Ana Marie Cox (born 23 September 1972) is an American author and blogger. The founding editor of the political blog Wonkette, she is currently the Washington correspondent for GQ and is lead blogger on US politics for The Guardian. She previously worked at Air America Media.

Cox was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico. She attended high school at Lincoln Southeast High School in Lincoln, Nebraska, where she wrote for the school's newspaper, The Clarion. She graduated from the University of Chicago with an AB in History in 1994. She began graduate school at the University of California, Berkeley, where she was studying American history, but left school and instead became an editorial assistant at the publishing company Alfred A. Knopf.

Cox was an editor of the progressive online magazine Bad Subjects. Later, she was an executive editor of Suck.com, where she wrote under the pen name 'Ann O'Tate' (wordplay on annotate).

In 2004, Cox became the founding editor of political blog Wonkette. Under her tenure, Wonkette was a sportive commentary on Capitol Hill Washington politics, as well as more serious matters of politics and policy. Cox and Wonkette gained notoriety in the political world for publicizing the story of Jessica Cutler, also known as "Washingtonienne", a staff assistant to Senator Mike DeWine (R.-Ohio), who accepted money from a George W. Bush administration official and others in exchange for sexual favors. On January 5, 2006, she officially announced her retirement as the blog's editor and her imminent transition to "Wonkette Emerita".

Rachel Anne Maddow (pronounced /ˈmædoʊ/; born April 1, 1973) is an American television host, political commentator, and author. Maddow hosts a nightly television show, The Rachel Maddow Show, on MSNBC. Her syndicated talk radio program of the same name aired on Air America Radio. Maddow is the first openly gay anchor of a prime-time news program in the United States.

Asked about her political views by the Valley Advocate, Maddow replied, "I'm undoubtedly a liberal, which means that I'm in almost total agreement with the Eisenhower-era Republican party platform."

Maddow was born in Castro Valley, California. Her father, Robert B. "Bob" Maddow, is a former United States Air Force captain who resigned his commission the year before her birth and found civilian work as a lawyer for the East Bay Municipal Utility District. Her mother, Elaine Maddow (née Gosse), is a school program administrator from Newfoundland, Canada. She has one older brother, David. Her father is of Russian and Dutch descent and her mother is of English and Irish ancestry. Maddow's mother was raised a strict Roman Catholic, and Maddow herself grew up in a community that her mother has described as "very conservative." Maddow was a competitive athlete and played three sports in high school. Referencing John Hughes films, she describes herself in high school as "a cross between the jock and the antisocial girl."

Jim Geraghty is a conservative blogger and regular contributor to National Review Online and National Review. In addition to writing columns for National Review, Geraghty also blogs for National Review Online and is a former reporter for States News Service.

During the 2004 US Presidential election, Geraghty was often critical of Democratic Party presidential candidate John Kerry. At the time his weblog used the name "The Kerry Spot". It was later renamed "TKS". Geraghty reported on the Killian documents and Rathergate stories on a daily basis on behalf of National Review and was critical of CBS and Dan Rather. Geraghty was one of the self described Pajamahadeen.

Starting in March 2005, Geraghty posted to TKS from Turkey, where he lived as an expatriate. In January 2007, he moved from TKS to a new blog, originally named "The Hillary Spot" [1] but since renamed to "The Campaign Spot".

Geraghty's book, Voting to Kill: How 9/11 Launched the Era of Republican Leadership (Touchstone, September 2006, ISBN 0-7432-9042-9) argues that national security and safety in the face of terrorist threats is the key issue in U.S. politics.

Sarah Louise Palin ⁱ/ˈpeɪlɨn/ (née Heath; born February 11, 1964) is an American politician, commentator and author. As the Republican Party nominee for Vice President in the 2008 presidential election, she was the first Alaskan on the national ticket of a major party and first Republican woman nominated for the vice presidency. Her book Going Rogue has sold more than two million copies. Since January 2010, she has provided political commentary for Fox News, and hosted a television show, Sarah Palin's Alaska. Five million viewers tuned in for the first episode, a record for The Learning Channel.

She was elected to Wasilla City Council in 1992 and became mayor of Wasilla in 1996. In 2003, after an unsuccessful run for lieutenant governor, she was appointed Chairman of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, responsible for overseeing the state's oil and gas fields for safety and efficiency. The youngest person and first woman to be elected Governor of Alaska, Palin held the office from December 2006 until her resignation in July 2009. She has since endorsed and campaigned for the Tea Party movement, as well as several candidates in the 2010 midterm elections. From the time of her Vice Presidential nomination in 2008, Palin was considered a potential candidate for the 2012 presidential election until she announced in October 2011 that she would not run.

The eighth season of American Idol premiered on January 13, 2009, and concluded on May 20, 2009. Judges Simon Cowell, Paula Abdul, and Randy Jackson continued to judge the show's contestants, along with Ryan Seacrest as host. The season introduced Kara DioGuardi as the fourth judge on the Idol panel. It was also Abdul's final season as a judge.Kris Allen, a native of Conway, Arkansas, was announced the winner of the competition on May 20, 2009, defeating runner-up Adam Lambert after nearly 100 million votes. Kris Allen is the only married winner of the competition at the time of his victory. This was the second season where both of the final 2 contestants had been in the bottom 3 or 2 at least once before the finale, with the first being season 3.

The eighth season saw numerous changes to the format of the show. There were 36 semi-finalists instead of 24, and thirteen finalists instead of twelve, nine contestants chosen by the public and four by the judges in a wild card round. Another addition was the "save," which was used on the top seven results show to veto Matt Giraud's elimination.