Our vets have proven that they have not been timid, so we will not be timid in calling out any who would use our military, our vets, as pawns in a political game.
Guess who else thinks she's the one using our nation's vets as pawns? The organizers of the march she and the tea party "hijacked" (their term, not mine, though it certainly fits). Take a look from their webpage:
The political agenda put forth by a local organizer in Washington DC was not in alignment with our message. We feel disheartened that some would seek to hijack the narrative for political gain. The core principle is about all Americans honoring Veterans in a peaceful and apolitical manner.
So I ask in passing, who's using the vets as pawns in a political game?
Sarah Palin
Ted Cruz
The Tea Party
The GOP
Anyone else who brought about (or who supported) the governmental shutdown but is now protesting the barricades at the veterans' memorials
It’s time now to clear the air, and in today’s edition of pretense and hypocrisy, we bring you an act of such brazen dishonesty and speciousness that it’s hard to know where to begin.
Couldn't have put it better myself. But I guess that's why Bashir gets the big bucks to be on TV and I'm late for my office job.
I'm not going to hazard a guess on this because I am notoriously clueless when it comes to this particular guessing game:
Four years ago, I was participating in a live streaming panel discussion on the KDKA News website the night before John McCain announced his pick of Sarah Palin. Fortunately, I was unable to get out my comment that, "Well, we know it won't be a woman or an African American."
Four years prior to that, I was "backstage" when John Kerry announced his VP pick. I was one of the volunteers standing by to rip open the boxes and toss out the T-shirts and rally signs emblazoned with -- unbeknownst to me at the time -- "Kerry-Edwards." I had no clue until the second Kerry said the name. (I did, however, get to shake hands with both Kerry and Edwards that same day, but at two different locations in Pittsburgh as they did not appear together in public on the day of the announcement.)
Emails from Sarah Palin's time as Alaska governor "show a double-fisted Blackberry user fully comfortable with handling nearly every aspect of state government," wrote the McClatchy Newspapers.
The emails paint "a picture of her as an idealistic, conscientious, humorous and humane woman slightly bemused by the world of politics," said Toby Harnden of the London Telegraph.
"She comes across as practical and not doctrinaire," wrote Molly Ball in Politico. "She was hands-on and adverse to partisan politics."
This was not what some journalists expected to write. "If critics were hoping to see Palin revealed as a hypocrite, they're out of luck," said Ms. Ball. "Her private statements are in line with her public ones."
The point he's trying to make, of course, is that the emails showed Palin to be anything other than what the lame stream media portrays her to be and now once they've been made public even that same lame stream media is forced to be honest and to show her in a good light.
Oh the stuff Jack leaves out. Take a look at what in the very next two paragraphs in that McClatchy piece:
But long before she became a national figure, the documents also hint at the obsession Palin had with managing her image - and the frustration the prolific e-mailer had with the news coverage of her governorship.
She came into office with a January 2007 reminder to members of her staff that they should feel free to "share your opinions, speak freely to the press, public, legislators, one another, etc." But that changed as time went on. A little more than a year later, she ghostwrote a proposed letter to the editor of the Anchorage Daily News - quoting herself - in reply to a complaint that she had failed to appear at the 2008 Miss Alaska pageant.
To an extent, the emails remind Americans of the person they saw take the stage at the Republican National Convention in Minnesota nearly three years ago – refreshing, plain-speaking, open and uncomplicated.
Since then, her image has hardened into one of a brittle, even paranoid, politician who seethes with resentment, feels aggrieved and entitled and is intent on pursuing celebrity even at the expense of her family.
She was hands-on and averse to partisan politics. She championed openness in government and had normal relations with the media. She was a little starstruck by her interactions with national politicians but unafraid to do battle with the chief executives of the world’s largest oil companies.
The emails from her governorship, released Friday, brought back the memory of a long-lost Palin: the popular, charismatic, competent woman of the people.
This was the vice presidential candidate John McCain’s team thought they were getting, before her darker tendencies — defensiveness, thin skin, grudge-keeping — hardened into tics. Together with the newly released, pro-Palin documentary “The Undefeated,” which focuses on her rise to the spotlight, the emails are reminders of a sympathetic figure who was not yet the brittle, divisive caricature Palin has become.
Such praise.
His larger point is that any positive coverage of Palin (like his) is a reliable picture of reality and any negative coverage is just so much more of the Palin Derangement Syndrome. Coverage that doesn't need to be taken seriously.
Jack is certainly reliable in his support of the failed Governor of Alaska but how realistic is he?
When has have to selectively quote his positive coverage in order to make it, in fact, postive, what does that say about the subject matter?
Half-Governor Sarah Palin is at it again. The Shakespeare of Wasilla has created another new word. While criticizing President Obama on our action in Libya, she said the following:
“[D]o we use the term intervention, do we use war, do we use squirmish?”
Uh, Sarah. May I call you Sarah? I guarantee you that Obama doesn't call it a "squirmish." And, personally, I get all "squirmish" whenever you speak:
"Turd Sandwich"
Besides, apparently he's calling it a "turd sandwich":
As we all know by now, the Supreme Court of the United States voted 8-1 in favor of the Westboro Baptist Church's right to free speech. From the AP:
The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that a grieving father's pain over mocking protests at his Marine son's funeral must yield to First Amendment protections for free speech. All but one justice sided with a fundamentalist church that has stirred outrage with raucous demonstrations contending God is punishing the military for the nation's tolerance of homosexuality.
The 8-1 decision in favor of the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kan., was the latest in a line of court rulings that, as Chief Justice John Roberts said in his opinion for the court, protects "even hurtful speech on public issues to ensure that we do not stifle public debate."
The decision ended a lawsuit by Albert Snyder, who sued church members for the emotional pain they caused by showing up at his son Matthew's funeral. As they have at hundreds of other funerals, the Westboro members held signs with provocative messages, including "Thank God for dead soldiers," `'You're Going to Hell," `'God Hates the USA/Thank God for 9/11," and one that combined the U.S. Marine Corps motto, Se
Wonderful Christians, those Westboro Baptists. And let me just say that by "Westboro Baptists" I mean only those members of Fred Phelps' congregation and those who agree with him. I am sure there's a place called "Westboro" somewhere in the country and I am sure there are Baptists there. I am just as sure that those coincidental "Westboro Baptists" would, if given the chance, join the rest of civilized society and agree that Fred Phelps' congregation is just awful.
That doesn't mean they don't get First Amendment Protection.
On this the editorial boards of the BOTH the P-G and The Trib agree. First the P-G:
After the U.S. Supreme Court took the case, the concern was that this might also be a funeral for the First Amendment. As we said at the time, tolerance of free speech is easy, but it's not easy speech that needs constitutional protection. Would the justices summon the wisdom of Solomon?
They did. In an 8-1 decision Wednesday, the court ruled the First Amendment right to free speech trumps the pain such speech can cause. That conservatives and liberals on the bench came together -- only Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. dissented -- said that the Constitution was not to be taken down a slippery slope to where emotional distress might silence all speech.
No matter how despicable, demeaning, vile and ignorant one thinks was the picketing by Westboro Baptist Church members at the funeral of a U.S. soldier killed in Iraq, the Founding precept that the U.S. Supreme Court employed on Wednesday in Westboro's defense is the same one that allows us -- and most of you, we presume -- to lambaste Westboro without fear of legal reprisal.
In an 8-1 ruling, the high court affirmed that Westboro's First Amendment right to speech "cannot be restricted simply because it is upsetting or arouses contempt."
They add a few paragraphs later:
It is critical to note, however, that the court's ruling is narrowly tailored to the facts of only this case. To wit, the protest was on public land, was generally away from the funeral and did not physically interfere with the service. Similar protests by this or any group that do anything less should not presume such automatic First Amendment protection. [emphasis added]
At least one part of that was missed by at least one high profile conservative - namely Sarah Palin. She tweeted:
Common sense & decency absent as wacko "church" allowed hate msgs spewed@ soldiers' funerals but we can't invoke God's name in public square
Um, Sarah? Isn't that precisely what the Supreme Court said they had a right to do? That as wacko as the Westboro Baptist Church is (and indeed they are) they have the right to hold up their wacko signs as the Quitter-Governor so ably tweeted "in public square."
Lil Ricky Santorum: [Speculating why Palin was not attending CPAC] “I have a feeling that she has some demands on her time, and a lot of them have financial benefit attached to them." “I’m not the mother to all these kids and I don’t have other responsibilities that she has.”
Mama Grizzly Sarah Palin:“I will not call him the knuckle-dragging Neanderthal that perhaps others would want to call him. I’ll let his wife call him that instead.” “I’m the proud mother of five children and my kids don’t hold me back from attending a conference.”
Oh, Ricky! It takes an awfully small man to make Palin be in the right on anything. You're the father to seven children, but apparently you don't let that cramp your style.
It's one thing for bloggers to joke that the acronym for Obama's "Win the Future" is "WTF," it's quite another for a presumed presidential candidate to go on and on with the "WTF" references. But that's exactly what Sarah Palin did in an interview with Greta Van Susteren on Fox News:
She didn't stop there. She also claimed in reference to Obama's calling for a "Sputnik moment" that, "He needs to remember that, uh, what happened back then with the communist U.S.S.R. and their victory in that race to space. Yeah, they won but they also incurred so much debt at the time that it resulted in the inevitable collapse of the Soviet Union."
While the Soviet Union did eventually collapse, that wasn't until 1991 -- a full 22 years after the U.S. put a man on the moon, and the collapse came amid stagnant economic growth after years of unsustainable Soviet defense spending of which its space program was a relatively small part.
I will point out that a big part of that defense spending was their own war in Afghanistan -- a comparison that Palin would never make (even if she knew it). .
I believe we can be better. Those who died here, those who saved lives here – they help me believe. We may not be able to stop all evil in the world, but I know that how we treat one another is entirely up to us. I believe that for all our imperfections, we are full of decency and goodness, and that the forces that divide us are not as strong as those that unite us.
That’s what I believe, in part because that’s what a child like Christina Taylor Green believed. Imagine: here was a young girl who was just becoming aware of our democracy; just beginning to understand the obligations of citizenship; just starting to glimpse the fact that someday she too might play a part in shaping her nation’s future. She had been elected to her student council; she saw public service as something exciting, something hopeful. She was off to meet her congresswoman, someone she was sure was good and important and might be a role model. She saw all this through the eyes of a child, undimmed by the cynicism or vitriol that we adults all too often just take for granted.
I want us to live up to her expectations. I want our democracy to be as good as she imagined it. All of us – we should do everything we can to make sure this country lives up to our children’s expectations.
In a seven minute and 43 second video today, Sarah Palin addressed the massacre in Arizona last Saturday. Well, actually, she spent only the first minute and a half addressing the people who were killed and injured. She spent the rest of the time explaining how the violent language and images that she used against Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (and all the violent rhetoric used by Republicans this past year) not only had nothing whatsoever to do with Giffords being shot in the head, but was the height of patriotism:
Vigorous and spirited public debates during elections are among our most cherished traditions. And after the election, we shake hands and get back to work, and often both sides find common ground back in D.C. and elsewhere. If you don’t like a person’s vision for the country, you’re free to debate that vision. If you don’t like their ideas, you’re free to propose better ideas. But, especially within hours of a tragedy unfolding, journalists and pundits should not manufacture a blood libel that serves only to incite the very hatred and violence they purport to condemn. That is reprehensible.
"Blood libel"?!?
Does she even know what that phrase means?? (Even uber conservative Jonah Goldberg has a problem with it.)
And, then there's her idea that when she and other Republicans use violent rhetoric ("crosshairs," "reload," "Second Amendment remedies," "armed and dangerous," "Our nation was founded on violence," "a bloody war," "the tree of freedom is occasionally watered with the blood of tyrants and patriots," "Put anything in my scope and I will shoot it," "And if ballots don’t work, bullets will") that is merely engaging in "spirited public debates," but when anyone dares to criticize the violent rhetoric that is inciting hatred and violence.
Yes, Sarah, you are the true victim in all this and people who object to violent language are the true perpetrators of violence. It all makes so much perfect fucking sense that I need to rush right out and buy your books. You have slain me with your logic. Please, please run for President so that I may vote for you.
In case you missed it, here's poor, little Sarah huddled by the hearth in her hovel in the shetl trying to get her words out before the Cossacks come:
"I hope that's not where we're going, but, you know, if this Congress keeps going the way it is, people are really looking toward those Second Amendment remedies and saying my goodness what can we do to turn this country around? I'll tell you the first thing we need to do is take Harry Reid out." - Senate Candidate Sharron Angle, Republican
“We have become, or are becoming, enslaved by the government ... I dare ‘em to try to come throw me in jail. I dare ‘em to. [I’ll] pull out my wife’s shotgun and see how that little ACS twerp likes being scared at the door. They’re not going on my property.” - CNN Commentator Erick Erickson, Republican
"I want people in Minnesota armed and dangerous on this issue of the energy tax, because we need to fight back." - US Rep. Michele Bachmann, Republican
"Our nation was founded on violence. I don't think that we should ever remove anything from the table as it relates to our liberties and our freedoms." - Texas Candidate for U.S. Rep. Stephen Broden, Republican
"We are aware that stepping off into secession may in fact be a bloody war. We are aware. We understand that the tree of freedom is occasionally watered with the blood of tyrants and patriots.” - Texas Gubernatorial Candidate Debra Medina, Republican
"Does sharia law say we can behead Dana Milbank?...I think you and I should go and beat him up." - Fox News Host Bill O'Reilly, Republican
"Put anything in my scope and I will shoot it." - U.S. Rep. Joe Barton, Republican
"Meet Mr. Smith and Mr. Wesson." - Conservative Radio Show Host Glenn Beck, Republican
While most Republicans seem to take their cue from their patron saint Ronald Reagan that government is the problem, a current segment of that party takes it one step further by not just constantly disparaging government, but calling for its violent overthrow -- or at the very least using eliminationist rhetoric against Democrats.
And, I'm calling BULLSHIT right now on anyone who tries to paint some false equivalency. There simply isn't this level of violent language by politicians, political candidates and cable hosts coming from the Democratic side.
I'm also calling BULLSHIT on anyone who would try to say that when Jared Lee Loughner killed six people and wounded 13 others yesterday including Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords at her own event that this was just some "crazy person" acting out and that it was not a political act. Loughner could have just as easily gone to a mall or a McDonald's or a school. But he didn't. He targeted a politician -- and a Democratic politician. He clearly had problems with the government as seen by his now deleted MySpace page:
What he seems to be is a mentally disturbed individual living in a time of historic vitriolic rhetoric and in a place where threats and violence had already been directed towards Giffords as noted by Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik:
What had been aimed already at Giffords? Sarah Palin had her in her crosshairs:
We have this from her Tea Party opponent:
And, we have the Congresswoman's own words on the issue:
We also have six dead and 13 wounded, including:
A Congresswoman fighting for her life: Gabrielle Giffords
A slain chief judge for the United States District Court: John M. Roll
And, a little girl cut down in her ninth year of life: Christina Taylor Greene
Christina was born on 9/11. She was a member of her student council who was brought to the event to meet a role model.
Shortly after the massacre, Sarah Palin deleted the "crosshairs" from the web. Would that she and her ilk delete any more violent garbage from coming out of their mouths. .
Apparently, when Sarah Palin wrote crib notes on her hand in ink for the National Tea Party Convention in Nashville back in February she was only trying to be green.
From Sunday's episode of "Sarah Palin's Alaska" (via HuffPo via Politico -- video at link):
"Conservationists write me these nasty letters because I support an industry like this," the former vice presidential candidate said, after taking a chainsaw to an Evergreen Timber tree. "They write me these nasty letters using their pretty little pencils on their pretty little stationary not realizing. Where do you think your pencil and your piece of paper came from, people? It came from a tree that was harvested."
Sarah Palin used baked goods Tuesday night to attack the “nanny state.”
Palin brought dozens of cookies to a speech at the Plumstead Christian School in Plumsteadville, Pa., amid news reports — since retracted — that Pennsylvania’s State Board of Education is looking at ways to limit sweets at classroom parties.
Palin called the plan an example of the “nanny state run amok” and said that she brought the cookies in order to “shake things up," according to news outlets including WPVI-TV.
One guess which "news report" Politico points to for inaccurate reporting about supposed mandates. Can you say Trib? I guess this really should be David's story...
I don't know about you, but I've certainly heard of schools already encouraging parents to being in healthy treats. .
The folks at Seattle's KTVA-TV insist the incident was not as nefarious as some made it out to be. But it certainly wasn't very complimentary and it might very well be representative of the unfair treatment Republicans can expect if they surge to victory in today's elections.
Here's what happened: A telephone call to discuss Alaska GOP U.S. Senate candidate Joe Miller's upcoming appearance on a newscast never disconnected when it was "over." Station staffers then can, among other things, be heard laughing at the possibility of reporting on the appearance of sex offenders at a Miller rally.
The Miller campaign claims the station was plotting to fabricate stories. The station denies that interpretation as "out of context." Nevertheless, it was enough to prompt former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to label those involved at the CBS affiliate as "corrupt bastards."
See, this is how the great smear works. The braintrust is counting on you not checking the story, not checking the facts (or "facts") for yourselves. They're hoping you'll trust them that they're telling the whole truth.
Of course they're not.
The story popped up at Andrew Breitbart's website first. That should be the first clue that something's amiss. Breitbart, let's all take a minute to remember, lied about Shirley Sherrod. He championed another liar, James O'Keefe. In a rational journalistic world, that would completely undermine any claim of credibility Breitbart has, has ever had or ever will have.
And this is where this "corrupt bastard" story began.
But let's leap like a frog over that part and look at some examples of skepticism regarding the recording.
The transcript does not, in fact, make it terribly clear what they're talking about. KTVA General Manager Jerry Bever, in a statement to my colleague Byron Tau, confirms the authenticity of the recording left (in error) on the voice mail of a Miller aide but says that Miller's claims are wrong abut the details and "absurd" on their face.
If Politico is not good enough a source for skepticism, how about Brit Hume of Fox News? About a 1:20 in, he says that while "it doesn't sound very good" he added that it was still "not utterly conclusive."
Brit Hume said that. NOT UTTERLY CONCLUSIVE.
But let's even assume the "not utterly conclusive" smear that Breitbart and Palin are doing - that this tape is evidence of the TV station making stuff up. What, then, do we make of this?
About 2:15 in, Fox News reporter Dan Miller says that his staff could find no bias or "hit pieces" against Joe Miller.
So, the charge itself floats up from a less-than-credible source. It's not clear from the tape or the transcript what they're talking about. Brit Hume himself says it's not utterly conclusive and then no bias can be found in the station's reporting on Miller himself.
Christine O'Donnell, the Sarah Palin-endorsed darling of the Tea Party and GOP nominee for the United States Senate for the great state of Delaware, thinks evolution is a myth.
Her skepticism is based on this ultra-scientific question:
Then why aren’t monkeys still evolving into humans?
Maher points out:
This is somebody who could be in the Senate, who thinks that mice have human brains and doesn't understand that, oh my god, monkeys don't evolve in the time it would take to watch them.
Darling of the Tea Party, Sarah Palin-endorsed, GOP Candidate for the United States Senate. Shouldn't scientific ignorance of this magnitude disqualify someone from being taken seriously as a candidate for public office?
That's right, this is the GOP we're talking about here.
Mr. Toomey’s remark, delivered at a campaign event in Biglerville, PA, comes at a time when 1,200 Pennsylvanians, on average, are killed each year in gun-related incidents – homicides, suicides and accidental shootings.
It comes at a time when 22 Pennsylvania police and law enforcement officers have been shot and killed in the past 10 years – 7 officers since 2009 alone. Just over a week ago, two convicted killers were sentenced to life in prison for their roles in the shooting death of a Philadelphia police officer, who was murdered with an assault rifle.
His remark comes at a time when cities and towns across Pennsylvania are taking action to combat illegal trafficking by passing a commonsense reform requiring gun owners to report lost or stolen handguns to the police. A total of 46 PA municipalities have passed lost or stolen handgun reporting laws in the past year and a half. Dozens of more Pennsylvania towns are considering similar action to give their police departments an additional tool to curb illegal gun traffickers and straw sellers of handguns to criminals.
And it comes soon after the U.S. Supreme Court recently reiterated its holding that reasonable regulations of firearms are permissible under the Constitution.
[snip]
Polling in Pennsylvania and nationally shows strong support for reasonable reforms to reduce gun violence. 96 percent of Pennsylvanians support a reporting law for lost or stolen handguns – including 92 percent of PA gun owners. Nationally, 84 percent of NRA members agree more can be done to keep illegal guns out of criminals’ hands without infringing 2nd Amendment rights.
Sarah Palin continues to defend Dr. Laura Schlessinger's use of the word "n****r" and blame liberals for forcing the controversial conservative radio show off the air. But just a few months ago Palin was adamant that using the "N-word," and other offensive terms, should be a firing offense...if you're a Democrat.
"I would ask the president to show decency in this process by eliminating one member of [his] inner circle, Mr. Rahm Emanuel," Palin wrote in February. "The Obama Administration's Chief of Staff scolded [liberal critics] calling them, 'F---ing retarded,' according to several participants, as reported in the Wall Street Journal. Just as we'd be appalled if any public figure of Rahm's stature ever used the "N-word" or other such inappropriate language...
Via Early Returns, we see Lil Ricky Santorum in Iowa going all xenophobic (and a little birther around the edges) on President Obama:
Obama is detached form the American experience. He just doesn’t identify with the average American because of his own background. Indonesia and Hawaii. His view is from the viewpoint of academics and the halls of the Ivy league schools that he went to and it’s not a love of this country and an understanding of the basic values and wants and desires of it’s people. And as a result of that, he doesn’t connect with people at that level.
Hmm, Hawaii as problematic...as less than truly American. Where have I heard that before?
Oh, yeah.
According to her own father, Sarah Palin had an Hawaii problem:
Palin, though notoriously ill-traveled outside the United States, did journey far to the first of the four colleges she attended, in Hawaii. She and a friend who went with her lasted only one semester. "Hawaii was a little too perfect," Palin writes. "Perpetual sunshine isn't necessarily conducive to serious academics for eighteen-year-old Alaska girls." Perhaps not. But Palin's father, Chuck Heath, gave a different account to Conroy and Walshe. According to him, the presence of so many Asians and Pacific Islanders made her uncomfortable: "They were a minority type thing and it wasn't glamorous, so she came home." In any case, Palin reports that she much preferred her last stop, the University of Idaho, "because it was much like Alaska yet still 'Outside.' "
I think Palin has found her running mate!
He's even into wildlife:
Lil Ricky can hold 'em while Sarah plugs 'em full of holes. .
