« Despite Threat, White House Urges Members To Carry On With Town Halls | Home | What Happened At The St. Louis Town Brawl? »
Palin: Obama's "Death Panel" Could Kill My Down Syndrome Baby
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.
And she pointed Americans' attention to a recent speech by none other than Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), warning of the dastardly involvement of Rahm Emanuel's brother, who is a doctor, in the health care debate:
Rep. Michele Bachmann highlighted the Orwellian thinking of the president's health care advisor, Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, the brother of the White House chief of staff, in a floor speech to the House of Representatives. I commend her for being a voice for the most precious members of our society, our children and our seniors.
Could this be an early trial balloon for a Palin/Bachmann ticket in 2012?
(Via Dave Weigel.)
Advertisement
Josh
Matt
Eric
Brian
The capacity of this bimbo to combine her smugly invincible ignorance with the vicious cunning a rabble rouser inciting a lynch mob and evade consequences for her actions by hiding behind her Princess Winky Sparkleburst National Review pornstar persona always amazes me. But, damn, even for her, this is so vile it really takes your breath away.
August 7, 2009 5:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'd prefer we not use sexually charged language such as "bimbo" when referring to Palin. If nothing else such language might serve as a distraction from your more important central point (i.e.: Palin is an idiot).
August 7, 2009 5:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Quite right. It's much more properly AirHead Bimbo.
Ahem... With apologies to the dear, departed Frank Zappa...
August 7, 2009 6:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
How do you feel about "evil lying bitch?"
August 7, 2009 6:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Evil lying" is good. The rest seems unnecessary
August 7, 2009 7:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
If evil lying bastard is okay for Dick Cheney et al; evil lying bitch is fair.
August 7, 2009 8:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sarah Palin is an evil lying bastard.
This insults 'bastards,' such as Shakespeare's Faulconbridge, but at least the term has no zoological connotations.
August 9, 2009 11:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
as a proud feminist, i'll allow it. sometimes it just fits.
August 7, 2009 8:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
As a faux feminist, maybe you should go back to class.
August 8, 2009 3:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
And you accuse that poster of being a faux feminist why exactly?
August 8, 2009 5:27 AM | Reply | Permalink
Uh, using sexist language and then thinking that being a woman means she can't be using sexist language or gets to "allow it". Sorry, her sexist attributions hurt others, not just Palin or herself.
August 8, 2009 12:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh pulease.
August 8, 2009 12:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Just to clear up the record, she didn't use "sexist language." She just condoned it. I'm the one that used the term you find objectionable and I'm a he, not a she.
August 8, 2009 1:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
So calling a jerk a dick is sexism right?
Sorry but your ridiculous assertion about the negative yet accurate term to use regarding Palin using her sexuality to gain political capital, which I and numerous others assert is the exact opposite of sexism.
Your non-thinking knee-jerk reaction about language only goes to underscore the point that you are 100% backwards on this point.
August 8, 2009 6:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
Please spare us the faux feminist outrage. Sarah Palin is hardly representative of modern American feminism. The only lesson she could teach young women is that panties can serve as pretty decent ankle-warmers when in the backseat of a car on a chilly evening.
August 8, 2009 7:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's about you, it's not about her. You sound like a sexist jerk. Saying "I'm only a sexist jerk to women who deserve it" is hardly an appealing excuse. And there is nothing Palin has said that warrants the "ankle warmer" comment.
Palin is a professional, elected official. She got elected through her own hard work, whatever you think about her. She has typically whacky conservative Republican views on the issues. This should invite scorn and ridicule of her views. It shouldn't promote gynecological exploration of her physique or schoolboy rape/submission fantasies. She does seem to bring out the worst latent women hating sentiments in "progressives", but that doesn't mean those sentiments are her fault, nor that those sentiments are progressive values.
August 8, 2009 11:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
LMAO! Professional my rear...I bet you were one of the men she had her panties down around her ankles for.
August 10, 2009 12:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
Did you stop for a second and contemplate how idiotic this statement would make you sound?
I know you can just change your avatar & name and we won't recognize you, but you do have anything remotely related to self-respect?
August 10, 2009 3:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
I used the terms advisedly and thus beg to disagree.
She simply would not be where she is if she didn't drive old Republican white guys like Barnes and Kristol and the delegates to the last Republican convention into a mortifyingly transparent state of sexual frenzy. She has unashamedly used her looks as a shield to protect herself from the kind of scrutiny she most certainly would have received if she were a man, or an older, less attractive woman, who went babbling vapid yet incindiary nonsense the way she does.
Even Bachmann can form complete sentences and even intelligible, if demented, concepts.
The steady stream of culpably incindiary mendacity that comes from Palins's mouth is nothing less than the political obscenity and the fact that it's being spouted by what passes for a sex symbol among old rich white guys is why she came so terrifyingly close to the White House. She is nothing more, and nothing less, than an authoritarian political porn star.
If we're not allowed to acknowledge, and frankly confront, the self-exploitive sexual dimension of Sarah Palin's rise to power (such as it is) for fear of transgressing some self-imposed feminist speech code, her prominence on the national stage is thoroughly incomprehensible. If we can't address that because it's not politically correct, it's impossible to accurately convey how she can simultaneously represent a grave danger to the nation and yet also be utterly and completely insignificant.
August 7, 2009 7:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Very well said.
August 7, 2009 8:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Bravo!
August 7, 2009 8:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Exactly. Said much more in depth and better than me.
August 8, 2009 1:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
That's not hard to do, since you have the vocabulary and delivery of a 7th-grade boy.
August 8, 2009 3:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
What next, the neener, neener, neener gambit?
August 8, 2009 6:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
And you sound like an obnoxious 8th grader trying to assert rank and privilege over the underclassmen in middle school.
August 8, 2009 7:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
True dat!
August 8, 2009 1:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
Polluting your logic with more and more sexist speech doesn't make it more logical.
Why don't you just drop the sexist bit and try to make sense without it? It's not that hard.
August 8, 2009 3:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
What bullshit. Your blind dogmatic retort only underscores the point NCSteve made. And please, I'd love to hear you accuse me of being sexist.
August 8, 2009 5:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
No, I just think you're some knee-jerk idiot spouting off.
August 8, 2009 12:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ouch, that really hurt.
(scroll)
August 8, 2009 6:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
And what are you contributing to the discussion except tut-tutting about "feminism" as though you have any credibility there. When a woman uses her sexuality as Palin routinely does (wink, wink) she has opened the door to criticism within that plane. Do you have any substantive comments to make?
August 8, 2009 8:16 AM | Reply | Permalink
Oh please, tell me what slutty clothes she was wearing and how she deserved it.
August 8, 2009 12:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Do you have any substantive comments to make?
Oh please, tell me what slutty clothes she was wearing and how she deserved it.
so... no. no, you don't.
August 8, 2009 2:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Exactly. In fact, Palin using her sexuality as she does (i.e. the bimbo factor), is directly anti-ethical to feminism and gender equality.
But pointing that out is sexist apparently according to some because using plain, accurate language is evil. Or somethin'
August 8, 2009 6:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Men telling women how they're allowed to use their sexuality?
"Accurate"? How is she accurately called a "bimbo"? Too fucked up.
August 8, 2009 11:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
if your high holy take on "feminism" can go and jump in a lake. we are talking about the people who have the ability to wage countless suffering on mankind through war, conventional and nuclear.
if palin got into the white house, i would literally fear for my life. that woman has no business being able to wage war upon anybody.
August 8, 2009 11:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
Oh, so now we excuse sexism because one day Palin might have nukes. You people are seriously fucked up.
August 8, 2009 12:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
Des, I'm usually with you on the sexism front, but here I think that NCSteve has a point. Sarah Palin trades on her sexuality. It doesn't make her fair game for remarks about her clothing (she can wear what she wants) or her sex life (she can sleep with whomever she wants. It also doesn't make her fair game for sexist slurs (including the original "bimbo" that got this conversation started). However, it does leave her and her tactics open to a discussion about female sexuality as a tool to get ahead. Just as we would not expect men in public life to come under the same sorts of criticism that women in public life often have to endure, we would not expect men to flirt and wink their way to success.
August 8, 2009 12:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
Agreed, except that I sort of like "bimbo." She wouldn't be where she is today if she weren't trading on her looks. A less attractive woman using the same language would laughed out of the political arena. Sad, but true, white males give her credibility, and it is ONLY because they are using their "other" brain.
It isn't PC, but it's true...
August 8, 2009 1:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
Obama wouldn't be where he is without his looks - think people would buy his schtick looking like Flavor Flav? Bill Clinton wouldn't be where he is without his looks. Most public figures rely on their looks as part of their persona. Ronnie? John McCain? Tony Blair? Really, this is just ridiculous folks. You can attack Palin on her convoluted ideas - why exactly do people have to trade in overt sexism to get simple points across?
August 8, 2009 2:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
You have gone off the deep end! If Obama were covered with warts, sweated profusely and was 5'2" and obese, he probably wouldn't be president, because we don't elect people who do not fit our own ideas of "leaders." But he could look just like he does and if he had Sarah Palin's (?) intellect (?), to include a complete lack of curiosity, lack of academic and scholarly achievements, an inability to speak a coherent sentence, and an inability to inspire in a POSITIVE way, he wouldn't have gotten out of Chicago, nevermind into the White House.
You're saying Obama and Clinton both got into the White House by using their looks? No one here is saying that there is anything wrong with Sarah being attractive. It is the use of the winks, and flirty behavior that is a SUBSTITUTE for SUBSTANCE that is infuriating and insulting to feminists (of which you obviously know nothing).
Is THIS what you expect from a leader? This is when she thought she was talking to the President of France --- "Hellooooooo!...
John McCain and I love you!"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CcEiR01QK7o
August 8, 2009 4:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Okay, so let's take a trip down Rhetorical Lane.
Presumably from this discussion it only takes a bimbo with a nice rack to get elected - if she can utter a couple of coherent words about policy, so much the better, but not necessary. Memorize some lines about conservative values and she's in like Flynnette.
So we should see these political Amazons all over the landscape, women who succeed because of their looks, snap of their fingers.
So where are they?
Maybe it's that the "women who get ahead in politics because of their looks" are just as mythical as those Amazonian tribeswomen.
August 8, 2009 4:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
You've missed the whole point. It doesn't take a Bimbo with a nice rack to get elected. She WASN'T elected! I disagree with your statement that Obama and Clinton were elected BECAUSE of their good looks (although I believe it is unlikely that a hideously ugly person could get elected).
I will agree with you on this: Palin is a fairly unique unit. She is attractive, both physically and also in her smiling affect; she seems friendly, and down-to-earth. An everyman/woman; she stresses her ordinariness verbally, while wearing expensive clothing. She is a mystery because of her yin and yan//a devoted mother whose children have gotten into quite a bit of trouble (just the right kind of trouble to appeal to all the bubbas who love her), and who have been taken out of school and paraded on stage to show her unending devotion to their well-being. A player who declares that she rejects wasteful spending, but she gamed the system as governor getting paid to live at home, and even that home was built with questionable funding.
She is unconflicted about one thing: she is right and everyone else is wrong; even being asked what she read was interpreted as below the belt. But her folksy, smiling sweetness as she accuses those so much smarter than she (and innocent of her accusations, BTW) of being terrorist sympathizers and worse; her continued smiles and cuteness as the crowd yelled such things as, "Kill him," never fazed her.
I am not afraid of her being elected president; I don't believe it would ever happen, but I am afraid of her malevolent mouth doing even more harm in polarizing the country, which is her forte. She appeals to people who just want to be told who to hate and why; truth doesn't enter in to it.
Without her looks she would be nowhere, but it is her other characteristics that make her the negative force that she is. Rush doesn't have her looks, but he has rhetorical skills that grab onto people. But they are both on the same team, and it isn't doing anything for the common good.
But I am done with this subject. I will not waste anymore time on this woman for whom you have so much respect. Since you have been so willing to spend time on her, you might want to take the time to send her a note correcting her "misreading" of the bill and remind her that "Death Panel" is nowhere in it. Educating Sarah Palin really would be a better use of your time.
August 8, 2009 5:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
All politicians walk their kids out on stage. It's part of the process, like kissing babies.
She was elected, she failed for Lt. Governor and then won the election for Governor in 2006. As a VP candidate, she and her running mate got 45.7% of the vote, not too shabby in a year when people had Bush-fatigue, were tired of the war, the economy was in collapse, and the opposing candidate was much more interesting.
As far as I know, she doesn't dress very expensively. She has one child who got pregnant at 17. I don't know of any other trouble her children have had.
Again, I recommended steering clear of those children expenses because the deck is stacked against women - they get to be Governor and still watch the kids. Obama's Hospital VP wife still got to take care of the kids while he spent the week in Washington. Nancy Pelosi, our highest elected female official, held off entering public service until her children were grown. Are these hurdles the best we can do for female politicians? Isn't it sad that Pelosi couldn't have a support structure that would let her be a public servant during the prime of her life, even while raising kids?
Regarding the bill, Rahm would be better off helping get the details added to the bill rather than telling progressives to STFU. Until the bill is relatively complete it's hard to argue that Palin is crazy, even though the existing evidence would point that way.
August 8, 2009 5:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
'She has one child who got pregnant at 17'
Yes, and she introduced us to the man who impregnated her at the Republican National Convention.
What does that say about her?
August 10, 2009 12:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
What does it say? If my child's pregnant, I assume I'm going to welcome the father in my household if possible, and if I'm thrust on national stage, I would assume including my child's fiancé in family would only be right. I seem to recall Nixon including David Eisenhower in public events before he'd married his daughter, but my memory's pretty foggy on that.
August 10, 2009 3:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
"a complete lack of curiosity, lack of academic and scholarly achievements, an inability to speak a coherent sentence, and an inability to inspire in a POSITIVE way, he wouldn't have gotten out of Chicago"
No, but judging from the current occupant of the 5th floor at City Hall, he could be mayor for life.
August 9, 2009 8:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Stating as fact, something not necessarily a fact. Obama's words caught my attention before I had any idea what he looked like...didn't even know he was black. Had I seen him 1st, I may have wondered what part his looks played, since he's obviously HAWT. Clinton....yuck. Definitely not my type. In fact, I would say he's kinda palin-ish in that regard...I get the impression he's pretty full of himself, sexually speaking. But at least he has some brains.
August 8, 2009 5:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sorry, I never in my life evaluated a politician as to sexiness. Maybe it's a lack of imagination on my part, who knows. I think of them as something like bank tellers but occasionally more interesting.
August 8, 2009 6:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Good for you. How many Americans voted for Bush because they thought he would be someone they would want to have a beer with?
If the majority of the voting population voted based on sound logic, facts, and critical analysis and weighing of relevant and substantive factors, almost our entire system of government and society would be radically different (and better).
August 8, 2009 7:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, I know people who liked Carter because he "seemed like an uncle", and Clinton had that "feels my pain" thing down and Ronnie had that folksy charm whatever his policies. So we vote personalities and image and a number of factors over actual policy. So there's no good reason to presume that it's the anatomical part of a female candidate or her sexual libido that makes her specifically different than a male candidate. People do have a sexual presence that's part of their personality. Making that the highlight of a female politician vs. holding it in perspective as one of any aspects for a male politician is part of the rampant sexism. It's no better when it's done to Pelosi vs. doing it to Palin. Or another common attitude towards female politicians, "oh she's old, fat, ugly, we can take her seriously as a politician now because we can't sexually infantilize her". Women like men can't help how they look, whether good or bad, they can only do the best with it. If a woman reminds one of "Barbie", as I hear frequently, it's not her fault, she didn't make up Mattel marketing, and our cultural filter that then reduces everything that comes out of her mouth to dollhouse chatter is our problem, not hers.
August 8, 2009 11:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Exactly.
And using the clear (albeit coarse) terms is apropos. That people get so hung up with non-thinking reaction to words in an almost pavlovian manner is to not only miss the forest for the trees, but to get it entirely backwards.
August 8, 2009 6:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
Reality check: do you use the word "bimbo" in any other way but to provoke a Pavlovian non-thinking reaction? Why else do you think you're using the word? Think about it.
August 9, 2009 1:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
If they did, I'd call 'em mimbos. And I doubt I'd get any attention from the Speech Police for doing so.
August 8, 2009 1:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't see how Sarah Palin is trading on her sexuality. Cause she's female and breathing? Oh, a wink? If that waitress in the diner says, "Want some more coffee, hon?" is that a come-on? What exactly is Palin doing that Barack Obama or Bill Clinton don't do? Really, I can't figure this one out. What are politicians are trading on their sexuality?
August 8, 2009 2:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
...What other politicians are trading on their sexuality...
August 8, 2009 2:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Stormy Daniels
August 8, 2009 7:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Right, so why should Palin and thereby other female politicians be reduced to that?
August 8, 2009 11:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Don't be such a bitch Desidero.
August 8, 2009 12:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
???
What the fuck is that supposed to mean?
August 8, 2009 3:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
It means that your panties are in such a twist that they've become buttfloss.
August 8, 2009 7:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Fuck off, asshole.
August 8, 2009 11:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ha! Pretty funny!
August 8, 2009 4:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sorry, but if you want to argue with me about that, you're going to have to identify the "more and more sexist speech" in this statement for me. I don't want to waste my time arguing about any parts that you're willing to concede aren't sexist because otherwise the thread will get so skinny, it will only have a couple of letters per line before we get to the root of our disagreement.
August 8, 2009 1:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
All your crap psychofantasizing about whatever sexual energy ray she's supposedly beaming at old men and the bullshit "self-exploitive sexual dimension" theory. "Pornstar persona".
Here, you can go hang out on the "Do you think this Delta commercial is sexy?" thread:
http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=12235
August 8, 2009 3:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Rather than linking to an entirely different discussion somewhere in the past in a galaxy far far away (and with Ridgepole antagonising people there too, no less), which of these is closest to your problem:
A) Palin is not trading on her, let us say "non-mental" assets;
B) She is, but it is OK;
C) The word "bimbo" is inaccurate or should not be used (what would be a better term?);
D) Something else, what?
August 8, 2009 3:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
And let us state for the record that you are just the kind of sensitive guy who only ever looks women in the eyes. No need to go overboard proving that to everybody.
August 8, 2009 3:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't look my politicians in the snatch, if that's what you mean.
August 8, 2009 4:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hahahaha! I prefer kooch...snatch is kinda coarse, like the difference between rack, which isn't too offensive, and tits.
August 8, 2009 5:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sarah Palin looks like a typical professional woman dressed up in skirt suits. For a 44-year-old woman who has birthed 5 children she is in rather good physical shape. "Bimbo" is completely inappropriate because she doesn't show her tits, sleep around, or in any other way earn the term. In fact there's really no reason to remark about her looks at all, except her winking is a bit eccentric, but about as sexy as her saying "you betcha". Is that a turn-on? Hard to imagine.
What you could do if you wanted to be effective is note that her invocation of the "troops who give us our freedom" line is overused and drops the Constitution on its head, making us foremost a military state rather than a civil democracy. You could note that her interpretation of the still very sketchy health plan is straight out of "Coma". You could note that her only experience running anything big is with the only state that's permanently blessed with huge oil tax subsidies per capita, making balancing the budget like shooting fish in an oil barrel. You could point to her poor performance in office, contradictory stances on the Bridge to Nowhere, but I'd stay away from say anything to do with raising kids (male politicians get to leave their kids at home with the wife) or hunting (male politicians whether Dick Cheney or Howard Dean are just accepted as hunting types, whether they shoot someone in the face or not).
August 8, 2009 5:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
So...it is OK to call someone a bimbo, but only based on their sexual activity? Perhaps best to go easy on the judgmentalism next time around.
It sounds by your addendum that mostly everyone is in agreement that Palin's policies are completely loony and/or dangerous; the only difference is that many consider the only reason her opinions are getting airtime at all to be her looks (and there is ample evidence of "little starbursts" going off all over the place, even if you personally are capable of functioning at a higher level than the cavemen who do not look 'em in the eyes.)
Naturally, her ideology matches her constituency well, but there are tons of other politicians wearing the same thought uniform.
Perhaps you have insight into what else may have helped her? She is just outright stupid. I guess that could be an advantage in some circles?
August 8, 2009 6:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
Exactly. One would have to be willfully blind to not see the hard-on so many white males in the trad-med and GOP had/have over Palin.
To ignore that is to truly miss the salient point in this entire kerfuffle.
August 8, 2009 7:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Seems like you're the one doing the whacking off over this.
August 8, 2009 11:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
He's a vampire. He doesn't get any.
August 9, 2009 1:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
In Andy Warhol's version he sure did.
August 9, 2009 2:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
Goddamn, Karl, don't be dense.
If you call Paris Hilton or Pamela Lee Anderson a bimbo, well, that seems to be part of the persona they've chosen. Yes, bimbo is based on sexual activity and attitudes. I don't think I use the term much if at all, and even there there's an inequality where men who like promiscuous sex are seen as "dogs" in a macho admirable way, whereas women who like promiscuous sex are seen as sleazy. But it's everyone's right to use their genitals as they want within legal/moral limits, and even for politicians, it's none of my business.
The myth that Sarah Palin got where she is based on her looks alone is bullshit. Otherwise, there are much better looking women who would be president by now. She came out to the Republican Convention and knocked her speech out of the park. Bobby Jindal had his big coming out moment following Obama's SOTU, and he turned into a mushy, boring bowl of jelly. Palin has presentation skills from her TV training, and she obviously knows how to connect with people pretty well. She didn't have family in politics - she earned her title of governor, and for someone who was a last minute entry into the Pres/VP race, she did rather well - compare her responses with Rudy "a noun, a verb, and 9/11" Giuliani for example. This is our political landscape as it exists. The head of the Republican Party is Rush Limbaugh. Most of what these people say is pretty boiler-plate. It's presentation skills and perceived empathy to Republican "values" as to whether they sink or swim.
August 9, 2009 1:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
I am just spelling out what you are saying. Put response to the bottom of the thread since the columns are getting sparse.
August 9, 2009 5:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
What else could you POSSIBLY attribute it to? She hasn't got a functioning brain cell!
August 8, 2009 5:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Okay, that was an exaggeration...she probably has a few...
August 8, 2009 5:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
There you go, it's starting to click. Obviously her skills at self-promotion and meteoric career advancement are pretty advanced, and people seemed to love her on the campaign trail unlikely due only to sex appeal. She seems to have figured out Republican code exceptionally well. This is not a stupid woman. She may not be a well-cultivated policy wonk or know how to drone on and on like Joe Biden, but that's only one area of what we refer to as intelligence. But in terms of governing, her ideas are a mix of superficial, misguided and jingoistic.
August 9, 2009 1:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
yes, she has more craft than wit. It's not difficult to concede that there are "clever" people that are not "policy wonks". In fact, many psychopaths fit that rather low bar for qualifications for an top level administrative job.
I don't think anyone has said (that I can recall) she trades on her looks solely. I've seen literally thousands of "cute and folksy" women flirting their way through careers in journalism, marketing, public relations--the more clever ones, that is. Those lacking in even this intellectual capacity trade even more on their bodies and looks.
August 9, 2009 2:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ah. Well if the disagreement's that fundemental, there's no point arguing about it. Bottom line is that each of us thinks the other is full of crap and neither is going to change the other's mind. Eventually, it'll just get pointlessly personal.
Pass.
August 8, 2009 8:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, it's that fundamental. You think calling female professionals "bimbos" and "porn stars" for no relevant reason is okay. I don't.
But I guess I should respect that the Cro Magnon faction of the faux Progressive wing of the party exists and probably won't be going away soon.
August 9, 2009 1:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
Oy, Desi. Thanks for keeping up the good fight. I just don't have the energy anymore to try to explain to freaking "progressives" that demeaning female politicians as porn stars or bimbos or bitches is wrong. That you can disagree with someone on issues and attack female politicians that you disagree with their policies, their their intelligence, their values without going to the lowest denominator and calling them whores. It is pathetic that apparently a sizable portion of the progressive community thinks these tactics are acceptable. The people who know it's wrong and do it anyway or don't speak up because they hate Palin are even worse.
August 9, 2009 1:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
I guess that's just the woman in you talking ;-)
August 9, 2009 1:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yet again, without evidence, you generalise a matter about a single individual?
I might flippantly say that it seems that it is you grappling with prejudices since obviously in your opinion men are incapable of treating women as individuals instead of interchangeable. That, though, would be just as unfair as your accusations.
Lay off the strawmen generalisations...they completely destroy the validity of any point you are trying to make.
August 9, 2009 4:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
The point is that being arbitrarily sexist is still being sexist. Gandhi didn't preach being pacifist to 95% of his foes. He preached pacifism period. And being sexist to the one that you and many here seem to think justified still demeans all women.
August 9, 2009 5:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
Ergo, you calling Pamela Anderson a bimbo is sexist.
August 9, 2009 2:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sigh, Pamela Anderson's profession is a pinup and her famous sex video is likely self-released or she at least had the good wisdom to sign on for royalties if it wasn't. Her profession is sex symbol, pure and symbol. That can be accurately described as pro bimbo, or you can use less tainted words to say the same thing. Whatever. Good for her, she has a good audience, people like her, she fills a need and seems to enjoy herself.
What this has to do with a professional female politician? Nothing.
August 9, 2009 5:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
You are a hypocrite, plain and simple. You have no moral high ground here.
And, *wink, wink*, Sarah Palin is probably the most unprofessional person to try their hand at national politics in quite some time.
August 10, 2009 5:15 AM | Reply | Permalink
You're absurd, plain and simple.
"Bimbo" is a word. It has a definition. It can be used as a slur or a more neutral observation. Until you give me your bizarre definition of the word, from what I know of it it might be applied rationally to Pam Anderson or Paris Hilton, people who seem to flaunt their sexuality, but cannot rationally be applied to Sarah Palin unless your idea of sexuality is still stuck in American Graffiti times.
People started off talking about my "knee-jerk reaction to language". But it's actually a knee-jerk reaction to misplaced sexist language. Madonna fucked Warren Beatty, both seem to fit classic bimbo definition, though it's hard to tell how much these people do for real desire and how much for career advertising.
In any case, the justification for calling Sarah Palin a bimbo seems to rest solely on her winking too much. In the classic words of Inigo Montoya, "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."
August 10, 2009 5:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
Hear, hear.
August 9, 2009 12:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
This is an excellent observation on about a gillion different levels. Bravo!
August 9, 2009 3:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
"it's impossible to accurately convey how she can simultaneously represent a grave danger to the nation and yet also be utterly and completely insignificant."
You know the whole sexism "trap" that may very intentionally be being set (I avoided "laid" because that might be interpreted as vaguely sexist) by Palin's "lipstick on a pitbull" use of sexist imagery is just a red-herring ruse to get us to avoid focusing on the real nature of what's going on with her and all the other religious-Right-based neocon cohorts.
None of it is insignificant; all of it poses a grave danger.
I believe Frank Schaeffer (author of Crazy For God) nailed it with his appearance Friday night on Rachel Maddow's TeeVee show. If you've not ready "Crazy" and are not familiar with who Schaeffer is, he is one of maybe three core individuals who started the whole religious Right movement at the start of the 80s. His father is another of those three and C. Everett Koop rounds out that triumvirate.
As he asserts in "Crazy," he has seen "the light," the error of his ways, and feels a great weight of responsibility for starting something he views as quite anti-American and frightening.
He asserted to Rachel that these people (Palin included) are very intentionally using coded language that is the Pavlovian bell to the Right-wing dogs -- the allusions to Nazis and euthanasia and all of that horsesh*t -- that is designed to provoke a violent response.
That simple. They are intentionally inciting to violence those who can hear their message.
I know I can't quote with 100% accuracy, but the extremely-close paraphrase of his comments went like this:
"They [the neocon nutbags -- is that sexist?] are placing a loaded gun on the table and are inviting the willing to pick it up and use it."
It was clear from his comments he has no doubt in his mind on this issue, and that he isn't being strictly allegorical about the gun. To emphasize the last point he reminded Rachel and the viewing audience that the intended target for these messages are the very ones who nearly cleaned out gun & ammo shops after Obama won the POTUS race, because they believed the earlier lies that Obama would take all their guns away.
This is loosely orchestrated and it's very intentional.
August 9, 2009 4:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well said. Palin uses her feminine eye blinking and her stance in a very sexual way. In the end, her speech is full of fluff, her hips are swinging and her wink is obscene. If she wants to be taken seriously, she should work on these silly moves that are so disgusting. But most disgusting is the fact that she is so stupid she makes this insane comment about Obama proposing a plan that would REQUIRE the killing of her son. That statement. even without any of her antics, makes her look and sound totally stupid and grossly uninformed about Senior Care. As a sitting governor that makes her a menace. But alas, in Alaska where I lived for years, she is fading as a political star and has become a horrible embarrassment to folks.
August 10, 2009 1:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Would you prefer wink (not piece) of shit?
August 7, 2009 8:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh bullshit. What do you think that wink from this piece of shit BIMBO is all about?
August 8, 2009 1:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
I still remember the first time I saw her wink at the camera in her 'debate' with Biden. I nearly fell off my chair. I couldn't believe the McCain folks would put someone so clearly incompetent, ignorant and quite frankly coarse beyond the pale on the ticket with Sydney.
August 8, 2009 8:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
Palin's too ugly and old to be considered a bimbo.
August 8, 2009 10:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
That's only because you think "bimbo" is still gender-specific. Sanford and Stephanoupolis are bimbos too. Feel better?
August 8, 2009 6:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
I couldn't say it any better.
So I wont.
But I will add that I saw all this coming based on the language her supporters were using toward the end of the campaign.
It was inevitable that escalation would be the only appeasement to those folks.
Sadly it will get much worse, as palin and her type seek to control the madness.
August 7, 2009 6:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'll give her credit for one thing - I didn't think she knew what "orwellian" meant.
August 7, 2009 6:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
She doesn't. Someone wrote this statement for her.
August 7, 2009 6:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
Doubt she does beyond the right-wing shorthand she's absorbed. Orwellian has something to do with tyranny like the First Amendment has something to do with speech.
August 7, 2009 7:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
Don't be silly. After all, she went to college for, like, seven years. Of course she knows what it means. And also.
August 7, 2009 8:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
She went to school for 5 years. Being an irrational Palin hater is a rather limiting profession.
August 8, 2009 3:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
Wrong:
After attending five different colleges in a six year span of time, she received a B.S. in communications with an emphasis in journalism from the University of Idaho in May 1987.
August 8, 2009 5:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
And, unfortunately, is extremely good at the propaganda part of it.
I keep wondering what she would have been like if she a) understood truthfulness -- what panels for example and b) had gone to really, really good schools. She doesn't seem at all comfortable with assimilating facts nor with having her ideas challenged.
August 8, 2009 8:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
If she graduated high school in May 1982 and got her degree in May 1987, maybe the person who wrote the "5 schools in 6 years" part got confused. I count 5 years.
Attended Hawaii Pacific University in Honolulu. Studied business administration in fall 1982.
Attended North Idaho College in Coeur d'Alene. General studies major in spring and fall 1983.
Attended University of Idaho. Studied journalism with an emphasis in broadcast news in fall 1984 and spring 1985.
Attended Matanuska-Susitna College in Palmer, Alaska. Fall 1985.
Attended University of Idaho. Spring 1986-spring 1987. B.S. in communications-journalism. Graduated spring 1987.
August 8, 2009 12:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
Mea culpa. That's what I get for copying from wikipedia.
August 8, 2009 7:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
It'll only get worse as all our other sources of info dry up in awe of Wikipedia. Sometimes it can be good and sometimes pathetically bad.
August 9, 2009 2:16 AM | Reply | Permalink
She's been described as someone who knows the punchline but not the joke.
August 8, 2009 12:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
Someone should point a camera at her and ask her what her favorite Orwell book is. 10-1 she won't have an answer.
August 8, 2009 12:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
"All of them"?
August 8, 2009 8:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
His first one.
August 8, 2009 11:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
There is no other way to discuss Palin than discussing her use of sexuality to get what she wants. And her comments about Obama doing harm to her child is also the silliest thing she could say and she deserves ridicule for her racist comment. Nothing Obama has said indicates he plans nor even condones euthanasia of anyone. Her introduction of that issue into the discussion is purely silly politics and an outright affront to intelligent discussion. Amazing that such a dolt was ever considered as VP material. No doubt she is the reason my friend McCain lost the election.
August 8, 2009 4:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
In this climate, it isn't silly; it's dangerous. The nutcases out there who cling to her every ignorant and hateful word get into a greater frenzy when she uses terms like "Death Panel." She is part of the incitement crew that has as its task to get Obama out of office.
August 8, 2009 8:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
Exactly..."silly" connotes something light and funny...This is anything but.
August 8, 2009 5:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
"…and my message to some in the media is 'stop makin' stuff up'"
August 8, 2009 10:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
Now that was Orwellian.
August 9, 2009 2:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
True!!! This silly woman seems to lack even enough intellectual capability to think herself through this totally uncomplicated issue. What is so silly is for her to totally misunderstand the proposed legislation and then make these totally inane, radical pronouncements about the legislation. Does nothing to hurt Obama but just makes her look even stupider than her previous interview statements. Just plain silly!!!!!
August 9, 2009 12:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yes it is truly amazing that this woman who actually was chosen by John McCain could be so absolutely and abjectly stupid to not even know what the phrase, "end of life planning" really is. Imagine Alaskans electing someone so dull witted that she does not even know the normal medical lingo involved with end of life planning. In our agency in Texas, we had such planning meetings that not only included a patients ability to chose the amount of medical intervention they wished for themselves at end of life, but also classes about increased falls among elderly and safety tips about financial planning and not allowing anyone to get involved in their financial matters except those they trusted. Amazing at the abject stupidity of this woman. And this coming from me, a Republican RN who has been involved in Senior Care.
August 9, 2009 10:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
Man, what a wackadoo.
August 7, 2009 5:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
You would think that one so interested in the Down syndrome would know about the Down support groups in the UK, Sweden and these other atrocious places and ask them for an opinion...although it is quite possible that they are just not returning her calls.
August 7, 2009 5:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
The stupid is so great in her.
It's more "Big Lie" technique.
Will the tradmed do it's job? Or will we get" some believe and other don't believe that Obama is Hitler"
August 7, 2009 5:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Let's hope so.
August 7, 2009 5:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sounds like the name of a bad sci-fi thriller.
DEATH PANEL
You know what? We've been spending all this time making fun of the birthers, making jokes about when Palin will come out as a birther herself. Maybe we've been misdirecting our effort. This is worse than the birthers. The Obama birth certificate conspiracy theory is at least twice as credible as this.
August 7, 2009 5:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Sounds like the name of a bad sci-fi thriller."
I thought you meant, "Palin/Bachmann 2012"
August 7, 2009 6:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
Either one's good
August 7, 2009 6:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
A Palin/Bachmann ticket would be bad, it would produce lots of fiction, and it would certainly be a thriller, but I don't think any science would be allowed.
August 7, 2009 6:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
So it would be "Death Panel Race 2012"?
August 7, 2009 8:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Just when I think I might get a respite from Palin nonsense. Like the Bushies she has the ability to stun me speechless. Nerve is not lacking, but simple critical thinking skills may be. Creepy.
August 7, 2009 6:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Go to her post and report a terms of use violation to Facebook. I say she's inciting violence.
August 8, 2009 12:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
Done. Reported for hate speech.
August 8, 2009 1:15 AM | Reply | Permalink
For anyone who's read Sinclair Lewis's "It Can't Happen Here"…
Is it me, or does Palin sound more and more like Buzz Windrip?
Incredibly frightening.
August 7, 2009 6:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wink Buzzdrip.
August 8, 2009 7:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
Wink Buzzkill.
August 9, 2009 2:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think that death panels are a bad idea!
August 7, 2009 6:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think the HAARP facility has warped your mind, honey.
August 7, 2009 7:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
You called me honey cause I'm pretty! Yay! That's the same reason President McCain picked me to be Queen of New America!
August 7, 2009 7:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think the HAARP facility has warped your mind, honey.
August 7, 2009 7:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
"This will make the liberals really really really angry!"
She's such a joke.
August 7, 2009 6:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Not sure if you're winking or not.
This will make us liberals really, really happy. No one serves up the red meat better than Palin these days, and no one brings out the crazies better than her. Bachmann is seen personally as a loon. But Palin calls out the whole flock . . . and there's no better negative publicity for all things Republican than a whole flock of Rednecked Loons trying to peck out the eyes and hearts of everyone else.
If this is why she retired, so she can rant unfettered, I only hope she has the stamina to keep doing this for a few more years.
August 7, 2009 6:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
No, it makes this liberal really, really furious. I am one of 2+ million nurses and 800,000 + physicians who are somehow perceived as being willing to participate in euthanasia. For starters it's illegal in 48 states, including Alaska. Then, surprise!, we do have our own morals, values, ethics.
Then there is the cruelty of lying to the elderly, and those who have elderly parents and grandparents, to put them in that kind of fear. That burns me the most.
I wonder what water boarding would do for getting people to stop being such rabidly evil liars.
August 7, 2009 9:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Are you suggesting that nurses and doctors here in Oregon are immoral because we have our twice upheld death with dignity laws on the books?
August 8, 2009 1:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
I lived in Oregon and the "death with dignity" law does not demand death on a certain schedule. The introduction of required death in the Obama health care proposal is a red herring. It is my own party's last ditch stand to frighten everyone so they will vote against their own self interests and demand that the proposed health care reform stops dead in its tracks, right now!!!!. Sad to say, Republicans will stop at nothing to derail health care reform. How sad that as a 77 year old, I have almost unlimited health care benefits and some child in need of surgery or expensive medical intervention does not get adequate care.
August 8, 2009 4:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thank you for such a clear commentary on the tactics of the Republican Party in general.
August 9, 2009 2:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Scoundrel
August 7, 2009 6:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
Maybe our guys could get out in front of this - show their outrage at the idea of a "Death Panel" and promise that anyone who proposed such an idea would be held accountable, all that stuff.
I mean, we agree with the wingnuts and birthers that a government "Death Panel" that determines people's fate based on their value to society is a bad idea.
Why not capitalize on that common ground?
August 7, 2009 6:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
Strategery and Tactics
http://www.truthout.org/080709H
August 7, 2009 6:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
that about sums it up.
The most convincing response I can offer up in the face of sheer lunacy is laughter.
August 7, 2009 6:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
Right to Lifers were in evidence at the Dingel Town Hall -- one of them tried to convince me that I should respect fetal life because it had a beating heart and was rather taken aback when I susggested chickens have the same. She then retreated to the fact that fetuses have human DNA. I suggested that this form of DNA idolatry meant that since skin cells have human DNA and could be cloned, by her logic, I was then committing mass murder every time I clipped a hang nail because every one of those living cells had the potential to become a human being.
August 8, 2009 8:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
As Dave Barry would say, DEATH PANEL Would Be A Good Name For A Rock Band. I love it that she quotes her fellow moonbeam Michelle. And oh no will DEATH PANEL (not the rock group) kill her parents too?! Actually they really do deserve some punishment for not getting her the right meds sooner and saving us from this. If you really read what she says you see that she is like some weird 1950's candy--a layer of one flavor wrapped in another flavor with something else on top. She can't say something without all the sprinkles. So it's "..the america I know and love is not one in which...down's syndrome..." so we get the patriotism mixed with "remember I didn't abort my baby" and "...president's health care advisor, Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, the brother of the White House chief of staff..." so we get some nepotism, we didn't elect this guy so who is he, and anti semitism, and some foreigner paranoia-Ezekiel! rolled into a chewy coconutty bite.
August 7, 2009 6:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
huh. I missed that section of the bill with the "Death Panel" in it....where the F did that come from???
The only death panel I know of is the system we have NOW. If you don't have the money, you don't get proper care.
Now if there is a "Death Panel" I so want on it. I see it more of a Redstate "death panel" and Bluestate "life panel" tho...
August 7, 2009 6:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sarah (N6FBF41372) and I were colleagues at Tyrell Corp.
LK
August 7, 2009 6:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
You're in a desert, and you see a Republican lying on it's back, its white pasty belly baking in the hot sun, beating its legs trying to turn itself over, but it can't. Not without your help. But you're not helping. Why is that Leon?
August 8, 2009 1:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
Which desert?
August 9, 2009 11:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
Celebrity Death Panel 2000
A film with David Caradine based on a Stephen King novel, in which a celebrity panel decides who dies that week...
Then there is Celebrity Death Panel, DC Edition.
which airs on Sunday Mornings.
August 7, 2009 6:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
I watched the last Real Time with Bill Mahrer last night and he said that if Sarah Palin had been around during the Native American genocide she would have been happily shooting them from helicopters. I had to laugh because it's true
and here she uses her own baby (or her daughter's) as a hateful political prop
thanks, grandpa McCain, for foisting this dangerous idiot on all of us
August 7, 2009 6:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
Agreeing with Maher's hateful statements doesn't make them true or even funny.
Why is saying Palin would have joined in the genocide of Native Americans acceptable? Would she have been helping shove Jews in the ovens as well? One of Palin's biggests strengths is she makes so-called progressives act like frenzied radioactive idiots.
Now, in terms of where Palin's getting this "Death Panel" bit, Jake Tapper gives a helpful rundown, noting especially Betsy McCaughey, Michele Bachman and Thomas Sowell playing off some wording by Rahm Emanual's brother in 1996.
While there's some clarification made to this remark, Emanuel is partly in the business of categorizing health care. Try to wish it away, government will end up taking stands on types of treatment to support or deny, just as insurance companies do today, hopefully with a more humane less profit-oriented bent. Emanuel digs into the weeds, looking at how we might decide which patient would receive a single available heart. Zeke Emanuel doesn't work for Obama, but even if government doesn't classify things to this level, there will be some tough choices in the process like anything to do with medicine. We don't have infinite money to push through every potential cure in record time. And progressives need to be able to answer for this, without evoking personal participation in the holocaust.
Obama's communications on health care sucks. He should have message control and deep preparation for the Town Halls. Of course conservatives will attack - it's what the always do. But where are the coordinated campaigns - not just reactive damage control, but the full frontal communications plan highlighting where we're going with this? Instead, even progressives are displeased because health reform is a nebulous work-in-progress with progressive concerns consistently wiped off the table. So who gets excited about health reform if not progressives? Bad strategy.
August 9, 2009 3:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
Digby notes that the euthanasia FUD has been around for a long long time.
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2009/08/scaring-grandma-by-digby-im-little-bit.html
August 9, 2009 4:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'd vote for 'em! I say, hell, let's just get it over with, spiral us into oblivion. Hell, by then, I might allow sarah palin euthanize me!
August 7, 2009 6:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
This woman makes me ashamed to be female sometimes.
August 7, 2009 6:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Her adoration by her lunatic fans make me ashamed to be an American, even more that George Bush did.
August 7, 2009 8:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
MAKE IT STOP!
August 7, 2009 6:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
I doubt this is going to stop until at least the 2010 elections when there will be made 5 republican house members and 10 senators.
August 7, 2009 6:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Now we see who the 'Crazies' are getting their Q's from. Palin is a sick bitch!
August 7, 2009 6:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Is this the first time Palin has mentioned or promoted Bachmann?
It seems entirely likely that Palin and Bachmann have gravitated to each other as equally nutjobby wingnuts, and are now mutual friends, advisors, and confidantes.
Can you imagine: Bachmann giving Palin advice on messaging? Oh, please let it be true. "Obama's death panel would kill my baby" will only be the beginning.
August 7, 2009 6:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
They're also very much competitors.
August 7, 2009 8:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Her wide-eyed followers will eat this up. It fits in with their "world view".
August 7, 2009 6:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
" It's people! Soylent Green is made out of people!"
Swear to the FSM, this country has jumped the shark.
August 7, 2009 7:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
A dingo ate her baby?
August 7, 2009 7:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
A *government bureaucrat* dingo ate her baby. A *free market* dingo would have sold it and invested the profit in a high-performing stock, or loaned the money out at a good rate of return.
August 7, 2009 7:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
If I remember correctly, it is Palin who enjoys killing living things... as testified by herself and friends... and the animal skins and hides adorning her home.
I am not aware that Obama has a gun collection or enjoys killing defenseless living animals for sport or the rush it gives some folk...
August 7, 2009 7:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
From a helicopter, no less. She can't even be bothered to actually hunt.
August 8, 2009 1:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
Wow. I'm divided on whether or not I should be excited if she gets nominated for the Republican Party in 2012 as the Presidential Nominee. On one hand I would be excited and on the other I would be scared. Imagine what would happen if she was President, God help.
Please, keep it coming, Palin.
August 7, 2009 7:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thankfully, in order for that to happen, all of us who voted for Obama would have to stay home. I doubt that will happen. I also read that the DSCC is raising tons of money since the Town Hall Meetings have started.
That's a good thing.
August 7, 2009 7:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
Every time I hear someone say that they will vote for a 3rd party candidate or stay home if we don't get at least a public option this year, I get concerned. It is NOT outside the realm of possibility the repubs could retake the White House in 2012...We need to stay focused on that.
August 8, 2009 5:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
I haven't had to take a Protonix tablet since Obama was elected, as prior to the election, I was eating them!!! However, over the last several days I have had serious heartburn listening and reading all this insanity.
Someone stop this insanity please
August 7, 2009 7:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
DEATH PANEL - THE FINAL COUNTDOWN!!!
IN A WORLD WHERE EVEN BABIES ARE THREATENED BY A SOCIALIST NEGRO JEWISH FACIST PRESIDENT, AND A FIRESTORM OF HEALTHCARE DEMONOCRACY THREATENS, ONE WOMAN DARES TO STAND UP FOR THE REAL AMERICA.
Premieres August 7th - EVERYWHERE!
Special Double Bill Matinee Saturday with SNOWJOB SQUAREGLASSES VS THE STUPID STIMULUS
August 7, 2009 7:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
You left out MUSLIM
August 7, 2009 11:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
"SNOWJOB SQUAREGLASSES"
Perfect!
August 8, 2009 8:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
Sarah doesn't just want to run for president of the crazies, she also wants to be a member.
August 7, 2009 7:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is the type of disingenuous fear-mongering that we have come to expect from the conservative base of the Republican Party. Palin tried to pull the same crap during the 2008 campaign with her hate-inciting rhetoric about Obama in her stump speeches.
Palin and Bachmann are two of the least credible, least knowledgeable, most bellicose members of the GOP. Personally, I would love to see Palin, Bachmann, and Foxx compete in a few rounds of the JayWalking quiz game on Leno's new show.
August 7, 2009 7:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
Obama's dingo ate my baby!
August 7, 2009 7:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
LOL!!!! Okay, until Dickday comes along and sees that, I hereby award to you from all of us the Dayly Comedic Comment Award for today!!
LOL....
August 7, 2009 7:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
;-]
August 7, 2009 7:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
=D
August 7, 2009 7:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
That's so good I'm just gonna steal it and start posting it at wingnut sites.
August 7, 2009 7:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
I really have to laugh at the level of insanity being spewed these last few days - Obama's healthcare plans will kill your granny and grandpa, your baby, Ted Kennedy - who's next? Mom, your pastor, the family dog?
August 7, 2009 7:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Obamacare will shit in your apple pie.
August 8, 2009 1:27 AM | Reply | Permalink
Lee Atwater lives.
The nonstop campaign, ruthless, relentless hatemongering of the right has totally borne fruit. Witness the witless massing at town hall meetings to shout empty hatred. "LIARS!" That's their considered message. "BS!!!"
Our society used to have antidotes to people like Palin and Bachmann and Joe McCarthy. The rich and powerful slowly dismantled and bought those antidotes. Now, the media enables them, the politicians count on them and the few of us thinking people have nowhere to turn. Even the Democrats we specifically fought to get into office play to the rabid right and chide us even for speaking up.
There is now, today, no negative consequence for just coming out and saying, not suggesting, but SAYING, that President Obama plans to murder your grandparents and babies. If there is no negative consequence for it, it will continue and intensify. Don't you think Obama or his team would've quashed these town-hall rioters by now if they had a strategy for doing so? How many people have died at the hands of right-wing nuts in the past six months? Do you think the corporate media will EVER put 2 and 2 together? I don't. Actual journalism is as dead as the 8-track.
America used to be the country that produced scientific breakthroughs and pushed the envelope on human rights. Now we're the country filled with screaming Birthers who think science is the devil and want us to push the envelope back in the other direction. If anyone has any reason to believe that this won't simply continue -- since Obama, our great Mixed-Race Hope, has turned out to be as ineffective against these lunatics as Clinton, Carter, Gore or Kerry were -- I'd love to hear it. Because as surely as evolutionists never seem to make ANY headway against creationists, I don't see anybody making any headway against the increasingly violent, increasingly strident right-wing authoritarian nutjobs.
August 7, 2009 7:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Part of the reason why public support for health care reform has declined is that the Democrats keep taking the high road to promote the legislation, while the Republicans continue to travel the low road in their efforts to squash any bill containing substantive reform, relying heavily on health insurance industry lobbyists to promote their message of maintaining the status quo.
For example, one component of some of the health care reform proposals include provisions for OPTIONAL living will and DNR consultations. It makes perfect sense for people to consider such matters, but contrary to what has been disingenuously disseminated by reform opponents, they are not mandatory and are certainly not some malevolent plot to kill off the elderly.
The whole notion that the health care reform proposals will lead to "Soylent Green-style" euthanasia of the elderly is a part of a coordinated campaign by the health insurance industry to use fear-mongering and misinformation to sway public opinion. The Congressional GOP has shown itself to be a puppet of this industry and their lobbyists with their desire to perpetuate these myths.
The antidote is information -- the public needs to be better educated about what the proposed health care reform plans do and do not include, as well as how they will and will not be funded.
August 7, 2009 7:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
SOBAMA GREEN IS PEOPLE MY FRIENDS!!!
August 7, 2009 7:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
Once again, she is definitely absolutely positively NOT using her down syndrome baby for political purposes.
August 7, 2009 7:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
Definitely not. No. How dare you think this. positively no.
August 7, 2009 7:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Down's Syndrome babies can be helped through early intervention. Does anyone know if Palin's child is getting the proper care?
DOWN'S SYNDROME
Treatments and drugs
By Mayo Clinic staff
"Early intervention for infants and children with Down syndrome can make a difference in realizing their potential abilities and in their quality of life.
Early intervention programs
Ask your doctor about early intervention programs in your area. These specialized programs — in which children with Down syndrome are stimulated at an early age with appropriate sensory, motor and cognitive activities — are available in most states.
Programs vary from location to location, but they usually involve therapists and special educators whose goal is to help your baby develop motor skills, language, social skills and self-help skills."
August 8, 2009 8:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
That sounds like one of the oppressive Big Government programs.
August 8, 2009 8:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
Does being paraded on stage at political rallies way past your bedtime count as extra stimulation?
August 8, 2009 5:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
Its wonderful how Palin consistently uses her children for gaming the political/media system for her own personal benefit with The Wingnut Base.
Being a good mother was never her goal.
August 7, 2009 7:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
At least she's not using her dead grandmother to push the "reform".
August 7, 2009 7:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
So why are the wingnut Christians insulting Obamas mother with their despicable lies?
August 7, 2009 7:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hey Lalo, I'm gonna tell your Momma 'bout you using that Black Kenyan fella for your avatar.
Get that teabag outta my face white boy.
August 7, 2009 10:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
That canard never gets old for you, does it?
August 7, 2009 8:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
"At least she is not using her dead grandmother..."
AT LEAST?
Leaving your inaccurate premise behind, you are saying that it is okay that she is using her innocent children as political props. Am I surprised? No, not at all, Lalo.
August 7, 2009 8:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think Lalo's looking for dialog - how many babies can we get for one dead grandma, or is it the other way around? Have to go to XE.com and work it out.
While I don't agree with Palin's logic (if there is any), I don't see why she shouldn't look at legislation in terms of how it affects her family, including her children. I would think this is a normal thing to do.
August 8, 2009 3:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
But making shit up out of whole cloth and lying about to the world via Facebook is acceptable?
Nobody is calling her to task for looking at how healthcare reform affects her family. To even suggest that is a straw-man of the nth degree.
August 8, 2009 5:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
Any other reality challenges for me?
August 8, 2009 12:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
That is not an assertion of seeing how healthcare reform would affect her family. That is looking for a way to use her family in fraudulent ways to garner political support among the lunatic base of the GOP.
This is not an example of "how will healthcare affect my kids" this is using her kids as political props to make vile and 100% fraudulent hyperbolic claims of a demagogue.
August 8, 2009 7:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
Snap!
August 9, 2009 2:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
No, Lalo, just like Palin is looking for negative attention. To say that Palin is making a good-faith evaluation of how this will affect her family is absurd!
Death Panel? None of us expects that Palin has actually started to educate herself by actually reading a bill that she purports to be commenting on; but she has given "making stuff up" new life -- and a new low.
Lalo is just following along in her "glory."
August 8, 2009 8:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
Are you really that much of a sociopath?
August 8, 2009 1:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
No, you're right, she's only using her down syndrome baby to fight it.
August 8, 2009 9:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
The right wing christians believe we are in the last days... and are doing their best to make it so.
If we ALL had the faith (and the weapons) of these folks, the world WOULD CERTAINLY be ending soon... IMHO
August 7, 2009 7:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
What an evil thing to say. And Sarah Palin calls herself a Christian???
August 7, 2009 7:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
She's a perfect example of one.
August 8, 2009 8:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
Oh, Jan...OUCH!
August 8, 2009 5:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
Palin is an asshat. However, we all need to know where they are getting this garbage. At the end of an article by Ezikiel Emanuel (Rahms brother and healtcare advisor) he writes this:
////This civic republican or deliberative democratic conception of the good provides both procedural and substantive insights for developing a just allocation of health care resources. Procedurally, it suggests the need for public forums to deliberate about which health services should be considered basic and should be socially guaranteed. Substantively, it suggests services that promote the continuation of the polity-those that ensure healthy future generations, ensure development of practical reasoning skills, and ensure full and active participation by citizens in public deliberations-are to be socially guaranteed as basic. Conversely, services provided to individuals who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens are not basic and should not be guaranteed. An obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia. A less obvious example is guaranteeing neuropsychological services to ensure children with learning disabilities can read and learn to reason. Enough.? Clearly, more needs to be done to elucidate what specific health care services are basic; however, the overlap between liberalism and communitarianism points to a way of introducing the good back into medical ethics and devising a principled way of distinguishing basic from discretionary health care services. Perhaps us- ing this progress in political philosophy we can be- gin to address Dan's challenge, begin to discuss the goods and goals of medicine.////
Read a certain way, this can be read as a 'panel' deciding what care is guaranteed and what isn't, and seemingly suggesting that those who can't be full and participating citizens shouldn't get guaranteed health care...i.e. Euthinize the infirm and handicapped.
We need to be armed with the source for their freak outs folks.
August 7, 2009 7:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
It is immoral to deliberately create a child severely hampered in life. That is my view and so I see Sarah Palin's decision to continue her pregnancy knowing the child would have Down's as immoral -- as a sin. This is not a matter of God's will: according to believers, God created both wombs and brains and presumptively intended you to put both to good use. I fear that part of Palin's motivation was an attempt to portray herself as noble at the expense of another human being.
However, once you do have a human being on the planet you have to exert every effort to see that that person has an acceptable quality of life.
August 8, 2009 9:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
Great, the eugenics crowd showed up. I happened to hit a retrospective on Nazi Hygienic Theories from the 30's this week, what a lovely trip down memory lane.
===============================================
Down syndrome can result from several different genetic mechanisms. This results in a wide variability in individual symptoms due to complex gene and environment interactions. Prior to birth, it is not possible to predict the symptoms that an individual with Down syndrome will develop. Some problems are present at birth, such as certain heart malformations. Others become apparent over time, such as epilepsy....
Cognitive development in children with Down syndrome is quite variable. It is not currently possible at birth to predict the capabilities of any individual reliably, nor are the number or appearance of physical features predictive of future ability. The identification of the best methods of teaching each particular child ideally begins soon after birth through early intervention programs.[9] Since children with Down syndrome have a wide range of abilities, success at school can vary greatly, which underlines the importance of evaluating children individually. The cognitive problems that are found among children with Down syndrome can also be found among typical children. Therefore, parents can use general programs that are offered through the schools or other means.
Language skills show a difference between understanding speech and expressing speech, and commonly individuals with Down syndrome have a speech delay, requiring speech therapy to improve expressive language.[10] Fine motor skills are delayed[11] and often lag behind gross motor skills and can interfere with cognitive development. Effects of the disorder on the development of gross motor skills are quite variable. Some children will begin walking at around 2 years of age, while others will not walk until age 4. Physical therapy, and/or participation in a program of adapted physical education (APE), may promote enhanced development of gross motor skills in Down syndrome children.[12]
Individuals with Down syndrome differ considerably in their language and communication skills. It is routine to screen for middle ear problems and hearing loss; low gain hearing aids or other amplification devices can be useful for language learning. Early communication intervention fosters linguistic skills. Language assessments can help profile strengths and weaknesses; for example, it is common for receptive language skills to exceed expressive skills. Individualized speech therapy can target specific speech errors, increase speech intelligibility, and in some cases encourage advanced language and literacy. Augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) methods, such as pointing, body language, objects, or graphics are often used to aid communication. Relatively little research has focused on the effectiveness of communications intervention strategies.[13]
In education, mainstreaming of children with Down syndrome is becoming less controversial in many countries. For example, there is a presumption of mainstream in many parts of the UK. Mainstreaming is the process whereby students of differing abilities are placed in classes with their chronological peers. Children with Down syndrome may not age emotionally/socially and intellectually at the same rates as children without Down syndrome, so over time the intellectual and emotional gap between children with and without Down syndrome may widen. Complex thinking as required in sciences but also in history, the arts, and other subjects can often be beyond the abilities of some, or achieved much later than in other children. Therefore, children with Down syndrome may benefit from mainstreaming provided that some adjustments are made to the curriculum.[14]
August 8, 2009 3:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Are you telling me that if the next time you went to bed with someone you knew you would have a child with Down's syndrome, you would do choose to go ahead and get pregnant?
I'm not talking here about if you happen to get pregnant and you realize that the fetus would develop into a child with Down's, would you continue the pregnancy, I'm talking about the deliberate creation of a child with a problem which would seriously hamper their chances in life.
I said the deliberate creation of a child who is seriously hampered in life because I'm not interested in this post in debating when life begins, but rather under what conditions is it moral to create another human being. In my view it is not moral to deliberately create another human being who would be seriously damaged in life.
Eugenics in the thirties I believed called for killing defective individuals after they are born. In contrast I believe, and so stated, that once a person is born you do your level best to see that they have an acceptable quality of life.
So be more precise in your insults.
August 9, 2009 2:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
Funny enough, I chose not to do the tests that would say, "abort? don't abort?" because I already knew the answer. As it is, I'm still living with the results of that decision, whether it would have made a difference I don't know, but I've no regrets and fortunately things could have been much worse. This is vague, but let's just say I have some idea of which I speak and still no regrets.
August 9, 2009 5:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
I am talking about what choice you would have made had you been able to make the choice before you got pregnant.
For people who believe, as I do not, that an early fetus has the capacity to be a human being -- to house a personality, to experience existence, to have a soul -- however you want to say it the question of abortion after becoming pregnant is very different. Even though I believe that your view of your moral choices is founded on a factual error as to the nature of an early fetus, I recognize the moral harm to you if you had gone against your beliefs in this matter. I am sure that you are doing all that you can for your child and your family.
What I am driving at is what the moral choice looks like to those of us who recognize that an early fetus is not yet a human being.
August 9, 2009 6:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
These were decisions we made before pregnancy related to tests during pregnancy for various kinds of potential complications. We looked at the efficacy of the tests themselves and the potential repercussions and made our decision. If one of us had had genetic predisposition to a debilitating disease, we would have included that in the calculus and I'm sure considered the option of adoption vs. conception.
In any case, you discussed Palin continuing a pregnancy knowing the kid had Down Syndrome, not a pre-conception decision. I'm pro-choice. And I admire people who can knowingly take on the hard work of raising a disabled child, while I don't begrudge people who would decide to abort for a number of reasons. There was a strange and interesting case in the UK not long ago about some parents who chose to stunt their severely disabled child's growth because long term it would make her much easier to take care of. What a difficult decision. They did it with a medical board and an ethicist, and still were ridiculed by a number of people. But for me it symbolized something marvelous, a long-term commitment to their child.
I used to get comments when carrying around my kid on my back, "your child looks uncomfortable". Yes, my child would be uncomfortable sitting at home in a crib as well, but this way my child gets to see a bit of the world and have some excitement to go with continual discomfort. Parental decisions belong with parents, not for 3rd parties who don't know the details of the situation.
August 10, 2009 3:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
It's true that I was discussing Palin's situation. My point is that for people like me for whom an early fetus is not yet a person the moral question involved in an early abortion is virtual identical to the moral question involved in the decision to become pregnant knowing that you would produce a child severely hampered in life.
August 10, 2009 8:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
Well then Somalians shouldn't have children because their children's lives will be hampered severely through war and famine. Same for people in east Congo.
It seems that you're not pro-choice, you're pro-abortion for specific cases. So how bad is the disability that makes abortion required? Did I pass the immoral threshold or am I safe? Is it an issue of child's IQ, being able to see, dexterity, ability to walk, spinal configuration, mental or emotional stability, make friends or influence people?
Here's a hint. I had someone close to me kill himself very early on. He had what would seem to be everything going for him - bright, good sense of humor, talented musician and good in science, well-off financially. Just couldn't cope. And then I've met people with no opportunity in 3rd world countries with all sorts of injustices done to them including prison camps, living off $30 a month, and still happy. Nobody knows what will makes this planet a shithole or a paradise. Not everyone has to be Einstein to justify their existence. Sometimes just a smile and a nice morning on the swing will do.
August 10, 2009 9:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
I cannot really agree with that. People with Down can and do lead happy and reasonably complete lives just the same as the rest of us.
There are several illnesses and disabilities that cause the child enough suffering to consider the option, but Down is not one of them.
This, however, has little to do with the topic at hand: yet another exceedingly stupid formulation by Dr. Emanuel, and an equally stupid misrepresentation by Palin.
August 8, 2009 4:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
How many diners and social clubs will be filled tomorrow with mouth droolers whispering in each others ears, "I heerd Obama wants to kill children now, too... that's what Sarah Palin said yesturdaay. Uh huh, yesh she deed."
That's all this is... Chew up some complicated issue into unintelligent, distorted, moronic bile, and shoot it back out your mouth to all your equally idiotic and brain dead followers so that they can have their latest wingnut moron meal.
Ladies and gentleman: You're Conservative Party!!
August 7, 2009 7:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
I hope when the "Death Panel" makes it to AK that Baby Trigger will be able to talk some sens in to his Momma. I think the loony birds in AK and MN are the ones who should be worried.
We need to weed them out they are hurting my ears.
August 7, 2009 7:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
Since when did Nazis and the holocaust become something to just throw around?
Palin suffers from victimhood addiction and she is craving for her usual "attacked my baby" fix. But dishonoring the lives of those who were lost in the holocaust by using such language on a legitimate debate is shameful and deranged.
August 7, 2009 7:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Since when did Nazis and the holocaust become something to just throw around?"
- Since Pelosi's interview, two days ago.
August 7, 2009 7:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
You mean when she referred to those Nazi wannabes carrying swastika posters to a town hall?
August 7, 2009 8:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, how dare she respond to accusations that she's a Nazi.
Lalo, do you Republicans ever feel ashamed about your grotesque hypocrisy?
August 7, 2009 9:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
I dunno, ask them. Do you ever feel ashamed of your own hypocrisy?
August 8, 2009 12:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
Answer the question chicken-shit.
August 8, 2009 1:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
Hey, Lalo, lose the cute little Obama picture, you ain't nuthin' but a white boy and a teabagger.
August 7, 2009 10:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Lalo is a woman, PUMA woman to be more accurate.
August 8, 2009 9:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
...noted jonnie, gotta speak to her Momma 'bout her.
August 9, 2009 11:16 AM | Reply | Permalink
What amazes me is that anybody believes this criminal shit-spewing.
August 7, 2009 7:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
We need to stop talking about this woman. She is a flak catcher designed to take attention away from the real story. She will never draw enough support to be elected to any Federal office. What are they trying to draw our attention away from? Concentrate on that. Forget about this total loser.
August 7, 2009 7:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
In all seriousness, John McCain is responsible for this disaster, & he needs to take responsibility for it. Josh & other reporters with standing should hold his feet to the fire. Does McCain think Obama is establishing death panels to kill off babies & old folks? What has McCain done to set Palin straight? Why hasn't he apologized for this? Why hasn't she?
McCain loves the limelight, so let's shine it on him.
The Constant Weader at www.RealityChex.com
August 7, 2009 7:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
Man, I would donate to a Palin/Bachmann campaign in a heartbeat. Wouldn't that be just the ticket?
;-)
August 7, 2009 8:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
How are we going to know when the Republicans have hit absolute rock bottom?
August 7, 2009 8:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
You'll know. One day, there'll be ambulances and body bags and the next day you'll hear Rush chortling about how those people put themselves in a position to get killed in order to further their America hating agenda.
August 7, 2009 9:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
That Bitch has gone too far!
August 7, 2009 8:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Besides hiring William Shatner to repeat her quotes verbatim as beat poetry, how do we neutralize the lies, half truths and hallucinations of Sarah Palin?
TPM readers know she habitually spouts false and unintelligible statements. But Fox viewers and the uninformed consume, then repeat her drivel without a second thought.
August 7, 2009 8:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
Don't forget, this is the country that somehow put Bush in office, twice.
What'd Mencken say? Nobody ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the American people. It just troubles me that Obama will force so many women to have partial-birth abortions without their consent or even knowledge, blah-blah-blah
August 8, 2009 4:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
How are we going to know when the Republicans have hit absolute rock bottom?
They're almost there right now...
August 7, 2009 8:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Love that close-up photo, guys. We can see every wrinkle and strand of gray... nice. The new specs, not so much.
August 7, 2009 8:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
The antidote to Viagra
August 7, 2009 11:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
Love that close-up photo, guys. We can see every wrinkle and strand of gray... nice. The new specs, not so much.
August 7, 2009 8:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Gosh, thanks, Sarah! We didn't see that Death Panel Euthanasia thing in the bill!"
"Turns out it was a Cylon disguised as Sam Rayburn who stuck it in when no one was looking. But it's gone now, so there's no need to worry."
"Bless your heart for being so concerned! Thanks awfully!"
*wink*
August 7, 2009 8:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
She makes me physically ill.
August 7, 2009 8:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
This woman is seriously nuts! And some have even suggested a ticket with Michele Bachmann to run in 2012. Unbelievable!
August 7, 2009 8:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh, Fucking...Are you serious? Paling/Bachmann? Don't give me nightmares!
August 8, 2009 1:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
"Could this be an early trial balloon for a Palin/Bachmann ticket in 2012?"
That depends. Do they love you? Do they really love you?
August 7, 2009 8:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
I really have begun to think that Sarah Palin is a meth-head, like a large number of her Wasilla brethren. Think about it. It explains a lot of her erratic behavior, loony speech patterns, inability to focus on dtails, and purported hair loss.
C*ntry First
August 7, 2009 9:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hmmm. Yez, that is a thought.
August 8, 2009 1:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
I thought the tea-baggers were funny at first. But now I'm afraid. The twitter with taking guns to town halls was one thing. But this? Death panel? I know where this all goes... and it ain't pretty, fans.
August 7, 2009 9:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Could this be an early trial balloon for a Palin/Bachmann ticket in 2012?"
America should be so lucky!
August 7, 2009 9:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
This the GOP's VP nominee, but it sounds like a National Enquirer headline: "Obama Death Panel Wanted to Kill My Baby". Next up: "Hillary Joins Death Panel---Elvis Reports that No One Is Safe".
August 7, 2009 9:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
For someone who claims that she wants to maintain her children's privacy and keep them out of the political spotlight, Palin sure has a knack for making her family the focal point of controversial political statements.
August 7, 2009 9:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is the type of disingenuous fear-mongering that we have come to expect from the conservative base of the Republican Party. Palin tried to pull the same crap during the 2008 campaign with her hate-inciting rhetoric about Obama in her stump speeches.
Palin and Bachmann are two of the least credible, least knowledgeable, most bellicose members of the GOP. Personally, I would love to see Palin, Bachmann, and Foxx compete in a few rounds of the JayWalking quiz game on Leno's new show.
August 7, 2009 9:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
So, do those glasses work for her look? I don't think so.
An appropriately stupid comment for such a transparently stupid individual.
August 7, 2009 9:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
2012 Repugnant dream team, "you betcha" Palin and "Crazy eyes" Bachmann.
August 7, 2009 9:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
Who cares what Palin has to say? And who is tracking her Facebook page? She is not noseworthy; she is not interesting; she does nothing but excite and agitate people, and news sources and aggregators alike are being lazy by giving her any attention.
http://www.enewse.com/
August 7, 2009 9:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
So, do those glasses work for her look? I don't think so.
An appropriately stupid comment for such a transparently stupid individual.
August 7, 2009 9:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
Most parents of special needs kids aren't expecting to soon earn millions of dollars for a book that will be ghostwritten for them, and unlike Sarah, haven't been get all their living expenses paid for by the state. For the rest of us, private health insurers bob and weave, dodging their responsibility to pay legit health care expenses for our kids. Childcare that's ok for typical kids is not always an option for special needs kids. Bankrupcy for medical reasons is pretty common in the special needs community.
Kids with Down's syndrome are often very sweet and loving. In classrooms they're often buddied with kids with issues like autism, as the Down's kids will actually look after the other kids. Sounds like Palin could learn something from her kid.
August 7, 2009 10:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Palin/Bachmann 2012? The Dream Team!
I want the tin foil hat concession for THAT convention!
August 7, 2009 10:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
Cynical and evil shit. But that doesn't mean it might not work.
August 7, 2009 10:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
Off topic, but as good a place as any (TPM will leave this as top story for whole weekend)
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-08-06/take-a-chill-pill?cid=hp:mainpromo2
August 7, 2009 10:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
Whoa....dangerous stuff from the ignorant fringe..
August 7, 2009 11:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Its hard to say this about a fellow human being, but this Sarah Palin creature is a truly rotten person. She'll even use her Down's Syndrome child as currency to burnish her calling card with her semi-literate followers.
August 7, 2009 11:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
I reported Palin's note to Facebook as a violation of their Terms of Use. In my opinion it violates at least the following:
- You will not post content that is hateful, threatening, pornographic, or that contains nudity or graphic or gratuitous violence.
- You will not use Facebook to do anything unlawful, misleading, malicious, or discriminatory.
I encourage others to do the same.
August 7, 2009 11:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
These comments, coming from the rabid right, are crazy. I understand that they don't like any kind of progressive improvements to our lives, but to resort to these kinds of things is just beyond any reason. I just hope that the out in space statements are not meant to do anything but get us off in a tizzy ridiculing them while they blindside the program before it gets off the ground. Keep your eyes on the goal - reforming health care.
August 7, 2009 11:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
And the transformation is now complete: Sarah Palin is officially now Rush Limbaugh.
Congratulations, Rushah Palimbaugh! Your prize package of Oxycontin and twinkies is in the mail!
August 8, 2009 12:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
Now did she research this?Did she read all her newspapers and mags?Did she get in-depth briefings?
Or did she just come up with this in a brilliant flash of connected sentences?
Or......who gave here this line?
August 8, 2009 1:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
Which ones did she read? She read 'em all. There. And also.
August 8, 2009 7:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
What the difference between Sarah Palin and George W. Bush?
LIPSTICK!!!
hahahahhahaha
That joke never gets old!
August 8, 2009 1:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
They don't get more evil than Palin.
August 8, 2009 1:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
That damn woman is still using that baby as a political prop. She's certifiable -- and I don't think we've seen the lowest point she'll stoop to yet.
Wonder how the divorce from the First Dude is going.
August 8, 2009 1:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
Go to Sarah Palin's Facebook page and to the comment on Health Care and look at the comments. Then click on the profiles of just about every supporter and tell me they do not all scream bogus. They are obviously created by her handlers. Its ridiculous.
August 8, 2009 2:07 AM | Reply | Permalink
Did somebody say "Red Flanel?!"
*Puts on a red flanel shirt*
Seriously, send in the clowns! This stuff is RIDICULOUS and no-one needs to get angry about it. If we get angry at it we take it seriously and seriously, does anyone really think she's seriously saying this stuff... seriously?
August 8, 2009 2:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think Lalo's looking for dialog - how many babies can we get for one dead grandma, or is it the other way around? Have to go to XE.com and work it out.
August 8, 2009 3:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'm shocked to think a former (gawd I love saying that and am also terrified) Vice-Presidential cadidate is this batshit cray-zeee.
The thing is, the middle abandoned McPalin in the General. If the Democrats don't get serious about making the middle's economic AND health care situation better, look out!
August 8, 2009 4:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
Agreed. That's why the Democrats on the Hill and the administration need to get their shit together and fuck watering down anything for bipartisan bills and swing for the fences on what will work, not what is politically safe. Because only what works can secure political viability now that the healthcare reform bullet is in the air.
We (and they for political viability) need tangible results and fuck how 'bipartisan' it takes to get there.
August 8, 2009 7:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
Palin is just talking to her supporters, the same ones who came to her rallies and yelled "kill him." They are extreme wingnut racists. These people want to believe this type of stuff, because they hate Obama and Democrats.
But nobody else is going to believe this insane statement, so I think we need to regain our confidence in the majority of Americans who are turned off by these so called "patriots" and Palin.
August 8, 2009 6:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
Is this the same woman who recently told the media to "quit makin' things up"? What a hypocritical bimbo.
August 8, 2009 6:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
She does a lot of projection .... maybe even about this Death Panel thing.
She certainly isn't working to see that the health care reform contains provisions to help the disabled and the elderly .... she is doing her best to simply stop it could and allow unnecessary harm to continue.
August 8, 2009 10:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
"Flaunt it Baby, flaunt it."
August 8, 2009 7:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
Palin will do anything to stay in the spotlight even further Republican lies about health care reform. There is an interesting related post at http://iamsoannoyed.com/?page_id=588
August 8, 2009 8:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
Strange thing is, if McCain/Palin had been elected, we probably would have had real Death Panels by now.
Wait a minute, maybe Dick Cheney already set some up.
August 8, 2009 9:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
Whoa. Sarah Palin channels Father Coughlin possessed by Eugene McCarthy imitating Richard Nixon, and the first umpteen comments are on the sexual politics of "bitch"?
Time to stop reading or posting in these comments, beotches.
August 8, 2009 9:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
Quite frankly, when I read the first several posts on this chain, it became clear to me why it is so damned hard to get progressives elected to Congress (or anywhere elsey). It seems that some lefties are so distracted by trivialities--i.e. let's vent our outrage against Palin---but not in a sexist way of course!---that the main point (her shameless manipulation of facts and data, her reliances on emotionalism, her self-cranked tsunami of racist propaganda, her bottomless exploitation of her own family, her relentless look-at-me fetishism) gets hopelessly lost. Let's do what the righties do, shall we, and FOCUS. One battle at a time!
August 8, 2009 9:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
Okay. Sexism. Focus on it. When we get that one down, we can then discuss serious political issues even when they happen to be about a female rather than get lost in what kind of glasses she's wearing.
August 8, 2009 3:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
What's trivial about being offended by sexist language? And why is it important to use terms like "bitch" and "bimbo" when you're criticizing a woman? I think Palin is awful but insisting that it's no big deal to use sexist slurs doesn't speak well of "progressive" politics.
August 8, 2009 10:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Why is what Palin says even reported as news. She's either a liar or insane. Who cares what she says?
August 8, 2009 10:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
Actually, the MSM would be doing their job more responsibly and honestly if they did major stories under the headline "Sarah Palin Lies to the Public." If we need to know (for weeks without end) about Mark Sanford lying to his wife we need to know about a high-visibility public figure lying to everyone on a matter of great public importance.
August 8, 2009 11:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'm dealing within the realm of the possible. ;)
August 10, 2009 10:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
What Palin doesn't realize is that under our new Liberal healthcare plan, there will not only be wholesale extermination of Down's Syndrome babies and their grandmothers, but also MANDATORY abortions for all pregnant Republican women. It's part of his secret plan to rid our society of conservatives through eugenics. No, really!
August 8, 2009 10:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
who do i donate to to make sure that is in the final draft of the healthcare bill?
August 8, 2009 11:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
That's more respectful than calling her a stoopit girl!
August 8, 2009 10:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
Sara should worry less about the Obama-created "death panel" killing her infant son with Down Syndrome and worry more about trig, track, bristol, et al dying from embarrassment every time she opens her mouth and says something stupid.
August 8, 2009 11:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
When I read the "Princess Winkie Sparkledust National Review Pornstar persona" comment I nearly swallowed my tongue. This really captures her stump speech style. It explains why Biden had to treat her with kid gloves during the debate lest he become hated for the political equivalent of kicking a kitten.
We need to stay as close to the actual facts and actual issues as possible, but after 8 years of Dumb Dubya, we must not underestimate how far this kind of idiotic sloganeering will go with the republican base.
Death Tax worked as a catch phrase for eliminating the estate tax. "Death Panel" is slogan experimentation. It appears that Palin's new function is to be the "sound bite" test market for the republican party. The only out-of-work politician who will get enough audience to test-market the slogan du jour.
August 8, 2009 11:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
@BlueDude
"treat her with kid gloves during the debate lest he become hated for the political equivalent of kicking a kitten."
when the kitten wants YOUR job, you kick it as hard as you can. is that unfair? no. that's spelled u-n-q-a-l-i-f-e-d last i checked. and she has shown herself to be just that.
i could never get behind a candidate from my own party who has no grasp of the facts or policy. a "death panel" with the power to kill off that palins? i might be able to get behind something like that.
August 8, 2009 11:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
"We need to stay as close to the actual facts and actual issues as possible, but after 8 years of Dumb Dubya, we must not underestimate how far this kind of idiotic sloganeering will go with the republican base. "
Yep.
August 8, 2009 11:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
Does this women have an ounce of brains? I mean that seriously!!
August 8, 2009 12:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
We should demand to see the birth certificates of both Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann.I would have to see proof that both of them were born somewhere on this planet and are not just masquerading as human beings.
August 8, 2009 1:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
Check out Ann Coulter claiming that only 1% of Americans dislike their health care.
Dude, she must be allergic to the truth.
Here is the clip.
http://progressnotcongress.org/?p=2440
August 8, 2009 1:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
HEY TPM,
For the love of God, would you please put a button in the comment boards to collapse threads? Though the argument above about whether the term "bimbo" is sexist or not is great fun, I would absolutely love to have the option to collapse the whole thread to see other comments easily.
August 8, 2009 3:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
Seconded.
August 8, 2009 10:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Shit....if we can call a man a douchebag, we can call a woman a bimbo. Sexism, shmexism.
Asshats are asshats.
This is a stupid argument, and I'm with Matyra on this.
August 8, 2009 10:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't think Matyra called it a stupid argument, I think he/she said it would be nice to skip on down to other parts of the conversation when you've had enough of one.
As for calling men douchebag, society in general doesn't treat all men as douchebags, but it does treat all women as brainless bimbos. I don't use "douchebag" for men either. But you can call me "whitey" or "honky" and it just doesn't contain the sting that me using an ethnic slur against say blacks, Hispanics or Asians would.
And as for the term "douchebag", from Shakesville:
I actually don't agree with using it even for Bush, but I do agree with the point about its symbolism.
August 9, 2009 2:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
What a crap thread.
August 8, 2009 3:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
How so?
August 8, 2009 6:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
Because resorting to "bimbo" and "bitch" is low-brow, inarticulate, uneducated, inept, impotent, and childish. It exactly mimics the comments at Little Green Footballs.
Meanwhile, The New Yorker's Hendrik Hertzberg observes a connection between the nihilistic language being used by Republicans, and the language used to successfully torpedo Hillarycare in the 1990s:
So add Sarah Palin's language to Hertzberg's list: "Obama's death panel" and "downright evil." See how that works?
When will supposed political-news junkies ever learn anything about how we are manipulated by the language politicians use? Palin's language stands out as absurd, so all you have to do is wonder why she would use those particular words. Apparently, it reveals a Republican strategy, one that has a proven track record.
August 9, 2009 1:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
I was struck by one study that noted when a false claim is made, and it's rebutted, the rebuttal sticks with us for about 3 days, but over time our memory of the followup event fades and we're more and more left with the phrasing of the original false claim.
The Democrats continue to seem far behind in this psycho-socio-linguistic art, which is surprising because you'd guess that folks with psychological and linguistic leanings would in general be more liberal. But then part of this is mechanics over art - just drive the bulldozer, don't analyze it.
August 9, 2009 2:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
You said it.
August 9, 2009 1:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
agreed.
August 9, 2009 3:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
it was a scary thought that this wingnut might have been the vice president..oh well..
August 8, 2009 4:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sarah Palin makes me want to cry. Again. Because some people out there actually believe her.
August 8, 2009 4:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
The Health Care reform package needs a section for special needs parents apparently. It seems if you go with her logic or illogic she fears that the "Death Panel" will soon be after her. You know, the feeble minded, mentally challenged group.
August 8, 2009 6:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Blind ambition, incorrigible ignorance, insufferable arrogance and pronounced psychological abnormality are the four horsemen spurring on the Republican Party toward an American lunatic fringe apocalypse.
Someone needs to explain to me how does anyone, let alone the object of their irrational fears and hatreds, reach bipartisan accord with an irrational, dishonest and suicidal mob? And why in the hello would anyone want "their" ideas or values to be incorporated into policy making decisions? WHY!?
August 8, 2009 7:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sarah Palin, everyone: Because she really is that ignorant and doesn't care who knows it.
August 8, 2009 7:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
keep digging, sunshine. keep digging.
August 8, 2009 8:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Pardon me, but I think we're all sickened by comments like these. They're stunning, even from the mouth of Palin. I'm having trouble believing comments on her mad message were so quickly sidetracked with bantering on sexism.
I know, I know, but maybe we need to FOCUS, sane people, and get busy inundating our Congressional delegations with e-mail and calls about standing strong for the public option. I know from working in a State Legislature for years that they won't actually read any/many but it's about the numbers. So let's keep calling and writing...and sending letters to editors...whatever we can do to counter this kind of talk/behavior.
TCM is an island of reason in a sea of insanity and despair. Carry on, gang.
August 8, 2009 8:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
Turner Classic Movies is an island of reason in a sea of insanity and despair? ;)
August 8, 2009 9:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
THE PRESIDENT IS NOT A SOCIALIST..WHY?....The National Socialist Movement (also called NSM or NSM88) is a neo-Nazi Party operating in the United States. The group was founded in 1974 by Robert Brannen, former member of the American Nazi Party before its decline. The group claims to be the largest and most active neo-Nazi organization in the United States. In 2007 many members left to join the National Socialist Order of America, which was led by 2008 presidential candidate John Taylor Bowles.
The National Socialist Movement was responsible for leading the demonstration that sparked the 2005 Toledo Riots.
In January 2009, the group sponsored a half-mile section of U.S. Highway 160 outside of Springfield, Missouri as part of the Adopt-A-Highway Trash Cleanup program.[1] The highway was later renamed the "Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel Memorial Highway" by the state legislature.[2][dead link]
August 8, 2009 8:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
I want to sign up for the "Death Panel." Who is going to decide who is going to be on it? We should make sure that there is a majority of really ideological Democrats - then we can kill all of the old racist Republicans (there's probably a redundant word there).
August 8, 2009 11:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Is this funny? All Republicans are racist? All Republicans deserve to be killed?
Palin is referring to a real statement made by Rahm Emanuel's brother in a paper 13 years ago that refers to board evaluations of basic and socially guaranteed services. Here is a part description:
He then goes on to note how this might to modified to be a bit more "principled" in distinguishing "basic" from "discretionary". Further it's noted:August 9, 2009 3:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
Wow.
There goes my pipe dream that all the dementia displayed at TPM will ultimately be guaranteed treatment under universal health care.
August 9, 2009 10:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
I am just spelling it out.
You think it is OK to label someone a bimbo, so long as you get to decide who it applies to. (Frankly, I think Palin is probably dumber than Anderson, but maybe feigning stupidity is weighted on your bimb-o-meter.)
Seen by a sizable group, sure. Hopefully you are not projecting here. Out of all the clinically stupid, fundamentalist ideologues with a cruel and vindictive stripe and fascist tendencies, Palin -- in my assessment -- is disproportionately benefiting from the "horny cavemen" voting bloc. She is thoroughly uncharismatic. You are free to disagree with that, but I have not seen any other convincing arguments, probably because I am just an elitist who cannot understand Regular People and also as well.In this sub-thread, I think there is very little reason to assume that we think all women are using their Evil Sexual Wiles to seduce virtuous men. More to the point, personally, I think Palin is anathema to feminism for the reasons enumerated above. Disagree, if you will, but do not fucking try to claim any moral high ground.
Now.
If I did not know that you are just outright knee-jerk personified when it comes to "sexism", I would tell you that you played well. It is a bit of a distraction, as this thread demonstrates.
In a larger context, we could examine whether it is wise to tamp down such concerns in the name of political correctness, or of staying on message. An enlightened society would be able to consider the merits of the matter, but since we definitely do not live in one, perhaps the issue is better left untouched.
If you allow me to psychoanalyse a bit, the reason Palin provokes such "frenzy" might be that her success, such as it is, embodies everything that is wrong with the American public, and she is able to use those weaknesses to her advantage. Words cannot accurately describe the absolute incredulity that people on the outside express at her presence. Sometimes that rage bubbles up to the surface.
So, anyway. Perhaps you may concede that personal criticism of her is not necessarily sexism, misguided as it may be, and the rest of us will try to not cause distractions?
August 9, 2009 4:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
(Post in reply to Desidero's hypocrisy.)
August 9, 2009 5:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
If "bimbo" is meant to describe "promiscuous", then it's more appropriate to use the term for someone who is blatantly promiscuous. But I don't agree with all the other historical baggage that comes with the term "bimbo", that females are sluts for enjoying sex while men are just being natural, etc.
But since Palin is not promiscuous AFAIK, it's not appropriate to use the term for her at all.
You think Palin is uncharismatic. Alaskan voters and Republican Convention fans disagree. Seeing as she's trying to appeal to people of different political persuasion and is obviously successful, your wishes in this matter are simply irrelevant. Palin has proven herself charismatic.
Personal sexist critique of Palin is sexist. Personal non-sexist critique is non-sexist. Americans hate to be told what they can't do, so implying they should give up sexist speech naturally gets the fur up, whether progressive or conservative. Sorry if it distracts from what you thought was a bigger point, but personally, I think getting rid of sexism is more important than anything happening in health care. "If I can't dance, I don't want to be part of your [health care] revolution", so to speak.
August 9, 2009 5:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
That is not what "bimbo" means.
Do you have a reply for the substance of my post, or will you continue to assert your own reality?
August 9, 2009 7:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
Karl, you don't have any substance. You have supposition, outright fantasy, posturing, and pompous asshattery:
You need to go volunteer to help the homeless or something that forces you to physically deal with real life. Because you can't support any of your theories with facts. You got nuthin', Karl. Empty, self-satisfied, hermetically-sealed logic. You're a windbag with a degree.
August 9, 2009 9:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
Much better, by much better. Find another hobby.
August 9, 2009 1:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
Find a brain, loser. Your comments SUCK.
August 10, 2009 11:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
Stop being such a bitch.
August 9, 2009 12:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sorry, your tongue was in my ass, I couldn't quite hear you. What did you say?
August 9, 2009 6:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Desidero, the sooner you learn to talk about what happened a bible camp, the sooner the healing can begin. Even in Minnesota the long, frigid, barren winters come to an end.
August 9, 2009 6:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sorry, that was someone else - you're projecting again, but I'm sure you truly miss him/them anyway. Hope you can replace your loss, though blogs aren't necessarily the best place for needed psychotherapy.
As an aside, it is rather interesting that many "progressives" think it okay to insult Christians off-the-cuff. I know a lot of good people who are Christians, Muslims and Jews. I have a lot of problems with political positions from all of these groups, but not the majority of people in these groups. But then judging from this thread, I have a problem with the sexism and frothing-at-the-mouth hatred from many atheists as well. That irrational feeling of superiority is not your friend.
August 10, 2009 3:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
Awww geeez...what are you talking about..."insulting Christians"? You know what, I am not an Atheist, not at all. But I will insult Pharisees and hypocrits and Bumper Sticker Kristians all I want. Because, as a person who grew up in the Church and still prays, I am sick and tired of these right wing assholes who use Jesus as a marketing tool for their business and act like Sarah Palin is some kind of great Christian person. Give me a break. "insult Christians". Ha! That's stupid! You couldn't insult a real Christian who was full of the Lord. It would be impossible. Only fake asshole phony Christians would actually stop to think about the insult on their precious asshole selves. Get outta here. Aren't you late for a TownHall mob scene?
August 10, 2009 7:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
No, you can insult a Christian even if they choose to not take offense. And just like people here will use sexist language to those they deem to deserve it, they'll make up their own judgment of who is a "real" Christian and who isn't. Disagree with homosexuality or abortion? You're off the bus, no tolerance for you. From the South? Ah yes, ripe for ridicule. Lots of little tyrants deciding yea-nay in their little battles of the titans.
Did I say Sarah Palin was a good Christian or bad Christian? Does the Town Hall movement have anything to do with Christianity? "But I will insult Pharisees and hypocrits and Bumper Sticker Kristians all I want". Well, I think most people are hypocrites, Christian or not, to various degrees. I see to recall Jesus throwing moneychangers out of the temple and critizing church leaders - I don't recall him going around giving the average person shit about how imperfect and "bumper sticker" they were, but glad Jesus Christ Mach II new & improved has stepped in to take the weight of judgment off our shoulders. How about pray for that anti-bumper-sticker-Kristian stun gun for Christmans while you're on your knees. You're a great example for your religion.
August 10, 2009 8:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
Wow, quite the outpouring. Why don't you sublimate your manic Palin adoration into something productive? You are embarrassing yourself all those who truly care about the cause of women.
August 10, 2009 2:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
The queens of the ditzoid dummies, Palin and Bachman. And here they are, getting more press for their lunatic fringe "theories." We can silence them by meeting them with silence, rather than printing every stupid thing they say.
August 9, 2009 8:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
I lack the gravitas and astuteness of former Governor Palin who foresees laws and sees thousands of miles.
I do know that after breaking her water, Gov. Palin delivered a 30-minute speech, took a car ride to the Dallas airport, rode in a confined jetliner for 6 hours to Seattle, rested in an airport lounge, rode another jet for several hours to Alaska, and then, when comfortably home, went to a hospital to give birth.
Ms. Palin jettisons what makes her uncomfortable and no longer serves her personal interests, whether it’s people, political office, or Christian caring.
August 9, 2009 10:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
But the problem with Palin is not just her personal attributes and style, or the accident of her near miss with the White House. It is that she so perfectly epitomizes the predominant character traits of Republicans today- their stupidity and ignorance. Any wide spread canard; any lunatic theory; any bigoted knee jerk reaction popular with that one third or so of the electorate impervious to reason and enlightenment will inevitably involve Republicans and no Democrats. The demographic and economic changes in the country are motivating extreme reaction. Sometimes it is delivered with a hail fellow well met Reagan, appearing normal and non threatening, even as he elevates a James Watt to Interior to rape the nation's natural legacy, or promotes a chain smoker to guard the environment. Sometimes we see it when a McCain has to tell an unhinged person at a campaign stop that his opponent is not a Muslim. Hitler took over after he got about a third of the vote. I know it was a different time and place, a different type of government, but still, we have our one third here, and it makes you think. Look what that mini riot in the Dade County election office helped to bring about in 2000.
August 9, 2009 10:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
GOOD !!!
Amazing how stupid this woman is...
August 9, 2009 12:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
If only they would euthanize this bimbo!
August 9, 2009 12:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
Palin called Ashley Todd and Carrie Prejean to offer support, yet never said a word when Rush Limbaugh offered to send Sotomayor a vacuum cleaner and Glenn Beck called her a "chick."
Palin's idea feminism is to charge rape victims for their exams.
Which I guess is logically consistent with her idea patriotism (joining a secessionist party).
Kathleen Parker said that Palin is the postergirl for racism (but not consciously). If that is not sexism, I do not know what is. Parker is asserting that Palin is too stupid to know what she is doing. If Palin looked like Ashley Todd, I doubt Parker would make the same comment. Then again if Palin looked like Ashley Todd, we would have never heard her name.
August 9, 2009 12:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think Palin may be the Anti-Christ or perhaps Satan. She is the epitome of evil.
August 9, 2009 3:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think Palin may be the Anti-Christ or perhaps Satan. She is the epitome of evil.
August 9, 2009 3:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
First appointment to Death Panel?
See:
http://notionscapital.wordpress.com/2009/08/09/paula-abdul-named-to-obama-death-panel/
August 9, 2009 3:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
When will someone start tracking down who these thugs are at the health care rallies, and outing them as paid Brownshirts?
August 9, 2009 4:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Look, everyone knew that Bachman was certifiable, now Palin has PROVED she is too! It's really kind of scary.
August 9, 2009 10:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Google W Mitchell and take a good look at the gentleman. Then read his story.
So, yes, content of character and quality of intellect can overcome impossible odds.
Now, back to ... what was the discussion again? Juxtaposing politician good looks with vacuous pronouncements?
August 9, 2009 11:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Palin-Beck, 2012. Michele Bachmann for Secretary of Tinfoil Hats. It's gonna be great!
August 10, 2009 12:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
If there were no television and people could only listen to or read politician's speeches, most of us in the lower 48 would never have heard of her.
Read one her recent speeches. Try to diagram those "sentences." LOL
August 10, 2009 12:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel was the co-author of a paper in the January 2009 Lancet. The paper, entitled “Principles for Allocation of Scarce Medical Interventions,” advocates the rationing of medical care according to an age based priority system called “complete lives.” This proposal calls for a dramatic reduction in the allocation of scarce medical resources to older people. Perhaps it is understandable that elderly people who don’t want their health care benefits cut would take offense at Emanuel and the so-called “cost savings” (i.e. reduction in health care service delivery).
Obama is calling for trillions of dollars of cost reduction for Medicare. This summer Obama’s Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS) are advocating big cuts. Physicians who read X-rays, CT and MRI scans will get a 30% cut Jan. 1, on top of a 23% cut they got five years ago. Radiation oncologists will get a 20% cut; impact on practices is estimated at an 18%-31% cut in revenue. The required utilization of imaging and therapeutic radiation machines would rise from 40%-50% at present, to 95%. This will force the shutdown of many centers, especially in rural and minority areas, and lead to an accelerated rate of deaths from cancer.
Obama’s plan promises to institutionalize Medicare cuts going forward, taking Medicare reimbursement decisions out of the hands of our elected representatives, and turning it over to a panel called the Independent Medicare Advisory Commission (IMAC) IMAC has been rightly targeted by Congresswoman Woolsey and 50+ others, who expressed their concern about “the impact it would have on seniors, people with disabilities, doctors, and hospitals.” which would take away Medicare reimbursement decisions from our elected representatives, and place this in the hands of the anonymous bureaucrats. In the health care bill, the IMAC would be mandated to cut Medicare expenditures. Perhaps this picture of an appointed panel deciding what medical procedures will be paid for under what circumstances could be evoking fears of the so-called "death panel."
And this is from the same fools (Obama, Geithner, Summers, etc.) who threw away $23 trillion in bailouts and guarantees for the big banks and Wall Street. No wonder the working people in America are upset! You know you aren't talking about real reform when big Pharma commits to spend $100 million to help get the "reform" approved.
Obama should follow Roosevelt, and announce we will immediately build dozens of new hospitals and clinics, and we must extend medicare coverage, not cut it as Obama proposes, when so many people have lost their jobs and now their healthcare.
August 10, 2009 12:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
Could we include a LINK to her post? that would be helpful! (Isn't that why I come here to view the news anyway?). Or could we include her whole post as part of the TPM post? I am in agreement with the post and the better of these comments, but the reason why I choose TPM is that they SHOW ME the documents at a click! Whow me the actual post Josh!
August 10, 2009 1:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
Palin has her own death panel:
from the SF Chronicle via ADN
Well, here is a story today from the Anchorage Daily News with the results of that federal investigation. It wasn't taxes or embezzlement but something that the Feds have been looking into for quite awhile, Medicaid.
They have taken a rare step and stopped any new enrollment in the program because it may be responsible for the deaths of patients in the system.
The lede:
"State programs intended to help disabled and elderly Alaskans with daily life -- taking a bath, eating dinner, getting to the bathroom -- are so poorly managed, the state cannot assure the health and well-being of the people they are supposed to serve, a new federal review found."
Money quote:
"A particularly alarming finding concerns deaths of adults in the programs. In one 2 1/2 year stretch, 227 adults already getting services died while waiting for a nurse to reassess their needs. Another 27 died waiting for their initial assessment, to see if they qualified for help."
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/nieto/detail?entry_id=43681#ixzz0Nl38QNSE
And there is even a link for you to read more.
August 10, 2009 2:15 AM | Reply | Permalink
The thing that bugs me is that sure it makes sense to put Palin up with this quote because most of us will think this is ridiculous and outrageous. Others of a different world view will think we're giving her good coverage and be encouraged from that angle. It's just weird sort of like people believing Colbert is serious when he says things that he is completely joking about...
August 10, 2009 3:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
PASS - Researching new negative adjectives to associate this ditherhead with!
August 10, 2009 8:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
Oh, please, PLEASE be the sign of a Palin/Bachmann 2012 ticket! I would remember that circus until the day I die.
August 10, 2009 10:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'm curious about her motivations for this statement--absurd statement.
Does she a) believe it? or b) not believe it, but is cynically exploiting it in an effort to gain/maintain leadership status among the paranoid birther types? Assuming it's b (my guess), doesn't she realize she's making a short term gain at the cost of further alienating herself from the political mainstream? Does she truly think she can win the presidency this way without the support of any moderates or independents? Does she greatly over-estimate the appeal of this sort of rhetoric? Or does she not care as long as she has the spotlight, some adoration and attention?
August 10, 2009 12:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
woman should be outraged at idiots like palin and bachman,, both lack mentally and substantly,,how they ever got in office is beyond common sense,, palin we have mcain to thank for that,, and you ask why nobody wanted mcain,, there should be some penalty for lying in statements like palin does, it isnt even gop thoughts crap like death panels, her fading away cant come to soon,,,,,,,cant some creditable woman step forward and cast palin and bachman away, and take that idiot from tennesee with them,,,,,
August 10, 2009 1:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Uh, Palin got elected long before she met John McCain. And that's "Women". And "in substance". And "Tennessee", whoever "that idiot" might be.
August 11, 2009 1:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
I don't understand how, in this day and age, a person could realistically expect to found a successful political career on principles and maneuvers that are so obviously underhanded and shallow. At first I was relieved to see that she has not been successful, as it gives me hope that people are not dumb sheep.. but then I realized, this woman is governor of Alaska, an entire state.
Palin acts as though there will not be private insurance available to people in the future, just as there is today. She can't really believe that, and she can't really believe that Obama's plans would really make her parents or children subject to "death panels" where a person's access to healthcare is determined by their productivity in society. Worse than that, she doesn't seem to merely believe that this would result from his plans, but that these are the intentions of his plan.
Maybe she thinks she is smarter and wiser than Obama, and so her thinking on the matter is more valid and well-founded.. could she possibly think that? Obama is brilliant, and she isn't the sharpest tool in the shed. I'm sure she knows that. What's sad is that she thinks nobody else knows it.
--my two cents.
August 15, 2009 2:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
Palin scares me and I'm astonished by her views, statements and McCain & the GOP's mistake of running her for VP. That said, as a newbie to this site and a non-biased, centrist/moderate/independent with no true dog in this fight, I must say that Desidero (sp) is right on and I can't believe that people in this thread don't get it and even more shocking is the weak attempts to justify a clearly pathetic ad hominem.
August 16, 2009 6:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Desidero = Sarah Palin = Failed
August 20, 2009 4:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
Sigh, Pamela Anderson's profession is a pinup and her famous sex video is likely self-released or she at least had the good wisdom to sign on for royalties if it wasn't. Her profession is sex symbol, pure and symbol. That can be accurately described as pro bimbo, or you can use less tainted words to say the same thing. Whatever. Good for her, she has a good audience, people like her, she fills a need and seems to enjoy herself.
What this has to do with a professional female politician? Nothing.
m65 kamagra
June 6, 2010 9:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
I dont know what to say. This is definitely one of the better blogs Ive read. Youre so insightful, have so much real stuff to bring to the table.
wizard of oz books
snow cone syrup
April 24, 2011 7:15 PM | Reply | Permalink