Worst Decade in 50 Years

Considering how the decade started (stolen election, 9/11) I'm surprised it didn't make it to the worst in 100 years. Via Taegan-

Pew Research: "As the current decade draws to a close, relatively few Americans have positive things to say about it. By roughly two-to-one, more say they have a generally negative (50%) rather than a generally positive (27%) impression of the past 10 years. This stands in stark contrast to the public's recollection of other decades in the past half-century. When asked to look back on the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, positive feelings outweigh negative in all cases."

VIDEO: Jon Stewart eviscerates CNN

By GottaLaff

Suh-naparoony! When I saw this last night, I couldn't wait to post it. An absolute masterpiece:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
CNN Leaves It There
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Ron Paul Interview

Thank you, Jon, for exposing:

Sarah Palin's new disaster

By GottaLaff

I've put up a few revelatory posts about Sarah Palin's horrendous pick for Alaska attorney general, Wayne Anthony Ross. [Please follow those links if you haven't been following the story.] Well, today, Mark Karlin over at BuzzFlash e-mailed me this little Max Blumenthal gem of a follow-up. Sparky McBackfire may dump W.A.R. to save her own skin:

According to two sources close to the confirmation hearings, Palin may ask Ross to withdraw before his appointment comes to a vote. [...]

But as pro-Palin forces attempted to push back against Ross’s critics, dozens of op-eds Ross authored during the 1980s and 1990s surfaced as key exhibits in the case against his confirmation. Among them is a 1993 piece entitled, “KKK ‘art’ project gets ‘A’ for courage,” in which Ross cheered on a local college student who had offended an African-American classmate by creating a statue of a Klansman with a cross in one hand and a flag in the other. “It might have been fun to see [the African-American student] try to remove the display,” Ross wrote. “Then she could have been arrested and her future as a student of the university could have been resolved through the university disciplinary proceedings.”

During the early 1980s, while Anchorage residents grappled over renaming the city’s 15th Street as Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, and state legislators mulled establishing a state holiday honoring the assassinated civil-rights leader, Ross wrote several manifestoes attacking King as a communist subversive, according to University of Alaska-Anchorage music professor and local progressive activist Phil Munger. Munger also told me Ross has routinely appeared at public events beside his friend, Don Tanner, a white nationalist who moved to South Africa for a period during the 1980s to support its apartheid government, and who reveled crowds of conservatives with anti-black “South African jokes” upon his return to Alaska.

A glance at Ross’s published archive shows he never limited his resentment to minorities. He taunted environmentalists (“It is time we quit crying over the oil spill” was the title of an editorial he wrote in the wake of the Exxon Valdez disaster); he denounced homosexuals as “degenerates” during a 1993 legal fight over a local gay-rights ordinance; and announced that his final wish before dying was to overturn Roe v. Wade. While rising through the ranks of the NRA’s national leadership in the 1980s, Ross published a piece in the mercenary magazine Soldier of Fortune, defending the right to form antigovernment militias.

“Ross’s profile fits where Palin wants to go after the current legislative session ends,” Munger remarked to me. “She seems to be planning some behind-the-scenes movement to stir up the crazies, especially by convincing them the federal government is going take their guns away. So nobody here is surprised by this selection.”

While Ross sustained withering criticism for his views on social issues, Native American tribes denounced his vociferous opposition to their subsistence rights. The tribes were especially disturbed by his vow during a 2002 gubernatorial debate to “hire a band of junkyard dog” attorneys to gut federal laws guaranteeing natives subsistence preferences. “It almost looked like she was rubbing our face in Anthony Ross’s appointment,” said Tim Towarak, co-chairman of the Alaska Federation of Natives, told The Bristol Bay Times. “Like rubbing our face on the ground, saying ‘Here, take this.’” With increasingly powerful tribal groups mobilizing a united front against Ross, Palin was compelled to defend her own record, pleading, “Obviously I am not anti-Native and would never appoint anyone who is.”

If Palin withdraws Ross’s nomination, she could end another embarrassing political spectacle before it registers on the national press corps’ radar. Alternatively, if she manages to ram his appointment through, Palin can begin implementing a hard-right legal agenda that will appeal to the elements she is cultivating as the base of her likely 2012 presidential campaign. However Palin decides to proceed with W.A.R., by nominating him, she has staked out the culture war as the fuel for her national ambitions.

Sparky McBackfire really picked a winner, didn't she? Oh, whoops, my bad, I shouldn't use that term. "Winner" and "Palin" should never be juxtaposed. That would be inappropriate and bad form.

Sparky McBackfire really picked a bigoted, mean-spirited, bottom-feeding boor, didn't she? There. That's better.

White Nationalist-Linked ‘Right-Wing Youth’ Group At CPAC

By GottaLaff

I take everything back that I said about Republicans not being an inclusive party. Just look what they've done now. They've gone and opened their arms to this bunch of young'uns, and I hope America gets wind of it in a huge way. I'm here to do what I can to spread the word:

A well-funded new organization whose stated purpose is to launch a “right-wing youth movement” will make a splashy debut tonight at the Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC [...]

According to CPAC materials, the group, Youth for Western Civilization, is one of the official co-sponsors, or major donors, of this year’s conference. [...]

In the past, CPAC organizers have shielded the reputation of their mainstream conservative enterprise by forbidding racist organizations like the Council of Conservative Citizens from participating. They may want to take a closer look at Youth for Western Civilization.

There, you see? Look at that. Big open GOP arms are reaching out to the youth of America. Racist America, that is:

One of the group’s founders, [1] Marcus Epstein, is a frequent contributor to the white nationalist hate website VDARE.com.

“Diversity can be good in moderation — if what is being brought in is desirable,” Epstein wrote in one VDARE.com essay. “Most Americans don’t mind a little ethnic food, some Asian math whizzes, or a few Mariachi dancers — as long as these trends do not overwhelm the dominant culture.”

Epstein is also the head of the Robert A. Taft Club, a Washington, D.C., group whose events regularly feature prominent academic racists like Jared Taylor, the editor of the overtly white supremacist journal American Renaissance.

Another Youth for Western Civilization founder, Kevin DeAnna, has posted several times in recent years to the Spartan Spectator, the website of the Michigan State University chapter of Young Americans for Freedom, or MSU-YAF.

In 2007, the Southern Poverty Law Center [2] identified MSU-YAF as a hate group after it organized a “Catch an Illegal Alien Day” game, sponsored a “Koran desecration contest,” jokingly threatened to distribute small-pox infected blankets to Native American students, posted “Gays spread AIDS” fliers, called Latino students and faculty members “savages,” and invited Nick Griffin, the chairman of the neofascist British National Party, to speak on the MSU campus.

Who wouldn't want to join the Republican party after reading that?

Okay, snark aside, these monsters and the party that supports them must be exposed over and over again for what they are. Hate mongering like this helped lose them the election. However, it seems that they don't see the connection. Let's do that for America. Let's connect the dots for as many people as we can.

The Republican party is imploding into a miasmic mass of bigotry, and the least we can do is assist them by publicizing their hatred and self-destruction.

More here, if you can stomach it. Their Facebook page here:

The end goal of Youth for Western Civilization is an awakening of young Westerners that will fight for their heritage and their liberties against leftist occupation and restore sanity to American universities.

Worst headline ever

By GottaLaff

Most misleading. Worst. Most idiotic. Headline. Ever:

After less than a week in office, Barack Obama's approval rating plunges 15 points

Barack Obama might have been in office for less than a week, but the euphoria is beginning to wane.

The new President's approval ratings have fallen from a stratospheric 83 per cent to a more modest - although still impressive - 68 per cent.

Washington analysts said the scale of the drop in the Gallup poll underlines the immense challenges Mr Obama faces in trying to turn round the U.S.'s battered fortunes.

He still remains vastly more popular than his predecessor George Bush - who left office with around 25 per cent approval.

But there were signs yesterday that reality has set in following the wave of optimism surrounding his inauguration last Tuesday.

He's one of the hightest ranking new presidents we can remember, right up there with JFK, but his popularity has plunged! Plunged, do you hear me, plunged!

But there is optimism, a whole wave of it. I hope it's enough to pull him out of the doldrums. I'm not sure he can show his face now. After less than a week in office, he's utterly embarrassed himself.

Will he ever recover? Has he lost all credibility? Will he be impeached? Recalled? Annulled? Jailed? All we can do is... hope for the best... sniffle... and have faith that, somewhere in our heart of hearts, that... sob!... he will somehow, some way... whimper!... survive.

Bush’s legacy: Missed opportunities?

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Question mark not necessary.

Poll-itics: One in five think Cheney is worst VP in U.S. history

By GottaLaff

Worst. Person. In the Woooooorrrrld:

A new national poll suggests that one of out of five Americans think that Dick Cheney is the worst vice president in American history.

Twenty-three percent of those questioned in a CNN-Opinion Research Corporation survey released Tuesday say that Cheney is the country's worst vice president, when compared to his predecessors. Another 41 percent feel that Cheney is a poor vice president, with 34 percent rating him a good number two.

Only 1 percent of those polled say that Cheney is the best vice president in U.S. history.

I didn't realize his family was big enough to add up to a whole 1 percent.

George Bush has shoe thrown at him in Iraq

Oh my. Michael Ware was just on CNN describing this. More as I get it.

BAGHDAD (AP) — A man threw his shoes at President George W. Bush and was dragged away by security officials during the president's farewell trip to Iraq.

The incident occurred as Bush was appearing Sunday with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

Bush ducked and wasn't hit by either shoe. Bush joked, saying that all he can report was that it was a size 10 shoe. then calmly took questions.

On shoe throwing-

In the Arab world, shoe flinging is a gesture of extreme disrespect. A notable occurrence of this gesture happened in Baghdad, Iraq in 2003. When U.S. forces pulled down a giant statue of Saddam Hussein during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, many Iraqi detractors of Hussein threw their shoes at the fallen statue.

This may be an ancient gesture from the Middle East; Psalms 60:10, speaking of some of the traditional enemies of Judah, says that "Moab is my washpot; over Edom will I cast out my shoe...." (KJV)

What. A. Dork.

What WaterTiger said.

Bush Approval Falls to 19%

Bush doesn't seem to be too worried about his legacy though. Can't wait for the door to hit him on the way out. Unfortunately it looks like he's planted a poison garden for President Obama to maintain. Via Taegan.

A new American Research Group poll found that just 19% of Americans approve of the way George W. Bush is handling his job as president and 76% disapprove. When it comes to Bush's handling of the economy, 17% approve and 78% disapprove.

Bush's overall approval rating of 19% is tied for Bush's lowest in ARG monthly polling since Bush took office.

Biden blasts McCain/Palin for not facing press

By GottaLaff

I can't find the video yet, although I'm betting Paddy can. Until that happens, here is the text of a speech in Akron, Ohio, by a fired up Joe Biden ripping his opponents for not talking to the media:

"I got asked a question by the press this morning, er, yesterday," Biden said, referencing Kate Snow's pre-taped interview for today's "Good Morning America."

"I’ve done a lot of press, I’ve done, I don’t know, I was told I did 68, 70 press conferences, and the person says, "What do you think about Sarah Palin?" I said, “When she does three, I’ll let you know." I don’t know! I don’t have any idea! I don’t know! I don’t know!" Biden said as the crowd rose to their feet.

"You know, I mean, look, and it’s not, look guys, it’s not just Sarah Palin," he continued. "When’s the last time John, when’s the last time John’s had a press conference? I’m serious.”

Biden then turned to Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland, who introduced him.

"Ted, you and I know, when an elected official stops having press conferences, it ain’t because he’s found a way to communicate," Biden said. "It’s because he doesn’t want to communicate. Look folks, I mean, I, I, it’s just, if I sound angry it’s because I am angry. I mean, it’s like I don’t get it, I don’t get it!”

We do, Joe. It's because 1) Palin/McCain have nothing of any worth to offer/say; 2)Their positions remind us all that they are nothing but Bush III, Cheney II; and 3)If they get into a real conversation, they'll embarrass themselves into 20% poll numbers.

Senor Gramm-pa McCain thinks Spain is our enemy? Si? No?

By GottaLaff

Via TPM:

Did John McCain really just suggest that the Prime Minister of Spain might be one of America's enemies? One of those international leaders he'd refuse to meet with?

Does he want to liberate Spain too?

¡Dios mío! El Sid = El Stupido y El Viejo. Ayayay!

And the way it's being interpreted in the Spanish press is that McCain got confused about the fact that Spain is a country in Europe, rather than a rogue state in Latin America. [...]

In the interview, McCain is asked about Hugo Chavez, the situation in Bolivia and then about Raul Castro. He responds to each of these with expected answers about standing up to America's enemies, etc. Then the interviewer switches gears and asks about Zapatero, the Spanish Prime Minister. And McCain replies -- very loose translation -- that he'll establish close relations with our friends and stand out to those who want to do us harm. The interviewer has a double take and seems to think McCain might be confused. So she asks it again. But McCain sticks to the same evasive answer.

¡vaya!

UPDATE:

Well, it doesn't appear to have registered in the American press yet. But the story keeps bubbling in the Spanish press about McCain's bizarre gaffe about the Spanish Prime Minister. Here's the front page cut out from the Spanish news channel that did the interview. They've talked to the interviewer now. Her take? McCain didn't know who Zapatero was ...

35 + in 35

By GottaLaff

Over at Kos, there's a great diary by BoBo2020. It lists (more than) 35 problems for Sarah Palin in 35 hours. You've already seen some of these in our own posts, but it's fun to see them all on one long list. Ready? Go:

1. Sarah Palin has an Abramoff problem - a Pro-Palin illegal mailer was sent during her gubernatorial campaign on behalf of Palin by the RGA, the DC group that got money from Abramoff, Reed, etc.

2. She advocated AGAINST mine safety / pollution control

3. She has an ANTI-ENVIRONMENT RECORD and is on the wrong side of global warming and doesn't think polar bears should be listed as endangered because it interferes with her drilling plans.

4. She's against sex education - abstinence only.

5. She appears to oppose windfall taxes on oil companies at the national level but supported them to benefit her state and she wants to drill ANWR.

6. Believes creationism should be taught in science classes. (TPC)
   

7. She's opposed to state health benefits for same-sex partners.

8. She's opposed to universal health care and stem cell research.

9. No foreign policy experience? According to the folks at FOX think she has foreign policy experience because "Alaska is near Russia."

10. She doesn't know what the Vice President really does. (TPC)
    

11. This choice is NOT helping McCain's polling numbers, especially with women. (TPC)
    

12. McCain only talked to her TWICE making this a purely cynical and desperate political appointment.

13. She's deeply connected to the Bridge to Nowhere.

14. She stated that she would force her own daughter to have a rapist's child.

15. She has 3 houses.

16. Terre pointed out that she's connected to VECO - the company at the heart of Ted Steven's troubles. She also received an endorsement from Ted that has suddenly disappeared from her webpage.

17. She called candidate Cinton a whiner. Why does everyone in the McCain campaign think others are whiners?

18. She apparently hasn't taken a stand on most major political issues.

19. Her selection has created a major rift among the Republicans, especially Romney & Pawlenty.

20. Past quotes by Rove make Palin's selection look like desperation.

21. Palin has been scrubbing her own wikipedia page.

22. Palin supported Pat Buchanan in 2000, a fact which may alienate certain Florida voters.

23. She was vetted too quickly and McCain only picked her the night before making the announcement.

24. She's still focused on Alaska not the fact the she would be Vice President for the whole nation.

25. She participated in a profane on-air attack againt the Alaskan State Senate Preseident.

26. Like Bush and McCain, she can't admit when she's wrong.

27. She's linked to the Dominionist movement and Joel's Army.

28. The United Steelworkers have already spoken out against her.

29. She was a bad mayor who left her town's economy in tatters. (TPC)
    

30. She supported Obama's energy plan, but suddenly these references are disappearing.

31. The PUMA's believe that John McCain is patronizing them.

Additionally, this choice...

32. Eliminates the "He's not ready" attack on Obama.

33. Raises the issue of McCain's age (Is Palin ready to take over if he keels over).

34. Raises the issue of McCain's past unfavorable statements against women.

35. Reminds us that McCain is an adulterer and raises the spectre that he is just a dirty old man with wandering eyes.

36. Her husband is on BP's payroll creating a possible conflict of interest.

37. She made extremely poor use of Eminent Domain during her time as mayor.

38. She favors censoring library books (Alert your local librarian!)

39. Sen. Ted Stevens and Rep. Don Young (both under investigation) campaigned for her in 2006.

40. She DIDN'T SUPPORT MCCAIN in the primaries.

And completely silly...

41. She's smoked weed but says she didn't like it and doesn't smoke it now.

42. There's already Sarah Palin GILF merchandise.

The reviews keep pouring in

By GottaLaff

Worst. Pick. Ever.

By pollster Del Ali, the president of Research 2000.

Sarah Palin will wow cultural conservatives in areas where they may not have come out to vote before the selection. This is right out of Karl Rove's strategy of getting more of your own to show up and vote.

However, in many of the swing states that Bush carried in 2004, there were anti gay ballot measures to motivate the cultural conservatives to vote. There are very few of these measures on the ballots in those key states in 2008. Palin may not be enough for them to get out and vote. Clearly Rove felt in 2004 that Bush would not have been enough, thus the ballot measures.

In fact, as Palin's cultural views become better known -- she oppose abortion in all cases and opposes the use of birth control pills and condoms even among married couples -- she will undoubtedly scare the hell out of the soccer moms and 98% of Hillary voters. In fact, many of these women may feel insulted by this choice in that McCain and the GOP think they are stupid and would bypass their own interest (reproductive and economic) to vote for the ticket due to gender and anger that Hillary was not the nominee.

In my estimation as a pollster and analyst, while historic for the GOP in selecting their first woman on a national ticket, this choice may be the worst selection by a major party nominee for President in modern times.

Clear? Clear.