Rabid Liberal Rants

An 2004 article by Fred Barnes in The Weekly Standard, after the Republican victories in the House, Senate, and with Bush being reelected, exclaiming how the Republican majority was “expected to last for years, maybe decades”.

Listen to Walter Dean Burnham, professor emeritus at University of Texas at Austin, who is the nation’s leading theorist of realignment, the shift of political power from one party to another. The 2004 election, he says, “consolidates it all”–that is, it solidifies the trend that has favored Republicans over the past decade. To Burnham, it means there’s “a stable pattern” of Republican rule. “If Republicans keep playing the religious card along with the terrorism card, this could last a long time,” he says.

Democrats will have enormous difficulty overcoming “the huge weight of Republican strength,” he says.

Rove, leery of claiming too much for Republicans, said on Meet the Press on November 7 that “there are no permanent majorities in American politics.”

For Republicans to slip into minority status again, [Burnham] says, it would take a monumental party split like that in 1912 or “a colossal increase in the pain level” of Americans as happened with the Great Depression. Neither is likely.

The point of the article, IMHO, is that nothing is permanent and anything can change in an instant. Even for Democrats. So unless Obama can truely usher in an era of bipartisanship, we’re doomed to repeat history.

Paul Krugman opines on the ugly turn occurring in the McCain/Palin rallies:

The crisis isn’t the only scary thing going on. Something very ugly is taking shape on the political scene: as McCain’s chances fade, the crowds at his rallies are, by all accounts, increasingly gripped by insane rage. It’s not just a mob phenomenon — it’s visible in the right-wing media, and to some extent in the speeches of McCain and Palin.

And from HuffPost:

McCain is appealing to the worst of people’s fears and prejudices in order to advance himself electorally.

It’s a known fact: As mayor of Wasilla, an Alaskan town, Republican VP candidate Sarah Palin thought it was prudent to have rape victims pay for their own rape kits and exams. From the NYTimes OpEd Page:

When Sarah Palin was mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, the small town began billing sexual-assault victims for the cost of rape kits and forensic exams.

The insult to rape victims is obvious. So is the sexism inherent in singling them out to foot the bill for investigating their own case. And the main result of billing rape victims is to protect their attackers by discouraging women from reporting sexual assaults.

This on top of some startling stats from staralaska.org:

• Alaska is the # 1 state in the country for Rape and has been for 23 out of the last 30 years (FBI’s Uniform Crime Report)
• Alaska’s reported rate of rape per capita is 2.6 times the national average (FBI’s Uniform Crime Report)
• Anchorage has the ninth highest sexual assault rate of any city in the United States, and Fairbanks is ranked first (FBI’s Uniform Crime Report)
• Fairbanks’ rape rate is 4.7 times the national average (FBI’s Uniform Crime Report)

We really need to understand her reasoning behind this and call her on it. She’s kept quiet about it far too long.

From the DailyKos, regarding Palin’s interview with Katie Couric:

COURIC: Why isn’t it better, Governor Palin, to spend $700 billion helping middle-class families struggling with health care, housing, gas and groceries? … Instead of helping these big financial institutions that played a role in creating this mess?

PALIN: Ultimately, what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the health care reform that is needed to help shore up the economy– Oh, it’s got to be about job creation too. So health care reform and reducing taxes and reining in spending has got to accompany tax reductions.

As Kos points out, Palin says that “Reducing taxes has to be accompanied by tax reductions.”

It doesn’t get any better than this.

Oh boy, let the mudracking begin. From the National Enquirer [hey, they were on the money with the John Edwards affair], reports that Sarah Palin had an affair with Brad Hanson, Todd Palin’s business partner and former city council member from nearby town.

No less than three members of the man’s family including one by sworn affidavit have claimed that Sarah Palin engaged in an extramarital affair with hus­band Todd’s former business partner, Brad Hanson.

And the breakdown from Gawker.

It’s a sad fact but racism is still alive and well in America as these articles suggest, which will make Obama’s run for the presidency all the more difficult.

Obama effigy found hanging on Ore. campus on Yahoo! News

Supremacists distribute fliers attacking Obama on Star Ledger

Jewish Voters Receiving Anti-Obama Calls in Florida on NY Sun

Racism Could Hurt Obama in Pennsylvania on Yahoo! News

Pat Buchanan opines on how the neocons are schooling Palin on foreign policy.

Writeup of recent Anti-Palin rally in Alaska…

Our good former Mayor of NYC, who backed Bush in 2004, says the country would be better off with Obama, and that Palin’s record, in regards to civil and social issues, is scary.

Over and over again, I keep reading how (according to Republicans and some former Hillary Clinton supporters) the media has it in for Sarah Palin, how they’re going after her because she’s a woman. There may be instances in which that may be true but I believe that those instances are few and far between. She’s running for Vice President of the United States of America!! What are the media and everyone else that challenges her knowledge, credentials, experience, and history, supposed to do? She’s supposed to be challenged, she’s supposed to be questioned. I repeat, she’s running for Vice President of the United States of America!! Not for President of Student Council. Not for the top prize in a spelling bee contest. Bush and Cheney are criticized, questioned, and mocked, everyday and have been ever since they took office. As the saying goes, “If you can’t take the heat, get out of the kitchen”.

Maybe she still doesn’t know what the Vice President actually does.