Tag Archives: Sarah Palin

A spot of tea in Indianola 4

Tea Party • Tags: ,

By Lisa Bourne

I attended the Tea Party of America’s Restoring America event in at the National Balloon Classic grounds in Indianola, IA on Saturday, September 3.

Sarah Palin in Indianola, Iowa

Former Alaska Governor and 2008 Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin was the keynote speaker at the event. Despite previous reports that she would not announce her candidacy for the 2012 presidential election at the rally, on the off-chance she might do so, I thought it would be interesting to be there.

I also wanted to take in my second Tea Party event.

After my two Tea Party encounters  I remain convinced that the negative aspersions cast on the movement by the media and some politicians and others are complete fabrication. At both I saw regular, hard-working people who are patriotic and love our country. At the same time, they are unhappy about what’s happening here and abroad at the hands of and in the name of our nation’s government.

Sarah Palin gave a speech that was well-written and delivered at the Restoring America rally.

The woman is also much maligned by the media and others.

What’s not for the cranky to hate?

She’s beautiful. She’s likable. She’s down-to-earth. She’s accomplished. She seems thoroughly genuine, and she’s beat the feminists at their own game by “having it all,” minus the anger.

For me, Sarah Palin’s character has never been more evident than in her rejecting the notion of taking the life of her son Trig while he was in his mother’s womb waiting to be born, as is all too customary with Down’s Syndrome children anymore.

And yet, what’s the story on her candidacy?

For all the petty vitriol blasted her way, even those who aren’t among the haters can find her posturing as a candidate without officially jumping in tiresome.

Sarah Palin had a good message at the Restoring America rally, substantive as any campaign speech, which is what it clearly had to be. I think she’ll announce soon, and she’s got an army of grassroots supporters ready to fall in formation when she does.

However I agree with the perspective I was recently offered by a friend: She can be of greater value to the conservative cause if she continues to use her influence on various issues and candidates rather than becoming a candidate herself.

Additional comparing of Sarah Palin’s level of executive experience to that of Barack Obama going into the 2008 election, or acknowledging the media’s conducting a war on her words while simultaneously constructing the president as he-of-the-golden-tongue, would not advance the discussion.

Recognizing that we’re operating on the assumption that any number of choices would result in better than we have now, Sarah Palin is certainly among those many choices.

However, while we absolutely have somebody to vote against, we absolutely need somebody to vote for.

As a Catholic I’m pulling for Senator Rick Santorum.

Rick Santorum

Experience, good on the issues, a proven record in office and yet, outside the Republican establishment.

In a world where politicians whom a Catholic can support in good conscience are few and far between, I find Rick Santorum a breath of much needed fresh air.

Life, the family, marriage, faith, our country; all among the things Rick Santorum has pledged to continue to fight for. You can get a glimpse at http://www.ricksantorum.com/why-rick.

Again, something key for me; while he’s been a successful public servant, he’s a devoted husband and father, the man has his family with him whenever he can.

Senator Santorum and wife Karen are the parents of one child in heaven and seven children here on earth. The Santorum’s youngest child, Isabella, three, has Trisomy 18, a condition where the vast majority of children do not survive past birth. The family is walking the walk when it comes to life.

See more here:  http://blogs.cbn.com/thebrodyfile/archive/2011/03/28/senator-santorum-cancelled-iowa-trip-because-daughter-was-very-ill.aspx.

It is my hope that more people will continue to hear Rick Santorum’s message, even get to meet him, that support for him will resonate so his candidacy grows, and then we can get on with the business of restoring America.

[Thanks to Lisa Bourne for contributing this article and photos to Quiner's Diner. Ms. Bourne is a Catholic journalist and pro-life wife and mother.]

Sarah Palin can’t win when it comes to the media 6

Politics • Tags:

By Tom Quiner

Sarah Palin was sucked into the tragic Arizona mass murder story by the mainstream media (MSM) the instant the news hit.

Sarah Palin

If you were accused of being somewhat culpable for such a horrific loss of life, would you feel a need to defend yourself? Of course you would. Ms. Palin did just that:

“Journalists and pundits … should not manufacture a blood libel that serves only to incite the very hatred and violence they purport to condemn.”

She went on to say:

“Acts of monstrous criminality stand on their own. They begin and end with the criminals who commit them, not collectively with all the citizens of a state, not with those who listen to talk radio, not with maps of swing districts used by both sides of the aisle, not with law-abiding citizens who respectfully exercise their First Amendment rights at campaign rallies, not with those who proudly voted in the last election.”

The media’s reaction? NBC’s Amy Walter and Michael Falcone chastised her for her remarks:

“Sarah Palin, once again, has found a way to become part of the story. And she may well face further criticism for the timing and scope of her remarks. She is already taking heat for her use of the term “blood libel.”

The media made the story about Ms. Palin, not the other way around. You know the old saying: “damned if you do, damned if you don’t?” It applies to Ms. Palin when it comes to her treatment by the MSM.

They’re out to get her.

The real story is the victims of a deranged killer. I drove by a church today with their flags at half-mast. Let us come together and pray for the people whose lives have been turned upside down by a lone gunman.

Was Sarah Palin right? 1

Heathcare, Politics • Tags: ,

By Tom Quiner

Let us revisit a notorious statement from last year:

“The Democrats promise that a government health care system will reduce the cost of health care, but as the economist Thomas Sowell has pointed out, government health care will not reduce the cost; it will simply refuse to pay the cost. And who will suffer the most when they ration care? The sick, the elderly, and the disabled, of course. The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s “death panel” so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their “level of productivity in society,” whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil.”

Sarah Palin, August 7, 2009

Ms. Palin was excoriated by the Obama administration and his cheerleaders in the media for her use of the term “death panel.”  Her statement is worth revisiting in light of who President Obama nominated to be administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid.

Obama has mandated massive cuts in these two programs.  The new administrator will make those cuts. That man, should his nomination be approved, is Dr. Donald Berwick of Harvard Medical School.

Let us review Dr. Berwick’s philosophy so we can put Ms. Palin’s fears to rest regarding “death panels.”  I have accumulated several of his quotes which sets out his vision for medical care:

• Talking in London to the Brits about their system, he said:  ”I hope you will never, ever give up what you have begun.  I hope you realize and affirm how badly you need — how badly the world needs — an example at scale of a health system that is universal, accessible, excellent and free at the point of care — a health system that, at its core is like the world we wish we had: generous, hopeful, confident, joyous and just.”

Free care is what he wants.  Don’t we all!  But Dr. Berwick is just getting warmed up:

• “I am romantic about the National Health Service; I love it.”

In other words, he believes in a single payer system.

• “You cap your health care budget, and you make the political and economic choices you need to make to keep affordability within reach.  You plan the supply; you aim a bit low; you prefer slightly too little of a technology or a service to too much; then you search for care bottlenecks and try to relieve them.”

In other words, you ration.

• “You could have protected the wealthy and the well, instead of recognizing that sick people tend to be poorer and that poor people tend to be sicker, and that any health care funding plan that is ‘just’ must redistribute wealth.”

Translation:  socialism.

Last year, President Obama signed a bill which funded the Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research (aka Healthcare Rationing Council).  Here is Dr. Berwick’s take on what comparative effectiveness is all about:

• “The first is to determine whether a therapy works or not. The second is to determine how well the therapy works compared to other therapies. The third is to do a cost-benefit analysis. If a new drug or procedure is effective, and has some advantage over existing alternatives,then does the incremental benefit justify the likely additional cost?”

Now we get to the nitty-gritty:  if you’re paying for your own health care, you get to make those decisions yourself.  If the government is subsidizing it, as they shall under Obamacare, they make the decision, not you.

Dr. Berwick makes it clear what that will mean to you:

• “The decision is not whether or not we will ration care, the decision is whether we will ration with our eyes open.”

Will healthcare be withheld (rationed) to some sick Americans?  According to the President’s nominee to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, the answer is yes. That’s what rationing means.  Some get it, some don’t, and you don’t get a say in it.

Call it what you want:  Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research or a death panel, the result is the same.