By now, we’ve all heard John McCain tout “Joe the Plumber” (an unlicensed plumber) as his poster child for the middle-class American, but what many Americans don’t know is that John McCain went through a lengthy selection process (even longer than the selection process for Sarah Palin) to find the right poster child to exploit.

Here are the top 10 Runners-Up that John McCain had been considering:

#1- Sam the Eagle
John McCain was really enthusiastic about the possibilities of recruiting Sam the Eagle; he was a stoic speaker and an iconic representation of American Values. Sadly, John was crushed when he learned that Sam the Eagle had previously been employed by Jim Henson, a flagrant liberal.

#2- Del tha Funkee Homosapian:
Del was a preferred mascot until his association with a group called the “Gorilaz” came to light. Despite repeated assertions that they are a music group, the McCain campaign was convinced that the Gorilaz might be publicly perceived as an Afro-centric domestic terrorist organization.

#3- Harry the Demolition Expert:
John McCain was initially excited about Harry’s potential, but was disappointed to discover that his nickname was “Crazy Harry” and that focus groups frequently mistook him for Castro.

#4- Shelly the Nurse:
John McCain was really excited about Shelly’s potential as a token middle-class mascot, but backed down after intense pressure from his female staffers. He couldn’t understand why they were so upset, but he just assumed that they had better insight into American’s public perceptions of Asian people.

#5- Mike the Autoworker
Mike was dropped from consideration as soon as word came out that General Motors closed the plant where he worked and outsourced his job to India. Awkward.

#6- Dilbert the Engineer:
Dilbert was under consideration until Dilbert’s perpetual bachelorhood raised questions about his sexual identity.

#7- Cletus the Minstrel:
Cletus was under consideration until John McCain realized that questions about Cletus’ racial identity might be misconstrued as a “race card” attack on Barack Obama and his mixed etnicity.

#8- José the Strawberry Picker
Jose was under consideration until staffers suggested that his public image might negatively affected by the discomfort that Americans feel towards men with mustaches.

#9- Bob the Builder:
Bob the builder was under consideration until one of John McCain’s staffers alerted him that Bob the Builder’s union credentials might come into question.

#10- Larry the Cable Guy:
John McCain had considered recruiting Larry the Cable Guy, but after seeing Delta Farce, he decided that Larry the Cable Guy’s military service record might come into question.

According to The Hill, Susan Bruce, a campaign blogger for New Hampshire Representative Carol Shea-Porter, was recently forced to resign after she raised the legitimate concern about Sarah Palin’s abysmal public treatment of her children, including her down syndrome afflicted son, Trig:

“I don’t think that putting a scarlet letter on your own teenager and throwing her to the wolves in front of the whole world is something to be proud of [and] I don’t think that using a special needs baby as a prop on late night TV appearances is a value to crow about.”

Since being selected to the Republican Ticket, Sarah Palin has made a continuous spectacle of appearing at public speaking events with Trig. Likewise, Sarah Palin has cast her unwed, pregnant, teenage daughter Bristol into the spotlight in an attempt to emphasise her “traditional family” values.

There is a gratuitous example of misplaced outrage. The GOP’s complaint was that such comments wouldn’t be permissible against Barack Obama. And they’re right.

Complaints about Barack Obama aren’t permissible because Barack Obama is a responsible parent who keeps his children in school, where they belong.

The LAST thing that a pregnant teenager and a mentally challenged infant deserve is the agenda-driven overexposure to the stress of a political campaign. If the Palin Family was being investigated by Social Services, the Palin children would have been placed in protective custody by now.

Susan Bruce was forced to resign because, in the absence of social services, somebody had to raise these legitimate concerns about Sarah Palin’s parenting skills. And in the abscense of the GOPs family values, somebody had to be martyred for doing so.

According to The New York Times, a recent Republican fund raising reception managed to suck more than a million dollars out of the hands of hundreds of Hillary Clinton’s fair-weather supporters, some of whom traitorously contributed more than twenty five thousand dollars of their blood money to John McCain.

This disgusting display of misplaced activism is evident that there continues to be a serious problem with self-professed Hillary Clinton “supporters” naively backstabbing her and her feminist values in order to support Sarah Palin.

In flocking to Sarah Palin, they seem unable to imagine what rights women would have achieved had the womens’ suffrage movement had been led by a beauty pageant contestant instead of Susan B. Anthony.

They also seem unable to see see how this same standard applies to modern feminism. They are convinced that a woman whom John McCain chose as his running mate solely for her beauty is more qualified to carry the Feminist Torch than women who have dedicated their entire lives to advancing women’s rights.

Many of these women chose to betray Hillary Clinton because Barack Obama, the candidate she has endorsed and who most closely supports her legacy, defeated her in the Democratic Primary race.

In a spiteful and naive attempt to hurt Barack Obama, these women are putting their energy and resources behind a candidate with a legacy of regressing, not advancing, womens’ rights.

If women take offense to their gender being the butt of jokes, then I am saddened that the profound irony of their stupidity is lost on these women.

In a move that is sure to rattle Republicans more than Barack Obama’s misinterpreted “lipstick on a pig” comment, conservative columnist David Brooks decried Sarah Palin as a “fatal cancer to the Republican party”. He went on to say that, like George W. Bush, Sarah Palin prejudicially scorns not only liberal ideas, but ideas entirely. Continuing his criticism, he also added that Sarah Palin is “absolutely not ready to be president or vice president”.

Conversely, David Brooks praised Barack Obama as a “dazzling” intellectual with “tremendous powers of social perception”. Furthermore, Mr. Brooks admitted to being highly impressed by Barack Obama’s phenomenal ability to build a team of “the most impressive people in the Democratic party”, adding that the people Barack Obama has chosen are “exactly the people I think most of us would want to choose”.

Mr. Brooks also predicts a 9-Point Obama Victory this November.

It’s a powerful statement about the stability and the electability of the Republican Party when its former mouthpieces are abandoning The SS. GOP. Perhaps they know something that the rest of the Party doesn’t.

The Republican Party is actively trying to deprive hundreds of thousands of Americans of their right to vote by illegally purging them from voter rolls, according to a reports by New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice and the Public Interest Group USPIRG (their reports are available here and here, respectively).

This disenfranchisement campaign, which is being undertaken by at least 19 State Governments, is in direct violation of Federal Laws that prohibit the purging of voter rolls within 90 Days of a Federal Election. Specific disenfranchisement tactics have also included erroneously listing voters as former convicts, mass flat-out purging, and in the case of Florida, mismailing letters to (black) voters and then using the “failure to deliver these letters” excuse to wipe them from voter rolls.

But all is not lost. Steal Back Your Vote is an organization dedicated to helping you guarantee your right to vote. They also have provided a comic book voters’ guide, which is available by clicking on the picture below

According to the Los Angelas Times, Sarah Palin has seduced another proselyte, this time Shelly Mandell, president of the Los Angelas chapter of the National Organization for Women.

In introducing Sarah Palin, Mandelll, a theoretical lifelong Democrat, suggested that Sarah Palin is “what a feminist looks like”.

If I were asked what a Feminist looks like, I would think of women like Harriet Tubman, Hillary Clinton, and Joan of Arc; women who struggled to advance the liberty and dignity of women.

Sarah Palin’s irresponsible motherhood, marital infidelity, and opposition to birth control, sex education, and a woman’s right to choose sabotage the liberty and dignity of women.

As the one-term governor of America’s least populous state, Sarah Palin is unprepared to run the country. Yet, she is a former Miss Alaska Beauty Pageant finalist who was chosen over a surplus of experienced, qualified men.

Maybe having a legacy reminiscent of so many Fairy Tale Princesses and Corporate Sexual Harassment Plaintiffs IS enough to make Sarah Palin a Feminist.

If a high-ranking NOW official says that Sarah Palin is a feminist, it must be true. After all, I’m just a man, and what do men know about Feminism?

Anybody who has tried to play the “family values” drinking game during televised McCain/Palin rallies has probably found themselves in a disappointing state of sobriety.

Why are they silent on this usually exciting buzz phrase? Because to repeat it would expose them to the media’s embarrassing spotlight and the hypocrisy it would reveal.

Let’s expose John McCain first. Carol, his devoted starter wife, was nearly killed in a car wreck on Christmas Eve, 1969. This near-death experience left her permanently scarred and crippled, despite the 3 years of agonizing surgery she had to endure. Her modelesque beauty destroyed, Carol nonetheless withheld the tragic news of her accident from John in order to help him survive his torturous internment in a Vietcong death camp.

Upon his return from Vietnam, John McCain was horrified to discover that his trophy wife had become a hideous gimp. He thanked Carol for her compassion by cheating on, and then abandoning, her and their three children for his new mistress, whose comparative beauty, youth, and ridiculous wealth he had somehow come to appreciate.

So yes, here are John McCain’s “family values”. And John McCain seems to share my bleak assessment of them. Or at least, he did when he wrote the following in his memoir: “my marriage’s collapse was attributable to my own selfishness and immaturity…I cannot escape blame”.

According to a poll conducted by Faith in Public Life and Mercenary University, 57% of White, Southern Evangelicals think it’s justified for America to torture suspected terrorists into giving us information.

Although, Evangelicals have a Golden Rule exemption here: 52% said that the Enemies’ torture of American Troops is rarely or never justified.

Not that the Golden Rule really matters in the Evangelical mindset; less than a third of self-professed “Christians” said that their opinion on torture relied on Christian Teachings.

So, the irony of all of this is lost on Southern Evangelicals. Most Evangelicals would have had no-problem flaying and crucifying Christ, so long as they got to be the Romans.

The new Golden Rule for Today’s Evangelicals: Do unto others before they do unto you.

Jesus, Torture, Evangelical

According to this article from the New York Times, Sarah Palin offers more of the same, Bush-style politics that have plagued the United States for the last eight years.

Apparently, she appointed a former classmate to direct Alaska’s Division of Agriculture (a 2 Million Dollar Agency) on the sole basis of a stated “Childhood love of Cows”. I hope for the sake of the Alaska National Guard that none of Sarah Palin’s friends had a childhood love of G.I.Joe. At best, we can hope that her cronies will do a heck of a job.

Her penchant for injecting personal grudges into political appointments also mirrors that of George Bush. As the Mayor of Wisilla, Alaska, Sarah Palin fired the City Attorney after he put a stop-work order on a builder’s housing project. No surprise, that builder was one of her campaign supporters.

With Sarah Palin, we ironically risk getting yet another member of the “Ole Boys Club”; a hot-headed executive who will hire incompetent friends and fire competent (perceived) “enemies”. That’s a heckuva change.

The GOP has recently ridiculed Colorado representative Mark Udall and his support of a “Department of Peace” through an ad in which a hippie decries this effort in front of a VW Microbus that, when the door is opened, billows thick clouds of grey smoke.

This shows the absurdity of the GOP’s values. They don’t mind gambling multi-trillions of dollars on War, but God forbid that somebody should suggest a peaceful alternative, especially one that doesn’t burden us with the further costs of thousands of American lives.

This is how out of touch the GOP is: to them, peace is not an idea that normal, sober-minded people ever consider. “Peace? Man, what drug were you one when you came up with THAT crazy notion?”

When asked for comment on the add, a spokesperson for Freedom Watch, the conservative group that funded it, dismissed the obvious references to marijuana by suggesting that the smoke “could just be an engine overheating”. Yes, the GOP assumes that people are gullible and naive enough to come to that conclusion.

“Unofficial Department of Peace” video