Sarah Palin is suing the New York Times for defamation

Peter Hasson reports at The Daily Caller that

Sarah Palin is suing The New York Times for defamation, according to documents filed in federal court Tuesday that were obtained by The Daily Caller.

The lawsuit has to do with an editorial the NYT ran on June 14 that falsely smeared Palin as inciting the 2011 shooting of Democratic Rep. Gabby Giffords by a mentally ill man. There is no evidence to support the NYT’s implication that Palin played a role in inciting the Giffords shooting. (RELATED: NYT Uses GOP Shooting To Falsely Attack Sarah Palin With Debunked Conspiracy Theory)

“Mrs. Palin brings this action to hold The Times accountable for defaming her by publishing a statement about her that it knew to be false: that Mrs. Palin was responsible for inciting a mass shooting at a political event in January 2011,” Palin’s suit states.

“Specifically, on June 14, 2017, The Times Editorial Board, which represents the ‘voice’ of The Times, falsely stated as a matter of fact to millions of people that Mrs. Palin incited Jared Loughner’s January 8, 2011, shooting rampage at a political event in Tucson, Arizona, during which he shot nineteen people, severely wounding United States Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, and killing six, including Chief U.S. District Court Judge John Roll and a nine-year-old girl.”

The lawsuit states that the paper “published and promoted its Editorial Board’s column despite knowing that the linchpin of its ‘sickening pattern’ of politically-incited shootings was the false assertion that Mrs. Palin incited Loughner to murder six people, among them a child and federal judge, and seriously wound numerous others.” (RELATED: NYT Has Been Pushing Palin-Giffords Falsehood For Years)

It goes on to state: “As the public backlash over The Times’ malicious column mounted, it responded by making edits and ‘corrections’ to its fabricated story, along with half-hearted Twitter apologies–none of which sufficiently corrected the falsehoods that the paper published. In fact, none mentioned Mrs. Palin or acknowledged that Mrs. Palin did not incite a deranged man to commit murder.”

Palin claims the editorial “exceeded the bounds of legality, decency and civility by publishing the false and defamatory column.”

Read more here.

Get out!

Sarah Palin has this to say about the UN:

“This is such an encouraging time, where it’s not just us, but those across the pond, too, are understanding that their nation’s sovereignty and security are on the line here, with the ties that bind us to interests that really don’t further our agendas,” she declared.

“So when the U.K. made its move, it was just another reason to call yet again for the U.S. to get the heck out of the UN and get the UN out of the U.S. Let’s get going on putting America first so that we can sweep our own porch before telling other nations how to sweep theirs,” she advised.

...Palin said this urgent need for the people to regain control of national affairs was her most important message at the close of 2016.

“Our government, our bureaucrats and our elected leaders, work for us,” she stressed. “We are the ones that need to call for this, that the UN shackles be next on the chopping block.”

Read more here.

Is the Carrier deal crony capitalism?

It sounds to me like Sarah Palin has some reservations about the Carrier deal. She writes at Young Conservatives,

I am ecstatic for Carrier employees! Their bosses just decided to keep shop onshore. What a relief for hundreds of workers. Merry Christmas Indiana!

We don’t yet know terms of the public/private deal that was cut to make the company stay, but let’s hope every business is equally incentivized to keep Americans working in America.

Foundational to our exceptional nation’s sacred private property rights, a business must have freedom to locate where it wishes. In a free market, if a business makes a mistake (including a marketing mistake that perhaps Carrier executives made), threatening to move elsewhere claiming efficiency’s sake, then the market’s invisible hand punishes. Thankfully, that same hand rewards, based on good business decisions.

But this time-tested truth assumes we’re operating on a level playing field.

When government steps in arbitrarily with individual subsidies, favoring one business over others, it sets inconsistent, unfair, illogical precedent. Meanwhile, the invisible hand that best orchestrates a free people’s free enterprise system gets amputated. Then, special interests creep in and manipulate markets. Republicans oppose this, remember? Instead, we support competition on a level playing field, remember? Because we know special interest crony capitalism is one big fail.

Politicians picking and choosing recipients of corporate welfare is railed against by fiscal conservatives, for it’s a hallmark of corruption. And socialism. The Obama Administration dealt in it in spades. Recall Solyndra, Stimulus boondoggles, and all their other taxpayer-subsidized anchors on our economy. A $20 trillion debt-ridden country can’t afford this sinfully stupid practice, so vigilantly guard against its continuance, or we’re doomed.

Reaganites learned it is POLICY change that changes economic trajectory. Reagan’s successes were built on establishing a fiscal framework that invigorated our entire economy, revitalized growth and investment while decreasing spending, tax rates, over-reaching regulations, unemployment, and favoritism via individual subsidies. We need Reaganites in the new Administration.

However well meaning, burdensome federal government imposition is never the solution. Never. Not in our homes, not in our schools, not in churches, not in businesses.

Gotta’ have faith the Trump team knows all this. And I’ll be the first to acknowledge concerns over a deal cut by leveraging taxpayer interests to make a manufacturer stay put are unfounded – once terms are made public.

But know that fundamentally, political intrusion using a stick or carrot to bribe or force one individual business to do what politicians insist, versus establishing policy incentivizing our ENTIRE ethical economic engine to roar back to life, isn’t the answer. Cajole only chosen ones on Main St or Wall St and watch lines stretch from Washington to Alaska full of businesses threatening to bail unless taxpayers pony up. The lines strangle competition and really, really, dispiritingly screw with workers’ lives. It’s beyond unacceptable, so let’s anticipate equal incentivizes and positive reform all across the field – to make the economy great again.

A bookend to the Tea Party era?

Before the Palin endorsement of Trump today, Jim Geraghty wrote his morning newsletter for National Review, speculating on the meaning of such an endorsement:

Support from Palin would give Trump some cover on the inevitable attacks from Cruz that he’s an establishmentarian in populist clothing. That’s Trump’s biggest vulnerability; any cover he can get for it from another populist with a national profile will help him. The larger meaning of Palin endorsing Trump, though, would be the signal it sends that populist conservatism is now less about conservatism than it is about populism. If you have enough of the latter, you don’t need to worry much about the former. It would be a bookend to the tea-party era, which started with Palin and Glenn Beck yelling at Obama about progressive tyranny and would end with Beck yelling at Palin and Trump about progressive tyranny.

If you consider Ted Cruz the conservative ideal or near-ideal in terms of philosophical grounding, legal perspective, and ideological rigor -- and the case for that seems pretty self-evident -- then watching tea-party leaders flock to Trump over him is pretty damn disappointing.

...Trump, the guy who hosted two fundraisers for Charlie Crist in 2009. He donated to Harry Reid over Sharron Angle in 2010.

Trump, the guy who donated $50,000 to make Rahm Emanuel the mayor of Chicago.

In the founding days of the Tea Party, Donald Trump was exactly what they were fighting against . . . and now some of those adherents have embraced him fully.

read more here.

Principled conservatives?

John Hinderaker at Power Line reflects on Donald Trump and Sarah Palin tonight, and concludes that Trump loves Obama and hates the Tea Party, but Sarah Palin doesn't mind.

What percent is necessary to win the 2016 election?

Ace of Spades points out that, like Sarah Palin in 2008, Donald Trump has locked down a good 25 percent of Republican primary voters. Ace believes both of them should have, at some point, made an effort to reach out to the Republican Middle Class/upwardly mobile/Professional Class as represented by people like Britt Hume and Megyn Kelly of Fox News (Megyn will once again be the moderator of the next GOP debate on January 28, just days before the Iowa primary).

Trump is pushing a lot of the same buttons that Palin did, and creating minority of people who are intensely passionate about him, while rendering him unacceptable to a majority.

Trump is pushing a lot of the same buttons that Palin did, and creating minority of people who are intensely passionate about him, while rendering him unacceptable to a majority.
ox's Bret Baier and Chris Wallace will also return for a second time to moderate along with Kelly. The three anchors moderated the first GOP debate on Aug. 6. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)

Megyn Kelly and Brit Hume are both avatars of the right-leaning Upper Middle Class -- a very important cadre for the GOP.

When you're alienating an important, large, and very influential part of the party -- and this particular cadre makes up 90% of those who man the right's communications and theorizing positions -- you're doing so at what I don't even think can be called a "risk," because "risk" implies there's only a chance you'll suffer from it.

You will suffer for it. It's guaranteed.

...My Palin comparison was made to illustrate the following point: If you have minority of 25% in your corner, and they absolutely love you, why would you just keep flattering that significant-but-far-from-majority cohort while also insulting/embarrassing/alienating the other 26% you absolutely need to win an election?

And I see Trump doing this. He's got 25% in the bank -- in the bank. Locked up. Locked down.

And so does he begin to take that base of support, and begin conquering new territory, recruiting new warriors for his army?

So yes, Trump will automatically win the Republican diehards who will vote for any candidate to stop another four years of Democrat misrule.

And that will put him at, say, 31-33%.

And then what?

And then what?

People may say "Oh he's got time to work on the next 18%," but the problem is not just that he's not working on those right now (which could be excused as a good prioritization, given that he's in a primary and hasn't won this thing yet, not even close), it's that on a weekly basis he actively insults and embarrasses them and pushes them closer and closer to the point where they just decide they will not vote for Donald Trump, ever.

...First impressions, and image, Trump would be the first to tell you, count for an awful lot.

At some point I stopped believing that Palin ever could chase anyone but the 25% who liked her, or even had the diligence or courage to attempt venturing out into new territory.

Every week, Trump gives me the same crawly feeling: This guy just doesn't have the smarts, or the stones, to move beyond his comfort zone of the people he's already got in the bag.

Now I don't know when Trump should begin actively courting those outside his base of support.

But I can tell you when he should stop embarrassing them.

Read more here.

Hopes people have for Carly Fiorina

Ann Althouse writes today about the hopes many people seem to have about Carly Fiorina's candidacy:

"Carly Fiorina is an ice-cold shade queen debate princess and I’m in love with and terrified of her."
A quote from a feminist in a NYT article titled "Carly Fiorina Both Repels and Enthralls Liberal Feminists."

That particular feminist is Erin Gloria Ryan, managing editor of Jezebel:

“I am constantly pivoting mentally with her,” Ms. Ryan said, adding that she had not at all been torn about opposing Mrs. Palin or Mrs. Bachmann. Mrs. Fiorina, she said, is “contrary to the conservative female narrative, the way she looks, the way she presents herself, the no-nonsense businesswoman thing.”

Ever think about the ways in which Carly Fiorina is the opposite of Sarah Palin? Palin had the appropriate political position that made her seem like an apt choice for VP. State governor. But then she wasn't ready to talk under the questioning that suddenly got aimed at her when she was chosen and it screwed up the confidence we were too ready to put in her because of her political credential.

Fiorina makes us wonder right from the beginning whether she's appropriate, because she's held no political position, but start aiming those challenging questions at her and she's ready to speak straight to the issues with astounding stamina and conviction that make us want to believe she can do what it takes.

Sarah Palin: "Take the white flag of surrender out of this President’s hand."

Sarah Palin writes at Breitbart,

We must build up the foundation again; rebuild the wall protecting our – and Israel’s – sovereignty. There are 554 days until we do that, by fundamentally restoring America. In the meantime, Congress, stop the madness. Do your job. Veto Obama’s act of capitulation. Take the white flag of surrender out of this President’s hand.

And by the way, politicians, any of you supporting this while still sending our sons and daughters to war under the pretense of fighting threatening regimes; any of you joining the left’s group hug around Iran’s intentions, I question whether you are fit to shake the hand of a single sacrificial veteran or active duty American.

Please see this, from a friend in the heartland of our great nation:

“Obama just paved the way for Iran, the world’s most prolific state sponsor of terrorism, who has promised to wipe Israel off the face of the earth, who chants ‘Death to America,’ who has lied and deceived the world forever, and is the greatest offender of human-rights–TO GO NUCLEAR. That’s right. It is now just a matter of time and all but inevitable if not stopped in its tracks by our not-so-fearless representatives. I’m going to say this right now, that if Congress doesn’t shut this deal down (and I mean it better not even be close in a veto override) then I am near to losing all faith.”

– A tired patriot who has thus far refused to give up on America

Read more here.

Ignominious pasquinade

Sarah Palin has at least one detractor. He writes big words at National Review, and his name is Charles C.W. Cooke.

Want to find a figure to which Palin can be reasonably compared? It’s not Ronald Reagan. It’s Donald Trump.

The Right will likely never agree on how best it should move forward, but we might at least unite against the belief that there exist superheroes who are able to save the country from itself; against the idea that any one person can be the official standard bearer of a whole ideological or demographic group; and against the presumption that conservatism will gain anything much at all from the promotion and advancement of its most erratic champions. Further still, we might refrain from attempting to immunize our friends from the consequences of their actions. Having been mercilessly and unjustly pilloried by the media throughout the 2008 campaign, Sarah Palin had a clear choice in its aftermath: She could sober up and prove the buggers wrong, or she could collapse into ignominious pasquinade. Sadly, she chose the latter. The rest of us should choose to move on.

Read more of Cooke's blistering criticism of Palin here

Sarah is seriously interested

Sarah Palin speaking at a trade show this week in Las Vegas. (John Locher/AP)

Guess who else showed up in Iowa today? And guess who else said she was seriously interested in running for president? Can you dig Sarah versus Hillary? Final male vote: 96% for Sarah, 4% for Hillary.

We could have had her as Vice President

That is the latest photo from Sarah Palin that has created an uproar among the millions of Palin-haters. Here is Sarah's reply:

Dear PETA,

Chill. At least Trig didn’t eat the dog.

Hey, by the way, remember your “Woman of the Year”, Ellen DeGeneres? Did you get all wee-wee’d up when she posted this sweet picture? http://conservatives4palin.com/…/peta-woman-year-posts-phot… Hypocritical, much?

Did you go as crazy when your heroic Man-of-Your-Lifetime, Barack Obama, revealed he actually enjoyed eating dead dog meat?

Aren’t you the double-standard radicals always opposing Alaska’s Iditarod – the Last Great Race honoring dogs who are born to run in wide open spaces, while some of your pets “thrive” in a concrete jungle where they’re allowed outdoors to breathe and pee maybe once a day? (http://iditarod.com/ http://www.irondog.org/)

Aren’t you the same herd that opposes our commercial fishing jobs, claiming I encourage slaying and consuming wild, organic healthy protein sources called “fish”? (I do.)

Aren’t you the same anti-beef screamers blogging hate from your comfy leather office chairs, wrapped in your fashionable leather belts above your kickin’ new leather pumps you bought because your celebrity idols (who sport fur and crocodile purses) grinned in a tabloid wearing the exact same Louboutins exiting sleek cowhide covered limo seats on their way to some liberal fundraiser shindig at some sushi bar that features poor dead smelly roe (that I used to strip from our Bristol Bay-caught fish, and in a Dillingham cannery I packed those castoff fish eggs for you while laughing with co-workers about the suckers paying absurdly high prices to party with the throw away parts of our wild seafood)? I believe you call those discarded funky eggs “caviar”.

Yeah, you’re real credible on this, PETA. A shame, because I’ll bet we agree on what I hope is the true meaning of your mission – respecting God’s creation and critters.

Our pets, including Trig’s best buddy Jill Hadassah, are loved, spoiled and cared for more than some people care for their fellow man whose politics may not mesh with nonsensical liberally failed ways or don’t fit your flighty standards.

Jill is a precious part of our world. So is Trig.

- Sarah Palin

Read more here.

Sarah Palin: "I was forbidden from telling the truth about Obama during the 2008 campaign"

Open your eyes, your mind, and your heart

Atheist Richard Dawkins has created a firestorm on Twitter, by saying that parents should abort unborn children with Downs Syndrome, and that it would be immoral to allow them to be born.



Sarah Palin responded on her Facebook page:

Mr. Dawkins, I'd let you meet my son if you promised to open your mind, your eyes, and your heart to a unique kind of absolute beauty. But, in my request for you to be tolerant, I’d have to warn Trig he must be tolerant, too, because he may superficially look at you as kind of awkward. I'll make sure he's polite, though!

Love,

Sarah Palin & family

Read more here.

On the menu

The Denver Post has a big headline today that says: Palin's jabs fire up the right. When was there a time when you read in any major newspaper in America about the left? One of my colleagues at work this week, out of the blue, ridiculed Sarah Palin. The media really did a number on Palin in 2008, convincing even intelligent t.v. watchers that Palin is a dolt.

Yesterday Palin addressed something called The Western Conservative Summit in Denver. Lynn Bartels reports in the Post:

Former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin ripped President Obama on Saturday, saying in order to "save the Republic" Americans must "have the guts to talk about impeachment."

Read more here.

Sarah's way

Sarah Palin gives a free-wheeling interview to the Wall Street Journal, while being photgraphed for her new t.v. show on the Sportsman channel entitled Amazing America. She says she enjoys "finding underdogs who have a servant's heart and have the ability and they have the willingness to serve America for the right reasons." Her new show

features human-interest tales about outdoor adventures, ranging from a blacksmith championship to a car race among pastors. "But the show isn't political at all; it is about hardworking, patriotic, everyday American life that needs to be highlighted. We need more family-oriented, positive, uplifting shows to watch, and this is going to be one of them."

She posts daily on her Facebook and Twitter accounts

(often in all-caps) about foreign and domestic policy. Much of Ms. Palin's campaigning has been on social media. She likes putting her views online, she says, because she thinks that she can get her message out more directly. "I'm not a big fan of the conventional—[what] I call 'lamestream'—media because they too often filter my message," she says. "I get to go right to the people and the millions of followers I have on my Facebook, and I get to talk to them and interact with them."

Ms. Palin doesn't hesitate to criticize members of her own political party. Earlier that week, she had called Rep. Paul Ryan's budget proposal a "joke." She wrote on her Facebook page, "It STILL is not proposing reining in wasteful government overspending TODAY." Today, she says, "We should make government as irrelevant in our lives as possible."

Ms. Palin also resents government surveillance, as she makes clear in referring to Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor who leaked documents about the agency's collection of data, including the phone call records of millions of Americans. "Snowden isn't the problem!" she says. "The American government spying on its own people is the problem!" She finishes her thought by saying, "The smaller the government, the bigger the people, and this show talks about big, bold, beautiful America."

One area where Ms. Palin doesn't want to reduce government spending is the military. She says that with a strengthened military, she would have handled Russia's annexation of Crimea differently from how President Obama did. "I'd put the fear of God in our enemies!" she almost shouts. "Like Ronald Reagan did! I wouldn't be cutting the military. You strengthen the military!"

Read more here.

"Take it however you want!"

Governor Palin: "It's not cool, and it's not funny to degrade young women." I thought I would reprise this video in conjunction with David Letterman's announced retirement.

Uppity

Victor Davis Hanson asks why do liberals hate certain people so much? For example,
Sarah Palin:

Middle-class white conservative Christian moms from Alaska are not what liberals mean when they talk of diversity.

Why do liberals despise Rush Limbaugh more so than, say, conservatives hate Bill Maher or Chris Matthews? Yes, he is vastly more successful and influential, and does them, as the president so frequently whines, a lot of political damage. Of course, the Left hates the fact that Limbaugh went from middle-class to a billionaire, and without the proper educational credentials and anguish along the way to contextualize his wealth. (Keeping millions of listeners entertained for three hours, 250 days a year, is supposedly easy; in contrast, teaching a graduate seminar fifteen times a semester on your dissertation is an ordeal, full of deep thinking and contemplative heavy lifting.)

Liberals hate entire countries too, especially Israel. Why? Is it because unlike its neighbors it follows the rule of law? Is Israel too fair to gays and women?

Liberals hate Israel because like a Palin or Limbaugh, it seems too self-assured. Does not Jerusalem care that Harvard or Oxford professors despise it? Cannot it do the calculus of seven million versus the 300 million who hate it in the Middle East? Apparently not.

Liberals sure hate the Koch brothers. At first glance, this too baffles. It is not the money per se. After all, they idolize George Soros, who predates the Kochs in subsidizing political causes.

And like Palin, the Kochs have pretensions, in their case of giving to the fine arts and humanities, as if they think they are something more than they are. Yes, they are uppity as well.

Then there is Clarence Thomas. Liberals despise him too. He is a free thinker who makes no apologies for his past or present. Moreover, he is a far better representative of the black American experience of the late 20th century than, say, is the Hawaii prep-schooled, choom-ganger Barry Dunham, son of a white PhD and rather odious Kenyan hustler, whom we now know in his final and most successful reincarnation as Barack Obama.

Finally, liberals really hate Fox News. It trumps the audience of MSNBC and CNN combined and then some. Envy of its success accounts for a lot of the ire. Fox really believes they are a news agency.

How uppity is that?

Read more here.

Hoax factories, resenters, and Merry Christmas from Sarah Palin

Hate is in short supply. The resenters have to create it. Greg Gutfield shows how the hoax factories work, and Martin Bashir goes out the back door.

Update: Bashir has found a new job hosting a realty show entitled Real Fired Anchors of MSNBC.

Sarah Palin interviewed by Bill O'Reilly

Go here to watch the full interview with Sarah Palin on Bill O'Reilly's show.