[Avondale, Arizona; November 15. Image via Getty]

AVONDALE, AZ - NOVEMBER 15: A fan takes a photograph during the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Checker O'Reilly Auto Parts 500 at Phoenix International Raceway on November 15, 2009 in Avondale, Arizona. (Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images)

MEGAN: It's good to have the old gang back together! We should make it a point to talk about ass fucking.

JIM: Please. Please no ass fucking. What a disgusting act. But yes, hello, Megan and friends here at the Jezebel.

MEGAN: I'm sorry that the bad man did that to you that time. But that doesn't mean no one likes it.

JIM: HAHAHA WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?? Tell me a political story.

MEGAN: Sort of like I'm sorry that that Michelle had to submit to The Chin last night. Or the fact that "no one really knows how often electronic voting machines fail. The Election Assistance Commission—an independent governmental agency charged with establishing election standards—doesn't collect comprehensive statistics on failure rates".

JIM: Hmm, is J. Crew a "good" political brand for Michelle Obama to sport, or does it make her seem fancy? Here's my answer: no one cares.

MEGAN: That's because a dude tells us it's sexist to care. Which I guess makes all women sexist. Because I was like, what happened to White House Black Market?

JIM: All this talk about voter irregularities. I'm led to believe that if I vote for Obama (btw, I'm not voting because I live in DC which will go 143% for Obama; sue me) a robot will jump out of a broken computer screen and chop off my head with acorns. There's way too much of this conspiratorial malarkey going around. Everyone knows that people will vote and whatever happens, George Bush will somehow win again.

MEGAN: And we will all thank our robot overlords, bowing and scraping to their king, Dick Cheneybot 9000.

JIM: This is never an auspicious start: "Republican [figure] called the media 'sexist' Monday..."

MEGAN: But that is how everything starts now! Republicans care about us laydeez and how sexism affects our daily lives, like when we read media stories about Sarah Palin's clothes. Just not, you know, when we want insurance to cover our birth control or our bosses to pay us the same as our male colleagues doing the same work. That's just silly. Also, did you know that the head of the RNC was some guy named Mike Duncan? Didn't it used to be, like, famous Republicans and shit? No wonder their brand sucks.

JIM: Yes, Ed Gillespie was the most famous person alive when he ran that little chop shop. I have no idea what this "Duncan" looks like. Maybe he is unattractive.

MEGAN: Not to be sexist again but yes.

JIM: Oh he's kind of cute. Hey so let's talk about abortion, specifically, how all Liberal ladies like to have them, all the time, for fun. This is why Liberals hate Sarah Palin, according to the National Review, in one of my favorite articles ever. Some loser argues that since Palin didn't abort her "Trigger," Liberals all RESENT HER FOR BEING MORAL. All I do now is read the National Review all day long.

MEGAN: They are bringing the crazy like no one else this election year, it's true.

JIM:

Seeing the Palin family, in a very visible public forum, with an uncompromising and public pro life philosophy arouses deeply repressed feelings in post abortive parents, as well as media members, counselors, health care professionals, politicians and others who promote abortion rights, especially the abortion of children with challenges such as Down Syndrome. These powerful repressed feelings of grief, guilt and shame can be deflected from the source of the wound (i.e., abortion) and projected onto an often uncharitable focus upon the trigger of these painful emotions…the Palin family.

Is this true, gals?

MEGAN: I mean, obviously I'm just a quivering mass of grief, guilt and shame from the abortion I never had nor needed to have because my school saw fit to teach me about birth control, I have seen fit to use it even when insurance didn't cover it but did cover my colleagues' Viagra and because I've been damn lucky. Yes, deep quivering mass of shame, that's why everything I write is about how Sarah Palin is an annoying slag. I mean, if we're going to talk about misdirected anger, methinks some sort of National Review writer knows a little too much about what it feels like for a girl.

JIM: I hope National Review goes under next, since we now have a magazine or newspaper imploding two or three times a day. Ha ha, "jobs," there are none.

MEGAN: Well, Christopher Buckley "left" to save all those angry Republicans from canceling their subscriptions after his apostasy. So I guess that means it will survive or something. Sadly.

JIM: Yeah, and now obviously he is the greatest person in Political History according to the liberal media. It's reminiscent also of how he "left" his bastard child son by disowning him and how WFB Jr. "left" the same bastard child no money in his will by claiming that the kid was DEAD TO HIM.

MEGAN: Wow, it's obviously the kid's fault that his dad likes doinking publicists. Also, Anna just sent this to me as "breaking" news, but apparently a "top McCain adviser" — you know, one of the ones that convinced McCain to choose her — thinks that Palin is a "whack job". Good to know that they're not completely out of touch with reality.

JIM: Ha ha, surely this person would say the exact same thing if McCain was winning the election. This is just more Mormon space espionage from the Romney loyalists.

MEGAN: Well, if anyone knows about whack jobs from personal experience, it would be Mormons. And Romney loyalists.

JIM: Hmm, well let's guess who this could be. My guess is: John McCain.

MEGAN: OMG, that would be the best thing ever. Like, fuck my advisers shutting me off from the press, I'm going to sneak into the Straight Talk Potty and engage in some straight talk.

JIM: My guess is: Michael Goldfarb.

MEGAN: Anyone that likes Abba as much as Michael Goldfarb has no place calling Sarah Palin a whack job. Besides, he couldn't go back to his old job "writing" because love for Palin is the new litmus test. I'm betting it's a lobbyist. We're all wicked backstabbers.

JIM: Well she wouldn't be such a whack job if they would LET HER FREE. Let's talk about the electoral map or something, speaking of whacking off.

MEGAN: The electoral map? Man, I would've had more coffee if we were going to get down with The Math this early. And by "more" I mean "some."

JIM: Ha ha I have had none! Anyway. Ahem: KERRY STATES +IA+NM+CO OR +FL OR +VA+NV+... Oh I can't do this either. But there are new shocking states at least make-believe "coming into play" every day. Arizona (angry Mexican spill over from NM/CA/CO)

MEGAN: Dude, I suddenly live in a swing state.

JIM: And the funny thing about that bad boy is that John McCain pretends to live there!

MEGAN: When he really actually lives here! There's a reason that his campaign office is located in Arlington and not, say, Sedona, and that's because it makes it easy for him to walk to work, not that he does because his entourage drives the 3 blocks in their armored SUVs that get 8 mpg.

JIM: Ha ha you live in the Racist Confederacy, this is true. You should come up to DC for Election Night though, to participate in the Race Riots!

MEGAN: I'll head over to Rosslyn and live blog it burning from a safe distance. Luckily, everyone in D.C. is too gephyrophobic to come across the river.

JIM: What is that fancy $50 Georgetown master's degree word you're throwing at me?

MEGAN: Phobic of bridges.

JIM: Oh. I could've guess that from context! I did poorly on the SAT.

MEGAN: Bullshit, Mr. Ivy Grad.

JIM: Tut tut now!

MEGAN: Where's your monocle?

JIM: Sssshhh I WILL PURCHASE YOU. And SELL YOU to THE ACORNS.

MEGAN: Noes! not the ACORNS! Did they give you a cane with which to hit other staffers with at graduation?

JIM: YES, that was the best story ever! How do you wake up this early, every morning. I would vote for that Republican, Wolf, because why not, that little twerp deserved a caning.

MEGAN: Dude, I wake up at 7:30, curse the world, and try not to die of sleep deprivation.

JIM: You grown-ups are weird.

MEGAN: Quick! Name a publication you read regularly!

KAY: Wait, wait, I know this answer: "All of them!"

MEGAN: Alaska is a microcosm of America, dontcha know, they get the news up there, as such! (Except in the one part of Alaska that can see Russia, they don't really get the TV signals.)

KAY: Also I love this one: "Um, all of them, any of them that have been in front of me all these years."

MEGAN: Well, at least that totally explains why she was reading John Birch Society claptrap.

KAY: I mean, I've had interns answer this question better than Sarah Palin did.

MEGAN: Ooh, is that a question you ask in an interview? That's a good one. Has anyone ever said, like, Maxim or Playboy? Because that's what my ex in college subscribed to, if he was being honest.

KAY: I think the trick is to answer that question with the publications you should read even if you don't actually. For instance, Palin was the governor of Alaska. Shouldn't she, um, list an Alaska newspaper?

MEGAN: You mean, like, the Mat-Su Frontiersman, to which she just also gave an "interview" via e-mail? Don't worry, you don't have to read it, it's basically just the same talking points her staff normally has her parrot!

KAY: Well, supposedly she's saving herself for local media on the campaign trail ... except she's not really on the campaign trail either.

MEGAN: She's in Arizona, debating Randy Scheunemann... McCain's foreign policy adviser! Do you think they're debating the merits of the bailout?

KAY: Maybe she's trying to convince them that she knows the economic pain and suffering of Real America (TM) in this financial crisis like she did in that interview with crazy-right wing radio host Hugh Hewitt.

MEGAN: The first time I looked at that, by the way, I totally saw "Hugh Hefner" and my brain kind of exploded.

KAY: HA. Maybe she and your college boyfriend read the same literature and that's why she didn't have an answer to Couric's question. In any case, the Washington Times reported that she and her husband had a combined household income of nearly a quarter million dollars.

MEGAN: Dayum, that's some bank for a seasonal worker and a government employee. Do fish in Alaska shit gold bullion?

KAY: Apparently. They also own "owns a 320-series Piper single-engine airplane and two boats, a 22-foot Pacific Skiff fishing boat and a 22-foot homemade aluminum fishing boat. He also owns two Bombardier personal watercraft, valued at about $7,000." Do you think Real Americans (TM) have planes and boats?

MEGAN: Okay, maybe this makes me not a real America, but how does one go about making a 22 foot aluminum fishing boat at home? Is there, like, a Wasilla community smelter?

KAY: Maybe Todd's smelting in secret.

MEGAN: With his copy of Playboy!

KAY: My favorite part though is they have five properties valued at hundreds of thousands of dollars each and they paid $7,662 in property taxes last year. I think those are the tax cuts for the wealthy at work.

MEGAN: Holy shit, that's amazing. I mean, okay , I'll give that maybe a family of 7 living in Manhattan, $250,000 and a half-million dollar home might be looking at an average level of disposable income after food and whatever.

KAY: Right, but Alaska ain't no Manhattan!

MEGAN: I know! It's not like Wasilla is some accessible-only-by-copter town where shit is flown in — although Kodiak was expensive, it wasn't as pricey as New York City. Like, my folks, in upstate NY: until my dad retired, 2 state incomes (since my mom went back to work after my sister went to college), one home, two cars. Their one house in upstate New York doesn't sit on a scenic lake or anything, but I don't think the view is why it isn't worth $500,000. And they don't make $250,000 a year. Or have "personal watercraft." I think my dad has a 2 seater miniature sailboat (a Sunfish?) that he keeps in the rafters of the garage and has owned since I was a kid.

KAY: I'm from Minnesota, which is probably a lot more comparable cost of living to Alaska, and if you have a half a million dollar home, you are well off.

MEGAN: Dude, if you have that kind of property here, you are living high on the motherfucking hog.

KAY: With lipstick?

MEGAN: We're talking the most expensive lipstick sold in Sephora.

MOE: Okay, can I just say...these guys have been the subject of a fucking John Krakauer book, their fugitive leader was on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted List as of a year ago...how...just how is it that 412 girls are being rescued only now?
MEGAN: Well, I watched the presser two days ago and the prosecutor was like: we needed evidence, and we needed probable cause. We didn't have those things without a witness and we can't just harass people because of their religious beliefs and I was kinda of like, go Texas. Only then, you know, 412 girls. Civil liberties aren't always black and white.

MOE: Hm, okay, that sounds to me like some bullshit. If this shit were happening in Philadelphia the police woulda just gone and firebombed their asses. But seriously, being a church affords you certain protections from like, forensic accounting investigation, right? From the sounds of this Texas Monthly story about the construction of the Eldorado ranch — related question: where'd they put all those girls while they were constructing the thing? Tents? — these guys had to be committing some sort of basic financial fraud that might granted them a few search warrants. Is the FLDS actually recognized by the IRS as a church? Shouldn't it be a cult? Isn't polygamy banned...uh...everywhere in this country? So many questions
MOE:

What's more, said Jessop, Jeffs has taught his followers to "bleed the beast": to take advantage of any government assistance they can get, from food stamps and public welfare to medical care. Some reporters who follow FLDS activities say that tens of millions of dollars a year in welfare and other government funds go to the Colorado City-Hildale community. The very same thing was no doubt about to happen in Eldorado, Jessop said.

MEGAN: Well, only without the Man-Boy love aspect of NAMBLA. It's MANGLA
MEGAN: er, NAMGLA, but the other way is funnier.
MEGAN: Also, this part made me cross my legs in horror:

In fact, said an Arizona county official who came with Jessop to the press conference, the sole responsibility of females in the FLDS is to submit to their husbands and give birth to babies "until their insides drop out."

At city hall, Mankin ran across a compound resident named Ernie Jessop, who was trying to find out some information about water rights. "You know, things would be a lot better around here if you had a spokesman to speak to our community instead of acting so secretive," Mankin told him.
"Sir, we don't talk to outsiders," Jessop said. "That's the way my grandfather was, the way my father was, the way I was raised, and the way I will raise my children. It's a tradition. We congregate to ourselves."

MEGAN: That's been in some of the news reports. They expel some of the younger men so that the old ones can marry their classmates. Grody. Also, one would think, unsustainable in the long term.
MEGAN: And I'm sure Jeffs is segregated from the general population.
MEGAN: Or in a mental facility.
MOE: Here's a story about Krakauer trying to find Warren Jeffs in 2005.

"Krakauer is actively investigating a lot of things, including the whereabouts of Warren Jeffs," said Paul Murphy, spokesman for Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff.

"Boys are fined and harassed by the police, who are sworn to uphold the law but serve as minions of Warren Jeffs," Krakauer said. "Hundreds of these boys over the past four years have been cast out. Most of them end up on the streets of (Las) Vegas or St. George," where they turn to drugs or prostitution.

MEGAN: Yeah, there was this story last year in the New York Times. They're some fucked up kids.
MEGAN:

The problem of surplus males worsened in the 1990s when the late prophet Rulon Jeffs, Warren Jeffs's father, took on dozens of young wives — picking the prettiest, most talented girls, said DeLoy Bateman, a high school teacher who watched it happen. Warren Jeffs, taking the mantle after his father's death in 2002, adopted most of his father's wives and married others, and also began assigning more wives to his trusted church leaders, former members say. Forced departures increased.

MEGAN: Yeah, despite Big Love, people find polygamists creepy. Who'd'a thunk?
MOE: Well, apparently they didn't always find them as creepy. Check this 2002 story.It uncovered an internal Arizona AG memo detailing the accusations against the FLDS but not advocating...criminal prosecutions?

Colorado City was once called Short Creek. It became infamous in 1953 after Governor Howard Pyle ordered state police to arrest and jail all married men on charges of bigamy, adultery and rape. Pyle also ordered the National Guard to round up all the women and children and bring them to Phoenix, where they were held as wards of the state for two years.
Pyle's action proved disastrous to his political future. Photographs of police pulling babies from their fathers' arms inflamed public opposition to the raid. Prosecutors were unable to secure significant convictions because it was difficult to prove bigamy since most of the marriages were not legally recorded.
"You get killed quicker in government doing your duty than turning your back," Pyle was quoted as saying at the time, according to a March 4, 2001, article in the Denver Post.
Pyle was defeated in the next election.

The hands-off policy continued during former attorney general and governor Bruce Babbitt's era. In a 1986 Associated Press article, Babbitt defended the residents as hardworking, God-fearing people and said he did not want to delve into personal lives.

Mohave County Supervisor Buster Johnson says Napolitano told the group that her office was continuing to investigate activities in Colorado City.
"They don't have enough documentation to charge anybody with any crimes," Johnson says he was told by Napolitano.
Johnson says he's been investigating allegations of child abuse, sex crimes and welfare fraud in Colorado City since becoming a supervisor six years ago. The former Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy says he's interviewed more than 30 former church members who have fled Colorado City.
Johnson says he has been told of repeated instances of underage girls being forced into marriage, child abuse, child labor law violations, welfare fraud, rapes, assaults and mental cruelty. Young boys are also abused, he says. Boys who are deemed to be unruly and who will not follow church doctrine are dumped onto the streets of Salt Lake City to fend for themselves, he says.

MOE: Where does the natural foods diet come from?
MOE: Whoa, check this out from a Dallas Observer piece:

"They are not a threat to your children; they are a threat to their own children," she said of the polygamists, mentioning in passing child abuse, forced marriage of teenage girls, child labor, welfare fraud, tax fraud and other horrors. "They have a commune in Canada. They use it to mix up the blood. Birth defects are starting to become noticeable. If a young girl starts to get rebellious, wants to get out, they'll send her to a foreign country."