Sarah Palin crashes Obama fundraiser

Jessica Chisum as Sarah Palin at the gObama benefit party last Saturday evening.

President George W. Bush and Alaska’s Governor Sarah Palin made for an unlikely addition to over 150 attendees at “gObama,” a Barack Obama fundraiser last Saturday night in the Mount Washington neighborhood of Los Angeles, resulting in $3,300 in donations for the Obama campaign.

Lindsey Walker tells me after she and her boyfriend Chris Goodson moved into the rented Mount Washington home they began brainstorming ways to utilize its three backyard patios for events and other small functions, Initially thinking a film festival or poetry reading, after the idea of an Obama fundraiser was brought up, it stuck.

“It was finally something bigger than all of us individually that moved us to act,” Walker said. “This campaign has created a connection between people that I haven’t seen since 911 – where complete strangers can comfortably recognize each other on the street because of the symbol of Barack Obama.”

Six weeks of planning and “strategery” followed, with friend Jessica Pregnolato and Lindsey’s sister Hilary joining the team.

Emceed by comedian Lauren Weedman, the resulting event featured music from the US Mail Band, DJ Nick Romaniak, the Eric Layer Band, Joe Green and the Heavy Steppers, and Silver Phial.

Additional entertainment included a video by Radical Lyons (Peter Darchuk), and the aforementioned visit by George W Bush (aka Chris Goodson) and Governor Sarah Palin (aka Jessica Chisum). In spite of being impersonators, the crowd spared no expense booing the two and challenging them with questions that would have unprintable even on the Daily Kos. Chisum, who also hails from Alaska, demonstrated her perfect Palin accent as she proudly showed off her son Trig swaddled in a bear pelt.

A photo booth by theatrical set designer Gary Smoot was set up where attendees could put their faces into the infamous Obama New Yorker cover, while more professional portraits could be taken by the We Are the Ones Project, who have been taking photos of Obama supporters across the nation. Finally, attendees who wanted to send Obama a message could be interviewed at the video booth.

Guests get a pic “fisting” as the evening’s George W Bush called it.

More photos below…

Lesser Baldwin brother threatens to leave U.S…. if Obama wins.

Traditionally, it’s liberal Hollywood types threatening to move to another country if Republican is voted President, but this time a conservative actor is willing to abandon the United States if a Democrat wins. Stephen Baldwin told Fox News that if Barack Obama wins in November, he’s so outta here.

If you recall, Alec Baldwin allegedly vowed to leave the US if Bush won in 2000, a claim he has always denied (before and after that election). Alas, perhaps seeing the undue publicity it brought his brother, Stephen figured he has nothing to lose. And considering none of the previous celebrities who have made such promises ever followed through on them, he can safely assume nobody will take him seriously.

Is Amazon.com trying to suppress books critical of the Bush Administration?

UPDATE 5/29/08: After numerous complaints by customers, Amazon has made this book available via Prime. As documented on an Amazon message board, numerous customers experienced the same runaround as I did it, being told it wasn’t available for being oversized, only later to be told that the book was mistaken listed as not eligible for Amazon Prime due to a combination of computer and human errors. Considering this book rocketed to number one and has been a front page news item for days, I still find the whole situation highly suspect. The Bugliosi book is also now available for Prime.

I use Amazon.com enough that I pay an extra $80 or so per year to be a “Prime” member, allowing for free, 2 day shipping on just about anything. The exception tends to be toys, appliances, and other items that aren’t sold and/or shipped directly from Amazon, but even then it’s rare for an item to fall outside of being Prime.

However, I’ve never, ever seen a new book listed as “not eligible for Amazon Prime” at least until not over the past few days.

The two books are both high critical of the Bush Administration. The first is Vincent Bugliosi’s The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder, which I wrote about a few days ago. The second is former White House press secretary Scott McClellan’s What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception.

A search of other political issue related non-fiction books on Amazon’s Top 100 found no other books listed as “not eligible for Amazon Prime.”

Vincent Bugliosi: George W. Bush deserves the death penalty

Vincent Bugliosi, the former LA County prosecutor who infamously convicted Charles Manson (which he wrote about in his bestseller, Helter Skelter), is now laying out a case for murder against President Bush, suggesting no less than a sentence of death.

In an excerpt of from his new book, The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder, on the Huffington Post, *Bugliosi criticizes left wing pundits and the average man on the street for arguing that Bush may have misled or even lied to the public to create support for the war in Iraq, but not demanding consequences beyond being more skeptical the next time around.

…in America, we apparently impeach presidents for having consensual sex outside of marriage and trying to cover it up. If we impeach presidents for that, then if the president takes the country to war on a lie where thousands of American soldiers die horrible, violent deaths and over 100,000 innocent Iraqi civilians, including women and children, even babies are killed, the punishment obviously has to be much, much more severe. That’s just common sense…

…For anyone interested in true justice, impeachment alone would be a joke for what Bush did. [from HuffPo]

I get the feeling he’d take this case pro bono… imagine the amount of publicity and how it would help the book sales!

*Which is being posted as a blog entry for some odd reason.

Oliver Stone declines to give personal opinion of Prez Bush

In related news, the temperature of Hell lowered by ten degrees.

While discussing his upcoming biopic on George W Bush, Stone decline comment when asked his opinion of the President:

“I can’t give you that, because the filmmaker has to hide in the work,” Stone said. “Here, I’m the referee, and I want a fair, true portrait of the man.” [Daily Variety]

He then went on to say the film would answer how Bush went “from an alcoholic bum to the most powerful figure in the world?”

Josh Brolin will play Bush, and it was just announced today that Elizabeth Brooks – the very naughty book store clerk from “40 Year Old Virgin” – will play former librarian Laura Bush. [Huffington Post]