‘General Hospital’s Nancy Lee Grahn calls Sarah Palin dangerous but loves shoes

From Examiner.com:  ‘General Hospital’s Nancy Lee Grahn calls Sarah Palin dangerous but loves shoes

Nancy Lee Grahn is known to be outspoken, especially on the political scene. She has also made it known that she gets all riled up about Sarah Palin and her conservative views. In an interview with TV Guide’s Michael Logan posted on Oct, 29, 2012, the “General Hospital” star was pretty tough on how she feels about the former Vice Presidential candidate.

Grahn has been supporting her on-screen daughter, Kelly Monaco during her time on “Dancing with the Stars.” Logan asked her how it was to sit in the same studio as Palin during the dance competition while Bristol Palin was still in it. She called it a true test, especially when the two were seated closer to each other every week.
The 54-year-old actress said that she doesn’t like what Palin stands for. “I think she's a very divisive and dangerous person. The fact that she actually thought she was qualified to run for vice president — that she had the self-serving gumption to put our nation at risk that way — is something I still find unforgivable,” Grahn said. Ouch! But she did have something nice to say about the former Governor of Alaska. She loves her shoes! Grahn said that she was quite envious of the fabulous shoes Palin wore to the “Dancing with the Stars” studio. At least they can agree on something.

Cute shoes seem to the only thing these two ladies can agree on. They are on opposite sides of the political fence with Grahn clearly supporting Obama and Palin in the Romney camp. The soap star has been tweeting up a storm on her Twitter account as she makes no bones about her feelings on women’s issues. She makes extremely strong statements such as, “Any mother who votes for Romney is voting against my daughter, and I take that very personally. Not sure I can forgive that. #truth,” which was posted on her Twitter on Oct. 25.

Does this mean that Nancy Lee Grahn would never forgive her “General Hospital” fans for voting against her own views? This talented actress has many fans out there that love her but may not share the same views as she does. Hopefully all can be forgiven between the major soap star and her "GH" fans.

How do you feel about Grahn's statements about Sarah Palin?

 

Sarah Palin defends ‘shuck and jive’

From the Politico:  Sarah Palin defends ‘shuck and jive’

Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin is blasting critics who considered her use of the phrase “shuck and jive” about President Barack Obama to racially inflammatory.
“I would have used the exact same expression if I had been writing about President Carter, whose foreign policy rivaled Obama’s in its ineptitude, or about the Nixon administration, which was also famously rocked by a cover-up,” Palin wrote on Facebook on Wednesday night.

Palin said that Chris Matthews, White House Press Secretary and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo had all also used the phrase previously.

“I’ve been known to use the phrase most often when chastising my daughter Piper to stop procrastinating and do her homework. As she is part Yup’ik Eskimo, I’m not sure if this term would be deemed offensive when it’s directed at her or if it would be considered benign as in the case of Chris Matthews’ use of it in reference to Rachel Maddow,” Palin wrote. “Just to be careful, from now on I’ll avoid using it with Piper, and I would appreciate it if the media refrained from using words and phrases like igloo, Eskimo Pie, and “when hell freezes over,” as they might be considered offensive by my extended Alaska Native family.”

Todd Palin’s grandmother was half Yup’ik Eskimo.

Earlier Wednesday, the 2008 vice presidential candidate wrote: “Why the lies? Why the cover up? Why the dissembling about the cause of the murder of our ambassador on the anniversary of the worst terrorist attacks on American soil? We deserve answers to this. President Obama’s shuck and jive shtick with these Benghazi lies must end,”

Palin joined other conservatives who have slammed the Obama administration’s handling of the attacks at U.S. posts overseas, saying the administration blamed the attacks on an anti-Islam video trailer instead of terrorism. Tuesday, Reuters reported that members of the Obama administration and State Department officials knew two hours after the attacks that an Islamic militant group took credit for the attack.

CNN contributor Roland Martin said in 2008 after the phrase was used by then-New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo that it was a “negative assessment” of African-Americans, writing: “’Shucking and jiving’ have long been words used as a negative assessment of African Americans, along the lines of a ‘foot shufflin’ Negro.’ In fact, I don’t recall ever hearing the phrase used in reference to anyone white.”

According to Urban Dictionary: “To shuck and jive originally referred to the intentionally misleading words and actions that African-Americans would employ in order to deceive racist Euro-Americans in power, both during the period of slavery and afterwards. The expression was documented as being in wide usage in the 1920s, but may have originated much earlier.”



White House press secretary Carney used the term during a Sept. 7, 2011, press briefing after he brought out the wrong notebook, Real Clear Politics reported. “Sorry, I’m going to shuck and jive,” Carney said. “Time to shuck and jive.”

Sarah Palin, faux populist

From Illinois Times:  Sarah Palin, faux populist

"Perfect populist pitch," beamed CBS analyst Jeff Greenfield right after Sarah Palin's big speech at the GOP fawnfest in St. Paul, Minn. "She's a populist," echoed Karl Rove over at Fox TV.
Excuse me? Palin is to populism what near beer is to beer, only not as close.
You want a taste of the real thing? Try this from another woman who hailed from a small town and was renowned for her political oratory:
"Wall Street owns the country. It is no longer a government of the people, by the people and for the people, but a government of Wall Street, by Wall Street and for Wall Street. ...Our laws are the output of a system which clothes rascals in robes and honesty in rags. ...The people are at bay, let the bloodhounds of money who have dogged us thus far beware."
That, my media friends, is populism! It comes from Mary Ellen Lease's speech to the national convention of the Populist Party in 1890. Lease spoke all across the land, rallying a fast-spreading grass-roots revolt against the corporate predators of her day. "Raise less corn and more hell," she urged farmers.
Populists don't support opening our national parks and coastlines to allow the ExxonMobils to take publicly owned oil and sell it to China. Palin does. Populists don't hire corporate lobbyists to deliver a boatload of earmarked federal funds, then turn around and claim to be a heroic opponent of earmarks. Palin did. Populists don't favor giving yet another huge tax break to corporations. Palin does.
Another thing populists don't do is sneer at community organizers, as Palin did. Indeed, populists of old were community organizers, as are today's, helping empower ordinary folks who are besieged by the avarice and arrogance of many of the corporations backing Palin. Working for such needs as clean elections, environmental justice and fair wages, community organizers embody the vitality of modern populism, doing the essential grunt-level work of democracy. What gives Palin any legitimacy to denigrate that?

 

Jon Stewart Skewers Fox News VP Debate Response, Tells Sarah Palin 'Settle Down Eskimo Annie Oakley'

There's video of this, but you'll have to go to the link via a computer to see it.

But... an "eskimo annie oakley?"  Isn't that racist toward First Nation people, since Palin isn't an eskimo and they don't even like to be called that - they're Inuit?

From HuffPost:  Jon Stewart Skewers Fox News VP Debate Response, Tells Sarah Palin 'Settle Down Eskimo Annie Oakley'

When "the ghost of Barack Obama" showed up at the first presidential debate, supporters and pundits alike acknowledged the failure. Chris Matthews and the rest of MSNBC were visibly disturbed by the president's weak showing, speculating at length on what went wrong. So when Joe Biden wiped the floor with Paul Ryan in the VP debate, it was Fox News' turn to admit their guy's failure, right? Nope.
As Jon Stewart outlined on Monday night's "Daily Show," the fair and balanced (between right and far-right) network went out of its way to decry the Vice President as a crazy, drunk, mean-spirited coot. Or as Sarah Palin put it, a musk ox or something.

 

“The difference between Sarah Palin and Paul Ryan? Lipstick”

From American Blog:  “The difference between Sarah Palin and Paul Ryan? Lipstick”

Paul Ryan came to Congress about the time Newt Gingrich left.
But while Ryan was a few Congress’ late for the infamous Class of 94, to this day he still reeks of the same arrogance, elitism and entitlement that initially was the hallmark of House Republicans, then polluted the Senate, and now infects the GOP nationwide.
Paul Ryan is more than a Gingrich Republican, he’s a Fox Republican.  He’s part of the new generation of liars.  The Sean Hannity pretty-boys who pretend to play the everyman by putting lipstick on extremism.
Charles Pierce writes in Esquire about Paul Ryan’s debate performance last night. It’s masterful writing.  Here’s an excerpt.

There is a deeply held Beltway myth of Paul Ryan, Man of Big Ideas, and it dies hard. But, if there is a just god in the universe, on Thursday night, it died a bloody death, was hurled into a pit, doused with quicklime, buried without ceremony, and the ground above it salted andstrewn with garlic so that it never rises again. On foreign policy, Ryan occasionally rose, gasping, to the level of obvious neophyte. (He was more lost in Afghanistan than the Russian army ever was.) On domestic policy, his alleged wheelhouse, he was vague, untruthful, and he walked right into a haymaker he should have seen coming from a mile off, when he started bloviating about Biden’s role in the “failed” stimulus program, only to have Biden slap him around with Ryan’s own requests for stimulus money for his home district back in Wisconsin. He also made it quite clear that a Romney-Ryan White House will do everything it can to eliminate a woman’s right to choose. This should make for some fine television commercials over the next few weeks.

He stammered. He vanished into his syntax. He gave Biden the chance to ask him if he preferred that American soldiers carry the fighting in the worst parts of the country rather than Afghan troops, a devastating comeback for which Ryan had no answer. He kept rambling about maintaining the country’s “credibility” until, if you closed your eyes, he started to sound like Robert McNamara in 1965. And when Raddatz asked him, deftly, what would be worse, another war in the Middle East or Iran with a nuclear bomb, he leaped in precipitously with the latter, while about 75 percent of the country, including the two other people on stage with him, looked at Ryan as though he’d lost his mind. He did, however, demonstrate a certain talent for pronouncing long foreign words that his briefers had taught him on Tuesday. Also, he explained winter.
For years, Paul Ryan has been the shining champion of some really terrible ideas, and of a dystopian vision of the political commonwealth in which the poor starve and the elderly die ghastly, impoverished deaths, while all the essential elements of a permanent American oligarchy were put in place. This has garnered him loving notices from a lot of people who should have known better. The ideas he could explain were bad enough, but the profound ignorance he displayed on Thursday night on a number of important questions, including when and where the United States might wind up going to war next, and his blithe dismissal of any demand that he be specific about where he and his running mate are planning to take the country generally, was so positively terrifying that it calls into question Romney’s judgment for putting this unqualified greenhorn on the ticket at all. Joe Biden laughed at him? Of course, he did. The only other option was to hand him a participation ribbon and take him to Burger King for lunch.
You know what’s the difference between Sarah Palin and Paul Ryan?
Lipstick.

 

Sarah Palin revealed by dad, brother in “Our Sarah: Made in Alaska” memoir

From Washington Post:  Sarah Palin revealed by dad, brother in “Our Sarah: Made in Alaska” memoir

Just in time for Thursday’s vice-presidential debate: “Our Sarah: Made in Alaska” a new book by Sarah Palin’s father and brother. Will we ever get enough of our lady of Wasilla? Apparently not.
Chuck Heath Senior and Junior penned a family memoir about the future conservative heroine who, in this telling, never did anything wrong — and anyone who says she did is mistaken. A few tidbits:
• “When Sarah was born she was round and pink with a shock of black hair. Dad commented that she looked like a bulldog.”
●• She did read papers: “When she was in elementary school, Dad would bring in the newspaper and take out the sports section. . . Sarah was busy reading the front-page articles about world events.”
• Her years playing basketball revealed the future politician: “Her aggressive style of play more than made up for her lack of size and shooting ability. She simply outhustled her opponents and wore them down”
• She competed in the Miss Wasilla pageant when Geraldine Ferraro was on the ticket: “Yes, I think a woman could be vice president,” she said. “I think a woman could be president.”
• At the debate against Joe Biden, campaign aides tried to “micromanage her responses” and threw Palin off her game — the same Republican aides who later blamed her for the election loss. “All those times they mismanaged Sarah in the campaign were twisted afterward into evidence that she was indifferent, uninformed and disinterested. . . They couldn’t bear the thought of acknowledging that she had political instincts at least equal to their own.”
Palin clearly approved of this message because she wrote the forward: “Having written books of my own, I know how exhausting producing a manuscript can be. . .I hope you’ll be inspired by their stories and by the warm Alaskan spirit they reflect.”

 

 

Sarah Palin Defends Daughter Bristol Against Death Threats On 'Dancing With The Stars'

From Huffington Post:  Sarah Palin Defends Daughter Bristol Against Death Threats On 'Dancing With The Stars'

Sarah Palin is anything but "an average hockey mom," but the former vice presidential candidate is quick to go into protective-mother mode when she's defending her children.
On Monday, Palin took to her Facebook page to defend daughter Bristol after the "Dancing With The Stars: All-Stars" contestant received death threats. Palin addressed "the haters" in a Facebook message:

I’m in California today to support Bristol. I’m sorry to see that she’s again getting those annoying death threats and more “mysterious white powder” sent to her while on DWTS this All-Star season. These threats sure waste a lot of time, production and public resources; but do the haters really think this will stop Bristol and Mark and the show’s producers from keepin' on keepin' on? Silly critics -- after all these years of goofy antics like this we find these efforts are actually quite motivating! Bristol’s not letting this get her down. Anyway, tonight is a “double elimination” night, so hopefully everyone who has supported her so far will do so again! I'll be sure to post the call in number and voting instructions later today before the event. Thank you again to everyone. It means a great deal during this fun and highly competitive event, and it's sure appreciated! As Bristol shares with anyone targeted by the naysayers in life: “Hey, the haters will hate anyway; the critics will criticize, so you might as well dance!”

The death threat came in the form of a suspicious package sent to the CBS Studio set of the ABC dancing competition, The Hollywood Reporter confirmed on Monday. The package contained a white powder and a note, CBS sources told TMZ. The attached note read: "This is what will happen to you if Bristol Palin stays on [the show]." The powder was later deemed harmless.
The Hollywood Reporter notes that Bristol previously received a similar package containing white powder when she first joined "DWTS" in 2010. That particular package had been sent to the Los Angeles studio where the live show films Mondays and Tuesdays.
On Tuesday, Bristol was spared elimination despite her mediocre performance with partner Mark Ballas. She moves onto the following round next week.

 

Sarah Palin writing diet and fitness book

From Entertainment Weekly:  Sarah Palin writing diet and fitness book

Sarah Palin is writing a diet and fitness book. On Tuesday, the former vice-presidential candidate sent an e-mail to People, announcing: “Our family is writing a book on fitness and self-discipline focusing on where we get our energy and balance as we still eat our beloved homemade comfort foods!”
The Palins are known for their love of heavy foods (People writes that the family often serves their guests “chocolate cream pies, pecan pies and lemon meringue pies”), but Palin claimed she’s found an equilibrium between her pie intake and eating healthily. ”We promise you what we do works and allows a fulfilling quality of life and sustenance anyone can enjoy,” she went on to say.
There’s no word on whether Palin has secured a deal for this book or when it will be published. Still, let’s assume it eventually makes its way onto shelves — will you be buying a copy?

 

Sarah Palin: 'I Almost Felt Sorry For' Obama During Presidential Debate

From HuffPost:  Sarah Palin: 'I Almost Felt Sorry For' Obama During Presidential Debate

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) was quick to declare GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney the winner of Wednesday's presidential debate in Denver. She also feigned a little sympathy for President Barack Obama, who she said performed poorly throughout the first of three head-to-head encounters.
“It was a struggle to watch some parts of this, as you considered President Obama with his lack of enthusiasm for his own policies and his lack of conviction in trying to articulate why is it he believes that government will make you healthy, wealthy and wise and happy when the vast majority of Americans know that government isn’t the answer," Palin said in an interview on Fox Business Network. "I almost felt sorry for him in his role as president trying to explain why we need to repeat four more years of failed policies. I thought this was Romney’s night. Romney did very well and he was able to articulate well why it is that someone with great business experience is what we need to turn this economy around.”
The early reviews from voters and pundits suggested that many agreed with Palin's general contention that Romney had won the debate.
Palin also offered a little insight on her own experience with the debate circuit in 2008, when she faced off against Joe Biden.
“You know, I had no idea four years ago what was going on behind the scenes or in headquarters," she admitted. "In fact, we used to have a running joke, the JV squad, those of us on the vice presidential side of the ticket. We used to talk about where is this mysterious headquarters and what are they doing to this campaign. So I didn’t know back then how it worked, I still don’t know this inside baseball stuff.”
Inside baseball knowledge or not, Palin has offered advice to the Romney and his running mate, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), in the past, urging them to "go rogue" and tell "the American people the true state of our economy and national security." In her interview Wednesday, she argued that Romney didn't fully succeed in doing this. Palin said both candidates failed to adequately articulate "the gravity of the situation," but that Romney had emerged the clear victor anyways.

 

Palins yet to claim Exxon Valdez oil spill compensation money

From Reutrers:   Palins yet to claim Exxon Valdez oil spill compensation money


Oct 2 (Reuters) - Former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin is not shy about voicing her opinions to national audiences, headlining big-ticket political events and exposing her family and personal life on reality TV.
But so far the former Alaska governor and her husband Todd Palin have not come forward to claim their share of a settlement fund established for victims of the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill.
The pair was among the nearly 1,000 plaintiffs who have not claimed their payouts on a list released last week by managers of the settlement fund.
Some on the list are dead. Some are missing. But some, said the attorney managing the payouts, are simply lacking paperwork needed to process their payments.
The latter could include the famous as well as the obscure, said Lynn Sarko, the Seattle attorney administering the Exxon Qualified Settlement Fund.
"If Barack Obama were on the list, I know where he is, but I don't necessarily have all of his paperwork," Sarko said on Monday.
Sarko said he was not permitted to give specific information about the Palins' claims but he confirmed that most people were generally owed hundreds of dollars.
As the reality TV show "Sarah Palin's Alaska" documented, the Palins fish commercially in southwestern Alaska's Bristol Bay, far from the Prince William Sound and Gulf of Alaska sites fouled with oil.
Such fishermen are members of the "unoiled fisheries" classes and are entitled to shares of spill funds, based on a finding that fears of oil tainting had depressed Alaska salmon prices in general, Sarko said.
"There was a tremendous price drop, especially in southeast Alaska," he said, adding that of the $1 billion settlement Exxon paid to private plaintiffs in compensation, punitive fines and interest, only about $1 million is left to be doled out.
An Alaska-based lawyer who represents the Palins in other matters, John Tiemessen, said he was not involved in the case and did not know the status of the claims.
Any remaining unclaimed payments will eventually revert to the plaintiffs' last known home states and be put into government unclaimed-asset funds, he said.