JOE McGINNISS

I’m thinking Liz Cheney will make her move for 2016. Like Palin and Bachmann, she’s somewhat attractive, has five kids, and is an ideologue. Plus, Republicans like candidates with family ties. Makes them feel like a monarchy.

Thanks again, Joe, for all you do. It has been such a pleasure to watch your readership on the blog increase and support you. I am so looking forward to your book. I pre-ordered it from Amazon after reading “Never Enough.” That was quite a story. You have a wonderful way with words. I am very interested in learning more about Palin from your perspective. It is very gratifying to see the increased interest by you and countless others. I hope you can get a spot on Jon Stewart, he always has the most interesting guests. He enlightens us without lecturing us, about our crazy country. Keep up the good work, and I hope you don’t retire anytime soon.

the GOP plan for 2012? plan for 2016.

I agree with you about betting, wagering, but the truth is that we are all betting OUR LIVES that Obama will win, must win. If he does not, all those important things we value will go downhill way faster than they have in the last few yrs (pre-Obama): redistribution of wealth, declines in social svcs and education — we all know this list all too well. If Obama does not win, we all stand to lose a LOT.

Good to hear that your publisher is going to make a big effort to get your message out. I too am very eager to read your book. Joe — did you know Dominick Dunne? When I was reading every blessed one of his books, I had not heard of you yet. I thought we needed someone like him to blast this apart, but his quasi-fictional approach is not as good as yours for this sad task.

I’m an avid reader from a family of avid readers that have always been active supporters of the public library system. I am happy to report that the Pierce County Library system in the Tacoma area has your book on order and I am #1 on the list of readers ! I’m looking forward to the bookmobile bringing it to me on a Saturday in September!

Nikki Haley is not as dumb as Sarah Palin but she’s close. She’s uniformed, backstabbing, she lies without blinking, lied on her resumes, she cheated on her husband and lies about it to this day, despite two men coming forward with details.. She screwed over Mark Sanford secretly (and he endorsed her), hired her friends and gave them raises as soon as she was sworn in January 2011(Sarah style), she has issues with the IRS -go figure, she doesn’t like to pay taxes. Oh and she has a “Todd” who also tried to interfere with staffing. She is an awful character and an terrible governor with higher ambitions (sound familiar?). I barely recognized the person being lauded in the NY Times article. While she was busy getting familiar with the Governor’s mansion/job running the state for the last 6 months, she has announced she found some spare time to write a memoir.

Let’s hope we learned from Sarah. No one likes this one.

Sweet anticipation! I imagine the significance of The Rogue goes beyond Sarah Palin to an indictment of the political system and media that gave this hatriot a platform. It will be relevant whether she’s campaigning or hiding in a cave. Your media appearances could prove most interesting, indeed. Depending on the locations, perhaps you’ll consider allowing a few minutes for signing books for appreciative readers.

Nobody and I repeat nobody compares to Sarah Palin.

Palin has to be the most unqualified mother, politician, human being in the world.

one thing people can be sure of in this lifetime and that is you will NEVER see a woman at the top of the presidential ticket of the republican party.

remember folks that there is no such thing as a “tea party”.
they are all republicans and while it might be a balancing act to keep the tea bag loons happy their influence is greater than their numbers because they are the fanatics, the Real haters who make their primary concerns all about harming “those” people even at their own and especially their children’s expense.(note how they support all wars the corporate mentality of profits over people and the destruction of unions and education)

the media especially fox news is relentless in pushing the far rights views and that’s why you see the idiot palin and bachmann used as appeasement and more importantly the conditioning of the american people whose curiosity and desire to learn is limited to the latest cell phone or fake reality show.

so the trick is to watch for the man…. that the media will anoint as having all these right wing qualities that everyone will be told are just what the country needs.

I expect romney to be “the” guy come 2012 but I do agree that obama will win re-election.

and that’s because obama has no resistance to continuing and expanding the greatest war that has already begun, but that’s a comment for another time and place………
its always the same old tired act

Thank you, Joe, for the Independence Day wishes, and same to you from Anchorage, Alaska.

I appreciate the odds list.

I am looking forward to your book and do expect it to be more substantial than the Dunn and Bailey books, which were confirmatory but not revelatory.

Also, too, this blog is fun! Please let your publisher know it is appreciated – especially for the fact that Sistah $arah checks in to get the pulse of her popularity, which seems to be committing a Kervorkian.

I think Bob McDonnell, governor of Virginia, is as dangerous as Nikki Haley. He is a true right-wing fundamentalist (graduate of Regent U and real pal of Pat Robertson), but he’s not been involved in Haley-type scandals. He appears to be a very all-American, boy-next-door moderate Republican. He is NOT.

During his time as a delegate in Virginia every bill he presented was on social issues, and those were all fundamentalist in nature. While he was Attorney General, he started to “lay low” on social issues so that when he ran for governor in 2009, he could claim to be more moderate. It worked. Virginia voters didn’t pay attention to his record, and he came out of the “moderate closet” the day he was sworn into office.

He’s also closely allied with Fred Malek and the Kochs.

Star, pre-ordering Joe’s book for the Kindle is a terrific choice as it will be available right on the day of release. EARLY on the day of release. Instant gratification! You can also download the book to your computer (or iPhone or iPad). I am eager to read it and know it will be a page-turner and I bet I’ll be sneaking reads all day the day it comes out!

Thanks for that picture of him, Joe. I’ve read his stuff for a long time; partly because I liked his approach, “quasi-fictional,” as the previous poster indicated (although I thought of it as gossipy, which I like) – but I think you showed what I thought: there was a heart of gold beneath it all.

I have a feeling he would have adored this $Palin celebri-pol-tard and would have had many a field day with her shenanigans.

In the memory of Dominick Dunne, I hope you uncovered *it all.*

Problem is these Republicans have no sense of shame. Fueled by ambition, winning is the be all and end all.
I was hoping the party would self implode….damn.

I am a pessimist by nature, but I don’t see President Obama losing to anyone in 2012. I even think the Dems have a 50/50 chance of taking back the House in 2012. Why? Because the Republicans have overreached and the American people have taken notice.

Republicans campaigned in 2010 on getting our economy back on track (that means JOBS). However, when given a majority in the House, they have yet to put out a jobs bill. They passed a bill to eliminate Medicare; they keep talking about closing down family planning clinics and in several states, have voted to eliminate funding for Planned Parenthood (one sure way to increase the welfare roles and the abortion rate is to deny contraceptive services to low-income women). In the States, public employees, this would include police, firefighters and teachers, have become Public Enemy #1 in Republican Legislatures. From Scott Walker in Wisconsin to Rick Scott in Florida, Republicans in the States have done a lot of damage to their brand. My point is, we hear nothing of jobs or the economy from most Republicans. We do hear that rich people are not rich enough and need more tax cuts. In the meantime, homelessness, forclosure, job loss and other calamities are hitting real American families each and every day. And of course, there will be no more extensions of unemployment benefits because, in the view of most Republicans, workers would rather collect unemployment than get a job.

As the election of Scott Brown, a Republican from Massachusetts to the U.S. Senate was a harbinger of the Republican victories in 2010, the Democrat winning NY 26, a very Republican district in upstate New York, should also be considered in predicting the mood of the nation for the 2012 elections.

I don’t know much about Nikki Haley of South Carolina, but I do know that she will not be the President on Friday, January 20, 2017. Four words for you Joe on who will be the one to put their hand on the bible on that fateful day: PRESIDENT HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON. I would be delighted to make book on that today (if you endorsed wagering, which of course, you do not).

When Hillary wrote her book, ‘It takes a Village’, she did not mean the Village idiots (Paliln, Bachmann and Haley).

Joe, you give us hope as usual! The last screech Sarah gave after her film presented in Pella, she actually said, “we’re going down with a fight” and again she repeated, “don’t need a title” to blah, blah…….
I think she projects what she knows in her gut, that she won’t make it. She is preparing her bots for disappointment. She does pal around with some other crazy and slimy people like Andrew Brietbart, who has no problem with dirty tricks. Who knows what Sarah will come up with next? Can the bus tour continue? Will the wrap around the bus have to be changed because of “One Nation” belonging to another group?
Knowing that Sarah has begun to go down by being exposed to the public using her own words and antics, it is easier to watch her slow collapse without a nagging worry that she just may get a position to cause havoc for our country.
Happy holiday to all, enjoy!

Jeanabella

Everything I’ve read indicates she’s doubling down on her denial of the affairs in her book. Again, very similar tactic of Sarah Palin.

Nikki Haley certainly takes her new-found christianity to heart: http://www.religiondispatches.org/dispatches/candacechellew-hodge/3624/nikki_haley%3A_churches_should_take_over_universal_pre-k_education/

Haley famously is cited as being Methodist (in spite of being raised as a Sikh) , the denomination to which her husband belongs.

Please don’t forget Nancy Pelosi. As much as the repugnants attacked her you never saw her playing the victim. She was one of the most effective speakers of the house in my lifetime. She’s an attractive, classy woman that has a unmatched savviness for politics. She is a woman that lives up to the things rabid palin fans say about sarah. I believe she was such a threat to the good old boys of the gop that they were constantly trying to drag her down. She is one of my personal heroes.

Talk about rightwing hypocricy: http://www.cleveland.com/schultz/index.ssf/2011/07/an_anti-abortion_ohio_legislat.html

I have a question about the Kindle. The screen is different than other readers like the Barnes & Noble one. My eyes are tricky, and I find that I read better online than from a physical page. Taking into consideration the different screens for the E-readers, which one would you recommend?

Joe, I agree with you about 2012, but I’ve been saying that for 3 years. Obama is a 2 term president and the next chance Repubs have is in 2016. I will even glance back to last election and say that THAT was also in the bag. That’s why the GOP took a broken down old man who was carrying his own luggage on a train and let him run against Obama.

As far as a woman president, I will say this: If HRC, with dues paid, money and clout, facing a weak opponant, couldn’t get the Dem nomination, then I think it will be hard for any Dem woman to. A couple decades ago, I said to people, the way this country is, the string of white males elected to the Presidency won’t break in just any order. I predicted a black president before a woman president, and guess what, it has come to pass. Next I predicted the first woman president to be a republican, and I think the odds of that are pretty good from where I sit. Third in line will be either a hispanic male of either party or a democratic female, possibly also hispanic. There will be no jewish president. There will be no muslim president. A mormon president, not likely, certainly not this election, but could happen someday.

well the first thing that comes to my mind joe is that americans will not elect a president with the porn star name ‘nikki.’ interestingly enough, if she spelled it ‘nicki’ she could probably get away with it. but the 2 k’s… that’s a porn star name. yes, we currently have a president with an unusual name, but his name does not elicit visions of a porn star.

Happy Alaska Independence Day, July 3rd!

Also known as Quitter Day, the day we were set free of the Worst Governor Ever Sarah Palin!

YAY!!

The SC House and Senate, both with Republican majorities, have overwhelmingly overridden most of Queen Nikki’s budget vetos. She’s not well liked here.

Happy Fourth of July, DKey! What a great story. I only wish more of our citizens had your commitment to this country’s finer principles. You’re an inspiration.

Replying to Tan (long time, no see!), I think the modus operandi is to deny until it’s impossible to deny anymore, then claim that you repent and are forgiven by God, so you can go ahead and do some more of what you were already doing.

-))

Happy 4th of July to all and Joe, I can’t wait for your book! In a way, Sarah helped with the publicity for your book by falsely accusing you of being a peeping tom…she’s her own worst enemy.

This is OT, but I was curious as to how Track maintains his anonynmity is this constant barrage of media coverage. He rarely makes headlines and is seldomly discussed. It’s almost as if he doesn’t exist. It’s eerie as to how their is such silence on one of the Palin clan when all Track’s other siblings have gotten their feet wet in celebrity stardom. How does he do it, and why? How does he get his Mother to give him a free pass from pulling him into the fray? Curious…

I agree, Sunnyjane, about Bob “for jobs” McDonnell. When he was a delegate, he lived in my neighborhood. Squeaky clean right wing fundamentalist who I believe is being groomed for the presidency. Very scary individual because he’s not stupid like Haley. He bears watching.

Thanks for the reminder, my apologies for overlooking the most accomplished Speaker of the House ever. I’ve long been an admirer of hers.

Mom Lynn has a gay daughter.

Track is probably still looking in the mirror and then at pics of his dad and wondering….what a sad thing.
I agree – he’s shown a lot more moxie then the rest of them.

He probably doesn’t cooperate because he doesn’t want to. Recall his less that satisfactory appearance in Sarah Palin’s Alaska special on TLC, and that was edited for inclusion. Imagine what the outtakes looked like.

Also, below, note Joe McGinniss’s request to refrain from speculating about who his father is. I’ve seen all those comparison pictures too, but come away each time pretty sure he’s the natural child of Todd Palin and Sarah Heath. Again, in agreement with McGinniss, there ARE lots of legitimate questions to ask about the parentage of Trig Palin.

Joe, I also respect your blog but SP’s own timeline as dictated in her book doesn’t add up. Additionally, he looks just like the guy (Curtis).

Does Nikki Haley claim to be CPA? I looked up the South Carolina Board of Accountancy website under the name of Haley and there were no matches. Nikki Haley is not a CPA, but I do believe she claims to have an accounting degree.

I agree with both of you. Joe doesn’t want the blog comments meandering, and you’re bringing up something which to me, seems just as valid as the Trig thing. It seems to me if a writer is going to question one, why is the other one off limits? However, staying OT will help.

Having said that, I’d like to also point out that Sarah Palin’s career is entirely based on her family, which she throws out there as part of her qualifications for office. Her daughter is following suit and using her own pregnancy to generate income. Now this child thing has spread to the GOP at large, as the Repub candidates comically try to out-quiver-full each other, and Bachmann throws out her foster kids. So is it more relevant than ever? Yes.

One final comment. Questions of paternity, in general, are not necessarily wild, unlikely accusations. Women DO have children not belonging to their wedded husbands, and it’s pretty widespread.

Politico has a good article on Haley. I think we have only scratched the surface with her. She has only been in office for a short time, but she is really very scary. Of the three on my mind – Palin, Bachman, Haley – I think Haley could be the most dangerous. She is not such a loose cannon as the other two, but some of the ideas she is implementing are a real shock for her state.

I think what we are seeing now is that the choice of Sarah Palin as a legitimate VP candidate by the Republicans has set the bar so low that we now seriously consider candidates that are completely unqualified as being legitimate just because they aren’t are screwed up as Sarah Palin.

If anyone had told me two years ago that Michele Bachmann would be taken seriously as a potential presidential candidate I would have wondered what they were smoking.

But here we are and the comparisons are constantly being drawn to the fact that Bachmann does Palin between then Palin did and therefore is a better candidate. Ditto Nikki Haley.

Mr. McGinnis – I don’t celebrate american holidays but thank you for the greeting as I have commented on your blog and it is one of my favorites. I wouldn’t care if you had any advertising for your book, I would hunt it down and buy it no matter what. I am sure it is going to be everything and more than what we all hope for. From Track to Trig, before and beyond, I believe her sly, stupid, vicious, cold blooded, treacherous and damaging lies will be exposed. Whether its sooner or later (we want sooner) though, the BEST news will be she has gotten what she really deserves: just her more than mediocre life out of ANY public eye, and a complete persona non grata status. It also would be gratifying to see justice served by her wearing jail clothes for all her illegal acts. The spoiled stinking rotten middle aged brat sarah palin is not elite nor special. She does NOT deserve ANY free passes. She brings to mind rats and bubonic plague. There might be ONE holiday I would celebrate and that would be “sarah palin’s Quitter Day in Alaska”. BIG CELEBRATION!

And I should probably temper my statement that she’s well-liked by the base. She only has 42% approval ratings in the state right now. Considering that she’s a fairly new governor and that South Carolina is a decidedly red state, that’s not good at all.

I read a newspaper article where she said the reason why she chose the person she did to head up South Carolina’s Labor Department was because she wanted someone to help her “fight the unions.” A sitting governor, wanting to fight the people’s rights to negotiate their time and talent. Wow. Scary indeed.

Many experience righteous indignation regarding who the leader of our Nation is, but I for one must say that very little has changed in my life, financially or otherwise, under any leadership of our Nation. Since becoming a working person in 1990, my 401K and other investments, my job, my pay, my general outlook, has remained much the same under Bush1, Clinton, Bush2, and now Obama. Life goes on. Politics certainly can stir a sense of anger in me but as far as life goes, it goes on. We work, we save and we just have a different POTUS. The governing of the American people seems to remain quite the same regardless of who is in power. If we had a Nikki Haley POTUS or a Sarah Palin POTUS, life would remain the same for many of us in the less than 200 grand per year lifestyle. Politicians are just figureheads; they are the talking heads that promise enough to keep people quiet, cowed down, and feeling a Patriotic necessity to vote for them. I for one, don’t vote, don’t care and life doesn’t’ change much from one administration to another. Sorry to sound cynical, but that’s reality, invest wise, work hard, and it really doesn’t matter who is in charge.

He is DEFINITELY being groomed for the presidency, SVV. My biggest fear is that when no one in the current field of Republican candidates looks like they can excite the base AND the moderates, Koch is going to trot out old Moderate Bob.

This is a VERY dangerous man, and people are not paying attention to him at the moment.

Yes, I remember with disgust that Haley faced bigotry from her own state party when she ran for governor (I think it must have been the primary). I can’t recall the slur against her, but it was something like ‘towelhead’! My god these people are disgusting. You would think that people like Haley and Jindal would hear this sort of thing and decide the party was not the place for them…but I suppose for a conservative, they have no choice but to put up with working alongside people that despise them for their heritage as there is no alternate conservative party. I can’t imagine how it is really…we want them to see the light and change parties but it’s not likely. But how do they reconcile that? I can’t imagine. In Australia our first aboriginal MP was a member of the conservative party (bear in mind aborigines are a very small minority in the voting areas of Australia, hence the very low representation) and I wondered the same thing. How did he reconcile joining the party that refused to apologise to his community for their past mistreatment?

I’d also like to see a sustained examination of all the front groups that seem to spring up in advance of a Palin money-maker, be it an upcoming speech, or, in the most recent instance, her upcoming movie. Two examples: The Liberty & Freedom Foundation and Organize4Palin. The sole purpose of the former seemed to be as a publicity and ticket request portal for a couple of Palin speeches. Meanwhile, Organize4Palin’s “under construction” website does not provide much content other than promo copy for her upcoming movie and an email submittal field to collect email addresses (which are bought and sold among the various rightwing organizations with constant frequency – it’s truly a currency in these circles). It does not provide a single contact for a state affiliated Organize4Palin group.

Someone clearly recognized early on what an ATM Palin could be. I strongly believe this person/these people are always behind the scenes helping to set up these dummy groups that give the impression of being legitimate organizations, but in reality just help to bring in the money.

I was being a shithead, I admit it. I don’t really post very much any longer but I have grown weary of the ongoing battle between “sane” and “absolute crazy”. I agree with everyone that I have become a snarky, cynical “not fun to be around” type of poster and I’ll reign that in with future comments. I just can’t believe that the 25% of Americans that do not possess any sense of intelligence, manners or overall kindness receive the loudest media coverage. It makes me so angry that I say stupid things, so sorry Mr. McGinness and the other wonderful commenters that have to put up with my bad behavior. I admit it, I’m no fun to be around at times and I’ll keep it under my hat unless I decide to play nice. I just wish that the good part of America, the strong part, the smart part, the part that can improve things for even the 25% that votes based on personality, or looks, or religion would have more of a voice than the hysterical quarter of Americans that are all too willing to give up their personal freedom to a group of people that would treat them in a different way than they expect.

The SouthPark 911 episode that aired in 2006 had a fabulous quote that was used many times in the episode; it’s not nice, but it seems to be true: 25% of America is retarded.

Those 25% get the most media coverage and seem to have the loudest voices and it becomes trying at times. Sorry to be such a “down clown” and I’ll really try harder to be a better person. If anyone here actually knows me, they would find my postings and comments to not at all be in line with the person that I really am, in public, and with my friends. My friends remark about my sunny disposition and positive outlook; go figure.

I guess we all have to vent sometimes.

AKPetMom and Joe — I you both. I have been watching Sarah Palin since she was chosen by John McCain for VP candidate, and then within a day or two was accused of lying about Trig Palin’s origins by a diarist on DK.com — almost three years ago! Then the diary was “disappeared” (Error! 404) and the story was suddenly and mysteriously squashed. Ironically, that is what clued me in that there might be something to the accusations. Otherwise the diarist’s claims could have just been definitively refudiated with hard evidence that Sarah did give birth to Trig, end-of-story, right? Scandal and disgrace for ARCXIX, victory for Sarah… right? The Soviet-like disappearance of a credible, easily disprovable accusation against Sarah Palin on a supposedly liberal blog, is what first made me suspicious. I have never been back to the site since.

AKPM, I am really familiar with you as a commenter on this subject from the very, very beginning. I agree with you that the president doesn’t have as much of an effect on our lives as some propagandists try to convince us he does. Your example may have seemed a little selfish, but we are all guilty of that at times.

I appreciated Joe’s response too. For many of us, our involvement with the US Government is seemingly limited to its role in our personal financial lives. For the military, the poor, the elderly, children, the disabled, criminals, and of course, large for-profit corporations, among many other individuals and entities, the federal government’s role in their destiny is much more evident. George Bush didn’t ruin this country, Barack Obama is not ruining this country, and I hope Sarah Palin will never have even the slightest chance to *not* ruin this country. If anyone is going to ruin the country, it will be those of us, and I include myself, who don’t stand up to the Corporatocracy that owns our legislative branch and both major political parties. The corporations are doing their job – to maximize profit – and we need to do ours… BE INVOLVED in GOVERNMENT (by voting). We need rules to protect non-stockholders, non-financiers, and non-CEOs from the profit-first crowd, to protect the US economy from global corporations who are only nominally “American”, to protect our people from being ripped off, exploited, unduly repressed, or poisoned, and to preserve our beautiful planet from nuclear and/or pollution-related destruction — and *consequences* for breaking those rules. Somehow the rules and consequences system is being dismantled (excepting young black men and Muslims, for whom it’s being ramped up). Lies, ripoffs, poisonings, despoilings, and other egregious, antisocial behaviors across the USA go unchallenged and unaddressed, seemingly more than in times past.

Joe, I hope your book will help some Sarah Palin fans and other conservatives who have “stayed out of it” or “have no opinion” on Sarah Palin because they think they don’t care or find it unseemly to question certain things, start to question their grasp on what is TRUE and what is FALSE, and to trust reliable, unbiased witnesses and verifiable facts instead of the wild stories of someone whose quest for power and money is totally dependent on the public’s unquestioning nature. ahem SarahPalin cough.

Is anyone else REALLY tired of those “country” home decor signs that just say “Believe”? I am. They’re really popular. Some of my friends have them.

AKPetMom and Joe — You are both terrific. AKPM–your credit is good with me, always has been, for a long time. Joe–you are a prince to be forgiving and welcoming. Thank you both for cheering me up.