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.

 

No free-speech issue: Judge tosses lawsuit targeting Sarah Palin

From Los Angeles Times:  No free-speech issue: Judge tosses lawsuit targeting Sarah Palin

It was a case of turning lemonade into lemons -- Sarah Palin-style, contends a self-described citizen lobbyist.
Chip Thoma, a longtime Alaska activist, said the former Alaska governor ordered her staff to destroy his reputation after he complained about the large number of tour buses driving by for a peek at the governor’s mansion.
Palin, he said in a federal court lawsuit, saw an opportunity to portray herself as a victim of his traffic complaints. She directed her staff to put out the word that Thoma was not only trying to drive her out of the governor’s mansion, the lawsuit contended, but had stooped to criticizing her daughter Piper’s lemonade stand -- a dagger Thoma insists he never threw.
The former governor’s real motive, he said, was to use him to explain why she was spending so much time away from Juneau; critics had suggested she shouldn’t be collecting per diem pay for living at her home in Wasilla, Alaska.
Though Thoma cited quotes purporting to be from Palin’s own emails to back up his story, a federal judge threw out his lawsuit on Thursday, ruling that the quotes weren’t admissible, and that Thoma’s 1st Amendment rights to free speech weren’t violated.
“Thoma chose to engage on a public issue, and although Thoma believes that he was insulted in response, this does not necessarily rise to the level of a constitutional violation,” U.S. District Judge Timothy M. Burgess said in his order. “Thoma remained free to express his opinion on the traffic issue -- he simply decided not to.”
Thoma, well-known in Juneau for helping lead the campaign to impose greater regulations on the cruise ship industry, decided in 2009 — the year after Palin had shot to fame by running for vice president — to pass out fliers complaining about the tour buses driving past Palin’s official residence.
Thoma’s information on what happened next came via a book, “Blind Allegiance,” co-written by former Palin aide Frank Bailey. The book contains a large number of emails Bailey said he took with him after leaving the job, and several of them, Thoma asserts, suggest that Palin saw Thoma’s anti-bus campaign as a way to turn around the spin on her frequent travels outside of Juneau.
At first, according to court documents that quote the book, Palin was amazed that Thoma, whom she’d never met, was even raising the issue: “Really? Is this a joke? I don’t even know how to take it … except we’ll hear that somehow this is my fault that I let the neighborhood go to hell in a handbasket. Kinda funny!” she supposedly wrote.
But Thoma’s court memorandum says Bailey went on to reveal that Palin and her staff decided to “push this story to the broader media.” They added “made-up speculation” that Thoma was also protesting about Palin’s children playing outside and running lemonade stands, his lawsuit said.
“That [tour bus controversy] is a good issue for us, so … please get it out there,” Palin supposedly ordered her staff.
The staff went to work, Bailey related in his book: “We managed to have published a nasty spin on what started out as bus congestion and pollution and turn this into Sarah’s Juneau crucifixion.”
The governor’s staff is said to have provided “talking points” on the issue to a Palin-friendly blog, Conservatives4Palin, which subsequently published a post, “Juneau Resident Attempts to Close Down Piper Palin’s Lemonade Stand.”
“It seems that Mr. Thoma doesn’t enjoy the Palin children very much,” the post said. Commentators weighed in on conservative blogs, referring to Thoma as “unhinged,” “drug-addicted,” and “sick.”
Palin herself appeared to love it, according to the book’s account cited in court papers: “This is hilarious! And [Piper’s] planning this [lemonade] stand again for the next sunny day.”
She was reportedly critical of her staff for not having gone even further to push the story in the mainstream media. “See, I wanted to get out ahead of this and provide another reason why I need to get out of Juneau more often, instead, Chip got to spin the story his way. I hope we didn’t blow an opportunity,” she complained in one excerpt quoted in the lawsuit.
From a legal standpoint, the purported emails amounted to nothing.
Burgess said he couldn’t consider Bailey’s book as evidence; merely quoting from it in court papers was no more than unsubstantiated hearsay, he concluded. “Thoma provides no evidence to demonstrate that Palin made these comments concerning Thoma or directed others to do so,” the judge said.
Palin denied even knowing Thoma. When she heard about his anti-tour-bus campaign, she told the court, she concluded it was an issue for the city of Juneau to deal with, not state government.
“I recall that I was at the time receiving some criticism for being away from the state capitol in Juneau. I recall commenting that in light of Mr. Thoma’s campaign, it seemed I was also being criticized for my presence in Juneau,” Palin wrote in her affidavit filed with the court.
She said she felt Thoma’s campaign was “ill-considered,” given the money that tourism generates in Alaska, but said she never took action to silence or discredit him.
“I have never said or done anything with the intent of preventing Mr. Thoma from exercising his 1st Amendment rights,” she said.

 

Sarah Palin’s advice to Mitt Romney: 'Go rogue'

From Christian Science Monitir:  Sarah Palin’s advice to Mitt Romney: 'Go rogue'

 Mitt Romney has been getting lots of gratuitous advice from fellow Republicans and conservatives worried about what they see as a presidential campaign that’s slipping toward defeat.

As usual, Sarah Palin is the most direct and colorful. In a statement to the Weekly Standard on Saturday, she put it this way:
"With so much at stake in this election, both Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan should 'go rogue' and not hold back from telling the American people the true state of our economy and national security. They need to continue to find ways to break through the filter of the liberal media to communicate their message of reform."
 "America desperately needs to have a 'come to Jesus' moment in discussing our big dysfunctional, disconnected, and debt-ridden federal government," the former Alaska governor and 2008 vice presidential candidate told the conservative magazine.
Are you more (or less) conservative than Mitt Romney? Take our quiz!
To some Republican kibitzers, “going rogue” means unleashing Rep. Paul Ryan, Mr. Romney’s running mate and a relative youngster who seemed to bring some pizzazz to an otherwise staid ticket.
“They not only need to use [Ryan] out on the trail more effectively, they need to have more of him rub off on Mitt because I think Mitt thinks that way but he’s gotta be able to articulate that…. I think too many people are restraining him from telling [his vision],” Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker told a radio interviewer Friday.
Where’s the evidence of Romney’s so-called “bold choice” in picking Ryan? others ask.
“Even in Wisconsin, I think he’s being underused,” Charlie Sykes, the radio host who interviewed Gov. Walker, told Politico. “I guess what’s frustrating is especially now that we’re embroiled in this conversation about the makers versus the takers, where is Paul Ryan? He is eloquent, he knows the numbers, he can frame this in a very compelling way. The fact that he is not front and center on some of this is, I think, a lost opportunity.”
Even in Wisconsin – Ryan’s home state – an NBC poll shows Obama leading Romney by 5 percentage points, and that’s just part of recent polling news the Romney campaign must find troubling

As the Monitor’s Mark Trumbull reported this week, Obama leads Romney in eight out of nine swing states where the two are in tight contests: Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, Ohio, Virginia, and Wisconsin. North Carolina is the only one where Mr. Romney currently has an edge.

Unleashing Ryan may not be the answer, of course. As House Budget Committee chairman, he authored a plan that was controversial – particularly for what it portended for Medicare, the health care program for seniors. He tried to explain it at an AARP meeting this week, but was booed by many in the audience.
Apparently, that wasn’t just a one-time deal in a room full of retirees. An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll this week shows Obama leading Romney by 10 points (47-37) in dealing with Medicare.
It’s a law of all organizations – including (maybe especially) political campaigns – that when things are tough, infighting and finger-pointing will ensue. Politico’s must-read scoop last Sunday – “Inside the campaign: How Mitt Romney stumbled” – set off something similar among conservative pundits.
Weekly Standard editor William Kristol called Romney’s comments about “the 47 percent” who presumably would never vote for him because they pay no federal income taxes “stupid and arrogant.” Rush Limbaugh complained that “every Democrat under the sun's retweeting that all over the place,” that too many conservative fellow travelers who once supported Romney “have bailed on him.”
Over at the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page, columnist and former Reagan speech writer Peggy Noonan wrote, “It’s time to admit the Romney campaign is an incompetent one.”
Then she revised her estimation: “This week I called it incompetent, but only because I was being polite,” she wrote. “I really meant ‘rolling calamity.’"

 That left Chris Wallace at Fox News questioning Ms. Noonan’s “conservative bona fides.”
“Sometimes they’re New York City’s idea of conservatives,” Mr. Wallace said of Noonan and others similarly critical of the Romney campaign. Ouch. And here we thought such intramural squabbles were principally the province of Democrats.

Sarah Palin may not be thrilled as 'Game Change' wins Emmys

From Los Angeles Times, Commentary:  Sarah Palin may not be thrilled as 'Game Change' wins Emmys

Sarah Palin will likely have more complaints to lodge about the biographical drama based on her vice presidential run, but the Hollywood community rendered its verdict Sunday night with multiple Emmy awards for “Game Change.”

The HBO film won television’s top award for miniseries or movie, as well as awards for writer Danny Strong, director Jay Roach and actress Julianne Moore, who portrayed the one-time Alaska governor.

“I feel so validated because Sarah Palin gave me a big thumbs down," Moore told the audience after receiving her best actress statuette at the Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles.

Palin’s rebuttal to the TV movie has been going on for at least half a year. She has even used the film — based on a book by journalists Mark Halperin and John Heilemann — to raise money for her political action committee.

“Fight back against HBO and their liberal fiction ‘Game Change’ by donating to SarahPAC today,” says an appeal on Palin’s website. It also includes a video in which commentators offer praise for Palin and the work she did as Sen. John McCain’s 2008 running mate.

The film, on the other hand, portrays the one-time Alaska governor and reality TV star as overwhelmed by her star turn.  It shows a Palin performing at times but crumbling under pressure and becoming virtually unresponsive to the McCain operatives as the campaign started to go south.

The film received the endorsement of Steve Schmidt, the McCain campaign’s top strategist, and of Nicolle Wallace, a McCain campaign aide who was assigned to help Palin navigate her first national campaign.

The Hollywood filmmakers said they did not intend “Game Change” to be an endorsement of one party so much as they hoped it would get voters to pay closer attention to the candidates and how messages are crafted during a political race. But it was pretty clear that the television industry had no trouble accepting a portrait of Palin as dangerously out of touch.

It remains to be seen if Palin will respond to the film again, as she did when it aired on HBO last spring. Earlier in the Emmy telecast Sunday, Jimmy Kimmel asked how many in the crowd at the Nokia Theatre supported Republican nominee Mitt Romney.

After a smattering of applause, the comedian said: “See, there are 40 Republicans and the rest godless, liberal homosexuals.”

 

Sarah Palin has a question for Obama

From Politico:  Sarah Palin has a question for Obama

Sarah Palin slammed Barack Obama’s foreign policy in a Fox News interview Thursday night, directing a pointed question to the president.
“So how is that U.S. apology tour working out for ya, Mr. President?” she asked in an appearance on “Hannity.”

Palin bashed the administration over ads airing in Pakistan. The spots feature Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton distancing the United States from an anti-Muslim film made in America, a video administration officials have said played some part in sparking demonstrations across the Middle East that resulted in the death of America’s ambassador to Libya.

“Look, if our fearless leaders insist on waving the white flag like this, then they need to bring our troops home from the Middle East, no more blood, no more U.S. treasure spent, not one drop, if those in control of our troops’ lives and our tax dollars going into things like this are going to capitulate — wait, apologize, for a First Amendment right of ours, freedom of speech, that our troops are over there fighting for,” Palin told Sean Hannity. “Sean, our commander-in-chief is contradicting what we believe our troop’s mission is and that is to protect freedom.”
On Friday morning, anti-Western protests broke out across Pakistan, following attempts Thursday by rioters to access the U.S. embassy there. That capped off what The Associated Press called “nearly a week of violent rallies against the film.”

 

Sarah Palin praises new Errol Morris book

From NY Daily News:  Sarah Palin praises new Errol Morris book

One did not get the sense, from the 2008 presidential campaign, that Sarah Palin was much of a reader. Imagine our surprise, then, to find her ebullient review of Errol Morris' new book, "A Wilderness of Error: The Trials of Jeffrey MacDonald," which the former Alaska governor and vice-presidential candidate posted on the conservative website breitbart.com earlier this week.
"Wilderness" is the noted documentarian's rebuttal to Joe McGinniss' "Fatal Vision," which argued persuasively that MacDonald, a Princeton-educated Army doctor, killed his wife and two daughters on Feb. 17, 1970 in Fort Bragg, N.C. MacDonald claimed that hippies had committed the crime.
After a tortuous legal battle that, at one point, had him bantering about the case on "The Dick Cavett Show," MacDonald was found guilty in 1979 and remains in prison to this day, emphatic about his own innocence.
Palin begins her review of "Wilderness" by noting that "I don’t normally read 'true crime' books, and I’ve certainly never written a review of one." And though she effusively praises Morris' meticulously reasoned explanation of why he thinks MacDonald did not commit the crime for which he has been imprisoned, she has here a motive of her own: to take a couple of swings at McGinniss, who authored 2011's "The Rogue: Searching for the Real Sarah Palin." He researched that book by moving next door to the Palins' home in Wasilla, Ak.
McGinniss famously wrote 1983's "Fatal Vision" with MacDonald's full complicity – the two even lived together during the murder trial. Little did MacDonald suspect that McGinniss would turn against him, portraying him as an unfaithful egomaniac who may have been strung out on diet pills at the time of the murders.
Palin gleefully repeats Morris' charge that McGinniss is "a craven and sloppy journalist who confabulated, lied, and betrayed while ostensibly telling a story about a man who confabulated, lied, and betrayed.” She says that his pursuit of gossip about her own life in Alaska was "sick and vicious."
Writes Palin:

I sympathize with MacDonald and his defense team because I saw firsthand the twisted way McGinniss operates. Before he moved in right next door to spy on us, he stalked us for months, making creepy unwelcomed “visits” to our house, as he tried to manipulatively win our trust the same way he won the trust of MacDonald and his defense team – all so that he could betray us just as he betrayed them.

Among the rumors McGinniss proffered in his book on Palin is that she had a fetish for African-American men, snorted cocaine off an oil drum with her husband Todd and did not really give birth to her youngest son, Trig.
Palin concludes her review by hoping that McGinniss "will understand justice someday, in this life or the next."
Morris, meanwhile, continues his quest to have MacDonald retried. Currently, a Delaware federal judge is in the midst of hearing evidence that MacDonald maintains should earn him a new trial. He has always said that intruders resembling the Manson Family killed his wife and daughters, though material evidence for that claim has been, it must be admitted, rather scant.