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Sarah Palin 'Target WikiLeaks Like Taliban'
DMandPenfold writes "Sarah Palin, who is widely tipped as a possible Republican candidate for president in 2012, has said WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange should be hunted down in the way armed forces are targeting the Taliban and Al-Qaeda." So that means we should spend billions of dollars and not catch him? Good plan.
She is unelectable, why the hell does the media pay so much attention to her? She has to be the most hated political figure in the US for the left/left leaning middle. The dumbest thing the republicans could possibly do is run her in 2012.
Palin just lost my vote. I liked her because she managed to balance the budget in Alaska and is supposedly a supporter of the Constitution. With her support of trying to take down wikileaks, it indicates she is actually a supporter of ongoing government waste and corruption.
Government of the people, by the people, for the people should be completely transparent. Every dime should be able to be accounted for, and all bills before Congress should be made publicly available before they are voted on - not hidden the way Romney/Obamacare was.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
And then I voted for him in 2008.....things change. Still, I agree, she's pretty much unelectable in my mind.
Keep her in the spotlight. I'd prefer having 4 more years of Obama, instead of any Republican "small government" type.
I voted for Bush in 2004. I would have voted for him in 2000 if I was old enough. Voted for McCain in 2008. Never voted Democrat in my life. But if the Republicans nominate Palin in 2012, I will vote Obama. I don't like what he's doing to this country. He's given way too much power to unions (GM) and unfairly redistributing wealth (healthcare). But the damage he can do is minuscule when compared to what Palin would do. There is only one possible benefit I can see of Palin getting elected, and the is the complete dismantlement of the Republican party as we know it. Maybe we can finally get a party that is center-right, instead of overrun with right-wing radicals and religious nutjobs.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
People are watching her, reading her books and identifying with her at an alarming rate.
It's the same down South. As a matter of fact, back in 2008, someone wrote to the editor of the Economist saying how they liked Sarah because "she is just like me."
To write Palin off as a "nut" or as "unelectable" would be a mistake. I see a lot of Democrats hoping that Palin runs in '12 - they should be careful of what they wish for.
One is just that it is kinda funny to hear crazies talk. I mean let's face it, she is nuts and she says some amazingly stupid shit. It can be amusing to read that. So that is part of it is people just going "What? She REALLY said that? Hell we need to print that shit!"
The other is that there are more than a few democrats who really, REALLY want her to be a forerunner in the republican party. Reason is of course that she is crazy and has basically no chance. Now realistically she isn't going to be a Republican contender. However the Democrats sure hope she is because man would that make for an easy election. That leads to more coverage than you'd normally get since not only is she trying to make herself heard, her opponents are trying to make sure she'd heard.
On the contrary, I feel it is News for Nerds. It directly addresses the way technology is facilitating the globalization of information and how it conflicts with regional/local laws. The message was delivered by Facebook, so nerds should appreciate the irony that Palin is advocating censorship of information on a site that believes in opening up private information for all to view. Finally, the fact that a mainstream political figure (one does not have to hold office to be a current politician) is advocating the use of potentially illegal internet warfare (From the article: She [Palin] said “cyber tools" should be used to "permanently dismantle WikiLeaks") should also be of interest to nerds.
I don't think the topic is flamebait, I think it is controversial. The internet is a force of globalization, especially in the realm of information distribution. When that distribution starts to threaten state secrets, how far do we (the US) go? How about the UK, Germany, or France? How about China or India? How about Iran, Syria, or Saudi Arabia? If it is legitimate for the US to do a DDoS against Wikileaks, what about Venezuela attacking US news websites that it feels are threatening its State secrets?
Yes, I already dislike Palin, but as a nerd who tries to pay attention to the news, I want to know who is siding with Palin on this issue... and to some extent, it appears that is the current administration (who once advocated an open government).
Speaking as a mostly-right leaning American, I wanted nothing more than for Obama to win the Democrat primary since, with his inexperience and lack of name recognition, he was going to be trivial to beat compared to Hillary.
Then when the Republicans (check that, large, early open primary states) nominated McCain, I knew a good chunk of Rs, myself included, wouldn't turn out for him and we'd lose to whomever won the D primary.
In short, be careful what you wish for, especially if your party is currently hated (as the Rs were in 2006 and 2008 and the Ds were in 2010) and you put up a turd sandwich (as people are increasingly seeing Obama).
That's an interesting theory. The problem is that the August 24, 2008 meeting with advisors at which Sarah Palin became the top choice to be McCain's running mate occurred several months after Clinton's conceded the race for the Democratic nomination and endorsed Barack Obama on June 7, 2008; the August 27 meeting at which she was offered the #2 spot on the ticket took place during the Democratic Convention, on the same day Barack Obama was formally nominated as the Democratic Party's candidate for the Presidency.
So, its historically indefensible to claim that the McCain campaign was nominating Palin in response to the perceived current strength of the Clinton campaign at the time.
It's more defensible to claim that they did it in response to the defeat of Hillary Clinton, in belief that that defeat might provide an opening to pick up some disappointed Clinton supporters that really were focussed on seeing a woman on the ticket. (I'm not saying this is true, or that, if true, it was a reasonable expectation on their part -- but its an argument I've heard that is certainly more plausible than the explanation that the choice was made because they thought the Clinton campaign was still going strong and that that is who they would have to face in the general.)
Actually, the Kennedy's in general and JFK in particular DESERVE to be ripped apart--but not for the vapid reasons that Sarah Palin's ghost writer came up with.
Look, I'm not here to turn this into some JFK and RFK and Ted Kennedy did all this horrible crap and killed a woman and got away with it and were womanizing nepotistic rich bastards ... all or or some of these things could be said. But what I was trying to say here was that nobody has ever run on that platform. You can write a book of dirt when you're done with politics but writing such a book before you become president is sort of like asking your future opponent if they'd like to have their way with you right now. I mean JFK, though flawed, was a hero to a lot of Americans. And his martyrdom was just icing on the cake. And to call into question one of his most loved and cherished speeches is more than ballsy, it's downright dangerous.
Sarah Palin is a new kind of political monster, unlike the ones I'm used to watching comfortably from my armchair. She's got a twitter feed that sports so many errors, she might actually be the person running it! From a classic Bush-esque prescriptive versus descriptive linguistics error to making accusations and weird religious remarks. It's a microblogging service! Look at what the rest of the politicians use it for: a paid staff techie is told what to put on it and what goes on it is only tepid words praising safe topics for that candidate to like. And those are usually reviewed seventy times before they go up. She has broken the rules of and committed fouls in politics many times and yet people embrace her.
All I wanted to say in my post was that from what I've seen of Sarah Palin, we should have stuck a fork in her long ago yet she remains. And why is that? Well, she's a dangerously well liked and amicable to a large part of the population that you are not familiar with. If she makes a mistake they seem to forgive her and say "I've made that mistake too." If she uses cracked logic or argument tactics long ago written off by academics, her followers just write off the academics. Trust me, as someone who's tried to reason with a supporter with some fairly simple debate analysis of Glenn Beck's logic, I can tell you that you don't want to approach this as some fancy pants intellectual telling them how dumb they are.
Don't confuse this with praise of Sarah Palin or defense of JFK. This is just me trying to warn people about how I see the situation at present. What happens when she runs for president and her opposition preys on some stupid social gaffe of hers? If it's any less than what she's already done, it's merely going to be ignored by or reinforce her supporter's commitment.
My work here is dung.
Obama gained over 52% of the popular votes. I am not sure that any non-sitting president has gotten elected with this margin in 50 years. Bush I did but he was following Reagan. Even getting a simple majority is a significant event for a democrat. The only reasonable conclusion, given the McCain was a very popular candidate, and many independents wanted to vote for him, and a large number of Americans seem to hate Obama, is that Palin killed the ticket.
The sad thing is that so many people base conclusion on faith, not facts.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Biden looks intelligent. He's tall and has executive style hair, probably inherited from his Daddy, much like his political career.
"Crazy" Joe should be selling used cars, not a heartbeat away from the oval office. It's one thing to be deluded that Obama is The One, but to think Joe Biden displays intelligence is to disregard virtually everything he says and the fact that he doesn't even realize what or why the things he says might be regarded as pathological.
Increasingly, attention has been focused on the role of Anna Ardin, the more visible of the two complainants. Her apparent mix of establishment cred, together with her varied activist/political career radical feminist, Christian social democrat, ambitious political intern seems to flummox non-Swedish commentators, who don’t understand that that is an establishment career in Sweden. Ardin has not only worked as an intern in the Swedish foreign affairs department, including a tour of DC and Cuba (from which she was allegedly deported), but has also interned on the op-ed page of the Gothenburg afternoon paper GT, part of the Expressen stable, owned by the right-wing Bonnier family (yep, Sweden has right-wingers).
It was to the relentlessly anti-left Expressen that the story of the initial charges of rape against Assange were released (a breach of Swedish law), in the small window of time before they were rescinded by a higher prosecutor.
Were there accusations of violent rape involved in this case, I’d be a lot more circumspect about reporting some of this, but it seems no one is asserting physical coercion. So here goes: two separate sources from the Swedish left have told me that they regard Ardin as more than a little over-the-top, and subject to some compelling obsessions. Another source said he was pretty sure of the identity of SW, the other complainant, and that some people had held suspicions about her bona fides as a member of the left.
And from this site here we find some very interesting info:
Someone in the police station rings up the prosecutor on duty - who just happens to be Maria Kjellstrand, whose husband works in the office of Beatrice Ask, who is Sweden's minister of justice, a position previously held by Thomas Bodström who gave away The Pirate Bay to the White House and who today runs a law firm with Claes Borgström who's made a career out of supporting militant radical feminist ideas - and who magically appears out of nowhere later on to become the two girls' legal counsel, despite being obscenely expensive.
It's amazing the vitriol reserved only for a strong female social conservative Republican. I just want to thank you all for your participation. You may not think she's the sharpest knife; we're OK with that. You may think she's an idiot, unelectable, foolish, a fascist... we're OK with that too. The smugness and supposed intellectual superiority exuding from the trenches of Slashdot always amazes me. This one especially so. I'll enunciate why below:
;)
1] You believe that Assange is a hero of some sort.
While this may be the case if he were solely releasing secret information from tyrannical governments, he is more focused on damaging the credibility and security of nations in the west, most specifically the United States. In order to believe that this is good that he is releasing secret information during a war, you have to believe some of the following:
a) The United States (Administration/Government/Military) is corrupt and/or tyrannical and/or evil
b) The information released will harm no one just embarrass our elected officials in an almost amusing or chastising way
c) You disagree with the mission and therefore will support anything that can have an impact in arranging a retreat/redeployment/victory lap out of the engaged country
d) The information released will harm people but you don't care about those people because they're not your friends or political allies
e) You don't believe that there is such a thing as Treason or Espionage and that spies are just heroes in disguise in every instance (or just when they are targeting the west)
f) Only when engaged in Total War should we ever care about operational security.
2] You are deathly afraid of Sarah Palin
This one bemuses most conservatives and it's a prime reason as to why she's still around. We're not terribly keen on her abilities but we are keen on her ideology and her core fundamentals. Her voice is kind of obnoxious and she misspeaks now and then or she brain farts in front of the world. We know that. We're not oblivious. We acknowledge this and move past it because it's very superficial. You guys bought up your well packaged Perfect Man. Not quite the Perfect Man you thought he was, I'd imagine. What does resonate.. and tremendously so.. is her message.
What you don't understand is; the more you resist her the stronger she's going to get. Your inability to be civil.. to keep race and gender out of the equation.. to continue to use childish and personal attacks against her..just fuels her, because you see, she just mirrors you back to conservatives. *You* are Sarah Palin's fuel. Your injustice breeds this brand of politics. Conservatives outnumber you and every time they're shown by her what knuckle dragging comments come to her, they see the bias and jump your ship. You will see that if conservatives can not muster up a proper challenger, we may indeed have Sarah Palin in the running and she may indeed be victorious. She would not be our ideal candidate but she's definitely not your ideal candidate. We like that you think she's stupid because she's not.. you just think anyone that disagrees with your philosophy or view point is stupid. (By virtue of the logic of: Well, only an idiot could think my political point of view is wrong!) Such arrogance and pompous remarks fill this column. We like that you're afraid of her because we don't like your advocacy of tyranny against the individual by the majority, and what causes a tyrant to wake up in a cold sweat is something to attain. And you see, we'd do all we could to make it happen, just to humble you ivory tower elitists who say it's impossible or that she would be a terrible president because of anything, her proving you wrong, that certainly would. You've put all your eggs in one basket. A grave (and desperate) political strategy mistake. You can't fight Bush anymore.. lost to Fox News.. and need something to focus your rage on. We gave you something, good luck.
You're not alone. That's a world wide phenomenon, and no country is exempt. We're all mostly greedy bastards, no matter what people. Maybe not you, maybe not me, but 90% of the people, no matter if French, Italian, Indian or American. All the same shit all over.
For some odd reason, though, people here (in Europe) want people smarter than themselves in a public office. People here do elect people so someone else can do that brain work for them. And they want someone who can (ok, who looks like he probably could) do that. People here want to vote for "smart" people. Not necessarily brainy people, but people who have "made their way", who led a successful business or who can show off some other proof that they can "manage".
When Schwarzenegger was elected Governor of California people here (including those that usually vote for the "best looking guy") were stunned with disbelief. What? How's he a politician? Only thing he accomplished is movies. And movies are NOT taken serious around here. As much as we like celebrities, they have NO place in politics. Politics is serious matter. Movies are entertainment. They don't mix.
That doesn't mean that we got better politicians in any way. But it means that we get more intelligent ones because they have to "prove" that they got the brains and can talk level headed enough to appeal to the general consensus that politics is "serious business". No radical ideas allowed. No show gimmicks allowed. I didn't think I'd ever say it, but having a fairly conservative population that shuns changes has its benefits.
At least the weirdos like Palin have no chance to ever wield power.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Ok scared guy, demonstrate it.
"All of 'em, any of 'em that have been in front of me over all these years." --Sarah Palin, unable to name a single newspaper or magazine she reads, interview with Katie Couric, CBS News, Oct. 1, 2008
"'Refudiate,' 'misunderestimate,' 'wee-wee'd up.' English is a living language. Shakespeare liked to coin new words too. Got to celebrate it!'" --a Tweet sent by Sarah Palin in response to being ridiculed for inventing the word "refudiate," proudly mistaking her illiteracy for literary genius, July 18, 2010 (NOTE: after attending 5 different colleges, she eventually graduated from the University of Idaho with a degree in journalism - "before her selection to run on the GOP ticket, she explained that her curiosity and love of writing made journalism a natural choice.")
"But obviously, we've got to stand with our North Korean allies." --Sarah Palin, after being asked how she would handle the current hostilities between the two Koreas, interview on Glenn Beck's radio show, Nov. 24, 2010
"[T]hey're in charge of the U.S. Senate so if they want to they can really get in there with the senators and make a lot of good policy changes that will make life better for Brandon and his family and his classroom." --Sarah Palin, getting the vice president's constitutional role wrong after being asked by a third grader what the vice president does, interview with NBC affiliate KUSA in Colorado, Oct. 21, 2008
''Dr. Laura: don't retreat...reload! (Steps aside bc her 1st Amend. rights ceased 2exist thx 2activists trying 2silence'' isn't American, not fair'')'' —Sarah Palin, in a Twitter message coming to the defense of Dr. Laura Schlessinger, the talk radio host who apologized and decided to retire from her highly-rated program after using the N-word on the air 11 times in 5 minutes, Aug. 18, 2010
I could continue, but I just don't have time to list all the examples of her poor intellectual qualifications.
"All these years believing you're the signified monkey, only to find out you're just a big hunk of nobody cares."
Wow.. Will you listen to yourself?
I mean seriously, do you really think people are educated and intelligent if they want to flee a country instead of fix it's problems and make it better? Do you really think people who claim to be educated and intelligent, actually are if they can't beat some idiot in an election?
I mean hell, if they are so much smarter, so much more intelligent, then why are they losing? I find it funny that every wants to claim Bush was the dumbest president in the history of the US, but at the same time, he was crafting some conspiracy to screw everything over. It seems like most people should be kicking themselves in the head for having such a conspiracy orchestrated on them by someone as stupid as Bush is made out to be. And here it's already getting warmed up to accept another failure when Palin gets elected.
I'm not really sure that educated and intelligent actually means what you think it means.