. Let us organize to give them a piece of our mind. Two million voices.
Every American knew a year ago that McCain was a POW. By offering up nothing more than that, no economic plan, not even a coherent foreign policy ( supposed to be his strong suit), the Republican are risking over exposure. And there will be even more today. McCain does not really have anything else to talk about.
McCain's greatest weakness is his association with Bush. Obama has gone after that. But the tactic of attacking an opponent at his strength is effective. Do not be afraid to go after McCain's strength as POW. Trivialize him.
What does POW stand for again? Prisoner of Wingnuts. He can't even make a phone call without permission from his minders.
What war did he get taken Prisoner in? The Culture War. The man who once derided Falwell and Robertson as "agents of intolerance" is now pimping for them.
McCain is a coward. He runs in fear from the Press that once adored him. The "Angry Left" that he is running from is that well known young radical, Larry King.
[]
THIS is what they were mocking tonight.
Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:
For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in:
Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.
Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink?
When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee?
Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?
And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.
Matt. 25:34-40
Wednesday, September 03, 2008
Peggy Noonan: "It's Over"
How unhappy are Republicans with the reckless pick of Sarah Palin? Caught on an open mike they didn't know about, they are miserable. Watch this video (or read the transcript, below) to see Peggy Noonan (former Reagan speechwriter) and Republican strategist Mike Murphy chat while Chuck Todd of MSNBC is on the air:
Noonan: [obscured by crosstalk]
Murphy: Um, you know, because, I come out of the blue swing state governor work. Engler, Whitman, Tommy Thompson, Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush, I mean, and these guys, this is all how you win a Texas race, just run it up, and it's not gonna work.
Noonan: It's Over.
Murphy: Still, McCain can give a version of the Lieberman speech and do himself some good.
Todd: Don't you think this Palin pick is insulting to Kay Bailey Hutchinson to...
Noonan: I saw Kay this morning...
Todd: She's never looked comfortable about..
Murphy: They're all bummed out.
Todd: I mean, is she really the most qualified woman they can turn to?
Noonan: The most qualified? No. I think they went for this, excuse me, political bullshit about narratives and youthfulness and the picture...
Todd: Yeah, but the narrative?
Murphy: I totally agree.
Noonan: Every time Republicans do that, because that's not where they live and it's not what they're good at, they blow it.
Murphy: You know what's the worst thing about it, the greatness of McCain is no cynicism, and..
Murphy and Todd together: This is cynical.
Todd: And as you called it, gimmicky.
Our Little MVP
(AP Photo/Winslow Townson)
He's only the best hitter in baseball: Number one in the AL in batting average, hits, runs scored, and multihit games, third in doubles and hardest to strike out, fifth in total bases. One of the smallest guys in the league, too, with tiny hands. Hats off to Pedroia the Destroia.
Lynn Item: Red Sox second baseman Pedroia is simply first-rate
BOSTON -- It seems every time Dustin Pedroia is in the vicinity of the baseball, the chants begin: 'M-V-P, M-V-P.'
And why not? His name litters each game's box score as much as it does the list of American League offensive leaders: batting average, number one at .326 entering last night's game against the Orioles; hits (first, 183); multihit games (first, 53); runs scored (first, 106); doubles (third, 42); total bases (fifth, 274); hardest to strike out (third-best, every 13.1 plate appearances).
Remember This Speech
When you're watching the speech McCain's Bushies have carefully crafted for Sarah Palin over the last few days, remember this speech. This is who she really is: a rightwing loon with not a lot going on upstairs, speaking in a chirpy voice.
PZ Myers calls her Palinanity. He's right.
It's scary to think that there are a lot of people out there who will admire this.
PZ Myers calls her Palinanity. He's right.
This is a terrifying video. It's Sarah Palin going on and on in front of her Assembly of God church, talking about the war in Iraq as "a task that is from God", promising the congregants the gift of prophecy, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus…it ought to make any rational human being ill.
It's scary to think that there are a lot of people out there who will admire this.
Obama To Go On O'Lielly Thursday
Obama is coming out fighting, going on Fox Noise Thursday night to debate Stephen Colbert's Papa Bear Bill O'Reilly.
I like the fighting spirit. But I don't want to give Fox any credit as a media outlet, though. They're the House Organ, the Pravda of the rightwing revolution, not a news organization.
Much better than going on Fox Noise is Obama's new radio ad, running in Virginia, Wisconsin, Colorado, and Iowa, touting his support for abortion rights and McCain's opposition. That appeals to the almost 70% of American voters who favor choice. It's good to see a Democrat attacking Republicans on this issue.
Sarah Palin Should Never Have Been McCain's Choice
Palin is a real piece of work. For one thing, she's a rightwing nutjob:
Used her line-item veto to slash $1.1 million in funds for homes for unwed mothers. (I guess she thought that championing abstinence would make those unnecessary? Like it worked out in her own family? Fool.)
Tried to have books banned in her local library in Wasilla, then she tried to fire the local librarian who refused. (I'll send a bouquet of roses to the first reporter who asks what books she wanted to ban. The usual suspects, I suppose? Catcher in the Rye? Heather Has Two Mommies? Tropic of Cancer?)
She has stated in her church that Alaska's natural gas pipeline and the Iraq War are both God's will. She sat silently in that church two weeks ago when a speaker said that terrorist attacks in Israel are God's punishment to Jews who don't convert to Christ.
Reformer? Against earmarks? No.
She lied in her very first speech on the public stage, claiming to have rejected the "bridge to nowhere", but she was only against it after the federal funds were withdrawn. Before that she spoke out in favor of the earmark while she was running for governor.
She employed Jack Abramoff's lobbyist to get federal earmarks for Wasilla, Alaska. $27,000,000 -- 27 million -- in earmarks for a town of 6,700.
As governor, Alaska led the nation in earmarks and federal money. Got pork?
She took campaign contributions from VECO, the oil field services company that has admitted bribing Ted Stevens. Not surprising, as she led Ted Stevens 527 group.
Nasty person:
Last year, went on a radio talk show and laughed as the hosts called the Alaska Senator Lyda Green (a cancer survivor) a "cancer" and a "bitch". Yeah, funny.
Fired city employees who hadn't supported her mayoral candidacy. Just what we need, a politician who requires loyalty oaths.
Executive experience?
In 1996 Palin described her job as mayor of Wasilla, AK as "not rocket science". No kidding.
And yet she was McCain's pick. Why was that?
McCain's impulsivity: His own campaign staffers are saying they hadn't finished vetting her yet.
No one had even met with her in person until late in the day -- the day before she was announced as his running mate! Reckless.
Palin is competely unqualified for high national office. Oh, she's minimally qualified. She's an American, and she's over the age of 35. But she has no significant national or international experience, and her beliefs and positions are far out of the mainstream. At this point I hope McCain sticks with her. She will guarantee Obama/Biden victory.
Oh yeah, she was never Miss Congeniality. Another lie.
Tuesday, September 02, 2008
No One Knows Who Palin Is
Jo Ann Davidson, the National Co-Chair of the Republican Convention just called her "Sarah Pawlenty".
I'm kind of enjoying this.
Update: I'm not the only one who noticed; it's already on YouTube.
I'm kind of enjoying this.
Update: I'm not the only one who noticed; it's already on YouTube.
How to Buy Sustainable Fish
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Look for the label of the Marine Stewardship Council. From their website;
Sustainable fishing
Throughout the world there are fisheries using good management practices to safeguard jobs, secure fish stocks for the future and help to protect the marine environment. At the Marine Stewardship Council, we believe that sustainable fishing is a powerful solution. We want to see well managed fisheries recognised and rewarded, and we want to encourage more fisheries to join them. Through our certification and ecolabelling program we seek to reverse the decline of fish stocks, safeguard livelihoods and deliver improvements in marine conservation worldwide. Our blue ecolabel makes it easy for everyone to make the best environmental choice in seafood.
I saw this at The Green Miles, which also links to the Monterey Bay Aquarium pocket seafood guide.
Old School
Apparently a daguerreotype is being taken at the Republican Convention, as the Great Orange Satan (John Boehner) has ordered everyone to stand still for two minutes while a picture is taken.
You can't make this stuff up.
You can't make this stuff up.
Stop the Presses
Foreign Affairs Parody cover, from Panopticist via BoingBoing
"On Russia: I can almost see it from my desk"
How Thin Is Your Resume?
Your resume is incredibly thin if you lie about your experience.
It's what you do when you're first starting. A one-day job waitressing becomes "Waitress, 2007".
Sarah Palin's resume, as laid out by her official spokesperson to the media, contained "Ireland" among countries visited. Visited? Did her spokesperson say "visited"? She meant "Stopped there to refuel and buy some Irish Mist in the duty free shop".
Sarah Palin's official spokesperson told the Politico Saturday that she had visited Ireland.
Today they retracted that, as it was (as we guessed here) a Shannon refueling stop.
And now another spokesperson notes that she has visited Canada.
Hey, I went to Canada when I was 10 when I went to Niagara Falls! If only I'd been 35; I clearly had the foreign policy qualifications.
As a matter of fact, on foreign policy alone I am so much more qualified than Sarah Palin that I think Obama should put me in the Cabinet. I've had a passport since I was 15! I've visited Canada, Luxemborg, Germany, Italy, France, Austria, Ireland, Great Britain, the Caymans, and the Bahamas. I've visited 38 states (regretfully, neither Hawaii nor Alaska.)
I can haz Cabinet post?
McCain: Unfit for Command
A short film featuring fellow Naval Academy graduate and POW Phillip Butler, by Robert Greenwald of Brave New Films:
Drip, Drip, Drip
Palin/Tired '08!
John McCain will be a terrible President. He didn't even have the patience to make a careful choice of a Vice Presidential running mate. In the end, he rushed to judgment, throwing his staff's six months of research on other candidates to the wind. Do we need more of George W. Bush's rash decision-making in the White House? I don't think so. Just think about what has come out about McCain's supposed "vetting" of, and decision to choose, Sarah Palin:
Palin was vetted in one day. One day!
McCain's campaign did barely more than a rushed google search:
One Republican strategist with close ties to the campaign described the candidate's closest supporters as "keeping their fingers crossed" in hopes that additional information does not force McCain to revisit the decision. According to this Republican, who would discuss internal campaign strategizing only on condition of anonymity, the McCain team used little more than a Google Internet search as part of a rushed effort to review Palin's potential pitfalls. Just over a week ago, Palin was not on McCain's short list of potential running mates, the Republican said.
The Anchorage Daily News can hardly find anyone who was actually contacted by McCain's campaign.
Her portfolio is managed by Smith Barney (what will she do for Barney Smith?) She owns three houses!
Three spouses, 16 houses, Palin/Tired '08!
Even Republicans Are Not Impressed
Mrs. Dan Senor:
Joe Scar and the repulsive Pat Buchanan (she supported him in 2000!):
Vet/Palin '08! (or never. whatever. POW! POW! POW!)
Joe Scar and the repulsive Pat Buchanan (she supported him in 2000!):
Vet/Palin '08! (or never. whatever. POW! POW! POW!)
Because Jefferson Davis Wasn't Available (Him Being Dead and All)
McCain's new running mate is a secessionist!
From 1994 - 1996 Sarah Palin belonged to the Alaska Independence Party, a state's rights party that wants Alaska to secede from the United States of America.
She's a maverick all right. A crackpot maverick!
Snap Judgment
John McCain had six months to pick a Vice Presidential running mate. He did it in one day:
NYTimes: Disclosures on Palin Raise Questions on Vetting Process
With time running out — and as Mr. McCain discarded two safer choices, Gov. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota and former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, as too predictable — he turned to Ms. Palin. He had his first face-to-face interview with her on Thursday and offered her the job moments later.
A man so careless and reckless in choosing his running mate has no business running the government. I'm more careful than that when I hire a file clerk.
Monday, September 01, 2008
The North Pole Is An Island
We must elect Barack Obama who will deal with global warming; not McCain and his global-warming-denying running mate [vlad the polar bear im]Palin.
DailyMail: The North Pole becomes an 'island' for the first time in history as ice melts
The North Pole has become an island for the first time in human history.
Startling satellite pictures taken three days ago show that melting ice has opened up the fabled North-West and North-East Passages - making it possible to sail around the Arctic ice cap.
The opening of the passages has been eagerly awaited by shipping companies which hope they will be able to cut thousands of miles off their routes.
But to climate change scientists it is yet another sign of the damage global warming is inflicting on the planet.
Mark Serreze, a sea ice specialist, described the images as an 'historic event' - but warned they added to fears that the Arctic icecap has entered a 'death spiral'.
The pictures, produced by Nasa, mark the first time in at least 125,000 years that the two shortcuts linking the Atlantic and Pacific oceans have been ice-free at the same time.
Religious Right Picks McCain a Running Mate
John McCain has thrown caution, and judgment, and good sense to the wind and chosen first term Alaska governor Sarah Palin as his running mate. Well, I use the word "chose" and that may be taking it too far; it is pretty obvious that Palin was chosen by the evangelical Christian wing of the Republican party, by James Dobson and his ilk. The secretive Council for National Policy vetted Palin last week. Who are they?:
...[A]n ultra-secretive cabal that networks wealthy right-wing donors together with top conservative operatives to plan long-term movement strategy.
CNP members have included Tony Perkins, James Dobson, Grover Norquist, Tim LaHaye and Paul Weyrich. At a secret 2000 meeting of the CNP, George W. Bush promised to nominate only pro-life judges; in 2004, then-Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist told the group, "The destiny of the nation is on the shoulders of the conservative movement." This year, thanks to Sarah Palin's selection, the movement may have finally aligned itself behind the campaign of John McCain....
...while Dobson once said he could "never" vote for McCain, he issued a statement last week hailing Palin as an "outstanding" choice.
Palin has been governor of Alaska for 20 months. Before that she was mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, a town with a population of less than 8,500.
Her duties as mayor were gargantuan, for sure, for according to their municipal code she had to be prepared on day one to:
1. Preside at council meetings. The mayor may take part in the discussion of matters before the council, but may not vote, except that the mayor may vote in the case of a tie;
2. Act as ceremonial head of the city;
Now that's quality experience for being a heartbeat away from leading the country!
She has no foreign policy experience, though comically both Fox Noise and [fellow former beauty queen] Cindy McCain claim she has foreign policy experience because Alaska is next to Russia. I grew up in New York, and that's next to Canada, so I have foreign policy experience, too! She only got a passport last year, and is listed as having visited Kuwait and Ireland, though I think her visit to Ireland is the dreaded Shannon layover. Maybe she got some duty-free hooch.
She's being investigated in her own state for a scandal Alaska calls "troopergate"; Palin has been using the power of her office and her staff, trying to get her former brother-in-law fired from his job as a state trooper.
She left the tiny town of Wasilla $20,000,000 in debt.
She doesn't believe in global warming, favors drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and is suing the federal government to get the polar bear taken off the endangered species list.
She's an extreme social conservative: anti-abortion even in cases of rape or incest; against sex education; in favor of teaching creationism in public schools.
She has five children, and her fifth was just born in April. He was premature and diagnosed with Down's syndrome; despite this, when her water broke when she was at a political event in Dallas, Texas, she went ahead with her speech, then flew back to Anchorage and drove to Wasilla to have the baby half a day later. Talk about risky behavior! (And the British press is reporting that there are internet rumors that the baby is actually Palin's oldest daughter's baby. Whew.)
She (or someone close to her) made 30 changes to her Wikipedia entry the day before McCain announced her selection.
Since I started writing this post, the Palin campaign has issued a press release stating that Palin's 17-year-old daughter Bristol is pregnant and that she has chosen to have the baby and will marry the father. (And I wonder, how could she choose to have the baby if the family is anti-abortion? Did she really have a choice? If she did, why doesn't Sarah Palin support other children having the same choice? And you know what? The kid would have benefitted from sex education, and a lesson on contraception.)
And just now it has been reported that Palin's husband has a DUI arrest in his background.
She claims to be a reformer, but she was actually the head of indicted Senator Ted Stevens 527 group.
McCain appears not to have vetted Palin; it is reported that his vetting staff arrived in Wasilla yesterday and have taken 8 hotel rooms. Also that his campaign never asked to see the archives of the local newspaper.
Not that any of this will matter to the fundies. She is an extreme social conservative and that is all that matters to them.
Personally, I think I had better put this post up fast before Sarah Palin resigns from the McCain campaign to spend more time with her expanding family.
If she does resign, perhaps McCain can blame the 21-year-old who has been advocating for Palin to be VP for over a year.
I can't decide which prior failed nomination this pick is more like: Spiro Agnew, Harriet Miers, Clarence Thomas, or Thomas Eagleton. What do you think?
I'm going to call McCain's campaign Palin/Tired '08, from the good Roger Ailes.
More funny: PHILOSORAPTOR: Ham Sandwich McCain's Actual Choice for Veep
Sunday, August 31, 2008
John McCain, Feminist
Is he checking out her speech, or her rack? Either he had no idea what she was going to say, or he was very interested in something else.
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