Hot Air’s Top Post Of 2010: Sarah Palin Tied With Barack Obama In 2012 Presidential Polling

By Gary P Jackson

‘Tis the season for looking back and making lists. Ed Morrissey over at Hot Air, one of the leading political blogs in the country, has been posting the Top 50 stories on their blog for 2010. This is based on the amount of traffic each story generated.

The top story covered polling conducted by democrat firm Public Policy Polling [PPP] that showed Sarah Palin and Barack Obama were tied at 46 points a piece.

From Ed:

The only Palin post in the top 10 this year, this post reviewed the data from a Democratic-leaning pollster, Public Policy Polling, from July. Not only did this poll find Palin locked up with Obama, but also found that Obama trailed the other major would-be contenders from the GOP. The sample even had a +5 Democratic advantage, and still Obama couldn’t do any better in head-to-heat matchups than 46%.

Check out Hot Air’s greatest hits of 2010 here.

Although any polling two years out from an election should be taken with a huge grain of salt, it must be noted that people who think Sarah Palin can’t beat Barack Obama in 2012 will be in for a rude awakening!

Here’s a poll heavily weighted with democrats [+5] and at best, it’s a draw, and Sarah Palin hasn’t even started campaigning yet.

In case you are wondering, the number two most read story of 2010 was the one about democrat Congressman Hank Johnson, who was concerned that overpopulation in Guam might cause the tiny island to capsize! BTW, Johnson is one of the smart ones!

No other potential 2012 presidential candidates made the Top 10. Only Sarah Palin.

Introducing A New Feature: Headlines!

By Gary P Jackson

We are proud to introduce something new for all of our readers!

One of the things that has personally frustrated me for some time is the amount of interesting, and often vital news and information I read daily, that I simply don’t have enough time to write about or comment on, even though I feel the need to to just exactly that.

After thinking about this for a bit, the easiest solution is to offer up a daily posting of articles from around the nation that we find interesting, essential, or entertaining.

Current plans are to do this Monday-Friday. With each day’s initial postings being updated throughout the day, as needed. Please note this is a work in progress, and we’ll most certainly tweak things a bit as me move forward.

We’ll be placing the logo above in the upper right-hand corner of our blog where you can simply click on it, and be taken to the most current postings.

We hope our readers find this of some benefit, and encourage any input on how to make it better. We also encourage discussion and debate of any of the headlines presented.

With this in mind, here is our first installment:

The Blaze:

Shocking audio. New Black Panther Leader Reveals Collusion At New York City Meeting With Iran’s Ahmadinejad To Build An Alliance And Secure Raw Materials To Overthrow The United States Government

Gateway Pundit:

The Obama Regime Cooked The Books! 2010 Deficit Was Actually $2.1 Trillion not $1.29 Trillion

Anchorage Daily News:

Green Technology Could Destroy Sea Critters, Tidal Generators Could Disrupt Their Ability To Navigate

The Blog Prof:

Fleeced: The Upper 1% Earned 19.6% Of Total Income Before Tax, And Paid 41% Of The Individual Federal Income Tax.

“No other major country is so dependent on so few taxpayers“

American Thinker:

Peggy Noonan Is Jealous Of Sarah Palin

Thomas Sowell:

Political End Runs

New York Sun:

Sarah Palin, Scoop Artist

U.S. News & World Report:

Like Sarah Palin, Early Feminists Were Pro-Life

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Governor Palin Will Decide Her Own “Role”

By Stacy Drake

Yesterday, Ian Lazaran posted this in response to Jennifer Rubin’s most recent Washington Post, anti-Palin installment. Is it just me or does it seem like Rubin always posts these pieces directed at Governor Palin, on a Wednesday? Anyway, in Rubin’s latest she writes (emphasis mine):

[W]hen one talks to Republicans in private gatherings, on the Hill, and even in Tea Party gatherings it is rare to find anyone who labels Palin as the party’s leader or who looks to her for guidance on major issues. This is not a slur on Palin; she has an important and essential role in rallying the base, getting under Obama’s skin and debunking much of what passes for conventional wisdom.

It is laughable to think that Jennifer Rubin is spending much time at tea parties talking to the folks about who they look to for “guidance on major issues.” I’ll happily retract my last sentence if anyone has attended a Tea Party and personally witnessed Jennifer Rubin taking pulse of the people there. But for now, I’m not buying it.

Now, concerning what Republicans say in “private gatherings”… I really have no idea what the sort of Republican Rubin must spend her time with, say in their private gatherings. Most of the registered Republicans I know happen to be Palin supporters, but once again, I think Rubin is pulling her conclusions from her own vivid imagination.

Rubin’s fables are not the issue however. What she did in that paragraph was to suggest that Governor Palin is good for the party in a certain “role,” just not a leading one. This is becoming a familiar tone with some in the Republican establishment.

Last Sunday, Bill Kristol said on the Fox News Sunday Panel that:

She could play a big role supporting someone else and articulating issues – and not running this time.

It seems that the talking heads are trying to push a ‘Sarah Palin as activist, not candidate’ narrative. At least they admit that she is “important” and has the ability to “rally” Conservatives. They especially like when those rallies turn into money for the Republican party.

What these over-sized egos of the pundit class do not seem to understand is that Governor Palin is an effective leader, and not just in an activist role. They ignore her many accomplishments as an executive, and show disdain for her unconventional approach. They downplay her support with conservatives in their columns and on their panels, but they themselves are not members of the grassroots, which is where Governor Palin receives most of her support. So, how would they really known what kind of support Governor Palin truly has? Their criticism is condescending at best but it also lacks credibility, most notably when they cite Daily Kos pollsters as their “empirical evidence.”

Nobody knows if Governor Palin is running for President or not. Thankfully, it is not up to “chattering class” to declare what “role” she will play now, or in the future. Governor Palin will decide her own roll.

Cal Thomas: Sarah Palin Deserves An Apology, Death Panels Are Just The Start

Gary P Jackson

It’s not every day when one of the old line Washington columnists starts their latest off with “Sarah Palin deserves an apology”, so this in itself is pretty newsworthy!

As you know the talk of the week has been the Obama regime sneaking paid end of life counseling into the Medicare system. This deal pays doctors to counsel old folks on their options when their time is near.

Now, before I go further, I have a beef with those who continually miss-characterize what Sarah Palin was calling “death panels” when she so brilliantly coined the term. She was not talking about end of life counseling, per se, though incentivizing doctors to engage in it is troubling in itself.

It bothers me that many pundits and politicians [who SHOULD know better] consistently get it wrong!

Sarah was talking about the unelected, unaccountable, and unknown government drones who will determine whether or not anyone, not just grandma, “deserves” certain treatments. This is all based on what we already know about massive health care rationing in every nation that has a government controlled health care system, and the writings of Barack Obama’s very own Dr Mengele, Dr Ezekiel Emanuel. The brother of former White House Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel.

Dr Emanuel [Dr Death, if you prefer] penned what come to be known as the “Complete Lives System” a truly cold and disturbing document that says the life of a child, who hasn’t lived a “complete life,” meaning they have yet to contribute to society, and an older person, whose days of being productive are fewer, don’t deserve the quality of care, and range of treatments “productive” members of society do. Young, by the way means under twenty, and “old” starts in one’s 50s!

This very disturbing document makes no consideration of a young person’s future potential to “contribute” to society, or an older person’s life time of contributions. In Dr Zeke’s world, if you can’t contribute to the collective NOW, you are dead weight. One more facet of communism people often forget. The collective looks down on “useless eaters.” They take resources away from those who feed the government machine.

This is as evil of a document that has ever been written. The scenarios coming from it are a cross between one of those cheesy late sixties, early seventies sci-fi flicks were those no longer useful were dutifully marched to their death in some sort of high tech disintegration device, and the Nazi death camps.

The actual title of this horror story is “Principles for allocations for scarce medical interventions” and you should read it. To understand this, is to understand why so many millions of Americans fought so hard to keep ObamaCare from becoming law, and why most Americans want it repealed now.

The tales are too numerous to list, but one doesn’t have to search hard to find thousands of horror stories from Great Britain, and their National Health Service, which is so bad, moderately ill, but bed ridden patients have died of thirst, because there wasn’t enough staff to even look after their most basic needs. We’ve read stories of desperate patients drinking the water out of plants at their bedside, trying to hold on! [And still ultimately dying of thirst!]

The mortality rate for major ills in Great Britain are many times higher than in the United States, under our current system.This is because care is severely rationed. There is simply not enough tax dollars to go around. Never will be.

Dr. Donald Berwick who will run ObamaCare, is in love with the failed British system, and has said he has a “romantic feeling” about it! He also openly calls this health care scheme a great way to “redistribute wealth” Something Ronald Reagan warned was the REAL goal of socialized medicine, when he spoke out 50 years ago! Berwick is very much on board with Dr Zeke’s Complete Lives System as well. These are evil men.

This is not to take away from Cal Thomas’ great column, which gets to Dr Berwick in due time, but I had to get the above off my chest first, and clarify exactly what sort of evil or as Sarah called it “downright evil” she was calling “death panels.”

From Cal’s column in the Washington Examiner:

Sarah Palin deserves an apology. When she said that the new health-care law would lead to “death panels” deciding who gets life-saving treatment and who does not, she was roundly denounced and ridiculed.

Now we learn, courtesy of one of the ridiculers — the New York Times — that she was right. Under a new policy not included in the law for fear the administration’s real end-of-life game would be exposed, a rule issued by the recess-appointed Dr. Donald M. Berwick, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, calls for the government to pay doctors to advise patients on options for ending their lives.

These could include directives to forgo aggressive treatment that could extend their lives.

This rule will inevitably lead to bureaucrats deciding who is “fit” to live and who is not. The effect this might have on public opinion, which by a solid majority opposes Obamacare, is clear from an e-mail obtained by the Times. It is from Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., who sent it to people working with him on the issue.

Oregon and Washington are the only states with assisted-suicide laws, a preview of what is to come at the federal level if this new regulation is allowed to stand. Blumenauer wrote in his November e-mail:

“While we are very happy with the result, we won’t be shouting it from the rooftops because we aren’t out of the woods yet. This regulation could be modified or reversed, especially if Republican leaders try to use this small provision to perpetuate the ‘death panel’ myth.”

Ah, but it’s not a myth, and that’s where Palin nailed it. All inhumanities begin with small steps; otherwise the public might rebel against a policy that went straight to the “final solution.”

All human life was once regarded as having value, because even government saw it as “endowed by our Creator.” This doctrine separates us from plants, microorganisms and animals.

Doctors once swore an oath, which reads in part: “I will not give a lethal drug to anyone if I am asked, nor will I advise such a plan; and similarly I will not give a woman a pessary to cause an abortion.”

Did Dr. Berwick, a fan of rationed care and the British National Health Service, ever take that oath? If he did, it appears he no longer believes it.

Do you see where this leads? First the prohibition against abortion is removed and “doctors” now perform them. Then the assault on the infirm and elderly begins.

Once the definition of human life changes, all human lives become potentially expendable if they don’t measure up to constantly “evolving” government standards.

It will all be dressed up with the best possible motives behind it and sold to the public as the ultimate benefit.

The killings, uh, terminations, will take place out of sight so as not to disturb the masses who might have a few embers of a past morality still burning in their souls. People will sign documents testifying to their desire to die, and the government will see it as a means of “reducing the surplus population,” to quote Charles Dickens.

When life is seen as having ultimate value, individuals and their doctors can make decisions about treatment that are in the best interests of patients. But when government is looking to cut costs as the highest good and offers to pay doctors to tell patients during their annual visits that they can choose to end their lives rather than continue treatment, that is more than the proverbial camel’s nose under the tent.

That is the next step on the way to physician-assisted suicide and, if not stopped, government-mandated euthanasia.

It can’t happen here? Based on what standard?

Yes it can happen in America, and it will if the new Republican class in Congress doesn’t stop it.

Chilling, isn’t it?

Thomas makes the point well that government run health care, with a bunch of insane progressives at the helm is dangerous beyond anyone’s wildest dreams.

Please don’t take our word for it though. Do you’re own research. There is no shortage of horrific stories from the UK, the exact system Berwick wants to create here, the one he has “romantic feelings” for.

Once your research is done, hit the phones and hold the new 112th Congress’s feet to the fire and make sure the repeal of ObamaCare is job one, and stays job one, until they are successful.

Your life may very well depend on it.

Obama Has Lost The World: Why We Need Sarah Palin

Liberal pundits mock the rough and ready style of conservatives like Reagan, Bush or Palin in world affairs, but what they fail to realize is that the over-educated naivete, trendy cosmopolitanism and buzzword rich approach of a Kerry or Obama come off as laughably pathetic on the world stage.

Republicans might be hated, but they can’t be ignored. Democrats on the other hand are catspaws and pawns, fools who are so sure of their cleverness and determined to embrace every culture in the way that only the graduates of Ivy League institutions can, that any Third World vendor could twirl them around his fingers.

~ Daniel Greenfield

By Gary P Jackson

Writing for Eurasia Review, Daniel Greenfield has written an absolutely blistering take on Barack Obama’s inability to lead and his status as a joke worldwide. Greenfield also points to Sarah Palin, along with Presidents George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan as the sort of tough leaders who garner respect on the world stage.

Greenfield is a columnist born in Israel and currently living in New York City. He is a contributing editor at Family Security Matters and writes a daily blog column on Islamic Terrorism, Israeli and American politics and Europe’s own clash of civilizations which can be found at Sultanknish.blogspot.com.

Here’s a taste of what he has to say:

After the 2010 elections, it’s not exactly news that Obama has lost America. But in a less public referendum, he also lost the world. Obama’s cocktail party tour of the world’s capitals may look impressive on a map, but is irrelevant on a policy level. In less than two years, the White House has gone from being the center of world leadership to being irrelevant, from protecting world freedom to serving as a global party planning committee.

Even the Bush Administration’s harshest critics could never have credibly claimed that George W. Bush was irrelevant. He might have been hated, pilloried and shouted about– but he couldn’t be ignored. However Obama can be safely ignored. Invited to parties, given the chance to show off his cosmopolitan sophisticated by reciting one or two words in the local lingo, read off a teleprompter, along with some cant about the need for everyone to pull together and make the world a better place, and then dismissed for the rest of the evening.

As a world leader, he makes a passable party guest. He has a broad smile, brings along his own gifts and is famous in the way that celebrities, rather than prime ministers and presidents are famous. On an invitation list, he is more Bono than Sarkozy, Leonardo DiCaprio not Putin. You don’t invite him to talk turkey, not even on Thanksgiving. He’s just one of those famous people with a passing interest in politics who gets good media attention, but who has nothing worthwhile to say.

The only countries who take Obama seriously, are the ones who have to. The leaders of Great Britain, Israel and Japan– who have tied their countries to an enduring alliance with America based on mutual interests and values, only to discover that the latest fellow to sit behind the Oval Office desk no longer shares those values and couldn’t give less of a damn about American interests. It’s no wonder that European leaders ignore him as much as possible. Or that Netanyahu visited America, while Obama was abroad. Or that Japanese politics have become dangerously unstable.

On the enemy side, the growing aggressiveness of China, North Korea, Iran, Hezbollah and Al Qaeda can all be attributed to the global consensus that no one is at home in the White House.And if no one is at home in the White House, then that’s a perfect time to slap the big boy around the yard. China is doing it economically, the rest are doing it militarily. They’re all on board with Obama’s Post-American vision of the world. But unlike him and most liberals, they have a clear understanding of what that means. The America of some years back, which actually intimidated Libyan dictator Khaddafi into giving up his nuclear program, without lifting a hand against him is long gone. So is the Cedar Revolution. Syria and Iran are back in charge in Lebanon. And in Afghanistan, the Taliban are laughing at our soft power outreach efforts.

Obama’s soft power approach emphasizes the ‘soft’ and forgets the ‘power’. It neglects even Clinton era understandings about the role of America in the world, and reverts instead to a Carter era sense of guilt that bleeds into hostility toward American interests and allies. While the rest of the world puts their own interests first, they act like a cog in some imaginary global community, turning and turning toward the distant horizon of international brotherhood. While China, Russia and most of the world walk down their backs and up their jellyfish spines, laughing all the way. And America’s allies gird themselves and prepare for the worst.

There is much, much more here.

Greenfield is spot on. Obama is more like an international jet-setting “playboy” than the President of the United States, a position that was also formally known as the Leader of the Free World. Obama is just the opposite. His ideology, a socialist-communist mix that centers around being a victim in need of “social justice” is a poor fit for the position of leader [in any capacity] but most especially the leader of all free peoples.

Obama doesn’t even grasp the fundamentals of our own Constitution, one of the most important, and enduring documents ever created. He has professed on may occasions that it is a “flawed document.” If this man finds our Constitution, a covenant between the people and government, guaranteeing our God given rights to Liberty and Freedom from an oppressive government, how can he be expected to lead the entire world, standing up for Freedom and Liberty everywhere?

We’ve talked a lot about Michelle Obama’s crusade on fat. The reason being is it is the perfect example of the totalitarianism progressives believe in. The entire progressive philosophy centers around a command and control centralized government that has total domination of it’s citizens, down the the most minute levels. It’s no wonder Obama seems to identify more with our enemies, who run brutal regimes where their people have absolutely no freedom. They are so close to the progressive utopia that Obama and his fellow travelers envision for America.

We watched in horror as Obama stood by and did nothing while Freedom and Liberty seeking Iranians, finally summoning up the courage to protest their tyrannical and oppressive government, were slaughtered in the streets. After years of President George W Bush telling the Iranian people our quarrel wasn’t with them, but with their leaders, and we would support them, when the time came for America to stand with these brave Iranians, Obama hid out, and then when he finally surfaced, he sided with the Iranian regime, not the Freedom and Liberty seeking Iranian people.

It was a pathetic performance by an even more pathetic man.

Sarah Palin has long spoken out about Obama’s inability to lead. She talked about this during her Vice Presidential nomination acceptance speech in 2008, and has since written policy papers and op-eds dissecting the Obama foreign policy disaster. What she calls enemy-centric, is quite simply, Obama’s want to coddle our enemies, while dismissing our allies worldwide. In my opinion, it’s because Obama admires our enemies more than our allies, but that’s just me.

Sarah Palin has demonstrated that she knows the difference between friend and foe, and has a solid grasp on how to deal with them. Her latest was taking Obama and most of Congress to task for wanting to sign the START treaty, a horrible document that ties our hands.

Obama and Senate leader Harry Reid jammed that treaty through the advise and consent process without a single hearing or meaningful discussion. It was so “important” that it just HAD to be ratified before Christmas, no matter how terrible it is. We NOW know the Russians are still going through the process of vetting and approving it. Who would have ever thought the Russian Parliament would be more careful and thoughtful about things than the so-called “world’s greatest deliberative body” the United States Senate!

Sarah is right, of course. She had been speaking out against START since Obama took office. She was one of the only ones who saw the dangers. As we all know, Sarah, as Governor of Alaska, had the care and feeding of America’s missile defense system on her plate. She took the Obama regime on as they tried to gut that system. Some “comedians” make jokes about Sarah and Russia [which she’s taken to embracing, just to tweak the libs] but the fact is, Alaska and Russia are incredibly close to one another. The Alaska Territory was actually part of Russia until it was purchased at the urging of Secretary of State William H. Seward in 1867.

The Alaska Air National Guard, of which Sarah Palin was Commander-in-Chief, routinely escorts Russian aircraft out of Alaskan air space. In fact, on Sarah’s watch, the 176th Wing received the United States Air Force Outstanding Unit Award for, among other things, maintaining North American air sovereignty and prosecuting 22 Russian bomber intercepts. These would be the Tu-95 “Bear” bombers.

Sarah knows first hand the dangers the United States and our allies face on a daily basis. She also understands the real evil that exists in the world, while Obama and his ilk tend to assign a moral equivalency to it all.

We look around, and Sarah Palin is the only potential presidential candidate that is standing up and speaking out on foreign policy. She’s the only one of the bunch who seems to get it. It’s not for nothing that Greenfield places her alongside tough leaders like Ronald Reagan and George W Bush, who had solid foreign policy.

Reagan won the cold war without firing a shot. The Soviet Union went bankrupt as they tried to develop countermeasures for a defense project that only existed in Reagan’s head!

As Greenfield pointed out, thanks to Bush’s no nonsense policy, taking out the leadership in Afghanistan and Iraq, Libya’s Khaddafi, a big sponsor of worldwide terror himself, was so afraid he was next, he gave up all of Libya’s nuclear weapons without protest. This was the direct result of the U.S. invading both Afghanistan and Iraq.

So far the only thing Obama has managed, is weakening our own nuclear capability, while allowing rogue states like Iran and North Korea to run wild.

Thanks to Obama’s lack luster ability, Iran is shipping nuclear capable medium-range missiles to Venezuela. Not only will this destabilize the entire region, these missiles are capable of reaching targets within the United States.

It’s the Cuban Missile Crisis on steroids, and we have no indication that the Obama regime is even trying to stop this. Nukes in Venezuela, with a crazed dictator in charge, would be a disaster for the entire world. But Obama’s golf game is improving, and really, isn’t that all that matters?

Sarah Palin has the temperament, experience, and good old fashioned common sense that we as a nation need in a Commander-in-Chief. Under Obama’s inept presidency, exactly like under Carter’s, the world has become a much more dangerous place. We needed Ronald Reagan to take charge after Carter. He was the only logical choice for that time. Today we need Sarah Palin to take charge, as she is the only logical choice for our time.

Governor Palin’s Top 10 Policy and Political Statements of 2010

By Whitney Pitcher

Hello, everyone! I apologize for not stating this with my first post, but I would like to thank Gary for inviting me to contribute to this blog. I’m honored. This post is the third in a series entitled “Governor Palin on the Issues” that I’m also posting at a few other pro-Palin blogs.

As it is the last week of 2010, in lieu of a “Governor Palin on the Issues” post this week, I’d like to compile a list of Governor Palin’s Top 10 Policy and Political Statements of 2010. You can find the first two “Governor Palin on the Issues” posts on monetary policy here and on entitlement programs here. Perhaps this can serve as an easily digestible version of some of Governor Palin’s policy stances for Charles Krauthammer, Dana Perino, Peggy Noonan and other Republicans ostriches who have willfully had their heads in the sands for the past two plus years. Through Facebook, op-eds that have appeared in the Wall Street Journal and National Review among others publications, and speeches, Governor Palin has weighed in on many of the important policy issues facing America today. She has also been the most bold conservative voice in America–challenging Republicans to stand firmly on the planks of the Republican party. There are, of course, more than ten policy and politically focused areas Governor Palin has taken a stand on this year, but it is my hope that this will serve as a summary. The selection of these particular ten statements are merely the opinion of one ordinary barbarian. They are listed by title and are in no particular order.

1) The Midterms: Lessons Learned and the Way Forward
Following the 2010 Midterm elections, Governor Palin penned a piece at the National Review entitled “The Midterms: Lessons Learned and the Way Forward”. In this piece, Governor Palin provided 4 lessons that Republicans can learn:1) set the narrative 2) fight back the lies immediately and consistently 3) get out the mother of all GOTV efforts in 2012 and 4) a winning conservative message must always be carefully crafted. Here is an excerpt from this excellent piece:

The last, and possibly most important, lesson is that a winning conservative message must always be carefully crafted. If candidates are going to talk boldly on the campaign trail about entitlement reform and reducing the size of government, they must be prepared to word it in such a way as to minimize the inevitable fear-mongering accusations of “extremism.” We are quickly approaching a fiscal turning point where these crucial reform discussions will be mandatory. We need to speak about them in a way that the public will embrace. During his first run for the presidency in 1976, Ronald Reagan found out that election campaigns aren’t necessarily the best settings for quasi-academic discussions about issues like Social Security reform. So for his next campaign, he resolved to build his platform out of tried and tested policies like tax cuts. Successful candidates in the next election cycle will have to test and develop similar policy platforms that address the crucial issues of entitlement reform and shrinking government in a way that the voters will find pragmatic and even attractive.

2) Why I support the Ryan Roadmap
A few weeks ago, Governor Palin wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal expressing her support for Congressman Ryan’s Roadmap to lead to a more financially stable nation through entitlement reforms, tax cuts, and spending cuts. Here is an excerpt:

Put simply: Our country is on the path toward bankruptcy. We must turn around before it’s too late, and the Roadmap offers a clear plan for doing so. But it does more than just fend off disaster. CBO calculations show that the Roadmap would also help create a “much more favorable macroeconomic outlook” for the next half-century. The CBO estimates that under the Roadmap, by 2058 per-person GDP would be around 70% higher than the current trend.

Is Rep. Ryan’s Roadmap perfect? Of course not—no government plan ever is. But it’s the best plan on the table at a time when doing nothing is no longer an option.

Let’s not settle for the big-government status quo, which is what the president’s commission offers. We owe it to our children and grandchildren to make these tough decisions so that they might inherit a prosperous and strong America like the one we were given.

3)Peace Through Strength and American Pride vs. “Enemy Centric Policy”
In June, Governor Palin gave a speech at Freedom Fest in Virginia where she spent a large portion of her time speaking critically of President Obama’s foreign policy and his disdain for American exceptionalism. She later provided excerpts of this speech on her Facebook page. Here is a small part of that speech:

It’s not the only area where the Obama administration has failed our allies. They escalated a minor zoning issue in Jerusalem into a major dispute with our most important ally in the Middle East, Israel. They treated the Israeli Prime Minister shabbily in Washington. When a Turkish sponsored flotilla threatened to violate a legal Israeli blockade of Hamas-run Gaza, the Obama Administration was silent. When Israeli commandos were assaulted as they sought to prevent unmonitored cargoes from being delivered to Hamas terrorists, the Obama Administration sent signals it might allow a UN investigation into the matter – an investigation that would be sure to condemn our ally Israel and bemoan the plight of Hamas. Loyal NATO allies in central Europe were undermined by the cancellation of a missile defense program with virtually no warning. At the same time, Russia and China are given preferential treatment, while remaining silent on their human rights violations.

4)Bailouts Reward Bad Behavior
During her time as Governor, Governor Palin managed Alaska with such fiscal prudence that nearly bankrupt states like California, New York, Illinois, and Michigan would do well to study and learn from her how to budget and spend appropriately. She wrote a Facebook post highlighting what she did as Governor to help put Alaska on strong financial ground, and she suggests that struggling states who may seek a federal bailout to do the same. Here is a small part of the post:

It’s one thing to veto spending and reduce the size of government when your state is broke. I did it when my state was flush with revenue from a surplus – though I had to fight politicians who wanted to spend like there was no tomorrow. It’s not easy to tell people no and make them act fiscally responsible and cut spending when the money is rolling in and your state is only 50 years shy of being a territory and everyone is yelling at you to spend while the money is there to build. My point is, if I could fight this fight in Alaska at a time of surplus, then other governors can and should be able to do the same at a time when their states are facing bankruptcy and postponing this fight is no longer an option.

So, let’s not continue to reward irresponsible political behavior. Instead of handing out more federal dollars, let’s give the governors of these debt-ridden states some free advice. Shake off the pressure from public sector unions to cave on this issue. Put up with the full page newspaper attack ads, the hate-filled rhetoric, and the other union strong arm tactics that I, too, had to put up with while fighting those who don’t believe a state needs to live within its means. Stand up to the special interests that are bankrupting your states. You may not be elected Miss Congeniality for fighting to get your fiscal houses in order; but in the long run, the people who hired you to do the right thing will appreciate your prudence and fiscal conservatism.

5) Passing the Buck Doesn’t “Plug the D#*! Hole”
Governor Palin was pointedly critical of the Obama administration’s mismanagement of the oil spill in the Gulf this past Spring. As a governor of an energy producing state and as a former oil and gas commissioner, Governor Palin’s opinion is particularly relevant. In May, Governor Palin posted a note on Facebook regarding this topic. Here is an excerpt:

The 1990 Oil Pollution Act was drafted in response to the Exxon-Valdez spill in my home state. It created new procedures for offshore cleanups, specifically putting the federal government in charge of such operations. The President should have used the authority granted by the OPA – immediately – to take control of the situation. That is a big part of what the OPA is for – to designate who is in charge so finger-pointing won’t disrupt efforts to just “plug the d#*! hole.” But instead of immediately engaging with this crisis, our President chose to spend precious time on political pet causes like haranguing the state of Arizona for doing what he himself was supposed to do – secure the nation’s border. He also spent much time fundraising and politicking for liberal candidates and causes while we waited for him to grasp the enormity of the Gulf spill.

6) Lies, Damned Lies-Obamacare 6 Months Later; It’s Time to Take Back the 20!
In September, six months following the passage of Obamacare, Governor Palin coupled endorsements of 20 candidates up against Democrats who voted for Obamacare with a scathing rundown of all the ills of Obamacare. In November, 18 of these districts represented by Obamacare supporting Democrats elected conservatives to fill those seats. Here is a brief excerpt from that Facebook post:

So, yes, those rationing “death panels” are there, and so are the tax increases that the president also promised were “absolutely not” in his bill. (Aren’t you tiring of the untruths coming from this White House and the liberals in Congress?) When the state of Florida filed a challenge to Obamacare on the basis that the mandates in the bill are unconstitutional, the Obama Department of Justice filed a motion to dismiss the suit by citing the Anti-Injunction Act, which blocks courts from interfering with the federal government’s ability to collect taxes. Yes, taxes! Once the bill was passed it was no longer politically inconvenient for the Obama administration to admit that it makes no difference whether the payment is a tax or a penalty because it’s “assessed and collected in the same manner.” The National Taxpayer Advocate has already warned that “Congress must provide sufficient funding” to allow the IRS to collect this new tax. Pretty soon we’ll be paying taxes just to make it possible for the IRS to collect all the additional taxes under Obamacare! Seems as if this is another surprise that the public found out about after the bill was rammed through.

7) Senate Republicans: Vote No on New START
Governor Palin wrote a piece for the National Review earlier this month outlining why the Senate should not ratify the START treaty with Russia. Many supporters of the treaty tried to claim that President Reagan would have supported the treaty, as one of his goals was reduction of nuclear arms. However, as Governor Palin points out, President Reagan increased not decreased missile defense as President Obama has done:

New START recognizes a link between offensive and defensive weapons – a position the Russians have sought for years. Russia claims the treaty constrains U.S. missile defenses and that they will withdraw from the treaty if we pursue missile defenses. This linkage virtually guarantees that either we limit our missile defenses or the Russians will withdraw from the treaty. The Obama administration claims that this is not the case; but if that is true, why agree to linking offensive and defensive weapons in the treaty? At the height of the Cold War, President Reagan pursued missile defense while also pursuing verifiable arms control with the then-Soviet Union. That position was right in the 1980’s, and it is still right today. We cannot and must not give up the right to missile defense to protect our population – whether the missiles that threaten us come from Russia, Iran, China, North Korea, or anywhere else. I fought the Obama administration’s plans to cut funds for missile defense in Alaska while I was Governor, and I will continue to speak out for missile defenses that will protect our people and our allies.

8 ) An Open Letter to Republican Freshman Members of Congress
In mid November, Governor Palin wrote an open letter to new Congressmen and women challenging them remain true to the principles they ran on and to remember that they are accountable to the voters. In this, Governor Palin also gave a great summary of her stances on the issues of Obamacare, spending, taxes, entitlement reforms, Israel, Iraq, Afghanistan, the START treaty, and border security among other issues. Here is a small excerpt:

You’ve also got to be deadly serious about cutting the deficit. Despite what some would like us to believe, tax cuts didn’t get us into the mess we’re in. Government spending did. Tough decisions need to be made about reducing government spending. The longer we put them off, the worse it will get. We need to start by cutting non-essential spending. That includes stopping earmarks (because abuse of the earmark process created the “gateway-drug” that allowed backroom deals and bloated budgets), canceling all further spending on the failed Stimulus program, and rolling back non-discretionary spending to 2008 levels. You can do more, but this would be a good start.

9)Domestic Drilling: Why We Can Still Believe
Governor Palin’s forte has always been energy. As a wife of a former oil field worker, an Oil and Gas Commissioner, and Governor of Alaska, she has the perfect expertise to speak to how energy independence provides jobs and helps secure our nation. She also provides the perfect antithesis to President Obama’s overregulation. Governor Palin is a firm supporter of industry oversight rather than industry regulation. This approach holds energy companies accountable to the people while giving them the freedom to produce and provide jobs. Following the Gulf oil spill, Governor Palin offered her continued support for drilling for oil to fuel America:

All responsible energy development must be accompanied by strict oversight, but even with the strictest oversight in the world, accidents still happen. No human endeavor is ever without risk – whether it’s sending a man to the moon or extracting the necessary resources to fuel our civilization. I repeat the slogan “drill here, drill now” not out of naiveté or disregard for the tragic consequences of oil spills – my family and my state and I know firsthand those consequences. How could I still believe in drilling America’s domestic supply of energy after having seen the devastation of the Exxon-Valdez spill? I continue to believe in it because increased domestic oil production will make us a more secure, prosperous, and peaceful nation.

10) Palin to Bernanke:’ Cease and Desist’
Governor Palin warned of the hazardous effects of the second round of quantitative easing by Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke. Printing money will inevitably lead to inflation and other effects that will not help an already severely hurting economy. The National Review Online published some of her remarks on this from a November speech in Arizona. Here is part of that excerpt:

We shouldn’t be playing around with inflation. It’s not for nothing Reagan called it “as violent as a mugger, as frightening as an armed robber, and as deadly as a hit man.” The Fed’s pump priming addiction has got our small businesses running scared, and our allies worried. The German finance minister called the Fed’s proposals “clueless.” When Germany, a country that knows a thing or two about the dangers of inflation, warns us to think again, maybe it’s time for Chairman Bernanke to cease and desist. We don’t want temporary, artificial economic growth bought at the expense of permanently higher inflation which will erode the value of our incomes and our savings. We want a stable dollar combined with real economic reform. It’s the only way we can get our economy back on the right track.

Governor Palin wrote numerous Facebook posts and op-eds on a variety of subjects in 2010. This list only provides a small taste. In addition to what was listed Governor Palin wrote about the Bush tax cuts, border security, Afghanistan, Iraq, and the mosque at Ground Zero, among others. Many of these posts were endorsements of candidates who received a great boost from her support. Her 140 character tweets even spoke volumes. In 2010, Governor Palin spoke at various industry conferences, campaign rallies, pro-life events, conservative conferences, and the like. Not too shabby for someone whom, according the Elites, isn’t serious about policy; wouldn’t you say?

Have a blessed new year, everyone! While many of Americans will be eating black eyed peas to ring in the new year, I hope that the elites acquire a taste for a steady diet of crow in 2011.They’ll certainly being eating quite a bit of it in the coming year.

Crossposted here, here, and here.

Reuters: Americans Most Want Sandra Bullock, Sarah Palin As Neighbors

By Gary P Jackson

Online real estate marketer Zilliow.com surveyed American adults asking them who they would like to have living next door to them. As it turns out, Sandra Bullock and Sarah Palin topped the list coming in first and second respectively. The cast of Jersey Shore were voted “worst neighbors” in the polling.

From Reuters:

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Americans would most like to live next door to actress Sandra Bullock in 2011, but the cast of the reality show “Jersey Shore” made the most undesirable neighbors, according to a poll released on Tuesday.

Bullock, who has won huge audiences with her All-American, girl-next-door image, earned more than a quarter of the vote in the annual poll on the most desirable celebrity neighbors, conducted by online real estate marketplace Zillow.com.

She was followed by conservative Republican politician, Sarah Palin. That may bode well for people in Arizona as on Monday, headlines trumpeted the news that her daughter, Bristol Palin, had bought a home in the state.

President Barack Obama, his wife Michelle and daughters Malia and Sasha dropped three places to No. 4 on the list after coming out on top last year. They were proceeded by talk show hosts Ellen DeGeneres and wife Portia DeRossi at No. 3. Rounding out the top five was talk show host Conan O’Brien.

You can read more here.

This comes on the heels of Sarah Palin being named to Gallup’s “Most Admired Woman” Top 10 for the third year in a row. For the ninth consecutive year, Hillary Clinton was chosen as the “Most Admired Woman” with Sarah Palin being chosen second for her third consecutive year in a row.

The Gallup poll asks those surveyed to choose both the most admired man and most admired woman living anywhere in the world.

You can see the full results of that polling here.

Obesity Policy Expert: Sarah Palin Is Right, Michelle Obama And Mike Huckabee Are Wrong

By Gary P Jackson

We’ve said this before, but get used to seeing “Sarah Palin was right and [fill in the blank] was wrong” a lot in the many years to come.

Though he comes at it from a different angle, the editors of National Review Online highlight prominent New York University obesity-policy scholar Rogan Kersh’s take on the obesity issue. Our take is the First Lady and Huckabee are Big Government, Nanny State progressives who are a direct threat to personal Liberty and Freedom. Kersh comes at it from the medical angle and scientific angle.

From NRO:

One key ingredient in Sarah Palin’s political dynamite is the cheerful scorn with which she regards Washington, a small but zesty serving of which she recently dished up for First Lady Michelle Obama and her anti-obesity crusade. During an episode of her reality show, the once (and future?) candidate cooked up a mess of hot s’mores and a side of even hotter politics, declaring: “This is in honor of Michelle Obama, who said the other day we should not have dessert.”

Palin was being over-generous in her paraphrase. What Mrs. Obama in fact said was considerably more worrisome: “We can’t just leave it up the parents.” Her particular target was unhealthful school lunches, which parents presumably require help from distant federal authorities to improve; it is clear from this and much else that the first lady envisions a very broad role for the federal government in menu planning. If her vision leaves any room for limitation on government interference in family affairs, it is impossible to detect it. Palin, responding specifically to this boundless license for federal meddling, later expanded on her views: “Instead of a government thinking that they need to take over and make decisions for us, according to some politician’s — or politician’s wife’s — priorities, just leave us alone, get off our back, and allow us, as individuals, to exercise our own God-given rights to make our own decisions.” (There is something particularly delicious in Palin’s tone when she pronounces the words “politician’s wife” — if there should be such a thing as a Palin administration, we are confident that the apparently easygoing Mr. Palin will not evolve into the first scold.)

As is the case with practically all things Palin, this latest statement has led to a predictable chorus of harrumphing nanny-staters, not every one of whom is obviously qualified to lecture the body politic on healthful eating. CNN’s fulsome Roland Martin declared Palin’s observation “so stupid that it defies logic,” and added that the former governor is too ignorant to “understand how devastating obesity is to the future of the United States.” Defying logic, Mr. Martin, along with practically all of Mrs. Palin’s critics on the issue, is missing a piece in his argument: specifically, even a smattering of evidence that busybody campaigns of the sort in which Mrs. Obama is engaged are likely to do more good than harm when it comes to extraordinarily complex issues such as obesity — which is indeed positioned to impose significant costs, both financial and human, on the American people.

The evidence is, in fact, to the contrary, suggesting that well-intentioned government policies will make the problem worse: To the extent that political action has thus far affected American obesity, it has been a thumb on the wrong side of the scales, subsidizing the worst kinds of foods through the farm-subsidy and school-lunch programs, and often giving out precisely the wrong kind of dietary advice.

Obesity is, in truth, among our least tractable public-health problems. It is an absolute Gordian knot of nutrition, behavior, genetics, child-rearing environments, hormonal biology, economics, and other factors too numerous and too subtle to catalog. As New York University obesity-policy scholar Rogan Kersh has noted, the problem “has proved impervious to clinical treatment or public-health exhortation,” and it is by no means clear what, if anything, public policy can accomplish, or what the best avenue for reform is, if indeed there is one. For an administration prone to smug castigation of its predecessors for their allegedly insufficient deference to scientific expertise, the Obama team is here shockingly cavalier about a scientific question of substantial depth and complexity. If Mrs. Obama, between her undergraduate major in sociology, her minor in African-American studies, and her law degree somehow managed also to acquire a great deal of expertise regarding a medical issue that has proved remarkably difficult for actual scholars and learned authorities, she has not seen fit to share how and where she acquired it.

Mrs. Obama’s “eat your veggies” crusade is at once a remarkably shallow response and a remarkably ambitious one: She may know next to nothing about the deeper issues, but she has adamant faith that the transformative quality of political power will allow even the most ignorant politician — or politician’s wife — to ameliorate any problem, even one that has thus far proved “impervious to clinical treatment.” By the same token, Mrs. Palin’s dismissal of that conceit contains more wisdom than is understood by political entrepreneurs of the Obama variety or by their factota in the media. Advantage: Palin.

First ladies have their causes, the general rule of which is that they do less damage the farther away from public policy they stay. If the Obama administration should happen to win the wars (and keep the won wars won) and balance the budget, head off the looming fiscal crisis, and present the American people with the head of Osama bin Laden, perhaps at that time it can get back to us about the broccoli. Until then, we have more of an appetite for Mrs. Palin’s healthy skepticism of governmental ambition than for Mrs. Obama’s overegged federal pudding: Washington has enough on its plate.

Dr Kersh is right, of course. Now granted there are lazy people who just eat too much and won’t exercise, but for every one of those there are dozens who have real problems maintaining “approved weight.” These issues are indeed complex. One can simply lose the genetic lottery, or there can be a combination of problems. Since science and medicine haven’t found cures, it’s reasonable to think no government intrusion in our lives can.

In the end, it all boils down to Freedom and Liberty. Of course, with Freedom and Liberty comes personal responsibility. This is something progressives can’t tolerate. A free people, left to make their own decisions, good or bad, doesn’t NEED government’s help. That puts the progressives out of business, since their entire reason for living is telling others how to live their life. [No matter how poor of a job they have done living their own!]

The government already has problems fulfilling it constitutional requirements, only a fool would think having government take even MORE control of our lives will turn out well.

Juan Williams, Exit Stage Left!

By Whitney

Yet another one of Governor Palin’s Fox News colleagues attempted to perpetuate the “dumb” meme regarding Governor Palin. Appearing on Fox News Sunday today, Juan Williams stated:

There’s nobody out there, except for Sarah Palin, who can absolutely dominate the stage, and she can’t stand on the intellectual stage with Obama.

After all, according to Williams, Governor Palin is nothing but a centerfold for conservative men, right? What should we expect? How in the world could a state college educated female and former journalist carry a candle to a Ivy League educated male president?

However, perhaps this time Williams is right. Governor Palin and President Obama can’t stand on the same stage. A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a post describing the difference between Governor Palin’s intelligence and President Obama’s intellectualism:

The critics of Governor Palin’s intelligence miss the distinct difference between intelligence and intellectualism. Intelligence involves the ability to process and apply information in a successful manner. By comparison, Thomas Sowell, an esteemed economist, author, and favorite of Governor Palin’s, describes intellectualism: “at the core of the notion of an intellectual is the dealer in ideas, as such–not the personal application of ideas”. In 2009, Sowell wrote a book entitled Intellectuals and Society where he highlights how the role of “intellectuals” have negatively influenced all aspects of society–from economics to law to the media. The common thread that runs through each aspect that Sowell covers in his book is that intellectuals feel that they are needed to dictate to the unwashed masses how they should conduct their lives. This is where you get the intellectual politicians who feel that they should control the economy through regulations, taxation, and the like, and this is also where you get the pontificating pundits who feel that they know best. After all, they have the Ivy League education and the self-declared credentials to do so, right?

In just under 2 years as president, Obama has ushered in the government takeover of the healthcare, college loan, banking, and internet industries, in addition to extending the extensive government involvement in the auto industry that he supported during President Bush’s administration. President Obama has given further regulatory control to unelected agencies like the EPA, FCC, and FDA. He has added more to the national deficit in 2 years than his predecessors did in more than 200 years. His stimulus package led to over 10% unemployment, when it was promised to prevent unemployment from going over 8%. President Obama kowtowed (or as I like to call it, bowtowed) to both America’s enemies and union bosses. He pushed for a treaty with Russia that allows Russia to continue to produce nuclear weapons while America must halt weapon production; all the while reducing funding for missile defense. He mishandled America’s most destructive environmental disaster in history by blaming the previous administration for his own appointees’ failures. He is joined with foreign nations in suing the state of Arizona for desiring to enforce federal border security and immigration laws.

As Governor, Sarah Palin put $5 billion in state savings and decreased state spending by more than 9%. She reduced earmark requests by 80%. She stands for smaller government and reduced intervention by unelected, appointed bureaucrats. She stood firmly against the stimulus package and called for President Obama to veto the bill. She stood against cuts to missile defense and called for the Senate to not verify the START treaty. She called for the President to turn away from his “enemy centric” foreign policy. She stood for oversight of the oil industry and federal responsibility in cleaning up the oil spill, rather than burdensome, job killing regulations and drilling moratoriums. She stood with Governor Brewer in a desire to secure the border.

Governor Palin has private sector experience as a journalist, fisherwoman, and small business owner in addition to nearly twenty years of political experience between the city council, mayor’s office, Oil and Gas Regulator, and Governor. President Obama has experience as a community organizer, state senator, and US Senator. By the time President Obama was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2004, Governor Palin already had three times as much executive experience as President Obama currently has. She has had to balance a budget as a small business owner and a governor, and she has understood the importance of handling both prudently and responsibility. President Obama established a deficit commission after he signed legislation that added more than a trillion dollars to the deficit–willfully oblivious to the effects of his lack of executive experience.

If you juxtapose President Obama’s experience, policies, and record against Governor Palin’s experience, stances and record, then I suppose Williams is right. Governor Palin cannot stand on the “intellectual” stage with Obama, and rightfully so. While President Obama’ s supposed intellect has made us a less secure nation in every sense of the word, Governor Palin’s gubernatorial record and stances would lead America to a more financial stable and a more secure nation.

Governor Palin stands on the stage of common sense, practicality, and smart governance. Juan Williams and President Obama can exit stage left.

Merry Christmas From Sarah Palin

By Gary P Jackson

Sarah Palin’s Christmas Message to the nation:

Christmas is a time of sharing with family and friends. For Todd and me, that means spending time with our children, parents, grandparents, and siblings, gratefully acknowledging God’s blessings and sharing them with the people we love.

Ronald Reagan said Christmas was a “state of mind, found throughout the year whenever faith overcomes doubt, hope conquers despair, and love triumphs over hate.” On this Christmas Eve, let’s be thankful that we live in a country known for striving to embody these values. And let’s be grateful for the brave men and women in uniform who have fought to defend our values and who may be spending this Christmas far from home.

On behalf of the entire Palin family, I wish you a very Merry Christmas; and may the new year let you realize the promise found in 2 Timothy 1:7!

~ Sarah Palin

“For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.” (Isaiah 9:6)

The video below is from Sarah’s appearance on the Fox & Friends Christmas Eve special where she gives a shout out to the members of the military in the studio audience, and around the world.

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This is another segment where Gretchen Carlson asks Sarah about her favorite things at Christmas:

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Bristol Palin also has a brief message as well:

I want to wish all of you a blessed Christmas. As we celebrate the birth of Jesus and his message to mankind, let us do so with our family and friends. I hope everyone has an opportunity to reflect on what is truly important and to create a Christmas memory that will last a lifetime. From me and Tripp and the rest of my family to you, thank you for a wonderful year and Merry Christmas!

~ Bristol Palin

Video courtesy Palin TV