Make Sarah Palin Stop! Never-ending Self-Promotion Continues With Her Very Own "News" Channel!

This channel will be the gift that keeps on giving for comedians and late night talk shows. Sarah can't help herself. As a democrat allow me to say this is some of the best news I've had in months. Palin still hasn't figured out that she peaked as mayor of Wasilla. She actually believes she has something significant to contribute to the political and cultural dialogue which is what makes her entertaining. What fun! - YouTube comment.

If you want to see the queen of self-promotion go at it again, it will cost you: Sarah Palin has announced the production of an online "news" program called Sarahpalinchannel.com. For $9.99 a month (or $99 a year), you will be able to get the news Palin's way, along with a healthy helping of Palin-style reality TV. You will see more flag-waving, more hand-shaking, more winks, more Tea Party screamers, more Obama-haters, hear more clicks, and more vapid political "thoughts". More PALIN! EVERYTHING PALIN! There will not be one digital frame without Palin!! Your laptop, tablet or phone will be oozing Sarah Palin!

In an attempt to piggy-back on her demand that we "impeach Obama", Sarah Palin has done what was expected of her: steamrolled into a new, uncharted (for her) adventure. The channel's promo piece (see below) promises to "go rogue", and keep people guessing as to her Presidential ambitions. Like her bus tour (what was it for again?), it will keep Palinmania alive...

...while the rest of the country screams "ENOUGH ALREADY!"

PPSD

That's Post Palinmania Stress Disorder and the latest poll shows it afflicts more than half of America:

The NBC/Wall Street Journal/Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania survey indicates that 54% of voters say they've heard enough from Palin and would prefer that the former Alaska governor and 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate be less outspoken in political discourse. That includes nearly two-thirds of Democrats, a majority of independents, and nearly four in 10 Republicans.

That's right folks, even Republicans have had enough: their very own "gosh darn" darling has worn their patience with her incessant mugging and putting in her two cents worth (now reduced to half a penny). FOX News seems to keep her on tap due to a kindness that borders on pity. Yes, they have to pander to old Tea Partiers, but what price pandering to a group that became famous for its misspelled signs? The party is dying out so fast that even Palin has suggested starting one of her (very, very) own. *

But Seriously ...

There will be no "but seriously ..." until people stop laughing.

- Whats next "smoking crack with Rob Ford" channel?- I might watch it. As a part-time EMT, I always make sure to attend the scene of a bad accident.- What in the heck is a "media filter"???? You mean actual thought?- Only in America could the most ill informed individual on the planet get a news channel.- Alternative TV channel works for her bc it matches the alternate reality that she lives in. - She'll say something stupid....others will comment on it....she'll say she is being picked on....then she'll quit.

Yet there is a serious side to this part of the Palin saga: Sarah Palin is taking it seriously.

The best way to prove how viable your views are is to make the public pay for them. Andrew Sullivan has done it successfully, because his followers pay for his intelligent (sometimes conservative) take on national and world affairs. Palin is banking on viability, not liability. She honestly thinks her take on America and it's political landscape is worth something to people. Maybe it is, but after the laughter takes its toll, her subscribers may be a bit embarrassed: "watching Palin" may not be a badge of Tea Party (or any other party) honor.

So when will all the self-promotion stop? Probably when Palin's last grandchild has been voted out of Dancing With The Stars. It's tough to halt someone so hellbent on staying in the limelight. Until then, let the SNL sketches go on!

Hurry, Tina Fey, what's takin' ya so long?




*Taking a tip from comedienne Gracie Allen's own Presidential run, she might name it The Surprise Party. 

Stupidity Has Its Loyalty: Cavuto Goes Rogue And Pays The Price

"Now some of you say you will never, ever watch me again for the way I treated a congresswoman who I otherwise very much respect. Well, then I respectfully bid you adieu because if you prefer only hearing the interviews that suit you than let me say good-bye to you now because the time's going to come again when I will probably offend you."  - Neil Cavuto of FOX News 

Michele Bachmann was, in part, created by FOX News and its supportive pundits. What FOX News anchor Neil Cavuto did last week was to remove his support for a creation he "respected" but still termed silly. What he found out almost instantly was that no one at FOX can question - let alone deride - someone like Bachmann, no matter how insipid a political stance she has.

TPM:

The negative feedback was swift and harsh. At the end of that day's broadcast, Cavuto said a "record number of emails" had arrived.
"They go pretty much like this," he said. "'Cavuto, you're a rude ass. If I were Michele Bachmann, I'd have a law against you.' Someone else said, 'Who do you think you are? [Bill] O'Reilly? You're an idiot. Quit blabbering, start thinking.'"

Bachmann Cavuto Overdrive

Even for FOX News, the exchange was testy, with Bachmann (as is always her want), repeating points endlessly, thinking that emphasis would pass for reason. But Cavuto hammered away at his original premise, that the "lawsuit" against Obama spurred on by the Republican party was totally frivolous and a needless waste of time, energy and taxpayer money. Cavuto was anchored in the here and now, while Bachmann was off in Anti-Obama Neverland. The Young Turks (see below) saw Bachmann as a robotic Frankenstein monster unleashed, with Cavuto trying desperately to restrain it, but in the end just saying "you're silly."

Now, calling a monster "silly" may seem silly in itself, especially when FOX viewers have a fondness for Bachmann's brand of "silly." It seemed to many that Cavuto was cutting off his FOX-paid nose to spite his face. But what Cavuto may have done was bring a breath of reality to FOX that was very, very unwelcome: FOX's coverage and support of Republicans on this issue was "silly." FOX's support of Republican agendas was not always right. OMG! FOX News, the ratings king, might be IN ERROR! Cavuto was being blasphemous and apostate!

In retrospect, it's amazing that the emails did not contain death threats.

Tipping Over The Tower Of Misinformation

It has long been understood that ideological news and straight news are two different species, and with FOX News the ideology of the Right is so paramount as to give its sub-banner "Fair and Balanced" a tongue-in-cheek aspect. Hosts like Glenn Beck (formerly at FOX), Sean Hannity and Mike Huckabee who depend upon the "opinions" of Sarah Palin and Ann Coulter veer so much to the right, that even treatment of the national and international political scenes is non-existent: at times it just seems like an Obama bash-fest. But the ideological news of FOX also serves another purpose: it keeps the misinformed public misinformed. In a real sense, Neil Cavuto was also challenging FOX the Misinformer, telling viewers to get past the irrelevance of the Republican (FOX News) Party's actions and "move on" to fix things.

The Price Of Going Rogue

As The Young Turks put it after viewing the heated exchange: "Is this FOX News?" FOX has certainly flirted with conflict involving the Republican Party,* but Cavuto's handling of Tea Party icon Michele Bachmann as a near nitwit was certainly far from it's usual right-wing course. Will Cavuto pay the ultimate price? No. Irate emails must be constant and consistant to have any effect on viewership. Cavuto will only be sacked if it's proven that he's slipped in ratings. Or if he spars again, say, with FOX's other darling nitwit:






*Megyn Kelly once remarked to Karl Rove that his projection over the 2012 elections might just be "something you made up to make yourselves feel good."

The Irrelevance Of "Screw You": Ann Coulter Panders To Paranoia

"Screw you!" she exclaimed. "You think we don't care about the children? You're the one who won't do anything about the mentally ill."

Does Ann Coultergeist know anything about Reagan's closing of the state mental institutions in California while governor? I think not. Then again, a rant for the sake of publicity coming from her is usually groundless.

The "Screw You!" was done specifically to promote Coulter's new fill-in-the-blanks book "Mugged: Racial Demagoguery From The Seventies To Obama" on Sean Hannity's FOX program.

It's interesting to note that Amazon's listing of Coulter's book pairs it up with Greg Gutfeld's The Joy Of Hate.

Screw You! Ann Coulter!!!

That's the reaction of much of the country to Coulter's scream, since answering back the Coultergeist is a lesson infertility: her hard-as-steel ego is impervious to reason, especially if it comes from anyone slightly liberal. The biggest fault in her rant came when she said:

"The only way to enforce a universal -- the last 0.1 percent of guns that are transferred by collectors and so on is to have universal gun registration," she added. "Universal background check means universal registration, universal registration means universal confiscation, universal extermination. That is how it goes in history. Do not fall for universal background checks."
The jump from registration to confiscation is the kicker, the pandering to paranoia.

I often wonder why gun nuts and the NRA balk at registration and licensing of guns like cars: cars are more lethal than guns in this country, but at least drivers are required to have registration, pass a driver's test, get a license, get plates and have insurance. So here's where Coulter's line of reasoning falls apart: does universal car registration automatically mean universal confiscation of cars? OK. Apples and oranges, you might say, but the fact of the matter is that no one had ever even intimated that registration would be used to confiscate guns. It's never, ever been discussed in Congress. Any confiscation would be done under the aegis of a crime.

Paranoia wins out!


Anti-gun control paranoia has seldom listened to reason. Just read this short bit of prose that promises to be as profound as a rock (emphasis mine)
I don’t carry a gun to kill people.
I carry a gun to keep from being killed.
I don’t carry a gun to scare people.
I carry a gun because sometimes this world can be a scary place.
I don’t carry a gun because I’m paranoid.
I carry a gun because there are real threats in the world.
I don’t carry a gun because I’m evil.
I carry a gun because I have lived long enough to see the evil in the world.
I don’t carry a gun because I hate the government.
I carry a gun because I understand the limitations of government.
I don’t carry a gun because I’m angry.
I carry a gun so that I don’t have to spend the rest of my life hating myself for failing to be prepared.
I don’t carry a gun because I want to shoot someone.
I carry a gun because I want to die at a ripe old age in my bed, and not on a sidewalk somewhere tomorrow afternoon.
I don’t carry a gun because I’m a cowboy.
I carry a gun because, when I die and go to heaven, I want to be a cowboy.
I don’t carry a gun to make me feel like a man.
I carry a gun because men know how to take care of themselves and the ones they love.
I don’t carry a gun because I feel inadequate.
I carry a gun because unarmed and facing three armed thugs, I am inadequate.
I don’t carry a gun because I love it.
I carry a gun because I love life and the people who make it meaningful to me.
Police protection is an oxymoron.
Free citizens must protect themselves.
Police do not protect you from crime, they usually just investigate the crime after it happens and then call someone in to clean up the mess.
Personally, I carry a gun because I’m too young to die and too old to take a butt whoopin’.


"I don't carry a gun because I'm paranoid." Right.

As a man who lived in one of the worst neighborhoods riddled with gang violence for over five years, I can safely say that I never thought of carrying a gun - ever. Paranoia never took hold. It did not take hold in the apartment building where I lived (even though there were 6 homicides in front of it during those years). We made our children as safe as possible (I started an after-school program, keeping them inside and aiding their education), but never promoted the paranoia that you see today in screams coming from the likes of the Coultergeist.

Ann Coulter has been irrelevant for years. Sean Hannity has been irrelevant for years. Only people who want to hear about paranoia listen to them.

Boy Scouts May Accept Gays. Christian Right Heads Explode. News At 10.

Beware A Severe Outbreak of Pedophilia!

Shock waves are running through churches and pastors across the country are redrafting their Sunday Sermons.

The Boy Scouts of America, one of the nation’s largest private youth organizations, is actively considering an end to its decades-long policy of banning gay scouts or scout leaders, according to scouting officials and outsiders familiar with internal discussions.

If adopted by the organization’s board of directors, it would represent a profound change on an issue that has been highly controversial -- one that even went to the US Supreme Court. The new policy, now under discussion, would eliminate the ban from the national organization’s rules, leaving local sponsoring organizations free to decide for themselves whether to admit gay scouts.

It was a WTF moment with wailing, rending of garments, and gnashing of teeth never seen since Biblical times. For some, it has taken a full 24 hours for the shock to attach itself to reality, while others have been quick to respond:

American Family Association:

     "You're signing a death warrant when you say you're going to allow open homosexuals to participate in a program with young boys."

Southern Baptist Convention:

    "This decision will lead to a mass exodus of traditional, orthodox Christianity from Boy Scouts, including thousands of Catholic, Baptist and other traditional faith congregations."

Americans for Truth About Homosexuality ("Porno Pete" Peter Labarbera):

     "If you capitulate to the homosexual lobby, you're capitulating to immorality; and you're not being 'morally straight,' as the Boy Scout Creed says."

Family Research Council:

     "If the Board capitulates to the bullying of homosexual activists, the Boy Scouts' legacy of producing great leaders will become yet another casualty of moral compromise."

And while the above may represent the most homophobic of the lot on the side of the Christian Right, there are sure to be responses from the likes of:

Pat Robertson, "Bishop" Harry Jackson, Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone (San Francisco), Cardinal Timothy Doyle (New York), Former Governor Mike Huckabee, Linda Harvey (Mission America), James Dobson (Focus on the Family), Cindy Japan-is-shaped-like-a-dragon Jacobs (Prophetess), Lou Engle (Prophet), Scott Lively (instigator, Kill-the-gays bill in Uganda), Rick Joyner (went to heaven and told everyone about it), Bradlee Dean (wants gays executed, like in Iran), Michele and (oh-so-masculine husband) Marcus Bachmann, "Bishop" Eddie Long, Janet Porter (Faith2Action), fake historian David Barton, World Net Daily,

... and ALL of FOX News (with the exception of Shep Smith). 

What Prompted The Shift?

      "The move also shows the growing influence of gay-rights groups and their backers. Throughout 2012, the Scouts were lobbied by organizations that collected more than one million signatures asking it to overturn the ban. Amid the tumult, several major corporate donors pulled their support from scouting organizations."

One million signatures on a petition. The pullout of corporate donors. 

And the need for transparency? 

OpEdNews reported the cover-up in child abuse last September, a factor that may have led to the proposed revision in policy: the BSA needs more transparency than ever to regain those corporate donors.



Gay Scout Troops?

"BSA spokesman Deron Smith said "the Boy Scouts would not, under any circumstances, dictate a position to units, members, or parents. ... BSA members and parents would be able to choose a local unit which best meets the needs of their families,” the BSA told Fox News Latino in a statement."

Reaction to the news of the policy shift has been surprisingly optimistic on the local levels:

OMAHA:

• "I think we are missing out on a lot of kids who are gay that just want to have the Boy Scout experience and I don't think that's fair. As far as leaders, there are a lot more problems coming out about straight leaders who are pedophiles than any problems with gay leaders." -- Mikki Nagel, a Lincoln parent of a Boy Scout nearing Eagle Scout

It certainly seems there is plenty of "wiggle room" in the policy change: Christian Right groups can put pressure on troops locally to their heart's content and create "no gay no way" troops. Certainly states like Tennessee will not likely be known for any gay-inclusive troops (nor Texas, nor North Carolina, etc). Ditto sponsors like the Catholic Knights of Columbus, a mainstay of Catholic scouts. But many local congregations see active discrimination as another necessary evil and a chore: a blanket "no gay" policy was easier to site.

Also easier to litigate: local lawsuits are quite the possibility.

Parodies of the "gayness" of scout troops have existed for a long while (see below), but totally gay BSA units are certainly far off in the future. And another problem: how would a totally gay unit fare in national conventions and events dominated by "family oriented" Christian Right units? The Christian Right has a lot of ferocity to distribute. It just can't do it nationally anymore.

Intolerance in the BSA will still exist. After all, the Christian Right will not be far behind.