White Rabbit Cult

Rep. Dennis Kucinich SELL OUT… Switches Health Care Vote

White Rabbit — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 05:24:43 +0000

Photo Credit FreakingNews.com

Even as he lambasted the Senate health care bill, Rep. Dennis Kucinich today said he woud vote “Yes” for the legislation in the House, becoming the first Democratic congressman who originally voted “No” to change course.

“I have doubts about the bill. I do not think it’s a step toward anything I’ve supported in the past. This is not the bill I wanted to support,” Kucinich, D-Ohio, said at a news conference today. “However, after careful discussions with President Obama, Speaker [Nancy] Pelosi, my wife Elizabeth and close friends, I have decided to cast a vote in favor of the legislation.”

President Obama today weighed in on Kucinich’s switch after a press conference with Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen.

“That’s a good sign,” the president said, when asked by reporters. “I told him ‘thank you.’”

While 15 other Democratic members of Congress remain undecided, and 21 say they will vote “No” on the health care bill, Kucinich’s vote is an important one for Democrats, signaling that even those who are staunchly opposed to the bill can be convinced to vote in its favor.

When asked if other skeptical Democrats will also reverse their decision, Kucinich replied: “If I can vote for this bill, there are not many other people who shouldn’t be able to support it.”

The former presidential candidate was one of the leading critics of the Senate health care bill, insisting that he wouldn’t vote for it unless it included the option of a government-run health insurance plan that would compete with private insurers. The public option was included in the bill that first passed the House but was taken out in the Senate health care bill.

On ABC News’ “Top Line” last week, Kucinich called the current bill a “giveaway” to insurance companies and not “a bill for the American people.

“They know my position, and unless there’s some dramatic change in the content of the bill, I think they can predict how I’m going to vote,” Kucinich said then. His announcement today will likely come as a blow to liberal activists who are still lobbying for a public option.

Kucinich was invited by President Obama to travel with him to Ohio Monday on Air Force One. The liberal Democrat today said he had four separate meetings with the president to discuss the bill. Obama didn’t commit to a public option in the future but promised to work with him on his “broad concerns.”

As he ended the press conference, Kucinich said: “We have to be very careful that the potential of President Obama’s presidency not be destroyed by this debate. I feel that even though I have many differences with him on policy, there’s something much bigger at stake here for America and that’s what I’d like people to think about.”

Democrats continue to squabble amongst themselves about the contents of the health care bill but House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer today expressed confidence that there will be enough votes to pass the legislation.

“On every major piece of legislation we passed over the last year… we said we think we do [have the votes] and yes we did,” Hoyer, D-Md., said on “Good Morning America.” “We think we’ll have the votes when the roll is called.”

House Minority Whip Eric Cantor predicted that Democrats are unlikely to garner the 216 votes they need to vote on the Senate health care bill in the House.

“Obviously, they don’t have the votes yet. I know they’re working very hard,” Cantor, R-Va., said on “GMA.” “The problem is I think there’s a lot of uncertainty still surrounding this bill and frankly the American people, I think, think that there’s a better way.”

The White House wants the House to pass a bill by this Saturday, before President Obama departs for his international trip. If they are not able to garner enough votes, Democratic leaders have hinted they may employ a parliamentary maneuver dubbed as “deem and pass.”

The controversial procedure would allow House members to vote on health care changes without ever voting directly on the Senate bill. In this case, the House would vote on a “fix it” measure that would make changes to the Senate health care bill and then automatically, in the process, pass the bill without actually having to vote on it.

The procedure has been used 20 times over the last 30 years by both Democrats and Republicans, often on technical or unpopular measures like raising the debt limit, but never on one as big as health care reform.

Hoyer today defended the tactic as a “clean up or down vote,” even as some question its constitutionality.

“We’re going to have a clean up or down vote on the Senate bill, that will be on the rule,” Hoyer said. “This is not an unusual procedure. We’re going to vote on a rule.”

“Unfortunately, the Republicans are a little bit like the boy who killed his two parents and then wants sympathy because they’re an orphan. They’ve tried to stop the passage of this bill, slowed it up,” he added. “We’ll vote for the Senate bill in the rule, and then we will amend the Senate bill in the process.”

Cantor said the House rules allow for the use of this “deeming” provision but charged that the move Democrats are pondering is an attempt to fool the public.

“Again, when you’re dealing with a bill like this that will cost a trillion dollars and it will effect health care for every man, woman and child in this country, I don’t think you can fool the public,” Cantor said on “GMA.” “This is an attempt to hide the vote. There’s no doubt about it.”

With time running out, Democratic leaders met until late into the night, gearing up for the final battle over health care.

On Tuesday, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi told reporters she is waiting on numbers from the Congressional Budget Office analyzing the cost of Obama’s health care bill, which proposes “fixes” to the Senate health care bill passed on Christmas Eve. But she reiterated that Democratic leaders will continue to fight for the health care bill despite objection from Republicans.

“We will do whatever is necessary to pass a health care bill,” said Pelosi, D-Calif.

The opposition has stepped up the heat on lawmakers. On Tuesday, tea party protestors gathered once again on Capitol Hill to denounce the bill. Holding signs and chanting “Kill The Bill,” the riled-up attendees took their protests into the halls of Congress, even though many lawmakers were not in their offices.

The Congressional switchboard was overloaded for most of the day after conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh gave out two toll-free numbers for the public to call and urge their lawmakers to vote against the bill.

Republicans are accusing Democrats of dirty tricks.

“Last year, they [Democrats] thought they could pass a bill without having to read it. This year they want us to pass a bill without having to vote on it,” Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga., charged at a rally Tuesday.

Obama continues to call skeptical lawmakers to urge them to vote for the bill. In an exclusive interview with ABC News on Monday, he expressed confidence there will be enough votes in the House to pass the health care legislation.

“I believe we are going to get the votes, we’re going to make this happen,” Obama said in an interview with ABC News’ Jake Tapper.

Kucinich to Support Overhaul (online.wsj.com)
Kucinich Switches Vote on Health Care (prescriptions.blogs.nytimes.com)
Rep. Kucinich to Support Health Bill (time.com)

Meg Stapleton and the Filthy Lies of Sarah Palin

White Rabbit — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 02:56:33 +0000

If there is one lesson to be learned from Sarah Palin and also the workings of her so-called “inner circle,” it is that you’ll eventually be cast off into the desert a la Hagar and Abraham within the Old Testament saga.

Sarah Went Down The White Rabbit Hole (Credit To FreakingNews.com)

The list of individuals banished by Palin is a lengthy one. Some prominent names include: John Bitney, Curtis Smith, Christopher Clark, Bill McAllister and Frank Bailey — all of whom had been thrown under the proverbial bus during Palin’s failed and abbreviated governorship of Alaska. Even her most prominent critic within the Final Frontier, Andree McLeod, was as soon as a member in the Palin inner-sanctum. Palin has left a wide swath of human collateral harm in her wake.

Now add the inimitable Meg Stapleton to the list.

In what was a truly disgusting little bit of reporting today in Politico, information puppy Andy Barr, a shameless apologist for Palin these previous 16 months, confirmed the rumor that Stapleton, Palin’s longtime “spokesperson” and political assassin, was departing her $96,000-a-year situation being a consultant to SarahPAC, although Barr in no way managed to set any from the substantial facts in place.

Instead, Barr spun it exactly as Stapleton desired it woven — as a move “to invest more time with her husband and 2-year-old daughter, Isabella.”

Perhaps you’d also like to buy some land from young Andy in Florida.

Barr’s most current suck-up to Stapleton arrived earlier this month when Stapleton used Barr to distance Palin from her criticism of Rush Limbaugh for his use of the term “retard.” It had been a barefaced bit of duplicity and perfectly reflective from the Palin-Stapleton spin device.

There have been reviews of trouble brewing in Palin’s inner-circle to get a while — of near breakdowns and dramatic outbursts — since the arrival of more paid political hacks from outside Alaska has created furious infighting for Palin’s favors.

Ironically, Barr’s lone resource for his story (other than Stapleton herself) was the Palin sycophant Fred Malek who has apparently discovered new existence and some pep in his step being a source for every thing Palin. Certainly, last summer when I interviewed Malek (Richard Nixon’s notorious Jew counter) at his retreat in Aspen, he confirmed for me that “bad blood” between Stapleton and GOP fundraiser Becki Donatelli from the Washington D.C.-based Marketing campaign Solutions was what led to Donatelli breaking away her relationship with the Palin operation. Or as Vanity Fair’s Todd Purdum set it: Donatelli “couldn’t stand” Stapleton.

Stapleton was also anathema towards the McCain marketing campaign — 1 of whose senior operatives described her to me as “incompetent and a poor individual.”

As my pal and blogger supreme AKMuckraker from the Mudflats has noted, Stapleton was once some thing of the “beloved” newscaster in Alaska (she as soon as was knocked over by a reindeer while she was wearing a Santa outfit) before she swallowed the Palin Kool-Aid and went via a transformation worthy of Mr. Hyde.

“Stapleton’s legacy in Alaska will not be her many years being a trusted information anchor,” Muckraker told me today, “but instead how rapidly she sold out to turn out to be the weapon of option for eviscerating Palin’s perceived political foes within the state of Alaska. Alaska is a ’small town’ and her popularity is forever tarnished here.”

Stapleton’s most notorious moment came during the 2008 presidential election, when serving as an assault dog for Palin’s so-called Truth Squad in Alaska, she engaged in a nasty videotaped confrontation with well-liked Alaska legislator Les Gara. If there had been an Emmy awarded for smarm and sleaze, Stapleton would have won in a landslide.

Today, Gara acquired this to express about Stapleton:

It’s not each evening you find a work that pays you gobs of money to say nasty points about great individuals — but I’m sure she’ll discover something. Maybe she could be Glenn Beck’s PR person following.

Stapleton’s media instincts had been, at worse, infantile and at, greatest, destructive. She frequently managed to turn a Palin gaffe from what should are already a one-day blip into a 72-hour-news sensation.

Final summer, while I was in Anchorage, Palin and Stapleton became included in what seemed to become a never-ending series of controversies about regardless of whether or not Palin would be appearing at an event — this time a planned look in the Anchorage mega-church ChangePoint. Members of the church assured me that representatives from the previous governor acquired confirmed her appearance. In essence, Stapleton called the church leadership liars. 1 fellow member from the ChangePoint community was irate about Stapleton’s response.

It is tough to reconcile Sarah’s and Meg’s so-called Christian values, when they keep lying about things like this. I can only think that 1 of two points is going on. Either she [Palin] is flat-out insane. Maybe something like a breakdown. Or she has become so arrogant, so above it all, that she feels she can deal with people this way.

Stapleton fueled Palin’s furies. One other longtime Palin confidante who worked shoulder-to -shoulder with Stapleton identified her as “power hungry”:

Meghan did a lot more harm in this globe than most individuals will at any time know. She rose to her position by throwing everybody close to Sarah beneath the bus, never getting a team player, always sucking up and telling Sarah only what she wanted to hear.

Or as one other longtime Alaskan set it: Stapleton “sacrificed her integrity for her ambition.”

In her bitter and vengeful memoir Heading Rogue, Palin notes that Stapleton was with her at a rented San Diego condo functioning day-in and day-out about the composing. Afterwards, many in Alaska speculated that some from the nastier passages in Rogue were actually penned by Stapleton.

For individuals subjected to Stapleton’s bile in current months, there is little empathy in the aftermath of her departure. “Get thee to church, Meg dahling,” mentioned McLeod. “There’s significantly atonement ahead…”

Stapleton’s “explanatory” email to Barr begged for some follow-up (obviously, there was none) — and possibly there was some thing to become examine among the lines:

While I had hoped to work collectively on so numerous a lot more projects, time with my precious 2-year-old has been additional minimized with the whirlwind commitments of all points Palin. I’ve carried out my greatest to scale back again, but Isabella is now resorting to hiding my BlackBerry, and she shouldn’t grow up begging to get a mom to start acting like a mom.

If she was hoping “to perform collectively on so many more assignments,” why did she resign now? Why didn’t she go to part-time? Why didn’t she consider up special projects? What do she imply by “whirlwind commitments” and “all things Palin”? What of the tone? And at whom was she directing that comment “start acting like a mother”? (At least one person who understands both players believed that it had been a dig by Stapleton directed at Palin.)

Working for and with Palin has constantly been a get in touch with sport. The departed always have scars. One former colleague from Alaska wished Stapleton some solace: “I hope Meghan can discover some peace,” he said. “I do.”

Stapleton Down (andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com)
Geoffrey Dunn: Meg Stapleton and the Lies of Sarah Palin (huffingtonpost.com)
Another Palin Aide Leaves “To Care For Family”; Sarah Less Than Gracious About The Departure (crooksandliars.com)

BREAKING NEWS: STEVE JOBS DEAD DUE TO WINDOWS CRASH

White Rabbit — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 01:15:40 +0000

STEVE JOBS DEAD!

Is Apple CEO Steve Jobs dead? It seems that question, spurred by Internet rumors from all corners, is floated every time Jobs’ company is front and center. All sorts of buzz has been going around about Steve Jobs’ health lately, particularly with those believing that his cancer had returned, thinking this the cause of his announcement that he would not appear at Macworld in January, reports The Economic Times.

His recent announcement that he was experiencing a hormone imbalance causing him significant weight loss has brought renewed interest in his well-being, and this has likely propelled “news” of the Steve Jobs’ death.

So is it true that Steve Jobs just died?

Well, no.

This is not the first time rumors of the death of Steve Jobs have circulated, as the Apple chief had to deal with this very same issue later last year, which became a major story. He had been losing weight during 2008, and he and his doctors, he claimed, were at first mystified as to the cause (reports Erick Schonfeld with TechCrunch). Jobs then decided to make his health a priority and was committed to finding the cause of his weight loss, and reversing it. Luckily when his doctor’s gathered that it was a hormonal imbalance, the fix was to be “relatively simple and straightforward” — treatment which Steve Jobs has already begun. Still, Jobs notes that since his body mass didn’t drop suddenly, so too would be his weight gain– gradual. He assures all he would tell Apple if his health were on the decline, Schonfeld continues– and Apple promises to keep the public informed, as well.

The previous hoax announcing his death was generally convincing to many, describing the accomplishments of Steve Jobs (including achievements for digital music and mobile phones) and listing contacts for more information on his death, reported E. Van Dril with The Celebrity Café. Names listed included Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak and Apple supporter Guy Kawasaki, among others. It was essentially an obituary which was “mistakenly” posted by Bloomberg, said Van Dril. Details like these make most stories believable– at first.

Apple Selloff Drags on Nasdaq (blogs.wsj.com)
Why Steve Jobs Fears Google (and Hates Eric Schmidt) (dailyfinance.com)

Michelle Obama To Huckabee… Dont Eat So Much You Pig!

White Rabbit — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 01:15:39 +0000

First woman Michelle Obama wants to provide high quality staples towards the “food deserts” of America, telling Fox Information host Mike Huckabee that component of her “Let’s Move” campaign to reduce childhood obesity would be to locate grocery stories that provide healthy food in underserved areas.

Fat Michelle Obama (Photo Credit FreakingNews.com)

First lady Michelle Obama would like to provide high quality staples to the “food deserts” of America, telling Fox Information host Mike Huckabee that part of her “Let’s Move” marketing campaign to reduce childhood overweight would be to locate grocery stores that provide wholesome food in underserved places.

Michelle Obama

“There are locations without entry to grocery store. There were places we visited in Philadelphia they haven’t had a grocery shop in the decade,” Michelle Obama stated in an exclusive interview taped in Philadelphia for “Huckabee.”

“We need to eliminate food deserts. A single from the goals of Let’s Proceed is eliminate foods deserts in 7 many years. Ambitious goal, but I think we can do it if we perform together.”

The very first woman said 23.5 million Americans reside in places without having simple entry to foods like fruits and veggies. She pointed to some $400 million wholesome foods financing initiative as a way not just to help children consume healthy but produce “an financial engine” in bad communities.

“It’s truly not about just what our children eat but what their communities are like. You can’t reside in a community that does not have food in it. That’s the basic foundation,” she stated.

Obama announced her new campaign in opposition to childhood overweight previously this month. She said part of the purpose that one-third of kids these days are obese is their lifestyle habits, such as spending seven plus a half hours per day perched in front of electronic entertainment.

She stated she’s prohibited her children from watching television on weekdays, and created other small changes in their way of life right after their pediatrician warned that Sasha and Malia had been on a poor trajectory because of the eating habits and other behaviors.

“I come right here because I’m a mom. This really is how I became aware of the issue in my personal children. Existence changed for families in a way that I can see. You know, we’re busier. We’re less active. Our kids enjoy a lot more Tv. Occasionally it is difficult to obtain outside. Drive-through quick food. It’s easier and cheaper. As a result, we’re seeing results on our children. And I saw it on mine. It had been because of my pediatrician that just sort of waved a red flag,” she stated.

Huckabee, a former Republican presidential candidate, told FoxNews.com that he and also the very first woman shared exactly the same view of overweight. Formerly obese himself, during his 10 many years as governor of Arkansas, Huckabee made it a goal to fight the increased pounds difficulties of young individuals.

“Arkansas was the only state that reversed the trend of childhood overweight, the rate really declined and we did a lot of things really aggressively to complete that. It had been a priority,” Huckabee stated.

Obama stated her approach isn’t a top-down federal government nanny state, but something that allows families to custom-fit solutions for themselves. That includes easier-to-read food labeling, self-designed diets informed by medical doctors and aggressive action by parents, coaches, communities and others.

“Most of our kids get the the greater part of the calories in the meals they consume in educational facilities. We have an chance to work using the federal federal government and also the school lunch companies to figure out how to make those foods healthier,” she said.

“People who make soft drinks, individuals who make foods for college lunches, it’s neighborhood groups, it’s businesses who make decisions about wherever they’re going to locate grocery stores. It’s our media. It is Disney, it’s Nick Television. It is everybody which has an effect on the wellness and life of our kids, our teachers. So it is all of us,” Obama added.

“This is a solvable concern simply because it’s, you know, it’s community-based. I stated this in my launch speech, this doesn’t need new technologies, or, you know, new research. We have the solution in our hand. However it takes a coordinated work.”

In a rare appearance on Fox News, Obama said she too does not watch a lot of television information simply because “like whenever you work above the shop, you can’t just provide work house.

“I want to formulate my opinions dependent on experiences that I have. I’ll examine clips, you understand, I
get headlines but I have a tendency — I attempt to maintain house kind of the news-free zone,” she stated, adding when President Obama comes house, she doesn’t wish to bombard him with questions.

“Let him have some dinner, perform a little, play Sorry or some type of game with the children. And sort of bring it lower.”

Michelle Obama: ‘I Feel Like The Country Has Gotten To Know Me’ (huffingtonpost.com)
Huckabee Gets Michelle Obama on Fox (usnews.com)
Michelle Obama Vs. Childhood Obesity (usnews.com)
Michelle Obama Tells Fox She Want to Make America Proud (blogs.abcnews.com)

The Nation: Who’s Afraid Of A Palin Presidency?

White Rabbit — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 05:49:24 +0000

Sarah Palin Gogue

America will have a woman president.

But it is not likely that the first one will be Sarah Palin.

Even Republicans who embrace Palin as a guilty political pleasure have a hard time seeing the self-described “maverick” who quit serving as governor of Alaska so that she could spend more time as a Fox News commentator as a commander-in-chief.

But Palin’s still good for a laugh.

Appearing at a town hall meeting in Saudi Arabia Tuesday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was asked about the prospect of a Palin presidency.

Sarah Palin

“Does the prospect of Sarah Palin one day becoming president maybe terrify you?” a student asked Clinton, who knows a thing or two about presidential politics. “And if so, would you consider emigrating to Canada or possibly even Russia?” (The latter being a country Palin has — almost — seen from her house.)

When Clinton finished laughing, she said: “Well, the short answer is ‘no.’ I will not be emigrating. I will be visiting as often as I can.”

Points to Clinton for thinking on her feet and using humor to diffuse a discussion about domestic politics in a foreign setting where she was attempting to bridge complex religious and cultural divides.

Luckily for Clinton, the whole Palin-as-president conversation provides plenty of comic relief — as few Americans are taking it seriously.

After a bumbling 2008 vice presidential campaign that invited “I can see Russia from my house” parody, a mere 38 percent of voters told exit pollsters they saw Palin as being qualified to be president.

Now that Palin’s gained more exposure, with her “I’m-not-a-quitter” exit from the governor’s job, her book tour and her recent Tea Partying, what has happened to that “Palin-is-qualified” number?

It has fallen to 26 percent, according to a new ABC News/Washington Post poll.

Among Republicans, according to the ABC/Post poll, the percentage that said Palin was unqualified to serve as president has risen from around 25 percent at the close of the 2008 campaign to 52 percent today.

Independents are even more unsettled by Palin.

Fully two-thirds of these critical swing voters say Palin’s unqualified. Those are devastating numbers.

Indeed, Palin would have a hard time beating Dick Cheney for the Republican presidential nod in 2012.

The Republicans are focusing increasingly on taking the White House back. They think a weakened Barack Obama can be beat, and that aren’t going to put that prospect at risk by backing a feel-good candidacy.

The GOP isn’t going to nominate Palin, just as the American people aren’t going to put her in the White House.

Sarah Palin is not a serious presidential prospect — except, perhaps, in her own mind and in the darkest fantasies of Democratic strategists who see her as the one candidate that even a weakened President Obama could surely beat in 2012.

So what is Palin?

A punchline. And Hillary Clinton just hit it.

GOP’s 2012 hopefuls rail against Obama (msnbc.msn.com)
Sarah Palin: The Symbol of Cynicism (trueslant.com)
Tina Dupuy: Sarah Palin: The Symbol of Cynicism (huffingtonpost.com)

Seth MacFarlane For President! Battle Of Fox Hollywood vs Fox News!

White Rabbit — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 05:55:31 +0000

Seth MacFarlane isn’t shy about his political views and no subject is off limits for the Family Guy creator. From abortion to the Holocaust to 9/11, MacFarlane and his team will make a joke about anything.

Here is the video…. too funny! Hey it’s satire… and according to Sarah Palin… IT’S OK!

But has the show gone too far? And is there such a thing for Family Guy? If you’re Sarah Palin’s family, the answer is yes. The latest incident causing trouble for MacFarlane comes from this past Sunday’s episode where a mentally challenged character tells Chris her mother is the former governor of Alaska.

Regardless of the obvious differences between the Family Guy character and Palin’s son, this was clearly a jab at the Palin family, and they’ve struck back. Sarah’s daughter Bristol took over her mother’s Facebook page to respond, saying in part: “If the writers of a particularly pathetic cartoon show thought they were being clever in mocking my brother and my family yesterday, they failed. All they proved is that they’re heartless jerks.”

Wherever the line of decency is, it’s difficult to claim that Family Guy has finally crossed it. In fact, the character in question was actually a positive portrayal of a special needs teenager who is a strong, independent woman. If Family Guy’s intent was to provoke the Palin family, they succeeded. The failure comes from the Palin family’s response, because they clearly don’t understand that this is hardly the most offensive or messed up thing the show has ever done.

McCain/Palin in Nazi Germany

With the aid of a time machine, Stewie and Brian went back to Germany in the 1940s and encountered a Nazi officer sporting a McCain/Palin button on his brown shirt. Ignoring the obvious anachronism, the suggestion that the Nazis support the Republicans – or that Republicans are like Nazis – is indicative of political leanings on Family Guy.

Laura Bush’s Abortions

Proving that women and family members of political figures aren’t off limits, when the Griffins moved to Texas, Meg and Chris snuck onto the Crawford Ranch and found a shoebox full of old Planned Parenthood receipts for Laura Bush. As Chris explained, “She’s been scraped more times than a fisherman’s knuckles.” If Palin’s offended npw, she should look at this episode to see how offensive Family Guy can truly be.

The same episode also pictured President George W. Bush’s freshly cut lines of cocaine sitting on a table while Vice President Dick Cheney dreamt that his lesbian daughter was straight. The show took aim at President Bush’s wife again during a Halloween party where characters kept repeating the “fact” that “Laura Bush killed a guy.”

Osama bin Laden at the Airport

In a scene of disturbing foreboding, a pre-9/11 episode showed Osama bin Laden singing show tunes at airport security to distract the agents into letting him pass. This isn’t the first time that Family Guy has used the events of 9/11 to go after Republicans for using scare tactics to get people to do what they want.

Down Syndrome Girl

In light of MacFarlane’s record, a reference to Palin is a drop in the bucket. Palin and the Republicans may not like Family Guy’s methods, but, as we can see from today’s dust-up, they get the desired result.

Sarah Palin Uses Daughter To Attack “Family Guy” For Referencing Son (alan.com)
Sarah Palin vs. Family Guy (dailykos.com)
Palin Lashes out at ‘Family Guy’ (abcnews.go.com)
Sarah Palin & Bristol Respond To Family Guy: ‘Another Kick In The Gut’ (VIDEO) (huffingtonpost.com)

Obama’s Approval Ratings Continue To Drop

White Rabbit — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 17:10:34 +0000

The Rasmussen Reports President Tracking Poll for Thursday February 11 shows that a mere 25 percent of American voters strongly approve of President Obama’s performance. Thirty-nine percent strongly disapprove, leaving 36 percent of voters somewhere in the middle.

President Obama's Crushing Approval Ratings (Credit FreakingNews.com)

Scott Rasmussen has published columns in the Wall Street Journal that address several facets of Obama’s presidency, including his declining approval among independent voters. President Obama enjoyed a relatively high approval rating within the first month of his presidency, on average 64 percent. However, by February 21, 2009, the Gallup Poll showed the approval rating dropped to 59 percent. The Gallup Poll attributed this decline to the independent voters, who within one week, went from a 62 percent approval to a 54 percent rating. Since then, the numbers have fluctuated, though for the most part have indicated decline.

Of course, the accuracy of most polls is often contested, particularly when the reports reflect very different numbers. Marist University’s poll released on Monday, February 8, shows a 44 percent approval rating for Obama. Per the Marist poll, 57 percent of independent voters disapprove of Obama’s performance. Similar to Marist’s report, the Gallup poll reflects an overall 44 percent approval rating, as does the CBS News poll. The Rasmussen Reports show 35 percent of voters believe that a new political party is needed and just 30 percent believe the country is headed in the right direction.

The different approval ratings can be explained by analyzing the voters that are polled. The Marist poll questioned 910 voters, while the Gallup Poll surveys something in the realm of 1,500 voters. Twelve hundred adults nationwide are interviewed by telephone for the CBS News poll. The Rasmussen Reports are based on a sample of likely voters, while other firms survey all adults. As a result, President Obama’s numbers are usually several points higher in a poll of adults rather than likely voters. The Rasmussen Reports explain that this is a result of Obama’s more enthusiastic young adult supporters being less likely to turn out to vote. Above all, the wording of the questions is a prime determinant of the numbers.

The economy continues to remain the determining factor for those who are polled. Another consistent item found in the polls is that approximately a quarter of the Democratic voters are unhappy with their leader. Additionally, Obama’s approval rating continues to remain high amongst African-American voters. Likewise, Obama’s increasingly unpopular and highly imposed agenda has proven to hinder his popularity.

The Gallup poll shows that six out of 10 Americans believe Obama has not focused enough on the economic strife that has plagued Americans. CBS News’ poll indicates that it is Obama’s domestic issues that are driving the numbers downward. However, since the attempted attack on Christmas Day, the percentage of voters citing terrorism as an imminent issue has risen to seven percent from 0 in early December. Likewise, Obama’s handling of healthcare, according to the CBS poll, has just a 36-percent approval rating. On the war in Afghanistan and terrorism, CBS reports a generous 46 percent approval rating.

CBS also reports that over half of Americans think the United States should keep the Guantanamo Bay prison open.

President Obama appears undaunted by his steady decline in approval since taking office just one year ago. As he indicated to Diane Sawyer in his interview on January 25, Obama does not intend to “nurture his own popularity.” He remarked, “When the poll numbers drop, you’re an idiot” but “when your poll numbers are high, you’re a genius.” Judging by his approval ratings, perhaps he should not hold his breath for the “genius”remarks.

Obama’s Approval Rating Hits A New Low: POLL (huffingtonpost.com)
Obama’s approval in Texas tanks even deeper (tech.bl0x.info)
Trouble Ahead for Obama? (newageofpolitics.com)

Bill Clinton, Thank You Medicine! Not Heath Care Reform

White Rabbit — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 18:46:46 +0000

Bill and Hillary Clinton In NY Hospital Photo Credit To FreakingNews.com

Former President Bill Clinton, now in a New York City hospital room, under observation for chest pains, may be thinking to himself that it’s a good thing that Clintoncare didn’t pass in the early 90s. If it had, it’s a safe bet that the sort of technological innovation that is trying to keep him alive tonight would certainly never have advanced as far as it has. Clintoncare, after all, was about rationing; The explicit goal of that bureaucratic program was to reduce the cost of treatment, which is to say, reduce the amount of treatment. And Clinton needs more treatment, not less. As do many of us.

Moreover, Clinton, now 63, might also be silently hoping that Obamacare never passes, either, due to the fact, as he now understands, he is going to be a huge consumer of Serious Medicine in the many years ahead.

By Serious Medicine, I mean such procedures and technology as open heart surgical treatment, stents, and angioplasties. These technology hardly existed a half century ago, but they are now routine. Indeed, on “NBC Nightly News,” on Thursday, Robert Bazell said that a million Us citizens right now have stents. That’s a million lives saved, or at least dramatically improved.

Precisely how does all that happen? Exactly where did this life-saving technology come from? A lot of it came from government-funded research. (Note to ardent free marketeers: Government is not the enemy.) But life-saving research came from the part of the government, i.e. the National Institutes of Health, that fosters research and even cures. It’s great work that they do, and yet as we all know, the far greater government effort in recent years has been the effort for “health insurance reform.” Indeed, the entire political class, on the right as well as left, seems transfixed by the issue of health care finance. But the real issue is health. And the real question, for heart disease and everything else is, “Can we cure it or not?”

By contrast, “health insurance” is simply much less critical to Americans, if certainly not to American politicos. If you have heart disease, you require therapy more than you require insurance. Both can be important, but treatment is more important. Treatment is the sine qua non–without which, nothing.

So heart patients can be thankful that other people in the earlier cared enough to do heart study–and yet those heart patients would be even more grateful if they knew that someone was effectively researching not only treatments, but cures.

Happily, the liberal health insurance crusade keeps losing, in the 90s, and today. But we may well worry that even the losing crusade may be adequate to cast a shadow over healthcare study, for heart sickness and for every other medical topic. That is, even the mere hint of government-driven rationing and price-controlling might be enough to chase venture capital into other fields, away from medicine. We’ll never know for sure how much “crowding out” of medical money has taken place, but it must be substantial. That’s another question for Bill Clinton to think about tonight.

And so, too, for all of us to think about. Because the bell that could be tolling for him will be tolling, as well, for every American. But better later rather sooner.

Sarah Palin, The Comic Book

White Rabbit — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 07:22:41 +0000

Sarah Palin The Comic Book

Sarah Palin is truly shake-your-head dumb. John McCain should apologize for potentially placing her a myocardial infarction away from the most vital job in the planet.

A number of us all realize folks in so far over their head they can’t see the top of the hole. That’s Sarah. As one McCain staffer put it, she doesn’t even know what she doesn’t know. Palin gives new meaning to the adage that connects “ignorance” to “bliss.”

That’s not to say she’s not really good at exactly what she does. As she did at the National Tea Party Convention in Nashville for a reported $100,000, Palin repackages the prejudice, fears, scorn and anger of her groupies. She cloaks them in God and the flag and feeds them back as brainless sloganeering. It is empty rhetoric from a nice pair of legs.

I wish it were the case, but the planet is just not as simple as simple-minded members of Palin’s claque would like it to be. In sliming their particular favorite targets – intellectuals and the media – Palin is calling on every demagogue and snake oil purveyor through history to electrify her cataleptic foundation. She is the essence of every schoolyard bully who ever beat up the intelligent children for their lunch money.

But “smart” does count for something. Look, if you have a brain tumor, you want surgery by a skilled neurosurgeon, not a dermatology intern. If your air conditioner busts, you need a certified technician to repair it, not the youngster who cuts your lawn. If you expect responsible stock suggestions, you call a experienced broker, not your doofus brother-in-law.

So any time it comes to, let’s say, environment change, geopolitics, financial meltdowns, constitutional history or astrophysics, whada ya think? Should we at least hear what scientists, scholars, economists, historians and intellectuals have to say, or entirely disregard them in favor of those who dismiss global warming based on this winter’s cold snap; who are enraged about terrorism policies but can’t place Yemen on a world map; who are incensed by bailouts but have no clue about macroeconomics; who insist the Constitution is based mostly on the Ten Commandments, but whose understanding of the Revolution consists of a vaguely recalled illustration of Washington traversing some river in a boat; and who believe the Big Bang is a porno flick?

This is who Palin articulates to: People who aren’t inquisitive or insightful; which show no curiosity in conceptualization; who have no grasp of nuance of intricacy; who see complication as an intellectual conceit.

In any case, we now have her stuck to our shoes like doggy poop. Her incalculable limitations, terrible beliefs and incredibly bothersome elocution – “how’s that hopey-changey thing workin’ out forya?” – make George W. Bush look like a savant.

Captain America vs. The Tea Party!

White Rabbit — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 02:20:34 +0000

Captain America Tea Party Fear

Captain America

President Obama may be secretly plotting to declare martial law, but the Tea Partiers now face a more immediate threat: Captain America. Conservative blogger Warner Todd Huston has checked out issue 602 of the long-running series and concludes that Marvel Comics is “making patriotic Americans into [its] newest super villains.” The offending storyline finds Captain America and his African-American sidekick the Falcon in Idaho, where they encounter a Tea Party rally. They then scheme to infiltrate the antitax protesters as a way to get to their real target, a militia group known as the Watchdogs. The Falcon is skeptical: “I don’t exactly see a black man from Harlem fitting in with a bunch of angry white folks.” It’s not the first time the Star Spangled Avenger has revealed his secret identity as a big-government liberal. Back in the ’80s he battled Ronald Reagan when the Gipper turned into an underpants-wearing lizard man. And more recently, he met secretly with Obama to offer his services.

Huston complains that the new plotline portrays the Tea Partiers as a bunch of crazy racists. Marvel Comics editor-in-chief Joe Quesada has tried to dodge the criticism by insisting, unconvincingly, that the antitax folks weren’t even meant to be Tea Partiers, just a “generic protest group.” As for Marvel’s decision to portray the not-really-Tea Partiers as entirely white, The Stranger’s Paul Constant quips, “An all-white teabagger crowd is probably the most realistic thing going on in that issue of Captain America.” Quesada also suggests that upset readers hold their outrage while the plot unfolds, hinting that exciting stereotype-shattering plot twists lie ahead. So hang on to your tea bags.

Happy Birthday Sarah Palin…Polls Say You Suck!

White Rabbit — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 15:35:26 +0000

Sarah Palin turns 46 today. Happy Birthday to you! Happy Birthday to you! You were born in America, and Obama was too! Today is Sarah Palin’s birthday. She’ll blow out half of the candles on her birthday cake and then give up.

Sarah Palins Birthday Wish 2010

As celebrity birthdays go, this one is particularly special to us. You betcha, Sarah Palin turns 46 today! Hopefully she remembered to write a note on her hand!

Since bursting onto the scene in 2008, Sarah has been a lightning rod, becoming one of the most popular and unpopular figures in politics simultaneously.

That’s a tough feat, and despite her resignation as Governor of Alaska last year, we don’t imagine we’ve seen the last from her on a major political stage.

Some people want her to run for President. Others want her to run away somewhere – anywhere – and never come back. Either way, she gets people talking!

As Sarah Palin marks her birthday, a new national poll indicates that 7 out of 10 Americans feel that she is not qualified to be president.

According to an ABC News/Washington Post survey, 71 percent of the public say the former Alaska governor is not qualified to serve in the White House, with 26 percent saying the 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee is qualified to be president. The 26 percent who say Palin is qualified is down 12 points from an ABC News/Washington Post poll from November.

Twenty-eight percent of people questioned in a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey from November indicated that Palin was qualified, with 7 in 10 feeling she was not qualified to be president.

The ABC News/Washington Post poll, released Thursday morning as Palin marks her 46th birthday, also indicates that even a majority of Republicans now view Palin as not qualified to serve as commander-in-chief. According to the survey, 45 percent of conservatives see her as qualified, down 21 points from last November.

The survey also indicates that 37 percent of Americans have a favorable view of her, with 55 percent holding an unfavorable view. According to a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey from last month, 43 percent of the public had a favorable opinion and 46 percent had an unfavorable view of Palin.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SARAH PALIN!

The poll was conducted February 4-8, as Palin gave the keynote address in Nashville, Tennessee, at what was billed as the first national Tea Party convention. The survey indicates that Americans are split on the Tea Party movement, with 35 viewing the movement in a favorable way, 4 in 10 holding an unfavorable impression, and a quarter of those questioned unsure about the year old movement. A CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey conducted last month indicated that 4 in 10 were unsure, with one-third holding a favorable view and one quarter having an unfavorable view of the Tea Party movement.

The ABC News/Washington Post poll indicates that 45 percent generally agree with the movement’s small government positions on the issues, with 36 percent disagreeing and 1 in 5 unsure.

The ABC News/Washington Post poll was conducted by telephone, with 1,004 adults questioned. The survey’s overall sampling error is plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Why Do Liberals HATE Sarah Palin?

White Rabbit — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 17:06:11 +0000

Sarah Palin 2012 Presidential Campaign Poster

There was no better place to be this weekend than the Tea Party convention in Nashville. The main, attraction of course, was the keynote address by Sarah Palin, who wasted no time in laying into Obama’s first year in office. “How’s that hopey-changey thing workin’ out for you?” Palin asked, spawning rapturous applause from the audience. This is about the time I started to feel brain cells dying and left the room. I wondered, “What is it about Sarah Palin that makes me, and other liberals, just feel viscerally upset?”

It’s not that I simply disagree with their politics. I disagreed with McCain in 2008 and Bush in 2004, but never with the wall-punching fury that she inspires. “Ahh, then it must be her sheer stupidity,” I thought. But no, our previous President was certainly not an accomplished intellectual. Sure, he graduated from Yale, but with a C average. Maybe he’s a grade above Palin, but the asymmetry of hate is pretty brutal. That couldn’t explain it.

Palin was asked a question about the “two words that scare liberals: President Palin”, which she promptly blew off. And then it hit me. It’s not the way she is that frightens and depresses me, though I’m not a huge fan of it. It’s the fact that she is that way and people admire, believe, and crave it. It’s the staggering ability of, in this case, the Tea Partiers to ignore her hypocrisy. The deficit, which was of course attributed to the current President, was denounced as “immoral”. Yet does Palin favor scrapping the Bush tax cuts? Does she want to roll back the Medicare prescription drug plan? Did she reject stimulus funds as Governor of Alaska? Of course not. In Palin’s world, fiscal conservatism never applies to conservatives.

The Constitution prohibits excessive federal power. Yet, when it comes to national security, “We need a commander-in-chief, not a professor of law.” The law apparently prohibits health reform legislation, but not indefinite detention on U.S. soil. In Palin’s world, the Constitution never applies to conservatives.

She took a swipe at closed-door negotiations on healthcare, noting that C-Span viewers were shut out. Yet, she ignored the fact that on many, many, many occassions she has barred the press from her own appearances. In Palin’s world, transparency never applies to conservatives.

What’s most upsetting is that the crowd cheered on, as though it were gospel. And that’s the heart of my hate for her. She takes advantage of the fundamental trust “ordinary people” put in her. She scrapes the bottom of the political catch-phrase barrel and they still eat it up. In Palin’s world, few think hard enough to see through her lies. The sad part is, the same is true in ours.

Sarah Palin Gives Hand Job To Tea Party Movement

White Rabbit — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 07:27:33 +0000

Former Alaska Governor and Fox News Analyst Sarah Palin appeared before the National Tea Party Movement Convention in Nashville, February 6th, and gave a speech she was paid over $100,000 for. To effectively deliver the oratory, Former Governor Palin used what were once called “crib notes” scribbled in the palm of her left hand. Thus, Sarah Palin used her hand as part of the job she was hired to do for the Tea Party Movement.

The finding, noted in several blogs, took the Internet by storm on Monday. Sarah Palin wrote the words “Energy”, “Tax” and “Lift American Spirits” in that order in her left hand’s palm.

It was Palin’s palm-up pose that allowed the photo capture of what she scribbled. All this from a person, Sarah Palin, who criticized President Obama for using a teleprompter, yet did so in the same Tea Party speech where she was using her left hand’s crib notes, and also used one at the Republican National Convention.

The use of crib notes calls Palin’s core beliefs into question by some. Does she really believe what she says, or is she just reading lines? While it was claimed that Palin’s teleprompter broke at the RNC, some bloggers noted that it did not, meaning the lines Palin said were scripted and not off-the-cuff.

Sarah Palin Hand Notes Cheat Sheet

Who is Sarah Palin? Is Palin a serious 2012 GOP Presidential Candidate, or a former politician who’s still so in love with the spotlight she would take six-figures to give a speech, and write notes in her hand to make sure she scored conservative points, even if she really didn’t believe in them?

Sarah Palin paints the picture of the latter. In the Tea Party speech, Palin called for better understanding and care for special needs children, of which Palin’s a mother to one herself. But the same Palin rejected Economic Stimulus money for Alaska that would in part help special needs kids. Fortunately, the Alaskan Legislature overruled her decision. Many observers believed Palin was posturing for national political ambitions.

Sarah Palin Speaks At Tea bagger Convention

Now, Here she is, taking money for giving a speech to conservatives, and using the Alaska Economic Stimulus issue as an example of her “conservative values.” If Sarah Palin needs crib notes to remind her of what her conservative values are, one can assert she doesn’t believe them at all, unless she’s paid $100,000 to do so.

Whatever the case, the Tea Party Movement enjoyed it.

RETARDS: What Teabagger Signs Say Vs. What They Mean

White Rabbit — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 22:13:58 +0000

For those who have a hard time reading between the lines, here’s a list of what Teabagger signs say followed by what they really mean….

1. White Slavery

2. Obama is Hitler #1

3. Obama is Hitler #2

4. SODOMY!

Rush Limbaugh Is a Big, Fat Exception!

White Rabbit — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 20:09:22 +0000

When can you use the word “retard“? You can use it when you’re being satirical. For instance, it’s not okay for Rahm Emanuel to say that liberal activists are “fucking retarded” in a private meeting because 1. that’s mean and 2. he’s a Democrat. But it is okay for Rush Limbaugh to describe a meeting between Emanuel and advocates for the developmentally disabled as “a retard summit at the White House,” and to use the word “retard” forty times on his show because, um…

Retarded Arabs protest violently over Rush Limbaugh comments!

I’ll let Sarah Palin explain it…

“[Limbaugh] was using satire… I didn’t hear Rush Limbaugh calling a group of people whom he did not agree with ‘f-ing retards’ and we did know that Rahm Emanuel has been reported, did say that. there is a big difference there.”

So… it’s okay to call someone a retard if you’re making fun of them, if you’re being satirical, but it’s not okay to call someone a retard if you simply disagree with that person. Now the allowable use of “retard” could get complicated, of course, if you’re using “retard” satirically to mock someone with whom you disagree. Better to play it safe and stick to leotarded.

Sarah Palin, Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, and Michelle Obama Super Bowl 2010 All-Star Cheerleader Squad

White Rabbit — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 20:25:31 +0000

Just announced… in an effort to show Bi-Partism, CBS Sports just announced that in a never before seen performance has been added to tonight’s Super Bowl Pre Game show…. a Political Superstar Female lineup cheer leading squad consisting of Democrat Nancy Pelosi, Democrat Hillary Clinton, Democratic First Lady Michelle Obama, and Republican Tea Party Spokeswoman Sarah Palin!

PLEASE LETS HOPE THERE ARE NO WARDROBE MALFUNCTIONS!!!

Levi Johnston, Bristol Palin’s Baby Daddy, Gets Naked For Sexy Playgirl Cover

White Rabbit — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 17:43:21 +0000

The moment we’ve all been waiting for … or not.

Levi Johnston’s much-hyped Playgirl cover finally hit newsstands Saturday ending months of speculation over whether the sexy skater would go rogue and bare it all.

Levi Johnston Revels ALL! Tattoo of Sarah Palin and Obama Logo!

The moment we’ve all been waiting for … or not.

Levi Johnston’s much-hyped Playgirl cover finally hit newsstands Saturday ending months of speculation over whether the sexy skater would go rogue and bare it all.

The answer is: He did, but you can’t see it.

The cover features Johnston — the ex-beau of Bristol Palin and father of her son Tripp — clearly naked but hiding his nether regions (just barely).

Photos leaked in November sparked a public spat between the sexy skater baby-mama Bristol.

Bristol, daughter of former vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin, has requested that part of the proceeds from Playgirl go toward child support payments, according TMZ.com.

“I have received limited and sporadic financial assistance from Levi,” Bristol said in a statement.

Johnston’s manager claims that Levi has paid Palin more than $10,000 since the child was born.

In the past year the attention-starved Johnston has appeared on the pages of Vanity Fair and Entertainment tonight as well as Oprah’s couch.

White House Says Rahm Apologized For Saying “Fucking Retarded”

White Rabbit — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 18:09:03 +0000

Wow! As you may have heard, Sarah Palin is now calling for Rahm Emanuel to be fired because of a report based on anonymous sources claiming he privately told top liberals last summer that they were “fucking retarded.”

Trig Paxson Van Palin SPEAKS FOR THE VERY FIRST TIME!

Palin professed outrage over Rahm’s use of “retarded,” writing: “Rahm’s slur on all God’s children with cognitive and developmental disabilities — and the people who love them — is unacceptable.”

Check out the White House’s immediate response:

A White House official emails that Rahm Emanuel has acknowledged calling liberal Democrats “retarded” and apologized for the remark.

“Rahm called Tim Shriver Wednesday to apologize and the apology was accepted,” the official said.

Shriver is the Chairman and CEO of the Special Olympics, which has launched a campaign against what it calls “the R word.”

What makes this even more absurd is that Rahm, to my knowledge, has never once apologized to liberals for calling them retarded. But now that Palin has attacked, Rahm is suddenly apologizing to Shriver!

So absurd.

Update: In fairness, a White House official emails me that Rahm apologized to Shriver last Wednesday, so it may not have been prompted by Palin’s attack. I’ve changed the hed to reflect that. Still, no apology to liberals that I’m aware of.

FUCK TIM TEBOW AND HIS BULLSHIT SUPERBOWL AD (CBS Too)!

White Rabbit — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 06:50:38 +0000

Tim Tebow Anti Abortion Ad

Next Sunday, when millions of people tune in to watch Super Bowl XLIV, they’ll see a football star off the field, too. Tim Tebow, the University of Florida’s Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback, is set to appear with his mother in a 30-second advertisement to be aired during the game. The spot, which has not been released, is said to feature Tebow, by all reports a humble young man who takes his faith seriously, and his mother telling the story of her decision 23 years ago to ignore medical advice and continue a risky pregnancy. Pam Tebow says that she had contracted amoebic dysentery, and her doctors feared that the medicine used to treat her illness might cause fetal deformity. The healthy and very successful Tim proved them wrong.

Pro-choice advocates were shocked when CBS appeared to violate internal policy and accepted this spot — reportedly at a price of at least $2.5 million — produced and paid for by Focus on the Family, a conservative antiabortion, anti-gay group. Though CBS says it has altered its policy, the networks have consistently rejected advocacy ads on controversial topics. The United Church of Christ was turned down by CBS in 2004 when it wanted to air a Super Bowl ad that celebrated diversity and welcomed gay and lesbian Christians to the denomination. And last year NBC rejected a spot from an antiabortion group that tried to use President Obama’s life story to convey its message. The rules of the game seem to have changed without warning.

For abortion rights supporters, picking on Tim Tebow and his mom is not the way to go. Instead of trying to block or criticize the Focus on the Family ad, the pro-choice movement needs its own Super Bowl strategy. People want to be inspired, and abortion is as tough and courageous a decision as is the decision to continue a pregnancy. But the conversation is being led by Focus on the Family and its quarterback ambassador. It’s a high-profile example of the savvy way the antiabortion movement has tailored its message.

Tebow is not the first football star to look into a camera and talk about birth, life and choices. In 1989, Wellington Mara, then the co-owner of the New York Giants, helped produce a nine-minute video featuring members of his 1987 Super Bowl championship team. Mara was on the board of directors of the anti-abortion American Life League, and the group widely distributed the video to churches, schools and pro-life organizations. It didn’t air on broadcast television, much less on Super Bowl Sunday. But its extreme antiabortion language contrasts sharply with the warm and fuzzy — and even inspirational — message of the Tebow ad.

The 1989 video features tight end Mark Bavaro catching a touchdown pass and saying: “At the end of the game, all the Giants players left the field champions. Now with the abortion death squads allowed to run rampant through our country, I wonder how many future champions will be killed before they see the light of day.”

George Martin, an African American defensive end, compares Roe v. Wade, which said “unborn babies have no rights,” to the “shameful Dred Scott decision that said that black people have no rights.”

And Phil Simms, the star quarterback who is now the NFL game analyst for CBS and who will be part of the broadcast next Sunday, also makes an appearance. He describes picking up a newspaper the day after the ‘87 Super Bowl victory and noticing a “little item” that got much less attention than the game: a report stating that “an average of 4,400 babies are killed every day by abortion.” Simms concludes: “Suddenly, my statistics seemed very insignificant.”

All Tim Tebow wants to do next Sunday, we are told, is let the world know that he’s glad his mother had him and that he hopes other women make the same choice. Pam Tebow was indeed courageous and had the legal right to choose, a point the pro-choice movement can readily make in response to the ad.

Those opposed to legal abortions have learned a lot about reaching out to the many Americans who can’t make up their minds about the issue. Many of these people don’t want abortion to be illegal but believe that too many such procedures take place in this country. Conservative groups, such as Focus on the Family, have gotten that message. They know to save the fire and brimstone for their hardcore base; for Super Bowl Sunday, you appeal to people’s hearts with a smiling baby — or Tim Tebow and his mom. Presenting Americans with a challenge of personal sacrifice, especially if the person who has to sacrifice is a woman, is a convincing sell.

Women’s and choice groups responding to the Tebow ad should take a page from the Focus on the Family playbook. Erin Matson, the National Organization for Women’s new vice president, called the Tebow spot “hate masquerading as love.” That kind of comment may play well in the choice choir, but to others, it makes no sense, at best; at worst, it’s seen as the kind of stridency that reinforces the view that pro-choice simply means pro-abortion.

We have seen a dramatic shift in attitudes toward “pro-life” and “pro-choice.” In 1995 Gallup asked respondents for the first time whether they considered themselves “to be pro-choice or pro-life.” Only 33 percent took on the pro-life label. In 2009, 51 percent considered themselves pro-life, and pro-choice had dropped from a high of 56 percent to 44 percent.

Neither movement can take full credit or blame for the change. Science played a big role, making the fetus more visible. Today, the first picture in most baby books is the 12-week 3D ultrasound, and Grandma and Grandpa have that photo posted on the fridge. We read about successful fetal surgery; we don’t read about women dying in pools of blood on their bathroom floors after botched abortions, as we did when the procedure was illegal.

Congress has also weighed in. The “partial birth” abortion ban was introduced in 1995, shifting attention from the choice movement’s effective “who decides” message — which became the key question after the Supreme Court’s 1989 Webster v. Reproductive Health Services decision — to what the Catholic bishops had always wanted America to ask: “What is being decided?” From that point forward, abortions in the second half of pregnancy and graphic descriptions of how they are performed dominated coverage of the issue.

Such influences notwithstanding, there is no doubt that some segments of the antiabortion movement were more nimble and consistent in reaching out to the uncommitted than the choice advocates were. In the spring of 1992, the Arthur S. DeMoss Foundation began a multimillion-dollar ad campaign with a “do the right thing” message — similar to that in the Tebow spot. For five years, its “Life, What a Beautiful Choice” ads saturated media markets where public opinion on abortion was deeply divided.

NARAL Pro-Choice America followed with its “Choice for America” campaign, using symbols of freedom such as the U.S. flag to frame choice as a quintessential American value. “What’s life without choice?” the ads asked. Tracking polls in the states where the spots aired showed an increase in identification with abortion rights, but donor support lagged, and the ads ended up on the shelf.

On the other side, though, the innovation continued. Groups such as Feminists for Life started out relatively small but invested heavily in reaching out to college students, talking not about making abortion illegal but about helping college women keep their babies. Their pro-life message wasn’t exclusively anti-abortion; it was anti-capital-punishment, antiwar, for saving the whales, for not eating meat and for supporting mothers. It wasn’t the mainstream of the antiabortion movement, but it had its appeal.

Today, all sorts of well-educated and progressive people are comfortable calling themselves pro-life. In the public eye, the term seems to encompass a broader and more moderate vision, not focused solely on what it opposes. That vision has suffered the occasional blow: Most recently, a man on the antiabortion fringe was convicted Friday of the murder, at a Kansas church, of George Tiller, a doctor who performed abortions. But the Scott Roeders of the world are not adding to the movement’s base. The Super Bowl approach is doing that.

So here’s our Super Bowl strategy for the choice movement. We’d go with a 30-second spot, too. The camera focuses on one woman after another, posed in the situations of daily life: rushing out the door in the morning for work, flipping through a magazine, washing dishes, teaching a class of sixth-graders, wheeling a baby stroller. Each woman looks calmly into the camera and describes her different and successful choice: having a baby and giving it up for adoption, having an abortion, having a baby and raising it lovingly. Each one being clear that making choices isn’t easy, but that life without tough choices doesn’t exist.

Sarah Palin’s Tea Party Dinner Disaster!

White Rabbit — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 22:06:23 +0000

Unsold tickets, activists demanding refunds—will Palin wind up addressing a half-empty room at the Tea Party convention?

Sarah Palin Wonder Douchbag

Will Sarah Palin’s Tea Party dinner be a bust?

Tea Party Nation founder Judson Phillips likely assumed that scoring a dinner speech by the former Alaska governor and GOP vice presidential candidate would guarantee a huge turnout for his National Tea Party Convention, scheduled to start Feb. 4 at Nashville’s Gaylord Opryland Hotel. But according to Tea Party insiders, the tickets for the Palin banquet aren’t selling—and some conservative activists who have already paid to attend are now demanding refunds. With the controversial event shaping up to be a potential flop, some Tea Partiers are urging Palin to cancel her speech to avoid a humiliating public relations disaster.

The problems began after news broke that Phillips intended to profit from the convention—which costs $549 a person for access to both the conference and Palin’s banquet, or $349 for a ticket to the dinner alone. With one prominent conservative blogger charging that the event seemed “scammy,” several key sponsors yanked their support, including the National Precinct Alliance, the American Liberty Alliance, American Majority, and the Federation for American Immigration Reform. As the rash of bad press continued, this week Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), announced that she’s considering pulling out as a convention speaker. And some Tea Party activists think Palin should join her. According to internal convention planning documents obtained by Mother Jones, Palin will be paid $115,000 to address the attendees—as they dine on steak or lobster. To some Tea Partiers, this lavish affair sounds suspiciously like an exclusive GOP fundraiser and a betrayal of their grassroots movement. (In mid-January, Palin told Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly that she will not profit from her appearance at the convention, suggesting she would donate her speaking fee to Republican candidates. But she has not provided any details on that, and a Palin spokesperson did not respond to requests for clarification.)

Phillips has bragged publicly that the tickets covering both the convention and the speech have sold out. Yet Tea Party insiders say that’s not the whole story. Anthony Shreeve is an activist in Dandridge, Tenn. who quit the convention organizing committee over the expensive ticket prices. He says he has it on good authority that most of the approximately 500 speech-only tickets have not been sold. Shreeve adds that Phillips “isn’t going to sell any more,” and says other would-be attendees have been demanding—and receiving—refunds. Late on Tuesday afternoon, I tested his claim by attempting to buy 10 tickets to the dinner. If I’d been prepared to shell out $3,587.10, that would apparently have been no problem. “I really hope that Sarah Palin doesn’t come to this event because it’s going to be really embarrassing for her to walk into a half-empty room,” says Shreeve.

According to the internal Tea Party Nation documents, organizers were depending on Palin’s speech to lure a much larger crowd to the banquet in order to turn a profit. Based on cost estimates used by the organizers in the planning documents, if 1,100 people attend the banquet (600 of whom would also attend the convention), the event would cost the organizers about $401,200, including Palin’s $115,000 speaking fee. If all the tickets are sold—both the $549 all-access tickets and the $349 dinner-only tickets—Phillips’ group would net about $102,700. But if few of the banquet-only tickets are sold, the organizers are likely to end up seriously in the hole, depending on how much the group had to pay in advance to the hotel, which is charging $120 per person for the dinner. Shreeve observes, “It wouldn’t surprise me if [Phillips] ends up filing for bankruptcy the day after.” Tami Kilmarx, a nurse in Nashville who also resigned from the Tea Party Nation convention planning committee after falling out with Phillips, believes the convention may ultimately “completely disintegrate.” She says that Phillips has been urged to give away remaining tickets to Palin’s speech to head off the embarrassment of having the former vice presidential candidate speaking to a half-empty room.

Given all the negative publicity, Shreeve is surprised Palin hasn’t pulled out already. “In her contract she is allowed to send a representative if she can’t make it if she’s sick or something. Maybe she’ll come down with the flu,” he says with a laugh. He adds that Tea Partiers have written her letters pleading with her not to come because they believe that reports of a glitzy, high-priced dinner would hurt the real Tea Party movement, which prides itself on its thrifty, grassroots image. Meanwhile, Kilmarx reports that Nashville activists have contacted the Washington Speakers Bureau, which represents Palin, with concerns. And she says Tea Party activists in Tennessee have been trying to reach Palin through the media to let her know that Tea Party Nation does not represent the majority of Tea Party groups in the state. (Of the 42 Tennessee Tea Party groups, only one is officially supporting the convention.)

Robin Stublen, a Florida tea party leader who has been loudly denouncing Tea Party profiteers, believes that Palin “should not only pull out but pull out quickly.” He says the same about Blackburn and Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), who is also scheduled to be a convention participant. Stublen says he thinks all of these politicians were “duped” into speaking at the for-profit event, adding that several hundred people have contacted him and urged him to call on Palin to stay away from the convention.

Phillips didn’t return a call for comment. But so far, Palin’s speech seems to be going ahead as planned.

And not all the critics are convinced that she should cancel. For all her qualms about the convention, Kilmarx isn’t rooting for Palin to back out. She says she trusts Palin’s judgment, and that too many unsuspecting people have paid large sums to attend. “I would not want to have any of the good people who have forked over good money to see her get hurt. It’s a sorry state of affairs,” she says. But Stublen isn’t so charitable. “It is up to us as individuals to be an informed public. Maybe this will teach people that anytime somebody uses the name ‘Tea Party’ to check them out before giving them money.”

Bill Hemrick might be inclined to agree. He is the Nashville businessman who loaned Phillips the initial $50,000 to pay Palin’s speaking fee, unaware that the event was designed to net Phillips a profit. “I wish I had known. I just thought the Tea Party movement was nonprofit. That’s my own stupid fault,” he tells Mother Jones. Hemrick has since gotten his money back, but like many of the event’s original enthusiasts, he has fallen out with its organizers, who have asked him not to attend Palin’s speech. Nonetheless, Hemrick thinks it would be tragic if Palin failed to show up. “If she pulled out it would do more detriment to the Tea Party movement than to any one person,” he says. “I sincerely hope that it’s a good deal for those people.”

White Rabbit Cult

Rep. Dennis Kucinich SELL OUT… Switches Health Care Vote

Related articles by Zemanta

Related posts

Meg Stapleton and the Filthy Lies of Sarah Palin

Related articles by Zemanta

Related posts

BREAKING NEWS: STEVE JOBS DEAD DUE TO WINDOWS CRASH

Related articles by Zemanta

Related posts

Michelle Obama To Huckabee… Dont Eat So Much You Pig!

Related articles by Zemanta

Related posts

The Nation: Who’s Afraid Of A Palin Presidency?

Related articles by Zemanta

Related posts

Seth MacFarlane For President! Battle Of Fox Hollywood vs Fox News!

Related articles by Zemanta

Related posts

Obama’s Approval Ratings Continue To Drop

Related articles by White Rabbit Cult

Related posts

Bill Clinton, Thank You Medicine! Not Heath Care Reform

Related posts

Sarah Palin, The Comic Book

Related posts

Captain America vs. The Tea Party!

Related posts

Happy Birthday Sarah Palin…Polls Say You Suck!

Related posts

Why Do Liberals HATE Sarah Palin?

Related posts

Sarah Palin Gives Hand Job To Tea Party Movement

Related posts

RETARDS: What Teabagger Signs Say Vs. What They Mean

1. White Slavery

2. Obama is Hitler #1

3. Obama is Hitler #2

4. SODOMY!

Related posts

Rush Limbaugh Is a Big, Fat Exception!

Related posts

Sarah Palin, Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, and Michelle Obama Super Bowl 2010 All-Star Cheerleader Squad

Related posts

Levi Johnston, Bristol Palin’s Baby Daddy, Gets Naked For Sexy Playgirl Cover

Related posts

White House Says Rahm Apologized For Saying “Fucking Retarded”

Related posts

FUCK TIM TEBOW AND HIS BULLSHIT SUPERBOWL AD (CBS Too)!

Related posts

Sarah Palin’s Tea Party Dinner Disaster!

Unsold tickets, activists demanding refunds—will Palin wind up addressing a half-empty room at the Tea Party convention?

Related posts