Friday, March 19, 2010

Interview with Ilana Angel and Happy Birthday, Piper Palin!

Ilana Angel who writes a blog for the Jewish Journal talks to BlogTalkRadio about her meeting with Sarah Palin. The audio quality isn't the greatest, but you get used to it quickly as it's a great interview:



Ilana's original column is here.

And I believe a certain girl is turning 9 today. Hmmmm, I wonder who that could be...



Happy Birthday, Piper! I think whoever uploaded this to YouTube took it down, so I re-uploaded it.

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Miscellaneous

Sheya at C4P had the following to say about Palin's op-ed on Israel:
Just got off the phone with a friend in Israel, he tells me that this is prety much the topic of discussion in the news today, talk radio is all on it. He said that everyone calling in is 100% supportive of Palin. He told me that several people called in who earlier had their doubts about her are now fully behind her.
Cool. :)

Speaking of Palin and foreign relations, there's an interesting piece in the Telegraph Journal on Palin and Canada. Excerpts:
Ms. Palin, currently a Fox News commentator, whose memoir, Going Rogue, is a bestseller, actually has a strong pro-Canadian record, although she's granted little credit for it in Obama-besotted Canuck public perception.

As governor of the border state of Alaska, after signing an agreement granting TransCanada pipeline US$500 million to help launch a new 2,700-kilometre pipeline project to carry natural gas from Alaska to Alberta, Ms. Palin affirmed her desire to "grow the relationship we have with Canada," observing that the NAFTA has enhanced job-creation and growth in both countries....

She praised the Harper government's approach in balancing response to calls for environmental reform, particularly cutting carbon emissions, with the economic realities of energy production, predicting that cap-and-trade proposals to reduce emissions will lead to fewer jobs and heavier tax burdens.
And LaDonna of Sarah Palin Radio had a good interview recently with Dewey Whetsell, the Alaskan fisherman who's letter appears at the end of Going Rogue.

Dewey's piece is found here. Another post he wrote about Palin is here.

In the sideshow column, we have this piece on Griffin and Levi:
Today, Patrick Gavin of Politico reports that "Griffin recently visited Alaska and knocked on Sarah Palin's door. (Palin wasn’t home.) Griffin had along with her Levi Johnston, who remained in his truck "because he's afraid Todd [Palin] would shoot him."
Eddie Burke said last week that Kathy went with her camera crew to the house, probably hoping to get some Palin footage when they weren't expecting it. Thankfully, no one was home. Just a construction guy was there. But this is my favorite part of the article:
While Johnston...feared for his own hide, he wasn't afraid that this stranger on the Palins' property would be shot. If the "fearless" Johnston was a man, he would have left Griffin in the truck and dropped off the "invitation." Instead, he cowered in the truck, while the woman took care of business, though, it was her own nefarious business that was being tended to.

This appears to be his modus operandi in life: leave the woman holding the bag, dump the responsibilities on her, while letting Rex Butler, Tank Jones, Playgirl, the Roll Corporation, and now Griffin use him as a pawn in their war on the Palins.
LOL! "Fearless" Levi hiding in the truck while Kathy practically "dodges bullets" to carry out her life's mission of being a total idiot. That's just pathetic.

Kathy also said that Levi gets death threats. I don't know, but I'm pretty sure that Levi is so disgusting to so many people that the thought of getting anywhere near the kid is repulsive, let alone getting close enough to actually hurt him. So while there may be threats, I doubt they would ever be acted on.

And I should point out that while pushing someone down the stairs may not always result in death, the cougar that Levi hangs out with and that his family members are fans of on Facebook has threatened to do just that to the grandmother of his child, the very cougar that Levi led to Sarah Palin's front door.

Stay classy, Levi.

Getting back to things that actually matter, "Whitney the Pipsqueak" got a response back from a Congressman. It's good info and worth posting:
--------------

I've sent about 20 e-mails to my Congressman and the blue dogs over the past few days. I received an e-mail from Congressman Schock. It has some interesting facts about the bill which I will post here in case anyone wants more ammunition:

Before beginning to practice medicine, doctors swear to uphold the Hippocratic Oath which states: "First do no harm." Unfortunately, I believe that while H.R. 3962, the Affordable Health Care for America Act, which the House of Representatives recently passed, addresses some deficiencies in our health care system, it also does great harm in many other respects. This is why I strongly opposed the legislation and voted against it.

H.R. 3962 will cause an estimated 100 million Americans to lose access to their employer-sponsored private health insurance. Employers will no longer be incentivized to provide health insurance to their employees if they know their employees can purchase health insurance through the government.

Additionally, Section 202 of H.R. 3962 provides a five-year grace period for current employer provided health plans, unless the beneficiary makes changes, in which the grace period is eliminated. After five years, all employer sponsored plans must meet the same minimum benefit mandates as plans under the government sponsored exchange. This means that despite promises to the contrary, individuals who like their health insurance will in fact not be able to keep it, or will only be able to keep it for five years.

H.R. 3962 cuts $160 billion from Medicare by dramatically scaling back Medicare Part C. This is a program that is working well and which many seniors have come to depend on. Many Medicare Part C plans offer items that traditional Medicare plans do not, such as vision and dental benefits. H.R. 3962 will also increase seniors' premiums by causing them to pay an additional 20% more for their prescription drugs. I do not believe seniors, many of whom are living on fixed incomes, should be forced to pay more for their prescription drugs in order to pay for the health care of others.

H.R. 3962 will also increase government spending. According to the Congressional Budget Office, it will cost over $1.2 trillion dollars. The non-partisan Joint Committee on Taxation reports this expansion of government spending will raise taxes by $729.5 billion. In fact, Section 551 of H.R. 3962 will impose a 5.4% "surtax" on many small business owners who file as individuals for income tax purposes. This surtax will harm the backbone of our slumping economy when small businesses are needed the most to create jobs.

Additionally, Section 501 of H.R. 3962 will impose a 2.5% tax on individuals who do not purchase government approved health insurance. This tax will only hurt the people that H.R. 3962 is intending to help, because it will punish those who cannot afford health insurance by taxing them and not providing them with health care coverage. In order to help struggling families afford health insurance, I offered an amendment which would have provided refundable tax credits to families with incomes of up to 200% of the federal poverty level ($44,100 for a family of four). These refundable tax credits would have given families trying to make ends meet the ability to purchase health insurance in the individual market. For families whose income is above the threshold, my amendment would have provided them with an above-the-line income tax deduction so they could use pre-tax dollars to pay for their family's health care. Unfortunately, the Majority leadership did not allow a vote on my amendment.

Instead of working on commonsense reforms which target uninsured Americans, the Democratic Majority has overhauled our entire health care system. According to the Congressional Budget Office, this is leaving our children and grandchildren with over $1.2 trillion in new federal spending. As such, I opposed H.R. 3962 and instead announced my support for legislation that will improve the quality of health care, lower costs and expand access to uninsured American families and those with pre-existing conditions.
------------

If you waded through all that, go treat yourself to a milkshake or something.

I leave you with the following quote:
"Notice how they’ll accept anything except a (wo)man who stands alone. They recognize (her) at once . . . . There’s a special, insidious kind of hatred for her. They forgive criminals. They admire dictators.

Crime and violence are a tie. A form of mutual dependence. They need ties. They’ve got to force their miserable little personalities on every single person they meet.

The independent (wo)man kills them—because they don’t exist within her and that’s the only form of existence they know. Notice the malignant kind of resentment against any idea that propounds independence. Notice the malice toward an independent (wo)man."
- The Fountainhead

Tammy Bruce on Palin, the Jews, and McCain

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Proposed Changes to the Personnel Board

From the ADN:
--------------

Alaska legislators are talking about changing the law so governors can no longer appoint whoever they want to the state personnel board....

Anchorage Republican Rep. Bob Lynn, who has been supportive of Palin, sponsored a bill that would make the governor pick from a list submitted by the chief justice of the state supreme court. Lynn said it would reassure the public.

"It helps protect and insulate the governor from what could be, and usually is, unfair criticism from the public that you have the fox watching the hen house," Lynn said Tuesday, as the bill passed its first committee....

The current members were all appointed by Republican governors, although two of them aren't registered with a political party....

Lynn said he does not think there's been a problem with the Personnel Board. "But there's always the perception out there and, in politics, perception often becomes reality in the public mind," he said.

Current law says only that the board members can't be state employees and no more than two of the three of can be registered with the same political party. They are appointed by the governor and then confirmed by the Legislature.

Lynn's bill would expand the board to five members. He said that would provide more of a broad range of opinion. The panel would also need to include at least one member from each of the top two political parties in the state.

The governor would be required to pick from a list of at least three nominees from the chief justice of the Alaska Supreme Court, although the governor could reject the entire list and ask the chief justice for another....Lynn described it as a way to deal with potential separation of powers issues involved in the Legislature reducing a governor's ability to make appointments...
-----------------

Okay. Let's take this piece by piece.

First off, the main point of Bob Lynn's bill seems to be public relations. There's no real problem with the Personnel Board that I can see (they are confirmed by the legislature, they cannot be dismissed without cause, they independently hire their own investigators, and they're not even really state employees), it's just an issue of people claiming that the Board was "whitewashing" the ethics complaints filed against Palin because they're appointed by the Governor.

It should be pointed out that the three members of the board while Palin was Governor had all been appointed by Murkowski (who was no friend to Palin), and she merely reappointed one of them.

The Board also hired an independent investigator for Troopergate and other investigations named Timothy Petumenos. Petumenos is a Democrat who contributed to Tony Knowles' campaign. Knowles was the Democrat candidate who ran against Palin for Governor in 2006, so I hardly think Tim was in Palin's pocket.

As a matter of fact, the McCain campaign was concerned when they heard the news.

I don't really have a problem with Bob's bill. It is, as he said, designed to help "protect and insulate the governor from what could be, and usually is, unfair criticism from the public that you have the fox watching the hen house."

It's really just for PR.

The provisons would be that the governor would have to pick from a list submitted by the chief justice of the state supreme court. But if the governor didn't like anyone on the list, the chief justice would submit another list.

Sounds reasonable.

As for the other two provisions expanding the board to five positions and requiring at least one Dem and one Republican, again, I don't really see a problem with it. I don't think it's necessary, but I don't think it's a problem either.

More from the article:
The Parnell administration didn't object to the bill as it passed from the House State Affairs Committee. The bill next goes to the judiciary committee, chaired by Fairbanks Republican Rep. Jay Ramras. Ramras last year deemed a "whitewash" the report commissioned by the personnel board that found Palin not responsible for any wrongdoing in the so-called Troopergate affair.
Oh the joy. Mr. Corrupty-pants himself.
Zane Henning, who had two ethics complaints against Palin dismissed, last month testified to a legislative committee that elected officials rather than a governor's appointees should oversee the complaints. His concern seemed to resonate with some legislators. "I'm just wondering is there maybe too close of a relationship there," Sen. Kevin Meyer, R-Anchorage, asked during that hearing.
More on Zane's frivolous complaints here and here. Let's just say, they were dismissed.

They cannot honestly be considering the idea that partisan legislators who get into daily scuffles with the Governor would be more fair in dealing with ethics complaints than an independent personnel board, whether that board is appointed by the Governor or not. That's crazy. But what do you expect from the guy who thought that Palin giving an interview in her office was unethical?

Oh, and here's Zane Henning's wife:



LOL! "Did Sarah Palin tell you that?" ROTFL!!!

"When you have to pay, you lose." Oh. My. Word.

Eddie, you really should have let her blather on more. When you actually let her talk it was hilarious.

Just to clarify, there was no finding of any guilt on that kids travel issue. The personnel board made sure to outline that there was no wrong-doing. The Governor agreed to pay a certain amount of money back to the state based on a law that, to my knowledge, still hasn't even been written yet. She held herself to a standard that didn't even exist. She paid the money back in an attempt to be above reproach; it wasn't something she had to do. It was a settlement. If they had gone to court, she would have won.

The Governor actually wanted to settle more cases because it was cheaper to just pay the fine than it was to fight the allegation.

And I'm sorry, but I just cannot wrap my head around the kind of person who ignores actual corruption and throws a hissy fit because the Governor wore a jacket. I'm beginning to think that Jesus was yelling at the top of his lungs and pulling his hair out when he said:

"You strain at a gnat, and you swallow a camel!!!!!"

That's kind of what I'm doing right now.

If you ever want to remind yourself of why Palin resigned, just go back and listen to some of these old interviews. You'll marvel that she didn't shoot herself.

Can't Have Those Jews Building Houses!

To paraphrase Tammy Bruce:

"Oh, but the administration does frown on one thing: Jews building houses. Can't have those Jews building houses!"
And now the 'Cuda:
----------

The Obama Administration reaches out to some of the world’s worst regimes in the name of their engagement policy. America and our allies watch as sanctions are eased on Cuba. Letters are written to Iran’s mullahs only to see that regime start killing protestors in the streets of Tehran. Envoys are sent to North Korea as they continue to defy the world’s demand to give up their nuclear weapons. The Burmese military junta’s representative is allowed to travel to our nation’s capital. The President’s envoy for Sudan talks about giving that genocidal regime “gold stars,” while the President shakes hands with Venezuela’s tyrannical leader.

In the midst of all this embracing of enemies, where does the Obama Administration choose to escalate a minor incident into a major diplomatic confrontation? With Iran, Cuba, Sudan, North Korea or Burma? No. With our treasured ally, Israel.

Last October, Secretary of State Clinton recognized Israel’s desire for peace in the Middle East and praised Israel’s “unprecedented” concessions for agreeing to halt settlement construction in the West Bank, a concession that did NOT include halting construction of apartments for Jews in Jerusalem. Even last week after planned construction was announced, Vice President Biden still expressed “appreciation” for the “significant” steps taken by the Israeli government to address this minor issue.

Now, however, we see the Obama Administration has decided to escalate, make unilateral demands of Israel, and threaten the very foundation of the US-Israel relationship. This is quickly leading to the worst crisis in US-Israel relations in decades, and yet this did not have to happen. More importantly, it needs to stop before it spirals out of control. Vice President Biden should rein in the overheated Obama Administration rhetoric and chill the political spin masters’ fire as they visit the Sunday media shows to criticize Israel.

Once again, the Obama Administration is missing the boat on a very, very important issue. They need to go back to the basics and acknowledge Palestinian leaders have not progressed any peace process since President Obama was elected. As Israel makes concessions (and is still criticized by the Obama Administration), Arab leaders are just sitting back waiting for the White House to further pressure Israel.

The Obama Administration needs to open its eyes and recognize that it is only Iran and her terrorist allies that benefit from this manufactured Israeli controversy.

Vice President Biden was actually right when he said last week, before the construction announcement, that “one necessary precondition for progress is that the rest of the world knows...there is absolutely no space between the United States and Israel when it comes to security.”

Right now, thanks to the Obama Administration, there is a chasm. It’s time for President Obama to push the reset button on our relations with our ally Israel.

- Sarah Palin

-------------

Palin seems to have given Biden a pass on the snubbing of Israel last week, deciding to slam the "Obama administration" as a whole instead. Which is probably the best way to go. If she singled out just Joe, then the administration could make him out to be the scapegoat. No need to give the administartion an excuse to dump Joe.

I dug up some articles on Palin and Israel.

The famous article about the Israeli filmmaker who followed her around is here:
When asked about Palin's past support of Pat Buchanan, whose anti-Israeli views are common knowledge, Frank said that Palin's support of Buchanan stemmed from his positions in other issues, and that she did not agree with his views of Israel.

"She had an Israeli flag, of all the things, mounted on her office wall, and I have that on film" he said. "I was very surprised to see that and when I asked her about it, she said that she loves Israel and the she had friends who visited the country and brought her the flag."

Palin, according to Frank, has clear political aspiration, but he did not dwell on them on the movie. "I didn’t ask about politics because I didn’t want to stir away from my (movie) plan, but she definitely struck me as someone who wants to move ahead. She's the over-achiever type."
Read the speech on Iran that Palin would have given on the campaign trail had the scuff-up with the Clinton supporters not happened here.

Note: These articles were written before it was known that Sarah Palin actually supported Steve Forbes as a candidate, not Pat Buchanan. She wore a Buchanan button as a courtesy when he came to town. I'm sure she agrees with Pat on some issues; she even quoted him in her recent Chris Wallace interview, but this makes clear that she definitely disagrees with him on others. And again, she didn't actually support him as a candidate.

Another article here:
In light of recent media reports attempting to connect Republican VP nominee Gov. Sarah Palin with controversial historian and Nazi sympathizer Pat Buchanan, VIN News has learned that the Alaska governor has demonstrated strong support for Alaska's Jewish community.

In particular,
Gov. Palin signed a resolution in June of 2008 recognizing Israel's 60th anniversary and the unique relationship between Alaska and the Jewish State, especially the fact that Alaska Airlines played a critical role in the rescue of 40,000 Yemenite Jews in 1948 and 1949.

Chabad of Anchorage's Rabbi Yosef Greenberg had this to tell VIN News:

"Gov. Palin signed this resolution in the presence of Alaska's Jewish community leaders. This bill was orchestrated by members of the Alaska Legislation and heavily supported by Speaker of the House, Representative John Harris…

Gov. Palin has established a great relationship with the Jewish community over the years and has attended several of our Jewish cultural gala events. Gov. Palin also had plans to visit Israel with members of the Jewish community, however, for technical reason, the visit has not occurred yet.

I was personally impressed by Gov. Palin's remarks of hope and faith when she gave birth to a child with special needs. We all feel that the Governor is a remarkable, energetic, and good person.

Having said that I like to reiterate that As a Lubavitcher rabbi, I would like to note that we do not endorse any political candidate.
Flickr album of bill signing here.

And this is from the 2008 campaign when Palin met Peres:
Upon meeting the Israeli president, Palin told him she has wanted to meet him and get to know him for years. She added that the only flag in her office, aside from the American flag, is the Israeli flag, stressing that she wants Israelis to know that she’s been a longtime friend of the Jewish state, and will remain such.

Flashback - September of '08

The Book Every Palin Supporter Must Read

Sarah Takes on Big Oil is a book that has never really been publicized, but is essential to understanding Sarah's record in Alaska as well as other key players from her past that pop their heads up to comment on her to this day.

You can see some excerpts here.

At around $22 bucks it's not cheap, but it's worth it. You can get a PDF version for a little less.

Want to learn the details of how she took on the oil and gas industry? Want to hear from her inner circle on her style of leadership and how she governs? Want to read the stories of how she challenged the Republican Party?

Want to shake your head at the ignorance of people who's only source of Palin information is the Huffington Post?

Well, okay, you probably already do that. :)

But this will add eye-rolling and mouth-dropping amazement at the stupidity to the head shaking.

I read it a year ago, but only recently pulled it out again. It's a must. Get it.

Don't Give Up


Via the LOTUS:
---------

It may be tempting to feel worn down as we take one step after another towards the “fundamental transformation of America” that Barack Obama promised. But we mustn’t let our energy be sapped, even in the face of the mind-boggling leap the Obama Administration just took that fundamentally shifts us towards more reliance on foreign energy sources. Hang on to your hat and take a look at this.

Months ago I discussed Washington’s decision to allow U.S. dollars to flow to Brazil for that nation’s off-shore oil drilling projects, while D.C.’s attitude towards America’s own offshore developments appeared less-than-enthusiastic. We gained hope though when our President promised in his State of the Union address that he’d be “making tough decisions about opening new offshore areas for oil and gas development.”

Most of us optimistically assumed that “making tough decisions” meant allowing at least some offshore drilling. In fact, on national television that night I said that the President deserved kudos for acknowledging our need for domestic energy development in his speech.

Turns out that was just more drilling doublespeak: America has been snookered again.

While everyone has been focused on Obamacare, the Obama administration took advantage of America’s distraction and quietly said that it’s planning to place a hold on offshore drilling on the outer continental shelf until at least 2012.

At a time when our country is desperate for job growth, deficit reduction, and energy independence, it’s simply astonishing that the administration refuses to allow additional offshore drilling, even while supporting energy development in foreign countries.

According to a study by the American Energy Alliance, opening the OCS to drilling could create as many as 1.2 million new jobs and add hundreds of billions of dollars annually to the US economy. Those are real American jobs – and great American opportunities – that can’t be outsourced.

Offshore drilling would provide billions in revenue for our states, allowing them to reduce their budget deficits without raising taxes.

It would help reduce our trade deficit, which spikes with each rise in the price of oil because we’re so reliant on foreign sources of energy. And because we have some of the best environmental standards in the world, we should be drilling for our own oil instead of buying it from countries with less stringent standards.

When the Obama Administration first delayed offshore leasing on the OCS to allow for “an extended public comment period,” the comments it received reflected what all the polling tells us – that Americans overwhelmingly support offshore drilling. (Curiously, those pro-drilling findings weren’t heavily publicized by the Administration and the press.)

Americans understand that a true “all-of-the-above” approach to energy independence must include responsible development of our conventional resources. Even as we develop alternative energy sources, we’ll still rely on oil and gas for decades to come. If we don’t drill for it here, then we’ll just have to keep buying it from others.

Using executive power to lock up energy resources ignores the will of the American people who want to develop those resources and know that we can do so in an environmentally responsible manner.

Ignoring the American people is never good politics, but whether it’s energy independence or health care, our leadership in Washington is tone deaf to the commonsense solutions that Americans want.

Watching this potentially earth-shattering energy policy decision made quietly while health care transformation distracts us, it makes one wonder what else our politicians are up to.

An old trick is to intentionally consume attention with a “crisis” so as to sap the public’s energy, and then to conveniently push through rash measures that would receive great scrutiny at any another time. Remember Rahm Emanuel’s Saul Alinsky-style of political operation: “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.”

America, we must resolve to stay engaged in what our politicians are doing. Don’t get tired and give up. All political power is inherent in the people.

America can only be transformed into something unrecognizable if we get so tired that we give up our political power and close our eyes to what is going on. Find the energy to stand for what you know is right, including supporting leaders who don’t engage in energy policy doublespeak.

- Sarah Palin

Monday, March 15, 2010

Unstoppable - Updated

A guy over at PTBC has read the Maclean's article on Palin:
--------------

No great friend of any conservative, particularly American conservatives, Maclean’s magazine features an article about Sarah Palin in this coming week’s edition.

It’s reasonably fairly written. For example, it concedes, or admits, quite rightly, in a stunning break from the established liberal media talking points and pop-news culture meme, that in the end, after all the outrageous liberal-left caterwauling and bashing and personal attacks and outright character assassination attempts, they have ultimately FAILED to stop her....unwittingly betraying that which only they think is self-evident and obvious: that all along, we’ve all been trying to stop her....

The media’s multiple pronouncements of the political death of her and her “15 minutes of fame”, and that she’s “finally done like dinner”, and “she’s well past her best before date”, and countless other such novelties always using one or more of the words “stupid” or “idiot” or “useless” over and over and over again, failed to stop her, and she is indeed a force to be reckoned with — or as their cover also laments, she is actually “reshaping America”. So much for “useless” and “irrelevant”....

You have to laugh at the like-mindedness being exhibited by the Sarah Palin-hating liberal-left media on this...Maclean’s thinks she’s an unstoppable force (despite the efforts) in the whole of American politics who is actually “reshaping America”; and the simpatico National Post also thinks she won’t “go away”, and yet she’s a “complete idiot”. Then doesn’t that mean the National Post thinks Americans are “complete idiots”? I vote yes — that they think they are.

Note however that this whole paradigm magically shifts when they’re talking about their man, the ever so smart Barack Obama, and his election by the same Americans. Then they’re all geniuses.



UPDATE: The article was not fair in any respect. It was just another hit piece.

Laughing at "Death Panels"? Just Keep Laughin'....

From the Daily Mail in the UK:
---------------

Rationing body rejects ten drugs (allowed in Europe) that could have extended lives -

Up to 20,000 people have died needlessly early after being denied cancer drugs on the NHS, it was revealed yesterday. The rationing body NICE has failed to keep a promise to make more life-extending drugs available.

Treatments used widely in the U.S. and Europe have been rejected on grounds of cost-effectiveness, yet patients and their loved ones have seen the NHS waste astronomical sums. Last week it emerged that £21billion - a fifth of the entire annual budget - was spent on failed schemes to tackle inequality....

Four drugs which could have benefited 16,000 people have been turned down outright and a further six which could have helped 4,000 more have been provisionally rejected. Just five drugs have been accepted - benefiting 8,500 people - says a damning report by the Rarer Cancers Forum....

The RCF also says NICE works so slowly that it takes 21 months to decide on a drug, during which time many patients die. This is despite promises from NICE bosses to get the decision time down to six months by the end of this year....

NICE said last night: ...'Our End of Life Treatments protocol, introduced at the beginning of 2009, has already made it possible for very expensive cancer treatments to be recommended when our standard approach would have resulted in more cautious guidance.'
---------

Your "End of Life Treatments protocol"? That makes the families of those 20,000 people feel much better, I'm sure.

Couple this example of government ineptitude and rationing with this statement from Bart Stupak, and it paints a frightening picture:

What are Democratic leaders saying? “If you pass the Stupak amendment, more children will be born, and therefore it will cost us millions more. That’s one of the arguments I’ve been hearing,” Stupak says.

Money is their hang-up. Is this how we now value life in America? If money is the issue — come on, we can find room in the budget. This is life we’re talking about.”


From August of last year:
---------

The Democrats promise that a government health care system will reduce the cost of health care, but as the economist Thomas Sowell has pointed out, government health care will not reduce the cost; it will simply refuse to pay the cost.

And who will suffer the most when they RATION care? The sick, the elderly, and the disabled, of course.

The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s “death panel” so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their “level of productivity in society,” whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil.

We must step up and engage in this most crucial debate. Nationalizing our health care system is a point of no return for government interference in the lives of its citizens. If we go down this path, there will be no turning back.

Ronald Reagan once wrote, “Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we’ll ever see on this earth.” Let’s stop and think and make our voices heard before it’s too late.
-------

Today:

As I wrote in my first post on this topic, human rights and human dignity must be at the center of any health care discussion. Government health care will not reduce the cost of medical care; it will simply refuse to pay it. And who will get left behind when they have to ration care to save money?

Please ask yourself: who will be left behind? And who will decide – what kind of panel will decide – who receives the health care that government will obviously have to ration?

- Sarah Palin

Palin Meets Zeke

I don't think there's any audio on this thing, at least I can't get any, but the description says:

Sara [sic] Palin gets to meet Zeke Zucaro and spend time visiting, chatting and picking his brain about Real Estate Investing. You never know who your going to meet in Salt Lake City!


A tweet from this guy was posted yesterday:

Holy Cow! I am in the Salt Lake City Delta Sky Club and Sarah Palin is here! Her Police escort says they are going to bring her to meet me!
So she was in the Salt Lake City airport yesterday, probably on a layover. He later posted:
I just got to spend one on one time with Sarah Palin! Amazing. See it at my You Tube channel. www.youtube/megazeeinc
His company website is here.


UPDATE -

Zeke uploaded the video again on March 23, 2010. Still no sound, but he put this as a description:
Sarah Palian and Zeke Zucaro talk shop at the Crown Club in Salt Lake City. Topics covered included the state of today's housing market in America. Zeke gave Sarah a tip or two on Short Sales and she told Zeke he has a future in politics!

Palin in Tulsa - Video


And here's some Glenn if you're interested:

Sunday, March 14, 2010

Happy Sunday!

A tad late, but think of it as entertainment for the evening.

Let's travel back to a year ago around this time when Governor Palin was addressing the Anchorage Lincoln's Day Dinner.

First up, an interview she did beforehand with Michael Medved:



And now for the speech. Twelve vids in all. Cheap production, but great speech:



And Gretchen Wilson sang Barracuda at the Tulsa rally. Here she is singing it in 2007:



(ht/Gelston)

The Little General Rallies the Troops

Sarah Palin via Facebook: With a Stiff Spine America Must Stand Against Obamacare: -------------

If Senator Reid, Speaker Pelosi, and President Obama get their way, soon our country will be changed forever. Using every partisan parliamentary trick in the book (including some they invented just last week), Washington’s Left intends to ram through their takeover of our health care system regardless of the consequences.

The latest twists and turns in the Obamacare drama seem almost surreal. One minute the Democrat leadership is trying to amend a bill before the president has even signed it into law, and the next minute they’re trying to draft a new rule that will allow the House to “deem” a bill passed without actually voting on it!

They’re determined to use the Senate reconciliation process as a parliamentary trick to bypass the regular voting procedure (and by the way, to add insult to injury, they’re now going to ram through federalization of America’s student loan industry with this same reconciliation vote). Is there any other wildly unpopular legislation they’d also like to sneak in? Perhaps the anti-energy-independence policy “Cap and Tax” (aka Cap and Trade) is next?

And make no mistake, the Obamacare bill is wildly unpopular. The Democrats’ own pollsters warn of an “unmitigated disaster” for them in November if they don’t abandon their plan and start over with real incremental health care reform. Incredibly, at this point, they don’t seem to care. Speaker Pelosi thinks Congress must pass the bill so that the American people can then “find out what’s in it.” We know what’s in it. We don’t want it.

The Democrats will take short-term electoral losses in exchange for long-term radical change of the United States of America. They assume we’ll come to accept this new intrusion of government once we’re stuck with it. That’s why we can’t concede this battle. Americans must stiffen our spines and stand against this action that violates the will of the people with centralized government mandates and crippling costs.

Republicans in Congress are holding the line, and some Democrats are standing with them. Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI) said he won’t vote for the Senate bill if federal funding of abortion is included. Last Friday, he told National Review Online that some Democrats have told him that if abortions aren’t covered in Obamacare then “more children will be born, and therefore it will cost us millions more…Money is their hang-up. Is this how we now value life in America?”

As I wrote in my first post on this topic, human rights and human dignity must be at the center of any health care discussion. Government health care will not reduce the cost of medical care; it will simply refuse to pay it. And who will get left behind when they have to ration care to save money?

Please ask yourself: who will be left behind? And who will decide – what kind of panel will decide – who receives the health care that government will obviously have to ration?

There’s a great deal of pressure being put on Stupak’s pro-life Democrats. They’re already dwindling in number. Their party is threatening them, and so are powerful SEIU labor union bosses. The Democrats respecting the sanctity of life have every incentive to buckle under the pressure, so they need to know that we’ll support them if they do the right thing and vote no on Obamacare.

Please take the time to get involved in the debate this week. There are many grassroots efforts under way. There will be a march on Washington on Tuesday, March 16th (see here for details). Rep. Michele Bachmann has a “Kill the Bill” online petition that you can sign here. Most importantly, contact members of Congress and offer your support if they do the right thing.

We know we’ll beat them at the ballot box, but we have to kill this bill before November. This is the final push. We must stand up and stand together one last time to insist on true market-oriented, patient-centered health care reform that reflects America’s values and the will of the people.

- Sarah Palin

Turn Out Your Tens of Thousands...

Let it be told to the future world, that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive, that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet and to repulse it. - The American Crisis

When Obama’s first term is over, what won’t the government control? They’ve already managed to get their grubby hands on the banks and the auto industry, now they want student loans and health care. It’s hard to imagine that this administration’s insatiable appetite for power will stop there.

Not content to merely run everything, Congress is now on the verge of mutilating the Constitution outright with the very aptly named “Slaughter Rule":
Every Bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, shall, before it become a Law, be presented to the President of the United States….

But in all such Cases the Votes of both Houses shall be determined by Yeas and Nays, and the Names of the Persons voting for and against the Bill shall be entered on the Journal of each House respectively.

– Article I, Section 7 of the United States Constitution

This part of Constitution may be completely bypassed:

In case you're unfamiliar, the Slaughter Rule is named after Louise "she wore her dead sister's dentures" Slaughter and it works like this:

The speaker brings a bill containing a list of changes that the House wants to make to the Senate bill to the floor for a vote. When the House members vote for and pass this list of changes to the Senate bill, the House will deem the Senate bill as passed as well, even though the Senate bill itself was never voted on to begin with.

More info here.

If you don’t have the votes, just say that it passed anyway. How tyrannically convenient.

Mark Levin explains further:


If they go with this Slaughter Rule, we must act. Not with violence, but with the law. Someone must file suit. It must go to the Supreme Court. If that suit fails, the Constitution will no longer count for beans. It will be a useless piece of paper that nobody cares about anymore, and we will have tyranny.

In the meantime, we must continue to call, write, plead, and implore. Don’t just call those who are going to vote “yes,” call those who are going to vote “no.” Call the leadership of the opposition and encourage them to throw as many monkey wrenches into this thing as they possibly can.

This is no time to lie down. We stand on the brink of tyranny. Our republic is being stolen in broad daylight.

We’ve been fighting this for a year. We’ve called, we’ve written, we’ve gone to town halls and tea parties. We marched on Washington. But they won’t stop.

Well neither will we.

Say not that thousands are gone, turn out your tens of thousands…It matters not where you live, or what rank of life you hold, the evil or the blessing will reach you all. The far and the near, the home counties and the back, the rich and the poor, will suffer or rejoice alike.

The heart that feels not now is dead; the blood of his children will curse his cowardice, who shrinks back at a time when a little might have saved the whole, and made them happy
.

- Thomas Paine

Palin in Tulsa - Update

From the Daily Caller:
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It’s not every day that people in America’s heartland hear “Redneck Woman” Gretchen Wilson sing Heart’s “Barracuda” to Sarah Palin.

On Saturday, nearly 5,000 people in Tulsa attended Glenn Beck’s and country singer John Rich’s kickoff of the “Taking Our Country Back” tour....

“We are going to be remembered as a country so riddled with debt,” Beck, wearing a homey blue-and-white checked shirt and jeans, said. “People thought magic pixies would come down in the likeness of Tim Geithner and everything would be okay.”

For all of Beck’s lecturing about the country’s founding fathers, the crowd craved Palin. Floor seats for the event cost about $150. As one woman said, “It’s not too much for me to see Sarah.”

The crowd jumped to its feet when Rich, who performed at the 2008 GOP convention in Minneapolis, introduced Palin. She walked across the stage in a sleek black coat with silver sequins edging the bottom and jeans and stood in front of a translucent podium.

“Oklahoma, do you love your freedom?” Palin asked.

Palin told the crowd about John McCain’s campaign staffers’ often low spirits. She thought they needed a pick-me-up. The answer: Gretchen Wilson. So she hit the campaign trail along with Rich, who sang the political anthem “Raisin’ McCain.”

The first thing that must occur in the United States, says Palin, is to boost the economy. She chided President Barack Obama, Senator Harry Reid and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi for their borrowing, spending and taxing.

“They keep digging this big dark hole,” she said. “That’s generational theft. It makes us less secure and less free. I don’t know about you but that ticks me off...."

She encouraged Washington to look at Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan’s “Roadmap for America’s Future.” Ryan, a rising star, could be competition for Palin in two years. He has been touted in some conservative circles as a possible presidential candidate.

“There’s nothing wrong with saying no to President Obama,” she said about Ryan.

Palin enjoys dueling with her critics. She’s sarcastic. She’s cute. And the crowd eats it up.

“I write it [notes] on the palm of my hand and I wish Washington would tattoo it across their forehead,” she said. “I got busted for using the poor man’s version of the teleprompter.”

Three things she wants Washington to understand: tax cuts, energy independence and lifting America’s spirits.

She loves to scold nemesis Obama, too: “No, thank you, Mr. President, you can keep that change.”

After the tribute, Rich sang “The Good Lord and The Man” while Palin clapped her hands and introduced herself to the band’s fiddle player. Piper Palin joined her mother on stage and held her hand.

When the song ended, Palin grabbed the hand of a grieving mother who lost her son in Iraq last year and walked off stage with her. And she didn’t leave after her speech. During Rich and Wilson’s set, Palin stood slightly off stage enjoying the show while the nearby crowd snapped photos with their cell phones, especially during “Barracuda.”

In her speech, Palin said that America needs to hang on until November. But the Palin fans can’t wait until 2012. When her black SUV rolled out of the convention center with police escort, about 50 admirers – many holding her best-selling book – waved good-bye to her.

“We need Sarah Palin,” one woman said to another.

“Amen,” she said.
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Two vids of the event found here.

And from Tulsa World:
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"We understand what they're trying to do to this country," she said. "We understand it, and we don't like it. That's why we're taking our country back..."

"There is no need for a fundamental transformation of America," she said. "No thank you, Mr. President, you can keep that change."

Video - Palin at Lincoln's Day Dinner