"He's a Ni**er!"

How sad. Did you catch that, where Gov. Palin paused for a minute, registering what one of her yahoo supporters just shouted.

This, friends, is the superstar of the Republican party. And this is the caliber of people she attracts.

Give me a break.

by Rope Hoover Palin

Sarah Palin spends more money than you do on clothes

I'm sure you've heard by now.

What recession?

The Atlantic did some digging and found out who the co-shopper was:

Does the name Jeff Larson sound familiar? It should. Larson is the Karl Rove protégé...Larson’s firm is the same one that launched the scurrilous robocalls against John McCain in 2000, and that McCain has now hired to make robocalls connecting Barack Obama to Bill Ayers.

Those same people who made those awful robocalls against McCain in 2000? He hired them.

That's leadership.

And I think Palin looks like shit.


by Rope Hoover Palin

Palin's Republican rage is dangerous and out of hand

When people start yelling racial slurs at reporters at Palin/McCain rallies, something has definitely gone wrong. Especially when the candidates do nothing to discourage this type of behavior.

Recent examples of "Republican rage" have cast doubt on whether the right really are good Americans. Sarah Palin has used this Ayers conspiracy theory to cast doubts on Barack Obama's patriotism, character, and even religious views. Never mind the policies - he's a dangerous terrorist.

This, friends, is crap of the highest degree - and it's dangerous. Andrew Sullivan tells us that the fear and loathing Republicans have turned them into nasty reptiles:

McCain and Palin have decided to stoke this rage, to foment it, to encourage paranoid notions that somehow Obama is a "secret" terrorist or Islamist or foreigner. These are base emotions in both sense of the word.

But they are also very very dangerous. This is a moment of maximal physical danger for the young Democratic nominee. And McCain is playing with fire. If he really wants to put country first, he will attack Obama on his policies - not on these inflammatory, personal, creepy grounds.

"Creepy" is right. This is the kind of behavior that led to lynch mobs in the South at the turn of the century, or - in extreme cases - Germans whistling past the concentration camp.

People who shout "kill him" at political rallies are not good Americans. They're foolish, despicable, cowardly blow-hards who deserve neither to be heard nor to be ignored. And all this foolishness may backfire on McCain: the troll-under-the-bridge strategy is the one getting the attention, not Obama serving on a board with some radical hippie. People, smart people, are starting to take notice.

It makes me ashamed, to think that we live in such an ignorant fucking country that can't see the difference between a leader who tries to sell them fear at a discount for one who offers hope and solutions to the problems we face. It's a sign of weakness and desperation when a party has to stoop low enough to use racial, ethnic, and religious slurs to smear an opponent. Is that really what our country is about? Here we had hoped that this election would be different; that this election promised two of the most respectable human beings in politics finally giving us a president we deserved - no matter the result.

No more.

This shit is scary, and the reptiles behind it are even scarier. These attacks have shown the dark side of America, and we can thank Gov. Palin for leading us there.

by Rope Hoover Palin

The Deception Grows Deeper

ABC news has uncovered "New Doubts" (read: New Truths) about Sarah Palin's claims on Troopergate.

We can again see the political ideology that seems to continuously spew forth from the McCain Slime Machine. What truly makes it frightening is the parallel's to the W* campaigns of yesteryear.

It is not only the style that is appalling, it is also the substance. I enjoy waking everyday and finding that Palin keeps using the unequivocal 'thanks, but no thanks' line. (Thanks TTT) When directly asked about it by Hannity,(the closest thing Hannity actual got to asking her a real question), she began the long, slow slink away from the lie that is so painfully obvious now.

HANNITY: Did you rigidly support it and did you change your view on it? Because the Democrats are saying, no, no, no, she originally supported it and she said she said she opposed it.

PALIN: Well, I killed the Bridge to Nowhere. And you know, I think I ruffled some feathers there, also, with our congressman who had been requesting that bridge for so many years.

What we needed to do up there in Alaska, was find some good transportation between the two land bodies there. And we did. We found that with an improved ferry system between Ketchikan and its airport. But, the Bridge to Nowhere is, as I've been saying in my speeches, if it's something that Alaskans really want and support, which at this time, they're not willing to support to such an extent that we'll pay for it ourselves, we better kill the bridge because we know the rest of the nation's not going to pay for it.

Sadly (or predictably), Hannity failed to ask the follow-up question that Palin's answer begs - "Can you kill a bridge that is already dead?"

This is typical Bush/Rove politics. How can anyone conclude that the result of this campaign is going to be any different than the administration of the past 8 years?

"Just keep lying - it makes it seem like the truth" - ancient GOP proverb.

Same campaign ideology - Same disastrous results.

Operation: Sarracuda

Maybe this is a news flash, but Barack Obama is a Muslim. He also hates America, isn't a patriot, and wants to kill us all in our sleep.

If you didn't know all this, it's okay. Just open up your e-mail inbox and it's all right there.

I say that in jest, of course, but the fact remains: the right-wing uses e-mail like a pro. They've used it against the Clintons and against John Kerry, and now it's being used against Obama. Probably because it only involves hitting the "Forward" button, and it doesn't involve much creativity. Why pay for ads when you can just type up some bullshit and hit "send" to your family members?

The left-wing has its own form of propaganda, but it involves a little more work. Liberals get off their asses and does some on-the-street reporting, in blogs and in commenting forums and in Twitter feeds, like journalists used to do (and should be doing today).

The Twitter feeds I read are alive with protests and linking. John Gruber, who authors my favorite blog Daring Fireball, has made it his goal to uncover everything evil about Sarah Palin. And Andrew Sullivan, over at The Atlantic, has hit the governor everyday. But who actually reads this stuff? Do average Americans really jump on The Atlantic's site for their political news? How much influence do they have?

There's a great new blog that has surfaced since the Palin VP announcement, called Mudflats, and its written by a guy up in Alaska that reports as an Alaskan on the whole ordeal. It's great stuff, like when he attends an anti-Palin rally that's actually larger than her "welcome home" rally.

But then I watch the Sunday morning political shows, like "This Week," and all of them were gushing over Sarah Palin and her "dramatic invigoration" of the Republican base. No truth-telling, no in-depth questioning - just idol worship. How can blogs compete with ABC? My good friend Andrea has had some great posts about the awfulness of the Governor, but even her and me combined don't get the audience that major media outlets do. Not even close.

So we need an e-mail campaign of our own.

We need to take what these go-getters, these guardians of the public interest (most of which are underpaid or not paid at all - just passionate investigators of the truth) are finding and spread them like a virus. We can finally test whether the truth will set America free, and whether lies fall under the weight of their own hypocrisy (though are are some exceptions).

Take what you find, copy the link or the text, and send them to your relatives. You know the ones: the same aunts and uncles who send you those "send this or die in five days" kinds of e-mails. Send them all the shit that's been dug up about Palin. If that's the only way we can reach people about this lady, then so be it. Because I'll tell you, McCain's cronies are working hard to assault Obama through e-mail (by calling him a Muslim, anti-American, a socialist, and so on). We can fight back.

The key will be not to send them to people who think the same way you do. That's preaching to the choir. Instead, send it to people who you know are either undecided or are so pro-Palin they're going to get their Sarah beehave hairdo. Set your sights on folks who don't pay attention, in any sort of detail, to news from the political front. The fact is, these folks aren't going to find out the truth unless it's shoved in front of their face. So let's do the shoving.

To get things started, however, spread the good word amongst your friends. They can then take what we've found and spread it to their non-believers. It has to start somewhere.

Is this back-handed? Is it the cheap way of doing things? Is it even right? Yes, maybe, and probably not - but listen, we're on the losing side of a fight that's been raging for years. We can hope that people will suddenly care about what goes on in the world, and we can hope that people will read blogs and watch the news and do some research. But hope only goes so far, and eventually we need to do the work ourselves. Part of it is the good people who are researching the candidates and putting the information out there. But that's only half the battle. The other half is making sure people see the stuff. And friends, that's where you and I come in.

You know what the great part is? Most of the stuff being spread about Barack Obama are lies. Shit-storm, muddy, dirty lies. But the information about Sarah Palin? That's all true. The difficult part is already done, because we don't have to make anything up. Her husband really did want Alaska to secede from the Union. She really did say the Iraq war was "God's will." She look into banning books at her town's library. All this makes the entire job easier.

This begins "Operation: Oooh, Sarracuda." But what should our hub be? Should we have a blog? A website? Some kind of resource people can go and find all the ammunition they need? Let me know, and we can build a hot-and-heavy coalition of people who really care about who is going to govern their country. Nothing is out of bounds, but there is one limitation: we're only going to spread stuff that's true. No lies. Nothing that might be true. Just truth, fair and square.

The moral high ground is a good place to start, and as the Jedi say - the truth hurts. Let's make it hurt really bad. While we may feel a bit dirty and slimy at the end - anything that deals with spreading e-mail propaganda is always a bit messy - our hard work will be worth it. A side benefit? Maybe your neighbor, the one who sends you all those lottery offers and racist jokes, will leave you the hell alone.

The war will not be televised. It will be forwarded and spread and will catch fire in the inboxes of the unbelievers. We have nothing to lose but our dignity - we have a country to gain.

by Rope Hoover Palin