I withdrew from the 2012 presidential race almost two months ago.
And the haters still can’t stop talking s**t about me.
I am the one.
#occupyheads
Posted on 11/23/2011 4:46:28 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
"How do politicians who arrive in Washington, D.C., as men and women of modest means leave as millionaires? How do they miraculously accumulate wealth at a rate faster than the rest of us?"
- Sarah Palin, Wall Street Journal, November 18
Sarah Palin complaining about politics, modest means and millionaires? Hasn't she hauled in about $10 million - selling a couple of best sellers at upwards of $25 a piece interspersed with some speech-giving at $100,000 a pop - since John McCain plucked her from the rural obscurity of Wasilla?
But let's be fair, she made her money the old-fashioned American way: grabbing hold of a thunderbolt of luck and making the most of it. One of the best new-fashioned ways is to become a congressman.
So if Sarah Palin, with her built-in support of about 25% of today's Republican Party (about the same percentage as Mitt Romney has, though certainly not the same people), wants to publish a ghost-written piece about the depth of corruption in Washington, all is forgiven, Sarah baby, I've just become one of your biggest fans.
The op-ed piece that Palin wrote was prompted by the latest scandal, revealed last week by CBS's "60 Minutes," involving our corrupt Congress. Remember Martha Stewart and the insider trading accusation that sent her to jail. Her broker told her that the CEO of a company whose stock she owned was selling his shares; acting on what her broker told her - on a cell phone, at an airport if I remember - she sold the stock and went to jail. Whatever your view of Stewart and her contribution to American culture, it seemed a stretch to convict her of insider-trading.
Too bad she wasn't a congresswoman: it turns out they don't have to rely on hearsay advice from their brokers; they can get the dope straight from company officials, in their role as our elected legislators, and then make a profit trading on the basis of what is, even to the morally obtuse, clearly insider info - and it's all legal. But then, why not: they're the ones who make the rules.
As "60 Minutes" pointed out - not that we needed it confirmed - it's bipartisan corruption. Among the beneficiaries they cited are Republican House Speaker John Boehner, Democratic Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, and Republican House Financial Services Committee Chair Spencer Bachus. There's a proposed piece of legislation that's been sitting on the sidelines for five years, the STOCK (for Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge) Act. It had nine supporters before the "60 Minutes" expose; another 56, rushing to get public approbation, signed on immediately after. Still, even if the bill eventually passes, you don't have to be a jaded cynic to know that congressmen will find another way to line their pockets.
A month or so ago, I wrote a column comparing the frustrations underlying the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street, pointing out that money in politics has corrupted Washington, and money in Wall Street has corrupted capitalism; the same money, floating back and forth between Washington and Wall Street, is corrupting both.
Sarah Palin zeroes in on the connection and the need, therefore, that "real reform must transcend political parties," she wrote. "The grassroots units of the right and the left should embrace this. The Tea Party's vision has always been opposition to Washington and crony capitalism, and the Occupying protestors must realize that Washington politicians have been 'Occupying Wall Street' long before anyone pitched a tent in Zuccotti Park."
Right on, Sarah.
Occupy Wall Street just celebrated its two-month anniversary, but it remains an amorphous organization that needs a coherent leadership to go the next step. As Palin points out, there's a lot of overlap in the goals of the two groups. If, somehow, leaders from both organizations could meet in the middle and focus on those elements they both agree on, it would not only be an important step in getting the country as a whole refocused, it could help move part of the political dialogue back towards the center.
Beyond the insider deals that make congressmen rich - a recent example, the earmark that focused highway construction across a piece of land the sponsoring congressman owned - the real culprit remains the Siamese twin of our lobbying system and uncontrolled donations to political campaigns.
Our Congress may have been sitting on a bill preventing them from insider trading for five years, but this past week, they found the time to reject recent Department of Agriculture guidelines that would have increased the amount of fruit and vegetables in school cafeterias. With what rationale? That the tomato paste spread on a pizza turns the pizza into a vegetable.
What is it that our Congress understands about school-age nutrition that the Department of Agriculture doesn't? The $5.6 million that food companies have spent lobbying against the DOA rules. Is it any wonder that Congress has lower popular support from Americans than does the suggestion that we should go communist (9% pro-Congress; 11% pro-communist, according to a recent poll).
Another example of lobbyists' reach: there were 12 congressmen on the Supercommittee, six Republicans and six Democrats, that were tasked during the past three months to find a solution to our multi-trillion-dollar debt crisis. Time just ran out without a solution. What insight might the 12 have gotten from lobbyists? Well, as a start, 90 of their former staffers are now lobbyists. There are 435 congressmen, so at that rate there are about 550 lobbyists who used to work for current congressmen. And how many ex-congressmen are now lobbyists? And how many lobbyists are there who worked for them? Washington's just one big insider-trading scam these days.
In her op-ed piece, Palin proposes, among other things, "no transitioning into a lobbying career after leaving office." She's got that right. And the same should hold for staffers (though if that were the case, perhaps no one would want to work in Congress).
And then there's always our old buddy Newt Gingrich, who pocketed $1.6 million himself as a lobbyist for Freddie Mac after leaving Congress, all the while renouncing "corrupt" Democrats for their support of Freddie Mac. Meanwhile, he was generating an additional $37 million for his health-care "think-tank." And he thinks he should be president; and worse, he's now heading the polls for the Republican nomination. If the Soviet Union were still around, you could be forgiven for thinking this was all a communist plot, and Newt was a double agent hired to show how corrupt and hypocritical American capitalism is.
Is there something wrong in Mudville? The majority of us think so. NY Times columnist Charles Blow reported over the weekend just how pervasive has grown the sense that we have lost our way: only 49% of Americans think "that our culture is superior to others," down from 60% less than 10 years ago. It's even worse among the younger generation: Americans under the age of 30 - who don't remember that we once really were a pretty remarkable place - have a less positive view of ourselves than the young in Germany, England, and Spain have of their own countries - we're talking Old Europe, old, corrupt, collapsing Europe.
Once upon a time - and I'm not thinking about that 18th-century myth of the "shining city on a hill." But once upon a time, there was a place that young people all over the world looked up to.
Yep, she made money from selling her populism, not through insider trading.
She does nothing different than a movie star in selling their acting talents just as I sell my talents of engineering design consulting and racing data analysis.
I would comment that the author seems aware that he should dislike something, but his Liberal Mental Disease prevents him being able to put his finger on what "IT" is. The guy is a lost, empty, pointless, rambling imbecile... another sad victim of Liberal Indoctrination. A wasted human life.
I would comment that the author seems aware that he should dislike something, but his Liberal Mental Disease prevents him being able to put his finger on what "IT" is. The guy is a lost, empty, pointless, rambling imbecile... another sad victim of Liberal Indoctrination. A wasted human life.
The media and a spiteful b1tch in Alaska who kept filing ethics complaints against her in Alaska made Palin.
If they had left her alone after her VP run she would have gone back to being Governor and eventually gone back to being a housewife. But no: They had to try to destroy her.
I would not mind if Congress Men made money selling books like Sarah did. But then, they would have to be smart enough to write books people would read.
So its a darn far reach to try to link Sarah's success at book writing to insider trading via influence peddling. Not quite the same thing as book writing. The two meet, well, nowhere in logic without very powerful drugs.
Cheap and sleezy may sell headlines, but books need content.
Let me guess: You’re also a “lifelong Republican, but...” right? And you’re “concerned” about the direction that the Tea Party is taking us, or some such.
I am the one.
#occupyheads
Since you arrived here 20 days ago, I will give you a pass. I was all set to raise $2 million dollars for her campaign and will hopefully do so someday. I worked for President Reagan and know the real thing when I see it.
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pong
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"Accumlate wealth faster than the rest of us"?
This from the woman who made $10-12 million within two years after quitting?
How can she say this without gagging? How can you post it without laughing?
She’s a nice lady, I wish her and her family good fortune. She will earn two million dollars more at Fox until 2013.
Did she make that $12 million from shady backroom deals, bribes, corruption and/or insider trading as a public servant? Or was she a private citizen paid for her books, speeches, opinions, etc.? Kinda apples and oranges, isn’t it, FRiend?
ROTFLMYBARACKOFF.
Never heard of you.
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