Sarah Palin Reduced to Running Right Wing Click Bait Site

[Cartmann99]

 

[front hugs > duggs]

On 7/31/2021 at 5:21 PM, Cartmann99 said:

 

I feel like she should have thought about this before twerking on stage in a bear costume for Fox prime time.

Then again, a twerking teddy bear is nothing compared to what most white men in the GOP have done and they are given grace.

[AlmostSavedAtTacoBell]

Well now that she and Hot Toddie are officially divorced, she's single and ready to mingle so she has to do something to court those single Christian men!

[GreyhoundFan]

A good one from Dana Milbank: "Can Sarah Palin stage a comeback? You betcha!"

Quote

Sarah Palin was Trump before Trump. Can she be Trump after Trump?

You betcha!

(At least that’s what she thinks.)

The former Alaska governor, 2008 Republican vice-presidential nominee, reality TV personality and human gaffe machine is teasing the possibility of challenging Sen. Lisa Murkowski in Alaska’s Republican Senate primary next year. “If God wants me to do it I will,” she told New Apostolic Reformation movement leader Ché Ahn, as first reported by Right Wing Watch.

Hopefully, for Palin’s sake, this is a different God from the one she appealed to in ’08 when she put the election “in God’s hands, that the right thing for America will be done at the end of the day on Nov. 4.” She has also said it was God’s will to fight the Iraq war, build a gas pipeline, and for her to skip an important speech in 2011: “I had nothing to wear, and God knew that, too.”

The more immediate obstacles to Palin’s ambition, though, are not in the Heavens but here on Earth.

Will Tina Fey revive her Palin impression? (“I can see Russia from my house!”) Has Alaska moved on? Murkowski already has a (Trump-backed) challenger, and Palin has been spending a lot of time in the far southern part of Alaska — namely, Arizona. And has the party moved on? Palin captivated the Republican base in 2008 with her unique blend of ignorance, insults and winks at political violence. But such attributes no longer make her a standout in the GOP.

For those who came of age in the last decade, it’s hard to appreciate the many gifts she bestowed on late-night comics. On her understanding of the Bush doctrine: “In what respect, Charlie?” On which newspapers and magazines she reads: “All of them, any of them that have been in front of me over all these years.” On examples of John McCain’s record: “I’ll try to find you some and I’ll bring ‘em to ya’.” On foreign policy: “As Putin rears his head and comes into the airspace of the United States of America, where do they go? It’s Alaska.” On her ethics woes: “I think on a national level, your department of law there in the White House would look at some of the things that we’ve been charged with and automatically throw them out.”

Those of a certain age remember, fondly, her telling us the difference between hockey moms and pit bulls (“lipstick”), her Christmas gift exchange with her husband (“he’s got the rifle, I’ve got the rack”), and the time she fielded questions while turkeys were being slaughtered in the background. We remember, rather less fondly, her “death panel” lies, her pioneering attacks on Joe Biden’s age, her claim that Barack Obama was “palling around with terrorists,” and the map she promoted in 2010 showing 20 Democratic districts in rifle crosshairs.

She so dominated the political landscape — Fox News’s Bill O’Reilly had done 664 segments mentioning her from 2008 to early 2011, and Sean Hannity 411 segments — that after 42 columns mentioning Palin I pledged to quit her for an entire month in February, 2011. “This is kind of stupid,” Jay Leno remarked at the time. “If you’re going to choose a month to be Palin-free, don’t pick the shortest month.”

Palin’s star has since fallen. Husband Todd filed for divorce. Son Track amassed an assault record. Family members took part in a boozy birthday-party brawl. Her PAC closed. She has a website that posts “byline-free clickbait,” the Anchorage Daily News reports, and she makes video messages wishing people happy birthdays and the like for $199 a pop.

She floated a Senate challenge to Murkowski last fall, and nobody much noticed. Will they care now? Doubtful. Palin herself has acknowledged that people think of her as a “has been.” And there’s a specific reason for that. When she burst onto the national stage 13 summers ago, she was on the cutting edge of crazy. But the problem with launching a crazy contest is that, once started, it never ends: There’s always somebody willing to take things up a notch.

Trump supplanted Palin, and now there are 147 insurrectionist Republicans in Congress and countless would-be authoritarians in state governments. QAnon’s Marjorie Taylor Greene holds pole position today, and Palin is back in the pack. What was crazy in ’08 is now the Republican norm.

 

[Howl]

AOC has bitch slapped Sarah Palin (remember her?) big time.  "I have set up a special hot line for you.  1-800-cry-now!" 

 

Edited September 10, 2021 by Howl

[Cartmann99]

 

[Becky]

1 hour ago, Cartmann99 said:

 

I believe I've heard that rhetoric before....  I wonder if she knows about the Herman Cain Award.  

[AlmostSavedAtTacoBell]

3 hours ago, Cartmann99 said:

 

I don’t think she realizes the underlying nature of what it means to feed off each other.  Or perhaps she does and is counting on the others to not understand that they are the feed and she the giant parasite. Todd must wake up every day relieved he ditched her. 

[47of74]

Then she and the other anti-vax idiots need to stay the fuck out of the hospital if they come down with COVID, no matter how bad it gets for them.  Leave the hospital beds and medical stuff for the people who follow the fucking rules and get the vaccines like fucking adults.

[PsyD2013]

Her young son has Down syndrome and SHOULD be vaccinated as he is in a high risk group, but Caribou Barbie doesn't coparent with the government.  

[GreyhoundFan]

She's really struggling to stay relevant and keep her name out there. I wish she'd just fade away into the tundra.

[AlmostSavedAtTacoBell]

3 hours ago, PsyD2013 said:

Her young son has Down syndrome and SHOULD be vaccinated as he is in a high risk group, but Caribou Barbie doesn't coparent with the government.  

I forgot about her son! Not only should he be vaccinated but for his safety so should those who will be in close contact with him regularly. 

[fraurosena]

On 12/20/2021 at 5:48 PM, AlmostSavedAtTacoBell said:

I forgot about her son! Not only should he be vaccinated but for his safety so should those who will be in close contact with him regularly. 

We shouldn’t conflate what she (or any Republican) says in public with what they actually do in private.

It wouldn’t surprise me at all if she and her family are all double vaccinated and boosted.

[AlmostSavedAtTacoBell]

13 hours ago, fraurosena said:

We shouldn’t conflate what she (or any Republican) says in public with what they actually do in private.

It wouldn’t surprise me at all if she and her family are all double vaccinated and boosted.

Excellent point. I have a weird tendency to remember she’s a lying liar who lies but forget it when it comes to things like being vaxxed. 

[Cartmann99]

 

[front hugs > duggs]

22 hours ago, Cartmann99 said:

 

Who could have possibly predicted that going on a singing reality show and twerking as a costumed bear may backfire for her political career...

[AlmostSavedAtTacoBell]

2 hours ago, front hugs > duggs said:

Who could have possibly predicted that going on a singing reality show and twerking as a costumed bear may backfire for her political career...

I want to know who in the HELL allowed her to besmirch the best rap song ever written by approving her to sing it! That was a crime against humanity! 

[GreyhoundFan]

Sarah has Covid, no big surprise. I love the parts I have highlighted. "Sarah Palin’s defamation trial against New York Times delayed by positive coronavirus test"

Quote

NEW YORK — A long-awaited showdown in a Manhattan courtroom between Sarah Palin and the New York Times over a 2017 editorial she says defamed her was delayed Monday when the former Alaska governor tested positive for the coronavirus.

The trial was expected to begin with jury selection Monday morning, but U.S. District Court Judge Jed S. Rakoff told his Manhattan courtroom that he had learned Sunday night that Palin had tested positive on an initial test. “She is, of course, unvaccinated,” he noted.

After she took another test on Monday morning, Rakoff rescheduled the trial for Feb. 3.

As the first libel case against the Times to go to trial in the United States in 18 years, the case has been closely watched as a high-stakes test of First Amendment principles and protections.

At issue is an unsigned 2017 editorial that Palin alleges libeled her by linking an ad from her political action committee in 2011 to a mass shooting that same year in Arizona that killed six people and wounded 12 others, including Gabby Giffords, then a Democratic member of Congress.

While Palin as public figure faces a high hurdle to prove libel, the Times’s editorial was clearly wrong before it was corrected, and the case was expected to reveal embarrassing details about journalistic processes gone awry within one of the nation’s most prestigious news organizations.

The Times’s lawyers will say that its journalists made an innocent mistake that was soon corrected, said David McCraw, the Times’s deputy general counsel. But Palin’s team plans to argue that James Bennet, the paper’s former editorial page editor, had it out for the former governor since years before he joined the Times and that he disregarded his own editors and even his own paper’s previous news coverage to make a libelous argument about Palin.

Whether the Times wins or loses the case, it could set in motion a series of appeals that could undercut the media’s ability to report aggressively on public figures in the U.S.

The suit has been on a winding road since Palin first filed it more than four years ago. Rakoff initially dismissed the case against the Times but his ruling was overturned by an appellate court.

After learning of Palin’s coronavirus test, Rakoff noted that the trial could move forward this week with Palin’s consent, and that she could testify through a videoconferencing link. But Palin’s lawyers indicated that she wanted to be in the courtroom for jury selection and her own testimony.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

To nobody's surprise, Sarah is being an irresponsible beeoch. They should have made her sit in the gutter, that's where she belongs: "Sarah Palin, covid-positive and unvaccinated, again dines at restaurant, flouting New York health measures"

Quote

Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin, who is unvaccinated and revealed this week that she tested positive for the coronavirus, dined again at a New York City restaurant Wednesday night, flouting local health and safety measures calling for positive cases to isolate.

Elio’s, an Italian restaurant on the Upper East Side, has faced blowback after Palin dined indoors at the establishment on Saturday, in violation of the city’s dining mandate for people to show proof of vaccination. The Manhattan judge in Palin’s defamation trial against the New York Times revealed Monday that the proceedings would be delayed because the Republican tested positive for the virus. It’s unclear when Palin first tested positive.

Even though local guidelines advise people who test positive to be in isolation for five days after their positive test, Palin returned to the restaurant on Wednesday night. In photos posted to Mediaite, the first to report the news, the former Republican vice-presidential nominee, who has said she would only get vaccinated against the coronavirus “over my dead body,” was seen dining at a heated outdoor area of the restaurant. The city’s vaccine requirement does not apply for outdoor dining.

Anne Isaak, the owner of Elio’s, told The Washington Post that she was against having Palin return to dine at the restaurant.

“It was against my clearly stated wishes that Sarah Palin dined outside last night,” she wrote in a text message Thursday.

Luca Guaitolini, a manager for the restaurant, told CNN that Palin dined outdoors on Wednesday so that staff could be protected against infection.

“Tonight Sarah Palin returned to the restaurant to apologize for the fracas around her previous visit,” Guaitolini said in a statement. “In accordance with the vaccine mandate and to protect our staff, we seated her outdoors. We are a restaurant open to the public, and we treat all civilians the same.”

Kenneth G. Turkel, Palin’s attorney in the defamation case, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

A spokesman for New York City Hall did not immediately respond to a request for comment. City Hall spokesperson Jonah Allon told WNYC/Gothamist that he encouraged “any New Yorker who came into contact with Ms. Palin to get tested, just as we encourage all New Yorkers to get tested regularly, especially those who believe they may have been exposed to someone who tested positive for the coronavirus.”

The news comes as some restaurants nationwide have struggled in recent weeks to stay open because of staff being infected from the highly transmissible omicron variant. The waves of covid disruption over the past two months have led to many restaurants and bars shuttering and reopening, which has also come with a financial toll and some uncertainty for service-industry workers.

While the United States is averaging more than 600,000 new infections a day, the seven-day rolling average for cases has declined by 21 percent compared with the previous period, according to data tracked by The Post. Cases have significantly dropped in New York state by 48 percent compared with the previous seven-day cycle. Hospitalizations have also sharply declined by 31 percent in the state, data shows.

In New York City, cases, hospitalizations and deaths are all decreasing compared to the holiday surge, according to city health data.

Since Dec. 27, indoor diners ages 12 and older in New York City must show proof that they received two doses of the vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna, or the single-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine.

Despite a previous infection last March in which she said she suffered “bizarre” symptoms, Palin has vehemently opposed coronavirus vaccines.

“It’ll be over my dead body that I’ll have to get a shot,” Palin said last month at a conservative conference in Phoenix. “I will not do that. I won’t do it, and they better not touch my kids either.”

Palin is in Manhattan for her upcoming trial against the New York Times over a 2017 editorial she says defamed her. It is the first libel case against the Times to go to trial in the United States in 18 years. Palin alleges that an unsigned 2017 editorial libeled her by linking an ad from her political action committee in 2011 to a mass shooting that same year in Arizona that killed six people and wounded 12 others, including Gabby Giffords, then a Democratic member of Congress.

Palin was first reported to be dining indoors at Elio’s on Saturday in a tweet from New York magazine writer Shawn McCreesh.

Guaitolini acknowledged to the Times that Palin dined indoors over the weekend without being asked for proof that she had been vaccinated. The manager noted that the restaurant does not check vaccination cards for regular customers who come in each week and that Palin had dined with a regular. He told Eater that Elio’s is checking diners’ vaccination status in accordance with the mandate, but the process of managing the different kinds of proofs of vaccination — paper cards, photos of cards, apps — can be overwhelming.

Then, before jury selection could begin in the defamation trial, U.S. District Judge Jed S. Rakoff said he was informed on Sunday night that Palin had tested positive for the virus.

“She is, of course, unvaccinated,” Rakoff noted on Monday morning, before rescheduling her trial for next month.

A spokesman for New York Mayor Eric Adams (D) said in a statement this week that Palin “needs to respect small business workers and follow the rules just like everyone else.” The restaurant also faced criticism for not holding Palin to the same standards as other diners, but city agencies said Elio’s would not be investigated for allowing her to dine indoors. The city does not issue violations related to the dining mandate unless they are observed by an inspector.

Isaak told the Times this week that Palin’s initial visit put “a lot of pressure on everyone” and vowed that the restaurant would “be more vigilant.”

But Palin’s positive test over the weekend did not stop her from dining around Manhattan, defying the self-isolation guidelines. On Tuesday night, Palin signed autographs and took selfies with people as she dined outdoors at Campagnola, another Italian restaurant on the Upper East Side, according to Gothamist.

“You could see everyone was side-eyeing her,” resident Ashley Foley told the outlet. “Everyone had read the story about her going to Elio’s and getting a positive coronavirus test. She was very top-of-mind if you live on the Upper East Side.”

She drew as much attention when she returned to Elio’s on Wednesday night. Video shows her being rushed into an SUV as a reporter asks her questions about dining in public after having tested positive.

It remains unclear whether the restaurant will face renewed scrutiny over allowing Palin to return days after she tested positive.

I'm meeting friends in NYC this spring. We definitely won't be patronizing either restaurant as they don't seem to enforce the rules.

[Howl]

I have to wonder exactly who is footing the cost of this defamation lawsuit and who will pay the legal fees if she loses? 

She's counting on a nice payday to continue her irrelevant life or having someone else pick up the bill for dinner if she loses. 

This is a huge deal.  As noted in the WaPo article linked upthread by @GreyhoundFan, "Whether the Times wins or loses the case, it could set in motion a series of appeals that could undercut the media’s ability to report aggressively on public figures in the U.S."

 

 

Edited January 28, 2022 by Howl

[Xan]

On 1/28/2022 at 7:54 AM, Howl said:

I have to wonder exactly who is footing the cost of this defamation lawsuit and who will pay the legal fees if she loses? 

My guess is Peter Thiel.  He is tossing a lot of money around now to politicians.  He gave J. D. Vance ten million.  And, if I remember correctly, he's the one who financed Hulk Hogan taking down Gawker.  

[GreyhoundFan]

Gee, I'm shocked. /s "Sarah Palin bombs on witness stand in New York Times trial"

Quote

Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin’s years as a conservative provocateur, TV personality and outspoken critic of the “lamestream media” have ill-prepared her for any venue in which the federal rules of evidence hold sway. In the Manhattan courtroom of Judge Jed S. Rakoff on Thursday, Palin and her bombast bombed.

At issue was Palin’s 2017 defamation lawsuit against the New York Times over an editorial that baselessly asserted a “political incitement” link between a map circulated in March 2010 by her political action committee (SarahPAC) and a 2011 mass shooting in Arizona. The Times corrected the editorial, and Palin sued less than two weeks after the editorial was published.

But under questioning from her attorney, Ken Turkel, Palin managed to suggest that the Times’s alleged libels were broader than the editorial, as her lawyers had previously argued. She claimed that there was, in fact, another instance when the Times committed the same mistake.

When Turkel asked about her reaction to the Times editorial, Palin said her closest associates knew that she would be “mortified” and would need to “respond again to what the New York Times had lied about again.”

Counsel for the Times quickly objected to Palin’s claim, seeking to have it stricken from the record.

Rakoff intervened: “What did you mean by ‘again’?”

“They lied before,” responded Palin.

“About this?” asked Rakoff

“My view was the New York Times took a lot of liberties and wasn’t always truthful,” answered Palin. “That’s what I meant by ‘again.’”

The judge decided that he wouldn’t strike the testimony but noted that the Times could probe it on cross-examination.

Turkel then resumed his questioning. “Gov. Palin, when you say ‘again,’ are you talking specifically with respect to the contention that you had somehow incited Jared Loughner to shoot the people in Tucson?”

“Precisely,” responded Palin.

The Times again objected, which brought Rakoff back into the mix. He asked Palin to clarify whether she was blaming the Times specifically, “or just other folks” for making this connection before the 2017 editorial.

“I believe it was the New York Times helping to lead the charge that a link was being made between me, Sarah Palin and SarahPAC, and political incitement of actions that would turn into tragedy,” Palin said.

Pressed for specifics, Palin came up short: “The New York Times would write with that linkage between Sarah Palin and inciting political violence. And I don’t have the specific articles, of course, in front of me.”

So now Palin was alleging that there could be multiple Times stories at issue. A sidebar discussion among the judge and the attorneys ensued. When he returned, Rakoff said that the legal issue had been resolved. Turkel steered away from the topic from that point onward.

No one who has even casually followed the former governor’s career would be surprised at these specifics-free blasts against the media. Yet this time, Palin chose the wrong venue for such a critique. Adoring audiences at Fox News don’t stop and ask for citations, specifics, supporting evidence. But that’s precisely what happens in a courtroom.

Palin’s blame-the-media-at-all-costs ethos also arose when she was asked about the SarahPAC map at issue in the lawsuit. It overlaid stylized crosshairs over congressional districts in which the PAC hoped to prevail in the 2010 midterm elections.

Citing language in the editorial saying that SarahPAC had “circulated” that map, Turkel asked Palin if that was the case. “No,” responded Palin. “No. It was put on my website. The media circulated it.” But if that argument holds sway with the jury, just think of the arguments that the Times’s attorneys could make: The New York Times didn’t circulate this erroneous editorial. It was put on our website. Subscribers circulated it.

Still another lowlight came when David Axelrod, an attorney for the Times, was attempting to establish that people like Palin — politicians on a national stage — must expect scrutiny. Axelrod noted that Sen. John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) choice of Palin as his running mate in 2008 prompted criticism of her tenure as governor of Alaska. “I didn’t have time nor desire to read what was being written about me while I was jumping on that campaign trail,” retorted Palin. But seconds later, she seemed familiar with that coverage. In response to Axelrod’s reference to attacks on “her record” in Alaska, Palin said, “That was the problem: My record wasn’t being reported.”

Even Palin’s attempt to show some hockey-mom authenticity backfired. At one point, she referenced the witness stand as the “penalty box.” Perhaps she’d forgotten that it was she who filed this suit.

The false link in the Times editorial is an astounding claim — that Palin’s PAC played an inciting role in a shooting that killed six people and wounded 13, including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.). There was enough merit in her legal arguments to get the case in front of a jury. But on Thursday, the plaintiff in Palin v. New York Times ran up against her biggest obstacle yet — herself.

 

[AlmostSavedAtTacoBell]

18 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

Gee, I'm shocked. /s "Sarah Palin bombs on witness stand in New York Times trial"

 

I truly enjoy cocky asshats getting their comeuppance on the witness stand.  It's like a big surprise to them when they are under oath, constrained by direct and cross examination, and able to be confronted with actual proof instead of being allowed to just blather and bleat out lies willy nilly.  Well Palin, how's that truthy honesty thing workin' out for ya?

[Cartmann99]

 

[AlmostSavedAtTacoBell]

23 hours ago, Cartmann99 said:

 

Have she and JB Duggar never seen a tv show or movie with a courtroom scene?  They both tried to raise their own objections.  That's not how it works.  That's not how any of this works!  What a pair of buffoons!  And really, Sarah, if that was the "most fun 90 seconds of my life" than I think you need a trip to the adult bookstore across from Four Seasons Landscaping.