Sarah Palin Resignation Speech

Her official statement here.

Rainbows, Unicorns, and the Obama Worldview

Eugene Robinson's article in today's WaPo took me back to the spirit of campaigns recently past and more visual depictions of Obama's perceived worldview @1:12 :

Or perhaps even more to the point:

It's over kids. PIMCO's Bill Gross spells it out.

For the benefit of the slow kids in class, PIMCO's Bill Gross, registered Republican and Obama voter, speaks slowly and enunciates the end of the era of libertarian capitalism:

If one had any doubts, a quick, even cursory summary of President Obama’s comments announcing Chrysler’s bankruptcy filing would suffice. “I stand with Chrysler’s employees and their families and communities. I stand with millions of Americans who want to buy Chrysler cars (sic). I do not stand…with a group of investment firms and hedge funds who decided to hold out for the prospect of an unjustified taxpayer-funded bailout.” If the cannons fired at Ft. Sumter marked the beginning of the war against the Union, then clearly these words marked the beginning of a war against publically (sic) perceived financial terror.

Yes, Palin Now Tweets.

Follow her here (or don't).

Time to Reverse Gerrymander CA-36

As the Jane Harman wiretap mini-scandal fades to a muddled gray amid allegations and counter allegations, it's clear that Harman's 36th Congressional District is not as homogeneously stable as CA legislators anticipated when they gerrymandered it to a bright sky blue during the Bush years. 

In an effort to consolidate local Dem votes and protect incumbents of both parties, consultant Michael Berman(D) partitioned the area during the great redistricting orgy of 2001 to artificially join large parts of ultra-progressive Venice and union-heavy, Catholic San Pedro - absurdly amputating Harman's longtime hometown on the Palos Verdes Peninsula in the process. Harman moved to Venice while her more Republican-tolerant constituents on the Hill were pushed into Dana Rohrabacher's (R) 46th district serving North Orange County.

With the Dems safely in power, the wiretap incident has exposed the fissures in the contrived amalgam of the aerospace-heavy South Bay and the anti-war Westside as Harman's pro-Israel, pro-defense industry, pro-wiretapping, Blue Dog Dem politics grate on the nerves of the residents of CA-36's more progressive districts. Ironically, Harmon's 2006 and 2008 primary challenger, teacher Marcy Winograd, had to move from her Pacific Palisades home into a Marina del Rey apartment to oppose Harman's pro-war policies in the name of the "grassroots." In light of recent events, Winograd is currently mulling a second run.

I say take advantage of the upcoming Census to rezone the area to the contiguous South Bay. We would all be happier.

GE CEO Immelt Gets Caught in Ratings War Crossfire

Outside, protesters representing FreedomWorks, an activist group led by former U.S. House Majority Leader Dick Armey, milled about bedecked in Mom Jeans and carrying "Just Say No to Cap 'n' Trade" placards.

Inside, at the already tense GE shareholder meeting, the eternal ratings feud amped up another notch when O'Reilly Factor producer Jesse Watters ambushed beleaguered General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt with accusations that Keith Olbermann allowed Janeane Garofalo to spew hate speech against Republicans on the MSNBC network, whose parent company, NBC-Uni, is a division of GE. Both Watter's employment by and Garofalo's direct attacks on Fox News went unremarked. Olbermann later happily fanned the flames by naming Watters in his Worst Person in the World segment (jump to 2:01).

"My biggest surprise was the open hostility to MSNBC," said GE shareholder Tom Borelli of the Free Enterprise Action Fund as he pushed his online petition in support of his four-year crusade against Immelt. "Any time MSNBC was mentioned, there was a rumbling in the crowd of 400 people," he added helpfully.

So Much Drama. Next time GE has a shareholder's meeting I'm going to smuggle in my cell and post live video. I'm a bondholder. That should get me in.