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I didn’t vote for her father, but should Meghan McCain ever run for president, she’ll have my support. Unfortunately, McCain, 24, wouldn’t be eligible to run until the 2020 election cycle if she chooses to do so. Although she has not garnered much media attention until recently, this member of the almost-presidential family, who has been a registered Republican since 2008, has made it clear that her views depart somewhat from those of her father, John McCain, the senator from Arizona. She has socially moderate views. While she is pro-life, she supports same-sex marriage. At a recent convention of the...

Editor, At the risk of sounding sexist, how did the health care debate get hijacked by an overgrown teenage girl on Facebook? Sarah Palin quit her job as governor of Alaska to become an unpaid right-wing blogger, yet still has the power to disrupt any rational discourse. Possibly related: How did someone like Palin even rise to the spotlight in the first place? Her rise was born in the waning days of the contentious Democratic primaries between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. After the controversial Democratic National Convention Rules Committee decision to split in half the delegates from Michigan and...

And the Democrats have won. President Obama will use the emotional capital of the Senator's passing to push through--via reconciliation--legislation that SHALL include the public option that the Pelosi wing of the party wants. Any Republicans who dare to speak against this will be portrayed as heartless demagogues, spitting on the grave of a liberal legend.

I missed this yesterday at Newsbusters but Treacher, rightly aghast, tipped me to it this afternoon. Never will you see a starker example of MSNBC getting away with the sort of deception for which Fox News would be pilloried, especially in the context of race. If you missed Monday’s post about this, go watch the footage (or look at this photo) and see if you can deduce why they wouldn’t want to show the guy with the rifle from the neck up during this particular segment. For all the well-deserved heat that MSNBC’s primetime line-up has taken for its demagoguery...

I am fascinated by the town hall meetings that are happening around the country and the ire, real or imagined, that is being heaped on members of Congress who are simply attempting to share information with their constituencies about ways our government hopes to help 50 million uninsured Americans get health insurance.(continued)

Palmer, Alaska (AP) -- The mother of the man former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's daughter Bristol had planned on marrying has reached a plea deal in her drug case. Sherry Johnston pleaded guilty Wednesday to one count of possession with intent to deliver the painkiller OxyContin. Five other felony counts were dropped. Johnston was placed in pink handcuffs and taken to a correctional facility where she'll be held until her Nov. 20 sentencing.

Incredibly, President George W. Bush told French President Jacques Chirac in early 2003 that Iraq must be invaded to thwart Gog and Magog, the Bible's satanic agents of the Apocalypse. Honest. This isn't a joke. The president of the United States, in a top-secret phone call to a major European ally, asked for French troops to join American soldiers in attacking Iraq as a mission from God. Now out of office, Chirac recounts that the American leader appealed to their "common faith" (Christianity) and told him: "Gog and Magog are at work in the Middle East. ... The biblical prophecies...

The woman went to an airplane hangar in Belgrade, Mont., the other day, prepared to actually listen to President Obama talk about health care reform in America. She has watched, the way the rest of us have watched, as the debate about health care has turned into a sideshow and in some cases even more of a freak show than Glenn Beck's. Now she wanted to see for herself, along with more than 1,000 others, if it would happen this way in Montana. This is what she said about the event when it was over: "Yes, there were a few...

Try this on for size: Palinism. What is it? It is an updated version of McCarthyism, which takes its name from the late Sen. Joseph McCarthy, the Wisconsin liar, demagogue and drunk, and means, according to Wikipedia, "reckless, unsubstantiated accusations, as well as demagogic attacks on the character or patriotism of political adversaries." As far as we know, Sarah Palin is not a drunk. But she certainly shares McCarthy's other attributes -- and this one as well: the ability to drive the debate. In McCarthy's day, it was anti-communism coupled with national security, and it hardly mattered that he frequently...

WASHINGTON, DC – Tom DeLay has announced he will be appearing on Dancing with the Stars. Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay has announced he will be competing on the 9th season of the popular dancing program. Many in Washington are in no way surprised. DeLay was House Majority Leader during George W Bush’s first term. He rose to national prominence for openly redistricting election zones to favor Republicans, and his role in the Terri Schiavo case. Lesser known is that during during his entire Washington career he remained an avid member of the amateur competitive dance circuit. While serving...

On her MSNBC show last night, the left-wing Air America host Rachel Maddow took a swipe at the conservative Shirley & Banister Public Affairs firm, specifically President & CEO Craig Shirley. Maddow accused Shirley of being behind a grassroots Web site funded by the group Grassfire.org, based on research provided by the "independent watchdog group Public Citizen," and she showed still images from an incendary "Obama=Hitler" video that's still posted on the Grassfire's ResistNet.com Web site. BUT MADDOW WAS WRONG. THE PUBLIC CITIZEN WEB PAGE SHE CITED IS SEVERAL YEARS OLD. Shirley & Bannister hasn't represented Grassfire.org since 2004, and...

Experts who track hate groups across the U.S. are growing increasingly concerned over violent rhetoric targeted at President Obama, especially as the debate over health care intensifies and a pattern of threats emerges.

WH Transcript - "MR. GIBBS: Well, obviously -- and I know you asked me in addition to or other than the town hall -- I would note we are doing those over the next couple of days in Montana and Colorado. We'll do some events not yet announced over the course of the next few days after that, and I do expect throughout both the congressional break as well as the time he gets to spend with his family, that there will also be some -- continue to be calls with different lawmakers about plans for what happens when we...

Accusations and responses from Liberal Kook to Rational Conservative:. You didn't get mad when the Supreme Court stopped a legal recount and appointed a President.[ Damn straight! - The US Supreme Court said, "No Cherry Picking Vote Recounts from Democrat Counties....It's UnConstitutional ] You didn't get mad when Cheney allowed Energy company officials to dictate energy policy.[ That's Right - Its like NOT having Politicians pretending to be Health Care Providers ] You didn't get mad when a covert CIA operative got outed.[ Plame was not "covert" -- she was a political HACK that needed to be outed.....her and her...

WASHINGTON – Former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin says the health care overhaul bill would set up a "death panel." Federal bureaucrats would play God, ruling on whether ailing seniors are worth enough to society to deserve life-sustaining medical care. Palin and other critics are wrong. Nothing in the legislation would carry out such a bleak vision. The provision that has caused the uproar would instead authorize Medicare to pay doctors for counseling patients about end-of-life care, if the patient wishes.

Meghan McCain told Michelle Malkin Tuesday that she would not "shut up" and that the Republican Party should be more inclusive of moderates like herself. The attack by McCain, the Republican daughter of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), against conservative Malkin is the latest battle in this year's public war of the Republican women pundits. The latest name-calling started on Friday when, according to McCain, "Malkin was asked which conservative political figure or commentator needs to shut up. Guess who her answer was? Yeah, that's right -- yours truly." McCain seemingly was first made aware of Malkin's comments by a follower...

The Daily Beast's Meghan McCain on why the far-right pundit, who says McCain needs to shut up, won’t be getting her wish—and why telling moderates to get out of the party is bad for the GOP. BY MEGHAN MCCAIN Michelle Malkin, the conservative pundit and author of the recent book Culture of Corruption: Obama and His Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks, and Cronies, was asked during a live chat on Politico’s The Arena on Friday which conservative political figure or commentator needs to shut up. Guess who her answer was? Yeah, that’s right—yours truly. So Michelle Malkin successfully rounds out...

We are closer to passing health care reform than we've ever been in the history of this country, and the opposition knows it. The small, lobbyist-funded right-wing is trying to scare Members of Congress and the American public away from supporting health care reform. We can't let fear win - America has been at the mercy of the insurance industry from too long. We need health care reform now, and we can't wait any longer. You can help fight back against these right-wing disrupters. Follow the steps below to attend events in your area and get trained on how to...

Back in April, when the debate over torture was roaring, Jon Stewart invited Cliff May, a national-security hawk and former spokesman for the Republican Party, to come on The Daily Show and defend waterboarding. May was hesitant. He thought Stewart would paint him as a crazy extremist. The audience would jeer. It would be a disaster. "I was apprehensive about going on, even though I've been on TV for a dozen years," says May. "A lot of my friends told me: 'Don't do it. You're meat going into the sausage factory.'" But May had a change of heart after soliciting...

If there's one thing about liberals, it's that they're predictably predictable. In their eyes, it is more than acceptable to mock Sarah Palin and her family, using descriptions that range from rude to crude. When President Bush was in office, he was the focus of daily ridicule from left-wing journalists and bloggers. However, no one better make fun of Barack Obama or the thought police will express "outrage" and brand you a racist. That's exactly what is happening now as a poster of Obama in "Joker" makeup is popping up on walls and city streets. My question to the lefties:...

Ah, democracy! It never works better than when informed citizens gather in town hall meetings to discuss and debate the issues of the day. But, oh, democracy! It's never more damaged than when partisan zealots plot to disrupt town hall meetings in order to prevent any honest debate of the issues. And that's exactly what's happening in health care forums held across the nation by members of Congress. We've seen it in Philadelphia; Austin, Texas; Georgetown, Del.; Salisbury, Md; and other communities. Taking a page right out of a Nazi playbook, organizers bus in professional protestors and arm them with...

Here is video of Geraldo Rivera this morning reacting to a Tampa Bay Town Hall Meeting that became chaotic, saying he believes the anti-ObamaCare protesters showing up at Health Care Town Hall Meetings are a product of a "racial divide in the parties," and that they are "creations" and are "organized." He also said he believes the protesters have "succeeded." Geraldo said he believes what they are doing is "fair game," just like what Obama has done in organizing large numbers of people for his ends. . . . . . (Watch Video)

Barack Obama had his 48th birthday this week. Since we learned during last year’s campaign that he can be blamed for anything bad that’s happened in this country since he was a toddler, perhaps this is a good time to suggest that it’s his fault the Beatles didn’t perform at Woodstock. The president celebrated by having lunch with the Democratic senators, proving once again that this is truly a guy who knows how to party. He also showed up at a press briefing to sing “Happy Birthday” to Helen Thomas, the legendary reporter and columnist who turned 89 on the...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi sent her chamber home for the summer recess with a list of talking points to respond to constituents' questions about pending health care legislation. But those traditionally sleepy town hall meetings have become rowdy shout-fests across the nation, including Northern California, with opponents hanging members in effigy and mocking them with Nazi and devil imagery in an effort to derail discussions of health care. They're organized in part by conservative think tanks like FreedomWorks, which offers tips on how to disrupt a meeting ("Watch for an opportunity to yell out and challenge the Rep's statements early,"...

"Enough of the MOB" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtTBkxvBq88 Washington -- The Democratic National Committee today released a new web ad "Enough of the Mob" highlighting the angry mobs of a small number of GOP and special interest backed rabid right wing extremists who are disrupting thoughtful discussions about the future of health care in America taking place in Congressional Districts across the country. "It's become clear that Republican leaders, having lost every major legislative battle on Capitol Hill, the confidence of the American people and two consecutive national elections, would rather incite angry, special interest funded mobs and disrupt and drown out legitimate...

The White House launched a coordinated effort Tuesday to combat what it calls a “viral whisper campaign” to torpedo health care reform. Its playbook: the same one Barack Obama’s campaign used in 2008 to shoot down rumors and questions about his citizenship, faith and patriotism. The new offensive started early Tuesday morning when the White House posted a video response to a hodgepodge of clips on the Drudge Report that portrayed President Obama as favoring the elimination of private insurance. On the White House blog, Obama’s director of new media, Macon Phillips, asked supporters to send in leads for debunking...

Liberals Paint Health-Reform Protesters As Dangerous Nuts Tuesday, August 04, 2009 By Susan Jones, Senior Editor (CNSNews.com) – Democrats have a warning for Republicans: Angry constituents who berate their congressional representatives at public forums are “dangerous” people. “These are the sort of excessive displays that breed a backlash,” wrote a Politico.com blogger on Monday. The national press secretary for the Democratic National Committee linked to the Politico item in a mass email on Tuesday, effectively endorsing the blogger’s message. “Yes, there is now much energy on the right,” Politico’s Jonathan Martin wrote on Monday afternoon, adding “there is danger in...

Keeping The Cable Guys Honest * Home * About MSNBC: Chris Matthews “Sees” Bush Scandal while Turning a Blind Eye to Clinton, Obama Transgressions 2009 August 3 Leave a comment tags: Chris Matthews, Karl Rove, News, Politics by johnperazzo Inspector General Gerald Walpin, whom President Obama fired without good cause Inspector General Gerald Walpin, whom President Obama fired without good cause On his most recent Hardball program, MSNBC’s Chris Matthews explored a long-forgotten controversy that evidently continues to haunt him – the role that Republican strategist Karl Rove may have played “in the firing of those federal prosecutors [by President...

An attorney for Sarah Palin has delivered a letter threatening legal action against an anti-Palin blogger who was the source of a divorce rumor that the attorney for the former Alaska governor called "categorically false." Publication of the letter at a Web site that repeated the rumor has uncovered circumstantial evidence that the anti-Palin blogger "Gryphen" is a kindergarten teacher at an Anchorage elementary school.... CNN stringer/anti-Palin blogger Dennis Zaki published ... a copy of a letter from Palin attorney Thomas Van Flein, ordering "Gryphen" to retract the allegations -- calling them "complete fabrications, false and defamatory" -- or face...

http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3179840 As some of you may have noticed, recently the Republican Party has begun cracking down on the "birthers", realizing that openly supporting the most crazy members of your party is, well, problematic for appealing to non-crazy people. This, of course, leads to even more crazy, as they turn on their leaders for hiding the "truth". It's a drat shame to let all this crazy go to waste, when properly cultivated and raised it could be so much more. So welcome to the first FreeRepublic Infiltration Contest! We're going to infiltrate freerepublic as agents provocateur. This can take several forms;...

It's symbolic, but Democrats have scored a victory [of sorts] over nine House Republicans who signed on to the so-called "Birther" bill -- getting them on the record in support of a resolution that explicitly states that President Obama was born in Hawaii. None of the nine -- Reps. Marsha Blackburn [R-Tenn.], Dan Burton [R-Ind.], John Campbell [R-Calif.] John Carter [R-Tex.], John Culberson [R-Tex.], Robert Goodlatte [R-Va.], Kenny Marchant [R-Tex.], Randy Neugebauer [R-Tex.] and Rep. Ted Poe [R-Tex.] -- objected to the unanimous approval of a resolution honoring the 50th anniversary of Hawaii's Statehood last night. The key clause, cleverly...

The long hunt for the new leader of the Republican Party has at last come to an end, and the winner isn't Rush Limbaugh, Mitt Romney, or even Sarah Palin, but this woman in a red T-shirt: (VIDEO AT LINK) If you're going to lead a low-tech lynch mob, you've got to be able to get that Gilbert Gottfried screech into your voice like the Lady in Red does when she says, "I want my country back!" That's leadership for you, ever so much more forceful than poor Delaware Rep. Mike Castle, a GOP moderate (one of eight who voted...

Here is video of CNN Anchor Tony Harris losing it over the call by Police Officers in Cambridge, Massachusetts for President Obama to apologize for his accusation that they "acted stupidly" in arresting a Harvard Professor. Harris listened to reporter Don Lemon who was at the press conference, and then just lost it, saying "This is incendiary," referring to the call by the police for an Obama apology. He then put reporter Don Lemon on the spot to share a personal experience of profiling, which Lemon did not seem to want to do.. . . . . . (Watch Video)

Organizing for America is a semi-underground DNC organizations designed to keep the Great Unwashed clamoring for more government handouts, and therefore, ensure more "love" for Obama. They are trying to organize phony demonstrations tomorrow to show how people supposedly really want Obamacare. This is the E-mail they sent out to Florida supporters today. Notice how the indoctrination phase, "victims" and speeches are already arranged planned and programmed. Can we all say ACORN! EMAIL: Friend -- Organizing for America volunteers have done amazing work over the last couple weeks -- and the pressure is working. Draft proposals are moving through Congress,...

Conspiracy over where Obama was born rages on; new legislation wants presidential hopefuls to provide proof of citizenship. When President Obama gives a press conference pushing his health-care plan tonight, the controversy over where he was born likely will be the furthest thing from his mind. The president will give a live press conference at 8 PM ET tonight, expected to be aired by all major networks, during which he will try to ease concerns of reluctant lawmakers and Americans over the plan to overhaul the nation’s health-care system. Obama wants "action" from Congress on the various bills being debated...

<p>Investigator: Palin May Have Violated Ethics Laws An independent investigator has found evidence that Gov. Sarah Palin may have violated ethics laws by accepting private donations to pay her legal debts.</p> <p>"All options are open in terms of legal remedies. It is a clear violation of Alaska law that Mr. Daniel explicitly reviewed with Ms. Chatman prior to her illegal actions. We will be contacting the appropriate authorities for review and action."</p>

Anchorage NBC affiliate KTUU is trying to get one last ratings boost out of Governor Palin, running a "retrospective" series this week. The first entry was yesterday...of course it consists of pretty much nothing but criticism, but there are some interesting tidbits in there about the NBC policy toward Palin: "She knew when she came back that she came back to a different environment," Stapleton said. "I think it was -- and I hate to say it -- but I think the Thanksgiving pictures coming out of Channel 2 with a turkey getting slaughtered over her shoulder was her first...

When I began examining the political affiliation of faculty at the University of Oregon, the lone conservative professor I spoke with cautioned that I would "make a lot of people unhappy." Though I mostly brushed off his warning – assuming that academia would be interested in such discourse – I was careful to frame my research for a column for the school newspaper diplomatically. The University of Oregon (UO), where I study journalism, invested millions annually in a diversity program that explicitly included "political affiliation" as a component. Yet, out of the 111 registered Oregon voters in the departments of...

Now it’s official, as far as the labor-backed Economic Policy Institute is concerned: The present crash is the worst U.S. economic slump since the Great Depression. And that’s even before the June jobless numbers came out. “This recession has become the longest and deepest economic downturn since the Great Depression,” EPI director Larry Mishel and co-author Heidi Shierholz wrote, noting that as of May, it was in its 16th month. June makes it 17. “In order to see how this recession stacks up against previous post-war recessions, we compare labor market indicators at the start of recessions to their values...

MSNBC anchor and Keith Olbermann wannabe David Shuster is so beside himself with glee over Gov. Sarah Palin's resignation that he's eager to let the whole world -- or at least some 18,000+ followers on Twitter -- know about it 140 characters at a time. In the process Shuster spewed ad hominem attacks on Palin backers on Twitter and endorsed as a knee-slapper a July 3 slam of Palin penned by veteran Democratic hack Paul Begala. Earlier Sunday evening the regular substitute host for "Countdown with Keith Olbermann" snickered over Palin's choice of legal counsel and his "intellectual vapidity." Those...

In early May, National Public Radio, a supposed bastion of liberal media bias, found itself in the cross hairs of the lesbian and gay community over an online review of "Outrage," a documentary chronicling the hypocrisy of prominent, purportedly closeted politicians with staunchly anti-gay voting records. What sparked the controversy was not the documentary itself, but the fact that NPR's review failed to name names. In fact, while Nathan Lee, the review's initial author, had included the identities of those fingered in the film, NPR editors took it upon themselves to censor the review prior to publication. Would a review...

And they says bloggers are news-lite. The latest issue of Details magazine carries this ludicrous headline on the top of the cover: "Can Obama Make You Better In Bed?" Inside is an article suggesting that "from the way we wear our suits to the way we relate to our wives, somehow American men are acting a little more like 44." This is, as you might suspect, the work of a magazine just making wild generalizations about American manhood with bold assertion and zero research. Men may have favored McCain last November, "But it might not matter all that much, because...

South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford has been unusually candid about his affair with a 41-year-old former reporter in Argentina. In stark contrast to the taciturn Eliot Spitzer – who made no mention at all of his escapades as "Client 9" except opening his resignation speech with a reference to his "private failings" – Sanford held forth at length with reporters last week, describing how the affair came about and at one point prefacing an answer with, "To give you way more detail than you'll ever want…" Then there were the e-mails. Perhaps Sanford shouldn't be judged on those, given that...

‘Meet John Doe’ and the Old Fakearoo Posted By Michael McGruther On June 30, 2009 @ 11:10 am In Classic Hollywood | No Comments Dear Reader, Do you have a little time to sit back and examine a classic movie that will absolutely shock you when seen through the prism of now? This is not my typical short article or essay. This is my own argument that what occurs in the 1941 picture “Meet John Doe” is exactly what has come to pass in America today with the Democratic Congress and their Presidential puppet. All the players and plays...

Yes, the rumors are true. After decades of cowering in the deep-blue (as in Blue State) shadows, Hollywood conservatives are beginning to openly express their political beliefs despite the price they’ve paid—both socially and professionally—for doing so in the past. Some are calling this newfound courage the Breitbart Effect, named for the affable New Media titan who exposed the amoral Superfund toxic waste site of Tinsel Town by subjecting it to the standards of traditional, conservative (read: normal) American values. Through his pioneering work on news aggregation Web sites such as the Drudge Report and the Huffington Post, Breitbart led...

ABC's White House special struggled for viewers President Obama's town hall meeting on health care delivered a sickly rating Wednesday evening. The one-hour ABC News special "Primetime: Questions for the President: Prescription for America" (4.7 million viewers, 1.1 preliminary adults 18-49 rating) had the fewest viewers in the 10 p.m. hour. The special tied some 8 p.m. comedy repeats as the lowest-rated program on a major broadcast network. The special was shot at the White House and featured the president answering questions about his health care plan. The president's primary message was that those who like their current insurance will...

In the wake of the revelations about South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford, considered a potential 2012 GOP presidential contender, Washington Post editorial writer Jonathan Capehart declared on MSNBC: “Maybe what the Republican Party is going to have to do is skip a generation and wait for the Meghan McCains to come of age so that they can run for office and take over the mantle of the party.” Capehart proceeded to pass along “a little joke” from Post colleague Charles Lane who “said at the rate Republicans are going, the only marriages that will be worth anything are the gay...

I heard ABC News report on the radio at 2:00 PM today that made me sick. They had "sources" that stated that the "Neda" video of her being shot and dying on the street "was definitely not from an Iranian security force" and "appeared to be staged to get international attention". I guess I can't be too surprised. The liberals at ABC News are running propoganda broadcasts for Obama, so why not for the Iranian dictators? Besides, that fight for freedom in Iran is none of our business. ABC and the rest of the American left need to squelch it...

Good Morning America's Diane Sawyer popped up on Sunday's Reliable Sources and swore that ABC's much-scrutinized health care special with President Obama "won't be an infomercial." She also seriously touted the objectivity of the network, cheering, "I know that our network has worked very, very hard to be completely-completely responsible and fair and serious about big issues."