Sarah Palin and the Apack of Lips

Can you believe this picture? 100,000 people showed up in St. Louis today to see Barack Obama speak. Wow. Shades of Lincoln.

meanwhile, Sarah Palin showed up on Saturday Night Live:

COLUMBUS, Ohio – After watching "Saturday Night Live" make fun of her from afar, Sarah Palin witnessed it first hand this week as Tina Fey engaged in fiction by depicting her at the news conference the Republican vice presidential nominee has yet to hold.

Later, Palin came on stage during the Weekend Update mock news segment and bobbed to the beat as cast member Amy Poehler performed a rap song the Alaska governor decided was too hardcore for her to perform personally.

"I'm Jeremiah Wright 'cuz I'm the preacher; I got a bookish look and you're all hot for teacher," Poehler rapped as actors dressed as Eskimos, Palin's husband, Todd, and a caribou pranced across the stage.

The appearance was anticipated since September, when Fey began portraying Palin just after GOP presidential nominee John McCain selected the little-known governor as his running mate. The two look alike, and Palin remarked that people often told her — before Fey started portraying her — that she resembled the actor.

In the show's opening, Fey's impersonation of Palin told a group of reporters, "First off, I just want to say how excited I am to be in front of both the liberal elite media as well as the liberal regular media. I am looking forward to a portion of your questions."

Moments later, the camera cut away to the real Palin watching a television monitor alongside the show's executive producer, Lorne Michaels.

"You know, Lorne, I just don't think it's a realistic depiction of the way my press conferences would have gone," Palin said. She said she wished he would have let her do a sketch about "30 Rock," the NBC program in which Fey now stars. That prompted Michaels to deadpan: "Honestly not enough people know that show."

Palin then stood mute as Fey's "30 Rock" co-star, Alec Baldwin came onto the stage, mistook Palin for Fey and pleaded with Michaels not to let the actor go onstage with the governor.

"This is the most important election in our nation's history and you want her, our Tina, to go out there and stand with that horrible woman?" Baldwin said.

When Michaels broke down and introduced him to Palin, Baldwin feigned embarrassment and replied, "I see. Forgive me. I feel I must say this: You are way hotter in person."

Palin got even by saying, "Thank you, and I must say, your brother Stephen is my favorite Baldwin brother."

The camera soon cut back to Fey who answered a question about the polls.

"I don't worry about the polls. Polls are just a fancy way of systematically predicting what's going to happen. The only poll I care about is the North Pole, and that ... is ... melting. It's not great."

The real Palin then walked onto the news conference set, sending Fey fleeing.

"Thank you, thank you," the governor said to applause from the studio audience. "No, I'm not going to take any of your questions, but I do wanted to take this opportunity to say, `Live from New York, it's Saturday Night.'"

It was not immediately clear if McCain, overnighting in Ohio, watched the show, but earlier in the day he told a crowd in Woodbridge, Va., that he thought Fey and Palin were "separated at birth."

Speaking of his running mate, he added, "I know she'll do a great job."

BUT THEN THEY RAN AN AD FOR OBAMA THAT QUOTED JOHN MCCAIN SAYING "I'VE VOTED OVER 90% OF THE TIME WITH GEORGE BUSH" - just devastating.

Look, I grew up in the 60's. As soon as you have a hero something bad happens to him (or her). I'm used to watching heroes disappear, and I'm not used to seeing them make it to the finish line. However, that being said, I'm hopeful that the country is going in the right direction. And just to make it seem all the more important and game changing than it already is, consider this;

If Gore hadn't lost the election (that he won) and if the Supreme Court hadn't handed Bush the election (which it did), then Obama would not be this close to being elected President. Only a sick economy and 8 years of an awful Presidency, could the country even consider voting for someone outside the paradigm. So consider for a moment thanking George Bush for being so awful, otherwise we'd be facing another four to 8 years of our national nightmare.

And the truth is, I enjoyed watching Sarah bop to the music on SNL - was she not aware of Amy P was singing, mocking her? Even if she was, she smiled gamely throughout, and remembered her chops as a weather lady. It just shows how adept she is at READING A SCRIPT, whether it's weather, or news, or what Karl Rove shoves under her nose. God bless her. I hope she stays on the national scene. But SNL was hilarious.. that rap song priceless. Good on ya Lorne.

My two cents

RepubliCORN Dirty Tricks

Voters say they were duped into registering as Republicans

Email Picture

Stephen Osman / Los Angeles Times

"I am not a Republican," insisted Karen Ashcraft, 47, a pet clinic manager from Ventura who said she was duped by a signature gatherer into joining the GOP. "I certainly . . . won't sign anything in front of a grocery store ever again."

YPM, a group hired by the GOP, allegedly deceived Californians who thought they were signing a petition. YPM denies any wrongdoing. Similar accusations have been leveled against the company elsewhere.

By Evan Halper and Michael Rothfeld, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers
October 18, 2008

SACRAMENTO -- Dozens of newly minted Republican voters say they were duped into joining the party by a GOP contractor with a trail of fraud complaints stretching across the country.

Voters contacted by The Times said they were tricked into switching parties while signing what they believed were petitions for tougher penalties against child molesters. Some said they were told that they had to become Republicans to sign the petition, contrary to California initiative law. Others had no idea their registration was being changed.

"I am not a Republican," insisted Karen Ashcraft, 47, a pet-clinic manager and former Democrat from Ventura who said she was duped by a signature gatherer into joining the GOP. "I certainly . . . won't sign anything in front of a grocery store ever again."

It is a bait-and-switch scheme familiar to election experts. The firm hired by the California Republican Party -- a small company called Young Political Majors, or YPM, which operates in several states -- has been accused of using the tactic across the country.

Election officials and lawmakers have launched investigations into the activities of YPM workers in Florida and Massachusetts. In Arizona, the firm was recently a defendant in a civil rights lawsuit. Prosecutors in Los Angeles and Ventura counties say they are investigating complaints about the company.

The firm, which a Republican Party spokesman said is paid $7 to $12 for each registration it secures, has denied any wrongdoing and says it has never been charged with a crime.

The 70,000 voters YPM has registered for the Republican Party this year will help combat the public perception that it is struggling amid Democratic gains nationally, give a boost to fundraising efforts and bolster member support for party leaders, political strategists from both parties say.

Those who were formerly Democrats may stop receiving phone calls and literature from that party, perhaps affecting its get-out-the-vote efforts. They also will be given only a Republican ballot in the next primary election if they do not switch their registration back before then.

Some also report having their registration status changed to absentee without their permission; if they show up at the polls without a ballot they may be unable to vote.

The Times randomly interviewed 46 of the hundreds of voters whose election records show they were recently re-registered as Republicans by YPM, and 37 of them -- more than 80% -- said that they were misled into making the change or that it was done without their knowledge.

Lydia Laws, a Palm Springs retiree, said she was angry to find recently that her registration had been switched from Democrat to Republican.

Laws said the YPM staffer who instructed her to identify herself on a petition as a Republican assured her that it was a formality, and that her registration would not be changed. Later, a card showed up in the mail saying she had joined the GOP.

"I said, 'No, no, no. That's not right,' " Laws said.

It all sounds familiar to Beverly Hill, a Democrat and the former election supervisor in Florida's Alachua County. About 200 voters -- mostly college students -- were unwittingly registered as Republicans there in 2004 by YPM staffers using the same tactic, Hill said.

"It is just incredible that this can keep happening election after election," she said.

YPM and Republican Party officials said they were surprised by the complaints. The officials said the signature gatherers wear shirts bearing the Republican symbol, an elephant -- a contention disputed by some of the voters interviewed.

Every person registered signs an affidavit confirming they voluntarily joined the GOP, party leaders said.

"It does the state party no good to register people in a party they don't want to be in," said Hector Barajas, communications director for the California Republican Party.

The document that voters thought was an initiative petition has no legal implications at all. YPM founder Mark Jacoby said the petition was clearly labeled as a "plebiscite," which does nothing more than show public support.

He also said that plainclothes investigators for Secretary of State Debra Bowen, a Democrat, have conducted multiple spot checks and told his firm it is doing nothing improper....


Oh my! The Republicans cheating and committing voter fraud? I thought they were Americans! The true patriots! At least they weren't making up names and submitting them to ACORN reps. This is MORE INSIDIOUS. Creeps. All of 'em.

My two cents.

Wow. I wish the whole campaign had been like this...

McCain, Obama trade jokes, not jabs at NYC dinner

By DAVID ESPO, AP Special Correspondent 1 hour, 1 minute ago

NEW YORK - John McCain and Barack Obama swapped self-deprecating jokes instead of campaign jabs Thursday night, the Republican saying he had replaced his team of senior advisers with "Joe the Plumber" while the Democrat claimed his own "greatest strength would be my humility.

Said Obama: "Contrary to the rumors you have heard, I was not born in a manger. I was actually born on Krypton and sent here by my father, Jor-el, to save the planet Earth," a reference to Superman.

McCain joked that Democrats had already begun attacking Joe the Plumber, the Ohio man whom he referred to in Wednesday night's debate, and claimed "that this honest, hardworking small businessman could not possibly have enough income to face a tax increase under the Obama plan."

"What they don't know is that Joe the Plumber recently signed a very lucrative contract with a wealthy couple to handle all the work on all seven of their houses," McCain said, drawing laughter with the reference to his property holdings.

The two men spoke at the 63rd annual Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner, a charity event organized by the Catholic Archdiocese of New York for the benefit of needy children. An estimated $4 million was raised.

The event often draws politicians as speakers and, by long tradition, presidential candidates appear as headliners every four years. In this case, the evening of humor came one night after an intense final debate of the presidential campaign.

McCain lampooned Obama's primary opponent, Hillary Rodham Clinton, as well as himself.

"Even in this room full of proud Manhattan Democrats, I can't shake the feeling that some people here are pulling for me," he said, before adding: "I'm delighted to see you here tonight, Hillary."

He also said Obama "is ready for any contingency, even the possibility of a sudden and dramatic market rebound. I'm told that at the first sign of a recovery, he will suspend his campaign and fly immediately to Washington to address the crisis," said the Republican, who drew criticism when he suspended his campaign a few weeks ago and flew to Washington during the crisis.

Obama also poked fun at his Democratic National Convention acceptance speech, which he delivered before a crowd of tens of thousands at an outdoor football stadium on an elaborately constructed stage.

"I was originally told we'd be able to move this outdoors to Yankee Stadium," he said of the dinner.

Then, pausing and looking around, he said, "Could somebody tell me what happened to the Greek columns that I requested?"

Both men closed with compliments.

McCain praised Obama for his "great skill, energy, and determination. It's not for nothing that he's inspired so many folks in his own party and beyond," he said of his rival, bidding to become the nation's first black president. "I can't wish my opponent luck but I do wish him well."

Obama said few Americans had served their country with "the same honor and distinction" as McCain, a former Navy pilot who was a prisoner of war for more than five years in Vietnam.

Filmmaking in Rome - Closer Look

Filmmaking in Rome - Closer Look

Ooh! they're raiding ACORN offices! Oh My!

I got an email from an old military vet today - drumming up support for McCain by claiming ACORN is robbing the election (you can listen to fathead Rush Limbaugh at it every day). Here's the text. Forgive the guy's spelling, I guess when you're mad, you don't spell so good:

FW: Exposure To True Informstion Does No Matter Anymore

Please click on the Homeland Security US link below,
obtained from the Northeast Intelligence Network and
E-mailed to me by an American Patriot and war hero.
Kindly watch the entire video and share it; you can
skip the follow on article on ACORN if you care to,
but kindly watch the first video, it has nothing to
do with the election.
Do you think the mainstream media would run
with a story like this just 20 days from a Presidential
election? Exposure to True Information Does Not
Matter Anymore. There is a non-profit organization
that has been found to be illegally
registering voters. Voters have come forward stating
that have filled out multiple registration cards by this organization.

1. Several offices of this organization have been raided and thousands
of fraudulent registration cards have been seized.
2. One of the Presidential candidates used to be an attorney for this
organization.
3. One of the Presidential candidates used to be a trainer for this
organization
4. One of the Presidential candidates campaign gave $832,000 to this
organization.
5. One of the Presidential candidates set on a board with a domestic
terrorist that gave this organization $200,000.

The answer to the question raised above would be YES if it was McCain, but
in this case it is Obama, so like everything else negative regarding Obama,
the mainstream media is silent.

Please click on this link to watch ACORN:
Please follow this link
to watch "ACORN."

AND HERE'S MY RESPONSE:

The site you mentioned in your email is .. well, let's put it this way; loopy. "Exposure to True Informstion Does No Matter" indeed.

The guy who runs this site, Hagmann, has been exposed as a fraud. He's been spewing nonsense about terrorists running around the US for years,. The concept that ACORN, a homeless advocacy group who pays people to register voters, is some kind of terrorist left wing org is nonsense. You can't vote based on registering. John McCain himself spoke at their conference last year. Here's a photograph of John with the ACORN people:
Let's stop bashing the people who register homeless people to vote. 23% of the homeless in our country are Veterans. What's to say they won't vote for a fellow Veteran? If the ACORN people turned their own registrars in because of fraud, then what's the problem? If you sign up to vote as Mickey Mouse, you still have to show your Mickey Mouse ID when you go to vote.

Shouldn't we be worried about how we're going to fix the economy? In the history of the world, there's never been a nation with a bad economy that has been able to wage wars. The economy goes into the ditch, so does the military. How patriotic do we have to be to realize that we need someone in Washington who can fix the economy? If that's going to be Senator McCain, then let's hear what he wants to do.
He may be the person to bring the country out of its tailspin. Palin may be the soldier on the white horse that's going to save us from the Depression. But nothing they've said so far gives me that confidence. Maybe tonight, Senator McCain will "Whip Obama's You-Know-What," although the image of him whipping a black man - even if he's only half black - and not an Arab, "but a decent family man" is unfortunate.

my two cents

Palin As President, Hilarious!

http://www.palinaspresident.com/

Don't forget to try the windows, the bridge to nowhere and turn up the sound.. hilarious.