Straight talk from Sarah

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Palin takes aim at GOP presidential candidates

In the immediate aftermath of Monday’s GOP presidential debate, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) launched jabs at the entire Republican field, a move sure to ramp up speculation that the 2008 vice presidential candidate will make her own bid for the nomination.

“They haven’t tackled debt and deficit spending to the degree that they should, so they don’t have a record to stand on,” Palin said of the GOP candidates, all of whom serve or have served in public office, save businessman Herman Cain (R).

Palin even went as far as to lend her voice to the charge leveled by Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) during the debate against Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R): That he allowed a law to go though requiring HPV vaccinations for adolescent girls because of a $5,000 campaign donation and his relationship with his former chief of staff, who went on to lobby for a pharmaceutical company.

“I knew there was something to it,” Palin said of learning while she was Alaska’s governor that her Texas counterpart had given the go-ahead to the vaccine. “Now we’re finding that now, yea, something was up with that issue. It was an illustration or bit of evidence of some crony capitalism.”

Palin, who has crisscrossed the country making speeches and appearances in early voting states, decline once again to say whether she will run for president, but admitted she’s enjoying driving the conversation.

“I’m getting kind of a kick out of this,” Palin said, claiming that the day after she brings up an issue, she notices the candidates adopt that issue in their stump speeches. “It’s like come on candidates, it’s about time you started talking about that.”

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Right now Perry is the frontrunner and the primary target for the left and the GOP establishment. Sarah is the only (potential) candidate positioned to run as a reformer.

(via Hot Air)

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Monday Night Open Thread

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I got the game on so y’all keep the noise down.

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Tea Party Debate Live Blog

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Five things to watch in Monday’s tea-infused GOP debate

If the duel between Rick Perry and Mitt Romney during last week’s Republican presidential debate at the Reagan Library in California wasn’t enough to signify that the nation has entered a faster and more furious stage of the race, then the simple fact that yet another debate will be held tonight, five days after the last, should hammer that home.

The candidates have barely had time to campaign (or raise money) in between the two events.

This evening’s contest will be held some 2,500 miles away from the Reagan one—in Tampa. The wrinkle this time is that it will be co-sponsored by the Tea Party Express, an advocacy group affiliated with the small-government movement.

As part of the format, the participants will take questions from CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, along with questions from members of the audience and “tea party” groups across the country. While that may not move the combatants off their talking points, it may provide a different flavor to the event.

Here are some story lines to watch during the debate, which will be broadcast live from the Florida State Fairgrounds on CNN.

1. Will Perry try to walk back his remarks on Social Security?

2. Will Romney try to court the tea party vote?

3. Can Bachmann get a word in edgewise?

4. Can Huntsman (and others) stay relevant?

5. Will the GOP risk alienating moderate voters?

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Y’all are are your own. I’ll be getting drunk and watching the Raiders-Broncos game. Have fun.

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No, we’re laughing AT you

That's not funny!

Remember when making fun of Obama was racist?:

Letterman: Wasn’t Labor Day great, folks? Labor Day is now that time of year when Americans take three days off from looking for work.

Fallon: President Obama is refusing to give specifics about his jobs plan because he wants people to tune in on Thursday. That’s not how you handle the economy -– that’s how you handle the ‘American Idol’ results show. ‘I have a plan that could put millions back to work. You’ll find out more…after the break.’

Leno: President Obama’s jobs speech was tonight: A guy whose job nobody approves of giving a speech about jobs that don’t exist to people who don’t have any jobs.

Fallon: President Obama’s $447-billion spending plan is called the American Jobs Act. It would have had a cooler name, but the name guy was laid off six months ago.

Leno: President Obama gives his big speech this week on job growth. How many of you think it will be a really short speech?

Leno: President Obama named his new $447-billion legislation the American Jobs Act. Better than the original name, the Save My Ass Act.

Letterman: Don’t forget, folks, tomorrow is take your son or daughter with you to the Unemployment Office Day.

[...]

Leno: Government statistics show the U.S. economy created zero jobs in August. President Obama now says he’s confident this month he can double that.

[...]

Leno: The NFL season kicks off Thursday night right here on NBC. We are all very excited. The game will be on right after the season finale of President Obama.

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When a fad becomes a joke he’s not a fad anymore.

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Big Dawg to the rescue

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When all else fails, call the Big Dawg:

Former President Bill Clinton and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo are throwing their weight behind Democrat David Weprin in New York’s 9th Congressional district, recording robo-calls that will run Monday and Tuesday.

The Democrats should get something like the Bat Signal to tell Bill when they need him again.

Good thing for our country that the Obots didn’t succeed in purging Bill and Hillary from the Democratic party.

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Freedom of speech for me but not for thee

Dana Loesch

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Digby:

The best political team on television?

I can hardly believe what I’m seeing: Breitbart’s creature Dana Loasch is on CNN with Ali Velshi and John King, doing economic “analysis” and critiquing the President’s jobs plan as if she is some sort of expert. Velshi is doing a good job of exploding the myth that “the government doesn’t have a revenue problem it has a spending problem” and he blames the Tea Party for it. He points out that the best way to fix the deficit is to grow the economy and even challenges the whole “household budget” thing. Huzzah! Then John King says it isn’t the Tea Party’s fault and blames the American people because they elected a leftwing president and a rightwing congress.

Loesch, in her guise as a normal person, replies that there really isn’t a disagreement about this at all and that the “grassroots” (is “Tea Party” out of vogue these days?) believes that instead of redistributing wealth they should “expand the tax base” and if you look at the past six decades, “it’s proven.” She cleverly avoids saying what she means by that: that poor people don’t pay enough taxes.

Now she’s complaining that Obama didn’t fulfill his promises, which she evidently wants people to think she supported, and says “the grassroots” want him to cut taxes, end regulations and pass the Keystone Pipeline project.

Why is she on my TV?

Update: I have my answer. Doh. The CNN-Tea party debate is tonight. And that’s shocking and disgusting in itself.

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Well meee-OW!

I’m no fan of Dana Loesch – in fact I had to google her name to find out who she is:

Dana Loesch (née Eaton, born September 28, 1978) is a conservative pundit, associated with the Tea Party movement.

Dana Loesch graduated from Fox High School in Arnold, Missouri. She attended St. Louis Community College and transferred Webster University, where she majored in journalism. She dropped out after beginning her relationship with Chris Loesch, whom she would eventually marry. Dana had been a liberal but became a conservative after the September 11 attacks. They have two children and homeschool them.[3]

She hosts a talk radio show called The Dana Show: The Conservative Alternative, which broadcasts on KFTK FM NewsTalk 97.1 to the Greater St. Louis area.[4] Since October, 2010, Loesch has also served as editor-in-chief of Big Journalism, a conservative blog owned by webmaster Andrew Breitbart.[5] On February 10, 2011, CNN announced that, in preparation for its 2012 election coverage, the network had hired Loesch, Will Cain, and Democratic strategist Cornell Belcher, as political analysts. Loesch was specifically hired to represent the Tea Party point of view.[6]

She is a national leadership team member of the Nationwide Tea Party Coalition and often speaks on national issues involving the Tea Party movement.

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Just on the face of her Wiki resume, Loesch is at least as qualified to bloviate as this person:

Digby was a Navy brat who graduated from Lathrop High School in Fairbanks, Alaska. She studied theater at San Jose State College and worked on the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System and for a number of film companies, including Island Pictures, Polygram, and Artisan Entertainment.

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Remember the good old days when progressives supported freedom of speech and freedom of the press?

Liberals still do.

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21 more ought to do it

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Obama approval rating falls after jobs speech

Not only did President Obama fail to get a bounce from his jobs speech to a joint session of Congress, but his approval rating actually declined slightly following last Thursday’s address, according to Gallup.

In the just released Gallup daily tracking poll, which now has three days of polling since the speech was delivered last Thursday (Sept. 9th through 11th), Obama’s approval rating has fallen to 42 percent.

By contrast, in polling done before the speech between Sept. 5th through 7th, Obama was at 44 percent approval, and on Sept. 6th through 8th, he was at 43 percent.

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Let’s see, if he’s at 42% and he drops 2 points every time he gives another Greatest Speech Ever™ . . .

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Even his friends don’t like him

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Public Policy Polling:

Turner poised for big upset

Republican Bob Turner is poised to pull a huge upset in the race to replace Anthony Weiner as the Congressman from New York’s 9th Congressional District. He leads Democrat David Weprin 47-41 with Socialist Workers candidate Christopher Hoeppner at 4% and 7% of voters remaining undecided.

Turner’s winning in a heavily Democratic district for two reasons: a huge lead with independents and a large amount of crossover support. He’s ahead by 32 points at 58-26 with voters unaffiliated with either major party. And he’s winning 29% of the Democratic vote, holding Weprin under 60% with voters of his own party, while losing just 10% of Republican partisans.

If Turner wins on Tuesday it will be largely due to the incredible unpopularity of Barack Obama dragging his party down in the district. Obama won 55% there in 2008 but now has a staggeringly bad 31% approval rating, with 56% of voters disapproving of him. It’s a given that Republicans don’t like him but more shocking are his 16% approval rating with independents and the fact that he’s below 50% even with Democrats at 46% approving and 38% disapproving. Obama trails Mitt Romney 46-42 in a hypothetical match up in the district and leads Rick Perry only 44-43.

[...]

One final note on the poll and what perhaps should concern Democrats most of all. 55% of voters in the district report having voted for Obama in 2008, which is the actual percentage of the vote he got in the district. Last year a lot of the races Democrats lost were because their voters didn’t show up and the electorate was far more conservative than for a Presidential year. When you lose that way you can say, well, our voters will come back out in 2012 and we’ll be fine. But there is no enthusiasm gap here. Obama voters are showing up in the same numbers they did in 2008. But only 65% of them are voting Democratic. That’s a really big cause for concern.

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He’s historic!

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Sarah Palin is sooooo stoopid!!!1!!

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“He breaks the bow and cuts the spear in two.” Psalm 46:2

That’s this kind of bow:

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not this kind:

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He’s giving another “Jobs” speech!

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Hot Air:

A White House official says President Barack Obama will send Congress his new $447 billion jobs bill Monday and speak in the Rose Garden to call for swift passage. …

Teachers, police officers, firefighters and others will join the president in the Rose Garden to call for passage, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity ahead of the president’s remarks.

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Okay, that’s two “pass the bill” speeches, and he hasn’t even Congress the bill he wants them to pass yet.

BTW – Isn’t using public employees for campaign purposes a violation of the Hatch Act?

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So much for Rick Perry

Yee-HAW!

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USA Today:

Rick Perry: I am going to be honest with the American people

Like that will ever work.

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Mitt gets coveted TPaw endorsement

Would you by a used douchebag from this man?

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Pathetico:

Pawlenty endorses Romney

Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty endorsed Mitt Romney for president Monday, praising his onetime rival for his “leadership ability” and the “depth and scope of [his] private-sector experience.”

“I believe he’s going to be our party’s nominee,” Pawlenty said on “Fox and Friends,” predicting Romney would be a “transformational and great president.”

Less than a month after ending his own White House bid, Pawlenty was in sync with the Romney campaign’s message on everything from jobs to health care, to Social Security and Rick Perry.

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After losing the all-important but meaningless Ames Straw Poll to everybody else Pawlenty told all three of his supporters to vote for Mitt.

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