I, for one, am thankful that the same crackerjack personnel McCain put on VP vetting duty may one day be in control of our domestic emergency response...or our homeland security defense against terrorism....or my Social Security.
Greetings and salutations! Hope your Labor Day weekend was as restful and enjoyable as mine! Now that Gabs O'Steel has so daintily let the frickin cat out of the bag, I might as well proclaim it for realz on my own square of greater Blogistan - I got a girlfriend! And her milkshake brings all the boys to the yard, if you get my drift. If you do, please let me know because I never knew what the fuck that song was about anyway...what is the "milkshake" double entendre referring to? These kids and their dirty songs nowadays....
Anyway, me and my gal had a wonderful holiday weekend filled with cookouts, hanging with friends, waiting an hour and a half at the Peace Bridge on Saturday to return to my beloved homeland, inviting my brother to hang with us at Tabu on Main St. for "Madonna Impersonator" night and watching him act non-plussed while being hit on by a 330-lb drag queen, drinking, fighting and more drinking. Oh, not to worry...we're were just quibbling over minor things, like how often I should clean my bathroom (you can guess what my answer is) and is it polite to point at psychopathic ex-convicts in Jim's Steak-Out at 12:30 am.
All kidding aside, the gf is wonderful, the Humanist is very happy and all is well in the world.
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Well, we're back to the grind on the campaign trail and....lookee here! The VP pick on the Republican side is turning out to be a train wreck to rival the Ufa rail disaster:
Bristol Palin, one of Alaska Gov. Palin's five children with her husband Todd, is about five months pregnant and is going to keep the child and marry the father, according to aides of Republican presidential candidate John McCain.
Bristol Palin made the decision on her own to keep the baby, the aides said.
The Palins, in a statement released by the McCain campaign, said Bristol "came to us with news that we as parents knew would make her grow up faster than we had ever planned" and that their daughter "has our unconditional love and support."
Personally, I agree with Obama that Bristol's pregnancy is a private matter for the Palin family and is no one else's business. It was true when Obama's mother had him at 18 and it's defintely applicable for young Bristol, who isn't running for anything.
What is our business, however, is Bristol's mother and the flaming spires of hypocrisy jetting from her yap. Most prominent is that Sarah Palin is building a bridge to the 19th century when it comes to reproductive rights and access to education for teenagers like her own:
Democrats noted, before and after today's announcement, that Palin took a hard line on a question in 2006 from the conservative Eagle Forum Alaska:
Q: Will you support funding for abstinence-until-marriage education instead of for explicit sex-education programs, school-based clinics, and the distribution of contraceptives in schools?
SP: Yes, the explicit sex-ed programs will not find my support.
Palin also opposes abortion in cases like her daughter's, and in harder cases.
Palin would prefer that her own daughter, as well as thousands of teenagers in the same position, not have a choice or means to deal with their pregnancy at all. And Gawd help you if you're a teen girl who happens to become pregnant due to rape or incest:
"I am pro-life. With the exception of a doctor’s determination that the mother’s life would end if the pregnancy continued. I believe that no matter what mistakes we make as a society, we cannot condone ending an innocent’s life," (emphasis mine)
Hear that, gals? You feelin that, parents of at-risk teens? Daddy's little angel got date-raped or Uncle Ernie got a little too affectionate during his last visit? Mama Palin says tough shit, missy....that's the Lord's little miracle in your belly and your uterus is now the property of Jeebus. I'm glad that Bristol has the means to support a newborn, being the daughter of the state governor and all, and that she's doesn't have to face the spectre of dropping out of school to become a single mother and all the happy, fun joy-joy that ensues. Cheers to her. Yay, responsibility!
Some allege the governor's staff pushed to get the governor's former brother-in-law, Trooper Mike Wooten, fired, and that Palin fired Commissioner Monegan because he wouldn't terminate Wooten.
Those allegations led to an investigation by the Legislature.
And, most recently, the governor hired a private attorney to represent her.
So the GOP ticket will be campaigning the next two months with the cloud of this state investigation hanging over their heads, with the findings scheduled to come out just before November 4th. No doubt, a brilliant piece of electoral strategy that will clearly work out very well for McCain. (/snark)
Then, late yesterday, word came out that Gov. Palin, a heartbeat away (potentially) from the presidency, belonged to a fringe Alaskan party that advocates secession from the United States:
After refraining from commenting on the charge for a day, the McCain campaign on Tuesday asserted that Palin was never a member of the AIP.
But Lynette Clark, the chairman of the AIP, tells ABC News that Palin and her husband Todd were members in 1994, even attending the 1994 statewide convention in Wasilla. Clark was AIP secretary at the time.
"We are a state's rights party," says Clark, a self-employed goldminer. The AIP has "a plank that challenges the legality of the Alaskan statehood vote as illegal and in violation of United Nations charter and international law."
It's worth noting that the official slogan of the McCain-Palin ticket is "America First"....while the AIP's official slogan is "Alaska First". Well, who's on first, Sarah?
And, finally, we learned this morning that Gov. Radioactive likes herself some good ol' fashioned book-burning:
Stein says that as mayor, Palin continued to inject religious beliefs into her policy at times. "She asked the library how she could go about banning books," he says, because some voters thought they had inappropriate language in them. "The librarian was aghast." The librarian, Mary Ellen Baker, couldn't be reached for comment, but news reports from the time show that Palin had threatened to fire her for not giving "full support" to the mayor.
Ah, this must be the "executive experience" the Republicans are crowing about with regard to the Palin selection. A demand for blind loyalty to the executive office-holder, firing those who are perceived as non-supporters or politically independent and blatant abuse of power. Doesn't sound like anything we've encountered in the last 8 years, nope....Change we can believe in!
And, oh yeah....the running mate of the so-called "maverick" (who detests earmarks) loves her some of that filthy earmark lucre. And was director of a 527 group supporting now-disgraced-and-indicted Alaska Senator Ted Stevens.
As is quite apparent to anyone who isn't a Republican lemming or is above the age of 10, the choice of Palin as VP was among the most appalling, ill-considered political decisions of any presidential campaign. Palin, herself, is a political disaster area, on par with Harriet Miers as the worst selections for federal office in recent memory. But the real story is John McCain's utter disdain for his supporters and female voters in general and his continuing pattern of recklessness in his decision-making. Does anyone still believe that McCain gave any serious thought to Palin in terms of her capabilities in taking office, let alone her qualifications for the ticket? He himself admitted he'd only met her twice before naming her as a running mate and calling her his "soulmate".
This was McCain's first real test of decision-making under pressure as President and it is a total and resounding failure. The corner he's painted himself into now is threatening to submarine his campaign before we even get to the first debate. Keep this radioactive person on the ticket and continue the slow drip, drip, drip of embarrassing revelations that are coming out daily? Or, dump her from the ticket and reveal your campaign operation to be the Keystone Kops Komedy it is and piss off all the fundamentalists who so loved having an anti-choice, pro-rape & incest, pro-Creationism, anti-science & logic nutjob on the national ticket? I don't envy his choice but I'm not exactly broken up about it, either.
11. Are you offended by the phrase “Under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance? Why or why not?
SP: Not on your life. If it was good enough for the founding fathers, it's good enough for me and I’ll fight in defense of our Pledge of Allegiance.
As we all know, the phrase "under God" was added to the Pledge of Allegiance by an act of Congress in 1954. Not to mention the Pledge itself wasn't written until 1892 and wasn't officially recognized as the official national pledge until 1942.
Republican John McCain, whose running mate disclosed that her unmarried 17-year-old daughter is pregnant, has opposed proposals to spend federal money on teen-pregnancy prevention programs and voted to require poor teen mothers to stay in school or lose their benefits.
SON OF FURTHER UPDATE: drip, drip, drip
oh my
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