It’s not nice to leave hundreds of people who waited in the rain and cold for hours, high and dry.  Sarah Palin hightailed it out of an Indianapolis event before many of her heartbroken fans could get their books signed.  Not that she’d intentionally ever quit something too early.   In addition to the video of dejected former admirers, Rumproast shows angry comments it says were taken from Palin’s Facebook page.

A new billboard off of Interstate 70 in Missouri provides a short “citizens guide to REVOLUTION of a corrupt government” and issues a call to “PREPARE FOR WAR.”

(h/t ThinkProgress)

This billboard replaces one that warned that the socialist “Obama-Nation” is “coming for you.” It’s unclear who the owner of the billboard is, but the first one was the work of a “Missouri businessman.”

While it’s unclear who owns it, the Lafayette County Republican Central Committee seems to endorse it.

• As the Senate nears a critical vote on health care, Alan explains why conservative conservative criticisms of the cost of reform have no merit.

• Spritual guru Deepak Chopra, whose latest book is The Ultimate Happiness Prescription, discusses how people can still find happiness in troubled times.

• It’s the Friday Night Free-For-All!

Talking Points Memo counts the ways Republicans believe Obama is willing us to die.

4. Surrendering the war on terror

3. Daring the terrorist to attack us again

2. Allowing Muslims to walk around like “regular” Americans

1. Trading safety for good paying government jobs

Utah State Sen. Chris Buttars may be against gay marriage, but he does believes gays should not face discrimination from employers and landlords.  But he doesn’t want gays adopting children.  And he once proclaimed that gays “are the greatest threat to America going down.” So he’s got patchwork quilt of views on gays. As he says, “I don’t want ‘em stuffing it down my throat all the time.  Certainly not in my kid’s face.” 

(via Think Progress)

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani who, it is rumored, may be seeking the Senate seat now held by Kirsten Gillibrand, had no problem with our criminal justice system when it prosecuted Zacharias Moussouai in a trial where the one-time presidential candidate was called as a witness.  During that 2006 trial Rudy sang a very different tune, as Chris Wallace reminds him: (h/t Crooks and Liars)

Rudy Giuliani in 2006: “At the same time, I was in awe of our system,” the former mayor continued. “It does demonstrate that we can give people a fair trial, that we are exactly what we say we are. We are a nation of law. . .I think he’s going to be a symbol of American justice.”

But now that a Democratic administration is going to conduct civilian trials it’s simply “to satisfy left-wing critics,” says Giuliani.

Gene Lyons in Salon wonders how we can afford $1 million per solider per year for war, but the same people who have no trouble with $6.73 trillion for fighting in Afghanistan are stingy when it comes to spending money for health care.  (via Crooks and Liars)

Almost every time you turn on the television, somebody’s carrying on about the projected trillion-dollar cost of Democratic health-insurance reforms — derived by multiplying the $100 billion yearly cost by 10, and often by ignoring the projected $11 billion yearly savings to the U.S. budget deficit.

Pentagon spending this year alone, however, columnist David Sirota points out, is projected at $673 billion, for a 10-year total of $6.73 trillion. That’s assuming costs don’t rise. (Fat chance.) Giving McChrystal the soldiers he wants, along with training and equipping an Afghan army of dubious loyalty, is projected to cost an additional $40 billion to $50 billion each year. Yet nobody’s supposed to ask how anything that happens in that remote land could possibly justify the costs.

Is Afghanistan really a threat?

Are the barbarians at the gates? Hardly. There are no battlefronts, no standing armies, and no immediate military threat to the United States. U.S. intelligence estimates that maybe 100 ragtag al-Qaida fighters remain scattered across the Afghan outback.

But there’s money to be made with war.  Remember that no-bid contract for Iraq?

Oprah Winfrey will end her talk show on September 9, 2011 and focus on her new cable channel, the Oprah Winfrey Network, or OWN.

OWN will have its premiere on cable in January 2011, according to a person with knowledge of Ms. Winfrey’s decision who insisted on anonymity. That timeline will theoretically give Ms. Winfrey about nine months to promote her cable channel on her existing show.

The show began syndication in 1986 and is regarded as the most successful show in syndication, with an audience of 7 million viewers a day.

Fred Thompson says the Afghanistan war has been lost, and nothing President Obama does will make a difference because he doesn’t have the will to win it. He also accuses the president of emboldening our enemies.

“It really doesn’t matter how President Obama divides the Afghan baby, how he splits the difference between McChrystal and Biden. Because the war has been lost,” Thompson said on his radio show today. “I say this because of one sad and simple fact. The president does not have the will and determination to do what’s necessary to win it. His heart’s not in it, and never has been. The Taliban knows it. Al Qaeda knows it. Our allies know it. And the American people know it.

“Our enemies are now emboldened and our friends are discouraged. We cannot prevail if the American people are not willing to make the sacrifices necessary for an extended effort. The case has not been made to them to justify this effort. The case can only be made by the president. This president is unable or unwilling to make that case,” Thompson said.

However, on a show that I’m slightly familiar with, “Hannity and Colmes,” Thompson attacked Senator Harry Reid on May 1, 2007, when Reid said the Iraq war was lost, agreeing with a woman questioning how Reid could say such a thing when there are troops in the field.

THOMPSON: Well, let’s talk about Senator Reid for a moment. Right before I came over here, I was sitting outside, getting a bite to eat, before we did our interview. A young woman [former Army captain] came up and asked if she could sit down and talk to me a minute. . . . I asked her what she thought about this. She said, “How in the world can anyone, any one of our leaders, declare war, declare that the war has been lost when we’ve got troops in the field? My friends are over there in the field. I know what they think about this.”

And, of course, it’s just like all other Americans think. The very idea that they would do this and undercut our efforts over there is unprecedented. And it’s not only unprecedented; it’s awful politics.

Thompson then even used the same language about Harry Reid he’s now using on Obama, accusing Reid of “encouraging our enemies.”

After months of dithering on the issue, former New York mayor and presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani has decided not to run for governor of New York.  Many Republicans may be disappointed with this decision, as he is the highest profile GOP-er likely to seek the post.

It was not clear what prompted the decision, but the prospect of potentially facing Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo, who is quietly planning his own run for governor, may not have appealed to Mr. Giuliani, who suffered a bruising defeat in the 2008 Republican presidential primary. While many political analysts believe Mr. Giuliani would have comfortably beaten Gov. David A. Paterson, he would likely have faced an uphill battle against Mr. Cuomo, one of the most popular politicians in the state.

Giulian’s camp has not confirmed the decision not to run.