There are reasons to be thankful this year: Just ask Tina Sherman, Joe Lieberman, and Sarah Palin

Despite our involvement in the Pentagon’s pocketbuster hits The Neverending Wars: Parts I (Terror), II (Afghanistan), and III (Iraq); the exponential rise in health care costs and premiums, a schizophrenic lame-duck presidency, and the economy bottoming out, there’s a lot to be thankful for these days.

You just have to poke around…

For example. I’m thankful:

1. For all of the technological advancements such as free blog sites and YouTube, which have helped level Democracy’s playing field – unless of course you have a predilection for illegal dumping or leaving your cell phone (with nude pics of your wife on it) behind at McDonalds.

Tina Serman, whose husband left his cell phone with explicit photos of her behind at McDonalds, plans on suing the fast-food chain for $3 million after the pictures were posted all over the Internet.

2. That I’m not Sen. Joe Lieberman, whose plans to lay the groundwork for war on Iran were throttled by President-elect Obama’s victory. However, I’m willing to bet 30 pieces of gold that we have not heard the last of The Lone Jew of the Apocalypse and his plans to launch WW III in the Middle East. No wonder the Dems left Joe the Warmonger at the head of the Homeland Security table in the Senate. The reason, however, I’m most thankful that I’m not Joe Lieberman is that I could not bare knowing that my voice was the prototype for Alf’s dad. The horror, the horror…

3. That my 6th-grade elementary teacher taught me during our introduction into sex education to abstain from drunk, adulterous sex in bathroom stalls with alleged strangers at UI Hawkeye Football games – either home or away. This mini-lesson helped me navigate my way through six seasons of football as a season-ticket holder unfettered.

4. Sara Palin plans on making a presidential run in 2012. Satirists rejoice!

The Sarah Palin Turkey Massacre



(Note: I’m thankful I’m not the turkey in the background, who was fed to the turkey chipper. Great backdrop for political theater, eh?)

5. For the 22nd amendment to the Constitution (That’s the one, Sarah, that limits the president to two terms (wink)).

Obama vs. McCain: Video killed the grumpy ol’ political star

Sen. John SYDNEY McCain has taken several lumps from the media for his inability to keep up with the latest trends in technology. Last night’s non-debate illustrated this point, literally, as McCain showed the world that he has yet to adapt to the technological advancement born during his formative years. Not the club, silly, rather: the television. In particular, the split-screen that simultaneously captured both candidates’ facial expressions for the American viewers — half of which just may vote.

I caught the first part of the debate on the radio and both candidates sounded presidential — whatever that means. However, when I caught the rest of it on the tube, I knew within five minutes that McCain’s last pitch to the American people had failed. Voters, especially the undecided and independent, were not buying McCain’s Howard Beale-Grouch Marx impersonation.

McCain: Why so angry?



For McCain, pundits have argued that he needed a game-changer — not a channel-changer.

I suspect his strategists knew this going into the final non-debate and turned to desperate measures: hypnotism. McCain’s R.E.M. like blinking failed to entrance and/or hypnotize me, or Obama. We were not swayed by McCain’s Svengalian attempt to lure us into submission:

“Must vote McCain/Must vote McCain …”

Nor were those polled by the mainstream pollsters afterward.

McCain touts himself as a reformer, yet he keeps sticking to failed tactics in his campaign as evidenced in the debate (e.g. playing the Bill Ayers card). Whenever he is called out on why he has resorted to negative campaigning, McCain’s resorts to his patented “If … then” logical fallacy:

“As I have said before, my friends, if Senator Obama would have agreed to the series of town hall debates I proposed earlier, I would not have to resort to negative campaigning, character assassination, and hypnosis.”

When the election is over, I imagine McCain will use this line of defense to try to reconcile his reputation, or what is left of it at that point. I’m sure he will continue to blame the media as well — that is, when he’s not eternally damning ALL bloggers to hell (several blinks into submission here).

SNL Skewers Palin, Serves Up Another Moose-Inspired Appetizer

Secretly, satirists are hoping for the worst: a McCain/Palin victory come November.

Why, you ask?

Answer: Job Security

Tina Fey delivers another spot-on impersonation of Sarah Palin. Fey’s first Palin bit convinced her daughter, so much so that she said at last week’s Emmy’s that she didn’t want to play Palin anymore.

Nonetheless:

“Gov. Palin and Katie Couric get real and adorable”

Will McCain’s ‘Campaign to Nowhere’ Cut-and-Run from Tonight’s Debate?

Sen. McCain, far left, prays that President Bush, or anyone else for that matter calls on him to repsond to any questions regarding the economic crisis and/or how to fix it: "Please, please, please, God ... don't let them call on me. I sware I will never approve another lie or half-truth in an ad against my opponent, Sen. Obama, again."

Enquiring minds:

A. Could care less

B. Are preoccupied with more pressing issues such as global warming and. or whether or not Lindsay Lohan is really a lesbian

C. Are still trying to figure out why McCain picked Palin

D. Have subleased their bodies to America and moved their minds to Canada

But the Campaign to Nowhere, although suspended*, is playing up the dramatic, made-for-television pilot show that is destined to be canceled by the Producers Nov. 4.

*In an attempt to hold Congress hostage by threatening to cancel his appearance at the debate (“Ooooooooooooooooooo…”), McCain suspended his Campaign to Nowhere to return to D.C. and help fix the sound economy. Although suspended, McCain is still allowed to make appearances on shows that will loft soft-ball questions, but any media outlets that ask questions that merit responses to complex issues (e.g. “Late Night with David Letterman”) will be off limits.

Triumph: “Is Ralph Nader Good Enough to Poop On?”

On the night of this year’s Democratic Primary in Indiana, I officially boycotted watching mainstream punditry after CNN’s absurd lambasting of the mayor of Gary, Indiana. I thought punditry had bottomed out, but my sources who still watch the Talking Heads tell me the MSM is still scraping the bottom, hoping to discover a juicy geyser of minutia to fill up its around-the-clock coverage.

Question: What is longer than this year’s presidential election?

Answer: Coverage of this year’s presidential election

Other Possible Answers: Number of days it took politicians to figure out something was amiss on Wall Street or Donald Rumsfeld has been in the former Bush Employee Relocation Program

Fortunately there is still one mainstream political pundit out there who is still committed to quality, fair-and-balanced coverage and reporting: Triumph the Insult Comic Dog.

If you didn’t get a chance to catch his coverage of the Republican National Convention, check out the trilogy here and here and here.

While in the twin Cities, Triumph managed to scoop up sloppy seconds, collaring an exclusive interview with presidential candidate Ralph Nader.

Why Nader agreed to the interview, other than a desperate need for media attention, is beyond me.

Worse, Nader genuinely thought it would be able to outwit an insulting comic dog. There’s a reason the Political Campaign Constitution calls for a “separation between politicians and comedians.”

Triumph the Insult Comic Interviews Presidential Candidate Ralph Nader

GOP’s Trusty Invisible Hand Fist F*cks the Trickled-Down…Again

When the late artist Robert Mapplethorpe portrayed photographs of fist-f*cking in his 1988 retrospective show, “Robert Mapplethorpe: the Perfect Moment,” opened in a D.C. gallery (after being canceled in Philadelphia), Republicans denounced the exhibit as obscene and tasteless and demanded that Congress strip (pun intended) funding to the National Endowment of the Arts.

When the Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy, Congress wasted no time crafting a bill that would bail these guys out with an $85 billion loan, essentially bilking the taxpayer for the company’s free-market f*ck up.

This begs the proverbial question: Who’s fist-f*cking whom?

Better yet, what is more obscene in D.C.: Mapplethorpe or the D.C. fat cats and Republican politicians who cling to the free market when they are afraid?

Artist's rendition of the Invisible Hand

If you have ever heard a Republican on the stump fielding unscreened questions, you know what I am talking about.

GOP Stump Speech Script Responses:

Voter: How will you solve the economic crisis that has recently plagued financial institutions?

Candidate: Nothing. The Free Market will eventually help our economy rebound.

Voter: What is your exit plan for the war in Iraq?

Candidate: The Free Market

Voter: How will you help insure the 47 million uninsured Americans and prevent the bottom rung from dropping coverage -- because they can no longer afford the monthly payments?

Candidate: The Free Market may be unhealthy right now, but left alone, the invisible hand will heal our health care woes?

Voter: What are your thoughts on pre-marital sex?

Candidate: Who am I to argue with the Free Market?

Voter: Sex outside of marriage?

Candidate: Again, who am I to argue with the Free Market? Let it takes it natural course.

Voter: Sex outside species?

Candidate: Free Market

Voter: If news surfaced that you fathered a child out of your marriage, what would you name your bastard child?

Candidate: Free Market

Voter: Are you, or have you ever been diagnosed with Free Market Tourettes Syndrome?

Candidate: What the f*ck “Free Market” are you f*cking “Free Market” talking about? Who let this Commie “Free Market” liberal “Free Market” in here “Free Market”?

I think it’s time to revisit Witsend Here and resurrect “Talk to the Invisible Hand” (April 20, 2006).

(Note: This post was sponsored by the Free Market and written by an Invisible Hand, thus relinquishing the blog’s Creator T.M. Lindsey of any responsibility or libel suits filed on behalf of Adam Smith and/or Robert Mapplethorpe)

What do Sarah Palin, a Moose, Castration, and this Year’s Election Have in Common?

Nothing, if you had asked Iowa Lt. Gov. Patty Judge, who delivered some stinging laugh lines at today’s annual Harkin Steak Fry.

The Iowa Independent’s Jason Hancock serves up his account off Judge’s bit:

Iowa Lt. Gov. Patty Judge is getting tired of the comparisons some are drawing between herself and Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin.

The two female politicians differ on almost every major issue of the day, Judge said, but the differences between them don’t stop there.

“Sarah knows how to field dress a moose,” Judge told a crowd of about 1,000 at Sen. Tom Harkin’s annual steak fry. “I know how to castrate a calf. The thing is, neither of those things have anything to do with this election.”

Judge said it would be stupid for Republican presidential nominee John McCain to think simply putting a woman on the ticket will mean women will support his candidacy.

“Just because you wear a pantsuit doesn’t qualify you to be in the sisterhood,” she said.

On the issues that really matter to female voters, Palin is out of touch, Judge said.

“Sarah does not believe a woman has the right to reproductive choice,” Judge said. “She does not believe in science-based education as the foundation to truth and learning. And the fact that she could be a heartbeat away from the presidency of the United States scares me to death.”

She also called into question Palin’s resume, which includes serving as mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, and governor of Alaska for less than 2 years.

“I was elected twice to the state senate, twice as Iowa’s secretary of agriculture and now as the state’s lieutenant governor,” she said.

Then she added, jokingly, “but here’s the rub: [Sen. Barack] Obama never called.”