CNN is just not playing the game anymore.

Best banner. 👍🏻 pic.twitter.com/051QZrDWO2

— Jason K. Morrell (@CNNJason) October 20, 2017

There was a time when a news outlet would give the White House the benefit of the doubt on truth telling.

After all most politicians play a little fast and loose with the facts at times.

But now with Trump in office there is simply no reason to continue the facade that they will EVER engage in truthful responses to questions or that they care in any way about being honest with the American people.

Dakota Meyer appears on Fox and Friends to babble incoherently about Susan Rice.

Jesus, it's like watching an infant trying to say words for the first time.

The very idea that the guy who married into the Palin clan would have the audacity to call ANYBODY ELSE a liar is so ironic that it makes my teeth hurt.

Then he goes on to defend what Trump did in Syria as moral, and claims that nothing President Obama did was moral?

Well at that point there is really nothing more to say except that he is now officially a Palin.

I would also add that he is clearly preparing to run for office.

I am not sure which political position he is angling for, but that is certainly the plan.

Trump supporters try to pass off actress in horror movie makeup as victim of violence from liberals. Seriously?

After this was posted on Twitter cult movie icon Bruce Campbell called them out.

Check your facts, folks. This is an actress named Samara Weaving from #AshVsEvilDead. This is a make-up test. Sad. https://t.co/JAAM8VWry6

— Bruce Campbell (@GroovyBruce) June 8, 2016

Damn these Trump supporters are morons!

Bill Nye explains that he was NEVER invited to participate in the climate change denying event with Sarah Palin.

Courtesy of Raw Story:

“Marc Morano did not invite me to his movie but he said I refused to come after he did invite me — he was making that up,” Nye said in a video posted on his Facebook page. “It’s disingenuous, at best.” 

Morano’s organization, Climate Depot, originally said Nye would “appear” at the May 2 event, which will include a showing of the film Climate Hustle as well as a panel discussion that will include former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. 

However, it was later reported that Nye will not be there; instead, the event — which is being simulcast in movie theaters around the US — will show clips of an interview Morano conducted with him. Nye said in his video that he agreed to speak to Morano on the condition that his own documentary crew be allowed to remain present.

 You can see a portion of that exchange filmed by Nye's documentary crew at this link, and trust me it does not make this Marc Marano guy look like he has any idea what he is talking about.

 We had mentioned before that all of the talk about a debate between Sarah Palin and Bill Nye was horse pucky but as it turns out so was any discussion about Nye lending the event any credibility by agreeing to participate.

This Marc Morano is a lying POS which I think helps to explain why Palin is supposedly the "headliner."

Jeb Bush is outraged (Outraged I say!) over Donald Trump's disrespect for John McCain's military service. Seemed less so when it was John Kerry being disrespected.

Enough with the slanderous attacks. @SenJohnMcCain and all our veterans - particularly POWs have earned our respect and admiration.

— Jeb Bush (@JebBush) July 18, 2015

So as you can see Jebbie is livid that "The Donald" would suggest that John McCain should not be considered a hero because he was a POW during the Vietnam War.

And that should be admirable.

Except for the fact that Jebbie sent this letter to the men calling into question the heroism that earned John Kerry's a Silver Star during the same war.

So to be clear, it is outrageous that people would dismiss John McCain's heroism over the fact that he was captured by the enemy, but suggesting that John Kerry did not earn his medals while fighting for his country is perfectly reasonable.

Did I get that right?

(H/T to Crooks and Liars.)

Lindsey Graham knows that the Iranians are liars because his family owned a pool hall. Wait, what?

Courtesy of Bloomberg:  

In a video address to this weekend's Southern Republican Leadership Conference during which he made his case as a potential presidential candidate, Graham asserted that his experiences dealing with the clientele of his parents' business taught him that "the Iranians are lying" when it comes to the ongoing nuclear negotiations with the Obama administration. 

"My family owned a restaurant, a pool room, and a liquor store, and everything I know about the Iranians I learned in the pool room," Graham said in the video. "I ran the pool room when I was a kid and I met a lot of liars, and I know the Iranians are lying." 

Later in his address, Graham doubled down on his characterization of Iranians. 

“The Iranians cheat and they lie. They are a radical regime," he said. "They want a master religion for the world; the Nazis wanted a master race." 

That's right folks Iranians are liars who want to become Nazis and  Graham knows this for a fact because....well you know that whole pool hall thing.

I know what you are thinking, "Oh come on Gryphen you are making this up just to smear Lindsey Graham."

And my response to that is "Nuh uh, here's the video, watch it for yourself smarty pants."

(Actually Graham's eyes are rimmed in red, his face is flush and blotchy, and he looks like he is on the verge of tears through most of the video.)

What if a militia decided to shut down the border but nobody came? Okay, well five people came.

Courtesy of Raw Story:  

A planned shutdown of border crossings between the United Sates and Mexico by patriotic militia members failed to materialize Saturday morning with only five protestors showing up at one crossing in Pharr, Texas, according to Breitbart News Texas. 

Organized by border militia movement leader Rob Chupp, the “Shut Down All Ports” protest was intended to disrupt commerce at the busy crossings to draw attention to the plight of Marine Sgt. Andrew Tahmooressi, jailed by by Mexican authorities on weapons charges. 

Chupp, who was one of the five at Pharr, explained that their objective had changed and that they were only there to see how many law enforcement officials they could occupy for the day watching them. 

According to the originator of the event, turnout was poor because organizers had called off the event just hours before it was to begin due to threats of “mass blood shed(sic)’ from drug cartels. 

In a statement issued by the event’s organizer Stasyi Barth, she wrote, “Cartel threatening mass blood shed. One of the guys in Texas was followed into a Walmart, on the freeway, then approached at his hotel. At the same time, I got a bunch of requests to join the [Facebook] page from Sonora Mexico. I grabbed as many as I could, but realized it was getting out of control fast and I didn’t want them to see who the attendees were. This is after it was requested that we avoid certain areas, because of the recent border threats, unrelated to us. The cartel has people at every port listed..waiting for us, so I was told.”

Yes I am certain that the drug cartels, who are constantly outwitting and outgunning Mexican police, would threaten a bunch of overweight Rambo wannabes who are standing on the America side of the border dressed in camouflage and picking their noses.

Seems a more likely scenario that once these inbred morons realized that nobody was going to show, they fabricated some scary threat and used that to justify their low numbers.

Besides what kind of "militia" bails for fear of running into a potential terrorist threat?

Upton Sinclair had the Republican party's number decades ago.

Not an honest or ethical man among them.

Like a who's who of "WTF?"

PolitiFact finds that Republicans lie three times more often than Democrats. Seems low to me.

Courtesy of TPM:  

One of the most prominent political fact-checkers has shown Republicans to be much less honest than their Democratic counterparts, according to findings from a study released Tuesday by George Mason University. 

The study, conducted from the beginning of President Barack Obama's second term in January through last week, found that PolitiFact.com has rated Republican claims as false three times more often than Democratic claims. 

According to the study, 32 percent of GOP claims were rated as "false" or "pants on fire" by PolitiFact, compared with 11 percent of claims by Democrats.

Yeah I have a hard time thinking of a time when the Republicans AREN'T lying about something!

As we know all politicians do lie on occasion, so I am well aware that there are Democrats who have told some humdingers, but as Rachel Maddow has pointed out on more than one occasion PolitiFact does not always seem to  recognize all facts equally: 

“The statement you were fact-checking is true, and until somebody figures out how to sue you in order to retrieve the meaning of the word fact from the dark and airless hole you have stuffed it into, Politifact, then no, it is not okay to just make this stuff up. You are truly terrible. Fact checking has to count for something, and Politifact, you are ruining it for everyone.”

So let me just go out on a limb here and say that the ratio of lying Republicans to lying Democrats is significantly higher. 

In the best news of the day Rush Limbaugh may be leaving Cumulus Media due to loss of advertisers.

Courtesy of Politico:  

The Rush Limbaugh Program is considering ending its affiliation agreement with Cumulus Media at the end of this year, a move that would bring about one of the biggest shakeups in talk radio history, a source close to the show tells POLITICO. 

Should the move take place, 40 Cumulus-owned radio stations would lose the rights to the most popular talk radio program in the country. In addition, the show might be picked up by competing regional radio stations in Washington, New York, Chicago, Dallas and other major markets. 

According to the source, Limbaugh is considering the move because Cumulus CEO Lew Dickey has blamed the company's advertising losses on Limbaugh's controversial remarks about Sandra Fluke, the Georgetown law student. In Feb. 2012, Limbaugh referred to Fluke as "a slut" because she had called on congress to mandate insurance coverage of birth control. The subsequent controversy over those remarks resulted in a significant advertising boycott. 

The true extent of Limbaugh's effect on Cumulus's advertising revenue is not known. In an August 2012 earnings call, Dickey said Cumulus's top three stations had lost $5.5 million, in part because of the boycott. In a March 2013 earnings call, Dickey said the company's talk radio side had "been challenged... due to some of the issues that happened a year ago." Nevertheless, Limbaugh remains the most highly rated talk radio host in the country. 

Cumulus Media, which has a contract with Limbaugh through 2013, declined to comment for this report: "Cumulus owns the premier talk radio distribution platform in the United States and doesn't comment on negotiations with talent under contract," Davidson Goldin, a Cumulus spokesman, told POLITICO. Clear Channel, which distributes the Rush Limbaugh Program through its Premiere Radio division, also declined to comment.

You know I rarely listen to the radio anymore,  but when I am out running errands my car radio is tuned to a talk radio station that features Limbaugh, so I hear bits and pieces of his lunacy every couple of days or so.

Lately I have noticed that the companies advertising with him seem very fly-by-night.

There are companies selling identity theft protection, funeral services, financial aid,  and one guy, and I swear this is true, who is selling his house in, I think it's Florida.

Just a guy buying up advertising time for his pal Rush, to sell a house for millions of dollars that probably NONE of Limbaugh's listeners could ever hope to afford. Nothing desperate about that.

Not only that but Limbaugh is voicing a large number of these ads himself which means that the ONLY way they would advertise with him is if he played their little prison bitch and did the voice over for their crappy "nobody has ever heard of this" product. Sometimes I have a hard time differentiating between when he is a radio host and when he is pimping aluminum siding.

So I can say with some confidence that the Boycott Limbaugh movement has had a REAL and lasting effect.

However before we all dance around the bonfire screaming in victory we need to remember the lesson of Glenn Beck. Glenn Beck who left Fox News in virtual disgrace, only to pop back up on radio, and who is now supposedly worth at least 80 million dollars.

So I have little doubt that Limbaugh will find another place to spew his vitriol and hatered, but remember this....at one time Beck was a CONSTANT presence on cable news and was quoted and talked about in all kinds of places. Today the only way he can get any attention is by accusing the President of the United States of covering up for the "real" culprits behind a terrorist attack.

Someday soon we may also be saying "Rush Limbaugh? You mean that guy is still on the radio someplace?"

Creationist Ken Ham claims that Christianity is under attack because people are upset that some parents are teaching their children to be idiots.

This is from Ham's website, ironically name, Answers in Genesis:

Christian education is under attack in America as never before. (Yep got to remind the sheep that they are constantly being persecuted, despite the fact that they own everything, control politics, and live in a country that they constantly brag is a "Christian nation.")

 Today, we bring your attention to another attack on Christian education. A Christian K–12 school in South Carolina, with dedicated and highly qualified Christian teachers,1 has come under vicious attack by atheists. Why? Because one of its instructors, a fourth-grade teacher, tested her children about biblical creation, science, and dinosaurs (using AiG resources), and she has become (in)famous on many atheist websites and blogs.

The to demonstrate how unfair the criticism is he provides a picture of the actual test. Here it is.

As you can see we Atheists are completely overreacting to a test which tells the child that dinosaurs were only about he size of sheep, the earth is NOT billions of years old, and that the Bible is the "History book of the Universe." How unreasonable of us.

Hamm goes on: 

The atheist buzz about the dinosaur-and-Bible quiz, however, is not really all that surprising. Over the past few years, we have seen atheists becoming more aggressive and intolerant towards Christians. (See the sidebar for just a few of the many examples we could cite.) They are attempting to impose their belief system (yes, their religion) on the culture. 

It seems that since the last presidential election, atheists have grown more confident about having something of a license to go after Christians. These secularists want to impose their anti-God religion on the culture. They are simply not content using legislatures and courts to protect the dogmatic teaching of their atheistic religion of evolution and millions of years in public schools. There is something else on their agenda: they are increasingly going after Christians and Christian institutions that teach God’s Word beginning in Genesis.

"Teaching their atheistic religion of evolution?" Seriously?

Clearly this moron has NO idea where the difference lies between science and faith, and seems to be laboring under the assumption that they share similar traits.

NO! They do NOT!

Science is open to challenge by ANYBODY, and every student who enters into a university classroom is encouraged to exam the evidence, test the hypothesis, and see if they come to a similar or different conclusion.  That is science.

Now religion?  Yeah, not so much.

And yet this idiot, who cannot tell the difference between the two, writes "science" textbooks for children.

As an Atheist let me just say that I am not interested in attacking religion simply for being a religion, if it is taught as a relgion.

But when you try to pass it off as science? Yeah then we have a problem!

He wouldn't give Sarah Palin a dime, but John McCain has no problem donating to Mark "Hiking the Appalachian trail" Sanford's campaign.

Courtesy of Roll Call:

The Sanford for Congress committee reported this afternoon it received $2,500 on 4/18 from Sen. John McCain’s leadership PAC, Country First PAC. Mark Sanford (R-S.C.) is running against Elizabeth Colbert Busch (D-S.C.) in the SC-01 May 7 Special General Election to fill the seat vacated by Rep. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), who was appointed a U.S. Senator. 

The McCain contribution was received one day after a spokesperson for the National Republican Congressional Committee confirmed that they would not be spending any money on behalf of Sanford. See Roll Call article. 

Well that's interesting. While the NRCC is pulling away because they find Sanford to be a candidate that they do not want to be associated with, John McCain has no problem handing over money to a man who used public funds to pay for his affair and then was caught lying about it.

And yet when McCain received 1.3 million in leftover funds from his 2008 campaign, he did not give a DIME of it to his running mate and perennial presidential candidate Sarah Palin.

I guess some liars are just a little less palatable to John McCain than others.

By the way somehow I don't think that McCain's $2,500.00 is going to do Sanford much good in this race.

The Elizabeth Colbert Busch for Congress committee reported it had received $48,700 in last-minute contributions on 4/18. 

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee reported it had made $218,404 in independent expenditures on 4/18 opposing Mark Sanford (R-S.C.). The DCCC paid $207,884 to Great American Media (DC) for media buys, and paid $10,520 to Adelstein/Liston LLC (IL) for media production.

And that is BEFORE her brother Stephen Colbert REALLY starts to campaign on her behalf.

Greta Van Susteren is pissy because the Obama administration will not send Fox News information that they can then use to attack the administration.

Courtesy of Gretawire:  

The Obama Administration is playing dirty. Trying to put a price tag on access — either a news organization plays ball and accepts what they dish out without challenge, or the news organization is excluded, punished. Check this out: 

Fox News has been aggressively reporting on Benghazi because it is newsworthy when 4 Americans are MURDERED and because it was obvious the Obama Administration was telling “silly stories” that didnt’ make sense and were not supported by the facts. The Administration’s Benghazi story got more curious when the Administration sent out Ambassador Susan Rice to sell the silly stories on 5 news shows. Two months later, the American people still don’t have the straight story. It is our job to get the facts. We are trying. 

The Obama Administration has done everything but give us the straight story and they are fighting us on getting the facts. 

And why do I say the Obama Administration should grow up? Because the Obama Administration is trying to punish Fox for trying to get the facts from the Administration (do I need to remind anyone that 4 Americans were murdered?) The Administration in what looks like a coordinated effort is denying Fox access to information that they are handing out to other news organizations. Why exclude Fox? That is simple – to punish — to try to teach us a lesson not to pry, not to look further for facts.

Can you believe Greta has the balls to say that?

Fox has done NOTHING but work 24 hours a day to undermine this President since the day of his inauguration, create scandals about his administration from thin air, and attack his policies at every opportunity, and yet SHE doesn't understand why the administration does not treat them like every other news organization?

Because they are NOT like every other news organization!  They are the propaganda wing of the Republican party and they do not deserve to be treated as anything but.

In fact personally I think the President should keep them out of ALL press conferences and White House news briefings, then they can just continue to make things up as they have been doing all along anyhow. I fail to see how that would change a damn thing about their "reporting!"

Finally the voter registration fraud the Republicans have been warning us about is discovered to exist. Wait, which party was caught red handed? Update!

Courtesy of Salon:

A man originally reported to have been working for the Republican Party of Virginia was arrested by the Rockingham County, Va., Sheriff’s Office on Thursday and charged with attempting to destroy voter registration forms by tossing them into a dumpster behind a shopping center in Harrisonburg, Va. 

“Prosecutors charged him with four counts of destruction of voter registration applications, eight counts of failing to disclose voter registration applications and one count of obstruction of justice,” according to a report late Thursday afternoon from TPM’s Ryan Reilly. More charges could be forthcoming, according to officials. 

But there is more to the story, as evidence emerges to document that it ties into a still-expanding nationwide GOP Voter Registration Fraud Scandal that the BRAD BLOG first began reporting in late September, after we’d learned that the Republican Party of Florida had turned in more than 100 allegedly fraudulent and otherwise suspect voter registration forms in Palm Beach County. The story has continued to widen ever since, to a dozen Florida counties and several other states, now including Virginia, and even to the upper-echelons of the Republican Party itself. 

The man arrested today was 23-year-old Colin Small of Phoenixville, Pa. As it turns out, he does not only work for the Virginia Republican Party. According to an online profile, he appears to be working for the Republican National Committee and, prior to that, served as an Intern for Rep. Mike Kelly, R-Pa., in the U.S. House of Representatives. 

Joseph Tanfani at the Los Angeles Times is reporting that Small was “working as a supervisor as part of a registration operation in eight swing states financed by the Republican National Committee.”

That the Republican party is  responsible for the very acts that they accuse of others of doing, should not come as a surprise to ANY of us. Especially since the party has engaged in aggressive acts of voter fraud or voter suppression for over twelve years now. And in many places far longer.

In Alaska this is simply the status quo, and we have been the victim of tossed ballots, suddenly appearing absentee ballots, and voter machine vote switching for decades now. With no change in sight.

In my experience it has always been that while the Republican party is pointing to the left and saying "Look, those people are cheating!", over on the right they have been cheating all along.

I think that we are way overdue for both campaign finance reform and tougher fair election laws to be passed in this country.  But I am not holding my breath because it is clear to me that the Republicans simply do NOT want to compete on a level playing field.

Let's face it, without their mountains of money, and ability to game the system, they would have to actually run on their antiquated policies. And how can they possibly win in any place but the deep South with those?

P.S. By the way while we are on the subject of corrupt voting machines, guess whose son (Yes the same son who wants to "take a swing" at our President.) owns the ones Ohio is using?

Update: Here is a petition requesting that Eric holder to investigate Tagg's connection to the voting machines. I signed it and I think so should we all.

Chuck Todd shares some very good news on MTP. But then things turn ugly.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Okay so the fact that the map shows the President so far ahead in these swing states is good news indeed, and reflects what we have been hearing from numerous polls as well.

That part of the show made me very happy. THAT part did.

However later in the program is where David Gregory seriously dropped the ball and earned my extreme dislike, and made me yell swear words at my poor TV.

Here is the exchange with Ralph Reed (Founder of the Faith and Freedom Coalition and the same scumbag who was implicated in the Jack Abramoff Indian gambling scandals) that irritated the crap out of me:


GREGORY: One of the things, Ralph, if I can interrupt. This is something that-- that Romney says he wants to do in the debates. He had a-- a conversation with Good Morning America about that. Let me play just a portion and have you respond to it in particular. 

(Videotape; Good Morning America; September 14, 2012) MR. ROMNEY: I think he’s going to say a lot of things that aren’t accurate. But I think that the challenge that I’ll have in the debate is that the President tends to, how shall I say it, say things that aren’t true. And-- and-- an in attacking his opponents. (End videotape) 

GREGORY: Give me an example of what he would want to attack, what the president has done, and-- and how you think Romney will handle it. 

MR. REED: Well, I think President Obama has, and I-- I want to be charitable here, has a-- a casual relationship with the truth. He’s very eloquent. He’s extremely articulate. He is very bright. Anybody who thinks otherwise, who thinks that when you untether him from the teleprompter that he didn’t bring his A-game is underestimating him. But here is the problem. His words are very eloquent, very flowery, very-- tickle your ears. But none of it is true. He said that unemployment would never go above 8 percent if we passed his stimulus plan. It’s never gone below 8 percent. He said that he would cut the deficit in half in his first term. He’s-- he’s doubled it, and he’s increased the national debt by 50 percent. He said he would change Washington and put an end to the partisan rancor. Washington is more polarized and more paralyzed than it’s been in the modern era. The Senate which his party controls has not passed a budget in three years. And we’re 92 days from a fiscal cliff which the CBO says is going to plummet us into a double digit dip recession. 

GREGORY: Those might be broken promises. I think people would challenge you on the idea that those… 

FMR. GOV. RENDELL: Right. 

GREGORY: …those things are-- are lies. There’s some casual relation between-- let me get-- I want to get a break in here because we’re going to come back and talk more about these debates and get some of your questions, suggested questions for the debate. We’re also going to talk about the foreign policy debate that’s going on in this campaign. Richard Engel, our chief foreign correspondent will join us from Afghanistan this morning. More from our roundtable as we continue right after this.

After the break they never got back to this, these allegations that the President is a liar. And except for Gregory's tepid response that those were not lies but rather promises he did not or, more accurately, could not keep, these allegations were left unaddressed.

So those words of Ralph Reed's just hung there in space for every casual viewer to accept as truthful when in fact they are complete and utter bullshit!

The President does NOT lie, that is the habit of a certain Mitt Romney! And he would gladly have kept EVERY ONE of those promises but the Republicans have been fighting him from day one, just so that they could make THESE very claims when the election cycle rolled around again.

And all Gregory did was allow those charges to be made unchallenged, which makes him no longer a journalist but a tool for the Republican party. So Fuck him!

Sorry for the rant, but this literally bothered me ALL day yesterday, and I had to get it off my chest.

Thanks for listening.

It appears that Mitt Romney has fake Twitter followers. Is NOTHING about this man authentic?

"What? Doesn't everybody have to pay people to follow them on Twitter?"

I first saw this brought up by the folks over at Reddit, who reported the following:  

He is buying thousand by the minute, most don't speak English or are computer generated... all this in the midst of all the #Aurora tweets and #theatreshooting ones... Is he so unlikeable he had to buy followers?

And this: 

Every time i refresh he gets 50 or so new followers. Most followers are following exactly 4 people. Most have no tweets or one generic quote tweet from a semifamous person. 

The tweets these people have made are almost all done in the last minute or so for the new additions to the list. While that is evidence of nothing, it certainly is suspicious.

(Here is the link to the account so you an see for yourselves.)

Later I discovered there were others on the case:

I’m not saying he bought them, but Romney’s follower stats have taken a sharp and sudden rise since Friday 5PM EST. Could it be a weekend blitz? Twitter noticed. Romney was gaining around 3000-4000 new followers per day for the past month. 

Yesterday he acquired 23,926 new followers and is climbing well over 50,000 today. The hourly stats make it pretty clear where this began. (If you click the link you can also see two rather remarkable graphics.)

Some of you may remember that his same tactic was used by both Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin last year.

I don't know about the rest of you but I am beginning to think that there is absolutely NOTHING trustworthy about the Republican part any more. (And yes that was a bit of snark.)

One of my personal heroes.

An Honest Liar - Work-in-Progress trailer from Justin Weinstein on Vimeo.

When I was in my early twenties I found this book, and read it cover to cover.

This was during a time when I was spending a lot of time researching religions and philosophy, and was looking at the world with renewed skepticism. For critical thinkers and skeptics Randi was an absolute MUST read.

Though somewhat dated now, at the time Flim-Flam was a groundbreaking book that helped to set me on a truth seeking path, and helped to instill in me the necessity of always questioning the reality of what I was told, or even witnessed, and to NEVER accept the supernatural, or fantastical, explanation often provided without studying the evidence provided thoroughly.

If the purpose of having this outsized brain, and ability to reason, is to better understand the world around us, then we could have few better role models than James Randi.

Just my opinion.

You can visit the website to learn more about this documentary here. They are seeking investors, so if you are a mind....

Did Palin fake her visit to the World War One museum in Kansas City?

Well this is rather interesting. Courtesy of The Kansas City Star: News flash: Sarah Palin was in town Monday.  You didn’t know that? I didn’t know it until the next day. Turns out, nobody knew it.  Not the police. Not GOP insiders. Not the high-dollar money folks. Not the Vitae Foundation that brought her to Kansas City last September. Nobody.  “Holy cow!” said Annie Presley, a fundraising consultant. “How did we not know about that?”  Because the Palin crowd never whispered a word about her plans — and they still won’t talk. Does that strike you as a little too mysterious for a woman eyeballing a White House run?  “Mysterious” goes a long way with Palin these days. I did see her off in the distance eight days ago at the Iowa State Fair, where she was coyly stating — for the umpteenth time — that she wasn’t a candidate for president, although she hadn’t ruled it out.  Not a candidate. Not running. But flirting, flirting, flirting with the crowds and reporters and the idea of it all. And she did all this while a huge crowd of fairgoers was lining up to see Michele Bachmann, who is supplanting Palin as this cycle’s GOP sensation.  Still, lots of media time and handshakes in Iowa. But nothing here in Kansas City.  It’s a mystery all right.  My source on her Monday appearance here is none other than Palin herself. She wrote on her SarahPAC Facebook page — that’s her big political action committee — that she spent a “very moving day” in Kansas City, “where it’s easy to remember what really matters, because here we have the National World War I Museum.”  But no one at the museum saw her inside. And word would have spread like wildfire if they had, a spokesman said.  And no one I could find at the hotel — and I talked to doormen and front-desk types — saw her.  You know at this point in time I would not put ANYTHING past her. But even for her, this is bizarre! And by the way did ANYBODY see Piper with Palin while she was in Iowa? Why is it that NOTHING with Sarah Palin is ever what it appears?

Jonathon Capehart talks to the man who interviewed Mercede Johnston for Playboy.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Okay this guy is an imbecile, though I guess I should be pleased he liked my state so much. However he did not answer any of the Jonathon Capeheart's important questions.

However it is interesting to note that, despite what people are constantly trying to imply on this blog, he said that the residents of Wasilla did not consider Sadie a liar.

Too bad he did not ask them if they consider Sarah and Bristol liars.

I've asked that question in Wasilla and guess what? Yeah I think you know the answer to that question. I also think it is awesome that Sadie's Playboy pictorial and interview are getting much MORE media attention than the Grizzled Mama's most recent Facebook rant. Oooh that's gotta sting!

Mercede Johnston bares all concerning the Palin family in soon to be released Playboy interview. Update!

Courtesy of the New York Post:

Mercede posed nude for the September issue of Playboy and gave an equally revealing interview to George Gurley. Asked what kind of president Sarah Palin would be, she responded: "I think she'd have had a mental breakdown . . . As governor she quit on us. What does that say about her?" When Gurley asked what percentage of Wasilla residents "can't stand Palin," Mercede responded, "I would say 70 percent."
 
Mercede also claims the Palins are so polarizing in the small Alaskan town that she can't work. "It's hard to get a job in this town because of the Palins," she tells Playboy, adding, "People say, 'Oh, Mercede Johnston, I don't know if people are going to come in if she works here.' "

Regarding Bristol's relationship with Levi, she claims Bristol sent a text message to Levi after she found out she was expecting son Tripp that read, "Ever since the moment I found out I was pregnant, I prayed to God you weren't the father."

Mercede -- who had claimed on her blog that "Levi never liked [Bristol] to drink since it just made her more promiscuous" -- also told Gurley that Bristol, who's since become an advocate for teen abstinence, wanted to get pregnant: "Bristol's pregnancy wasn't . . . an accident. She and Levi planned it. They were trying to conceive for months."

Mercede also tells Playboy that Track Palin, Sarah's 22-year-old son who is an Army reservist, used drugs. She claims, "He did OxyContin and mostly cocaine. He didn't choose to go into the Army; he went there because his mom made him, to get him out of the way so when she was at the convention they wouldn't know he does drugs and would think he was a patriot." A Palin family rep declined to comment.

Let me remind all of you that Playboy has an average circulation of over 3 million, which is substantially more sets of eyeballs than have ever perused either mine, or Sadie's blog.

That means that many, many more people are now aware of just how duplicitous, and polarizing, the Palin family is considered even in their own home town.

And for those of you who are so quick to pass judgement on Mercede for taking off her clothes, and using her body to get the information out, just ask yourself how she could have done it any more effectively?

And then ask yourself what sacrifice YOU have made to let the world know about the potential harm that Sarah Palin poses to this country, and the harm she has done to those around her?

Personally I am proud of her, but of course she already knows that.

Update: I just received a clarification concerning the text from Bristol from Sherry.

It came after Lanesia dropped by to give Sadie and Sherry flowers for Valentine's Day (Something she does every year.).  Apparently Bristol heard about it and a few minutes later, called and yelled at Sherry for letting her come over, and then sent that text to Levi about wishing that Tripp was not his son.

Classy right?

Remember this was all while refusing to let the Johnston family see Tripp, and a few months before Levi, Mercede, and Sherry went public on the Tyra Banks Show to tell their side of the story.

Update 2: Oops, I forgot about this clip!  Dennis Zaki just reminded me.