Sunday, August 26, 2012

While the Republican National Convention (slowly) starts in Tampa, Sarah Palin will be giving a headline speech at a Barbecue in Arizona - PLUS: Sarah Palin goes rogue again, considers a conservative third party "a possibility" - UPDATE: Mitt Romney praising the virtues of female Chinese factory workers at private fundraiser (VIDEO)

By Patrick

So what is Sarah Palin doing these days? The Alaskan rogue who has fallen from grace was destined to conquer the RNC 2012, according to her remaining few dozen fanatical followers (hint: never annoy Karl Rove). However, this is not how things turned out in the end. Sarah was not allowed to speak at the RNC, which is a wise move, given the fact that there are countless bombshells in her closet which are just waiting to go off at some point. But it now looks that she might not even be there at the RNC: On Monday, August 27th, when the RNC is supposed to start (the convention will now start on Tuesday due to storm "Isaac"), Sarah Palin will be "headlining" a Barbecue in Arizona, supporting Kirk Adams, Republican candidate for Congress.



Sarah Palin's support for Kirk Adams is actually quite interesting. Kirk Adams is currently embroiled in a hot & dirty primary battle with Republican Matt Salmon. As we all know, some Republicans still believe that the endorsement by the mentally ill quitter from Alaska matters a lot, and Matt Salmon apparently falls into this category as well. Salmon's campaign manager voiced his dissatisfaction about Palin endorsing Kirk Adams:

Adam Deguire, Salmon's campaign manager, responds:

“It’s a wonder why Sarah Palin would endorse a politician like Kirk Adams who has a record of voting for wasteful spending, higher taxes and supports amnesty for illegal immigrants. Matt Salmon is supported by Governor (Jan) Brewer, Sheriff Joe Arpaio and every Tea Party organization in the East Valley – we’re confident his proven record of conservative leadership has resonated with the voters.”

Matt Salmon's opponents found the new "ultimate weapon" against him: He cashed in as a lobbyist on Obamacare! Well, this is at least what Kirk Adams' campaign claims in the following advert:


While investigating this claim, I discovered some interesting details. Matt Salmon's opponents claim that he "cashed in on Obamacare" because they claim that he represented as a lobbyist the pharmaceutical companies Lundbeck and Millennium, which "are part of Pharmaceutical Researchers and Manufacturers Association (PhRMA), which struck a deal with President Obama and the Whitehouse." Who would have thought that lobbying for pharmaceutical companies could be held against you in a Republican primary!

However, the truth is apparently more complicated, and we can also find indications that "Obamacare" is not the Socialist monster that the Koch-sponsered tea-hadists want Americans to believe it is. On a blog called "Western Free Press" we find interesting comments about this topic. This blog examines Matt Salmon's "rebuttal" to the potentially very damaging claim that he "cashed in on Obamacare" - a rebuttal which reads like this:

1) Matt Salmon has NEVER lobbied for the passage of ObamaCare, the expansion of ObamaCare, or supported ObamaCare in any way, shape or form. 2) Matt Salmon has NEVER lobbied for or against any legislation pertaining to ObamaCare. 3) Matt Salmon’s former business partner, John Haddow, was the consultant who represented Lundbeck and Millennium pharmaceutical companies 4) John Haddow actually lobbied AGAINST ObamaCare, NOT for the passage of it NOR for the expansion of it.

While it is doubtful that this statement can be viewed as the full truth, as "Western Free Press" also points out, there are some interesting comments on the blog which Matt Salmon's former partner business John Haddow then left himself, in an apparent attempt to control the damage.

John Haddow comments:

My name is John Haddow. I was Matt's partner while at both Policy Impact and Upstream Consulting. I had both Lundbeck and Millennium as clients before Matt joined the firm. As a small firm it was customary to list all the lobbyists on the forms, more as a form of protection from the very onerous reporting requirements and penalties that are now in place. You err on the side of safety.

With respect to those two clients I was the only person in the firm that met with these two clients and had the technical background to understand the issues before them. I have repeatedly stated that Matt Salmon did not lobby on these clients behalf and that in fact we did not support ObamaCare since it was harmful to almost all small pharmaceutical companies. We did vigorously engage to ensure that the treatment of Orphan products in the bill was corrected to ensure that patients using these products would have continue access to them to keep their quality of life at the level they currently enjoy.

There are some clients that Matt was working for that I was listed for but in fact did no work on as well.

Now things get confusing: John Haddow claims in this comment that Obamacare "was harmful to almost all small pharmaceutical companies" - but on the other hand, just recently the Wall Street Journal made the rather sensational claim that "Big Pharma colluded with the White House at the public's expense", a claim which was then quickly exploited by the right-wingers. I am not sure where "little pharma" ends and "big pharma" starts, but it is more than obvious that President Obama wanted to please the "industry", which actually sounds like classic Republican policy to me.

That Obama's healthcare reform was not governed by "Marxist" policies also becomes even more obvious when you look at the next paragraph from John Haddow's comment:

The major health insurance companies all cut a deal with the Obama administration to support the bill. They did this because the most crucial part of the bill, the mandate to buy insurance, was in their interests. Kirk Adams and his family insurance company sells health insurance policies. Should we now say that Kirk Adams was supporting ObamaCare since his insurance company and the companies they write policies for would benefit? That is the leap of logic that Kirk wants you to take with Matt Salmon but ignore with him.

So, wait a moment: President Obama cut a deal with "big pharma" as well as with "the major health insurance companies?" Is this what Socialist policy look like these days? The legions of brainwashed Fox News-fans believe that Obama is a "Marxist" or "Communist" who wants to enslave the USA, but in reality Obama is doing nothing more than to implement what I would call "classic moderate Republican concepts" (although some of you might disagree with this classification).

On the one hand, the fact that Obama managed to bring through healthcare reform is certainly "progressive", but on the other hand, the details of the implementation are just what somebody like Mitt Romney could have had in mind (who just today boasted about his "Romneycare" achievements in Massachusetts). In any case, many Americans will certainly be very grateful to President Obama that in future your eligibility for healthcare insurance will not depend any more whether you have a pre-existing condition or not. 

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Finally, Sarah Palin displays again her personal brand of "rougeishness." Asked on Fox News the clearly "pre-approved question" (like all the questions, no doubt)...

"Would you consider at any point a viable conservative third party if neither party will move from their current positions?"

...the quitter from Alaska is clearly elated to nurture her grudge against the GOP-people when she explains in quite some length why she believes that a third party is "a possibility":


I think Karl Rove might be annoyed again! She did not learn, did she?

Have a great Sunday, everyone!

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UPDATE:

This clip is just about to go viral - somebody videotaped Mitt Romney at a $ 50,000-per-plate private fundraiser and published a first clip: Mitt Romney praising the virtues of the notoriously appalling working conditions in Chinese factories - a Capitalist's dream!

Watch the clip:



UPDATE - The video clip is not available any more as the "Rachel Maddow" youtube account has been deleted, but I uploaded the clip again, and here it is, in its full glory:



Mitt Romney letting the audience know about his rather peculiar views:

"95% of life is set up for you if you were born in this country. And, I remember going to ah, uh, sorry just to bore you with stories.

When I was back in my private equity days, we went to China to buy a factory there. It employed about 20,000 people. And they were almost all young women between the ages of about 18 and 22 or 23. They were saving for potentially becoming married.

And they work in these huge factories, they made various uh, small appliances. And uh, as we were walking through this facility, seeing them work, the number of hours they
worked per day, the pitance they earned, living in dormitories with uh, with little bathrooms at the end of maybe 10, 10 room, rooms. And the rooms they have 12 girls per room.

Three bunk beds on top of each other. You've seen, you've seen them? (Oh...yeah, yeah!) And, and, and around this factory was a fence, a huge fence with barbed wire and
guard towers. And, and, we said gosh! I can't believe that you, you know, keep these girls in! They said, no, no, no. This is to keep other people from coming in.

Because people want so badly to come work in this factory that we have to keep them out. Or they will just come in here and start working and, and try and get compensated. So we, this is to keep people out. And they said, actually Chinese New Year as the girls go home, sometimes they decide they've saved enough money and they don't come back to the factory.

And he said, so, on the weekend after Chinese New Year there will be a line of people hundreds long, outside the factory, hoping that some girls haven't come back. And they can come to the factory. And, and so as we were experiencing this for the first time, going to see a factory like this in China some years ago.

The Bain Partner I was with turned to me and said, you know, 95% of life is settled if you are born in America. This is uh, this is an amazing land and what we have is unique and fortunately it is so special we are sharing it with the world."

Isn't it cool to have millions of impoverished people wanting to work for you...?

These are the values of the wannabe President of the United States...?

This is what working conditions in Chinese factories often look like - watch the documentary "Santa's Workshop":


(h/t IWantTheTruth)

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The uploader of the video (who calls herself "Rachel Maddow", but is just a Rachel Maddow fan) said in the comments of the video that she will make the full speech available to the MSM:


There can be in my view no doubt whatsoever that this video is "real" (other websites think the same, for example "Crooks & Liars"). It is clearly Mitt Romney's voice, you can also see him in the video, and the uploader recorded from a fairly concealed position. It might very well have been an employee who was working at this event. It is also apparent that the video uploader is pretty inexperienced as far as "internet activities" are concerned, because he or she chose the rather unfortunate youtube name "Rachel Maddow" (although explaining in the profile that he/she is just a "fan"), which resulted in a rather absurd controversy, with even Rachel Maddow tweeting about the video.

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UPDATE 2:

Alaska, love it or suck it! Todd Palin, following in the footsteps of his "wife" Sarah Palin, now has his very own "speaker's bureau" - the "All American Speakers Bureau" has taken him on, according to their website! The former "first dude" can now be booked to give expert advice for example on how to bully friends and foes, and he has a lot of special knowledge to offer ("What to take into account when planning to fake a pregnancy"). No, that was a joke, but he really is available for speeches now:


This is his bio on the website:

Todd Palin has served as Alaska's First Gentleman, is a four-time winner of the Iron Dog snowmobile race and a reality television personality.

Categories:  Adventurers, Entertainment, Reality TV Stars, Television Personalities

Booking Fee Range:  Contact booking agent for fee info   (About Fees)

Speaker Travels From:

Todd Palin was born on September 6, 1964 in Alaska. He is the husband of former Alaskan governor and McCain's vice-presidential nominee in 2008, Sarah Palin. He graduated from Wasilla High School in 1982 and worked as a commercial fisherman and in the oil production field.

He's a four-time winner of the Iron Dog, the world's longest, toughest snowmobile race that stretches over 2,000 miles from the Mat-Su Valley to Nome to Fairbanks in Alaska.

Palin was the First Gentleman, also referred to as the "First Dude" of Alaska from 2006 to 2009. While in this position, he focused on vocational job opportunities for workers in Alaska.He also holds his Private Pilot Certificate and owns a Cessna 185 float plane.

He appeared on the TLC show, Sarah Palin's Alaska, with the rest of his family, in which he assisted with logistics and production. Todd is currently a contestant on NBC's reality show Stars Earn Stripes, where celebrities contend with one another while executing military challenges that are inspired by real exercises.

Well, this should be another piece of evidence to prove that the Palins left the political scene for good and try to find a "safe haven" in the celebrity world instead. But is the celebrity world really ready for the Palins...?

It should also be noted that the Palins always tell Levi Johnston that he should get a "real job." However, if there is anyone who lost any interest in "real jobs", than it is the Palin family. Todd, the slope is waiting for you!

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