Obscanity: You'll know it when you see it

Perhaps McCain should have skimmed this handy-dandy little Palin manual before picking this ridiculous, tacky, Celia Hodes of a candidate.

Best quote of the day: “So Sambo beat the bitch!” ~Sarah Palin, upon finding out Barack Obama beat out Clinton for the Democratic ticket. Gee – and you wonder why they’re keeping this lady faaaaar away from the media?

I can just hear it in that godawful smarmy voice of hers, too.

He was, you know, for it, before he was against it… yeah.

Everybody regurgitating the Republican-fed sheep-talk needs to see this video. EVERYBODY.

Sarah Palin Gender Card | The Daily Show | Comedy Central.

You’ve gotta love those live mics… Oops. Thanks for the info, Peggy Noonan and Michael Murphy.

Of course she claims she was taken out of context and that she didn’t mean what it sounded like she meant… Yeah. I’m sooo convinced. Backpedal backpedal backpedal!

But who am I to say? Listen for yourself. Headphones help.

Gay Republicans: GOP on ‘wrong side of history’ – CNN.com.

They are SO. DELUSIONAL. McCain has said OUTRIGHT that he supports California’s hateful Proposition 8, a mean-spirited and truly anti-family ballot initiative that will literally dissolve marriages into thin air and destroy lives in the process. He also promised Jerry Falwell he would support the Federal Marriage Amendment if federal courts strike down state constitutional marriage bans. And Palin, this “mostly unknown” quantity? Palin explicitly stated that she would oppose extending benefits to same-gender partners of state employees (“No, I believe spousal benefits are reserved for married citizens as defined in our constitution”). She is adamantly opposed to expanding hate-crime legislation, offering up the ridiculous old party line that “all heinous crime is based on hate.” She also listed in her THREE TOP PRIORITIES AS GOVERNOR, “Preserving the definition of “marriage” as defined in our constitution.” No, she didn’t list health care. No, she didn’t list the environment. No, she didn’t even list the energy crisis. But protecting the definition of marriage? That is a top priority. On what planet does this constitute “mostly unknown”?

Look, I realize the Log Cabiners are mostly gay men – but does that mean they have to walk around with their heads up their asses?

DailyKos is reporting on Sarah Palin’s complete idiocy and ignorance when it comes to the Pledge of Allegiance. Their link isn’t working as it seems the linked page mysteriously disappeared from the archives once people started linking to it – but a quick and easy search at archive.org reveals that the page did exist long before Palin was ever tagged for VP consideration. This is by far my favorite Palin quote of all time:

11. Are you offended by the phrase “Under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance? Why or why not?
JB: No.
SP: Not on your life. If it was good enough for the founding fathers, its good enough for me and I’ll fight in defense of our Pledge of Allegiance.

And by the way, if English was good enough for Jesus, it should be good enough for America.

For all of you out there, including Barack Obama, who allege that Sarah Palin’s family life is private and off limits: Can I just remind you that it was SARAH PALIN who fed this piece of information to the public in the first place? Nobody spied on her; nobody got hold of secret medical records or hacked into her computer. Sarah Palin CHOSE to release this information to the American people, and now it is our inalienable right to talk about it, react to it, and decide how we feel about a woman who supports abstinence-only education when it’s clear from her own family situation that abstinence-only education DOES NOT WORK.

Can we call her a hypocrite? Absolutely. She doesn’t support same-sex marriage (or domestic partnership rights, even) because marriage is soooo sacred, but she’s willing to let a CHILD enter into this sacred union as punishment for having premarital sex. So is marriage a sacrament, or a punishment? Make up your mind!

She comes from a party that cracks down on access to birth control and yet doesn’t want abortions to be legal – but STILL doesn’t support education about how not to get pregnant in the first place. This is the woman we want thisclose to inheriting the presidency from ancient, ailing John McCain?

So is her daughter’s pregnancy private? It was, until she made it public. And is it relevant? HELL. YES.

I know that many people will claim that the Palins were forced to make this announcement in order to quell rumors going around that Palin’s youngest “son” Trig is actually her grandson. There are a few points to address here. I think the people who made these speculations in the first place were just having a hard time reconciling Palin’s uber-family-values stances with the fact that she endangered her child’s life multiple times the evening she gave birth by flying even after her water broke, the fact that she simply did not look pregnant and her staff was shocked to find out she was seven months along, the fact that no picture exists that demonstrates the woman was ever pregnant in 2008, and the fact that she returned to work three days after giving birth to a baby with Down’s Syndrome. It just doesn’t add up to the Family Woman that Palin claims to be.

Much more likely (and logical, for that matter) is that she found out her daughter was in labor and THAT is why she rushed back to Alaska. Much more likely is that she thought her daughter’s pregnancy might undermine her image as uber-family-lady, while her own pregnancy might garner her some sympathy. Much more likely is that if she didn’t look pregnant, she WASN’T pregnant, especially given the photos circulating of her when she actually WAS pregnant – because let me tell you, when Sarah Palin is pregnant, she LOOKS it.

So now we’re left with this situation where the Palin family has announced their daughter’s pregnancy in order to cover their own asses as far as Trig’s parentage. This announcement proves nothing. Palin could have protected her daughter AND her image by simply providing a dated photograph of herself visibly pregnant at the time she was supposed to be pregnant (although I suppose once you’ve decided you’re going to lie to millions of people, you might as well go all the way and stuff something under your shirt). She could have provided hospital records showing that she was admitted and in labor – after all, John McCain had to provide the media with his own medical records, so why shouldn’t Palin? She could have done a lot of things that didn’t involve exposing her family and her children to further controversy and ridicule.

Instead, Palin “outed” her own daughter, thrusting her into the limelight of her OWN accord. But again, the news itself proves nothing except that the rumor-mongers weren’t so far off – the teenage daughter of this abstinence-only-education proponent IS having sex, and she IS being irresponsible about it. It actually makes the case stronger, not weaker, that Trig is her son.

But of course the real brilliance of Palin’s feeding Bristol to the lions instead of stepping up to the plate herself is that by the time the truth comes out, it will be too late. It’s entirely possible that Bristol Palin is more like three months pregnant, which means she could easily be Trig’s mother as well; we all know that teen mothers frequently make the same mistake twice (or three times, or four times…). But by the time we know for sure, either Obama will have won and nobody will care, or Palin will already be VP and it will just be another “White House Scandal”: Vice President Palin’s daughter is miraculously eleven months pregnant. Gee. Who saw that coming?

There IS a way to settle all of this without throwing your pregnant teenage daughter under the train. But I guess Palin’s choice pretty much shows us what kind of parent she is, and what kind of candidate she is, and what kind of VP she will be – a person willing to sell out those who depend on her in order to cover up her own dishonesty.

You would think the wingnuts would have learned their lesson about the power of prayer after Pat Robertson’s prayer death squad misfired and knocked off uber-conservative Chief Justice William Rehnquist.

Well, apparently they’re at it again. Just days after Dobson / Focus on the Family lackey Stuart Shepard encouraged his Christian viewers to pray for rain of “biblical proportions” to drown out the Democratic National Convention two minutes into Obama’s acceptance speech, America is watching as millions evacuate amid the threat of Hurricane Gustav, which is looking as though it may rain out the Republican Convention. Scheduled attendees must now choose whether to look really, really bad partying, or go home to their safe little mansions and lay low for a while so there are no embarrassing photos of them living it up while people are drowning (with the exception, of course, of those unfortunate souls who have to evacuate instead of casting their vote for the Birthday Boy).

I wonder if even one of those devout zealots who prayed for everything short of “golf-ball sized hail” will think to themselves, “What have I done? What HAVE I done?” Nope. They’ll chalk it up to coincidence. Divine intervention is only present when it suits them.

No, seriously? That’s his answer?

I don’t give a shit if his wife’s father happened to be very successful in his business. When you are a HAVE, and you vote incessantly to beat down the HAVE NOTS, I don’t CARE how that money was accumulated, and I don’t CARE that it was made in the process of living out the American Dream. The American Dream is not supposed to include pissing on the people below you as you move up the ladder. You’re supposed to turn around and lend people a hand, damn it.

Another great video, this one from TheRealMcCain.com – more specifically, from Robert Greenwald at Brave New Films, creators of the amazing film, Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price

This great “Commander In Chief Test” video is definitely worth watching. I particularly like the bit about getting Bush re-elected. I think that little clip should be played on every network television station across America. Multiple times.

There are a few entertaining bits in this Daily Show clip – but the most entertaining for me is that FAUX News has resorted to showing 8-year old clips of McCain’s Election 2000 press conferences so they can get a shot of him looking younger.

If the ban on offshore oil drilling is lifted, you can expect to see more oil spills like this one in Louisiana. Ironically, rumor has it McCain was scheduled to visit an oil rig the same day but cancelled his trip after the spill. Guess it wouldn’t have gone well with his “oil drilling is good” rhetoric.

From The New York Times:

With millions of new voters heading to the polls this November and many states introducing new voting technologies, election officials and voting monitors say they fear the combination is likely to create long lines, stressed-out poll workers and late tallies on Election Day. [Read more]

With Obama expecting the votes of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of new voters, you can expect that he’ll take the brunt of the difficulties, especially since the longest lines tend to be in the swing states and in economically troubled areas.

McCain must be celebrating and clinking glasses with the Diebold ops right about now… Have they promised to “deliver” the election to him yet? Here’s hoping for victory on the side of American democracy – or what’s left of it, anyway.

First it was Charles Black’s remark about how McCain’s campaign would benefit from a “fresh terrorist attack” on US soil. Now, another top McCain advisor, Phil Gramm, has called America a “nation of whiners,” and claims that the recession is all in our heads. He disparages “mental depression,” and then claims we’re in a “mental recession.” That’s really easy to say when you’re a rich white man. Of course you’re not experiencing the pain of recession – the money we don’t have is somehow finding its way into YOUR pockets!

Great guy, that Phil Gramm.

These are the men that McCain keeps close to him – at least, until the public finds out what they talk about behind closed doors. What does that say about McCain himself?

John McCain is refusing to answer questions about Viagra – and they’re not the questions you think. McCain refuses to address unfair insurance policies which cover Viagra for men, but refuse to cover birth control for women. For a guy who takes a strong stance against abortion, you would think he would be supportive of birth control, especially for women who can’t afford it if it’s not covered by insurance — but apparently a man’s hard-on is more important than a woman’s right not to become pregnant.

• McCain, GOP unleash anti-Obama plan: Proof positive that a McCain win in November means another four years of the Worst Presidency Ever, four more years of the Bush White House. McCain + Karl Rove = McBush ’08
• Obama winning over former Clinton supporters: In case you had forgotten how ignorant people could be — Obama may be winning over some former Clinton supporters, but many of them are positively clueless.
• Commentary: Obama no, McCain maybe: Conservative talk-show host Glenn Beck writes an attempted ode to Conservatism (not Republicanism), but fails to convince me how any of these conservative values 1) are beliefs anybody should brag about, regardless of whether they are phrased so melodramatically you can only assume the author intended them to be accompanied by “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” 2) are actually championed by today’s conservatives, and 3) can seriously be interpreted apart from their barely-disguised subtext. Remember, the meaning between the lines is generally much more relevant than what’s actually being said.

p.s. Somebody tell Ralph Nader to just stop talking. Of course, maybe he should keep talking – the more he opens his mouth, the more he comes off as a bigoted ass.

Did John McCain call his wife a cunt? Maybe, or maybe not. I still think it’s interesting that the question was asked flat out and he conveniently didn’t deny it. In fact he got on his high horse about “that kind of language.” Of course… whether he said it that particular time or not, it’d be hard for him to deny he’s ever used the word, considering this fabulous Freudian slip… because honestly, how often do we accidentally slip and say words that aren’t already in our general lexicon? Methinks the good senator had cunts on the brain.