Paul Revere by Cyrus Dallin, North End, Boston

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Wednesday, September 23, 2009

The GOVERNOR WHO QUIT goes to China!

SEE THE LINK AT THE END OF THIS POST FOR CAPT. FOGG'S ASSESSMENT OF THE GOVERNOR WHO QUIT'S VISIT TO COMMUNIST CHINA.

Sarah Palin, who quit as governor of Alaska in order to make a ton of money, I mean in order to share her wisdom and rhetorical powers with the rest of the world, gave a speech in China to a closed audience because, apparently, she didn't want the media, uh, general public to hear her criticize [on foreign soil] President Obama, I mean, hear her insightful, well-thought out, unbiased opinions.

In this ground-breaking speech, the "Governor Who Quit" blamed the world financial crisis on government excesses and called for a new round of deregulation and tax cuts for U.S. businesses.

Yes, she actually said that.  Remember how "the government" was passing off those credit default swaps as sound financial investments?  Remember how "the government" made all those toxic deals that led to Merrill Lynch's failure?  You betcha!  We need to give Wall Street more slack--not rein in its greedy, reckless behavior, in order to stabilize our economy.  And if anyone knows anything about the US and the world's economy, the governor who quit her job, who never traveled outside the US until she was 44 years old, and who has a degree in journalism from a community college, it is Sarah Palin!

"We got into this mess because of government interference in the first place," the former Republican U.S. vice presidential candidate said Wednesday at a conference sponsored by investment firm CLSA Asia Pacific Markets. "We're not interested in government fixes, we're interested in freedom," she added.

That's right!  Sarah is interested in FREEDOM--except for a woman's right to make decisions about her own body.
 
Mrs. Palin didn't refer to President Barack Obama by name, but said his promise for change during the election hasn't taken hold. She called his campaign promises "nebulous, utopian sounding…Now 10 months later, though, a lot of Americans are asking: more government? Is that the change we want?"

Wow!  She used the words "nebulous" and "utopian!"   Nebulous utopian promises?  Mr. Obama has kept 43 promises, compromised on 11, broken 7,  and 99 are in the works.  But Sarah doesn't let facts get in the way of her criticizing the US president while on foreign soil, does she.

In an echo of last year's presidential campaign, she criticized government policies that result in what she called a redistribution of wealth. "There is no justice in taking from one person and giving to another," she said. "History shows it simply does not work."

Poor Sarah.  Did the Governor Who Quit Her Job forget about the distribution of federal dollars to Alaska and that Alaska gets more FEDERAL money per capita than anywhere else DESPITE astounding revenues at the STATE level coming from he North Slope oil fields?


On health care, Mrs. Palin defended her previous criticisms that the health-care overhaul proposed by Democrats would lead to health-care rationing and what she called "death panels." "It's just common sense that government attempts to solve problems like health care problem will just create new problems." She called for "market friendly" health care reform that gives tax breaks to individuals to buy health insurance.

Yes, tax breaks for college students, children, the chronically unemployed, the underemployed, and the terminally ill.  That'll work, because insurance companies want to cooperate in making sure those populations have complete and necessary coverage with no exceptions for pre-existing conditions.  We've seen how insurers help those in need, haven't we?  And how insurance companies would NEVER deny any American coverage because of typos in an application or because the companies need to make their bottom lines grow while their execs make more money from Americans' medical disasters.

She acknowledged the economic rise of both China and India but called for a vision of Asia in which no one country would dominate.  "I see a China that is stable and peaceful and prosperous. We have optimism that, yes, it is," she said. But she added that the U.S. must work with Asian allies in case "China goes in a different direction."

There you have it.  Simple answers to simple problems from simple minds.

This speech will go on The Governor Who Quit's resume as proof of her foreign policy bona fides for the next presidential election.  Just read that last paragraph and see how deeply and thoroughly she grasps the issues.

Source 

Capt. Fogg over at Human Voices has more to say on The Governor Who Quit's visit to Communist China, and her bashing the President of the United States while commies sat in the audience.  It's delicious.

45 comments:

The J Mopper said...

She can also now put on her resume that she can see China from Alaska!

Let's hope China now holds her in as high regard as most rationale people do here (in the States).

Gordon Scott said...

All one has to do is look at how the lending standards of Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac declined in the ten years leading to the meltdown to see that indeed, government regulations were the problem.

When you take the consequences of lending to bad risks out of the equation, as these programs do, then bad loans will be made. There wouldn't be bad CDOs without bad loans inside them.

Or have you forgotten how your own state's Congressman Frank fought off attempts to rein in the GMAs earlier in the decade, despite ample evidence that the Democratic party functionaries running them had engaged in fraud? Does the name Franklin Raines ring a bell?

Perhaps you can explain the justice involved in taking from someone who works hard and lives sensibly--at the point of a gun--and giving the money to someone who does not work hard or live sensibly.

That is, if you can stop looking down your very cute elitist nose at a woman who has done quite well for herself and her family, despite her inferior college degree.

Ruth said...

Handlers were good with G.H.W.B., too, and it does look as if Palin' practiced up to get those big words out without messing up. It's a sure bet that investors in China are going to dive right in and buy more AAA rated mortgage bundles after the appearance of this financial pro touting her and her party's renewal of the same policies that tore down the world's economy for @ eight years.

Shaw Kenawe said...

That is, if you can stop looking down your very cute elitist nose at a woman who has done quite well for herself and her family, despite her inferior college degree.

Gordon, you're missing the point.

I look down my nose at a woman with extremely limited intellectual, executive, and international skills who passes herself off as an expert on anything. She went to China for the speaking fee.

Palin was the mayor of a village that was left millions of dollars in debt after she went on to fry bigger salmon, and she is a less than one term governor of a state that is the smallest in population in the country, and that took in more federal dollars than any other state in the union.

Sarah Palin is the Anna Nichol Smith of Republican politics.

She's famous for being famous.

Anonymous said...

just wondering...will there be massive protests against palin like there was against the dixie chicks?

palin dissed the president of the united states on foreign soil!

what a creep. remember how the conservatives went bezerk when the dixie chicks said they were embarrassed that dubya was from texas?

what palin did was worse.

but...IOKIYAR!

Arthurstone said...

"...cute elitist nose..."

You're very patient Shaw.

Gordon Scott said...

Shaw,

Bill Clinton, Al Gore, and Alan Greenspan also gave speeches at this conference in the past. They did it for the speaking fee, too.

And by all accounts other than the cabal of Alaskan Palin-haters, she did a good job as mayor, and as governor. Amazing for a woman of such limited intellectual skills.

If you read the accounts of her speech, she didn't pass herself off as an expert on anything except Main Street, USA.

Seriously, Shaw, what's behind this obsession with Sarah Palin? There's plenty of politicians who haven't traveled outside the US much, and who didn't take degrees from Hahvahd. Most of them wouldn't do any better in an interview than she did. Why do you feel the need to hate her?

Arthurstone said...

"Perhaps you can explain the justice involved in taking from someone who works hard and lives sensibly--at the point of a gun--and giving the money to someone who does not work hard or live sensibly."

Oh dear.

Gordon's worked up over the graduated income tax again.

Shaw Kenawe said...

Capt. Fogg's post at his blog Human Voices [link is at the bottom of my post on this subject] has this to say at the end:

"I'll leave it to you to decide if reiterating her lies about death panels and "socialized" medicine to an audience, every nationality of which but the USA already has universal health care, indicates brilliance, insurmountable ignorance, vicious disregard for truth, justice and the United States of America. I won't ask if you think that telling an audience in China that Barack Obama and our trade policies are unfair to China nibbles away at any claim to patriotism she may have. She knows it does and CLSA reports that they closed the meetings to the press only because Palin didn't want to be known for what she is; a lying, chiseling, invidious little creep willing to sell out her country for her personal advancement."

Gordon Scott said...

"CLSA requested Palin's speech be closed to reporters so she could make an "unfettered" presentation to investors, according to spokeswoman Wheeler. And Palin, whose supporters have long accused the media of bias and harsh treatment, agreed."

Source: The Associated Press.

When Capt. Fogg gets the basic facts right, then we'll consider his other opinions.

Shaw Kenawe said...

Bill Clinton, Al Gore, and Alan Greenspan all achieved something larger, more important than Palin has.

If McCain had not tapped her as his vp, do you really, really believe anyone would give two hangs about her or invite her to speak on international subjects?

She would still be slogging away at being the governor of Alaska and field dressing moose--if she ever really did that either.

Did Geraldine Ferraro get as much attention after Mondale lost the election as does Ms. Palin? Ferraro was an attorney and a member of the US House of Representatives.

Palin is still a past mayor of a town in Alaska and a less than one term governor, who quit her job so that she could promote herself and make more money.

BTW, the fact is Palin inherited a town with zero debt, but left it with indebtedness of over $22-million." That is not a "good job" by anyone's account, but especially not by a fiscally conservative's measure.

Shaw Kenawe said...

"CLSA requested Palin's speech be closed to reporters so she could make an "unfettered" presentation to investors, according to spokeswoman Wheeler. And Palin, whose supporters have long accused the media of bias and harsh treatment, agreed."

C'mon Gordon. What Capt. Fogg wrote is P.A.R.O.D.Y. And HIS opinion of why she wouldn't let the media in on her vip speech.

The media is mean to Sarah? Ooooh!

She would NEVER make it as a preznit, would she. I imagine the poor pitbull with lipstick would need a fainting couch wherever a crowd of anti-Sarah people appeared carrying signs likening her to HITLER or showing her image with a mustache under her nose.

We need to protect the faint-hearted from reality, don't we.

TAO said...

Oh Gordon,

Yes, loan standards were the total cause of the meltdown....

It had nothing to do with the fact that you had a whole lot of money chasing a limited number of investments and you had investors looking for 'guaranteed, safe, high returns' and CDO's offered that in spades...

Could it be that lending standards were lowered because there was so much money out there looking for a home that the only way this DEMAND could be satisfied was through increasing the supply of home mortgages and the only way to do that was through lowering the standards?

No, its much easier for you to look down YOUR ELITIST LITTLE NOSE and point to the poor, the minorities, the lazy free lunchers, who are such the bane of your existence....

Couldn't possibily be well to do investors looking for easy high returns and no risk?

Arthurstone said...

Gordon harrumphed:

"When Capt. Fogg gets the basic facts right, then we'll consider his other opinions."

Who's this "we" kemo sabe?

Speaking for myself (I wouldn't presume to speak for 'us'), it's been interesting watching your increasingly proprietary contributions around these here parts.

Gordon Scott said...

TAO,

There's always demand for investments with high return and low risk. There's always demand for half-price drinks at your local tavern, too.

Once upon a time, there were multiple layers of evaluation for any mortgage; the originator, the mortgage insurer, the appraiser, the title guarantor, and so on. If a mortgage went bad, it came back to whichever of these entities fell down on the job of correctly assessing the risk.

The FMAs were designed to recycle the mortgage money available more quickly by providing a set of standards for mortgages; if one met the standards, they agreed to buy it. Unfortunately, starting in 1997, those standards were dropped again and again until, by 2005, all you needed was a pulse to get a mortgage. Yet you still had the FMAs insisting that everything was cool, no problems here.

The CDOs were designed to make investment in those mortgages simple and easy. They even had a proven formula for assessing the risk. Unfortunately, the formula only works if housing values go up. If they don't, the formula breaks down. A lot of smart people didn't realize that.

It's far, far more complicated than I've summarized. But the truth of what happened is this: the government guaranteed a lot of bad loans, and insulated the originators from the consequences.

Certainly the investors in the CDOs should have been smarter. And, as in the case of AIG, it's not the first time that a tiny little division of a gigantic company managed to destroy it.

But the first, and biggest problem was that the government was making it possible for banks and others to write bad mortgages to people who could never pay them back.

Gordon Scott said...

Um, no, Shaw, he wrote that Palin demanded the speech be closed. The spokeswoman for the sponsor said that the sponsor wanted it closed, and Palin agreed. That's a basic error of fact (or an easily disproven lie) that pretty much renders everything he wrote invalid.

The intervening clause describing opinions of Palin's supporters doesn't change that.

Shaw Kenawe said...

Here's how Shannon Bell at RightPundits.com reports Palin's speech:

"The event will be closed to the media, which will likely cause a stir with the left. They have already painted Sarah Palin as someone who lacks knowledge about foreign policy and will no doubt use the fact of a media blackout to further that notion."

No, Shannon, the left will not use the blackout as proof of Palin's lack of foreign policy knowledge. We'll let her record on foreign policy be the proof.

The record shows that Palin hadn't stepped foot on any foreign land until she was well into her 40th decade, that she visited Iceland and Kwait, and landed in Ireland on her way back to the US, and when she was asked about the Iraq War just before she was tapped to be McCain's vp, she said something to the effect that she hadn't been too focused on it.

And this...

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who touts her state's proximity to Russia as part of her foreign policy experience, has not met with Russian leaders or delegations, negotiated any Russian issues or visited the country, according to an Associated Press review of records from the governor's office.

The review showed that the Republican vice presidential candidate has negotiated with only one country, Canada, and until last week had met with the leader of only one other, tiny Iceland.

Those are her foreign policy bona fides, and that the Right defends that as a "record," makes them more foolish than is Palin.

Bell continues:

"Sarah Palin took it on the chin for not having the depth of knowledge about foreign policy as one might expect; when actually she demonstrated as much if not more foreign policy knowledge as Barack Obama and Joe Biden."

Bell gives the reader NO EXAMPLE to back up her claim that Palin "demonstrated as much if not more foreign policy knowledge as Barack Obama and Joe Biden." Not one sliver of fact to back that absurdity up.

This is why a majority of Americans do not take the Palin phenomenon any more seriously than the public believed Anna Nichole Smith was a "serious" actress.

libhom said...

Now she can see China from her hotel room.

Joe "Truth 101" Kelly said...

Governor Palin has never said anything of intellectual value. Every now and then she says something that makes the right giddy. Like the lipstick on a pitbull thing, or whatever that was.

As a capitalist, I give her credit for seizing the opportunity to get a few bucks from the saps that are are paying to listen to her. I wonder if her interpreter tries to perform the same down home inflections as he/she is interpreting.

susan banks said...

I totally agree with the true fact that these bailouts did nothing good for anyone. They just helped the rich get their “Bonuses” and in stack of million dollars at a time. That’s where the money went. It didn’t help the “little people” the citizens of the US keep afloat.

chris brown said...

She should shut her mouth already and just get on In life...

(O)CT(O)PUS said...

A Synopsis:

So Sarah Palin went to Hong Kong
To charm the commie-capitalists
With comic-book Reaganomics
Among the ghosts of Mao Zedong.

She said wealth redistribution is wrong,
Along with taxes and prophylactics.
She spoke because she’s broke but left
With Credit Agricole tucked in her thong.

dmarks said...

Truth said: "Governor Palin has never said anything of intellectual value"

Translation: you don't agree with her politics. It is rather common for people to denigrate the views of those who do not share their own opinions.

Joe "Truth 101" Kelly said...

Dmarks: I have said complimentary things to and about you. Gordon. Patrick. Ronald Reagan. Even George W. Bush. I have attacked policies of President Obama as well as many other Democrats. You exhibit your right wing penchant for closed mindedness when you accuse me of bashing Sarah Palin only because she has an R beside her name.

Shaw Kenawe said...

No one [Democrat or Republican] would have paid any attention to Sarah Palin if she looked like this.

Joe "Truth 101" Kelly said...

I typed three comments and wiped them all out Shaw. I ain't no Errol Flynn myself.

Gordon Scott said...

Nor am I, T101.

Anonymous said...

She quit because of socialist scum who were costing Alaska big money with 20 frivolous lawsuits that panned out to be nothing, you know real important stuff like wearing a jacket with a logo on it?

This person has bigger and better things to do.

You don't seem to mind that Obama quit after voting present 142 times... that man is devoid of brains and accomplishments.. he wouldn't make a pimple on her ass!

Most popular governor because she had accomplishments which is more than your stumbling bumbling teleprompter puppet has working for his rich elitist utopian puppet master communists..

Palin didn't even use a teleprompter her first time addressing the convention!

I look down my nose at a scumbag of a man with extremely limited intellectual, executive, and international and business skills who passes himself off as an expert on anything and has proven he's working for the enemy...

Palin's accomplishments are many... and once again Obama wouldn't make a pimple on her ass.

dmarks said...

Truth: It is your closed-mindness, as shown by the Palin bashing statement that I referred to.

Arthurstone said...

dmarks- You said a mouthful. One of your more self-revealing posts.

Arthurstone said...

The post where you 'translated' Truth for us that is. A bit of projecting I'd say.

TAO said...

Nothing like the ex governor of the state that receives more federal funds than any other state in the nation lecturing us on whats wrong with federal spending.

Oh, yeah, and those lawsuits that cost the state so much money...the most expensive one BY FAR was the one Palin started against herself to make sure that the trooper thing was handled by the ethics board....that cost the state 187,000 of the 400,000 quoted as the total.

I say, Tina Fey for President!

dmarks said...

Arthur: Perhaps you made a good point. But really, I have no idea. You were being rather obtuse.

Shaw Kenawe said...

Anonymous' comment is a good example of why only 23% of Americans self-identify as Republicans.

There will always be a stubborn minority that actually believes the nonsense posted by "Anonymous," and who will go through life insisting black is white, up is down, and war is peace.

I guess all we can do is let them live in their small, fact-free little fantasy world, so long as they leave the rest of the reality-based population in peace.

Helen of Troy New York said...

Gail Collin in today's New York times nails it:

"And look at Sarah Palin. Everybody thought that she was a desperately uninformed goofball whom the Republican Party might, nevertheless, someday nominate for president in an effort to cement its reputation as worst major American political organization since the Know-Nothings. Then this week she went off to Hong Kong and gave an 80-minute, closed-door speech to financial fund managers, for which she was paid an undisclosed but indisputably vast sum of money. The early reviews from people exiting the ball room ranged from "well prepared" to "boring."

Given that she started the day as a celebrity whose deepest recorded thought was how only dead fish go with the flow, this was quite a triumph. If Palin can arrange to make all her future speeches in Asia, with no reporters present and tons of money falling out of the ceiling at every stop, I think she has a real shot at rehabilitation."


LOL!

An Interested Citizen said...

Sarah Palin went to a Communist country and during her 90 minute speech dissed the President of the United States [she was too much of a cowardly weasle to USE HIS NAME, but she did CRITICIZE his policies]--and this president is still FIGHTING A WAR!

So let's recap: The Republican ex-governor of Alaska goes to Communist China and while on foreign soil, she gives a speech closed to the media in which she criticizes the President of the United States.

When the Dixie Chicks were in London and said they were ashamed that President Bush was from Texas, all hell broke loose and their careers nearly ruined for that statement.

Whaat happened to Sarah? The Right cheers her treasonous behavior on and sees it as making her run for the presidency in 2012 more enticing.

Gordon Scott said...

The difference, of course, is:

The Dixie Chicks were performing in an allied country a few days before our troops went into battle. They chose to make a political statement in very poor taste, with very poor timing.

The public responded to that statement by refusing to buy their records or concert tickets. That's the free market, folks! You flaps your gums, and you takes your chances.

Then there was the non-apology apology (which Maines admitted later wasn't sincere). They followed that by announcing that they really didn't like country music fans anyway, and were much more comfortable hanging out in Hollywood.

Manies et al then launched a whiny, poor-poor-pitiful-me publicity campaign claiming they were censored, threatened and oh-so-abused.

What Maines accomplished, of course, was not to make herself poor. But for those who made a living supporting the tour and producing their CDs, the financial costs were considerable.

No one ever claimed that someone can't criticize the president when overseas. After all, President Obama was pretty free with his criticisms when he was on his campaign tour overseas. It's not treason; but there may be consequences to doing so.

Joe "Truth 101" Kelly said...

Former Governor Palin has given me no reason to think she is anything but an intellectual lightweight Dmarks. She is like the old Hollywood billboard goddess, Angelyne. The mere gift of her presence here on Earth is enough reason for the Republican party to bow at her feet and buy her an expensive wardrobe. Commies shall pay lots of decadent capitalist dollars to hear her speak. Only platinum tweezers are good enough to pluck her eyebrows. Only the finest French silk shall wipe her bottom. Only the flesh of virgin moose shall find it's way into her crockpot. Whale blubber on a stick shall be served to her by only the nobelest of royal Eskimo families. The Catholic Church shall tear down monuments to The Virgin Mary and replace them with even greater monuments to the divine Sarah.

Shaw Kenawe said...

TRUTH,

LOL! But didn't you get the memo?

It's Obama that's supposed to be "THE ONE."

See, when conservatives adulate a politician, it's acceptable. They just don't like to see a liberal being adored by ANYONE. When that happens they call it messianic and cultish. When they behave that way, they call it admiring someone who's "just like them."

LOL!

dmarks said...

Truth: There's no in between is there?

But anyway LOL. I never thought a post would give ma a craving for moosemeat, but yours did.

Joe "Truth 101" Kelly said...

I'm not sure of what you mean about being in between Dmarks. But if it's any comfort, I'm probably closer to your position on many issues than you think.

dmarks said...

No "in between" means something, just something between the idea that Palin has an IQ of 3.75, and the idea that she is the 2nd most awesome human being on the planet. just behind Chuck Norris.

Arthurstone said...

Sarah Palin's memoir entitled 'Going Rogue: An American Life' will be published November 17, 2009.

Should be wonderful. She's obviously given the book a great deal of time and thought.

Heh. Heh.

Arthurstone said...

If I were the publisher this would be my marketing hook. Really zeroing in on that core GOP demographic.

'Since you're only going to read one book (if that) this decade, this is the one.'

Gordon Scott said...

Funny, Arthurstone. Except that surveys have consistently shown that conservatives buy and read more books than liberals.

A first printing of 1.5 million copies is enormous. They're expecting to sell a lot of books.