TurboTax has joined a growing group of companies who as of today number at one hundred and twenty.  These are the companies who had been sponsors of the Glenn Beck Show who have pulled their support.  Turbotax ran ads on the Glenn Beck Show for two days before issuing this statement:

Thanks everyone for your feedback, & for reminding us of what we value. We've pulled advertising from the Glenn Beck show.

As the swallows to Capistrano issue in a new spring every year, so too do the increasing glints of sanity we see around us harken to a warming period ahead where the vicious Tea-stained winds of the waning season fade into memory.

Sometimes, the headlines write themselves.

Gov. Sarah Palin owes more than a half million dollars to an Anchorage law firm that has defended her against ethics complaints, and she may create a legal fund to pay the bill, she said Friday.

Poor Sarah. Being targeted by a "partisan witch hunt" during the Troopergate scandal has set her back a cool half a mil, it seems. Sadly, it seems that capitalism is alive and well at all the most inconvenient times, doesn't it? Gosh, Sarah, shouldn't you just buck up to your "personal responsibility", and knock off this socialism garbage, what with getting other people to pay your legal bills?

Of course, there's a really good reason for all this- right?

"Now, it seems in order to do this job as Governor, with the political blood sport some are playing today, only the independently wealthy or those willing to spend their income on legal fees to defend their official actions in office ... can serve," Palin said...

OR- and I'm going to go out on a limb here- you could, just, uhh... not do anything to cause yourself to be investigated for ethics violations. Maybe that's too much to ask for? Anyway, you know the story's not complete until you see some Republican spin on the situation- blame Johnny Mac/teh eveil libs!

This is what we were told.  It is what many who voted for Sarah Palin believed.  It is what a gentleman here in Sarasota believed enough to say to me directly a few days before the election: "Obama sympathizes with terrorists."

On Friday, the US sent two Hellfire missiles from Afghanistan-based Predator drones into Zharki Village in Pakistan's Waziristan region, accepted as the home of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda leadership.  Eighteen people were reported killed in the two locations, locals report that the Taliban removed eight of the bodies:

Resident Allah Noor Wazir said he attended funerals for the owner of the targeted house, Din Faraz, his three sons and a guest.

"I also heard that three bodies had been taken away by Taliban. They say they belong to foreigners," Wazir told the AP by telephone.

I feel for the innocent victims of these missile strikes (I will assume there were some family members killed who were not directly a part of the war), but from early reports it seems that the buildings they were in were valid military targets.

This is partly a diary to celebrate the survival of the Moose over the dangerous last few months while Sarah Palin was circling in a helicopter with her telescopic rifle, and also a summary of a talk I will be doing on Thursday November 20th, at a plenary session that will start at about 10 a.m EST and last for an hour and a half.

The Conference is called No Frontiers? Free Speech and the Internet and is hosted by English PEN, the 21st Century Trust, and is being covered by The Guardian in its Comment is Free section. My specific talk is: Crashing The Sweetiegate - how online forums and political advocacy could transform the political sphere

For my fellow Moosers, the title (suggested by the organisers) is self explanatory, and some of you will be familiar with basic argument from my Flaming for Obama piece in Prospect Magazine last month, which drew an unexpectedly benign response from the proprietor of MYDD.

But here I'm inviting you all to show how the liberal blogosphere works, and respond in real time, or whatever time you choose, to the basic points with critiques, thoughts, flames or fail cartoons.  

Senator John McCain's vice presidential pick is looking like a bigger mistake day by day. There is growing evidence that Governor Sarah Palin has become a drag on the flailing Republican ticket.  The Republican nominee is already weighed down by the failures of the Bush administration and our deteriorating economy, but it's looking more and more like Palin may be the final nail in the coffin.

"She's Dynamite!" Or so thought Morton C. Blackwell, President Ronald Reagan's liaison to the conservative movement, even though he couldn't get closer than four feet from Sarah Palin at a Virginia fundraising dinner. Whatever has got into the right wing base of the Republican party, it's pretty fundamental, and they are not alone in seeing Palin as the future of the party, win or lose

Governor Palin sees herself this way too.

The shocked silence of the McCain spokesman was a result of this segment of an interview recorded on ABC.

VARGAS: But the point being that you haven't been so bruised by some of the double standard, the sexism on the campaign trail, to say, "I've had it. I'm going back to Alaska."

PALIN: Absolutely not. I think that, if I were to give up and wave a white flag of surrender against some of the political shots that we've taken, that ... that would ... bring this whole ... I'm not doin' this for naught.

As far as I know this is unprecedented - an et tu Brute moment as the VP choice stabs the man who chose her in the back.

Palin is explosive all right. For the Republican party she's a volatile mixture of glitz, folksy charm, utter ruthlessness and willing ignorance.

But it's the 'sexism' part of that exchange I want to focus on, and what this means for the prematurely announced death of identity politics.

The Church of God - Sarah Palin's church - explicitly does not.  

The Church of God issued the following statement after the infamous sign outside one of their churches in  Jonesville, SC this April read: "Obama Osama.  Hummmm... Are they Brothers?"

Elisabeth Hasselback, 'Considered the last true "Survivor sweetheart" by many fans' according to Reality TV World, introduced Sarah Palin in Tampa today.  Amidst accusations of sexism aimed at Barack Obama, the Democratic Party, and all it's supporters, she embodied sexism in every fiber of her being.

The Anchorage Daily News has endorsed Barack Obama for president.  The paper acknowledges that after 50 years of statehood, Alaska for the first time has put forward a serious candidate for national office and calls Palin's nomination for vice president "a signal event" in the state's history.  

Yes, yes, I know it's probably only early evening over there, but it's early morning here so I get a  pass.

Two things for your delectation. How great to see Hillary on the campaign trail. I've missed her. A lot.
And she comes out swinging in a vibrant bold attack on the years of Republican mismanagement

"Make no mistake about it. We've done it before and we will do it again. America will once again rise from the ashes of the Bushes."

 

America can rise indeed. Especially with Hillary on the stump. Inspiring stuff. But it won't rise with 'post turtle' Sarah Palin.

So hands up. Who remembers what a Post Turtle is?