Fred Thompson Trips Over Himself Endorsing Palin

Summing up much of what’s wrong with the conservative mindset, conservatives for McCain points us to a Thompson’s endorsement of Sarah Palin up on townhall:

If Fred said it, that’s good enough for me.  Period.

Replace Fred with Bush and you have the last eight years wrapped up.  Let’s take a look at Thompson’s endorsement:

When John McCain selected Governor Sarah Palin, as his running mate, the Democrats and their far-left constituency let out a primal scream that could be heard from sea to shining sea. How dare he choose someone that they and their pals in the media had not had a chance to vet (i.e. libel, slander, and otherwise and otherwise eviscerate).

Starting off with an old man’s tenacious strength, Thompson misses the point and runs smack into the wall.  The problem was that McCain’s campaign didn’t vet the vp candidate.  Vetting is done so that when the media (and one’s opponents) get to work, you’re ready to handle whatever they can throw at you.  Obama was ready to handle attacks on Biden.  McCain floundered.  Great for Democrats watching it go down, but on the whole evidence of McCain’s lack of good judgment.

For a while there it seems the fact that so many uninformed yahoos (average people) love her was going to drive the main stream media nuts

Can’t speak for the mainstream media here, but it isn’t average Americans who love Palin.  Her singular consituency is the extreme of the religious right.  The people who think rape, incest, and medical necessity are not reasons for an abortion.  Amercians who want to deny homosexuals equal rights.  Voters who want to see creationism in our schools and evolution in the history books alongside global warming under “crackpot moonbat theories”.  Most of America is kind of freaking out that she was even picked.

Apparently what no one counted on was that a politician like this would actually show up on the national scene. The media was caught by surprise. The media doesn’t like surprises.

The media loves surprises.  Surprises drive news cycles, bringing in attention and advertising dollars.  (emphasis mine):

Wall Street and Washington were full of people who were “qualified and experienced” in the field of finance. Sen. Barack Obama, for one, has a great deal of experience in the housing field. So do many of his closest advisers. I would have traded some of that experience for a few more leaders with less experience and more courage to buck the establishment and tell the truth about what was happening.

Did you expect Thompson to make such a deliciously ironic statment?  Now I’m not in the media but I love the heck out of that sentence.  Do you think if Thompson concentrates just as hard as he can, a few situations over the past eight years might pop up where those words might have applied?

The angle of Thompson’s endorsement is “Heck guys Palin don’t need experience when she’s got fire in her belly”.  Thompson could literally pan Obama for being too inexperienced one day and praise Palin for being inexperienced the next.  So that’s just what he did:

Sen. Fred Thompson took aim at Barack Obama’s experience tonight in a sharp attack during the Republican convention. “The Democrats present a history-making nominee for president,” Thompson said. “History-making in that he is the most liberal, most inexperienced nominee to ever run for president.”

Fred Thompson phoned in his endorsement without bothering to check its validity.  Fortunately for him conservatives are listening raptly regardless of what he says.

Palin’s Gay Friend

Palin’s Gay excuse-friend  confirms the McCain Palin campaign’s stacking doll status.  McCain has a female VP so his anti-woman policies and personal history is ok.  Palin has a Gay friend who made a “choice”, so she can get her hate on guilt free.

It isn’t surprising that the Alaska governor, who doubts evolution and global warming, would also choose a “shut your eyes and just believe” approach to homosexuality’s lack of a biological basis.  (Although her ignorance on the subject makes you wonder how close she is with her supposed “best” friend).

Palin is McCain’s Weakpoint

Pressure is building on Palin, and McCain has nowhere to go as she brings his campaign down from the inside (FiveThirtyEight):

It’s important to reinforce what Nate wrote Sunday night. Not gonna happen. It would be overt surrender. As most of you know, I’ve been on the road for the past three weeks, so far visiting at least a dozen McCain campaign offices in six battleground states as well as Palin’s first solo rally in Carson City, Nevada. If McCain dumps Palin, it is over.

McCain is incredibly vulnerable on his VP pick.  Her interviews with Katie Couric have revealed a politician who’d readily cheat off Bush in an exam.  As the electorate begins to fret over McCain’s health, the second in line for the throne is reminding people how much worse it can get.

Palin is last-ditch effort to win over religious conservatives at all costs.  And while her singular focus on Roe might help with that crowd at the expense of socially liberal conservatives and independents, the sheer intensity of her faith and its clear impact on her governing might push many religious conservatives away.  Is it any wonder a young earth creationist rejects global warming?  Are we surpised a woman who’se church persecutes people for suspected witchcraft might support fascist or theorcatic governing?

McCain has made a politically fatal choice, and the first debate will drive that home with voters.  McCain threw a wild punch and now he’s wide open.  Democrats need to close in for the knock-out.

Behind the State Chaplain Controversy

A look at Bill Carrico and the politics behind the dispute over at Revolutionary Act.

Sarah Palin: Staggering Idiot

Check out the SNL Parody of Palin’s interview with Katie Couric.

Here’s a short piece from the real thing:

Transcript.

To quote Andrew Sullivan:

How does McCain win an election with a national joke as his running-mate?

What’s more interesting, to me, is why so many Americans have such a positive view of Palin, and are closer to voting for McCain because of her involvement in the race.

Why Does a Strong Economy Need a Bailout?

If the economy is as strong as John McCain, Rush Limbaugh, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Condoleezza Rice suggest, why do we need the bailout?

700 Billion Gone

700 Billion or more gone if we don’t act.  The Democrats are ready to sit down with the Republicans and talk turkey.  Our turkey:

“We now have between House and Senate Democrats an agreement on what we think should be in the bill, and we have a meeting scheduled at 10 a.m. tomorrow to meet with the Republicans,” said Frank, chairman of the House of Representatives Financial Services Committee.

How will we pay for it?

Will we listen to fear?  Or will we listen to reason (St Louis Post Dispatch):

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More than 180 economists, including David Levine and Michele Boldrin from Washington University, have signed a letter opposing the $700 billion financial bailout now before Congress. They see “three fatal pitfalls” in Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson’s proposal: Its fairness, its ambiguity, and its long-term effects on the economy.

We need to take the long term impact on the economy into account (emphasis mine):

The economists, who include three Nobel laureates, are especially worried about the long-term effects:

If the plan is enacted, its effects will be with us for a generation. For all their recent troubles, America’s dynamic and innovative private capital markets have brought the nation unparalleled prosperity.  Fundamentally weakening those markets in order to calm short-run disruptions is desperately short-sighted.

We’re on the verge of making a very expensive mistake.

Friendly Reading

Brad sizes up the bailout (emphasis mine):

First of all, I think we should pay attention to how things are being worded. First of all, this is a bailout. The definition of a bailout, in this day and age, is “to rescue from financial distress”. But if you look at the important part of that work, being “bail”, you get a better picture of how this is going to play out.

As a verb, bail means “to clear (water) from a boat by dipping and throwing over the side“. This only solves the problem of water in the boat. It doesn’t necessarily solve the problem of how the water got in the boat, and if you don’t keep bailing then your boat is going to sink.

This ought to give us pause: “and if you don’t keep bailing then your boat is going to sink”.

Information overload doesn’t mean we absorb enough to feel confident about our choices.  Marco explains:

I have many other things I’d rather do than watch MSNBC for 4 hours every day to catch all the sound bites.  I’m not going to spend my time verifying that John McCain has actually voted the same as George Bush 90% of the time.

By the end of the post, his position comes across pretty damn confident:

John McCain is disingenuous to the point where he comes across as an asshole.  He smiles at inappropriate times.  He tries to talk intelligently about things he doesn’t know about.  He makes rash and ill-advised decisions just to get himself ahead (Who the effing hell is Sarah Palin?!!)  In any other circumstance, these things would make you deeply distrust a person.  By contrast, Barack has presented himself as straightforward, trustworthy, consistent and genuine.

In short, I’m voting for Barack Obama because he has convinced me that he has integrity. And in a world full of dishonesty and corruption, that’s worth a whole hell of a lot.

I think knowing there is so much information out there produces enough anxiety to make us forget that we do have enough knowledge to form solid opinions and talk about them intelligently.

Over at Daisy and Emily’s, Five Links That Are Important:

1. Grassroots preparation for more ICE raids, via ImmigrationProf Blog.

2. Gardasil to be made mandatory for U.S. immigrants?

3. “50 Arrested as ADAPT Takes Affordable, Accessible Housing Crisis to Congress.”

4. Two posts at Echidne of the Snakes on the Wall Street bailout. Echidne recommends reading about this alongside Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. As someone doing just that, I couldn’t second that recommendation more eagerly.

5. Margaret Cho disappoints.

Finally Adam lays into a particularly annoying Republican tendency:

It never fails to aggravate me when Republicans or any one for that matter try to play off something as outrageous as this Palin quote by playing the blame game.

This Palin quote comes off as something you would read on a high school exam from some kid that was grabbing at straws and promptly write an F next to. I guess throwing in some out of context, nonsensical, intelligent-sounding words will work to convince some voters that you know what you are talking about.

We’ve been seeing a lot of that lately with Palin.

A Revolutionary Act

Starting today, I’ll also be blogging over at Revolutionary Act.  Its a new collective blog started by myself and a few excellent friends.  Both Daisy and Emily of Our Descent Into Madness will be joining me there.  I’ll still be posting here (albeit less frequently).

Will the Inclusion of Foreign Banks Stop the Bailout?

The 700 billion dollar bailout is generating justified rage.  Will the inclusion of foreign banks in the US taxpayer funded bailout be enough to sink it?

Right now, the Republicans are taking the heat for the economy.  If the Democrats pass this bill, that is going to change quickly.

Johnathan Schwarz:

Write and call your representative and senators plus Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid this morning and tell them to tell the Bush administration NO on their proposed $700 billion handout to Wall Street. Congress obviously can propose a much better plan of its own, but the first thing to do is kill this monstrosity.

Congress main line
(202) 224-3121

Write your representative

Write your senators

Nancy Pelosi
(202) 225-0100
Write Pelosi (corrected)

Harry Reid
(202) 224-3542
Write Reid

Our government has been racking up the failures over the past 8 years.  This one is going to hurt.  We just can’t afford it, and any politicians not on the page of sound economic recovery are going to pay for it dearly: Its hard to put “700 billion dollar bailout”, “foreign banks”, and “you lost your job” together and spell “electable”.

Republican Confluence Doesn’t Get Palin

The Confluence has become a hotspot for closet Republicans looking to slash Democrats from within.  But their latest bit of chicanery is inexecusable.  They are defending Sarah Palin!

Do you see the problem with the way the Democrats are arguing this time? Sarah Palin and her husband are NOT SCARY to swing voters. Neither is Barack Obama, Joe Biden, or John McCain. They see all the candidates as politicians, neither inherently good nor inherently evil. Wrap your partisan brain around THAT one!

Actually, independents and bitter Hillary Supporters are concerned by Palin:

“And that ticks me off because I do not want Obama,” said Democrat Annette Kocsis, 68, a former Hillary Rodham Clinton supporter from Clearwater, scoffing at “the pit bull in lipstick,” as Palin has called herself.

Palin, who makes her first Florida campaign stop Sunday in a Republican stronghold in north-central Florida, has generated enthusiasm among conservatives. But at least with this randomly selected group of swing voters, she appears to be an obstacle to McCain’s winning over disillusioned Democrats or moderates.

“That was almost insulting,” Democrat Rhonda Laris of Temple Terrace, another strong Clinton backer skeptical of Obama, said of the Palin pick. “Do they think we’re really stupid? … I’m definitely leaning toward the Democratic side now. Sarah Palin scares … me.”

madamab at the Confluence takes Democrats to task for believing:

She will take possession of every female uterus in the United States and force it to become pregnant, then return it to its previous owner with a little something extra inside;

She will force every school to teach abstinence-only education and creationism;

Sarah Palin is virulently anti-choice.  A McCain/Palin administration is the best shot the conservatives have at overturning roe vs wade.  Dismissing that concern with a quip about taking “possession of every female uterus in the United States” is nakedly dishonest.  Swing voters who value reproductive choice are quite concerned.  Democratic Hillary supporters just are not buying the steaming piles of bull coming from the Confluence.

The fact is the Confluence just doesn’t get Sarah Palin.  Not when they think a candidate with ties to a militant apocalyptic cult isn’t scary.

I’d post a comment, but the Confluence has a nasty habit of censoring and editing comments.

Jesus Christ the Dread Champion

Sarah Palin has been linked to Joel’s Army, an apocalyptic cult preparing to use violence to force Christianity on unbelievers.  The details are over at Orcinus, I’m just going to give you the link.  This is something to be read in its entirety.  Trust me, once you start reading, you won’t stop until you’ve finished.

The title of this blog post comes from Todd Bentley as quoted in this Southern Poverty Law Center report:

“An end-time army has one common purpose — to aggressively take ground for the kingdom of God under the authority of Jesus Christ, the Dread Champion,” Bentley declares on the website for his ministry school in British Columbia, Canada.

Theocracy by force.  Say those words out loud and contemplate what they mean for you and your family (emphasis mine):

Placing family in higher esteem than the Lord is dangerous to be sure. It’s a condition of the heart that, for the most part may go unnoticed. Not only is it the esteeming of people above the Lord, in the season of great falling away and betrayal, it will cause one to make fatally flawed decisions. As much as we dearly love and fervently pray for those around us, we must ensure that Jesus is truly our Savior AND Lord. That he is first in our life and that we will remain faithful; regardless of the consequences in the physical realm.

This is the kind of logic that leads directly to bloodshed.  Its the same logic behind children betraying their parents to fascists, this idea that loyalty to some outside authority means more than familial ties.

There are faithful who believe the end times are coming very soon.  And they are lashing out at the most unlikely scapegoats:

The battle goes far beyond the old issues such as abortion. Far and away, the issue of the hour is homosexuality, same sex marriage and the elimination of differences between sexes. Old terms such as “mom” and “dad” are being threatened with extinction. For those intent on destroying the old concept of the family; there can be no distinction between mom and dad, for there are either two moms or two dads.

The paranoia is in some cases palpable:

The enemy is determined to make those of us who believe the Bible is the only rule for faith and practice to look like fools or mentally challenged freaks not worthy of believing. The enemy hates those who faithfully and boldly stand on God’s Word. Those who do, are targeted and marked for attack. Assassin squads are daily dispatched from hell to try and trip up those who are marked. Every possible effort is made by the enemy’s minions to deceive, trick or physically injure those on his “hit list”.

Even getting to the point where Sarah Palin is a candidate for the Vice Presidency is insane.  A politician linked to a group bent on violent conversion and religious war, who says god tells her what to do, is viscerally alarming.

Its no surprise Palin’s candidacy is pushing moderates and conservatives alike to the left.

Obama and the Anti-Choice Whisper Campaign

Most of America doesn’t like what Sarah Palin represents.  She’s so extreme on abortion she’d favor mandatory birth even if her own daughter were raped.  That simply isn’t in line with the American public.

The Republicans know this, and they’ve begun an urgent whisper campaign to paint Obama as a baby-killer to try and push Obama’s perceived positions out of the mainstream and into the fringe with their own.  This goes beyond the standard “Every Fertilized Egg is Sacred” line the most radical of the anti-choice movement parrot.  They’ve dug up a vote and deliberately and maliciously warped it into a rumor designed to feed into the worst fears of people on the reproductive rights fence.

I logged onto facebook today to notice a conservative Catholic friend had promoted a website shamelessly flaunting the irony in its name.  A cursory look at conservative blogs sees a frenzy of eager-to-slander bloggers jumping on this chance to regurgitate the rumor (Read this for an insight into the kind of person behind these attacks).  Seeing this come from a friend was unsettling, so I figured I’d take some time and break down why Obama opposed the bill.

First of all, and I’m going out on a real limb here, I’m pretty sure actual infants are already protected by law.  Now, onto fetuses (Dana Goldstein via Feministing):

But BAIPA isn’t really about protecting infants; it is anti-abortion rights legislation crafted by the hard right. BAIPA targets the abortion procedure known as dilation and extraction, which anti-choicers have so successfully re-branded as “partial birth abortion.”

Wait, its a misnamed piece of legislation crafted by the hard right?  Haven’t we seen that somewhere before?  Back to the bill, it was a crafty attempt by the anti-choice movement to mask their intentions (they seem to have a lot of trouble when they are upfront and honest):

The antis want to redefine these fetuses as “born alive” and require that doctors provide “resuscitation.” As a state senator, Obama saw BAIPA for what it was: an ideologically-motivated ploy to vilify women and doctors who choose abortion. On the state Senate floor on April 4, 2002, he explained, “This issue ultimately is about abortion and not live births. Because if there are children being born alive, I, at least, have confidence that a doctor who is in that room is going to make sure that they’re looked after.”

The horribly misnamed pro-life movement tried to pull a fast one on reproductive choice, and Barack Obama saw clear through it.  The “Born Alive” act wasn’t about protecting babies.  It was about using lies to force a religious viewpoint on a secular nation.  Obama stood up to it.

And in the fall we’re going to stand up to Palin and McCain.

Palin: Itchy, Crazy and Near the Red Button

How close is Governor Palin to the red button?  A heartbeat away.  A John “Older than Penicillin” McCain.

So when she makes a really stupid and bellicose statement towards Russia, we ought to take notice.

My friend Brad sent that to me, and Matt Damon raises a damn good point.  Sarah Palin is not a reason-based governor.  She’s a faith-based governor.

And what I want to know, in the midst of her support for our current wars and seeming willingness to engage in more, is the following:  Does she believe we are living in the end times, and if so, how will that drive her actions in the White House?

The Second Ammendment: Revolution

The second ammendment clearly protects the right to have an armed militia, and not individual rights as its been successfully perverted over the years (wiki):

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Because let’s face it, its poorly written.  Its essentially conflating “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms” with “a well regulated Militia”.  Oops.

But they’ve come to be interpreted as separate, and I’d like to deal with the rational behind the NRA and other gun-toting groups out there.  Why should we have the right to bear arms?

The first reason that pops off the top of my head is Self Defense.  This isn’t that shabby an argument.  Take an etnertaining stroll down the posts at the Civilian Gun Self-Defense Blog.  Between scaring off robberies, vigilanteism occasionally resulting in murder, and entirely accidental shootings, it doesn’t make too clear a case in either direction on its own.  But let’s not suppose people guilty before proven innocent, and allow that at least some civilians use guns legitimately as self defense.  That’s not what interests me.

What has me thinking is the idea that our right to bear arms affords us some protection, any protection, against a tyrannical state.

If the United States Government began rounding up “problem reporters“, anarchists, and known peace demonstrators, would you expect:

1. People would be outraged.
2. There would be direct action, including massive street protests.
3. Politicians would take meaningful actions to free the political prisoners and stand up to the government.
4. There would be armed resistance.

If you answered anything more direct than 1, I think you’d better prepare to be dissapointed.  First of all, its doubtful the arrests would even be covered.  They wouldn’t be directly censored, just ignored.  Most people would never know.  The ones who did, while angry, would they risk arrest themselves to protest?

I think its clear off the bat that however much faith we put in our politicians of choice, 3 is not a realistic possibility.

Which leaves 4, and I ask you.  Even if we throw away the idealism and strategic pragmatism of non-violent resistance, does anyone honestly think there’d be a lick of a chance against a government so much more powerful than its citizens?

This is why when I hear arguments about the second ammendment being necessary to protect against a fascist government I can’t help but laugh.  By the time we’ve gotten that far it will already be too late.

But that begs the important question.  If tomorrow the US went into lockdown, would business change for anyone not directly affected?  Would enough power (people or political) put itself at risk to fight back?  And if not, if this challenge to our liberty is left unmet, what the hell is stopping the government from doing this whenever they want?

And what the hell is wrong with me, when even mentioning armed resistance (despite my opposition to violence as a political means) makes me nervous?