It's Okay to Hate Sarah Palin, Because She is Happy.

The Nation, a singularly obnoxious drum circle for trust fund babies in need of purpose and talking points, said this prior to the Iowa Primary:

Palin’s star has faded since she turned the Republican Party’s 2008 campaign into a theater-of-the-absurd production. But that star still shines with a small but very significant group voters that Trump needs. Although Palin became something of a laughingstock by the end of the 2008 campaign, a lot of conservative purists refused to laugh at her. Rather, they laughed with her—and many still do.

Palin’s favorable rating among Republicans in general has collapsed over the past seven years—from well above 80 percent when she joined John McCain’s ticket, to around 30 percent in recent years—but Palin can still headline a Tea Party rally and draw cheers. The most exaggerated conservatives, especially social conservatives, still view her as a “one-of-us” right-winger who believes what they believe. ( italics my own)

This is the standard yin/yang mix of Progressive logic.  Sarah Palin is a laughingstock and yet a force to be reckoned with.

Republicans, I am a Democrat, do sneer and go-along with the smart set and this is a principal symptom of that anemic Party's problem.

My understanding of the GOP can best be understood in a thorough study of the anthro-metaphor, Senator Mark Kirk of Illinois.  If a Republican wishes to soul-surf, as soul searching has gone out of practise, study Kirk in his thoughts, words and deeds.  He was tossed out on his well-padded rump, which has never been attached to a spine.

Kirk detested Sarah Palin, because Senator Dick Durbin ( D.IL) told him to do so.  Mark Kirk was and always had been a creature of the Illinois Combine ( see John Kass). Kirk scorned Palin, but was not beneath begging Sarah Palin to endorse him over Tammy Duckworth - Governor Palin ignored Kirk's squeal and went on the Oprah Winfrey show instead.

Sarah Palin came from a very happy, but hard-scrabble family in small town Alaska. Without connections, endorsements, clout, but with batteries of will, talents and courage became the popular mayor of her town and then a very popular Governor.  All the while mothering a growing family and being devoted partner to her  husband a hard working union man.

I find Sarah Palin to be all of these

• She is a superb athlete - she could humiliate Obama on the B-ball court
• Skilled hunter and fisherman
• Good cook
• Looks like a knockout
• Enjoys her family
• Lives her faith
• Helps her neighbors
• Never whines about horrible treatment meted out almost daily in the media
• She is detested by David  Brooks, Chris Matthews, Eric Zorn, Katrina vanden Heuvel (lower case v -you idiots!), Bill Moyers, Van Jones and most of the leading clowns in our political circus

Sarah Palin is the figure of feminism, but she does not believe babies should be slaughtered.  She was a politician without corporate logos patched all over her, like a NASCAR driver.  She was smart, but spoke her mind and with a very funny voice.  Sarah Palin is the People - you know the people polled by CNN who said that Hillary Clinton loved 'the average, hard-working American.'

Hillary, Wolf Blitzer, Gloria Borger, John King and Gloria Vanderbilt's little boy Anderson detest 'the average, hard-working American.'

The Democrat/GOP Globalist Secularist Oligarchs hate everything about people with grit, initiative, piety, duty to country, self-lessness, and self-deprecating humor.  Sarah Palin who not only kept her baby with Downs Syndrome, to the absolute horror of Cecile Richards and blood-harpies of Planned Parenthood, but held her baby up proudly to the entire Nation, not the magazine.

The hipsite Wonkette whooped up the elites when the Palin family celebrated the baby's third birthday:

That strange man yelling unintelligibly at Sarah Palin? He’s merely a lowly shepherd proclaiming the birth of our savior. Today is the day we come together to celebrate the snowbilly grifter’s magical journey from Texas to Alaska to deliver to the America the great gentleman scholar Trig Palin. Is Palin his true mother? Or was Bristol? (And why is it that nobody questions who the father is? Because, either way, Todd definitely did it.) It doesn’t matter. What matters is that we are privileged to live in a time when we can witness the greatest prop in world political history.

Good old David Letterman loved that material, too.

I am not that sophisticated.  I respect women who heroically defend their children.  More so, I really respect a tough father, who loves his bride and is slow to anger.  I wish Todd Palin could have shared a phone booth with David Letterman and that dead creep of a writer who moved in next door to the Palins. Conor MacGregor could do no better.

In the second year of her term as Governor of Alaska, John McCain vetted and begged Sarah Palin to be his running mate.

After the GOP Convention, McCain Strategists Steve Schmidt and Nicole Wallace felt that their access to Hollywood & Fifty Rock was in peril and they helped the media to savage Sarah Palin and her family.  Soon, John McCain had an excuse for bailing out of the 2008 Campaign that had turned from Terrorism to Bank Failure.  McCain all but  vanished after the first week of September, 2008 - Sarah Palin took all of the blame and still does.

Now, Sarah Palin stands to serve as Interior Secretary.   Now, the GOP owes its thin-blooded life to Truman Democrats and Reagan Republicans like Sarah Palin.  Trump is not of us - the average, hard working American, but he is not above us.  Trump surprised me.  He won Iowa, after Sarah Palin endorsed him.

Sarah Palin was the only forgotten American, crucified all through Obama's eight year memory lapse that African American shoe salesmen, CTA train and bus drivers, Greek American restaurant owners, Irish American pipe fitters, French American hog farmers and Jewish carpenters celebrated hope and change.  Sarah Palin and the Tea Party folks tried to snap Obama out of his reveries with Beyonce, Jay Z and George Clooney. Palin took the most of the very personal hits.

My personal belief is that intellectuals, academics, pollsters, lobbyists, consultants and community organizers - the mandarins of oligarchy - hate happy people.  They want, need and love the faceless down trodden Refugees, Unempowered, Masses, who , or whatever they happen to be. Sarah Palin is very happy.

It is Ok to hate, losers.  How'd that work for you on November 8th?  Stay happy America!

Steve Rhodes - The Only Liberal Who Calls Out the Universal Hypocrisies on Sarah Palin

I am as proud of Steve Rhodes as any man can be and I am as sexist as I am allowed to be.

Steve Rhodes publishes, contributes to and edits what I believe to be the finest Chicago clearinghouse on news, sports, culture, poetry and common sense on the Information Superhighway invented by Al Gore, who also invented Global Warming - The Beachwood Reporter.
Steve Rhodes is a journalist in city where most columnists come off as suck-ups and snitches in a classroom dedicated to suck-ups and snitches.

Steve Rhodes and I share a love of the written word and a reverence for - at least a nod to truth and common sense.

Today, as he does most days, Steve Rhodes holds the Diogenian Lamp over the suck-ups and snitches in the classroom over the treatment of the Thrilla from Wasilla - former Alaska Governor and GOP V.P. candidate Sarah Palin.

I like Sarah Palin. On my basest level ( one to which I cling in spite of my better angels), I think that she is very easy on the eyes. I am a sexist - devout, drooling, but not without shame. I love women almost as much as Rachel Maddow and much more than Sir Elton John. Gee let's see which person would I enjoy hanging around with . . . weepy Joan Walsh? . . . Rep. Rosa DeLauro? . . .( both of whom would sicken a billy goat raised on barbed wire and broken beer bottles) or Sarah Palin?

Jeepers.

I also like Sarah Palin as a person - she seems like a fine mother and seems very happy. Happiness really upsets American Progressives - unless of course they happen to be burning witches at the stake or engaging in universal self-loathing.

Voila! Rhodes on Truth!

The Palin Exception
By Steve Rhodes
One thing I learned this week - well, I re-learned, I've faced it before - is that sexist coverage of female politicians is an awful thing unless the pol is Sarah Palin. Then it's perfectly acceptable to at least a certain number of progressive feminists in and out of the media.

Why? Because if you despise someone's politics, they apparently no longer can be defended on any other grounds. Apparently it was always about politics, not principle.

So when I posted Reporting Palin, I shouldn't have been surprised by the depressing responses I got from some quarters.

As I've written before, the whole of America seems to need a civics lesson in how to carry on political discourse, decipher the media, and learn to think for themselves like the actual, independent citizens that democracy calls for.

And much of the media still needs lessons in how to do their jobs.

Here is the simple proposition I was operating under:

"Sexist coverage of Sarah Palin is every bit as despicable as sexist coverage of Hillary Clinton, which is every bit as despicable as sexist coverage of Laura Bush, which is every bit as despicable as sexist coverage of Michelle Obama, which is every bit as despicable as sexist coverage of Kay Bailey Hutchison, which is every bit as despicable as sexist coverage of Nancy Pelosi."

How silly of me. Haven't I learned by now of the Palin Exception?

Her politics are so despised - in part justified in my view, but also in part based on a lot of debunked nonsense akin to Al Gore's never-made claim to have invented the Internet - that certain principles go out the window.

But she has a right to her politics. She also has a right to covered fairly - even if she, like many other politicians, including our president, doesn't always play fair. Make that part of the reporting, but don't demean her because of her gender.

Just to reiterate, here is just a slice of the record.

1. "From Ferraro to Palin: Sexism in Media Coverage of Vice Presidential Candidates." By Caroline Heldman, Occidental College.

"We find persistent gender differences in mention of dress/appearance, mention of candidate family, gendered policy coverage, and negative tone that disadvantage female candidates. Additionally, female candidates are four times more likely to receive sexist media coverage, and the intensity and volume of sexist coverage increased dramatically from Ferraro's run in 1984 to Palin's run in 2008. We also compared Palin's coverage in Old Media (print) and New Media (blogs) and found that sexist coverage and negative coverage are more pronounced in this new medium."

2. "Like Hillary, Sarah Faces Media Sexism." By Marie Cocco.

"[T]he media will continue to subject Palin to the unapologetic sexism that has been directed at her since the very first hours after John McCain announced that she was his pick to be the Republican vice presidential nominee - and which continued to animate coverage of her, right up through a lengthy political profile in the current issue of Vanity Fair.

"Almost as certain, my colleagues will seek to defend the indefensible as something Palin brought upon herself - by being too ignorant, too unpredictable, too touchy, too hypocritical, too loose with facts, too inept at governing, too flirty, even too obviously fertile. Yes, this is one of the assertions made in the Vanity Fair profile . . .

"Almost as soon as she'd finished her breakthrough speech at the Republican National Convention, one columnist for the liberal online magazine Salon called Palin a 'dominatrix' and a 'pinup queen,' referred to her 'babaliciousness' - and described her convention address as having been charged with enough sexual energy to give the partisan crowd a 'collective woody.' Another Salon columnist described Palin as a 'Christian Stepford wife in a sexy librarian costume" who was, for the most ideological Republicans, a 'hard-core pornographic centerfold spread.'

"Palin early on was called 'Stepford Barbie' and 'Caribou Barbie' - terms used even by highbrow commentators, who find it acceptable to liken Palin to the impossibly proportioned fashion doll. The Barbie epithet marked Palin as an object of sexualized fashion fascination well before it came to light that the vice presidential nominee had used Republican Party funds to buy an expensive campaign wardrobe."

3. "Media analyst sees racism, sexism in election coverage." By Holly Jackson.

"Audible gasps filled Ellis Auditorium at MU on Tuesday night, as Pozner played a clip featuring CNBC talk show host Donny Deutsch saying Palin was a woman he wanted to lie next to in bed and Clinton should have put on a skirt."

4. "Geraldine Ferraro Accuses Media Over 'Sexist' Scrutiny of Sarah Palin." By Tom Baldwin.

"Ms Ferraro remains angry at the 'sexist treatment' of Mrs Clinton by the media. 'In New Hampshire, someone put up a sign saying Iron My Shirt. Nobody spoke out. Imagine if Hillary's supporters had said [to Obama] Shine my shoes. Everybody would quite rightly have been jumping on it. Women in politics should not be treated better than men, just fairly.'"

5. "Estrich On Sexist Attacks On Palin." By Jim Lindgren.

"Susan Estrich, former Dukakis campaign manager, just said on Fox that she was appalled by the attacks on Palin [and called them] 'really unfair' and 'really sexist.'"

6. "Juan Williams: 'Centerfold' Palin Successful Because She's Attractive." By Lachlan Markey.

"Fox News contributor Juan Williams, also a reporter for NPR and the Washington Post, was at a complete loss when Sean Hannity told him last night that he would rather Palin be president than Barack Obama. 'Your libido is getting in the way of your thinking,' Williams told Hannity . . . 'I think she is a superstar centerfold for conservative men.'"

7. "Clinton Aides: Palin Treatment Sexist." By John Harris and Beth Frerkring.

"Sarah Palin found some unlikely allies Wednesday as leading academics and even former top aides to Hillary Rodham Clinton endorsed the Republican charge that John McCain's running mate has been subject to a sexist double standard by the news media and Democrats.

"Georgetown University professor Deborah Tannen, who has written best-selling books on gender differences, said she agrees with complaints that Palin skeptics - including prominent voices in the news media - have crossed a line by speculating about whether the Alaska governor is neglecting her family in pursuit of national office.

"'What we're dealing with now, there's nothing subtle about it,' said Tannen. 'We're dealing with the assumption that child-rearing is the job of women and not men. Is it sexist? Yes . . . '

"* Liberal radio host Ed Schultz used the words 'bimbo alert' to refer to Palin, and the Huffington Post featured a photo montage of Palin with the headline, 'Former Beauty Queen, Future VP?'

"* CNN's John Roberts recently pondered on air: 'Children with Down's syndrome require an awful lot of attention. The role of vice president, it seems to me, would take up an awful lot of her time, and it raises the issue of how much time will she have to dedicate to her newborn child?'

"This line of inquiry was echoed by writer Sally Quinn, who in her 'On Faith' column for washingtonpost.com agreed that Palin is a 'bright, attractive, impressive person," but also asked, "is she prepared for the all-consuming nature of the job?'

"'Her first priority has to be her children,' Quinn wrote. 'When the phone rings at 3 in the morning and one of her children is really sick what choice will she make?'"

8. "'No One Will Ever Be Able to Take Your Place' as a Mom." By Richard Prince.

"'My question to Sarah Palin is this. Who is going to lead your children?' Sidmel Estes-Sumpter, a media consultant and former president of the National Association of Black Journalists, asked on her blog on Friday.

"'I get it when you say you have a supportive husband who is always there for you. I get it when you complain that men aren't subjected to the same kind of questioning as women when it comes to family values. Been there . . . done that . . . got the t-shirt. But Sarah . . . GET REAL. No one will ever be able to take your place as a mother. I'm telling you this not because of what I have heard. I'm telling you this because this is what I know.

"'More than 17 years ago, I was elected the national president of the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ). . . the first woman in our organization to accomplish that. The biggest heartstring pulling at me was how it would affect my two year old son. That consideration almost forced me not to run.'"

9. "Newsweek Cover Races To The Bottom With Old Photo Of Palin." By Glynnis MacNicol.

"The weekly magazine, which since its relaunch has opted for increasingly blogosphere-like headlines to generate readers, apparently has decided that the best way to cover Sarah Palin's reemergence on the national stage is with an old photo from Runner's World . . . But resorting to a photo like this (and yes I realize she posed for it, though in an entirely different context) to illustrate such a condescending headline forces me conclude that Newsweek thinks Palin is an annoying little problem because she looks good in runner's shorts, and not a problem because, as both the magazine's articles suggest, she is the 21st century's version of Barry Goldwater, and has broad national appeal for a whole slew of reasons, very few of which having to do with how she looks in runner's shorts."

10. "Biden's Gloves Come Off . . . Against 'Sexist' Media." By Matthew Jaffe.

"[T]he truth is, some of the stuff that the press has said about Sarah, and that others have said about the governor, I think, are outrageous," Biden said. "I just think some of the stuff said has been over the top, totally unfair, and has been sexist, and I think the way the governor has handled it has been admirable."

11. "Matthews: Palin Like A 'Mail-Order Bride.'" By Ed Morrissey.

"No one will be surprised to see Matthews do this, but having Newsweek's Howard Fineman busting a gut and joining in the fun may be a bit of a surprise."

12. "From Gloria Steinem to Norah O'Donnell, Misogyny and Sexism Are Fine if the Target (Palin) Is on the Right." By Julia Reed.

"Blogs accused her of faking her own pregnancy with a Down syndrome child to cover up for her daughter. Mainstream journalists - female mainstream journalists - like Norah O'Donnell questioned whether a mother of five could effectively function as vice president. More piled on about her irresponsibility in accepting the nomination with five children, including one with special needs. Alan Colmes suggested on his blog that her airplane travel had possibly contributed to the fact that her child was born with Down syndrome. It went on and on and on. Where was the feminist outcry?

"Plenty of Republican women were sickened over the treatment of Hillary Clinton (hell, even I cried at the video that introduced her convention speech), but there has been no reaching across party lines to defend Palin. Not even when Martin Peretz dismissed and demeaned her by saying, 'I give [Palin] her due: she is pretty like a cosmetics saleswoman at Macy's.'"

13. "Eric Zorn's Sexist Folly." By Steve Rhodes.

"The Tribune columnist today retells the jokes of late-night comics about Sarah Palin without any recognition of how offensive many of them are."

14. "Palin as Pinup." By Steve Rhodes.

"I'm not sure what to do first, re-read Freud or call Susan Faludi."

*

Again, my simple proposition is this:

"Sexist coverage of Sarah Palin is every bit as despicable as sexist coverage of Hillary Clinton, which is every bit as despicable as sexist coverage of Laura Bush, which is every bit as despicable as sexist coverage of Michelle Obama, which is every bit as despicable as sexist coverage of Kay Bailey Hutchison, which is every bit as despicable as sexist coverage of Nancy Pelosi."

But when it comes to Palin, well, a lot of "progressive" women (and liberal reporters) simply don't care.

-

Steve remember what the poet and philosopher Al Sweringen from Deadwood told his minions - "You want a donkey's attention, you bring a #$%king pole down between his ears."
Yes Sir!

Trump Wins - Sarah Palin Did It.

Donald J. Trump is President Elect - the 45th President of the United States.

I went to sleep last night convinced that Hillary R. Clinton would be so; I believed that America was about to be hammered flatter, sillier, undignified and weaker than it already happens to be.

I voted for Donald Trump only to vote against Hillary R. Clinton, a third term for President Obama and to toss the middle finger at the Illinois Democrat and Republican Parties.

I succeeded on two.

Here in Illinois, we have same-old-same-old. Illinois is still squeezed into its globalist Progressive Hillary Blue pant suits.

The Chicago Sun Times, The Chicago Tribune, WTTW and the networks succeed in maintaining Rube Goldberg Progressive Pension  Handout Machine, available only to oligarchs, cretins, feebs and dummies.
Illinois election results  MORE RESULTS

U.S. Senate
Tammy Duckworth (D)
54.4%
Mark Kirk (R)
40.2%
99.1% of precincts reporting

Comptroller
Susana Mendoza (D)
49.0%
Leslie Geissler Munger (R)
44.9%
99.1% of precincts reporting
DISTRICT 10
U.S. House
Brad Schneider (D)
52.5%
Robert Dold (R)
47.5%
100.0% of precincts reporting
COOK COUNTY
State's Attorney
Kim Foxx (D)
71.7%
Christopher Pfannkuche (R)
28.3%

U.S. House District 7
 Back to top
CANDIDATE PARTY VOTES TOTAL VOTE PERCENTAGE
Danny Davis DEMOCRAT 232,322
84.0%
Jeffrey Leef REPUBLICAN 44,242
16.0%
Precincts reporting: 568 of 597, Last updated: November 9, 2016, 5:37 a.m.
U.S. House District 8
 Back to top
CANDIDATE PARTY VOTES TOTAL VOTE PERCENTAGE
Raja Krishnamoorthi DEMOCRAT 141,080
58.1%
Pete DiCianni REPUBLICAN 101,871
41.9%
Precincts reporting: 465 of 465, Last updated: November 9, 2016, 5:37 a.m.
U.S. House District 9
 Back to top
CANDIDATE PARTY VOTES TOTAL VOTE PERCENTAGE
Jan Schakowsky DEMOCRAT 203,776
65.8%
Joan McCarthy Lasonde REPUBLICAN 105,900

The lame continue to halt everyone in Illinois.

Not so, beyond Cook County.  Donald J. Trump hit a nerve in the decaying molars of the American Middle Class that has lost its dental insurance, along with its sense of We Are the People.

I worked very hard for John McCain in 2008 and when he picked Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate, I believed that he had found the path to victory.  I was very wrong.  Barack Obama had a great machine, but he is a man of limited capacities controlled by people who do not like the United States, its history and most of its people very much.

The Obama machine turned its sights on Sarah Palin and the news media, Hollywood, Bruce Springsteen, P-Diddy, SNL and MASSCULT America went 'gangsta' on not only Governor Palin, but her family.  That woman could take it.

John McCain, a hero who withstood years of physical and psychological torture at the hands of the Communists in North Vietnam's Hanoi Hilton with the manly grace of Samson at the milling wheel, eyeless in Gaza, turned into George Stephanopoulas at the thought of ridicule in his beloved American media and Jack Griffin when the economy tanked in September, 2008.  Senator McCain was happy being Senator McCain and he allowed Barack Obama to waltz into the White House, while he retained the good will of Chris Matthews, David Brooks, Wolf Blitzer and weaker sisters of the GOP.

McCain allowed Sarah Palin and her family to be nailed to the cross, by David Letterman and every toxic ink slinger continental.

I admire Sarah Palin and consider her to be the 21st Century Mother Jones.

I also like Sarah Palin as a person - she seems like a fine mother and seems very happy. Happiness really upsets American Progressives - unless of course they happen to be burning witches at the stake or engaging in universal self-loathing.

I believe that I am the only member of my vast family who admires Sarah Palin.  In fact even among my more conservative friends this admiration of mine seems a bit daft.

The very pious, elegant and well-spoken woman, who deigns to be seen in public with me,  is put off by Gov. Palin's rhetorical choices and her God-given voice.  Coming from a blue-collar Irish Catholic family where Party loyalty equals Union (Real Labor) fidelity,  Ms. Palin's own Family Labor background gets lost in translation by my dear tribe, as well as the American Progressive Smart-Set.  The same family members, my Mom most loudly, who hold that Ms. Palin must be "nuts" are not in the least put off by Nancy Pelosi's ghost whispering. Second only to these standard issue mental health canards, comes the Celtic charge of Palin being a "total phony!"  Could be.  It's lost on me.

I like and admire Sarah Palin.  She can lead.  President Obama, in the words of Hockey Dad and Chicago's own Bobby Hull, "couldn't lead a dog out of a thunderstorm with a T-bone steak." The man can baffle with soaring bullshit, I'll give him that . . . not that he writes any of it.

I'd follow Sarah Palin into a Jenny Craig Program; I would not follow President Obama into Old Country Buffet.

Sarah Palin stayed in the fight for these last eight years of the Obama Administration and took the buffets and blows with her sinewy courage.  Palin was the voice in the Wilderness, mocked by an HBO movie, David Letterman every night, GOP thin skins universal and even people who once felt warm toward her plain spoken Populism.

Sarah Palin was the first national political figure to give street cred to Donald J. Trump and every theme that brought him to victory - listen to the whole speech.



That voice is something.  That rhetoric is something.  That endorsement lit the fire.

Sarah Palin went dark, after her endorsement and did not need to play Jesse Jackson, photo-bombing her choice at every turn, nor did Governor Palin allow herself to be a goat for Trump.  He does that on his own.

I do not know if Donald J. Trump will deliver.

I do know that he has the opportunity and he owes that opportunity to Governor Sarah Palin. Along with his daughter Ivanka, the victims of Clinton, Inc. Kathleen Wiley, Juanita Broderick and  Paula Jones, Sarah Palin's feminine heroism pushed Trump over the pundits, polls and plutocrats.

Sarah Palin has been right since 2008 - Tea Party, ISIS, Obamacare Death Panels, Occupy Anarchism, BLM and Putin's proximity to her backyard, the English Channel and Aleppo.

I pray that she will keep President Elect Donald Trump's nose on the right path.

Mother Jones 2012 is Sarah Palin

  

The American Mothers Jones -2012/20th Century








Diane Reece of the Washington Post,  a very talented writer who did not need a pile of dough from George Soros, Bill Burton, David Plouffe, or Mother Jones magazine to rent a house next to the Palin Family, is critical of Palin but honest and fair-minded. Rather than do a standard Joan Walsh Salon bitch, Diane Reece made an honest and forthright attempt to witness the impact of Sarah Palin on a crowd of people.  Diane Reece wrote for the Washington Post -

It was the first time I’d ever seen Palin in person, and it was well worth the 19-mile drive from my suburban Kansas City home to The Berry Patch, a you-pick blueberry farm near Cleveland, Mo., population 665, in rural Cass County.
Not because I’m a fan or even agree with her ideology, but to see what all the fuss has been about.

There has been fuss aplenty!  I believe that I am the only member of my vast family who admires Sarah Palin.  The very pious, elegant and well-spoken woman who deigns to be seen in public with me is put off by Gov. Palin's rhetorical choices and her God-given voice.  Coming from a blue-collar Irish Catholic family where Party loyalty equals Union (Real Labor) fidelity Ms. Palin's own Family Labor background gets lost in translation by my dear tribe, as well as the American Progressive Smart-Set.  The same family members, my Mom most loudly, who hold that Ms. Palin must be "nuts" are not in the least put off by Nancy Pelosi's ghost whispering. Second to the mental health canards, comes the Celtic charge of being a "total phony!"  Could be.  It's lost on me.

I like and admire Sarah Palin.  She can lead.  President Obama, in the words of Hockey Dad and Chicago's own Bobby Hull, "couldn't lead a dog out of a thunderstorm with a T-bone steak." The man can baffle with soaring bullshit, I'll give him that . . .not that he writes any of it.

 I'd follow Sarah Palin into a Jenny Craig Program; I would not follow President Obama into Old Country Buffet.

I understand that some people might be put-off by fashion, couture, and un-filtered plain-speak.  Ms. Diane Reece is first mainstream journalist to make those objections personal and not universally dogmatic:

When Palin took to the makeshift stage in the middle of a Missouri farm field, she was dressed more for the part of Hollywood celebrity than serious politician. I know someone’s going to remind me that just last week, I said it was sexist to focus on the wardrobes of women in politics.
But it was hard for me to take Palin seriously dressed as she was.
First, her shoes: Five-inch wedges. Her black capris weren’t quite skin-tight but tight enough, and her t-shirt with its Superman logo (a Steelman campaign shirt emblazoned with “Our freedom. Our fight.”) emphasized her figure. She never once removed her oversized sunglasses.
I’m sorry, but I’d like my minister, my doctor and yes, my politicians, to look and dress for their parts.
Once Palin spoke, I couldn’t help but think she sometimes sounds like a caricature of herself. Perhaps it’s her unique manner of speaking or her overuse of certain phrases.
There were moments during her 15-minute speech that I felt like applauding and there were certainly moments that I groaned.

I do know that Sarah Palin scares the marrow out of people that I would not particularly care to spend any amount of time with, much less value their opinions -MSNBC's entire Clown Opera, Il. Gov. Pat Quinn, The jerks John McCain hired in 2008,  The Second Wave Feminist Dowagers of the Abortion Industry, David " Crisp Britches" Brooks,  or Martini Mo Dowd.  Most of all the editors and contributors of Mother Jones Magazine have worked over-time to defraud American history and be-smeer the name of Mary Harris Jones, who was the Sarah Palin of the last century.

Mary Harris "Mother" Jones is an Irish Catholic woman, who lived a life that not only bridged America's Industrial Revolution to the Rise of American Labor, but defended the traditional family, unborn children and children forced into work, women torn from the hearth and most of all "Her Boys!"  Mother Jones was tough old broad who had watched her working man husband and children die of fever, the business that she built with her two skilled hands burn in the Chicago Fire, and working men struggle for wages, reasonable working hours and conditions, as well as basic human dignity, and labor, politcal, social welfare frauds work against them.

Mother Jones was a  force of nature. Mary Harris Jones was tough and very happy  little widow. The Press, the Governors and frauds hated her.

Mother Jones magazine performed post-mortem hysterical castration on the historical Mary Harris Jones, denuding her memory of her Catholic Faith and identity, as well as her counter-Marxist methodologies.Mother Jones was no Emma Goldman, no Jane Addams, no Margret Sanger; Mary Harris Jones was an honest woman who never cashed in on her celebrity and never played ball with the radical phonies. She was no atheist.  Mother Jones made war on phonies, weaklings, cowards, Prohibitionists, and do-gooder frauds, as well as capitalists. John L. Lewis made her sick to her stomach.  Big Bill Haywood she considered a pawn to booze and Bolsheviks.  Dowager abortionists?  Forget about it.

Sarah Palin is the clearest image of Mother Jones.  She is happy, honest, courageous and not a good fit for MSNBC. - Mother Jones would have turned Rachel Maddow into quivering  belaboring curds of word-whey.

At the end of her article, Ms. Reece wondered if the SuperMan T-shirt, 5" Heel Wedgied Mother Jones would would help steer a Missouri Hawkey Mawm to the Senate Race.   Nope. Like Mother Jones herself, sometimes your are the Grizzly and sometimes just a hard working Mom.



Mary Harris Mother Jones -“Goodbye, boys; I’m under arrest. I may have to go to jail. I may not see you for a long time. Keep up the fight! Don’t surrender! Pay no attention to the injunction machine at Parkersburg. The Federal judge is a scab anyhow. While you starve he plays golf. While you serve humanity, he serves injunctions for the money powers.”

Governor Sarah Palin-“It’s unbelievable to me that you spent last week in campaign mode, gallivanting around the country to start raising the billion dollars for your reelection bid that is still 19 months away ‘while Rome burns.’ . . . As was recently asked: When do you ever just ‘roll up your sleeves, unplug the teleprompter’ and do the job of governing and administrating for which voters hired you? I know, I know, granted you will be even busier very soon. After all, golf season kicks into high gear shortly. NBA and NHL brackets await.”


http://www.americanswhotellthetruth.org/pgs/portraits/Mother_Jones.php
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/she-the-people/post/sarah-palin-mama-grizzlies-united/2012/08/06/23393f12-dfc6-11e1-8d48-2b1243f34

McCain/Palin: My Progressive Poster Seth Pie-Gallon: 'Tom Hayden Cares, People!'

Hickey is taking the day off - he should take his life off. I'm Seth Pie-Gallon*.

Today I want to explain - let me be as clear as possible and go as slow as I can for you grass cutters, who do not seem to be bothered that Iraq is an occupation by European Crusaders who believe that God wants them to kill Muslims, or that millions of obese Americans go to bed hungry in food deserts created by the same CIA/Halliburton Gang of Cheney that blew the levees in Katrina,Louisiana and Twin Towers, New York. Sarah Palin is evil, Man! The issues are clear and all Grampa McSame and his Eskimo Pie offer is Bush 44.

Read this from Tom Hayden - he really cares. This is why:

1.Sarah Palin is a mortal threat to the possibility of Obama winning. The reason is simple: if she can add a couple of points to McCain from defecting white women and the newly-energized right wing religious base without losing more independent votes, McCain pulls ahead in some key states.


The dangerous tendency of the Obama campaign and its Democratic surrogates is to not fight back, but treat Palin as a “distraction” from McCain, the economy, the issues they feel familiar with, etc.

If they assume that the Palin bubble will return to earth naturally, or that the mainstream media and Saturday Night Live will do the job for them, the Obama campaign is mistaken.

There needs to be a controlled message that treats Palin as an extension of McCain, not a bobble-head to be laughed at.

The message has to cut off independent and women’s support for McCain-Palin and, if possible, divide some of the right-wingers. Not an easy task.

Perhaps the point is that we’ve already suffered eight years under a president Bush and vice-president Cheney who were, in Palin’s words, so “wired in a way to be committed to the mission” that they could neither blink nor think.

An excellent editorial in Sunday’s NY Times makes the connection from McCain to Palin in terms that will reach independent and moderate voters. It should be quoted and widely circulated. The choice of an unqualified candidate to be a heartbeat from the presidency of a 72 year old man with four melanomas “was shockingly irresponsible”, the Times said.

I think we can see in McCain-Palin a kind of faith-based extremism that reminds us of Bush and, even more, the persona of Gen. Custer.

We have seen where righteous faith-based politics goes in the Supreme Court decisions, corruption scandals, the official lies, and the unnecessary wars of the past eight years, all carried out in the name of what both McCain and Palin now call “God’s plan.”

We should say, In the name of God, stop them!

2. The McCain-Palin foreign policy is a mortal threat from the same neoconservatives who brought us Iraq wrapped in lies. We cannot give the Republicans an advantage with their false clams of “victory in sight.” We have to emphasize the three-trillion dollar cost of the war, and we have to connect the war to the price of oil. Democratic consultants should stop compartmentalizing the economy like it was 1992 all over again.

This is apparently not the advice of the biggest Democratic heavyweights like Bill Clinton and James Carville who tend to revert to “it’s the economy, stupid.” But it’s not 1992. It’s the 9/11 era, the Iraq War era, the War on Terrorism era – and also the middle of the worse economic and energy crisis in memory. The issues are tied together. Not enough people will vote on “lunch bucket” issues if they think McCain-Palin will protect them from terrorists, but they might vote against McCain-Palin if they think they are being lied to again.

The war is not being won. That’s why Petraeus wants to keep 140,000 troops in Iraq. We are paying 100,000 Iraqis not to shoot and bomb us – for now. Iraq is a time bomb with a timer set to go off next year after the November election. It costs $324 million a day, three trillion in the long run, that could be spent on public works, health care and education now. It deepens our dependency on oil when we should be spending the money to weatherize our buildings, conserve our energy and throw ourselves into a new clean energy economy with the same focus it took to get to the moon. That’s the mission we need to be wired into…

Under McCain-Palin, the same neo-conservatives who fabricated the pretext for invading Iraq will only take us into more quagmires – Afghanistan, Pakistan, Georgia, maybe Iran - that will bleed our troops and our economy without an end in sight.

Palin's brazen neocon advisers repeated the original Iraq lie – that Saddam was behind 9/11 - in the scripted speech she gave to her son’s troops as they departed for the war zone: “You’ll be there to defend the innocent from the enemies who planned and carried out and rejoiced in the deaths of thousands of Americans.” [NYT, Sept. 14]

Bush-Cheney obviously are trying to scare enough voters into supporting McCain-Palin amidst a rising national security crisis. The Democrats and the media are helping them by accepting Georgia’s triggering attack on Russia as legitimate, which surely was orchestrated with the knowledge of McCain’s top foreign policy adviser, the same neo-con who directed the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq from Washington lobby to actual invasion force. They further hope to bring back bin Ladin’s head from Pakistan before November. Bush-McCain may get the scalp of bin Ladin but they are on Custer’s path to Little Big Horn.

So the clear promise of McCain-Palin is there will be blood. The fact that they scoff at Obama at the mere mention of diplomacy [despite their own talking to Russia, Iran, etc] presents an opening to describe them as what they are: extremists in the tradition of Bush-Cheney for whom war seems to be a first option. McCain was there on an aircraft carrier screaming “Next stop, Baghdad!” in 2002 as if it was Vietnam in 1967. Palin says she’s wired to win the war without blinking. That’s also why McCain on two occasions this year has spoken favorably of resuming the compulsory military draft. Independents and young first-time voters should pay attention to these issues.

The peace movement which provided the platform that made Obama’s candidacy possible in 2002 cannot afford to let that advantage be squandered by Democrats this fall. The upcoming September 20 Million Doors for Peace campaign is a good way to begin spreading the word.

[ See http://www.milliondoorsforpeace.org ]

* Seth Pie-Gallon Bio:

Seth Pie-Gallon is a film & television writer/producer living in America's Heartland -- Peotone, IL. He's the founder of The Department of Homeland Narcissism, a grassroots initiative demanding an apology from President George W. Bush for the offenses of his two terms. He's also founder of the groups: Democrats for Levi Strauss, Progressives Against Parsnips, and Please Don't Hit Me.com. His new book is Pardon My Algorithms: Ready-to-Mail Apologies for Eight Years of Undergraduate. Seth Pie-Gallon is a member of Ward Churchill Study Group and the Michael Moore Subway Sandwich Fellowship.

Former Alaska Governor Palin Did Nothing to Keep Chicago's City Hall Open Yesterday

Yesterday was opening day for freshmen at Leo High School and former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin could not be bothered to drop by and give the African American young men attending this venerable Catholic inner city high school a Howdy! Not only that Chicago City Hall was closed for business and Palin lifted not one finger to help.

Sarah Palin is the cause of all the problems President Obama has had since his historic election.

In Afghanistan, American troops face the Taliban, with whom we should be dialoging, but nowhere is Palin to be found.

When the late Michael Jackson was gulping down white gloved handfuls of crazy pills, did Palin intervene? 'Zounds - she did not!

Did she save Vick's Dogs? Nope.

MSNBC Chris "Milky" Matthews suggests with every breath in his thigh that Palin is ordering folks to strap on the shooting irons and attend Townhalls.

Sarah Palin is goading Americans to attend Townhalls in order that they may be infected by the H1N1 - Pig Puker Virus.

Every voice in electronic media devotes every level of volume in damning Palin, but her pernicious influence on the lives of all Americans continues unabated - like the nemesis of Sherlock Holmes, Professor James Moriarty The Napoleon of Crime, Sarah Palin is La jeune fille à l'agneau.

Yet, considered unlettered and unwholesome to Salonitas and their lap-dogs like David Brooks and Kathleen Parker, Palin weaves a web of calumny and intrigue with the dexterity of Kali -Palin's tawny and sinew-ed Diana-like arms snake in and out of every aspect of the Life American!

Woe unto this Land! Unscrubbed of Palin.

Only this morning, I counted the bills in the silver clip inscribed with the honorific -#1. Dad ( Father's Day 1999) and was shocked to see that I had ten dollars fewer than the previous morning.

Palin is Afoot in this Land of the Free! The Game's Afoot!

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/08/17/palin_called_a_spade_a_spade_97916.html

McCain/Palin: Sarah Palin's Ok with Us - Salon Should Sell Beer.

Billy Ayers and his odious Old Lady were members of University of Illinois Chicago Dean Stanley Fish's 'salon' - a gathering of guys who wear turtle-necks and tweed and their wives and significant others dedicated to frank and open discussions of 'how stupid and inconsequential Americans tend to be.' Rawley!

Joan Walsh*, the Irish Honors Student editor of Salon, has a flat-out assault on Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin. Salon is a literary extension of the wine and brie-sotted set discussing 'how stupid and inconsequential Americans tend to be.;

Joanie Walsh is a WOW -N.O.W. WOMAN and an MSNBC sneer-caster.

She sent Juan Cole** ( the Anti-colonialist author and smart guy that Yale took a pass on) out to tell us that Sarah Palin is the head of the Alaska Taliban.

You know Alaska, where the celebration of Diversity has led to massive castrations of pre-teen girls, where opposition candidates are garroted, where non-moose diets are proscribed, where 80% of the Alaska Population wails and gnashes teeth.

The Tweedy Twerps want all of 'stupid and inconsequential Americans' to know that,

' Contemporary Muslim fundamentalists, however, generally oppose abortion.

Palin's stance is even stricter than that of the Parliament of the Islamic Republic of Iran. In 2005, the legislature in Tehran attempted to amend the country's antiabortion statute to permit an abortion up to four months in case of a birth defect. The conservative clerical Guardianship Council, which functions as a sort of theocratic senate, however, rejected the change. Iran's law on abortion is therefore virtually identical to the one that Palin would like to see imposed on American women, and the rationale in both cases is the same, a literalist religious impulse that resists any compromise with the realities of biology and of women's lives. Saudi Arabia's restrictive law on abortion likewise disallows it in the case or rape or incest, or of fetal impairment, which is also Gov. Palin's position.

Theocrats confuse God's will with their own mortal policies. Just as Muslim fundamentalists believe that God has given them the vast oil and gas resources in their regions, so Palin asks church workers in Alaska to pray for a $30 billion pipeline in the state because "God's will has to get done." Likewise, Palin maintained that her task as governor would be impeded "if the people of Alaska's heart isn't right with God." Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei of Iran expresses much the same sentiment when he says "the only way to attain prosperity and progress is to rely on Islam."

Not only does Palin not believe global warming is "man-made," she favors massive new drilling to spew more carbon into the atmosphere. Both as a fatalist who has surrendered to God's inscrutable will and as a politician from an oil-rich region, she thereby echoes Saudi Arabia. Riyadh has been found to have exercised inappropriate influence in watering down a report in 2007 of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.'

The article links Time magazine's earlly broadsides against Palin that go nowhere. Juan Cole tries to scare the bejabbers out of us 'stupid and inconseqential Americans' with a twice told tale about book banning. The problem is that the story, linked to Time, concludes that there is no there there.

Salon should sell Slim-Jims, Have-A-Hanks, Old Style Beer, and feature a wall shelf of fine Frito Lay Products in individual sized servings, which drunks can purchase by the fist full to stave off false hunger.

Joan Walsh and her staff of tweedy Obama Goebbels provide much less nourishment than a bust-out saloon.

Click my post title for Salon's Juan Cole attack on Sarah Palin and do . . .do click the links to the Time-Warner chips and pretzels.

* Here's Joan Walsh and her stated agenda - check out the balance in the articles:

About Me
I joined Salon in 1998 to become our first full-time news editor, and succeeded the irreplaceable David Talbot as editor in chief in February 2005.

Before that I spent many years as a freelancer -- including for Salon; Scott Rosenberg taught me how to use e-mail in 1995 so I could send in my stories -- and I also ran my own business, consulting to national foundations and nonprofits on education, community development and urban poverty issues. In the 1980s, I was California bureau Chief for In These Times and editor of the Santa Barbara News and Review (now the Independent).

I've written for everyone from the Los Angeles Times and Washington Post to Vogue and the Nation. I love baseball, Bruce Springsteen, Stephen Colbert and long walks on the beach. I live in San Francisco with my daughter, Nora, the best teenager ever.More Salon politics blogs

War RoomNew Obama ad attacks McCain/Palin "maverick" claim
The spot goes after John McCain's attempt to reclaim his famous image and Sarah Palin's claims regarding the "Bridge to Nowhere."

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The "liberal" cable outlet demotes and diminishes its most popular and valuable news personality after the White House, the McCain campaign and the right demand it does so.

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**http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Cole

McCain/Palin; Media Leading McCain to a Landslide Over Obama

MSNBC, CNN, New York Times, Washington Post and every paper in Chicago wants Obama to President so badly that they making every effort to enusre that John McCain wins by a landslide. You see - most news readers and keypunchers in the Media have absolutely no idea about Americans - you and me. Most keypunchers with bylines are fed their stories by political stooges - let's say a dwarfish Cook County Commissioner wants Abner Nimblefinger to write an edgy expose on systemic corruption. Abner is treated to university think-tankers and professors who printout pages of gobble-dee-gook which Abner pees his britches to print. That is the state of news papers.

The TV readers skwak out whatever is put in front of them and then participate in political round-tables redacting exactly what they had read.

Obama has it made. Example, Steve Hayes writes,

According to the press, in recent weeks, the McCain campaign has so distorted Obama's record and campaign proposals that the young senator has had no choice but to fight back with old-school tactics. "McCain's tactics are drawing the scorn of many in the media and organizations tasked with fact-checking the truthfulness of campaigns," wrote Politico's Jonathan Martin. "In recent weeks, Team McCain has been described as dishonorable, disingenuous and downright cynical."

And so while McCain's every utterance is factchecked and factchecked again in an attempt to shame him from challenging Obama too aggressively, Obama gets a pass.

Consider two examples.

On August 16, Pastor Rick Warren asked John McCain how much money someone would have to make to be considered rich. McCain didn't answer directly. "I think that rich should be defined by a home, a good job, an education and the ability to hand to our children a more prosperous and safer world than the one that we inherited," he said.

Then he made a joke: "So, I think if you are just talking about income, how about $5 million?"

The audience laughed, immediately understanding that McCain was being facetious. Just in case there were any doubts McCain started his next comment by saying "seriously," to underscore the joke. Then he made a prediction.

"I'm sure that comment will be distorted," he said with a shrug of his shoulders.
And it has been. "It should come as no surprise that John McCain believes the cutoff for the rich begins at $5 million," Barack Obama's campaign said in a statement. "It may explain why his tax plan gives a $600,000 tax cut to the richest 0.1 percent of earners." At a campaign appearance two days after McCain made the comments, Obama himself mocked McCain. "I guess if you're making $3 million a year, you're middle class," Obama said.

Some news accounts noted that McCain was joking and others even reported that McCain predicted his words would be twisted and used against him. In an August 18 article in the Los Angeles Times, Greg Miller actually did both and noted that McCain aides had made clear their boss was joking. "Even so," Miller wrote, "the remark highlighted the candidates' disparate outlooks. Analysts who study income distribution said the answers appeared to reflect shifting political calculations more than economic reality."

So Miller, writing under the headline, "Who's Rich? McCain and Obama have very different definitions," used McCain's facetious answer as if he had meant it. (Miller also speculated that Cindy McCain's family money may have shaped McCain's views of what constitutes rich.) Not only was Obama not called on his misuse of McCain's comment, reporters piled on. Is it any wonder that the line has made regular appearances in Obama speeches over the past month?

"Now, I don't believe that Senator McCain doesn't care what's going on in the lives of Americans," Obama said in his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention. "I just think he doesn't know. Why else would he define middle-class as someone making under $5 million a year?"

Then there are the absurd lengths to which some reporters are willing to go to protect Obama and attack McCain. Last week, the McCain campaign released an ad accusing Obama of being too close to Fannie Mae executives. In particular, it claims Obama took advice on housing and finance issues from former Fannie Mae chairman Franklin Raines. The Obama campaign protested, saying that Raines was not an adviser and had not given Obama counsel in any capacity. The McCain campaign defended the claim by citing an article that ran in the Washington Post on July 16, 2008. That article noted that Raines had "taken calls from Barack Obama's presidential campaign seeking his advice on mortgage and housing policy matters."

Last Friday, the Washington Post "factchecked" the McCain ad and concluded that the campaign had been "clearly exaggerating wildly" in order to link Obama to Raines and that the "latest McCain attack is particularly dubious."

Factchecker Michael Dobbs wrote that McCain's evidence that Raines had advised Obama was "pretty flimsy"--not a description that probably endeared him to Anita Huslin, the reporter who wrote the story this summer. But Dobbs did talk to Huslin. Here is his account of their conversation:


Since this has now become a campaign issue, I asked Huslin to provide the exact circumstances of the quote. She explained that she was chatting with Raines during the photo shoot, and asked "if he was engaged at all with the Democrats' quest for the White House. He said that he had gotten a couple of calls from the Obama campaign. I asked him about what, and he said 'oh, general housing, economy issues.' ('Not mortgage/foreclosure meltdown or Fannie-specific,' I asked, and he said 'no.')"


By Raines's own account, he took a couple of calls from someone on the Obama campaign, and they had some general discussions about economic issues.

Got that? Huslin stands by her reporting--that Raines had given advice to the Obama campaign about mortgage and housing policy matters--and yet the McCain campaign is faulted by the Washington Post for relying on information that comes from the Washington Post.

More amusing, though, is that in the rush to accuse the McCain campaign of lying, Dobbs glosses over a major discrepancy between the story that appeared in his paper and that of the Obama campaign. Obama spokesman Bill Burton claims that the campaign "neither sought nor received" advice from Raines "on any matter." It is possible, of course, that Raines simply made up the conversations he described to the Post reporter. But it seems more likely, given the toxicity of Raines, that the Obama campaign would simply prefer that those conversations had never taken place.

Dobbs concludes: "I have asked both Raines and the Obama people for more details on these calls and will let you know if I receive a reply."

That's reassuring, since Dobbs has already decided that the McCain campaign has been dishonest. Two things are clear with six weeks left in the presidential race. Barack Obama will practice the old-style politics that he lamented throughout the Democratic primary. And the media will give him a pass.

Now, Americans read, remember and react. We remember that Obama was our State Senator and was a nice unaffected empty suit. Now he bills himself as the Rail-Splitter? Nope. That Don't Sell. Hoss.

Then along comes a genuine person - not a War Hero or Maverick, but a Hockey Mom with five kids and genuine talent. The Media recoils at authenticity.

Thus:

The media, though, has done more than simply subject Palin to questions not given to the other candidates. More importantly, it has been running interference for the Obama campaign, questioning McCain’s attacks on Obama while frequently reinforcing Obama’s on McCain.

Take a couple of examples from last week. McCain ran an ad criticizing Obama’s support for sex education for kindergartners. Seventy percent of the 2,774 news stories on McCain’s ad mentioned that the ad was a “lie” or “inaccurate.” The stories’ headlines indicate that if other ways of disparaging the McCain ad were included, this percentage would probably be much higher.

Obama’s supporter defend the legislation, saying that its purpose was to protect children from sexual abuse. True, the bill proposed teaching children not to talk to strangers, but one wonders if reporters actually read the entire bill. For example, the legislation also included this: “Each class or course in comprehensive sex education offered in any of grades K through 12 shall include instruction on the prevention of sexually transmitted infections, including the prevention, transmission and spread of HIV.” How can you teach how to prevent these different sexually transmitted diseases without getting into some details about sex?

By the way, a grand total of 22 out of 2,774 stories that mention the bill include this discussion of HIV transmission, and many of those stories were still negative about McCain.

For a more direct comparison regarding Palin, look at how the media discussed the whole lipstick-on-a-pig story. The majority of media coverage again questioned the accuracy of the ad that the McCain campaign used to strike back at Obama (using words such as “inaccurate,” “false,” “misleading,” “untrue,” and “lie”). Obama says that he was surprised that anyone could think he was referring to Palin when he said: “you can put lipstick on a pig; it’s still a pig," that the direct reference was to Bush’s policies.

But there are a few problems with Obama’s response. First, his audience thought he was referring to Palin. They started laughing and shouting after he said, "You can put lipstick on a pig," before he even got to the punch line. The AP wrote: Obama's "audience, clearly drawing a connection to Palin's joke." ABC’s Jake Tapper wrote that audience members told “reporters that they thought Obama had been alluding to Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s” lipstick line. Politico noted: "Though on a day when Obama's surrogates were joking that Palin's record can't be concealed with lipstick, it was hard for those following the campaign not to hear the echo." The crowd also started chanting “No more pit bull,” indicating that the crowd got the reference to Palin’s quip at the Republican convention.

A Google news search found only 20 stories out of 6,074 mentioned the crowding laughing or shouting, and only two of those mentioned that they laughed or shouted before the punch line was given. Another search found only one single news story by US News & World Report that even mentioned both Obama’s lipstick joke and the crowd chanting “no more pit bull!”

Whatever Obama’s original intent, it would have been hard for him to claim that he was surprised that the McCain campaign would also draw the connection between his joke and Palin. Nor is it clear why he didn’t make a statement given the crowd’s reaction.

In Palin’s case, far from trying to protect her, the press frequently doesn’t even acknowledge that there might be arguments to be made in her favor.

-- The Bridge to Nowhere. The Alaska Democratic Party posted a Web page in which it declared that “State of Alaska killed bridge” -- that is the “Bridge to Nowhere.” However, after Palin’s vice presidential nomination the party took down the Web page. Yet, out of 7,556 news stories on the Bridge to Nowhere this month, a Google news search produces no hits on the phrase “State of Alaska killed bridge.”

Similarly, Sen. Ted Stevens, who was the king of the earmarks for Alaska and who had a “frosty” relationship with Palin because of her opposition to those earmarks, noted that “I don’t remember her ever campaigning for it. She was very critical of it at the time.” With all the news stories on this question, one would think that Stevens’ comment would be newsworthy, since it was his pork-barrel project. But there were only three news stories that mention his statements.

-- Cutting Earmarks. The media on this question has definitely been a bunch of “the glass is half empty” types. Instead of noting what Palin had accomplished, the game was identifying any earmarks that Alaska still received. Palin “cut nearly 10% of Alaska’s budget this year” and reduced the number of federal grants from 54 in 2007 to 31 in 2008 -- a $350 million, 64 percent cut in requests. Among the cuts in Alaska budget were a $30,000 van for Campfire USA and $200,000 for a tennis court irrigation system. Further cuts in future years were also promised.

But those changes weren’t the standard by which the media wanted to judge Palin. For example, Charles Gibson thought that he had gotten Palin in his interview when he noted that Alaska still got “$3.2 million for researching the genetics of harbor seals, money to study the mating habits of crabs” from the federal government.

Again, a simple Google news search shows how incredibly lopsided this coverage has gotten. From September 1 to September 15 there were 9,222 news stories that discuss Palin and earmarks. By contrast, a search that looked at Palin and her attempts to cut earmarks (using the terms "cut earmarks," "reduce earmarks," "trim earmarks," "slash earmarks" or "eliminate earmarks") produced incredibly only 50 news stories -- about 0.5 percent of the total stories. Even many of those 50 stories were critical and claimed that McCain had overstated Palin’s opposition to earmarks.

I spent some time looking at questions of whether Palin was properly vetted or the taxes that she imposed on oil companies, but the results were similar. Palin just doesn’t seem to get an even break, let alone the extremely protective news coverage offered Obama.

Groups such as FactCheck.org have helped put down many false rumors on everything from Palin supposedly cutting funds for special needs children to banning books, but the coverage that corrects these false claims never seems to be as heavy as the coverage making the claims to begin with.

Possibly there is a good explanation for why the media so selectively covers the two campaigns so differently. But whatever the reasons, Sarah Palin continues to receive significantly less positive coverage than the Democrats.

The Media is making sure that McCain/Palin wins the largest landslide victory in American Presdential History. With rehab and has-been Hollywood persons and the media against you, how can you fail?


E.G. Steve Hayes writes,

Stephen F. Hayes, a senior writer at THE WEEKLY STANDARD, is the author of Cheney: The Untold Story of America's Most Powerful and Controversial Vice President (HarperCollins).


http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,423443,00.html

McCain/Palin- Sun Times Stuck on Stupid - Read This Idiotic Editorial on Sarah Palin's Speech! Wear Your Depends -or Borrow Some!

Hat Tip to my Pal Steve Rhodes at Beachwood Reporter! Thanks Steve! Have a Falstaff Son!

I did not get around to peeking at 'The Progressive Independent Voice of Chicago' this morning, as I was busy doing what most Americans do - taking care of kids, getting to work and actulaly doing something when I get there! Never on Queen's Time!

So, I turned to the Beachwood Reporter to get an update on Chicago Media Moon-Howlers!

Never disappointed - Heeyah 'Tis - The Sun Times (STNG) in all of its suicidal glory (excerpt of course)!

. . .Because his pick for vice president, Sarah Palin, is woefully unprepared to be Leader of the Free World.

Does this sound harsh? We know it does, though we mean no disrespect. Our sincere hope is that McCain, a good and brave American, lives a long and healthy life. But when the senator chose Alaska Gov. Palin to be his running mate, and in doing so deemed her fit to stand a heartbeat from the presidency, he either demonstrated phenomenally bad judgment or put politics ahead of country.

Palin has almost no experience on the national or international stage. She has virtually no qualifications to be commander in chief. She is the former mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, a town about the size of a couple of Chicago high schools. She has been governor for 20 months of a wilderness state with a population of 684,000 -- about the number of folks in Will County.

And the more Palin's GOP defenders contort themselves to defend her credentials, attempting to inflate the uninflatable, the more obviously thin her resume looks.

Asked by a CNN reporter what qualifies Palin to be commander in chief of America's armed forces, a McCain aide pointed out that, as governor, Palin "commanded" the Alaska National Guard. The reporter then asked, to no avail, for a single instance in which Palin had involved herself in the business of the Guard.

A commentator for the conservative National Review generously granted Palin "foreign policy" experience solely on the basis of geography -- Alaska is next to Russia and borders Canada. If the commentator knew of any Palin-Putin talks, he failed to mention them.

Jimmy the Two-Headed Boy, or most De LaSalle Graduates could understand Palin's speech last night. Not Chicago's 'Progressive Independent Voice' - they are waiting for John McCain to explain it to them - Senator, Read Slowly!!!!!!!!! Use Pictures!

McCain/Palin: If Sarah Palin Only Ran a Failed Bait-Shop, I'd Still Vote For Her, Because of Who Is Against Her - The Chicago Contrarian Way!

If you want to know who you are and how you are doing in life, take a look at who is with you!

You might also get a pretty good gauge from who is against you.

Based upon this very unscientific methodology, one might make some pretty good choices. The fact that Bill Ayers thinks McCain/Palin is evil pretty much tosses the pair into the Holy Water font. Planned Parenthood, never missing any opportunity to snuff some babies in the most NPR snuggish of manners, thinks Obama is refreshing and that has me lighting scented candles in response.

When the blind guy getting coffee at Kean Gas told me, 'Hey Hickey, nice suit!' the acknowledging smile faded from my close-shaved but manly visage - he's right checked slacks and pin-stripped coat, Hmmmmm.

Here's who hates Sarah Palin -

Lindsay Lohan and Samantha Ronson, to the internet to air their thoughts on John McCain's running mate and the revelation that Palin's unmarried 17-year-old daughter is pregnant.

And they write "in the words of Pamela Anderson, 'She can suck it'...

The pair start their rant:

"I really cannot bite my tongue anymore when it comes to Sarah Palin.

I couldn't be more supportive of a woman in office, but let's face it, it comes down to the person, and their beliefs, male or female.

Is it a sin to be gay? Should it be a sin to be straight? Or to use birth control? Or to have sex before marriage? Or even to have a child out of wedlock?"

Pink had earlier had a go at Palin, telling PopEater: "If I were writing a letter to Sarah Palin it would be a lot of whys and hows. Who are you? Do you know? Why do you hate animals? Please point out Iraq on a map."

She continued: "This woman hates women. She is not a feminist. She is not the woman that's going to come behind Hillary Clinton and do anything that Hillary Clinton would've been capable of.... I can't imagine overturning Roe vs. Wade. She's not of this time. The woman terrifies me."

Matt Damon has also joined the celebrity chorus against Palin, telling CBS News: “I think there’s a really good chance that Sarah Palin could be president, and I think that’s a really scary thing, because I don’t know anything about her and I don’t think in 8 weeks I’ll know anything about her. I know she’s the mayor of really, really small town,” Damon adds, “and she’s governor of Alaska for less than two years. I think the pick was made for political purposes, but in terms of governance it’s a disaster.”

One butt-head, Chevy Chase, wants her 'devastated!'

Yeah! When your career tanks, demand the death of the mother of five! What a guy!

Decimated means the death of every tenth person - them drugs must be high powerful out there - Chevy sees Ten Sarah Palins - I wish.

I like Sarah Palin. You don't like her; don't vote for her. You run in great company with some great people - or happen to be VH1, MTV, E-channel addict. If all Sarah Palin's experience amounted to running a failed bait-shop in Custer Park, IL, I'd still vote for her - look at who hates her.

Now Crowd Sourcing: WaPo and NYT Request for 'Help' With Trash-Bin Journalism Make Weiner Look Like Harry Truman

I was laughing at Anthony Weiner months ago. Like Illinois embarrassment Congressman Jan 'Turkish Bath' Schakowsky, this goof kicks his way up to any microphone and howls non-sense.

To me, Schakowsky and Weiner are what Progressives are all about. I admire liberals, but have yet to encounter a Progressive who was ever anything but a dull, mean-spirited opportunist. Liberals like Don Rose and Jim Carville always do the heavy-lifting cleaning up the mess created by Progressives.

However, the corporate media gives Progressives their scripts - Hegelian/John Deweyesque memes for group think.

Today, I read about a story I heard at earlier in the week that the New York Times and Washington Post were recruiting 'volunteers' to read Sarah Palin's e-mails from before 2008. President Obama has no more Osama Bin Ladens to sic Navy Seal Teams on and his "I Shot the Shariff" bump in the polls is under water. Well, time to go after the woman again.

Sarah Palin gives Progressives the heeby-jeebies and really brings out their natures. Sarah Palin had the Audacity to bring a Downs Syndrome baby into the world and she manages to be a very happy person. That galls the Hell out of progressives, more than the news that Cop, or Fireman won the Illinois Lottery.

Weiner was a disaster waiting to happen - it did. However, this crowd sourcing by the lazy yet smug Media makes Anthony Weiner
look like Harry Truman.

Today at 9 a.m. Alaska Time (1 PM EST), the Alaska state government released some 24,199 e-mails between Sarah Palin, Todd Palin and Alaska public officials from Palin’s days as governor—the emails were on paper and in boxes, still needing to be scanned. Sites across the web, from the New York Times (NYSE: NYT) and the Washington Post (NYSE: WPO) to Mother Jones and MSNBC, swung into action. Details from the e-mails hit Twitter within minutes and the first batch was scanned within half an hour. Already, we’ve learned that the Palins wanted to install a tanning bed in the governor’s mansion in Juneau.

But there’s something else—beyond the salacious nuggets—that’s notable about the Palin e-mails.


UPDATE: We have had a strong response to our crowdsourcing call-out on the Palin e-mails. We've reconsidered our approach and now would like to invite comments and annotations from any interested readers.

Here’s how to participate:Over 24,000 e-mail messages to and from Sarah Palin during her tenure as Alaska's governor will be released Friday . We’ll be posting them here, and are inviting you to comment on the most interesting or most noteworthy sections. Please include page numbers and, where possible, a direct excerpt. We'll share your comments with our reporters and may use facts or related material you suggest to annotate the documents displayed on The Post site. We may contact you for further details, by way of your registered e-mail with the Post, unless you specify otherwise in the comments.

For micro-updates as tomorrow unfolds, check out our new Twitter feed .

--

Over 24,000 e-mail messages to and from former Alaska governor Sarah Palin during her tenure as Alaska's governor will be released Friday. That's a lot of e-mail for us to review so we're looking for some help from Fix readers to analyze, contextualize, and research those e-mails right alongside Post reporters over the days following the release.

We are limiting this to just 100 spots for people who will work collaboratively in small teams to surface the most important information from the e-mails. Participants can join from anywhere with a computer and an Internet connection.

If you need inspiration before getting started, take a look at what to expect from the e-mail drop. For micro-updates as tomorrow unfolds, check out our new Twitter feed.


Index of e-mails (in chronological order):

- Alaska Records Request

- Alaska Records Request

- December 4th, 2006 to February 20th, 2007

- February 20th, 2007 to March 9th, 2007

- March 9th, 2007 to March 30th, 2007

- April 27th, 2007 to May 4th, 2007

- May 4th, 2007 to May 14th, 2007

- May 14th, 2007 to June 1st, 2007

- June 1st, 2007 to June 13th, 2007

- June 13th, 2007, to June 19th, 2007

- June 19th, 2007 to July 3rd, 2007

- July 3rd, 2007 to July 17th, 2007

- July 17th, 2007 to July 30th, 2007

- July 30th, 2007 to August 9th,. 2007

- August 9th, 2007 to August 21st, 2007

- August 30th, 2007 to September 7th, 2007

Click here for the updating list of e-mail documents and stories.

Have you read the Palin emails? Share the interesting or noteworthy sections in the comments below, including the date of the e-mail and an excerpt.
By Ryan Kellett | 10:56 AM ET, 06/09/2011

Mom and Dad can be real proud there Ryan! Why not join a flash mob and beat up kids from Misericordia?

Well, the response form Americans is less than approving. Here's a few ( all unedited and as they appear).



Top Comments (158)All Comments (2536)
Newest first Oldest first Most Recommended first

NoVAHockey
Greg was noting that Post is seeking help in reading the emails. I'm not sure what they're paying.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/post/h...
6/10/2011 1:33:02 PM CDTRecommendRecommended by 1 readerReplyReport
1 more (expand)


tina5
It is pure sexism the way Palin is being attacked. I remember how Hillary was attacked, too. The idea of calling on readers to dig through her emails is outrageous. Why don't you do your own job? And why don't you dig through Obama's past in the same way? I guess you're afraid of powerful women.
6/10/2011 8:09:12 AM CDTRecommendRecommended by 53 readersReplyReport
29 more (expand)


markandbeth92
Y'all liberals sure do go to a lot of trouble to try and smear someone you consistantly say is an idiot.
Why are y'all so afraid of Sarah Palin?
6/10/2011 5:32:12 AM CDTRecommendRecommended by 61 readersReplyReport
28 more (expand)


Yoki
So we're going to spend our valuable time (in my case - $370/hr consulting fee) doing WAPO's job, for no monetary return? Why? I'm way left, have no patience with moron Palin, but I wonder why you think we'll all work for you for neither credit nor money.
6/10/2011 12:57:26 AM CDTRecommendRecommended by 22 readersReplyReport
21 more (expand)


kitchendragon50
Rake your own muck. Disgusting that you call on readers to join in your festivities.
6/9/2011 2:04:25 PM CDTRecommendRecommended by 238 readersReplyReport
74 more (expand)

McCain/Palin: Steve Rhodes at NBC's Division Street Blog Restores Chicago Reporting!

That's Steve Rhodes -editor of Beachwood Reporter and NBC-Division Street casting pearls to swine -wearing lipstick and without!

Steve Rhodes is editor of the great Media Watch Blog The Beachwood Reporter

Steve Rhodes also manages NBC's Division Street Blog which tends to treat readres better than most Chicago newspaper political columnists.

Mr. Rhodes and I rarely, if ever, agree on things political. However, we agree that most politicians and political commentators are encrusted with equine effluvia -horse shit. Daley ( not John Daley whatsoever), Blago, Stroger, Quigley, Claypool, Shakowsky, Lipinski, and - my fingers are cramping - others are like a tribe of New Guinea spearmen encrusted with fecal matter. Like wise political pundits -print and public - have layers of horse shit abounding: Marin, Brown, Dold, Chapman, Greeley, Mitchell &etc.

Today, Steve Rhodes save Chicago journlism at Division Street:

Was Alaska Governor Sarah Palin really plucked from “relative obscurity” to run on John McCain’s ticket? Should a politician whom Matt Damon has never heard of be allowed on a national ticket? (Hey, Matt, when did you first hear of Barack Obama? A convention speech?) Is she really lying about the Bridge to Nowhere and her maverick credentials?

I took a spin through the ProQuest database of America’s newspapers and found, in fact, that the coverage of Sarah Palin in real time gibes perfectly with the image she and her allies are presenting. Take an objective journey with me and decide for yourself.

I’ll start with the Chicago dailies just to satisfy local curiosity and then move to the national press and wire services. This collection represents virtually every article returned in my search; I have omitted nothing of consequence or anything that would present a different view.

*

Sarah Palin in the Chicago Tribune

1. HEADLINE: Governor cancels ‘bridge to nowhere’
DATE: Sept. 22, 2007
EXCERPT: “Gov. Sarah Palin ordered state transportation officials Friday to abandon the “bridge to nowhere” project that became a nationwide symbol of federal pork-barrel spending.”

2. HEADLINE: Here’s the buzz: Sites help you keep up with trends (about google trends)
DATE: Oct. 19, 2007
EXCERPT: You can use buzz trackers to find out what’s making news, a sort of meta version of a news site’s “most e-mailed” list. Why, you may ask, is a “Sarah Palin” showing up on one list? A few clicks and, aha, she’s the get-tough (and photogenic!) Alaska governor getting the national-media spotlight right now.

3. HEADLINE: Alaska governor generates VP buzz
DATE: March 14, 2008
EXCERPT: Gov. Sarah Palin will be the first to admit that it might be a stretch for a hockey mom from Alaska to be considered for the No. 2 spot on Sen. John McCain’s presidential ticket.

But there’s an undeniable national buzz surrounding the first-term governor, seen by many Republicans as a fresh, new face to represent the party’s future.

Palin says she has not spoken to McCain about the prospect. But it came up when she was in Washington two weeks ago for a National Governors Association meeting. She rubbed elbows with others cited as vice-presidential possibilities: Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, a Republican, and Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano, a Democrat.

“We all had a meeting with President Bush and he said, ‘Look at all these vice presidents sitting here,’” Palin said.

As for her recent news that she is pregnant with her fifth child, Palin said: “I’m very confident that a pregnant woman should not and doesn’t have to be prohibited from doing anything, including running for vice president.”

Keep reading →

→ 4 CommentsCategories: Presidential Poop · Punditocracy
Tagged: Barack Obama, Bridge to Nowhere, hockey mom, John McCain, maverick, polar bears, Sarah Palin

Eric Zorn’s Sexist Folly
September 11, 2008 · No Comments
The Tribune columnist today retells the jokes of late-night comics about Sarah Palin without any recognition of how offensive many of them are. For example:

Bill Maher: “I, John McCain, am the only one standing between the blood-thirsty Al Qaeda and you. But if I die, this stewardess can handle it.”

Jimmy Kimmel: “[S]he looks like one of those women in the Van Halen videos who takes off her glasses, shakes out her hair, and then all of a sudden, she’s in high heels and a bikini.”

David Letterman: “[She looks] like the lady in the dental office who gives you the keys to the restroom” and “like the woman in the department store who tries to spray you with perfume.”

Steve Rhodes, who manages and edits of the best Media Watching Blogs The Beachwood Reporter, also runs Chicago NBC's Division Street Blog.

Steve and I rarely agree on politics ( and the Piggies who slurp at its trough), but we agree on depth and fecundity of the equine effluvia tossed by the bulk of politicians and their parasites.

Steve and I agree that a saloon and not a salon is the very best place to hear, injest and disseminate political thought.

Today, Steve Rhodes offers an honest and open assessment of the HAWKEE MAWM from Wassila - with whom I am enchanted. I have no illusions that Sarah Palin would not shoot, geld, and field dress me were it in her political interests; yet, I find her to be free of the horse-shit that encoats Daley ( all but John Daley - he is H/S Free), Blagojevich, Quigley, Claypool, Shakowsky, Stroger, and Durbin. Most political journalists or would be political journalists surpass the professional horse-hit merchants - Zorn, Brown, Dold, Chapman, Greeley, Sweet, Mitchell, and Marin.

Steve Rhodes, Mark Rhoads,Steve Huntley, Levois,Cal Skinner, Bill Baar, John Rubery, Anne Leary, Tom Roeser, Phil Kadner, Kristen McQueary tend to be horse-shit free.

Steve, I'll buy you one the size of Quigley's Ego!

*Click my post title for the Full Pint from Steve Rhodes!

McCain/Palin: Sarah Palin Opens America's Dutch Door and Bids All Welcome Home

A Dutch door is rarely seen in Chicago anymore. There were still many homes that had them in rural Kankakee County where I was a baby teacher.

I liked them. They were welcoming, but also set a condition - belong here. They were at once a means of keeping out dangers to the home, and all the while a portal for bringing light and fresh air into the home.

Last night, while watching Sarah Palin make her acceptance speech at the RNC in St. Paul, I was reminded of the Dutch doors. Sarah Palin invited America to meet her family and strongly set the conditions of just who the Palin's are, where they come from and how they expect all of us to behave when with them. Sarah Palin explained her path onto the national stage. Palin presented the motives and methods that mark her career outside of her home. Governor Palin detailed the struggles in her State to make the best return on each voter's expectations for government and the means by which she was able to return those dividends on honest government to that voter.

More importantly, Gov. Sarah Palin set the rules for political engagement which allows her opponents to clearly understand that, when a Chicago politician brings a handgun to a political knife-fight, he can expect to be met with a round from a howitzer long before he pulls the trigger.

The Top half of the Dutch Door is open and the bottom half barred those who would do her family harm, or sully their lives for political gain. Last night, Sarah Palin made a powerful decision. God help the poor creature invited through the open door who violates that trust - man, beast or agenda.

Sarah Palin threw the bolt down from the top half of the Dutch door and tossed the full portal open and invited every American into her home. The fresh air and the warmth of the fire is welcome. You have been invited - behave accordingly.