Sen. Claire McCaskill on Thursday touted the Senate healthcare reform bill by taking a dig at former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s new book.

McCaskill (D) said if the bill was printed in regular size font, it would be the same length as Palin’s (R) memoir Going Rogue: An American Life “but with more meat on the bone.” She tweeted:

If we printed the health care bill in regular size font it would be same legnth as Sarah Palin’s book, but with more meat on the bone.

The Senate healthcare bill is 2,074 pages long. Palin’s book is 413 pages long with 16 pages of photographs.

Best comment at the source

Senator McCaskill would do well to remember that no one is being asked to suffer under the yoke of the contents of Sarah Palin’s book. Nor will they be forced, against their will, and at perhaps great financial cost, to abide by the contents therein. Methinks Senator McCaskill should probably speak less, and listen, (to the American people), more. Dusan on 11/19/2009 at 22:32

Can’t add anything to that.

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In another in a long series of swift kicks to Israel and American Jews, the Obama Administration has announced that it is slashing the guest list and budget for its 2009 Hanukkah celebration.

According to the Jerusalem Post the guest list is being cut in half causing some American Jews to wonder if Obama is giving them the cold shoulder… again.

In case no one has been paying attention, President Obama has been slighting Israel and American Jews since before he became president. His pick of Samantha Power, the Palestinian apologist, for his Mid East policy team was a fine example of his obvious disdain for Jews. And she isn’t his only pro-Palestinian adviser.

Of course, were I president I’d cancel Hanukkah entirely. Just as I’d immediately stop any recognition of any other holidays except the officially recognized, Christian holidays of American history and culture. No slight meant to those religious celebrations at all. They just aren’t American unlike Christmas, Easter, and the like are.

In fact, this willy nilly waste of the American taxpayer’s money on these idiotic grand celebrations where 400 guests are pampered at the taxpayer’s expense is entirely obscene. They should all be canceled. This isn’t the gilded age anymore.

Still, it’s disheartening to see Obama constantly jabbing his thumb in the eyes of Jews everywhere. Even though I’d cancel the Hanukkah celebration, I am one of Israel’s best friends. After all, I wouldn’t pick policy advisers that want Israel wiped off the face of the Earth like Obama has!

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I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) amd from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline. Mike’s series got the annual land and marine values while the other two got April-Sept for NH land N of 20N. The latter two are real for 1999, while the estimate for 1999 for NH combined is +0.44C wrt 61-90.

Apparently even climate scientists have noticed that it’s been getting colder, not warmer; that’s why they have to fudge the numbers.

At least some of these people have a conscience:

I’m not too comfortable with this, and would rather not sign — at least not without some real time to think it through and debate the issue. It is unprecedented and political, and that worries me.

Everything having to do with “climate change” is political, all right.

On tips from Oiao, Dave K, LouieLouie, and Michael S. Cross-posted at Moonbattery.

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“Until this year, any scientist, reporter or politician who dared raise even the slightest suspicion about the science behind global warming was dismissed and repeatedly mocked.’’

And the hit parade just keeps on coming!

Global warming appears to have stalled. Climatologists are puzzled as to why average global temperatures have stopped rising over the last 10 years. Some attribute the trend to a lack of sunspots, while others explain it through ocean currents.

At least the weather in Copenhagen is likely to be cooperating. The Danish Meteorological Institute predicts that temperatures in December, when the city will host the United Nations Climate Change Conference, will be one degree above the long-term average.

Otherwise, however, not much is happening with global warming at the moment. The Earth’s average temperatures have stopped climbing since the beginning of the millennium, and it even looks as though global warming could come to a standstill this year.

Hmm, I thought the debate was over? As the days go on, we are seeing more and more of these types of stories, ones where the “science” of global warming, and, what they mean by global warming is human induced global warming, is being challenged, and discussions of the lack of warming over the past 10+ years are occurring.

For other fun AGW goodness, it appears that the Hadley CRU has been hacked, and hundreds of files have been released. AGW is apparently pushing more poor women into prostitution. And you just have to see the cover of Gore’s new book, which features hurricanes rotating the wrong way, most of the Caribbean and Florida gone, and other photoshop goodness. To achieve all the Caribbean islands covered by water would be a neat trick. Barbados has a high point of 340 meters. Yup, that would be 1,100 feet. St. Thomas is pretty hilly, as is Cuba and Puerto Rico. And most of the Caribbean nations. Montserrat is a freaking volcano, for goodness sakes!

BTW, Gore’s book is #114 on Amazon. Palin’s is #1.

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The White House’s forthcoming state dinner with the Prime Minister of India is expected to be larger than those of President Barack Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush. But another upcoming White House event will be smaller than in years past: The White House’s annual Hanukkah party.

The guest list is expected to be shrunk by more than half, according to the Jerusalem Post. “Though several Jewish leaders expressed understanding for the economic and other reasons behind the cut, they acknowledged that it would likely help feed feelings in some quarters of the American Jewish community that the White House is giving them the cold shoulder.”

The move comes on the heels of Obama’s cancellation of an appearance before the General Assembly of North American Jewish Federations last week.

Interesting. Obama had no problem having a big dinner to celebrate Ramadan. Nor flying all over the world to speak to Muslims. But, you Jewish folks? Well, looks like the economy is just too poor to celebrate your Holy time, which the Politico tells us as they try and read the White House’s mind

The White House’s decision is likely a response to tough economic times and a desire to keep the holiday festivities reasonable.

Reasonable? The Obama admin didn’t seem to have a problem celebrating China’s 60th anniversary, along with a Chinese flag flying next to the U.S. flag near the White House. As Pam Geller points out, the first paragraph, about the party with India’s P.M. being bigger than previous one, doesn’t quite jibe with the one about the Hanukkah party being reduced because of tough economic times.

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove

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Meet Lavelle Stewart.

Hat tip: Hot Air

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Going Rogue is going gangbusters, and it looks like both Palin and her publisher, HarperCollins, are going to make some serious money off of it. According to industry insiders, Palin got a $7 million advance for her book. She’s earning a royalty rate of 15 percent, which means she makes $4.35 per book sold, and therefore needs to sell 1.6 million books to earn out her advance. The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that HarperCollins had printed another 100,000 copies of Going Rogue, bringing the total in print to 1.6 million. Palin would need to sell all of those to earn out her advance, so it’s unlikely that’s going to happen.

But HarperCollins will be making money long before that. There’s a rule of thumb in the industry that publishers net about $10 per hardcover sold, after expenses, but before the cost of the advance. Once she’s sold 700,000 copies, then, HarperCollins is in the black. And what of that 1.6 million printed? An ideal “sell-through” rate is about 75 percent, which means HarperCollins thinks it’s going to sell about 1.2 million copies. At that level, Palin will have made $7 million and HarperCollins $5 million of its own.

A HarperCollins insider told The Daily Beast that the book sold a staggering 300,000 copies on the first day alone, which was Tuesday. “Sales are phenomenal, and we are convinced that the book will continue to sell phenomenally for some time to come,” says the insider. They’re not prevaricating: As of 2:30pm today, the book was #1 on Amazon, ahead of both Stephen King’s new novel, Under the Dome, and Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol. The latter sold 1 million copies on its first day, but that figure included the UK, and top fiction generally trumps non-fiction. Any way you carve it, Going Rogue looks to be a $12 million goldmine.

On top of that, her favorables are rising.

As Sarah Palin blankets the media on a whirlwind book promotion tour, the former vice-presidential contender is clearly back on America’s radar screen. Despite being characterized by many as a divisive force in her party and the nation, Americans are much more likely to give Palin a positive rating (47 percent favorable) than another prominent female leader — Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (28 percent favorable). Moreover, about six in 10 Americans (61 percent) think Palin has been treated unfairly by the press, according to the latest Fox News poll.

Something tells me that the longer Democrats are in power, the more likeable Sarah Palin is going to be to Americans. Love her or hate her (and I love her), you cannot deny that she is on fire right now. 1500 people waited in the freezing cold to meet her. There’s even polling showing that, if the 2012 presidential race were held today, and Palin was running against Obama, they’d basically be in a dead heat among independents, the most important block of voters later. The mainstream media may try to demean and diminish her, but her star is clearly rising. And unless Obama suddenly turns into some kind of fiscal hawk overnight (not likely), she’s just going to keep looking better and better.

2012 is looking like a better and better year.

Cross-posted from Cassy’s blog. Stop by for more original commentary or follow her on Twitter!

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We just received in our email box the Associated Press working files on the following story…

Palin’s Daughter Arrested in Wasilla for Dangerous Drunk Driving

(AP) WASILLA, ALASKA — The daughter of failed Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin was arrested Thursday in Wasilla for driving drunk.

Bristol Palin, 19, was stopped by officers at about 12:40 a.m. and booked after rude behavior at the Wasilla police station for driving under the influence.

She was held for about five hours and released at about 5:30 a.m. after posting $5,000 bail, officials said.

Bristol Palin is the eldest daughter of failed Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin and could be responsible for the loss of Republican John McCain’s bid for president in 2006. After it was discovered she was pregnant out of wedlock, the doomed Palin GOP bid for vice president suffered repeated scandals. Governor Palin was thought to have been a book banner in Wasilla and it was reported that her son, Trig, was really Bristol’s child.

The hypocrisy of the Palin campai….

Wait…

This just in….

Hold on, new facts have come to light. To our newspaper customers, please ignore the last story and substitute this one:

Sen. Kerry’s innocent daughter arrested in LA on DUI

(AP) LOS ANGELES — The daughter of Sen. John Kerry was arrested Thursday in Hollywood for allegedly driving drunk.

Alexandra Kerry, 36, was stopped by officers at about 12:40 a.m. and booked at the Hollywood police station for investigation of driving under the influence, Officer April Harding said.

She was held for about five hours and released at about 5:30 a.m. after posting $5,000 bail, Harding said.

She had no other details but we are sure that John Kerry’s daughter is wholly innocent of these scurrilous charges.

That is all.

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If the U.S. captures Osama bin Laden, there’s no need to interrogate him, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee said Thursday.

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), the chairman of that committee, said that arguments raised by Republican senators about whether bin Laden would be afforded Miranda rights if he were captured amount to a “red herring.”

“The red herring that my friend [Sen.] Lindsey Graham [R-S.C.] was covering is not realistic,” Leahy said during an appearance on “Washington Journal” on C-SPAN.

“For one thing, capturing Osama bin Laden — we’ve had enough on him, we don’t need to interrogate him,” Leahy added.

So, let me get this straight. If we were to capture the head of Al Qaeda, the man essentially responsible for the deaths of almost 3,000 Americans and certainly behind terror plots to kill countless more, there would be no need to interrogate him? Seriously?!

What’s scary is that this isn’t some random dingbat unknown Democratic congressman from a middle-of-nowhere district saying this. Leahy is a high-ranking Democrat, one with a high position and a lot of power and influence in Washington, DC. If we catch bin Laden alive, we should waterboard him to within an inch of his life, or until we find out every single last bit of intelligence we can about Al Qaeda and their plans. How is that so hard to grasp??

Cross-posted from Cassy’s blog. Stop by for more original commentary or follow her on Twitter!

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The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that 62% believe tax cuts are a better way to create jobs and fight unemployment. Only 21% believe that additional stimulus spending is a more effective tool. Earlier this year, as the first stimulus package was being debated in Congress, 62% of voters wanted the plan to have more tax cuts and less spending.

Given a different choice today, 51% believe canceling the rest of the stimulus money would create more jobs while 32% say spending the money would be the better approach to job creation. These findings are consistent with earlier polling. Most Americans say that, generally speaking, increased government spending is bad for the economy. Earlier this year, before the unemployment rate had reached its current highs, 45% wanted to cancel the rest of the stimulus spending while just 36% disagreed.

The survey also found that most voters are skeptical about claims of government job creation. Most (58%) say it’s unlikely that the stimulus plan has saved or created more than 600,000 jobs.

They just hate that a Black man is in the White House, I’m sure. Plus, they are probably all wingnuts and fascists, maybe even Christianists and Fundies.

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