According to Gawker Ted Cruz's wife is disgusted by Iowans. Wait, SHE'S disgusted?

Courtesy of Gawker:  

“Heidi has repeatedly been complaining about how disgusting the voters and whole scene in Iowa is,” our source told Gawker. “She says everyone smokes cigarettes, eats horribly, and wants to hug and touch her all the time. She said that she has to go back to the hotel and take a shower multiple times a day due to this environment.” 

According to Heidi’s Twitter, meanwhile, meeting all those Iowans has been “so wonderful.”

So wonderful to meet so many Iowans today! #CruzinToCaucus pic.twitter.com/397GX6ahUt

— Heidi Cruz (@heidiscruz) January 9, 2016

Oh yeah she REALLY looks like she enjoys meeting these people.

Personally I would think that anybody who allowed Ted Cruz to touch their naughty bits would have a rather high tolerance for disgusting.

Though to be fair Heidi HAS had a long time to become immune to Ted's special brand ofick.

Remember it was only back in 2005 that police found her by the side of the road with her head buried in her hands. 

I guess after eleven years you can learn to tolerate anything.

So just hang in there Iowa, someday Heidi Cruz will be able to handle you without having to fight her gag reflex.

Sadly the same cannot be said for the rest of us when it comes to her husband.

As promised here is a follow up to Track Palin's arrest for domestic violence.

Here is a better picture to replace the crappy one I had before.

So as I am sure all of you know we, and apparently everybody else, reported yesterday that Track Palin had been arrested for getting drunk and punching a woman in the face.

We now know for certain that the woman was his girlfriend of one year, Jordan Loewe.

Here is more courtesy of the AP: 

According to the three-page affidavit, both Palin and his girlfriend called 911 that night. Police Officer Andrew Kappler wrote that he arrived at the Wasilla home and found Track Palin walking outside and talking on a phone. The officer said Palin had an injury to his right eye and surrounding area, smelled strongly of alcohol and acted with escalating hostility, prompting Kappler to put him in handcuffs. 

Police say a breath sample provided by Palin showed he had a blood alcohol level of 0.189. 

The affidavit says other officers found the girlfriend hiding under a bed inside the home and crying. 

The argument continued at the home, according to the affidavit, which says Palin struck the woman with his fist on the left side of her head near her eye. She curled up in the fetal position because she didn't know what else he would do, the woman told police. She said he then kicked her in the knee and threw her phone across the driveway, according to the court document. The woman said she went inside after getting her phone. 

Inside, Palin held the rifle, with the barrel just away from his face pointed to the side, the affidavit states. The affidavit adds that the woman told police Palin was yelling "Do you think I won't do it?" 

The girlfriend "was concerned that he would shoot himself and ran outside and around the house," the affidavit says. "She didn't see where Palin went, so she went inside and up the stairs, where she hid under a bed."

So now we learn that Track had a blood alcohol level of 0.189, which is considered legally drunk, and then some.

Here is a little more detail from Alaska news station KTVA:

The woman claimed Track Palin was calling her names, and in an effort to calm him down and “to scare him away from ‘touching her,’” she told him she had called the police. 

“Palin approached [the woman] and struck her on the left side of her head near her eye with a closed fist,” police said in court documents. “Palin then kicked [her] on the right knee.” 

The woman said he then grabbed her phone, which was on the ground next to her, and threw it across the driveway. She was able to retrieve the phone and headed inside the residence. Track Palin was reportedly already inside the residence and had a gun. She said he yelled, “do you think I won’t do it,” among other things, and was holding the gun in a way she believed he would kill himself. She ran out and then went and hid, police said. 

Track Palin denied using a weapon during the altercation, “but stated that they were spread throughout both residences on the property,” police noted. 

Track Palin had an injury on his face he claimed was caused when she “threw a bow,” or her elbow, at his face. The woman had a visible head injury, according to police, and was complaining of pain in her leg.

The takeaway was that Track was clearly out of control and assaulted this young woman repeatedly, and placed her in fear for her safety and his.

And I have to say the statement that there were guns "spread throughout both residences on the property" concerns me since we know that young children are on those premises at all hours of the day and night.

Alaska Dispatch added more detail about what started the altercation:  

Palin told police he and the woman had been arguing over her communication with an ex-boyfriend. 

“This angered Palin,” the affidavit says. “He stated that they had been arguing for most of the night.” 

According to the affidavit, Palin told detectives the two had gone to dinner, then to his sister’s house and later to a piece of property he was considering buying. There, he said, they began to argue again. Palin accused the woman of driving drunk back to his sister's house, leaving him to walk back from the property. 

The affidavit said the two later drove back to Palin’s parents’ house and continued to argue. Palin told police they argued verbally and that the woman “threw a ‘bow,” meaning an elbow, and that was how his face was injured. 

 The woman also said the two had been arguing for the better part of the night, and in the driveway of the Palin family home.

For more on what happened you can visit Gawker and read the entire police report.

Now I was contacted by my sources in Wasilla last night as well, and I have a little more detail to add.

According to them after Jordan drove Track to the Palin compound, she tried to leave and Track threw himself on her windshield to prevent her from leaving.

It was then that he also pulled that gun, only according to my sources he put the barrel in his mouth and threatened to blow his brains out. They also identified this weapon, not as an assault rifle, but as a pistol.

However when she got out of the car that is when he assaulted her by punching and kicking her.

They were both hammered and Jordan was sobbing uncontrollable, and of course Track is barely coherent even when he is not drunk.

So there you have it, Palin family values once again on display for the whole world to see.

And while all of this was going on Track's parents were all the way down in the lower forty eight endorsing Donald Trump, because Sarah Palin is the very embodiment of conservative values and Christian morality.

Well inviting Donald Trump to do that interview finally got Sarah Palin the attention that she so craves. It wasn't good attention, but it WAS attention.

Okay well as you know I sat through this entire thing last night and live blogged until my eyes started to bleed.

So I think all of you know what I thought. (Oh yeah, you know.)

However I thought you might enjoy hearing what others thought.

Salon had this to say: 

On Friday’s episode of a program whose title isn’t the least bit ironic, “On Point with Sarah Palin,” the former Alaskan governor and failed vice presidential candidate conducted an interview with Donald Trump in which the pair of strong American patriots did little more than whine about the unfairness of it all.

Gawker titled their coverage as "Loser Interviews Hater" which should give you some impression of their opinion. Here's my favorite line from the article: 

In one of the most simultaneously bleak and fawning ten minutes of television I have ever seen, former candidate for Vice President of the United States and current off-brand Fox News (OAN) personality Sarah Palin interviewed everyone’s favorite screaming steamed carrot, Donald Trump.

it really does not get much better than that does it?

NBC News characterized the interview as "lobbing softballs," while Rolling Stone called out Palin for "gushing." (Yeah, I'll bet she was!)

The Daily Beast lobbed perhaps one of the worst insults of all: 

On her fledgling, and embarrassingly low-tech, network, Sarah Palin interviewed Donald Trump, and managed a feat no journalist has yet. She made it boring.

Boring? Oh yeah, that's gonna leave a mark. 

All in all everybody was either underwhelmed or overcome with nausea. (That last one was my camp.)

However perhaps the worst blow of all is that over at the Sea O'Pea, as of this post, there are only two comments under the Trump interview.

Ouch!

Sarah Palin and her daughter Bristol (Well actually Nancy French) jump on the newest fake conservative outrage of the day.

Courtesy of Little Green Footballs

I first saw this today over at Brancy's blog: 

A new undercover video was just released that shows a top Planned Parenthood doctor selling baby parts. Yes, you read that right! A top official at an organization that receives over $500 million in American tax dollars is SELLING the body parts of the babies it murders.

I know pretty shocking right?

And then later of course Palin posted a link on her Facebook page.

At first I, like I am sure most people, was a little horrified to think that this might be true.

But then I started to think about it and nothing about it makes any sense.

So when in doubt go to Snopes right? And they found all sorts of things about the story a little hinky. Including this:

An individual named David Daleiden has been widely credited as the “leader” of the Center for Medical Progress (The folks behind this "undercover video."). While Daleiden’s online footprint is minimal, a 2009 Claremont University article (penned by fellow conservative activist Chuck Johnson) reported: 

James O’Keefe is a friend of David Daleiden’s. O’Keefe and Hannah Giles have been going coast to coast documenting instances of ACORN employees willingly giving advice on how to avoid paying taxes and shielding a would be pimp (running for congress) and a prostitutent from the watchful eye of the law. They’ve brought their investigation to New York City, Washington D.C., and Baltimore. 

For most of us the very fact that the person behind this "investigation" is an associate of the widely discredited James O'Keefe is probably enough for us to dismiss this whole thing out of hand.

Snopes also linked to this press release from Planned Parenthood: 

Statement from Planned Parenthood on New Undercover Video Statement from Eric Ferrero, Vice President of Communications, Planned Parenthood Federation of America: 

“In health care, patients sometimes want to donate tissue to scientific research that can help lead to medical breakthroughs, such as treatments and cures for serious diseases. Women at Planned Parenthood who have abortions are no different. At several of our health centers, we help patients who want to donate tissue for scientific research, and we do this just like every other high-quality health care provider does -- with full, appropriate consent from patients and under the highest ethical and legal standards. There is no financial benefit for tissue donation for either the patient or for Planned Parenthood. In some instances, actual costs, such as the cost to transport tissue to leading research centers, are reimbursed, which is standard across the medical field. 

“A well funded group established for the purpose of damaging Planned Parenthood’s mission and services has promoted a heavily edited, secretly recorded videotape that falsely portrays Planned Parenthood’s participation in tissue donation programs that support lifesaving scientific research. Similar false accusations have been put forth by opponents of abortion services for decades. These groups have been widely discredited and their claims fall apart on closer examination, just as they do in this case.” 

### 

Planned Parenthood is the nation’s leading provider and advocate of high-quality, affordable health care for women, men, and young people, as well as the nation’s largest provider of sex education. With approximately 700 health centers across the country, Planned Parenthood organizations serve all patients with care and compassion, with respect and without judgment. Through health centers, programs in schools and communities, and online resources, Planned Parenthood is a trusted source of reliable health information that allows people to make informed health decisions. We do all this because we care passionately about helping people lead healthier live.

Ahh, now that makes a lot more sense.

The website Little Green Footballs did a little more digging and found this:

Another highly dishonest section of the video shows a web order form for medical tissues (labeled “ACTUAL ORDER FORM” in big red letters), strongly implying that this is a Planned Parenthood ordering system. 

But in fact, this is from a website that’s unconnected to Planned Parenthood called “Stem Express.” 

The video tries to picture this as some kind of sinister on-demand ordering system for fetal organs, connected to Planned Parenthood — and this is totally false. In fact, it’s a highly reputable company that performs a vitally necessary service for medical research. 

And now this from Gawker:  

The video itself opens with a short clip of Planned Parenthood president Gloria Feldt that is edited to give the appearance of condemning the recorded conversation that follows. But the 20/20 segment on which Feldt appears is actually an investigation into abuses made by private sector “tissue and organ procurement companies.” And Feldt even went on to later affirm that “Planned Parenthood supports research using fetal tissue in accordance with legal and ethical guidelines and are deeply concerned about the attempt by some to profit from the humanitarian contributions of courageous women.” 

In other words, this is a case of words being taken grossly out of context. Planned Parenthood is doing nothing even remotely shady here, nor are they doing something they haven’t publicly discussed before on multiple occasions. The real question now, though, is who’s behind this whole campaign in the first place.

You know I would usually just write this off as more underhanded bullshit by conservatives, but this is an incredibly ugly and vicious attempt to smear an organization has provided extremely important services for women around the country for decades.

However I am by no means surprised to find these two right in the middle of a campaign to spread lies and attempt to destroy an organization that does so much good in the world.

Seriously there is no low that is too low for these nasty bitches these days. 

Semen causes cancer. lust is emotional gangrene, and other "facts" you can only learn from the Duggar family's homeschool curriculum.

All of the following courtesy of Gawker.

Did you know that non-spousal sperm causes cancer? Well according to materials from the Advanced Training Institute's homeschool curriculum, which the Duggar family used to learn all about sex and its many dangers, it does it totally does: 

Doctors have discovered that the seed of the man is an alien substance to the woman. It triggered responses similar to those of an “allergic” reaction. A woman who has a husband is able to develop “immunity” to this reaction; however, a promiscuous woman’s immune system becomes confused and unable to distinguish alien substances. This confusion is a key to the development of cancer.

I am going to go out on a limb and suggest that this refers to HPV which can in fact cause cervical cancer. However this is not due to the fact that a man's seed is "alien" to woman but rather due to the fact that the man picked up a dose from one of the other woman who he was sharing that seed with.

Of course all of this potential cancer is caused by lust. And lust is bad, bad, bad, bad, bad. (It really helps if you read that in the voice of Gomer Pyle.)

Armor of God, does that work better than a condom?

And medical diseases and diseases of the soul are linked.

Diseases of the body usually have their counterpart in diseases of the soul. There is, in fact, an intimate relationship between the health of the soul and the health of the body. 

By understanding the workings of a disease in one realm we can often gain significant insight to a corresponding disease in the other realm.

Ah, the old "bad things happen to sinners" argument. 

This was a popular idea in like the 16th century. Hard to believe that it is being taught to children in the 21st.

And remember men are not to blame for becoming all rapey, cause you know the gangrene of lust and all:

When a man looks lustfully at a woman, a flood of impulses travels through the optic nerve to the back of the brain. As a result, the glands and other bodily functions are activated, and the level of testosterone increases. 

Recent studies revealed a significant correlation between high testosterone levels and those who commit violent crimes.

You know that is exactly the same rational used in Muslim countries to convince women that an exposed elbow or ankle will drive a perfectly reasonable man crazy and fill him with the urge to rape the crap out of her.

It's never the man's fault after all.

There is of course much more over at Gawker but I think we now get a pretty good idea of exactly how the Duggar family received their education concerning sex.

Of course in no way does this excuse Josh Duggar's behaviors but it does help to explain the irrational environment in which he was raised.  

Bill O'Reilly loses custody of his two children amid allegations of spousal abuse.

Courtesy of Gawker:  

Three weeks ago, a Nassau County Supreme Court justice ended a bitter three-year custody dispute between Fox News anchor Bill O’Reilly and his ex-wife, Maureen McPhilmy, by granting custody of the couple’s two minor children to McPhilmy. Though nearly all documents pertaining to New York family court cases are sealed, Gawker has learned that the justice in the case heard testimony accusing O’Reilly of physically assaulting his wife in the couple’s Manhasset home. 

According to a source familiar with the facts of the case, a court-appointed forensic examiner testified at a closed hearing that O’Reilly’s daughter claimed to have witnessed her father dragging McPhilmy down a staircase by her neck, apparently unaware that the daughter was watching. The precise date of the alleged incident is unclear, but appears to have occurred before the couple separated in 2010. The same source indicated that the daughter, who is 16 years old, told the forensic examiner about the incident within the past year. 

The apparent domestic violence assault would be the latest in a series of revelations about O’Reilly’s disturbing treatment of his family members, and his ex-wife in particular.

Gawker goes on to cite some of this disturbing treatment which includes using his influence to get his wife's new cop boyfriend in trouble with his department, and trying to get her excommunicated from the Catholic church.

Of course O'Reilly calls these allegations false: 

"All allegations against me in these circumstances are 100% false," the Fox News host said in a statement to the On Media blog, issued through his personal attorney. "I am going to respect the court-mandated confidentiality put in place to protect my children and will not comment any further."

Well that court-mandated confidentiality agreement sure is convenient.

But seriously is there anybody who has watched Billo in action on his show who doubts for a minute that he is emotionally, mentally, and physically abusive to his family?

The guy's a POS through and through and HE is the highest rated host on Fox News.

What does that tell you?

It appears that Hillary's use of a private e-mail account while Secretary of State was not illegal. But was it wrong?

Courtesy of Mediaite:  

The New York Times reported Monday evening that Hillary Clinton had used a private email account while Secretary of State, which “may have violated federal requirements.” Why the “may have”? 

The issue quickly gets murky. For one, previous secretaries of state had all used personal email accounts; John Kerry is the first to use a State Department email address. Why, besides the 2016 implications, was it a big deal for Clinton to have used a personal email account but not, say, Colin Powell? 

According to Times reporter Michael Schmidt, who broke the story, new regulations were implemented in 2009 requiring the archiving of electronic correspondence, which were then followed by a major update to the Federal Records Act in 2014 that forbade the use of personal email accounts for government business. 

The former was before Clinton became secretary, the latter after she’d already left. The only 2009 amendment to the law this reporter could find was Executive Action 13489, signed on Obama’s second day in office, governing executive privilege; via Media Matters, a post from the National Archives called the 2014 bill “the first significant changes” to the original 1950 legislation. 

The Times article intimated that Clinton was in violation of pre-2014 regulations governing electronic communications. “Mrs. Clinton did not have a government email address during her four-year tenure at the State Department,” Schmidt wrote. “Her aides took no actions to have her personal emails preserved on department servers at the time, as required by the Federal Records Act.” 

“At the time Clinton was Secretary, the Federal Records Act didn’t require federal employees to use government accounts, only to preserve records of their communications,” the Daily Beast’s Michael Tomasky wrote. “This, Clinton seems to have done.”

In my earlier post about this situation somebody accused me of being a hypocrite since I was so hard on Sarah Palin over HER private e-mail use. 

However if you read my post you will see that I did not defend Hillary, I simply postulated the possibility that she might have laid a trap for the Right Wing with this, and suggested that the White House obviously knew of this private e-mail and did not insist she change to the government e-mail.

Actually I think using the private account was a stupid idea, an opinion that is borne out by the fact that it was hacked. (By the way I feel we should remind everybody that Sarah Palin's e-mail account was not hacked, David Kernell gained access by guessing her security password. Big difference.)

Having said that the real story is whether this private account was illegal, it wasn't, and whether it hurts Hillary politically, and we're not sure yet.

So to be personal for a moment, does this make it less unlikely I will support Hillary in 2016, no it does not. Considering the alternative, how could it?

Gawker transcribes some epic Track Palin quotes from the audio of the drunken brawl aftermath.

Gawker took on the herculean task of listening to all of the police audio tape and picking out the bits and pieces that really give you a truly representative look into the psyche of Track Palin.

Seriously these just gems.

First concerning (the guy he thinks is) his dad's birthday:  

"Alright this is my old man," Track tells police. "It's his birthday, okay. So we're at this party in Wasilla. Dude, surprise him with a new truck, new trailer, new wrap on the trailer. Everything was fucking kosher."

And please, who doesn't want a "fucking kosher" truck and trailer. (Honestly I did not even know that trucks came kosher. Possibility helps to explain why Palin always has that garish Star of David around her aging neck.)

On his recently cold cocked friend Steve Lebida: 

"He's like a little pussy you know what I'm saying?" Track told the officer. "Like he's not gonna fight nobody. Most innocent, basically a gay guy, but he's not."

Who knew that Track was so open minded about having a gay but not really gay friend? 

On why he was shirtless: 

"I just bought this brand new shirt, so I took it off. I don't want to rip it," Track tells the officer. "Let's fucking fight. Four guys came on me, I hit one. One picked me up, tackled me, I hit one."

It makes total sense now. If four guys came on you that could get messy.  And possibly leave a stain.

On why he lost even with that warrior body of his:  

"If it was one-on-one, I'd beat the shit out of them," he said. "One-on-one, like I'll beat their ass. I'm not trying to be gay or nothing. But they're four guys, man, like come on. I've done jujitsu my whole life, wrestled forever. Like let's fucking roll."

Yeah if only these guys had come at Track one on one, you know as it was described by some of the party goers who were not members of the drunken Palin clan, then he TOTALLY would have beaten them until they pooped their pants.

Which is unsurprising since this is how Track described his assailant(s): "They're all like little bitches."

Gee no wonder Sarah is so proud of her son.

He is such an inspiration to other layabouts living off their parents and drinking themselves into a comatose state every night.

Methinks that somebody's hiatus from Fox News just became permanent.

Courtesy of Gawker:  

Remember the middle-aged Fox News anchor who was arrested while intoxicated at an airport bar in St. Paul, Minnesota? You may have even seen Gregg Jarrett’s mugshot floating around last month. Now you can watch the (bizarrely rough) jailhouse altercation that put him in county jail. 

The video above was taken by the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport’s dedicated police department, which originally detained Jarrett on May 21 after he was reported for erratic behavior by an airport bartender. The department recently released the video to Gawker under Minnesota’s Freedom of Information Act. 

The surveillance footage shows Jarrett getting into an argument with a helmet-wearing cop named Mark Dorsey. After Jarrett protests his detention and calls Dorsey a “fucking stupid ass,” Dorsey approaches Jarrett, who stand ups and gets in Dorsey’s face. Dorsey then grabs the anchor, presses him up against a nearby wall, and slams him into the holding cell’s bench. It’s pretty rough stuff.

I had reported on this earlier and made the comment that I was not sure how you could NOT have a substance abuse problem and still work at Fox News, and now after watching this, and seeing Jarrett lose it on the air, it certainly does appear as if Jarrett does indeed have a substantial problem with alcohol.

I actually feel badly for him, as I come from a family where this kind of behavior is common place. In fact if somebody doesn't fall to the ground in s drunk stupor it's just not Christmas.

I just hope he gets the help that he needs before he ends up in a far worse situation. Though according to the police report Jarrett had just been released from “an alcohol/chemical dependency treatment facility” so maybe that is not an option for Mr. Jarrett.

New bill making it legal to fire warning shots in Florida written by NRA lobbyist. Wait, what?

Courtesy of Gawker:  

The bill is sponsored chiefly by two National Rifle Association members, Republicans Sen. Greg Evers and Rep. Neil Combee, with a longstanding history of support for the gun lobby. But they did not write the bill, one of the legislators told Gawker in an interview: That honor fell to former NRA president and current gun lobbyist Marion Hammer. 

That revelation is just the latest chapter in Hammer's nearly four-decade NRA career, marked by ever-expanding pro-gun laws in Florida that become model legislation for other states. She was instrumental in the state becoming the first to issue across-the-board concealed weapons permits to residents in the '80s, and she almost singlehandedly created Stand Your Ground in 2005 in similar fashion, feeding language for the bill to its two sponsors—one of whom was Evers' immediate predecessor in the Senate. 

Now, she's put her imprint on a bill that would allow Floridians to openly brandish guns for the first time, and could lead to more permissive open-carry laws or lighter requirements for licensing in the future. 

The current bill would amend the state's expansive Stand Your Ground law—which permits residents to use deadly force in numerous circumstances—so that it also allows the nebulous "threatened use of force." In effect, it means that gun owners could walk free for brandishing their gun in a threatening manner or firing a shot indiscriminately to "warn" a potential assailant. 

That also means gun owners would get blanket immunity from the state's "10-20-life" law, which mandates an automatic 10-year sentence for anyone accused of flashing or using a gun in the commission of a felony. Numerous Florida politicians, including Jeb Bush, have long credited that measure with significantly decreasing the state's gun crimes.

You know you would think that a lobbyist for the NRA would be aware at some level that a bullet fired from a gun to "warn a potential assailant," is a bullet that can then find an innocent target to injure or kill.  So is that person now to be considered "collateral damage" in the legally protected right of some gun nut to fire their weapons indiscriminately?

You know years ago Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski was called out for allowing two oil lobbyists to write an amendment that stripped the EPA of its authority to regulate carbon dioxide as a pollutant.

But as egregious as that was, and it really was egregious, it pales in comparison to allowing lobbyists for an organization that receives its funding from gun manufacturers to write bills that quite literally increases the chances that a citizen of Florida could be shot dead in the streets by a bullet meant to "warn" somebody. 

Bullying women seems to be Bill O'Reilly's thing.

Courtesy of Gawker: 

Women might want to think twice before working for Bill O’Reilly. According to Gabriel Sherman’s new book, The Loudest Voice in the Room, the top Fox News anchor grew so enraged at a female producer after a botched segment in 2003 that, in order to defuse the situation, “a senior Fox executive” intervened and escorted the crying producer out of News Corp’s Midtown headquarters.“

After one taping, he stormed toward his staff’s cubicles and tore into a young female producer, whom he blamed for botching a segment,” Sherman writes in Loudest Voice, which until today had been under a strict press embargo. “Staffers watched in shock as O’Reilly, easily a foot taller than the woman, started yelling and slamming his fist down on a shelf.” 

“He got really close and in her face,” an onlooker told Sherman; “She was scared he was going to hit her,” said another. (The name of the producer is not revealed.) 

Eventually O’Reilly vanished, after which “a senior Fox executive was called in and escorted the woman, in tears, out of the building to calm her down.” The famously vindictive anchor never apologized.

You may remember that O'Reilly has a history of losing his temper, and producer Andrea Mackris accused him of sexual harassment (the now famous falafel incident) he threatened to have Roger Ailes destroy her.

I don't think that it comes as any surprise that O'Reilly is a bully, and on a cable network that habitually presents women as blonde bimbos, and hires the likes of Sarah Palin, it should come as no surprise that nobody protected this woman from this kind of abuse.

After all as CNN's Jeff Zucker recently pointed out, Fox News is just a front for the Republican party ,and we all know how THEY feel about women.

Paul Ryan's muscle pictures are just precious.

Photos courtesy of Gawker.

Gee, I remember when I made MY first muscle. So THESE are the long awaited pictures of Paul Ryan's "amazing" physique?

Okey dokey then.

You know I am a long time gym rat myself, and totally support Paul Ryan's commitment to fitness. And I hope that he sticks with it for his entire life as it has many long term health benefits.

However in the future he might resist the urge to have his picture taken while pretending to workout. It just makes him look like a douche.

And that hat CERTAINLY doesn't help.

However the most important thing to keep in mind is that exercise, no matter how committed he is to it, has NOTHING to do, one way or the other, with his ability to be a good Vice President.

Personally considering who Ryan is facing in tonight's debate I certainly hope he worked his mental muscles more aggressively than he obviously did his legs. (By the way, where DID I leave those pipe cleaners?)

Mitt Romney quotes "Popeye the Sailor Man," and a deeper examination of Bain documents obtained by Gawker reveals probable tax fraud.

"Mo money, mo money, mo non-taxable money for me!"

Courtesy of Politico:  

Mitt Romney conceded President Barack Obama has succeeded in making him a less likable person, but he offered a defiant retort to those hoping he will open up this week: “I am who I am.” 

Romney quoted that Popeye line three times in a 30-minute interview with POLITICO about his leadership style and philosophy, swatting away advice from Republicans to focus on connecting with voters in a more emotional, human way at this convention. Instead, he vowed to keep his emphasis — in the campaign and any administration to follow — on a relentlessly goal-driven, business-minded approach that has shaped his life so far. 

“I know there are some people who do a very good job acting and pretend they’re something they’re not,” Romney said. “You get what you see. I am who I am.” 

Seriously?  So Romney's big excuse for being robotic and unlikeable is that OTHER people also have personal flaws but are just better at faking that they are more personable?

So don't believe who Mitt Romney appears to be, just trust that he is who he, and of course his wife Ann, say that he is. Faith over observable facts, now where have I heard that argument made before?

So just "who am" Mitt Romney?

Well according to information revealed in those Bain documents he is a man who has done everything in his power to defraud the government by not paying his fair share of taxes.

This from Veracity Stew:

Management fees for running a private equity firm are classified as earned income, and are taxable at a rate of 35%. However, if that money is then shifted offshore through the Bain maze, it can be disguised as “carried interest” and the earner pays a much lower 15% Capital Gains tax rate. Does the reader now see why Mitt Romney’s Budget Plan proposes the elimination of taxes on Dividends and Capital Gains? As Victor Fleischer – Professor of Law, University of Colorado explains: 

"Because the management fees for a large private equity fund can be ten or twenty million per year, the tax dodge can literally save millions in taxes every year. The problem is that it is not legal."

But that is not all. Not by a long shot.

Gawker gets the goods! Update!

"Wait, how did you guys get that?"

Courtesy of Gawker:  

Mitt Romney's $250 million fortune is largely a black hole: Aside from the meager and vague disclosures he has filed under federal and Massachusetts laws, and the two years of partial tax returns (one filed and another provisional) he has released, there is almost no data on precisely what his vast holdings consist of, or what vehicles he has used to escape taxes on his income. Gawker has obtained a massive cache of confidential financial documents that shed a great deal of light on those finances, and on the tax-dodging tricks available to the hyper-rich that he has used to keep his effective tax rate at roughly 13% over the last decade. 

Today, we are publishing more than 950 pages of internal audits, financial statements, and private investor letters for 21 cryptically named entities in which Romney had invested—at minimum—more than $10 million as of 2011 (that number is based on the low end of ranges he has disclosed—the true number is almost certainly significantly higher). Almost all of them are affiliated with Bain Capital, the secretive private equity firm Romney co-founded in 1984 and ran until his departure in 1999 (or 2002, depending on whom you ask). Many of them are offshore funds based in the Cayman Islands. Together, they reveal the mind-numbing, maze-like, and deeply opaque complexity with which Romney has handled his wealth, the exotic tax-avoidance schemes available only to the preposterously wealthy that benefit him, the unlikely (for a right-wing religious Mormon) places that his money has ended up, and the deeply hypocritical distance between his own criticisms of Obama's fiscal approach and his money managers' embrace of those same policies. They also show that some of the investments that Romney has always described as part of his retirement package at Bain weren't made until years after he left the company. 

Holy shit! This is an amazing get, and it is going to be BIG trouble for Romney going forward in this campaign.

You can read through many of these documents yourself by going here.

Let's put it this way, and I am sure this will be to the surprise of nobody, Mitt Romney has not been at all honest with the American people.  And possibly not with his own church either.

Update: That last part might be the crux of Romney's fear about releasing his tax returns. Here is his latest argument against doing so:

"Our church doesn’t publish how much people have given," Romney tells Parade magazine in an edition due out Sunday. "This is done entirely privately. One of the downsides of releasing one’s financial information is that this is now all public, but we had never intended our contributions to be known. It’s a very personal thing between ourselves and our commitment to our God and to our church."

You know I have mentioned before that I thought the tithing that Romney has done to support his church, and the fact that he might have been less than forthcoming with them, was at the heart of his refusal to release his tax records. And now I believe that more than ever!

Fox News mole hired by Gawker. Oh this ought to be good!

Courtesy of Gawker:

 I work at Fox News Channel. 

The final straw for me came last year. Oddly, it wasn't anything on TV that turned me rogue, though plenty of things on our air had pushed me in that direction over the years. But what finally broke me was a story on The Fox Nation. If you're not a frequenter of Fox Nation (and if you're reading Gawker, it's a pretty safe bet you're not) I can describe it for you — it's like an unholy mashup of the Drudge Report, the Huffington Post and a Klan meeting. Word around the office is that the site was actually the brainchild of Bill O'Reilly's chief stalker (and Gawker pal) Jesse Watters. 

The Nation aggregates news stories, gives them provocative headlines, and invites commenters to weigh in. The comments are fascinating actually, if you can detach yourself enough to view them as sort of the id of the conservative movement. Of course, if you can't detach yourself, then you're going to come away with a diminished view of human decency, because HOLY MOLY THESE PEOPLE DO NOT LIKE THE BLACK PRESIDENT. I'm not saying they dislike him BECAUSE he's black, but a lot of the comments, unprompted, mention the fact that he is black, so what would you say, Dr. Freud? 

The Fox Nation moderators, realizing that they had a problem on their hands, did the absolute bare minimum, hiring one or two college kids to comb the comments for the most egregiously racist postings, and putting in automatic text filters that blocked various key words. Of course the intrepid commenters quickly found ways around these filters using letter substitutions and spacings, which is why many comments complain about our "n@gger president" and the "M u s l i m in the White House."

Hmm, I wonder if THIS news is worth a few new dings in a certain refrigerator, in a house with stolen windows, located on a dead lake? I'll bet it is!

A moment of levity as Gawker presents the "Best Butt-Related Excerpts From The Rogue.

Courtesy of Gawker:

After a bit of speed-reading, we've located two key butt-related excerpts for you. The first section concerns Sarah Palin's campaign for municipal office in Wasilla in the mid 90s: in which she stands accused of using her butt for political and personal gain. 

"Sarah also introduced innuendo about sexual harassment into the campaign. She encouraged gossip about [opponent John] Stein and [police chief Irl] Stambaugh acting inappropriately during an early-morning step-aerobics class that she occasionally attended. The two men, being less than svelte, had signed up for the class, along with the head of the department of public works, Jack Felton. 

"It was a small room," Stambaugh said, "and there were maybe twenty people in the class. Us big guys stood in the back so nobody would have to look at us, because, to tell you the truth, it wasn't a pretty sight. One day Sarah shows up. She goes right to the front and she puts on this incredible demonstration— three risers, double steps, I don't know what all, but it was a hell of a routine. Afterward, I complimented her on her incredible stamina." 

Before the next class, the instructor approached the three men. "Sarah Palin says she's uncomfortable," the instructor said, "because she thinks you guys are ogling her butt. She wants me to move you to the front of the room so you won't be able to watch her during class." 

The men agreed. But that didn't work either. "You guys are so big," the instructor said, "that when you're in the front of the room you block everybody's view of me." ...

A friend offered a different perspective. "One morning," she told me during the summer of 2010, "Sarah came back in her workout stuff— her outfits were very provocative— and she's singing, 'I like big butts and I cannot lie,' and she's dancing around the kitchen. Todd comes in from the garage, and Sarah starts going on about how the guys are checking her out at the workout place. The way she's saying it is totally antagonizing Todd, and he finally says, 'Well, why don't you put some fuckin' clothes on?'"

As you can see Palin has been using charges of sexist behavior against her opponents LONG before Joe McGinniss ever showed up next door.

And just what exactly was it about Sarah's hindquarters that she considered so irresistible anyhow?

Oh now, that's just wrong.

Somehow I think I will take these gentlemen at their word that they were NOT ogling Sister Sarah's derriere.

I think I will skip breakfast this morning.

Gawker introduces Professor Scharlott's research to an even wider audience. Update!

This is filed under "conspiracy theories" but at least the evidence is presented to a new, and even wider audience. Gawker uses the article in the Business Insider as a jumping off point, which also demonstrates that they read Scharlott's paper unlike some people we could mention.

From Gawker:

Professor Bradford Scharlott of Northern Kentucky University has looked into this story in detail and written a long academic article about it. He concludes two things: First, that the "conspiracy theory" is likely true—Sarah Palin staged a huge hoax, and, second, the American media is pathetic for not pursuing the story more aggressively.

Professor Scharlott has done what none of us could seem to accomplish, which is to get the babygate hoax scrutinized by many, many people who had NEVER heard it before. With more people made aware of the details, there is little doubt the number of "Trig-Truther" will grow exponentially.

So how does the Grizzled Mama, with all of this renewed scrutiny on perhaps her BIGGEST lie, react?  Why she plays the victim of course, and claims that somebody wants to rape her daughters.  (Really, you did not see that coming?)

Update: The Mail Online has combined both of these stories into one article.  So much for distracting the media Sarah!

Update 2: Here is an interview that Professor Scharlott did with reporter Laura Novak.  And the ball just keeps on rolling.

Update 3: Sarah Jones from Politicususa has also done her part to bring this story the attention it deserves..

Hey it's Monday. What stupid thing did Sarah Palin say today? No way!

From the Grizzled Mama's Twitter feed:

Inexplicable: I recently won in court to stop my book "America by Heart" from being leaked,but US Govt can't stop Wikileaks' treasonous act?
4 hours ago via Twitter for BlackBerry®

"Fwap!" (That's the sound of my jaw hitting the top of my desk)

Doesn't she understa....I mean can't she.....hasn't anybody explai.....WTF?

I absolutely do not know where to begin. 

Here let Mother Jones take a crack at explaining her unbelievable stupidity.  I need an aspirin.

Inexplicable? Does she not understand the difference between apples and nuclear reactors? The two instances she links have little in common. In the case of her book, she managed to get a judge to order Gawker to take down a post showing portions of her book after the website had put them up. And the judge in this case was following precedent established when The Nation magazine was successfully sued by Harper & Row in the 1970s after publishing excerpts of former President Gerald Ford's memoirs before the book was released. The Supreme Court, deciding the case in favor of the publisher, said media outlets could not, under a claim of fair use, publish a significant portion of a copyrighted book (accepting the argument that this could weaken the commercial value of the book). Palin's lawyers took advantage of this ruling, in demanding that Gawker not show the actual pages of her book.

Stopping a media leak involving government information before the fact is not the same. The grand-daddy legal decision on this front comes out of the famous Pentagon Papers case, when the Supreme Court ruled that the government could not block newspapers from publishing the secret Pentagon history of the Vietnam war leaked by Daniel Ellsberg to The New York Times and other papers. The guiding principle here: the government does not have the right to impose prior restraint on the media.

There!  Now do you get it you moron?

You still don't do you?  Well, they can't say I didn't try.

Meghan McCain on Sarah Palin: "She’s either brilliant or insane." Hard to argue with that.

I don't always agree with the "man who unleashed the beast's" daughter on everything, but this time she is way ahead of the other pundits in realizing what Palin's strategy is concerning her run for 2012.

From the Daily Beast:

Wanna run for president? Quit your job, find a hot Hollywood reality-show producer, make sure your children also appear on hit reality shows, saturate every entity with tweets and Facebook updates on every conceivable subject. I dare anyone in the news to not report on one of her tweets. She doesn’t do interviews because she doesn’t need to. She can Twitter and Facebook away and then the press goes and reports on her tweets. It is so monopolized at this point that for me it steps dangerously into the realm of some strange science-fiction movie from the '60s. Saturate the American public until we forget that anything or anyone else exists or is even an option in 2012. There are no other choices, because, can’t you see, she is the only choice.

This is her strategy, and yes, she is running for president.

I have been saying much the same thing for weeks now, and am very gratified to see others starting to catch on.

However as frightening as the idea that Sarah Palin actually has a plan to get to the White House might be, the reality of how well that plan is working should ease any fears of its ultimate success.

First there is the reaction to her new reality show, the ratings for which set a fairly high watermark with its first episode, but then quickly plummeted once people got the chance to see the trainwreck up close and personal.

The second episode of the show also upset animal activists who did not view Sarah Palin playing with the still beating heart of a dead halibut as terribly Presidential, or even terribly human.

Palin's plan to garner support from Bristol's appearance on DWTS also did not quite work out as planned when her sycophants kept cheating the system to keep the oddly expanding, and completely undeserving young woman on week, after week in the place of far more deserving contestants.

In fact it became so obvious that ABC finally had to admit that their voting system was flawed and they might even have to revamp it for next season.  (Actually if they simply keep the Palins away they might be able to leave it like it is without any further problems.  I mean really, who else has fans this ethically challenged?)

Then we have the Grizzled Mama's new book.

The book quickly goes to Palin's comfort zone, the low road, by attacking Levi Johnston, President and Michele Obama, the "Lamestream"media, and American Idol?

And already the book has created a legal drama after Harper Collins filed suit against Gawker for posting pages from the book on its website ahead of publication.

"How's that First Amendment-y thing working for ya?"

So like Meghan McCain says, Sarah Palin has herself a plan.

Could it be a successful plan?

Successful? Really? What part of its "Sarah Palin's plan" don't you understand?

So to answer the question posed in the headline, I am going to go with "insane."

Sarah Palin does not want anybody to make fun of her stupid book until she publishes it, and only THEN can they make fun of her stupid book!

From the New York Daily News:

After pages of her book "America By Heart" leaked all over the Internet this week, Palin's publisher HarperCollins announced on Friday it is suing Gawker Media for posting the excerpt and refusing to take it down.

The lawsuit was filed Friday in New York, a HarperCollins spokeswoman confirmed to The Associated Press.

The day after Gawker published the pages, Palin saw them circulating around the internet and took to Twitter to protest.

"The publishing world is LEAKING out-of-context excerpts of my book w/out my permission? Isn't that illegal?" she wrote on Thursday, linking to a conservative blog which had posted the leaked material as well.

Gawker responded with a post titled "Sarah Palin is Mad at Us for Leaking Pages From Her Book," which, in the site's typical snarky style, referred the ex-Alaska Gov. to Wikipedia's page on "Fair Use."

"Or skip the totally boring reading and call one of your lawyers," Gawker added. "They'll walk you through it."

But Palin's lawyers don't seem to think it's that simple.

Their lawsuit pushes to stop Gawker from "further copyright infringement," and demands the website return the leaked pages so they can be destroyed.

HarperCollins is also seeking financial damages, according to the AP.

Harper Collins wants the leaked pages destroyed?  Well I for one am in complete agreement with Harper Collins.  In fact I support them destroying the entire manuscript before it can do any more damage to the minds of the naive and low functioning Americans that are hoodwinked into purchasing that steaming pile of Palin flavored mooseshit.

You know they are only prolonging the inevitable.  Eventually we are all going to see it and it will leave no doubt that Sarah Palin is the most immature, nastiest, most ignorant, narcissistic woman in politics today.