Trish has a great article up about conservative hypocrisy about trips to Hawaii. They castigated candidate Obama as an “elitist” when he went there to see his dying grandmother after he’d won the nomination last year, and now the same folks who came up with the GOP purity test [...]

Remember after the 2008 Democratic primary finally ended and candidate Obama took the family to Hawaii for a little vacay? Remember how the Republicans labeled him “elitist” for doing so? Let me refresh your memory, just in case.
TNR’s Michael Crowley noted:
I know he grew up [in [...]
With their reported $13 billion tax-exempt financial empire, the Mormons may be the wealthiest cult in America — and Scientology may be the big thing among the rich and powerful in Hollywood — but when it comes to political power neither of those sects holds a candle to the Family, [...]
It’s been a whole year but we’re still not over this gruesome video that sums up the train wreck that is Sarah Palin.
[...]A new prayer book just published encourages Catholic married couples to pray together before they do the nasty.
The Prayer Book for Spouses offers a prayer before sex that asks the Holy Spirit to “place within us love that truly gives, tenderness that truly unites … [and] loving physical [...]

It’s hard to overemphasize to the other 49 states the impact the smallest gestures toward Cuba have on politics in Florida. Case in point: Florida’s new Republican senator, George LeMieux, is blocking the appointment of an Obama nominee as ambassador to Brazil because of a stand [...]

John McCain doesn’t even have an opponent in the 2010 U.S. Senate primary, but a new poll shows the race would be tied if he did. Conservative polling firm Rasmussen asked likely Republican voters whether they would vote for McCain or J.D. Hayworth, a former Arizona [...]
The price of hate: In a panic over the prospect of gay couples having the right to marry, homophobic lawmakers in Texas passed an amendment to the state constitution in 2005 that was so poorly worded that it banned all marriages, including those that the anti-gay amateur porn star Carrie [...]

Most people were stunned when, after weeks of auditioning the Republican party’s best and brightest, Sen. John McCain chose the unknown and inexperienced Sarah Palin as his running mate in the 2008 presidential campaign. But Florida Gov. Charlie Crist was probably even more disappointed than most. [...]

There’s another crack in the Republican wall of opposition to Pres. Obama’s policies, nominees, and general existence. Sen. Richard Luger (R-Ind.) says he will vote to confirm the president’s first appeals court pick, Judge David Hamilton of Indianapolis. He is nominated for a seat on the [...]
Our Chairman, Who art at Goldman, Blankfein be Thy name. The Rally’s come. God’s work be done on Earth, as there’s no fear of Correction. Give us this day our daily gains, and bankrupt our Competitors as You taught Lehman and Bear their lessons. And bring us not [...]

Anyone planning to read the Sarah Palin book should bookmark these sites. Both the A.P. and Media Matters have printed lists of the inaccuracies and falsehoods in Going Rogue: An American Life. Media Matters is maintaining theirs as an ongoing work in progress, since drilling [...]
State Attorney General Beau Biden, the vice president’s son, has pulled ahead in the 2010 Delaware U.S. Senate campaign. U.S. Rep. Mike Castle (R-Del.), whose votes have taken a partisan turn, is going down in flames. A new poll shows Biden leading Castle by 5 points, after trailing him [...]

David Corn, Mother Jones Washington reporter, brought reality back to Republican arguments about Afghanistan on ABC’s This Week. After conservatives George Will and David Brooks went over their thoughts on Obama’s distaste with the task of figuring out how to go forward in the country, saying [...]

The Onion has nailed it before but this time, they used a Hitachi 16-gauge, selective trigger, leather-grip nail gun. You need to read the whole thing but here’s how it starts.
ESCONDIDO, CA—Spurred by an administration he believes to be guilty of numerous transgressions, self-described American patriot [...]

Ken Rudin is reporting a bizarre situation in the recent New York 23rd Congressional District race. It began as a three-way race between Republican Dede Scozzafava, Democrat Bill Owens, and Conservative Doug Hoffman, for whom Sarah Palin and Fred Thompson campaigned. Scozzafava dropped out after taking [...]
Well, it’s official. Carly Fiorina announced last week that she is entering the Senate race in California against Democrat Barbara Boxer.
DeVore’s chances against Boxer range from nil and nada to zippo and zilchAnd — proving that Tea Baggers learned nothing from the debacle they created in last week’s special [...]

Let the games begin. There’s a poll going around on Facebook (based on a made-up email) that the Obamas have outlawed the use of the word “Christmas” to describe the green thing that holds up ornaments during the month of December, and insist on calling it a [...]

The Republican Party of Florida has a penchant for issuing “press releases” on wacky topics. At the drop of a hat, they’ll issue a release that just quotes wholesale from some media report that pertains to something that they automatically assume their readers will understand. These guys [...]
The House health-reform bill passed by just three votes late Saturday night — a real squeaker that might well have gone the other way if Sarah Palin, Dick Armey and the Tea Baggers hadn’t bigfooted the special election in New York’s 23rd Congressional District and handed the House Dems a [...]

If you missed Carl Hiaasen’s send-up of Sarah Palin’s autobiography via a fictional letter from her publisher, here are the high points. We just wish the part about John McCain duct-taping her mouth was true. Enjoy.
(Confidential response of Sarah Palin’s book editor to the first draft [...]

If you’re on the west coast, and of course by that I mean from Naples to Pensacola (not California), listen up. An event to protest any efforts by Florida’s Republican legislators to sell out to oil interests and allow drilling in the Gulf of Mexico is [...]

Ryan Skipper, left, Damien Skipper, Pat and Lynn Mulder
The last few weeks must have been bittersweet for the family and friends of Ryan Skipper, the fresh-faced 25-year-old student who was killed by a pair of young meth addicts in [...]
As reported by ANI in London today, a Buddhist bank robber had his request for visiting rights for his cat denied by a court, despite his assertion that the feline is the reincarnation of his dead mother:
Peter Keonig, who follows the religion that believes people come [...]

Foxx with wife Samara Ryder Foxx and their children, Hillary and Zachary
With all the attention on the GOP wins in the Virginia and New Jersey governors’ races yesterday, the purportedly liberal media is ignoring the fact [...]

The tea baggers are starting to remind me of my ex-mother-in-law, who always used her bags at least twice. No matter how long you let it steep, the product is weak and watery. The same could be said for trying to recycle the grassroots angst of the [...]

Get ready. The mouth-foamers are preparing to take the tea party to the Capitol. When debate begins Thursday in Congress on the health care reform bill, Reps. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) and Pete Hoekstra (R-Mich.) want their odious, easily duped, irrational and not so bright supporters there [...]

Barsuglia
After California Republican lawmaker Mike Duvall, 54, was caught on tape in September bragging to a colleague about his sexcapades with not one but two women Sacramento lobbyists that included spanking and tiny underwear, the case was seen as evidence of how rampant and, [...]Trish Ponder, Buck Banks, Editors, Jon Ponder