Palin came up politically in her hometown of Wasilla, Alaska. She was elected to the city council of that town, then the mayor, then as the governor of Alaska. Before the end of her first term, Palin announced that she would resign her post as governor because of the “insane” amounts of money being spent on ethics complaints against her.6

Of course, ethics investigations and less than one term as governor of the least populous state in the U.S. are perfect qualifications for vice-president and, in 2007, she was tapped for John McCain’s presidential bid.

What followed was one of the biggest jokes in U.S. political history. McCain clearly wanted Palin to get the much sought-after woman, religious conservative vote. But it backfired and Palin was clearly out of her depth, claiming to have a handle on U.S. foreign policy because of Alaska’s proximity to Russia, accusing Obama’s health care plan of having “death panels,” calling North Korea a U.S. ally, and completely botching U.S. history.7

Palin’s politics are the politics of fundamentalist Christians. She’s rabidly anti-abortion, even in the case of rape or incest,8 she’s against stem cell research,9 anti-gay marriage,10 pro guns,11 and has bowed to big energy business, even advocating drilling in National Wildlife Refuges.12

Palin is a middle-America’s dream and a Tea Party favorite. Fortunately for America–and the world, she’s been reduced to C-list celebrity, having traveled around the U.S. on a bus13(though she’s not campaigning for anything) and appearing on daytime talk shows to give her opinion of Jessica Simpson’s weight gain.

http://hollowverse.com/sarah-palin/

For once, Trump was reduced to the role of warm-up act and straight man, allowing himself only the odd gurn and finger jab. Occasionally he seemed out of sorts, impatient at being forced to share the spotlight. For all eyes were on the former vice-presidential candidate who for a few giddy months in 2008 was the most talked-about woman in the world.

She was compelling. She spoke in a kind of half-rhyme, greeting the Iowa audience as “teachers, and teamsters, and cops, and cooks. You rockin’ rollers. And holy rollers!”, in a style that some hailed as poetry-slam, others as 1970s Christian rock opera. Syntax took a hike, logic and meaning left the building. There were new coinages: “squirmishes” became an instant social media meme. There was crudity: Obama’s foreign policy amounted to, “We kowtow, and we apologise, and then, we bend over and say, ‘Thank you, enemy.’” And there was the plain baffling: “Well, and then, funny, ha ha, not funny.”

Perhaps it seems trivialising to discuss a political event this way. But Palin was inseparable from the entertainment industry almost as soon as she became John McCain’s running mate. Her car-crash interviews that summer were global must-sees and her political identity was defined, in large part, by a TV impersonation. Her most famous saying – “I can see Russia from my house” – was not her, but Tina Fey’s version of her. The two merged in the American consciousness, to calamitous effect on Republican fortunes.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jan/23/trump-palin-funny-no-joke-republican-stars

Be afraid... Really afraid... 

Donald Trump has been given a lesson in Christian values, humility and kindness during a service in an Iowa church just two weeks before primary voting begins in the race for US president.

Religious voters are a major factor in Iowa, the opening contest on the presidential nominating calendar, where Trump’s chief challenger in the Republican race is Texas senator Ted Cruz, a conservative preacher’s son who has made deep inroads with evangelicals.

Trump has appeared to struggle to affirm his Christian credentials and during an hour-long service at Muscataine’s First Presbyterian Church, the Rev Dr Pamela Saturnia also indirectly questioned some of his policy positions.

“Jesus is teaching us today that he has come for those who are outside of the church,” she said, preaching a message of healing and acceptance for “those who are the most unloved, the most discriminated against, the most forgotten in our community and in our world”.

Among those she cited were “the Syrian refugees” and “the Mexican migrants”.

more at: http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jan/25/donald-trump-goes-to-church-in-iowa-and-gets-a-lesson-in-humility

Humility and kindness could be murder for the "You're-fired" guy to observe despite being the Boorish Patron Saint of the Big Cash Wheelbarrow for Jesus Christ (BCWJC). Amen.

WASHINGTON — President Obama said in an interview released Monday that politics in America had become “meaner” than when he took office, but expressed hope that Republicans would eventually turn away from the “expression of frustration” and anger that Donald J. Trump and Senator Ted Cruz were offering to voters.

Speaking to Politico’s Glenn Thrush for the site’s “Off Message” podcast, Mr. Obama said the Republican candidates for president were more outside the mainstream than Senator John McCain was during the 2008 campaign.

“John McCain was a conservative, but he was well within, you know, the mainstream of not just the Republican Party but within our political dialogue,” Mr. Obama told Politico. The president said voters would have to judge “the degree to which the Republican rhetoric and Republican vision has moved, not just to the right, but has moved to a place that is unrecognizable.”

read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/26/us/politics/obama-calls-republican-vision-unrecognizable-in-2016-race.html?_r=0

What is wrong with the present crop of imbeciles strutting their hopeful presidential wares in the Republican Party of the USA? They are made of the same wood that fills the rank of English aristocracy all over the world — including Australia, with an extra sauce dollop of bigotry. They are born to rule and collect the cash — God bless the American dollar. They all are dedicated to protect and maintain their possessions of "have" versus the plebs of the "have-not". There is a subconscious sense of entitlement in their elegant narrow minded-ideas, including the kingdomatic desire to belong to a group of superior people — "which they do". Conservatives excel at selling snake-oil for profit. The sense of "opportunity" for all is a fallacy with the rare exception for a young upstart, in this construct. Slavery is not far from their vision of the world. But from time to time some conservatives are more "liberally minded" with the rejection of such entrapment. I don't know much about Russell Kirk, but I know a lot about Leo Strauss. It seems Russell Kirk was on the path to become a conservative anarchist. He would have been unable to lead a political party of sorts, including CONservatives, I believe possibly because he was "too honest":

"Kirk’s quip at Heritage earned him accusations of anti-Semitism, which Birzer shows were not only unjust but ironic. His most vicious detractors included certain disciples of Leo Strauss, yet Strauss and Kirk had been mutually supportive friends. Indeed, in 1957 Kirk launched the journal Modern Age in part to defend Strauss against liberals’ aspersions, and he resigned from the quarterly the following year after coming to believe one of his colleagues was anti-Semitic. Kirk wrote of his vision for Modern Age, “I have been endeavoring to steer clear of bigotry, intolerance, eccentricity, and preoccupation with the hour’s political controversies—the curses of American conservatives.”"

read more: http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/the-mind-of-russell-kirk/

Every election is different, unruly, strange. This one is just much more so.

“Professional wrestling is more organized, more reality-based,” said Senator Lindsey Graham, who exited the ring in December.

“Kind of a circus,” said Senator Ted Cruz, something of a circus master himself.

“Sometimes you stare into the void,” said Rick Wilson, a longtime political operative. “Sometimes a campaign like this stares back.”

And yet. America cannot look away. (Why would it?) It has in the past rubbernecked at a parade of women accusing Bill Clinton of philandering. It taught itself the paper-thin nuances of a hanging chad. Just four years ago, there was a flirtation with a telegenic pizza man whose seminal policy proposal was the repetition of the word “nine.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/02/us/politics/zany-mean-classified-and-yuge-the-2016-campaign-so-far.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=a-lede-package-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0

The former Republican vice presidential candidate — and early supporter of Trump — said in an opinion article on the website “Young Conservatives” that the deal is “political intrusion using a stick or carrot to bribe or force one individual business to do what politicians insist.”

“When government steps in arbitrarily with individual subsidies, favoring one business over others, it sets inconsistent, unfair, illogical precedent,” she writes.

Worse, Palin says, “It’s a hallmark of corruption. And socialism.”

But she has a good word for the workers who’ll be keeping their jobs. “I am ecstatic for Carrier employees! Their bosses just decided to keep shop onshore. What a relief for hundreds of workers. Merry Christmas Indiana!” she writes.

Earlier this week, Palin’s name was floated for a possible Cabinet job in the Trump administration.

read more:

http://nypost.com/2016/12/02/its-a-hallmark-of-corruption-palin-slams-tr...

See toon at top...: 

No cabinet job for Ms Palin and Glenn Beck is now a born-again Trumpist after having erred like a black sheep...