You couldn't pay me to read Palin's book

Doc2 on Daily Kos wonders how far prices will drop before Sarah Palin's book, "Going Rogue," actually hits the stands Nov. 17.

The listed retail price for a handcover copy of "Going Rogue" is $28.99.

According to doc2, here are the bargain prices:

Borders: $17.39.
Barnes and Noble: member price $15.65.
Amazon.com: $9.00 (plus free shipping!)
Wal-Mart: while supplies last, $8.99

At this rate, the publisher will be paying us to read it. I'm not sure if "Going Rogue" is drivel. Just pretty sure.

Read kossack doc2's post at http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/10/19/794828/-Going-Rogue-going-for-peanuts

Keith Olbermann slams Palin's "death panels" and other wacky wingnuttia

HM supports Alaska's gutsy prog-bloggers

Ah, to be an Alaskan prog-blogger this Fourth of July weekend 2009.

Gov. Sarah Palin resigns in a huff and under a cloud. Palin's lawyer Thomas Van Flein turns his hairy eyeball on blogger and radio host Shannyn Moore. Linda, my fellow DNCC state blogger last summer, is digging up the dirt and raising funds and raising hell at Celtic Diva's Blue Oasis. The Mudflats! tells it like it is in the blogosphere and on the air waves.

These are gutsy bloggers in The Land of the Midnight Sun. Stand by to raise money for their defense fund.

What in the world is Sarah Palin hiding?

Sarah Palin: "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe"

The Anchorage Daily News, charged with keeping tabs on its peripatetic governor, reports that Sarah Palin is set to sign a book deal with Rupert Murdoch's Harper Collins Publishers. The exact amount of the book deal has not been announced, but it's sure to be a whopper. Then again, Palin has some whoppers to tell.

Here's an excerpt from the News story:

News reports this winter suggested Palin was pursuing an $11 million advance. She called that figure "laughable" in January but has never provided another. Palin has said she would give a portion of any money she makes from a book to charities although she hasn't decided how much or which ones.

Palin hired Robert Barnett, a Washington, D.C., lawyer who is one of the most powerful figures in book publishing, to negotiate the deal for her memoir. His past deals reportedly include $12 million for Bill Clinton's memoir and an $8.5 million advance for Alan Greenspan.

Barnett said in an interview Tuesday that HarperCollins was "first and fervent" in pursuing the Palin book.

This is a big reason why publishers have no money to publish real writers, such as some I know in Wyoming and throughout the Rocky Mountain West.

Instead, they publish crap by high profile people, books that people never read. However, they may buy a copy to put on their coffee table. They may also buy a copy if they can get it signed in person by the "author." I once did this with one of Newt Gingrich's books. I stood in line for two hours in a Bethesda Border's store and had the most interesting conversations. Not everyone was a Republican, as Maryland is as bereft of Repubs (except in Michael Steele's burg) as Wyoming is lacking in Dems.

I was able to utter a few comments about saving the National Endowment for the Arts as Newt scribbled his name on the title page. This may have been the reason that Newt helped salvage the NEA's literary fellowships when the big "Contract with America" cuts came down in 1994. Or maybe I'm being a bit grandiose. But I did read a bit of the book before I put it in the mail to my Dad in Florida. Not bad. The guy can write. He's a big name in the "alternative futures" or "spec-fic" sci-fi category.

But Sarah Palin? Which category will her book be in? Speculative pasts? Ridiculous presents?

Some funny book titles were suggested tonight on Keith Olbermann's show. "The Audacity of Hype" is a good one. Since Palin has said she's a C.S. Lewis fan, someone suggested "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe." You have to think about that one a little bit.

Palin the future brains of the GOP?

Rasmussen Reports features its latest political poll:

One thing for sure: Republicans and Democrats don’t agree on the future direction of the Republican Party.

Coming off a shellacking at the polls in November, the plurality of GOP voters (43%) say their party has been too moderate over the past eight years, and 55% think it should become more like Alaska Governor Sarah Palin in the future, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. Just 24% think failed presidential candidate John McCain is the best future model for the party, and 10% are undecided.

Only 17% of Republican voters say their party has been too conservative, and 30% say its actions and positions have been about right, with nine percent (9%) not sure.

Nearly two-thirds of Democrats (64%), however, say the Republican Party has been too conservative, and 42% think it should look to McCain for the future. Twelve percent (12%) of Democratic voters see Palin as a future role model, and 40% aren’t sure what’s best for their rivals.

Wow. Republicans think their party has been too moderate the past eight years? That's scary. Scarier still is The Return of Sarah Palin, Airborne Slayer of Wolves. The Republicans need to rename themselves the Lamebrain Party. First Bush, and then the possibility of Prez Palin? Let's hope that Barack Obama sets us on a course that honors intelligence and competence over stupid.

Collegians (and at least one 66-year-old bald guy) pack Biden rally in Greeley

My buddy Bob from Fort Collins drove over to the rally for Sen. Joe Biden today at the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley. Bob's semi-retired, a lifelong Republican, but he's voting for Obama/Biden this time. On Monday, Bob drove down I-25 to catch the Sarah Palin rally at the Budweiser Events Center near Loveland. He said that the crowd at the Palin rally was bigger than Biden's, but Palin said the same old blah-blah-blah we've been hearing for months. As Bob said, Obama and Biden are in a much different league than McCain/Palin. Yeah, the Dems are in the Bigs and the Repubs are cellar-dwellers in the minors.

Bob wasn't interviewed by the press at the UNC rally. But here's the beginning of the story that's up now at the Greeley Tribune site:

Saying he speaks to their generation, environmental concerns and modern-day issues, college students gave Democratic vice presidential nominee Sen. Joe Biden raves at the University of Northern Colorado on Tuesday. A crowd of about 3,500 packed the floor of Butler-Hancock gymnasium for the hour-long rally, most of them college students.

“It’s a historic year. It’s one of those historic elections you want to be a part of,” said Mike Donovan, a Colorado State University student who drove to Greeley for the rally.

Donovan, a senior, wore a white cap emblazoned with “Clean Coal.”

“I feel like this year’s Democratic ticket is the step into the 21st century,” he said. “… Environmentalism isn’t a dirty word anymore, and that’s something I like.”

Community organizers of a theatrical type

Chris and I are community theatre organizers. It's not quite as impressive as being community organizers. Those people are doing God's work as they assist the homeless, feed the hungry and enfranchise disenfranchised voters. Community theatre organizers may never feel the sting of a Sarah Palin putdown (even though she is quite theatrical). Community organizers. Harumph. Harumph.

But those folks at the soup kitchen and us have one thing in common -- we volunteer our time and talent to a good cause. It's possible that Palin does the same thing in Alaska. Does anyone know? It would be ironic if Palin had been a community organizer of a conservative sort and was making fun of them at the same time.

Community theatre organizers are also volunteers. We donate our time as ushers, waitrons, ticket takers, board members, fund-raisers, tech staff and even actors for the Cheyenne Little Theatre Players. Last night, Chris and I were ushers for "Oliver!" It was a sold-out house, and we were pretty busy for an hour or so. The play seemingly has a cast of thousands, mainly the kids who play the characters in the workhouse ("Food! Glorious Food!") and on the street. When you have kids in the cast, you get an audience of parents and grandparents and siblings and aunts and uncles and friends. You get volunteers, too. Our two kids have been involved in CLTP productions. One of our fellow ushers has a daughter in the play. Two of the other volunteers are local community college students who've been in scores of CLTP productions, including the very entertaining Cheyenne Old-Fashioned Summer Melodrama, where I volunteer as an emcee and Chris as a waitron. Almost all of us summer people are volunteers, which enables the CLTP to use the melodrama as its largest annual fund-raiser.

What do we get out of it? A grand old feeling that we're supporting one of the oldest community theatre groups (79th season) west of the Mississippi. It's fun, too. We get to see old pals and make new ones. Baby Boomers rapidly approaching geezerhood get to work with young people, who are surprisingly tolerant of our doddering ways. We don't tell them this (maybe we should), but they teach us more than we teach them.

So, don't let Sarah Palin get your goat. Go out and volunteer in your community today. Remember that community is made up of all kinds of people. Last night, as I was handing our programs to hundreds of Laramie County citizens, I wondered how many were voting for McCain-Palin. How many will I see today as I'm handing out fliers for the Democratic Party's U.S. Senate candidates? Will they be as affable today to this community political organizer as they were last night to this community theatre organizer?

Collected Poems of Sarah Palin, Vol. 1

Thanks to Hart Seely at Slate for bringing to our attention the poetry of Sarah Palin, assembled from her own utterances. Here's a sample:

"On the Bailout"

Ultimately,
What the bailout does
Is help those who are concerned
About the health care reform
That is needed
To help shore up our economy,
Helping the—
It's got to be all about job creation, too.

Shoring up our economy
And putting it back on the right track.
So health care reform
And reducing taxes
And reining in spending
Has got to accompany tax reductions
And tax relief for Americans.
And trade.

We've got to see trade
As opportunity
Not as ! a competitive, scary thing.
But one in five jobs
Being created in the trade sector today,
We've got to look at that
As more opportunity.
All those things.
(To K. Couric, CBS News, Sept. 25, 2008)

Who's popular now, Governor Palin?

Back on Aug. 29, I crowed about the fact that Alaska Governor Sarah Palin wasn't the only Western governor with high approval ratings. I scoffed at the fact that she had an 82 percent rating, which wasn't all that great for a somewhat competent Republican governor in a red state. Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal had equally impressive numbers as a Democrat in a Really Red State. Here were the stats from an 8/24 article in the Denver Post:

The six-state Mason-Dixon poll also asked voters to judge their governors' performance. Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter received excellent or good ratings from 60 percent of those polled. That put Ritter on the lower half of the scale, compared with 81 percent approval for Dave Freudenthal in Wyoming, 82 percent for Jon Huntsman Jr. in Utah and 66 percent for Janet Napolitano in Arizona.

At the time, Palin had not been recruited for the Veep spot on the Republican ticket.

What are the latest approval ratings in Alaska for Palin? That would be 68 percent. Maybe it's because Alaskans haven't seen too much of her lately, or maybe because they've seen too much of her on TV interviews (quick, name your favorite newspaper -- or least favorite Supreme Court decision!). Or maybe it's because so many sordid details of her governance have been revealed by that nasty liberal press.

What if Dave Freudenthal had been tapped by Obama as his running mate? I know it's far-fetched, but just think about it. How many skeletons does the Gov have in his closet? In the 2006 race, desperate Wyoming Republicans dug deep for dirt. They discovered a non-scandal about alleged misuse of the state airplane. That went nowhere (the scandal, not the plane). Considering the resources at the disposal of Repubs in this state, with old pal Dick Cheney just a phone call away, you'd think they could come up with something solid -- or just make up something completely outrageous, which is their usual m.o. (Cheney's, especially).

They couldn't, and didn't. Our governor remains popular two years into his second term. Sure, Wyoming has a huge budget surplus, which makes things easier on the decision-maker. And we're a pretty easy-going bunch here in the least-populated state in the nation. We seem to like the fact that we have something Alaska doesn't -- a governor who reads, thinks and can speak in complete sentences.

Dems meet Tuesday, prep for Veep debates

The monthly meeting of the Laramie County Democrats will be held at the Plains Hotel in downtown Cheyenne on Tuesday, Sept. 30, 7 p.m. All attendees at the meeting will receive an English-Palin dictionary in order to really understand what she will be saying at the Thursday evening Veep debates with Sen Joe Biden. While on any given night Biden can make mincemeat out of a poser like Palin, his job is made tougher by the fact that she speaks in an unknown tongue -- when she's allowed to speak by Big Daddy John McCain.

Palinspeak was spoofed on Saturday Night Live's opening sketch this past weekend. Katie Couric (played by Amy Poehler) asks Gov. Palin (Tiny Fey) about the bailout (this excerpt from Crooks and Liars blog):

“PALIN”: “Like every American I’m speaking with, we are ill about this. We’re saying, ‘Hey, why bail out Fanny and Freddie and not me?’ But ultimately, what the bailout does is, help those that are concerned about the health care reform that is needed to help shore up our economy to help, uhhh, it’s gotta be all about job creation too. Also, too, shoring up our economy and putting Fannie and Freddie back on the right track, and so health care reform and reducing taxes and reigning in spending… 'cause Barack Obama, ya know, has got to accompany tax reductions and tax relief for Americans, also, having a dollar value meal at restaurants. That’s gonna help. But 1 in 5 jobs being created today under the umbrella of job creation. That, you know. Also…..”

The blog Orange Crate Art compares Palin, Orwell and the English language. Truly scary.

As George Orwell points out in “Politics and the English Language,” one need not take on the responsibility of thinking when composing sentences:

You can shirk it by simply throwing your mind open and letting the ready-made phrases come crowding in. They will construct your sentences for you — even think your thoughts for you, to a certain extent — and at need they will perform the important service of partially concealing your meaning even from yourself. It is at this point that the special connexion between politics and the debasement of language becomes clear.

So, not only will debate watchers need a translation key, they also will need to bone up on their George Orwell. This will also help as you watch John McCain speak. And George Bush? I doubt if even Orwell could have conjured such a mangler of language.

Local Dems will gather for the Biden-Palin event on Thursday, Oct. 2, 7 p.m., at Applebee’s on Dell Range Blvd., in Cheyenne.

The U.N.'s loss is Wyoming's gain

Contrary to previous reports in various Wyoming media, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin won't visit the state next week. Instead, she'll attend the United Nations General Assembly in New York. No, she won't be speaking there. Instead, she'll be out on the streets with several American Jewish groups protesting a U.N. appearance by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Wonder if she'll be knocked to the ground by NYC cops and hauled off to jail as were the RNC protestors in St. Paul. Probably not.

A scheduled Republican fund-raiser in Jackson Hole will now feature Cindy McCain instead of Palin.

Maggie Scarlett, organizer for the fund-raiser, could hardly contain her excitement (CST quote): "Needless to say, we are disappointed Gov. Palin is not coming, in that she is indeed creating a lot of energy and excitement everywhere, not just in Wyoming. But to have the opportunity to have Cindy McCain come in is equally exciting to us."

Maybe Cindy will be wearing the same $300,000 outfit she wore at the RNC. Or some other $300,000 outfit.

The Repub fund-raiser will be held at Teton Pines, home to Dick Cheney and other nogoodniks. Cost of the breakfast fundraiser will be $250 and $1,000 to have a photo taken with Cindy McCain. For $2,500, participants can participate in a round-table discussion with Cindy McCain and former Wyoming U.S. Sen. Alan Simpson.

Only $2,500 for a roundtable discussion? How much is that per lie?

I want a dinosaur just like the one great-great-great-great-great-grandpa had

Now that we know that Sarah Palin, McCain's running mate, believes that dinosaurs and humans coexisted and that global warming is a myth, it's time to take a look at the presidential candidates' views on science.

ScienceDebate2008 has been advocating a long time for a presidential debate on scientific topics. That's not going to happen. However, the organization has tracked the scientific views of the two candidates and now lists them side-by-side at http://www.sciencedebate2008.com/www/index.php?id=42.

I admit openly that I haven't read the entire list. So far, I don't see anywhere that McCain admits that his forebears in what is now Arizona had a pet Stegosaurus named Benny. But a look at his answers can reveal how far McCain has gone to kowtow to the Religious Right's view of life, the universe, and everything.

The real story behind Palin's earmarks

From Congressional Quarterly:

CQ Politics blogger David Nather claims Sarah Palin's image as a fighter for earmark reform is central to the McCain campaign's narrative. Nather notes that while Palin doesn't claim she hasn't asked for earmarks, she leaves an impression that she's every bit as passionate a fighter as McCain against pork barrel projects.

However, thanks to the Web site of Sen. Ted Stevens, (R-Alaska), it's clear that the campaign narrative distorts her record. Palin submitted 31 earmark requests this year alone, totaling approximately $197 million.

In a memo e-mailed to reporters yesterday afternoon, the McCain campaign said Palin’s requests were a significant reduction from the record of the previous Alaska governor, Republican Frank Murkowski, whom Palin unseated in 2006. According to the campaign, Murkowski’s final request asked for $350 million in earmarks, according to the campaign.

Read the full story at: http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?docid=news-000002947712.

In search of elusive McCain bumper stickers

I've been in Chattanooga almost four days and I haven't seen a single bumper sticker or sign or T-shirt for Obama or McCain. Weird. Come to think of it, I haven't seen many bumper stickers for McCain in Wyoming the past months. Perhaps that will change now that McCain has drafted Superstar Supermom SuperGov Sarah Palin for the ticket.

My own unofficial survey of downtown Cheyenne has turned up more Obama bumper stickers that those for McCain. Last week in the state parking garage, I saw three Obama stickers and none for McCain. One of those Obama stickers was on my flex-fuel van. But there were two more!

I've seen a lot of worried faces on Democrats since McCain and Palin hooked up, and Palin began receiving tons of publicity. But take heart, fellow Dems, as Palin has received as many negatives as positives. On the airport shuttle, I met an ex-military man (21 years) named Todd who'd been in Alaska for eight years, most of the time in Wasillan outside Anchorage. He worked military security and knew the highway patrolman whom Palin fired (apparently with prejudice). His wife knew Palin and, he said, liked her policies but didn't like her personally. Todd and his hairstylist wife recently moved to Colorado. When Palin's name was announced, a woman told Todd's wife: "Look, she's got your hairstyle." Todd's wife said: "No, she's got mine."

In Chattanooga, I ran into an arts administrator from Oregon who lived in Alaska for a number of years. Palin tried to fire her husband, but her husband wasn't having any of it. Seems as if Palin's specialty if firing people. A good Republican. Instead of finding ways to keep good people and pay them good wages to look after affairs of state, she's more intent on saving money. Her aim is to keep expenses low in order to provide tax cuts, mainly for the wealthy, a strategy which takes up a huge section of the Republixcan Playbook. Bush did that on a grander scale. McCain wants to make those tax cuts permanent.

This is what happens when you elect government-hating people to run government. This is how you get dumbbells such as Brownie ("You're doing a heck of a job, Brownie") running major government agencies. Wonder who's minding the store during Hurricane Ike?

Morons 'R' Us: O'Reilly & Rove

From The Daily Show:

Palin story slams into Banned Books Week

I received the following timely ALA press released promoting "Banned Books Week" at about the same time I heard that Republican Veep hopeful Sarah Palin tried, as the new mayor of Wasilla in 1996, to get the librarian to remove controversial books from the shelves. The Palin story is a bit more complicated than it first appeared, but it is clear that her fundamentalist Christian bent got in the way of free speech. This happens often. You can read a comprehensive report on Palin and book-banning at the Anchorage Daily News web site at http://www.adn.com/. Time magazine also did a piece on it.

One of our county librarians told me the other day that she met a librarian from Converse County checking out a book by C.J. Box. This mystery writer's books face removal from the Converse County Library due to what's called a challenge. Objectionable language and content, stuff not fit for reading -- at least according to the challenger. So the librarian had to go somewhere other than her own library to get a book.

C.J. "Chuck" Box of Cheyenne writes the Joe Pickett mystery series set in Wyoming. Chuck has won tons of awards (nominated for an L.A. Times award for his first novel!) and his books are read by all kinds of people because they're set in Wyoming and the protagonist is a game warden. I was at a book signing at City News three years ago. Ahead of me in line were teen boys (very rare at readings and book signings), elderly couples, entire families, guys that looked like actual cowboys, a few pinko Liberals such as myself, and one biker wearing colors. Chuck told me later than the biker gushed about being a big fan. Chuck asked who to sign the book to. "Mouse," said the biker.

Wonder how Mouse would react to people telling him what NOT to read.

I have to mention here that Chuck is a Republican, owns (with his wife) his own international travel business, is a member of the high-falutin' Cheyenne Frontier Days committee (no pinkos allowed), and is a dedicated supporter of free expression, books and writers. His book jacket photo shows him in a black cowboy hat. He has his own horses and the entire family rides.

That's the great thing about Wyoming. Just as you've worked up a stereotype about someone, he or she blows it all to hell with something unexpected.

Here's the ALA press release:

The American Library Association (ALA) opposes book banning and censorship in any form, and supports librarians whenever they resist censorship in their libraries. Since our society is so diverse, libraries have a responsibility to provide materials that reflect the interests of all of their patrons.

Each year, the ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom receives hundreds of reports on books and other materials that were "challenged" (their removal from school or library shelves was requested). The ALA estimates the number reported represents only about a quarter of the actual challenges.

In support of our efforts to fight censorship, the ALA annually celebrates Banned Books Week – a national celebration of the freedom to read. Observed during the last week of September each year, Banned Books Week reminds Americans not to take the precious democratic freedom to read for granted. This year, Banned Books Week will take place September 27–October 4, 2008.

The American Library Association is a nonprofit, 501(c) (3) educational association that supports quality library and information services and public access to information. As such, it is not allowed to take a position on political candidates and strives to be nonpartisan in its
activities.

To learn more about book challenges and Banned Books Week, please visit http://www.ala.org/bbooks.

THERE IS "CHANGE" WITH A CAPITAL "C"...

...and then there is change that is almost invisible to the naked eye.

"Change is coming," quoth John McCain to the Repub multitudes. He and his loyal minions are going to drive the moneychangers out of Washington, D.C., temples of government.

Why would the moneychangers want to banish themselves from power? Great questions. But that's what the McCain campaign says it will do if elected. Do you believe that?

Maybe what McCain meant is that "your change is coming," referring to all those 72 cent rebates (in celebration of his 72nd birthday) he promised to his contributors. "Where's my change?" ask the pink-faced Republican multitudes. "See my running mate," says McCain with that eerie smile of his. "She's the change agent."

As Jon Stewart mentioned on "The Daily Show" last night, what you see at the RNC is not always clear. The other night, the convention stressed "service." Conventioneers were handed signs that read "service" and then speakers spoke about service. But Stewart pointed out that Palin and Huckabee and others then went on to dis those people who actually provide service -- community organizers.

So Stewart assumed that the "service" signs were meant to get some food and beverage service for all those hungry and thirsty delegates in the Xcel Center stands. "Get your red hots here!" "I'll take three -- heavy on the mustard!"

The McCain-Palin idea of change is to get elected so that they can replace (or change location of) the current holders of the presidency and vice presidency with themselves. They will look differently, but sound and act and legislate the same. McCain, as senator, voted with Bush 95 percent of the time.

He seeks change with a very tiny "c" that will be almost invisible to most of us.