Nobody Likes an Apologist
I know we don’t see many of this on the internet, especially in the [feminist] blogosphere, where it seems that the bulk of people who use the internet picked up their free-to-be-an-asshole cards while buying their first computers, but we do see a lot of frequent double-talk in the political media. Not only double-talk, but we see a group of whiny, privileged apologists incapable of forming a complete thought for themselves and those people consist of [mainly] Republican spokespeople.
Many Democrats, Liberals and basically any group of people or persons who have rejected the archaic ideologies that the Republican party strives for will tell you that lately, it seems as if Rush Limbaugh is the speaker for the Republican party. This is probably because there does not seem to be anyone out there pushing for the job and what other candidates do they have–Ann Coulter? Meghan McCain? Firstly, Ann Coulter can’t even be taken seriously by her own party and I am convinced the atrocities that have spilled out that woman’s mouth are made up by a publicist with only one thought in mind–Offend as many people as possible across both party lines in order sell books. Meghan McCain is still trying to make a name for herself in the Republican and internet/blogging/journalist world riding on nothing but the failed coattails of her father. Secondly, both of these potential-Republican-speaker candidates are women and since the Republican party stands for very anti-woman policies, I don’t see them accepting vagina-possessing “official speakers.” So sure, Rush Limbaugh can be the speaker of the Republican party–I know I’m great with that since the man is rude, sexist, and an overall disappointment to society; he has all the credentials already! Other potential candidates with these same credentials include Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, and pretty much any man currently serving time on Fox News, but they don’t seem to be stepping up to the plate with full force.
But while Republicans as a whole are not taking the reigns from Rush Limbaugh, there are a few speaking out against him… and then apologizing for their thoughts and opinions.
RNC Chairman Michael Steele on thoughts and accusations that Rush Limbaugh is head of the Republican party:
“Rush is not the head of the Republican Party. He’s an “entertainer” whose show is “incendiary” and “ugly.”
And Michael Steele’s apologies:
“My intent was not to go after Rush–I have enormous respect for Rush Limbaugh…”
“I was maybe a little bit inarticulate… There was no attempt on my part to diminish his voice or his leadership.”
“I went back at that tape and I realized words that I said weren’t what I was thinking…”
So to get this straight, Steele thinks that Rush Limbaugh is incendiary and ugly but he has an enormous amount of respect for him, then presents us with some famous Republican double-talk where he tries saying he did not attempt to diminish Rush’s voice or “leadership” (thus making it true that Limbaugh in fact is head of the Republican party?) and lastly, admits to not being able to form a complete and educated thought for himself since what was going on in his head did not come out of his mouth.
Congressman Phil Gingrey (R-GA):
“I mean, it’s easy if you’re Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh or even sometimes Newt Gingrich to stand back and throw bricks. You don’t have to try to do what’s best for your people and your party.”
And Phil Gingrey’s apology:
“I clearly ended up putting my foot in my mouth on some of those comments and I just wanted to tell you, Rush, [...] that I regret those stupid comments.”
Governor Mark Sanford (R-SC):
“Anybody who wants [President Obama] to fail is an idiot, because it means we’re all in trouble…”
And his apology (kinda-sorta):
Sanford’s Communications Director said that “the governor was not referring to anyone” in particular.
But Mr. Sanford, only one person has so publicly stated that he wished for Obama to fail. Who else could you possibly have been speaking about?
Whatever the case in any of these three hilarious and pathetic examples, it shows that the Republican party really, as a whole, is just running in circles. They don’t even know how they feel… about anything! What ever happened to saying someone you meant and not apologizing for it, despite who it pisses off? There is this little thing called thinking for yourself and people, as a whole, we should be embracing that. We all have the ability to form thoughts of our own and just because you disagree with someone who happens to be of the same party you affiliate yourself with does not mean that you have to apologize for what you think. Free thought doesn’t work that way.
Sarah Palin is a Grandmother
Bristol Palin, the daughter of former (thank. goodness.) Republican vice-presidential candidate, Sarah Palin gave birth to a healthy, 7lb. 7oz. baby boy on Saturday at 5:30am. The baby’s name is Tripp Easton Mitchell Johnston.
Sarah Palin first released news of Bristol’s pregnancy after she was “tapped on the shoulder” to run for office with former Republican presidential nominee John McCain at a convenient time while rebutting rumors about a cover up of her own pregnancy.
On Monday, Bill McAllister, a spokesman for Gov. Palin said, “This office will not be issuing any statements on [Bristol's baby]. We’re here to talk about state government and that matter falls outside of that.”
And because politicians and their families are treated by people as well as the media as celebrities, baby pictures of Tripp are said to be going for upwards of $300,000.
The bidding for baby pictures started at $100,000 and the price tag didn’t seem to be going up due to Sarah Palin recently gracing the covers of People, US Weekly and OK!, all of which saw a drop in sales. I would guess it has something to do with America being over Sarah Palin, not interested to learn more about a defeated political candidate. The bidding for the pictures started before the baby was born, but what really jumped the price was when Levi Johnston’s mother was arrested on drug charges.
Bristol and Levi plan to marry in 2009 and raise their child together like all teenage victims of strict, anti-choice parents.
What struck me as a little odd, to say the least, is the name of Bristol and Levi’s son. Sarah Palin’s son’s names are Track and Trig, why would Bristol be extending the line of off the wall names by going with Tripp? Perhaps because Trig and Tripp are so close in age? I have no idea. Thoughts?
Planned Parenthood Received over $1 Million in Honor of Sarah Palin
Gretchen Peters wrote the beloved, hit song, ‘Independence Day.’ What we saw a great deal of during the 2008 presidential election, was the RNC using inappropriate hit songs on the campaign trail; most notably we heard Heart’s ‘Barracuda’ during an event to introduce Sarah Palin, but the one misstep that did the most damage to the RNC and helped Planned Parenthood immensely was when ‘Independence Day’ was used by the RNC at an event promoting the McCain/Palin ticket. They most definitely should have thought twice about using a song that was written by a pro-woman woman when introducing one of the worst examples of a “feminist” to hit a political ticket; but what Gretchen said herself can sum up the entire Republican train wreck we saw during this past presidential campaign–The verse is the story, the verse is the message and when have we really seen the Republican party to do their homework?
When Gretchen heard that Independence Day was used on the campaign trail by the RNC, she decided to do something remarkable that would help literally millions of people–She donated all of the proceeds she received from ‘Independence Day’, from the time Gov. Palin took the stage the day Peters’ song was used until Election Day, to Planned Parenthood.
Because of Gretchen Peters’ bold statement and unfailing generosity to help the women, men and teens who walk into Planned Parenthood in need of health care, Planned Parenthood invited her to join their Board of Advocates which consist of prominent individuals united by their commitment to reproductive freedom and sexual health. She was also invited to perform ‘Independence Day’ at a Planned Parenthood event hosted by actors Julianne Moore and Olympia Dukakis in New York City on November 6, 2008. Yes, I know I am ridiculously late with this, but I haven’t seen this video posted on any of my regular-read blogs and am so inspired by this story and decided to post it, so watch the Planned Parenthood event and Gretchen’s performance:
The statement that Gretchen Peters made was truly amazing since over $1 million was donated to Planned Parenthood in honor of Sarah Palin.
John McCain Concedes: ‘The American People Have Spoken and They Have Spoken Clearly’
Outside of the Arizona Biltmore Hotel shortly after 9 pm, McCain conceded the presidential election to Barack Obama, starting with ‘the American people have spoken and they have spoken clearly.’
Standing with Governor Sarah Palin, her husband Todd and his wife, Cindy, McCain spoke to a crowd of disappointed supporters as he wished President Obama the best and urged unity within the American people. While I commend McCain’s dignified, albeit forced, speech, his supporters have once again proven to be the type of people who will not let this go and who will not accept defeat and work as a people towards change and the democracy this country was based on. The supporters of McCain’s who gathered outside of the Arizona Biltmore Hotel have proven to be the type of people we have become all too familiar with throughout this past campaign; the type of people who resort to name calling when the facts aren’t the facts that they want to accept and the type of people who are afraid of what this country can do when it is united for one purpose. These people went as far as to obviously strike a chord within John McCain himself and the one thing that I must absolutely commend him on is not allowing his supporters to disrespect their new president.
If you missed McCain’s concession, the video is below. I personally have watched it three times because apparently, my local news could not get enough of it and had it looping for an hour.
Bring On the Funnies!
Because I have been watching election coverage for hours and should most definitely be considered for a job in map watching, since I am doing a damn good job of checking MSNBC’s election widget every 3.5 seconds, I thought it would be a good time to divert the attention of others out there just like me.
I know, it’s hard to tear yourself away from the election coverage, but for approximately one minute and thirty-nine seconds, I would like you to take a look at how unbelievably fucked McCain’s campaign has been throughout the past year or so.
You did remember to vote, didn’t you?
Four Years Ago, My Birthday was on Election Day
And oh the fun that was had! Four years ago my family and I agreed on pretty much everything politically, except for my belief about the 9/11 myth, which is to be expected when a member of your family is currently serving in the Army, but other than that, there was no familial conflict when it came to politics. Four years ago, I turned 18 and because I had registered to vote early, I could vote and voice my disapproval of George Bush the first time and I reveled in my civic duty. To me, voting is not only important because I am an American, but I’m also a woman and women in the United States have only possessed the right to vote for the past 88 years, which is not a long time at all when you look at history as a whole. Four years ago I voted and the only thing I wanted for my birthday was a new commander in chief and even though the election did not turn out the way I had wanted, I knew that I had done my part in voicing my concern for the future of my country. But a lot has changed in four years.
George Bush’s second term has brought conflict internationally and nationally and has been put at the forefront of America. Instead of thinking about what would be better for this country, we have had 8 years of a president who thought about what would be in his best interest. What was once believed to be a wealthy country of hope and inspiration has been turned into a nation of conflict, not only with an unjust war but also a country that has been divided between the people who believe the government is and has been doing the “right thing,” those people being deemed as “patriotic” and the rest of us, people who believe that not only the last four years, but the last eight have been a major error and who are called unpatrotic, terrorists and heathens because we cannot bring ourselves to agree with an unjust regime hungry for power and money at all costs.
This year, my birthday was not on Election Day, it was a day like any other and two days later, on November 4th, I will be doing my civic duty yet again and this time it isn’t a battle between George Bush and some Democrat, it is a battle between John McCain, George Bush squared, if you will, and a man who can bring about change. A man who inspires the people he speaks with and instills hope within the people of this country.
Four years later and each time I walk into my family’s house I am warned not to bring up politics, partly, I believe, is because I know what I am talking about and my family simply cannot get over the fact that the one politician finally looking out for our best interests is half black. But why does that matter? Well, Pennsylvania is divided between the sane folks like myself who don’t see race, gender or sexual orientation as something that is worthy of dividing people for and the rest, who believe if you look, speak or even think differently than the white majority, there is something wrong with you.
After a second Bush term we cannot afford a third and a vote for McCain, a man who voted 100% of the time with Bush during his first term and 95% during the second, would be putting into effect a third Bush term. We cannot afford to be divided nation any longer. Throughout the past year or so I have done countless posts about McCain’s politics and if you are still an undecided voter, I urge you to check them out and become a more informed citizen. Now is not the time to vote based on merely your party lines or for the white guy because the black guy is shady or something; this is the time to assess who would be a better leader for this country and John McCain simply is not it.
Vote for change tomorrow; we have already let a president get away with murder, deceit and lies and this election we must scream from the rooftops never again. Never again will a man steal an election and go on to deface what this country was based on. Vote for change, vote for Barack Obama.
We have a lot of work to do. Don’t give up and make sure your voice is heard!
I Would Suggest that Cindy McCain Change Shoes with Any Middle Class American
At a recent McCain/Palin rally in Bethlehem, PA, Cindy McCain made a speech where she said:
“I’m proud of my sons, but let me tell you, the day that Senator Obama cast a vote not to fund my son when he was serving sent a cold chill through my body. I would suggest that Senator Obama change shoes with me for just one day, and see what it means.”
First of all, Cindy McCain is not the first person in this Republican choke hold to the top to make this remark; in fact, she probably was not smart enough to come up with it on her own, so she took it from Governor Sarah Palin, who was most likely told to say it by Senator McCain or one of the Bush speech writers lending Palin a hand with all of this political talk business. On October 2, 2008, during the vice presidential debate in St. Louis, Missouri, Palin said:
“I know that the other ticket opposed this surge — in fact, even opposed funding our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Barack Obama voted against funding troops after promising that he would not do so,”
So let’s take a closer look at this particular, horribly misleading remark (although Obama has already disproved this remark several times, but you know, people don’t listen to him and would rather get their information from a camp that has been proven to have made over 62 different false and misleading points about Obama throughout this campaign.)
Obama, along with 13 other senators, voted against a war-spending plan that would have provided emergency funds for American troops overseas on May 24, 2007. The reason Obama voted against this plan was because, he said:
“We must fund our troops, but we owe them more. We owe them a clear, prudent plan to relieve them of the burden of policing someone else’s civil war.”
Now, what Palin and Cindy McCain failed to mention is that Senator Obama supported and voted for an earlier version of that bill which would have provided the same funding for American troops, but had established a timeline for Bush to begin bringing them home.
Also, as a side note, Biden had also voted for that version of the plan as well.
Now guess how McCain voted on this war spending plan? Yeah, he didn’t, so doesn’t that make McCain, a former POW and also a father of a deployed American soldier just as bad as Palin and the McCains are trying to make Obama out to be? Yeah, I think so.
So now that we know the point both Sarah Palin and Cindy McCain made about Obama is bullshit, let’s take a look at how a woman who is an heiress to an estimated $100 million beer company, who makes approximately $6 million a year, has the right to compare herself to average, middle-class citizens who have sons and daughters currently deployed or who have been deployed themselves.
If we know anything by now, it is that the McCains make enough money where John McCain seriously cannot recall just how many houses he has, so why does Cindy McCain think it is okay to compare herself, a woman with potentially 11 different homes, to a family who is struggling to pay their mortgage on their one and only home, or perhaps even their rent on their one apartment? Because her family and your family both have deployed family, although she will rest her head on $800 sheets and you will be laying awake all night wondering what bill is important to pay this month or if you can afford to put gas in the car and buy groceries? While Cindy McCain makes bold statements, do you think she would change shoes with you, or any middle class citizen with deployed family? I wouldn’t count on it and neither would the many military spouses (most of which who coincidentally support Obama) Cindy McCain offended with her statement.
“When millionaires such as Cindy McCain act as if they understand our lives, and the lives of everyday military families and veterans, we get upset,” said Himel-Nelson.
Perhaps the next time Cindy McCain feels the need to publicly offend middle class, military families, someone should ask her why John McCain received a 20% rating from Disabled American Veterans (Barack Obama received an 80% rating) and a D grade for his voting record on issues such as additional funding for combat body armor and for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and other medical treatment by the non-partisan group Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. (Barack Obama received a B+.)
Rally of the Buzzwords
From here on in, expect any smear campaign that McCain launches towards Obama to be taken at face value, but instead of those of us who are sane, practical and logical, we know to do our homework on any candidate, no matter who they are, and make an informed decision based on what that candidate can do for this country and for us. However, like many of us are all too aware of, there are some people out there who instead of doing their research on a candidate or thinking for more than 1.3 seconds about the legitimacy of what kind of bullshit “their” candidate is putting out into the media, there are way too many people who will soak up McCain’s bogus ads, go to see him speak and then throw nothing but buzzwords out, believing wholeheartedly that the bullshit their brains soaked up like a sponge from the oh so “reliable” sources like Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly, Fox News and John McCain and Sarah Palin themselves are completely right, not giving any of these accusations a second thought and accepting them as truth.
So for those who believe that the video in the last post was a fluke or that “not all” McCain supporters think or act like those who made asses of themselves in that video, here is another from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. I am ashamed to share a state with these people.
A big thanks goes out to all of the aforementioned sane, practical and logical folks who were also at that rally trying to spread the truth about McCain/Palin such as the fact that Palin made women in Alaska pay for their own rape kits. The replies of their supporters? Well, they believe that a woman who is raped should pay for their own rape kit and not only that, but they should pay double, die, or be killed.
Nice, huh?
This election is ugly, yes, but a woman is never at fault for being raped and the people who believe that a woman is at fault are the same people who believe that she was asking for it, deserved it, should be killed because of it or they are the people who believe rape doesn’t exist, don’t teach their children about sexual assault at a young age, or maybe they are also the people who are abusers themselves.
While it is obvious that the McCain camp is “turning a page” and doing very little but launching attacks on Obama, what the fuck ever happened to humanity? As a feminist, activist, and advocate for rape and sexual assault, myself and many other people out there are speaking out about abuse and trauma and if you ever thought “Hey, this is about human decency, who doesn’t care about something that should come naturally to being a human?” These are obviously the people we are up against.
If there is one issue that is screaming at the top of its lungs that we need to reform, it’s education. There are so many people in this country who need to be educated and you just saw a video of several.
This is What McCain/Palin Supporters Look (and Act) Like
While Obama makes his supporters feel uplifted and hopeful to the point where they will encourage people to vote, start conversations through party lines, speak with their friends and family about the upcoming election, McCain supporters are a little different; they embarrass themselves–Repeatedly. They take the smears, hate, and most of all, the ignorance and arrogance that McCain puts out there and run wild with it.
This video shows that there are still some people whose minds are still so clouded with racism and with ignorance and belligerence that I am truly blown away by the amount of hate that is being fueled by this campaign. To put it bluntly, this video and the people (especially the blond woman who doesn’t believe in letting her fellow McCain/Palin supporters speak because the word ‘tact’ was never taught to her) who are spouting McCain and Palin’s regurgitated bullshit makes me sick.
This is perhaps the most crucial election that many of us will have the responsibility to vote in in our lifetime and the reason for that is because of a Republican regime who shoveled very, very deep into the Earth, put our country in the hole and proceeded to bury us alive. It is because one candidate wants to give us the same, exact Republican regime that many of us have been the victim of for the next four years. Another candidate has a shovel and is willing to dig us back up again and make sure that we don’t have to tell our children that we can’t afford to send them to school or decide what bills are important that month and what bills can wait until the next month or be a person, like myself, who are plagued by illness but don’t have health insurance because we can’t afford it and we can’t go to the hospital because we can’t bear to think of the amount of debt that would bring upon us and so we live in pain.
This video is proof that instead of reading or even watching the news (C-SPAN is great because it shows you what is actually going on and isn’t being funneled through a reporter with obvious bias) or reading the websites of the candidates to read about the issues and how each candidate feels about them, McCain supporters are merely parroting buzzwords and smear campaigns and taking them as truth without a second thought and making pure asses of themselves (especially the blond woman.)
This video also proves that people can be very, very proud of their ignorance.
Edited to add: If you wish to Digg this story, please digg this one. This video needs as much attention as possible.
Keating Economics
Something for you all to chew on for a bit.
Get Social
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Out Campaign
The OUT Campaign allows individuals to let others know they are not alone. It can also be a nice way of opening a conversation and help to demolish the negative stereotypes of atheists. Let the world know that we are not about to go away and that we are not going to allow those that would condemn us to push us into the shadows.
