Weekly Roundup

Weekly Roundup April 24- May 1, 2010
By Blueberry Tart

1. My second week on the job began with Tyroanee’s excellent guest post and photos from the protest against Sarah Palin’s appearance in Eugene, Oregon. Special thanks for the priceless photo of the “Junk be Gone” truck, strategically placed right in front of the venue of Sarah’s speech! And a h/t to Tyroanee’s two teenagers who carried signs protesting Sarah, and to all the protesters, who brought another wonderful array of creative signs. If you missed Palingates wonderful new mascot, you must click HERE.

2. Next up was the Tennessee trial of David Kernell, the college student who was able to figure out the password to Sarah’s email account and posted it on-line. If you haven’t seen the post, it is worth a look for the courtroom sketch of Queen Sarah alone. The post questions whether Sarah Palin committed perjury in her testimony; it also proves that she lied under oath when she testified that 1) she did not conduct government business using her private email account and 2) the posting of her email accounts fueled rumors that (among other things) she was not Trig’s mother. Sarah also implied that her security question about where she met he husband was not public knowledge, although this information had been published by People Magazine and the LA Times previously. The take-home message is that Sarah is a pathological liar but there will be no legal consequences for this particular series of lies. This post elicited many, many comments. Posters like mocha clarified what the charges against Kernell meant and opined that the prosecution did not prove that the alleged crimes had actually taken place. In our inimitable way, we managed to also throw in more discussions of the pink coat photos from March 2008.

3. Regina is back to Palingates after a visit from her sister – welcome! The open thread (featuring a great flying pig sketch) morphed into a discussion of another incisive and biting blog post about Sarah by Andrew Sullivan. He does not mince words, as usual. The post updates also brought some well-deserved attention to the fact that Palingates is leading the Best Political Blog category in the Bloggers Choice awards – yes! (C4P is leading the worst blog category…couldn’t happen to more deserving folks.) If you haven’t voted yet, please do, and spread the word!

4. All h*** broke loose when Keith Olberman mentioned Palingates in a piece about whether or not Sarah may have committed perjury in her Tennessee testimony! First, a big hand to R,P and K for their great investigative work, which is reaching more and more folks through these shout-outs in the MSM. Major league kudos! Unfortunately, KO’s guest, Dave Weigel, made rather dismissive comments on air and labeled Palingaters as “Palin haters” on his blog. Weigel followed this with more dismissive statements about Palingates on his blog, leading to many, many comments on both Palingates and his own blog.

5. Regina then offered us some perspective and calming words on the life and times of the progressive blogger, reminding us all that she’s in it for the truth, not the glory and certainly not the money! I think that, amidst all the hoopla, the past few days made clear how important Palingates has become to many of its followers, almost all of whom have been very, very supportive of the great work by the Palingates bloggers and the community that this has become.

6. Regina’s next post was on the price Sarah’s children pay for her celebrity. It covered the mixed messages about Sarah’s travels with and without her children. Regina astutely noted that Sarah and her staff tried to find ways to claim that her children were on official government business…or was it that it would be unfair to Sarah and the kids for her to be away from them so much, when she was on state business? Hmm, I guess she wanted to have it both ways, and for the most part, Alaska let her. Things got a lot iffier for the kids once she ran for VP. Bristol became Sarah’s alibi for the faked pregnancy and a poster child for revirgination and hypocrisy, Willow tried to stay out of the limelight but Sarah thrust her into it by pretending that she was the subject of a poor Letterman joke, Piper was cute as she mastered the pageant wave and missed a lot of school, and Trig worked harder than most adults, day and night, mostly unclothed and unshod. It ain’t easy being a Palin child.

7. Patrick drew insightful parallels between the movie "Juno" and Sarah Palin's creative solutions in addressing a certain unwanted pregnancy in his next post. Of course, further inspiration for Sarah Palin's tale was to be found in some episodes of "Desperate Housewives," which is quite ironical, considering that our subject doesn't believe in coincidences. Palingates has not published any Babygate posts for quite a while, so the discussion on this was very lively.

8. The Heroic Media event in Austin provided the topic for the next post by Patrick, where he explored the dishonest and misleading campaigns by this anti-abortion group which is headed by "swift boater" Brian Follett. People who objected to Sarah Palin's appearance at the event organized a protest at the Austin Convention Center. The alternative event "An Evening Without Sarah Palin" was the place to be for a screechy voice-free environment. Our friend Sara Hickman was scheduled to sing "Palin' By Comparison" at this lively get-together. An excellent guest post by mxm, providing further background into the connections between Sarah Palin and some Texas organizations, featured in an update to the original post.

9. The intriguing Scientologists were the focus of the guest post by micmac. John Coale, Greta Van Susteren and others have their relationships with Sarah Pac explored... This post raises some interesting questions, and some of them were presented by nailinpalinnow in a comprehensive post from April 2009.

10. Fox News let the cat out of the bag regarding Babygate! On April 30, Fox News had an item about the e-mail breach trial in Tennesse which included the following passage: "Bristol Palin said she was distressed to find pictures of her newborn son in the public eye after he mother's e-mail was hacked." The "hacking" occurred in mid-September 2008 and Bristol gave birth to her baby in December 2008. Where did the photos of her newborn come from? The transcripts of Bristol's testimony will either confirm Fox's explosive revelation or prove that they're sloppy reporters. It remains a delicious piece of "journalism" regardless of what was really said by Bristol while under oath. It placed Babygate in the realm of the MSM and deflated some of the arguments offered by palinbots who love to describe Trig Truthers as conspiracy theorists. Up until today, Fox News have still not changed their article!

11. Palingaters need some rest every now and again. Talented guest poster Finny provided another fictional account of a moment in our Sarah's life, a very well written piece of satire. It contrasts with the deeply researched factual posts as it doesn't contain links or screenshots of documents, but remains faithful to Sarah Palin's narrative, giving us a glimpse of what might go on in that strange mind of hers...

12. Patrick closed this roundup with an audio recording of a conversation between Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin, where they lament being placed among marxists, socialists and other assorted "monsters" in the Time 100 list of influential people. Not one to miss an opportunity to go in a bit deeper, Patrick, together with Kathleen, found out what type of "Real American" Beck and Palin prefer as associates. Thankfully, Patrick included a transcript of Glenn and Sarah's little chat so delicate ears could be spared another ordeal.

(This weekly roundup was compiled by Blueberry Tart up to item 7, where I picked up and completed it, hence the different styles...)

+++

It was a very busy week, as usual. Guest posts provide some relief, but involve a fair bit of work, as links have to be checked, posts need formatting, photos added, etc.

We all have personal lives to attend to so roundups, research and formatting of the posts can be interrupted at times. We support each other by stepping in to keep the ball rolling. It's a pleasure to be part of this community and to keep up with the latest events, even when it becomes a bit crazy!

I would like to thank all who contributed their time and resources to make Palingates what it is today. We couldn't operate so efficiently without your generosity in every respect...

Now we need some rest to prepare for another week of Sarah Palin's antics. Never a dull moment in Sarahland, eh?
.