Bristol Palin goes out of her way to point out that her two daughters do not closely resemble each other. Update!

Courtesy of the Daily Mail:

Bristol Palin has always said her one-year-old daughter Sailor Grace is her husband Dakota Meyer's mini-me, and now she's proud to note that their newborn Atlee Bay looks just like her. 

The 26-year-old mom took to Instagram on Thursday to share a photo of Sailor when she was a baby alongside an image of two-month-old Atlee, who was born in May. 

'Not even sorta kinda alike,' she wrote, adding that Sailor is a 'mini Dakota' while Atlee is a 'Palin baby'. 

And while they are both adorable, the sisters, who are just a little over a year apart, do appear to have very different features. 

At this point I am not sure if Bristol is just trolling IMers, or if she is simply trying to get out ahead of folks pointing this out for themselves.

You probably don't have to be a card carrying IMer to remember that there was quite a controversy surrounding when little Sailor was born.

And exactly who was the actual father.

So why would Bristol open that can of worms all over again?

After all we know she knows about the controversy, because she responded to it.

So what is it?

Is she feeling neglected? Is she feeling bored? Or is there perhaps another reason?

Update: By the way the Grizzled Mama is also promoting this article. 

Things that make you go, hmmm.

Sure winning a gold medal at the Olympics is remarkable, but if you want to impress Sarah Palin you need to win it with a gun.

Courtesy of Okey Dokey Annie's Facebook page:

How beautiful that the first gold 🏅of the 2016 Summer Olympics goes to an American girl with a gun!? Congrats, Ginny Thrasher, you make ALL of us proud! (cool name too!) Go Team USA! 🇺🇸

So clearly this is a slam directed towards those of us who want common sense gun laws in this country. (That's right Sarah I can use the phrase "common sense" as well, and it even makes sense when I do it.)

However I think one would be hard pressed to find a gun control advocate who would have a problem with rifles being used at the Olympics, or for competitive shooting contests, or even for hunting to feed one's family. (There are always a few of course.)

So her nasty back handed insult really has no validity in this case.

I actually heard Ginny Thrasher being interviewed after her win and she was delightful, and not really very political:

“Some of the (controversy surrounding) gun laws in America is just distracting from our sport, which is very different,” Thrasher said.

However, speaking of political, as of this post America has won six medals altogether, but none of those are of any interest to Palin because she cannot use them in an attempt to create controversy.

Personally I am rooting for America to bring home a whole truckload of gold, silver, and bronze medals. And I don't care if they use a rifle, pole, paddle, or just their bodies to do it.

Stephen Colbert mocks the Starbucks Christmas coffee cup "scandal."

I have watched a number of comedians and television hosts weigh in on this ridiculous kerfuffle (Including Ellen Degeneres.), but I thought that Colbert's was just about the funniest.

(That "Paul Blart Mall Bro" comment made me spit out my coffee this morning.) 

Of course I also have to admit that I kind of miss the old Colbert Report so I have somewhat of a soft spot for Stephen.

My one criticism is that he played some of that Feuerstein video, and I hate to see him give that lunatic any air time. The guy is essentially an internet troll who says controversial things in the hopes of being attacked and getting some attention.

But other than that I thought this was quite humorous and very well done.

Colbert is still the king in my book. 

State Department source says that there was NO top secret information on Hillary's private e-mail server.

Whatcha got next boys?

Courtesy of Politico:  

The U.S. intelligence community has retreated from claims that two emails in Hillary Clinton’s private account contained top-secret information, a source familiar with the situation told POLITICO. 

After a review, intelligence agencies concluded that the two emails did not include highly classified intelligence secrets, the source said. Concerns about the emails' classification helped trigger an ongoing FBI inquiry into Clinton's private email setup.  

Intelligence Community Inspector General I. Charles McCullough III made the claim that two of the emails contained top-secret information; the State Department publicly stated its disagreement and asked Director of National Intelligence James Clapper’s office to referee the dispute. Now, that disagreement has been resolved in State’s favor, said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity. 

Of course officially Clapper's office has stated that the investigation is not yet complete, but if this Politico source is correct this removes one of the GOP's main lines of attack.

Which means that there is even less ammunition in the old political Gatling gun for the eventual Republican nominee to use against Hillary in the general election.

Gee, what WILL they misinterpret, exaggerate, or manufacture next to take her down?

Nancy French, once again channeling Bristol Palin, attacks President Obama for playing golf, and claims it is unfair that Sarah Palin is called "the controversial one."

Courtesy of Bristol's Pikore account.

So Nancy French links to a story on the Business Insider which claims that over the last seven years President Obama has played more than 1,100 hours of golf.

French is appalled at this and makes the following completely unrelated comparison: 

Remember when my mom put a jet on eBay to save Alaska much-needed money? 

Yet, SHE is the one that the media tends to skewer, not the President who is spending our taxes on his many many rounds of golf while the nation struggles under the weight of government waste and fraud. 

Doesn’t seem right.

Personally, considering the vast number of accomplishments by this President, I would not care if he played golf every damned day of the year. Hell he could even take up smoking doobies again and play the game in a haze of marijuana smoke with Beyonce and Jay-Z so long as he keeps doing his job at this level.

WTF do I care?

Oh, it just dawned on me that some of our newer visitors might be confused as to why a middle aged woman like Nancy French is calling Sarah Palin "my mom."

You see my friends Nancy French is essentially a professional schizophrenic who is paid to pretend to be Bristol Palin, a woman so illiterate that her text messages look like they have been typed out by pigeon on LSD.

So periodically Nancy French puts on her Bristol Palin skin suit, sits down at a typewriter, and types out some BS so that she can earn that sweet sweet SarahPAC money. 

I have to admit that I almost missed this post as I was otherwise entertained by every other thing happening in the world which was by its very nature much more relevant. 

However somebody sent me a link to Wonkette, who had covered it, and I will share a little of what they had to say about the post:

A) While the president has spent about 46 days of his two-term presidency golfing, he has spent most of his time in office working, unlike some presidents named Republican President, who spent years — literally, YEARS — vacaying at their ranches, clearing brush, and ignoring important memos. 

(2) Even the king of vacationing while president, George W. Bush, says this obsession with Obama’s time on the links is idiotical. 

Third: Bristol, honey, your mom QUIT HER JOB right in the middle of doing it, sort of, and then she quit, like, OH ALL OF THE “JOBS” after that, and she even quit her bus tour, when all she had to do was sit on her ass, in a bus, and sometimes stop to wave at the people, that’s all she had to do and she couldn’t even do that, Jesus H.! 

Also, your mom is a dumb. A super real dumb. Like, dumb dumb. So many kinds of dumb. And she raised a dumb daughter, also too, who is too dumb to know how all of these babies keep ending up inside of her, when she keeps saving herself again and again. 

Gotta love it!

Oh and Wonkette also referred to the author of the post as  "Bristol Palin’s ghostblogger."

And one more thing about Sarah Palin being the "controversial one."

Brancy, right now Sarah Palin is the "irrelevant one." She only wishes that we all still considered her conversational.

But in a world where Donald Trump is leading the Republican field, and Jeb Bush is talking about "anchor babies," there is very little she could do to wrestle that word back from those who are using controversy as a stand in for actual political credibility.

What everybody is talking about, the Newsroom's college rape storyline.

Courtesy of The Independent: 

The Newsroom has been accused of having a “women problem” before, but now Aaron Sorkin has come under fire for a rape storyline that implies male perpetrators are to be believed over female victims. 

The latest episode has been criticised for its portrayal of female rape victims after TV news producer Don Keefer said he felt morally obligated to believe the man’s side of the story because he had not yet been convicted of rape. 

The episode’ storyline followed a Princeton student who starts a website allowing women on campus to out their rapists after the city justice system failed to prosecute two fraternity members who she claimed raped her. 

The student is tracked down by the fictional news network ACN for a debate with her alleged attacker live on air. Don had also interviewed the man she claims raped her and when she asks him who he believes, the producer says he felt obliged to take the man’s side over hers.

This received quite a lot of backlash from all corners.

Including from a writer on the show who claims her misgivings about the segment were ignored, and that she was "kicked out" of the writer's room.

Sorkin himself responds here.

Actress Olivia Munn, who plays the character Sloan Sabbith on the show, also weighed in:  

“…The reality is that Sorkin writes things so that they can be talked about, and so we show both sides of it,” she said. “I think it was important to show what it’s like for women to be a rape victim, want to speak out, and then have somebody come in and say, ‘Hey don’t do that. That’s going to be bad for you.’ 

“Sorkin wasn’t saying ‘Don’t do that,'” Munn said. “He was saying ‘This is what happens.'” 

Personally I liked the episode. Partly because it left me conflicted, and not sure whose side I should take in the exchange between the Don Keefer character and the college student.

But that to me is the mark of great television.

I don't often watch shows that make me feel all warm and cuddly inside. I watch shows that make me think, piss me off, or make me grieve for the loss of a character that I have, against my better judgement, grown attached to. (Still miss you Beth.)

I think the show did everything that I would expect it would do with such a controversial subject.

And in the light of the Rolling Stone campus rape scandal, it could not have been more timely.

Stephen Colbert responds to the #CancelColbert controversy. And even makes it entertaining.

Courtesy of Salon:  

Stephen Colbert is dealing with the fallout from a tweet sent out on his show’s behalf — and doing so on-air by imagining his show really getting cancelled. 

Last week, the Twitter feed @ColbertReport, affiliated with the Comedy Central series, tweeted an out-of-context joke from a segment mocking the Washington Redskins’ owner and his attempts to reach out to the Native American community without changing his team’s offensive name. The #CancelColbert hashtag immediately caught fire, and Colbert opened his show by depicting the studio shutting down… his writers walking out dejected… Manhattan freezing over… the famous 1970s-ad Native American shedding a single tear… all manner of dystopia. 

The actor B. D. Wong, himself Asian, appeared as a therapist of sorts to explain to Colbert, dressed in Redskins regalia and lying on a couch, that he was having a horrible dream. “This is still ‘The Colbert Report,’” Colbert announced. 

It was, all in all, a pretty audacious gambit — to openly mock those who’d sought to get Colbert fired by rubbing in their face that it’d never happen, and to bring in one of America’s most prominent actors of Asian extraction to aid in a non-apology. In his opening monologue, following an audience chant (“Ste-phen! Ste-phen!”) Colbert joked about how offensive it was that his shoes were made in Vietnam (rather than in China) and how upset he was that iPhone’s emojis are growing more diverse thanks to the “P.C. police.” 

And, yes, Colbert directly addressed the controversy: In a segment called “Who’s Attacking Me Now,” Colbert joked that “we almost lost” and then went through just how the controversy went down, through a sort of mirror-world reality whereby “Colbert,” the conservative on-air persona, saw his attempts to support his fictitious and racist alter ego get misinterpreted online. 

I was hoping that Colbert would take this and run with it, and he did it spectacularly. 

He managed to take advantage of the "controversy" to continue to point out the hypocrisy of going after him and leaving the Redskin's new "out reach" to the native American community virtually untouched.

If you did not see the show last night I highly suggest that you click the links provided above and enjoy seeing the master at work.

South Carolina State Senator does not understand what a scientific theory is, so the teaching of Evolution is removed from the science standards.

Courtesy of The Post and Courier:  

An education committee approved new science standards for students except for one clause: the one that involves the use of the phrase "natural selection." The South Carolina Education Oversight Committee met Monday to review and approve the new set of science standards that the Department of Education will begin implementing by the fall of 2014 for students. Sen. Mike Fair, R-Greenville, argued against teaching natural selection as fact, when he believes there are other theories students deserve to learn. 

"Natural selection is a direct reference to Darwinism," Fair said after the meeting. "And the implication of Darwinism. is that it is start to finish." 

Fair argued South Carolina's students are learning the philosophy of natural selection but teachers are not calling it such. He said the best way for students to learn is for the schools to teach the controversy. 

"To teach that natural selection is the answer to origins is wrong," Fair said. "I don't have a problem with teaching theories. I don't think it should be taught as fact." 

Ultimately, the committee approved all measures except that clause, which now gets sent back to the committee level for review. 

Oh and don't think the State Superintendent of Education is going to be of any help in this are either.  

State Superintendent of Education Mick Zais said after the meeting he was not surprised by the debate that took place. 

"This has been going on here in South Carolina for a long a time," Zais said. "We ought to teach both sides and let students draw their own conclusions."

And that is the freaking superintendent! 

God, this kind of think makes me insane!

For those on the short bus, when scientists refer to something as a "theory" they essentially mean a fact that is still being modified with the introduction of new evidence, not something that they just imagined and have no proof to back up.

The closest to that would be a "hypothesis" which is defined as "A supposition or proposed explanation made on the basis of limited evidence as a starting point for further investigation."

If scientists were calling Evolution a scientific hypothesis this Fair guy might have a point. However even if they did there is still NO room for the introduction of religious mythology to be introduced as science.

Holiday greeting flow chart.

Source

By they way the thing that people seem to conveniently forget is that the so-called "War on Christmas" has been waging for hundreds of years.

Courtesy of Time Magazine:

The front lines of the War on Christmas were originally manned by none other than the Puritans — and not on the side many conservative news anchors might think. Objecting to the yuletide festivities on the grounds that they didn't square with the Bible's teachings, in 1659 the founders of the Massachusetts Bay Colony banned the holiday; it wasn't reinstated until 1681. For a war often blamed on secular terrorists, these are some pious roots. 

Since then, the perpetrators of the struggle against Santa have taken on many forms; just about every major bugbear on the radical left has at one point or another been blamed. In the beginning, of course, there were the Jews. "The whole record of the Jewish opposition to Christmas...shows the venom and directness of [their] attack," wrote automaker and notorious anti-Semite Henry Ford in 1921, citing efforts around the country to silence Christmas carolers and suppress demonstrations of religion in schools. By the 1950s, blame had shifted to the Communists. "One of the techniques now being applied by the Reds to weaken the pillar of religion in our country is the drive to take Christ out of Christmas," screamed a 1959 pamphlet (the overpunctuated title: "There Goes Christmas?!") issued by the newly-formed John Birch Society. The society also assailed United Nations "fanatics" who were trying to "poison the 1959 Christmas season with their high-pressure propaganda." 

Before it became part of mainstream conservative punditry, the leading proponent of the War on Christmas was a former magazine writer and editor named Peter Brimelow. A virulent anti-immigration crusader whose views were considered extreme by mainstream conservative journals like National Review, Brimelow founded a website called VDare.com that soon was at the forefront of the fight to sanctify Christmas cheer. Beginning in 1999, Brimelow ran a competition to spotlight offenders in the War on Christmas. The inaugural villain was the Department of Housing and Urban Development, which earned the dubious honor for hosting a holiday party dubbed "A Celebration of Holiday Traditions." The following year, Amazon.com became a target of Brimelow's wrath for subjecting consumers to the nondenominational greeting "Happy Holidays!" (In 2003, VDare was classified as a "hate group" by the Southern Poverty Law Center for providing a platform for white nationalist viewpoints.) 

Outrage over alleged restrictions against Christmas emblems imposed by stores like Wal-Mart and Sears led conservative mouthpieces like Sean Hannity and O'Reilly to take up the cause in earnest. "I think it's all part of the secular progressive agenda...to get Christianity and spirituality out of the public square," O'Reilly said on Nov. 18, 2005. "Because if you look at what happened in Western Europe and Canada, if you can get religion out, then you can pass secular progressive programs like legalization of narcotics, euthanasia, abortion at will, gay marriage." In an interview with National Review, Gibson lay blame for the phenomenon at the feet of the American Civil Liberties Union: "Generally there is an ACLU component to the Christmas controversy." 

So there you have it: the war on Christmas is a godless plot cooked up by a cabal of latte-sipping liberals, greedy retail tycoons, bearded ACLU communists and Ban Ki-moon acolytes who secretly gather in Bay Area synagogues to smoke pot, deface Bibles and perform abortions. 

This was a ridiculous controversy in 1659, and it remains a ridiculous controversy today. 

It is used by manipulative conservatives to enrage the low information Christians into believing that they are being persecuted.  Only those raised to believe that they are martyrs would fall for it, but churches are overflowing with those who believe that very thing.

Prepare and fertilize the soil when they are young, and you can plant whatever seeds you want to as they grow older, and the paranoia and sense of persecution will grow right along with them.

Sarah Palin sells little over 20,000 books in first week of highly promoted book tour. Update!

Photo courtesy of Facebook

This according to the Drudge Report:

BOOK SALES RACE, WEEK 11/17/13: RUSH LIMBAUGH 'BRAVE' REMAINS #1 WITH 52,463 SOLD [300,400 SINCE RELEASE]... O'REILLY 'JESUS' IN SECOND AFTER SCANNING 49,069 [645,976]... MORE... KRAUTHAMMER 'MATTER' TAKES SHOW WITH 40,598 [131,713]... DUCK DYNASTY 'SI-COLOGY' 26,934 [347,811]... DORIS GOODWIN 'THEODORE' 22,268 [47,571]... PALIN 'GREAT' OPENS WITH 20,157 (Note that the other authors listed are on their second, third, and sometimes fourth week of publication. Not their first.)

Gee even after subjecting herself to interviews on the Today Show, CNN, and USA Today she still cannot convince anyone outside of her rapidly shrinking group of supporters. (For context it should be noted that "Going Rogue" sold in excess of 2 million books, most of which were sold in the first few weeks.)

Also keep in mind that the sales for these conservative books are artificially padded through the use of bulk sales to conservative groups who then give them away with donations or subscription to their periodicals or websites. So the question to ask is, are they still doing that for Palin? Or are they doing it in a far less aggressive fashion due to her fading popularity?

By the by, I think that THIS, and not the Bashir controversy, is the main reason why Palin is taking back her invitation to have Matt Lauer fly up to Alaska to interview her.

Or perhaps it was HE who determined that it was a waste of his time, and NBC resources, to fly all the way to Alaska to interview a has been who is no longer relevant to anything or anybody.

Update: As if to illustrate Palin's diminished popularity, here is Bill O'Reilly telling Howard Kurtz that Palin is too afraid to come on his program:

BILL O'REILLY: Let's just be frank here. You want to be frank, Howard? You want to be honest? Sarah Palin won't do this program. She won't come on the program because she doesn't want to mix it up. She doesn't. She wants to give a speech, and nobody gives speeches here. Okay? So she doesn't come on. We invited her on tonight. You're here instead. But I don't begrudge Sarah Palin that. She can come on. She doesn't come on, she does come on, whatever she wants to do. Okay? Fine.

You know when the top rated host of the Right Wing cable news station/Republican propaganda machine that once employed you, feels he can slam you like this, you are essentially finished. 

Alan Grayson under attack for portraying the Tea Party as today's version of the KKK.

This courtesy of Fox News (So you KNOW it's fair and balanced.):  

The email showed a large image of the flaming cross, with the letters "ea Party" etched in to the right of it. The caption read: "Now You Know What the 'T' Stands For." 

The email included "pointed analysis" from Grayson in which he said, "The Tea Party is no more popular than the Klan," blasting the conservative organization for its role in the showdown that resulted in the two-week partial government shutdown. 

 Republicans on Tuesday accused the Florida congressman of stepping -- way -- over the line. 

"There's no excuse for the hateful words and imagery used by Congressman Grayson," said Matt Gorman, a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee. "This hate-filled rhetoric has Americans fed up with Washington." 

 He called on House Democrats to "swiftly and strongly condemn him and return the money he has raised for them." 

Grayson, though, was unapologetic and defended his Ku Klux Klan comparison. 

In a written statement provided to FoxNews.com, he cited a litany of examples where the "Tea Party" attacked President Obama by citing his race, including the recurring claims that he is a Kenyan and Muslim "despite all evidence." 

The statement, as an example, included a doctored image of Obama in tribal garb, one of many offensive images of the president from the bowels of the Internet. 

 "One could go on and on, because there is overwhelming evidence that the Tea Party is the home of bigotry and discrimination in America today, just as the KKK was for an earlier generation. If the shoe fits, wear it," Grayson said. 

Um, I am finding nothing about this e-mail to misrepresent the Tea Party in anyway.

Anybody of a different opinion?

Harry Reid hopes, he really hopes, that the unrelenting opposition to President Obama from the Republican party is not based on racism. I have some bad news for you Harry.

"Gee I hope that the party made up of unapologetic racists is not opposing the first black President due to racism."

Courtesy of TPM:  

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) told KNPR radio Friday that he hopes Republicans' ongoing opposition to President Obama is driven by "substance" and not race. 

"My counterpart, Mitch McConnell, said at the the beginning of the presidency of Barack Obama that he had one goal -- and that is to defeat Obama and make sure he wasn't re-elected. And that's how they legislate in the Senate," he said. "It was really bad. And we're now seven months into this second term of the president's and they haven't changed much." 

"It's been obvious that they're doing everything they can to make him fail," Reid said. "And I hope, I hope -- and I say this seriously -- I hope that's based on substance and not the fact that he's African-American."

This angered the Republicans who fired up their token black person, Senator Tim Scott, to respond:

I am sincerely disappointed by continued attempts to divide the American people by playing to the lowest common denominator. Instead of engaging in serious debate about the failed policies of this administration – from the ever-increasing burdens created by the national health care reform plan to the tax and spend approach to economic recovery, along with countless others – Democrats are once again trying to hide behind a smokescreen. 

Our country deserves more from those in Washington. I hope Senator Reid will realize the offensive nature of his remarks and apologize to those who disagree with the President’s policies because of one thing – they are hurting hardworking American families. 

Okay well Tim Scott is the PERFECT person to defend the Republicans against charges of racism  from the Senate Majority leader as he is the ONLY black Republican Senator in GOP history.

However he may be one of the least pro-African American black politician since former Rep. Allen West. Scott has received an F rating from the NAACP, and has voted right along with the undeniably racist Teabaggers at every opportunity.

The idea that the opposition toward Obama is based on his policy decisions is refuted completely by the fact that Mitch McConnell and other GOP operatives decided to block EVERYTHING he tried to do on the night he was inaugurated.

That was before he had actually done anything for them to oppose. But it was NOT before he was unfortunate enough to be born black.

Of COURSE the opposition is based on racism, and it only takes a visit to the town halls taking place right now in the South to have that confirmed beyond any reasonable doubt.

P.S. Since we are talking about Harry Reid I thought you all might like to know that Reid just came out and said that  Obamacare is the first step toward eventual single payer.

Now you know why the Republicans are freaking out so hard about the law. And why MOST of us should love it!

I don't know WHAT I enjoy more, watching Jim Carrey skewer the gun nuts, or watching Fox News lose their freaking minds over it.

Courtesy of Mediaite:  

Conservative radio host Laura Ingraham tore into actor Jim Carrey on Tuesday after he released a parody video mocking gun rights advocates and the late actor and National Rifle Association spokesman Charlton Heston in particular. Ingraham said the parody video was “embarrassing” and indicative of Carrey’s spiraling career. 

“It’s just not funny,” observed Steve Doocy. 

“I have one thing to ask you guys: what do you know about The Incredible Burt Wonderstone?” asked Ingraham. 

“That it bombed out?” Brian Kilmeade replied. 

“Here’s a theory I have,” Ingraham continued. “I think it’s more of a deflection deal. You know, Jim Carrey’s famous for The Mask. This is kind of a mask. It’s a mask to, perhaps, direct our attention away from the cold, dead career.”

Wow! These people are REALLY pissed off about this video! (By the way if you have not seen it you really must. Just click here.)

Earlier in the day yesterday, the nasty little ferret-like douche on that show which I only see when somebody shares a clip while making fun of it, The Five, went out of his mind on Twitter about this video as well.

 On THAT show they went after him for having a "dead cold" career and for the fact that he was born in Canada, so how DARE he have an opinion on guns in "Murica!" (Carrey is actually a dual citizen as of 2004.)

Perhaps my favorite part of watching them come unglued about the video is that they each show a portion of it on their show before attacking it, and the more I see it the more brilliant I realize that it was. And WHO knew Carrey could sing like that?

They also attack Carrey's career, and look I will be the first to admit that he has made some clunkers, ("Me, Myself, and Irene?" I mean seriously?) but they are also talking about his new move "The Incredible Burt Wonderstone," which is actually a Steve Carrell movie that he co-stars in, and personally I loved it. Carrey plays a David Blaine like street magician and he literally steals the movie.

In fact I laughed so hard at his performance that, much to my embarrassment, I found myself chuckling about it in the car on the way home from the movies, which probably made the people in the other cars think I was insane.

So these conservative stormtroopers can attack Carrey all they want, but if they think that his career is "cold and dead," that is just wishful thinking on their part.

Best explanation of Christianity EVER!

You know if somebody had simply explained it to me this way back when I was a kid I would TOTALLY still be gong to church right now.

I mean who doesn't love zombies?

In effort to demystify it, woman shares the story of her abortion. Which inspires me to share mine.

Here is one woman's story:  

Recently, I had an abortion. 

Lining the street in front of the clinic were a dozen or so protesters. They held up large banners with anti-abortion slogans, religious iconography, and images of dead babies. 

Just past the bulletproof security doors, the graphic nature of that imagery haunted me in the waiting room. What would my abortion look like? I decided to secretly document my abortion with my cell phone. My intention in documenting and sharing my abortion is to demystify the sensationalist images propagated by the religious and political right on this matter. The perverse use of lifeless fetus photographs are a propaganda tool in the prolife/prochoice debate in which women and their bodies are used as pawns to push a cultural, political, and religious agenda in the United States. 

At 6 weeks of pregnancy, my abortion looked very different than the images I saw when I entered the clinic that day. 

This is my abortion.

This woman did indeed take pictures with her cell phone, and if you wish to see them you can click here. (As it turns out I was too concerned about upsetting some of you to post them on this blog.)

If you are like me this may be the first time that you have ever witnessed what an abortion looks like. Not nearly as horrific as you probably imagined is it? As a matter of fact it seems considerably less disturbing than MOST medical procedures that I have witnessed. In the end I guess it is simply the removal of tissue, nothing more.

As I am sure all of you already know, or have simply assumed, I am pro-choice. However that of course does not mean I promote the idea of abortion.  In fact I have very strong, and very mixed, feelings about it.

So I thought, after reading this young woman's very blunt description of her experience, that I would share with you my experience with abortion.

Now I am of course a male so I have never had an abortion, nor to my knowledge has any pregnancy that I was responsible for ended in abortion, so I do not have an actually abortion story of that type to share. But that does not mean I have never been touched by the issue of abortion.

Because I have. And here is that story.

HBO planned to create movie eviscerating the head of Fox News, Roger Ailes. And then suddenly the project was dropped. Well isn't THAT interesting?

This was released by Deadline about a day ago: 

HBO appears obsessed by GOP Conservatives. There have been movies about the 2000 Bush vs Gore election standoff and Sarah Palin and most recently a TV series featuring George W Bush’s severed head. Now HBO has done a secret deal for an Untitled Roger Ailes Project. It’s based on the upcoming manuscript by media writer Gabriel Sherman who has written two cover stories for New York magazine on Ailes and Fox News, including his mammoth article “The Elephant In The Green Room” which came out a little more than a year ago and prompted complaints from the Fox News CEO. Last year, Sherman signed a book contract with Random House which at one point was tentatively titled “The Loudest Voice in the Room: An Inside Account of the Rise of Fox News” but isn’t formally titled now. I’ve also learned that executive producing this latest HBO project are two of Ailes’ competitors: Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, the co-hosts of MSNBC‘s Morning Joe. The deal was negotiated by WME Entertainment, the Hollywood agency run by Ari Emanuel who is a Democratic activist (and the brother of Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, the former Obama White House chief of staff). 

None of this has been announced yet because sources tell me Sherman is still researching the book and plans to finish writing it by the end of the summer for a 2013 publishing date. “Nothing much to say. No book yet to read. No script. We’ll wait to see what the script looks like and then decide whether to develop further,” a cagey HBO exec explained to me. It’s commonplace for Time Warner’s premier pay TV channel to sign up books before they’re published and then turn them into TV movies. In this TV movie, a source tells me, ”HBO prefers to take on Fox News through Ailes. The idea is that it should make Fox News look like a Mafia, and you get into this through Ailes, sidestepping Murdoch, not approaching the story head on.”

Wow Joe Scarborough and Mika Brezezinski, isn't THAT interesting?

Okay so I was excited and all ready to  program my DVR to make sure I did not miss this once the date of its premiere was announced.  But then....  

HBO is dropping its plans to make a film on Roger Ailes and the rise of Fox News Channel. 

The network had optioned film rights to work by media writer Gabriel Sherman, who is writing a book on Fox News. But HBO said Thursday that it’s not going forward with those plans, saying it wouldn’t be appropriate considering the network’s ties to Fox competitor CNN. Both HBO and CNN are owned by Time Warner.

Wait, what? So what if HBO and CNN are owned by the same company?

You know if I were a conspiracy minded person, and there is no evidence to suggest that I am, I would find myself thinking that perhaps somebody got a call from another very powerful somebody making them a deal they could not refuse. You know like News Corps the Mafia does.

You cannot tell me that there is not an audience out there that would devour this movie whole and then plead for more, because there certainly is. And since HBO is in the business of making movies, and series, which are controversial and guaranteed money makers, it seems fairly reasonable to assume that there are powerful people who simply do NOT want this movie to see the light of day.

Which of course makes ME want to see it more than ever!

It's Sunday so let's start the day with a little discussion about the impact of religion on scientific progress.

Larger image here

Of course this only impacts scientific research which directly addresses topics that endanger religious mythology, like evolution, or anthropology, or cosmology, or archeology, or paleontology, or....well you get the drift.

I mean NO religious organization seems interested in challenging the research of chemists, or entomologists, or microbiologists, or...well again, you get the drift. Even though they follow the exact same guidelines to reach their hypotheses.

Christian teens walk out as activist Dan Savage discusses the negative impact the Bible has had on the LGBT community, and others.

Seeing those kids walking out of this presentation is how I envision the response by Christians to some of my religious posts.

You know like this one.

What Savage says at the end of this video reflects almost EXACTLY my position when I write a post about how organized religion is negatively impacting the lives of many Americans.

Faux GOP outrage of the day. Somebody said something true, and Ann Romney pretends her feelings are hurt.

"I dare you to say anything that can be perceived as negative about me."

Courtesy of CBS News:

Ann Romney started a Twitter account on Wednesday evening to respond to a comment from Democratic strategist Hilary Rosen, who said that the wife of the presumed Republican presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, was unqualified to speak about the kinds of economic issues facing women in America because she had never "worked a day in her life." 

Rosen, appearing on CNN's Anderson Cooper 360, called Mitt Romney "old fashioned when it comes to women." She said the former Massachusetts governor was learning about the economic plights of the fair sex through his wife, Ann, who has been meeting with women regularly on the trail. 

"His wife has actually never worked a day in her life," Rosen said on CNN. "She's never really dealt with the kinds of economic issues that a majority of women in this country are facing in terms of how do we feed our kids? How do we send them to school? And why we worry about their future." 

A short time later, Ann Romney responded by opening a Twitter account, where her new profile reads, "Mom of five boys. Grandmother of 16. Out campaigning for @MittRomney. #Mitt2012." She sent just one tweet that said, "I made a choice to stay home and raise five boys. Believe me, it was hard work." 

Rather than backing down, Rosen herself then took to the social media site, responding directly to Ann Romney with a series of tweets: 

Hilaryr: @AnnDRomney I am raising children too. But most young American women HAVE to BOTH earn a living AND raise children. You know that don't u? 

Hilaryr: @AnnDRomney Please know, I admire you. But your husband shouldn't say you are his expert on women and the economy. #HeNeedsMore

Okay now I think it should be apparent to ANYBODY not trying to score political points here that Hillary Rosen is ABSOLUTELY RIGHT on this issue.

She never denigrated Mrs. Romney's role as a home maker, she simply pointed out that it does not give her credibility in this day and age to be used as a sounding board by her husband to understand women's issues in 2012.  In today's world Ann Romeny's ability to choose to be a stay at home mom is the exception, NOT the rule.

And the thing is the Romney campaign KNOWS this!  They are simply using this as an opportunity to distract the public from the fact hat Mitt Romney is a very robotic like individual who does not seem to understand ANYBODY not sitting beside him in a country club in a Caribbean Island somewhere.

Hell, Ann Romney signs up for Twitter JUST to address this "attack" on her lifestyle choice. Could anything be more transparent than that?

But hey, I don't blame the Romney campaign and the Republicans, what else do they have to work with?

But this is the part that pisses me off!

The impromptu Twitter battle provoked responses from both the Romney and Obama campaigns - all through twitter. Romney senior adviser Eric Fehrnstrom called Rosen an "Obama adviser" and said her "new kill Ann strategy" had insulted working moms. And although Rosen is only a supporter and not affiliated with the Obama campaign, two top Obama officials - senior strategist David Axelrod and campaign manager Jim Messina - both distanced the campaign from Rosen's remarks through tweets of their own, with Axelrod calling the comments "inappropriate and offensive" while Messina called on Rosen to apologize.

Later on even Michelle Obama tweeted support for Ann Romney.

"Every mother works hard, and every woman deserves to be respected," Obama, a former corporate lawyer and mother of two daughters, wrote in a Twitter message today. 

This constant knee-jerk reaction by liberals to turn on each other the minute that a conservative claims they have been wronged by one of us is really fucking irritating!  Rosen did nothing but point out the obvious, and she gets railroaded.

On the other hand when Herman Cain was under accusation for being a sexual predator, with plenty of proof to make that case, the "party of family values" rallied around him like he was the paragon of virtue surrounded by a drunken lynch mob.

Liberals need to get a thicker skin and develop the ability to stand their ground when the GOP starts to manufacture some bullshit outrage over nothing.  I am tired of watching us apologize for telling the truth or pointing out uncomfortable facts.

I am sure Ann Romney is a very nice person. An expert on women's issues?  Not so much.

Doonesbury takes on the issue of the Texas Republican's bill to force transvaginal exams on women considering abortion.

Courtesy of Doonesbury.com

This of course has caused a number of the more conservative papers to ban the strip, or move it to their op-ed pages.

Here is what we can look forward to in upcoming strips:

Monday: Young woman arrives for her pre-termination sonogram, is told to take a seat in the shaming room, a middle-aged male state legislator will be right with her. 

Tuesday: He asks her if this is her first visit to the center, she replies no, that she’s been using the contraceptive services for some time. He says, “I see. Do your parents know you’re a slut?” 

Wednesday: A different male is reading to her about the transvaginal exam process. 

Thursday: In the stirrups, she is telling a nurse that she doesn’t want a transvaginal exam. Doctor says “Sorry miss, you’re first trimester. The male Republicans who run Texas require that all abortion seekers be examined with a 10″ shaming wand.” She asks “Will it hurt?” Nurse says, “Well, it’s not comfortable, honey. But Texas feels you should have thought of that.” Doctor says, “By the authority invested in me by the GOP base, I thee rape.” 

Friday: Doctor is explaining that the Texas GOP requires her to have an intimate encounter with her fetus. He begins describing it to her. Last panel, he says, “Shall I describe it’s hopes and dreams?” She replies, “If it wants to be the next Rick Perry, I’ve made up my mind.” 

Saturday: Back in the reception area, she asks where she goes now for the actual abortion. Receptionist tells her there’s a 24-hour waiting period: “The Republican Party is hoping you get caught in a shame spiral and change your mind.” Last panel: She says, “A final indignity.” Receptionist replies, “Not quite. Here’s your bill.”

Wow! That is certainly going to make some heads explode on the conservative side of the aisle!

I do believe this is the first time Doonesbury has been banned since his strips about the McGinniss book.