Dimwit Palin Wants To Be President

This is a great article. I couldn’t agree with it more.

From ••NY Daily News••:

Tea Party favorite Sarah Palin has delusions of grandeur if she thinks she can be President

Mike Lupica

Now Sarah Palin comes right out and says it, that she really is thinking about running for President in 2012. She says it in the same starry-eyed way kids talk about growing up to be astronauts, but actually seems to believe it, that somehow she can go from being this kind of pinup girl for her Tea Party friends to the White House.

“I think it would be absurd to not consider what it is that I can potentially do to help our country,” Palin told Chris Wallace on “Fox News Sunday.”

Now there are many, many ways Sarah Palin could help this country. Running for President will never be one of them. You listen to her long enough and actually feel yourself getting dimmer by the minute, like a dying light bulb.

If her vision and grasp of even the most basic issues – with or without cribnotes – were any lighter, you would have to tie a rock to her to keep her from floating away.

She imagines herself as some big, conservative, independent thinker. When she doesn’t like Rahm Emanuel, the President’s chief of staff, using the word “retards” to describe liberal groups, she says Emanuel should be fired.

Then her buddy Rush Limbaugh comes out and says, “Our political correct society is acting like some giant insult’s taken place by calling a bunch of people who are retards, retards.”

Chris Wallace asked her about that Sunday, and Palin practically wrestled herself to the ground so she didn’t make Limbaugh – who seems to take her seriously – mad at her. What Palin tried looked trickier than some yoga positions.

Palin: “Rush Limbaugh was using satire.”

No, he wasn’t. If Palin believes that, she really is more limited, and bubble-headed, than Paris Hilton. If not, she is simply a transparent phony.

In so many ways, Palin has become the great old line from the movie “All About Eve,” the one about the piano thinking it wrote the concerto.

“How’s that hope-y, change-y thing workin’ out for ya,” she said in this lame, singsong way in Nashville, thinking she was being funny. No. Tina Fey – playing Palin on “Saturday Night Live” – was funny. No matter how hard she tries to be taken seriously, Palin is a joke.

Sunday was another day for her, this time on Sunday morning talk shows, when the idea of trying to parse her sentences, and thoughts, seemed more complicated than the “Da Vinci Code.”

Maybe she would have done better with Wallace if she’d written down talking points on herhand, the way she did at that Tea Party convention, the superpatriot version of Halloween in the Village.

Rookie football quarterbacks do the same thing, by the way, write things down on their wrists, when they don’t know all the plays.

Anybody can bring notes to a speech, no crime in that, no disgrace. But if you’re going to mock President Obama for using a TelePrompTer, you sort of can’t let a Huffington Post blogger see “Energy” and “Tax Cuts” and “Lift American Spirits” written on the palm of your left hand, no matter how hard it is to remember tricky concepts like those.

The good news? Only one crossout!

Palin probably did the same thing with the word “maverick” during her talking hairdo campaign to be vice president, “maverick” being pretty much her whole act. The very best news of the weekend? It’s now official that she can fit her entire political philosophy in the palm of her hand.

She thinks she is some kind of dream candidate for her party when the truth is that Palin is only a dream candidate for the other party.

All her friends on the right, the ones who treat her like a hot version of Margaret Thatcher, are afraid to say that. Or call her out for being the lightweight that she is, same as she was afraid to call out Limbaugh. So they all deserve one another.

Here is something else Sarah Palin said about her future presidential ambitions.

“I won’t close the door that perhaps could be open for me in the future,” Palin said.

She will discover – Democrats sure hope it is later rather than sooner – that the only door to worry about is the one that will hit her on her way out.

Palin’s notes written on her palm at the Teabagg– I mean Tea Party convention.

What Conservatives Say When No One Is Listening

Take a moment to read this article about a recent cruise sponsored by the National Review, the right-wing conservative magazine. It is scary. Conservatives in this country have started down a very dangerous path, a path that leads us no where, or at least no where good. They have become simply obstructionist, paralyzing our government without offering any clear, coherent or workable alternatives. On top of that, they have descended into violent rhetoric.

An excerpt from Alternet:

Neocons on a Cruise: What Conservatives Say When They Think We Aren’t Listening
The Iraq war has been an amazing success, global warming is just a myth and Guantanamo Bay is practically a holiday camp. The annual cruise organized by the ‘National Review,’ mouthpiece of right-wing America, is a parallel universe populated by straight-talking, gun-toting, God-fearing Republicans.

I am standing waist-deep in the Pacific Ocean, both chilling and burning, indulging in the polite chit-chat beloved by vacationing Americans. A sweet elderly lady from Los Angeles is sitting on the rocks nearby, telling me dreamily about her son. “Is he your only child?” I ask. “Yes,” she says. “Do you have a child back in England?” she asks. No, I say. Her face darkens. “You’d better start,” she says. “The Muslims are breeding. Soon, they’ll have the whole of Europe.”

I am getting used to these moments – when gentle holiday geniality bleeds into… what? I lie on the beach with Hillary-Ann, a chatty, scatty 35-year-old Californian designer. As she explains the perils of Republican dating, my mind drifts, watching the gentle tide. When I hear her say, ” Of course, we need to execute some of these people,” I wake up. Who do we need to execute? She runs her fingers through the sand lazily. “A few of these prominent liberals who are trying to demoralise the country,” she says. “Just take a couple of these anti-war people off to the gas chamber for treason to show, if you try to bring down America at a time of war, that’s what you’ll get.” She squints at the sun and smiles. ” Then things’ll change.”

I am travelling on a bright white cruise ship with two restaurants, five bars, a casino – and 500 readers of the National Review. Here, the Iraq war has been “an amazing success”. Global warming is not happening. The solitary black person claims, “If the Ku Klux Klan supports equal rights, then God bless them.” And I have nowhere to run.

From time to time, National Review – the bible of American conservatism – organises a cruise for its readers. I paid $1,200 to join them. The rules I imposed on myself were simple: If any of the conservative cruisers asked who I was, I answered honestly, telling them I was a journalist. Mostly, I just tried to blend in – and find out what American conservatives say when they think the rest of us aren’t listening.

From sweet to suicide bomber

I arrive at the dockside in San Diego on Saturday afternoon and stare up at the Oosterdam, our home for the next seven days. Filipino boat hands are loading trunks into the hull and wealthy white folk are gliding onto its polished boards with pale sun parasols dangling off their arms.

The Reviewers have been told to gather for a cocktail reception on the Lido, near the very top of the ship. I arrive to find a tableau from Gone With the Wind, washed in a thousand shades of grey. Southern belles – aged and pinched – are flirting with old conservative warriors. The etiquette here is different from anything I have ever seen. It takes me 15 minutes to realise what is wrong with this scene. There are no big hugs, no warm kisses. This is a place of starchy handshakes. Men approach each other with stiffened spines, puffed-out chests and crunching handshakes. Women are greeted with a single kiss on the cheek. Anything more would be French.

I adjust and stiffly greet the first man I see. He is a judge, with the craggy self-important charm that slowly consumes any judge. He is from Canada, he declares (a little more apologetically), and is the founding president of “Canadians Against Suicide Bombing”. Would there be many members of “Canadians for Suicide Bombing?” I ask. Dismayed, he suggests that yes, there would.

A bell rings somewhere, and we are all beckoned to dinner. We have been assigned random seats, which will change each night. We will, the publicity pack promises, each dine with at least one National Review speaker during our trip.

To my left, I find a middle-aged Floridian with a neat beard. To my right are two elderly New Yorkers who look and sound like late-era Dorothy Parkers, minus the alcohol poisoning. They live on Park Avenue, they explain in precise Northern tones. “You must live near the UN building,” the Floridian says to one of the New York ladies after the entree is served. Yes, she responds, shaking her head wearily. “They should suicide-bomb that place,” he says. They all chuckle gently. How did that happen? How do you go from sweet to suicide-bomb in six seconds?

This Blew Me Away

Dimwit Palin Reads Answers Written on Her Palm

An excerpt from ••here••:

She spent a while attempting to mock the Real President for using a teleprompter, which earned her derision and scorn even from her fans on twitter. Why, you ask, would a Palin fan not enjoy a good dash of mock and awe? Perhaps because Herself was reading off of notes for the entire speech….which only served to give us a gander at the odd poof of hair attached to her real hair. Not sure what’s going on there– maybe that’s “Real America” hair?

But that wasn’t the low point. The Vintage Palin moment occurred when she sat down to answer questions, which apparently had been pre-screened. So, she had a chance to study up prior to this moment.

And yet, she actually consulted notes scrawled on her hand while fishing around for the answer. As in, a handprompter. Leave it to Sarah.

Conservative Cato Institute Supports Gay Marriage

From ••here••:

The Moral and Constitutional Case for a Right to Gay Marriage

by Robert A. Levy

Robert A. Levy is chairman of the Cato Institute.

Following bitter defeats in California, Maine, and New York, the gay and lesbian community has a New Year’s victory to celebrate. New Hampshire joins four other states — Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts and Vermont — in legalizing gay marriage. And the nation’s capital is also onboard. Washington Mayor Adrian Fenty put it this way: “Marriage inequality is a civil rights, political, social, moral and religious issue.”

He covered all the bases, except one: It’s a constitutional issue as well.

Thomas Jefferson set the stage in the Declaration of Independence: “[T]o secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men.” The primary purpose of government is to safeguard individual rights and prevent some persons from harming others. Heterosexuals should not be treated preferentially when the state carries out that role. And no one is harmed by the union of two consenting gay people.

Of course, government discriminates among its citizens all the time.

For most of Western history, marriage was a matter of private contract between the betrothed parties and perhaps their families. Following that tradition, marriage today should be a private arrangement, requiring minimal or no state intervention. Some religious or secular institutions would recognize gay marriages; others would not; still others would call them domestic partnerships or assign another label. Join whichever group you wish. The rights and responsibilities of partners would be governed by personally tailored contracts — consensual bargains like those that control most other interactions in a free society.

Regrettably, government has interceded, enacting more than 1,000 federal laws dealing mostly with taxes or transfer payments, and an untold number of state laws dealing with such questions as child custody, inheritance and property rights. Whenever government imposes obligations or dispenses benefits, it may not “deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” That provision is explicit in the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, applicable to the states, and implicit in the Fifth Amendment, applicable to the federal government.

Of course, government discriminates among its citizens all the time. By the 1920s, 38 states prohibited whites from marrying blacks and certain Asians. Until 1954, all states were allowed to operate segregated schools. Thankfully, the Supreme Court invalidated both interracial marital restrictions and school segregation. The court applied the plain text of the Equal Protection Clause despite contrary practices by the states for many years even after the 14th Amendment was ratified in 1868.

To pass constitutional muster, racial discrimination had to survive “strict scrutiny” by the courts. Government had to demonstrate a compelling need for its regulations, show they would be effective and narrowly craft the rules so they didn’t sweep more broadly than necessary. That same regime should apply when government discriminates based on gender preference.

No compelling reason has been proffered for sanctioning heterosexual but not homosexual marriages. Nor is a ban on gay marriage a close fit for attaining the goals cited by proponents of such bans. If the goal, for example, is to strengthen the institution of marriage, a more effective step might be to bar no-fault divorce and premarital cohabitation. If the goal is to ensure procreation, then infertile and aged couples should be precluded from marriage.

Instead, most states have implemented an irrational and unjust system that provides significant benefits to just-married heterosexuals while denying benefits to a male or female couple who have enjoyed a loving, committed, faithful and mutually reinforcing relationship over several decades. That’s not the way it has to be. Government benefits triggered by marriage could just as easily be triggered by other objective criteria, leaving the definition of marriage in the hands of private institutions.

For instance, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee recently voted to extend employee benefits to same-sex partners of federal employees. The qualifying criterion, which could also apply to heterosexual couples, is an affidavit identifying the domestic partner and certifying that the partnership is intended to be exclusive and permanent, within a common residence, with shared responsibilities.

Similarly, some states dispense benefits to qualifying gay couples joined in predefined civil unions. Even private-sector employers are increasingly offering same-sex “marital” benefits. According to the federal Office of Personnel Management, nearly 60% of Fortune 500 companies confer employment benefits on domestic partners.

Yet our politicians, unwilling to privatize marriage, seem congenitally unable to extricate themselves from our most intimate relationships. One would hope, in the coming months and years, that more enlightened federal and state legislators will have the courage and decency to resist morally abhorrent and constitutionally suspect restrictions based on sexual orientation. Gay couples are entitled to the same legal rights and the same respect and dignity accorded to all Americans.

Senator Franken Grills NBC and Comcast Execs

Here’s the video:
1. Sen. Franken’s Opening Statement

2. Questions

From the Huffington Post:

Senator Franken Rips Into Comcast CEO Brian Roberts

Comcast CEO Brian Roberts and NBC President Jeff Zucker testified in front of House and Senate subcommittees Thursday as regulators decide whether to allow the proposed merger of the two media giants. Comcast is the largest cable TV and residential high-speed Internet company in the nation. NBC is one of the largest content providers.

The House hearing opened with several politicians waxing poetic about how the merger is great for America. While nobody in the room cracked a smile, their enthusiasm is laughable. The only people who could believe that the largest media merger in a generation is good for the public are either: 1) on the receiving end of the massive campaign contributions from said media companies; 2) bending to the phalanx of industry lobbyists swarming Capitol Hill; or 3) hoodwinked believers in the “all regulation is bad” approach that brought us Enron and the financial meltdown.

Not everyone is swallowing the snake oil Comcast is peddling to grease its takeover of NBC. None shone brighter yesterday than Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.), who aggressively interrogated Comcast CEO Brian Roberts and NBC Universal President Jeff Zucker — all but accusing them of lying to his face.

“You’ll have to excuse me if I don’t trust these promises, and that is from experience in this business,” Franken said. “It matters who runs our media companies….the media are our source of entertainment, but they’re also the way we get our information about the world. So when the same company produces the programs and runs the pipes that bring us those programs, we have a reason to be nervous.”

We sure do. Here are 10 more reasons to be very afraid of the proposed Comcast/NBC merger:

1) Comcast Buys Influence
The communications industry is, after all, second only to Big Pharma in Washington influence-peddling. Comcast spent more than $5.5 million in campaign contributions since 2006 alone to have their way in Washington. That’s not counting more than $50 million they’ve spent on lobbying in the past three years!

2) How Much Is Enough?
Comcast earned more than $3.6 billion in profits in 2009 while claiming they didn’t have enough money to invest in faster Internet networks … and while raising rates as much as 50 percent over the past five years in some markets.

3) Fat Cat CEO
In 2008, CEO Brian Roberts was ranked as one of five “Highest Paid Worst Performers” in America. 2008 income: $40.8 million. Sitting on Capitol Hill yesterday, he raked in more than $100,000.

4) Bad Customer Service
Comcast ranked second only to AOL in poor customer service, according to a 2009 Zogby/MSM Money poll. Comcast service is so bad they drove a 75-year-old woman named Mona Shaw to wreck one of their stores with a hammer.

5) Comcast Lies and Plays Dirty
In official 2006 testimony, Comcast Vice President David L. Cohen said: “If Comcast were to try to ‘deny, delay, or degrade’ the Internet experience that our more than 9 million cable Internet customers have paid for, how can we possibly expect to keep them as customers. … Any provider that does not meet the needs of users will suffer from a serious backlash from consumers and policymakers.”

In 2008, after being caught illegally blocking content Cohen admitted: “Comcast may on a limited basis temporarily delay certain P2P traffic.” That’s the same year Comcast was caught paying for seat fillers at a public FCC hearing into their illegal Internet blocking. Only this year, after being censured by the FCC, did Roberts admit to the company’s “mistake.”

6) Comcast Censors Political Speech
Comcast prevents ads from running that criticize the company’s political friends. They even fired a newscaster who dared to question an award they were bestowing on Bill O’Reilly.

7) Comcast Blocks Independent Voices
Despite digging up our city streets and enjoying a near-monopoly for decades, Comcast has consistently tried to shirk its community responsibilities – including trying to kick public, educational and government channels into the cable-tier equivalent of Siberia.

8. Goodbye Free Online Video
If this takeover goes through, Comcast will likely pull free NBC content from sites like Hulu and put them behind a “paywall.” In Thursday’s congressional testimony, Comcast CEO Brian Roberts claimed he wouldn’t, but he left wiggle room for his “TV Everywhere” scheme that would force you to pay for a cable subscription to watch your favorite Comcast- and NBC-owned shows online.

9) Launching a Merger Wave
Think this deal stinks? Just wait. If approved, a Comcast/NBC deal would set off a wave of mega-deals as other companies try to keep up. If this deal goes through, you can be sure Verizon-Disney or AT&T-Viacom won’t be far behind.

10) Comcast Can’t Be Trusted
It’s clear Comcast will say and do anything to sell this deal and try to keep Congress and the federal regulators from getting involved to safeguard the public interest. The spin cycle is already starting.

So I’ll give the last word to Senator Franken: “I worked for NBC for many years, and what I know from my previous career has given me reason to be concerned–let me rephrase that, very concerned–about the potential merger of Comcast and NBC Universal……..so while I commend NBCU and Comcast for making voluntary commitments as part of this merger, you’ll have to excuse me if I don’t just trust their promises.”

He Can’t Do It Alone

Wow! Thanks!

10 Reasons to Outlaw Gay Marriage

01) Being gay is not natural. Real Americans always reject unnatural things like eyeglasses, polyester, and air conditioning.

02) Gay marriage will encourage people to be gay, in the same way that hanging around tall people will make you tall.

03) Legalizing gay marriage will open the door to all kinds of crazy behavior. People may even wish to marry their pets because a dog has legal standing and can sign a marriage contract.

04) Straight marriage has been around a long time and hasn’t changed at all; women are still property, blacks still can’t marry whites, and divorce is still illegal.

05) Straight marriage will be less meaningful if gay marriage were allowed; the sanctity of Britany Spears’ 55-hour just-for-fun marriage would be destroyed.

06) Straight marriages are valid because they produce children. Gay couples, infertile couples, and old people shouldn’t be allowed to marry because our orphanages aren’t full yet, and the world needs more children.

07) Obviously gay parents will raise gay children, since straight parents only raise straight children.

08) Gay marriage is not supported by religion. In a theocracy like ours, the values of one religion are imposed on the entire country. That’s why we have only one religion in America.

09) Children can never succeed without a male and a female role model at home. That’s why we as a society expressly forbid single parents to raise children.

10) Gay marriage will change the foundation of society; we could never adapt to new social norms. Just like we haven’t adapted to cars, the service-sector economy, or longer life spans.

North Korean Propaganda Posters

Niko Popp – North Korean Propaganda Posters.

Frasier 200th Episode Interview and Outtakes

One of my favorite shows!

Troops

A fantastic “Star Wars” parody of “Cops”!

Side-By-Side Lies of the Bush Administration

A powerful presentation highlight the outright lies of Bush and company.

Things Fall Apart

This poem by W.B. Yeats accurately reflects my views on what’s happening in America today in so many ways, particularly the highlighted lines.

The Second Coming

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hew the falconer
Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood–dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again,– but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony deep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

–William Butler Yeats

The Greatest Political Evisceration of All Time

The video of President Obama addressing a Republican conference released today is, in my estimation as a historian, the greatest piece of political theater I have ever seen. The President calmly, coolly, sometimes feistily, factually eviscerated the questioners one by one. Even Republican staffers claimed it was a mistake to allow the cameras in the room. This follows on the heels of his magnificent State of the Union Address.

I have never been more proud of the President, or more proud of myself for voting for him.

It also make plain that the United States should adopt Prime Minister’s Question Time as used in Canada, Great Britain, and other parliamentary democracies. Every President should have to face questions from all parties in Congress every week for an hour. (Can you imagine George W. Bush doing that? He’d have been forced to resign after the first one!)

UPDATE:
Salon has a great article about the entire performance.