FAIL: Politico Media Writers Attribute Tina Fey Line to Sarah Palin

FAIL: Politico Media Writers Attribute Tina Fey Line to Sarah Palin

More deliberate obfuscation by the VLWM. They count on people not doing the research and fact-checking these useful idiots.

In previewing tomorrow's morning-show matchup, Politico's Dylan Byers and Mackenzie Weinger report that Gov. Sarah Palin told CBS' Katie Couric in 2008: "I can see Russia from my house." (Screen grab above, quote below.)The 2008 [Couric] interview also saw Palin famously stumped on matters of foreign policy (“I can see Russia from my house”), Supreme Court history (other than Roe v. Wade, she couldn’t cite a significant opinion), and global warming (“I’m not going to solely blame all of man’s activities on changes in climate.”)In fact, the line about Russia was spoken by Tina Fey on Saturday Night Live.

Leaderless House

Budget blink-off is anyone's game --

Did you know that no one is in charge at the United States House of Representatives? Seriously. The Tea Partiers are going Benghazi over the budget, and they have conservative firebrands Mark Levin and Erick Erickson to back them up. Meanwhile, GOP leadership is trying to regain control by "shopping" around anonymous "hit jobs" on their earnest but annoying Tea Party juniors. This doesn't mean that Democrats have the game on lock, however!
According to Beltway gossip newsletter POLITICO, "The top two Democratic leaders in the House have twice split on whether to approve short-term government funding bills that cut billions from federal accounts. Senate Democrats haven’t put forward a long-term spending plan that can move through their chamber, and Democrats on both sides of the Capitol say they have no idea where the White House stands or who’s running the show." The score is zero-zero, basically, so the budget battle is still anyone's game.

Maybe He Really Does FINALLY Get It

Virginia Republican Eric Cantor’s official announcement of his run for House majority leader came with a twist: a 22-page game plan on how to change Congress.

Cantor, currently the GOP whip, began calling colleagues to shore up his support and wrote a letter promising to change Congress – saying he wants to “drain the swamp rather than learning to swim with the alligators.”

The document is entitled “Delivering on Our Commitment” and promises a broad range of sweeping initiatives ranging from spending cuts to to bringing each item of the Pledge to America to the floor for a vote. It’s a bold plan that shows Cantor wants to be taken as a serious House reformer and policy leader as he ascends to the no. 2 slot in the new GOP hierarchy.

Cantor is not expected to face serious challenge from fellow Republicans for majority leader.

One major reform he’s facing is scheduling the House floor, which POLITICO reported last week. Cantor is proposing committee hearings be uninterrupted by votes, and is also urging committee reports to be brought to the floor for debate.

Cantor says he wants to do away with legislation recognizing “individuals, groups, events and institutions.” In the past, Congresses in the past have passed legislation that honors entities such as baseball teams and universities. Republicans, the Virginian thinks, should only name post offices once a month.

He’s also taking aim at oversight, urging individual members to conduct oversight on their own, asking committees to write quarterly oversight reports and boosting field hearings.

Spending, a major priority of Republicans’, also gets top billing from Cantor. He says he will try to ensure that all new spending has “explicitly” listed how it will be paid for and how the legislation fits into the Constitution. He’s likely going to upset some appropriators, because Cantor re-iterated his plan to end earmarking, promising to “not consider House legislation that includes” the member directed spending.

He is also vowing to defund piece by piece Democratic health care overhaul.

(Emphasis mine)

On jobs, Cantor is planning to “conduct an immediate and comprehensive review of existing and proposed government rules and regulations” – echoing a major complaint of Republicans over the last year.

In a throwback to the past, Cantor is aiming to bring rescission bills to the floor under an open rule so members could cut federal spending they deem as wasteful. In addition, he plans to continue the YouCut program – a plan much maligned by Democrats which put spending cuts in the hands of online users. In the beginning of the last Republican majority in 1995, the GOP had internal clashes over spending cuts, especially when members sought to slash items in other Republicans’ districts.

Entitlement reform is also in the crosshairs of the Virginia Republican. President Barack Obama, Cantor says, wont work with Republicans to “enact real entitlement reform unless it includes major tax increases.” But Republicans, he said, should lay out their plan and encourage Democrats to do the same.

Read more:

A Nation That Stands Against Israel

Stands Against God

Cantor Rips White House: "Irresponsible" on Israel

BY John McCormack

Politico reports:

The second-ranking House Republican blasted the Obama administration as “irresponsible” in its dealings with Israel, accusing the White House of trying to curry favor with the Arab world by deriding America’s closest ally in the Middle East. House Minority Whip Eric Cantor of Virginia also declined to condemn Israel for announcing the construction of more settlements while Vice President Joe Biden was on a visit to the country. Many diplomacy experts saw that move as a snub to the Obama administration, hurting relations between the longtime allies. “While it condemns Israel, the administration continues to ignore a host of Palestinian provocations that undermine prospects for peace in the region,” Cantor said in a statement. “Where is the outrage when top Fatah officials call for riots on the Temple Mount? Why does the Palestinian Authority get a pass when it holds a ceremony glorifying the woman responsible for one of the deadliest terror attack in Israel’s history? Surely, the Administration’s double standard has set back the peace process.”

Former VP Dick Cheney's Statement on Zero

Dick Cheney: Barack Obama 'trying to pretend'

"As I’ve watched the events of the last few days it is clear once again that President Obama is trying to pretend we are not at war. He seems to think if he has a low key response to an attempt to blow up an airliner and kill hundreds of people, we won’t be at war. He seems to think if he gives terrorists the rights of Americans, lets them lawyer up and reads them their Miranda rights, we won’t be at war. He seems to think if we bring the mastermind of 9/11 to New York, give him a lawyer and trial in civilian court, we won’t be at war.


“He seems to think if he closes Guantanamo and releases the hard-core al Qaeda trained terrorists still there, we won’t be at war. He seems to think if he gets rid of the words, ‘war on terror,’ we won’t be at war. But we are at war and when President Obama pretends we aren’t, it makes us less safe. Why doesn’t he want to admit we’re at war? It doesn’t fit with the view of the world he brought with him to the Oval Office. It doesn’t fit with what seems to be the goal of his presidency – social transformation—the restructuring of American society. President Obama’s first object and his highest responsibility must be to defend us against an enemy that knows we are at war."

More From NY-23

The last paragraph says it all. We are not Republican, we are conservative Americans and we will not accept the status quo or the good ole boy BS any longer.

From Politico:
NY-23 race first test of tea party power
By: Alex Isenstadt
October 22, 2009 08:31 PM EST

Tea party activists from across the nation are rallying around the House special
election in upstate New York, viewing it as the first electoral test of the nascent conservative movement’s political muscle. Organizers up and down the East Coast report that activists are making their way into the campaign offices of Conservative Party nominee Doug Hoffman, with the volunteers focusing their efforts in Oswego, Madison and Jefferson counties. While tea party organizers say the election is a unique opportunity to hold the Democratic and Republican parties to account, much of their energy is being directed against Dede Scozzafava, the GOP establishment-backed nominee whom they view as a squishy moderate who represents all that is wrong with the Republican Party.

“I went here from Washington, D.C., saying, ‘Now what?’” said Jennifer Bernstone, an organizer for Central New York 912, a Syracuse-based tea party group that so far has about 300 members getting out the vote for Hoffman. “Well, here’s the ‘Now what.’”

Numerous anti-Scozzafava websites have emerged across the blogosphere.

Dana Loesch, a St. Louis-based activist, has launched “Dump Dede,” a site that tracks nationwide conservative opposition to Scozzafava and urges viewers to “throw your support behind conservatism, ladies and gents; the clock starts now.”

Michael Patrick Leahy, a Nashville, Tenn.-area tea party activist, has turned his Drudge Report-like TCOT Report into a constantly updated bulletin board of news and rumors slamming Scozzafava.

“Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, Washington Times, National Review, RedState Join Growing Avalanche of Other Conservatives Calling for Scozzafava to Withdraw from Race in NY 23rd,” blared the site’s headline Thursday afternoon. “They’re all making a concerted effort for Doug Hoffman, and they are making New York 23 a last stand,” said Erick Erickson, who has been urging tea party activists for months to ramp up electoral efforts against the Republican Party on his influential conservative blog RedState. “New York should be a hill to die on for conservative activists.”

Scozzafava faces Democrat Bill Owens and Hoffman in the Nov. 3 contest to fill the vacancy left by the resignation of Rep. John McHugh (R-N.Y.). In New York, tea party activists have emerged as the ground troops for the small, grass-roots-oriented Hoffman campaign.

Bernstone, the CNY912 activist who in her day job works as an acting coach, said she now participates in nightly 9:30 p.m. conference calls with Hoffman campaign aides. “We are helping his organization get out the vote for what we believe is the better of the two candidates,” said William Lamar Wells, who heads up CNY912. “This is rapidly elevating.”

“We’re seeing a lot of tea party people coming into the office,” said Rob Ryan, a Hoffman spokesman. “In a very competitive election, they’re providing a lot of manpower to put Doug Hoffman over the top.”

For the tea party activists, the special election represents the next big event for the loosely confederated movement, which began earlier this year with local Tax Day “tea parties,” followed by town hall protests and a Sept. 12 March on Washington. “I think, nationally, the tea party movement to a person is supporting Hoffman,” said Leahy.

On Thursday, former House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Texas), chairman of FreedomWorks, an organization that has played a role in coordinating tea party activities, personally endorsed Hoffman and implored his conservative followers to get on board.

“You’re sitting right in the eye of the storm. This country is at a crossroads,” Armey told supporters, according to an account in the Syracuse Post-Standard. “We have a special election. This is the game-changer. We’ve struggled with a Republican Party ... that has lost its way. They don’t remember about [President Ronald] Reagan. ... They don’t remember about small government. They let their thinking be controlled by self-serving political objects. And frankly, they made a lot of fools out of themselves.” FreedomWorks is now set to launch an aggressive effort to educate voters on what it says are the differences between Hoffman and Scozzafava.

Adam Brandon, a FreedomWorks spokesman, said the organization would have hundreds of members on the ground in the closing days of the contest and will distribute call lists to members across the country who can’t make it to upstate New York.

Armey himself is set to embark on a whistle-stop and media tour with Hoffman and will headline a fundraiser for the Conservative Party nominee. On Wednesday, Armey huddled with tea party activists who are playing a role in the race. According to an Oct. 15 Siena Research Institute poll, Owens has the support of 33 percent of likely voters, followed by Scozzafava at 29 percent and Hoffman at 23 percent. But Hoffman’s numbers were up 7 points during a two-week period, and Democratic and Republican insiders told POLITICO that Hoffman has now moved into second place ahead of Scozzafava, according to internal polls.

Asked to assess how much credit the Hoffman campaign would give to tea party activists in the event the Conservative Party candidate wins, Ryan said, “We would owe them a great deal of credit.”

For Scozzafava, the ramped-up tea party opposition has coincided with a rough campaign stretch. On Monday evening, she came under fire after reports circulated that her husband had called police after a Weekly Standard writer peppered her with a series of questions. Two days later, on Wednesday, Scozzafava, appearing exhausted, staged an awkward photo op in front of Hoffman’s campaign headquarters — surrounded by a sea of Hoffman supporters waving Hoffman campaign signs behind her.

“I think, whether it’s tea party folks or any other group, they have a right to support who they feel best represents them,” said Matt Burns, a Scozzafava spokesman. “I think it’s a healthy thing when there is political involvement from people at any level.”

Tea party activists, who maintain they are independent of either major party, say their involvement in the special election is proof they aren’t aligned with the Republican Party. “We’re not a part of the Republican Party, and I think that’s beginning to show to people,” said Wells.

Asked how his conservative-oriented organization felt about taking on the Republican Party, Brandon, the FreedomWorks spokesman, responded without missing a beat, “I feel as pure as can be. I have a smile on my face.”

“For those who criticize us as an arm of the GOP, I hope those folks are watching,” added Brandon.

One More From The Hammer

So the Scozzafava campaign lied? and the NRCC and our Congressman are endorsing this candiadate?

AP: Nope, McCormack Didn't Yell at Scozzafava
The Scozzafava campaign has retracted spokesman Matt Burns' earlier accusation that WEEKLY STANDARD reporter John McCormack "screamed questions (in-your-face-style)" at NY-23 Republican candidate Dede Scozzafava. The raucous behavior the campaign claimed prompted them to call the police on McCormack Monday didn't happen, according to the reporter's audio recording, reported on by the Associated Press:

In the audio recording of the reporter's questioning played for The Associated Press by McCormack, the reporter didn't raise his voice, but repeated his unanswered questions several times, including one about abortion.

"I never screamed, I never yelled, I never shouted," he said. "My voice was only loud enough so she could hear my questions."

In a statement released Tuesday to the blog Politico, Scozzafava's campaign said the reporter "repeatedly screamed questions (in-your-face-style)," but later issued a statement deleting the accusation.

Today, the campaign leaked an e-mail exchange between Burns and McCormack to the liberal blog Talking Points Memo. Left-wing blogger Markos Moulitsas and the National Review find themselves in a rare moment of complete agreement that the e-mails do nothing to make McCormack look bad (or the Scozzafava campaign look good, for that matter).

The Washington Times editorializes: "Dede's police state"

White House vows to "Punch Back TWICE As Hard" against the citizenry

Obama, Pelosi, and Reid continue to decry the "organized community" that is protesting the government run health care scam. They are showing their Senators and Congressmen "scary" videos of their CONSTITUENTS and telling them that this is the fringe group. None of these concerned citizens actually matter, apparently. They are just a bunch of organized rabble rousers. Hmmm, is there something wrong with organizing a community?

The White House has vowed to "punch back" at the protesting citizens according to Politico.

Senior White House adviser David Axelrod and deputy chief of staff Jim Messina... showed video clips of the confrontational town halls that have dominated the media coverage, and told senators to do more prep work than usual for their public meetings by making sure their own supporters turn out, senators and aides said.(OWN SUPPORTERS? It thought Congressmen worked for US! Sounds like they're trying to gin up fake support. Astroturf, anyone?)

And they screened TV ads and reviewed the various campaigns by critics of the Democratic plan.

“If you get hit, we will punch back twice as hard,” Messina said, according to an official who attended the meeting. (Punch back twice as hard. Against whom, since these meetings are with CONSTITUENTS! Revealing, isn't it, about how the Obama administration actually feels about the citizenry.

Sarah the Sinner

From politico.com

Sarah Palin is a sinner. She has violated several commandments and thoroughly deserves the savage beating that she is now getting from political mandarins and media elites.

If it were not for one simple fact, I would say she was through in politics.

And that fact is that if the Republicans were picking a nominee today, they would pick Sarah Palin. No? Don't believe me? Who would beat her?

Tim Pawlenty? Bobby Jindal? Haley Barbour? Mike Huckabee? Mitt Romney?

All of these men might build credible, attractive, even powerful political operations by 2012. But right now? Today?

Today, Sarah Palin would be the winner, because more than anyone else, she has won over the hearts and minds of the Republican rank and file. (And tell me that a Sarah Palin-Newt Gingrich ticket would not set conservative hearts aflutter.)

She has done this by sinning, however.

Let us list just some of the political commandments she has recently violated:

Thou shalt not surprise the media. Palin announces she is quitting her job as governor of Alaska, and she catches everybody by surprise. What is up with that? Where were the leaks and the trial balloons? Why weren't the media alerted so they could have predicted it? When you do what the media have predicted, you are "savvy." You are a "skilled" and "adept" politician. If you surprise the media, however, you are "out of control" and "bizarre" and even "egotistical." (Though I have always believed that accusing politicians of being egotistical is like accusing ballerinas of dancing on their toes.)

How badly do some in the media take to surprise? Here is CNN's Rick Sanchez on Palin's announcement that she was leaving office prematurely:
"Is there anything going on with her that perhaps may lead her to want to make this decision, and the one thing that's still left out there is, hey, could she be pregnant again?" Sanchez asked.

Could be, Rick. Or maybe it was just her time of month, because, hey, that's why woman politicians make the decisions they do, right? But you can see why some in the media were shocked and dismayed. Imagine abandoning your office!

Imagine quitting and deserting the voters who elected you! Though this is what Bob Dole did in 1996, didn't he? Dole resigned his Senate seat to run for president. I remember it. I was standing right there when he did it. And I don't recall anybody accusing him of being a quitter. Or of being pregnant.

Thou shalt not upset the pooh-bahs. The Republican Party likes to nominate the next guy in line. John McCain in 2008, George W. Bush in 2000 and Bob Dole in 1996 were all the next guys in line. They had "earned" their place in the party hierarchy. (Or, in the case of George W. Bush, his father had earned it for him.)

Today, it is hard to see who the next guy in line is, but the party mandarins, the pooh-bahs, are agreed on one thing: Sarah Palin ain't it. She is a dumb hick, a nobody from nowhere. She hunts moose with a chainsaw from the back of a snowmobile or something. Just listen to her resignation speech. It was not slick or polished or written by somebody else. She appeared to deliver it off the top of her head as if she were a real person. What a doofus!

Doesn't she know that the highest form of political communication today is to exactly regurgitate a speech written for you by a speechwriter who has crafted, vetted and polled every phrase, line and word?

But listen to Palin. Listen to how "rambling" and "disjointed" she is. Once upon a time in American politics, this was known as being "plain-spoken," but that time has gone. An entire industry of political consultants has grown up to make sure politicians are never plain-spoken.

Sarah Palin does not get this. Which is to say she is not very bright. (Or else she is pregnant, in which case, I apologize.)

Thou shalt pander to the few, not speak to the many. John Weaver, a former McCain aide, told Adam Nagourney of The New York Times that Sarah Palin now has little chance of ever becoming the party's presidential nominee. "Somebody has to explain to Republicans how this woman is going to expand her support base," Weaver said. "Yes, she is the darling of a certain element of our party. But it remains to be seen - in fact, it remains rather doubtful she can grow beyond that."

She is the "darling of a certain element" of Republicans? It seems to me that with the party collapsing to its most conservative core, that "certain element" could also be called the majority of the Republican Party. But maybe that is not enough. It is only a "certain element" of the party that finds her energizing, fresh, tough and willing to stand up to the mandarins and the media.

Clearly, Palin must "grow" beyond that base to win over ... whom? The McCain wing of the Republican Party? Find it, and maybe she can win it over. Having said all this, I do not think Palin is being crazy like a fox. I don't think she has planned out what she will do in 2012.

I think she has quit her job, is doing what she wants to do and is reserving judgment about her future. In doing so, she has made herself an outcast to the mandarins, the pooh-bahs and the elites.

So how can she go wrong?

Roger Simon is POLITICO's chief political columnist.

Al-Arabiya gets the word from The One.

President Obama has given his first formal interview as President to the Dubai-based Al-Arabiya network, presenting a conciliatory image to the world and backing away from any confrontation.




Excerpts from the transcript:
And so what I told him is start by listening, because all too often the
United States starts by dictating -- in the past on some of these issues --and we don't always know all the factors that are involved. So let's listen.

Right, the US has been dictating to the Middle East whenever we have been involved with the numerous peace proposals. We never listen...that's our problem...Carter "dictated" that the Shah should be replaced by a terrorist ayatollah and then, of course there was all that dictating at Camp David. Reagan, Bush, Clinton, all dictators of peace.....

I think Hillary Clinton has expressed this in her confirmation, is that if we are looking at the region as a whole and communicating a message to the Arab world and the Muslim world, that we are ready to initiate a new partnership based on mutual respect and mutual interest, then I think that we can make significant progress.

I think its clear by now that the Muslim world has little "respect" for the US. And as to "mutual interest", how does one have mutual interests with absolutist organizations like HAMAS?

My job to the Muslim world is to communicate that the Americans are not your enemy. We sometimes make mistakes. We have not been perfect. But if you look at the track record, as you say, America was not born as a colonial power, and that the same respect and partnership that America had with the Muslim world as recently as 20 or 30 years ago, there's no reason why we can't restore that.

If the Muslim world does not understand that yet, then THEY are the ones that refuse to understand. 50,000,000 Muslims liberated. Tyranny fought on behalf of Muslims from Croatia to Afghanistan. And relationship with the Muslim world 20-30 years ago was TERRIBLE. 1979? Remember a certain hostage crisis brought about the missteps of another President that refused to see reality? 1989? Conflict with Libya, terrorism, and Salman Rushdie under threat of death.

I think that you're making a very important point. And that is that the language we use matters. And what we need to understand is, is that there are extremist organizations -- whether Muslim or any other faith in the past -- that will use faith as a justification for violence. We cannot paint with a broad brush a faith as a consequence of the violence that is done in that faith's name.

This answer was based on a question about the term "islamic fascism.: Of course the language we use matters. He implies that Bush "painted with a broad brush," which of course, he did not. Bush was very careful in stating that the majority of Muslims were peaceful. He bent over backwards trying to demonstrate his belief that Islam was "peaceful" against all evidence. Even with a five year decrease, over 100,000,000 Muslims approve of "suicide bombings."
And then, Obama has to bring up "other faiths." Yep, I've been following the new about those suicide bomber nuns and murderous Buddhists.

Peace will arrive when the jihadists renounce the intention to rebuild the caliphate. Until then, this is all smoke and mirrors. When the Muslim world agrees with the Western world on the same definition of peace, then we will see the end of terrorism. Jihadists have the long view. They believe that the West will eventually capitulate and Islam will be the dominate force/religion in the world.

And with refusal of the West to stand up to the Muslim demands for separate sharia-based communities, and for Muslim demands that western communities adapt to them instead of the immigrants assimilating into their new countries, I believe that they may be right.

Unless the West starts to take the words of the faithful as spoken, and the words of the Koran as written, the West will continue to misunderstand. "Radical" muslims are nothing more than faithful Muslims that believe that the Islamic faith must be exercised as it was under Mohammad. They believe that if Muslims "return" to the pure faith, mu slims will triumph. Arafat said such things. HAMAS and Hezbollah and Al Qaeda say such things. The Muslim Brotherhood says such things. And the "moderates" do nothing. Because they cannot dispute the "fanatics" with writings from the Koran. The Koran backs up the "fanatics" and the moderates do not wish to be ostracized and targeted. Even if a small percentage of Malaysians agree with the "radicals", that's 19 million people.

Negotiation does not work when a) one side does not negotiate in good faith, which in fact, is based on Koranic instructions to the faithful when negotiating with non-believers and b)one side wants nothing more than your death or capitulation.

Obama is living in a dream world. If he was a Muslim while living abroad, then he will be considered an apostate. And if he was not a Muslim, he's just another infidel. Treaties and negotiations are allowed, but, only with the goal of advancing Islam.

While the majority of Muslims want to live in peace, unless they assimilate in their new countries, even peaceful Muslims want their communities to change to a sharia based community, and thereby destroying the very western ideals and freedoms that originally let them move to that country.

Until the Islamic world rejects the ideals of Jihad or the West loses, there will be no peace.

h/t Gateway Pundit and Politico

UPDATE: The Palestinians respond to the One's message of Al-Hopiya, Al-changiyah