Teabaggers finally find somebody with a reputation so bad that he is willing to destroy it further by re-opening an investigation into Obama's birth certificate. I present to you Sheriff Arpaio!

Courtesy of TPM:

Hey, remember the birthers? 

Infamous Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio does -- which is why he announced a five-person "Cold Case Posse" that will delve into the issue of President Obama's birth certificate. 

The posse follows a request by the Surprise, Arizona Tea Party, who Arpaio met with on August 17. The Surprise Tea Party believes that the long-form birth certificate released by President Obama in April -- which put the issue to rest for pretty much everyone -- could be a forgery. 

"The Surprise Tea Party is concerned," they wrote, "that no law enforcement agency or other duly constituted government agency has conducted an investigation into the Obama birth certificate to determine if it is in fact an authentic copy of 1961 birth records on file for Barack Obama at the Hawaii Department of Health in Honolulu, or whether it, or they are forgeries."

Arpaio says he has over 3000 people participating within his larger "posse" program in Maricopa County -- including celebrities like Lou Ferrigno of "The Hulk" and Steven Seagal, actor and alleged puppy-killer . But, according to WND, for the birth certificate probe there's a special "posse within the posse" made up of two former law enforcement officers, two retired lawyers and headed by retired detective Michael Zullo from Bergen County, NJ. 

You know I am fairly confident that Sheriff "pink underwear" Arpaio could not find his own ass with a flashlight and a road map.

 Oh! I guess I stand corrected.

Arizona must be SO proud!

Gryphen's Sarah Palin checklist. A work in progress.

When Sarah Palin burst on the scene as John McCain's VP candidate and started fanning the flames of racism against Barack Obama, as well as making incredibly dangerous and fraudulent claims against our future President, I made a mental list of priorities that I wanted to help accomplish. (By the way this list evolved over time and now includes subjects that I was not even aware were coming down the pike in 2008.)

1) Stop John McCain and Sarah Palin from making it to the White House.

2) Reveal the truth behind the fantasy that Sarah Palin is a good and effective Governor.

3) Get her out of office!

4) Reveal the pathetic and controversial truth about Sarah Palin's personal mythology.

5) Provide a platform for those who know truthful stories about Palin, yet are afraid to report them to the press.

6) Direct focus on Palin, and her family's, attempts to grift money from her ignorant supporters, and report on how frivolously she spends that money.

7) Help journalists, authors, documentary makers, and anybody willing to tell the truth about Sarah Palin, make contact with sources willing to tell of their experiences with the Grizzled Mama.

8) Reveal to the widest segment of the American public possible, one of the BIGGEST, and most egregious, hoaxes ever perpetrated on them by a politician in our country's history. Babygate!

9) Draw back the cloak of secrecy that shields those that supported, and used Sarah Palin for their own nefarious reasons, to reveal them to the American public.

10) Help to make sure that another potentially dangerous politician, like Sarah Palin, George Bush, or John Edwards never gets close to the White House again. (I only include Edwards because his adultery could have made him a very easy person to blackmail into supporting policies that could have done our country great harm.)

So let's see how I've done.

1) After her defeat I received a lot of heartfelt thanks from many of the visitors here.

But in my opinion it was mostly undeserved.

I did only a small part in getting the truth out about Sarah Palin, John McCain, and the Republican party.

Others like Katie Couric, Keith Olbermann, Charlie Gibson, and even Tine Fey deserve FAR more credit than I do.  Of course ultimately the real thanks should go to Sarah Palin herself for being such an incredibly unqualified, and gaffe prone candidate.

(Half-check mark for me.)

2) I helped to found the Alaskans for Truth, and used my blog and networking, to get the truth out about Troopergate, the per-diems she paid herself to stay in her own house, the free travel vouchers she got on behalf of family members, the cronyism that riddled her administration, etc., etc., etc., to my fellow Alaskans.

(Check mark!)

3) I don't actually know how much I helped to accomplish this, but she's out! (Check mark!)

4) I don't believe there are too many people who are now unaware that the idyllic life that the Palins paint for themselves is pure mooseshit. Check mark!

5) I helped Mercede start her blog, wrote posts containing information from anonymous sources about the Palins that they could not get published in other places, helped Shailey get her story out in the National Enquirer, on this blog, and later on her own blog, tried to help Levi get his book written two years ago when it would have made a huge impact, and have maintained a blogroll linking to blogs ("Sarah Palin's Least Favorite Blogs") that have done some truly ground breaking work on getting the truth out about Klondike Kardashian. (Check mark!)

6) From SarahPAC, to "Sarah Palin's Alaska", to Dancing with the Stars, and even to Palin's 2012 Political Prick Tease, I have tried to rake away the Palin bullshit to lay bare what is REALLY taking place as often as possible.

(Half check mark. I could have done better.)

7) I have provided support to Geoffrey Dunn, Nick Broomfield, Joe McGinniss,  as well as others, and I have helped them as much as I could to make contact with people living in Wasilla, and around Alaska, that have stories to tell about the REAL Sarah Palin. I have certainly not provided ALL of their sources, and in fact all of them have made very impressive contacts of their own, but I did what I could. Some truths remain unrevealed.

(Half check mark.)


8) Most of this work has taken place right here on this blog, or on one of the blogs in the IM blogroll, but with Joe's book we are finally seeing the bizarre story reaching a much larger audience, and hopefully with the release of Fred's book , a much larger audience still.

(Pending check mark I hope to give myself soon.)

9) The Koch brothers, Fox News, the Dominionists, and the Republican party have all had their hands up the back of Sarah Palins blouse working her like a ventriloquist dummy voicing on their behalf crazy inflammatory things like "death panels," or "palling around with terrorists.'" Or ginning up racial hatred toward Barack Obama or the Muslim community.  This is clearly a work in progress, but I believe that we have made some significant connections between Palin and her puppeteers that have caused them some serious blowback and have forced them to abandon her in order to move on to less controversial marionettes.  However now that we know how they operate we can remain vigilant and help to identify the NEXT empty vessel that they fill up with their rhetorical poison.

Looking at you Rick Perry!

(Half check mark.)

10) This has ALWAYS been my ultimate goal, even while I am recognizing the possible futility of ever making it a reality.

Sarah Palin was chosen to be McCain's VP for the most superficial reasons imaginable.  She was attractive, she had faked having a Down Syndrome child to cement her pro-life position, she had hacked various polls to make herself seem popular in Alaska, and she was considered a Christian.

And that my friends was the whole package.

The fact that this occurred should have sent an electric shock of realization to the American population that candidates for the most important political positions in our country were being selected by shadowy figures who have determined that we are so simple minded that we could be seduced by a horribly unqualified pretty face, trained to read talking points off of cue cards.

If this had worked, and it came much closer to working than I think most of us want to admit, it would have furthered a continuing change in the political realities of our country that could have proved devastating.

This change has been orchestrated by the Republican party and started with Ronald Reagan, an actor who played the President, to George W. Bush, a simpleton who played a cowboy playing a President, to a Sarah Palin, a telegenic spokes model who played a Governor, who could have been groomed to play the President, once John McCain kicked the bucket served out his term and she ran in 2012. (Insert scream of horror here.)

Ultimately THIS is what the American voting population needs to be educated about, and Sarah Palin is the perfect example to illustrate that lesson. After reading what Frank Bailey, Geoffrey Dunn, and Joe McGinniss have written, it is clear that the information is now available for any of those who want to really understand how completely broken the political system is in this country.

Now all we have to do is help to encourage people to read the information that is now available, and the information that is still coming, about Sarah Palin, and then use that to vet the shiny new politicians that are just over the next horizon.

That sounds simple, right?  Yeah right.

Well I am not giving up.  After coming this far, there is NO WAY I am just walking away now.

Are you with me?

If you are then I perhaps someday this item will have a check mark as well. But not yet.

This should answer the question as to WHY the Teabaggers are drawn to Sarah Palin.

And if that was not enough to make you sick to your stomach,  Garry Trudeau also added this snippet from Joe's book:

"Wasilla was so white that there was only one African American in the entire school system. One day when the boy was in junior high school, Todd, then a senior, and two friends waylaid him by the gravel pit adjacent to Wasilla High and beat him up, simply because he was black. 'Sure, Todd was a racist bully, but that just made him one of the guys. Growing up black in Wasilla was hell.'" — from The Rogue, by Joe McGinniss

(Cartoon and text courtesy of  Doonesbury.com)

I have to tell you that this just sickens me. I am so ashamed that this person became the living representative of my state.  And I want all of you to know that not ALL Alaskans are ignorant gun toting racists.

But clearly our half term Governor and her pimp of a husband are.

Perhaps later, when I am not quite so pissed off, I will tell you a story about my brush with racism and how I handled it. I will give you this hint, Todd Palin would have had a VERY different experience if he had gone to my high school!

Rick Perry meets his biggest fan and living embodiment of the Tea Party movement, Orly Taitz. Oh THIS ought to be good!

Courtesy of Think Progress:

Taitz also told ThinkProgress that she’s “pretty sure [the Perry campaign] will” bring up the birth certificate issue, but she said their strategy “will be to wait and use it at the last possible moment to make sure that there is no primary challenger in the Democrat Party.” 

KEYES: I saw you were able to get a bit of face time with Governor Perry on the line. What did you talk with him about? 

TAITZ: [...] From what I understood, he knew who I was and what I was talking about. [...] I told him that you will get Obama, you will have him in prison for Social Security fraud. [...] 

KEYES: Did Governor Perry seem very receptive to your messages? 

TAITZ: Yes. 

KEYES: Do you think he’ll be taking that message forward, particularly with the birth certificate issue? Are you hopeful that he will? 

TAITZ: I’m pretty sure they will, but I’m also sure that their strategy will be to wait and use it at the last possible moment to make sure that there is no primary challenger in the Democrat Party.

So is Rick Perry just schmoozing Taitz, or does he really intend to pursue the birth certificate matter if he is chosen as the GOP candidate?  Well from what I know of Perry, I tend to lean toward the latter.

Yes he is that much of an idiot.

By the way there are mumblings from various sources that Sarah Palin, might be VERY unhappy with a certain Governor of Texas.

She fertilized the crazy ass ground where Perry has now planted the seeds of his candidacy with her truckloads of mooseshit, and it looks more and more like he will be the one to reap the benefits of all of her hard work. After all she brought the paint chip eaters out of the darkness with her screechy siren song of anti-government rhetoric and "adjustable for the venue" boobies, and now here they are smearing their batshit of acceptance all over Rick "Sarah Palin with a tinier penis" Perry.

And HOW is she supposed to launch a third party candidacy if everybody ignorant enough to go for such a foolhardy idea is already stealing their children's lunch money to send it to Perry?

yeah I would bet big money that Sarah Palin absolutely HATES Rick Perry right about now.

But that is okay because Orly Taitz just loves his bony Texas ass!

Rick Perry shows what a man he is by bullying 76 year old Ron Paul!

These are pictures taken during a commercial break in the Republican debate.

Notice that he has grabbed hold of Paul's wrist.

What do you think he needed to lean in so close to say? I doubt it was reasonable.

Jon Huntsman decides to step in between them to protect Ron Paul.

I fucking hate bullies!  And though I am not sure what was said here, I can certainly tell from Perry's body language that he was trying to intimidate Ron Paul, who might be a nut, but he is a harmless nut, and does NOT deserve to be disrespected in this manner!

(Big Hat tip to Market Ticker Forum.)

Update: I have no idea if this means I have slipped into an alternate universe or just eaten a batch of bad mushrooms, but somehow I found myself in agreement with the Sea O'Pee on Rick Perry and his bullying techniques.  I will try to make sure that NEVER happens again.

I mean talk about "jumping the shark!"

Teabaggers FINALLY realize that Sarah Palin has just been using them. Everybody else on the planet goes "Duh!"

From The Hill:

Wary that some are joining the grassroots conservative movement merely to sell books and enhance their celebrity status, a Tea Party group is putting the heat on former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to make her presidential plans clear.In a Tuesday statement, Armed Forces Tea Party Patriots paints former GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin as the prime example of that kind of behavior. 

The group, which consists of former military members, wants Palin to announce whether she will seek the White House or sit out the 2012 race. 

“If not we are at risk of having major Tea Party speeches and events used as political rallies for a selected candidate [versus] a citizen based movement that forces the legislative agenda and serves as a fundamental check to the current corrupt culture in Washington, D.C.,” the group said in the statement. 

In other news Teabaggers also just realized that the sky is blue, water is wet, and that people they see on television are NOT actually living inside of their television.

The bad news for the Teabaggers is that EVERYBODY has been using them all along, including the Koch brothers, Fox News, Rick Perry, Michele Bachmann, Jim Demint, and probably every person whoever realized that they might be a group consisting of possibly most gullible people on the planet.

I don't expect much to come from this epiphany.  All Palin has to do is strap on the "Belmont boobs" and these morons will start throwing dollar bills at her feet like drunk horny members of a bachelor party hoping against hope that THIS time she will take them into the champagne room, and make all of their dreams come true...which in this case means announcing she will run for President.

Everything you need to know about the Teabaggers is represented by this pathetic excuse for a human being, Tony Katz. Update.

There was an exchange on MSNBC earlier today between this bloated piece of shit and Jamal Simmons in response to these statements by Teamster President James Hoffa directed toward the Tea Party:

“President Obama, this is your army,” Hoffa concluded to applause, his voice raising to a shout. “We are ready to march. Let’s take these sons of bitches out and give America back to an America where we belong,” he said, stepping back from the lectern where President Obama would speak less than an hour later. 

“There’s a war on working Americans and we are getting sick and tired of it,” Hoffa told ABC News Tuesday morning. “It’s absolutely a war. They declared war on us. We didn’t declare war on them. They’re the ones that introduced right to work in 14 states, and went after public employee bargaining rights in both Wisconsin and Ohio. We’re fighting them across the board. They want to roll the clock back to about 1900.” 

Now this is video of what Katz said about Hoffa, the Democrats, and President Obama. I am going to warn you ahead of time that he is an especially nasty piece of work, and what he said literally had me shouting at the television and wanting DESPERATELY to be in the same room with him for just five uninterrupted minutes.

That, my friends, is the face of the Tea Party in this country. THAT is the kind of sloppy, porcine piece of human excrement that is given a platform on our airwaves to attack our President.

I mean for God's sake Gandhi himself would have punched that guy in the throat!

Update: Here is Hoffa's FULL quote:

President Obama this is your army. We are ready to march. And president Obama we want one thing: Jobs. Jobs. Jobs. Jobs. Jobs. Jobs. Jobs. Jobs. That's what we’re going to tell him. He’s going to be - and when he sees what we’re doing here he will be inspired. But he needs help and you know what? Everybody here's got to vote. If we go back and keep the eye on the prize, let's take these sons of a bitches out and give America back to America where we belong! Thank you very much!

I am sorry, I thought everybody knew that Hoffa was talking about voting the Teabaggers out. I will make sure to be more clear in the future. 

Dozens upon dozens show up to hear Sarah Palin give a speech in a pitch that only dogs and porpoises can hear.

Photos courtesy of Slates' Dave Weigel:

 Fox News reported that she "drew hundreds of supporters to Monday afternoon's rally."

However according to Wiegel (Who is such an objective reporter that I believe he wears his patented Sarah Palin Underoos when he covers her events), said that the "crowd" dispersed after Palin finished scaring away the pigeons and deafening small children for a three mile radius.

If that is true then how do we explain this video apparently taken in between Palin's speech and the appearance of Sharon Angle and Buddy Roehmer?


Just how fast did that crowd "disperse?" Was there a fire?
Perhaps the Teabaggers are just not that into the Palin political prick tease anymore?  Here is more from that Fox News report:

A New Hampshire tea party leader couldn't hold back his frustration Sunday night at another rally hosted by the Tea Party Express. 

"Once again it is time to determine-- are you here to sell books or are you here to run for president of the United States?" asked Corey Lewandowski, state director for Americans for Prosperity, a tea party ally. "The people of New Hampshire deserve to know, are you serious? And if you are serious, then welcome to the race. And if you're not serious, get out of the way because we're going to elect a new president." 

Aside from Monday's visit -- her second in New Hampshire over the last three months -- local operatives say Palin has not moved to hire staff or organize a ground game here in the state that will host the nation's first presidential primary in roughly five months. 

"At this late stage, there's been so little infrastructure work for a potential candidacy, I think this is simply Sarah Palin wanting to be part of the process and to help shape the debate for the presidential campaign," said Michael Dennehy, who led Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign four years ago, but is uncommitted this year. "At some point immediately -- meaning the next week or two -- she's going to hurt herself badly if she does not announce that she's not going to run for president." 

The head of prominent Granite State conservative think, also a tea party ally, says there is a growing sense of indifference among local conservatives. 

"If she had done it right she could be popular here," said Kevin Smith, executive director of Cornerstone. "But I don't feel a lot of energy or enthusiasm here about a Palin run. Voters here in this state, who frankly have been taking this primary seriously since the beginning of the year, are indifferent." 

Some have been asking WHY Palin might have faked participating in that Iowa half marathon on Sunday.  This is why.

Just like like writing fake letters of support to the local newspapers, wearing glasses that she does not need to hide her lazy eye, or faking a pregnancy to garner support from the pro-life people, THIS is the purely cosmetic approach that Sarah Palin uses to drum up support, or portray herself as healthy, or convince people she is still the gung-ho politician that she was during her campaign for governor.

If you know ANYTHING about Sarah Palin you have to know that her doing something like that is not only feasible, it is predictable.

Good news for the millions of disenfranchised Republicans, feeling trapped in their party. Apparently you can leave.

Courtesy of Truthout:

To those millions of Americans who have finally begun paying attention to politics and watched with exasperation the tragicomedy of the debt ceiling extension, it may have come as a shock that the Republican Party is so full of lunatics. To be sure, the party, like any political party on earth, has always had its share of crackpots, like Robert K. Dornan or William E. Dannemeyer. But the crackpot outliers of two decades ago have become the vital center today: Steve King, Michele Bachman (now a leading presidential candidate as well), Paul Broun, Patrick McHenry, Virginia Foxx, Louie Gohmert, Allen West. The Congressional directory now reads like a casebook of lunacy. 

It was this cast of characters and the pernicious ideas they represent that impelled me to end a nearly 30-year career as a professional staff member on Capitol Hill. A couple of months ago, I retired; but I could see as early as last November that the Republican Party would use the debt limit vote, an otherwise routine legislative procedure that has been used 87 times since the end of World War II, in order to concoct an entirely artificial fiscal crisis. Then, they would use that fiscal crisis to get what they wanted, by literally holding the US and global economies as hostages. 

The debt ceiling extension is not the only example of this sort of political terrorism. Republicans were willing to lay off 4,000 Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) employees, 70,000 private construction workers and let FAA safety inspectors work without pay, in fact, forcing them to pay for their own work-related travel - how prudent is that? - in order to strong arm some union-busting provisions into the FAA reauthorization. 

Everyone knows that in a hostage situation, the reckless and amoral actor has the negotiating upper hand over the cautious and responsible actor because the latter is actually concerned about the life of the hostage, while the former does not care. This fact, which ought to be obvious, has nevertheless caused confusion among the professional pundit class, which is mostly still stuck in the Bob Dole era in terms of its orientation. For instance, Ezra Klein wrote of his puzzlement over the fact that while House Republicans essentially won the debt ceiling fight, enough of them were sufficiently dissatisfied that they might still scuttle the deal. Of course they might - the attitude of many freshman Republicans to national default was "bring it on!" 

It should have been evident to clear-eyed observers that the Republican Party is becoming less and less like a traditional political party in a representative democracy and becoming more like an apocalyptic cult, or one of the intensely ideological authoritarian parties of 20th century Europe. This trend has several implications, none of them pleasant.

I imagine that for many old school Republicans they must feel as if the inmates have taken over the asylum, and are just hoping this is a passing fad, and that somebody will restore order.

Personally I have been watching things headed this direction for quite some time, though admittedly when I saw how horribly the Bush administration failed at running the country, I thought the GOP might be a little less cocky and more likely to work WITH Democrats in order to get our country back on track.

Why yes I DO still believe in the Tooth Fairy, why do you ask?

These days I can only predict that things are going to continue to erode until something really HUGE happens that will bring us all together. (And NO I am not suggesting that the Obama administration conduct a False Flag operation. Democrats don't do that.) Or the Teabaggers actually convince enough people to take up arms against the Federal government and we have our second Civil War.

That last option might seem a little crazy, and at one time it did to me as well.  At one time.

As if you needed ANOTHER reason to keep Michele Bachmann out of the White House!

Courtesy of CNN:

Painting herself as a "constitutional conservative" Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann told Sen. Jim DeMint's forum Monday that if elected president she would look to get rid of the Department of Education, among other things."Because the Constitution does not specifically enumerate nor does it give to the federal government the role and duty to superintend over education that historically has been held by the parents and by local communities and by state governments," she said, responding to a question by DeMint, a popular figure among the tea party movement.

So there you go voters, a vote for Michele Bachmann is a vote against providing your children with the same access to a free public education that you took for granted as citizens of the "greatest country on earth".  Try competing with China with a nation full of chronically undereducated video game addicts.

In a completely unrelated story, by no means connected to his candidate trotting out her bucket of batshit for all of America to see, Bachmann campaign manger Ed Rollins got a note from his doctor excusing him from having to work for her campaign: 

Ed Rollins is going to be stepping back from day-to-day management of the Michele Bachmann campaign, and moving into a senior advisory role, he said in an interview. 

Rollins said the reason for the change is personal — his health and the rigors of a campaign. 

“I wish I was 40 years old, but I’m not,” he told POLITICO. “I’m 68 years old, I had a stroke a year and a half ago. I’m worn out.”

Yeah I don't blame him.

I have only listened to her speak a handful of times and I am pretty "worn out" too.

Has Palin's political prick tease finally run out of pricks to tease?

'Padded, pancaked, and Prozac'd!"

"Wow, there are so few of you here I can block out half of of the audience by just holding up my thumb. I'm still getting paid for this right?"

"Well how much money IS in your trust fund? You never know,  if you donated a chunk of it to SarahPAC I might run."

"Your sign's not misspelled and you have all your teeth. Are you sure you're a member of the Tea Party?"

"Drenched all the way down to my size 47 BVDs after standing in the rain for five hours, and she still refuses to announce whether she's running or not! If she does this two or three more times I am out of here!"

According to several news outlets there were about two thousand people at this rally.

Now admittedly I am not a math whiz, but does THIS look like two thousand people to you?

But you know things like math, or speeches that make sense, or even ever actually launching a campaign, don't make any real difference.  All that matters is whether or not Snowdrift Snooki provided JUST enough hope for her crazed fans to still convince themselves that she is really and for true going to launch a Presidential campaign. Which will then convince them to keep sending her that wonderful money.

And it looks like she managed to hold off her inevitable nervous breakdown long enough to achieve that very goal. 

From the Sea O'Pee:

Of all days to worry about whether or not Governor Palin is running for President, as far as I can tell, today would not be that day. I can’t say for sure, as I certainly have no inside information, but I do have common sense. Common sense tells me that unless one has an incredible amount of free time on her hands, she doesn’t devise a specific, detail-laden plan for America like the one Governor Palin delivered to the country today, if she weren’t planning to implement that plan. Perhaps there are some out there who have that kind of free time, with nothing better to do, but we have all seen what kind of schedule the Governor keeps; she’s not one of those people sitting around looking for something to do. Common sense also tells me that she doesn’t have to do things our way. In fact, she won’t do it anyone’s way but her own. Common sense says that if Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton could make their presidential intentions known in November and October, respectively, September is not too late. 

So here’s my question: Should not common sense tell the worry warts the same thing? 

It is like shooting crippled fish, in a really tiny barrel.

Sarah Palin pulls it together in Indianola, Iowa for last ditch effort to stay relevant to her Teabagger base.

Wearing more body padding than a NFL linebacker, more makeup than circus clown, and many times almost screaming her attacks on President Obama, Sarah Palin puts on quite a show in Iowa.

After seeing what she was like yesterday I had my doubts that Palin could get her shit together for this speech. But you have to hand it to her, when it is time to shake her carefully padded money maker she knows exactly how hard to shake it, and whose face to shake it in.

Clearly this was a speech that somebody worked on for quite some time.

It did not seem to miss one opportunity to attack President Obama, one opportunity to suck up to the Teabaggers, or one opportunity to put her GOP rivals on notice that she can still give them a run for their money. At one point Palin even kissed up to the corporations who have not always been her biggest fans by calling for the end to ALL corporate income taxes.

I have to admit I was very impressed with how her special effects team was able to transform her from the frail, sickly creature we saw yesterday to the Dolly Parton lookalike that stood on that stage in Iowa today.

Well what can you expect from the woman who successfully fooled virtually every journalist in the world into believing that she was pregnant and gave birth in 2008? Hell compared to that, this was a walk in the park for the queen of body morphing.

However those who have been paying attention know what Sarah Palin REALLY looks like.

And it ain't Dolly Parton!

Martin Bashir tries to get to the bottom of the Sarah Palin/Christine O'Donnell kerfuffle in Iowa.

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

I tell you every time I see one of these Teabaggers on television it is like they just got snatched away making barely coherent anti-government rants on YouTube, dressed in an ill fitting suit, and plopped down on a chair in the MSNBC studios.

This guy Judson Phillips is clearly ill prepared to defend the Teabaggers against Bashir's rather pointed questioning, and his contention that "The Tea Party lives by the words of Martin Luther King, we judge people by the content of their character not the color of their skin," is laugh out loud ridiculous.

It is also worth noting that he essentially admits that Palin's people refused to have her participate as long as O'Donnell was included in the line up of speakers. And as all of the people who visit this blog are already aware, when they say "Palin's people" that really means the Grizzled Mama herself.

Palin does not trust ANYBODY to make decisions on her behalf.  Even Todd had to ask her what to do about me when I showed up at the book signing event in Anchorage.

The "Vaguely Bearded One" gives a speech to a vaguely crowded room in Juneau. Well now, it appears that poor Joe Miller is "All bag, and no tea."

The lady radiating crazy like the sun radiates heat on the left is ex-SNL alum Victoria Jackson.

Courtesy of the Juneau Empire:

Former Republican Senate candidate Joe Miller returned to Juneau Tuesday, accompanied by some of his current political allies and continuing to challenge the Nov. 2010 election he lost at the polls — and then again in the courts. 

But where Miller says he’s really been vindicated is in claims about opponent Lisa Murkowski, who bested him in a history-making write-in campaign. 

“It’s been absolutely no surprise, she’s been voting as we portrayed her during the campaign, as a liberal,” he said. 

Passing through Juneau during a Tea Party at Sea cruise aboard the Celebrity Millennium, Miller met with local supporters Tuesday evening. 

Miller explained his new political action committee, or PAC, and website, RestoringLibertyAlaska.us, which he said which will represent and organize citizens now ignored by the state’s institutions and political parties. 

 Vindictive spiteful little shit, still bellyaching about how unfair it was that Alaskans sent his ass packing. Yep that sounds like a Sarah Palin protege to me!

And just in case you thought that Miller was the "Baron of Batshit" on this ship of fools, take a listen to what the OTHER Teabaggers on this cruise to crazytown had to say.

Other tea party activists accompanied Miller to Nugget Mall from the cruise as they tried to fire up a dozen or so supporters from Juneau.He said the turnout was pretty good, given that Juneau is “not necessarily a bastion of conservatism.” 

The comment drew rueful chuckles from the audiencesJerome Corsi, author of “Obama Nation,” an attack on President Barack Obama, and former Saturday Night Live cast member Victoria Jackson made even harsher attacks on Obama than did Miller. 

Corsi said Obama isn’t qualified to be president because he isn’t a natural-born citizen, despite the president’s public release of a copy of his birth certificate. 

“I’m still saying that what we’ve seen is a forgery,” he said. 

Corsi challenged Obama’s Christianity, as well as his politics. 

“There’s a communist living in the White House,” he said. 

Jackson said she only recently got involved in politics and discovered that Obama was a communist. She endorsed Miller’s call for tea party members to get involved in efforts such as serving as local poll workers, which she said now are “mostly old hippies.” 

Miller said he hasn’t ruled against running against Sen. Mark Begich, Rep. Don Young, or even Murkowski again in five years.

Yeah you keep telling yourself you have a chance of getting elected to ANYTHING in Alaska after hanging out with THIS group of nitwits!

I have little doubt that even crusty old Alaskan Republicans can smell mooseshit this pungent. Even if it is drifting to them all the way from Juneau!

By the way remember how Miller said "the turnout was pretty good, given that Juneau is not necessarily a bastion of conservatism?"  Well he is overstating that by QUITE a margin.

It just so happens that we had a little spy from IM there at the same time that Miller was underwhelming the people of Juneau. Here is their report (With all portions removed which might have helped identify this brave soul.):

The Tea Party Cruise to Alaska speakers that I saw today were all respectful and quiet out at the Mendenhall Glacier. 

I believe I saw Joseph and Elizabeth Farah. 

None of the other speakers featured at teapartyatsea.com were there, or at least I did not recognize them. There were several people from the cruise that were out at the glacier, but all were respectful of the bears and salmon, asked lots of questions about the wildlife and glacier, but did not expound on their political views. 

There was one gentleman talking loudly about his warm ups for the crowds (jokes according to him), but then only to a couple that were in agreement with him. 

His joke was "How is Berkeley like Moscow? They're both communist, but Berkeley is more so." 

He laughed heartily, the couple laughed a little, and that was it. 

I did go by the Nugget Mall where Joe Miller was appearing. When I got there at 5:05, Miller and his wife were sitting in the main hallway near JoAnn's fabric store on a bench. 

He was being "interviewed" by a woman who looks like Victoria Jackson from the teapartyatsea website. 

She is much older than her picture. 

There was also a man I did not recognize from the Juneau Empire (He is not on their website) listening to Joe give an interview. I believe both of these people were recording the "interview." 

There were 8 people and 3 kids in the room where Joe later spoke. 

That included Jerome Corsi who seemed very bored with the locals that were there. 

There were no posters, no signs, nothing to indicate what the group was, who was speaking, or anything else. 

I left to do grocery shopping and then came back at 5:35. At that point there were 19 people in the room including Joe and his wife. 

Victoria Jackson was giving the "warm up" and introduced Joe, who started speaking at 5:40. 

Sorry, but if that is the best the local Tea Partiers could muster for a turn out and no advertising other than a mention on KTOO on Monday, that is just pathetic! 

Seventeen people show up to hear you speak and THAT is a "good turnout?" No that is what is normally referred to as "pathetic," not "good."

So Joe draws a crowd of seventeen, Christine O"Donnell draws a crowd of five to her book signing, and Sarah Palin tries to wriggle out her appearance with the Tea Party of America in Iowa.

Is it just me, or does it seem that this whole Teabagger thing has just about run its course?

(Let me give thanks to my friend in Juneau who subjected themselves to the pain of having to listen to Joe Miller speak just to give us all the above "boots on the ground" report.  I hope they went home and had a stiff drink after that, because clearly they deserved it!)

Palin is making the Teabaggers jump through hoops with the promise she MIGHT show up on Saturday.

Courtesy of the Des Moines Register:

Christine O’Donnell is off the guest list – again – and Sarah Palin is a “maybe.” 

In the latest episode in the drama over the speaking lineup for Saturday’s Tea Party of America rally in Iowa, organizer Ken Crow said Palin’s staff called this morning to say Palin’s appearance at the rally was “on hold” until three changes were made. 

“They said, ‘Ken, can you take care of bing, bing, bing’ and I said, ‘Yessir, I will’ and I did,” Crow, an Indianola Republican told The Des Moines Register. 

“Now I’m waiting to hear back.”Crow said two of the requests were logistical details: Email a copy of the program today, and address concerns about back-stage security and who will be allowed in that area. 

Asked about the third request, Crow said: “Can I let that remain private for now?” 

Meanwhile, Crow telephoned staff for O’Donnell, a Delaware Republican who ran for the U.S. Senate, to say she can’t speak at Saturday’s event. 

“We’re all friends and she’s not coming,” he said, referring to O’Donnell.

Five points to the person who correctly guesses which THIRD change had to be made. And the first two don't count.

Oh yeah Christine, that was ALL about you baby.

Personally I am disgusted with these baggers for letting Palin treat them like her own personal handbag carriers and ass-wipers.  I mean hell THAT'S Tawd's job!

I hope that somebody takes that Mudflats post and e-mails it to Ken Crow, you know if you had access to his e-mail address, you know like this one right here for instance: ken@teapartyofamerica.org.

Not that I'm suggesting that anybody do that, after all Ken has so much on his plate already.

But if it were ME I would certainly like to know what kind of lunatic was making me look like an idiot in front of the press.

Who Doomed Sarah Palin's Presidential Dream?

So what, or who, is REALLY to blame for the demise of Sarah Palin's Presidential aspirations? Benjy Sarlin of Talking Points Memo thinks he has the answer.

Alaska 

The launching pad for Palin's political career may have proved its undoing as well. Her abrupt exit from the governor's office in 2009 freed her up to make million < s as a speaker, author, and general celebrity, but all but destroyed any hopes of building up a credible resume for a presidential run. 

The Establishment GOP 

Palin relishes her role as an outsider, going back to her days battling the "old boys' network" of entrenched Republican officials in Alaska. Her willingness to buck party leaders dovetailed nicely with the rise of the insurgent Tea Party, but earned her the enmity of establishment Republican figures like Karl Rove, who has questioned her electability at every turn. 

Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann 

One reason polls don't show a groundswell of support for a Palin run is that other candidates have already taken over her obvious territory. If you want a hardcore religious right leader running on her personal family values while horrifying establishment Republicans, Michele Bachmann is happy to accommodate your needs. If you're looking for a red-state governor with solid conservative credentials running on anti-elitist resentment, Rick Perry is ready and waiting. 

Women 

Palin's entrance on the national stage was heralded as an opportunity for the GOP to reach out to female voters, who traditionally lean Democrat in presidential elections. Instead, women have proven a weak spot for Palin. John McCain learned this the hard way in 2008 after his VP pick disproportionately turned off female voters despite a focused effort to pick up disaffected Hillary Clinton voters. 

Sarah Palin 

Ultimately, Palin has been her own worst enemy. Over and over she's made costly unforced errors that have solidified her critics' worst impressions of her while alienating potential supporters. The most disastrous -- and illustrative -- recent example was her response to the Gabrielle Giffords shooting in Arizona. Under intense scrutiny for her use of violent political imagery, Palin actually began to garner some public sympathy from unexpected corners as it became clear the alleged killer was motivated more by a deranged worldview than any coherent cause. But she instantly squandered it by releasing a tone-deaf video condemning a "blood libel" against her that only appeared more inappropriate after Obama delivered a moving speech focused on the individual shooting victims' biographies later the same day. Palin's popularity plummeted to new lows in the aftermath, but the episode did little more than confirm the already entrenched image of the ex-governor as a thin-skinned, rash, and divisive figure. 

I have to say I agree with much of waht Mr. Sarlin points out here. Especially that last part.

However I would also add that it is also very possible that Sarah Palin NEVER seriously considered a run for the Presidency, or at least changed her mind early on after considering the unavoidable embarrassments she would face, and that all of this has just been one long drawn out con game directed at her under educated supporters.

Whatever the reason I think we can rest assured that Palin has no REAL plan to launch a campaign, and if she absolutely believes she has to at least fake one, it will undoubtedly be the shortest campaign in American political history.

Want to enrage a Mama Grizzly? Invite an ex-witch to give a speech the same night that she is scheduled to give a speech. That oughta do it! Update: O'Donnell gets the boot!

Courtesy of the Des Moines Register:

Tea party-backed activist Christine O’Donnell will take the stage at Saturday’s tea party rally in Indianola shortly before Sarah Palin, an organizer told The Des Moines Register today. 

O’Donnell, author of the book “Troublemaker: Let’s Do What It Takes to Make America Great Again,” lost a bid for a U.S. Senate seat in Delaware last fall. 

Other speakers will include Sioux City radio host Sam Clovis of KSCJ, Iowa tea party chairman Ryan Rhodes, Tony Katz of Pajamas Media and Los Angeles-based comedian Eric Golub,said organizer Charlie Gruschow, an Iowa tea party activist. 

Last to take the microphone will be Palin, a former governor of Alaska and 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate. There was speculation that Palin would use the event to reveal whether she plans to run for president in 2012 – speculation that Palin’s inner circle quickly shot down. 

Gruschow said he has no clue what Palin will talk about. 

“I think it’ll be about freedom,” he said.

Wow!  A failed VP candidate AND a failed Senate candidate!

If they would have scraped a little harder on the bottom of that barrel they might have been able to get failed "Dancing with the Stars" contestant Bristol Palin on the roster as well. Then it would have been a real "You-suck-a-palooza."

You know last night I had the hardest time sleeping because I kept hearing this metallic clanging sound coming from outside of my window.  I could not for the life of me figure out what it was until I read this article.

Then it all made perfect sense.

"I was just standing there minding my own business. And then she started winging cans at me. What did I do? What did I do?"

They say on a clear summer night, you can still hear the scream of the politically irrelevant "Wasilla Banshee" careening across the lake before echoing off of the surrounding mountains and into the distance.

"Taawwdd!!!"

"TAAWWDD!!!"

"TAAWWDD!!"

Update courtesy of The Wall Street Journal: 

Former U.S. Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell will not speak at a tea party event featuring former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin in Indianola, Iowa, this weekend, an organizer told Washington Wire. 

“I made a mistake,” said Ken Crow, president of Tea Party of America. “I assumed there was an open slot and there wasn’t.” 

Monday night, Mr. Crow told Washington Wire that Ms. O’Donnell would appear. 

Tea Party of America’s cofounder, Charlie Gruschow, said the group withdrew Ms. O’Donnell’s after receiving numerous “emails from a lot of tea party folks that were very disappointed that she would be speaking.” 

“We decided not to have her speak,” Mr. Gruschow said. “We felt it was in the best interest of the movement.” 

Ms. O’Donnell’s spokesman did not immediately return a request for comment.

They "assumed there was an open slot?"  On the same ticket with Sarah "I'll bite your face off" Palin?

Seriously?

Man I have to say even I am amazed by how fast Palin destroyed her competition for the Teabager's attention!  That must have been some serious canned food flinging she did to get Todd on the phone and rallying the forces on her behalf so quickly. (Hey Wasilla, keep an eye out of Todd.  I heard he emerged from one of these "conversations" with a black eye last year.)

I would really like to see those "numerous" e-mails. Ten to one they are mostly misspelled missives, just chock full of racial slurs and vicious threats, all typed out in capital letters and punctuated with a plethora of exclamation points.

Three reality based charts you can use to shut that Right Winger in your family up for good. Assuming of course that they understand charts.

Courtesy of The Smirking Chimp:

Notes, this chart includes Clinton's last budget year for comparison. 

People who claim that Obama "tripled the deficit" are either misled or are trying to mislead.

And finally a chart that many of us may seen once or twice before in the past, but on that still remains quite relevant and informative.

Yes I know that for most of these ignorant knuckle-draggers, even making the numbers in the form of a pretty picture will not convince them that all of the country's ills are not solely the responsibility of the Islamic Socialist anti-white racist currently living in the White House.

But hey at least you can give it a shot. I mean somebody has to start somewhere, don't they?

That popping sound you hear is Teabagger heads exploding all over the country as Chris Christie commends FEMA's response to Irene.

From the MTP transcript:

MR. GREGORY: Safety first, as you've repeated over and over again. There will be a morning after kind of damage assessment. And this is going to be a big story, isn't it, Governor, up and down the seaboard? We already have local municipalities and states being so hard hit in this economy, what kind of cost, damage estimates are you expecting at this early point? 

GOV. CHRISTIE: Well, listen, I've got to imagine that the damage estimates are going to be in the billions of dollars, David, if not the tens of billions of dollars. We're going to start later this afternoon as soon as the storm clears. I'm going to personally go and start making assessments of the coastline and see what the damages are like there. And, at the same time, we need to deal with this inland flooding, which may not completely subside in New Jersey until Tuesday, some of our rivers. So the damage assessment's going to be a rolling one. The coastline will be the first we'll be able to judge. But then inland we're going to have a lot of damage, too, from these river floodings. 

MR. GREGORY: Any lessons you take away? I mean, this has been an extraordinary week, and not only for your state and this storm, but also an earthquake. As a Los Angeles guy, I was, I was not as freaked out about that, but now as an Easterner, I was. If you look at that and the coordination between a big state like yours and the federal government, are there lessons you take away from this week? Jobs well done, things that you can improve on? 

GOV. CHRISTIE: Well, certainly we're going to have an after action, you know, program, to look at what we could do better. I know there's always things that we could've done better. But what I'm proud of is that we're coordinating well with the federal government. We have FEMA folks right here on site in the operations and intelligence center you see here. They're working incredibly hard in providing things to us that we need. Our own team at the state level has put aside everything except for saying, listen, how do we best serve--making sure that human life is safe and then trying to minimize property damage? So we'll do an after action report, David, and take a look at--I know there's always things we could do better. But here's the key: The key is that we've tried to keep people fully informed, be fully transparent, to lower fear and raise confidence. And that's what we're trying to do, and I think that's the best thing a governor can do in this circumstance.

Now Christie did not personally give credit to President Obama for his response to Hurricane Tropical Storm Irene, but by giving mad props to FEMA he may as well have.

I would suggest that we will probably NOT hear Christie's name popping up as a potential GOP candidate for President any time soon. Because despite the Teabagger's seeming reverence for the idea of "common sense," they really don't like it when a Republican demonstrates any.

Now this in no way makes me a Chris Christie fan, but I can hardly wait to see his response if Eric Cantor interferes with the federal government's ability to respond to the needs in New Jersey because the House Republicans cannot find enough cuts in other federal programs to offset the cost.

Somehow I just don't think that Cantor wants to take on Governor Christie over budgetary concerns while people in his state are suffering.

Update:  Then as counterpoint to Christie, who realizes the need for government spending during a crisis like Irene, we have Michele Bachmann, occupying the space usually filled by crazed embarrassment to Christianity Pat Robertson, who seems to believe that the disaster was God's way of telling Ameircans to cut spending.


“I don’t know how much God has to do to get the attention of the politicians. We’ve had an earthquake; we’ve had a hurricane. He said, ‘Are you going to start listening to me here?’ Listen to the American people because the American people are roaring right now. They know government is on a morbid obesity diet and we’ve got to rein in the spending.”

And of course the truly sad thing for politics in this country is that Michele Bachmann is one of the favorites of the small minority of poorly educated, and historically ignorant, Teabaggers who are now holding the GOP by the balls.

Eric Cantor will withhold federal disaster funding to states impacted by Hurricane Irene unless Democrats agree to spending cuts.

From Business Insider:

A spokesperson for House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) said that if there is any damage caused by Hurricane Irene requiring federal disaster funding, the money would have to be balanced out by spending cuts elsewhere in government. 

"We aren't going to speculate on damage before it happens, period," his spokesperson Laena Fallon told TalkingPointsMemo. "But, as you know, Eric has consistently said that additional funds for federal disaster relief ought to be offset with spending cuts." 

Already states from North Carolina to New York have declared states of emergency in preparation for the storm.

You know I wish Eric Cantor were MY Congressman.  So I could punch him right in the ball sack!

What kind of cowardly piece of bull feces holds victims of a disaster hostage so that he can earn a couple of political points with the tiny minority of Teabaggers currently holding the GOP hostage?

Oh yeah, THIS cowardly piece of bull feces.

I certainly hope the people of Virginia keep this incident in mind the next time Snidely Whiplash here is up for reelection.

By the way if you are from Virginia, forget about punching Cantor in the scrotum. He would have to actually have balls for you to punch him IN them.