Twas Inauguration — or, A Visit From Obama (apologies to C.C. Moore, and all of you)
Twas Inauguration, and in the White House,
Not a Neocon stirred, not one Leo Strauss.
The Democrats were lined up on Penn Ave. with care,
In hopes that Obama soon would be there.
The rallying cries have already started by the Republican faithful (read wacko Christian fundamentalist Republican core).
Are Bobby Jindal and Sarah Palin really the future of the Republican Party? Let’s hope so.
In case you don’t know about Piyush “Bobby” Jindal, he believes that he performed an exorcism that miraculously cured melanoma whilst expelling those nasty evil spirits. He takes his nickname “Bobby” from a 1970’s TV character that he was too young to see, except for in syndication (Jindal was 6 when the show went off the air).
The Republican Party can’t be serious, can they? Sure Jindal is a good public speaker, sure he can handle himself well under fire, but don’t they think that he and Palin are a bit too much to the right of majority of Americans?
This should be fun!
The political future of Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) still remains unclear as no clear victor has been declared in Alaska’s close Senate race and counting of votes continues. A win for Stevens will not ensure him another term, since Senate Republican leaders have called for his expulsion or resignation. Pundits say Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is his likely successor.
From this All Headline News report.
As The Wall Street Journal said today:
If (Stevens) is re-elected and later resigns, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin must call for a special election. State law is unclear on whether she can appoint someone to fill the seat temporarily.
I could see Sarah appointing herself to the Senate now that she has a taste of the national stage. Washington DC has a lot of nice malls and it is easy to get to New York City to shop.
If Alaska elects her in a special election, (which I think they would since they are on the verge of electing a convicted felon) they will not be doing themselves a favor towards improving their image (see first video here) to the rest of the US. They would be going from a guy who described the Internet as “a series of tubes” to a gal that doesn’t know that Africa is a continent.
Palin as a senator, would also put her on track for candidacy for the 2012 presidential election or possibly 2016, as she alluded to in the Masked Avengers’ prank call.
So I think that we are stuck with her for the long haul. Stay tuned to Palined.com for more updates.
This clip from Fox News must be seen to be believed (how can the governor of any state not know that Africa is a continent?). Ponderous. I imagine we will be getting truckloads more of this in the coming days [ed: Your first morning delivery of McCain-Palin infighting is here from the NYT]:
Update: Here is another video of Cameron on O’Reilly:
Cameron restates a lot of the same claims as he does in the previous video. I think that the best thing to come out in this video (@ 5:25) is that Randy Scheunemann was fired because he didn’t like people Nailin’ Palin. LOL!!
UPDATE: These charges are from a “small bitter type of person”. Funny, most of the small people I’ve tasted have been quite tasty. Someone must have prepared this one wrong or maybe it grazed on too many dandelions.
Palin Needs a Remedial Class in High School Civics
Sarah Palin recently stated that media criticism of her negative campaign tactics makes her fear for the country’s First Amendment rights. You would think that the governor of the largest state in the Union would be well-versed enough in the United States Constitution to understand that this criticism is the exact speech the First Amendment is meant to protect. Blogger Brian Butler is right on the money, when he says that Palin has the Constitutional understanding of a third grader. As I stated above, I don’t agree with the political tack that this country has taken over the last eight years, but I don’t think these decisions are irreversible. However, I think it would be disastrous for the populace to allow the election of a Vice President who would try to implement policy without even a basic understanding of the fundamentals on which our democracy is based.
John McCain chose Sarah Palin because she would bring back the conservative social agenda wing of the Republican Party that had previously abandoned him. I do not agree with her views, but that does not make her unqualified for consideration as the Vice President (only unpalatable with my worldview). Additionally, Sarah Palin is not unqualified for the national stage because of her lack of experience. Sarah Palin is dangerously unqualified to be one step from the Presidency because of her complete ignorance of our constitutional democracy and her obvious inability to logically reason.
Because of the selection of Sarah Palin, I can’t envision the past McCain who seemed to at least stand up for his convictions about what he felt was truly best for the country. All I am left with is the bitter taste of divisive politics that has put pandering to a political base above sound national policies. I wish John McCain a long career as a Senator who can bring together bipartisan coalitions (we need more of them). However, the thought of a politician with as little intellectual rigor as Sarah Palin in the White House makes me wonder how the conservative movement has gotten so far off base.
Well, Duh! Why do you think we started this site?
WASHINGTON (AP) — A former secretary of state and supporter of Republican John McCain, Laurence Eagleburger, says that McCain’s running mate, Sarah Palin, isn’t up to the task of taking over the presidency in a crisis but could become “adequate” if not “a genius in the job.”
Neal Conan of National Public Radio’s “Talk of the Nation” posed the following question to Eagleburger yesterday; “Are you entirely comfortable with Sarah Palin as the Vice President of the United States, that should she would be ready to take over in a crisis if she should be called upon to do so?”. After facetiously saying “That is a very good question” and stating “Of course not. I don’t think at the moment she is ready to take over the reigns of the presidency. I can name for you any number of other vice presidents who were not particularly up to it either.” answers, “Give her some time and I think she will be adequate”.
I’ll keep this short. I’m terrified that the GOP is going to take this election from the ballot box to the courthouse — putting its outcome in the hands of a judge instead of the hands of the people. Reports are coming in that Republicans in Nevada are actively looking for people who would be willing to file a lawsuit over voter registrations in Washoe County (a former Republican stronghold that has turned Democratic since 2004). Both parties, and numerous unaffiliated organizations, are involved in legal maneuvering in search of an electoral advantage. But it is the GOP efforts that strike me as the scariest (note: I voted for Barack Obama, but I am a political Independent). The voter fraud allegations related to ACORN, for example, have created concern among many voters that this election will be “rigged” — despite the fact that the allegations against ACORN have been shown to be essentially false. Hopefully our courts will continue to dismiss the GOP suits as scurrilous attempts to undermine voter confidence, as they have in Pennsylvania. Nobody wants a repeat of the 2000 fiasco (except reporters — you’ve got to admit that was a hell of a story).
-Ship
If… she… weighs… the same as a duck,… she’s made of wood.
I think I would have enjoyed this better if the video was of Bedevere instead of Thomas Muthee, but beggars can’t be choosers.
Erasing the media and doing God’s work.
Monday morning Dr. James Dobson from Focus on The Family had a phone interview with Sarah Palin.
It was posted online today.
Doing our best to get the message out . . .
listen here Dobson Palin interview
The vast majority of this 15 minute interview is pro-life and evangelist boilerplate. I’d expect McCain, if in an interview with Dobson during the campaign, to foist up the same planks from the current GOP platform. However, there are two moments in the conversation worth noting.
First, she argues that “the filter of the mainstream media must be erased,” which at its core is a profoundly undemocratic position to hold. I’ll refrain from trying to convince the converted, but note in passing that muzzling the media serves only those who have a message to get out. As far as I can tell, their unfiltered message would be that Barack Obama, is black, probably a Muslim, commiserates with terrorists, and will establish Sweden West. In the meantime, the unfiltered message will be replete with not just character assassination but complete misrepresentation of reality, be they crass untruths about Obama’s policy positions or dunderheaded lies about her own life story. The filter she so detests and would have eradicated bears not only the fruit of fact-checking but also spreads the seeds of open debate within and outside of the media.
It’s no haircut on Air Force One but…
Sarah Palin has managed to spend $150,000 (of someone else’s money, of course) on clothes since her nomination. This is an amount I cannot get my head around. I don’t think I’ve spent $150,000 on clothes total throughout my life and I’m a 35 year old woman with a healthy appreciation for shoes. $150,000 in 6 weeks is a number that makes no sense. The campaign insists that the clothes will be given to charity which, to me, makes it worse. She will have spent $150,000 on clothes she will hardly wear. Thank goodness she’s a fiscal conservative!
UPDATE #1: Politico broke this story, which can be read here. Marc Ambinder of the Atlantic talked to some Republicans, and they are–off the record–”disgusted.”
UPDATE #2: As Ship points out in the comments, the rate at which Sarah and the McCain Campaign [Ed: Ooh, that would be a great band name] is $3,000 per day!!! Are you f**king kidding me?!
Palin palining about palling around and other stuff.
On Saturday October, 18th CBN news’ David Brody did an interview with our favorite Governor. He asked some great questions like: Who would win in a one on one basketball game between Sarah and Barack Obama?
The videos were posted cbn.com this morning.
CBN is one of my favorite conservative websites, I really like the pancakes.
Below are the most telling questions and answers:
Sarah thinks that saying that Barack is palling around with terrorists is OK.
She really palins at the end of this one.
Sarah thinks that Barack’s stance on abortion is “extreme”.
On this one the commentator implies with his question that Obama is somehow less Christian.
Sarah thinks that there should be a constitutional amendment defining marriage as a union between one man and one woman.
BTW, I put Pat’s pancake recipe here (pdf) so you don’t have to register at CBN to download it.
Palin and Rove Make Wonderful Bedfellows
Over the last eight years my views have become slightly more centrist, but my political affiliations have becomes vastly more independent. Basically, I am fed up with politics as usual, and I can’t stand the Karl Rove form of political lambasting we have seen in the last three Presidential campaign. (Just mentioning Karl Rove style politics and Presidential in the same sentence seems contradictory to me.) So, this brings me to the subject of this post.
If you have been listening to NPR lately or watched the Al Jazeera video post below, you may have gotten the feeling that there is an underlying current of mistrust, misinformation and racism in some of the opposition to Obama. Rather than talk about issues, Palin and McCain (or at least various elements of the Republican Party) have tried to implant the notion in America’s head that Obama has leanings toward Muslim terrorists.
But don’t believe me, judge for yourself…
In August the Snohomish Washington Republican Party sold $3 bills with Obama on them wrapped in a Muslim headdress. Furthering the misinformation campaign that Obama is a Muslim. He is not and has never been.
Over the last several weeks Palin has been spreading the word that Obama has been “palling around with terrorists”. He has not. He chaired the board for a non-partisan committee to study education policy with a professor of education from the University of Chicago University of Illinois at Chicago. (Yes, Bill Ayers was a Weatherman decades before Obama knew him.)
This month a San Bernardino County Republican Women’s group sent out a mailer with Obama on food stamps surrounded by watermelon, ribs and fried chicken.
You think that John McCain would feel different about using these tactics after being railroaded by them in the 2000 South Carolina primaries. I applaud McCain for taking the microphone away from his supporters that try to espouse the racist rhetoric to his face. However, until he reins in his lipsticked pitbull, it just means that either he tacitly supports the strategy of falsely smearing Obama’s character or has no control over his own campaign. Either way I am disgusted and do not believe that McCain has any intention to separate himself from the Republican party machinery.
(P.S. Please visit FactCheck.org on a regular basis to get an independent view on this country’s pertinent issues and where the candidates really stand on them.)
Palin Draws Fire for anti-America comments
MPAV! isn’t the only voice crying foul over GOP VP pick Palin’s attempts to label Democrats and independent voters as being unpatriotic. Democratic VP contender Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE) is also blasting Palin for her remarks on Thursday, when she told an audience of GOP supporters in NC that they were one of “the wonderful little pockets of what I call the real America … [one of the] very pro-America areas” of the country (meaning that, apparently, many of us live in “anti-America” areas). Palin later made a flailing, and unconvincing, attempt to explain herself by saying “It’s all pro-America….Not any one area of America is more pro-America patriotically than others.” [note: "more pro-America patriotically"? Why does this woman hate English?].
Biden did not appear to buy her explanation and, speaking in NM on Friday, made clear that one’s patriotism is not linked to one’s zip code. “I am tired, tired, tired, tired of the implications about patriotism.” As usual, Biden used more words than were necessary, but I have to agree with his sentiment.
As an aside, Palin’s “pro-America area” comments came at the same location where one of her supporters attacked a local reporter for interviewing an Obama supporter. Is that pro-American?
-Ship
Do you live in a ‘Pro-America’?
In order to clarify comments GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin made last night at a Greensboro, N.C., fundraiser about it being in a “pro-America” area, the campaign issued a slightly more detailed version of the pool report that came out yesterday.
From the Washington Post’s Juliet Eilperin
This is the “pro-america” area where reporter Joe Killian got assaulted.
I would like to know what areas of the world you consider “pro-america”.
MrD.
Kicking Reporters? Unacceptable.
Be careful where you wear your MPAV! t-shirts boys and girls. A reporter who wasn’t even wearing any of our spiffy duds was attacked at a Palin rally yesterday in North Carolina for (gasp!) interviewing an Obama supporter. If just TALKING to an Obama supporter can get you kicked to the ground, imagine what kind of grief you’d catch for actually wearing anti-Palin paraphernalia. This sort of behavior cannot be condoned. It is cowardly and un-American. It undermines our system of government, which relies on an active body of journalists who contribute to our being an informed public. Attacking reporters? Unacceptable.
-Ship
Al-Jazeera report from the St. Clairsville, OH rally on Sunday October 12th
The things that these people say in this really freak me out. How can people be this ignorant?