the venn of birthers

rotting away in jail for fraud? well, this could be your lucky day! birthers are once again fishing for clients and anyone convicted under any laws enacted under an illegal president can apply for a get-out-of-jail-free card — at least according to their latest sure-fire usurper-slaying scheme, passed along by birther debunker blog obama conspiracy theories:

dcist.com reports the story that sibley has created a motion template for people convicted under the 2009 fraud enforcement and recovery act (the act makes it easier to prosecute cases of mortgage fraud and predatory lending). they can petition the court to have their convictions overturned because obama isn’t really president, forcing, sibley believes, the courts to adjudicate the president’s eligibility.

wherein i made the following offhand remark:

finding plaintiffs should be rather straightforward since, as with tax protestors and sovereign citizens, one cannot toss a birfer across a citizen grand jury without hitting a convicted fraudster.

which prompted the reply:

someone should make a birther/lowlife venn diagram.

which got me thinking ...

this first one requires a bit of nuance since one can argue that many if not most birthers fall into all three categories.

in the wingnuttosphere, even those that reject birthers (breitbart, beck) still feed into their mania.

odd duck birther martyr and former army surgeon terry lakin doesn't fit into my standard model but i came up with this just for him and his fellow high stakes losers.

help us obi-wan, part trois

i think CNN may be trying to kill us. they have announced who has been invited to their september 12th debate, and it includes, rather inexplicably, two "candidates" who aren't currently even running for the office:

in a statement, CNN announces its line-up for the september 12 tea party express co-sponsored debate in tampa: gov. rick perry, rep. michele bachmann, gov. mitt romney, rep. ron paul, newt gingrich, herman cain, rick santorum, and jon huntsman. the network adds that rudy giuliani and sarah palin were invited: "giuliani declined the debate invitation, while a palin representative has yet to respond to it."

you've got to be kidding me, right? we're still pretending rick santorum is somehow worthy of inclusion over, say, gary johnson or buddy roemer, but somehow CNN is still so hard up for slots that they're inviting two republicans who aren't even running? are we all that hard up for sarah palin news, that CNN is desperate to generate some whether she's running or not?

help us obi-wan, part deux

when we last looked on the GOP's slate for 2012, hope seemed all but completely lost. but what a difference a day makes!

... the man known as "joe the plumber" is back, and may run for congress. "i'm not ruling anything out," wurzelbacher told the ticket in an interview thursday. he added that he thought it was an "interesting idea" and that people have been asking him to run for office since he confronted obama four years ago. he's spent much of his time since then on the speaker's circuit, he said, encouraging others to run for office. "i like the idea of it — just regular americans running. if a regular guy runs, right away the media's going to attack him," wurzelbacher said. "what kind of education does he have? what does he know about this? my answer to that is, regular americans aren't experts, but dammit, look where the experts have gotten us. maybe we need some regular guys in there. that's what i've been doing the past two and a half years, just encouraging regular americans to run. tell the liberal media to go to hell and i don't care what you guys say about me, i'm going to try to fix this country." jon stainbrook, chairman of the lucas county republican party, told the blade he's hoping wurzelbacher jumps in. "he would make a fantastic candidate," stainbrook said.

marco rubio
paul ryan
tim pawlenty
chris christie
mitch daniels
donald trump
mike bloomberg
rudy giuliani
jeb bush
sarah palin
"joe the plumber" wurzelbacher

help us obi-wan

... and the search for the savior continues:

"i have no interest in serving as vice president for anyone who could possibly live all eight years of the presidency," rubio said, drawing laughter from crowded room. ... what happens in politics is the minute you start thinking there's something else out there for you, it starts affecting everything you do," he said. "all of a sudden, maybe you're afraid to take a position on a certain issue because it imperils your opportunity to do that something else. so the reality of it is, i'm not going to be the vice presidential nominee. but i look forward to working for whoever our nominee is."

marco rubio
paul ryan
tim pawlenty
chris christie
mitch daniels
donald trump
mike bloomberg
rudy giuliani
jeb bush
sarah palin

a michelle bachmann presidency

see also:

"a rick perry presidency"
"a herman cain presidency"
"a mitt romney presidency"
"a rick santorum presidency"
"a newt gingrich presidency"

the undefeated*

and the reviews are pouring in ...

richard corliss, time magazine:

"divine"

[director stephen k.] "bannon applies so much idolatrous airbrushing to his portrait of the divine sarah that the movie might be called going rouge."

"may tempt even the most ardent conservatives to emulate their idol"

"the movie may tempt even the most ardent conservatives to emulate their idol's tenure as governor and walk out halfway through."

"the michael moore
of the hard right"

"bannon could be the michael moore of the hard right — if he had some saving sense of humor and if anyone paid to see his movies."

anna merlan, the village voice:

"glowing"

"the movie, which charts her career as mayor of wasilla and governor of alaska, is less a documentary than a glowing two-hour infomercial for sarah palin, presidential candidate to-be."

"without blemish"

"this cartoonish version of real life is paired with a just-as-caricatured view of palin, who in this retelling is entirely without blemish, physical or political, and incapable of missteps."

"honest"

"in one stump speech shown near the end of the undefeated, palin exclaims brightly, "there’s nothing wrong in america a good ol'-fashioned election can't fix!" that's about as honest as this piece of propaganda."

robert abele, los angeles times:

"dizzying"

"a troop-rallying campaign infomercial as imagined by michael bay: hero-worshipping, crescendo-edited at a dizzying pace, thunderously repetitive and its own worst enemy as a two-hour, talking-points briefing."

"a real person"

"visually, she comes off less like a real person and more like a feisty, smiling, news-clip spirit, thumping the walls via press conference/stump speech footage, minus the on-air moments, such as her gaffe-riddled katie couric interview ..."

"from-the-heart"

"... sound bites come off like well-rehearsed testimonials rather than from-the-heart tidbits from intimates and confidantes."

todd mccarthy, the hollywood reporter:

"a must-see"

"nothing about the film earmarks it as a must-see anywhere other than in the living rooms of die-hard loyalists."

"meaningful"

"once you realize the film is just going to be a string of encomiums against a backdrop of frantically edited archival material in which few shots are allowed to stay onscreen longer than three seconds, it's clear that no meaningful analysis of the woman's career or political agenda will be forthcoming."

joe leydon, variety:

"a history lesson"

"faster than the speed of thought, "the undefeated" is a history lesson designed for students with minimal attention spans."

"undefeated"

"political junkies eager to know more about palin's vice-presidential campaign are similarly out of luck. "the undefeated" gives the 2008 election only cursory treatment — maybe because she was, you know, defeated in that one ..."

---

* with apologies to mad magazine ...

a question for sharron angle

from seneca doane @ daily kos:

i'm tired of beating around the bush arguing about evidence of whether jared loughner was or wasn't motivated to assassinate rep. gabrielle giffords last saturday by far-right-wing craziness. of course the republicans can disavow him — his being "crazy" and a "lone wolf" and all — as quickly as they like.

my interest is: can they disavow his actions — categorically? is what he did fundamentally wrong, in their eyes? or did he just choose the wrong target? the wrong time? the wrong place — what with all those people around? they're sorry, they're sorry, they're incensed at being presented as in some way sympathetic to these actions — but why?

if you want to keep a rifle in your house in case the oppressive government comes after you, then i think i understand what you mean by a "second amendment remedy." but we're not talking about home defense here; we're talking about guns in public, about shows of force. what i want to hear from republicans (and others who favor the NRA line) is: why in their opinion was what jared loughner did not a legitimate appeal to a "second amendment remedy"?

that's a question i'd love to see answered.

is it because "it's polling poorly"?

due to work, i've missed full coverage for the past two days of the festering counter-reaction to this weekend's righteous rejection of the rhetoric of death, so maybe others have already started asking this pointed question: why is what jared loughlin did wrong?

it's not because it's murder. a "second amendment remedy" will inherently involve murder — or at least killing someone, under an attenuated theory of self-defense. it's not even because bystanders were killed as well — these things happen in a revolution. had he shot rep. giffords and then threw down his gun, does anyone want to say that their reaction would be otherwise? (let him or her speak up, if so. i'd like to be forewarned.)

in fact, the problem with "second amendment remedies" is that this is what they look like.

here, listen to sharron angle:

you know, our founding fathers, they put that second amendment in there for a good reason and that was for the people to protect themselves against a tyrannical government. and in fact thomas jefferson said it's good for a country to have a revolution every 20 years.

i hope that's not where we're going, but, you know, if this congress keeps going the way it is, people are really looking toward those second amendment remedies and saying my goodness what can we do to turn this country around? i'll tell you the first thing we need to do is take harry reid out.

well, wasn't jared loughner fighting against a "tyrannical government," as represented by rep. gabrielle giffords — who at a similar 2007 event had had the temerity to reply to his question about the government's using language for mind control by replying to him in spanish?

don't we get to decide for ourselves what constitutes "tyranny," under this theory? surely we don't have to wait for the government to say "we're officially tyrannical now, so as a matter of constitutional law it's ok to start shooting at us."

well, jared loughner was more convinced that the government was tyrannical than most of us will ever be convinced of anything! so, why was his acting on that belief illegitimate, second amendment supporters from the republican and tea parties? because we disagreed with his judgment?

did he look around and say "my goodness, what can we do to turn this country around?" well, he probably didn't say "my goodness." but let me ask you, those of you who think that this wasn't "political" — do you think he would have shot gabrielle giffords and all these others if she had lost rather than won this past election by 1% of the vote? do you think he would have gone to find her at her old family tire store and shot her there? i highly doubt it (and not just because they sold it to goodyear.)

"i'll tell you the first thing we need to do is take harry reid out," is what sharron angle said — and the first thing loughner thought he needed to do was to take gabrielle giffords out.

isn't this what it's all about, fans of violent rhetoric? in what sense was his action not legitimate — by the standards of what those who blather about being "armed and dangerous" and who shoot up pictures rather than people and who pointedly remark about murder as a conceivable alternative to political victory?

please explain! please do explain — the children are listening. i'm sure they'd like to understand the distinction.

i don't have to explain why i think what he did was morally repulsive. i don't talk about "second amendment remedies" because i know that when we enter the arena in which logic and civility are no longer the means to victory, i've lost my advantage. i'll fight in the gutter if dragged into the gutter, but the gutter is not where i want to be.

is the real problem that republicans and tea partiers have with jared loughner is that he, unlike them, turned out not to be a poseur? that he actually went and did something that was only supposed to be threatened?

if so, then they need to do a better job of explaining "the rules" to those whom they influence with this sort of talk.

so in the meantime, if no one has already had the chance to do so, i'd really like to see someone ask sharron angle and sarah palin and michele bachmann and whoever else why jared loughner's "second amendment remedy" — his attempt, frankly, to overturn the results of an election with the bullet when the ballot didn't work — is illegitimate.

i don't even want to hear it — assuming they'll have a coherent answer — for my own benefit. but i sure would like the alienated 22-year-olds — who are watching jared loughner, head like a clenched fist, in the wake of this massacre and silently thinking "well, he sure went and did it. he had the courage of what he believed, what i say i believe" — to hear it.

explain to them, please why — believing in second amendment remedies in a political culture such as ours, as opposed to that of nazi germany or communist czechoslovakia or such — why what jared loughner did was wrong.

i know what i think it was wrong, but those sorts of kids won't listen to me.

they'll listen to you, maybe. so please, sharron angle and others, explain why this "second amendment remedy" was wrong.

fright wing

burning up the interwebs this past week was the village voice's cover story on white fright, but i thought the cover itself, by unforgiving longtime favorite stippler of the stars drew friedman, was worth the trip for its own sake. if you've ever wondered who actually got the commission to paint the portrait of dorian gray ... look ye no further:

not worth rescuing (revised)

sometime during the last half century, blacks pulled off a most amazing trick: they kidnapped a word. they kidnapped it from the white majority that had been using it to demean and oppress them.

there are two parts to this trick that make it so amazing. first, the word's ongoing captivity has served to extend its natural lifespan and potency far beyond that of its increasingly quaint contemporaries. second, blacks have convinced whites that what they've taken from them is something of real value, something that they need to take back.

most offensive words have only a limited shelf-life. whatever signifigance that originally makes them offensive is usually bound up in the zeitgeist of the period in which they are born. eventually, after the passing of enough generations, whatever context that gave them life and power becomes drained by everyday usage and is lost to those who grow up never having personally felt their emotional sting. the surest sign that an offensive term has hit its expiration date is the lifting of any bans on its public usage. after the word "bitch" became allowable on public airwaves, it has since become so flaccid (despite an initial period of titillation) that the slang term "bee-yatch" was squeezed from it in a naked but ultimately futile attempt to milk new life from it.

but in a feat drawing the envy of professional outrage manufacturers and propagandists everywhere, blacks have locked the n-word away in a kind of linguistic cryogenic freezer, safe for blacks' own endless private indulgence, whose continued undisguised flaunting of their hostage has now driven self-annointed self-help counselor and moralist dr. laura to commit professional suicide.

black guys use it all the time. turn on HBO and listen to a black comic, and all you hear is n****, n*****, n*****. i don't get it. if anybody without enough melanin says it, it's a horrible thing. but when black people say it, it's affectionate. it's very confusing.

their exclusive use of n-word is one of the few possessions that blacks have that whites don't, but most whites fail to realize that its enjoyment comes not from being able to say it, but from being able to watch the veins jealously swell up in the foreheads of racists and race-baiters as the word gets stuck in their throats, trapped there because the consequences of freeing it have become so personally damaging. comedian elon james white conveniently enumerates for us all the different types of outrage he feels free to unleash upon a white person unwise enough to utter the word:

listen, i'm not saying that white people can't say the word "ni**er", okay? what i am saying is that if you say it, i can also hate you, okay? i can mock you; i can not buy your product; i can ask for your firing; i can write letters, march, chain myself to shit. i can do that, okay? but you, you can totally say the word "ni**er". go for it!

to many whites, but especially to shock-jocks and professional rabble-rousers like dr. laura, rush limbaugh, andrew breitbart and sarah palin, being deprived of the use of one more insult is "very confusing" and simply too unfair and blacks are being too oversensitive about their attempts to use it.

well, duh!

of course it's unfair! slavery was unfair. segregation was unfair. redlining was unfair. what happened to shirley sherrod and especially what happened to her father was unfair. that's the whole point! so get used to it, guys!

besides, do whites really want to go to the mat over the right to demean their former chattel? it's just not a fight they're going to win, not when it's being fought for by paid and pampered blowhards, cranks and cynics.

still, there are two ways the n-word will die the natural death it is certainly long due. option one: when blacks release their hostage and no longer exact a price from whites for daring to use it, which, considering its continued effectiveness, as dr. laura can surely attest to, is not bloody likely to happen in this lifetime.

realistically then, this leaves us in the present with only option two: when whites let go of their n-word envy and realize that this is one hostage that's not worth rescuing. it seems most whites already have.

---

addendum: like every white person before her who grossly miscalculated that they could juggle the n-bomb without detonating it, dr. laura and her supporters want to turn her darwin-award-worthy implosion into an heroic constitutional auto-da-fé:

... my contract is up for my radio show at the end of the year and i have made the decision not to do radio anymore. the reason is: i want to regain my first amendment rights. i want to be able to say what's on my mind, and in my heart, what i think is helpful and useful without somebody getting angry, some special interest group deciding this is a time to silence a voice of dissent, and attack affiliates and attack sponsors. i'm sort of done with that. i'm not retiring. i'm not quitting. i feel energized actually, stronger and freer to say the things that i believe need to be said for people in this country.

i'm not sure which document she's referring to, but the first amendment of the united states' constitution protects her freedom to speak or write from infringements by the government.

so, if president obama had picked up the phone and said to attorney general holder:

yo, eric ... i'm sick of this dr. laura bee-yatch getting all up in my peeps' grills with her shizz. man, she took it to goddam eleven this time. even clarence's gotta get behind us on this one. put the word out: her hole is closed — today.

... well, then she'd have something to complain about.

but the first amendment does not protect you from public criticism. it does not protect you from your listeners, your sponsors, your owners or your neighbors. and it certainly does not protect you from your own big mouth.

so if dr. laura thinks she can find a venue somewhere on this planet where she can spew her special brand of wisdom "without somebody getting angry" (translation: without someone cutting off her income stream), well then, good luck to the lady. wherever that is, i'm sure it's pretty crowded there already.

presidentin' made easy: palin 2012

so easy, in fact, a moose gal could do it:

her candidacy would require almost none of the usual time sinks that force politicians to jump in early: power-broker schmoozing, schedule-intensive fundraising, competitive recruitment of experienced strategists, careful policy development.

we should probably expect her to run again in 2014.

(hat tip to mistermix.)

sarah palin speaks: "i had a dream"

(photo of gaylord opryland by kbilancini via flickr)

---

* see? it's all in good fun, y'betcha!

no, you can't have it back

voted for george bush?

twice?

proud of it?

then stop yer bitchin!

iokiyad*

alaska governor and former republican vice presidential political punchline nominee sarah palin abruptly flames out resigns.

while some question her wisdom:

resignation is a BIG mistake if she actually aspires to higher, national office. only three years as a governor in a very sparsely populated state will be a deal-breaker to a great number of americans, if not to all but the most ardent palin supporters.

... and others rattle her closet for skeletons:

maybe that really was her in "nailin' palin".

... others find new hope:

have heart my freeper friends....this is the best news i have heard in days......sarah is answering the call, and doing it the right way.... she will now be free to travel the country and speak to all comers....she cannot be accused of ignoring her job as govenor, which is totally fine for democrats but unacceptable to people with integrity.... have heart and say your prayers to protect sarah on her very dangerous journey.....

... which brings to mind this quite timely case in point:

---

* "it's ok if you're a democrat"

mcjindal

the reviews are in — but haven't we seen this movie before?

keith olbermann, rachel maddow and chris matthews on msnbc:

josh marshall @ talkingpointsmemo:

jindal's comments and presentation was just weird and cringy and awful.

david brooks on pbs news hour:

... uh, not so well. you know, i think bobby jindal is a very promising politician, and i oppose the stimulus because i thought it was poorly drafted, but to come up at this moment in history with a stale "government is the problem," "we can't trust the federal government" — it's just a disaster for the republican party. the country is in a panic right now. they may not like the way the democrats have passed the stimulus bill, but that idea that we're just gonna — that government is going to have no role, the federal government has no role in this, that — in a moment when only the federal government is actually big enough to do stuff, to just ignore all that and just say "government is the problem, corruption, earmarks, wasteful spending," it's just a form of nihilism. it's just not where the country is, it's not where the future of the country is. there's an intra-republican debate. some people say the republican party lost its way because they got too moderate. some people say they got too weird or too conservative. he thinks they got too moderate, and so he's making that case. i think it's insane, and i just think it's a disaster for the party. i just think it's unfortunate right now.

andrew sullivan @ the atlantic:

close your eyes and think of kenneth from 30 rock. i can barely count the number of emails making that observation. i'm told olbermann's open mic got it right: jindal's entrance reminded one of mr. burns gamboling toward a table of ointments. ... there was, alas, a slightly high-school debate team feel to the beginning. and there was a patronizing feel to it as well — as if he were talking to kindergartners — that made obama's adult approach so much more striking. and i'm not sure that the best example for private enterprise is responding to a natural calamity that even ron paul believes is a responsibility for the federal government. and really: does a republican seriously want to bring up katrina? as for the biography, it felt like obama-lite. with far less political skill. ... but give him his due: he did in the end concede that the gop currently has a credibility problem on the fiscal issues they are now defining themselves with.... the rest was boilerplate. and tired, exhausted, boilerplate. if the gop believes tax cuts — more tax cuts — are the answer to every problem right now, they are officially out of steam and out of ideas. and remember: this guy is supposed to be the smart one.

kathryn jean lopez @ the national review:

e-mails i’m getting are from disappointed conservatives. they wanted a full-throated response to obama and expected and/or wanted more.

not even fox news is interested in rescuing poor bobby:

brit hume:	the speech read a lot better than it sounded. this was not bobby jindal's greatest oratorical moment.
nina easton:	the delivery was not exactly terrific.
charles krauthammer:	jindal didn't have a chance. he follows obama, who in making speeches, is in a league of his own. he's in a reagan-esque league. ... [jindal] tried the best he could.
juan williams:	it came off as amateurish, and even the tempo in which he spoke was sing-songy. he was telling stories that seemed very simplistic and almost childish.

okay, enough with the paid opinions — what are real patriotic god-fearing usurper-hating americans saying?:

back to the drawing board, GOP!!!!

someone needs to teach the GOP about youtube and other networking sites. from what i can tell, there's still no "official" GOP rebuttal video posted.

the first 10 minutes was a disaster. oh wait, the speech was only 10 mins long? well, i was hoping he would do well but did not impress. we need four things four years from now. personality, can give a speech, conservative, and can raise $500 million. i think the only person who can do all four is palin. i did not connect with jindal at all tonight and i don’t know if anyone else can raise %500 million.

jindal’s speech was a stinker. to begin with, i’m sick of hearing republicans going on and on about how the election of 0bama was so so historic. jindal’s delivery was poor, and his attempts at personalizing stories kind of fell flat. i’ve heard him speak before, he’s a smart guy, but he’s very dull. if he were to get the nomination in 2012 he’d draw mccain size crowds, maybe a bit bigger. bored, unenthusiastic crowds don’t volunteer, don’t donate, and sometimes don’t even vote. last i heard he’s only rejected $98 million of the stimulus for louisiana, which is just over ten percent. palin has rejected about 50 percent of the $1 billion offered her state. all she’s taking are for construction projects.

we have GREAT candidates but they keep being shown in an awful light. that’s the problem.

i've read about jindal for months now, but this is the first speech i've seen him make. an unmitigated disaster. ... jindal is off my list for potential 2012 nominee. which leaves...no one.

i heard jindal on the radio earlier today. sounded squishy. a republican should have gone on tonight and said: why have you spent over a million dollars keeping your birth certificate locked up? are you a natural-born citizen? are you even a citizen? since your grandfather, father, mother, and mentor, and all your associates since childhood have been communists—why aren’t you a communist? or are you? why have you seized control of the census? why have you given acorn $4 billion? isn’t there enough thuggery and vote fraud to satisfy you? of course the “stimulus bill” had no earmarks—it was 100% pork from beginning to end. earmarks are pork! if a bill is 100& pork, there’s no need for earmarks. why is the money supply shooting up like a moon rocket? and why have you spent over a million dollars keeping your birth certificate locked up? (i know—i want to see this question repeated.)

the five stages of gop grief

four years ago conservatives, fundamentalists and neocons across the country were gloating.

tonight ... not so much, as testified by these assorted anecdotes from what could be a clinical casebook of right wing ideological collapse, collected from the out-patients commenters at the blog free republic:

stage 1) shock and denial:

Fox has done a terrible job in their reporting tonight. They are so proud of their computer equipment, they just can't run it. Brit is all over the place. Their website is worse

Has California come in? That's a lot of electoral votes. ANd we're giving it to Obama, because of Ohio exit polls?

DO NOT PANIC. THE POPULAR VOTE IS A VIRTUAL TIE.

MCCAIN CANNOT CONCEDE - CHALLENGE LEGALLY VOTE FRAUD EVERYWHERE, CHALLENGE LEGITIMACY OF BHO, HELL THROW IN THE UNNATURAL CITIZENSHIP. FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT! (DOESN'T OHIO HAVE TO WAIT 10 DAYS TO VERIFY ABSENTEE BALLOTS OF LIKE 200,000?)

stage 2) pain and guilt:

Welcome to the United Socialist States of America. I am so ashamed of Americans tonight.

If only those born in the US had voted, we would not be losing tonight.

Oh Lord, HAVE MERCY, PLEASE!!!!!! I am now feeling sick!

stage 3) anger:

ACORN has succeeded in stealing this election for the terrorist in chief.

Thank You W. - Hussien is your legacy! May your retirement be as bad as the Huseein Presidency will be for us. For the rest of you Bushes .. stay out of republican politics forever.

So much for Rove's PERMANENT MAJORITY..... ....the Hispanic vote went big for Obama.... ...New Mexico is no longer a red state..... ...Colorado and Arizona are trending left... how will we ever win an election in the future? Thank you George W. Bush and John Mccain for ruining our party with your open borders policy.

stage 4) depression:

Capitalism lasted longer than communism but in the end everyone settled on socialism. Bush should have at least gone down swinging and holding to his principals (That's what I hated about him in his first terms but what I miss about him right now)

It's over. It's been over. I have been the victim of my own wishful thinking. We're getting a terrorists buddy instead of a patriot. It is depressing.

Allow me to be the first to say with sadness: ALL HAIL KING HUSSEIN

I for one, welcome our new socialists overlords. Now, where's that bottle?

stage 5) acceptance and hope:

This is what you should all do now: Hug your wife and kids Pray to God and understand he has a plan Keep your guns close Get a good accountant to shelter your money It is true, that I never concieved such a day during my lifetime. But I still have faith in God, my family and friends.

They dug their own grave. The same goes for bipartisanship. Either way, the Republicans will never be relevant again without conservative leadership. Palin in 2012 is a start.

Anybody know a good militia I can join?

Amerika has just elected its first communist president - in fact, with a communist Congress, a complete communist government. Time to start understanding how to organize and lead a resistance movement.

With the union stuff coming we'll never be able to get back the congress. How long before Sharia law is implemented? The only saving grace I can think of now is that HRC does have proof that he is not eligible to be POTUS.

And there's always the possibility Israel acts tomorrow and the world nuclear war is on!

top ten reasons for hope

as campaign season winds down to its inevitable conclusion, i find myself more and more drawn to the hypnotizing roadkill splattered up and down the virtual backroad that is the free republic blog, whose membership ("freepers") are well known and loved on the net as hardcore rightwing central.

and hypnotizing it is to behold: the anger, the sniping, the finger-pointing, the utter lack of recrimination ... verily, it is the jelly on a warm slice of schadenfreude.

but not everyone there has succumbed to wretched defeatism — in one of their famous "freep this poll!" threads already amusing enough for its own characteristic lack of irony, one undaunted poster laid down his 28 reasons obama "ain't won nothing yet. it was extremely tough choosing among so many clear winners, but i've pulled a choice ten for everyone's enjoyment.

so with a hearty hand to freeper rotb, i give you today's "freepers" top ten reasons to hope:

10) Polls are meant by the Enemedia, to SHAPE public opinion, not to accurately report it. Get your news here! Stop torturing yourself! We bring the liberal media lies here, and we dissect them through the lenses of Christianity and Conservatism.

9) The PUMAs who know the hows and whys of Hillary getting cheated, will vote Palin, and will pull others. ... Freeper lonestar67 says, “Surveys have suggested that as many as 20-30% of Democrats may vote for McCain based on the rejection of Hillary. If even fractions of these claims are true, Obama would be hard pressed to win the election— especially in key states such as Pennsylvania and Ohio.”

8) Operation Chaos resulted in an overlarge quantity of Democrat registrations that will never ever vote Democratic.

7) McCain has only started to play the Ayers card. McCain has not yet played the Tony Rezko, Odinga, ...

6) McCain opened 50 offices in California. It’s in play! It should be the bluest of the blue, and it is not.

5) The Christian base that re-elected Bush in 2004, knows Sarah is more than a Sunday Christian, and is praying for her.

4) Three people over 50 (white male and two Mexican women), on two occasions, on October 25th, asked me if I know about Obama not being a citizen. My Dad knows, and he emailed all his friends also. Point being, EVERYBODY KNOWS that Obama ain’t benevolently and humbly forthcoming with his birth certificate, and thus something fishy is afoot in Camelot.

3) The Enemedia overstating Obama’s popularity will cut two ways. The lazy, and the youth, (core Democrat constituencies) will not brave traffic and lines to vote on election day, since they were lied to by the KGBMedia to believe that Obama has a gigantic lead. In fact, if I worked for the GOP, I’d make sure free beer/music parties were being held outside of every major blue city before/on election day. They’re called “raves”.

2) Obama has only 75% of the Jewish vote last I checked, just like Kerry (comfortable R win). Gore got 90% (close R win).

and finally, the number one reason all freepers can expect to see obama fall:

[ drumroll ]

1) Kerry won the Nickelodeon kids vote 57/43, and Obama won it 51/49! If you don’t think kids vote like their parents, then you got another thing coming!

don't freepers say just the most adorable things?

just picture the candidates

and a new meme is born ...

if you know what i mean

i'm not aware of too many things, but i know what i know, and i know what i mean, starting with the realization that, despite the fanfare of both her convention and debate performances, sarah palin has outlived her usefulness to the mccain campaign.

while her fate was in dire question after her disastrous interviews with charlie gibson and especially katie couric, her circus-animal-like barking of freshly-injected and barely-understood republican talking points cemented her place in the hearts of social conservatives everywhere — while driving fingernails into the brains of anyone to the left of bill o'reilly:

it's become clear that palin is not winning mccain new voters. instead, she's proven only able to keep an increasingly shrinking and increasingly repugnant hard right bloc from jumping ship.

unfortunately for mccain, when you're drowning, treading water is a tactic, not a strategy. neither is climbing on the other guy's back.

knowing what i know now, i feel confident enough to call a landslide victory for obama:

this is what a coalescing landslide election looks like on a distribution map of all possible election outcomes in the electoral college based on polling on oct 2. there is no part of the distrubtion across the red line, shutting out a mccain victory. the highest peak of obama's blue lines now reaches 14% and it is for more than 350 electoral votes.

at the end of the democratic primary, i wrote that whoever won would be the de facto next president and that november will be simply a formality. the primary was, in effect, the general election. i wrote that because i saw then no chance for a republican victory, and i see now too many obstacles stacked against mccain, and none greater than his loss of credibility and even respect of the public, which was famously the best thing he had going for him.

in his attempt to alienate the voters from obama, mccain has only alienated them from mccain. and without any new muck to rake up for the voters, who found the old muck wanting when they heard it from clinton, mccain can only pointlessly sink further into the cesspit he's still digging for himself. still, there may yet be time for his loved ones to stage an intervention with some long-postponed straight talk:

lose with grace, you stupid bastard.

... that is, if the man wants to exit the stage with a semblance of his soul intact.

as for sarah, i predict for her a long career as a conservative darling and political footnote, someone republicans can always call on to help fill shrinking convention halls with downcast party apparatchiks looking for a little spunk, eye candy and stream-of-consciousness right-wing poetry.

so with a nod and a wink, this vid's for you, moose gal:

the palin principle

pa•lin prin•ci•ple

the principle demonstrated when an organization promotes one or more individuals so far above their level of competence as to precipitate or hasten its own sorry demise.

the ultimate culmination of the peter principle.

origin sept 2008: named after governor of alaska sarah palin, whose nomination as the republican vice presidential candidate, despite initial fanfare, ultimately proved to be the undoing of the presidential aspirations of her nominator john mccain, as well as the undoing of their party, likely for decades to follow. see also:

ti•be•ri•us gam•bit

an attempt by an unpopular leader to rehabilitate his failed legacy by naming as his successor a person so corrupt and/or incompetent that the predictably disastrous reign to follow makes his own epic failure look like an epic win in comparison.

origin sept 2008: named after the unpopular roman emperor tiberius, who named as his successor his capricious and probably insane grandson gaius caligula, who in turn instituted a reign of terror of the like even rome had never seen.

mccain's nomination of the laughably inadequate palin as his vice president has to be the first time i've ever seen anyone preemptively slap down a tiberius gambit even before they've become president.

the term first appeared on the blog hullabaloo.

not just a river in egypt

overheard on the net:

am i the only one that thinks palin has been sandbagging in interviews to get biden to put his guard down? she came out so brilliantly when she was announced, and has seemed to fade a little.

i have this confident feeling that she's been setting up the enemy and she's going to knock 'em dead in the debate.

i know she's a great vp candidate and a very smart lady. i just have to wonder why she's been "homely" when it comes to interviews. i know that the interviews she has been in weren't appropriately conducted and that she is the only candidate asked hardball questions throughout her interviews.