Someone loves the jam, the jet, and the mansion:
Later this week I’ll head to Nashville, where I’ll have the honor of speaking with members of the Tea Party movement. I look forward to meeting many Americans who share a commitment to limited government, common sense and personal responsibility. This movement is truly a grassroots, organic effort. It’s not a top-down organization; it’s a ground-up call to action that already has both political parties rethinking the way they do business.
If it is such an honor, why is she charging over a hundred large? She never seems to mention the fat loots she is getting, does she?
GReynoldsCT00
most of the comments on that article make me want to hurl.
Chat Noir
And her fan base is too stupid to notice she’s taking them for a ride.
dmsilev
Sarah Palin combined with Twitter. I believe that is the Platonic Ideal of inanity.
-dms
aimai
Organic and “ground-up”–sounds like a super healthy beef patty.
aimai
Alice B. Stuck
No way for gold plated wingnuts to talk.
Sarah Serendipity – I will go to Nashville. Take that Ike.
Trip the light fandango.
There’s a pot of gold at the end of every Starburst.
Follow the White Wabbit Sarah!
dmsilev
Well, she does say this:
However, one does get the sense that ‘the cause’ may include things like the Sarah Palin Nordstrom’s Charge Card.
-dms
Ash Can
This combined with the Limbaugh post should bury the WP server in shit so deep its “Word Press Error” page will turn brown.
dmsilev
@GReynoldsCT00: I stopped reading when I hit the second comment:
Ever get the feeling that to a teabagger, “soshalist” or “progressive” simply means “person who, for whatever reason, I dislike”?
-dms
Bubblegum Tate
@Chat Noir:
Indeed. Plus, as I noted before, starbursts are a hell of a drug.
@dmsilev:
I’m curious as to whether “the cause” also includes Sarah Palin buying Sarah Palin’s book in order to get more people to give money to Sarah Palin or if such activities are only reserved for her PAC.
Tomlinson
@dmsilev:
She never does say exactly *what* cause, does she?
joeyess
Palin. Always a treasure trove of bullshit. Oh, as for her supposed reason that she named her baby “Trig”? Via Sully and Digby.
Apparently “Trig” is short for something more relevant.
Midnight Marauder
Wow, Cole. You are such a fucking liar!
Now sure, she doesn’t specify what that cause is or that all of her compensation will go this as-yet-unnamed cause. Is it the Tea Party cause? The cause of Freedom? The cause of a never-ending pile of legal bills because you are a lying liar who lies?
Such mysteries, the world may never know the answer to…
Tom65
So….why charge the $100K in the first place?
Suckers.
Zifnab
Hey, nice work if you can get it.
Besides, I’d rather see Republican donor money going to Gucci than to Guilliani. Corinthian leather to Cornyn. Gold to Steele. You get the idea.
r€nato
I have no problem with Palin shaking down the teabaggers.
She may be a grifter, but she really isn’t terribly bright and the only reason she gets away with it is because her fans are even dumber than her. I mean, by definition, if you think this woman is worthy of holding political office, you’re a dumbshit.
Someday they will catch on to her, and they will be terribly upset and disappointed… then where will they go? In search of another empty-headed icon who is even more moronic and shrill?
geg6
@Zifnab:
Zactly.
Zifnab
@Bubblegum Tate:
She’s like a business, vertically integrating herself. I’m waiting for her to buy large stakes in FedEx and Newscorp.
Phoebe
This from the comments:
Her common sense intelligence is Reaganist and very compelling. Along with that she is an attractive and an articulate spokesperson for those who appreciate the American values that made ours the greatest nation on earth.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
I love it how the Republicans and Teabaggers pretend that they’re not one and the same. The Republicans aren’t completely stupid, they know that they won’t win a thing if there was a third party to the right of the Republicans. Even in a best-case scenario like the NY-23 race that saw the Republican candidate drop out leaving the Teabagger to face the Democrat is a tremendous risk for the right. A Republican poaching 5% from the Teabagger will most likely allow a Democrat to win, even in right-leaning districts.
SpotWeld
Whenever I hear about someone planning to experience a “Tea Party movement” I feel like stating a desire that they stay downwind when they do.
licensed to kill time
Palin and the Fat Loots would make an excellent name for a rock band.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
@joeyess:
My goodness, “Van Palin”? There is just something so perfectly white trash about that. It’s just like something Joy Turner would do.
ajr22
Did the Democrats put something in their platform about being anti-common sense and I just missed the memo?
r€nato
@Phoebe:
shorter: let’s elect a president I could masturbate to.
Notorious P.A.T.
“Like in my home state of Alaska, where the government takes millions of dollars from oil companies and gives it to voters every year”.
JGabriel
John Cole @ Top:
To be fair, doesn’t everyone love The Jam?
.
Mary
I am offended on behalf of Lady Gaga.
Bubblegum Tate
@r€nato:
Indeed.
I was talking to a friend not too long ago about Palin’s ongoing grifting, and he said, “Well, it’s not that hard–she just has to stay one step ahead of teabaggers. That’s like being faster than somebody with their shoelaces tied together.”
Notorious P.A.T.
Ding ding ding!
LuciaMia
Some how, two phrases you don’t immediately associate with the name, ‘Sarah Palin.’ Responsibility, right. Quitting the governorship halfway through. Common sense? Explaining said quitting with a speech that gave people migraines.
And yeah, if she’s not ‘benefiting financially’, why broadcast what she’s being paid? Oh, I get it. They’ll say her speaker’s fee is just a bunch of lies made up by left-wing loons.
Or maybe they’ll have a little photo-op of her being handed the big novelty check, only to have her give it back to some schlub dressed up as Thomas Paine.
Sophist
Pfft, typical tax-and-spend conservative, thinking she knows how to use the people’s money better than they do. Hey, here’s an idea, instead of you deciding for everyone how best to advance “the cause”, how about you let all the real Americans keep their money and spend how they think would best serve the cause? They were smart enough to earn it, why don’t you trust them enough to spend it wisely without all you “smart” Washington types making their decisions for them?
(Am I doing it right?)
Davis X. Machina
There’s a substantial slice of her fan-base who, if they found out that she’s scamming them, would admire her because she’s scamming them, not despite it — after all, she’s only doing what they would try to do in similar circumstances, and they understand that.
EconWatcher
@joeyess:
Much as I can’t stand the lady, I’m going to need more evidence (Sully cites Levi) for the allegation that she despises and makes fun of her own special-needs child. Yeah, she does seem to use him almost as a prop sometimes, and that’s offensive.
But the evidence we have for sure is that she’s not very smart and not very classy. I haven’t seen enough to conclude that she’s simply a monster–which is what she’d be if this allegation were true.
parksideq
@John Cole: Can you change the tag from Starbursts to Starstruck in honor of the awesome way you worked Lady GaGa into a Palin post of all things?
Back on topic: Palin’s just treating her fans the way the GOP treats their constituents: it’s in their best interest to not give her money, and she’s convinced them that the opposite is true.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
arguingwithsignposts
@dmsilev:
Nobody “watches” via Twitter. They may “follow,” but if anything, they’re “reading along” via Twitter
Comrade Mary
@Mary: You beat me to it, sister.
OTOH, this means that John is fully dialed into the Zeitgeist and knows now that resistance is futile.
One of us, John. One of us.
Bubblegum Tate
@parksideq:
WIN
Peter J
@Sophist:
Yupp.
geg6
OT, but I have to go and conduct a workshop at a local high school tonight where people will be completing the FAFSA for their kids who will be entering college next fall. It’s a rather well-to-do school district where I spent this same workshop last year explaining to them how they can’t hide their income and assets so they can get the same Pell grants that the kids in the Sto-Rox school RIGHT DOWN THE STREET get. The fact that Sto-Rox is a poor, minority school district and this district has an average income of over $150K does not seem to matter to them. And this is where, last year, I had a group of parents sitting around while they were supposed to be completing their forms talking about Sarah Starbursts and how much better they’d feel if it were she who had just been inaugurated.
This is a group of people with bachelor’s, master’s, and professional degrees. Thankfully, I asked around last year in a very nonchalant way and none of them graduated from my alma maters.
jenniebee
No truly grassroots movement ever paid $100K for a keynote speaker until after they had completely stopped being grassroots.
William Jennings Bryan didn’t get one thin dime for delivering his Cross of Gold speech.
That is all.
Mike in NC
Somewhere today, Pat Robertson is weeping.
I read that one of the spawn of Strom Thurmond is planning to run for a Congressional seat for SC. If so, it’ll probably be a cakewalk since he sounds like a batshit insane bigot.
Sophist
But he did earn a substantial fee from the United Precious Metals Religious Symbol Co. for the product placement.
Libertini
@Sophist: NIce!! I myself wonder if her saying she would not benefit financially meant that she doesn’t consider receiving $100,000 a financial benefit. But it may be interesting to see (if we can) exactly what “cause” the money goes back to, if indeed it does. Remember, this is a woman who can lie with a straight face and often does.
Woodbuster
Look, we are talking about a bunch of people who gladly give their pennies and dollars to the likes of Jim and Tammy Faye Baker, Jimmy Swaggart (remember them?) or, in more modern times, Pat Robertson. They have succumbing to a big confidence game since they were born. Palin is just cashing in to a long-standing Christian tradition.
Pass the Plate! You Betcha!
phoebes-in-santa fe
@Bubblegum Tate: I like that one a lot! Kudos to your friend.
Ash Can
Shakedown Sarah’s fans loathe the very idea of paying local taxes so that they get city services, but they’re more than happy to fork over cash to her to fund her hairdresser, personal shopper, manicurist, etc.
::headdesk::
OK, that’s enough FUBAR for me for this afternoon. I’m off to the real world to run errands and shake all the manure out of my head.
Mark S.
She’s like a point guard who knows when to pass the ball ($100,000) off to a teammate (SarahPAC).
Bubblegum Tate
@Mark S.:
This is fucking fantastic. So perfect.
polyorchnid octopunch
Hey! That’s Fat Lutes to you!
chopper
yeah, those small-government people. like the former governor of alaska, who taxed the oil companies to give free money to the citizens. that’s small government in action all right.
demo woman
Love the Money Honey title. How long will it take her before she moves to the lower states and builds a fancy house although she would probably prefer something on 5th Avenue. To name your child Trig because of a medical term seems far fetched to me. If the term were that common, she would have been attacked by parents of children with down syndrome. We can assume that she did not name him after her favorite math class.
Cassidy
@parksideq:
Thought Starstruck was 3OH!3 and Katy Perry?
Tonal Crow
Palin is today’s most visible preacher-huckster in a line of preacher-hucksters stretching back at least to the ones who wrote Genesis.
Remember November
Heidi Montag has more empathy.
Mark S.
@Bubblegum Tate:
(blush)
Cassidy
Further into the article comments…
JGabriel
@demo woman:
The Fifth Ave. social set would eat Palin alive. She is not a popular woman in Manhattan.
.
dr. bloor
@r€nato:
Heh. As far as mrs. dr. bloor is concerned, we already have.
Pangloss
She is the political equivalent of an infomercial. Some people do actually watch infomercials, you know, and a large number of them are probably her fans.
JGabriel
SP:
Fix’t.
.
jane
Maybe she’s being paid through BSMP, LLC, little Bristol’s new PR company.
She will find a way to launder that hundie somehow.
Bubblegum Tate
@JGabriel:
And said social set can be pretty damn savage. Of course, she’d just use that to engender sympathy. “I moved to Fifth Ave., but those elitist east coast elites got all elite with me and drove me away because of my common sense conservative grassroots people Trig also! This is just like when Rush Limbaugh couldn’t buy that football team! Send me money!”
Morbo
@Libertini: If it’s anything like her PAC’s spending in the last half of the year and she doesn’t keep a cent of it, that 100 large go something like this:
$12000 to political candidates
$19500 to Jason Recher’s [Palin aide of some sort] firm
$15000 to Meg Stapleton’s [Palin’s public relations] firm
$18000 to van Flein’s [Palin family attorney] firm
$7000 to her photographer
$13000 for buying copies of Going Rogue
$11000 for private bus and jet (admittedly a lot less since it’s one event)
$4000 for a speechwriter
$280 for National Association for Down’s Syndrome
So even if Palin doesn’t make a dime of that $100k (HA!), you can bet she has friends that will.
dmsilev
@Mike in NC:
Tragically, the spawn of Dennis Hastert flamed out in his attempt to retake his father’s House seat, losing in the primary yesterday.
Did I say tragically? Sorry, meant hilariously.
-dms
hillgiant
Is she flying in commercial or charter?
I mean, how “ground-up” are we talking?
twiffer
@arguingwithsignposts: reading requires one to be literate. i think watching might be approriate. like a toddler “looking” at books.
Martin
@Morbo: She gets a cut of those books the PAC bought. And she’s got enough pre-existing legal problems that the lawyer is pretty much all offsetting her own expenses. I wouldn’t mind having someone else pay for my transportation either.
parksideq
@Cassidy: Starstruck is GaGa; Starstrukk (not a typo) is 3OH!3, and Katy Perry is on the remix.
Church Lady
If someone was willing to pay you 100 large to pontificate to the adoring masses, you’d do it in a New York minute. Instead, you do it for small change.
Church Lady
@geg6: Well, aren’t you special?
LuciaMia
Forget the speeches, so you think she even composes her Twitter tweets?
0whole1
“Sarah Palin – Tax Cheat? Contents of Mysterious Envelope Revealed”
— by Jeanne Devon (“AKMuckraker”), on HuffPo:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/akmuckraker/sarah-palin—tax-cheat-c_b_448137.html
chopper
back in the day they used to call her Grifty McGrift.
electricgrendel
Okay- managing to use a Lady Gaga lyric to insult Palin is pretty much the most brilliant thing I’ve seen on the internet today. Good jorb!
Midnight Marauder
@Church Lady:
Wow. Way to completely remove all nuance and actuality from the situation.
Anne Laurie
@dmsilev:
Hey, words have power! Not because they, y’know, ‘inform’ them of stuff or any of that queer-theory garbage the smrt people keep yammering about… but as MAGICAL TOTEMS that unite the Heartland Americans(tm) of Moral Values(tm) against those people. Brand the person or idea that is making you uncomfortable with This Week’s Anathema, and poof! No more thought required, no heavy lifting in the realm of argumentation. As a shamanic practitioner, I have to admire these folks’ dedication to the eternal resonances of the sacred Name.