S#*! Sarah Palin Says (Pants On Fire Edition)

In the aftermath of Christine O'Donnell's black magic coming out party, she has canceled a scheduled appearance on Face The Nation tomorrow morning. You'd think that a rising star like O'Donnell would take advantage of the national exposure and show her prowess in front of the camera, speak the courage of her convictions in her stance on the issues and garner even more support and donations for her campaign.  But, no. Delaware needs her, she says.  Or maybe she's heeding the advice of a certain someone who suggested she go on Fox News to let viewers know what she stands for.

So leave it to the Mama Grizzly herself to defend her Eve Harrington with a Tweet attack against CQ Politics.



The nerve of CQ Politics to railroad Christine O'Donnell like that. I mean, who could have advised her to go on Fox News? Oh... right. It was SARAH PALIN.



Granted, she didn't say "only" Fox News, but she didn't mention that she should go on other networks or even "lamestream media" in general.  Easier than shooting moose in a barrel.

ADDING... O'Donnell has also canceled an interview on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace.

[Campaign spokeswoman Diana] Banister said she was unaware of the previous commitments when she booked O'Donnell for the shows. She said she canceled with Fox News late Friday and with CBS early Saturday.

"We felt really bad," she said, adding the campaign apologized profusely for canceling at the last minute. Banister said O'Donnell would be pleased to appear on any Sunday news shows in the future.

Well played, Christine. Obviously, if Delaware needs you, you can't be available for Fox after canceling with Bob Scheiffer.  I'm eagerly awaiting her first Sunday appearance.  Any takers on when that might be?

Must Reads

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driftglass: Now, The Bush-Belly Sneetches

Matthew Rothschild: Feingold Slams Supreme Court over "Citizens United," Implies Roberts and Alito Lied Under Oath

Karl Frisch: The Cowardice of Sarah Palin

The Rude Pundit: Fun With Christine O'Donnell (in Three Parts)

Scott Shane: Secrets in Plain Sight in Censored Book’s Reprint

She's A Witch! Burn Her!

Via Intoxination:

President Obama's Weekly Address - September 18, 2010

The Republican Corporate Power Grab

S#*! Sarah Palin Says (Twitter Edition)

Whaaa?!

Look, I get it.  She's trying to quell the wingnuts' rage over Karl Rove's lambasting of Christine O'Donnell and asking them to focus on beating the "Leftist party." But how about a cohesive, 140 character tweet?

Oh, and Sarah, I think you meant "rein in" overreach, not the regal "reign."  Idiot.

A follow-up

Posted by JHW22

A reason I forgot to add to my list of beefs with people with a list of beefs toward Obama (and in this case, Tim Geithner), was the ranting going on lately to "Appoint Elizabeth Warren NOW!!" Remember Barney Frank said,

"With regard to appointing Elizabeth Warren, that's his [Obama's] decision. No one can stop him from making it."

But I knew ONE person who could. Ms. Warren herself. Elizabeth Warren has been doing a kick-ass job overseeing the TARP and has been a bulldog that, in my humble opinion, is irreplaceable in that role. So I wondered how she felt about the idea of leaving that equally-important post. I also wondered if she simply had no desire to be appointed to a job liberals were DEMANDING she be appointed to. No one seemed to pause and ask, "What does Elizabeth Warren WANT?" But I did.

And now, Barney Frank has to eat his words. Elizabeth Warren didn't want the job. She didn't want a five-year commitment. Nonetheless, she is stepping up to provide a valuable role in shaping the position and serving temporarily because she is just that amazing.

So this is yet one more reason I wish Dems would, as Jon Stewart said last night, "Take it down a notch" before stomping their feet over something. Let's all act like the sensible party we're supposed to be and gather all the information before we set our opinions in cement. Okie dokie?

Happy Constitution Day

Click on image to read transcript.

Go. Read. Familiarize yourself with the Constitution and its amendments again... as opposed to those who say they want to defend it conditionally... or just flat out not knowing what's in it.

Maddow's Biden Interview, Part Two

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Why Would I Want To Do That?

A Message from the Republican Party

Via Annette:

Coward

Karl Rove spoke the truth for a change... and found the wingnut backlash so objectionable to his sensitivities, he caved to them and endorsed the nominee he thought was unelectable just hours earlier.

Karl then.



Karl now.



Heckuva job, Turdblossom.

Yeah, well I'M mad as hell, too!

Posted by JHW22

I have been pissed for over a year now. I left sites I was once fairly active on, haven't even peeked at them, because I was so furious at the wasted energy at the sites and the energy they sucked out of me. The vitriol against Dems by Dems, the purity tests and new definitions of liberal or progressive to make "others" of people within our own party accomplished nothing but raised blood pressure and inner-party disgust. We have our own civil war -- our own "tea party" revolt -- in the Democratic party going on it's just that Dems are so f'ing lazy that we don't get special wall to wall coverage.

Or do we?

See, all the anti-administration crap from the left has created the talking points on the right. I am consistently hearing Republicans use the "change" argument in their explanation of Tea Party wins. They are saying that Americans aren't being heard in DC or that the change we got wasn't what we expected. It KILLS me that people who fought change are now saying they didn't get the change they wanted and that the only Americans worth listening to are the fringe right. But WE DID GET CHANGE! We ARE being listened to. We elected a person based on his agenda and he is checking things off that agenda by the day -- no, by the minute. Our President is working his ass off and what have SOME given him? Disrespect, moaning and groaning, bitching and blubbering, demands and irrational expectations and punishments.

Everything from "Kill the Bill" to gay members of the armed services outing themselves to make a point -- yet were not willing to make the point when we had a President who didn't commit to overturning DADT. No, they waited until the President who committed to ending DADT was in office and then held HIS feet to the fire. The President who will overturn DADT is the one not good enough because he didn't do it fast enough.

I have consistently rocked between being angrier at public Republicans like Palin and Boehner or at the private Republicans like my aunts and uncles. But every so often I remember to heap some of my anger on the countless Democrats who have wasted so much damn energy complaining about their own selfish agendas that they have ENABLED and ALLOWED the Republicans to go unchecked for over a year and to give Independents nothing to feel good about in regards to the last 20 months. Republicans run around creating hysteria as SOME Democrats say the President hasn't accomplished anything -- that this wasn't the change they voted for. So what do private Republicans hear? They hear: the President is worse than we thought. What do private Independents hear? They hear: The President isn't doing as much as I thought.

So thanks a lot to all the self-redefined liberal/progressive/Democrats who think you got screwed by the President. Guess what? You didn't. But if you don't get off your pissed asses and vote for Democrats this November then shut the fuck up as you watch the Obama administration face the wasteful scrutiny Clinton faced when Republicans ran the show in Congress. If you care more that we have a Congress that will be better for late night comedians than the American people, then don't vote but then shut the fuck up.

Whether or not you are pissed at Obama or Reid, staying home on election day is pathetic and goes against the very nature of a progressive. DO you want change? Really? What kind? Do you want this kind of change?

Bachmann
O'Donnell
Paladino
Paul
Angle

I was so relieved to hear Vice President Biden on Rachel Maddow last night. I loved hearing him tell Democrats to "Get in gear, man." We need to be fired up and ready to go. And if SOME people are looking to be fired up by someone else instead of getting there on their own [insert Christine O'Donnell joke here], then they are as lazy as the Republicans think they are.

I am going to vote. One reason is because I live in a red state and I don't take the opportunity for granted. I KNOW what it's like to have asshole Republicans not listening to the constituents who approve of Obama. I know what it's like to have a state wanting to repeal the health care law. I know what it's like to live in a state with failing education and hate toward immigrants. So believe me, I will PROUDLY vote and I will PROUDLY vote for the Democrats. In the above-linked interview with Rachel Maddow, Joe Biden quoted Truman:

"I'm not going to give them hell, I'll give them the truth and they'll think it's hell."

The truth is, if Dems stay home in November, we will have to deal will hell in Congress. That's just the way it is.

Biden to Progressives: "Get In Gear, Man"

Rachel Maddow's interview with Vice President Joe Biden.

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

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

Quote of the Day

[Newt Gingrich], the conservative who fancies himself a historian and visionary did not use his critical faculties to resist his party’s lunacy but instead has embraced it, shamelessly. He has given a full-throated endorsement to a dangerously irresponsible and un-Christian theory by Ann Coulter-in-pants Dinesh D’Souza.

...Gingrich, who ditched two wives (the first when she was battling cancer; the second after an affair with the third — a House staffer — while he was impeaching Bill Clinton), now professes to be a good Catholic. Evidently the first two wives don’t count because he hadn’t converted to Catholicism... But he is downright un-Christian when he does not hesitate to visit the alleged sins of the father upon the son....If it wasn’t so sick it would be funny. It’s worse than a conspiracy theory because this conspiracy consists of a single dead individual.

...If the conservatives are so interested in psychoanalyzing father and son relationships, why didn’t they do so back when W. was rushing to avenge and one-up his father by finishing what daddy started with Saddam?

~ Maureen Dowd on Newt Gingrinch's latest anti-Obama rant.

How Does the Tea Party Help Republicans?

I've been mulling this question over while watching Republican incumbents in primary after primary fall to the Tea Party candidates and I can't see that they help the Republicans at all. In fact, the whole GOP is tacking to the right to embrace the Tea Party for fear of extinction. So why is it that all the polls and pundits are convinced that the Democrats are doomed on Election Day 2010?

It's all really a matter of common sense. The Tea Party is basically an extreme, conservative group to the right of the Republican Party. Regardless of the spin they try to put on the demographics of the movement - that they are equal parts Democrats, Republicans and Independents who are tired of the status quo in Washington - we know better. The chance that even conservative Democrats in the general election would flock to vote for a Tea Party candidate is slim to none. And knowing that Freedom Works is basically behind the Tea Party movement, I view it as the political equivalent of the Frankenstein monster.

If anything, we are witnessing angry Republicans not only fearful of the evil, Kenyan, socialist, Marxist, Nazi Obama, but upset with their own party and knocking them off in the Republican primaries with candidates who are at the least inexperienced, and at worst, the fringiest of the fringe who think Social Security is unconstitutional and continue the myth that Social Security is bankrupt, want to privatize Social Security and Medicare, because as you know, Wall Street bankers will protect your assets, and forward blatantly racist, anti-Obama emails.

And yet we keep hearing (literally just now I heard this as a bumper on MSNBC) that "the Tea Party is proving it can shape the political landscape and will have a huge impact on the midterm November elections."

Let's face it, Democrats will mostly likely vote for Democrats. Republicans will most likely vote for Republicans, even if that means they have to cast a ballot for Christine "Masturbation Is Bad" O'Donnell or Carl "Humans are Racist" Paladino. But the Independent voter, the voters that swung for President Obama in 2008, don't normally ride the crazy train.  And I don't think they'll punch a ticket for it this time either.  Hell, even the GOP party chairman said O'Donnell has no business running for dog catcher, let alone US Senate. And evil spawn Karl Rove is calling some of her comments "nutty" for which he is getting backlash from Wingnuttia.

So maybe the Tea Party really is reshaping the political landscape for the November midterms, but in my opinion it's coming at the peril of the Republican Party. Eight of the Republican Party backed establishment candidates lost to the Tea Party challenger. And although Republicans have no choice but to support the primary winners (even after saying they wouldn't) the fracture in the GOP is clearly visible.  They have just as much to lose as any Democrat in office.

Yes, anti-incumbent rage might cost some Democratic seats in the House and Senate just like it does after every midterm against the majority party incumbents whose party controls the White House, but I don't believe it'll be anywhere close to the devastation that the pundits are predicting, because the one thing all the talking heads keep dismissing in all of the analysis is the quality of the candidate.

Adding... Maybe all the wingnuts winning Republican primaries are just what the Democratic doctor ordered to gin up the base and finally get some enthusiasm rolling.

47 Years Ago Today

We Knew This Already...

...but just to reiterate what the White House and the Congressional Budget Office has been saying for the last two years...

Give the wealthiest Americans a tax cut and history suggests they will save the money rather than spend it.

Tax cuts in 2001 and 2003 under President George W. Bush were followed by increases in the saving rate among the rich, according to data from Moody’s Analytics Inc. When taxes were raised under Bill Clinton, the saving rate fell.

President Obama wants to make permanent the Bush tax cuts for those making under $250,000 and let them expire (as they were meant to do) for the top 2% of earners.

I'd like to start seeing a little pushback on the Republicans and Blue Dog/Fiscal Conservative Dems on increasing the deficit by $70 billion per year if tax cuts for the rich are extended or made permanent. The job creation meme is bullshit as we all know, otherwise, please show me the jobs they've created these last 10 years.

All Aboard the Crazy Train

Newt Gingrich, the man that some would say has a better than an outside chance of being the Republican presidential nominee for 2012 has punched his ticket to Loonyland.

In an interview with the National Review, Newt agreed with right wing freak Dinesh D’Souza's ridiculous Forbes article and therefore assessed that...

...[Obama] is so outside our comprehension, that only if you understand Kenyan, anti-colonial behavior, can you begin to piece together [his actions]...That is the most accurate, predictive model for his behavior.”

“This is a person who is fundamentally out of touch with how the world works, who happened to have played a wonderful con, as a result of which he is now president,” Gingrich tells us.

“I think he worked very hard at being a person who is normal, reasonable, moderate, bipartisan, transparent, accommodating — none of which was true,” Gingrich continues. “In the Alinksy tradition, he was being the person he needed to be in order to achieve the position he needed to achieve . . . He was authentically dishonest.”

We all thought Newt was a little loopy to begin with, but the quotes in this article reveal him to be either A) an opportunistic narcissist who will say anything to remain in the spotlight, even when that something can doom his chances to get the rational, sane voters in his corner, or B) he really has gone off the deep end and has out-Orly Taitzed Orly Taitz. To cast a shadow of doubt and ask "I'm not sure about the President, but we haven't seen his birth certificate" would be bad enough, but to go full-out crazy conspiracy theory and use phrases like "Kenyan, anti-colonial behavior" and say that President Obama was a con man, that he is "authentically dishonest." What does that even mean?

Even Joe Scarborough doesn't know what Newt was thinking, if he was thinking at all.

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In my opinion, Newt Gingrich has lost all hope of even contending for 2012. Going full Birther may play to the fringe base, but independents won't fall for it. Despite the polls showing a loss of independent support for the Democratic Party these last months, if given the choice between Barack Obama and either Newt, Sarah Palin, or even a Mike Huckabee or Mitt Romney, I still think the choice is still clear.