* With the announcement of his retirement Wednesday, liberal Wisconsin Democrat David Obey became the 18th Congressional Democrat to hang 'em up this year and avoid the possibility of a humiliating defeat in the midterm elections. LA Times senior political blogger Andrew Malcolm made some observations on Obey's Ordeal at Top of the Ticket:
Walking away from what would have been the campaign fight of his long career, Obey said he had never walked away from a campaign fight in his long career.
But as Andrew Taylor of the Associated Press points out, Obey's repeated election successes, including three state Assembly terms, have also made him "a symbol of entrenched incumbency that's falling out of favor with discontented voters" this year.
Obey, who was once expelled from Catholic school for punching a nun, would have had to defend his liberal spending record and his vote for President Obama's controversial, expensive healthcare bill in a time of stubbornly high unemployment, exploding deficits and likely tax hikes. He was once quoted as referring to the new president as the "crown prince."
The most likely opponent for the powerful Appropriations Committee chairman -- but now someone else -- is a 38-year-old, aggressive Republican county prosecutor named Sean Duffy. He's already received the backing of numerous Washington party activists, Tea Party supporters and Sarah Palin in the state's Sept. 14 primary.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi called Obey's retirement next January "a big loss for us." For her too; Obey and the late John Murtha were two of her most powerful lieutenants.
Obey's departure prompted political forecasters to move Wisconsin's Seventh District into the toss-up category from the Democratic gimme it's been for two generations. And it also raised spirits among Republicans as a signal that such a powerful Democratic chairman might be detecting some November political handwriting that he was about to lose his chair. And, thus, opt to go out on top.
Obey has stood for reelection more than 20 times over the years, and he's only had to break a sweat a couple of those times. But recent polling indicated his vulnerability in an election year when the voters appear to be more disgusted than ever with the arrogant D.C. Democrats in control of the nation who refuse to bend to the will of the people.
"When Sarah Palin became the Republican nominee for Vice President, columnist Kathleen Parker was (and remains) one of her harshest critics. Parker became one of the leading voices for elitism within the American right... What Ms. Parker has done... is give elitism a bad name. She has revealed herself to be completely ignorant of economics, but arrogant enough to assume she knows better than the rest of us. In the meantime, she has also revealed herself to be far too much a friend of government interference in the economy to be considered a true member of the right. She is, in fact, a squish. My fellow rightosphere writers who themselves are critical of Palin should remember this before quoting Parker too frequently."
RUSH: You know the smartest thing Obama coulda done when his oil rig blew up? Call Sarah Palin and her husband. Do you realize that Sarah Palin and her husband have a gazillion times the knowledge and experience in the oil business than does Barack Hussein Obama. Mmm...mmm...mmm? What does Obama do? What does he actually do, folks? I don't care what happens. You can have a disaster, you could have a near terrorist bomb go off, you have the oil spill. What does Obama do? He still goes out, and all he can do is talk about what should be and what can be if only he were more powerful and if the government were bigger. If he is forced to actually address real-world events and issues, he is without direction. He doesn't have any experience. He is entirely lost. Unless there's somebody can put a paragraph or two on the teleprompter, he can't come up with it himself.
All he can say to everything that happens is, first, whatever happens, demonize somebody on the terror bomb -- demonize Emirates Airlines, demonize whoever, demonize British Petroleum, demonize the oil industry in general -- and then say (doing impression), "If we had more power, if I had the ability to do things I can't now do, the government bigger, weeeell, this would never happen." That's his sole approach to everything. Whatever goes wrong it's because government isn't big enough, and he doesn't have enough power. We see this with unemployment. Obama likes to say that we are in an economic recovery and that he has saved the nation from the brink. But there is no recovery -- and there was no brink, by the way! He says these things because they are entirely and purely self-serving.
"As I write this, Sarah Palin-who has not even declared her candidacy-has 1,531,000 friends on Facebook, 22 months before the election. Romney has 283,000 and Huckabee has 213,000. In the 2008 GOP primaries, the top three vote getters (McCain, Romney and Huckabee) garnered 95% of the vote and their collective total was a little over 18.5 million (McCain: 9.8 million; Romney: 4.5 million; Huckabee: 4.2 million). The number of friends Sarah Palin has attracted on Facebook represents about 8.3% of the total votes for all three of the major 2008 contenders combined. Romney's Facebook following is about 1.5% of the total and Huck's is about 1.2%. Sarah Palin's Facebook following is approximately as large as the total vote received by all the GOP candidates (including Thompson, Giuliani and Paul) in the first four contests: Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Michigan (which totaled 1.6 million votes). McCain, the eventual winner, did not even collect 1.5 million votes until the California primary on Super Tuesday, two weeks after he had effectively clinched the nomination in South Carolina and Florida."
"Just about everyone in line told Palin to run for president and said they would help her all the way. She smiled each time she heard it, which makes us wonder how much Palin smiles in an average day, because we bet everyone she meets tells her the same thing. We hope she listens to [them], too, and takes all this to heart because we doubt people like Tim Pawlenty, John Thune, Mitt Romney, or Mitch Daniels [hear] this everywhere they go..."
"[Andrew Sullivan]'s off on one of his Sarah Palin jags. Again. And it's still only 2010... As for being ostracized and ridiculed, Andrew, you earned that. Few things have been more distasteful over the past couple of years than your bizarre obsession with Palin's last pregnancy and son's birth. You're in Orly Taitz territory, you fool, and that's why you're being mocked."
"A postscript to the 2004 campaign was that it changed, perhaps irrevocably, how the families, especially the children, of national candidates are treated. The strategy of making Mary Cheney’s private life an issue failed with the voters in November of 2004. But in the years since, it has become acceptable to mock candidates and their families, and other elected officeholders, in highly personal ways; David Letterman feels free to ridicule Sarah Palin’s teenager daughters, and the audience laughs. That is the legacy of the 2004 campaign."
"I was privileged to ask Sarah Palin the first question during a break out session... at the Defending the Dream Summit. I asked her as the mother of a son in the military what advice she'd give to a mom whose son is about ready to leave for Marine Boot Camp? She gave me the same advice she said Cindy McCain gave her, 'Spend a lot of time on your knees' praying for God's hand of protection. Then she told me to thank my son for his 'selfless' service."
"In the month of April alone, Brown has launched investigations to embarrass Sarah Palin, aggressively promote union membership, clear ACORN of criminal activities, play catch-up on the Wall Street scandal by trumping up charges against Wall Street giant Moody’s, go after an oil company politically active in defeating California’s new green house gas emissions law, and grab headlines on issues ranging from home foreclosures to former child star Corey Haim’s death. In just one month, Brown has shown that his race for governor starts by using his legal office to help traditional Democratic allies beat back their opponents. The tactics Jerry Brown is using and the public position he is abusing leaves the public with no other choice but to ask Brown to give up his position as the top law enforcement official in California if he is to run an honest campaign for governor."
"One of the most frustrating things about the modern day Republican Party is, for the most part, they are gutless wonders. Even the ones who you find appealing, the ones that look like they may have some fight in them, will let you down at some point... Only one person has really shown the ability to stand up to the regime and take it to them on a steady basis, and that’s Sarah Palin. The radical left hates her for it. The Obama regime has tried [every] dirty trick in the book, everything it learned from Alinsky, as well as decades immersed [in] Chicago corruption and thuggery, and yet, not only is Sarah still standing, she has gotten stronger."
"You know, if anyone actually had any meaningful, and proven, dirt on Sarah Palin, they'd already have published an explosive book for us to see the proof for ourselves. Wonder why this hasn't happened, yet? Perhaps because the anti-Palin propagandists have nothing on her and have to settle for making up BS to feed to the Big Media to make viral via traditional sources, away from which The People are turning in droves, and aren't going to listen to? People want proof, not smears."
"Of course it's no surprise the prosecution tried to pass this off as a 'college prank.' This is the son of a DNC State Representative. Imagine this kids...imagine Bristol Palin or Meaghan McCain had hacked into Obama or Biden's emails. College prank or federal crime? Sentencing has yet to be set, but I really hope this little punk gets jail time."
"Sarah Palin is sure dumb... I cannot believe she claimed there were 57 states. How about her health plan that would save employers 3,000%? And now she has shown her lack of international policy expertise by claiming Europe is a country. What a maroon. What? You say that was not the former Governor of Alaska, but our very own current Commander in Chief, the noob in charge, The Obama, hissownself?"
"In truth, New York City is a stinking sink of national welfare... And the ugly truth, from the point of view of New York City, about Sarah Palin--a bright, vivacious person with nothing fake about her at all, a politically astute, natural leader,a decent person of honest, traditional convictions, who is treading a traditional American path of upward mobility and public service by earning her credentials, rather than inheriting them from family or school--I say, the ugly truth about Sarah Palin from the point of New York City is that such a charismatic person isn't doing it in New York City."
"I can only imagine how disappointed some in the media must be... that the man who attempted to blow up Times Square with a car bomb wasn't a Sarah Palin lovin' Tea Partier."
"NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg was on national news insinuating that the terrorist may be a conservative activist... On Sunday, when it appeared the suspect was a white male, the Huffington Post went on the attack, blaming conservatives and Sarah Palin."
"Our daughter was recently married and a family we have known for decades attended... I was sort of surprised to hear my friend tell me that he voted for Obama. The tipping point for him was McCain's decision to choose Sarah Palin as his running mate. What made him decide that supporting an totally inexperienced man whose close confidants included a racist preacher and the man who bombed the Pentagon versus the successful governor of our largest state is not a subject I wanted to explore during our wedding festivities."
"This may be a hidden reason for liberals' contempt for conservatives: They know that you can do stuff they can't, that you can survive when they'd croak, and that you don't need the government -- and they do. Many conservative women -- like the intrepid Sarah Palin -- are more capable, more powerful, and yes, more a 'man' than some of the liberal XY specimens. And the utter shame of this makes them despise you -- and want to render you helpless, too."
Bristol Palin, the daughter of former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, said today “it would be awesome” if her mom ran for president and gave an early endorsement of a potential Palin 2012 campaign in a debut appearance on ABC’s “The View.”
“I would love to see that. Definitely, I would” go along with it, she said.
[...]
“It’s not just affecting me now; it affects me for my whole life,” Palin said of her choice to have sex, resulting in pregnancy. “It’s not the best situation.”
Palin also tried to dispel the impression that she may have it easy as a single, teenage mom who is part of a famous family.
“I live by myself. I’m out on my own,” she said. “My family is not at my disposal. I’m a single mom.”
Bristol also appeared on Fox New York's "Good Day" program. Video at Palin TV.
* With the news that The Washington Post Co. is putting Newsweek up for sale after several years of drastic losses in revenue, RedState.com pundit-in-chief Erick Erickson observes that the weakly magazine's editor Jon Meacham has finally been successful at something -- driving Newsweek "into the ground":
“ Meacham and the rest of the Newsweek gang decided to turn Newsweek into leftwing political pornography in order to get access to Barack Obama. Increasingly, their audience has shrunk to a few blocks on the Upper West Side, various newsrooms, Democrat offices in Washington, and some college libraries.
[...]
Apparently, literary intimate acts with the Obama White House while also attacking Sarah Palin just cannot sustain traffic in the already over saturated marketplace of leftwing propaganda...
”
At least Meacham, says Erickson, has not been willing to go to the extremes of Larry Flynt "except when it comes to bashing Christians."
* In his Politico Playbook, Mike Allen quotes from the pool report from last night's TIME 100 Gala:
During her toast to the troops, Sarah Palin jokingly looked at her hand (nothing was on it). Comedian Andy Samberg stage-whispered, “Sarah, everyone in this room is an elite. If you want me to create a diversion so you can leave, just wink.”
Sarah and Todd Palin answer a couple of questions for ET at the Gala :
"Palin was giving a speech to a pro-life group... [She] made the media purchase tickets to the event and the proceeds went to the pro-life cause. That is sweet. The lefties are losing what is left of their little minds. This goes in the dictionary as the definition of win-win."
* Lots of photos from the event courtesy of Getty Images here and DayLife here. Also some photos taken in NYC of Todd, Sarah and Piper outside their hotel earlier Tuesday here.
They are all about destroying Palin, not saving wolves * The organization Defenders of Wildlife would like you to believe that the group's name describes what they are all about. This is the mission statement:
Defenders of Wildlife is a national, nonprofit membership organization dedicated to the protection of all native animals and plants in their natural communities.
While that may have indeed been the organization's goal at one time in its history, today that mission statement is a lie. Truth is, Defenders is nothing more than a front group for radical leftist politics. Consider that if the group's real purpose was protecting animals in their natural communities, they would show at least a modicum of concern for the herd animals --caribou and moose -- which are the prey of wolves. But no, all the hacks want to talk about are fuzzy, lovable wolves.
One doesn't have to do much research to learn that if left alone, wolves would decimate the herds in Alaska. Do the math. Wolves bear litters of four to five pups at a time, while caribou and moose are limited to single births. Those same caribou and moose are the wolves' favorite food group, and their hunting tactics are deadly efficient. Every time the State of Alaska has taken a hiatus from controlling the wolf population, the numbers of herd animals quickly drop to alarming levels. We say "alarming" because Alaska's native people depend on hunting caribou and moose to feed their families.
Most native Alaskans live in very small, remote villages which don't have supermarkets, and even if they did, the price of beef and pork would be prohibitive for the natives, many of whom live at the subsistence level. Indeed, many of the villages are so remote that electric power transmission cables and natural gas lines are only a pipe dream. They burn wood for heat and have to depend on portable generators for electricity. The primary modes of transportation are dog sleds and four-wheelers. Hunting caribou and moose is not a sport for these people, and it is much more than a tradition. It is a necessity.
This is why the Fish & Game Department practices scientific predator control. It's not done out of rank cruelty, as Defenders and other such groups insinuate, but rather to protect the herds from their primary predators -- the wolves. What is cruel is the impact wolves would have on Alaska's native populations if Defenders of Wildlife is allowed to have its way, as this video from Defenders of Wild Food attests:
Which is more humane -- a clean shot through the head of a wolf, or the pack running down and eating caribou calves alive? Now we have no quarrel with letting the wolves get their meals in the wild, but again, in certain areas, to keep them from driving down the herds' numbers to dangerously low levels, the wolves' numbers have to be managed through the practice of predator control.
Defenders of Wild Food is an organization which was formed to fight the lies being spread about wolves in Alaska by the well-financed Defenders of Wildlife, and to educate people about the importance of wildlife to the everyday lives of Alaskans.
We've covered all of this before, here, here, here and here, just to cite a few of our posts on the issue.
But again, it's not about wolves or wildlife. To answer the question posed in the title of this post, no, Defenders of Wildlife, at least those who control it, are not that stupid. In its present-day incarnation, the group exists primarily for the purpose of promoting the radical far left political agenda. That's why they ignore the facts of Alaskan life and continue their attacks. And those attacks, especially since the day she was named to the number two spot on the 2008 GOP presidential ticket, have been almost exclusively aimed at Sarah Palin. It's clear to anyone capable of rational thought that the aim of these leftists is not to save wolves, but to destroy Sarah Palin.
One thing that leftists abhor is the unencumbered presentation of both sides of an issue so that people can decide for themselves. Free speech is not an option for anyone but those who are on their side of the issues, so they are pouring their considerable resources into an all-out campaign to try to convince Discover Networks, Inc. to drop the series "Sarah Palin's Alaska" before it even gets a chance to air. Rather than let people decide with the channel buttons on their remote controls, the leftists want to silence the former governor.
Please take action. Let Discovery Communications know that you support their production of “Sarah Palin’s Alaska.” There are two ways to do this. The easier option is to sign this petition. You will have the option of including comments, if you so wish.
You can also write to David Zaslav, Discovery’s CEO. Please let him know that Gov. Palin is regarded as a conservationist by those familiar with the principles of wildlife management and predator control, and the anti-Palin rhetoric coming from Defenders is at best an unscientific, emotional appeal and at worse pure politics. Mr. Zaslav's address is:
David M. Zaslav President and CEO Discovery Communications Inc. One Discovery Place Silver Spring, MD 20910
You can also send Discovery an email about its programming by clicking here or call Viewer Relations at 1-859-342-8439.
Thank you for supporting Gov. Palin, Native Alaskans and reasonable, scientific methods of wildlife management.
* Dr. Dan Benishek is a general surgeon and a GOP candidate for U.S.Congress representing Michigan's 1st congressional district, the seat held by Democrat Bart Stupak, who has announced that he will not seek reelection. The paths of Benishek and Sarah Palin merged over the weekend at the Defending the American Dream Summit with Sarah Palin, today in Clarkston, MI:
“Governor Palin is a common sense conservative who has challenged the status quo and energized a new kind of activist within our party,” said Dr. Benishek, “Her energy and enthusiasm are contagious.”
[...]
Having spoken with Dr. Dan at length, I know his values and Sarah’s are parallel, and they are able to strike a chord with honest, hard-working people, us regular Joes and Janes who see what is happening to this country, and feel compelled to help change it.
I don’t know if everyone is thinking the same thing at the same time, but during her speech... Sarah said, “You guys are saying, like I am, enough is enough. We’re taking it back. We’re gonna put our government back on the side of the people. We’re changing the face of government one rally, one vote, one election at a time. Some of the things the left is doing can be seen as a plus because it’s getting us riled up, getting us united.”
Enough is enough, just happens to be the slogan of the Benishek candidacy.
* Grove City College economics professor Mark Hendrickson draws insights into Sarah Palin's significance from Ronald Reagan, Ludwig von Mises, and King Herod in his commentary "Palin and the Leftist Elites" published Tuesday at American Thinker:
The connection between Sarah Palin and Ronald Reagan is fairly simple and straightforward. They share conservative convictions and a special gift of communication. Palin is reminiscent of Reagan in the way she resonates, inspires, and energizes conservatives.
Less apparent are the links that may be drawn between Palin and the long-departed Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises -- and Palin and the much-longer-ago-departed King Herod.
The connection between Palin and Mises occurred to me while rereading Mises' 1944 book Bureaucracy. Mises wrote, "...the educated strata are more gullible than the less educated. The most enthusiastic supporters of Marxism, Nazism, and Fascism were the intellectuals, not the boors." Indeed, Marx, Lenin, et al., were intellectuals, and the leaders of socialism have been relatively well-to-do educated folks like Bill Ayers, not salt-of-the-earth blue-collar folks.
[...]
And what is the antidote to the grim utopian schemes of leftist intellectuals and politicians? According to Mises, "Just common sense is needed to prevent man from falling prey to illusory fantasies and empty catchwords." In other words, people as down-to-earth and common-sensical as Ronald Reagan and Sarah Palin.
Indeed, the fury directed against Palin by leftists is so overwrought, and at times maniacal, precisely because her innate common sense is so powerful and effective when she dares to declare that the emperor of government economic planning has no clothes. Like Mises and Reagan, Palin understands with utter (and to leftists, frightening) clarity that leftist utopias have no practicality or viability, but are, in Mises' words, "illusory fantasies."
What does King Herod from the Gospel of Matthew have to do with Sarah Palin, you may ask? The answer is not to be found in these excerpts, but rather in Prof. Hendrickson's full opinion piece at American Thinker.
* According to ABC News tipsheet The Note, Bristol Palin will appear with the stupid, mostly leftist harpies who host ABC's "The View" Wednesday.
Combine stupidity, ignorance and nastiness and you have View host Joy Behar. She's famous for saying of the term used to describe the Friday following Thanksgiving, which is the beginning of the traditional Christmas shopping season, "Isn't it a little racist to call it Black Friday?" Whoopi Goldberg had to school Behar that, no, it is not even a little raaaacist to say that.
But that was a case of the blind leading the blind, as Goldberg is no Mensa candidate herself. Nor is she the pinnacle of moral insight. Whoopi demonstrated the ethical bankruptcy of Hollywood by defending confessed child molester Roman Polanski, saying what he did to a 13 year old girl "wasn't rape rape."
For anyone who ever doubted the courage of the teen mom who is Sarah Palin's eldest daughter, Bristol's willingness to walk into that den of iniquity should lay them aside. Doubtless she had little choice in the matter, as her role as an ambassador for The Candie's Foundation likely requires her to go where they say.
Still, we will pray for her, and hope that you will do so also. No praying for Tripp to burp up his strained beets all over Joy Behar and Whoopie Goldberg on the set of The View, however. That would be a sin.
* Paul Bedard, who blogs at Washington Whispers for U.S. News & World Report, says that despite the liberal hysteria over Sarah Palin's "Don't Retreat, Reload" remarks, the former governor "is not about to holster her rhetorical sidearm":
What's more, she's leading a posse of Second Amendment-supporting Republicans to the annual National Rifle Association convention later this month in Charlotte, N.C. Take a gander at who's on the docket, which looks like the conservative roundup for the 2012 GOP primaries: Palin, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, former United Nations Ambassador John Bolton, South Dakota Sen. John Thune, South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint, and Indiana Rep. Mike Pence.
"It's a big deal," says the NRA's top lobbyist and convention organizer Chris Cox. "It's a beauty contest of those who support the Second Amendment," he says, adding that the speakers will also include media and Hollywood elite, and even some Blue Dog Democrats like Tennessee Rep. John Tanner and North Carolina Rep. Heath Shuler.
With expectations of a record-setting crowd of 80,000, Cox says gun owners are fired up more than ever over concerns about liberal politicians banning guns and Washington's spending. "It's an indication of where the American people are on the Second Amendment," he says. Critics, he adds, "try to paint us as an extreme, but we are the deepest part of the river; we are the strongest part of the river," says Cox.
Cox says the massive number of Second Amendment supporters anticipated to attend the NRA convention should send a message as the midterm elections draw near that "NRA members and gun owners are a very important voting bloc," says Cox. And they are concerned about Speaker Pelosi and President Obama, he adds.
Dubbed a "Celebration of American Values," the NRA Leadership Forum will be Friday, May 14, at the Charlotte Convention Center.
* In an NRO editorial Tuesday, the editors of National Review agreed with Sarah Palin, who in an April 30 Facebook op-ed argued that despite recent events, "We need oil, and if we don’t drill for it here, we have to purchase it from countries that not only do not like America and can use energy purchases as a weapon against us, but also do not have the oversight that America has":
Others already have observed, correctly, that the risks involved in drilling off the coast of the United States are small in proportion to those involved in shipping oil across the ocean or drilling off the coasts of countries that do not treat safety and environmental standards with our own degree of care.
Oil remains the most cost-effective source of transportation fuel we have; as long as our economy is thriving, we will need to produce or import a lot of it. Global-warming alarmists and zealous proponents of alternative energy have already made the BP spill the new Exhibit A in their case against fossil fuels. In evaluating their claims, we should be mindful of the economic and environmental costs of the spill relative to those associated with their preferred alternatives.
[...]
The safety record of shallow-water drilling remains very impressive, and this deep-water calamity neither tarnishes that record nor indicates that it couldn’t be duplicated if Obama opened more of the coastline to exploration. In any case, the president’s moratorium on new drilling is a self-defeating proposition: New rigs will take years to construct and to begin production; their safeguards will incorporate whatever lessons we learn from the investigation of this catastrophe
The editors say that although "Drill, baby, drill" is likely to no longer be an effective battle cry, "offshore drilling remains a crucial source of energy — and clearing obstacles to future exploration is still part of the right policy mix."
* Sarah Palin will return to The Valley of the Sun Saturday, May 15 to keynote the Arizona Sportsmen for Wildlife Conservation's (AZSFWC) Second Annual Heritage Banquet at the J.W. Marriott Desert Ridge Resort in north Phoenix. The dinner program starts at 5:30 PM:
Governor Palin, who is also an avid hunter and angler, will share her views on wildlife conservation and the importance of protecting Arizona’s hunting and fishing heritage for future generations of sportsmen.
Pete Cimellaro, the Heritage Banquet Chairman, said that there is perhaps no one better than Palin to speak about their organization’s goals and to serve as a role model for women and families to participate in the state’s wildlife conservation efforts.
Cimellaro praised Gov. Palin for showing the country that hunting, fishing and conservation has an important role in the lives of millions of Americans:
It was only a dream when we first invited Governor Palin to attend the Arizona Sportsmen for Wildlife Conservation's Second Annual Heritage Banquet, and now it has now become reality. Governor Palin will join AZSFWC's Board of Directors and members, in celebration of our "Outdoor Heritage". We are honored that she has chosen to come to Arizona for this event.
Today in America, Governor Palin is recognized as a leader among sportswomen. She understands the important role hunters and anglers have played in the conservation of America's wildlife. If not for sportsmen and the thousands of sportsmen conservation organizations across this great land, the resources to manage and support necessary wildlife programs would be significantly reduced...
All across this great country, America's families are getting together and enjoying the great traditions of hunting and fishing, in addition to providing the necessary support and resources for wildlife and its habitat... Who better to celebrate our outdoor heritage than Governor Palin? She is a woman, a mother, a wife and a highly respected American who shares our passion for the outdoors and all it has to offer.
Arizona Sportsmen for Wildlife Conservation is a 501-c-3 not-for-profit organization whose mission is to educate and inform sportsmen, wildlife conservation organizations throughout the state and the public at large on important issues related to wildlife and wildlife habitat and to provide, via grants or other sources, funding to conserve Arizona's wildlife populations through habitat enhancement initiatives.
"Keep this in mind the next time you hear Sarah Palin damned as a 'demon queen' because she's been known to wet a fishing line, or to blow away the occasional moose:
'The Obama administration and the International Whaling Commission want to allow legal hunting again.'
It is not by coincidence that 'Conservation' and 'Conservative' have the same root word."
* Benyamin Korn, director of Jewish Americans for Sarah Palin, has an excellent op-ed in today's edition of the New York Sun. Mr. Korn exposes how the media's gross misquoting of Gov. Palin's "Christian Nation" remark. Some excerpts:
Governor Palin’s Kentucky speech, to a group known as the Women of Joy, is being claimed by her critics as proof that she is too Christian. But a careful look at the speech reveals, in fact, how close to Judaism and the Jewish people she is.
To judge by some accounts in the major news media, it sounds like she made a Bible-thumpin’, foot-stompin’ appeal to the unwashed fundamentalist masses.
[...]
Here’s the key sentence: “And then, you know, hearing any leader declare that America isn’t a Christian nation, and poking an ally like Israel in the eye, it’s mind-boggling to see some of our nation’s actions [in] recent days, but politics is truly a topic for another day.”
[...]
In her speech to the Women of Joy, Palin included a few quotes from the New Testament. But Jewish scripture figured much more prominently. She quoted twice from Psalms, as well from Proverbs and Malachi. She spoke to Piper about how Esther, an orphan, overcame steep odds and difficulties in order to save the Jewish people. And she took issue with President Obama’s policy of “poking our ally Israel in the eye.”
Fear-mongers with political agendas want to drive a wedge between Governor Palin and American Jewry. Sometimes they do it with quotations that leave out key sentences. Sometimes they do it with distorted depictions of her religious beliefs.
Jews have nothing to fear from Sarah’s Palin religion. But we have plenty to fear from those political leaders who not only have no interest in Esther or Proverbs, or Sarah, but who think that poking Israel in the eye makes for good foreign policy.
Read Benyamin Korn's unedited commentary at The Sun.
* Nice Deb has posted video of Gov. Palin's speech at the Winning America Back Conference in Independence, MO. She managed to get almost all of the speech recorded until the Flip HD camera's batteries gave up the ghost at the end of the address. Still, a heroic effort by the batteries for giving it their all...
