Yeah! They can’t possibly be Ruff Ryders because DMX would fuckin’ smoke they ass. Or maybe they’re members of the 1st United States Volunteer Cavalry from the Spanish-American war, because that’s what rough riders are! And what’s all this about being filled with Christ’s love? Are they having Christ’s baby? Did he shoot them with his Jesus load?

I should explain what I’m writing about. Remember that stupid fake hugging trend? You know, the one in which kids were spending so much time hugging they were all late for class and soccer practice?

Proving there’s nothing so absurd Jesus can’t make more absurd, a buncha slick gangsta foos wrote some rhymes and shit about how the side hug — hip to hip contact, yo — is all cool with the Lord God Jesus Christ and frontal hugs is all evil and shit. You know, cuz frontal hugs leads to babies and shit because you be all touchin’ yo privates together and whatnot. Damn! Video after the jump!

You’ll have to forgive the totally stupid, ass-backward, retarded fake gangsta prose with which I’m writing dis shit today, yo, but I gots all inspired by these white kids who are rappin’ and bustin’ rhymes about how foos be front huggin’ which Jesus don’t be appreciatin’ son! Seriously, I hope the ghost of ODB haunts these kids for the rest of their lives because there’s nothing that white God-fearing kids fear more than black guys, which makes their weird outdated gangsta jingle — complete with gunshots and sirens because they apparently thought up these mad beatz in reform school — even more trite than it already seems.

No bigger a national teen mom figure than Bristol “I had a white trash baby” Palin has said abstinence doesn’t work (and then reversed her position — ha! position — because she’s moved to La La Land). And everyone else agrees, too. Know why? Because private parts are fun, kids! As Eddie Murphy once said, go and get each other pregnant and play Space Invaders.

Anyway, we made our point. Abstinence education: not education. Kids: Stupid hormone factories. ODB: Dead (RIP, word). This video: Awesome in its awe-inspiring dumbness.

[h/t Eric S.]

Sarah Palin's overwhelming vindictiveness is apparent throughout "Going Rogue."

Maybe in their business lives, conservatives are the stern, unforgiving masters of capitalist lore. But when it comes to politics, oh, do they love a whiner!

It is her mastery of the lament that explained former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s appeal last year, and now her knack for self-pity is on full display in her book, “Going Rogue.” This is the memoir as prolonged, keening wail, larded with petty vindictiveness. With an impressive attention to detail, Ms. Palin settles every score, answers every criticism; locates a scapegoat for every foul-up, and fastens an insult on every critic, down to the last obscure Palin-doubter back in Alaska.

From Ms. Palin’s masterwork, we learn that the personal really is the political. Every encounter with a critic seems to be a skirmish in the culture wars, from the Alaska debate moderator who didn’t play fair once to the “wealthy, effete young chap” who ran against her for governor but who, in one of the quickest transitions from anti-snob to snob in all of literature, is also said to have served as “our limo driver at [her husband] Todd’s cousin’s wedding.”

We read about the mean things people have said about Ms. Palin’s daughter Bristol, Ms. Palin’s suspicions that the neighbors of the Alaska governor’s mansion disapproved of her kids’ toys, her assurance that she lived a spartan life as governor, “despite what some critics would later accuse me of doing.” There’s the nonscandal she calls “Troopergate,” which is virtually impossible to follow in this telling, except for the insults Ms. Palin directs at one of the men who was (apparently) on the other side of the issue, whatever it was.

In other circumstances, Ms. Palin seems like a woman of grit. When she discovers that her fifth child is going to be born with Down syndrome, she is initially upset, but then writes a letter in God’s voice—incidentally, one of the book’s creepiest moments—instructing the rest of the family to “accept that I [i.e., the Almighty] only want the best for you. . . .”

But the mean things people say and do during her vice presidential run—these are not to be taken in the same spirit. These are to be recalled and deplored, one by one, as if from a master list Ms. Palin has been keeping all this time. She reminds us that someone hacked her email, that she got a prank phone call, and that she once saw someone wearing an insulting T-shirt in Philadelphia.

She claims that what ruined her famous interview with wily CBS News personality Katie Couric was the latter’s “condescension,” which caused Ms. Palin to bungle questions like the one in which she was asked to name her favorite newspaper. And she introduces us to Steve Schmidt, the Republican campaign strategist who is the book’s No. 1 bad guy—almost alone among the book’s characters, he is always referred to by his last name—and who, as Ms. Palin tells it, once implied to an aide that “if there were any more leaks critical of anybody in the handling of Sarah Palin, then a lot more negative stuff would be said about Sarah Palin.”

And, lo and behold, there is. Much more. All of it neatly catalogued, bemoaned, and for sale.

But amid all this score-settling, Ms. Palin wanders into some predictable traps. When explaining her political philosophy, for example, she tells readers that “conservatism is a respect for history and tradition”; on the very next page she instructs readers to accept the creative-destructive whirl of the market, which affects society the way “wildfires in Alaska burn away deadfall to make way for new growth.”

So much for tradition. The respect she shows history, though, is the kind of respect you show the flag when you soak it in kerosene and touch a match to it. “[W]e tried growing government to save the economy back in the 1930s, and it didn’t work then either,” Ms. Palin writes. It is a modest assertion, though, compared to the astonishing finding Ms. Palin reveals in the next sentence: “Massive government spending programs and protectionist economic policies actually helped turn a recession into the Great Depression.” If this is, as it seems, a reference to the New Deal, then history, per Ms. Palin, sometimes goes backwards, with the WPA and its ilk actually bringing about events that took place before they were launched.

But Ms. Palin’s life is meant to be an inspiration. Maybe I should follow her example. The opinion-page equivalent of the Palinesque style is easy enough to imagine: I would use this space to recite the indignities the world forced on me over the course of the week—an effete-looking young person ignored me the other day—plus glimpses of heartland authenticity—I sure do like pot roast—before concluding, darkly, that the reason I suffer is because I am such a sterling American.

I can’t wait to get started.

Thomas Frank
The Wall Street Journal

There she goes again. Sarah Palin, the former ex-quitting governor of Alaska is once again claiming to be a victim of the mainstream media. This time the target of her accusation is the November 22, 2oo9 edition of Newsweek magazine (see above). On Monday, Palin posted the following on her Facebook page:

“The choice of photo for the cover of this week’s Newsweek is unfortunate. When it comes to Sarah Palin, this ‘news’ magazine has relished focusing on the irrelevant rather than the relevant. The out-of-context Newsweek approach is sexist, and oh-so-expected by now.”

But is it really the photo that Ms. Quittypants is upset about for being “sexist”? After all, she did pose for that photo and never objected publicly to the nearly identical photos published this year in a running magazine. And do “sexist” magazine covers always bother her? If so, then why did she not complain about being referred to as “America’s Hottest Governor” on the cover of the February 2008 edition of Alaska magazine? No, we would venture to guess that Palin is not as upset at the photo which appears on the cover of Newsweek, but rather the caption which accompanies it. It says, “How do you solve a problem like Sarah? She’s bad news for the GOP – and for everybody else, too.” It seems that the clearly “sexist” caption of the Alaska magazine was okay for Sarah because it was flattering to her. The Newsweek photo however, was highly objectionable it seems, because the accompanying caption cast Palin in such an unflattering light.

Poor Sarah, she can’t help it. She was born with a simple mind in her mouth.

And that brings us to today’s parody. In honor of the troops, please remember to click on the song link below to familiarize yourselves with the tune and to have more fun singing along with the parody.

Simon Says song link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTBpafu_DE8&feature=PlayList&p=C7BA3DA90EF5F781&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=6

SIMPLE SARAH SAYS

(sung to the 1910 Fruitgum Company song “Simon Says”)

She likes to play a game,
That is so much fun,
And it’s something even she can do,
The name of the game is “Simple Sarah Says”,
And she would like for you to play it too

Put style gel in your hair,
Simple Sarah says,
Lipstick on your mouth,
Simple Sarah says,
Do it when Palin says,
Simple Sarah says,
And they will vote you right out

Simple Sarah says,
Put glasses on your head,
Don some pants that stretch,
Sarah says,

Simple Sarah says,
Get Bristol out of bed,
That Levi is stiff,
Sarah says,

A beehive on your head,
Simple Sarah says,
The First Dude by your side,
Simple Sarah says,
Hate speech for the left,
Simple Sarah says,
Kind words for the right

(musical interlude)

F-me pumps that are red,
Simple Sarah says,
A gun strapped to your side,
Simple Sarah says,
Diversity left,
Simple Sarah says,
Only whites on the right

Now that we have learned,
To play this game with she,
Sarah Palin has something to do,
Let’s try it once again,
We’ll mimic Sarah P.,
But let’s do it while we’re drinking too

Go kill a polar bear,
Simple Sarah says,
Give your shoes a shine,
Simple Sarah says,
Dress yourself like a whore,
Simple Sarah says,
Ah, you’re looking fine,
Simple Sarah says,
Now, interview if you dare,
Simple Sarah says,
Mingle with the slime,
Simple Sarah says,
Get your ass out the door,
Simple Sarah says,
Make it double time

LET’S GET READY TO RUMBLE !!!

Wow, the Sarah Palin Ghost-Written Rural Hamlet Book Tour is barely underway and the gloves are off already. The first punches of this round of the Sarah Palin/Levi Johnston never-ending feud were thrown by the former ex-quitting governor of Alaska. She appeared on Oprah and told Oprah Winfrey (and a nationally televised audience) that she believes that her once and future former son-in-law Levi Johnston’s Playgirl Magazine spread constitutes, “porn” and that she finds it, “heartbreaking” to see the road the father of her grandson has taken. She also told Oprah that Johnston lied about living at her home. Palin followed up that left hook/uppercut combination with an additional jab or two the next day on Good Morning America (with another nationally televised audience) when she told host Barbara Walters that Johnston is a liar and then implied that he is a disinterested father to boot. While discussing a potential legal custody battle between her daughter and Johnston, Palin said,

It will be nice to see in I guess even legal proceedings a desire to be a part of the baby’s life. That’s a good sign.

Johnston took those blows in stride and countered with a daring fusillade of his own. He appeared on ET (a/k/a Enterainment Tonight) and let loose with this,

That’s total bullsh*t. I did [live with the Palin family] for a few months, then we split up and that was it. I think this interview is really gonna kick up some things, I don’t think she wanted to do that.

Them sure sounds like fightin’ words to us here at Lynnrockets’ Blast-Off. Unfortunately after Levi’s remarks, the bell sounded and that round was over. Now is the time to go and get some more popcorn and the adult beverage of your choice before the next round begins. Tune in again for live action tomorrow. Same Bat-Time. Same Bat-Channel.

In honor of the troops, today’s song parody musically illustrates the intriguing Sarah Palin/Levi Johnston relationship. Remember to click on the song link below to familiarize yourselves with the tune and to have more fun singing along with the parody.

The Ballad Of John And Yoko song link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_t3oaPNJieg

THE BALLAD OF SARAH AND LEVI

(Sung to the Beatles song “The Ballad of John and Yoko”)

Posing in a condo in New York,
Levi about to remove his pants
He now has a knack
To annoy SarahPAC
Yet most of them will still want to take a glance

Christ you know it ain’t easy,
You know how hard it can be,
To play second fiddle,
To the Caribou-Barbie.

Sarah claims that she is embarrassed
Really, she just envies his fame
Katie Couric did say,
“Can you pray away gay?”
“And can you point out some newspapers by name?”.

Christ you know it ain’t easy,
Those interviews on TV.
Reviews were not glowing
For the brain-dead Sarah P.

Levi’s camped-out in the Manhattan Hilton,
Media folks want him to speak
The newspapers said,
“What’s going on in your head?”
He said, “I think Sarah just wants a quick peek”

Christ you know she’s so sleazy,
She won’t speak without a fee
The next show she’s doing
Will be with Sean Hannity

Keeping every penny of per-diem pay,
Lying about clothes to charity,
Daughter that’s unwed,
Is someone inbred?
Her chance to win election, pretty low – Think!

Relatives all getting arrested.
Family dignity in free-fall.
McCain’s folks still claim,
“Palin was to blame”
But Sarah says that they dropped the ball

Christ you know she’s so sleazy
She lies so effortlessly
But Levi is going,
To crucify Sarah P.

How did Mac choose Sarah to begin with?
She is just a political hack.
A dumb “hockey mom”,
That can’t think and chew gum.
Why didn’t he select “Joe Sixpack?”

Christ she makes us uneasy.
In Yiddish we say, “Oy Vey.”
We’d love to replace her
With our good friend, Tina Fey.
We’d love to replace her
With our good friend, Tina Fey.

Sarah Palin discusses "Going Rogue" on the Oprah Winfrey Show.

Sarah Palin’s interview on Oprah started off newsy, with lots of talk about her McCain campaign handlers and how they restricted her, the Katie Couric interview, etc. There are a few headlines flying around this evening after it finally aired…so here are a few of them. You can pick the scooplet you think is most newsworthy. In no particular order:

1. Asked about 2012, Palin said, “It’s not on my radar screen.”

2. She dismissed the idea of having a talk show of her own: “Oprah, you’re the queen of talk shows. there’s nothing to ever worry about.”

3. She said she didn’t get a say in how Bristol’s pregnancy was announced. The McCain campaign came to her with a press release that conveyed what, Palin suggested to Oprah, was an inappropriate level of glee with her daugher’s teenage pregnancy–then she rewrote it with the aide who brought it to her…and then the campaign sent out the original version instead.

“I did not want the message to be sent out that we were giddy happy to be grandparents,” Palin said.

“We see it scroll across the screen, and there it is, what I didn’t want sent”

4. After all the post-campaign stories about her alleged shopping spree and how much it cost the Republican National Committee, she said that when she realized the campaign would be picking her wardrobe, she thought, “I don’t like to shop, and that’s one less think I’m going to have to worry about.”

5. She took the blame for any problems that arose from her handling. “At the end of the day, I’m the candidate, and if ever I got sucked into that…it’s my fault.”

6. On why the McCain-Palin ticket lost: “The economy tanked under a Republican administration”…”people wanted change”….and “I think our ticket was perceived as status quo.”

7. She said she didn’t think the Katie Couric interview went well, but the McCain campaign scheduled follow-ups anyway. “The campaign said, ‘Right on, good’…and of course, I’m thinking, ‘If you thought that was a good interview, I don’t know what a bad interview is.”

8. She she didn’t tell Couric any newspapers she reads because she was “already so annoyed” with Couric (she says she didn’t like the “kind of badgering questions” of the previous interview she had done with her).

“It was more like, ‘Are you kidding me? Are you really asking me?’” Palin said.

“We had just come off the most amazing rally, working the rope line for I don’t know how long,” Palin said. “And we’re running back stage…and there’s the perky one again, with the microphone and the camera rolling.”

9. Levi Johnson has an “open invitation” to Thanksgiving dinner.

10. She says Levi, basically, is a liar. “I did hear that he said I never really went to hockey games, too, and just so many of the inconsistencies, that’s just Levi’s gig right now.”

11. On why she resigned for governor, she didn’t really produce an answer that satisfied Oprah, but her main point seemed to be that she didn’t feel she could speak her mind about national issues without lawsuits and ethics violations being filed against her.

“Everything had so changed for my administation, there were so many opposition researchers, some of them [sent] by the Obama camp…to start the FOIA requests and the ethics violation charges,” Palin said.

“It was a point where my state…was being hampered by my presence there in the shackles behind the governor’s desk. I wasn’t about to get up there and talk about an issue…otherwise an ethics violation would have been filed,” she said.

“I decided, ‘No, I’m going to get out there and fight for Alaska’s issues…without having to worry that everything that I were to say would result in another lawsuit or an ethics violation charge,” she said.

Marc Ambinder
The Atlantic

Great comic from the Chattanooga Times Free Press

Sarah Palin’s ghostwritten memoir  officially crawls out from its dark, moldy underground tunnel and presents itself to the masses today. The work of fiction however, has already been released in advance to certain members of the media and from there its contents have leaked almost everywhere. What have we learned thus far? Well, it appears that most objective reviewers and many of those folks written about in the book believe it to be filled with much more fiction than fact.

For instance, John McCain’s former campaign manager, Steve Schmidt has labeled the book, “total fiction.” Another McCain campaign aide said, “The book fully reveals her. Dishonest, small and petty.” Ouch!!! That same aide told Politics Daily,

“It’s like, ‘What’s she so angry about?’ She was picked to be vice president of the United States. She had an exceptional opportunity. Everything is someone else’s fault. There’s no accountability. It’s mean-spirited. But if you look at the record, it is what it is.”

The Associated Press has gone so far as to publish a researched fact check of claims made by the former ex-quitting governor of Alaska and it is not flattering. Here are some excerpts,

___

PALIN: Says she made frugality a point when traveling on state business as Alaska governor, asking “only” for reasonably priced rooms and not “often” going for the “high-end, robe-and-slippers” hotels.

THE FACTS: Although travel records indicate she usually opted for less-pricey hotels while governor, Palin and daughter Bristol stayed five days and four nights at the $707.29-per-night Essex House luxury hotel (robes and slippers come standard) overlooking New York City’s Central Park for a five-hour women’s leadership conference in October 2007. With air fare, the cost to Alaska was well over $3,000. Event organizers said Palin asked if she could bring her daughter. The governor billed her state more than $20,000 for her children’s travel, including to events where they had not been invited, and in some cases later amended expense reports to specify that they had been on official business.

___

PALIN: Boasts that she ran her campaign for governor on small donations, mostly from first-time givers, and turned back large checks from big donors if her campaign perceived a conflict of interest.

THE FACTS: Of the roughly $1.3 million she raised for her primary and general election campaigns for governor, more than half came from people and political action committees giving at least $500, according to an AP analysis of her campaign finance reports. The maximum that individual donors could give was $1,000; $2,000 for a PAC.

Of the rest, about $76,000 came from Republican Party committees.

She accepted $1,000 each from a state senator and his wife in the weeks after the two Republican lawmakers’ offices were raided by the FBI as part of an investigation into a powerful Alaska oilfield services company. After AP reported those donations during the presidential campaign, she said she would give a comparative sum to charity after the general election in 2010, a date set by state election laws.

___

PALIN: Rails against taxpayer-financed bailouts, which she attributes to Obama. She recounts telling daughter Bristol that to succeed in business, “you’ll have to be brave enough to fail.”

THE FACTS: Palin is blurring the lines between Obama’s stimulus plan — a $787 billion package of tax cuts, state aid, social programs and government contracts — and the federal bailout that Republican presidential candidate John McCain voted for and President George W. Bush signed.

Palin’s views on bailouts appeared to evolve as McCain’s vice presidential running mate. In September 2008, she said “taxpayers cannot be looked to as the bailout, as the solution, to the problems on Wall Street.” A week later, she said “ultimately what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the health care reform that is needed to help shore up our economy.”

During the vice presidential debate in October, Palin praised McCain for being “instrumental in bringing folks together” to pass the $700 billion bailout. After that, she said “it is a time of crisis and government did have to step in.”

___

PALIN: Says Ronald Reagan faced an even worse recession than the one that appears to be ending now, and “showed us how to get out of one. If you want real job growth, cut capital gains taxes and slay the death tax once and for all.”

THE FACTS: The estate tax, which some call the death tax, was not repealed under Reagan and capital gains taxes are lower now than when Reagan was president.

Economists overwhelmingly say the current recession is far worse. The recession Reagan faced lasted for 16 months; this one is in its 23rd month. The recession of the early 1980s did not have a financial meltdown. Unemployment peaked at 10.8 percent, worse than the October 2009 high of 10.2 percent, but the jobless rate is still expected to climb.

___

PALIN: Criticizes an aide to her predecessor, Gov. Frank Murkowski, for a conflict of interest because the aide represented the state in negotiations over a gas pipeline and then left to work as a handsomely paid lobbyist for ExxonMobil. Palin asserts her administration ended all such arrangements, shoving a wedge in the revolving door between special interests and the state capital.

THE FACTS: Palin ignores her own “revolving door” issue in office; the leader of her own pipeline team was a former lobbyist for a subsidiary of TransCanada, the company that ended up winning the rights to build the pipeline.

___

PALIN: Writes about a city councilman in Wasilla, Alaska, who owned a garbage truck company and tried to push through an ordinance requiring residents of new subdivisions to pay for trash removal instead of taking it to the dump for free — this to illustrate conflicts of interest she stood against as a public servant.

THE FACTS: As Wasilla mayor, Palin pressed for a special zoning exception so she could sell her family’s $327,000 house, then did not keep a promise to remove a potential fire hazard on the property.

She asked the city council to loosen rules for snow machine races when she and her husband owned a snow machine store, and cast a tie-breaking vote to exempt taxes on aircraft when her father-in-law owned one. But she stepped away from the table in 1997 when the council considered a grant for the Iron Dog snow machine race in which her husband competes.

___

PALIN: Welcomes last year’s Supreme Court decision deciding punitive damages for victims of the nation’s largest oil spill tragedy, the Exxon Valdez disaster, stating it had taken 20 years to achieve victory. As governor, she says, she’d had the state argue in favor of the victims, and she says the court’s ruling went “in favor of the people.” Finally, she writes, Alaskans could recover some of their losses.

THE FACTS: That response is at odds with her reaction at the time to the ruling, which resolved the long-running case by reducing punitive damages for victims to $500 million from $2.5 billion. Environmentalists and plaintiffs’ lawyers decried the ruling as a slap at the victims and Palin herself said she was “extremely disappointed.” She said the justices had gutted a jury decision favoring higher damage awards, the Anchorage Daily News reported. “It’s tragic that so many Alaska fishermen and their families have had their lives put on hold waiting for this decision,” she said, noting many had died “while waiting for justice.”

___

PALIN: Describing her resistance to federal stimulus money, Palin describes Alaska as a practical, libertarian haven of independent Americans who don’t want “help” from government busybodies.

THE FACTS: Alaska is also one of the states most dependent on federal subsidies, receiving much more assistance from Washington than it pays in federal taxes. A study for the nonpartisan Tax Foundation found that in 2005, the state received $1.84 for every dollar it sent to Washington.

Perhaps the most biting comment of all however, was made by David Brooks on ABC’s This Morning last Sunday. He was asked what he thought of Palin’s soon to be released book and he said, “She’s a joke. I just can’t take her seriously.” He then went on to say, “The idea that this potential talk show host is considered seriously for the Republican nomination, believe me, it will never happen. Republican primary voters are just not going to elect a talk show host.”

If the book is receiving this kind of negative criticism before its official release, how will it possibly hold up under widespread fact checking after others have had the opportunity to comb through its greasy contents? It appears evident that Palin’s autobiography is a work of fiction. If you are interested in being entertained by a more truthful account of the rise and fall of Caribou Barbie, please enjoy today’s song parody. remember to click on the song link below to familiarize yourselves with the tune and to have more fun singing along with the parody.

The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald song link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6U219P_zs7w

THE WRECK OF THE SARAH L. PALIN

(sung to the Gordon Lightfoot song “The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald ”)

The legend lives on from the North Slope on down
To the town they call Sandpoint, Idaho
The Heath’s one would say, had a daughter that day
Why they kept her, I must say, “I don’t know”

They loaded up the truck and they tested their luck
When they moved to Wasilla, Alaska
Sarah enrolled in school and was nobody’s fool
On the court they called her “Barracuda”.

In 1982 she left for Honolulu
Off to Hawaii Pacific College
She did not last long there nor at anywhere
In her quest for some meaningful knowledge.

She finally did see a journalism degree
After stints at 5 or 6 safety schools
Sometime in between she was a pageant queen
Then she worked in TV for KTUU.

She met up with her fate sometime in ’88
When her TV career was a failin’
And everyone knew, as her parents did too
She would soon be the Bride of Todd Palin.

Long before she did wed, she conceived in his bed
That was the end of her abstinency
While laid out on her back, she gave birth to Lil’ Track
The result of an unwed pregnancy.

She was now in a lurch cuz of her right wing church
But she carried on without a care
She had a beehive hairdo, but had nothing to do
That all changed when she became the Mayor.

She appointed some crooks then she banned some good books
No one lasted if they weren’t on her team
Wasilla’s deficit grew, kids fired-up on homebrew
Not to mention the methamphetamine.

She became the next Guv and to show the state love
She proposed to unite remote shore banks
But once in a bind she politely declined
To the bridge she said,”Thanks but no thanks”.

John McCain now you see had to choose a VP
His campaign was certainly failin’
He wanted a she that was trés “mavericky”
So he chose Alaska’s Sarah Palin.

But poor press reviews of her live interviews
With Couric and Gibson oft replayed
Showed she could not spar with the nightly news stars
Let alone outperform Tina Fey

The election was lost and poor Sarah was tossed
From her seat on “The Straight Talk Express”
She went home and did pose in her new store-bought clothes
But  Alaskans were not now impressed

She’s no longer a saint due to ethics complaints
She has nobody left now to wink at
Her appointees ignored and her actions abhorred
She’s reduced to shilling for “Arctic Cat”

She gave Levi some lip about visiting Tripp
And Todd’s sister is facing some jailin’
But paternity laws might be the final straw
For the wreck known as Sarah L. Palin

Playgirl’s Daniel Nardicio released this statement to Gawker: “He did not give ‘full-frontal’ as his manager Tank Jones reported he would. We’re thrilled with the photos we got, and are confident people will love them. Although there may be glimpses, we did not get full on frontal nudity.”

Basically, a bunch of bullshyts, here’s on record what he said when interviewed by USmagazine

Bristol Palin’s baby daddy Levi Johnston says he’s going to drop his pants for Playgirl even he’s still wondering which “side” he’ll show.

“Team Levi is in the process of preparing for his Playgirl appearance,” his lawyer Rex Butler told Usmagazine.com. “He is in the gym six days a week for the next three weeks.

An insider qualified it as the worst decision he could have made because Playgirl magazine — on life-support and barely making it day-to-day–  being out of print all they have is online, and some of the worst photographers in the business.

In the behind the scenes video at VF.com, his “adviser” teases him about the Playgirl shoot asking if he’s someone who would regret showing an underequipped “Johnson” (with no sense of irony) or would require an extra fold-out to display his “Johnson.” Levi’s demure response is not encouraging.

Next Stop…Porno?

The Levi Jonhston Photos are out…

By Shane Vander Hart, Caffeinated Thoughts

Governor Sarah Palin was on Oprah today to kick off her the book tour for her first book, Going Rogue: An American Life.  It was the first time since at least college I’ve sat down to watch a show.  Some thoughts & highlights:

• There was no snubbing, that was something that was overblown by the media.  Governor Palin said that during the campaign she wasn’t aware of the controversy, she said, “no offense, but you weren’t the center of my universe at the time.”  Oprah confirmed that she never asked to come on.
• It was a fair interview with questions covering Bristol’s pregnancy, how she was handled during the campaign, the Katie Couric interview, election night, Levi Johnston, & 2012 aspirations.  No policy discussion, but I didn’t expect that from Oprah.
• Governor Palin seemed pretty at ease with the only exception being when they were discussing Levi Johnston.
• I appreciate the way she handled Johnston.  Saying she’d rather not comment.  She seemed to me more disappointed and in her words “heartbroken” by the choices he was making and was being handled.  She said that he is heading down an unhealthy road.  She was mostly conciliatory in her comments saying that she continues to hope for the best and that she prays for Levi.  She also said he needs to know that he is loved.
• She flatly denied that Levi and Bristol ever lived together, and that many of his claims (Vanity Fair piece of fiction) were inconsistent.  She again pointed to the fact that he is a teenager is being mishandled.
• She was very transparent about when she found out Trig was going to have Down Syndrome and how she broke that news to Todd.
• She said that her interview with Katie Couric was bad.  She said that she was annoyed by the questioning (we only saw a few minutes of hours of taping), and that “it wasn’t professional to wear her annoyance on her sleeve.”  Which is why she didn’t list what she read because the question annoyed her – she did say looking back she wish she did to avoid the controversy that ensued.  She did say that if the Couric interview was the only way people got to know her that she wouldn’t “blame them for thinking I was not qualified or well prepared.”
• Oprah sent a crew to her home in Wasilla on Halloween, that was a great video showing some behind the scenes in the Palin home.  It reinforced that they are a mainstream family, which is why so many relate to them.
• She was very complementary of Todd and talked about the strength of their marriage, and at the end of the interview that she wouldn’t have been able to get through the challenges she has faced if it wasn’t for “God and Todd.”
• Regarding 2012, she said it wasn’t on her radar, but when Oprah asked, “If you were planning on running would you tell me?”  She quickly said no.  She said right now she’s thinking 2010, so it’s safe to say she’ll be out stumping for conservative candidates.
• Oprah says that Going Rogue was “fascinating read.”

In all I think it was a great interview, and I think will be a positive for her with some who may have been on the fence.

Shane Vander Hart is the editor of Caffeinated Thoughts.  Feel free to follow him on Twitter or friend him on Facebook.

So thanks to my friend Tatiana, I just realized that it’s NaBloPoMo, or National Blog Posting Month. NaBloPoMo is like the awkward, less talented cousin of NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month. Last year I thought I’d write a novel about Levi Johnston and Bristol Palin’s high school. I didn’t do it, and I didn’t do NaBloPoMo either. And hey, it’s halfway through November and I haven’t done either of them again! Tradition.

But even things you don’t do must change, and so this year I am committing myself to participating in at least half of NaBloPoMo, starting ahora. I’m in more of a writerly mood these days as I just completed a Q&A interview for my grad school magazine, and it turned out pretty decently, reminding me that I once had interview/writing skills. And who knows, maybe I’ll do a full month, ending in mid-December.

I’ll start things off by sharing a video of myself at a schooling horse show last weekend. This is the first video I’ve seen of myself jumping in several years, and you know, I look okay. We’re super slow, but thankfully this was not a timed event. Horses are so unpredictable – or at least mine is – that you get to the point where you’re just glad that you made it through the competition. There is an endless list of things that can go wrong, from a missing shoe to medical drama to trailer malfunction to going off course to just having a bad day. Horses will break your heart. Those of us who continue to pursue it are at least half crazy. And I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that at least half of the 30-odd views this clip has gotten on YouTube are from me. There we are, I tell myself. Doing this. And making it look easy.

Sarah Palin, husband Todd and their three daughters, Bristol, Willow and Piper.

On page 214 of her memoir “Going Rogue,” Sarah Palin writs the following in regard to when the McCain campaign knew about her daughter Bristol’s pregnancy:

“I was impressed with these guys. They were thorough. For example, they already knew that Bristol was pregnant, a development that I thought only loved ones were privy to at the time.”

Yet Palin should have known the campaign was aware of the pregnancy by that point: She told the campaign’s vice presidential vetters as much, in writing, far before she was chosen to be John McCain’s running mate.

Palin and the other vice presidential short-listers were asked to fill out a written questionnaire during the vetting the process, according to a “senior official close to the vetting process” who talked to reporters on September 2nd, 2008.

Palin revealed Bristol’s pregnancy on this written questionnaire, adding that she wanted to discuss the pregnancy orally with the campaign, according to the campaign official.

A written report, which included info about the pregnancy, was presented to campaign manager Rick Davis as well as McCain before the campaign flew Palin down for the meeting she describes on Page 214.

Steve Chaggaris
CBS News

From POLITICS DAILY:

Republican Sen. John McCain, who lifted former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin out of obscurity to be his vice presidential partner last year, isn’t saying much about Palin’s new tell-all, blame-all book. But Steve Schmidt, who managed the campaign and is a chief target in the book, doesn’t think much of “Going Rogue.”

Original DVD cover

In the book, written with Lynn Vincent, Palin attacks Schmidt, communications aide Nicolle Wallace, Katie Couric and Charlie Gibson; says Schmidt cursed in front of her 7-year-old daughter, Piper; says she was billed $50,000 for the cost of her own vetting and says she resisted the campaign’s efforts to dress her up with new clothes and a stylist. She also says Schmidt screamed at her after she fell for a hoax in which a prank caller pretended to be French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Schmidt gave his verdict on the book, due in stores Tuesday, in an interview with me: “It’s total fiction,” he said.

Just to address some of the claims: Trevor Potter, the campaign’s counsel, told The Atlantic that the campaign did not bill Palin for vetting. Schmidt told me it’s “not true” that he used an obscenity in front of Piper. As for the $150,000 tab for Palin family clothes and accessories, “Her account talks about the fact that she was resistant to all this stuff. That’s just not true,” one campaign aide told me. This aide’s take: “The book fully reveals her. Dishonest, small and petty.”

…snip…

McCain [...] has told his former aides that he feels bad about what they are going through. The aides themselves are both shocked and not shocked.

“People knew that’s what she was like” but they are nevertheless incredulous that she published a book like this, one of them told me. “It’s like, ‘What’s she so angry about?’ She was picked to be vice president of the United States. She had an exceptional opportunity. Everything is someone else’s fault. There’s no accountability. It’s mean-spirited. But if you look at the record, it is what it is.”

From THE HUFFINGTON POST:

Last month at a conference in Washington D.C., former McCain campaign manager Steve Schmidt was asked how he expected to be portrayed in Sarah Palin’s upcoming book.

Not well, he replied. He wasn’t wrong.

…snip…

Clocking in at over 400 pages, “Going Rogue” is, at its heart, one giant complaint about the conduct of John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign. At the nexus of Palin’s grievances lies Schmidt, a character cast as out of touch, overly cautious, and vindictive.

The relationship between vice presidential candidate and the campaign manager doesn’t start off on the rocks — but it ends there. And though she claims they were “very comfortable with each other right off the bat,” she also describes Schmidt as “business to the bone.” During her vetting Schmidt plays it cool. When Palin admits “the one skeleton [she'd] kept hidden in [her] closet for the past twenty-two years,” Schmidt “didn’t bat an eye” — though he does “wince” when she mentions God. That oh-so-dark secret, incidentally, is a D-grade Palin received in a college course.

Palin complains of being “told to sit down and shut up” when she “spoke on the trail about Obama’s associations with questionable characters.” She bemoans the campaign’s unwillingness to tackle “Obama’s pastor of twenty years, Jeremiah ‘God Damn America’ Wright.”

…snip…

She even remarks about how Schmidt’s penchant for vulgarity offended her. Writing about the preparation the campaign was conducting for the vice-presidential debates, she recounts the campaign manager declaring that moderator Gwen Ifill is “going to f*** with you?”

…snip…

Eventually the animosity grew quite personal. At one point during the campaign, Schmidt discusses his hopes of getting a nutritionist on the bus. Palin, first assuming that it’s for the entire staff, compliments the idea. Only then, does Schmidt tell her, “No, it’s for you… You gotta get off that Atkins Diet.” Palin, writing up the incident months later, couldn’t help but comment on Schmidt’s “rotund physique.”

…snip…

Regrets, indeed, are everywhere in “Going Rogue”. And blame always seems to fall on someone else. Palin laments the indecisiveness about how to deal with Saturday Night Live’s parodies of her, writing that the campaign simply should have taken her advice and gone on the show earlier.

Her soured relationship with the local press — originally “fine” and even helpful — was also the campaign’s fault. The McCain campaign, complained Palin, wouldn’t allow her to “speak her heart and mind.”

“Just stick with the script,” Schmidt would say. “Ultimately,” she writes, “this hurt the campaign to a degree the ‘experts’ could never grasp.” She gives anecdotes detailing incidents where the McCain campaign directly — sometimes physically — stopped her from reaching out to reporters.

…snip…

Palin makes clear it was the “packaging” the campaign managers wrapped her in — never the package inside — that led to her failed candidacy.

…snip…

The decision to purchase designer clothes for the trail — a major embarrassment for the campaign — is, likewise, ascribed to aide Nicolle Wallace.

…snip…

She gasps over the expensive price of the nylons they provide for her. When describing her speech at the RNC, she snidely adds, “The kids looked great — even in a bunch of borrowed clothes.”

…snip…

The anger between Palin and Schmidt eventually crests right as the prospects for the campaign begin their precipitous decline. In an incident that has been reported previously, Randy Scheuenemann — a McCain foreign policy adviser and Palin loyalist — charges into Schmidt’s office after a series of articles surfaced with anonymous campaign aides whacking the vice presidential candidate.

From THE HUFFINGTON POST:

The Huffington Post has obtained internal McCain campaign emails — addressed to and by the former vice presidential candidate — that directly contradict or cast serious doubt on several of Palin’s assertions. The emails were passed along by a mid-level staffer who called early excerpts of “Going Rogue”, a serious mixing of truth and imagination.”

In one email thread, dated October 14, 2008, Palin says she is “not thrilled” with the idea of going on Saturday Night Live as a way of marginalizing the show’s unflattering impersonations of her.

“Not after seeing clips of what they’ve been playing re: my family,” Palin writes to campaign manager Steve Schmidt, as well as top strategists Rick Davis; and Nicolle Wallace. “I had no idea how gross ‘celebrities’ on that show and in other celebrity venues could get when it comes to family and other aspects of my life that have nothing to do with seeking the vp slot. These folks are whack – didn’t know it was as bad as it is… what’s the upside in giving them any celebrity venue a ratings boost? That’s Todd’s input also,” she concludes, in reference to her husband.

Schmidt would respond minutes later, telling Palin that, “if you don’t want to do it you should not,” while adding that a guest appearance would “get an enormous amount of” attention and help her “to fly above all this.”

…snip…

Palin would ultimately make a guest appearance on Saturday Night Live days later. But in her upcoming book she describes the deliberations about whether or not to go on the show much differently than the emails suggest. In “Going Rogue”, the vice presidential candidate writes that “from the beginning, I liked the idea that John and I might appear on the show.”

…snip…

The SNL episode isn’t the only instance where “Going Rogue” seems to venture away from documented campaign material. On the condition that it could be quoted but not re-published, the McCain staffer also provided the email that Schmidt sent to Palin and her staff after she was prank called by someone pretending to be French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

“Who set this up? Are you kidding me? Did it occur to anyone that the french president wouldn’t be looking to have a conversation with the vicepresidential candidate 3 days before the election,” Schmidt writes. “From this moment forward, no interview occurs without my direct signoff. Nothing. I want to know the exact details of this. I want to know who is responsible.”

In “Going Rogue”, the anecdote is painted in a drastically different setting and context. For starters, Palin writes that Schmidt called her, something that two McCain aides (including the one who provided the email) insist never happened. “He never called screaming at her,” said one of the aides, who was traveling with Palin at the time. “There was no phone call.”

Moreover, in Going Rogue, Palin recalls Schmidt screaming directly at her, so much so that it “blew my hair back.” In actuality, the irritation was directed at the staffers, the aide said.

…snip…

Finally, the McCain aide sends over a third email that shows a late-in-the-campaign Palin grateful for the work done by Schmidt and others and cognizant of her “blundered-up” media appearances. The occasion was a sit-down interview that the vice presidential candidate had done with ABC’s Elizabeth Vargas on October 29, in which it was reported (widely out of context) that Palin was already thinking about running for president in 2012.

“I am very sorry,” Palin writes to Nicolle Wallace, Steve Schmidt, and Rick Davis, with her husband, Todd, cc:ed. “u guys are working double-triple time on this blundered-up stuff that they spin bc of my visits w press – while I apologize I say I love you guys!!!”

From the Anchorage Daily News:

So what’s in the book?

There’s some juicy campaign trail gossip, writes the Associated Press reporter who last week tracked down a copy of “Going Rogue.” In it, she claims that as much as $50,000 of the legal bills she amassed while governor of Alaska came from the vetting the McCain campaign did of her as a vice-presidential candidate.

The book also “describes heart-wrenching anguish about her teen daughter’s [Bristol's] pregnancy playing out before a national audience,” the AP reported.

Yet not a word about Levi Johnston. His name is not even mentioned. A little afraid of the kid, Princess?

There’s also plenty of media bashing, according to an excerpt leaked to the Drudge Report Web site. Palin was barred even from talking to the reporters on her campaign plane, according to the excerpt of her book.

“By the third week in September, a ‘Free Sarah’ campaign was under way and the press at large was growing increasingly critical of the McCain camp’s decision to keep me, my family and friends back home, and my governor’s staff all bottled up,” according to the excerpt on the Drudge Report.

But in the same passage, she snipes about her interview with Katie Couric, saying that a McCain-Palin aide urged her to do the interview because the CBS anchor had “low self-esteem.”

By: Tiffani Haynes

Former VP candidate Sarah Palin met with media mogul Oprah Winfrey for a sit-down interview. She’ll delve into her vice presidential campaign, her celebrity status, her new book (Going Rogue( and her daughter, Bristol’s pregnancy.

I can’t really sit through a Sarah Palin interview so you check out these clips of the interview and tell me what you think. You can find more of the interview on www.oprah.com

Oprah’s on at 4 p.m. EST, and you betcha we’ll be live blogging that crap.

4:00 Oh holy crap, ya’ll. Ominous music! We’ll be talking Bristol, Levi, Katie Couric, and everything else. Oprah’s been waiting! “She’s finally here!”

4:01 Loving embrace! This is gonna get ugly real fast.

4:02 It’s time to talk about the Palin snub! Oh let’s break it down, everyone.  Oprah reminds us that she supported Barry, and that’s why she chose to have no candidates on. Sarah smiles, images of ponies and unicorns dancing through her head.

4:04 Tell us about your first meeting with Johnny Mac, SP. Palin says she didn’t consider herself a real viable candidate for VP. Shocking! She also says she never doubted that she’d be a good VP. After all, she had “executive experience.” Wtvr.

4:06 Sarah has skeletons! She got a D in college. What she didn’t tell them is that it was her best grade. Hey-O!

4:07 For all the ladies out there, Sarah Palin is wearing some kind of green thing. You’re welcome.

4:07 This is not Palin’s best forum because she has to formulate ideas on the fly. Maybe we can move this to Facebook? Will that work for you, Oprah?

4:08 Palin was excited to announce Bristol’s pregnancy because it made hers a real American family. As if a family that hunts moose from helicopters and races snow machines isn’t real enough already.

4:09 Palin hated it…HATED IT that her kids were in the news. Obama’s kids weren’t in the news! What about all of Sarah’s MALIAS AND SASHAS!?! What about them!?!

4:10 After the break, LEVI and Katie COURIC! YAYAYAYAYAY!

4:11 Aw, shit! This thing just got all meta with a Palin ad within a Palin interview. Tune in tomorrow for Palin vs. Barbara Walters, featuring such questions as: all the same things that will be asked today.

4:14 Oh, let’s relive something awesome! Here we go! File footage of McCain being introduced. Palin’s memory: “Oh boy, John McCain IS a maverick.”

4:16 Palin says it was great that so much clothing was provided to her because she “doesn’t like to shop.” It’s ironic because she spent many thousands of dollars on clothes.

4:18 Palin studied for debates and Q&A sessions with index cards. For some reason, she was surprised that they wanted to use McCain’s talking points instead of just letting Palin Go Rogue.

4:20 Palin blames their loss not on her not being allowed to Go Rogue, but on the economy tanking. “I don’t think I was to blame for losing the race any more than I could’ve been credited with winning the race if I’d been a better candidate.” In other words, Sarah Palin is retarded.

4:23 Katie Couric time. Apparently Palin thought it was supposed to be light-hearted — a working mom to working mom sort of thing. WTF?

4:24 “If people only saw that interview, I don’t blame them for thinking I was ill qualified and ill prepared.”

4:26 Palin says she’s a “lover of books and magazines,” but for some reason, she still can’t name one she reads.

4:27 OMG, she saw the situation as a problem with the “state of journalism,” and that’s why she didn’t name anything. She refused to answer questions because she was annoyed. That’s her actual explanation.

4:28 Yikes! She just referred to Couric as “the perky one,” adding after being questions who she was referring to, “with all due respect.”

4:29 Palin says she understands why a woman would consider having an abortion because she had a baby with Down Syndrome. And because of that, she’s staunchly pro-life. What?

4:33 Levi time! Palin’s making grumpy faces.

4:34 “We don’t wanna mess up this gig he’s got going. His aspiring. His aspiring porn.”

4:36. Aw, warm fuzzies. Palin says she’ll continue to pray for Levi because he’s got such a “beautiful” child. Still, she’s mad that Levi is being pushed to do interviews by a man named Tank.

4:38 She doesn’t think Levi has any understanding of what he’s doing right now. We’d imagine that considering he’s showing wang for Playgirl, he probably has some idea.

4:39 Palin’s such a great mom! After talking a bunch of shit and saying she condemns Levi’s “porn” and antics, she extends an “open invitation for Levi” to come over for Thanksgiving. Barf.

4:41 Ew sick. Just saw the trailer for “Avatar.” Looks worse than anything Sarah Palin could’ve written.

4:42 Dude, Sarah Palin is like, so real. We’re watching some footage of the family at home. She’s doing something with Trig, who she says is “so cool.” Then we’re off to the gym, where “sweat is my sanity.”

4:43 Yikes, poor choice of words. “It’s nice not to be…handled so much.”

4:44 Oh man, trick-or-treeting with the family. Trig is going as a chicken? And Piper is going as…Todd, we think. That or a Power Ranger. SNOW MACHINES.

4:47 To give you an idea of the demographic ABC thinks is watching the Palin interview, that’s three times they’ve shown the trailer for the Alvin and the Chipmunks movie.

4:48 Re: the post-election concession speech by McCain: “I was disappointed. You don’t run a race to lose.” Strange, that’s not how it looked, loser.

4:50 Oh man. Oprah just got so real, y’all! She’s asking the tough questions about gender roles and raising kids and Todd and blah blah blah. “There’s so much equality in me and Todd’s relationship.”

4:51 In talking about breaking gender-role stereotypes, Palin uses a cooking idiom. Well played.

4:53 So why’d you quit, Sarah? Once again she trots out the “I didn’t want to be a lame duck” defense. Oprah: “You said you could better serve the American people and the Alaskan people by not being governor. I don’t understand that.” Duh, it’s because she was a terrible governor.

4:54 The inevitable presidency question comes up, and naturally Palin “hasn’t thought about it.” Why? Because she hasn’t thought about anything.

4:57 Should we be worried that Palin will get her own regular full-time sexy talk show? Oh yes we should! Even though Oprah is the QUEEN.

4:58 Inspiration jibber jabber love fest. Do you want some final words, Sarah? Wanna give any plugs to Jesus or Todd? No? Okay, then.

4:58 Oh GOD, shut up!

4:59 Was that the worst thing we’ve ever seen on TV? Yes. And we’ve seen both Kristen Wiig on SNL and literally seconds of “Mind of Mencia.”

I am so interested in the American tour that Sarah Palin will be promoting this week for her book Going Rogue: An American Life. I think there is something we all can learn from this. If anything, it is a media spectacle unlike anything ever seen before: Sarah Palin, the former Governor of Alaska, who makes history as the first female Vice Presidential candidate for the Republican Party, dishes her perspective on the inside story behind the McCain campaign. While I haven’t read the book myself, (I plan on buying a copy soon,) it will be interesting to see how this all plays out in the end and how it will bode for the future of national and global politics, if at all.

"Going Rogue: An American Life" presents Sarah Palin's distorted view of politics and reality.

Excerpts from Sarah Palin’s Going Rogue have been released by several news agencies and other sources who have received advanced copies. Here are the first ten lies from Palin’s memoirs:

1. The Cover Byline: Palin didn’t write the book by herself. Most books with known ghostwriters list their co-author’s name on the cover. In this case it was Lynn Vincent (a well-known homophobe). Going Rogue does not.
2. The Subtitle: An American Life. Aside from her infancy, Palin has really spent very little time outside of Alaska, and according to John McCain’s campaign advisors, was shockingly unfamiliar with American geography and American history. “Alaska,” as John McPhee noted in his resplendent Coming Into the Country, “is a foreign country…Its nature is its own.”
3. Going Rogue features Palin’s obsession with Katie Couric and characterizes the CBS anchor as “badgering.” Palin refused to prep for the Couric interview because she was more concerned about her popularity in Alaska than about what was best for the campaign. Was it really badgering to ask what books or periodicals Palin read? Palin further claims that Couric suffered from low self-esteem. In fact, according to those close to Palin, it’s the former governor who suffers from low self-esteem and frequently projects that onto other women.
4. Palin asserts that there was a “jaded aura” around McCain’s political advisors once she entered the campaign. In fact, McCain’s aides bent over backwards to protect Palin and to try to get her up to speed on international affairs. In addition to not knowing whether or not Africa was a continent, according to sources in the McCain campaign, Palin also didn’t understand the difference between England and Great Britain. And much, much more.
5. Palin contends to have been saddled with legal bills of more than $500,000 resulting from what she calls “frivolous” ethics complaints filed against her. The lion’s share of those bills resulted from the ethics complaint she filed against herself in a legal maneuver to sidestep the Troopergate charges being brought against her by the bipartisan Alaska Legislative Council.
6. Palin rather astonishingly claims that she was saddled with $50,000 in bills for the legal fees associated with her vice-presidential vetting. A) She was not vetted; B) A McCain campaign advisor says this is “categorically untrue.”
7. Palin states that she found out only “minutes” before John McCain’s concession speech that she would not be allowed to make remarks of her own introducing McCain. In fact, she had been told at least three times that she would not be allowed to give the speech and kept lying about it in the hopes of creating some last-minute chaos that would allow her to assume the dais.
8. Palin asserts that her effort to award a license for a natural gas transmission line was turning a “pipe dream” into a pipeline. Although she claimed otherwise in her speech at the GOP convention, there is no pipeline. It remains a pipe dream.
9. Palin implies that the McCain campaign intentionally bungled the release of information regarding her daughter Bristol’s pregnancy and refused to let her rewrite it. In fact, the McCain campaign allowed her to rework the draft, but the original version went out accidentally. Palin reportedly accepted the recalcitrant staff member’s apology for the mistake, then when she left, ordered her immediately dismissed of her duties.
10. Palin complains that McCain’s senior advisors, most notably Steve Schmidt, forced her to “stick with the script” they provided her. In fact, Schmidt & Co. were encumbered with the task of keeping Palin from lying and misleading people throughout the campaign, from her well-documented lies about the “Bridge to Nowhere” to her duplicities about her husband Todd’s assocation with the Alaska Independence Party. Palin’s lying to those in the McCain campaign was so troubling to them that they cringed every time she went “off script.”

And that’s just for starters.

Award-winning writer and filmmaker Geoffrey Dunn’s book The Lies of Sarah Palin: The Untold Story Behind Her Relentless Quest for Power will be released by St. Martin’s Press in spring 2010.

Geoffrey Dunn
The Huffington Post

Despite Sarah Palin’s heartfelt invitation to have Levi Johnston come to the house for Thanksgiving as “one of the family”, Levi is respectfully declining the invite she discussed on her Oprah appearance.

The Playgirl model said of Sarah that “you could tell by her laugh she was full of it.” He also said that is was “a nice gesture, but she didn’t mean it” and that a Thanksgiving with the family would be “awkward.”

Oh Really Levi??? You have gone around bashing the mother of your child, and her mother and you think it would be “AWKWARD?”  Why would you think that?  You are a dead-beat Dad and your 5 minutes of fame are coming to an end. So soak it up levi, soak it up!

The Sarah Palin media blitz is now in a full court press. Have you noticed that since last week she gives more interviews each day than she gave during the entire time that she unsuccessfully ran for Vice President? As usual however, her dementia becomes more apparent each time she opens her mouth. The contradictions are fast and furious.

By now everyone has seen the released snippets of Palin’s appearance on the Oprah Winfrey show. She tells Oprah (regarding the Katie Couric interview), “if you thought that was a good interview, I don’t know what a bad interview is because I knew it was a bad interview.” Yet despite this seemingly honest admission that she made a dope of herself on national television, Palin has a different take on the subject in her soon to be released ghost-written memoir. In Going Rogue she says that she was blindsided by Katie Couric’s devastating interviews last year because John McCain’s aides lulled her into thinking the CBS anchorwoman was a fan. She then writes that  Couric was,“badgering,” had a “partisan agenda” and edited out Palin’s substantive remarks in favor of “gotcha” lines. So which one is it, Sarah? Did you give a poor performance because of your lack of preparation and/or knowledge, or did you never have a chance to shine because of the “gotcha media”? Make up your mind for once, will you please.

If there was ever a book to be banned by her hometown public library for the betterment of society, Going Rogue might be it. There is nothing new to be learned about the former ex-quitting governor of Alaska therein. Palin simply continues to portray herself as the innocent victim of the media, John McCain’s staff and the world in general. The New York Daily News reports that one McCain staffer said this about the tome, “This will reinforce the fact that 25% of the country loves her and everybody else thinks she’s not up to it.” The paper also says that another former McCain staffer predicts the book will kill off whatever presidential dreams she may harbor for 2012. Let’s hope so.

It should also be noted that Sarah Palin had some other bad news this week. As the result of faulty wiring at her Wasilla, Alaska home, her private library was completely destroyed by fire. Both books went poof… up in flames, and Palin had not yet even finished coloring one of them.

In honor of the troops, please click on the song link below to familiarize yourselves with the tune and to have more fun singing along with the song parody.

Paperback Writer song link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pwap79uy1G8

PAPERBACK WRITER

(sung to the Beatles song “Paperback Writer”)

Paperback writer (paperback writer)

Dear Rush and Coulter, will you read my tome?
It took a year to write in my Wasilla home
It’s based on the life of a political hack
And I take a few shots at old Johnny Mac as a paperback writer,
Paperback writer

A book of topics that I want a say on,
Which I wrote with finger-paints and a crayon.
It was edited by Todd the school drop-out,
He can’t read too well but he wants to be a paperback writer
Paperback writer

Paperback writer (paperback writer)

It’s got twenty pages give or take a few,
And it has some pictures that Piper drew.
I threw in an old joke that Bristol once told
It’s a real page turner and I want to be a paperback writer,
Paperback writer

My new book will appeal to those on the right
And everyone that is straight, racist and white.
Bill O’Reilly will love it, please have no fear,
I sure needed a boost and now I can be a paperback writer.
Paperback writer

Paperback writer (paperback writer)

Paperback writer – paperback writer
Paperback writer – paperback writer
(fading)

Ready to see this guy's hockey stick?

Are you getting pumped about Levi Johnston’s upcoming full-frontal spread in Playgirl?

Wait, what’s that? You just threw up in your mouth a little?

Levi might be conventionally attractive, but his status as Bristol Palin’s baby-daddy, Jon Gosselin’s new buddy – Michael Lohan must be green with envy – and an all-around jerk (in response to New York Magazine asking him how he was adjusting to life in the Big Apple, Levi said, “I run this city. It ain’t no thang.” UGH) means that we’re less than excited about the idea of having naked pictures of this asshat plastered all over the internet next week.

After giving the matter some thought, we realized that there are actually only five guys that we’d be even more opposed to seeing in their birthday suits. Read the list if you dare—the thought of these dudes naked might just make you shudder.

We're fine not knowing if his shag carpet matches that dust ruffle on his chin.

Jonah Hill
Don’t get us wrong: Jonah Hill is totally hilarious, whether he’s riffing with his buddies from the Judd Apatow School of Awesome or slumming it in “Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian.” That said, we do not want to see his wang. Ever.

It just feels so wrong..

A Jonas Brother

Seeing any of these three without a regulation skinny tie and a nonthreatening-yet-slightly-edgy pair of pants would just weird us out, no matter how convincingly they croon about wanting to hold a girl’s hand or whatever. It would be like seeing a creepy version of Mickey Mouse wandering through a post-apocalyptic Disney Land.

Thanks to his meggings, we already know what this guy is packing.

Russell Brand

The nasty, matted, greasy hair. The unsettlingly skinny body. The meggings. Russell is a dead ringer for Jack Skellington, and that is so not attractive. Have fun, Katy Perry—then again, maybe you two deserve each other.

Barf. Here comes my $5 footlong...

Perez

No. No. NO.

Does that look like the face of someone with a bangin' bod?

Hugh Hefner

It’s kind of ironic that the guy who started the Playboy empire is the last dude that we’d ever, ever want to see in the buff. The soft-core entrepreneur is 83 years old, which makes him 63 years older than his current “girlfriends,” identical twins Kristina and Karissa Shannon. They might not mind running their hands over his loose wrinkles, but we do. Ew. There aren’t even words to describe how wrong that is.

Made it to the end of this psychologically scarring list? Congratulations—you deserve a prize. Here’s a picture of James Franco looking adorable. You’re welcome.

Levi Johnston plans to file for joint custody because the Palin family is allegedly keeping him from seeing his 10-month old son, Tripp, whose mother is Sarah Palin's daughter Bristol.

In his custody fight for son Tripp, Levi Johnston says he’s up against a powerful foe: Sarah Palin.

Johnston, 19, claims the former vice presidential candidate has been part of an effort to keep Tripp away from Johnston by exerting influence on 19-year-old daughter Bristol, who is Tripp’s mother.

“She has a big impact on what Bristol does and thinks,” Johnston tells Entertainment Tonight. “Bristol looks up to Sarah. I don’t know why they just don’t want me in his life.”

But Johnston insists he doesn’t fear Palin as he gets ready to sue for joint custody. “She ain’t nothing,” he says. “Just because she ran for vice president and was the governor of Alaska, doesn’t intimidate me. Sarah has no legal thing on Tripp, she’s just the grandmother.”

He adds: “By the end of the year we’re gonna go to court for joint custody. I’m just done with it. When there’s a kid involved you ain’t walking away.”

When Johnston announced his intention to sue for custody, Palin’s camp did not respond to requests for comment. But her lawyer, Thomas Van Flein, told Britain’s The Guardian on Oct. 30, “Other than noting that Tripp’s father is always welcome to visit his son, we are unable to respond to these allegations as it is inappropriate to discuss child custody matters publicly.”

Mike Fleeman
People.com

Levi Johnston

The man who was almost Sarah Palin’s son-in-law will pursue legal action to gain joint custody of his son with Bristol Palin, according to reports.

Levi Johnston, 19, is the father of 10-month-old Tripp with his ex-girlfriend Bristol, the daughter of the former Alaska governor. The two were engaged to be married, but broke off their relationship in March.

Johnston is seeking joint custody at the end of the month because the Palin family is allegedly making it difficult for him to see his son, he told The Insider.

“It’s not working. I’m done,” he said. “It’s going to have to go to court. They just finally pushed me over the edge.”

The relationship between Johnston and the Palins has taken a particularly nasty turn in the last few weeks, with Johnston calling Sarah Palin a hypocrite, and Palin lambasting him for his upcoming nude pictorial in Playgirl.

Michael Y. Park
People.com

Sarah Palin in her Mat-Su Valley days.

The blogosphere rumor mill seems to be heating up these days with another round of Sarah Palin conspiracy theories. The rumor that Sarah Palin is not actually the real mother of her youngest child is not new. It has floated around since the days that she was campaigning for her failed vice presidential bid. For some reason however, it has begun to resurface with some regularity of late. Perhaps it is being fueled by her reluctance to produce the child’s long form birth certificate much as the “Birther Movement“ has been clamoring for the same in the case of President Barack Obama. Who knows?

Those of us here at Lynnrockets’ Blast-Off have no idea as to the truth of this rumor but we suspect that it will not die until some verifiable documentary proof of parentage is produced. As the “Birthers” often request of Obama  (and we might add, Obama has produced his birth certificate), why doesn’t Palin simply provide the requested documentation and end all debate? We guess Enquiring minds want to know. Until that time, here is our latest song parody based upon a rather obscure Paul McCartney and Wings B-Side single titled Sally G which was  released in 1974.

In honor of the troops, please click on the song link below to familiarize yourselves with this delightful tune and to have more fun singing along with the parody.

Sally G song link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuMTuSDM094&feature=related

SARAH P.

(sung to the Paul McCartney and Wings song “Sally G.”)

Somewhere way northwest of Boston city
Lies Alaska where it’s quite chilly
That’s where I sat down and wrote this ditty
About a gal that I saw on TV

And they call her Sarah,
Sarah P., she claims she can see Russia across the sea
Yes it’s Sarah, Sarah P.
Unemployed but speaking for a fee
Sarah P.

The night-life took me to the Mat-Su Valley
We’re Sarah used to be a real big star
Maybe I’d run across her if I made it there on time
If not, I’d ask about her at the bar

And they call her Sarah,
Sarah P., she’s hiding a baby birthin’ mystery
Yes that Sarah, Sarah P.
She’s not known for her veracity,
Sarah P.

Did she have a hook-up
That’s real hard to look up?
Something there is just so wrong

Then she started lyin’
When the press started its pryin’
I heard someone say,
“Something’s wrong, something’s wrong”

Shouldn’t Sarah have shown a bit, they wonder
Why was there no bump under that hood?
I never got to ask her to explain a little more
One honest answer would be good

And they call her Sarah,
Sarah P., now she’s at the airport shopping duty free
Yes it’s Sarah, Sarah P.
Where might those hospital records be?
Sarah P.

Sarah P.