Ted Stevens, Future Convited Felon, Endorses Palin

Who's surprised that this ad has been scrubbed off Palin's Website? Not this monkey.
A wee background on Ted Stevens here.

A Prayer for John McCain

*sigh* Sarah Palin. Are you kidding? Really? The more I learn about her the more I question whether I should shake McCain or thank him. One way or another, I was seriously prepared to call in to Stephanie this morning with a prayer for the Republicans:

Please, Lord, O Gracious higher power of which I wont naught,
Let your humble servant John McCain choose as his standard bearer
the Righteous Warrior (and soul-so-far-above-mundane-matters-of-Earth-that
he-cares-more-for-your-children-of-Zion-than-constituents-in-Connecticut)*
Joseph Lieberman, elected Democratically, re-elected Independently, slices Republicanly.

O Gracious Lord, from whom all blessings come, give us this day our Sealed Fate
Ticket, for such as thus surely will give unto Obama the Keys to the Kingdom.
For Thy children's sake I ask of Thee, O King of the Universe,
Amen.

I was ready to go! But fate stepped in, and I never got through. Then, by nine a.m. Pacific time, I'd learned that Sarah Palin, Governor of Alaska, had been selected. At first, I giggled, but then, as I learned more about her, I realized that the universe works in powerful powerful ways. Then I guffawed, and bowed down to a Wise Deity. John McCain has exposed himself (ew) as the Penultimate Hypocrite of All Time.

He has chosen another beauty queen; good thing Cindy's rich or I'd be worried if I were her. But seriously, this is such a PLOY! Consider the video below. It's only a minute nine seconds long, you can do it. It's not that a woman refers to Hillary as a bitch, it's that he merely "translated" as opposed to CASTIGATED the pinch-faced human who asked. It's not that he didn't defend the Senator as a colleague and figure of state, it's that after looking nervous as hell, he actually answered the question!!!

John McCain hates women, and I pray for him.

Oh, and just in case you need more convincing, note in this video that not only should he have deplored the language, but denied the statement!

Q: This question goes to mental health and mental health care. Previously, I've been married to a woman that was verbally abusive to me. Is it true that you called your wife a (expletive)?

McCain: Now, now. You don't want to... Um, you know that's the great thing about town hall meetings, sir, but we really don't, there's people here who don't respect that kind of language. So I'll move on to the next questioner in the back.

Schecter himself writes about the exchange at FireDogLake.

UPDATE: It turns out the man who asked the question is a Baptist minister worried about McCain's temper:

from huffpoo

*and I'm a Jew, folks

Obama's Speech

I knew I'd hooked my seniors when, the day after they watched Joe Biden's speech, and I asked them if they wanted to watch Barack Obama's, they said yes.


What was even more awesome was McCain's VP pick, who's even younger than Barack, and actually under investigation!

THE GOP IS SO MORALLY BANKRUPTED THAT THEY CAN'T PICK A VEEP WITHOUT A SMEAR! HAHAHAHA!

Oh yeah, and she's down with Obama's energy plan, too


Not only that, but here's a good look at McCain's choice:

Sorry, but the headline at the DailyKos says it all:

Worse Than Quayle

by Trapper John

Fri Aug 29, 2008 at 08:36:03 AM PDT

So it's official - John McCain has thrown a Hail Mary and tapped Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate. The trad med types are ga-ga about what a game-changing choice Palin is. And they're right. It is a game-changer. The Palin pick takes a race already leaning toward Obama and pushes it further into his corner.

Why? Because Sarah Palin is the most unqualified VP nominee in modern history, with the possible exception of Admiral Stockdale.

She's worse than Quayle.

After his selection in 1988, Dan Quayle was rightly lambasted as a dim, inexperienced lightweight with no real pertinent experience who was named by George H. W. Bush as a gimmick - a case of an old, out-of touch candidate trying to appear relevant by teaming up with a much younger pol. Now, Palin's not Quayle - by all accounts, she's quite bright. But she's fantastically inexperienced, far more so than Quayle was when he was tapped. And she possesses an attribute far worse than Quayle's stupidity - she's a big corrupt wheel in Alaska's big corrupt Republican Party, arguably the most corrupt political apparatus in the United States.

We're told that McCain really wanted to pick his old friend Joe Lieberman to run with him, but that Karl Rove and the rest of the elite Republican politburo nixed the idea, and told McCain that he had to take a conservative. And as he has at every step of his campaign, the one-time "maverick" sold out to the venal, icy core of the Republican leadership, and acquiesced by selecting Palin. Palin is really a Republican after Rove's heart - she's a product of the party that produced the indicted Ted Stevens and ethically tarred Don Young, and she's embroiled in a Troopergate scandal of her own, with state investigators looking at serious allegations that Palin abused her office by pressuring the state Public Safety Commissioner to fire "an Alaska state trooper involved in a rough divorce from Palin's sister." Sounds like a woman after Karl Rove's heart.

In addition to further associating McCain with the Republican culture of corruption, the Palin pick undermines one of his main anti-Obama narratives. It's going to be laughable to hear McCain assail Obama's supposed lack of experience after naming the first-term governor -- only one-and-a-half years into her term -- of the 47th largest state to be his running mate. Palin lacks any foreign policy experience, and is bereft of even the two core areas of policy expertise that governors are supposed to bring to a ticket -- ag policy (Alaska doesn't have much in the way of traditional agriculture) and urban affairs (Anchorage is the 65th largest city in the US, behind giants such as Corpus Christi). She's easily the least experienced running mate in recent memory, which is pretty scary, given McCain's age and his history of cancer.

By picking Palin, McCain revealed his desperation to make a splash to rival the genuine excitement generated by the Obama campaign. But desperation leads to poor decisions -- and McCain's Hail Mary, like most last second desperation moves, is destined to fail miserably. He's smeared himself with the pungent mud of Alaska Republican corruption, while cutting the legs out from one of his most reliable attacks against Obama. And he's presented Americans with the prospect of electing a dangerous neophyte to be a heartbeat away from the presidency, behind a man whose life expectancy is less than two presidential terms.

We all expected McCain to pick someone underwhelming to run with him. But we never could have expected a pick worse than Quayle. Yet that's what we got. Thanks, John!

(And for those who are certain to point out that Bush-Quayle won in '88 -- do you really think that Barack Obama is remotely close to Michael Dukakis in political skill? No? Didn't think so.)

MSNBC going too far? C'est Possible...

So, I've been tuning out ole Eyebrows during the Dem Convention coverage, since all I really want is to hear the speeches. Then I click on the media tab at huffpoo to see that I'm not the only one feeling that perhaps KO is getting too acerbic in his partisan chatter-when even hopeful wife-to-be Stephanie Miller starts fielding calls about finishing the convention on CSPAN- and it sounds like a good idea to me- then the MSNBC boys better shake it off, zip it up, and stop pissing in a circle facing in. When that happens, all we can see is ass.


Chris Matthews and Joe Scarborough-especially joe Scarborough- are two more who could tone it the hell down.

I'm actually going to watch tonight on CSPAN so that the talking heads don't get in the way of America. Please review my earlier clip of Jon Stewart for emphasis.

Posi-emo Creamsicle

Love love love the pantsuit, loved the speech just as much.

Now, we need to put the Clinton drama to rest and be done with them until it's time to fill Cabinet positions; now we need to go after the Republicans with as much fervor and more fair play than they've got.


C'mon, Joe!

A Response to the Feminists of Yore

An Excerpt from
Second-Place Citizens
by SUSAN FALUDI
Published: August 25, 2008

"In one poll, 40 percent of Mrs. Clinton’s constituency expressed dissatisfaction; in another, more than a quarter favored the clear insanity of voicing their feminist protest by voting for John McCain. “This is not the usual reaction to an election loss,” said Diane Mantouvalos, the founder of JustSayNoDeal.com, a clearinghouse for the pro-Clinton organizations. “I know that is the way it is being spun, but it’s not prototypical. Anyone who doesn’t take time to analyze it will do so at their own peril.”

The reason this would be insanity is that John McCain is an enemy of women's reproductive and health issues. Faludi's article explains the Cintonistas' mindset beautifully, but the whole article does come off as whining. Laurel (who hadn't read the article at the time, and just went on my summary of 'Susan Faludi's whining in the op-eds about Hillary's loss," suggested that they hit something and move on, already.

All of the issues outlined in Faludi's article are unbelievably valid. Women's issues will suffer a setback as a result of Hillary's defeat, just as the did in the 20's as outlined in Faludi's meticulously researched article. Am I worried about this? not so much. After being oppressed for the last 6000 years as chattel, it would be disengenuous to pout that total equality had not been reached in under a century. We've made exponential strides, but setbacks are part of the process. We keep on keeping on, and our daughters' daughters' daughters will have no frame of reference for our struggles.

Do I find it that much of a struggle? Nah. There are, today, more women in college than men, and the shift will come, generationally. Me? have two college degrees and make the larger dollar amount in my house. Always have. In my house, there's no question of parity.

So why do I prefer Obama over Hillary? Simple. When she voted to support the Iraq war in 2002, she did it to prove that she had the biggest balls in the room. Hr gender means nothing to me. I respect her as an equal of a man by holding her to the same level of accountability that a man would face. Can't have it both ways, Senator! That is why I didn't support her.

Barack Obama earned my vote after Dennis Kucinish dropped out, and I was looking for the next Dem to support. After careful consideration, Obama fit the bill for me (funny note, the quiz I took suggested Hillary as the politician most likely to fit my tastes, but then there's that vote! I guess Rachel Maddow would call that "post-rational").

The little metal tag means it's kosher...

I just caught this moment from John Stewart- reminder: Watch the Daily Show. DO yo know that if you soak chicken breasts in salt water, they cook up extra juicy! it's true.

Sam Cooke would SO approve

Democratic National Convention: Anxious Energy Over Showing A Strong Obama

Why Hillary PUMAs need to Suck It Up.

So Hillary wasn't vetted for the job of Vice President. Boo-hoo. To me, she was never a legitimate contender for the spot, and I would have written in a vote had she won the nomination. She will never have my support until she does the one thing Joe Biden has already done: admit that his vote to authorize the Iraq was in 2002 was a mistake.

If she runs in 2012, I will not support her, even though I think she's a great Senator for the state of New York, and for America. If Barack gets two terms and she runs in 2016 I will not support her then either, unless she has learned the value of admitting mistakes. We've had eight years of an administration that has yet to admit that mistakes even exist, much less that they make them ("heckuva job, Brownie!") and I will not allow myself to support another righter-than-thou hack.

As for you bitter old women who feel that Hill was "robbed" out of her rightful place in history and are now going to vote for McCain, well, here's a little eyeful from ontheissues.org:

Voted NO on $100M to reduce teen pregnancy by education & contraceptives.

Vote to adopt an amendment to the Senate's 2006 Fiscal Year Budget that allocates $100 million for the prevention of unintended pregnancies. A YES vote would expand access to preventive health care services that reduce unintended pregnancy (including teen pregnancy), reduce the number of abortions, and improve access to women's health care. A YES vote would:

• Increase funding and access to family planning services
• Funds legislation that requires equitable prescription coverage for contraceptives under health plans
• Funds legislation that would create and expand teen pregnancy prevention programs and education programs concerning emergency contraceptives

Reference: Appropriation to expand access to preventive health care services; Bill S.Amdt. 244 to S Con Res 18 ; vote number 2005-75 on Mar 17, 2005


Yeah, McCain's a great choice for those who are disappointed by Hillary's loss. Asses.

Things to Do in Denver...

So the convention opens today with poop and circumstance, which is nice, and the Dems will get all the base on one page as much as they can, which is also nice, so in a little bit we'll play with some links & headlines which will also be nice, but right now I have to get ready for work (also very nice!)

Watching Morning Joe while cannibalizing the host.

Introducing Mr. Pitt

The Musical World: a random reference to Mr Pitt, whom I did not realize was mentioned in this British publication from 1877. Huzzah Google Books for the referencia obscura!

Starting with the Fall Campaign

Psh, I spent the first few hours of the fall campaign wondering where my text was, just like anybody else. I would love to know what the backstory on the Obama's leak -of-VP-pick is; it was kind of ham-handed and sloppy. Then, Joe woke up, had coffee and let slip from leash the dogs of war. This is what Democrats have been waiting for- it's stupid to see people refusing to play playground-dirty just because they have high ideals. That's as one-dimensional as only playing the schoolyard bully. If Democrats take shit from Republicans, you can't expect the ignorant to understand that global diplomacy isn't a schoolyard: it's politics. People's lives are at stake, and the rest of the planet doesn't respect us anymore because our President (hereinafter to be referred to as HAMSTER-BRAIN) went swaggering around like he had the balls to back it up. He could talk, but when it came down to it, the sack was kind of empty.

Wow, there was a stream of consciousness introduction. I'm Lavender Pitt, and I'm number 42 on the Copper Queens for Tucson Roller Derby. I call in to the Stephanie Miller Show under my "skate name," and have realized that someday (hard to believe but it's true) my Derby career may end, but Lavender will continue as a useful persona that I've come to enjoy. It's started to spread through my life beyond roller derby, and we'll see where it takes us from here.

Today? Gonna set up the links and whore this address out a bit. If you want to see the proto-Lavender blog, knock your socks off.