New RNC site: Obama v. Constitution, including ominous music!

By GottaLaff



You simply must link over to this ridiculous site just to hear the oooommminnous music:

If you run your mouse over the amendment in question it indicates an Obama judicial nominee and a decision that allegedly supports the claim [...]

“Please help the Republican Party stop President Obama’s judicial nominees from rewriting the Constitution. Donate today!” the site says, calling for contributions of up to $1,000.

And that's what it's really all about: Donations.

(click on image to enlarge)

Defacing the U.S. Constitution should be a real winner for them. Even better than the fake census forms!

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Gravely Old Pathetic party.

Report- Larry King to divorce 7th wife amid reports of HIS infidelity

'Cause god knows we all want a piece of that. Fer real.

Frank Rich: Tea Party ideology "plays to the lock-and-load nutcases out there"

By GottaLaff

Barry Blitt

Frank Rich:

[I]f I were to place an incautious bet on which political event will prove the most significant of February 2010 [...] I’d put my money [...] on the murder-suicide of Andrew Joseph Stack III, the tax protester who flew a plane into an office building housing Internal Revenue Service employees in Austin, Tex., on Feb. 18. [...]

What made that kamikaze mission eventful was less the deranged act itself than the curious reaction of politicians on the right who gave it a pass — or, worse, flirted with condoning it. [...] [H]e did leave behind a manifesto whose frothing anti-government, anti-tax rage overlaps with some of those marching under the Tea Party banner. That rant inspired like-minded Americans to create instant Facebook shrines to his martyrdom. Soon enough, some cowed politicians, including the newly minted Tea Party hero Scott Brown, were publicly empathizing with Stack’s credo — rather than risk crossing the most unforgiving brigade in their base.

Representative Steve King, Republican of Iowa, even rationalized Stack’s crime. [...] No one in King’s caucus condemned these remarks. [...]

Two days before Stack’s suicide mission, The Times published David Barstow’s chilling, months-long investigation of the Tea Party movement. [...]

Barstow confirmed what the Southern Poverty Law Center had found in its report last year: the unhinged and sometimes armed anti-government right that was thought to have vaporized after its Oklahoma apotheosis is making a comeback. And now it is finding common cause with some elements of the diverse, far-flung and still inchoate Tea Party movement. All it takes is a few self-styled “patriots” to sow havoc.

Equally significant is Barstow’s finding that most Tea Party groups have no affiliation with the G.O.P. despite the party’s ham-handed efforts to co-opt them. [...] They are not to be confused with the Party of No holding forth in Washington — a party that, after all, is now positioning itself as a defender of Medicare spending. What we are talking about here is the Party of No Government at All.

The distinction between the Tea Party movement and the official G.O.P. is real, and we ignore it at our peril. [...] [L]eaders of the Party of No are anathema or irrelevant to most Tea Partiers. [...] The passion on the right has migrated almost entirely to the Tea Party’s counterconservatism.

The leaders embraced by the new grass roots right are a different slate entirely: Glenn Beck, Ron Paul and Sarah Palin. Simple math dictates that none of this trio can be elected president. [...] But these leaders do have a consistent ideology, and that ideology plays to the lock-and-load nutcases out there [...]

No less an establishment conservative observer than the Wall Street Journal editorialist Dorothy Rabinowitz describes Paul’s followers as “conspiracy theorists, anti-government zealots, 9/11 truthers, and assorted other cadres of the obsessed and deranged.” [...]

Such violent imagery and invective, once largely confined to blogs and talk radio, is now spreading among Republicans in public office or aspiring to it. [...]

Whether consciously or coincidentally, Stout was echoing Palin’s memorable final declaration during her appearance at the National Tea Party Convention earlier this month: “I will live, I will die for the people of America, whatever I can do to help.” It’s enough to make you wonder who is palling around with terrorists now.

You can read the whole thing here.

Meet the Tea Party's Military Wing

By GottaLaff

Back in October 2009, I posted a Special Comment by 42bkdodgr about Pat Buchanan and the Oath Keepers:

The organization is made up of ex-Army paratroopers and police officers who repledge themselves to defend the Constitution, even if it means disobeying orders. Stewart Rhodes, the organization founder, says the reason for the type of membership, is “my focus is on the guys with the guns”.

Mother Jones picks up where 42bkdodgr left off:

[A] small group of fellow soldiers at the Fort Drum Army base in upstate New York are angry about the recent direction of the federal government. In the belief that it is already starting to turn on its citizens, they are preparing for the day the feds will find some pretext to declare martial law. Their conspiracy-minded rhetoric mirrors that of a recently established group called Oath Keepers. [...] [T]he group encourages active duty soldiers to stay anonymous—they identify themselves as Oath Keepers and subscribe to the group's tenets. But Pray and his pals take the rhetoric a step further: They are actively stockpiling weapons, running drills, and outlining a plan of action for the day "the shit hits the fan"—the day they will be forced to go AWOL to their "fortified bunker," and if it becomes necessary, to turn their guns against fellow soldiers. "I'm willing to fight to the death," Pray tells reporter Justine Sharrock in her new profile of Oath Keepers and its founder.

They also have a lengthy piece here called "Oath Keepers and the Age of Treason"...

Glenn Beck loves them. Tea Partiers court them. Congressmen listen to them. Meet the fast-growing "patriot" group that's recruiting soldiers to resist the Obama administration.

And they provide a slide show of who is connected to this lovely group. Here are the thumbnails, and each has accompanying text that is quite revelatory:

(click on image to enlarge)

Disturbing, to say the least.

H/t: Gr8RDH

John Birch Society Sponsoring CPAC

By GottaLaff

Look what Oliver dug up:

The John Birch Society announces it is cosponsoring the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) 2010, to be held in Washington DC, Feb. 18-20.

JBS will have a double booth with half dedicated to offering educational and promotional materials and the other half housing a TV studio that will stream live video from the booth and broadcast onto JBS LibertyNewsNetwork.tv, a website that will feature archived JBS video and live video streams.

I remember going to the market with my mom when I was teeny tiny, and she wouldn't buy Welch's products (grape jelly!) because of Robert Welch's John Birch Society. I had no idea what she meant, but I understood enough to know that she thought they were the bad guys.

If you are unaware of who they are, here's a hint from Oliver: The John Birch Society is one of America’s original right-wing conspiracy groups.

Here's more:

The society was established in Indianapolis, Indiana on December 9, 1958 by a group of 12 men led by Robert Welch, Jr., a retired candy manufacturer from Belmont, Massachusetts. One founding member was Fred Koch, founder of Koch Industries, one of the largest private corporations in America. [...]

The society states that it is anti-totalitarian, particularly anti-socialist and anti-communist, and leans libertarian. It seeks to limit the powers of government and defends what it sees as the original intention of the U.S. Constitution, based on its perception of Judeo-Christian principles. It opposes collectivism, including wealth redistribution, economic interventionism, socialism, communism, and fascism. In a 1983 edition of Crossfire, Congressman Larry McDonald (D-Georgia), then its newly appointed chairman, characterized the society as belonging to the Old Right rather than the New Right.^[7] A few months after this interview, McDonald, a passenger aboard Korean Air Lines Flight 007 would be shot down by the Soviets with its 268 other passengers and crew on Sept. 1. 1983.

The society stated it opposed aspects of the civil rights movement in the 1960s because of concerns that the movement had communists in important positions. It opposed the 1964 Civil Rights Act, saying it was in violation of the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution and overstepped the rights of individual states to enact laws regarding civil rights.

The society is against "one world government", and has an immigration reduction view on immigration reform. It opposes the United Nations, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), and other free trade agreements. [...]

Society influence on U.S. politics hit its high point in the years around the failed 1964 presidential campaign of Republican candidate Barry Goldwater, who lost to incumbent President Lyndon B. Johnson. Welch had supported Goldwater over Richard Nixon for the Republican nomination, but the membership split, with two-thirds supporting Goldwater and one-third supporting Nixon. A number of Birch members and their allies were Goldwater supporters in 1964^[22] and some were delegates at the 1964 Republican National Convention. The Goldwater campaign brought together the nucleus of what later became known as the New Right.

In April 1966, a New York Times article on New Jersey and the society stated, in part, a concern for "the increasing tempo of radical right attacks on local government, libraries, school boards, parent-teacher associations, mental health programs, the Republican Party and, most recently, the ecumenical movement."^[23] It then characterized the society as, "by far the most successful and 'respectable' radical right organization in the country. It operates alone or in support of other extremist organizations whose major preoccupation, like that of the Birchers, is the internal Communist conspiracy in the United States." [...]

he sensationalism of Welch's charge that Eisenhower was possibly a Communist dupe led many conservatives and Republicans, most prominently Goldwater and intellectuals of Buckley's circle, to renounce outright or quietly shy away from the group.

They're ba-a-ack.

Who's watching Glenn Beck?

By GottaLaff

Tim Rutten has an op-ed in today's L.A. Times about the Anti-Defamation League's scrutiny and condemnation of you-know-who:

For the first time in living memory, the ADL is sounding the alarm about a mainstream media personality: Fox News' Glenn Beck, who also hosts a popular radio show.

Now, we all know that ClusterFox has a whole array of hosts who many of us find offensive. Why single out Blech?

"Beck and his guests have made a habit of demonizing President Obama and promoting conspiracy theories about his administration. ... Beck has even gone so far as to make comparisons between Hitler and Obama."

For someone who says he isn't a Hitler fan, Blech has a funny way of showing it. You see, he has his own radical Plan, with a Capital P (I posted about that a few days ago here):

As Beck wrote on his website, "I know that the bipartisan corruption in Washington that has brought us to this brink and it will not be defeated easily. It will require unconventional thinking and a radical plan to restore our nation to the maximum freedoms we were supposed to have been protecting. ... All of the above will culminate in The Plan, a book that will provide specific policies, principles and, most importantly, action steps that each of us can take to play a role in this Refounding."

All that and he's hawking a book, too. Guess which of the two is his Priority... with a capital P? My guess is it's the same Priority as Fox's. But about that incitement thing....

It's hard to imagine any contemporary cable system dropping Fox News simply because Beck is an offensively dangerous demagogue -- not with his ratings at least. His new foray into politics, though, presents Rupert Murdoch's network with a profound challenge. Is it willing to become the platform for an extremist political campaign, or will it draw a line as even the authoritarian Catholic Church of the 1940s did? CNN recently parted ways with its resident ranter, Lou Dobbs -- who now confirms he's weighing a presidential bid.

Does Fox see a similar problem with Beck -- and, if not, why?

For these bottom feeders it's all about the bottom line, and to get there, they continue to strive for the bottom. Consequences be damned.

Much more here. I skipped a lot.

Who ARE these 9/12ers and Far Right Subversives?

By GottaLaff

(Photo via trinakt)

I was brought up to be respectful of others, taught never to bully, glorify violence, or exhibit inappropriate hostility. Until relatively recently, I believed that most others followed basic rules of decency and ethics.

Because I was raised to follow the rules, to do unto others, and to listen and respond in a reasonable, logical way, I idealistically hoped I'd get what I gave.

I was wrong.

What is happening? Who are these vicious, seething people? Why do they act as they do?

Frank Schaeffer gives us his take here. Here are a few excerpts, but please follow the link for the details:

• Protecting Your Children From Satan: To protect your children from Satan -- in other words mainstream, open patriotic and pluralistic America -- you either kept them at home where mom and dad could teach the children right from wrong or send them to a cloistered private evangelical/fundamentalist school.
  

• The Anti-American Home Schoolers Come Of Age: If you wonder who it is that's both running and underwriting organizations such as the Family Research Council, Focus On The Family, Freedom Works and other organizers of the 9/12 March and who are most faithful followers the likes of Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh or viewers of Fox News your answer is: it's the home school/Christian school generation of men and women now hitting their thirties and even forties who might as well have been raised on a different planet.

• Evangelical Red Guards: Who are Glenn Beck's foot soldiers? In effect what we have is a group of indoctrinated people who have never actually lived in America because they were brought up deliberately cloistered from it by their parents and churches. Because they are legally "Americans" they can move freely around our democracy trying to destroy it working within the United States. Today they are acting like a fifth column, no, they are a fifth column. Some of them have not just seceded metaphorically, there is even a growing movement for states to secede literally.
  
  Today the right wing America haters actually are doing to America what no "illegal" immigrants ever do: work to overthrow our democracy and replace it with a theocracy. The home-schooled, privately educated brainwashed horde are an antidemocratic, fundamentally anti-American political movement. For a start they do not accept the results of the last election.
  

• Liberal/Progressive Wishful Thinking and Blindness: Meanwhile those ordinary Americans including many Democrats, progressives and liberal's who work within the system can hardly imagine that there are people so far outside the lines of what they regard as ordinary decent behavior that the progressives seem psychologically unequipped to deal with this reality.

• Bipartisan Pipe Dream: Because you can't be bipartisan with people who don't play by the same rules--say accepting the will of the people -- as you do. [...] I, as a life-long Republican and former Religious Right activist helped create this situation. But Tanenhaus and others like him just don't get the fact that the far right is resurgent, in fact more dangerous than ever as a wounded animal is dangerous. They don't get it because kindly liberals also live in a bubble.
  

• The Last Chess Game You'll Ever Play: What reasonable people don't understand is this: if one person is playing chess abiding by the rules and their opponent is losing at the chess game it may appear that they have lost the match. But what if one person is willing to change the rules?

• Serial Killers: To understand the Religious Right today and how dangerous they are don't think politics-- think serial killers who "win" by "getting even" with the society they perceive as having disrespected them. It isn't about facts. It isn't about election results. It isn't about truth. It's about victimhood and revenge on the "elite" in other words on everyone not like you. It is about the weird combination of sadism and masochism Blumenthal describes in his book.
  

• New Rules: Anarchy and Scorched Earth: What those who think that the power of the Religious Right and/or the Republicans is ended don't understand is that it's only ended if you believe in the rules. When I say the rules I mean, for instance, that if you lose an election the other side gets to legislate. However if your opponent is not interested in the rules and is, A) waiting for Jesus to return and consume all the "infidels" or, B) you are just waiting to take that "lead pipe" out of your back pocket -- say go to public meetings and intimidate people by carrying loaded weapons to those meetings -- or worse, maybe even use them to shoot down someone -- all polite bets are off!

• Religious Right Growing Again: To the progressives who think that the Religious Right and the right wing has lost its power I say this: You're correct when it comes to political facts (for the moment) of the last election, but you're dead wrong when it comes to the way revolutions work.

• Second American "Tea Party" Revolution: Revolutionaries never have played by the rules. They don't have to win by the rules. They hate the rules. They don't live in a rule based or fact based universe. [...] In order to "win" -- in other words destroy our country as we know it -- the far right merely needs to be true to its own rule which is, to put it very mildly, that coloring outside the lines is not only perfectly okay but required.

• Conclusion: The tactics that progressives develop for actually winning against the right have to involve far more than politics. They have to also involve ceaseless vigilance against an enemy that has now -- literally -- raised up an armed, paranoid and deluded alternative nation within our borders and created a fifth column to undermine the United States and our democracy. They need to be called out by the rest of us in no uncertain terms.
  

There is much more. Please read the rest, but in a nutshell, that's what Schaeffer thinks. What do you think?

H/t: Gr8RDH

VIDEO: Former Reagan/Bush consultant equates teachers unions with Hitler Youth leaders

By GottaLaff

BuzzFlash found this one for me. Whoa::

The notion of government organized and funded community service volunteerism has no shortage of enemies on the right side of the political spectrum. [...] But no Republican politician can or would match the rhetoric Judith Reisman employs to denounce AmeriCorps programs.

Reisman, a former consultant for the Reagan and both Bush administrations says that government community service programs are not dissimilar than those employed in fascist or communist regimes to brainwash the young.

Old-timers naturally recall Communist, Fascist and Nazi youth brigades as severing children from their parent's religious traditions and beliefs.

In her WorldNetDaily column she has special animus for gay tolerance groups like the Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network, and for the American Library Association and National Education Association. [...]

Reisman, a former producer for Captain Kangaroo, is founder of the Institute for Media Education fighting what she considers fraudulent sex scientists, sex education and the power and effect of images and the monopoly media to alter human behavior. She says the special emphasis of her work has been and continues to be the negative influence of these change agents upon children and society. Her primary target is the groundbreaking sex research of Dr. Alfred Kinsey which she believes promulgated “a growing and proselytizing international academic pedophile movement”.

She served as a consultant for the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Education for the Reagan and both Bush administrations. She also claims that she was awarded a grant by the Justice Department to serve as the “principal investigator of an $800,000 grant to investigate Kinsey's role in child sexual abuse and the link to children appearing in mainstream pornography, Playboy, Penthouse and Hustler.”

Go here for more.

Robert Reich's warning: Populist rightie rage is building

By GottaLaff

Rightie Rushpublican Rage: RRR. It seems to be building as the economy worsens, says Robert Reich (Two more Rs. This is getting redundant. Oops, there's another one).

So why all that RRR? Come on, you know the answer: The Obama Recession. That was pretty much smashed to smithereens here, but the RRR is growing anyway. Reich:

The argument that Obama is somehow responsible for the collapse of Wall Street is absurd. First, every major policy that led to this collapse occurred under George W.'s watch (or, more accurately, his failure to watch). The housing and financial bubbles were created under Bush and exploded under Bush. The stock market began to collapse under Bush.

Second, it's inevitable that stocks, led by the bloated financial sector, would lose their remaining hot air as the new administration begins "stress-testing" the big banks, many of which are technically insolvent. [...]

Finally, none of the financial wizards who are now charging Obama with leading America into the abyss have offered an alternative plan for getting us out of the mess that, not incidentally, many of these same wizards happily led us into. For years, the Wall Street Journal editorial page and the financial gurus of cable news cheered as Wall Street leveraged its way into oblivion.

Republicans have made no secret of their wish to blame Obama for the bad economy, and to stir up as much populist rage against his so-called socialist tendencies as politically possible. History shows how effective demagogic ravings can be when a public is stressed economically. Make no mistake: Angry right-wing populism lurks just below the surface of the terrible American economy, ready to be launched not only at Obama but also at liberals, intellectuals, gays, blacks, Jews, the mainstream media, coastal elites, crypto socialists, and any other potential target of paranoid opportunity.

Just thought I'd brighten your day. Want some more good cheer? Then by all means, read this, which will take you to this. Let me know when you're done.

...

...

Finished? Good. Sorry to put you through such torture. One more thing:

Aren't you extremely glad we're not like them?

H/t: Hippie Cyndi

Obama Team Very Worried About Economy

By GottaLaff

Via Taegan:

Marc Ambinder:

"It's quite unsettling to talk to members of Barack Obama's transition teams these days, especially those who are helping with the economics portfolio. Without going into details, the sense I get from them is that they are very worried that the economy will get a lot worse before it gets better. Not just worse... a lot worse."

The video above is last night's interview by Rachel Maddow of Elizabeth Warren about the bailout.

The View: Boo!

By GottaLaff

These photos creep me out:

Which costume freaks you out the most:

• Barbara as George Washington
• Elisabeth as Ronald Reagan
• Sherri as Abraham Lincoln
• Whoopi as FDR
• Joy as Teddy Roosevelt

VIDEO: Chris Matthews v. Michele Bachmann

By GottaLaff

Bachman seems unable to articulate a coherent thought beyond "Obama's leftist, liberal, anti-American mentors." She even claims that Rezko is a "leftist, liberal, anti-American." Matthews points out that Rezko is a businessman, not a liberal. Bachman didn't seem to understand the difference.

Wow. Even Tweety was a little freaked out by this whack job.

"If you are totally ignorant, please don't vote"

By GottaLaff

I can't link to it yet, because the L.A. Times letters-to-the-editors page hasn't yet updated, so I'll just type it out (the author lives in Washington):

...If you are totally ignorant, please don't vote.

I had a scary encounter this morning. The tenant in my front unit asked me what the sign in my window-- Obama/Biden-- meant. My jaw dropped and I looked at him to see if he was serious. He was!

I explained that they were running for president and vice president, then went in the house, shaking my head. This guy is a single dad, about 35 years old, born and raised in the good old U.S.A. I wonder if he's registered to vote? That would be even scarier.

And they say Obama is scary? No. Here's scary (h/t Alec):

Matt Taibbi: The Return of Rove

By GottaLaff

Read. Now. Excerpts:

One is tempted to call this brilliant tactics, except that it isn't brilliant, any more than pointing a gun at a Korean store owner is a "brilliant" way to make $135. One of the most remarkable aspects of Rove's career is the way the media consistently respond to being lied to, pissed on and manipulated by Rove: They stroke his already swollen gonads even more, hailing him as a singular political genius. [...]

Rove is not a genius, or even very clever: He's totally and completely immoral. It doesn't take genius to claim, as Rove ludicrously did last fall, that it was the Democrats in Congress and not George W. Bush who pushed the Iraq War resolution in 2002. It doesn't take brains to compare a triple-amputee war veteran to Osama bin Laden; you just have to be a mean, rotten cocksucker.

The reason Rove continues to survive is the same reason that Johnnie Cochran was called a genius for keeping a double-murderer on the golf course — because this generation of Americans has become so steeped in greed and social Darwinism that it can no longer distinguish between cheating and achieving, between enterprise and crime, and can't bring itself to criticize winners any more than it knows how to be nice to losers. He survives because an increasing number of Americans secretly agree with Rove's vision of rules, laws and "the truth" as quaint, faintly embarrassing rituals that only a sucker would let hold him back.

Rove's comeback is evidence that the attack on our civic institutions in the Bush years wasn't an isolated incident, something we can pin on a specific group of now-deposed politicians. It's a trend, a thing that grows in direct proportion to our greed and ignorance. We may be a country at war, facing one of the greatest financial meltdowns of all time. But in the end, the thing that could be our undoing is the kind of generalized boredom with legality and honor that empowers Rovian behavior. If we let it.

The truth hurts.

Offensive e-mail makes the rounds

By GottaLaff

Commenter Eve received this e-mail and was rightfully appalled. She shot one back telling them how offensive it was. Are you ready?

1 MINUTE EACH NIGHT

This is the scariest election we as Christians have ever
faced and from the looks of the polls, the Christians aren't
voting Christian values. We all need to be on our knees.

Do you believe we can take God at His word? Call upon
His name, then stand back and watch His wonders to behold.
This Scripture gives us, as Christians, ownership of this land
and the ability to call upon God to heal it. I challenge you to do so. We have never been more desperate than now for God to heal our land.

This election is the scariest many can remember.

2 Chronicles 7:14
If my people, which are called by My name shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from Heaven, and will forgive
their sin, and will heal their land.

During WWII, there was an advisor to Churchill who organized
a group of people who dropped what they were doing every
night at a prescribed hour for one minute to collectively pray
for the safety of England , its people and peace. This had an amazing effect as bombing stopped.

There is now a group of people organizing the same thing
here in America . The United States of America and our
citizens need prayer more than ever!

If you would like to participate: each evening at 9:00 PM
Eastern Time (8:00 PM Central, 7:00 PM Mountain, 6:00 PM Pacific), stop whatever you are doing and spend one minute praying for the safety of the United States, our troops, our citizens, for peace in the world, the upcoming election, that
the Bible will remain the basis for the laws governing our land
and that Christianity will grow in the US.

If you know anyone who would like to participate, please pass this along. Someone said if people really understood the full extent of the power we have available through prayer, we might be speechless.

Our prayers are the most powerful asset we have. Thank You.
Please pass this on to anyone who you think will want to join us.

Your turn.

Half a heartbeat away

By GottaLaff

Yesterday, we had a look at who the real Republican presidential nominee is. Now Frank Rich confirms it:

So how can a desperate G.O.P. save itself? As McCain continues to fade into incoherence and irrelevance, the last hope is that he’ll come up with some new game-changing stunt to match his initial pick of Palin or his ill-fated campaign “suspension.” Until Thursday night, more than a few Republicans were fantasizing that his final Hail Mary pass would be to ditch Palin so she can “spend more time” with her ever-growing family. But the debate reminded Republicans once again that it’s Palin, not McCain, who is their last hope for victory.

You have to wonder how long it will be before they plead with him to think of his health, get out of the way and pull the ultimate stunt of flipping the ticket. Palin, we can be certain, wouldn’t even blink.

Frank Rich refers to IWRC* Palin as " ice cold." (shades of Commenter Ady's "ice queen"). The thought of this very unqualified, very ambitious, very "hubristic" and "hyper-ambitious" candidate actually inhabiting the White House is, indeed, chilling.

*"In What Respect, Charlie?"

"As a working mom with a child with Down syndrome, Sarah Palin makes me shriek"

By GottaLaff

I know this is a little long, but I pared it down. I suggest reading the whole thing. It needs no commentary from me, because the author makes her views, that coincide with my own, loud and clear:

Our 5-year-old daughter has Down syndrome. [...] "I knew it I knew it I knew it I knew it I knew it I knew it! I KNEW John McCain couldn't resist putting a baby with Down syndrome up there on the national stage — that opportunist!!" [...]

"And what the fuck does this woman think she's doing; does she have any idea what it takes to raise a kid with Down syndrome? She thinks she can be vice president and take care of that baby?"

I stopped, startling myself, and clapped my hand over my own mouth. Where had that come from? How Sarah Palin parents her kids is absolutely none of my business. I know that. At least, the rational me knows that. [...]

I have two daughters — Sophie, my 5-year-old, and Annabelle, who is 7 — and I have a full-time job.

My own balancing act is inelegant. Forget leading the free world; I can't even balance my hair on the top of my head as well as Sarah Palin does. I don't wear high heels. My glasses were on clearance at LensCrafters. And my milk never did come in, so I never got to leave a meeting to breastfeed. I sneak out of bed at 4 a.m. to get some work done before it's time to make lunches, so I can sneak out of work at 2:30 to take my kid to her Brownie meeting. My eye twitches all the time from fatigue, and there are currently three overflowing baskets of laundry in my living room. My office is even worse.

I know how hard it is, being a working mom. And how important. [...]

As a staff writer at New Times for many years, I wrote a lot about John McCain — on other topics, too, but a lot about McCain. When Annabelle was born, that continued. It wasn't until Sophie came along that I felt compelled to take a different job at the paper, as an editor. It's just as tough, but not as all-consuming as writing those long cover stories we publish each week.

So, basically, I stopped writing about McCain so I could spend more time with my baby with Down syndrome (I was also, frankly, banking on the notion that he'd never make a run for president in 2008) and now here he is, poised to be the next leader of the free world, and his running mate is a woman with a baby with Down syndrome. [...] Tell me you wouldn't run around your kitchen shrieking, too. [...]

Palin is shamelessly using her personal life to sell her candidacy in a way that's reminiscent of just one other politician I can think of — and that's John McCain. But at least in McCain's case, he's his own pawn, vis-à-vis his POW story. Track, Bristol, Willow, Piper, and Trig are their mother's pawns. [...]

And you expect me to rely on Sarah Palin, a woman who wants to ban books and teach creationism, and John McCain, a man who wants to ban government spending on almost everything but war, to help me take care of my kids? [...]

I don't know if Sarah Palin would create a safety net strong enough to catch Sophie, but I do know one area of my daughter's life (both my daughters' lives) that interests her greatly.

Reproductive rights. [...] When it comes to this topic, to be honest, I can barely bring myself to think of Sophie. [...]

What if — and I can hardly type the words — someday Sophie meets a bad man? Sarah Palin does not believe in abortion under any circumstance, including in the case of rape.

I am clearly not done shrieking.

H/t: Paddy

VIDEO-- O'Reilly: Obama's mom was a hippie

By GottaLaff

Billo the Clown's The Obama Chronicles, Part Oy:



Obama didn't have "an Ozzie and Harriet upbringing". It was "unstable"! His mom was a "hippie, a kind of a free spirit"... who did "some carpentry thing." "A very liberal human being".

She was white. Scary and white. She raised a black son. Scary and black. And the grandfather, "he was a little unusual, too".... "A Bohemian who listened to jazz!" Did you hear that? Jazz!

And "Obama went through an adolescent rebellion and looked African American... which gave him a curiousness about his identity!"

O'Reilly: "His father was just a cad!" That has to "play a major role in Obama's life!" He then Billo linked him to Bill Clinton and his background.

Fair and balanced.

VIDEO: Right Wingers Threaten Alaskan Women Over Anti-Palin Rally

By GottaLaff

Yesterday's anti-Palin rally got under some unhinged Republicans' skin, to say the least:

VIDEO: Very Bizarre 'Holy Laughter Annointing' Theology at Sarah Palin's Juneau Church

By GottaLaff

I'm not sure what to make of this. The word "peculiar" comes to mind, as do others:

Mike Rose is the senior pastor of Juneau Christian Church, where Governor Sarah Palin attends when in residence in Juneau. The Alaska Update of the Alaska Assemblies of God featured a story on Palin's attendance at the 2008 Alaska District Council and stated that "Superintendent Ted Boatsman, who was Palin's junior high pastor at Wasilla Assembly of God, along with Pastor Mike Rose of Juneau Christian Center, where Palin presently attends church when in Juneau, laid hands on the Governor and led the Council in Prayer."

Watch Bruce Wilson's video - Palin's Churches and the Holy Laughter Anointing:

Read a lot more about this here. I'm still trying to pick my jaw up off the floor and can't seem to unwiden my eyes.