Morality is not determined by the church you attend nor the faith you embrace. It is determined by the quality of your character and the positive impact you have on those you meet along your journey
The list was put together by a Tina Dupuy who describers herself as follows:
Tina is a nationally syndicated op-ed columnist, investigative journalist, award-winning writer, stand-up comic, on-air commentator and wedge issue fan.
Wow! That does sound impressive! (I need to think about updating MY information.)
Here is her picture:
I know, right?
Not at all hard on the peepers is she?
Well anyhow Ms. Dupuy has put together a fairly comprehensive list of Sarah Palin's enemies. Apparently they are based on actual feuds that Palin has engaged in with various people, including the incident where Dennis and I were ejected from the Wasilla book signing for "Going Rogue."
I am guessing the order is kind of random since I am way down at number 46, below both Al Gore and the American Idol contestants, and no way is THAT accurate.
I should be, at the minimum, in the top fifteen. Don't you think?
Well anyhow it is a fun read so go ahead and click the link to take a look. After all it looks like she put a lot of time and effort into it.
Update: Here is the Huffington Post piece that Tina Dupuy wrote which seems to have been the inspiration for the list. Which, by the way, contains this great observation as the last line in the article:
I've watched enough nature shows to know that if a real Mama Grizzly fought this much of the time -- we'd have to assume the beast was rabid.
I may have a new favorite Huffington Post contributor.
From the AP: Gay troops can serve openly in the armed forces without harming the military's ability to fight, the Pentagon's top leaders said Tuesday. declaring the 17-year-old "don't ask, don't tell law" should be scrapped and pointing to a new survey to show most troops won't mind.
President Barack Obama, citing the troop poll, urged the Senate to repeal the ban before adjourning in the next few weeks, but there is still no indication GOP objections can be overcome with just a few weeks left in the postelection lame-duck session. Still, the survey did put new pressure on Republican opponents, led by Sen. John McCain, who say efforts to repeal the law are politically motivated and dangerous at a time of two wars.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the ban on openly gay military service "requires people to lie," and he called for quick Senate action.
"We spend a lot of time in the military talking about integrity and honor and values. Telling the truth is a pretty important value in that scale," Gates said as he released the Pentagon study showing that most people currently in uniform don't care about the ban.
Senate Democrats plan to force a vote in December. Senate Republicans were generally silent following release of the Pentagon recommendations for repealing the ban.
Okay now perhaps the Republicans will STOP pretending that the reason they were not prepared to vote on a repeal of DADT is that they were waiting to hear from the military? Well now they have heard from them, so what will be their next excuse?
I hope that sometime today a reporter corners John McCain and makes the blithering old fool finally eat his words and admit that he no longer has any reason to resist repealing DADT. And then I hope that Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow, Jon Stewart, and Stephen Colbert just play, and replay that clip endlessly on their programs.
I created a little poll over there on the left so that all of you can give your opinion as to why we have received so much attention from Sarah Palin's flying monkeys lately.
I even included a choice for the Palin-bots because that is just how I roll.
I am interested in everybody's opinion so make sure to vote! And no cheating!
Republicans have a problem. The most-talked-about figure in the GOP is a reality show star who cannot be elected. And yet the same leaders who fret that Sarah Palin could devastate their party in 2012 are too scared to say in public what they all complain about in private.
Enough. It’s time for the GOP to man up.
What man or mouse with a fully functioning human brain and a résumé as thin as Palin’s would flirt with a presidential run? It makes the political biography of Barack Obama look more like Winston Churchill’s, despite the fact that the 44th president breezed into the Oval Office as little more than a glorified state senator.
Still, Palin is undeterred, charging ahead maniacally while declaring her intention to run for the top office in the land if “nobody else will.” Adding audacity to this dopey dream is that Palin can’t stop herself from taking swings at Republican giants. In the past month alone, she has mocked Ronald Reagan’s credentials, dismissed George H.W. and Barbara Bush as arrogant “blue bloods” and blamed George W. Bush for wrecking the economy.
Wow. That’ll win ’em over in Iowa.
Scarborough is just the most recent example of a Republican who is waking up to the fact that even though the path that Palin is taking to the GOP nomination is WAY out in left field, it still just might prove successful. And then the GOP would find themselves saddled with a walking, talking SNL skit instead of a candidate with the credentials and ability to stand on the stage and debate President Obama on the issues.
Though there may be a number of progressives who believe allowing Palin to win the Republican nomination would ensure an easy victory for our President, I am not in that camp. Number one, I have learned to NEVER underestimate the stupidity of the American people. And number two, the Republicans do not play by the rules during elections, and we could certainly count on them to pull some election day shenanigans which could result in an outcome that, up to this point, has only been the stuff of nightmares.
This is how Scarborough summed up his request of the Republican party.
If Republicans want to embrace Palin as a cultural icon whose anti-intellectualism fulfills a base political need, then have at it. I suppose it’s cheaper than therapy.
But if the party of Ronald Reagan, Paul Ryan and Marco Rubio wants to return to the White House anytime soon, it’s time that Republican leaders started standing up and speaking the truth to Palin.
Now let me once again assure everybody that from my vantage point there should be NO way that Palin will get on the GOP ticket. Even as a running mate.
The damaging information about Palin has been disseminated too far, and too wide for her to stop the revelations that are coming. However having said that, I still want to make sure that nobody assumes that somebody else is doing the work of stopping this lunatic.
Therefore I certainly encourage the GOP to do their part. I am also counting on the various authors working on Palin books to do their part. And whether you are able to see it or not, you can count on the fact that I have been doing MY part.
Perhaps those of you who have been around here for awhile will remember that when I talked about getting information out about Sarah Palin that I said it probably would not be revealed here on IM. I said that it required a media outlet with a bigger audience. And I have been doing everything I can to make that happen.
This has never been about me, this is about geting the truth out. And holy crap is the truth getting out.
So get your popcorn, wrap yourself up in your Snuggie, and watch the show.
Why did Bristol do Dancing with the Stars? I heard from someone who really should know (really should seriously know the dirt really really) that the only reason Bristol was on the show was because Sarah Palin forced her to do it. Sarah supposedly blames Bristol harshly and openly (in the circles that I heard it from) for not winning the election, and so she told Bristol she “owed” it to her to do DWTS so that “America would fall in love with her again” and make it possible for Sarah Palin to run in 2012 with America behind her all the way. Instead of being supposedly “handicapped” by the presence of her teen mom daughter, now Bristol is going to be an “asset” – a celebrity beloved for her dancing. I am sure the show wasn’t in on this (but who knows anything really).
Although I don’t agree with the family’s politics at all, I really like Bristol as a person. She’s warm and incredibly supportive, and I think that she looks beautiful out on the dance floor. It’s heartbreaking that people are so awful to her about her weight. I think she looks fantastic, and why does everybody think they have a right to comment on our bodies? What are young girls going to take away from that? If people call her fat what kind of impact does that have on women who have similar body types – which is most of us??!! Still, it is a dance competition, and so I am sure that people feel they have the right to judge bodies and not just ability. That’s just wrong.
Bristol is learning. She improved a lot, in my opinion. Her tango was fierce and really the best dance she did. You really do learn to dance in this competition! I am proud of her for shaking her ass! But keep in mind there are other forces at work here and it’s not just for the love of dance.
Now I am scared I am going to wake up with a decapitated moose head in my bed.
Now do you understand why I thought Olbermann was a little harsh to identify Bristol as the WPIW?
I don't know if Margaret is aware of the reason for Bristol's unusual weight gain and cannot say because of a confidentiality agreement, or if she really has no idea, but it is perfectly understandable that she would be a little sensitive about that topic considering her own struggles with weight.
However her description of the relationship between Sarah and Bristol sounds very much like what I have heard from sources who are in the know.
Can you believe that Palin would blame Bristol for her defeat and public ridicule in 2008? Was it Bristol's fault the moron could not name any magazine or newspapers that she read? Or that Sarah had no idea what the "Bush Doctrine" was?
No, but it WAS the Grizzled Mama's fault that the young woman was so desperate to be loved that she purposefully got pregnant so that at least SOMEBODY would love her unconditionally.
First up Lawrence O'Donnell let Palin have it over her ridiculous comparison of her leaked book pages on Gawker to the WikiLeaks dissemination of classified documents.
Bristol is simply following the direction of her manipulative mother and pimping herself out in the most hypocritical way possible. It is, after all, how the Palin family rolls.
"Bristol made over $345,000 from being on the show and currently is getting $35,000 for each speaking gig she does," an insider reveals to me. "Yet, all that is going to feel like pocket change if one or two of the big deals she's currently working on actually happens."
Palin family friends tell me there is a major deal in the works for Bristol to be the spokesperson for a middle American fashion brand, as well as a book deal and a multi-million offer to appear on another reality show.
"None of this should come as a surprise," one industry source tells me. "This year's 'Dancing' was up over 23 percent thanks to Bristol. Love her or hate her, you just can't turn away. This is what makes her so valuable. Now is her time to make a lot of money and she knows it."
Do you remember back when Sarah and Bristol ridiculed Levi for chasing fame?
So NOW who's the "fame whore?"
I wonder if the Palin hypocrisy gene is recessive or dominant? I really worry for little Tripp sometimes.
Just based on these pictures I am guessing that any Bristol reality show will have to wait at least three or four months before they start filming. Of course there is at least ONE reality program that she could be a part of right now.
The poll findings are the latest to indicate public support for a repeal of the 17-year-old "don't ask, don't tell" policy banning gays from openly serving in the U.S. military and come a day before a long-awaited Pentagon report on the matter.
In the poll, 58 percent of those surveyed favored allowing gays to serve openly in the military with 27 percent opposed, and the remainder offering no opinion. The nationwide survey of 1,255 adults was conducted from November 4-7.
"These opinions have changed little in recent years. Since 2005 -- including three surveys this year -- roughly 60 percent have consistently favored permitting homosexuals to serve openly in the military," Pew said.
You know it is great that most Americans are cool with the idea of homosexuals serving openly in our military. That shows that the country is finally becoming a more welcoming and open society. (Thank God the 80's are over!)
However I am one who really does not give a shit whether the majority of Americans think this is okay or not. Simply put, it is the right thing to do regardless of public opinion!
What do we think the prevailing sentiment was in 1950 when President Truman chose to desegregate the military? Did the fact that the majority of Americans might be against it stop him? Hell no, he was in the middle of a war and needed every able bodied soldier willing to fight that he could get.
How is THAT time any different then what we are facing today?
We need these soldiers. And they have every right to provide service to this country just like any other patriotic American man or woman. Period.
It is well past a time where we should be allowed to punish a person, and make them feel shame, because of who they love.
Inexplicable: I recently won in court to stop my book "America by Heart" from being leaked,but US Govt can't stop Wikileaks' treasonous act? 4 hours ago via Twitter for BlackBerry®
"Fwap!" (That's the sound of my jaw hitting the top of my desk)
Doesn't she understa....I mean can't she.....hasn't anybody explai.....WTF?
I absolutely do not know where to begin.
Here let Mother Jones take a crack at explaining her unbelievable stupidity. I need an aspirin.
Inexplicable? Does she not understand the difference between apples and nuclear reactors? The two instances she links have little in common. In the case of her book, she managed to get a judge to order Gawker to take down a post showing portions of her book after the website had put them up. And the judge in this case was following precedent established when The Nation magazine was successfully sued by Harper & Row in the 1970s after publishing excerpts of former President Gerald Ford's memoirs before the book was released. The Supreme Court, deciding the case in favor of the publisher, said media outlets could not, under a claim of fair use, publish a significant portion of a copyrighted book (accepting the argument that this could weaken the commercial value of the book). Palin's lawyers took advantage of this ruling, in demanding that Gawker not show the actual pages of her book.
Stopping a media leak involving government information before the fact is not the same. The grand-daddy legal decision on this front comes out of the famous Pentagon Papers case, when the Supreme Court ruled that the government could not block newspapers from publishing the secret Pentagon history of the Vietnam war leaked by Daniel Ellsberg to The New York Times and other papers. The guiding principle here: the government does not have the right to impose prior restraint on the media.
There! Now do you get it you moron?
You still don't do you? Well, they can't say I didn't try.
Last night's episode focused on beefing up the Grizzled Mama's credibility as a true Alaskan, a great example of a working mother, and the antithesis of a diva.
And in case you were not picking up on the subtleties of the message you had the omnipresent screechy narration of Sarah herself to drive those points home. In fact Sarah maintains such tight control over her message that hardly anybody else in the family got the chance say much of anything, unless it was a carefully scripted diary segment which unfortunately revealed that Bristol is not the only one in the family with no acting ability.
Speaking of Bristol she is MIA during this episode. A situation which might be explained by the fact that this seems to have been filmed in late June and early July (They are shown celebrating the Fourth of July and Willow's July seventh birthday), which was just about the time that Levi and Bristol were rekindling their lust for each other which, in about a week, would result in an ostentatious announcement in US Weekly on July fourteenth.
This episode was just chock full of "firsts." The first time that Willow has seen SO many fish (But remember Willow you HAVE worked on a fishing boat before, wink wink.), the first time that Track has captained his Dad's boat (Don't worry that he fucked up your trailer Todd, TLC will pay for it!), the first time that Sarah and Piper have met their little Down syndrome cousin Matthew (And for that matter it seems like the first time in a long time that Sarah has interacted with Todd's side of the family at all. I guess she did not feel she needed them until now.), and perhaps the first time in a long time that Track has had to celebrate July Fourth without his rowdy friends. (Sorry guys I can't get hammered with you this time, my mom wants me to help her with her shitty reality show. Well yeah, of course I get paid!)
Some of the segments in the show were so clumsy and obvious that it took me right out of the fantasy that Palin was trying to create.
I mean I am not saying that Todd's grandmother DOESN'T use the customary Eskimo Ulu to cut the heads off of fish, I am just saying that it felt a lot like product placement to these old Alaskan eyes.
However the contrived segment of Track getting his first crack at being the captain of Todd's boat (What a coincidence that such an important chapter in the young man's life is captured for the world to see by a TLC camera crew!), was so phony that it almost played out like a water downed and mumbled version of the phony cat fights on VH1's "Rock of Love." (Now THAT'S an entertaining "reality" show!)
The same can be said for the "celebration" of Willow's birthday without her sister Bristol anywhere in sight. After we all witnessed how they seamlessly worked in tandem to humiliate and shame a boy on Facebook do we REALLY think that Willow would celebrate her 16th birthday without her big sister? Uh, no.
However since Willow got paid to push her ass kissing little sister's face in the a birthday cake perhaps she did not mind having a fake party for the cameras and another real one with her big sis and her more camera shy friends later.
The other obviously scripted portions are the ones attempting to show Sarah comfortably interacting with Trig. She is shown holding him quite a bit, much like she does for her book signings, but there seems to be a lack of connectivity between the two of them. In fact it seems that Trig is much more comfortable with Willow, Piper, Tripp, or Todd, than he is with the woman he is supposed to call "Mommy." Just an observation.
Perhaps the show would not have been so difficult to swallow if everything that "happened" had not been accompanied by the Grizzled Mama's annoying narration, and the crappy mood music playing in the background. Here see for yourself.
See what I mean? The whole freaking show was like that!
Perhaps the most difficult part to accept was Sister Sarah's crocodile tears while talking about Cousin Matthew and how that gives her hope for Trig's future. Of all of the contrived segments THAT one was the hardest to swallow.
I am not sure who in this country turns on a reality show expecting to see "reality," but if anybody was looking for it here they came away very disappointed. Nor can I imagine how this helps Sister Sarah appear any more prepared to sit in the Oval office, but as I said yesterday, I have a chronic case of critical thinking, so I am clearly not part of this program's identified demographic.
P.S. For those confused by my Belmont Stakes reference in the headline, does THIS jog your memory?
I thought that pulling the Grizzled Mama out of anonymity and inflicting her on the American people would be the worst of his many sins, but it appears the son-of-a-bitch is trying his damnedest to screw up what's left of his political legacy even further.
Like any truly honest student of religious history, I tend to resist the urge to say that I am definitely certain of anything when it comes to religion.. However if forced at gunpoint to choose sides between those that believe and those that don't I would not hesitate to take my place standing with Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, and Christopher Hitchens.
Of the three my library only contains books written by Harris and Dawkins, as I have always found Hitchens to be somewhat pompous and imperious for my tastes.
Having said that I was rendered slack-jawed at Hitchens amazing opening statement (Starts at the 4:53 mark) in the beginning of his debate with Tony Blair. Here read it for yourself.
Once you assume a creator and a plan, it makes us objects, in a cruel experiment, whereby we are created sick, and commanded to be well. I'll repeat that. Created sick, and then ordered to be well. And over us, to supervise this, is installed a celestial dictatorship, a kind of divine North Korea. Greedy, exigent, greedy for uncritical phrase from dawn until dusk and swift to punish the original since with which it so tenderly gifted us in the very first place.
However, let no one say there's no cure, salvation is offered, redemption, indeed, is promised, at the low price of the surrender of your critical faculties. Religion, it might be said, it must be said, would have to admit makes extraordinary claims but though I would maintain that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, rather daringly provides not even ordinary evidence for its extraordinary supernatural claims.
Therefore, we might begin by asking, and I'm asking my opponent as well as you when you consider your voting, is it good for the world to appeal to our credulity and not to our scepticism? Is it good for the world to worship a deity that takes sides in wars and human affairs? To appeal to our fear and to our guilt, is it good for the world? To our terror, our terror of death, is it good to appeal?
To preach guilt and shame about the sexual act and the sexual relationship, is this good for the world? And asking yourself all the while, are these really religious responsibilities, as I maintain they are? To terrify children with the image of hell and eternal punishment, not just of themselves, but their parents and those they love. Perhaps worst of all, to consider women an inferior creation, is that good for the world, and can you name me a religion that has not done that? To insist that we are created and not evolved in the face of all the evidence. To say that certain books of legend and myth, man-made and primitive, are revealed not man-made code. (You can find the entire transcript at the New Statesman.)
Regardless of where you stand on the issue of religion and its importance to humanity, the words spoken above must, at the very least, give one pause. It is even more impressive that Hitchens remains so defiant to the comforting, yet intellectually numbing embrace of religion when he faces his own mortality in the form of esophageal cancer.
My combative personal relationship with religion has always been defined by the fact that it asked too much of me in exchange for its simple answers to the complex questions of my life. It demands that I turn off my critical thinking and eschew logic in exchange for allowing its tendrils to enter my consciousness and soothe my troubled spirit.
However, apparently unlike many other Americans, there is NO off switch connected to my critical thinking, and NOTHING troubles my spirit as much as creating distance between it and logic. In short there is simply no way for me to get from where I am, to where the millions of people who readily embrace religion and accept on faith what science has been completely unable to discover have positioned themselves.
In my opinion, and please feel free to disagree with me, the very idea of choosing belief over reason seems to be the denying of that which makes us human. After all isn't it this amazing intellect of ours which has allowed us to elevate ourselves out of the day to day fight for survival which defines the life of the creatures to whom we feel so superior?
Here we are a species which has unlocked the very genome that identifies what makes us human, and explored the mysteries of space, and yet we still run toward the comforting bedtime fables of religious belief when we are overwhelmed by our troubles or feel fear at the approaching of our own mortality.
As you can see Track is finally introduced into our living rooms for the obvious purpose of clinching the military support for which Sister Sarah is constantly pandering (Be prepared for much gushing over his selfless decision to join the military), while Trig is trotted back into the limelight to snag the hearts of those extremely important values voters.
Perhaps no two members of the Palin household, other than the Grizzled Mama herself, have a more important role to play in this reality show/political advertisement as do Track and Trig. They are the most essential props in Palin's arsenal, which she can use as shortcuts into the hearts and minds of the conservative voting block in this country. So tonight watch for Palin to go for the hard sell over, and over again.
After all if they don't buy her relationship with these two male members of her family then her political aspirations grind to a screeching halt.
Of course, as usual, the facts do not quite line up with the Palin mythology.
Track was a troubled young man, as almost ANYBODY in Wasilla could confess, and even after his return form active duty his behaviors have not improved. As a matter of fact, if anything they have deteriorated.
The very last thing that Track needs is to be thrust into the spotlight to quench his mother's overpowering thirst for media attention and adulation from her supporters. But as with every member of the Palin family, his needs come a distant second to Sarah's ambitions.
But "Shhh" don't tell the Palin-bots. If we were to introduce facts into the Palin political fable they might find themselves unable to see things in the simple black and white they must, in order to digest the steady flow of mooseshit that Snowdrift Snooki constantly shovels into their receptive little brains.
BTW for those still curious about Track's military career, and why it seemed so short, here is a copy of his discharge papers that were received through a simple records request.
I have looked through it and found nothing that raises any red flags, but since so many people still seem confused about how long he served, and when he got out, I thought it would not hurt to provide documentation.
As for Trig, well it should be obvious to any of us who have raised our own children, and especially those who have raised Special Needs children, that Sarah does not even remotely provide for this little boy's needs.
And if you have any doubts about that just watch to see how often he is wearing his glasses and hearing aids. Taking them off for a photo op is one thing, but this is supposed to be Trig in his natural environment during his day to day activities.
Now if those conservative Mama Grizzlies that support Palin due to her parenting skills weren't complete hypocrites they would call her out for allowing her child to interact with a world he can barely see or hear, instead of providing him the means to use all of his faculties to gather and understand as much information about his environment as possible.
But don't hold your breath.
Update: This is how Trig should have appeared during this entire segment, but if you watched like I did you know that he NEVER had either his glasses on or his hearing aids in.
In some ways, it’s a good thing that Sarah Palin calls herself a feminist. It means that, even among conservatives, women’s equality has become a normative position, the starting point for debate. It means that feminism has gone from something that the right wants to destroy to something it wants to appropriate. That’s progress, of a sort.
But reading Palin’s new book, America by Heart: Reflections on Family, Faith and Flag, it’s clear that in order to claim feminism as her own, she’s had to radically distort its history. In a chapter on feminism that’s sure to be widely discussed, she mischaracterizes the views of nearly every historical feminist she mentions.
Sometimes she does it to defame them, other times to make it seem as if they shared her ideology. As so often with Palin, it’s hard to tell whether ignorance or dishonesty is at work. Perhaps neither she nor her ghostwriter had time to read up on women like Elizabeth Cady Stanton, presented here as a pious Christian conservative. But couldn’t one of them at least have perused her Wikipedia entry?
I am very heartened to see women standing up to Palin's bullying and defending the brave pioneers who struggled and sacrificed to help them achieve the level of autonomy that Sarah Palin takes for granted.
It is becoming very obvious that, rather then do the hard work of learning the history of this great nation, Sarah Palin and her ilk would rather to simply change the facts to match their belief system and hope that nobody will confront them as they rape the memories of our forefathers and foremothers.
We have recently heard this same sort of sneaky revisionism applied to the pilgrims who landed on Plymouth rock on the 1600's. In the conservative version of history the pilgrim's were NOT fleeing persecution, they were fleeing "socialism." Which, by the way, did not even exist yet.
Just listen to this amazing mutilation of the history that every American school child knows, delivered on the floor of Congress by Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO
Not only did socialism not exist in the early 1620's, communal production efforts were crucial to the survival of the first European settlers to arrive in America.
Akin's fiction also runs roughshod over a fact even school children know: that Pilgrims left Europe seeking freedom from religious persecution. Quite contrary to the Congressman's allegation, their migration had nothing to do with differences on economic policy.
By the way this is no accidental misunderstanding of the historic record, this is an organized effort to rewrite history by the Conservatives, as evidenced by John Stossel making the same claims on Fox News.
What is happening is that Sarah Palin and her ilk are vilifying the "Lamestream media" so that Americans will not trust them as they attempt to correct the lies and misstatements by the Grizzled Mama and the Republican party, which then allows them carte blanche to rewrite history to fit their unsophisticated view of what history SHOULD be teaching us.
And just to make sure that future generations will not be able to differentiate truth from fallacy, they have attacked the public school system in an attempt to marginalize it and keep it from educating our children well enough to defend themselves against these blatant lies and misrepresentations.
"Gee Mommy how do we know that Susan B. Anthony WASN'T a rabid anti-abortionist? Sarah Palin says she was, and our teachers are too afraid for their jobs to even talk about it?"
"Dad, are you sure the Pilgrims were not big business entrepreneurs? Fox News says they were, and my textbook only talks about growing corn and that the Indians were nice enough to hold our land for us, and then voluntarily go to live on reservations after we arrived, so that we could build the greatest country on earth."
Remember that the front line in this battle for America's future has being drawn in classrooms all over this nation, where the conservatives have wrestled for control over public school textbooks and the information made available to the defenseless minds of our innocent children.
Having spent her life attending school in the Mat-Su Valley, with additional influence coming from her church the Wasilla Assembly of God, Palin is both a product, and a a proponent, of this approach to the "education" our children.
Are we really prepared for a nation brimming over with Sarah Palins?
There is a rumor that Sarah Palin may actually be chosen as Time Magazine's "Person of the Year."
If true I can only assume that Time Warner has decided that it is better to allow their brand to be attached to the catastrophic Sarah Palin, for the short term sideshow style attention they will garner, than to protect their journalistic integrity going forward.
If my sources are correct this will be another love letter to the Grizzled Mama on par with the embarrassing ass kissing delivered by The New York Times.
And if the blurb about her, written by Adam Sorenson no less, is any indication the article might in fact read like a kind of political soft porn.
For all the talk of a conservative revival this election year, the movement in 2010 has lacked a true leader — a personality big and bold enough to rally the disparate wings of the Republican Party under one flag. Sarah Palin thinks she can fill that role, but she won't get it without a fight. Maternal chieftain of the Mama Grizzlies, the former Alaska governor spent the past year playing queenmaker in a bevy of midterm races, not to mention working on her next blockbuster book and a reality show for TLC. With the power to electrify the base, cow the Establishment, incense the opposition and razz the "lamestream media" with a single tweet, Palin stands alone atop the modern GOP as its most dynamic and divisive figure. And though she continues to play coy about her 2012 intentions, there are many indications that she aspires to put her mojo to use in the next presidential race.
Hang on a second I have to choke back my bile. Yuck, tastes horrible.
There is an opportunity for you to express your opinion before the final decision is made by going here to vote. But be aware that the publishers, while inviting your participation, do not feel bound by the point of view expressd by those who take the time to vote.
Take a look at this year's candidates (listed in alphabetical order) and give them your rating — though TIME's editors who choose the actual Person of the Year reserve the right to disagree
Currently Palin is ranked number 10, behind the Recep Tayyip Erdoga (Prime Minister of Turkey), Lady Gaga, Wiki-Leaks founder Julian Assange, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, Glenn Beck (Isn't it a little redundant to have BOTH Palin and Beck represented in this poll?), Apple's Steve Jobs, President Obama, the Unemployed Americans, and the Chilean Miners.
In my opinion EVERY SINGLE ONE of those listed are more deserving of this honor than Sarah Palin, but it is highly doubtful that any of them will bring the attention, or increased magazine sales, that plastering the grinning visage of the Queen of Mean on their cover will.
Someday in the future when asked exactly when Time Magazine "clubbed the halibut," people will point to the day they chose to sell out and put Snowdrift Snooki on the cover of their magazine, instead of in the comics section where she belongs.
I will embed part five because I want all of you to see how the Obama's talk about their family, their difficulties, and their view of the sacrifices made by our military fighting men and women.
Now compare what you just heard to how somebody else responds to the challenges in her life.
BTW Walters should NEVER have brought up the Grizzled Mama to either our President or his wife. These are serious accomplished people, and asking them to comment on the antics of the court jester is an insult to them, and to the American people.
If you think "loading the dishwasher" means getting your husband Todd drunk#youmightbeapalin
If you have your Thanksgiving Family Meltdown on FB#youmightbeapalin
If you come from Wasilla, and millions of ignorant racist morons hang on your every word,#YouMightBeAPalin
If you spend your Thanksgiving posting misspeaks by Obama to cover up your ignorance about Korea#youmightbeapalin
You can find those and many more right here. I really appreciate the fact that on our side we have so many intelligent imaginative people calling Grandma Grifter out on her BS. It just makes the holidays all that much more enjoyable.
"After being inadvertently hit with an opposing player's elbow in the lip while playing basketball with friends and family, the President received 12 stitches today administered by the White House Medical Unit. They were done in the doctor's office located on the ground floor of the White House."
The White House announced the culprit who elbowed Obama in the lip earlier today: Rey Decerega, who is the director of programs for the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute.
Decerega said in a statement that the game was all in good fun (and didn't apologize):
"I learned today the president is both a tough competitor and a good sport. I enjoyed playing basketball with him this morning. I'm sure he'll be back out on the court again soon," Decerega said.
Speaking of Palin, you just KNOW if this same incident had happened to her she would have milked it for all of the sympathy she could, and then her rabid flying monkeys would have started sending the person who elbowed her threatening e-mails demanding that they apologize IN WRITING and then claimed the whole thing was planned by the "Lamestream media."
Watch for Obama to come out in the next couple of days and make a joke about it and most likely take the blame.
Have I said recently how glad I am that this man is our President?
This is what the lunatic said on Glenn Beck radio program the day before Thanksgiving:
GLENN: But the one thing that my wife and I were talking about is the exposure of your family. And I know the press has exposed the family, but you don't seem to have a problem with that. What do you think the effect of all of this is on your kids?
SARAH PALIN: Well, I'm just dealing with reality knowing that they're not going to let up until the collective will of the people is to remind the press that kids should be off limits. And in our case that just isn't happening yet. So I deal with the reality as it is and remind my kids that maybe in our culture there's not a lot of justice in terms of kids being left alone to just be kids and make mistakes but learn as they go and overcome challenges, you know. My kids have the same story as every other kid in this world.
GLENN: But my kids are left alone. I mean, but I just don't, I don't ever, ever put them in front of a camera. You know, anybody takes a picture of my kids, I go all TSA on them.
SARAH PALIN: Yeah, here's the deal. Here's the deal, what we got ourselves into, I guess, was there on the national stage, literally there at the GOP convention when I, being so proud of my family, bringing them on stage like every other politician has done since the beginning of time, being charged then with exploiting my kids and here I'm looking around going, wait, every other candidate, every male candidate brings their family on stage, proverbially and literally. So having done that. And then from there just sort of a different standard that's been applied in terms of the accusations that there's been exploitation or using the kids for whatever. Then, Glenn, having to correct the record and try to change the narrative into what the truth is about my family. So constantly being on defense and having to sort of counterattack the things that they say. That's the position that we're in.
Where to start? Her first decision was agreeing to run for vice-president with a months' old child with Down Syndrome and a pregnant teenage daughter. You do that, your kids will be at least somewhat in the public eye. But she blindsides the campaign with the teen pregnancy, puts out her own press release about it the Saturday before the convention, and in the same chaotic weekend, the campaign also has to deal with the bizarre details of her one-month public pregnancy and bi-continental, airplane labor with Trig. Anyone one who genuinely cared about the privacy of her kids would have either said no or been extremely careful to release the information as soberly as possible.
And what happens thereafter? She pushes her daughter into a public spotlight, subsequently making her an abstinence advocate, and supporting her appearance on a reality show. She engages in a public family spat with the father of her grandson, Tripp. And she parades a special needs infant in front of the press, dangles him half-naked in front of book tour crowds, uses him constantly as a rhetorical campaign prop, and cites him at almost every speech to appeal to pro-life voters. She also uses her son, Track, to appeal to veterans and the military. She brings her children with her throughout her now two-year campaign for national office, disturbing their schooling and rendering them vulnerable to further inquiry from the tabloids, even as they strike deal(s) with tabloids for their own stories.
Exactly! Sarah Palin uses her children as both a lure to attract positive media attention and a shield to deflect critical media attention. And her schizophrenic response to media attention directed at ehr family is perhaps one of the most troubling aspects of her personality.
You can read more of Sullivan's take down of the Grizzled Mama by clicking the link, and I advise that you do so because it is a thing of beauty. (And if you can stomach it you can also click the link to the Glenn Beck interview, it is just chock full of the crazy, including the now famous North Korea gaffe.)
Update: Here is a still of Sarah "inspiring" her ghostwriter to work faster to help her make her next millions off of her emotionally unstable supporters.
In the beginning of this Facebook rant Palin's ghostwriters mashed together a number of gaffes made by President Obama, many of them occurring during his exhausting campaign and health care debate, apparently to illustrate that the media does not report HIS verbal blunders with the same aggression and consistency that they report Sister Sarah's.
I will not cut and paste it here because I want to focus on Palin's completely over the top response, on Thanksgiving Day no less, to the criticism that came from the fact that she mixed up South and North Korea. (You can read the cobbled together "speech" of Obama gaffes by clicking the "Facebook rant" link above.)
Of course, the paragraph above is based on a series of misstatements and verbal gaffes made by Barack Obama (I didn’t have enough time to do one for Joe Biden). YouTube links are provided just in case you doubt the accuracy of these all too human slips-of-the-tongue. If you can’t remember hearing about them, that’s because for the most part the media didn’t consider them newsworthy. I have no complaint about that. Everybody makes the occasional verbal gaffe – even news anchors.
Obviously, I would have been even more impressed if the media showed some consistency on this issue. Unfortunately, it seems they couldn’t resist the temptation to turn a simple one word slip-of-the-tongue of mine into a major political headline. The one word slip occurred yesterday during one of my seven back-to-back interviews wherein I was privileged to speak to the American public about the important, world-changing issues before us.
If the media had bothered to actually listen to all of my remarks on Glenn Beck’s radio show, they would have noticed that I refer to South Korea as our ally throughout, that I corrected myself seconds after my slip-of-the-tongue, and that I made it abundantly clear that pressure should be put on China to restrict energy exports to the North Korean regime. The media could even have done due diligence and checked my previous statements on the subject, which have always been consistent, and in fact even ahead of the curve. But why let the facts get in the way of a good story? (And for that matter, why not just make up stories out of thin air – like the totally false hard news story which has run for three days now reporting that I lobbied the producers of “Dancing with the Stars” to cast a former Senate candidate on their show. That lie is further clear proof that the media completely makes things up without doing even rudimentary fact-checking.)
“Hope springs eternal” as the poet says. Let’s hope that perhaps, just maybe, they might get it right next time. When we the people are effective in holding America’s free press accountable for responsible and truthful reporting, then we shall all have even more to be thankful for!
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!
- Sarah Palin
Wow! Can you believe THAT post?
This is essentially an entire post that could be summed up with "Not fair! Not fair! Not fair! He said a stupid thing too, why is everybody always picking on ME?
What Palin, and whoever spent all day yesterday researching her little bitch-fest for her, fail to understand is that, unlike Palin, the huge majority of things that the President says are highly intelligent and delivered with authority.
However Sarah Palin is a potpourri of ridiculous statements and uneducated responses to questions from reporters. Even the reporters on Fox News.
From her Katie Couric interviews, to the turkey slaughter video I put up yesterday, Palin stumbles every time she is without a carefully scripted speech delivered to a receptive audience. And even THEN she can fuck it up.
And then we have President Obama who almost always gives a seamless speech, and even when in a room full of hostile Republicans without the help of teleprompters, can not only stand his ground but use his vast intellect to eat their lunch for them.
You know the funny thing is I kind of agreed with Caribou Barbie about the North Korea slip up. I DID listen to the rest of the interview with Glenn Beck and heard her refer to North Korea in the proper context, and even though I was sent the link over a dozen times, I gave it a pass. My feeling was that she had said more ignorant things in the past, and would say more ignorant things in the future, so jumping on this seemed a little petty.
That is until today.
Sure anybody can make a mistake, Sarah Palin's staff of researchers just proved that in this Facebook post, but what is much more news worthy is the Grizzled Mama's over the top reaction to being called out on HER mistakes.
Remember this is a woman who wants to seriously be considered for the MOST IMPORTANT job in America, and THIS is how she responds to criticism.
Sarah Palin is the most thin skinned and defensive person on the political stage, can ANYBODY seriously believe that she could handle the kind of intense scrutiny and criticism that she would receive on the campaign trail, much less in the White House?
Unbelievably Palin does not even get 23 seconds into this interview before telling her first lie. It has yet to get below zero in either Anchorage or Wasilla. Pathological liars lie about everything!
Now I am a guy, with all of the accoutrement's and bison-like body hair to prove it, but even I was offended by Sarah Palin's accusation that feminists of the 60' and 70's focused on seeing themselves as "victims" and that they send a message to young women that "society and men will hold them back and hold them down."
Now just let that roll around in your brain for a moment.
Is it possible that Palin has NO idea what it was like for women before the Women's Rights Movement started on the long difficult journey toward equal rights? Is it possible that this moron actually believes that things have always been as they are now, and that these pioneers are simply whiners?
Sarah Palin referring to herself as a "common sense, conservative, Constitutional feminist" (Where is "feminism" in the Constitution?) is a slap in the face to the women, like my own mother, who worked demeaning jobs, sometimes two at a time, to raise their children in a world where their contribution was worth almost half the dollar amount that a man, doing essentially the same job, was worth to their exclusively male bosses.
If those brave women had not stood up for themselves and demanded equal pay and equal opportunity Sarah Palin would not even exist.
Think about it. If far more competent and capable women had not demonstrated that females could enter politics and do as well in that arena as their male counterparts, Caribou Barbie would not have been able to pageant walk and wink her way onto the national stage.
I bet Gloria Steinem is kicking herself right now for opening the door to this idiot.
At the 3:30 mark Palin essentially allows everybody to see how little she understands or respects the feminist movement by characterizing the conservative women who emerged victorious during this last election cycle as "strong, powerful, smart, and adorable." "Adorable?"
Right now Susan B. Anthony is beating her head against the top of her casket in frustration. What a complete joke.
Later Palin refers to the hard work of our "foremothers." But since she seemed to disrespect the "foremothers" of the sixties and seventies who could she be referring to?
Maybe we could just ask her.
"Can you name your favorite foremother Ms. Palin"
"All of them."
Of course, what was I thinking?
Is it too early to start drinking? I mean it IS Thanksgiving.
Never mind I can get through this, only two thirds of the way left to go.
Sister Sarah also seems to have been laboring under the belief that Bristol was "too busy and too accomplished, as a seventeen year old daughter" to have sex? (5:35 in the video). What in the hell does THAT mean?
Not to be too mean on Thanksgiving, but from what I can tell, having sex and getting pregnant, ARE Bristol's biggest accomplishment. Let's face it, without having made that decision would she be getting paid for speaking engagements, or been given a spot on DWTS?
Uh, nope!
Instead of giving thanks to God for her success on DWTS Bristol should be thanking Levi's raging hormones and condom-less penis. Now wouldn't THAT be an interesting prayer for Sarah to overhear?
Next up in the interview Sarah gives, I kid you not, parenting advice.
(My prediction for Sarah Palin's next book "How to raise an Oxycontin addicted, vodka guzzling, baby factory, in a Jim Jones style compound, for only 12 million a year." Guaranteed to be a bestseller!)
At the 10:46 mark the Grizzled Mama rises up, manicured claws at the ready, to address poor little Willow's attempt to protect her family from the scurrilous attacks made by a young man on his own Facebook page, when he dared to write "Sarah Palin's Alaska is failing so hard right now."
Her description is that he was "blogging very, very negative things about the family?" Which raises the question, is Sister Sarah unable to differentiate between criticism of her family and criticism of a television show?
The facts are, for those of us who recognize reality when we see it, that Willow went to this kids Facebook page, where he was expressing his opinion about a reality show to HIS friends, and started bad mouthing him in front of his friends and family. How is THAT defending your family against an attack?
I believe that Willow saw it as an attack because these children have been raised to believe that when anybody offers an opinion, even a fairly innocuous one, about them, or their family, they are essentially under attack.
For most people hearing somebody make a factual statement about you, or having them disagree with your point of view about something, is no cause for alarm. But for the Palins it is time to fire up the ghostwriters, aim your attorney in their direction, and then top it off by going after their sexuality.
Now at the 12:30 mark Palin makes the comment, referring to Willow using inappropriate language in her attack on Facebook, that SHE needs to "guard my conversation more around my kids." Is she admitting that Willow learned to say "fuck," "shit," and call people a "faggot" from HER?
(From what I have heard about the language in that house I certainly would not doubt that, but I can't believe she would admit it on Fox News in front of her fans.)
Then immediately after saying how wrong it was for Willow to use that type of language Palin turns right around and brags about her kid being tough enough to take on the people "calling her little brother bad names and doing all that they can to discredit the family."
I have looked through the transcript of the Facebook back and forth several times and I cannot see where ANYBODY said anything at all about Trig . (You can check for yourself here) So essentially Sarah lied about that fact just to gin up even more sympathy for her poor victimized family. That is truly pathological.
When Sarah asks out loud why they can't sue when stories about them show up in tabloids, the answer is because the stories about her family are usually true. And if they aren't completely true there is enough truth in them that they do not want to focus any more media attention in that direction.
Okay now around the 14:08 mark this interview dips into some truly bizarre territory when Queen Esther suggests that the reason why the world seems unjust toward their family is because "man has fallen."
"Man has fallen?" The reason Palin offers to Willow to explain why people call her family out on their lies and obfuscation is because of "Original Sin?" In other words ALL of the Palin's difficulties are traced back to when that bitch Eve convinced Adam to take a bite out of an apple? "Holy misunderstanding scripture Batman!"
Gee and here we are wondering why Willow pounds down Vodka like a Russian sailor on shore leave?
If this clip does nothing else, it offers a bizarre look inside of a very troubled mind. One that sees demonic forces and Satan himself as barriers standing in the way of her aspirations. And where the struggles of women, because they might be liberal, are of no value since all they really had to do was to stop seeing themselves as victims. In short it is the mind of a person with no understanding of why or how things are the way they are. Only that when things go in her favor it is God's will, and when they don't evil is to blame.
It is an uneducated child's simple view of the world, not that of an accomplished and worldly adult woman.
I am always puzzled, after sitting through one of these insane interviews, how anybody with a functioning intellect could listen to her speak and still believe she has anything of substance to offer.
She is nothing more than a circus act. There is no rabbit in the hat. The Alligator Man has a simple skin condition. And the clowns are not really smiling.
It is all for show. That is why the circus folk refer to their customers as "rubes."
Update: Here is the transcript for those who cannot manage to listen to the entire interview.
