Meet my friend Nerdette.

Oh, and Governor Palin…Heart called. They want their song back.

And step away from the Detroit Red Wings sweater.

I mean it.

Or I’ll have to bust out my math on just how much money it takes to be a hockey mom. What with ice time and equipment and all. I’ll have to talk about how it’s the most expensive sport for a kid to play and how most American families couldn’t possibly afford to let their children be rink rats. You know, it’s kind of elitist, really. (thanks to my hockey playing dad for reminding me)

Suzanne at BlogHer nails it.

Stefania and the Thompson Twins take apart Palin’s speech piece by piece. Classic.

Dear conservatives, you might want to check your own backyard.

Sarah Palin’s record on how she supports special needs children (or not). There is a big blogosphere fight brewing over this one, with the primary issue seeming to be a program called “Alaska Challenge Youth Academy” – Conservatives claim it resulted in an increase in funding for education for special needs children, progressives are claiming its not a special needs program, therefore the budget remained stagnate or cut. Fight it out amongst yourselves.

Something to think about while you watch tonight’s ‘Tribute to Cindy McCain.’

I said on CNN this morning we didn’t hear anything about the ISSUES last night…apparently I wasn’t alone.

and finally…this clip sums up what I’ve been sputtering to tell a cable news audience for 48 hours. Amen Jon, Amen.

Let’s not talk about the kid…let’s talk about policy and politics. Forget WHY we are having this discussion, but we still need to have this discussion. And while we’re at it, let’s talk abstinence only education, family leave, affordable child care, and yes…funding for programs for teenage mothers.

From the Washington Post: h/t reader The Truffle-

By Paul Kane
ST. PAUL — Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the Republican vice-presidential nominee who revealed Monday that her 17-year-old daughter is pregnant, earlier this year used her line-item veto to slash funding for a state program benefiting teen mothers in need of a place to live.

After the legislature passed a spending bill in April, Palin went through the measure reducing and eliminating funds for programs she opposed. Inking her initials on the legislation — “SP” — Palin reduced funding for Covenant House Alaska by more than 20 percent, cutting funds from $5 million to $3.9 million. Covenant House is a mix of programs and shelters for troubled youths, including Passage House, which is a transitional home for teenage mothers.

According to Passage House’s web site, its purpose is to provide “young mothers a place to live with their babies for up to eighteen months while they gain the necessary skills and resources to change their lives” and help teen moms “become productive, successful, independent adults who create and provide a stable environment for themselves and their families.”

Palin’s own daughter, Bristol, is five months pregnant and has plans to wed.

…but conservative bloggers are up in arms over this Palin pregnancy thing and trying to tell me liberal bloggers are …wait…let me find it…

What’s disturbing about both the rumors– originated at Daily Kos on Friday– and the way the Left has already been going after Palin and Bristol is that there’s an
obviously anti-woman streak in it. “Palin can’t campaign because she has a special needs baby!” “Palin can’t possibly run for VP while her daughter is going through a major life transition!” “Palin endangered her baby by being governor while pregnant!”

Really, guys? So a highly capable woman with a strong support network and great family is supposed to lay aside the greatest opportunity of her career because she has a family in which normal challenges have to be overcome? The Left is more than happy to abandon all its “I am woman, hear me roar” rhetoric as soon as it meets a woman whose roar it doesn’t like. The Left is more than happy to abandon the
“right to privacy” as long as prying is politically beneficial.- Mary Katharine Ham, BlogHer

I’m sorry but I need to pick my jaw up off the floor here for a minute and bring everyone back to the land of NOT CRAZY, where conservatives normally don’t call the left ‘anti-woman’ and call out sexism.

I would argue, their candidate is the leader of the anti-woman rhetoric and any fringe nut-jobs on the left saying anything remotely ‘anti-woman’ have already been tossed to our liberal curb. You know, where we keep the rest of the Rush-type women haters.

I mean really…are you trying to out “pro”woman the Democrats simply because you’re running a woman? Seriously? Really? When you vote down things like family leave and family planning? SERIOUSLY? The party pushing us to back alley abortions and freaking out over condoms in schools? The one totally fine with the idea women don’t really need equal pay they just need more education and training? The one, as my husband just reminded me, trying to re-classify birth control as abortion?What the hell kind of drugs are you people doing?

How about we all take a deep breathe and review, shall we? I need to take a deep breathe here.

In through the nose, out through the mouth….

From David Greenberg, the president and CEO of Planned Parenthood in Oregon-

John McCain is one of only a few Senators to earn a Zero percent lifetime rating from Planned Parenthood’s Action Fund, and he only scored that high because the organization doesn’t have a lower rating…. Let’s look at his record:

He voted against requiring health care plans to cover birth control (3/22/03).

He voted against comprehensive, medically accurate sex education (7/25/06).

He voted against international family planning funding (3/14/96).

He voted against funding to prevent teen and unintended pregnancies (3/17/05).

He voted against public education for emergency contraception (3/17/05).

And he voted against restoring Medicaid funding that could be used for family planning for low-income women (3/17/05).

NPR reported (2/2/08) that, “Many Republican voters seem to believe, incorrectly, that the current Republican front-runner, Arizona Senator John McCain, supports abortion rights.”

John McCain wants us to believe that he’s a moderate who supports improving the health of women in the United States, but in fact he’s among the most extreme members of Congress who voted against common sense measures on family planning, sex education and access to basic healthcare.

So while we’ve got a couple of asshole bloggers who should in no way be associating themselves with a Democratic platform, you’ve got a candidate and running mate poised to set the women’s movement back 50 years. You understand asshole bloggers right? I seem to recall a few that blog for your candidate that the campaign has totally disassociated with too….

Anyway…back to the women’s movement thing.

Is there a women’s movement that involves the beliefs of McCain/Palin and those family values I keep hearing so much about? Sure, it’s from 1950 and still allowed under today’s society and even under a Democratic administration.

Let me be clear. I’m thrilled to see you on the anti-sexism, pro-woman bandwagon. There is room for all. I’m entirely confused by you here, and don’t really understand why you’re sticking around. Maybe those McCain stances above will help remind you of where your candidate stands. I’d dig a bit into that VP candidate of yours too, since you’re so interested in making sure we women-folk are treated so well. I highly recommend you go check out MOMocrats meme today entitled “Palin in Comparison” in which they dismantle, issue by issue, the farce that is McCain’s VP pick.

While you do that, I have to go approve Patrick Ruffini as a Facebook friend now. Because apparently the world is upside down and I am smoking crack.

Gustav is bearing down on the Gulf Coast as Republicans travel to Minnesota.

There is talk of postponing the convention. Talk of turning events into a day of service to help victims. Talk of Senator John McCain delivering his acceptance speech from a disaster zone.

My emotions are rising.

Want to be let in on the talk I hear?

People are remembering Katrina.

People are remembering the inaction of an administration.

People are reminded of their loss

People are reminded of the scene.

The chaos.

The racism.

The Bush Administration.

The government.

The failure.

I can think of nothing more powerful to get millions of undecided voters angrily and passionately to the polls in November- government, a hurricane, the gulf coast.

From Mother Jones:

But McCain’s record on Hurricane Katrina suggests that he was part of the problem, not the solution. McCain was on Face the Nation on August 28, 2005, as Katrina gathered in the Gulf Coast. He said nothing about it. One day later, when Katrina made landfall in Louisiana, McCain was on a tarmac at Luke Air Force Base in Arizona, greeting President Bush with a cake in celebration of McCain’s 69th birthday. Three days later, with the levees already breached and New Orleans filling with water, McCain’s office released a three-sentence statement urging Americans to support the victims of the hurricane.

Though McCain issued a statement the next week calling on Congress to make sacrifices in order to fund recovery efforts, he was quoted in The New Leader on September 1 cautioning against over-spending in support of Katrina’s victims. “We also have to be concerned about future generations of Americans,” he said. “We’re going to end up with the highest deficit, probably, in the history of this country.”

That attitude was borne out in McCain’s actions and votes. Forty Senators and 100 members of Congress visited New Orleans before he did; he finally got there in March 2006. He voted against establishing a Congressional commission to examine the Federal, State, and local responses to Katrina in med-September 2005. He repeated that vote in 2006. He voted against allowing up to 52 weeks of unemployment benefits to people affected by the hurricane, and in 2006 voted against appropriating $109 billion in supplemental emergency funding, including $28 billion for hurricane relief.

Shortly after the disaster in New Orleans, McCain did introduce a bill that sought to improve communications mechanisms for first-responders and authorities. The bill failed to go anywhere, and McCain later voted against other bills that had similar provisions.

McCain may talk sympathetically about New Orleans’ recovery this week, but the record shows that when it mattered most, McCain failed to act. His passion for fiscal conservatism blinded him to a city and a region in need, and his Time for Action is simply too late.

Yeah, go ahead and give your speech from a hurricane ravaged area or have our favorite GOP Congressmembers filling sand bags.

It will serve as one hell of a reminder of an abomination I want never repeated in this country, and of my still raw emotions. A reminder on why, among many other reasons, I’ll be voting Obama.

May everyone on the Gulf Coast and those affected by this storm be safe and well.

I want to see more women in office. I want to see more women running for office.

I also want them to be Democrats.

If John McCain is counting on half of the country’s population to vote based on gender, he obviously missed the Democratic primary.

One of my favorite reactions to the Palin pick came from Alaska’s Lyda Green,

State Senate President Lyda Green said she thought it was a joke when someone called her at 6 a.m. to give her the news.
“She’s not prepared to be governor. How can she be prepared to be vice president or president?” said Green, a Republican from Palin’s hometown of Wasilla. “Look at what she’s done to this state. What would she do to the nation?”

I can’t wait for a classic McCain misspeak or failed joke that involves Palin. You know it’s coming. And I’m COUNTING on my feminist friends to step up and speak out.

I’m still laughing at this VP pick. LAUGHING.

If you want the woman vote so bad…you might want to talk issues, policy, and address our concerns- Not offer us a gun-toting, anti-choice, under indictment investigation Governor.

Although maybe once the evangelicals catch wind of her balancing work and family, and people become outraged that she is a woman running for office…maybe then we can have a real discussion in her party’s base about those “family values” they like to push. Maybe then it will be “ok” since she isn’t a baby-killing lesbian hippie.

So thanks John McCain, thanks for picking a woman as your running mate so America can (once again) have these discussions. Let’s talk about equal pay, maternity leave, and affordable child care. Let’s talk about misogyny and the old boys club and the names you call your wife.

Let’s talk about your rape jokes and your offering up your wife for a topless contest and your belief I need more education and training.

I can’t wait. Welcome McCain-Palin and the discussion you will bring to American kitchen tables.

BlogHer’s DNC team is exhausted after days of blogging and endless events. All of it culminated tonight at Mile High Stadium where Senator Barack Obama accepted the Democratic nomination for president.

I’ve compiled some of the moments from inside Invesco below in video and photos.

The Democrats are having a party, and far be it from me to miss a party.

You can catch most of my coverage here and at BlogHer- but keep your eye close on BlogHer, we’ve got some amazing things in store.

I have an N95 and will be live streaming on Qik.com.

Katy Chen will be shooting the video as Maria NIles and I talk to those attending, those covering, those speaking, and those partying at the Democratic National Convention.

My twitter stream will keep you up to date on my whereabouts, and – as always – there will be some surprises.

Will Erin get to Hug It Out, with Hillary?

Meet BlogHer’s latest contributor?

Freak out in conversation with other Moms as her son adjusts to Kindergarten while she’s away?

Give a #suckit laptop sticker to Joe Lieberman? Oh..that will have to wait for the following week when she travels to Minneapolis – Saint Paul…

Let’s not forget the parties either.

Who doesn’t want to see a live stream of Queen of Spain and Mayor McHottie & Sarah Silverman,  at a Google-Vanity Fair party, or hanging with T. Boone Pickens??? At a DEMOCRATIC EVENT. Dude, he’s in the BIG TENT.

Did I mention I’m speaking in the Big Tent just before these guys? Yeah, DiggNation Townhall can try and follow MOI.

All that and more!

…and hopefully I’ll stop talking in the third person, too.

update: I will OF COURSE be at the Rocky Mountain Blogger Bash too! (thanks for the reminder to the coughing woman in my comments.  tee hee hee)

update II: PLEASE come see me at MOMocrats today. It’s IMPORTANT!

Hi.

I’m Erin. I’m no one really, just another voter with a blog.

Seems you’re going to be our next Vice President.

Good job.

I need you to do something for me though, ok? It’s something I’m pretty terrible at-but I’m guessing with all your experience you’ll be ok.

Don’t say anything stupid.

I know, mistakes happen.  And your record and years of service make you more than worthy for this position.

But Dude…between you and I….you say some crazy shit every once in a while.

I say some crazy shit sometimes too, so I understand. But I’m also not a Senator, or Vice President of the United States.

Your resume is outstanding, you’re said to be a helluva guy. I hear I’m going to LOVE your wife.

But if you have another oratory oopsie with racial overtones, I think your boss might kick your ass.

Oh, and I will too.

I’ve been working on my rhetoric, and keeping things non-offensive and sane and fair…so how about you try too?

Maybe we can work on it together.

See you in Denver, Senator.

xoxoxo,

Erin Kotecki Vest

It’s not paid for.

We have a mortgage like the rest of the world (minus the McCain family) and we currently couldn’t sell the damn thing without losing our shirts.

Our pants too.

Maybe both shoes as well.

My brother does not own a home. He lives here with us, in the ONE house we own. He couldn’t really afford to live on his own, even though he has a nice job and makes good money. He’ll be moving out when he and his girlfriend have two incomes and can afford a place together. It’s really the only way to go…roommates and what not.

My parents own one home as well. It currently has a sink hole. I wonder if any of John McCain’s houses have sink holes?

My brother-in-law does not own a home. His family is in an apartment in Germany while he’s in Iraq. So I’m pretty sure they know exactly how many houses they own.

We also own two cars, although we’re still paying for one of them.

But I’m very certain we only own one house.

I can tell you how many tv’s we own too. But I think we’re just counting the big, big stuff.

Like houses.

Those are pretty easy to keep track of. Like, say, when the mortgage bill comes at the begining of he month. Or the second mortgage bill comes at the middle of the month.

Property taxes are due in November.

Insurance bill comes every month.

Home owners association every three months.

Yeah, totally easy to keep track of exactly how many homes I own.

How about you?