Thursday, April 29, 2010

Sarah Palin is in Austin tonight (and I am not going)

Yeah, you read that right.  I am not going to be attending Sarah Palin's Heroic Media speech tonight in Austin, though I would genuinely liked to have been there.  But priorities are priorities, and with Mrs. Snowed not well and two little Snowflakes running around and wanting some attention, home is where I need to be tonight.  Some other time, perhaps, Governor.

In the meantime, though, I still remain an ardent supporter, in general, of her conservative principles, and since obviously I'm not doing a whole lot of blogging these days (that real life thing just gets in the way sometimes...), I'll just link to other people who are.

Like Josh Painter:

Sarah Palin speaks tonight at 6:30 p.m. at the Austin Convention Center. Ticket sales ended at noon today. The fundraiser is sponsored by a nonprofit pro-life group, Austin-based Heroic Media, formerly known as the Majella Society. The organization places TV, Web billboard ads targeted to women with unplanned pregnancies, hoping to connect them with pregnancy resource centers in an "heroic" effort to save the lives of their unborn children:
In a posting Monday on its Facebook page, Heroic Media said: “The numbers keep growing tremendously for the Sarah Palin event this Thursday! Thanks Austin for such a great response!!”

Because Heroic Media celebrates the heroism of motherhood, the group’s president, Brian Follett, said it was fitting to invite Palin to speak. “Sarah’s faith and commitment to protecting life at every stage is evident in her words and actions,” he said, according to KLBJ-AM.

Palin, the 2008 Republican nominee for vice president, fervently opposes abortion. According to The Huffington Post, she once wrote in an election questionnaire: “I believe that no matter what mistakes we make as a society, we cannot condone ending an innocent’s life.”

In a 2009 speech to a pro-life crowd, Palin said that “for a fleeting moment,” she considered having an abortion after discovering that son Trig would be born with Down syndrome, according to the Washington Post. But, she said, “I had just enough faith to know that my trying to change the circumstances wasn’t any answer.”
Travis County Democrats are attempting to use the governor’s Austin appearance to raise money for its candidates and causes.

In an ironic message to Democrats, Sarah Weddington -- the Austin attorney who argued the landmark Roe v. Wade case before the U.S. Supreme Court -- accused Gov. Palin of spreading “a message of political pandering and fear mongering”:
“It is of vital importance that we never return to the days pre-Roe v. Wade when women often ended up doing self-abortions or having illegal, back-alley abortions.”
Self-abortions? Illegal? Back alleys? Who is really fear-mongering here? We believe it's clear to all who value human life that the culture of death is no match for the light of life. Good will ultimately triumph over the forces of evil, and there is no more effective spokesperson for the forces of light and life than Sarah Palin.

- JP

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

The Palin haters are called out

John G. Winder of The Cypress Times* has taken note of what others have been saying for a while--namely, that a lot of people in the media and on the left (those two groups tend to intermix quite a bit) have some inexplicable undying hatred for one Sarah Palin.

In his column "THE PALIN-HATERS ARE OUT IN FULL FORCE" [sic], Capital Letter Man, er, Mr. Winder points out the latest drive-by media attack on Mrs. Palin:  they estimate (based on not much substantial information, it appears) that she has earned $12,000,000 since resigning as governor.  (And just think:  she could have stayed in office and cost herself and the state hundreds of thousands of dollars defending against frivolous ethics violations!)  This, of course, is now being played up as some big scandal:

Once the press came up with number and everyone on the left shouted “Harumph,” they began writing nasty stories about her earnings.   She’s only in it for the money-kind of stuff.  One such article even said that Palin risks losing “Joe Six-Pack” as her supporter because of her success. 

Here Mr. Winder goes on a little aside to point out that Joe Six-Pack does not begrudge Sarah Palin any success, stating, "Joe Six-Pack doesn’t believe in punishing success; he believes it to be the proper reward for hard work."

Mr. Winder goes on from there to say that this anti-Palin rhetoric has spread ever since Mrs. Palin's rise to prominence thanks to the antithesis of Joe Six-Pack, whom Mr. Winder disparagingly names "Leslie Tofu-Breath".  (It should be noted that this blog does not approve of name-calling in any form, which is why this is the last time that name will appear in this space.)  He states that these lefties "hate success and really, really hate Sarah Palin."

Continuing:

First you told us Sarah Palin was too stupid to accomplish anything.  “Joke,” “Idiot,” and “Moron” were the words you used to exemplify your hallmark of tolerance as a party and an ideology. 

Then, when Sarah Palin stepped out into the private world and in just one year became a phenomenon of success and admiration, you began attacking her for being successful.  So which is it?  Is she too dumb to tie her own shoes, or is she now too successful to be popular with poor old Joe Six-Pack. 

The column goes on from there to mention the attempt by some to paint the entire tea party movement as racist (which I've already discussed here, so I won't go into it again now) and then discusses the attack on Gov. Bobby Jindal's campaign fundraising chief and her boyfriend, which is best summarized by Michelle Malkin.  (Ms. Malkin includes the correction that the victims of this attack were not wearing Palin pins, despite Mr. Winder's column containing that inaccuracy.)

You are welcome to read the rest of Mr. Winder's column.  The basic argument appears to be:  People hate Sarah Palin.  People throw whatever they can at Sarah Palin in the hopes that it'll stick.  When that fails, people try to disparage lots of people who agree with principles espoused by Sarah Palin.

What do you think:  am I misreading the state of the Left with regard to Sarah Palin and conservatives, or am I right on here?  And if so, can we please have more people calling them on it, as Mr. Winder has?


* The Cypress Times is a Christian newspaper serving what is basically a suburban area near Houston**, so obviously this column doesn't carry the same weight that it would if, for example, Kathleen Parker did a total about-face and wrote it.

** In my research (yes, I do research***), I discovered this gem of a quote in the Wikipedia entry for Cypress, Texas:


CFISD [the local school district] serves more than 100,000 students as of 2008, nearly half of them above average

Wow, nearly half are above average?  I guess the other half are below average, then.  That would make sense, wouldn't it?

*** I do so.  Shut up!

Video: Sarah Palin at the Boston Tea Party

Via The Right Scoop, here is this morning's speech by Sarah Palin to an appreciative crowd at a tea party rally in Boston.  From what I saw (watched it live through the website of a Boston TV station, but the stream dropped a couple of times, including right at the end of the speech), there wasn't much material in this speech that hasn't been said at previous rallies, but she repeats the same ideas because they work.  Government is too big, and its current growth is not sustainable without a lot more taxes, or, heaven forbid, a modicum of common sense.

The speech runs about 21 minutes.  Enjoy!

Monday, April 12, 2010

The "poor" who aren't

I have a post coming soon about Christian responsibilities to help the poor.  But something that really irks me is the fact that a lot of people with their hand out do not need the help.

Don't believe me?  Kathy Shaidle found a comment from someone who is describing exactly what I mean.  As she writes in her post "The 'poor' are the rich Jesus warned you about":

Or, the postman always comments anonymously:
Given my job, I see every day the moochers among us.

Many get their housing cheap or free. Regular checks from the federal government. Checks from the state and local agencies. Utility assistance. Cheap or free healthcare. So on and on.

Yet many drink beer all day, cigarette butts in the yard, cars newer than mine, big screen tvs, 2-7 cell phones in the household, cable, and so forth.

And when I come walking up, they want to know where their check is.

Of course, of course we have a responsibility to help those who really need it. But the people described in the comment above need to start by taking a page out of Dave Ramsey's book.*


* I speak from experience here.

Friday, April 09, 2010

Sarah Palin's SRLC speech

As expected, Sarah Palin's speech to the Southern Republican Leadership Conference was well received by the attendees.  She spent some time talking about the "Obama Doctrine" before moving on to the idea of the Republican Party remember its tenets (something a lot of Republicans, particularly those in Congress from about 2000 to 2006, forgot); she also spent a good deal of time talking about her strong point, energy policy.

Also, obviously, the speech was not well received by a lot of Palin haters, many of whom took the time to tweet snarkily about it under the #srlc hashtag.  There were tweets saying that Mrs. Palin was boring, that her speech had no substance, et cetera.  Well, if all that is true, then why are so many haters paying rapt attention to her every move?  (Seriously, if someone has an answer for that, I'd like to hear it, as I do not believe that conservatives watch Obama speeches en masse in hopes of finding mistakes.  A few do, and some of those are paid to do it.  You'd have to pay me to parse Obama speeches all day.)

The following full video of Governor Palin's speech is courtesy The Right Scoop.  (Go check that site out after you spend some time here.  A lot of time here.)  The speech runs about 28 minutes.



By the way, those who were watching this speech live on multiple cable news channels probably noticed that they cut away from this speech to one from President Obama.  I saw a fair amount of speculation regarding whether the time of his speech had been adjusted to cut into Mrs. Palin's.  If that were true (and I won't speculate), it would be incredibly petty.  I hope that is not what politics has become these days.

Thursday, April 08, 2010

New anti-Palin panic: Oh, no, a documentary series!!!!!

In what has to be the most ridiculous thing I have heard all week, a whole lot of haters of Sarah Palin are trying to get Discovery Communications not to air "Sarah Palin's Alaska" on its channel TLC.  God forbid that people should find out that Alaska is, in fact, quite a beautiful state.*

Of course, this latest effort to hurt Sarah Palin is nothing but political.  Gary P over at A Time For Choosing examines this effort in immense detail.  (This is the type of detail I would love to include on my own blog if, you know, I dedicated more than about an hour a week to it.)

The gist of Gary's post is that a petition has been started by uber-political site Change.org; it is to be sent to Discovery Communications president/CEO David Zaslav.  Some of the, er, highlights of this petition follow:

Targeting: Mr. David Zaslav (President and CEO, Discovery Communications)

Sponsored by: Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund

Sarah Palin has signed on with reality TV producers and Discovery Communications to star in a new TV show about Alaska and its outdoors.

But the ugly reality is that as governor for only two-and-a-half years, Sarah Palin escalated a bloody aerial wolf-slaughter campaign that continues to this very day. She even planned to offer a $150 bounty for the severed forelimb of each killed wolf.

Palin also fought against increased protections for endangered Cook Inlet beluga whales and America’s dwindling populations of polar bears.
Sign our petition to Discovery Communications — and let them know that Sarah Palin doesn’t deserve to represent the “powerful beauty of Alaska” in front of millions of people.

(Gary P notes that the petition site states that it is "targeting" Mr. Zaslav; wasn't that type of language a bad thing just two weeks ago?)

So, there's a petition.  Big deal, right?  There are lots of petitions going around the net, from the sublime to the ridiculous.  Well, in this case, the issue is with the originator of the petition.  You see, Change.org is affiliated with one Barack Obama.  (You mean they support him, right, Snowed?  No.)  Gary P lays out the connection**:

Much like Obama uses the Alaska bloggers to stay at “arms length” from things, Obama uses Change.org in the same manner. At first glance, Change.org appears to be a stand alone organization, but a little bit of research finds that Obama has been using the website as a base of operations since he began his run at the presidency. The website was launched in 2007.

We found an article in a technical online publication touting Obama’s use of Change.org as a political tool dated November 6, 2008. Our operative also forwarded us numerous e-mails from this group to their registered “changemakers.” Changemakers are a group of high profile activists, as well as online volunteers who are dedicated to doing the Obama regime’s bidding. These e-mails coincide with the talking points of the Obama regime.

These "changemakers", as can be seen from the link, are people ranging from Senator John Kerry, to nasally affected actress Fran Drescher, to Sojourners head Jim Wallis (about whom this blog will be writing shortly***), to EPA head Lisa Jackson.  I'm sure their feelings about a documentary narrated by Sarah Palin is entirely independent of their political biases.

Gary P goes on to relate some truth about the "wolf slaughter campaign" decried in the petition.  (I have previously linked to a few takedowns of Ashley Judd's anti-Palin statements on this same topic here.)  Gary's explanation follows:

Now for some facts about the wolves: Sarah Palin didn’t start the Alaskan predator elimination program. It had been going on for years, and Alaska isn’t the only state that has this sort of program.

Wolves travel in packs. They are incredibly efficient hunters. So efficient, they had depleted Alaska’s herd of elk, moose, deer, and caribou significantly. Alaskans depend on these herds for their very survival, as much of the population hunt and fish in order to eat. In order to survive. As Sarah herself has said: “I eat, therefore I hunt.” That pretty much sums up the Alaskan lifestyle.

Since these programs were put in place, the herds have thrived and multiplied many times over. They are back in healthy, sustainable numbers.

He goes on from there, but the point is, don't let these Palin-haters define what is accepted "truth".  This petition to get Mrs. Palin's show off the air is nothing more than yet another attempt to silence her.  It must not succeed.

* Note:  I have never been to Alaska, but what I've seen of it is beautiful.

** Gary P was challenged on the comments to his post about an actual connection between President Obama and Change.org (not to be confused with Change.gov), and he stated that he has researched this extensively and stands by his statements.

*** If I ever get around to it, that is.