Palin's still out there trying to rouse up her massively uninformed and volatile fans -- and she's ramped up her loony rhetoric something fierce, as seen yesterday in Des Moines, Iowa:
Huffington Posthas some good commentary on this latest brand of Republican scare tactics, designed to appeal to precisely the folks who are attracted to Palin's blathering.
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For Ms. Palin, I guess it just depends on what you want to bomb, or what the politics are behind it. If you lean to the left, you're a terrorist. If you lean to the right, not so much.
If you're Bill Ayers from decades ago, you're a terrorist.
If you're a right-wing anti-choice zealot and you bomb a clinic, well...it's different. Especially when the lady deciding is anti-choice, too.
This is not a candidate in line with any but the most extreme anti-choice zealots out there. And don't think that this isn't an issue that she and McCain don't intend to push.
As we focus on the economy and everything else that the Bush years have managed to screw up, please remember that McCain-Palin are everything that Bush was, only much worse, in every way.
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Sure, it's from last month, but it's still totally relevant, in addition to being pretty damned funny -- if it weren't that there are people out there who still listen to her programmed riffs filled with tired and duplicitous Republican platitudes. But anyway, here it is -- from Jimmy Kimmel's show:
They didn't even know at the time they made this how truly bloodthirsty she'd turn out to be!
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Hope you're following the fascinating revelation about the Sarah Palin clothes-buying spree that went on shortly after her nomination. Now, it isn't about the economy -- well, it actually is -- or the environment, or other really important issues, but it is about a wolf dressing up in sheep's clothing, only sheep don't usually spend $150,000 on clothing in a few weeks. And what about those trips on the Alaska taxpayers dime, for her family members? This lady doesn't know the meaning of the word "ethics" and is quite happy to change the rules to suit herself. Fighting for regular Americans? Um...I don't think so. This lady's fighting for herself, make no mistake about it. The people are just her stepping stones.
I get a whiff of Marie Antoinette here -- let everybody else wear Wal Mart clothes, right? I'm sure those folks out there crying "Huzzah!" every time they see this faux-populist princess out there would just love to know that she's been tarted up something fierce, all the better for them to adore her. Though we know the Governor of Alaska didn't go around in rags before, it must have been tough to measure up to the duds on the back of McCain's 100 Million $$$ wife Cindy.
You know what this is really about? It's about a guy who's been the child of privilege all his life -- the son and grandson of Navy Admirals -- getting a break all during his schooling (just like the current Prez), being a shitty student at that, and having the bad military but good political luck to get shot down -- and he wasn't the only American in a Prison Camp, just the only one who really wants to be President -- and finding himself an ultra-wealthy younger wife, and now pretending to be one of the people. "My Friends" he calls his followers. "You Chumps" would do just as well.
It's also about a pretty lady, also not the best at school, but with killer competitive instincts, who used her looks to enter beauty pageants, and become a TV sportscaster, and then dabble in local politics and somehow propel herself -- using all those skills learned -- into the Governor's mansion in a state filled with not only upstanding citizens but with a whole gaggle of loonies who were courted by this gun-totin' guv'nor.
When McCain's corrupt campaign crew came calling, this ill-equipped but completely self-confident lady didn't hesitate to declare herself qualified to lead, by virtue of nothing else but bravado. That, plus a manufactured "aw shucks" lingo trotted out to disarm those who come to hear her, thrilled that someone so utterly intellectually ordinary, so totally uninformed, so viscerally cruel -- if you're a creature of the earth -- so crazy radically religious, could ever end up on a podium running for Vice President.
Sarah Palin's a lie, John McCain is a lie, and it's most sad to see his descent into mendacity. This one-time intelligent man who dared to walk his own path now has abandoned all his previous criticisms of the Republican Right and has become their doormat, doing and saying anything to help them retain their hold on the White House.
The Palin clothing story is all about the image vs. the reality -- the lies vs. the truth -- the personal ambition vs. the hope for all Americans.
Sarah Palin is a dangerous power-hungry right-wing follower who intends to do immeasurable harm to American democracy, and she won't stop there.
John McCain has abandoned his principles.
It doesn't get much sadder than that.
Don't let this pair get anywhere close to the White House.
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Perhaps you haven't watched this clip from Chris Matthews' show Hardball on MSNBC, with Rep. Bachmann of Minnesota trying to paint Obama's "true beliefs" as not pro-American enough, and that he "pals around" with terrorists. (That last lie which was answered at the debates, by the way. Wasn't McCain listening?)
Liberal = Anti-American?
Liberal = Leftist = Anti-American?
Do you think you're Pro-American enough for these two ladies? Not live in a small town? If not, you're not Sarah Palin's kind of American. Not nearly Pro-American enough for her...you couldn't love America nearly enough if you're not on their side.
And how do you like those robo-calls the McCain campaign is putting out there? Enough lies in there? Nice and smeary aren't they? Ugly, too. Perfect stuff for three weeks before the election.
Desperate. Scary. Untrue. Pathetic. The Republicans are scraping the bottom of the barrel, and they want undecided Americans to lick it up. It's all they've got left, but it's happening and it's wrong.
Please read this excellent article from AlterNet -- "McCain Mocks Women's Health", written by Peggy Simpson -- expanding on the issues I brought up yesterday regarding McCain's views on choice for women.
McCain's hardly a "maverick" regarding Republican views on pro-choice matters (or anything else, as far as that goes), and he picked a running mate with an even more radical agenda on the subject. A McCain/Palin administration, wrong for so many reasons, would put chilling damper on the issue of women's choice for many years to come. Has there ever been so much at stake for women? This is not the time to be handing over the Presidency to a pair of radical anti-choice advocates.
Is the right thing for this country a pair of snide idealogues (though Palin's ideas as such are thinly-disguised Rovian stragegy ploys) who delight in mocking and bullying voters on these very important issues? Does McCain not realize that his words were intensely revealing and show a man whose contempt for women is quite possibly boundless? Ick. And then, when his party has many genuinely qualified women who could share a Presidential ticket and gather honest respect, he goes for the ex-beauty queen, governor of a hardly-typical state, a follower of tundra secessionists, a woman who displayed cronyism in her official appointments on a level that rivals George Bush, who's abused her power of office, who holds religious views that are so far out of the mainstream that even most evangelicals think she's way out there. McCain and his handlers have used Sarah Palin as bait to attract the semi-liberated woman, women who don't mind having a little money and power but ultimately defer to the males around them for acceptance.
And ladies, if you think they'll allow you to make your own choice about your own bodies when they're in power, think again. Those rights are toast.
This is genuinely scary stuff. I'm glad it got out there and it should change some people's minds.
On the last Real Time with Bill Maher on HBO, The Simpsons' writer Dana Gould is brilliant and hilarious, Rep. Maxine Walters is wise, and Wall Street Journal reporter Stephen Moore is a Republican apologist who's obviously made up his mind to support whatever his Party puts out there, even validating and making excuses for Sarah Palin. It's shocking to watch:
"Why are feminists not behind Sarah Palin?" the besotted WSJ writer asks, surely not seriously. I would venture to put forth a generalization, that most/all feminists are educated, serious, pro-choice, pro-sex education, pro-rape-kit reimbursal, and all the other things that Palin is not. Feminists tend not to be quite so crazy about women who use their feminine "charms" -- if you find winks and golly gee vacant blinks fetching -- empty platitudes and innuendos to get ahead, instead of having the right stuff and triumphing through achievement.
When I hear a guy like Moore babbling on about Palin -- "She'll be the first Woman President!" -- you want to shake him and say "Is that all you think this country deserves?" Is this whole thing a joke to people like him? I thought he was a pompous jackass.
Here's my own take on that supposed "sex appeal" angle for Palin:
In what mythical world does a right-wing, gun-loving, bible-thumping redneck man want to have some woman telling him what to do? Of course, she's one of the few women around who hates women as much as these fellers do, deep down. I can hear them now: "Teach those rape victims what for, how dare they get free po-lice tests...we wuz only having a good time..fuck her, anyway." "Choice? I don't think so. When a gal gets pregnant, tough shit. We love babies and all...right, sure we do, whatever...but the fact that we can fuck up a woman's life and she doesn't get a say, that's what we REALLY like about being pro-life."
I believe that there must have been some magical right-wing email going around -- and we know that's where these nutjobs get all their information and marching orders; you know, that's where they found out that Obama is an Arab, and is a Muslim, and is a terrorist, and so forth. Well, I think one of those emails went around saying something like this:
"SARAH PALIN WILL GIVE YOU A BLOW JOB IF YOU VOTE FOR HER"
If the Sarah Palin/John McCain ticket wins, Sarah Palin is going to make a personal visit to every right-wing man who only voted for her because he thought she was some hot -- and give him a blow job as a thank you for electing her President...er...Vice-President.
Please pass this email to all your friends, colleagues and menfolk to encourage them to vote for our Sarah, because you know normally with a mouthy bitch like her they'd rather smack her in the teeth, right? Bless you.
"Mud Pies for 'That One'" -- about the degradation of McCain and Palin's campaign. In examining McCain's descent into a steamy cesspool of lies and vicious attacks, she makes this point about Republican tactics, specifically the philosophy espoused by the late Lee Atwater, the Republican strategist who inspired Karl Rove (and who died of a brain tumor at 40 years of age, not before apologizing for some of his most egregious campaign smears):
"Atwater relished teaching rich, white Republicans to feign a connection to the common man so they could get in office and economically undermine the common man."
This is a point that I keep making to anybody who isn't a billionaire and still supports the Republicans. How can you people tolerate being chumps for this gang of economic robber barons? The Republicans will say anything, give lip-support to whatever homey platitude makes "regular folks" feel comfortable, all the while plundering the U.S. and taking whatever they can for their well-heeled and overwhelmingly greedy high-income base. Throwing a religious fanatic like Sarah Palin into the mix is a classic example of misdirection. At the same time as they are wailing "Praise Jesus" and assuring you that under their rule we'll win wars and win 'em good and stop men kissing other men, they are stealing your future, picking your pockets and laughing all the way to the bailout...er, bank.
The vast majority of those supporting McCain-Palin -- those who are doing so only because they believe that this carefully crafted duo is "just like me" and that Sarah Palin could keep America safe and sound until the Armageddon -- and who are certainly not economically benefitting from Republican rule are simply being fleeced like the rubes at a slick traveling carnival. The McCain-Palin ticket is a perfect representation of the two sides of the Republicans: the over-stuffed, extremely well-off rich white men, who will sell their souls to keep what they've got, country and honor and everything else be damned -- the "I've Got Mine, Fuck You" contingent -- and the overly-religious, scared-to-death, non-thinkers who are willing to exchange superstition for cogent thinking. That the latter half of the party can't understand what the former half is doing to them is mind-boggling.
You're being used, suckers. And you're falling for it, again. Don't you ever learn? Can't you think clearly for at least a few minutes and figure out how you've being bamboozled? Sarah Palin isn't like you, not unless you are a conniving, vicious, know-nothing-and-proud-of-it kook with far more pure seething ambition than either principles or brains.
All the rest of us can do is shake our heads and hope that these deluded folks will come to their senses. After Obama's impressive performance in last night's debate, and more importantly, McCain's far less impressive one, it is so clear which one of these gentlemen is equipped with the wisdom, knowledge and temperament to lead this nation in this most trying of times. We need someone whose every aspect of mind and heart will be working for us full-time.
High praise is due to Rolling Stone magazine for their insistent and excellent coverage of this election. Those of us who don't manage to get our hands on a copy of the print version can catch up online on RS's terrific website, and there are several recent do-not-miss articles that must be read, immediately:
Matt Taibbi's scathing expose on Sarah Palin, a savagely brilliant piece of writing full of amazing ideas like this one: "...most Americans no longer have the energy to do anything but lie back and allow ourselves to be jacked off by the calculating thieves who run this grasping consumer paradise we call a nation." The article is called "Mad Dog Palin -- The scariest thing about John McCain's running-mate isn't how unqualified she is-- it's what her candidacy says about America." Read it!
Tim Dickinson's "Make-Believe Maverick -- A closer look at the life and career of John McCain reveals a disturbing record of recklessness and dishonesty." OMG...read this, now.
"The Double-Talk Express -- from tax cuts to torture, John McCain has flip-flopped on a host of issues -- including his own immigration bill."
Please read this piece on Open Salon by author Thom Rutledge. It's another incisive and scathing take on Sarah Palin's targeted image, and it's also quite funny. But don't think there isn't a message here; Rutledge is ultimately taking to task the American voters who are being cajoled by this sub-par candidate into submission and approval. Don't let it happen!
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There's an amazing and 100% blood-chilling article on AlterNet by Jill Hussein about Sarah Palin's particular brand of personal ambition, and it's horrifying and undeniable. It's a corollary to Bill Maher's excellent rant from my previous post here, so be sure you watch that for yet another view on SP's disqualifications, which are many.
You will also want to listen to this excellent excerpt from Air America radio's Clout program hosted by Richard Greene. In this segment -- "Palin-tology" -- he explains the two sides of Sarah Palin. He's dead right about what Palin has been specifically programmed to do and say, and what that means to the United States and this presidential race. This show is from last Friday, the day after the Vice-Presidential debate.
Of course the overall choice is between Obama and McCain, but the presence of this woman on the Republican ticket has many implications and none of them can be ignored or underestimated.
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Check out this excellent blog by Alec Baldwin reflecting on his appearance this past Friday on HBO's always entertaining and engaging Real Time with Bill Maher. Baldwin was excellent on the show, but gives great credit to co-guest Garry Shandling for the best line of the night. I wanted to hear more from Baldwin, frankly; he's strong and unsparing when he speaks and writes, and absolutely compelling. Smart, passionate, serious -- he really is somebody to be proud of as an example as an involved artist.
CNN's Christiane Amanpour was also a guest, and you don't get much smarter than she is, but I felt she was a little too supportive of Sarah Palin's symbolic place on a Presidential ticket, citing all the high-ranking women in other countries. All well and good, but that the U.S. has such a lightweight, obviously unqualified and cynically chosen -- to reflect and appeal to a specific radical slice of the demographic out there -- lady on the ticket doesn't say anything good about the state of the U.S. and what we'll settle for. Amanpour put forward that she felt she needed to defend the notion of her on the ticket, but liking the idea of having a woman on the ticket certainly doesn't mean that it should have been this woman, or just any woman. And that's just about what we've got in Sarah Palin. I just love it when somebody refers to her, boastfully, to boost her up, as the governor of the "biggest state in the nation." Since when do we measure qualifications by the square foot? Yikes.
I will leave you with Maher's "New Rules" segment, which starts out with a few assorted funny bits then seques into a cogent and frightening riff on Sarah Palin's extreme religious views. Maher makes it funny, but he's also dead-on and it's scary stuff.
There are quite a few clips from this week's Real Time with Bill Maher on YouTube right now, and the whole show repeats many times during the week, until the new show on Friday.
Just in case you thought that maybe she wasn't as much a zealot as has been reported, please read this article from the Los Angeles Times and a commentary on it from AlterNet by Rachel Weiner, originally on the Huffington Post.
I could not resist putting in the little photo from the Creation Museum, with a little girl sharing a picnic with a dinosaur. Ridiculous? Not to Sarah Palin and her ilk.
Do you have any idea how the rest of the world feels about the U.S. these days? We're a friggin' joke. Our Reaganomics have crashed, we've got a fringe religious fanantic sharing a presidential ticket, and still 20% or so of the citizens think George Bush has done a good job. Unbelievable....
AlterNet has a chilling article by Naomi Wolf about the implications of a candidate like ultra-right wing Sarah Palin. Scary, scary stuff.
McCain has managed to find just about the only woman in right-wing politics who hates women as much as so many right-wing men hate them. Misogyny overcome, voila.
Please take the time to read this new article in Salon entitled "Mean Girl" by David Talbot, about Sarah Palin's political style and what she's done to end up where she is. "Complete bullshit." one of her former allies says of her claim that she cleaned up Alaska's Old Boys' network. Read the article and we think you'll agree. This is the kind of information you can use to counter the pro-Palin nonsense spouted by Republican apologists whenever and wherever you hear it!
Read this very astute, maddening and yes, sickening, article by Tim Wise, about the insidious preferential treatment the Republican ticket has been receiving. I don't think you'll be able to disagree with a single assertion, and it's shameful.
no mistake about it. The people are just her stepping stones.
Please read this excellent article from AlterNet -- "McCain Mocks Women's Health", written by Peggy Simpson -- expanding on the issues I brought up yesterday regarding McCain's views on choice for women.
"Mud Pies for 'That One'" -- about the degradation of McCain and Palin's campaign. In examining McCain's descent into a steamy cesspool of lies and vicious attacks, she makes this point about Republican tactics, specifically the philosophy espoused by the late Lee Atwater, the Republican strategist who inspired Karl Rove (and who died of a brain tumor at 40 years of age, not before apologizing for some of his most egregious campaign smears):
like me" and that Sarah Palin could keep America safe and sound until the Armageddon -- and who are certainly not economically benefitting from Republican rule are simply being fleeced like the rubes at a slick traveling carnival. The McCain-Palin ticket is a perfect representation of the two sides of the Republicans: the over-stuffed, extremely well-off rich white men, who will sell their souls to keep what they've got, country and honor and everything else be damned -- the "I've Got Mine, Fuck You" contingent -- and the overly-religious, scared-to-death, non-thinkers who are willing to exchange superstition for cogent thinking. That the latter half of the party can't understand what the former half is doing to them is mind-boggling. 
High praise is due to Rolling Stone magazine for their insistent and excellent coverage of this election. Those of us who don't manage to get our hands on a copy of the print version can catch up online on RS's terrific website, and there are several recent do-not-miss articles that must be read, immediately:
Please read this piece on Open Salon by author Thom Rutledge. It's another incisive and scathing take on Sarah Palin's targeted image, and it's also quite funny. But don't think there isn't a message here; Rutledge is ultimately taking to task the American voters who are being cajoled by this sub-par candidate into submission and approval. Don't let it happen!
There's an amazing and 100% blood-chilling article on AlterNet by Jill Hussein about Sarah Palin's particular brand of personal ambition, and it's horrifying and undeniable. It's a corollary to Bill Maher's excellent rant from my previous post here, so be sure you watch that for yet another view on SP's disqualifications, which are many.
Check out this excellent blog by Alec Baldwin reflecting on his appearance this past Friday on HBO's always entertaining and engaging Real Time with Bill Maher. Baldwin was excellent on the show, but gives great credit to co-guest Garry Shandling for the best line of the night. I wanted to hear more from Baldwin, frankly; he's strong and unsparing when he speaks and writes, and absolutely compelling. Smart, passionate, serious -- he really is somebody to be proud of as an example as an involved artist.
AlterNet has a chilling article by Naomi Wolf about the implications of a candidate like ultra-right wing Sarah Palin. Scary, scary stuff.
Please take the time to read this new article in Salon entitled "Mean Girl" by David Talbot, about Sarah Palin's political style and what she's done to end up where she is. "Complete bullshit." one of her former allies says of her claim that she cleaned up Alaska's Old Boys' network. Read the article and we think you'll agree. This is the kind of information you can use to counter the pro-Palin nonsense spouted by Republican apologists whenever and wherever you hear it!
Read this very astute, maddening and yes, sickening, article by Tim Wise, about the insidious preferential treatment the Republican ticket has been receiving. I don't think you'll be able to disagree with a single assertion, and it's shameful.
