Git R Done!
Posted on 11/20/2011 10:25:42 AM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
Edited on 11/20/2011 10:44:59 AM PST by Admin Moderator. [history]
Who would dream that in this year of rising discontent against Wall Street and big government, it would take Sarah Palin to fix the blame where it truly should land.
In an essay published under her name last week, Palin said protesters are missing their mark. Instead of big banks and big government, Palin took aim at Congress, including both Republicans and Democrats.
"The corruption isn't confined to one political party or just a few bad apples. It's an endemic problem encompassing leadership on both sides of the aisle. It's an entire system of public servants feathering their own nests," she wrote in the essay published Friday in the usually conservative opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal.
Palin didn't come up with her arguments entirely by herself, noting that she has found answers to questions many are asking in "Throw Them Out," a book by one of her foreign-policy advisers, Peter Schweitzer, which she writes reveals the "permanent political class in all its arrogant glory."
Palin/Schweitzer detail the money-making opportunities for this privileged class, and she concludes, "We need equality under the law. From now on, laws that apply to the private sector must apply to Congress, including whistleblower, conflict-of-interest and insider-trading laws. Trading on nonpublic government information should be illegal both for those who pass on the information and those who trade on it ...
"No more sweetheart land deals with campaign contributors. No gifts of IPO shares. No trading of stocks related to committee assignments. No earmarks where the congressman receives a direct benefit. No accepting campaign contributions while Congress is in session. No lobbyists as family members, and no transitioning into a lobbying career after leaving office. No more revolving door, ever."
Ever?
Even if Palin didn't write the piece, or the ideas came from an aide, this is new territory for a major political figure in the Republican Party. Palin isn't running for president, this year, but none of the 2012 candidates are talking about the corruption that has made Congress beholden to big business, personal enrichment schemes and lobbyists.
Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich certainly isn't saying much. The former House speaker has inched upward in approval ratings in the light of Herman Cain's sexual harassment troubles and Rick Perry's inability to remember what he was talking about. But Gingrich should be careful in how he has been attacking Democrats like Barney Frank for being too close to Freddie Mac in its era of making dubious mortgage loans.
Gingrich made between $1.6 million and $1.8 million from the disgraced housing organization after he left government service for giving his insider advice.
Although Gingrich last week insisted he has not been a lobbyist, it turns out that health companies paid as much as $200,000 a year in dues to the Center for Health Transformation -- a health care think tank he created in 2003 to find ways to improve health care and make it cheaper. The Washington Post reported that the center collected at least $37 million in the last eight years as Gingrich pushed public policy positions favored by many of these companies.
Democrats, of course, are no better. On this page, Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank notes how top House Democrats joined lobbyists in a recent fundraiser to benefit New York Democratic Rep. Charles Rangel, who only last year was censured by his colleagues for ethical and financial improprieties. All apparently has been forgiven when there's money to raise.
The stench goes all the way to the Obama administration. Take the Solyndra solar debacle, where a top Obama fundraiser, George Kaiser, also was a major Solyndra investor -- and was a frequent White House visitor as the now bankrupt company was getting the infamous $500 million loan that will never be repaid to taxpayers.
Any wonder Congress has a 9 percent public approval rating and that the early promise of the Obama administration has tarnished?
Milbank quotes Harvard law professor and liberal ethics specialist Lawrence Lessig, who told him, "Who would ever trust such a system? How can this government continue to behave like this?"
That's what Sarah Palin is asking.
And so should you.
Sarah Palin is one of the few persons that those words do not at all describe.
Use better.
No kidding. Look at the way Michele Bachmann gets beat up with her “record of failure”.
Yes, and thanks for a much better analogy.
I was never a Palin supporter but am a fan so it was not a big deal for me when she decided against running. Nothing has changed as far as I’m concerned, she’s still a very effective conservative voice.
Give it a think.
Establishment DemocRATS and Republicans both hate her and wish her dead or gone. The reason is that she writs pieces like this one that calls the sleazoids out for who and what they are.
Redistricting will put me in a new district...new with no incumbent.
Washington has been invaded and is being run by a dictator who receives his orders from outside groups, arguably many people just won’t or cannot conceive that in any context, they think that foreign troops would be taking over and conquering our armed forces.
No the capture of America was performed by something else, something much more subtle and relentless.
As it is Sarah Palin has been or decided to just stay out of the way, she has more offensive weapons bt being mobile, she may very well become an underground leader that initiates a nationwide insurrection of Constitutionalists.
We have seen the OWS, the world hasn’t seen a truly organized army of Tea Party loyalists. Unlees someone has a better theme for how to gather patriots willing to clean up Washington.
I think Sarah Palin is a modern day George Washington trying to organize patriots to fight off and kick out the turncoats in Washington.
Then who is? Bachman is the only one who has resisted co-option, but this has kept her from a leadership position the House. Cain has been defamed. Santorum is getting no where. Paul is as marginalized as Palin.
I just don't think Newt is the right answer for this election cycle.
(Of course, the place I *was* living then elected someone even worse. Not everyone gets to have lived in Alaska to have voted in Palin, sigh.)
Cheers!
Term limits are not the answer, the answer is no one is exempt from the law. i.e. All laws should apply to all, when the powerful are exempted, either by writ or influence, or wealth the body politic is tyrnaized and become serfs subject to the injustice of the powerful.
****As it is Sarah Palin has been or decided to just stay out of the way, she has more offensive weapons bt being mobile, she may very well become an underground leader that initiates a nationwide insurrection of Constitutionalists.****
By putting herself up as a possible candidate for President, she gathered lots of intel on who is doing what and how as far as the corruption goes.
This will be very valuable if the system does collapse soon. It may be that she sees an imminent collapse, and that she didn’t want to be in a position to be blamed for it. Giving cover for those who are to blame and the media has also been covering for.
If she intends to lead after a collapse, she will be well heard.
In all honesty she may not want to be a leader but the people will not organize under anyone else, after all the liberal left spent years vetting her, she is without a doubt well known for where she stands, cannot find a better person when the enemy puts you as their most formidable opponent.
(It takes a village of idiots to elect a village idiot.)
Nice tagline..
I agree with your comments. Nice...
Imagine.
One term only, with many FReepers running!
____________________________________
It wasn't just rabid moonbats, rinos and lefties who saw through her before you did...a lot of very Conservative freepers did too.
_________________________________
Nonsense. Every time Palin bogarted an event or announcement by somebody who was running by showing up outside or around the corner...every time she played coy...every time she tweeted about the need for someone new...every time her organization spoke about a coming announcement she was setting the expectation and yanking your chain.
It’s gotta be said: the left doesn’t know Sarah Palin, they only know a caricature of her. Most of these editors think of Tina Fey when they hear the name Sarah Palin.
Just like the leftists’ understanding of conservatism in general—they have none. Only a vastly inaccurate stereotype.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.