“You know what man? I am going to literally — if she gets elected president, I am going to hang out on the grassy knoll all the time, just loaded and ready — because you know what? It’s for my country. It’s for my country. If I got to sacrifice myself, it’s for my country.”

This was in response to Palin’s comments on Paul Revere (which of course have been proved to be accurate, not that you’ll hear that in the mainstream media). And as you can hear in the video, the audience’s response was to laugh. Apparently, joking about assassination is A-OK as long as it’s someone like Sarah Palin. Yet somehow, it’s the right that supposedly needs lessons in civility. I guess we just don’t understand that it’s perfectly acceptable to murder someone for their political beliefs, so long as the murderer is a liberal and the victim is a conservative. No wonder these morons idolize people like Che Guevara.

Of course, this will be waved off as an overreaction by the too-sensitive right. But is it? Palin’s parents have said that they have to sleep with guns because of the death threats they receive. The FBI arrested a man who had sent photocopies of a receipt for a gun he had bought and of a one-way ticket to Alaska to the Heaths. A gun-toting Palin stalker was arrested 50 miles from her home. Sarah Palin has said herself that she receives death threats on a regular basis. Were Sarah Palin a Democrat, then these incidents would be all over the media. Titus’ remarks would be denounced as fueling violent rhetoric against an innocent woman just trying to serve her country. But, alas, Palin has an (R) next to her name instead of a (D). So death threats and stalkers are brushed under the rug, and assassination is comedy.

So much for civility in politics.

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Last weekend, we all watched in horror as news of a horrific tragedy played across our television screens. A psychotic gunman went on a killing spree in Tucson, Arizona, where he shot Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in the head and killed Federal Judge John Roll. In all, six people died, including a nine-year-old girl, and over a dozen were injured. Rep. Giffords’ survival and recovery have so far been nothing short of a miracle, but the nation still grieves for the lives lost and tries to understand how this happened. As more and more is known about the murderer, it becomes clear that Jared Lee Loughner was a psychotic nut unmotivated by politics either on the Left or the Right. The Left, however, still wasted no time exploiting this tragedy to smear Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, the Tea Party, and conservatives in general. If you needed an example of how unhinged they have become, you need look no further than their reaction to the Tucson shootings.

Dishonorable mention: Hanoi Jane has no shame

Almost immediately after the shootings, Jane Fonda jumped into the fray. Her Twitter feed blamed Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, the tea party, and conservatives. Palin, she said, was directly responsible for the shootings. Nevermind that there was no known motive for the shooting; nevermind that Loughner alone is responsible for choosing to take the lives of innocent people. It’s all Sarah Palin’s fault! The tweets were captured over at The Right Scoop:

Jane Fonda has an arrest record — unlike Sarah Palin or Glenn Beck — for assaulting a police officer. She’s most famous for her treasonous actions during the Vietnam War. She posed for pictures on an anti-aircraft gun used to shoot down American planes. She made radio addresses calling American troops war criminals and murderers. She then came home and told the country that our POWs were being treated leniently and that there was no torture. The ultimate irony is that Fonda’s own actions directly led to further torture and abuse and American POWs, yet she sees no problem blaming innocent people decades later for something they had nothing to do with. If anyone needs to acknowledge their own complicity in torture and violence, it’s Fonda herself.

Which brings us to the first of this top 10.

We spend a lot of time at The Feminist Hawks’ Nest exposing modern femisogynists for what they are: fake feminists and man-haters with no interest whatsoever in furthering anything beyond their own pro-abortion, socialist agenda. The “feminists” stole feminism, a movement rooted in equality for all women and which sought to make men and women equals, and turned it into a completely warped version of what it used to stand for. Instead of seeking equality between men and women, femisogynists engage in virulent man-hating. Instead of empowering women, femisogynists do all they can to make women feel like perpetual victims in need of government protectors. Instead of accepting that women have different opinions and political ideas, they shun any woman who does not strictly adhere to their approved politics: pro-abortion and big government. Are all women pro-abortion Democrats? No, but they’ve got an agenda to push, and therefore, a pro-life conservative cannot be a feminist to them. Only certain women count to these “feminists,” and we at The Feminist Hawks’ Nest have tried to expose this and reclaim feminism for what it should be: a movement that speaks for all women, not just some, and seeks equality, not hate.

Unsurprising, when the femisogynists saw an opportunity to smear the so-called patriarchy and conservative women all at once, they gleefully leapt on board. Again, it matters not to them that there is absolutely no evidence to back up their claims. They’ve got an agenda to push, remember?

10. Amanda Marcotte blames the men

As I’ve said before, the three biggest base-moving issues on the right all have to do with anxious masculinity: squelching reproductive rights and the female control over female bodies they represent, squelching gay rights because they subvert the tradition of sex and marriage being acts of male dominance over women, and gun nuttery, which can be summed up as wingnut fears that Democrats (feminized in their minds) are coming to take away their phallic symbols.

… It’s a combination of factors. It’s the individual’s own personal problems and it’s the right wing noise machine ratcheting up the hysteria and it’s white male rage that would exist even without the amplification just because women and racial minorities are making gains.

The other thing one should remember when dealing with today’s femisogynists is that they’re absolutely obsessed with sex. It permeates so much of what they believe, and you can see an example of that in Marcotte’s inane ramblings above. The Tucson shootings somehow have something to do with reproductive rights, traditional sex, and guns as phallic symbols for men. I was curious about one point in particular: if guns are male phallic symbols, then what does that mean for me, a female, who owns two? I guess I must want to be a man, because clearly guns couldn’t be used for anything other than phallic symbols, and certainly not for protection or sport. Everything we are learning about Jared Lee Loughner has shown that he is an apolitical wack job who had an obsession with Giffords dating back to 2007, before Sarah Palin was even on the national political scene. There’s also no anti-feminist, anti-abortion ramblings among Loughner’s ramblings, yet somehow, abortion and gay rights and feminism somehow ticked this guy off and made him go on a shooting rampage.

Right.

9. Jessica Valenti: Masculinity is the root of all evil

In a country that sees masculinity – especially violent masculinity – as the ideal, it’s no wonder that this type of language resonates. But it’s a sad state of affairs when women in politics have to resort to using the same gendered stereotypes that kept all women out of public service for so long.

… In the Colorado Senate primary, Republican Jane Norton accused her opponent of not being “man enough”; in the Delaware Senate primary, Republican Christine O’Donnell said that her opponent was “unmanly”; Angle told Harry Reid to “man up”; and Palin praised Republican Arizona Governor Jan Brewer as having “the cojones that our president does not have” to enforce immigration laws.

So all of these conservative women saying things like “man up” are examples of how violent masculinity is the ideal in American culture? Call me crazy, but if one is claiming that violent masculinity is responsible for something, maybe they should use some examples of, I don’t know, actual violence to back up their claims. And while feminized sissy boys might be preferable to femisogynists like Valenti and Marcotte, it isn’t feminized sissy boys that would step into the fray to save the lives of innocent people. Daniel Hernandez ran through gunfire to come to Gabrielle Giffords’ aid; a woman and two men tackled Loughner and prevented further bloodshed. What would one of Valenti’s wussy boys do? Run and hide? Perhaps I’m biased, as the wife of a Marine and all, but strong, masculine men are a benefit to society. It’s masculine men who will risk their lives to save those of strangers; it is masculine men who are willing to give their lives to save those of their family; it is masculine men who understand the meaning and value of chivalry and true respect towards women. And regardless of how masculine or feminine a man may be, isn’t the whole point of feminism supposed to be equality? Last I checked, feminism isn’t about warping men into women. Last I checked, feminism is supposed to be about the freedom to be who you want to be and lead the life you choose to lead. Where does outlawing masculinity and turning American men into feminized sissy boys factor into feminism? And what does it have to do with the Tucson shootings, anyways? (Answer: nothing.) Anyone who looks at Jared Lee Loughner and sees “masculinity” has a warped view of masculinity indeed, and is quite clearly looking to do nothing more than further their own twisted agenda.

8. No Labels has no class

“It’s a real tragedy, but it’s also a real opportunity,” said Mark McKinnon, co-founder of No Labels, a nonpartisan group founded last month.

Wow, this, like, totally sucks that all those people died, but dude, this is such an awesome opportunity for us, man!

What kind of heartless ghoul must you be to look at the deaths of six innocent people, including a nine-year-old girl, and see “a real opportunity”? Why, call me crazy, but it sounds just like Rahm Emanuel’s mantra of “never let a crisis go to waste”. And that’s the entire mindset of the left in reaction to this shooting, isn’t it? It’s a real opportunity for them: an opportunity to smear the right, to smear Sarah Palin, to smear the tea party, and to get voters back to the Left. Who cares about tragedy when you’ve got such a great opportunity?

7. Sherrod Brown blames health care hate speech

Democrats forced Obamacare down the throats of Americans who overwhelmingly rejected it. They then faced a reckoning in November, when the GOP made amazing gains in Congress and ultimately took back the House. John Boehner, now the Speaker of the House, is already leading Republicans towards repealing the disastrously unpopular bill, and Democrats are not happy about it. They don’t like that the public is still unhappy about Obamacare, they don’t like that they were so resoundingly defeated in November, and they don’t like that Republicans could possibly crumble the foundation they laid to build their socialist dream. And since so many Americans were really angry about the health care bill, then hey, maybe all that “violent rhetoric” could have made Jared Lee Loughner, an apolitical psycho, kill six people! And while we’re at it, if we blame anger over the health care bill, maybe we can get more people to support it too! No one wants to be aligned with an Obamacare-hating mass murderer, right? And what do you call it when you are a Democrat and someone disagrees with you on political policy? Why, hate speech, of course!

What runs through your mind, I think about the meetings I’ve had, where I’ve had where I’ve had staff nearby and there is people that in the audience that are really, really angry. Often is was about health care, often is immigration. There is a lot of hate speech. They see a lot of it on the radio, on the TV, hear it on the radio.

Right. Because people couldn’t possibly be angry all on their own about massive government expansion and the passage of a bill constituents didn’t want passed. They’re being brainwashed by their conservative talk radio overlords and the puppetmasters on Fox News! Silly Americans can’t think for themselves.

6. Bob Kerrey: the health care bill ticked Loughner off

Tomorrow they were going to vote to repeal this health care bill — and it’s not going to go anywhere in the Senate — it’s one of the reasons that this guy was angry and pretty obvious that he is, at least from me, where I sit that he’s mentally ill and deeply troubled.

Of course, there’s no evidence whatsoever that Loughner knew that there even was a health care bill passed. Everything we’re learning about him shows that he is a psychotic man who was apolitical and angry at Gabrielle Giffords — allegedly because he didn’t like the answer she gave to a question he asked about grammar. No matter; Republicans might repeal this health care bill and the tea party sure as heck didn’t like it, so we’ll just use that as a convenient scapegoat anyways!

5. Glenn LaFantasie: The American experience created Loughner

Anti-American chic is nothing new on the left. So naturally, if there’s some kind of tragedy, it’s America’s fault! We’ve seen this countless times on the left since 9-11: we brought it on ourselves, Islamic terrorism only exists because of American imperialism, the Taliban are murderers because our troops are baby-killers, blah blah blah. It’s nothing new, but it’s still despicable rhetoric that isn’t grounded in even a shred of reality. Now we have a new national tragedy, which is something new that lefties can blame America for.

Nowhere is America-hating more en vogue than our college campuses. Leftist academics who hate America are a dime a dozen, so it was only a matter of time before one of them came out to drone on about how America sucks and that’s what caused the shooting. Glenn LaFantasie, a Civil War professor at Western Kentucky University, has volunteered to be that America-hating leftist academic.

Public officials who condone the use of torture in recent times should, by rights, give pause when they try to condemn the actions of Jared L. Loughner, Timothy McVeigh or the Unabomber. But, typically, our public servants see no contradiction, no hypocrisy, in advocating extreme political violence against our alleged enemies around the globe while condemning political violence when it is aimed against the government—or, more precisely, against them. In other words, political violence is legitimate when the government commits it; but it is appalling when individuals commit it against the government or its representatives. Political violence committed by individuals is explained by marginalizing those perpetrators as crackpots. Political violence committed by the government is justified as guaranteeing national security.

So not only is America to blame for Jared Loughner’s actions, America is also made up of evil violent torturers who have no right to complain about violence against one of our elected representatives. They’re just getting what was coming to them. In that sense, what Jared Lee Loughner did isn’t evil or even wrong; it’s completely justified because hey, we made him this way.

LaFantasie claims that Americans are all violent and filled with bloodlust. Of course, if we truly were all bloodthirsty violent savages, we probably wouldn’t be mourning the loss of the six people killed and praying for the recovery of Gabrielle Giffords. But don’t let that get in the way of believing that America is to blame for this or anything!

4. Spike Lee: America is the most violent country in history

Just ignore ancient civilizations like the Aztecs with their ritual human sacrifices. Ignore Nazi Germany and the millions of innocent people they killed and tortured. Forget about Mao’s China, with tens of millions of people butchered. Forget about Islamic terror states like Iraq or Iran, where innocent people are routinely raped and murdered, little girls forced to undergo torture in the form of female genital mutilation, sanctioned pedophilia, and stonings for “crimes” like adultery. Nevermind communist atrocities in countries like the Soviet Union, where dissidents were either murdered or thrown into gulags. It all pales in comparison to America and the NRA.

3. Daisy Hernandez thanks God the shooter was white

Race-baiting is nothing new on the left, and considering that this massacre happened in Arizona, it was just a matter of time before someone went there. And go there someone did — NPR contributor Daisy Hernandez, who breathes a sigh of relief that the shooter was a gringo.

Your tax dollars are going to pay for this racist drivel: that she, and the Latino community, are currently feeling “brown relief”. Grief, shock, anger? Eh, not so much.

When she heard the news, she wasn’t concerned with the people injured or killed. She didn’t care about the shock and grief the families of the six murdered were feeling. Nope — Loughner was a gringo, and that’s all that mattered to her. Her first thought was not for the Americans brutally murdered, it was for her own racist ideologies. Only after she determined the shooter’s race was white could she bother with the otherwise mundane details… like the murder of a nine-year-old.

2. Clarence Dupnik: It’s all because of the tea party, and no, there’s no evidence.

Typically, the job of law enforcement is to investigate, not to spread unfounded rumors and instigate anger. Clarence Dupnik apparently never got that memo.

Since the shootings, people have looked to Sheriff Clarence Dupnik for the facts. Sheriff Dupnik, however, is much more interested in spreading rumors and fanning the flames of the angry public. Within hours, the he started blaming the right for the shootings — despite the utter lack of evidence to prove it — and hasn’t stopped. He blamed Rush Limbaugh.

The kind of rhetoric that flows from people like Rush Limbaugh, in my judgment he is irresponsible, uses partial information, attacks people, angers them against government, angers them against elected officials, and that kind of behavior in my opinion is not with consequences…. The vitriol affects the [unstable] personality that we are talking about… It’s my opinion that the hard right is deliberately fueling the fire against elected officials and the administration because they think it benefits them in the election process…. [Limbaugh] is a master at this type of diatribe. He inflames people against people like me, against Democrats and liberals, and this benefits the other party… Maybe even a majority of people in this country think that government is broken, that politics at the Washington level is broken. And they’re very very angry about it. They’re tired of all the crap that goes on, where people can’t sit down and act in a fashion that’s in the best interests of the American people. Political ideology aside, I think it comes to what’s in the best interest of the people in America. And anybody with half a brain who’s been watching what’s going on for the last two years knows that just the opposite has been happening. It’s my feeling that the anger that’s being purveyed by people in radio and some on TV is done deliberately because it benefits one particular party… You’re talking about a person who is unstable to begin with, and they are motivated in some cases by the rhetoric they hear and see. In general terms I think that people who make a living preaching hate, to hate the government, to be angry at the government, to destroy the government, to do it to elected officials and so forth, have some responsibility even though it may be free speech. I don’t think free speech goes without some responsibility and some consequences.

He claimed that Arizona was a mecca for prejudice and bigotry.

When you look at unbalanced people, how they respond to the vitriol that comes out of certain mouths about tearing down the government — the anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous. And unfortunately, Arizona, I think, has become sort of the capital. We have become the mecca for prejudice and bigotry.

He went on the air with Megyn Kelly and blamed vitriol and rhetoric for the shooting… and admitted he had no evidence to back that theory up.

The most outrageous part about Dupnik’s constant ramblings is that this man is the sheriff of Pima County. He’s an elected official, but the position of sheriff was not created for someone to fight partisan battles. He is not there to take sides. He is there to investigate crimes and to discover the facts, and as Dupnik has admitted himself, the facts don’t back up any of his assertions. Yet he still keeps running his mouth, making irresponsible statements, blaming people and ideologies that have nothing to do with Loughner’s motivations. If ever someone needed to be recalled from office, it’s Clarence Dupnik.

1. It’s all Sarah Palin’s fault

When President Bush was in office, we had Bush Derangement Syndrome. With Bush out of office, lefties needed a new figure to hate, and they immediately zeroed in on Sarah Palin.

It took only moments after news of the shooting broke for lefties to immediately blame Sarah Palin. While the left pointed the finger at her for her supposedly violent rhetoric, they became more unhinged and violent themselves. Markos Moulitsas — perhaps most famous for cheering the deaths of four American contractors in Iraq and saying “screw them” — was among the first to jump on the Blame Palin bandwagon.

Moulitsas linked to a map that quickly became the center of the “it’s all Palin’s fault” meme:

Of course, as Michelle pointed out, DailyKos could be considered just as much to blame, with a post trumpeting that Gabrielle Giffords was dead to the poster, a second DailyKos post by Moulitsas himself putting a target on Gabrielle Giffords, and that Democrats had their own versions of the target map.

No matter; Moulitsas just dug in even further.

MoveOn.org also jumped into the fray, with an inflammatory e-mail claiming that Palin was responsible.

And violent tendencies have been inflamed by the careless and irresponsible rhetoric of certain political leaders. Sarah Palin’s infamous ‘target list’ displayed Democratic districts, including Rep. Giffords’, in crosshairs, as if viewed through a gunsight.

Arizona Rep. Raul Grijalva also blamed Palin:

She – as I mentioned, people contributing to this toxic climate – Ms. Palin needs to look at her own behavior, and if she wants to help the public discourse, the best thing she could do is keep quiet.

Joan Walsh jumped into the fray:

Michael Daly, in the New York Daily News, went so far as to say that Giffords’ blood was on Palin’s hands.

Here is what Sarah Palin said on the Facebook page where she depicted Gabrielle Giffords in the cross hairs of a rifle scope: “Don’t retreat! Instead – RELOAD!”

Well, the guy who shot Giffords yesterday managed to keep firing until he killed six, including a child, and wounded 13 .

Palin would no doubt say that she was only speaking in metaphor, that she only meant her followers should work to unseat Giffords and 19 other Democrats who had roused her ire by voting for health care.

But anyone with any sense at all knows that violent language can incite actual violence, that metaphor can incite murder. At the very least, Palin added to a climate of violence.

This is just a small sampling — the Palin hate completely permeated the left. And what was the result of all of the Palin blaming?

Death threats.

A Palin aide also spoke out, confirming that she was receiving death threats at unprecedented levels.

An aide close to Sarah Palin says death threats and security threats have increased to an unprecedented level since the shooting in Arizona, and the former Alaska governor’s team has been talking to security professionals.

Those on the left called on Sarah Palin and the right to be more careful about their rhetoric, but had no problem with violent rhetoric being thrown at Sarah Palin. This isn’t exactly surprising (see Michelle Malkin’s primer on the progressive climate of hate), but it is revealing. Was the vitriol towards Sarah Palin from the left really about concern for Gabrielle Giffords and public safety, or did they just see an opportunity to try to smear and silence Sarah Palin and jump on it? Considering that there is no evidence whatsoever that Jared Lee Loughner even knew who Sarah Palin was, it clearly is the latter.

——

These unhinged reactions show that left will use anything to smear their enemies and promote their sick, twisted agenda. Six people are dead, and all these moonbats could do was try to find ways to pin this on conservatives, engage in race baiting, blame America, and exploit the tragedy to further their own agenda. If one ever needed a primer on the sickness that infects the American left today, all they would need to do is read the examples listed here.

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It seems almost unfair for an intellectual lightweight like Meghan McCain to take Palin on. While I personally find the Palin-Reagan comparisons a little insulting to the Gipper, Palin is still vastly more intelligent than the majority of PDS-sufferers and is certainly smarter than Meggie-Poo. If this was a boxing match, Sarah would be Mike Tyson facing off against Meggie Mac as Screech. While McCain’s rambling, nonsensical columns are usually full of schadenfreude-y goodness, the columns where she attempts to attack Sarah Palin are simultaneously the most groan-worthy and the most entertaining. In her latest pathetic excuse for a column, Meggie Mac calls Palin “uneducated” … right before she admits that she has no clue what the commonly-used term “blue bloods” means and had to Google it — and she still got it wrong.

Meggie Mac is, like, so insulted that Palin called the Bushes “blue bloods.” She didn’t know what the term meant (apparently she never came across it during her 100% academically-earned degree at Columbia), but since everything in the world obviously revolves around Meggie-Poo, it clearly was a personal hit on her. She was so insulted by Palin’s latest anti-Meggie Mac screed that she even took the time to Google the term “blue bloods” so she could figure out just what Palin was talking about! Now that, folks, is some good journalism.

Welcome to the echo chamber! This week’s (or possibly month’s) latest rhetorical talking point is “blue bloods.” And guess what? In the way it has been used I am probably considered one and so is the entire Bush family, not to mention countless others. And who else would deliver such a catchy media talking point than, yes, Sarah Palin. The reference to “blue bloods” was made after former President George H.W. Bush and his wife Barbara said in an interview that they thought Mitt Romney was essentially the man to watch in 2012, followed by an extra zinger from the notorious straight talking former first lady Barbara Bush who said she thinks “Sarah Palin should stay in Alaska.” Sarah Palin responded on the Laura Ingraham radio show saying “of course they think that, the Bush’s are blue bloods.”

I actually had to Google what the meaning of “blue bloods” was, although I could surmise that it was some kind of knock against education and coming from a family of some success. Yes, in essence that is what this statement meant. Families that work hard and achieve a long line of successful people are “blue bloods” and thus, she implied the opinions of said people are jaded and elitist, even if that family lineage has a long history of public service and leadership within Republican Party. Of course, Sarah Palin is also living the American dream, albeit a different one without the help of any kind of family lineage. She has a successful career that probably most Americans would want by earning millions for her reality show, appearances on Fox, and getting paid to go places and speak her mind. Both of these narratives exemplify why this country is still as Ronald Reagan famously put it “a shining city upon a hill.” America is a place where people can create their own success so their children can have more opportunities than they did. Neither the Bush family’s success nor Sarah Palin’s are relevant to the political conversation regarding who is best suited to be the next GOP leader. Both stories are simply the American dream and taking issue with one kind of path towards success versus another is very dangerous. Lest we forget, Sarah Palin herself is now a multi-millionaire.

Horrifying grammar aside — good grief, is the Daily Beast really so hard up that they can’t employ the requisite team of editors desperately needed to make sense of McCain’s drivel-filled ramblings? — all McCain did here was prove that, as usual, she has absolutely no clue what she is talking about. Daddy’s money that bought Meggie Mac her degree at the oh-so-reputable Columbia University clearly was worth every penny. And while Meghan McCain had absolutely nothing to do with Palin calling the Bush family “blue bloods,” since Meggie Mac is the center of the GOP’s political universe, it’s obvious that Palin was really talking about the McCain family.

Interestingly enough, Sarah Palin got the term exactly right — and coincidentally, it does apply to Meggie Mac as well. The term also doesn’t mean what McCain thinks it does (from her expert Googling, of course). The term “blue blood” means a wealthy, aristocratic family. The Bushes — and yes, the McCains — could be considered blue bloods. People like Meggie Poo who are born with silver spoons in their mouths thanks to Mommy’s beer empire fortune are prime examples of brats born into blue blood families. Being called a blue blood isn’t necessarily an insult, and it certainly isn’t a knock against education and success. Meggie Mac, after all, would be a prime example of how being a blue blood does not equal educated and successful. Sarah Palin got a degree and worked her butt off to become the successful multi-millionaire she is today, but why let silly things like facts and common sense get in the way of jealousy-induced Palin-bashing?

McCain got into an Ivy League university based on her father’s name and her mother’s bank account. She got a “career” as a columnist, author, and political pundit thanks to her father, too. She has no experience and no qualifications that make her deserving of such success, but thankfully for her, she’s got a daddy willing to buy a career for her. It also helps that she’s willing to bash Republican women, conservatism, and the GOP in general to the left-wing media whenever possible. She happily soaks up the attention and publicity, never realizing she’s nothing more than a useful idiot who is playing right into the hands of lefties searching for someone to sell out the Republican Party. Whether she knows she’s being used or if she is just that stupid is open to interpretation.

Laughably, in this column she whines that “moderates” like her are completely innocent of causing any party infighting, yet for some reason always get blamed for it. Sniffle.

None of this is all together surprising except for the fact that historically it is the moderates—or people like yours truly—who get accused of starting party infighting and this statement from Sarah Palin showcases that on a very basic level the underlying cultural separation in this country is also happening within the Republican party itself.

It’s interesting that Meggie Mac would make this claim. For all of her inexperience (has the woman ever held a single job that her daddy didn’t buy for her?), she could actually be an asset to the GOP. If she put even a fraction of the energy she currently spends attacking the Republican Party towards attacking the socialist Left currently destroying our country, she could actually do some good. But no — McCain would rather use her tiny pea brain to fight the party she claims to love. We’re supposed to just go along with it and believe her when she says it’s for our own good.

It couldn’t possibly have anything to do with keeping her coveted interviews and speaking gigs and guest spots on “The View,” could it?

Apparently, we are supposed to abandon the conservative values that the GOP is supposed to stand for in favor of things like gay marriage and amnesty. Never mind that Republicans have lazily been abandoning said conservative values for years, and doing so is exactly what opened the door to Obama, Pelosi, and Reid. If we just keep leaning more to the left more to the center, we’ll be popular again!

Wait, didn’t we try that in 2008 with her father’s presidential run? Didn’t quite work out the way Meggie Mac thought it would though, did it?

If Meghan McCain wants to help the Republican Party, she can start by going away. Not everyone loves Sarah Palin, but she brings an undeniable level of enthusiasm to the GOP that has been missing for far too long. (Heck, had it not been for Sarah Palin, McCain’s presidential aspirations would have failed even more miserably.) Meghan, meanwhile, contributes nothing and serves as a useful cheerleader for those who want to make Republicans look bad. Maybe Meggie Mac can take that blue blood money and see if Daddy can buy her a job writing for Playboy. She’s got the IQ for it, as well as the … other necessary assets.

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Feministing founder Jessica Valenti likes to write about just what makes a “real” feminist, and what doesn’t. Obviously, being a conservative is an instant disqualifier in her book, because why on Earth should a movement that seeks equality let women actually have differing points of view? Right at the top of her list of women not allowed in her ultra-exclusive girls club version of feminism is Sarah Palin. Sure, Sarah Palin may be a successful, accomplished woman who took on Alaska’s boys club and won, but who cares? She doesn’t get a tingle up her leg at the thought of killing babies, so she’s not allowed in the clubhouse. This week, when given the chance to debate a real live Valenti-approved anti-feminist, though, Jessica Valenti took the opportunity… to tuck her tail in between her legs and run as fast as her legs could take her.

While Palin is femisogynist Enemy Number One, she’s just at the top of a long list of hated conservative feminist women. Express an opinion that Valenti & Co. don’t agree with, and you’re smeared as anti-feminist and anti-woman. Of course, calling a woman anti-woman makes about as much sense as calling a Jew anti-Semitic, but what do they care about things like common sense, logic, and intellectual diversity? Amanda Marcotte, for example, recently said you can’t be a feminist unless you are a left-leaning liberal who advocates for universal health care, abortion, and other liberal extremist pet causes. Marcotte also recently argued that women are too stupid to tell the difference between the evil fake conservative feminism, and the Amanda Marcotte Approved real feminism. Jessica Valenti wrote a piece filled with rage at the idea that anyone could call Sarah Palin a feminist, because Palin doesn’t pass Valenti’s Official Feminist Litmus Test. Believe something different than what Valenti believes, and you’re out of the club, lady. As I said in response to Valenti’s anti-Palin hit piece, all of this boils down to having the “correct” political beliefs. Equality has absolutely nothing to do with Valenti’s brand of feminism anymore.

Change your name to your husband’s when you get married? You’re a slave to the patriarchy and an anti-feminist. Personally and politically pro-life? Anti-woman! Believe in small government, fiscal responsibility, and the free market? ANTI-FEMINIST! Believe in closing the borders and enforcing our immigration laws? Don’t believe in universal health care? Think global warming is all a fake? These all make you an anti-feminist, too.

And while the femisogynist crowd acts as if conservative women are stealing feminism, you can see that the truth is that we’re reclaiming it — reclaiming it as a movement for equality, reclaiming it from bitter, angry women who hate men and marriage, and reclaiming it as a movement for all women, not just women who pass an ideological purity test.

No, we’re not stealing feminism. We’re putting it back in its rightful place.

But let’s say, just for fun, that Valenti’s version of feminism is the only correct form of feminism, and us conservative women really are evil, anti-woman harpies. Valenti should have no problem debating us on the issues, then right?

Wrong.

Jessica Valenti has no problem whatsoever writing screech-filled missives about conservative feminists, hiding behind her computer screen. When she got the opportunity to actually debate a real live conservative feminist, she ran away as fast as she could — based on her “feminist” principles, of course.

Wednesday of this week, MORE magazine held a panel for young feminists, which Jessica Valenti was invited to be a part of. When Valenti found out that someone who didn’t rigidly follow her extremist orthodoxy to the letter was going to be part of the panel, well, she just wouldn’t be a part of that.

I was originally slated to be a part of this panel, but when I found out that Allison Kasic – who works for the virulently anti-feminist Independent Women’s Forum – was also a panelist, I decided to pull out.

I’ve been writing a lot lately about the faux feminism of the Right – how conservative women who have long fought against feminist ideals and goals are now identifying as feminists in an attempt to woo women’s votes for the GOP. I think it’s an incredibly dangerous trend facing the movement – if those who work actively against women’s interests can claim feminism as their own, the movement will become meaningless.

Given all that, it felt hypocritical for me to be a part of a panel that named Kasic a feminist leader. I didn’t want my presence to lend credibility to the false notion that people who work against women’s rights are feminists.

Yes, I could go on the panel to argue about the definition of feminism and the co-opting of the movement. But when I agree to be on a panel I’m accepting the terms of a debate – and it’s not a debatable point whether people whose policies actively harm women are feminists. I don’t want to validate that this is a question open for reasonable conversation. (Especially given that the success of anti-feminist women and orgs like IWF is largely based on their ability to get on panels and make this an open discussion – it’s part of their strategy.)

Oh no!! Someone who disagrees with Jessica Valenti might be part of a panel discussing feminism! And they’re a — gasp!! — conservative feminist!! Clearly she can’t be a part of that, right? Jessica Valenti’s credibility would be damaged, and that would hurt the feminist movement!

Because, you know, Jessica Valenti is the sole voice of what feminism stands for and its credibility.

Now, every other speaker on this panel is a liberal extremist femisogynist, including Courtney Martin, who blogs at Valenti’s website Feministing. Allison Kasic was the one conservative voice. But this just can’t be allowed, can it? In Valenti’s world, apparently not only should feminists with differing opinions not be allowed a seat at the table, they shouldn’t even be allowed to speak, much less debate their views.

Of course, one might wonder why Valenti would be so worried about debating Kasic. If Valenti’s version of feminism is indeed so intellectually superior, then why would it matter if Kasic was on the panel or not? This would be a perfect opportunity for Valenti to show how wrong conservative feminists are. But oh no, she’s making a principled stand! Or something. Because Kasic’s employer, the Independent Women’s Forum, is (in Valenti’s words) “virulently anti-feminist.” So why not debate her, and show her for the virulent anti-feminist that she really is?

The only reason that femisogynists like Valenti try so hard to shut down conservative feminists like Palin and Kasic is because they’re intimidated by them. Women like Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann resonate with women more than women like Jessica Valenti and Amanda Marcotte ever have — or will. The average woman doesn’t identify herself as some kind of helpless oppressed victim of the patriarchy. The average woman doesn’t see marriage as a form of institutional slavery. The average woman doesn’t believe in universal health care or abortion on demand, or half the things that radicals like Valenti advocate.

Feminism has turned into a dirty word for most women, who won’t call themselves feminists anymore. And that’s thanks in large part to the work of women like Gloria Steinem and her 60s era radicals, as well as the work continued by women like Valenti and Marcotte today. Sarah Palin has more American women realizing that feminism could actually speak for them than Valenti ever could, and part of the reason is that Palin has never called for an ideological litmus test in order to be a feminist. Feminism didn’t start as a movement that only spoke for certain women. It spoke for all women. The women who fought for feminist and equality for women didn’t fight so that certain women wouldn’t be allowed to express their views or excluded.

But funny, that’s exactly what people like Jessica Valenti, who call themselves feminists, are fighting for. And when conservative women finally stop letting themselves be pushed into the shadows, and reclaim feminism for themselves, it opens a huge crack in the facade of fascist feminism that the femisogynists have created.

It turns out that Valenti is nothing more than a giant intellectual coward. If her credibility on what feminism really means is so strong, then what does she have to lose? If she was the superior one, then she wouldn’t demean feminism by debating Kasic. If her views were correct, then Kasic would be the one who would lose credibility. Kasic would be the one who would be embarrassed. So what is Valenti so afraid of?

This isn’t a principled stand by Jessica Valenti. This is a woman who is afraid she’ll be made a fool of. This is a woman who can’t stand for women with opposing viewpoints to express them because she knows it threatens what she stands for. She even said herself, this is strategy for her, a tactic — a tactic to drown out opposing voices. Jessica Valenti couldn’t make it any more clear: she’s nothing but a coward and a fake who wouldn’t understand what feminism is if it hit her in the face.

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Seeking to channel the sign-bearing, flag-waving enthusiasm of the “tea party” movement into ballot-box victories, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin told hundreds of supporters Monday they couldn’t “party like it’s 1773″ until Washington was flooded with like-minded conservatives.

What a dumb, embarassing gaffe, right?? So naturally, the lefties, led by Markos “Screw Them” Moulitsas and Gwen “I Heart Obama” Ifill, jumped all over this, cackling with self-righteous glee, via Cuffy Meigs.

Jeez, that Sarah Palin, what a moron! Nothing noteworthy happened in 1773, right??

Oh… wait a second… she was talking about the Tea Party movement, and the Boston Tea Party took place in 1773! Most kids learn that in, what the third grade? But hey, what do they care? They’re either stupid, lazy, or just don’t care about reality in their quest to humiliate Sarah. (My guess would be a combination of the three.)

Gwen Ifill is busily trying to spin, spin, spin. So far, nothing from Markos Moulitsas, who is probably ignoring the fact that he got schooled by Sarah Palin (who did fire back, by the way).

Of course, given the anti-American leanings of these progressive liberal idiots, they might just be angry to be reminded of a significant event that helped lead to the founding of the greatest country on Earth. Thinking about our nation’s founding probably gets in the way of their I-Hate-America fantasies. I can only imagine how much it must bother them to be reminded of moments of American greatness and all, especially from an ignoramus like Sarah Palin… who just schooled them on American history.

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John Edwards, move over. There’s a new standard bearer for the most unpopular person PPP has polled in any state: Levi Johnston in Alaska.

Edwards’ 15/72 favorability on our January North Carolina poll had set the initial record for futility but Johnston matches the 72% unfavorable number while only 6% of Alaskans see him in a positive light. Those poll numbers probably don’t bode too well for his Wasilla Mayoral candidacy.

Johnston is reviled pretty universally across the board but he’s a little more popular with Democrats (15/61) than he is with Republicans (4/76) or independents (4/74).

It’s hard to muster a favorability rating lower than 6%- that’s about where the average person off the street we polled on a lark would be- so Johnson may hold this dubious distinction for a long time. Who besides like Hitler or Osama Bid Laden do you think we could poll who would be less popular in some particular state?

Indeed, that is a bad sign if he wants to be mayor. Maybe if he stopped lying every time he opens his mouth and tones down the douchey-ness, he wouldn’t be universally hated around the country. I don’t know what is sadder… that there is actually someone that the public hates more than Nancy Pelosi… or that 6% of Alaskans actually like Levi Johnston.

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The good news? Miller is still in the lead. The bad news? Murkowski has narrowed that lead. The results are being published here, and Miller is leading by less than 1,300 votes. Most of the absentee ballots counted today came from Murkowski strongholds, however; as Stacy pointed out, absentee ballots in the Miller area, the Mat-Su Valley, will not be counted until Wednesday.

I’ll keep updating as results come in.

UPDATE: CNN is reporting that Murkowski might concede. Interesting turn of events, huh?

Sen. Lisa Murkowski could concede the GOP Senate primary as early as Tuesday night after election officials in Alaska finish counting the day’s absentee ballots.

In an interview with CNN, Murkowski campaign spokesman Steve Wackowski was emphatic that the vote could still swing their way. “We’re being hopeful, we want to make sure that all the votes are counted,” he said.

But Wackowski also addressed the harsh reality that Murkowski might fall to the once lesser known, Tea Party Express-endorsed Joe Miller.

“I think we should know … by our calculus, we should know by tonight,” Wackowski said.

Wackowski was asked if Murkowski might concede the race to Miller once Tuesday’s ballot counting ends. “Unfortunately we’ve got all our options are on the table,” he lamented.

Officials with Alaska’s Division of Elections spent Tuesday counting thousands of absentee ballots and looking over others that might present potential challenges. Currently, Miller leads the vote tally by just under 1,300 votes, a lead that has shrunk, slightly, since counting began in the morning.

Big Government is reporting that the trend has swung that Murkowski cannot overtake Miller. Interesting news indeed. Will she concede to move on to something she sees as something bigger and better, or does she simply know that she’s been defeated and doesn’t want to pull an Al Franken? Stay tuned…

UPDATE: Murkowski will be holding a press conference within fifteen minutes. Conceding to Miller? ADN is reporting the the latest absentee ballots counted increased Miller’s lead. It’s not looking good for her… will she bow out? Stay tuned…

It’s looking bad for Lisa Murkowski.

The latest count of absentees increased Miller’s lead to 1,469 votes. That’s about 200 more votes for him than the last count. Fairbanks probably helped Miller, although the votes were also from Southeast and the Kenai Peninsula.

The Murkowski campaign was really counting on a big boost from Southeast.

That didn’t happen. The latest batch was a count of 2,760 votes. It brings the total counted today to about 15,700 votes. Most were Republican primary votes that impact the Miller Murkowski race. The rest were Democratic and Libertarian votes. Still awaiting some more Kenai absentee votes and that will be all that is counted today.

UPDATE: Stacy McCain had the news first — Murkowski concedes, and Joe Miller is victorious in Alaska’s GOP primary!

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Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R) will not be on the AK Libertarian Party ballot line this fall, according to the secretary of the party.

Murkowski, who is trailing GOP primary to challenger Joe Miller by 1,688 votes with about 23K ballots still to be counted, has reportedly been seeking another way onto the ballot this fall. The Libertarian Party was considered her best option.

Rob Clift, the state Libertarian Party’s secretary, told Hotline On Call that the executive committee of the party met over the weekend. When asked if the decision to keep Murkowski off the ballot line was final, Clift said: “That’s correct.”

Eric Dondero has the scoop on how it all went down:

On Sunday morning, over coffee and donuts, the ExComm voted unanimously, 5 to 0 to deny the Senator the ballot line. There was no malice intended. ALP Chair Kohlhaas has repeatedly stated that she is a nice lady, and the ALP was flattered by the offer.

The meeting was contentious at first. Two board members who were clearly on the Tea Party friendly Joe Miller side were combative before they realized that the other three board members agreed with them on the essentials. At a number of points the meeting even digressed into name-calling. The ‘F’ bomb was even tossed around a number of times. One board member was hellbent on holding an immediate statewide meeting open to full membership or registered Libertarians to decide the matter. That idea was shot down 4 to 1.

The vote on Murkowski was taken at about halfway through the meeting which lasted a total of 3 hours. After the result was clear, tempers calmed down, and the 5 member board moved forward with plans on how to announce the results to the media.

This is bad news for Murkowski, but the death knell hasn’t sounded yet. There are still 25,000 ballots to be counted, after all. Still, it doesn’t look good for her.

In other news, the NRSC got the message that they shouldn’t repeat their Florida disaster with Charlie Crist, and they’re pulling out of Alaska. They’ve pledged neutrality in the race from here on out.

The question is, will Murkowski indeed pull an Al Franken and demand a full recount if she ends up trailing Joe Miller? Stay tuned for more updates…

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But people forget that endorsements from Palin are like the anti-Obama endorsement. (If you want a candidate to lose, get him an Obama endorsement.) Sarah Palin, on the other hand, has a golden touch with almost every candidate she endorses. And, surprise! It looks like Miller pulled out a win over the big-government Murkowski.

A decorated Gulf War veteran was holding a narrow lead over Sen. Lisa Murkowski in the Alaska Republican Senate primary, as ballots continued to be counted Wednesday in what could shape up to be a stunning political upset.

Polls taken before primary day had shown Murkowski, a two-term senator from an Alaska political dynasty, leading handily against the first-time candidate. But challenger Joe Miller insisted all along that the state’s polling was unreliable — as of Wednesday morning, Miller held a 2,000-vote lead.

With 98 percent of precincts reporting, he had 51 percent and Murkowski had 49 percent. The number of uncounted absentee ballots, though, exceeded the number of votes separating the candidates.

The Alaska race marked the second surprise from a Tea Party-backed candidate in Tuesday’s elections. Health care executive Rick Scott earlier defeated Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum for that state’s GOP gubernatorial nomination after polls also showed McCollum pulling away from Scott.

Miller had the added help of an endorsement from former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who has a history with the Murkowski family. Palin defeated Murkowski’s father Frank in the 2006 gubernatorial primary. Though there was speculation over whether she might challenge Murkowski for her seat, Palin instead endorsed Miller after leaving the governor’s office.

Murkowski has proudly touted her seniority after eight years in office, and said her roles on the appropriations and energy committees put her in a strong position to ensure Alaskans’ voices are heard. She denounced Miller for making what she considered deceptive statements about her votes and statements.

But Miller, standing behind his words, sought to cast Murkowski as being too liberal and part of the problem in an out-of-control Washington.

Miller told reporters he’s trying to be realistic about the early results showing him slightly in the lead. He spoke to reporters at election central headquarters in Anchorage, where his supporters chanted “Miller Time!” and “Go Joe Go!” Miller joked on Twitter, “What’s the moose hunting like in the Beltway?”

According to the Alaska Division of Elections 16,000 absentee ballots were requested and fewer than half have been received. The margin of error is small enough that Murkowski could still pull out the win. If Joe Miller does indeed win, though, that would make Palin 2-0 versus the Murkowskis.

What made Murkowski lose to a little-known attorney, though? Well, she’s a big-government Republican and is also pro-abortion. For me personally, the fact that she touts her experience as a career politician is grating enough in and of itself. If someone is touting their seniority in government, that’s probably a sign that they need to go.

Another big issue could potentially be energy tax hikes. Miller signed a pledge saying he would oppose any global warming bill that included a tax hike. Murkowski? Not so much:

Murkowski, on the other hand, refused to sign the pledge and openly discussed a carbon tax approach that could have a major negative impact on the oil and gas industry and the U.S. economy. In an energy state like Alaska, that’s not just a major economic policy mistake; as Murkowski has learned the hard way, it can end a Senate career.

It’s still too early to tell who will end up winning in Alaska. Even if Murkowski is victorious, though, it just goes to show that you can’t underestimate Sarah Palin’s influence. Murkowski refused to take Miller seriously as a candidate, and no one thought Miller had a shot at winning. If Miller loses at the last minute, it’s still a powerful lesson that no one is safe and guaranteed an easy ride to victory.

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Sarah Palin has had the femisogynists hopping over the past year. The media tried to destroy her in 2008 and failed. Since then, she’s become a force to be reckoned with.

She’s been sweeping the country, becoming influential in elections, writing a best-selling book, and becoming a Fox News contributor. Lefties were furious that they couldn’t keep this woman down. But nothing got the feminazis’ panties more in a bunch than when Sarah Palin called herself a feminist.

She has been empowering conservative women to get involved, calling for all of the “mama grizzlies” to rise up and defend the future of their country for their children. Furious that someone else was speaking for women other than Feminazi Approved Womyn, the leftist EMILY’s List decided to make a video trying to hijack the term mama grizzlies from Sarah Palin.

This plan radically backfired, and they’ve been the laughingstock of the blogosphere ever since. After all, who had the idea that dressing up like Ewoks to diss Sarah Palin would be a good one?

EMILY’s List is a pro-abortion group, and their number one beef with Sarah Palin, like most femisogynists, is likely that she’s pro-life. On top of that, she doesn’t like government run health care! Egads! Apparently, these are the things that “real” mama grizzlies — i.e., lefty mama grizzlies — care about. How could little bear cubs survive without knowing they can have an abortion when they’re 16 while their mothers proudly look on?

One of the biggest problems with lefty women trying to co-opt the phrase mama grizzlies is that … well, come on — who would ever see one of them as a mama grizzly? When you think of a pit bull or a grizzly bear, you think of strength, independence, ferocity.

I’d love to name one of today’s so-called liberals that could be described as strong, independent, and fierce, but there aren’t any. When attacked, lefties automatically go into whine mode. When in doubt, accuse someone of being a racist and scream that IT’S NOT FAIR!!!!. Then they’ll demand that the government step in to right the injustice, because the notion of handling your own problems for yourself is an idea that lefties just can’t understand.

When you need a nanny state government to take care of you cradle to grave, you can’t exactly then turn around and label yourself as a strong, independent, capable American, can you? People have been laughing at this, because who would ever describe today’s femisogynists as strong, kick-ass women? They probably don’t even understand why people are laughing at them.

A lefty feminazi attack when her cubs are threatened? Ha! Their version of “attacking” would involve a rally for NOW and whining for President Obama to do something.

But that’s only scratching the surface. The EMILY’s List ewoks got an epic fail for more reasons than just unintentional hilarity.

Let’s consider the creepiness of wanting to fight for the right of your daughter to choose. Think about that. They want their daughters to be able to have abortions. There’s something inherently twisted about that.

How could a mother want her daughter to have an abortion, to kill her future grandchild? Abortion is inherently anti-woman. There’s not much more harmful to women than the glorifying of abortion. Abortion actually is in fact harmful. Yet these women see taking away abortion as the number one threat to their daughters? That’s twisted and sick.

On top of that, the hyperbole is disturbing. They claim that if Sarah Palin had her way, health care wouldn’t exist in America … because, you know, before Obamacare was passed, no one had health care in the United States.

They’re for some reason mum on the fact that the Obama administration is trying to decertify Avastin, a breast cancer treatment drug, for cost reasons. But hey, Sarah Palin wants to take away ALL HEALTH CARE. Obama is God, and Sarah Palin is the devil.

Oh, and Sarah Palin (and most conservatives) doesn’t want to take away unemployment benefits. We just don’t want bloat those benefits by putting even more debt onto the shoulders of not only our cubs, but our grandcubs and our great-grandcubs.

Despite all of this, the truth is that yes, Sarah Palin doesn’t speak for these women. Sarah Palin is a pro-life conservative Republican. These women are pro-abortion lefty femisogynists. The major difference? Sarah Palin wouldn’t likely tell these women that they can’t call themselves feminists or that they aren’t true women.

Yet that’s exactly what’s happened to Sarah Palin!

Sarah Palin was told that she wasn’t a real feminist because she wasn’t pro-life. Women who voted Republican were told that they weren’t real women.

The original feminists, like Susan B. Anthony, were pro-life. They didn’t advocated feminist litmus tests or demand that voting women only vote a certain way. Today’s femisogynists couldn’t be further away from what feminists actually stood for, yet they’ve hijacked the movement and sought to silence strong conservative women.

When that didn’t work, they tried to hijack Sarah Palin’s massively successful mama grizzly campaign. Even the XX Factor, Slate‘s so-called feminist blog, called this a win for Sarah Palin. Even people on their own team saw this for what it was: an epic fail for the EMILY’s List ewoks.

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