Palingates Weekly Roundup

By Blueberry Tart

Hi again, Palingaters. I’ve been out of the loop recently, and want to give my thanks and a hat-tip to Mrs. TBB for doing a wonderful job on the roundup the past two weeks. I’ve been busy for several days trying to catch up with the posts and comments, so I hope I will do them justice.

Tuesday, May 18

The roundup begins with an open thread, which might not normally be something that we would highlight in a roundup. However, this particular thread included the excellent piece, “Imagine if the Tea Party was Black,” by Tim Wise, suggesting what the reactions would be if the actions of the Teabaggers (and others who oppose the Obama Administration) were black. This is a very provocative and revealing piece in itself, so if you haven’t already read it, I hope you will take the time now. The post also included reactions to Chuck Heath’s creepy insinuations about “field dressing a donkey this fall” which elicited deserved reprobation from some Alaskans. The new flying pigs logo drew rave reviews from commenters, and here is my small plug to visit the Palingates store!


The open thread comments bear some mention as well, as they covered a wide range of subjects: Sarah Palin the anti-feminist, Republican hypocrisy, Bristol’s speaking fees (don't get me started on this subject!), SP's ghostwriter's Facebook rant on the new Arizona law, the links between Palin and Cheney, and, not to be missed, more comments on Sarah’s incredible appearance on FN in what looked like a nightgown with a black bra underneath! (Her crushed velvet coat and purple suede hooker boots now have some competition for the absolutely tackiest clothing choice ever by a non-entertainment industry person... oh, wait...)

Wednesday, May 19

Next up was a post revealing that Sarah’s speaking engagement for the Lane County Republicans in Eugene, Oregon only garnered $35,000, not the usual $100,000 plus fringe that she is said to command. There was some discussion as to whether she would offer a discounted price to speak to other groups, like the charity Rainbow Omega or the CSU engagement. The consensus was along the lines of, let’s be real here; this is Granny Grifter, who doesn’t have an altruistic cell in her body.


Thursday, May 20

Onward. A reader made an amazing find, discovering that Sarah’s cousin, JD Morgan, has a MySpace page that is (was?) open to public view. Our reader found some new photos of the election night event in Arizona, including one of Bristol with Willow and cousin Lauden. This photo elicited a fair amount of discussion on the blog about the extent of Bristol’s pregnancy and how she compared to other photos taken during the September-November period. Patrick also posted very interesting comparison photos of Bristol from 2005 and June 2007 in which she looked consistently slender, as she had at Sarah’s inauguration, for example. These photos, juxtaposed with the September 2007 photos, show how dramatically her body changed in those three months in summer 2007, adding to the preponderance of evidence that Bristol was pregnant in 2007.


Friday, May 21 (1)

Next we were treated to an extraordinary guest post by Mickey7, whose daughter’s rare and life-threatening health condition was the basis of an excellent, personal and moving critique of Sarah, who purports to be qualified to expound on health care policy, but really has no knowledge or legitimacy to comment on this incredibly important topic. This excellent post was enhanced by comments by those with specific knowledge of this subject, like ltl1 who explained how research funds to NIH are incredibly limited and are rarely available for research into rare conditions like that afflicting Mickey7’s daughter. Such first-hand knowledge and experience from our contributors makes Palingates such a rich site, and we all appreciate these gifts from the Palingates community.


Friday, May 21 (2)

The next post highlighted Sarah’s endorsement of politicians who promote racial inequality. The post and comments focus on Jan Brewer, Governor of Arizona, as well as Kentucky’s Rand Paul, candidate for U.S. Senate, who got a lot of press this week due to his interviews on NPR and later on Rachel Maddow’s show. If you did not see the interview and Rachel’s follow up the next night, please do catch them now, as they are brilliant examples to remind us that real journalism is not completely dead yet. The post and comments also highlighted Sarah’s utter confusion about who was running for what in Pennsylvania, and made note of several other interesting races, like the Vaughn Ward-Raul Labrador race in Idaho. A well-deserved h/t to ltl1 for transcribing Sarah’s gobbledegook praising Carly Fiorina in California (WTF was she saying?)


Saturday, May 22

Next up is the most recent “open thread,” which is another meaty post on Sarah’s luggage mishap in Idaho, which apparently forced last minute shopping for a (searching for appropriate adjective for inappropriate wardrobe choice) remarkable tie-dyed outfit. Perhaps the aide who bought this had seen Sarah in the negligee on Sean Hannity and tried to match her utter tackiness? This new clothing purchase offered a great opportunity to revisit Sarah’s shopping spree during the 2008 campaign. If you have not seen the videos from Newsweek’s reporter and editor, go back and take a look – they are well worth it. Reporter Katie Connolly confirms that Sarah used a wealthy donor’s credit card to buy hundreds of thousands of dollars of clothing and accessories, including $20-40K for Todd, $20-35K for the children including Gucci shoes for the girls. Money quotes: “a Wasilla Hillbilly coast-to-coast looting of Nieman-Marcus” and “one step away from stealing from the campaign.” Another video highlights Susan Eisenhower saying that if Sarah Palin is the voice of the Republicans, they “will be in the wilderness for a very long time” and talking about how the shopping spree using someone else’s money was very telling about Sarah Palin’s priorities. I had never seen these videos before, and they were well worth a look.


Sunday, May 23

On Sunday Regina looked at Cap & Trade and how little knowledge Sarah Palin has about this complex subject. (Does she have any knowledge about anything?) One thing is for certain, Sarah Palin is no friend of people or the environment, big oil dollars fire her enthusiasm and trump anything else. As an added bonus, two videos of students protesting her appearance at Denver University show that her popularity is definitely not universal. The readers vented their outrage in the comments regarding Sarah Palin's snide remarks about Rachel Maddow and the allegation that President Obama is on the BP payroll in an interview to Fox News on Sunday. It's already starting to backfire, as the GOP received a lot more in donations from big oil than candidate Obama...

Comments for this "shorter week" neared 4,000, which is par for the course. There were many valuable contributions as usual, and Palingates is going from strength to strength as a blogging community.
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