I think that Tina Fey's parody of Sarah Palin will go down in history as what is most memorable about the woman herself. A crafty hockey mom and two term Mayor of Wasilla, Alaska and just shy of a full term as the remote state's Governor.
Perhaps Palin's own failure as a Governor will overshadow her shared failure with Sen. John McCain - (R-AZ) and the crushing defeat of thier 2008 "Country First" campaign. Infact, many have said that still referring to it as a campaign in itself, is an act of kindness.
Tina Fey received an Emmy Award yesterday for her Saturday Night Live portrayals of former Alaska governor Sarah Palin. Accepting her sixth Emmy, Fey thanked her parents, "who are lifelong Republicans, for their patience."
"Mrs. Palin is an inspiration to working mothers everywhere because she bailed on her job right before Fourth of July weekend," Fey added. "You are living my dream. Thank you, Mrs. Palin."
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And I say BRAVO! to Tina Fey for thanking Palin for her contribution to such high recognition. Perhaps Tina Fey's Emmy Award can become Sarah Palin biggest contribution to popular culture in America. What Laugh-In is to President Nixon's "Sock It To Me!" - Saturday Night Live will be to Sarah Palin's "And also too?
Congratulation to Tina and Sarah. - You both make me laugh hysterically, and it's so healthy to laugh.
Chico Brisbane
Sarah Palin's Contribution To Pop-Culture In America
Palin Popularity Tanks
A new CNN Poll shows that Palin's favorability rating has fallen seven percentage points since May, from 46 percent to 39 percent. Anything under the 50 percent mark is considered problematic, especially when the politician is a known quantity (only five percent of the public said they had never heard of the former governor). Fully 48 percent of those polled said they had an unfavorable impression of Palin.
The same poll found that the man who tapped Palin to be a vice presidential candidate, Sen. John McCain, (R-AZ..) had also seen his favorability rating drop by seven percentage points. But the Arizona Republican still is viewed positively by 51 percent of the public.
CNN's findings are, of course, just a snapshot of public perception at a given time. But they do come as Palin has begun to make her first political steps in her post-gubernatorial career. Last week, the Alaska Republican posted a Facebook message declaring that President Obama wanted to set up "death panels" to determine which sick and elderly patients would be euthanized.
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Sarah Palin going after Levi Johnston Over Interview
Asked if Levi Johnston's accusation bore any truth, Palin spokeswoman Meghan Stapleton said in an e-mail Absolutely not. She is taking a leap of faith that all will be well personally. This is about what is best for Alaska and not what is best for her personally."
According to Johnston, he overheard Palin say that "She had talked about how nice it would be to take some of this money people had been offering us and you know just run with it, say 'forget everything else,'" Johnston said of the one-time GOP vice presidential nominee.
Johnston, who spent time living with the Palin family this past winter before splitting with Bristol, is reportedly seeking to do the very thing he accuses Palin of doing. The high school drop-out, who became famous on the stage of last summer's Republican National Convention, is said to be peddling a book and movie deal.
"It is interesting to learn Levi is working on a piece of fiction while honing his acting skills," Stapleton added in her e-mail.
A spokeswoman for Gov. Sarah Palin is scoffing at comments by Bristol Palin's former fiance, who says he thinks Palin resigned to cash in on her fame.
"It is interesting to learn Levi is working on a piece of fiction while honing his acting skills," Palin family spokeswoman Meghan Stapleton said in an e-mail to The Associated Press.
Levi Johnston, 19, whose wedding to Bristol Palin was called off earlier this year, said Thursday he lived with the Palin family from early December to the second week in January. He claimed he heard the governor several times say how nice it would be to take advantage of the lucrative deals that were being offered, including a reality show and a book.
"She had talked about how nice it would be to take some of this money people had been offering us and you know just run with it, say 'forget everything else,'" he said.
He said he thinks book deals were really what appealed to Palin.
"I think the big deal was the book. That was millions of dollars," said Johnston, who has had a strained relationship with the family but now says things have improved.
Compensation details of Palin's book projects haven't been disclosed. The former GOP vice presidential candidate has said she is facing more than $500,000 in legal fees.
Johnston made his comments at a news conference Thursday at the office of his attorney, Rex Butler.
Johnston came forward, Butler said, because Alaskans want to know why Palin has decided to resign, effective the end of the month.
Johnston is pursuing his own book deal and movie deal while working as a carpenter.
Asked if he would vote for her if she ran for president, Johnston said: "I think she's a great lady, but after seeing what she did now, you know, leaving Alaska, I would have to say, 'no.' Obviously she's stressed out as governor. I mean moving up to the vice president or president is huge. I just don't think anymore that she's cut out for the job."
John McCain's Contempt For Obama Still Growing
John McCain's contempt for Barack Obama is alive and well and has been steadily growing since the beginning of the 2008 race for the White House. It's becoming even more obvious now that McCain carries it with the added weight of defeat on his shoulders and the bitter taste of jealousy in his mouth.
One would think that a man with the skill and ability to manuver a military aircraft through the wild blue yonder, would be intelligent enough to realize that if his contemp for a man didn't serve him well when that man was a junior Senator, it most certainly will not serve him well now that that man is the President of The United States.
McCain continues to make the same mistakes that he did during the campaign by not picking his battles and repeatedly bringing a knife to a gunfight whenever he has a bone to pick with President Obama. In spite of multiple failed bids for the presidency, the military vet has the strategic foresight of a 12-year old boy playing battleship.
McCain has such a stunningly inflated sence of himself as the only true, honorable person that he uses contempt of his opponent as a normal tactic. This is his MO and being that he is somewhere closer to the end of this journey called life, there's little time for tender notions, fond reflections, or teaching an old dog new tricks.
The presidency has long been an ambition by McCains own admission, and when news came that the race would be between he and Obama and not Hillery, for a breif moment McCain surely had to believe that victory was all but certain. But then he opened his mouth. Soon after that, he tapped Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate and then she opened her mouth.
What wakes me up in a cold sweat in the wee hours of the morning is my unshakable belief that had Sen. McCain tapped Gov. Huckabee as his VP choice, John McCain would be President of the United States right now as sure as I am sitting here typing these letters onto my computer screen. Just thinking about it scares the bajesus out of me. Instead, McCain will finish out his term as the Senator from Arizona and taking swipes at President Obama even if he has to create the scenarios to criticize him.
In the video clip below, McCain hems Obama up for not speaking out against the situation in Iran as forcefully as other leaders such as French President Nikolas Sarkozy, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
With Iran In Civil Unrest: What If McCain-Palin Had Won?
Nevertheless, it all seems so hypocritical of Senator McCain to be defending the Iranian people when just a matter of months ago, he had a major hard-on to Bomb, Bomb, Bomb -- Bomb, Bomb Iran! - Cheese & Rice! - It's a good thing that he and that nutty broad didn't win the election. The streets of Tehran would be littered with Neda's from one end to the other.
Inside Iran, the results were precisely the opposite of what conservatives claimed to want. The more categorically they condemned the Iranian regime, characterized President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as the "new Hitler" (the Persian George Wallace is more like it), called "Supreme Leader" Ayatollah Ali Khamenei a megalomaniacal empire builder (Iran hasn't attacked anybody in 300 years), and depicted Iranians generally as an undifferentiated mob of Islamist fanatics, the stronger, and more paranoid, the regime grew.
Notice, though, that one thing we're not hearing is Iranian, or Iranian-American, voices urging the United States to get involved. Quite the opposite. The dramatic events taking place in Iran are a homegrown manifestation of the tensions and divisions within Persian society, and of its uniquely complex and opaque political system. They won't be resolved overnight.
On a recent CSPAN appearance, he said that the British Prime Minister, The Chancellor of Germany, and the President of France have been far more outspoken about Iran while President Obama has remained "basically silent." - This sort of rhetoric is the same political theatre that was indicitive of his presidential campaign. There's nothing wrong with political theatre if you have the ability to pull it off. Senator McCain does not! - He attempted to assert that the British Prime Minister, The President of France, and the German Chancellor has all been far more outspoken on the topic of Iran than Obama.
"The eyes of the world are upon Iran at the moment. We want Iran to be part of the international community and not to be isolated but it is for Iran to prove, not just to Britain but to the whole of the world and to their own people, that they can respect these basic rights." - GORDON BROWN British Prime Minister
"How is it that a people such as the Iranian people - one of the world's oldest civilisations, sophisticated, cultured, open - have the misfortune of being represented as they are today by some of their leaders? - NIKOLAS SARKOZY President of France
"We stand beside you all in Iran who seek to demonstrate peacefully."
- ANGELA MERKEL German Chancellor
Now here is what Barack Obama has said on three seperate ocassions. This is what John McCain equates with basic silence.
First Comment 06/15/09 - "I am deeply troubled by the violence that I've been seeing on television. I think that the democratic process, free speech, the ability for folks to peacefully dissent, all those are universal values and need to be respected."
Second Comment 06/19/09 - "I have made it clear that the United States respects the sovereignty of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and is not at all interfering in Iran's affairs. But we must also bear witness to the courage and dignity of the Iranian people, and to a remarkable opening within Iranian society. And we deplore violence against innocent civilians anywhere that it takes place."
Recent Comment 06/23/09 - "The United States and the international community have been appalled and outraged by the threats, beatings, and imprisonments of the last few days. I strongly condemn these unjust actions, and I join with the American people in mourning each and every innocent life that is lost."
Now other then President Obama calling Ahmadinejad's mother a cock-sucking whore, I'm not sure what he could have said that would have satisfied John McCain or many of his comrades on the right. Now I'm not about to paint the right as a whole into this equasion because there have been many on the right who think that Obama has chosen his words very well. It's really quite sad that John McCain continues to live in this "well if I were President" world that he has carved out for himself.
Democracy in Iraq? - Really?
John McCain Keeps Forgetting He Didn't Win The Election
For those that refuse to believe that Barack Obama's stunning victory over John McCain on November 3rd was the result of an overwhelming desire for change away from the divisiveness of the previous 8 years, then consider it devine intervention. Consider it whatever the fuck you want to consider it, but for the love of Christ! - Stop thinking that war is the answer to everything! -
Hopefully the war in Iraq will be the final example that The United States of America should be a defender of freedom and democracy, not the provider of it, nor should we ever spill one drop of American blood emposing it or fighting for it on the behalf of any nation that has yet to earn it for themselves.
Chico Brisbane
Sarah Palin: Still Defending Her Diarrhea Of The Mouth
By Chico Brisbane
chicobrisbane.blogspot.com
For former President George W. Bush, the war in Iraq was a crusade. Gov. Sarah Palin called it “a task from God. However, in an interview with ABC News last week, the one-time vice presidential candidate tried to explain away her verbage when referring to the bloody war in Iraq as a task from God. In the process, Palin contradicted herself on previous statements that human activity did not cause global warming.
She also defended asking for federal earmarks for Alaska after painting herself as a one-woman crusade against such wasteful spending, and not just as the Executive, but also too, when she was the Mayor of Wasilla. However, after the campaign we learned that she actually lobbied for them then as well. The self-proclaimed caribou hunting, lipstick wearing, snow machine riding, hockey mom seemed as unprepared and poorly spoken as she did during last years campaign.
I’m not counting Palin out just quite yet, but if there has ever been a political figure besides Joe Biden that you can count on to say the wrong thing at the worst time, it’s Sarah Palin. The difference is that the things that Biden says are silly and not well thought-out. Palin’s verbal diarrhea is calculated and routed in her extremist views. A case in point would be here desire to see abortion outlawed including in cases of rape and incest. However, you have to admit that Joseph R. Biden Jr. was dead-balls accurate when he said that Sarah Palin was a “backwards step” for woman. I think that was the point when even the most disenfranchised former Hillary supporter said WTF?
Make no mistake; Sarah Palin was a more formidable opponent than John McCain could have been in two of his lifetimes, yet his greatest misfortune in life besides being a prisoner of war, was picking Sarah Palin as “his” vice presidential running mate. No candidate will ever be successful with this woman at the bottom of the ticket. Palin will rise and fall all on her own as she's done her entire life and it surprises me, knowing what we now know about her, the she would have accepted the co-pilots chair to begin with. That's not how it is in her married life, so it stands to reason that the same would apply in her political life.
DADT: Don't Ask Don't Tell Still In Debate
“At a time when our military’s readiness is strained to the breaking point from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the armed forces continue to discharge vital service members under the outdated, outmoded ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy,” said Moran. … “[H]ow many more good soldiers are we willing to lose due to a bad policy that makes us less safe and secure? I’m going to keep releasing this information each month until DADT is repealed.”
For quite some time, U.S. troops have supported repealing the military’s “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” (DADT) policy. A December 2006 poll of servicemembers who had served in Iraq or Afghanistan found 73 percent of those polled were “comfortable with lesbians and gays.” A 2004 poll found that a majority of junior enlisted servicemembers believed gays and lesbians should be allowed to serve openly in the military, up from 16 percent in 1992.
The military’s leadership is finally catching up to its troops. On Sunday, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen told graduating cadets at the U.S. Military Academy that the military was ready to accept gay servicemembers if Congress repeals DADT:
With a national election looming, a cadet asked about the “don’t ask, don’t tell” law and what would happen if someone took office who wants to change it. “It’s a law, and we follow it,” Mullen said. Should the law change, the military will carry that out too, he said.
“We are a military that is under the control of our civilian elected leaders,” he said. “It has served us well since we’ve been founded. That is a special characteristic of our country and I would never do anything to jeopardize that.”
Mullen’s statement is a refreshing change from the military leadership’s traditional approach under the Bush administration. In March 2007, then-Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Peter Pace publicly stated that homosexuality is “immoral.” He said that he supported DADT because “we should not condone immoral acts.” At the time, Defense Secretary Robert Gates refused to condemn Pace’s remarks, calling the general “one of the finest people I’ve ever worked with.”
Even public discussion of DADT has been considered taboo. Last year, Pentagon official David Chu claimed that a “national debate” on allowing gays into the military would bring “divisiveness and turbulence across our country” and “compound the burden of the war.”
Unfortunately, the reversal of DADT likely won’t happen under a McCain presidency. In the past, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) has said repealing the ban would “elevate the interests of a minority of homosexual servicemembers above those of their units” and put the “national security of the United States” at “grave risk.”
John King Pitches Softballs To McCain On The Stimulus
John McCain tries his level best to look concerned for the plight of the average American while he bemoans that gosh, golly gee, the stimulus bill just wasn't bipartisan. That is why, of course, despite his home state of Arizona nearly topping the lists of foreclosures for the country, McCain couldn't bring himself to support the stimulus bill. But what makes his plaintive wailings all that much more amusing is that McCain actually whines about the....wait for it...tax cuts, that he admits have not worked in the past. You know, those tax cuts added to gain bipartisan support?
They weren't bipartisan, according to Grumpy McSame.
But the point is, this bill was not bipartisan. It was -- it is incredibly expensive. It has hundreds of billions of dollars in projects which will not yield in jobs. Now, if you think we need to improve education, spend money for it, fine. But this was supposed to be a package that was going to create jobs. A lot of this package will not create jobs. A lot of the tax cuts we've tried before of just giving people some money, it hasn't changed the way that savings have been conducted by Americans. So I'm not happy--and most of us aren’t-- at the lack of true bipartisanship in approaching this legislation.
Are you kidding me? The utter hypocrisy is mind-blowing...and yet, McCain has the audacity to sit there with a look of deep regret and sincerity on his face as he spews complete tripe. But host John King is not about to let McCain feel alone in his regret, so he launches what has to be the biggest softball concern troll framing I've heard this morning:
KING: Let's go to the process a little bit more. It’s a thousand pages. It’s eight pounds. We had it fedexed out to us. We’re contributing to the economy just having it shipped out here. Some of the changes were literally hand-scribbled on the side of the page. This happens all the time, unfortunately…
McCAIN: It’s the old business as usual…
KING: Well, if it’s the old business as usual, didn’t President Obama promise a new way of doing things in Washington? You say it was a terrible start. Are you sitting in your office these days saying, "I told you so"?
This from the man who warned Obama about being too liberal.
FOX NEWS: Fair & Balanced.....NOT!
Just a reminder as to the hidden agenda of the Fox News Channel.
Bill Maher: Farewell To Douchebags
Here's a humorous recap of 2008 and some of the faces that will fade away into the abyss of obscurity.
John McCain: The McCain Doctrine
With 30 days left to the election, Sean Hannity is still going on about Rev. Wright and missing term papers. McCain is on the attack and he's using rants that he's gone off on at least 100 times before. Well...that settles it -- Hannity is all out of new tricks and McCain is all out of fresh ideas. WATCH: The McBush Doctrine
I am going to leave this video posted to this blog as a shining example of the bullet that our nation dodged by electing Barack Obama in lieu of an unstable lunatic like John McCain.
CFMA - Counrty First My Ass!
It is amazing just how little has been made of Sen. McCain going on CBS news with his running mate so that he could try to explain what Palin meant while answering a voters question regarding Pakistan. Can you just imagine the field-day that Fox
News would be having if Sen. Obama had to go on CBS with Sen. Biden to spin a gaff in the parties favor when it is already quite clear what Governor Palin said and what she meant when she said it. Not only is Sen. McCain out of touch with the average American voter, he is out of touch with his own running mate. McCain has no standing whatsoever to utter the words “What Sen. Obama doesn’t understand”
What Sen. McCain doesn’t understand is that the very people that he has chosen to speak on his behalf are the very people who have robbed him of the presidency and that his choice of Gov. Palin as his running mate was the beginning of what will become the gold standard, the cliff-notes on what not to do when running for President of The United States of America.
I was standing next to Chico Brisbane when Gov. Palin was announced as the vice presidential candidate. “Now she’s a bridge nowhere!” Brisbane said referring to Sarah Palin and at the time I didn’t subscribe to that theory. I thought that Chico was seriously underestimating the method to McCain’s madness, but he wasn’t. There is no method to McCain’s madness, there is no rhyme to his reason and quite simply “The lights are on, but nobody’s home.”
What I would give to have been a fly on the wall when John McCain learned that the “walls street rescue bill” crashed and burned after his campaign staff was in the process of taking credit for the bailout on his behalf. Below are the assumptive comments of McCain surrogates counting Sen. McCain’s chickens before they hatched. CFMA! John McCain, CFMA!
Gov. Palin -- Backs McCain's Economy Gaff
The video below is a humorous look at Govenor Sarah Palin trying to convince America and Sean Hannity that John McCain has been unfairly attacked by the media for his claim that the fundamentals of the economy are strong. She said that Sen. McCain's "verbage" was taken out of context and that by his use of the word "fundamentals", he was referring to the workforce and that the workforce are the fundamentals of our economy. This is the same explainatoin that McCain came up with after he was blasted for making such a claim in the midst of an economic crisis and the meltdown on wallstreet. McCain said this inspite of that fact that he has made this very same statement several times and each of those times it is crystal clear that he is referring to the economy. However, now it seems that McCain and Palin expect America to believe that he meant something else on this one particular ocassion. The video also shows two other people like President Bush and Enron CEO, Kenneth Ley using this same "verbage" and it seems likely that this is where McCain learned the phrase since he lacks as much creativity as he does integrity, not to mention honesty.
WATCH THIS VIDEO:
Jerry Sifuentes
for Chico Brisbane
Remembering the "Keating 5"
In April of 1989, Senator John McCain, a former Viet Nam prisoner of war had came to national attention for the second time. Not with honor and dignity however, but rather undisputable corruption and unethical interfearence into an ongoing investigation of a personal friend Charles Keating and his Lincoln Savings & Loan. This scandal has hardly come to the surface in this election and since many young and first time voters were too young or not yet born, I thought it important to revisit that dark day in American History. We are now in the midst of yet another banking and financial crisis and once again, Sen. John McCain's fingerprints are all over the scene of the crime. I refer to the Savings and Loan crisis of the 1980s and 1990s which lead to the failure of 747 savings and loan associations. The ultimate cost of the crisis is estimated to have totaled around $160.1 billion, about $124.6 billion of which was directly paid for by the U.S. taxpayer.
However, $2.8 billion of that government bailout lay squarely at the feet of Sen. John McCain and his misuse of the power by pressuring banking regulators to lay off of his personal friend and Lincoln Savings & Loan Chairman, Charles Keating. It seems that unethical activity and the betrayal of public trust has become a common trait in the republican campaing now that Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has brougth her own cloud of suspicion with her to the ticket. How proud the republican party must be to have not one, but two candidates whom are and have been the subjects of investigations into ethics violations and misuse of power. And how insulting it is to the American people that these candidates continue to spout one false claim after another even when such claims have been debunked by even the most conservative media outlets. I think it is appropriate to bring Sen. McCain's involvement with the "Keating 5" to the forefront of this election since he has chosen to paint himself as a reformer. How obsurd it is for Senator McCain to portray his sudden fondness for government oversight in lieu of diregulation as anything other than a political ploy to earn votes. It would be cheeky of me to say that this would be like putting lipstick on a pig, so I won't. Besides, this goes well beyond a floksy anicdote. What McCain is trying to do is the sacreligious equivalent of putting rosery beads on a whore. Senator John "Keating 5" McCain has sank to an all-time low.
"Watch - The Keating 5 Video"
I find it absolutely amazing that John McCain has the balls to suddenly pretend to be some sort of caped-crusaider who has arrived just in the nick-of-time to save us from the greed and corruption in Washington. How does he plan to do that when his own running mate herself has been under a cloud of suspicion for years. Now she has instructed her staff and her husband to ignore legislative subpoenas and advised them not to cooperate with investigators in an on-going investigation. This is an oddly familiar tactic that has been used by the current administration, but particularly Dick Cheney. As the video above points out, a McCain-Palin admistration would not only be four more years of the same old Bush-Cheney policy, but four more years of the Bush-Cheney policy on steroids.
Chico Brisbane CB/js
Source: Orange County Public Records, Wikipedia, Youtube
Jon Stewert Thank You Boston
Colbert Report On 4th of July