The gift that keeps on giving

Looks like the Sarah Palin Saga might be just warming up:

"Sarah Palin wasn't aware that Africa was a continent and she and her brood behaved like a band of "Wasilla hillbillies looting Neiman Marcus from coast to coast," aides to Republican John McCain are telling prominent news organizations.

Less than 24 hours after McCain lost the presidential election to Democrat Barack Obama, those close to him apparently wasted no time burning up the phone lines to dish the dirt on Palin, the Alaska governor who portrayed herself as a sensible hockey Mom when she was chosen the Arizona senator's running mate in late August.

If the anonymous McCain insiders are to be believed, Palin, a 44-year-old mother of five, was unaware that Africa was a continent, arguing that South Africa was simply a region of the larger country of Africa.

She also didn't know the three countries that are in the North American Free Trade Agreement, namely Canada, the U.S. and Mexico." [...]

"On Wednesday in Phoenix, Palin said: "There is absolutely no diva in me."

Nonetheless, a Republican party lawyer is reportedly heading to Alaska to inventory and retrieve the clothes still in Palin's possession." (emphasis mine)

And once more for the road because it's worth the pixels:

"...she and her brood behaved like a band of "Wasilla hillbillies looting Neiman Marcus from coast to coast"

Whenever I think I might take a break from blogging, these things come along... "Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in!"

(h/t reality bites in the comments)

Now that the presidential election is over

I'll really miss this kind of batshittery:

"NEWSWEEK has also learned that Palin's shopping spree at high-end department stores was more extensive than previously reported."

MORE than $150,000? You're shittin' me:

"One senior aide said that Nicolle Wallace had told Palin to buy three suits for the convention and hire a stylist. But instead, the vice presidential nominee began buying for herself and her family—clothes and accessories from top stores such as Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus. According to two knowledgeable sources, a vast majority of the clothes were bought by a wealthy donor, who was shocked when he got the bill.

But after she burned through the campaign's clothing budget, she stopped, right?

Palin also used low-level staffers to buy some of the clothes on their credit cards. The McCain campaign found out last week when the aides sought reimbursement. One aide estimated that she spent "tens of thousands" more than the reported $150,000, and that $20,000 to $40,000 went to buy clothes for her husband.

Oh well, at least all the clothing was given to charity... wasn't it?

Some articles of clothing have apparently been lost. An angry aide characterized the shopping spree as "Wasilla hillbillies looting Neiman Marcus from coast to coast," and said the truth will eventually come out when the Republican Party audits its books."

Hold the phone! Run that by me again?

"An angry aide characterized the shopping spree as "Wasilla hillbillies looting Neiman Marcus from coast to coast..."

The Wasilla Hillbilly in 2012? HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

President-Elect Obama

That is all.

Ballot Measures to watch today (UPDATED)

**WARNING! WARNING! WARNING!**
U.S. ELECTION POST AHEAD!!!

For those not interested in the history being made today, that was your chance to exercise your right to click. Please, I want you to. Onward...

Apart from the presidential election, there are some important ballot measures being voted on today:

Prop 8 (California): This hideous little initiative, backed by a ton of religious right money, would rescind equal marriage in California, thereby protecting the Institution Of Marriage from whatever the fuck it is they think gay people will *do* to it. If it passes, Prop 8 would not only deny these citizens a basic human right, but will also throw a lot of married couples into limbo where their marriages are no longer recognized. And why not? It's just the Christian thing to do.

UPDATE: Bigotry won. Prop 8 passed, by a small margin.

Prop 4 (California): This anti-abortion measure would legislate parental consent for abortion. We need to remember our kids are individuals with rights of their own, including the right to privacy, and if our daughters can't trust us to know they're facing an unwanted pregnancy, there might be a good reason. Also, like all these nitpicky anti-choice laws, this just gets a foot in the door to further restrictive legislation.

UPDATE: Failed, 53-47.

Prop 48 (Colorado): This is one of the more idiotic anti-abortion initiatives to come along so far, and that's really saying something. Prop 48 would define a fertilized egg as a "person", with all the restrictions on abortion and contraception that definition engenders.

UPDATE: Failed, 72-27 (about the same margin as a similar measure failed by last time around -- ya think?)

Prop 11 (South Dakota): This is an outright ban on abortion, except in cases where it's necessary to save the woman's life. (How generous.) South Dakotans voted down a similar initiative 2 years ago -- ya think!? But anti-choicers just keep grinding away with no compunction about the taxpayers' money they waste on this bullshit.

UPDATE: Failed, 55-45

They're all in the west, so it's unlikely we'll know whether they passed or (hopefully) failed until the wee hours of tomorrow morning. But it's something else to watch for after the presidential race has been called.
Reproductive choice won, but marriage equality lost. I wonder what will happen to the couples already married? Prop 8 is retroactive, which if I'm not mistaken nullifies their marriages. Nice. I can't imagine people being any more vicious and petty.

PROP 8 UPDATE II: The No Side is not conceding yet. Good for them -- do not concede until every. last. vote. is counted.

PROP 8 UPDATE III: Passed, 52-48. What an embarrassment to all straight people. I am so sorry. I can only say: do not give up. Equality demands it.

What if they gave a culture war and nobody came?

Why was the "Culture War" scenario such an epic failure this election cycle? Whether the GOP wins or loses tomorrow, there's no question that this aspect of their campaign didn't work as well as it has in the past. While Sarah Palin might have electrified the superstitious, anti-intellectual, pro-ignorance, abortion-obsessed nutcase faction of the GOP base, it was reflected in only the briefest of upticks in the polls. The economy could be partly to blame, but could it also be that the whole "culture war" narrative has run its course, and there just aren't enough people who care about that bullshit anymore?:

"In 2000, in the wake of an economic boom and a sex scandal that led to a president's impeachment, 22 percent of Americans told exit pollsters that "moral values" were their biggest concern, compared with only 19 percent who cited the economy.

Today, according to a recent Newsweek poll, the economy is up to 44 percent and "issues like abortion, guns and same-sex marriage" down to only 6 percent. It's no coincidence that Palin's popularity has plummeted as the financial crisis has taken center stage. From her championing of small-town America to her efforts to link Barack Obama to former domestic terrorist Bill Ayers, Palin is treading a path well-worn by Republicans in recent decades. She's depicting the campaign as a struggle between the culturally familiar and the culturally threatening, the culturally traditional and the culturally exotic. But Obama has dismissed those attacks as irrelevant, and the public, focused nervously on the economic collapse, has largely tuned them out.

Palin's attacks are also failing because of generational change. The long-running, internecine baby boomer cultural feud just isn't that relevant to Americans who came of age after the civil rights, gay rights and feminist revolutions." (emphasis mine)

And it's about fucking time.

Kerry was ahead in 2004

I'm no psychologist but I know an Obama Derangement Syndrome*-driven pre-election nervous breakdown when I see one, and that is what seems to be in progress at our favourite fetus fetishist's blog as the spectre of an Obama victory looms on the American electoral horizon. All weekend long, SUZANNE's been feverishly cranking out desperate and furious posts that vacillate between painting a macabre picture of a post-Obama world awash in aborted fetuses and reminding everyone that there's still hope: John Kerry was ahead in the 2004 polls, too. Indeed he was, as you can see by the Electoral Vote projection for this day in 2004:


Then there's today's projection:

Proving that there's "ahead" and then there's "AHEAD!!!11!!".

*Affliction named by JABbering Stooge

A portent

Goin' rogue, you betcha:

At a boisterous Sarah Palin rally in Polk City, Florida on Saturday afternoon, one name was surprisingly absent from the campaign décor — John McCain’s.

Choosing a running mate just because she'll attract the people who hate your guts can't really end any other way, can it? Palin has already set her sights on 2012 -- and if she's the future of the GOP, it has no future.

Question of the Day

Why does Dick Cheney hate John McCain?

And where's Georgie? He's been keeping pretty quiet since he said this. Loosen that muzzle! Let Georgie exercise his First Amendment rights! Speak, Georgie, SPEAK!

Et tu, Jonathon?

As the US election campaign winds down, Canadian wingnuts are weighing in. Some are still in Denial, clinging to the tired old bullshit about the Biased Lie-beral Media and Obama's -- cue Hallowe'en music -- "past associations". Some have progressed to the Anger stage, blaming McCain for running a stupid campaign. And some... are rooting for Obama?? Here they are, in all their wingnutty glory.

The warped:

"One wonders how often Michelle sees Mona Khalidi these days? Do they go for coffee once in a while? I hope so. Should old acquaintance be forgot? No, but it happens. People outgrow each other; they develop different interests. One may develop an interest in becoming First Lady.

Mona's husband is Rashid Khalidi, a Palestinian-American academic. Republican candidate John McCain has described Professor Khalidi as an erstwhile spokesman for the Palestinian Liberation Organization. When Obama was chummy with ex-Weather Underground terrorist Bill "I don't regret setting bombs" Ayers, who sat with Barack on the board of an "anti-poverty" charity called the Woods Foundation, they gave money to the American-Arab Action Network, run by Mona. The Khalidis and the Obamas socialized, and in 2000 the Khaldis hosted a polical fundraiser for the future Democratic presidential nominee."

The bitter:

"If it looks hopeless now, hours before voting day, it is McCain himself who has made it so.

It was McCain who never offered a coherent economic program. It was McCain who pronounced the fundamentals of the economy “sound” on the very day that Lehman Brothers collapsed. It was McCain who could not defend his own healthcare plan in toe-to-toe debate with Barack Obama. It was McCain who was ultimately responsible for a campaign that emphasized stunts and tactics over policy and strategy.

As a decision-maker, McCain proved himself impulsive and emotional, hasty and over-personal — and the revelation of those faults has frightened many voters at a time of economic anxiety."

The twisted:

"Whereas, Mr. Obama was from his political beginnings the darling of a Chicago political machine, notorious for both corruption, and harbouring radicals. His very smoothness and articulacy, even his blackness, made him their golden boy, assuring him of financial patronage along his way."

The incarcerated:

"Over the last 60 years in the United States, the governing party has usually changed after two terms. The stylistic shortcomings of the second Bush administration, McCain’s blunderbuss campaign and the financial crisis have all reinforced that likelihood. Under the Mephistophelean influence of the most biased media coverage of a U.S. election since Barry Goldwater in 1964, Obama’s peculiar associations have been downplayed and McCain has been portrayed as serving up a smear-job for raising them at all."

The... sane??:

"The tipping point came during last Tuesday's presidential debate, when I heard the GOP candidate tell Americans that he wants to take US$300-billion of taxpayer money and use it to pay off the mortgages of private citizens. I know these are rough times. But what kind of "conservative" seeks to socialize the financial risk freely taken on by millions of Americans through arm's-length home loans?"

[...] "Finally, there's Sarah Palin. I'll admit that I was a fan when she was first named to the Republican ticket. She was funny and down to earth, and she gave a great speech at the GOP convention. Even when it was clear she was overmatched in her debate with Biden, I still stuck with her -- because I saw her on her own terms: as a stick in the craw of smug, secular, big-city liberal elites.

But then I realized that this was the only reason I liked her. After a few weeks, I began to focus on the idea of her as a (potential) U. S. Commander-in-Chief. On the crucial question of whether I would actually want this woman to be running the most powerful nation on earth, I really couldn't, in my heart, answer yes.

I suspect that many conservatives who profess to believe that Palin would make a great leader have secretly come around to the same view as me -- but their tribal political reflex won't let them admit as much.

That's an understandable gut reaction. But voting should be done with the head, not the belly. Count me among the millions of self-described right-wingers rooting -- this time--for the guy on the left."

I bet Mama's getting out the wooden spoon for that!

On Prop 8

Next Tuesday, Americans will be voting for more than just a new administration. In some states, there are a few ugly little ballot measures that will be voted on at the same time. One of these is "Proposition 8", a California proposal to ban same-sex marriage. Prop 8 has gotten a lot of attention and support from the usual religious right suspects -- in spite of the fact that it's a state initiative, money for the campaign to convince Californians to vote "Yes" to Prop 8 has been pouring in from bigots across the land.

There's some pretty paranoid and hateful propaganda being disseminated by Prop 8 supporters, the latest being the claim that equal marriage somehow undermines religious freedom and free speech. No, don't even try to understand the tortured logic needed to draw such a conclusion -- a more straightforward interpretation of what Prop 8 proponents are really saying is offered up by Ann Althouse:

"I think he means to say that if same-sex marriage remains a legal right, enshrined in state constitutional law, then homosexual relationships will come to be regarded normal and good, and, consequently, anyone who objects to them will start to look like a bigot who should not be permitted to have his way. Thus, in order to preserve the right to discriminate against gay people and to keep schools from teaching children that gay couples are perfectly nice and so forth -- all things Broyles wants -- it's important to outlaw gay marriage, because it will be a powerful force in changing perceptions about gay people and those who think gay people are doing something terribly wrong."

Bigots!? Who knew!!???

UPDATE (Nov.1st): Still hideously close, but the good guys seem to be winning (50-47).

Happy Hallowe'en

Hopeful Hallowe'en.

(from yeswecarve)

Stood up

Poor John McCain: stood up by Joe the Plumber!

Maybe JTP was busy in the studio, cutting his new country music record.

Or maybe not -- maybe JTP's been chosen to be Sarah Palin's new running mate and they're off campaigning somewhere else -- without John. Hey, it wouldn't be much weirder than anything else that's happened in McCain's bizarre campaign.

Let this be a warning

Arrgghh!



USians, whatever you do on Tuesday, don't forget to VOTE!!!

(via ellroon)

Look out, Obama

Here comes the kitchen sink! BAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

"Granted, it's probably (okay, certainly) not true. But if that crazy person who runs Atlas Shrugged is right and Barack Obama really is the son of Malcolm X, that would make my day. Honestly, who wouldn't give Malcolm props for that one? And think there's anyway we can fit Tupac into the bloodline? Or maybe Obama actually is Tupac? You know that whole shooting was some bullshit, right?

Incidentally, I see no reason to stop with Malcolm. History is full of great Xs for Barack Obama to be related to. Professor X, which would explain why millions of white people lose their minds in his presence. Weapon X, which would explain the adamantium grafted onto his skeleton. XML, which would explain why it's so easy to structure his data. I'm sure there are others. And if anyone felt like Photoshopping Obama into an X-Men uniform to a) help illustrate this post and b) brighten my day, I'd certainly be grateful."

Dobson predicts grim future

Freak out! Sensing that his undue influence on government is about to come to an apocalyptic end in short order, James Dobson of Focus on the Family has been feverishly firing out frighteningly hysterical missives that predict the Horrors to come should Barack Obama win the US election five (5) days from now. "An Obama Nation is an Abomination!" Some of Dobson's dire predictions include:

"Terrorist strikes on four American cities. Russia rolling into Eastern Europe. Israel hit by a nuclear bomb. Gay marriage in every state. The end of the Boy Scouts.

All are plausible scenarios if Democrat Barack Obama is elected president, according to a new addition to the campaign conversation called "Letter from 2012 in Obama's America," produced by the conservative Christian group Focus on the Family Action."

Terrorist attacks, Putin rearing his head, gay boy scouts, and that's just the beginning. There's also the soon-to-be liberal-leaning SCOTUS, abortion up a month after birth, and the old favourite that Focus on the Family freaks so love to revel in, Religious Persecution. BOOM! POW! Stand back! Fundie heads across the USA are exploding like pin-pricked balloons.

But not everyone's buying Dobson's dubious snake oil, says one Obama-con:

""It looks like, walks like, talks like and smells like desperation to me," said the Rev. Kirbyjon Caldwell of Houston, an Obama supporter who backed President Bush in the past two elections. The Methodist pastor called the 2012 letter "false and ridiculous." He said it showed that some Christian conservative leaders fear that Obama's faith-based appeals to voters are working."

Dobson's right about one thing, though: the future is looking pretty grim... for HIM. Bye-bye, dickhead, get familiar with the political wilderness. Lay in lots of supplies, you'll be out there a loooooooooooooong time.

Party unity

their arse:

"The divisions in the McCain-Palin campaign continue to widen with one senior McCain aide telling Mike Allen that Gov. Sarah Palin is "a whack job."

Meanwhile, George Stephanopoulos said this about the "demoralized" McCain campaign on ABC News this morning: "Palin is going to be the most vivid chapter of the McCain campaign's post-mortem... Those loyal to McCain believe they have been unfairly blamed for over-handling Palin. They say they did the best they could with what they got.""

I can't make the popcorn fast enough...

Strategic media placement at its finest

In media-buying lingo it's called "roadblocking", and it doesn't get much better than this:

" Barack Obama will focus on the economy and how his tax plans would help the middle class in a half-hour political infomercial Wednesday night."

"The program will air at 8 p.m. EDT on NBC, CBS, Fox, Univision, BET, MSNBC and TV One, and at various times in other time zones. Obama is scheduled to be speaking during that time at a rally in Florida."

The scheduling on several stations simultaneously effectively "blocks" the time period in the eastern time zone. Then there's the positioning -- the infomercial is scheduled to run just before the last 3 innings of rained-out Game 5 of the World Series (pushed back to accomodate the infomercial scheduling). Which is even better when you consider who's playing -- the Philadelphia Phillies and the Tampa Bay Rays. Meaning fans in Florida and Pennsylvania, two extremely important swing states, will catch Obama's closing comments when they tune in.

In advertising that's called "hitting one out of the park".

Anything to win

Anything:

"A phony State Board of Elections flier advising Republicans to vote on Nov. 4 and Democrats on Nov. 5 is being circulated in several Hampton Roads localities, according to state elections officials.

In fact, Election Day, for voters of all political stripes, remains Nov. 4."

For people who constantly scream about how democracy is so great that it needs to be forced on other countries, they certainly do a good job of subverting it.

(h/t: dkos)

Wrong and stupid

Uh, guys? I realize this is the last week of what seems like a 200-year-long election campaign and everyone's cracking up a little, but whoa. This isn't what your side does, it's what the other guys do:

"A Halloween decoration showing a mannequin dressed as vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin hanging by a noose from the roof of a West Hollywood home is drawing giggles from some passers-by and gasps of outrage from others.

The mannequin is dressed in brunet wig, glasses and a red business suit. Another mannequin dressed as John McCain emerges from a flaming chimney."

The flaming chimney thing is sort of funny, considering the current state of the GOP's house (although a sinking ship might be more appropriate). The mannequin hanging from a noose, however, is just unacceptable for all kinds of reasons, one of the foremost being that it's what they do. Sure, the case could be made that "they started it" with the feeble-minded, hate-fueled rhetoric at their rallies, but it behooves your side to resist sinking to their level. Even on Hallowe'en.

T-minus 10

With 9 days of campaigning to go, this isn't the kind of news the McCain campaign wants to hear:

"This is not the time when John McCain can afford a bad polling day. And yet he's had perhaps his worst one of the year.

The national trackers were essentially a push -- three moved toward Obama, two toward McCain, two were flat -- but the action today is at the state level. And boy, there is a lot of action: 29 new state polls entering our database. And many of them contain great news for Obama."

This is no anomaly. After weeks of consistently favourable and upward-trending polls, Obama is probably past "dead girl/live boy" territory and reaching the point where it's almost a mathematical impossibility for him to lose. GOP ship-jumping continues apace, and while the deserters name a variety of reasons for their defections, the common thread is... wait for it... aww, you guessed it! -- Sarah Palin:

"It may yet turn out differently, but at this stage in the campaign for the White House it appears that if John McCain loses in November the turning point will not be the financial crisis hitting in late September but his choice of Sarah Palin as his veep in late August.Two new national polls show that voters cite that choice as the main reason they have turned from McCain."

Yes indeedy, even the women voters to whom Palin was supposed to appeal are saying "Thanks, but no thanks!":

"A whopping 60% of women aged 50 and younger have a negative view of Mrs Palin, according to a poll released by the Pew Research Centre on October 21st. Mrs Palin has also had only a fleeting impact on white women. After the Republican convention white women favoured Mr McCain over Mr Obama by 51% to 40%, according to Gallup. They now favour Mr Obama by 47% to 46%."

But like blind pigs relentlessly searching for non-existent acorns, remaining Palin enthusiasts steadfastly accuse McCain of being the weak candidate. But what can you expect? Pretty much all that's left still standing of the GOP are no-minds, zealots, sanctimonious bible-thumping whackadoos and fetus freaks, so the logic that the Palin pick was insulting to women and radioactive to moderate conservatives doesn't register.

And the repercussions of the ill-conceived campaign will be felt long after November 4th -- it has conservatives deeply divided:

"Conservatives are at each other's throats, and here's what's revealing about how divided they are: The critics of John McCain and the critics of Sarah Palin represent entirely different camps." [...]

"A Pew Research Center survey this week found that among political independents, Palin's unfavorable rating has almost doubled since mid-September, from 27 to 50 percent. Whatever enthusiasm Palin inspired among conservative ideologues is more than offset by middle-of-the-road defections."

Add to that the tension within the McCain campaign itself: between McCain and Palin, between Palin and campaign advisors, between the advisors themselves, one of whom has jumped ship, and wow: not exactly the calm steady hand you want at the steering wheel of state. Republicans, who've used "divide and conquer" tactics with great success for years, now find themselves divided and likely on the verge of being conquered, and ironically, not because of anything their opposition has done but because of what they've allowed themselves to become.