Gov. Sarah Palin returned to work in her Anchorage office Friday afternoon and spoke out against anonymously sourced stories critical of her behavior on the campaign trail, saying ...And in my opinion accurately describing the press, McCain and the entire GOP establishment:
"it’s immature, it’s unprofessional and those guys are jerks."
Barack Obama didn't get all the way there Tuesday — not yet anyway. However, he fell short ...Oh gee, he just got elected to be President of the United States of America, still the most powerful nation in the world even after White House resident Bush the Destroyer, with full corporate clown approval, spent 8 years attempting to tear the country apart brick by brick.
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Flagstaff Democrat and former legislator Ann Kirkpatrick rode a significant fundraising edge to victory over Republican Sydney Hay, a mining-industry lobbyist well-known in conservative circles. Kirkpatrick focused her campaign on the rural district's economic concerns, while Hay emphasized gas prices and conservative touchstones like abortion and gun rights.The rest of Arizona's Critters stayed in place.
Frankly, the fact that the pre-election polls are close - after eight years of authoritarian leadership from Bush and Cheney, and given its disastrous results - shows that many Americans either do not realize where a McCain/Palin presidency might take us, or they are happy to go there. Frankly, it scares the hell out of me, for there is only one way to deal with these conservative zealots: Keep them out of power.And the kicker:
If Obama is rejected on November 4th for another authoritarian conservative like McCain, I must ask if Americans are sufficiently intelligent to competently govern themselves. ...Obama doesn't inspire me as he does so many others, but he's a rational human being where McCain is [from Dean's list]:
Red, but how long?
This idiot woman, this blind, shortsighted ignoramus, this pretentious clod, mocks basic research and the international research community. You damn well better believe that there is research going on in animal models — what does she expect, that scientists should mutagenize human mothers and chop up baby brains for this work? — and countries like France and Germany and England and Canada and China and India and others are all respected participants in these efforts.Then Tristero at digby's put it into perspective: Republicans vs. Science
Sarah Palin isn't the issue here. Sure, I'll concede that this illustrates Palin's breathtaking ignorance AND her stupidity. After all, she agreed to repeat it. But what it really demonstrates is how unqualified the upper echelons of the Republican party are to run this country. She certainly didn't write this speech: John McCain's advisers did and approved every appalling word.And that's the point. Sara Palin, ignorance and all, represents the Republican Party. And a significant portion of that party is very happy with her and her ignorance. George Bush, ignorance and all, represented the Republican Party. And a significant portion of this entire country fell right in line. Education, science, reason are not respected by a startling number of US Citizens. Neither are fairness, justice, equality under the law.
Yet even as they obsess over Barack Obama and Bill Ayers -- just as the McCain campaign tells them to --the news media have all but ignored John McCain's close ties to Gordon Liddy. A Nexis search** finds fewer than 100 news reports that have mentioned McCain and Liddy this year.
The idea that truth is merely a social construct, that it's subjective, in other words, first appeared in academia as a corruption of post-modernism, but it’s taken root in our culture without our really realizing it or understanding its implications.
We then try to explain to them why the outer shell color of people matters so much on this planet and why those individuals who can lay eggs (sorta) are regarded as second-class quality essentially everywhere while the egg-laying ability itself is lauded to high heavens. The aliens then roll all their eight eyeballs and decide to vacation on Alpha Centaur next time.
Not being "the other" has some great advantages. For instance, when John McCain or Joe Biden do something stupid they only affect their own reputations, because white men are not "the other". They are individuals. When Barack Obama or Sarah Palin do something stupid they affect the reputations of African-Americans or women respectively (at least among all racists and sexists). They serve as embodiments of the groups they represent. This is the case as long as Firsts are necessary, as long as we only have a handful of individuals on which to base our group assessments.
There has been much condemnation over the "Obama-is-a-Muslim" line of GOP attack, but almost all of it has been on the ground that the attack is factually false as applied to the Christian Obama, not on the ground that it is a reprehensible and dangerous line of attack even if it were factually true. Powell bears much of the responsibility, and always will, for the horrific U.S. attack on Iraq (one which, just by the way, resulted in the deaths of at least hundreds of thousands of innocent Muslims), but he deserves credit for using the platform he had this morning to go out of his way to make this vital point when doing so was not necessary (and perhaps not even helpful) in advancing the cause of his endorsement of Obama.That being Muslim or Arab is a mark against someone's character is now so ingrained in our political culture that it is hardly noticed any longer. When John McCain, at that rally in Minnesota last week, sought to chide his supporter for asserting that Obama is an "Arab," McCain did so by pointing out that, in fact, Obama is a "decent family man" -- as though that proves that he's not "an Arab because "decent family man" is the opposite of "Arab": ...
COLUMBUS, Ohio — John McCain on Friday moved to calm rising anger among his supporters at rival Barack Obama, calling him a decent man and at one point taking the microphone away from a woman who'd called Obama an Arab.
Their anger apparently still at flash point, McCain's supporters then booed him for his conciliatory words about Obama.
The abrupt move from McCain at a town hall meeting in Minnesota came after days of rising tensions as McCain and his campaign attacked Obama as a friend of a 1960s radical they called a terrorist.
About Palin: So you may not agree with Davey, but I think he makes an apt point in suggesting that her over-feminization and over-sexualization is to attract [] men, not women. I think this is plausible because the Republican party does not care about women and their choices. Furthermore, as Courtney discussed here, Palin is the type of woman that is acceptable to patriarchy and if anything reifies masculinity. Furthermore, as many feminists have discussed, I also think this is one example of how sexism is working in Palin's favor.
... For all their crowing about traditional values, it's the right that has embraced decadence, sadism, nihilism and corruption under the cover of religion. ...
... why does Congress and the Executive Branch have time to meet with lobbyists for Wall Street, but no time to meet with leading economists ..."Lame" duck is not the anatomically accurate metaphor for what remains of George W. Bush's administration. Castrated is. ...
The enablement has had a terribly pernicious effect of insulating Congress from the furious reality of how angry Americans are with Bush and Washington, DC. We’re losing two wars (one a heinous stinking crime of incredible magnitude), drowning in debt, loathed by the rest of world community, horribly abuse our people with no health care, lousy wages and unemployment on a warming planet yet Congress gives away hundreds of billions to greedy liars without a hearing! ...
The most absurd practice in American political life is throwing ourselves into the arms of the very people who have caused our crises ...In cultural and political terms, we get what we ask for, and what we deserve. We will get it in spades in the coming week, and in the years to come.
But for those who prefer to imagine an old man duke it out with a much younger man in a 'punch and counter-punch' kind of way the article is very readable. Quite suitable. It has action. It has drama. It has suspense that won't be resolved until a later time. But as for information, facts, analysis it leaves this reader searching elsewhere.
It's debate night: Which candidate will prove riskier?Another he said/he said fantasy from Thomma's brain through McClatchy servers to your eyes.
NASHVILLE — Who does America want at the helm in a time of crisis, an erratic gambler or a dangerous radical?
A Poll on the Bailout by Matt StollerNOTE: The only reason I'm wrting a blog entry questioning Reid's omission from the poll is due to the lack of email address for Stoller (that I could find) and no obvious route to submit a comment (probably I have something turned off in my browser or maybe I would have to register to obtain such an honor).
I have some questions as to what you all think about the bailout and the performance of the Democrats over the past two weeks. If you're interested in filling out a survey on this bailout, go here. I've got a bunch of questions for us to answer about how various leaders on our side of the aisle performed.
(1) It shows that even with the incredibly foolish bailout package, our debt levels should remain managable, if the next President is sane (i.e. not a Republican). This doesn't mean we have no problems. It just means that this bailout, however odious, is not a crushing blow that destroys all hope.Straight talk is always appreciated, but such talk is not obvious, not even in this post: A Little Straight Talk About The Debt.
Sarah Palin gave as good as she got, but will it be enough?Journalists. Reporters. Fantasy writers. Whatever they're calling themselves, they sure do search for those 'dramatic breakthroughs' don't they. When 'dramatic breakthroughs' don't slap them right in the face they just make thinks up, like 'Palin gave as good as she got.'The first-term Alaska governor, a Republican, gave a sharper performance in her 90-minute debate with Democratic vice presidential rival Joe Biden than she has in recent TV interviews, which have drawn comedy show ridicule, scorn from some fellow conservatives and a dramatic drop in trust from voters.
But she didn't score the kind of dramatic breakthrough that she did when she burst onto the national stage with a strong, in-your-face speech at the Republican National Convention. ...
“I did not feel that H.R. 1424 was the appropriate vehicle. It did not do enough to safeguard taxpayers, no strong oversight, too much latitude for the Secretary of the Treasury, and an unresolved re-payment of the $700 billion.Really Congress could have done a decent job and chose not to. Grijalva's vote is the right one. The ones who refused to do their jobs but voted yes to another abomination are the ones who should be fired. Makes for most of the Congress doesn't it. Good job, NOT.
“I sincerely hope that the action taken by Congress today does in fact, stabilize the economy. The last thing I want to do is say, ‘I told you so’.
Today, I joined a strong bipartisan majority of my congressional colleagues in voting for the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act. This legislation is far from perfect, but the economic crisis confronting our nation demands congressional action.-------------------------
Sadly, the bailout bill is no longer George Bush's. It's Barack Obama's:Black lawmakers said personal calls from Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama helped switch them from "no" to "yes."I'd say a pretty sad - though predictable - moment in Democratic Party history. The Democratic nominee helps ram a Wall Street giveaway through a Democratic Congress. At least with NAFTA, Bill Clinton relied on mostly Republican votes.
And he didn't even try to make it a good bill!
Basically, Paulson has placed us all in a miserable predicament, with a lousy plan that has to be passed in some form to prevent total panic. Jan. 20 won’t come a moment too soon, and may well come about 4 1/2 months too late.Democrats may get to blame this on Bush and the GOP. And they will be right. But we should also hold the Dems in Congress responsible. They are so used to doing nothing, to rejecting their responsibilities, to letting us down that they must be held accountable for their job performance, with is abominable. They have lowered the bar to repeatedly accepting and passing the worst legislation imaginable and then telling us what a wonderful job they just did. They don't work. They take orders and not from us.
