A 'Hateful Spirit Envelopes Trump, Consumes Him and Animates Him', Don't Vote Hate (© NoBullU.com)

UPDATE:  "For three decades, Steve Schmidt has played at the highest levels of Republican politics, as a top strategist in presidential campaigns and as an adviser to other GOP candidates. He has also been one of the most vociferous critics of President Donald Trump. On Wednesday, he made that opposition even more emphatic, renouncing his party affiliation and urging Americans to vote for Democrats in the November elections.

'Trump's election did not spell doom for the Republican Party,' Schmidt said by telephone Wednesday while traveling. 'The reality is that our Founders always predicted that one day there would be a president like Trump, and that's why they designed the system of government the way they designed it. What they never imagined is the utter abdication of a co-equal branch of government, which we're seeing now. . . . The definition of conservatism now is the requirement of complete and utter obedience to the leader.' . .

He sees an abdication by the congressional wing of the Republican Party to remain independent of the president when necessary. 'There's a crisis of cowardice in the Republican Party that is profoundly un-American and, in my reading, unprecedented,' he said. 'No one is prepared to lay down their political career to do what's right to oppose the corruption, the assault on institutions, the nonstop lying, the assault on objective truth.' . .

[Schmidt believes the Republican Party] is populated by servile politicians unwilling to buck Trump's loyal following. He called the party 'utterly corrupted,' a force for 'incendiary politics and crackpottery and a real threat to small 'L' liberalism in the U.S.-led liberal global order.' . .

He decries the decision to welcome Trump into the 2012 Republican campaign despite his having pushed the false narrative that Obama was not born in the United States as a means to endear himself to a most extreme wing of the GOP. 'Trump was legitimized by birtherism, and he was abetted by a billion-dollar incitement industry,' he said."

Read the Washington Post, Longtime GOP strategist abandons his party, calls for the election of Democrats, which also notes that:

"Some analysts of American politics attach to Schmidt and McCain some blame for the rise of Trump. In their reading of the past decade, McCain's decision to tap Sarah Palin, then the governor of Alaska, as his vice-presidential running mate was the starting point for the rise of the kind of nationalistic, populistic politics Trump employed to win the election.

Schmidt was one of those who suggested McCain look to Palin as a possible choice, based on his and others' belief that McCain needed a dramatic selection to shake up the race and avoid certain defeat to Barack Obama. He wishes now that the choice had been different.

'My role in Palin is something that there's not a day that has gone by that I don't have regret about,' he said. 'She was manifestly unfit' - which he said became more and more obvious after she was selected - 'and she injected all manner of toxin into the political system. But she is not the cause of any of this.'"

Another MUST READ,  The New York Times, 'I Want to Hate . . .', which states in full:

“In Trump’s America people are understandably experiencing news fatigue. There are torrents of it on multiple streams. There is outrage after outrage. It is often overwhelming.

That’s the plan, I suspect. Trump is operating on the Doctrine of Inundation. He floods the airwaves until you simply give up because you feel like you’re drowning.

And unfortunately, it’s working. A Pew Research Center report released Tuesday found that nearly seven in 10 Americans “feel worn out by the amount of news there is these days.”

Fighting this fatigue is the real test of a person’s resolve, including mine.

When my enthusiasm for resisting this vile man and his corrupt administration starts to flag, I remember the episode that first revealed to me the darkness at Trump’s core, and I am renewed.

On an April night nearly 30 years ago, a young investment banker was beaten and raped when she went for a jog in Central Park. The attack left her in a coma. She happened to be white. Five teenagers arrested for the crime — four black and one of Hispanic descent — went to trial. As this newspaper reported at the time, they were “in what the police said was part of a marauding spree by as many as 30 youths in the northern end of the park” that night.

After being questioned for hours, the defendants gave false confessions that conflicted with one another, and those confessions were captured on video. As The New York Times pointed out in 2002: “The defendants in the jogger case were put on camera after they had been in custody, in some cases, for as long as 28 hours.”

As one of the five wrote in 2016 in The Washington Post: “When we were arrested, the police deprived us of food, drink or sleep for more than 24 hours. Under duress, we falsely confessed.”

A few days after the attack, long before the teenagers would go on trial, Donald Trump bought full-page ads in New York newspapers — you may think of this as a precursor to his present-day tweets to a mass audience — under a giant, all-caps headline that read: “Bring Back the Death Penalty. Bring Back Our Police!”

The boys would be convicted even though the physical evidence in the case was inconclusive. When one of the teenagers was led away in handcuffs, he yelled at the prosecutor: “You’re going to pay for this. Jesus is going to get you. You made this … up.”

After serving up to 13 years in prison, the boys were proven right: Another man confessed to the crime and his DNA matched that at the scene of the crime.

The boys, then men, had their convictions overturned, were freed, and eventually reached a multimillion-dollar settlement with the city over their wrongful convictions.

How did Trump respond after having called for them to be put to death? In true Trump fashion, he refused to apologize or show any contrition whatsoever.

In a 2014 opinion essay in The Daily News, Trump wrote that the settlement was a “disgrace” and that “settling doesn’t mean innocence.” He continued his assertion that the men were guilty, urging his readers: “Speak to the detectives on the case and try listening to the facts. These young men do not exactly have the pasts of angels.”

Some people will never admit that they are wrong, even when they are as wrong as sin.

But it is the language in the body of Trump’s 1989 death penalty ad that sticks with me. Trump wrote:

“Mayor Koch has stated that hate and rancor should be removed from our hearts. I do not think so. I want to hate these muggers and murderers. They should be forced to suffer and, when they kill, they should be executed for their crimes.”

He continued:

“Yes, Mayor Koch, I want to hate these murderers and I always will. I am not looking to psychoanalyze or understand them, I am looking to punish them.”

That to me is the thing with this man: He wants to hate. When Trump feels what he believes is a righteous indignation, his default position is hatred. Anyone who draws his ire, anyone whom he feels attacked by or offended by, anyone who has the nerve to stand up for himself or herselfand tell him he’s wrong, he wants to hate, and does so.

This hateful spirit envelopes him, consumes him and animates him.

He hates women who dare to stand up to him and push back against him, so he attacks them, not just on the issues but on the validity of their very womanhood.

He hates black people who dare to stand up — or kneel — for their dignity and against oppressive authority, so he attacks protesting professional athletes, Black Lives Matter and President Barack Obama himself as dangerous and divisive, unpatriotic and un-American.

He hates immigrants so he has set a tone of intolerance, boasted of building his wall (that Mexico will never pay for), swollen the ranks of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and attacks some as criminals and animals.

He hates Muslims, so he moves to institute his travel ban and attacks their religion with the incendiary comment that “I think Islam hates us.”

He always disguises his hatred, often as a veneration and defense of his base, the flag, law enforcement or the military. He hijacks their valor to advance his personal hatred.

So I remember that. I center that. I hear “I want to hate” every time I hear him speak. And I draw strength from the fact that I’m not fighting for or against a political party; I’m fighting hatred itself, as personified by the man who occupies the presidency. That is my spine stiffener.”

Remember: Don't Vote Hate (© NoBullU.com)

Revolution 2016: What New Hampshire Shows, And Doesn't (The Donald and Sanders Agree on the Problem, But Not on the Solution)

UPDATE IV:  I went to the movies this week and saw The Big Short.

Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) described the film as "a movie masquerading as an educational event, or an educational event masquerading as a movie."  It is"a half-caper, half-explanatory-journalism account of" the years leading up to housing bubble of 2008 and resulting financial crisis.  If you forgot, here is a preview:

It was an entertaining look at a topic that most people find confusing and difficult to follow. But the basic story is that the Banksters got greedy and created a system to profit from unsuspecting borrowers and investors, then turned around and got even richer during the government bailouts.

The movie is based on a book by the same name, The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine, a non-fiction book by Michael Lewis about the build-up of the housing and credit bubble during the 2000s.  It explains "the creation of the credit default swap market that sought to bet against the collateralized debt obligation (CDO) bubble and thus ended up profiting from the financial crisis of 2007–10."

"Most financial writers and movie critics agree that the movie nails the run-up to the crisis, and engagingly so. (Who else would use a blackjack-playing Selena Gomez to explain complex financial products?)"  There is some criciism about how the movie describes "what happens on screen after the crisis hits."

I discussed the bailouts in some detail, here and on the radio.

Nothing better proves the the problem of corrupt crony capitalism and the need for fundamental and systemic change in D.C. (and elsewhere)) than the financial crisis.

I urge you to watch the movie and/or read the book.

It will further explain the reason you must VOTE for The Donald.

 

UPDATE III:  As I've said before, you have to recognize and acknowledge a problem before change can occur. But some people can't even admit a mistake.

Jeb! can't, and although The Donald lies like any politician running for office, his wisdom sometimes shines through.

On Iraq, when The Donald "called the war in Iraq 'a big, fat mistake,' he was exactly right.  Jeb Bush, the very good brother of a very bad president," [should admit his brother made a horrible mistake and that] . . . the Republican Party has been a vast incubator of foreign policy conspiracy theories."

Trump is not afraid to tell truth to power: Bush ignored 'intelligence warnings in advance of the 911 attacks' and  "lied" [The Donald's word] about Iraq WMD's, the cost of the war, the happy outcome, etc.

That innate wisdom, and his ability to leverage the weaknesses of others, make him the first choice for reformers.

UPDATE II: Want to better understand what millions of American workers have learned through personal experience, that the rigged economy is cheating the American middle class out of good paying American job, then watch 1,400 US workers learn their jobs are moving to Mexico.

UPDATE:  Here is a thought, since they recognize and understand the nature of the problem, which would require a multifaceted solution, after being nominated to represent their parties, they should form an alliance to clean up D.C.

The Donald should be the front man (President), and Sanders, if capable, should be the VP working the legislative changes required to beak the system.

They might even bring in Palin, who as I've noted before and despite her many faults,  also recognizes and understands the problem with the status quo.

What New Hampshire shows is that only Franken-Trump/Trumpenstein (© NoBullU.com) and that Socialist Guy understand and recognize the problem many voters have learned through personal experience.

"On Morning Joe Wednesday morning, Donald Trump explained his — and Bernie Sanders’s — big wins in New Hampshire this way:

“We’re being ripped off by everybody. And I guess that’s the thing that Bernie Sanders and myself have in common. We know about the trade. But unfortunately he can’t do anything to fix it, whereas I will. I have the best people in the world. We’re losing hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars a year. And we will fix it. And we’ll make it good. And we’ll bring our jobs back. Bernie Sanders can’t even think in terms of that. The only thing he does know, and he’s right about, is that we’re being ripped off; he says that constantly; and I guess he and I are the only two that really say that.”

We’re being ripped off, and Trump and Sanders are the only two candidates who are really saying that. They are speaking to people’s sense that our economic and political systems are cheating them, that they are being failed because the underlying rules of those systems have themselves been rigged. . .

Here’s what Sanders said in his victory speech Tuesday night:

    “Tonight, we served notice to the political and economic establishment of this country that the American people will not continue to accept a corrupt campaign finance system that is undermining American democracy, and we will not accept a rigged economy in which ordinary Americans work longer hours for lower wages, while almost all new income and wealth goes to the top one percent.”

In one sentence, Sanders blamed flat wages and soaring inequality on an economy whose rules have been written to benefit a tiny elite at the expense of everyone else, and tied this directly to a political system whose rules have been written to dis-empower the American people from doing anything about it.

There are crucial differences between Trump’s and Sanders’s solutions to the problems they’ve identified, of course. Trump says our elites are weak, stupid, and corrupt. Sanders says our elites are being corrupted. The difference between those two things is subtle, but important. Trump says the elites are cheating ordinary Americans by helping illegals, major corporations, and China, and vows to break this corrupt system over his knee and get it working again, because he’s not one of those elites. This is what Trump really means when he says he 'can’t be bought'; Trump is not making a sustained argument for political and campaign finance reform; he’s just saying he’s not a member of the class that is cheating you, and he will come in and bust up that class’s party.

Sanders, by contrast, is making a sustained argument for political and campaign finance reform. For him, the culprit is not an elite that is actively trying to help illegals and China and allowing the country to slide into ruin out of national security weakness and ineffectiveness. Rather, it’s an oligarchy that has enriched itself by rigging the economy to effect a massive transfer of wealth upwards and to paralyze our political system from doing anything about it, thus corrupting our political classes. Sanders’s whole policy agenda is framed around this idea. While Clinton tends to focus on incremental solutions aimed at boosting wages and opportunity, and mitigating people’s economic difficulties on the margins, Sanders wants to rid the system entirely of its dependence on big money in order to actively reverse the upward redistribution of wealth that, he says, poses an existential threat to our economy and middle class.

Read the Washington Post, Donald Trump explains American politics in a single sentence.

Republi-CON Clowns and Jokers Make HRC Look Presidential (Thank God the End Is Near ;-)

UPDATE III:  Tired of the bozos getting all the attention and lovin, establishmnet candidates are readyto quit.

Read the Washington Post, The GOP candidates are mad as hell, and they’re not going to take it anymore.

UPDATE II:  "With Thursday's interminable, pointless, haranguing, disorganized, utterly amateurish attempt at a smear job, the Republicans and their tenth-rate congressional attack schnauzer, South Carolina's Trey Gowdy, got people feeling sorry for Hillary Clinton. Over the course of 11 long hours, they made the most eloquent argument for a Hillary Clinton presidency yet offered by anyone, including Clinton herself."

Read Rolling Stone, Trey Gowdy Just Elected Hillary Clinton President.

UPDATE:  "Apocalyptic rhetoric is more than the evidence of historical ignorance and bad speechwriting. It leads to a distorted politics. If the United States has reached its midnight hour, it means that the institutions that have gotten us here are utterly discredited. . .

Trump and Carson can succeed only if the end times are upon us. And I don’t mean that in a theological way. In normal times, innovative policy and governing skill would matter most in selecting a president. Successful governors and legislators would naturally rise to the top. Only in a crisis of institutional legitimacy does the outsider become the savior. This means Trump, Carson and other apocalyptic politicians must encourage a mental state of emergency among Republicans. Lacking any relevant qualifications in the current political system, these candidates must bring that system into complete disrepute. Since the politicians have made such a hash of things, they insist, a businessman or a neurosurgeon couldn’t possibly do worse.

Oh, yes they could."

Read the Washington Post, Why Trump and Carson want to bring about America’s apocalypse.

"You can choose from a litany of insurrections, government shutdowns and other self-inflicted wounds. But this year’s carnival-like GOP presidential primary makes one event, in retrospect, stand out as a crucial turning point on the road to upheaval: the 2008 embrace of then-Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to be a heartbeat from the presidency.

Palin’s blatant lack of competence and preparedness needs no belaboring. What’s critical is that substantive, serious Republican leaders either wouldn’t or couldn’t declare, before or after the election: “This is not what our party stands for. We can and must do better.”

By the campaign’s end, GOP operatives were shielding Palin from even the simplest questions. . .

[Then] Palin became a Fox News fixture, reinforcing the newly formed tea party’s 'never compromise' demands. Bombast, not reason, reigned. . .

Whether McCain actively sought Palin in 2008 or passively yielded to aides’ pressure, he set a new standard for GOP candidates who rely on lots of sizzle and little substance.

Once McCain put Palin on the ticket, Republican 'grown-ups,' who presumably knew better, had to bite their tongues. But after the election, when they were free to speak their minds, they either remained quiet or abetted the dumbing-down of the party. They stood by as Donald Trump and others noisily pushed claims that Obama was born in Kenya. And they gladly rode the tea party tiger to sweeping victories in 2010 and 2014.

Now that tiger is devouring the GOP establishment. . .

It’s hard to feel much sympathy. The Republican establishment’s 2008 embrace of Palin set an irresponsibly low bar. Coincidence or not, a batch of nonsense-spewing, hard-right candidates quickly followed, often to disastrous effect."

Read the Washington Post, The GOP’s dysfunction all started with Sarah Palin.

Read also the Washington Post, Republicans are ‘in denial’ about Hillary Clinton. 

Why I Support Trump

UPDATE II:  Why do Republi-cons support Franken-Trump/Trumpenstein's (© NoBullU.com):

"We like people who talk big.

We like people who tell us that our problems are simple and easy to solve, even when they aren't.

And we don't like people who don't look like us."

Read the Washington Post, I asked psychologists to analyze Trump supporters. This is what I learned.

UPDATE:  "Two authoritative chroniclers of 20th-century American populism and race, Alan Brinkley of Columbia and David Blight of Yale, dismissed the parallels [to Father Charles Coughlin (the radio-savvy populist demagogues of the Great Depression),  Huey Long,  Joseph McCarthy, Hugo Chávez, “that avatar of white-racist resentment, George Wallace”, or even Ross Perot]. Brinkley, the author of the definitive book on Long and Coughlin (Voices of Protest), said Trump was a first in American politics, a presidential candidate with no 'belief system other than the certainty that anything he says is right.' Blight said Trump’s 'real antecedents are in Mark Twain' — in other words, fictional characters, and funny ones.

There is indeed a lighter way to look at Trump’s rise and his impact on the country. Far from being an apocalyptic harbinger of the end-times, it’s possible that his buffoonery poses no lasting danger. Quite the contrary: His unexpected monopoly of center stage may well be the best thing to happen to our politics since the arrival of Barack Obama.

In the short time since Trump declared his candidacy, he has performed a public service by exposing, however crudely and at times inadvertently, the posturings of both the Republicans and the Democrats and the foolishness and obsolescence of much of the political culture they share. He is, as many say, making a mockery of the entire political process with his bull-in-a-china-shop antics. But the mockery in this case may be overdue, highly warranted, and ultimately a spur to reform rather than the crime against civic order that has scandalized those who see him, in the words of the former George W. Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson, as 'dangerous to democracy.'"

Read New York Magazine, The importance of Donald Trump, which keen observes:

"What has made him more entertaining than his peers is not his superficial similarities to any historical analogues or his shopworn celebrity. His passport to political stardom has been his uncanny resemblance to a provocative fictional comic archetype that has been an invigorating staple of American movies since Vietnam and Watergate ushered in wholesale disillusionment with Washington four decades ago. That character is a direct descendant of Twain’s 19th-century confidence men: the unhinged charlatan who decides to blow up the system by running for office — often the presidency — on a platform of outrageous pronouncements and boorish behavior. Trump has taken that role, the antithesis of the idealist politicians enshrined by Frank Capra and Aaron Sorkin, and run with it. He bestrides our current political landscape like the reincarnation not of Joe McCarthy (that would be Ted Cruz) but of Jay Billington Bulworth.

Trump’s shenanigans sometimes seem to be lifted directly from the eponymous 1998 movie, in which Warren Beatty plays a senator from California who abandons his scripted bromides to take up harsh truth-telling in rap: 'Wells Fargo and Citibank, you’re really very dear / Loan billions to Mexico and never have to fear / ’Cause taxpayers take it in the rear.' Bulworth insults the moderators of a television debate, addresses his Hollywood donors as 'big Jews,' and infuriates a black constituent by telling her he’ll ignore her unless she shells out to his campaign. Larry King, cast as himself, books him on his show because 'people are sick and tired of all this baloney' and crave an unplugged politician who calls Washington 'a disaster.'

Trump also sounds like Hal Phillip Walker, the unseen candidate of the 'Replacement Party' whose campaign aphorisms percolate throughout Robert Altman’s post-Watergate state-of-the-union comic epic, Nashville (1975). His platform includes eliminating farm subsides, taxing churches, banning lawyers from government, and jettisoning the national anthem because 'nobody knows the words, nobody can sing it, nobody understands it.' (Francis Scott Key was a lawyer.) In résumé and beliefs, Trump is even closer to the insurgent candidate played by Tim Robbins and reviled as 'a crypto-fascist clown' in the mockumentary Bob Roberts (1992) — a self-congratulatory right-wing Wall Street success story, beauty-pageant aficionado, and folksinging star whose emblematic song is titled 'Retake America.' Give Trump time, and we may yet find him quoting the accidental president played by Chris Rock in Head of State (2003): 'If America was a woman, she would be a big-tittied woman. Everybody loves a big-tittied woman!'

Thanks to Trump, this character has leaped off the screen into real life, like the Hollywood leading man in Woody Allen’s The Purple Rose of Cairo. As a human torpedo blasting through the 2016 campaign, Trump can inflict more damage, satirical and otherwise, than any fictional prototype ever could. In his great comic novel of 1959, The Magic Christian, Terry Southern anticipated just the kind of ruckus a Trump could make. Southern’s protagonist is a billionaire named Guy Grand who spends his fortune on elaborate pranks to disrupt almost every sector of American life — law enforcement, advertising, newspapers, movies, television, sports, the space program. Like Trump, he operates on the premise that everyone can be bought. In one typical venture, he pays the actor playing 'an amiable old physician' on a live network medical drama a million bucks to stop in mid-surgery and tell the audience that if he speaks 'one more line of this drivel,' he’ll 'vomit right into that incision I’ve made.' The network, FCC, and press go into a tizzy until viewers, hoping to see more such outrages, start rewarding the show with record ratings.

There have already been some modest precedents for Trump’s real-life prank — most recently, Stephen Colbert, who staged a brief stunt run for president in 2007. The comic Pat Paulsen, a Smothers Brothers acolyte, ran for president intermittently from 1968 into the ’90s, aiming to call attention to the absurdity of politics. His first run was under the banner of the STAG (Straight Talking American Government) Party; later, he ran consecutively as a Republican and a Democrat. ('I like to mix it up,' he explained.) Paulsen came in a (very) distant second to Bill Clinton in the 1996 New Hampshire primary, one of four primaries where he qualified for the ballot that year. But a judge threw him off the ballot in California, declaring, 'I do not want to reduce the campaign for an important office like president of the United States to some kind of farce.'

Some kind of farce, nonetheless, is just what the modern presidential campaign has devolved into. By calling attention to that sorry state of affairs 24/7, Trump’s impersonation of a crypto-fascist clown is delivering the most persuasively bipartisan message of 2016. . .

Trump does take heretical economic positions for a Republican — “The hedge-fund guys are getting away with murder!” — but on the matters of race, women, and immigration that threaten the GOP’s future viability in nonwhite, non-male America, he is at one with his party’s base. What he does so rudely is call the GOP’s bluff by saying loudly, unambiguously, and repeatedly the ugly things that other Republican politicians try to camouflage in innuendo, focus-group-tested euphemisms, and consultantspeak.

In reality, Trump’s most noxious views have not only been defended by conservative stars like Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, and late summer’s No. 1 best-selling nonfiction author, the radio host Mark Levin, but also by the ostensibly more “mainstream” Republican candidates. Trump is picking up where his vocal fan Sarah Palin left off and is for that reason by far the favored candidate of tea-party Republicans, according to a Labor Day CNN-ORC poll. Take Trump’s peddling of 'birtherism,' for instance. It’s been a right-wing cause since well before he took it up; even Mitt Romney dipped into that racist well in 2012. It took a village of birthers to get Republicans to the point where only 29 percent of them now believe that Obama was born in America (and 54 percent identify him as a Muslim), according to an August survey by Public Policy Polling. Far from being a fake Republican, Trump speaks for the party’s overwhelming majority. . .

What’s exhilarating, even joyous, about Trump has nothing to do with his alternately rancid and nonsensical positions on policy. It’s that he’s exposing the phoniness of our politicians and the corruption of our political process by defying the protocols of the whole game. . .

It’s as if Trump were performing a running burlesque of the absurd but intractable conventions of presidential campaigns in real time. His impact on our politics post-2016 could be as serious as he is not. Unsurprisingly, the shrewdest description of the Trump show’s appeal has come from an actor, Owen Wilson. “You can’t help but get a kick out of him,” he told the Daily Beast, “and I think part of it is we’re so used to politicians on both sides sounding like actors at press junkets — it’s sort of by rote, and they say all the right things. So here’s somebody who’s not following that script. It’s like when Charlie Sheen was doing that stuff.” As Wilson says, for all the efforts to dismiss Trump as an entertainer, in truth it’s his opponents who are more likely to be playacting, reciting their politically correct and cautious lines by rote. The political market for improvisational candor is as large as it was after Vietnam and Watergate, and right now Trump pretty much has a monopoly on it. . .

The best news about Trump is that he is wreaking this havoc on the status quo while having no chance of ascending to the presidency. You can’t win the Electoral College in 2016 by driving away women, Hispanics, blacks, and Asian-Americans, no matter how large the margins you pile up in deep-red states. . .

The one thing Trump never does is go quietly, and neither will his followers. As Ross Douthat, a reform conservative, wrote in August, Trump has tapped into the populist resentments of middle-class voters who view the GOP and the elites who run it as tools of 'moneyed interests.' If the Republicans 'find a way to crush Trump without adapting to his message,' he added, the pressure of that resentment will keep building within the party, and 'when it bursts, the GOP as we know it may go with it.'

Even if this drama does not play out to the convention, the Trump campaign has already made a difference. Far from being a threat to democracy or a freak show unworthy of serious coverage, it matters because it’s taking a much-needed wrecking ball to some of what has made our sterile politics and dysfunctional government as bankrupt as Trump’s Atlantic City casinos. If that’s entertainment, so be it. If Hillary Clinton’s campaign or the Republican Party is reduced to rubble along the way, we can live with it. Trump will not make America great again, but there’s at least a chance that the chaos he sows will clear the way for those who can."

Because Palin is not running.

Read also, the Washington Post, 7 honest-to-goodness arguments for supporting Donald Trump. 

Why Are Republi-CONs Such Suckers For Snake Oil Salesmen?

"[V]ery little of the $753,000 it spent from Jan. 1 to June 30, 2015, went directly to political candidates and committees. Instead, SarahPAC’s top expenditures largely helped fortify its own existence—or helped Palin personally. . .

Yet, during the first half of 2015, SarahPAC only spent $25,000 on candidate contributions—less than 4 percent of its overall expenditures.

Conservative Republican Reps. Louie Gohmert, Trey Gowdy, Raúl Labrador, and Ted Yoho are among the 43 candidates to receive SarahPAC cash so far this year, with most getting $500. The per-election federal limit is $2,700.

Palin’s PAC has never given more than a small fraction of its income away to the Republicans it supports."

Read Slate, Sarah Palin’s PAC Is Spending More on Hotels and Travel Than on Republican Candidates.

Read also, Cha-Ching, Baby, Cha-Ching. 

Her daughter also practices the con.  Read More Unbelievable Palin Family Hypocrisy. 

More Unbelievable Palin Family Hypocrisy

UPDATE:  "Bristol Palin . . . is too busy giving lectures to hear yours."

So read Slate, A Short History Of Bristol Palin’s Lectures.  

Remember Bristol Palin, a high school drop out, unwed mother, and paid 'abstinence ambassador.'

(The abstinence 'charity' (a term used loosely as you will see) "took in about $1.7 million in donations and only gave $35,000 to groups trying to lower teen pregnancy rates.

Forty-six percent of Candie’s total expenses — $573,000 — went to Palin.

Only 6 percent went to anti-teen pregnancy programs.About $165,000 was paid to ABC for TV advertising."

Even for the Palins, this con strikes me as immoral.)

Well guess what.

"Bristol Palin, the eldest daughter of former Republican vice presidential candidate and Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, announced today that she is pregnant for the second time, less than a month after calling off her marriage to Marine veteran Dakota Meyer."

Read the Daily Mail, Sarah Palin's daughter Bristol announces she's pregnant again just a month after cancelling wedding to Marine veteran.

 The article notes that "Bristol did not say who the father of the child is in her statement."

Cha-Ching, Baby, Cha-Ching

UPDATE XI:  Here is a sample. In response to Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s speech on the '11 Commandments of Progressivism' that fast-food workers deserve livable wages, Palin said on her new channel:

'We believe?' Wait, I thought fast food joints, hurh. Don’t you guys think that they’re like of the Devil or something ... Liberals, you want to send those evil employees who would dare work at a fast food joint that you just don’t believe in, thought you wanted to, I dunno, send them to Purgatory or somethin’ so they all go vegan and, uh, wages and picket lines I dunno they’re not often discussed in Purgatory, are they? I dunno why are you even worried about fast food wages because ... Well we believe in an America where minimum wage jobs, they're not like life time gigs, they're stepping stones.

Read Slate, Sarah Palin Is Getting Good at Her Tina Fey as Sarah Palin Impersonation.

Or watch the Great Palin herself:



Reminds me of the election criticism of her tired cliches, random jargon, and catchphrases she had been coached to repeat, often resulting in nonsensical answers and gibberish during the election.

She must be using the Sarah Palin Quote Generator.

 

UPDATE X:  "Sarah Palin announces the launch of her own online news channel as part of a continuing quest to remind America of her existence. "

Watch The Colbert Report, The Sarah Palin Channel, which notes that "[i]t's all about Sarah Palin . . . a safe space where like-minded folks can hear things they already agree with from someone whose opinions they already know.":

The Colbert Report
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,The Colbert Report on Facebook,Video Archive

UPDATE IX:   It is the "the most rigorous infotainment site ever launched by a half-term governor of Alaska.

Read The Atlantic, Sarah Palin's Low-Budget TV Channel Is Pricier Than Netflix.

UPDATE VIII:  Years later, still monetizing the flools (a flock of fools).

Read the New York Daily News, Sarah Palin's new online channel provides commentary and more for $9.95 per month.  

Read also Slate, Sarah Palin to Sell Her Real American Lifestyle for $10 a Month, which notes that "Palin’s audience is composed of people who are steeped in the paranoid belief that everyone else is out to get them, a paranoia she's happy to stoke at every turn."

UPDATE VII: Giving new meaning to never missing a chance to monetize, first get knocked-up by your teenage boyfriend, then run a con as an "abstinence ambassador." Read the Atlanta Journal Constitution, Non-profit paid Bristol Palin more than it donated to anti-teen pregnancy programs, which notes:

That abstinence "charity" (a term used loosely as you will see) "took in about $1.7 million in donations and only gave $35,000 to groups trying to lower teen pregnancy rates.

Forty-six percent of Candie’s total expenses — $573,000 — went to Palin. Only 6 percent went to anti-teen pregnancy programs.

About $165,000 was paid to ABC for TV advertising."

Even for the Palins, this con strikes me as immoral.


UPDATE VI: Taking a chance to monetize to a new low, now she's cashing-in on the 9/11 terrorist attacks. CBS News, Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin Sept. 11 Event Ticket Price: $73 to $225.

Pretty despicable if you ask me.


UPDATE V: Like Mother, like daughter -- never missing a chance to monetize. Read WHYfame, Bristol Palin's Story Sold to Us Weekly for $100,000!

And admit it, you knew it was coming, another unreality show. Read My Fox New York, Bristol Palin, Levi Johnston Eye Reality Show Ahead of Wedding.


UPDATE IV: Now the Palin clan will monetize out-of-wedlock teen pregnancy. Read the Washington Post, Bristol Palin to hit the paid lecture circuit, speaking about teen pregnancy.


UPDATE III: Compare Palin's efforts to monetize her new found 'celebrity' with Truman's refusal to accept corporate positions at large salaries. He declined the corporate offers because he knew they didn't want him, they wanted the office of the President, about which he later wrote "I could never lend myself to any transaction, however respectable, that would commercialize on the prestige and dignity of the office of the presidency."

FYI, when Truman retired from office, he returned home to Independence, Mo., his "only source of income was his $111.96-per-month World War I pension. In those days, ex-presidents didn't get pensions."

Later, Congress did enact a pension for former presidents. But when Congress attempted to give Truman the Medal of Honor, he said he would refuse it, saying the Medal of Honor was for combat bravery, and in any case, he did not consider that he had done anything to merit any award.

Truman is also quoted as saying: "My choice early in life was either to be a piano-player in a whorehouse or a politician. And to tell the truth, there's hardly any difference."

Truman also said "I never give them hell. I just tell the truth and they think it's hell."

I think it's time to dig him up and clone him.


UPDATE II: "Nowadays, for both poles of the political spectrum but especially for the right, politics is a business—the entertainment business. The freak show, as Mark Halperin termed it, has been turned into a fully merchandised product. It was Fox’s Roger Ailes who had the insight that the American right was an underserved market, one with a powerful kind of brand loyalty. Fox News has turned a disaffected segment of the populace into a market, with the fervor and idiosyncratic truth standards of a cult. Wingnut-ism has been monetized, is one admittedly partisan way of looking at it. Palin stokes the disaffection of her constituents and then, with the help of Fox, offers to heal them, for a price. And—surprise—they’re more affluent than most Americans. Fifty-six percent make over $50,000 a year, according to a Times/CBS poll. Running for president is no doubt part of her business model. But forget elections (as many Palin supporters already seem to have done); she’s already the president of an alternative America—and also its CEO. " Read New York magazine, The Revolution Will Be Commercialized.


UPDATE: Not only is she getting the green, she demands the divas treatment and doesn't want you to know. Strictly nondisclosure, The Rogue Diva requires first class for two from Anchorage to California if she flies commercial, if not, a private aircraft that "MUST BE a Lear 60 or larger." In addition, she need a suite and two single rooms in a deluxe hotel. (Don't ask me why she needs three rooms for two people.) Of course, that is in addition to her speaking fee, as high as $100,000. Read the Washington Post, Calif. students find Palin contract in trash.

BTW, don't forget to "stock her lectern with two water bottles and bendable straws."

Just show her the money!

As I said last July, "[w]hy will the Rogue Diva quit her office early? The media was unfair. People were filing ethics complaints against her. Bloggers (and late night comedians) were saying mean things about her. She didn't want to be a lame duck. The state would be better off without her. Those are some of the reasons she gave.

She will build her network for 2012 by campaigning and fund raising for other candidates.

But I think the primary reason she quit is to cash in with a book and some speeches, maybe a little paid commentary on not-the-FoxNews, before she loses the 2012 Republi-con primary."

And cashin in she is. Read ABC News, Sarah Palin Has Earned an Estimated $12 Million Since July.

Cha-Ching, Baby, Cha-Ching! Those Republi-cons are all about the money!

Now if they could only balance a budget.

Palin-Colbert 2016

UPDATE:  Belay my last.  Palin's not available, she's no longer a politician (even if she was never a serious politician), she's not even still a celebritician. 

"What’s clear from Palin’s [CPAC] speech, however, is that her primary concern at this point is promoting her brand — a sort of conservative entertainer-in-chief, the person willing to stick it to Democrats and 'tell it how it is' to Republicans too. What Palin seems far less interested in is laying out a vision for what the GOP should do; contrast the speech she gave with the one delivered at the same event by former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush in which he sought to point the party in a direction for its future."

Read the Washington Post, Sarah Palin, entertainer.  

Watch The Colbert Report explain, Budget Sequestration, complete with a biblical analogy.

Watch to the end where he proposes a solution "to prevent the next crisis, we just need a worse scenario.  I say we suspend a monkey above the floor of Congress.  No, an ebola monkey!  Then every Senator and Congressperson gets smeared with banana meat.  If they do not reach a budget deal by the deadline, the doors to Congress are locked, the rope is cut, and it is meal time in the monkey house!":

The Colbert Report
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As I've said before, Palin had the potential to "be a real reformer." Imagine her reform policies, and Colbert's advocacy, it couldn't be an worse than it is now.

Hasta La Vista, Baby

"The news that Fox News Channel has decided against renewing Sarah Palin’s contract means that the former Alaska governor’s time in the national spotlight is, at least for the moment, over. . .

The Palin story is, in the end, one of tremendous talent misused. Like any number of playground greats who never make the NBA or, when they do, wind up disappointing, Palin had as much natural ability as anyone this side of Barack Obama or John Edwards but was unable to translate that talent into results once the bright lights came on. That she never made good on her remarkable natural talents is a sign of how the political process can chew up and spit out those who aren’t ready for it."

Read the Washington Post, What Sarah Palin meant. 

More Premarital Sex and Another Shotgun Wedding for the Palin Clan

UPDATE:  Well, that didn't last long, but long enough to silence the questions of family hypocrisy.  Read The New York Daily News, Track Palin and wife, Britta Hanson, file jointly for divorce after one year of marriage.  

You do the math: "Track Palin, the eldest son of Alaska's favorite hockey mom, is expecting a child with his high school sweetheart, Britta Hanson, just two months after their wedding. . . [But photos from a recent baby show for Britta show her] well into the second trimester, around six months, even seven." Read The New York Daily News, Track Palin, son of Sarah Palin, expecting child with wife Britta Hanson two months after wedding, which notes:

"Mom Sarah Palin has been a staunch defender of waiting until marriage. She pushed for abstinence-only education during her 2006 run for governor of Alaska."

A Palin What Might Have Been

"Would Sarah Palin have given Mitt Romney a tougher fight than Rick Santorum did?"  Read The New York Times, The Palin Counterfactual. 

In any case, it sure would have been a gift to comedians.  Read The New York Times, Come Back, Sarah Palin!

Save Us, Sarah, Save Us!

UPDATE IV: After the movie Game Change (based on the book with the same name), would you vote for Sarah?

Or has she "become a person who I think is filled with grievance, filled with anger who has a divisive message for the national stage when we need leaders in both parties to have a unifying message. . . . The lack of preparedness was a bad thing and the total disinterest in being more prepared and rectifying that is something that disqualifies"?

Read the Washington Post, Steve Schmidt’s brutally honest assessment of Sarah Palin.


UPDATE III: After more than a year, an update. "Will she run, or won't she. She just doesn't know, you know?? Read The New York Times, Chasing Sarah Palin.

All kidding aside, if she promised not be to "thin-skinned" and "vindictive", I'd vote for her.


UPDATE II: "Sarah Palin’s amateurism and liabilities are her badges of honor, and Republican leaders who want to stop her, and they are legion, are utterly baffled about how to do so." Read The New York Times, Could She Reach the Top in 2012? You Betcha.


UPDATE: Not everyone is ready to be saved, especially not a former Bush chief speechwriter and senior policy advisor. Read the Washington Post, Palin's erratic behavior mars 2010 elections.

He thinks Plain is "increasingly indifferent to Republican fortunes and increasingly tolerant of disturbing extremism."

I'm guessin he didn't get a Mama Grizzly Endorsement.

Will Republi-cons be able to put the Palin genie back in the box (actually a large jar)?

"If there's nobody else to do it, then of course I would believe that we should do this." -- from Entertainment Tonight, Sarah Palin: I will Run for President in 2012 If There's Nobody Else To Do It.

Can you say 'messiah complex'.

Don't Be Duped by the Birthers

UPDATE XVII: Well, the Birthers finally got a hearing, and no one appeared for Obama, and no evidence or argument was entered into the record on behalf of Obama. Nevertheless, "a state law judge flatly rejected legal challenges that contend he can not be a candidate." Read The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Judge: Obama eligible to be Georgia candidate.

Can't wait to hear our very own Pastor Dred Scott (you may remember the infamous Dred Scott decision of 1857, which asserted that African Americans were "beings of an inferior order" who "had no rights which the white man was bound to respect." That ruling declared that African Americans could never be U.S. citizens and therefore could never be President) (AKA Pastor Truthiness (formerly known as Pastor Poppins) spin this one.

Expect a missile sighting somewhere over the U.S. to distract you from the news.


UPDATE XVI: Our Resident Pastor-to-the-Dictators (AKA Pastor Truthiness (formerly known as Pastor Poppins)) is now plagiarizing lies to salvage his malicious fantasy campaign to brand Obama as an outsider, as un-American, as non-American.

First it was false claims of document layering.

Now it is a false claim of kerning.

Lest he could do would be to give credit to the Birther who first made the claim.


UPDATE XV: Our Resident Pastor-to-the-Dictators (AKA Pastor Truthiness (formerly known as Pastor Poppins)) continues with his malicious fantasy campaign to brand Obama as an outsider, as un-American, as non-American.

One specific lie, the shameful pastor claimed that after Obama released his long-form birth certificate, Wikipedia removed references to Vattel.

False! The reference was there yesterday, and remains there today. See Wikipedia, Natural born citizen clause of the U.S. Constitution, about 3/10th of the way down.

So many lies, so little time to refudiate.


UPDATE XIV: The anti-Obama conspiracy du jour, Michele Obama needs three hands for all of her jewelry.

From the The Hartford Courant via Reddit and Rick's Blog:




UPDATE XIII: Our Resident Pastor-to-the-Dictators (AKA Pastor Truthiness (formerly known as Pastor Poppins)) continues his despicable sideshow over Obama's birth certificate.

It is a shameful episode with nothing “to do with reality and everything to do with the strangeness of Obama's background - especially his race. Many Republicans refuse to accept that Obama could come from such an exotic stew and still be ‘American.’ They have to delegitimize him. So, even though the certificate of live birth first made public in 2008 is a legal document that any court would have to recognize, they demanded more.

No American president has ever been so humiliated, and those who think it has nothing to do with race are deluding themselves.”

Pastor Truthiness owes Obama an apology for continuing to stoke these coded fears about the president's origins.


UPDATE XII: After proving once again his citizenship, Trump and the birthers now try to "undermine the acceptance of [Obama's] academic credential."

"[Y]ou can work hard, play by the rules, achieve great things academically and professionally and still have people look at you as less-than, look at you as not deserving of the things you worked hard to achieve, look at you as unqualified despite plenty of evidence to the contrary because you are black." Read the Washington Post, Trump insults 'the blacks,' again.

And watch MSNBC, The Last Word, with Lawrence O’Donnell:

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

UPDATE XI: Case closed? Don't be so naive.

Republi-cons will continue to create and exploit absurd non-issues "with sideshow and carnival barkers and silliness," "make stuff up and pretend that facts are not facts," and vilify their political opponents.

As for the "birther" issue, why were there persistent demands never before made of any prior president? Read USA Today, Study: racial prejudice plays role in Obama citizenship views.


UPDATE X: What drives the false political belief of the birther myth, and why is it so hard to dispel? Read The New York Times, The Psychology of the 'Birther' Myth, which discusses "motivated reasoning," racial resentment, belief in silly things, a dysfunctional system, and echoes of McCarthy-type conspiracy theories.


UPDATE IX: More "GOP politicians are recognizing that . . . the birther issue . . . paints the conservative base as loony." Read the Washington Post, Have Republicans figured out Obama’s birth certificate is a political loser?


UPDATE VIII: Even the Republi-con establishment wants nothing to do with those birthers on the "nutty right" (Rove's words, not mine). Read the Washington Post, Top Republicans try to scotch birther theories.


UPDATE VII: Even Bill O'Reilly thinks it is time to refudiate the Republi-cons:

The Daily Show - Tales of Principled Behavior - Obama Birth Certificate Mystery
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UPDATE VI: Why do Republi-cons spread rumors instead of getting to the facts? Let us ask The Great Palin what she thinks:

The Daily Show - Moment of Zen - Sarah Palin Dismisses Internet Rumors
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UPDATE V: One bad birther conspiracy deserves another:

Did you know that Palin faked "her pregnancy with Trig, not only to cover for her daughter Bristol, but also to gain pro-life street cred with the far right." The press then "helped "to cover up the hoax, intentionally or not, by never investigating it thoroughly enough. Had journalists dug deeper, the answers were easy enough to find."

This has to be true, because it is on the internet.


UPDATE IV: Read the Washington Post, More 'birther' nonsense from Donald Trump and Sarah Palin, which "refudiates" their claims that Obama has "spent $2 million to not show his birth certificate."

The claims are "whoopers" and earn Four Pinocchios:




The article also 'debunks' other claims by Trump, which are common birther myths:

“His grandmother from Kenya stated, on tape, that he was born in Kenya and she was there to watch the birth.” False: On the tape, there was initial misunderstanding but then she said he was born in Hawaii.

“His family in Honolulu is fighting over which hospital in Hawaii he was born in — they just don’t know.” Another myth with no basis in fact.

“He has not been able to produce a ‘birth certificate’ but merely a totally unsigned ‘certificate of live birth’ — which is totally different and of very little significance.” Wrong: It is signed and has full legal significance.

“There are no records in Hawaii that a Barack Hussein Obama was born there.” Wrong again, there is plenty of evidence.

“As far as the two notices placed in newspapers, many things could have happened, but some feel the grandparents put an ad in order to show that he was a citizen of the U.S.” Oops, the information was provided by the State Department of Health — not the grandparents.

So many lies, so little time to refudiate.


UPDATE III: Maybe Obama wasn't born in the United States and maybe Palin didn't give birth to Trig,

You say cogito ergo sum, but maybe life is an illusion, and reality is a simulation.

"[W]e don't really KNOW anything, do we?" Read Business Insider, THE TRUTH REVEALED: Sarah Palin May Not Have Been Born In The USA.


UPDATE II: Some Republi-cons continue to embarrass themselves ranting about a birth certificate and clinging to a delusion that the Supreme Court might put their man in office (again). Sorry, it ain't gonna happen.

Locally we have our Resident Pastor-to-the-Dictators (AKA Pastor Truthiness (formerly known as Pastor Poppins)).

Nationally, it's the Republi-con's latest celebrity candidate, a birther. It is clear that he hasn't even read the Congressional Research Service that would agree that Obama is a "natural born citizen," (the Congressional Research Service is a part of the Library of Congress, providing professional, objective and non-partisan public policy research to members of Congress and their staffers. The writer of the memorandum is a qualified constitutional attorney who has summarized the historical and legal material with references, showing, by contrast, how shoddy the birther arguments are) (this memorandum explains why even Republi-CON Congressmen/women refuse to join the Birthers). And he hasn't talked to Barbara Nelson, who "specifically remembers his birth" because she spoke with the obstetrician who delivered him shortly after his birth.

Unfortunately, Mike tells me he's going to replay a show full of birther nonsense. He must be promoting Trump for President.

Fortunately, Trump is doing his best to discredit himself. (Read the Washington Post, Trump’s disgusting, dangerous dance with birthers.)

Don't be duped by the birthers. See PolitiFact.com, Obama's birth certificate: Final chapter.


UPDATE: His own attorney admitted that he was a "victim of an obsession." And his reward for his obsession, prison and dismissal. Read the Washington Post, Military jury: Prison, dismissal for Army birther.

"So much for the Birthers bringing down a presidency in dramatic fashion during a court-martial." Read The New York Times, Usurper in Chief?

Maybe Colonel Larkin realizes he was duped by the Birthers:

"Sobered by the prospect of a dishonorable dismissal, losing his pension and serving hard time, as well as facing a panel of military superiors in dress uniforms, Colonel Lakin said the winter had been “a confusing time, a very emotional time for me.” His shoulders slumped, he offered excuses about how he had gotten conflicting advice from lawyers — his defense was underwritten by Birthers. . .

[I]n the end, the court-martial offers one big truth: President Obama doesn’t have to show Terry Lakin anything. The colonel should have followed orders. "

ShakesPalin Hired By Hedgehod News 'Cause She Was Hot and Got Ratings'

Does anyone know how many Nobel Prize winners work for Hedgehog News (which falsely uses the name FOXNews)? Read the Washington Post, Fox News's Roger Ailes: 'I hired Sarah Palin because she was hot'.

Does Palin Have a Point About the "Collusion of Big Government and Big Business and Big Finance to the Detriment of All the Rest — to the Little Guys"

UPDATE II: About that 'detriment of all the rest' of us, which I call predatory business practices, did you know that Wall Street "don’t want the American people to know the extent to which speculators keep oil prices artificially high and the great damage that does to our economy. " Read the Washington Post, What Wall Street doesn’t want us to know about oil prices.

All part of the Republi-CON war on the middle class.


UPDATE: More on Palin's observation regarding 'corporate crony capitalism', "[n]early 5,400 former congressional staffers have left Capitol Hill to become federal lobbyists in the past 10 years, according to a new study that documents the extent of the revolving door between Congress and K Street." Read the Washington Post, Revolving door of employment between Congress, lobbying firms, study shows.

At a Tea Party event in Indianola, Iowa, Palin "made three interlocking points. First, that the United States is now governed by a 'permanent political class,' drawn from both parties, that is increasingly cut off from the concerns of regular people. Second, that these Republicans and Democrats have allied with big business to mutual advantage to create what she called 'corporate crony capitalism.' Third, that the real political divide in the United States may no longer be between friends and foes of Big Government, but between friends and foes of vast, remote, unaccountable institutions (both public and private)." Read The New York Times, Some of Sarah Palin's Ideas Cross the Political Divide.

She could be a real reformer.

If you "look at what Palin did while in office in Alaska—the only record she has—[it] shows a very different politician: one who worked with Democrats to tame Big Oil and solve the great problem at the heart of the state’s politics." Read The Atlantic, The Tragedy of Sarah Palin.

President Sexpot?

"Sarah Palin hasn't jumped into the race for the White House (yet), but she believes the prize is there for the taking." She also says that she "can win a national election." Read Newsweek, Palin Plots Her Next Move.

But before you vote, you might want to review the cover shoot poses and consider whether she has the 'presidential look.' Here is a sneak peek:

Sarah's Family Vacation

UPDATE II: Watch Palin string together "random string of words" to explain history and Colbert helps prove "that Paul Revere could have ridden a horse while ringing a bell and firing multiple warning shots from a front-loading musket":

The Colbert Report
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UPDATE: "Sarah Palin joins Donald Trump at one of New York's historic monuments, the Times Square Applebee's":

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Sarah Palin Visits the Times Square Applebee's
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Will she save us?

Who knows, right now, Sarah is taking the family on a for-profit vacation, and giving the country a little Republi-con history lesson:

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Sarah Palin's Bus Tour
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She's Back

UPDATE II: Just announced, "the formation of: 'Comedians for Sarah Palin.' [Their] slogan is: 'Comedians putting aside their differences and the good of America for comedic material.'" Read CNN, Support Palin! Put a comedian to work!


UPDATE: In the latest Gallup poll, "Mitt Romney (17%) and Sarah Palin (15%) now lead a smaller field of potential Republican presidential candidates in rank-and-file Republicans' preferences for the party's 2012 nominee. Ron Paul, Newt Gingrich, and Herman Cain essentially tie for third, with Cain registering 8% support in his initial inclusion in Gallup "trial heat" polling. Notably, 22% of Republicans do not have a preference at this point." Read Gallup, Romney, Palin Lead Reduced GOP Field for 2012.

In addition, Palin is "fortifying her small staff of advisers, buying a house in Arizona — where associates have said she could base a national campaign — and reviving her schedule of public appearances. The moves are the most concrete signals yet that Ms. Palin, the former governor of Alaska, is seriously weighing a Republican presidential bid." Read The New York Times, Signs Grow That Palin May Run.

[A told ya so:

You may remember, that in July 2009 I predicted that Palin would "build her network for 2012 by campaigning and fund raising for other candidates" and "cash in with a book and some speeches, maybe a little paid commentary on not-the-FoxNews."

I reaffirm my predictiojn that she loses the 2012 Republi-con primary.]

And just in time, a "new film commissioned by Palin, the former governor of Alaska, will present her as a Joan of Arc-like figure beset at every turn by vicious leftwing enemies seeking to thwart her ambition of reviving the conservative legacy of Ronald Reagan." Read The Guardian, Sarah Palin likened to Joan of Arc in two-hour documentary film.

Typical Republi-con, trying to advance their political careers on the the Reagan myth.

With Mitt, Mike, Donald, and Newt flopping or quitting, "a whiny drama queen" gets a second chance. Read FITSNews, Sarah Palin Is Back.