BTW, Palin Trolls, Get This Point Straight

I WANT THE REPUBLICANS TO NOMINATE SARAH PALIN FOR PRESIDENT IN 2012. 

We Democrats aren't "afraid" of her in the least.

We have nothing but contempt for her, but hell, afraid of someone as dishonest and incoherent as she is?

Why do we want her to run against Obama? Because the economy will have recovered from 8 years of Bush and Cheney by 2012, 

AND OBAMA WILL CRUSH HER.

Hell, he'll hand her lying ass to her.

Final word: 

CNN Exit Poll, 2008 Election.

Is Palin Qualified to be President?

Yes 38%
No 60%

Boy, she sure resonates with America, doesn't she?

To Right-Wing Critics and Trolls:

A. You will get nowhere with me when you throw tired, lying discredited Right-Wing talking points at me, particularly those that try to build up an IDIOT like Sarah Palin. Palin has FAILED at every job she has ever had. She ruined Wasilla, Alaska, financially. She has managed to alienate the REPUBLICAN leaders in the state legislature, and has LIED about her role in the natural gas pipeline and EVERY OTHER MATTER of public record. Now she's even lying about quitting the job she just quit!! What are you people, suckers and marks? She's a grifter and a con artist. Wake up.

B. Palin and her husband "palled around" with outright TRAITORS from the Alaska Independence Party for many years, but that doesn't seem to bother you. You conservatives are so funny. So many of you are going berserk about Obama not being "patriotic", and yet you gladly support people who advocate (or at least wink at) treason and secession. Where have the calls for secession come from? The Right. (Half of all Texas Republicans favor secession.) Glenn Beck darkly threatens a second Civil War, and Limbaugh talks about a military coup in the U.S. I'm glad Obama has stripped your "patriotic" mask off.

C. Barack Obama was a brilliantly effective Illinois State Senator, and I have the documentation for that claim highlighted. 

D. Obama was a fine U.S. Senator as well, as seen in his work on nuclear non-proliferation and ethics issues (with GOP senators). In fact, compared to McCain's ONE significant legislative achievement in 20+ years, Obama had accomplished as much or more!

E. I have forgotten more about socialism than most of you have ever learned. Don't like my tone? Tough. I don't like your absurd accusations of "socialism" thrown at President Obama. Evidently, socialism consists in temporarily nationalizing less than one-half of 1% of the U.S.'s economy and raising Sean Hannity's taxes from 35 to 39.6%. Horrors! And Obama actually wants people to have a right to buy government-sponsored health insurance when private companies dump them or refuse to cover them at all. Why, that's just like Russia under Stalin!!

F. Put the term "Palin" into the search engine and read everything I have posted about her. I have presented a thoroughly documented, DAMNING case against this dangerous, utterly unfit woman. Take issue with those I have quoted or excerpted, but know one thing: we've got the facts, we've got the quotes, and best of all, we have Palin's idiotic, stumble-mouthed interviews with such people as Katie Couric to present to the court of public opinion. In fact, Palin's ONLY effective speech was the one she read off a teleprompter at the Republican National Convention. Ha! I guess she's lost without her electronic friend.

For You Palin Fans Who Are Writing Me, a Treat!

The Republican Double Standard in a Nutshell

Reprinted from Taegan Goddard's site

If you grow up in Hawaii, raised by your grandparents, you're "exotic, different."
Grow up in Alaska eating moose burgers, a quintessential American story.

If your name is Barack you're a radical, unpatriotic Muslim.
Name your kids Willow, Trig and Track, you're a maverick.

Graduate from Harvard law School and you are unstable.
Attend 5 different small colleges before graduating, you're well grounded.

If you spend 3 years as a community organizer, become the first black President of the Harvard Law Review, create a voter registration drive that registers 150,000 new voters, spend 12 years as a Constitutional Law professor, spend 8 years as a State Senator representing a district with over 250,000 people, become chairman of the state Senate's Health and Human Services committee, spend 4 years in the United States Senate representing a state of 13 million people while sponsoring 131 bills and serving on the Foreign Affairs, Environment and Public Works and Veteran's Affairs committees, you don't have any real leadership experience.

If your total resume is: local weather girl, 4 years on the city council and 6 years as the mayor of a town with less than 7,000 people, 20 months as the governor of a state with only 650,000 people, then you're qualified to become the country's second highest ranking executive.

If you have been married to the same woman for 19 years while raising two daughters, all within Protestant churches, you're not a real Christian.

If  (McCain) you cheated on your first wife with a rich heiress, and left your disfigured wife and married the heiress the next month, you're a Christian.

If you teach responsible, age appropriate sex education, including the proper use of birth control, you are eroding the fiber of society.

If , while governor, you staunchly advocate abstinence only, with no other option in sex education in your state's school system while your unwed teen daughter ends up pregnant, you're very responsible.

If your wife is a Harvard graduate lawyer who gave up a position in a prestigious law firm to work for the betterment of her inner city community, then gave that up to raise a family, your family's values don't represent America's.

If you're husband is nicknamed "First Dude", with at least one DWI conviction and no college education, who didn't register to vote until age 25 and once was a member of a group that advocated the secession of Alaska from the USA, your family is extremely admirable.

(Click to enlarge)

Something Stinks About the Cheney-CIA Story

It is alleged that Dick Cheney (R-Tool-of-Satan) was behind a secret CIA-run assassination squad during the Bush years. (TPM is one the case here.) But there are things about the story that just don't add up. Specifically:

1. Why was Cheney trying to conceal what is claimed to have been an effort to kill the leaders of Al-Qaeda? Such an effort would have been immensely popular, and Al-Qaeda may be evil but they're not stupid. Wouldn't they expect the CIA to come after them?

2. Why would such an effort have been hidden from Congress? What wouldn't they have liked about it?

3. Why didn't the incoming head of the CIA, Leon Panetta, know of this program's existence until 23 June, more than four months after he took over?

4. Why would the CIA need a special group with special permission to go after Al Qaeda? Isn't that part of their mission in any event?

In short, I don't buy the "Kill Al-Qaeda" cover story. Something else is going on here, and if Cheney is making claims about this, there's only one thing you can be certain of:

He's lying.

Stay tuned.

Another Right-Wing Lie Debunked: Europe IS NOT Being Overrun by Muslims

Clowns and hysterics like Mark Steyn have been spreading this idea. It's simply not borne out by the facts, which are very ably presented here.

Is there ANYTHING the conservatives are actually right about or honest about? Anything at all?

Good Sunday Reading: Frank Rich on Palin

Check it out here. Excerpt:

The essence of Palinism is emotional, not ideological. Yes, she is of the religious right, even if she winks literally and figuratively at her own daughter’s flagrant disregard of abstinence and marriage. But family-values politics, now more devalued than the dollar by the philandering of ostentatiously Christian Republican politicians, can only take her so far. The real wave she’s riding is a loud, resonant surge of resentment and victimization that’s larger than issues like abortion and gay civil rights.

That resentment is in part about race, of course. When Palin referred to Alaska as “a microcosm of America” during the 2008 campaign, it was in defiance of the statistical reality that her state’s tiny black and Hispanic populations are unrepresentative of her nation. She stood for the “real America,” she insisted, and the identity of the unreal America didn’t have to be stated explicitly for audiences to catch her drift. Her convention speech’s signature line was a deftly coded putdown of her presumably shiftless big-city opponent: “I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a community organizer, except that you have actual responsibilities.” (Funny how this wisdom has been forgotten by her supporters now that she has abandoned her own actual responsibilities in public office.)

As Rich points out, Palin is the ultimate expression of Right-Wing Affirmative Action. Her supporters in the reactionary media wanted to elevate this totally UNFIT ignoramus to the Vice Presidency (even the Presidency) of our nation, despite her TOTAL lack of qualification. Read his entire column, and again be thankful for the Palin-sized bullet our nation ducked last November 4.

New CNN Poll Gives Obama High Marks; 61-37 Approval

See the full results here.

Other highlights:

Obama as a person: 79% approve, 17% disapprove.

Strong leader: 70%

Inspires confidence: 72%

He has lower marks on his ability to solve the nation's problems (still a majority), but as I've said, and as President Obama has said, it will take time to deal with this nation's dilemmas, especially the BUSH-CHENEY RECESSION/DEPRESSION that Obama inherited. So be patient, folks.

Just remember the alternative.

This is How Insane They Are

Right-wing IDIOT Sen. Jim DeMint (R-Psychotic) of South Carolina says that America under Obama is just like Nazi Germany.

As a retired history teacher, one of whose areas of specialization was modern Germany, I can say this: I've forgotten more about Nazi history than a raving fool like DeMint ever learned. 

This is Obama's opposition, folks--lunatics, fanatics, racists, and just plain blithering idiots who wouldn't know a historical fact if it walked up and bit them on the ass.

How Long Will This Lying SOB Keep Getting Away With This Filth?

Right-wing fanatic/propagandist/sewer rat Sean Hannity AGAIN deliberately edits President Obama's remarks in such a way as to DECEPTIVELY make the President look bad.

Really, how is this any different from what Stalin's people used to do?

Emperor Palin Has No Clothes-- an Instant Classic

This is so freaking brilliant you just HAVE to see it. Excerpts:


Sarah Palin has gone out of her way over the last year to display for everyone who is willing to acknowledge what their senses are telling them just how totally and completely unsuited she is to hold high office. She is a complete mediocrity, quite possibly the most superficial, ignorant, joke of a politician ever to have achieved such political prominence.

It is nothing short of astonishing what Palin has been able to get away with while still being taken seriously. During the presidential campaign, she was kept completely away from the media for nearly a month after being selected--something that is completely unprecedented. When she was finally permitted to be interviewed, she flamed out in spectacular fashion, displaying a profound lack of policy knowledge and a near total inability to express her thoughts coherently or logically. Her stump speech was riddled with easily falsifiable claims about her record, claims that she continued to repeat even after they had been repeatedly and exhaustively debunked. She never held a press conference or appeared on any of the Sunday news shows. Toward the end of the campaign, polls were conclusively showing that she was a drag on the ticket and her own staff was trashing her in the media. Rather than send her to contested states, the McCain campaign began shipping her off to reliably red states, a clear acknowledgment that she was doing more harm than good in the states that mattered.

Yet despite all of this, many within the media continued to treat Palin as if she was a serious presidential candidate in her own right. They continued to pretend that the Emperor's new suit was, if not spectacular, at least well-tailored.

*********

[In regard to a Ross Douthat column defending Palin]:

This last line from Ross's column also bothers me:

Sarah Palin is beloved by millions because her rise suggested, however temporarily, that the old American aphorism about how anyone can grow up to be president might actually be true.

This is a ridiculous statement. If you want evidence that anyone can grow up to be president, how about looking at the current President. It's hard to imagine a more unlikely future president than the biracial son of a teenage mother in Hawaii who was given the name of his absentee Muslim father. But Obama did well in school, worked hard, impressed everyone he met with his intellect and managed to put himself in a position to become president.

Palin stands for a very different proposition, that if you have the right backers, anyone, no matter how unqualified or unsuited for the job, can potentially become president. That's scary. While I very much want to believe that a smart kid who works hard and plays her cards right can become president someday, no matter where she comes from, I don't want to believe that any random schmuck can become president. The president shouldn't be an average person. The president should be someone who is most decidedly above average in most respects. Pedigree doesn't matter to me, but capability does. And it should to all Americans.

Palin the Idiot Strikes Again

She thinks there's something in the government called "The Department of Law."

There is no such thing. There is no such agency. She doesn't have the faintest idea what in the hell she's talking about.

It's as I've said before: she has an understanding of American government about equal to that of a fourth grader.

I apologize in advance for any 4th graders I've offended.

One of the Many Reasons I LOVE Senator (Yay!) Al Franken

Al Franken: Where Rush Limbaugh's facts come from

All of Palin's Major Lies in One Place!

Thank you, Andrew Sullivan! Excerpts:

Palin lied when she repeatedly claimed to have said, "Thanks, but no thanks" to the Bridge to Nowhere; in fact, she openly campaigned for the federal project when running for governor.

Palin lied when she denied that Wasilla's police chief and librarian had been fired; in fact, both were given letters of termination the previous day.

Palin lied when she wrote in the NYT that a comprehensive review by Alaska wildlife officials showed that polar bears were not endangered; in fact, email correspondence between those scientists showed the opposite.

Palin lied when she claimed in her convention speech that an oil pipeline "began" under her guidance; in fact, the pipeline was years from breaking ground, if at all.

Palin lied when she told Charlie Gibson that she does not pass judgment on gay people; in fact, she opposes all rights between gay spouses and belongs to a church that promotes conversion therapy.

Palin lied when she denied having said that humans do not contribute to climate change; in fact, she had previously proclaimed that human activity was not to blame.

Palin lied when she claimed that Alaska produces 20 percent of the country's domestic energy supply; in fact, the actual figures, based on any interpretation of her words, are much, much lower.

Read 'em all, folks! And check out the links that prove these are lies, links meticulously included by Sullivan.

Palin: simply a pathological, compulsive liar.

Happy 233rd Birthday, USA!

The Best Reaction to Palin's Idiotic Babbling

From John Cole, right here:

That was rambling and disjointed even by Palin’s low standards. When I was watching it, it reminded me of a COPS episode, when they are are talking to a guy accused of stealing aerosol paint from a hardware store, and the guy swears he didn’t steal any paint, and yes it is all just a big coincidence that he has a circle of silver paint around his mouth and nose, and yes, it is an even bigger coincidence that there is a paper bag with silver paint in it and no he has no idea why there are empty silver cans of paint in the bag seat of his car and oh, hey, by the way, do you have a light, buddy, and better yet do you gotta smoke?

Man, I Leave the Country for a While and Everything Goes Crazy

Celebrities dying, Republicans cheating on their wives (again), and now, just after I get back, Palin is bailing on her job. My reactions:

--I was sorry to hear of Farrah Fawcett (after a long bout with cancer), and somber but not surprised about Ed McMahon and Karl Malden, both of whom had long lives and solid careers (especially Malden). About Michael Jackson's death, I feel absolutely nothing. I'm more sorry for the children whose lives he (may have) ruined. Jackson was deeply disturbed in every way, and I cannot mourn for him.

--Mark Sanford admitting to adultery gives me malicious pleasure, but only if I don't think of how hurt his family must be.  Whenever one of these right wing clowns keeps jabbering about "family values", you better hang on to your wallet--and your spouse.

--Sarah Palin is a fraud and a coward. She is resigning, evidently, to stay one step ahead of corruption charges. And the nauseating Palin worship on the part of the Tea Party/creationist/Freeper/Birther/racist/homophobic idiots is proof again of just what a bloody disaster everything she stands for is. Thank GOD she lost last year!!

--BTW, I'll tell you about my Japan trip as soon as I shake my serious case of jet lag.

HAVE A HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY, EVERYBODY!!

I'm Taking a Hiatus Until After 2 July

Hey everyone. I'm leaving for Japan three weeks from today, and I've got a lot of things to take care of in that time, so I won't be posting for a while. But remember, I've got a great blog roll. Also, take a look at the MASSIVE number of links I've got on J. Miller's Clearing House. (It's the most useful site on the Web!!)

Until then.