News

Excellent detailed piece on Sarah Palin by journalist Michael Joseph Gross in the October 2010 issue of Vanity Fair …
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“If we are to remain leaders in the green economy, then we have to be relentless in our pursuit of clean energy. We have to constantly evaluate all aspects of our energy footprint. Find opportunities to collaborate and partner with other companies and organizations. And as one of Nike’s long-held business maxims so aptly declares, never stop evolving, especially when it involves doing the right thing.”– Sarah Severn , director of stakeholder mobilization for Nike Inc., August 17, 2010 So much for evolution, NIKE.

Rasmussen is moving Alaska from solid GOP to lean GOP following Joe Miller’s primary defeat of Sen. Lisa Murkowski. Their first poll in the Alaska Senate race (grain of salt as usual) has Miller with just a 6 point lead over Dem Scott McAdams, 50-44. Four percent (4%) prefer some other candidate and two percent (2%) are undecided. This survey was conducted Tuesday night just hours after incumbent GOP Senator Lisa Murkowski conceded the Republican nomination during a recount of the August 24 primary.

Sarah Palin has secured another victory in the Republican primaries after a
little-known conservative lawyer backed by the former Vice-Presidential
candidate beat the incumbent to claim the nomination for Senate.

Last night, Alaska senator Lisa Murkowski conceded something that had been obvious for a week: She won’t be her party’s nominee this fall. She lost her primary for being insufficiently anti-abortion. (Here’s what that means for a Republican in Alaska: She and her opponent both endorsed a parental notification ballot measure, but he endorsed it harder .) Because there’s no more important issue, and nothing worse, than teenagers having sex.

Though he served as Prime Minister of Japan for a mere two years in the early ’70’s before being driven from power in Nixonian fashion in a Watergate-like scandal, for the next decade and a half Kakuei Tanaka served as Japan’s shadow leader, known forever as The Kingmaker for his uncanny ability to govern Japan from the shadows, often hand-picking who would lead the country by controlling a powerful bloc of legislators.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Sen. Lisa Murkowski was booted from office in the Republican primary Tuesday by a little-known conservative lawyer in arguably the biggest political upset of the year. Joe Miller, backed by Sarah Palin and the Tea Party Express, became the latest newcomer to the national political stage to take down an incumbent in 2010 amid deep dissatisfaction with the Washington establishment. Read More… More on Tax Day Tea Parties

Sarah Haskins, HuffPost Comedy favorite and deeply funny lady, is preggers. Many of you may think that being pregnant brings love and light to life. WRONG. Haskins wants booze, cigarettes, and hate. Luckily her annoyance is hilarious so it doesn’t make you want to switch to a life of abstinence (just a life of condoms). Here’s her talking about her life as an incubator on the Paper Machete Show. LISTEN: Read More… More on Babies

Bristol Palin, the teenage daughter of Sarah Palin, is to star with David
Hasselhoff and Jersey Shore's The Situation in the new season of Dancing
with the Stars

We’ll see if my schedule allows me to do a compressive ‘end of summer’ box office wrap-up, but since summer 2010 doesn’t officially end until September 3rd, I figure I’ve got time. But for now, here is a rundown of the various scenes, performances, moments, and miscues that defined the summer just past. Because sometimes, discussing the ‘parts’ is more fun than discussing the ‘whole’. I’ll try to avoid divulging plot twists and the like, but consider this a SPOILER WARNING.

My new book, American Taliban: How War, Sex, Sin and Power Bind Jihadists and the Radical Right is officially released on Wednesday (though Amazon and others have been selling it for several weeks). I wrote a synopsis of the book here . The early reaction: 1.) Judging the book by its cover It used to be that people read books before opining about them. Apparently, that’s too much effort for some people. 2.) Weenie liberals You know the kind, the type of people that get the vapors when any progressive gets aggressive. Moulitsas … is primarily concerned with building a movement.

Flickr I won’t Iditarod my way into the spectacle of Sarah Palin appropriating feminism as her very own dogma. But it’s just one recent example of women having what can be most diplomatically described as a classification problem. Read More… More on Carla Bruni
Read more: 
Phil Bronstein: Are Bikini Baristas ‘Bad Feminists?’

The U.S. District Court’s August 23 injunction against President Obama’s Executive Order expanding use of federal funds for stem cell research sets back research that can potentially help millions of Americans. Read More… More on Sarah Palin

No, I don’t think either of the stars of last Saturday’s “Restoring Honor” gathering in DC will run for office this year. I do think that they have revealed a compelling narrative just in time for campaign season, however. The well produced plot–funded by billionaires with an eternal grudge– has primed the nation’s political conversation. To “prime” an audience means to provide visual and rhetorical stimuli that will influence desired reactions. It is the long-game of politics and the potential mega-bucks payoff all in one.

Editor’s note: There is a great Jewish tradition to dedicate the 29 days in the month of Elul to study and prepare for the coming high holy days. The time is supposed to challenge us to use each day as an opportunity for growth and discovery. On each of the 29 days of Elul, performer Craig Taubman posts a “jewel,” or story, from some of today’s most celebrated visionaries. Past contributors include President Barack Obama, Desmond Tutu, Sarah Lefton, Eli Wiesel, Deepak Chopra, Ruth Messinger, and Jeffrey Katzenberg — among many others.