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PAC PAYS FOR FAMILY VACATION

Sarah Palin’s political action committee spent tens of thousands of dollars paying for her “One Nation” East Coast bus tour. The former governor of Alaska repeatedly called the trip a family vacation. The question is, if it is just a “family vacation,” should it have been paid for by a PAC?

Former presidential candidate Dr. Carl Perrin, for one, sees nothing wrong with the committee paying for Palin’s family vacation. He admits, somewhat ruefully, that he wishes he had come up with the idea himself. The two former candidates have a lot in common. Like the former governor, the retired English professor has not yet formally announced his candidacy for the office of president. Nor has either one of them definitely declined to be considered in the race.

What is obviously behind Perrin’s sentiment on the issue is the thought that if a PAC can pay for Sarah’s vacation, why can’t a PAC for the little trip that Carl has in mind? At the end of this month Carl will be going to North Carolina. It is not strictly a political trip. The Perrin family will be holding a reunion at the time. As Palin did in her “family vacation,” Perrin will probably be saying some political things at the event, mostly grumbling about how the Republicans are ruining the country. So why can’t Perrin use PAC money to finance his “family vacation”?

The problem Perrin has is that he doesn’t have a political action committee. One of the many things that people love about the former professor is that he is not a professional politician. So he doesn’t think about little things like fund raising. However, he is going to start a PAC right now, and use some of its funds to pay for his trip. You can contribute. Just send some money to Perrin’s Pay Pal account. Right now the retiree is worried about what will happen if he doesn’t get his Social Security check on August 3. Your contribution to the Perrin PAC will bring him some peace of mind.

OBAMA IS BEHIND THE BIRTHER CONSPIRACY

Side show performer Donald Trump declared himself proud to have brought the birther conspiracy to a head which resulted in President Obama’s displaying his birth certificate on live television. Sarah Palin had called questions about the president’s birthplace “fair game.” After the president showed the birth certificate, Palin said that Trump had forced the issue. She warned her followers not to be distracted by that but to concentrate on the real issues.

In reference to Obama’s long-form birth certificate, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Preibus said, “It’s maddening and I just wish the president would engage in the real issues that are affecting America.” Former Senator Rick Santorum, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor were among those joining the chorus of insisting that the president should focus on the real issues. It’s difficult to understand how these men can say such things with a straight face after all the clowns who have been braying birther bullshit. The legislature of Arizona sent a bill to the governor which called for all presidential candidates in the state prove their citizenship.

On Alan Colmes' radio show former Colorado congressman Tom Tancredo suggested that the president and Democrats had withheld the birth certificate for so long for their own nefarious reasons: “Now they very well may not want to show it because they want to propagate this whole thing that's going on about birthers. ... They may be doing it for that reason; I don't know why they don't want anyone to see it. ... They want it propagated because you know – “

Colmes responded, “It makes your party look nuts!”

The idea, according to Tancredo, is that Obama withheld his birth certificate until now simply for the purpose of making Republicans look foolish. That is not true. Republicans can look foolish without any help from Barack Obama.

IS PERRIN REALLY SERIOUS?

We hear that former presidential candidate Dr. Carl Perrin is considering another run for the Oval Office. All we can say is, Is the man really serious? Come on, he’s 80 years old. He never makes appointments for anything in the afternoon because it might interfere with his nap. He’s so hard of hearing that he misses half of what people say to him, even when he is wearing his hearing aids! Finally, let’s face it: He’s boring! He wrote several textbooks about business writing and resume writing. How boring is that? He has a web site called “The Grammar Doctor. The Grammar Doctor! Can you imagine how dull that is? He didn’t get a single electoral vote in the 2008 election. Why is he wasting everyone’s time?

Consider some of the other candidates for office:

Mike Huckabee thought that Obama had grown up in Kenya. When someone called him on that misinformation, he tried to pretend it was a slip of the tongue. He really meant to say “Indonesia.”

Michele Bachmann thinks the American Revolution started in Concord, NH, and that the Founding Fathers ended slavery.

Newt Gingrich managed to shut down the government when he was Speaker of the House. He was one of the hypocritical leaders in the fight to impeach President Clinton for his misdeeds with Lewinski, while the speaker himself was cheating on his wife. However, Gingrich’s infidelity was motivated, he said, by patriotism.

Sharon Angle, running for Congress, believes that unemployment is high because people would rather sit on their asses and collect unemployment than go out and get a job. She also is against abortion, even in cases of rape or incest, because everything is “part of God’s plan.”

Sarah Palin’s incoherent prose is matched only by her ignorance of current events.

In comparison Carl Perrin looks pretty good. Despite his age, he has plenty of energy until it is time for his nap. Although a lot of people don’t know him, he did build some name recognition in his first campaign for the presidency. Finally he ran on an issue that is dear to the hearts of American men and women: cheap beer.

MICHELLE BACHMANN FOR PRESIDENT?

Michelle Bachmann went to New Hampshire to honor the state’s citizens because it was in Concord, New Hampshire, where the “shot heard round the world” was fired. Okay, so it was another Concord, the one in Massachusetts where that happened. The media jumped right on it. That should be no surprise because, as Bachmann said, "...as we know all 3,400 members of the mainstream media are part of the Obama press contingent." Whenever a Republican politician says something stupid, it must be blamed on what Sarah Palin calls the “lame stream media.”

The Congresswoman from Minnesota has also informed us that the founders of this country, "worked tirelessly until slavery was no more in the United States." Evidently that doesn’t include men like Washington and Jefferson, who were slave owners. It also misses that fact that it was about four score and seven years later before slavery actually ended.

And what was Ms Bachmann doing in New Hampshire? What does any politician do in the Granite State the year before a presidential election? Yes, she is considering a run for the presidency. Perhaps Michelle and Sarah could run together. They would be a great pair, both darlings of the Tea Party. At least Michelle doesn’t claim she can see Russia from her front porch in Minnesota. Maybe she even knows the difference between North and South Korea, but I wouldn’t bet on it.

HE DID IT FOR HIS COUNTRY

Our hats are off to Newt Gingrich. While he was attacking Bill Clinton for his little fling with the Lewinsky Bimbo, Newt was having a little fling of his own. Yes, the Speaker of the House was having his own affair with Callista, a former congressional aide, while he was still married to the second Mrs. Newt Gingrich.
However, Newt had a good reason to fall from grace. It was caused by his passion for his country. "There's no question at times of my life, partially driven by how passionately I felt about this country, that I worked far too hard and things happened in my life that were not appropriate," he said. Unlike Clinton, who was evidently just randy, Gingrich did it for his country. You have to admire that kind of reasoning.

And everything turned out just fine. Callista became the third Mrs. Newt Gingrich. They now have a great marriage. Newt has asked for God’s forgiveness for mistakes in his past.

While he was Speaker, Gingrich managed to shut down the government and attack Clinton for doing the same thing he was doing. He told his second wife that he wanted a divorce while she was in the hospital recovering from cancer. But what the hell—no one is perfect. At least he’s smarter than Sarah Palin or Mike Huckabee.

SARAH'S SOLUTION

When a journalist asked Sarah Palin how she believed the president has handled the situation in Egypt, she replied, “And nobody yet has, nobody yet has explained to the American public what they know, and surely they know more than the rest of us know who it is who will be taking the place of Mubarak and no, not, not real enthused about what it is that that’s being done on a national level and from D.C. in regards to understanding all the situation there in Egypt.”

You have to admire her ability to put so many words in a single sentence that defies interpretation. It seems to suggest that some unnamed person or persons in Washington through some feat of black magic know who will be taking Mubarak’s place, and these fortune tellers are not going to share their information with anyone. So naturally, some unnamed person (Sarah?) is not real enthused (You ought to check your grammar on those two words, Sarah) about what’s being done on a national level and from D.C. (Where is Wikileaks when we need them?)

Her solution seems to be that the administration just needs to let everyone know what is going to happen in the future. Why didn’t we think of that?

LAUGHING ALL THE WAY TO THE BANK

Some people laughed at Christine O’Donnell’s when she ran for the U. S. Senate from Delaware. She surprised everyone when she won the Republican primary in that state after getting an endorsement from right wing sweetheart Sarah Palin, but in the general election the public laughed at her statements about witchcraft and masturbation. The election wasn’t even close.

Now we learn that she has inked a book deal with St. Martin’s Press. She announced, "The 2010 midterm elections were just the beginning -- the first rumblings of a revolution that has not fully erupted. I plan on making my book one of the revolution's catalysts." The publication is planned for August.

People also laughed when former English professor Dr. Carl Perrin ran for the presidency. They didn’t take it seriously when he came out in favor of cheap beer. Perhaps they won’t consider him so ridiculous if he too gets a book deal. He recognizes that in order to get a publisher to consider him, he needs more name recognition. Perhaps if he not only runs, but gets nominated for something in the next election, he will have a chance.

O’Donnell became a challenger after Sarah Palin endorsed her. Maybe Perrin could get the former governor of Alaska to put in a good word for him. It doesn’t seem likely that Sarah would endorse a liberal like Perrin, but stranger things have happened.

RAPE IS PART OF GOD'S PLAN

Sharron Angle is the Tea Party/Republican candidate for the Senate, running against Senate Majority Leader Harry H Reid. She has learned from the mistakes of other extreme candidates that the best publicity comes from avoiding the press, except of course right wing media like Fox News.

Sarah Palin revealed her insights into world events when she confused the state of Georgia with the Georgia, the former member of the USSR, when she couldn’t think of a single Supreme Court decision that she favored, when she referred to Africa as a country rather than a continent. John McCain’s staff soon kept the press away from her, hoping to teach her in a few weeks what she had failed to learn in the previous 40 years. Rand Paul, another Tea Party favorite, revealed that he wanted to go back to the good old days of segregated lunch counters. While there are probably some benighted people would like to do that, most voters find the thought repulsive.

Angle would like to eliminate the Environmental Protection Agency and “transition out” Social Security, whatever that means. She is against abortions, even in cases of rape or incest. Right wingnuts might eat up that kind of talk, but a lot of voters find it pretty scary. So instead of seeking the media to report her views, she has started to avoid them, answering “no comment” to their questions, and steering clear of interviews. The Tea Party tactic evidently is to keep their ideas secret. Rational citizens will not vote for these people if they know what they really think.

SARAH’S NEW BOOK

Sarah Palin has become a multimillionaire just from the sales of her first book, “Going Rogue.” She makes up to $100,000 a pop for making a speech. She quit her dead-end day job as Governor of Alaska just in time to bring the big bucks rolling in.

Not satisfied with that (and why should she be?) Sarah is bringing out another book in the fall. “America by Heart: Reflections on Family, Faith and Flag” is scheduled to be released in November, just in time to buy it for Christmas. No doubt Harper Collins is giving her a seven-figure advance for her effort. The new book is going to include “selections from classic and contemporary readings that have moved her.” In other words, a lot of the book is just going to be copied from other sources. Furthermore, someone is going to help her put the thing together. She is really getting a sweet deal: Millions of bucks with minimal effort.

In the meantime, Dr. Carl Perrin, who was a little-known candidate in the 2008 presidential race, wrote a book about his own unsuccessful campaign. “My Run for the White House” is taken from entries in this blog. It follows the struggle from the beginning to the bitter end. Photos of Perrin with various women kept popping up, causing people to wonder if he was too much of a good-time guy to be president. One picture shows him with “Natasha,” a woman smoking a cigar and wearing a mustache. Questions arose: Was Natasha a man or a woman? And more serious: Was he/she a Russian spy? Perrin insisted that he never noticed the mustache. Anyway, he claimed that “Natasha” was only a friend. There seemed to be a lot of women who were “only friends.”

Perrin also had problems with haircuts. When John Edwards was paying $400 for a haircut, Perrin was paying only $8. When he posted this on his along with an appeal for funds for a more expensive haircut, people responded by asking where he got his hair cut for only $8.

Fund raising was always a problem for former English professor. His biggest source of funds was from returnable cans and bottles in Maine. Other candidates took money from wherever they could get it, but Dr. Perrin noted that if he were elected, he would owe loyalty only to the people of the United States and not to any special interests. When Hillary Clinton had to return over $800,000 to dubious donors, Perrin announced that he hadn’t had to return any campaign funds.

Various candidates promised everything on a silver platter. Perrin promised only one thing: that he would keep the price of beer affordable. A vote for Perrin, he would say, is a vote for cheap beer.

If the book ever gets published, it is sure to become an instant classic. Publishers to whom Perrin sent queries evidently just laughed and threw the query in the trash. Now that Sarah Palin is bringing in even more money for the books that other people are writing for her, Perrin is beginning to feel desperate. He is going to self published the book and sell it for $10. As soon as he gets 100 orders, he will send the manuscript to the press. If you don’t want to wait that long for your copy of “My Run for the White House,” just send $5 to Perrin’s Paypal account, and he will send you an electronic copy.

MIRROR IMAGES

Former presidential candidate Dr. Carl Perrin likes to think that he and former VP candidate Sarah Palin are opposites in every way. However, even though Perrin would like to deny this, he and Sarah have a lot in common.

The former Alaskan governor talks about stuff like “Obama death panels.” She gets paid big bucks to make a speech to the tea party convention. She’s against everything the Democrats are for. Nevertheless, one of the reasons she attracts so much attention is—let’s face it—she’s hot!

Perrin knows how she feels. Although he is a lot older than Palin, a lot of people think that Perrin himself is pretty hot. “It’s pretty discouraging,” the former English professor says, “when you want to be taken seriously, and women are thinking: Wow! What a hunk!”

Palin campaigns against death panels. Perrin campaigns for cheap beer. People buy Newsweek magazine because it has a picture of Sarah Palin in shorts. People look at Perrin’s blog to see a picture of him in shorts.

Perrin protests that he wants to be taken seriously, but he is realistic. “If people want to vote for me because they think I’m sexy, that’s okay,” he says. “After all, a vote is a vote, no matter what the motivation is.”

CARL PERRIN MAGAZINE

Former presidential candidate Dr. Carl Perrin doesn’t agree with Sarah Palin on many things, but he has to admit he admires her. She got out of that dead-end job of Governor of Alaska when he realized she could make some real money in the media business.

Right away she had someone dash off a book for her to sign. She got a hefty advance for the book Going Rogue, which became an immediate bester seller. Then Fox News started paying her to get on their shows and tell people what real Americans believe. Now she goes to a tea party and gets paid for giving a speech that someone else will probably write for her.

Her latest enterprise is a single-issue magazine, Sarah Palin: the untold story in her own words. The magazine will retail for $8.99 and will be on sale through the end of April. It will contain lots of pictures of the former VP candidate. The magazine cover asks: Can she save America?

Carl Perrin admits that Sarah inspires a lot of envy in him. Her book is a best seller; he can’t even get a publisher for his book My Run for the White House. She gets $100,000 for giving a speech to the tea party. Perrin can’t even get an invitation to give a free speech to the beer party.

Now Perrin is ready to follow Sarah’s lead. He is going to come out with his own single issue magazine, Carl Perrin: the untold story. The cover will feature a flattering picture of Perrin and ask the question: Can he save cheap beer?

It’s going to sell, not for $8.99 but for $7.99. You can order your copy right here. We will start printing as soon as we have 200 paid orders. The first 100 orders will also get an autographed picture of Dr. Carl Perrin.

PAT ROBERTSON IS ENVIOUS

It is clear that the Reverend Pat Robertson is afraid that some right-wing nuts are going to get ahead of him in making outrageous statements. Of course, there are some pretty good contenders for the most outrageous quote. We have Sarah Palin with almost everything she says, particularly her fear that her parents or her baby with Down Syndrome would have to stand in front of “Obama’s death panel.” Then there is Glenn Beck with his description of President Obama as a “racist” who has “hatred for white people.” We can not leave out Rush Limbaugh who said that he wanted everything that President Obama is doing “to fail.”

Robertson tried to get back in the lead of the outrageous gang by claiming that the devastation of the earthquake in Haiti was caused by the country’s “pact with the devil.” After 9/11 the Reverend Jerry Falwell (May he rest in peace) was on Robertson's television show. Falwell charged (and Robertson agreed with him) that that attack came about because God was angry. He was angry because of "the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way—all of them who have tried to secularize America”

What kind of sick mind blames the victim of all that death and destruction? What kind of twisted thinking looks at all that suffering and devastation and blames it on the stricken people? Don’t people like Robertson and Falwell (may he rest in peace) have any sympathy in their hearts? Don’t they have any compassion in their minds? Don’t they have any Christian charity in their soul?

PERSON OF THE YEAR

By now former presidential candidate Dr. Carl Perrin is used to being snubbed by Time magazine. Once again the magazine overlooked him when they named Ben Bernanke Person of the Year. Perrin wasn’t even among the also-rans, which included General McChrystal, “The Chinese Worker,” Nancy Pelosi, and some runner guy from Jamaica.

The online version of Time listed a bunch of “People Who Mattered” in 2009. The list included Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, and Joe (You Lie) Wilson. Evidently it doesn’t matter whether you tell the truth or not as long as what you say is outrageous enough. Olympia Snowe was on the list. We have to admit, she is one of the few semi-sane Republican members of Congress.

Jon and Kate Gosselin made the list. What did they do? Have a bunch of kids and then get divorced. Hey, Perrin says, Been there, did that. Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart of “Twilight” were chosen. Perrin was writing vampire stories before they were even born. That clean-cut American athlete, Tiger Woods was on the list.

Dr Carl Perrin was a candidate for the presidency in 2007 and 2008. Has that been forgotten already? Time magazine can go to hell. Perrin has his own little media empire. He publishes the monthly journal, Leisure Times. He maintains the web site, The Leisure Village Voice, and he has his blog, Grammaticus. Through this media empire, he reaches a lot of people. Perhaps Time magazine won’t find it so easy to ignore him next year when they pick the Person of the Year.

SARAH ENVY

Dr. Carl Perrin admits that he is envious of Sarah Palin. With the help of a professional writer, she managed to grind out her book, Going Rogue, in four months. She received a seven-figure advance for the work, which was a best seller before it even came out in the bookstores. Right now she is on a book tour, where fans line up to see her and get an autographed copy of her book.

Going Rogue gets even with everyone who did her dirt during her vice presidential campaign: Katie Couric, John McCain’s staff, and the liberal media. There is widespread talk about Palin as the Republican candidate for president in the next election. Democrats are hoping that she will be the candidate. Despite her enthusiastic followers, most of the electorate consider her a poor choice for the presidency.

Dr. Perrin feels that all this is very well and good, but it seems unfair that Ms. Palin can dash off a book so easily, get such a big advance, and have the book become a best seller. Perrin’s book, My Run for the White House, has not even found a publisher yet. His book, which is made up from excerpts from this blog, is sure to be a best seller too, if any publisher had sense enough to take it. The next time you go to a bookstore, you might ask if they have My Run for the White House. If enough people ask, some publisher is sure to pick it up.

On a final note, this week’s Newsweek has a picture of Sarah wearing running shorts on its cover. She pretends to be upset by this, claiming that the picture is sexist. Be that as it may, the picture above left shows that the former governor of Alaska is not the only one who looks good in shorts.

DINNER WITH SARAH

Sarah Palin is auctioning off a dinner date with herself and her husband Todd. The bids on eBay start at $25,000, but the winner does not necessarily get dinner with Sarah and Todd. “Governor Palin reserves the right to refuse dinner with a winning bidder if, in her sole discretion, the winning bidder is not a suitable bidder based on her subjective standards of suitability, professionalism, background and other factors.” In other words, if she doesn’t like your politics, you don’t get the date, even though you have paid at least $25,000. If you are rejected, your money will be refunded, and the next highest bidder will get the invitation. And the background check.

Retired English professor and presidential candidate Dr. Carl Perrin thinks this is one of the best ideas Sarah has had yet. He’s going to try the same thing. The opening bid for dinner with Perrin will be just $100. You can’t go wrong. Dinner will be at any pizza joint in Ocean County, NJ, as long as it serves beer.

The money raised from dinner with Sarah is going to a charity, Ride 2 Recovery. Any money raised from the dinner with Perrin auction, on the other hand, will go toward buying cheap beer for Perrin.

Sarah is screening bidders so she won’t have to eat with a liberal. Perrin is placing no such restriction on his auction. If the high bidder starts yakking away like a right wing nutcase, Perrin will just shut off his hearing aid.

PRESIDENT TO TALK TO STUDENTS

OMG, on September 8 the President is going to talk to American students about the importance of education and the importance of staying in school! Help! Help! The sky is falling!

Even though George H. W. Bush and Ronald Reagan gave speeches that were broadcast over public television to a number of school districts, some Republicans believe that Barack Obama’s speech is an obvious attempt to brainwash America’s school children. According to this view, if President Obama speaks to school children, it must be some kind of liberal plot. A spokeswoman for the Florida Republican Party says the President should not be telling children what to do. Evidently that means he shouldn’t be telling them to stay in school. Why doesn’t Obama take a cue from George W. Bush, who was in school listening to children read on 9/11? After he was told about the attack on the twin towers, Bush stayed in the class for another half hour. Perhaps he just wanted to know how the story ended.

If the President is allowed to talk to America’s students, the networks ought to allow Sarah or Rush or some other right wing nut to respond. They can tell the Republican point of view: Education ain’t going to do you no good nohow.

We can understand why Republican think that way. If kids get too much education, they won’t fall for right wing bullshit anymore.

REPUBLICANS ON HEALTH CARE

Rush is screaming that the proposed health care logo looks like a Nazi symbol. What is the point of that? Does it mean that the attempt to spread health care to more Americans is somehow related to the Nazis? Others are yelling that the ideas being put forth by the Democrats are really socialized medicine. So which is it? Are the Democrats supposed to be Nazis or Socialists?

Now the Republicans are sending goons to disrupt meetings where members of Congress are trying to get ideas from the people about health care. That’s really democracy in action: disrupt exchanges of information on one of the most important issues of the day.

And Sarah—God bless her—is charging that the president’s health plan is “downright evil.” She says, "The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama's 'death panel' so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their 'level of productivity in society,' whether they are worthy of health care."

Where do these people get their ideas? How could anyone think of her as a plausible candidate for the presidency of the United States?

REPUBLICAN GOVERNORS

Where is South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford? He is so tired after trying to refuse money from the federal government for education and economic stimulus that he’s just worn out. So he’s hiking along the Appalachian Trial, communing with nature, and renewing himself spiritually. So what if the state police, the lieutenant governor, and his wife don’t know where he is. He just needed to get away.

No! That’s not it at all. He took a quick trip to Argentina, no doubt on some kind of state business.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney denies that Sanford conferred with him about some good undisclosed locations to go to.

Oh no! He was in Argentina, but instead of state business, it was monkey business! It turns out he was having a little fling with someone he met in Argentina a year ago when he went there on an economic development trip. He is resigning as head of the Republican Governors Association. A few months ago some crazies were talking about Sanford as a Republican candidate for the presidency in the next election. I guess that’s all over now.

Meanwhile Alaska Governor Sarah Palin got some “great news for Alaska.” The Supreme Court said it was okay for an Alaskan gold mine to dump waste into nearby Lower Slate Lake, even though the dumping will kill all the fish in the lake.

Palin is calling on other polluters to dump their crap into Alaska’s lakes. She says the Supreme Court’s ruling is "is a green light for responsible resource development."

WELL, SHUT MY MOUTH!

What a shame! Ann Coulter had a bad fall last month and fractured her jaw. Now her jaw is wired shut. Does that mean we aren’t going to be able to hear her tell how liberals are conspiring to turn the country over to terrorists? That Democrats are trying to undermine the moral character of the country? That progressives are planning to sell out the nation? Who is going to tell us that we are going to hell in a hand basket now that the Democrats are going to gain power in Washington? Is this the end?

I almost forgot. We still have Sarah. Yes, Sarah Palin can tell the country that the president-elect pals around with terrorists. That when the Ruskies attack, they will hit Alaska first. That she needs some more clothes from Saks Fifth Avenue. That she is prepared to be president in 2012. Thank God. For a minute I thought the country would be in trouble without Ann warning us against the danger from liberals.