Rep. Carl Gatto, a teabagger from Palmer, Alaska, wants to pass a law to stop Sharia law from overtaking the state. The tiny minority of Alaska Muslims look up to say, "Wait, what are we trying to do?"

From ADN:

Palmer Republican Rep. Carl Gatto has set off a political firestorm with a bill aimed at stopping what he deems as the potential of Islamic religious law -- Sharia -- trumping the U.S. Constitution in Alaska courts.

What in the hell is this guy talking about?  Who could possibly support wasting our Alaska Legislatior's time on this bullshit/

Gatto said he has strong support of Mat-Su area tea party groups...

Oh, now I see it is an idea hatched by the knuckle draggers and paint chip eaters in Wasilla and Palmer.  How could I have NOT seen that coming?

However to be fair to Gatto, which by the way is Italian for "asshole," he is not the only low functioning moron attempting to stop those terrible Muslims from implementing Islamic law in their states. Even though there is NO evidence that any American Muslims are actively attempting to do any such thing.

It's part of a push nationally by conservative state legislators, with similar measures introduced in more than a dozen states.

However just because there are other low functioning political types doing the same thing, it does not provide any cover for Mr. Asshole Gatto.  Somebody once told me that even if a million people do a stupid thing, it is STILL a stupid thing.

By the way exactly how many Muslims do we even HAVE in Alaska?

A member of the Islamic Community Center of Alaska sent an email addressed to Gatto saying 4,000 to 6,000 Muslims live peacefully in Alaska and asking him to "please do not ignite hate and misunderstanding." Another Muslim from Anchorage, Lamin Jobarteh, said Muslims follow U.S. law. There is no Sharia law in Alaska, he said.

"There is nothing like that. We have a harmonious relationship with everybody here," said Jobarteh, who said he's originally from Gambia and has lived in Anchorage for the past 17 years.

"4,000 to 6,000?"  How in the hell is a group that makes up less than 1% of the population in our state supposed to impose ANYTHING on the rest of us? 


You know it seems pretty clear to me that Rep. Gallo is suffering from a pronounced case of xenophobia. And that he clearly fears anything that is unlike him, or that threatens his belief that Christianity is the all time bestest religion in the whole wide world.

However what he is doing could be very harmful to the peace loving Muslims who live in our state.

And what Rep. Gatto fails to understand is that making these accusations about a people who have done him no harm, and who have only professed a desire to live in harmony, can smear their good name and cause them to suffer harassment or threatening behavior by those who take Rep. Gatto at his word.

Now I don't actually know Rep. Gatto. I have only seen him the one time standing outside in his robe while I drove past.  But he seemed quite pleasant and even waved to me.

However I have to believe that deep down inside Rep. Gatto is a decent man, and I implore him to simply drop this ridiculous idea and get back to working on things of substance that really matter to the people of Alaska.  Especially since it appears that even IF, by some miracle, this law were to pass, it would not make one bit of difference to how law is practiced in this state anyhow.

Anchorage Democratic Rep. Max Gruenberg said the bill as written wouldn't apply to criminal law, and asked a lawyer for the state whether she could see a scenario where the bill would make any difference in how the laws are being applied in Alaska.

"I've had difficulty figuring out how it could ever be applied," said Assistant Attorney General Mary Ellen Beardsley.

You know if the teabaggers are all so fired up about saving the state some money, perhaps they could start by not spending valuable tax payer money on frivolous bullshit like this!

Just a thought.

Writing from overseas Joe Klein is aghast at what he terms our American Embarrassment.

Courtesy of Swampland:

This is my 10th presidential campaign, Lord help me. I have never before seen such a bunch of vile, desperate-to-please, shameless, embarrassing losers coagulated under a single party's banner. They are the most compelling argument I've seen against American exceptionalism. Even Tim Pawlenty, a decent governor, can't let a day go by without some bilious nonsense escaping his lizard brain. And, as Greg Sargent makes clear, Mitt Romney has wandered a long way from courage. There are those who say, cynically, if this is the dim-witted freak show the Republicans want to present in 2012, so be it. I disagree. One of them could get elected. You never know. Mick Huckabee, the front-runner if you can believe it, might have to negotiate a trade agreement, or a defense treaty, with the Indonesian President some day. Newt might have to discuss very delicate matters of national security with the President of Pakistan. And so I plead, as an unflinching American patriot--please Mitch Daniels, please Jeb Bush, please run. I may not agree with you on most things, but I respect you. And you seem to respect yourselves enough not to behave like public clowns.

While I hold no such confidence that Jeb Bush or Mitch Daniels are really that much better than the current crop of ridiculous Republicans teasing the voters about possible 2012 Presidential run, I do share Mr. Klein's view that this whole thing is ungodly embarrassing.

Let's face it the rise of the Teabaggers has signified the intellectual bottom dropping out of the GOP.

The only way to gain support in today's Republican party is to pander to the most under educated, simple minded, and racist group of Americans in the country. That is just a cold hard fact of life.

And by the way, if you are looking for whom to thank for that, you need look no further than Fox News, Sarah Palin, and Evangelical right.

Heartbreaking.

Alye Pollack, Connecticut teenager, victim of bullying, crying out for help.

Statistics on Bullying.

Fourth search warrant released in case against Peacemaker's militia members reveals new, and chilling, details about murder plot.

redire

From Alaska Dispatch:

The fourth federal search warrant to be unsealed in connection with weapons and murder plot charges levied earlier this month in federal court against a handful of Fairbanks-based militia members reveals new details about how Lonnie and Karen Vernon of Salcha allegedly planned to kill a federal judge and his family members. The new documents also show that the Vernons were betrayed by someone they knew. One of the informants the government used to build its case was not only a member of the Alaska Peacekeeper Militia, a group Vernon and others charged in the case belong to, but was also a coworker of Lonnie Vernon's on a recent construction job.

Now I have had some fun at the expense these militia idiots, pointing out how disorganized they were, how crazily conspiratorial their thinking was, and how easily they were manipulated by the FBI. But make no mistake these guys were definitely dangerous.

Especially this Lonnie Vernon guy who decided that it was better to murder multiple innocent people rather than be forced to pay his taxes.

As militia members discussed the situation, including a member who was secretly working for government investigators and who was also a construction co-worker of Lonnie Vernon's, Lonnie Vernon said no matter what happened, he would win, according to Westerhaus's version of events. And, a new silencer Vernon had ordered would come in handy in waging his battle.

"Vernon said that every day of his life the judge would be looking for that silencer to hit him in the back of his head," Westerhaus wrote in his affidavit to the court. "Vernon also said the judge is trying to play God over his family."

Vernon also threatened to kill members of the judge's family, the receptionist at the IRS office and an IRS agent, authorities say.

The informant had also reported that the Vernons had "numerous handguns, shotguns and assault rifles that were strategically placed at doors and windows," and that Vernon had said "he has designed his house as an ambush site and added that if 'the feds' show up he would do harm to them."

"Lonnie Vernon described his plan to kill all of Judge Beistline's family on one coordinated operation," begins Westerhaus's narrative of the events that day. "Vernon said that he would need (the confidential source's) and Coleman Barney's assistance to strike three residences at once."

The Vernons' plan called for Karen Vernon to drop her husband off near a dark area close to the home of one of Beistline's relatives, where two children also lived. Lonnie Vernon would then break into the house, "shoot everyone in the head with his new silencer" and burn the house down using glass jars filled with gasoline.

Authorities also say Vernon then tasked Barney and the informant with killing two other family members of the judge, who lived in separate houses. Lonnie Vernon handed the informant a piece of paper with addresses and descriptions of the people who lived there, and Karen gave directions to the locations, according to the affidavit in support of the search warrant.

I would hope that there is a very definite line that MOST anti-government wingnuts recognize between wanting the Federal and local government to leave them alone, and the decision to MAKE them leave them alone by murdering their children.

I have heard these "2nd Amendment Task Force" guys, and Teabaggers talk about using their second amendment rights to stand up to government intrusion into their lives, but the idea that meant murdering judges in their homes and slaughtering their children never really occurred to me.

So far there has been a deafening silence coming from local militia members and members of the 2nd Amendment Task Force concerning these arrests.  However I would like to have it clarified if THIS kind of aggression directed toward law enforcement officials is something they condone or something they abhor like the rest of the American citizens?

America awaits your reply gentlemen.

Jon Stewart points out the ridiculous, and comical attempts by the GOP 2012 Presidential nominees to attract support from their base.

Part One

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Apparently the folks at the Daily Show did not hear about the very last, and VERY comical stupidity that followed the Donald's attempt to show how simple it was to produce his birth certificate.  Too bad because I can only imagine how much fun they would have had with that!

Sarah Palin is pissed off and dammit EVERYBODY is going to hear about it! And by "everybody" of course I mean only those who read her Tweets or Facebook posts.

Look I don't know if it was something she read, or something she heard, or something she ate, but something or someone sure took a piss in the Grizzled Mama's cornflakes early this morning.

She started off by tweeting this about four o'clock in the morning Alaska time:

My, how the world of journalism changed w/this obsession to destroy subjects via exploiting out-of-context sound bites http://bit.ly/gOUOSu 11 hours ago via Twitter for BlackBerry®

The link is to a Howard Kurtz article for the Daily Beast that condemns the use of short sound bites to discredit public figures.  The article does not mention Palin by name, and really mostly spanks the right wing while only tapping the wrist of the left to give it balance, but that does not stop Snowdrift Snooki from assuming that  it is all about her. ("Everything is about me, me, me! Even if they don't know it!)

Later, at about nine o'clock our time, Palin actually finds something that DOES pertain to her, and fires up the RAM to pound out a Facebook response on her behalf, and a tweet to alert the flying monkeys.

Setting the Record Straight on State’s Film Production Tax Credit http://fb.me/F1W7h14H
8 hours ago via Facebook

This was in response to the the conservative website, the Daily Caller, suggesting that Palin's reality show benefited directly from tax breaks that SHE implemented while she was Governor. Here is the beginning of RAM's Facebook response:

Goodness, cleaning up the sloppiness of reporters could be a full time job. In response to The Daily Caller's online inquiry, I gave them a statement that the writer buried on his story’s second page (which most people won’t even notice – I didn’t even notice it) after he spent the first page completely spinning a situation to give the impression that Alaska’s film production tax credit legislation was somehow solely my idea hatched up to benefit the Palins years before I was ever involved in a documentary series on TLC/Discovery Channel. Here’s setting the record straight: As Governor, I signed into law a popular bipartisan bill that was crafted and passed by others and has resulted in numerous Alaska-based productions that are airing today. The only alternative to signing the legislature’s work product would have been for me to veto their legislation, which would have been useless. Besides all that, their legislation worked.

It is hard to tell if Palin is more pissed at the suggestion that she created a tax break in 2008 so that she could benefit from it in 2010, or if she is more pissed that they dared to put her denial of that can think that far ahead on the second page of the article. (I vote for the second one.)

However Palin was too fired up to spend all day bitching about a flippin' tax break that she certainly did not flippin' sign onto a bill to get more flippin' money,  and plus she suddenly realized that she had not criticized the President for hours, perhaps even days.  So just one hour later she took to Twitter again:

FLASHBACK: What We Were Saying One Year Ago About Obama’s Failed Energy Policy http://fb.me/NKPVi1mb
7 hours ago via Facebook

Palin was so excited to be on the attack again that she tweeted about it twice:

POTUS Manipulating U.S. Energy Supply... http://fb.me/NKPVi1mb
7 hours ago via web

Yep BOTH of those links lead to the RAM written Facebook post, which starts off as follows:

It’s unbelievable (literally) the rhetoric coming from President Obama today. This is coming from he who is manipulating the U.S. energy supply.

You can almost see the smile that must have been on Palin's face, and smell the venom dripping from her lips, as RAM read to her what "Palin" just wrote on Facebook.

So finally Sister Sarah undoubtedly felt she could sit back on her rocking chair made out of polar bear skin and the bones of baby seals and relax, knowing that asses had been kicked and names had been taken. (Oh yes, names had DEFINITELY been taken!)

Except something was still bothering the fabled "Star of  the North."  Was she forgetting something, she asked herself?  Maybe something coming up in the near future, that had gotten out of hand, and started more silly rumors that she needed to "squirmish" under one of her red Naughty Monkey Pump heels perhaps?

Aha!  She finally shook off the Red Bull and diet pill haze and remembered what it was!

But now RAM her trusty sidekick was completely used up and lying on her undersized bed in her tiny apartment pounding down Mallomars in an attempt to recharge her batteries.

What was Palin to do?  The event was only two days away and she had to do something to avoid looking stupid (again)!  She already decided to have Todd make a call, but she needed somebody competent to clean up whatever mess he might make!

There was really only one option left. She had to RELEASE THE STAPLETONGUE!!!

So Palin picked up her trusty hockey stick, that one she uses to keep Todd away from her when he has no pocket money for prostitutes, and swung it at the box with the words "BREAK GLASS FOR EMERGENCY SPOKESPERSON" printed on it.

Afterward, smelling of moth balls and pulling dust bunnies from her hair, "Meg the Mouth" reached out to Fox News:

Fox News also spoke with Meg Stapleton, Palin’s former spokeswoman, who says that there would be no major announcement of any kind on Friday. Stapleton has remained in contact with the Palin family and also spoke with Tim Crawford, Palin’s chief fundraiser, about the rumor.

The big news was supposedly going to be broken on KWHL’s “Bob and Mark In the Morning” show. The two hosts did nothing to shoot down the speculation.

Bob Lester, one of the hosts, responded to inquiries in an email saying he did not know what Palin would be talking about Friday. “We can only hope she announces something ‘Big,’” he wrote.

Stapleton says the hosts are more like "shock jocks" than newsmen, although Bob is described as a conservative who has been very good to Palin.

(Scoot over a smidge everybody, we have to make room for Bob and Mark under the Palin bus. Well there goes the neighborhood!)

I would assume at this point the Grizzled Mama is lying on her queen sized bed, just big enough for her and her Ginormous ego, rolling Tawd's testicles around in her palm like those Chinese Boading Balls, and thinking to herself, "What is that Latin phrase for tweeting the crap out of the day? Carped Damn...wait...Carpet Damp...no that's not it...Corpse Dump....oh fudge...what is that flippin' phrase again?  Well I seized the damn day by the cojones is what I did, so take that Mr. Obama!"

Good night America, and you make sure you get some good sleep, because there is just no telling what this crazy bitch will do next!

Member of Peacemaker's Militia delivers phony legal documents to the court on behalf of Shaeffer Cox, resulting in two misdemeanors for him and two new ones for Cox. Quite the intellectual conclave they have up there in Fairbanks isn't it?

From the Fairbanks Newsminer:

A member of Francis “Schaeffer” Cox’s Peacemaker’s militia was charged with a pair of misdemeanor offenses for delivering fake court documents to court officials, including a purported restraining order demanding that law enforcement officers stay 1,000 feet from Cox.

The papers were delivered in December and January while the district court was preparing to try Cox on a misdemeanor weapons charge.

Kenneth R. Thesing was issued summons on Friday to face two counts of “simulating legal process,” the crime of sending fake court documents with the intent of causing the recipient to take an action.

Many of the documents are signed by Cox and address his belief that he is a sovereign citizen and not subject to the state court. In the documents, Cox refers to a trial held for him at the Fairbanks Denny’s Restaurant by members of his Alaska Assembly Post group.

Each count of simulating legal process is a class A misdemeanor, punishable by a maximum of one year in jail.

Cox also is mentioned in the charging document and faces these two counts, district attorney Michael Gray said.

Thesing has not been implicated in any of the felony offenses Cox and four of his Peacemaker Militia members have been accused of. Cox and the others were arrested March 10 for allegedly plotting to kill and kidnap government authorities.

Filed with the charges are 22 pages of documents allegedly delivered by Thesing. They have also been entered as evidence in the state felony case against Cox.

In the documents Cox refers to himself as the Commander-in-Chief for the delegates of the United State of America as amended to 1791 A.D., the year the U.S. Constitution was ratified.

He uses a number of official-looking symbols including a U.S. Flag with 13 stars, which bears the label 2010 civilian flag of peace and a seal with the words “First Judicial District of Tens, Interior Region, Alaska.”

The restraining order he says Alaska officials have “invaded the Republic, under color of law, with acts of war,” and orders them to keep their distance from Cox.

The last document is a letter to Superior Court Judge Michael McConahy, asking him to present testimony at the Denny’s trial.

Read more: Fairbanks Daily News-Miner - Charges filed against one of Schaeffer Cox s militia followers

Doesn't the Fairbanks Court system get it? 

Schaeffer Cox was already tried and found innocent while enjoying the Grand Slam breakfast at the local Denny's restaurant/"sovereign court of the lunatic fringe." 

I know what you are thinking, "Well Gryphen that is just crazy."

Really?  Well then perhaps you are unaware that the Denny's restaurant is a sovereign nation unto itself.

Or have you NOT read the Denny's Bill of Rights.

See? Not only are they much easier to understand than our country's Bill of Rights, but they also smell of delicious maple syrup.  And here you thought Schaeffer Cox and his Peacemaker's militia were a bunch of idiots.

Now don't you feel silly?

Jon Stewart gives props to President Obama for his measured approach to Libya, and then tries to figure out what the hell Palin meant by using the word "squirmish."

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The two faces of conservatism in America.

Last year the University of Washington Institute for the Study of Ethnicity, Race, and Sexuality decided to conduct a survey of conservatives to determine if indeed the driving force behind the Teabaggers was racism.  Wanna guess what they found?

To capture the difference between the two camps, we asked whether or not people thought the following proposition true: “Barack Obama is destroying the country.” If Tea Party conservatives were as extreme as some suggest, we thought asking a question of this type, i.e., fairly extreme, would tease out differences between the two camps. The data suggest the two conservative factions are divided on this question. Under these circumstances, 6% of non-Tea Party conservatives believe the president is destroying the country versus the 71% of Tea Party conservatives who believe this to be true.

With such a wide disparity in the sentiments held toward the president’s stewardship of the country and his policies, we sought to identify other possible sources of difference. To do so, we took advantage of a battery of questions in which we probed respondents for their knowledge of the president, including whether or not he was born in the United States, has a birth certificate, is a practicing Muslim, and a practicing Christian. Again, differences between non-Tea Party and Tea Party conservatives emerge. When asked about President Obama’s religious orientation, 27% of Tea Party conservatives believe that Obama is a practicing Muslim compared to 16% of non- Tea Party conservatives, both relatively low; nevertheless, an 11-point difference. More conservative type believe the president a practicing Christian, 27% of Tea Party conservatives versus 46% of non-Tea Party conservatives, but the gap here is even larger: 19%. When it comes to President Obama’s national origin, 40% of Tea Party conservatives believe that Obama was born in the U.S. compared to 55% of non-Tea Party conservatives. Additionally, 26% of Tea Party conservatives believe that President Obama does not have a birth certificate, while 17% of non-Tea Party conservatives believe this to be the case.

Don't forget that if 46% of Teabaggers believe that Obama is a Christian, that leaves a whopping 54% who do not, and that over a quarter of them believe he is a follower of Islam despite all evidence to the contrary. The data also demonstrates that an amazing 60% of the Teabaggers, and 45% of regular conservatives, believe the President was NOT born in this country, and is therefore not eligible to be our President. And that is AFTER President Obama volunteered his birth certificate for examination, something that NO other President has ever been asked to do.

I recently became curious and dug up a copy of my own birth certificate and found that it matches President Obama's almost exactly.  Oddly enough nobody has ever suggested that it is a forgery or that I needed to provide a more comprehensive version.

But just in case this data is not enough to convince you of the deeply ingrained racism that runs through the Republican party, and the even deeper vein that runs through the Tea Party,  perhaps this next bit of information will.

Since we had such a high number of people saying that they either had no opinion on these questions, or didn’t know the answer, we checked to see if whether or not the perceived race of the interviewer (it’s a telephonic survey) affected the likelihood of offering a “no opinion” or “don’t know” response. It matters. If the interviewer was perceived as white, conservatives were less likely (to) say “don’t know” or “no opinion” than if the interviewer was perceived as non-white. In the latter case, respondents were far more likely to opt for these options. We also found that conservatives were more likely to view President Obama as alien if they believed themselves to be interviewed by someone white than a non-white interviewer.

Look let's stop pretending that the majority of the crap coming this President's way is not motivated by the fact that he has too much pigment in his skin, because it is.  He has been called a socialist, a terrorist,  a Muslim, the anti-Christ, un-American, a liar, a Nazi, and that is just to name a few.

But if you got right down to it, the REAL reason that he is constantly called those names is because his critics are too timid to call him what they really, really want to call him. Which is a nigger!

Did reading that word shock you?  Did it make you feel angry? Upset? Embarrassed? Well good, that is exactly how it should make you feel!

But also know that it is BECAUSE that word elicits such a response from you  that the Teabaggers, and certain conservatives, don't use it. You can bet your ass they use it when they don't think anybody can hear them, but out in public they choose code words instead.

You know the code words don't you? Like socialist, or Nazi, or Muslim, or, if they are especially cowardly, they simply question whether his birth certificate is real or not.

That's right, I said it.

John McCain was born in Panama.  Did a group of angry Americans rise up demanding HIS birth certificate? No they did not.

Did he have to answer endless questions about whether or not he met the requirements to be President of the United States. Of course not.

Why?  Because John McCain has so little pigment in his skin that he gets a new bout of skin cancer every time he stands under fluorescent light bulbs for too long, that's why!

Now ask yourself what would have happened if Barack Obama had been born in Panama? 

See my point?

No other President has EVER been asked about his birth certificate. Does anybody really believe it is just a coincidence that the first one questioned like this is an African American?

Look people can tell themselves any lie they must to help them sleep at night. But if you find yourself looking for a reason to think of Barack Obama as "the other," or non-legitimate in some way, then, as I suggested before, you need to stand in front of a mirror and watch yourself make the argument for why you want to believe that Obama's mother would have smuggled him into America after giving birth in Kenya, why two newspapers would have printed his birth announcement, why even after he provided a copy of his birth certificate these questions were not put to rest, and why his place of birth was ever questioned in the first place.

If after you have made your argument to yourself, you are not completely embarrassed and feel like slinking off into a corner, then you need to further probe the question as to why you so desperately cling to the theory that Barack Obama is undeserving of his position.

After all of that if you find yourself still firmly in the "Obama is not a real American" camp, you need to honestly ask yourself if there isn't a word that is tickling the back of your throat, just dying to come out, that would sum up your feelings about this President better than just "un-American," or  "non-Christian," or "socialist."

Come on, you can say it.  Or are you just a coward?

Lawrence O'Donnell tries to make sense out of the Teabaggers response to the President's Libyan speech.

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"Now I am not well versed enough in Palin-speak to know what else she just said in that muddle of words."

Gotta love that!

Could there be a MORE appropriate day for Sarah Palin to announce her candidacy for 2012 than on April 1st? I don't think so.

From Hollywood Life:

A source from the station tells HollywoodLife.com, “Looks like Palin might be on this Friday at 7:30 a.m. Working out details now, but right now it’s about 99% locked in. Gonna be a BIG ANNOUNCEMENT!” Sarah has said all along — including on the final episode of her TLC show Sarah Palin’s Alaska — that she would announce her candidacy on the radio via Bob and Mark.

You know Hollywood Life is right, Palin DID promise that if she were to announce her candidacy it WOULD happen on the Bob and Mark Show. (Which all by itself demonstrates Palin's complete lack of seriousness.)

The funny thing is that earlier today I was on the phone with a friend from England who was asking me what I thought about this. I started to respond with "It is a ridiculous notion that Sarah Palin would tell the world she is running for President on April Fool's Day. I mean she would have to be"...and then I stopped.

She would have to be what?

I ended up telling my friend that I had no idea if she would announce or not, but that if ANYBODY would choose such a ridiculous day it would HAVE to be Klondike Kardashian herself.

So do I think Sarah Palin is actually going to announce that she is throwing her hat into the ring for 2012? I would REALLY like to say, "Of course not!"  However this IS Sarah "death panels, blood libel, squirmishes" Palin.

What BETTER day for her to announce perhaps the most foolish, and ill-conceived Presidential candidacy of all time, than on April the first, better known as April Fool's Day?

BTW personally I will NOT be listening to the Bob and Mark show on Friday, because I have a low tolerance for assholes.  But if any of you hear that she announces, please let me know and, just as soon as I stop laughing, I will put up a post excoriating her for being such a moron.

Sarah Palin continues her very public nervous breakdown as she demonstrates her inability to understand the President's speech, has teleprompter problems, and misquotes the Alaska State Song.

Palin clearly did not listen the President's speech (Which you can hear for yourself right here), and simply looked for the parts that she, and RAM, felt were weaknesses in his argument.  (By the way listening to SARAH PALIN say that the President "did not articulate what our purpose was" is almost surreal.  This is a woman whose communication skills have been labeled "word salad" now telling the world that one of the greatest orators in the history of this country was "not articulate." Irony does not eve BEGIN to cover that.)

Palin's warmongering is out of control here and she seems to have no limit to her thirst for Middle Eastern blood.  (It kind of gives you a hint as to how Jeremy Morlock came by his lack of compassion for those he refers to as "ragheads" or "Haji" doesn't it?)

She clearly has no qualms with continuing the regime change philosophy embraced by George W. Bush, and seems almost sexually excited with the idea of taking Gaddafi out.

At some point during this interview it dawned me that Palin seemed very prepared for the questions Greta was posing to her.  Almost like they were scripted.

In the past I have been a little hesitant to believe that is the case, but then something happens at the 5:05 point that sort of makes it obvious.  If you notice Palin momentary looks stunned and then looks down at some notes in front of her to help her answer the questions. 

This clearly demonstrates that she was using a teleprompter, which must have malfunctioned.  She then looks at notes on the desk in front of her which MUST have been written with the full knowledge of what Greta was going to ask. Amazingly this means that as stupid as Palin sounds in this interview, she is actually using a script to help her to appear smarter!

Without this kind of help Palin would undoubtedly make an even bigger ass out of herself than she did in this interview. Which means I guess we can blame a Mansour typo for Palin's use of the word "squirmish" at the 7:13 mark.  (By the way "squirmish" is how I feel every time I have to listen to Snowdrift Snooki speak.)

At the 8:03 mark Palin suddenly brightens as if she saw a Democrat get hit by a car, because she then gets to talk about Obama's reference to the North Star. As many of you probably already know Palin uses the North Star to identify herself, and references it constantly in her speeches.

I knew the second I heard it that Palin would automatically glom onto it for later use.

"I mention the North Star so often, the North Star is part of the Alaska flag where we..up here..are able to use as our GPS, as kind of..our..our plumb line.  The great North Star with its abiding light o'er land and sea a beacon bright."

In case you "out of staters" did not catch the reference, Caribou Barbie was trying to quote directly from the Alaska State song to make her point.  Sadly she is just as ignorant of the lyrics to our anthem as she is on how to conduct foreign relations in the world.

The Alaska State Song:

Eight stars of gold on a field of blue,

Alaska's flag, may it mean to you,

The blue of the sea, the evening sky,

The mountain lakes and the flowers nearby,

The gold of the early sourdough's dreams,

The precious gold of the hills and streams,

The brilliant stars in the northern sky,

The "Bear," the "Dipper," and shining high,

The great North Star with its steady light,

O'er land and sea a beacon bright,

Alaska's flag to Alaskans dear,

The simple flag of a last frontier.

Even with the help of her now functioning teleprompter Palin is a huge fuck up.

Have I mentioned lately how glad I am that she is no longer in charge of our state?

Update: Here is the transcript of the interview. Does not appear any more intelligent in print though.

Donald Trump tries to embarrass the President and gain the Birther vote by publishing his own birth certificate. Does not work out quite the way he imagines.

So the other day "The Donald" goes on this long, attention seeking  rant about how smart he is and that all he is asking for is to see the President's birth certificate, just to put the conspiracy to rest.  Of course he does this on Fox and Friends, which is essentially the "Today" show for the mentally handicapped.



Later the Trump chump decided to release his OWN birth certificate in a sort of "throw the gauntlet down" challenge to the President. (Yeah like he is paying attention to this moron!)

Here is a copy of that certificate:

There!  Now that the man with the stupidest hair on the planet has shown the President what an actual official birth certificate looks like, he feels he can demand the same from Obama.

Whoops, don't take that victory lap too soon Donnie-boy.

This from Politico:

The paper that Trump released says "Jamaica Hospital" on top and lists the date and time of what he says was his birth to "Mr. and Mrs. Fred C. Trump." The piece of paper has a seal at the bottom.

But after several New York City-based readers contacted POLITICO's Maggie Haberman, her call to city officials revealed that an actual birth certificate, which is issued by the Department of Health, would have the agency's seal and also a signature of the city registrar - neither of which the Trump document has. Officials said the city Health Department is the "sole issuing authority" of official birth certificates in New York, and that the document would clearly say so, and "city officials said it's not an official document."

It appears instead to be a hospital "certificate of birth," meaning the piece of paper the hospital gave to his family saying he was born. Such a document typically has the signature of the hospital administrator and the attending physician.

Trump lawyer and advisor Michael Cohen didn't respond to Haberman's question about the document.

Unbelievable!  I have to imagine that the Birthers are now as disappointed with Trump as the Donald's last three wives.  He promises, and promises, but just can't quite deliver.

I do believe that this is, in the words of my daughter, an EPIC FAIL!!!!

BTW if there are any birthers lurking here today.  Here is the link to Snopes.com so that you can see the President's legal, and completely satisfying birth certificate for yourselves.  And after you have looked at it go stare in the mirror for a few minutes so that you can have a clear picture in your mind of what a racist looks like.

President Obama explains to the American people why he felt we must help the Libyans. And how we did just that.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

For those who have trouble with the video here is a transcript courtesy of The Washington Times.

Arizona Republicans incredibly are using the idea of fighting racism as excuse to pass law to criminalize some abortions, and punish the doctors who perform them.

From Verde Independent:

PHOENIX -- State senators voted to make race- and gender-based abortions illegal, but not before adding provisions that could send doctors and others involved in these acts to prison.

Monday's 21-5 vote came amid charges and counter-charges about whether girls and blacks are being targeted in the womb. Lawmakers from each side cited figures designed to back their contentions.

The only clear thing is that the bill, which already has been approved in similar fashion by the House, is likely headed to the governor's desk, possibly by the end of the month. And Jan Brewer has signed every measure restricting abortion that has been sent to her.

HB 2443 does more than make criminals out of doctors who terminate a pregnancy knowing the woman's reason is to select the race or gender of the child. It also imposes criminal penalties on anyone who solicits or accepts funds to finance abortions based on race or sex.

Violators would face a presumptive prison term of 3.5 years.

That latter provision is aimed at Planned Parenthood. Proponents of the measure, citing undercover videos, say organization representatives have taken money from individuals interested in limiting births to African American women.

That these Republicans are hiding behind the idea of protecting minorities by outlawing abortions is laughable at best. The only evidence they produce for making the case that Planned Parenthood is accepting donations to fund some kind of "In Utero genocide" are these highly suspicious tapes made by James O'Keefe and his lackey Lila Rose.

You remember James O"Keefe and his fact free and fraudulently doctored anti-Acorn videos don't you?

Yet based on this kind of "information" Republicans in Arizona, and in other places across the country, feel justified in making abortions a criminal offense if it can be suggested that the reasons for the procedure are based on the race or sex of the fetus

Fortunately for the people of Arizona at least, there are some smart, no nonsense Democrats in the State Senate as well.

Sen. Linda Lopez, D-Tucson, said that's just a cover for a new restriction on abortion.

"This is one of the most offensive, odious pieces of legislation I've ever seen,' she said.

"It's sexist, it's racist, it's paternalistic, it's disrespectful of women's decision making and moral agency,' Lopez continued. And she chided the Republicans for pushing this legislation in the name of preventing discrimination while they have cut funds for health care and ignored "institutionalized poverty.'

"It seems that the proponents of this legislation only believe human life is valuable when it's in utero,' she said.

I could not have said it better myself.

There is at least one Republican in Arizona not afraid to just tell it like it is, without even bothering to hide behind the idea of standing up against racism as practiced by Planned Parenthood. (An idea so stupid, by the say, I cannot believe my fingers allowed me to type it.)

But Senate President Russell Pearce, R-Mesa, said he sees the bill as a means to that end.

"We have an obligation to protect the most innocent among us, the unborn,' he said. "Whatever we can do to limit the number of deaths of these unborn children, I'm always a 'yes' vote.'

Pearce said the only time a woman should have a choice is when the decision is saving the life of the mother or the unborn child.

"Now you have a real hard decision that a family must make,' he said. "But until then, it is our responsibility to save lives.'

That last part was just in case some of you were actually buying that whole "fighting racism" malarkey. This is all about taking a woman's rights over her own body away from her, plain and simple.

Apparently to be a Republican politician in 2011 is to have absolutely no shame.

Confirmed! William Fulton is one of the FBI informants who helped to bring Schaeffer Cox and his militia pals to justice.

The other day I was contacted out of the blue by somebody claiming to have inside information about William Fulton, Shaeffer Cox, and how the FBI gathered their evidence.

As usual I took it with a grain if salt, because individuals have tried to feed me misleading information in the past.

However I soon learned that this person was DEFINITELY somebody in the know and I had little trouble confirming their identity, and that their information was reliable.

As is usual in these cases I gathered quite bit of substantial, and fascinating information, only a portion of which I am able to share at this time.  However if you are patient, and can wait until the Cox trial is over, I have been assured this source will come out of the shadows and gladly go on the record.

One the things that I AM able to confirm is that William Fulton, aka "Drop Zone Bill," is indeed one of the FBI informants. 

As we assumed he is no longer in the state, as there are fears for the safety of both he and his family, but there is a chance he will make an appearance at the trial to testify, with protection provided by the Feds.

(Remember though the Alaska Militia may appear to be more Keystone Kops than mafia types, they are connected to a wider network of far more dangerous individuals who would relish the opportunity to silence a snitch.)

I also learned some interesting details about the case which leads me to believe that Shaeffer and his friends are S.O.L. when it comes to beating this in court. Let's just say the FBI did their homework.

Which brings me to our teabagging friend, and ex-Fulton employer, Joe Miller. According to this source, my previous characterization of Miller as somebody who right now is sitting in a pool of his own sweat, pulling on his sorry excuse for a beard, and trying to remember exactly what he might have said while in the company of his old buddy "Drop Zone Bill," was much closer to the truth than I could have previously imagined.

Let's just say the FBI is VERY thorough as well.

You know if all of this keeps up I am going to have to start putting extra time in on the treadmill just to work off all of the popcorn  I have been consuming lately.  It is like the fun never stops up here in the Last Frontier, isn't it?

P.S. As in times past all guesses as to the identity of my source will be rejected, so don't bother leaving them in the comments section. And if anybody feels the need to make any threats along with their comment, or in a direct e-mail, please know that I will be actively gathering IP addresses and sending them to my contacts with the FBI just as fast as my stubby little fingers can type them out.  Just so you know.

Wonderful interview with Geoffrey Dunn concerning his book "The Lies of Sarah Palin: The Untold Story Behind Her Relentless Quest for Power."

The interview is filled with titillating information about Palin's lies and potential criminal activities, however I believe THIS paragraph sums up the Sarah Palin I know to a T:

Let me note that Palin HAD a decent shot of winning the GOP nomination, but she blew it. She was gifted with the instant celebrity that went with her selection by McCain--and celebrity now plays a role in the election of a president--and she had a solid brand that stood squarely in opposition to Obama. She is the anti-Obama, if you will. But she has blown it both tactically and strategically over the past two years. She can't put an organization together. She is absolutely dysfunctional. And she is a pathological liar, so she can't keep her story straight. Palin had it all handed to her--and her various pathologies have brought her down. It would be a Greek tragedy if she weren't such a farce and a lightweight. Her fall is a Shakespearean comedy. And she has fallen.

You know I have already ordered my copy, and been assured that I have a free one on the way as well, but after reading this I am tempted to order yet a THIRD copy, just because anybody who gets this kind of information out about Klondike Kardashian deserves to be supported wholeheartedly by those of us who have waited breathlessly for these details to emerge. (If you have not yet ordered YOUR copy you can do so right now by clicking here.)

You can read more of this terrific interview, and believe me it is well worth your time to do so, over at SFGate.

Rolling Stone Magazine writes in graphic detail about the crimes of Jeremy Morlock and the men of Bravo Company.

Cpl. Jeremy Morlock with Staff Sgt. David Bram

From Rolling Stone:

The poppy plants were still low to the ground at that time of year. The two soldiers, Cpl. Jeremy Morlock and Pfc. Andrew Holmes, saw a young farmer who was working by himself among the spiky shoots. Off in the distance, a few other soldiers stood sentry. But the farmer was the only Afghan in sight. With no one around to witness, the timing was right. And just like that, they picked him for execution.

He was a smooth-faced kid, about 15 years old. Not much younger than they were: Morlock was 21, Holmes was 19. His name, they would later learn, was Gul Mudin, a common name in Afghanistan.

He was wearing a little cap and a Western-style green jacket. He held nothing in his hand that could be interpreted as a weapon, not even a shovel. The expression on his face was welcoming. "He was not a threat," Morlock later confessed.

Morlock and Holmes called to him in Pashto as he walked toward them, ordering him to stop. The boy did as he was told. He stood still.

The soldiers knelt down behind a mud-brick wall. Then Morlock tossed a grenade toward Mudin, using the wall as cover. As the grenade exploded, he and Holmes opened fire, shooting the boy repeatedly at close range with an M4 carbine and a machine gun.

Mudin buckled, went down face first onto the ground. His cap toppled off. A pool of blood congealed by his head.

The loud retort of the guns echoed all around the sleepy farming village. The sound of such unexpected gunfire typically triggers an emergency response in other soldiers, sending them into full battle mode. Yet when the shots rang out, some soldiers didn't seem especially alarmed, even when the radio began to squawk. It was Morlock, agitated, screaming that he had come under attack. On a nearby hill, Spc. Adam Winfield turned to his friend, Pfc. Ashton Moore, and explained that it probably wasn't a real combat situation. It was more likely a staged killing, he said – a plan the guys had hatched to take out an unarmed Afghan without getting caught.

This article is very in depth and NOT for the faint of heart. However it is a must read for those who want to REALLY understand what this once angry young hockey player from Wasilla, Alaska participated in while representing our country overseas.

For those who have come here to defend Jeremy Morlock in the past, while claiming how misunderstood he is, your task will become substantially more difficult after people read exactly what went on in Afghanistan.

Before the military found itself short of troops in Afghanistan and Iraq, Morlock was the kind of bad-news kid whom the Army might have passed on. He grew up not far from Sarah Palin in Wasilla, Alaska; his sister hung out with Bristol, and Morlock played hockey against Track. In those days, he was constantly in trouble: getting drunk and into fights, driving without a license, leaving the scene of a serious car accident. Even after he joined the Army, Morlock continued to get into trouble. In 2009, a month before he deployed to Afghanistan, he was charged with disorderly conduct after burning his wife with a cigarette. After he arrived in Afghanistan, he did any drug he could get his hands on: opium, hash, Ambien, amitriptyline, flexeril, phenergan, codeine, trazodone.

Morlock does NOT come off as a hesitant participant here, but rather a cold blooded killer who callously treated the Afghans he killed as big game trophies rather than human beings.

Then, in a break with protocol, the soldiers began taking photographs of themselves celebrating their kill. Holding a cigarette rakishly in one hand, Holmes posed for the camera with Mudin's bloody and half-naked corpse, grabbing the boy's head by the hair as if it were a trophy deer. Morlock made sure to get a similar memento.

The article contains many more horrible, heartrending details, including the fact that this "kill team" operated out in the open and did nothing to hide their activities.  As well as the fact that they were not the only ones conducting these "staged killings" and that the Army is complicit in a massive cover-up.

We know Haley Barbour is running for the GOP nomination in 2012 as he just let his homophobic freak flag fly.

Courtesy of TPM:

On his radio show, Bryan Fischer, the "Director of Issues Analysis" for the social conservative American Family Association, described all of the potential hazards of having gay people serve in the military, and asked Barbour if he'd reinstate the policy "if it turns out it's bad for the military."

"Of course," Barbour replied. "You look at the data and it is the foot-soldier, it is the person who is out there, boots on the ground, who is most against this. And it's because they live or die with this. And that's who we ought to be listening to, that's who we ought to be caring about, and that's why I am against it. I think it ought to be rolled back."

Of course Barbour's talking out of his ass as there is no way to reinstate a policy like this once it has been removed, just like racist politicians could not re-segregate the military once President Truman signed Executive Order 9981.

Just like Huckabee, Trump, and the other GOP hopefuls, Barbour is simply pandering to the slack jawed, knuckle dragging base of the Republican party.  These are the individual who vote on hate, fear, and open hostility toward anybody different then they perceive themselves to be.

Just the other day Mercede Johnston sent me a text expressing surprise that I was openly supporting gay rights.

She said  she thought "Most men were homophobes."

Actually kiddo, MOST men are not. Only the ones who are frightened of their own sexuality, or are registered as Republicans.  If in fact there is a difference.

With GOP contenders like Haley Barbour running against him, 2012 should be a cake walk for President Obama.

Mike Huckabee talking about America's recent rise in approval ratings around the world: " “I’d rather us be feared than liked.”

In this clip Huckabee goes on to say, “I don’t want everybody to love us and like us if they’re still going to pick on us and kick sand in our eyes.”   Which essentially is the problem with the Republicans. (Huckabee gets another chance to address his statement at the 4:30 mark but sticks by his statement and tries his hand at a little GOP style humor as well.)

The Republican party seems to be filled with those kids who got picked on during gym class,  who then grew up with giant chips on their shoulders and the desire to use the American military to deliver a little payback on their behalf.  Isn't that why insecure mama's boy George W. Bush went around picking fights and having the most powerful military in the world fight them for him?  Wasn't he really only trying to prove that he was a bad ass, in the hopes of getting his mother to love him more than his wimpy father? (If he had seen a psychiatrist for his Oedipal complex just think of how many lives might have been saved.)

And isn't that same Republican exhibitionist desire to display the American military cojones to the rest of the world behind the tough talk that comes from John McCain, Mike Huckabee, Sean Hannity, and Sarah Palin?

After all only women and pansy ass Democrats, want to talk through a problem or use diplomacy.  The REAL men and Republican women want to beat the shit out of you and THEN ask you, "Have you had enough, or would like to 'talk' some more?"

Don't forget that Huckabee is supposed to be a MINISTER!  Can you imagine going to THIS "Man of God" for counseling about your domestic problems at home? ("Well clearly Bill, you are not smacking the bitch hard enough! Perhaps if you close your fist next time it will earn you a little more respect!")

And speaking of things that separate the progressives from the conservatives, did you all get a load of what passes for humor with these idiots?  I swear I have heard funnier jokes coming from mentally handicapped five year olds. (And yes, before you ask,  I have worked with mentally handicapped five year olds.)

You know I am beginning to think that the difference between myself and the Republicans not just ideological.  I think it might be biological.

(You can read more over at Mediaite.)

New details released by the FBI leave very little doubt as to the identity of one of their informants in the Schaeffer Cox domestic terrorism case.

From the Alaska Dispatch:

Two confidential sources on the payroll of the FBI helped the government make its case against Fairbanks-area militia members who are accused of stockpiling illegal weapons and plotting to kill judges, Alaska State Troopers and others, according to information in federal court records unsealed Friday.

Neither source knew the other one was working with investigators, but both began assisting in the investigation last June, according to affidavits filed with the court in order to obtain search warrants earlier this month.

One is described as a convicted felon facing new fraud charges who agreed to cooperate in hopes of getting the charges reduced. That informant was an insider, promoted in February to the command staff of the Alaska Peacekeepers Militia headed by Fairbanks resident Schaeffer Cox, one of those arrested on numerous federal and state charges.

The other is a person with no criminal record but in the affidavit is said to be someone who the defendants approached to buy grenades, silencers and other weapons because he was thought to "be in a position to produce possible weaponry." Some in the militia community have speculated that the weapons supplier might be William Fulton, former owner of the Drop Zone military surplus store on Spenard Road. He abruptly signed over his store to an employee and disappeared a few days after the Fairbanks arrests. Nothing in the affidavit gives any information about Fulton, whether he may be connected to the case, or why he might have vanished.

The affidavit says both sources were compensated for their assistance and will continue to be paid. Conversations between the sources and the defendants were audio or video taped with the consent of the informants.

I have mentioned before that the evidence seems to point to the fact that Bill Fulton is the Anchorage supplier who Cox came to for the items he wanted in order to kidnap and possibly kill State Trooper and a local judge.  In the beginning I thought possibly that Fulton handed his business over and went underground out of fear that he was possibly going to be arrested next.

However now with some time having passed that scenario seems much less likely since, at the very least, Fulton would have popped up on the militia message boards to let his pals know that he was on the lam from the Feds, as that would have made him a hero in their eyes.  He has not done so, which definitely makes it far more likely that he is the Anchorage weapons supplier identified in the indictments.

Now did you notice WHEN the FBI started working with this informant?

The relationship began in June of last year.  So if it is Fulton (And let's be honest, who else could it be?), that means he was already working for the Feds when Joe Miller hired him, and his Drop Zone goons, to manhandle the local press. (You know we kind of wondered why the Anchorage Police did not arrest Fulton that day.)

So it is an almost certainty that Fulton was working for failed Senate candidate Joe Miller at the SAME TIME that he was on the FBI payroll.  Well isn't that interesting?

Miller's connection to the Alaska militias has been well established, so it stands to reason that if the FBI had a man as close to Miller as Fulton was that they might have done a little information gathering on our local Teabagging Senate candidate at the same time they were building their case against Schaeffer and his militia buddies. Don'tcha think?

I have to imagine that right about now Joe Miller is sitting in a pool of his own sweat, pulling on his sorry excuse for a beard, and trying to remember exactly what he might have said while in the company of his old buddy "Drop Zone Bill" and whether or not he is on his way to a Federal Penitentiary right along with his other old buddy Frances "Schaeffer" Cox.

By the way I have learned recently that the Federal part of Cox's court case will be held in Anchorage, so you can count on some first hand reporting from your old buddy Gryphen during the trial. Oh this ought to be fun!

How Dummies Beef Up Their Foreign Relations Credentials. This should brighten your Sunday.

(H/T to both Alison and Cat. I may have to add this site to my blogroll.)

Woman claiming to have been raped by Gaddafi's militia is dragged away in full view of western journalists.

From the The New York Times:

“They swore at me and they filmed me. I was alone. There was whiskey. I was tied up,” she told Michael Georgy of Reuters, who was able to speak with her briefly. “I am not scared of anything. I will be locked up immediately after this.” She added: “Look at my face. Look at my back.” Her other comments were captured by television cameras.

A wild scuffle began as journalists tried to interview, photograph and protect her. Several journalists were punched, kicked and knocked down by the security forces, working in tandem with people who until then had appeared to be hotel staff members. Security officials destroyed a CNN video camera and seized a device that a Financial Times reporter had used to record her testimony. A plainclothes security officer pulled out a revolver.

Two members of the hotel staff grabbed table knives to threaten Ms. Obeidy and the journalists.
“Turn them around, turn them around,” a waiter shouted, trying to block the foreign news media from having access to Ms. Obeidy. A woman on the staff shouted: “Why are you doing this? You are a traitor!” and briefly put a coat over Ms. Obeidy’s head.

There was a prolonged standoff behind the hotel as the security officials apparently restrained themselves because of the presence of so many journalists, but Ms. Obeidy was ultimately forced into a white car and taken away.

“Leave me alone,” she shouted as one man tried to cover her mouth with his hand.

“They are taking me to jail,” she yelled, trying to resist the security guards, according to Reuters. “They are taking me to jail.”

I have no idea whether or not this woman was telling the truth or not, but I know damn well she should not have been dragged away while journalists are being punched and shoved away from her.

I can only imagine that woman's terror after she undoubtedly believed herself to be safe among western journalists, to then be grabbed be fellow Libyans and taken away to God knows where.

I certainly hope that the journalists get to the bottom of this and make sure that no harm has come to this woman.

Barack Obama has kept his campaign promise to restore America's reputation in the world. Now if we can just keep the Republicans out of the White House for awhile....

From Politicususa:

Barack Obama ran for president in 2008 based in part on the promise that he would restore America’s standing in the world, and a new Gallup poll released today shows that he has done just that. Respondents in 100 countries were surveying and the United States was the most popular world power at 47%. This is a roughly 14% increase in America’s global standing since the Bush administration.

Gallup found that Obama has managed to turn the US from the power that trailed Japan, Germany, France, Russia, and even China from 2007-2008 into the most popular of the world’s global powers. US leadership is now approved of by 47% of the world and only 25% disapprove. Germany is second with a 40%/17% approval to disapproval ratio. France was third with a 39% approval rating followed by Japan (37%), the UK (35%), China (31%), and Russia (27%).

The poll also found that by nearly a 4 to 1 margin, the US is the most popular migration destination. Canada and the UK were tied for second at 7%. I can already hear conservatives snickering and saying, “Of course Obama made us popular around the world, he is always apologizing,” and then throwing in some variant of their belief that real leaders like tyrants must be despised.

Even though Republicans like Sarah Palin love to paint Obama as a globally reviled international failure, the opposite looks to be true. Obama and his administration’s policies have rebuilt America’s image aboard. The rest of the world is beginning to trust America to lead again.

Palin and her fellow Republicans like to accuse the President of apologizing for the United States. 

Well to that I say, after eight years of George W. Bush we have a hell of a lot to be sorry for. Having President Obama acknowledge the mistakes that America has made in the past, and promise to do better in the future, was a brilliant and successful diplomatic approach to a ticklish problem we faced with the rest of the world.

So I certainly hope my fellow Americans take notice of how effective America can be when everybody does not hate our guts, and come to realize that threats and aggression are far less useful as tools against terrorism than are diplomacy and more humble approach to foreign relations.

Which reminds me. President Obama sir, can we get the hell out of Libya just as soon as possible please?  Thank you sir.

A mother's anguish. Jeremy Morlock's mother blames the military for her son's crimes against innocent Afghanistan citizens.

Accused killer Jeremy Morlock plead guilty to three counts of murder, one count of conspiracy to commit assault and battery and one count of illegal drug use, and was sentenced to twenty four years in prison.

Morlock has claimed that he was suffering from injury to his brain and under the influence of his unit's "crazy" sergeant, who he says was the ringleader of the group, and the one who planned the murders of innocent civilians.

His mother however believes the answer is a little more conspiratorial.

From the Mat-Su Frontiersman:

“They (the military)  don’t back these guys, they don’t care if they die or don’t die,” she said. “They turn their backs as quick as they can. It’s not only his unit (involved in criminal activity), there’s all kinds of (stuff) going on over there.”

She said the military knew or should have known about what was happening and could have intervened. She also believes her son and the other soldiers were doing what they were ordered to by superior officers.

“You know, he followed orders,” Audrey Morlock said. “It’s just like he followed orders on the (Houston High) hockey team. If (the coach) told him to go check, even if it meant going in the penalty box, he’d go in the penalty box for the team.”

As much as I empathize with Mrs. Morlock's pain and feelings of disbelief at the things her son has now admitted to having done in Afghanistan, surely she understands the difference between playing rough at a hockey coach's insistence and engaging in the following activities:

Entering 11 guilty pleas to various charges ranging from assaulting a fellow soldier who squealed on him to murdering three men who'd done him no harm, Army Spc. Jeremy Morlock this morning became the first of five accused Joint Base Lewis-McChord Stryker soldiers to admit killing civilians in Afghanistan, thought to be the most serious war crimes yet in that 10-year war.

I seriously doubt that the higher ups wanted Jeremy and his fellow soldiers to murder civilians, and following orders is no excuse for killing an innocent human being.

And certainly no excuse to then stand over that victim like a proud hunter over a recently killed elk.

(Beware graphic image blow!)

As much as I want to give Jeremy, and his mother, the benefit of the doubt, there is NO way that this can simply be blamed on war fatigue or the desire to be a good soldier. Not this.

Koel Purie's interview with Sarah Palin is almost painfully pointless potpourri of political posturing and palpable pandering.

I almost did not post this interview because there was so much going on that I just did not have time to get to it.

But I watched it again last night, and was struck by the fact that Palin does not really say ANYTHING.  All she does is talk around the questions posed and throw out talking points to confuse this poor woman.

And by the way, I used to think that the Japanese people were the most polite people on the planet, but after watching the Indian people talk about, and attempt to interview, Palin I think perhaps they are the most polite people on the face of the earth.

I am amazed that this young woman continues to smile thorough this train wreck of an interview, and does not once turn to the camera to mouth the words, "What the fuck?"  In my opinion that shows almost super human restraint on her part.



Palin does not waste any time and starts spewing moose nuggets as soon as she is asked the VERY FIRST question.

Purie: "What do you think of when I first say India to you?"

Snooki: "Diversity..just uh..amazing..the geographic diversity is s lush and yet dense with population so there's..there's.. all that going on. But then the diversity of the cultures and the religion and...um...its just quite fascinating.  And as I said in my remarks India is a good leader by example for so many other countries that could emulate the things that are being done in terms of tolerance and embracing that diversity"

(Palin-bot word for the say is "diversity." You trolls better remember it cause it could show up on the test.)

And after that first helping of word fruit salad things continue to go downhill.

Every question that follows is met with patented Palin-isms like "liberty," "freedom," "self-reliance," "free markets," blah blah, blah blah, blah blah.

I love it that Palin volunteers that she wants to go out and see all of the sight, like the Taj Ma-hal for instance, but we now know that the only sights she saw were of the inside of her hotel room and of Todd locking himself in the bathroom to escape the crazy.

I love that Purie asks her how she manages a political campaign while raising five children. Snooki's answer that Todd is her "helpmate" must certainly make her handbag carrier feel muy macho. "I can do this because Todd is my bitch.  Aren't you Todd? Check my makeup again you prostitute screwing bastard!"

By the way watch for the banners that show up on the bottom of the screen during the interview like, "The Hockey mom who does not laze around," "My husband is a champ," "Did lots of laundry before coming to India," and of course "India has lots of dynamic personalities." (None of who she met of course.)

The question about how Snooki felt when Pakistani President Asif Zardari got a little frisky is kind of interesting because it shows how uncomfortable Palin becomes when somebody responds to her flirtatious persona in an overt fashion.  She is clearly somebody who is not comfortable with her sexuality, and only uses it as a tool to distract from her lack of intelligence.

People often suggest that Palin has slept with lots of people to get ahead, but I seriously doubt that she has.  Sister Sarah is a look but don't touch kind of woman.

Purie: "Who's the person you would like to meet in India?"

Snooki identifies meeting Mother Theresa's biographer, whose name she clearly does not remember, and mentions meeting the Prime Minister a few years back but not this time, and then finishes by saying "Gosh there's so many dynamic interesting people in India again I wish I could stay much longer to meet more of you." However Palin actually avoided the Indian people like the plague, or like they HAD the plague. Remember, " Sources confirmed that the Palins had no direct interaction even with room service and that for two whole days (the entire duration of her visit) Sarah Palin confined herself to her room." Clearly Palin was only in India for a paycheck, and hoped to have to interact with as few brown people as possible while she was tossing her word salad.

Did she say she does NOT have a temper? I believe there is a dented refrigerator in Wasilla who might give a different opinion on that.

I have seen a LOT of interviews with Palin but this one is especially amazing in that I do not think that the Grizzled Mama says even ONE THING that is honest or truthful.  Not one.

Even for a chronic liar like Sarah Palin that is quite an amazing achievement.