-Horse-racing fans, rejoice. You get another season of Luck.

-The best review I’ve read of Lana Del Ray’s album.

-The Smithsonian adds the Mexican Museum in San Francisco to its network.

-Great prints of classic pop-culture real estate.

-A first glimpse at Skyfall, the next James Bond movie.

-Sarah Palin accent fans, your fix is here:

Speaking on Sean Hannity’s radio show this afternoon, Palin played her typical game of conflating the “dumbarses” in the “lamestream media” and the political left, assuming that ABC News is airing the embarrassing interview in an attempt to derail Gingrich’s campaign. This will backfire, she argued, because voters don’t care about the fact that fact that Gingrich carried on an affair for six years while married, or that he asked his wife for an open marriage so he could continue the affair, or that he subsequently left his wife after she was diagnosed with a terminal disease:

PALIN: I call them dumbarses. They, thinking that by trotting out this old Gingrich divorce interview that’s old news — and it does feature a disgruntled ex, claiming that it would destroy his campaign — all it does, Sean, is incentive conservatives and independents who are so sick of the politics of personal destruction, because it’s played so selectively by media, that their target, in this case Newt, he’s now going to soar even more. Because we know the game now, and we just won’t put up with it.

So, good call media! Way to go to covertly hype this, even Gingrich opponents, for being so brilliant they sure are dumb.

Listen here:

In fact, the interview is not “old” but Marianne Gingrich’s first TV interview since her divorce from the former Speaker in 1999, and it does make news about how Gingrich — who often defends “traditional” marriage on the campaign trail — treated his wife of 18 years.

But Palin, who calls herself a feminist, completely ignores the substance of Gingrich’s actions to portray him as a victim of just another tawdry lamestream media smear. “I have a degree” in journalism, she reminded Hannity.

PALIN: I think what governor Perry is getting at is that governor Romney has claimed to have created 100,000 jobs at Bain and people are wanting to know, is there proof of that claim? And was it U.S. jobs created for United States citizens. … You know, own up to the claims that are being made. And that’s fair. That’s not negative campaigning. That’s fair to get a candidate to be held accountable to what’s being claimed. [...]

Nobody should be surprised that things about Bain Capital and maybe tax returns not being released yet and records not being as transparently provided to the public as voters deserve to see right now — don’t be surprised that that’s all coming out today, cause it would come out as an October surprise [by Democrats] had these GOP candidates candidates not brought them out today.

Watch it:

A number of conservatives have come to Romney’s defense on the Bain attacks and accused Gingrich and Perry of employing left-wing attacks — Rush Limbaugh even compared Gingirch Fidel Castro — so Palin’s stance should provide the GOP candidates some cover.

Ultimately, McCain’s selection of Palin only changed the game in that it made McCain look like a gambler. The selection didn’t actually chane the dynamic of the race, and Palin has essentially retreated into the small-town Alaska from whence she came in the years since. The selection of her didn’t even stem from particularly novel thinking, unless playing women and people of color off against each other counts. Not to go all Slim Charles on it, but the game was the same–it just got more fierce.

The story I’d really like to see out of that book, actually, is the one about John and Elizabeth Edwards, Rielle Hunter, and the fact that he went ahead with the 2008 campaign despite the mess in his personal life. Hubris and denial aren’t emotions that can be fit into rationality, which makes them particularly interesting. What happened behind the scenes in Palin’s brief, dizzying ascent has been done to death. The Edwards’ follies and tragedies are still somewhat inexplicable. And in a country where we’ve only ever had one divorced President, the idea that you could totally escape the expectations Americans have for the private lives of presidential candidates (Clinton, at least, only ever had Chelsea with Hillary) is a kind of magical thinking.

From the start, Ailes has steadfastly denied any such political bias or agenda on the part of his network. Politics, schmolitics: “I hired Sarah Palin because she was hot and got ratings,” he declares.

Ailes’ quote is stunning in its own right, but it’s worth noting that were it coming from a progressive figure, he would likely be immediately tarred and feathered by conservatives as a sexist. Since Palin was picked to run for vice president, conservatives have bristled at any reference to Palin’s looks or suggestions that her appearance has contributed to her popularity.

Take conservative media criticism site Newsbusters, for instance. When Fox News contributor Juan Williams called Palin a “centerfold” and said her attractiveness contributed to her success, Newsbusters cried “double standard,” writing that Williams’ “demeaning” comment reflects liberals’ “need [of] some way of dismissing her without addressing the issues.” When comedian Bill Maher made a similar suggestion, Newsbusters cried that Maher had “denigrated Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann as merely ‘attractive.’” When Newsweek magazine ran an article mentioning the “supposed hotness of Republican women,” including Palin, Newsbusters cried “sexism.” When the hosts of the entertainment show The Talk called Palin “hot,” Newsbusters questioned their “intelligence.”

Now, the head of the country’s most popular cable news network, to which Palin owes a good deal of her success, is making the same insensitive assertions as Williams and Maher, and essentially confirming them; will Newsbusters and other conservatives speak out? Of course, Ailes’ network happens to be an ideological ally of Newsbusters, and one that regularly features its president.

PALIN: The president is way off on his math for one. And I hope that you will get into what the AP did in terms of fact checking. I so appreciate that they just wanted to get to their readers, some information that helps us make better decisions. And I appreciate that they called the president on some of these — you know, I call them lies. Because I think surely, the president is too smart to not have people around him with a calculator and can tell us truly what people’s tax rates are and what his proposals will result in new tax rates been.

Watch it:

As ThinkProgress noted yesterday, the AP’s “fact-check” completely missed the point of Obama’s tax plan, which would make sure that wealthy Americans don’t pay less in taxes than middle-class Americans. The provision is dubbed the “Buffett Rule,” in honor of Warren Buffett, who has been advocating for higher taxes on the wealthy, like him.

The AP “fact check” claims that Obama is wrong because the average tax rate on the wealthy is already higher than that on the middle-class. But no one is disputing this. What the AP and Palin ignore is that there are many wealthy people who do not pay anywhere close to that higher rate.

In 2009, 1,470 households reported income of more than $1 million, but paid zero federal income tax. For the richest 400 people in the country, the average effective federal income tax rate in 2008 was just 18.11 percent. The Buffett rule is meant to ensure that this group of people can no longer slip through the tax code’s cracks.

Moreover, Palin’s invocation of the word “lie” — a word, while often hinted at, that is almost never used in politics — is notable, especially considering the AP never alleged anything of the sort.

The Daily Caller's Tucker Carlson

Susteren — a “chief defender” of Palin — called Carlson “a pig” for advertising such remarks on the front page. In a 900-word rebuke, Susteren suggested that such a “disgusting” post is not only “smut” but also “violence against women” and an inexcusable attempt to keep his failing website afloat:

I keep asking myself, why would Tucker allow this to be posted on his website? I am suspicous [sic] his website is not doing well and this is one quick last breath to create buzz to keep it afloat. I wish Tucker had not allowed this to be posted on a site associated with his name because Tucker and I have been friends (and even colleagues) for years. I have always liked Tucker and I assume you can tell that when I introduce him and greet him on air.

I don’t like it when I see that my friends do disgraceful things – but we need to start calling out even our friends to stop this. Tucker has daughters and a wife and I would think he in particular would not want to be a purveyer of smut (and this is actually more, this is violence against women) and allow this to be posted on his website. There is nothing funny about violence against women and repeating what a thug (I thought – even hoped – Tyson had outgrown that) says on a radio show is also not news. I know he loves his wife and children and would never want this said or reported about them….so why is it ok to report about another? This is not news.

Responding to Susteren, Carlson later added an editor’s note to the report, calling the remarks “offensive, indeed repulsive” but “newsworthy.” “Had Tyson used this language to attack virtually any other person in public life, he’d be vilified on the front page of the New York Times. But you won’t read these quotes in the Times,” he wrote. “We believe they deserve public scrutiny and condemnation.”

But perhaps Susteren is on to something when it comes to Carlson’s pleas for web-traffic. Using one’s face to censor parts of actress Scarlett Johansson’s naked photos is also a practice not usually found at the New York Times. But perhaps he just felt his ill-placed face deserves “public scrutiny.”

One can never really figure out Rove’s machinations since he helped ruin the country and his own party as President Bush’s consigliere. He and the Bush mob don’t like Rick “Four Pinocchios” Perry — even though Rove  helped make Perry possible, as HuffPost has noted.

Certainly Obama looks beatable with his plummeting popularity and lame messaging, which is no doubt why Perry got it.  But if Palin were smart — yes, I know — why would she get in now, rather than a month ago, which might have forestalled Perry — or even earlier, to forestall  Michele Bachmann?  Her entry now means a three-way split for the tea party vote and would probably make Mitt Romney the happiest of all.

As for Palin herself, she makes Perry seem like Lincoln (see Palin blames ‘Gore-gate’ for “this snake oil science stuff”).  During the 2008 presidential campaign, the Washington Post itself gave her its highest (which is to say lowest) rating of “Four Pinocchios” for continuing to “to peddle bogus [energy] statistics three days after the original error was pointed out by independent fact-checkers.”

There aren’t enough Pinocchios in a children’s library for this crop of GOP presidential candidates.

Several Republicans have called Perry out for using this sort of language. 2012 presidential hopeful Rick Santorum said that Perry’s remarks were “completely out of bounds.” “You can’t be calling Bernanke a traitor,” said Rep. Peter King (R-NY). “Intimating the Federal Reserve Chairman is guilty of treason is not going to create more confidence in voters about you,” added Rep. Charlie Bass (R-NH).

Former Reagan and George H.W. Bush economic adviser Bruce Bartlett labeled Perry “an idiot” for his remarks. However, one GOP’er doesn’t think that Perry went too far. During an interview with Lou Dobbs on Fox Business, former half-term governor Sarah Palin said that she might “have used similar terms” to describe Bernanke’s actions:

PALIN: [Perry] called it like he saw it and I always respect people for doing so. What Governor Perry is voicing concern about is something I wrote about on Facebook pages about ten months ago, this quantitative easing or monetizing our debt, essentially printing money out of thin air, which will eventually devalue our dollar and, I think, lead to inflation, in order to make it look like our debt isn’t as bad as it really is, and Governor Perry was voicing great concerns that many of us share. He just used some more candid terms, I think, than some of us would have used.

DOBBS: Even you?

PALIN: Well, yeah, that’s a good point. Perhaps I would have used similar terms. But I do share his concern though.

Watch it:

Palin, of course, is no stranger to violent rhetoric of her own. Perry, for his part, is standing by his remarks, telling CNN, “I am just passionate about the issue and we stand by what we said.” “The governor is going to continue talking about getting America back to work in a tone that everyone understands,” added a campaign spokesperson. Not only were Perry’s remarks atrocious, but he also seemed to be admitting that the Federal Reserve’s quantitative easing would be good for the economy.

Yesterday, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R) made a major gaffe on the campaign trail when he told a crowd of Iowans that “corporations are people.” Romney’s statement was particularly tone deaf because average citizens’ incomes have stagnated for more than a decade while corporations are currently enjoying record profits.

Today, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) kicked off a bus tour of Iowa at the state fairgrounds where Romney had stumped the day before. ThinkProgress asked Palin if she agreed with Romney’s belief that corporations are people. Tossing aside previous efforts to position herself as a populist leader, Palin sided with corporations, declaring, “Mitt Romney was right.”

KEYES: Governor, are corporations people?

PALIN: The people pay the taxes. It’s not an entity — the corporation itself — that pays the taxes. It’s the people who pay the taxes. So Mitt Romney was right.

Watch it:

Note to Palin: corporations as legal entities do in fact pay taxes. While the entity has a tax bill, there is someone somewhere that ultimately has less money as a result.

Unfortunately, Palin is not the first GOP bigwig to defend Romney’s assertion that corporations are people. Yesterday, ThinkProgress spoke with Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) who vociferously backed up Romney, saying, “all of us are corporations.”