From the Rocky Mountain News’ Letters to the Editor, we get this parade of ignorance:

First, this letter to the editor is nothing more than a verbatim cut/paste job from an Internet message forum, and has been subsequently re-posted in numerous right-wing blogs.

Original posting here: http://forums.military.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/69719858/m/4970067791001

Rudimentary use of the Google (search terms: “Sarah Palin Security Clearance“).

Mr. Wooten’s points for originality = 0

The assertions, however, are completely unsubstantiated and the fail utterly under any degree of scrutiny.

Missile Interceptor Defense? Do you mean Star Wars? Or a Patriot missile battery? As it breaks down, the U.S. has three primary “front lines” of defense: one in Alaska, one in Europe, and one in Canada (for those missiles that would come across the North Pole/Arctic Circle). All of these “front lines” are legacy Cold War deployments for a threat that ceased to exist almost 20 years ago. Yes, Russia is still a threat, but they now pose a very different threat than what we knew back in the 60s, 70s, and 80s.

She’s “Commander in Chief” of the AK Nat’l Guard? Yes. But as others have noted, their primary (and most often performed) duties include search and rescue along the Alaskan coast, and cold-weather research and training for military units expected to operate in cold weather environments. The primary responsibilities of the missile battalion involve monitoring RADAR for airborne threats–they don’t even get to monitor movements of Russian missile batteries. The monitoring of Russian ground forces is the responsibility of the U.S. (federal, not state) intelligence agencies (the DoD, NSA, and CIA). Palin only gets that information which is relevant to Alaska.

Do you honestly think that Palin is the only governor briefed on national security issues? Yes, Alaska is sooooo critical. But New York, Florida, Texas, California? … Screw ‘em.

Palin has a higher security clearance? Please. Biden and Obama both serve on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. You’re asserting that the Gov. of AK has a higher security clearance than the Senate Foreign Relations Committee? Foreign relations don’t involve just champagne soirees and black-tie affairs, a la James Bond. From the committee’s website:

http://foreign.senate.gov/

So just what is the “terroristic threat” to which Alaska would be exposed that Sarah Palin would need briefing on counterterrorism efforts?

Of all the places where terroristic threats are of concern, Alaska has to rank in the bottom 1% of the list. Alaska has no national landmarks like the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building, Sears Tower, or Golden Gate Bridge. Although it is home to Denali, the highest peak in North America.

The only viable target in Alaska is the Alaskan pipeline, and it is more likely to succumb to wear/tear/age/weather than to terrorist activity. Terrorists want to instill fear in the population and draw attention to their cause. In this respect, they would get more mileage from bombing a day care center or office building (i.e., Timothy McVeigh or 9/11) than the Alaskan pipeline. Besides, the Alaskan Pipeline has already been deliberately blown up once (Feb. 1978) and ruptured by a gunshot from a drunken hunter (Oct. 2001). Impact to our national energy infrastructure? Nil. In addition to the above referenced incidents, the pipeline has been shut down several times for maintenance and reconstruction with no visible impact.

What else would terrorists do? Scale Denali and blow its peak off? Kudos to them if they can accomplish it.

Joe’s question to Obama was this:

After an extended explanation by Obama and some follow up questions from Joe, Obama summed up with this:

… and it is this comment that has the Republicans squealing in agony, because “taxes are bad.”

As I have mentioned previously, the language is meant to frame the debate in exceedingly simplistic terms. In the end, it becomes a case where anyone who suggests a tax in any way, shape, or form—or anyone who does not advocate for the abolition of taxes—is a “socialist” or a “Marxist,” advocating “welfare,” the “redistribution of wealth,” an “economic nanny state,” or any other pejorative connotation of government actually providing something more to its citizens than a fire department and national defense.

Thus, people like Glenn Beck make a blanket accusation that Democrats are “Marxists” (via Crooks and Liars):

Oh really?

Since when is it Marxist to suggest that those who benefit from an economic system have an obligation to fund it?

If you really want to live in a law and order society, they you have to pay taxes. There’s no way around it. Government isn’t some sort of economic clown car that you can pull out whatever you want, but put in nothing.

Freedom isn’t free. You have to pay for it.

… and that’s what taxes are for.

At least with Michael Palin we know that he intends to be funny.

Sarah Palin is funny in a sad, sad, … very sad way.

Those who thought the crash was over after the market rally earlier this week are now gobsmacked as the market had its second greatest one-day point drop in history—the greatest one-day point drop in history occurring just over a week ago.

Duh. Ya’ think?

There’s also this insightful analysis:

No kidding?

There is no “bounce” left. Just a dead cat laying in the street.

Wall St. is just roadkill.

This year, Colorado has an initiative, “Amendment 48,” to make a fertilized embryo a legal “person” under the Colorado constitution. This amendment, if passed, would provide at conception an undifferentiated bundle of cells wth the full rights of citizenship and “due process” due to any person.

Yes, any potential fetus could be another Martin Luther King or Abraham Lincoln. However, it could also be Ted Bundy, Adolf Hitler, or Josef Stalin. It’s merely a potential person.

Forcing women to be slaves to an accident of biology is offensive in the extreme. Forcing women to risk death is as equally offensive as abortion, if not moreso. An undifferentiated bundle of cells should in no way be considered as having more rights than a living, breathing, independently existing human being.

And I personally don’t care what you think your god has to say on the subject—that’s between you and your god.

Then again, when you’re being booed by racists and other assorted right-wing psycho-freaks, at least you can take comfort that you’re probably in the majority of normal, sane human beings.

These terms are great for framing the position, but they entirely misrepresent the reality of the underlying ideas. What “redistribution of wealth” is taking place?

Capitalists are eager to point out that nothing is free. And it’s true. But they ignore the hidden costs of the “invisible hand” of capitalism.

Any economic system—be it capitalism, communism, socialism, or some derivative thereof—requires attendant systems to settle disputes and provide for a consistent, equitable basis for trade. If you sell a widget, you want to get paid a fair amount for that widget. Who sets the fair basis for valuation? I could offer a whatsis in exchange for your widget, but how do you know how much the whatsis is worth? And how do I know that a widget is worth one of my whatsises? So we have money, banks, and the Uniform Commercial Code.

What if I take your widget and say “fuck you” and walk away without paying? Don’t say that you’d come after me to enforce your own law … because I’ll enforce my own law right back. So how do you propose to ensure that I pay for the widget I just took from you? There would need to be an independent mechanism to settle disputes, such as a judiciary, and a set of laws that could be consistently enforced … otherwise we’re back to some sort of enlightened anarchy.

And those are all functions of government. And since government is not a commercial enterprise, the funding has to come from somewhere—that “somewhere” is called “taxes.” If you don’t want to pay taxes, then explain to me how a government runs for free. I’m sure that economists across the globe and throughout history would be interested understanding how that is accomplished.

From where will your fire and police services come? Who will pave your roads, build your bridges (to nowhere or somewhere), and settle your disputes? Who will provide you with a consistent basis for fair trade/exchange? Who will make sure that your water is clean and your foods free of toxic chemicals? Who will educate your children? Who will defend the country in the event of invasion?

If you think taxes are okay, but don’t want to pay anything more than your “fair share,” then tell me what your “fair share” really is.

If you think government spending is wasteful, then tell me which government spending we can do away with.

If you want to argue that our government is not in the business of welfare—as I recently heard from a retrograde intellectual—then show me were our constitution provides for it:

Oh really?

Income taxes were implemented via a constitutional amendment, which makes them … gasp! … constitutional.

But let’s not stop there. There’s also the comment that, “our Constitution has no allowance for welfare.” No? The Preamble to the U.S. Constitution says, verbatim: “We the People of the United States, in order to … promote the general Welfare, … do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

Granted, social welfare initiatives like Social Security & Medicare are also responsible for a significant part of the overall national debt. But they are also necessary … necessary because of the conservative economic policies that focus on individual accumulated wealth without regard to the consequences on the rest of us.

Of course, you’d be wrong.

And never missing an opportunity to be a pissy little bitch, John Boehner runs to the steps of the Congress and plays his best, “Mama, they’re picking on me!!”

Usually, I’d tell you that Barney Frank is as full of shit as Boehner is a whiny bitch. But this time, he hit the nail on the head.

And there you have the priorities of the GOP in a nutshell. “GOP first, and the rest of you can go fuck yourselves.”

Right. I’ll remember that in a couple of weeks.

Barbara Curtis over at the Christian Science Monitor is ginning up a real life controversy over the Sarah Palin hullabaloo. Unfortunately, Barbara is missing the “real life” part of the controversy:

Oh really? And those would be … what? The intelligent design advocacy? The burning banning of books? The secessionist rhetoric? The abuse of power? The flagrant dishonesty on the “Bridge to Nowhere”? Please, tell me what those “formidable challenges” are.

Hint: To present a “formidable challenge” in the political arena means that you have to have ideas that are better than your opponents’. Sarah Palin has yet to present one single idea for how to approach governing the U.S.

Yes, pay no attention to the 18 month campaign of Hillary Clinton and all the insults and abuse she’s had to put up with over the years from the far right cast of Looney Toon characters like Tom Delay, Newt Gingrich, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, etc. Hillary secretly doesn’t give a shit about equal rights for women. Nor do the 18 million Democrats that voted for her. I think her campaign slogan was “Misogyny now, Misogyny tomorrow, Misogyny Forever!”

Says who? Can you name someone who has said that? Please, I’d really like to know.

POW! Right in the ovaries! Down goes the Fetus! Down goes the Fetus!

Seriously, who has provided the “below-the-belt punches”? Who? Name names. Please! Because I haven’t heard anyone say anything about Palin’s juggling of responsibilities. If you can’t name names, or at least provide some sort of citation, then I’m inclined to think you’re just making up a bunch of bullshit.

Fire and brimstone? Ummm … are you talking about James Dobson? The only criticisms I’ve heard of Palin thus far are related to her inability to govern. And that is a pretty substantive criticism given every legitimate analysis of her record in governing, from Wasilla to the AK Governor’s office. From the “Bridge to Nowhere” lie, to her obstruction of the Trooper-gate scandal.

One of the things I find most amazing about Barbara’s utterly fact-free paean to Sarah Palin is that she’s been able to use the “some say” straw-man tactic so frequently without actually having to say “some say.” That alone proves that Barbara is a professional writer.

Yes. That would be the same consistency that was shown when she campaigned for governor of Alaska while advocating for the “Bridge to Nowhere,” and then allowed her to turn right around and tell the GOP convention that she gave taxpayers their money back for the “Bridge to Nowhere” because it was a taxpayer boondoggle.

Yes. That kind of consistency.

The kind of consistency that allows her to say that she gave the money back to U.S. taxpayers, but actually kept the money in the coffers of Alaska.

The kind of consistency that allows her to say that she sold the governor’s jet on eBay when in reality, she actually didn’t. Listing something is not the same as selling something. And selling something at a loss is not the same thing as selling something for a profit. Most business majors should be able to clarify, if there are any questions.

Of course, none of this has to do with the fact that as mayor of Wasilla, AK (pop. 6000), and the governor of the 47th largest state (by population), Palin has little to no experience running something as massive and critical as the federal government (serving a population of 300 million people).

Meanwhile, the GOP is screaming, “Sexism! Sexism!”

News flash: It’s not sexism if your candidate is just a pissed-off fucking idiot in lipstick. Kind of like Dan Quayle in drag … after taking steroids.

If you want to swim in the deep end of the pool, then you better fucking learn how to swim. You want to play in the big leagues? Then stop bitching and whining when you get treated like you’re playing in the big leagues. To date I haven’t heard sexism present itself once in the criticisms on Sarah Palin.

It isn’t necessary.

Palin is a fucking ignorant, neophyte, political hack, a one-trick pony, and an homage to the fundamentalist looney-bin wing of the GOP. Is she going to ride her vapid convention speech all the way to the election? Or will she eventually bring some facts to the public discourse? Because thus far, the only thing she’s provided is a truckload of insults, a public ass-kissing of John McCain, and masturbation material for a bunch of young Republicans.

Of course, as always, Jon Stewart does more to summarize the faux nature of the unfair treatment of Sarah Palin in five minutes than most political pundits can do in an entire show.

But Sunday, I awoke to read this story and had to do a double-take:

Words fail me.

And a paraphrased headline in the USAToday Op/Ed section pretty much says it all: “The president is not the Vicar of Saddleback Church.”

Nor is he the Pope, an Imam, Rabbi, or any other peddler of snake oil, bankrupt mysticism, Voo-Doo, or delusional mumbo-jumbo. You wanna give your god a hand job? Go right ahead. But don’t ask the president to do it for you.