Sarah Palin
Sarah Palin posted a message on Facebook complaining about the Islamic community center slated to be built a couple blocks from where the World Trade Center towers once stood. Obviously she thinks it’s disgraceful that those filthy rag heads would want to build anything in, near or around Ground Zero (Palin didn’t actually use the words “rag head” or “filthy,” but that’s the message she’s sending).
In response to Palin’s latest form of not-so-subliminal hate speech, The Daily Beast blogger Brian Ries decided to report the post to Facebook as, well, hate speech. Leveraging the power of Tumblr, Ries got more people to do the same thing and Palin’s post disappeared – poof.
It turns out that Facebook’s reporting process is automated, the company apologized to Palin because they had concluded that her post did not violate Facebooks’ terms of service.
But what’s really interesting annoying about this story is how Palin followers reacted to what they see as a war from the left on free speech. One person called Ries a “liberal scumbag censor,” and another said he’s a “typical Islamist.” The Palinistas were hopping mad at this clear violation of her 1st Amendment protection.
And as usual, just like Palin, they’re absolutely and completely wrong.
After reading Ries’ story, I posted the following comment.
Sigh. People who haven’t read the 1st Amendment should be barred from speaking about it – it should be illegal.
The 1st Amendment protects the People from the Government. It doesn’t protect the People from other People.
What that means is that the Government can’t tell you what you can or can not say – there are some exceptions, but for the most part the Government has no legal power to stop people from talking.
What the 1st Amendment does NOT protect is someone saying something and expecting the conversation to be over – that’s that. In other words, Sarah Palin can say whatever she wants, but the People have a protected right to respond to her.
One way of responding could be telling the publisher of Palin’s speech (in this case Facebook) that it’s racist hate speech. Doing that is exercising one’s 1st Amendment right to speak.
There’s nothing in the Constitution that says so-and-so can say whatever she wants and nobody is allowed to respond to it.
And of course, people who don’t like the response to Palin’s speech can then voice their ignorant concerns, which they have done so.
But at no point, ever, in this story was anybody’s 1st Amendment right violated. Even when Facebook took the post down, Palin’s civil liberties were not violated because there’s nothing in the Constitution that requires Facebook, or any company, to publish anything Palin has written. She doesn’t have a right to be published – no one does.
You can read Ries’ story here.
Sarah Palin: Stimulus Bill Anniversary Proves Not-So-Stimulating
Here is Sarah Palin’s Facebook posting made on Feb. 17, 2010. In an effort to maintain the public record, Palin’s entire message is published here. It was downloaded from Palin’s Facebook page on Feb. 17, 2010 at 11:04 a.m. Eastern.
Stimulus Bill Anniversary Proves Not-So-Stimulating
Feb. 17, 2010 at 7:04am
One year ago today, President Obama signed a nearly trillion dollar stimulus package and handed our children the bill. What did we get for that massive price tag? Many promises, but the promises have proven false. On this stimulus anniversary, Washington needs to hear our message that Americans expect, and deserve, better.
Americans were promised the stimulus would keep unemployment under 8%. It’s now well over that. We were promised it would be targeted and pork-free. It’s been loaded with pork, corporate giveaways, union bosses’ goodies, and other manners of waste. We were promised there would be no fraud, but our government now tells us it can’t even verify the eligibility of people applying for the $325 billion worth of stimulus tax provisions. We were promised there would be strict oversight, but billions of dollars apparently were allotted to congressional districts that don’t even exist. We were promised it would provide “green jobs” for Americans, but 80% of the $2 billion they spent on alternative energy went to purchase wind turbines built in China! We were promised it would help state governments weather the recession, but states receiving the stimulus bait will be in worse fiscal shape now because local governments will be on the hook for new unfunded mandates and continuation of government programs they couldn’t afford in the first place – as many of us governors warned state legislatures.
One year later, we see plainly that the stimulus was not a well-thought out plan. It hasn’t revived our economy; instead the debt-ridden package will prove to be a drag on our economy. It hasn’t put us on the path to a better future; instead it’s unfairly mortgaged our children’s future and stolen opportunities from them. It hasn’t strengthened us; instead it endangers our freedom and security by making us even more beholden to foreign lenders. The legacy of the stimulus isn’t jobs or economic growth – it’s more dangerous debt.
But there is hope! And this hope lies in draining the swamp in D.C. and sending Commonsense Conservatives to Washington who understand the need for fiscal restraint. Those who are willing to rein in spending, respect Constitutional limits, and repeal the stimulus should get our support, and those who have been part of the problem should be replaced.
In this election year, we’ll see many daring Davids take on entrenched Goliaths. Just one of these many brave souls is a northern Wisconsin patriot named Sean Duffy. He’s running in Wisconsin’s 7th congressional district against a liberal Goliath who’s been in Congress over 40 years now and has the dubious distinction of being the author of the stimulus bill. To commemorate the anniversary of the signing of the stimulus, Sean Duffy is holding a fundraising “money bomb” for his campaign so he can replace the career politician who drafted this government-bloating behemoth.
If you’re frustrated about the waste in the stimulus bill, please support a solid fiscal conservative who will work to repeal it. Please visit Sean Duffy’s website and help him help us correct the mistakes of this past year.
On this first anniversary of the stimulus, let’s send a message to the big-spenders in Washington by helping Sean Duffy unseat the author of the stimulus. Let’s put government back on our side and get to work revitalizing America!
- Sarah Palin
Technology makes producing content cheap. And sometimes that content is advertising and on Facebook this chick sitting on the floor in a tanktop is what?
She’s either a cheap model or a model that works cheap.
You be the judge, her ad points to a site that helps figure out who’s searching for you on Google.
On her Facebook page, the former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, refers to herself in the third-person narrative form today while boasting about her successful handling of health care in Alaska during the several consecutive months she was the state’s executive.
“Governor Palin successfully obtained approval for a five year extension of a state program that provided monthly cash payments to low-income seniors,” Palin wrote today on Facebook. I’m assuming she wrote the post, but that doesn’t appear to be the case, however there’s no signature either. Who knows?
But here’s the thing … not everyone is convinced of her steadfast leadership in guiding Alaska’s health care system.
Last month the Anchorage Daily News published this story with the headline “Troubled Alaska health programs face federal restriction.”
State programs intended to help disabled and elderly Alaskans with daily life — taking a bath, eating dinner, getting to the bathroom — are so poorly managed, the state cannot assure the health and well-being of the people they are supposed to serve, a new federal review found.
The situation is so bad the federal government has forbidden the state to sign up new people until the state makes necessary improvements.
No other state in the nation is under such a moratorium, according to a spokeswoman for the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
…
A particularly alarming finding concerns deaths of adults in the programs. In one 2 1/2 year stretch, 227 adults already getting services died while waiting for a nurse to reassess their needs. Another 27 died waiting for their initial assessment, to see if they qualified for help.
Obviously if this story is true, it directly contradicts her assertion today that as governor she rocked health care and reduced the state’s Medicaid patient backlog. Well, maybe not though … think about … if people are waiting and they die, they’re probably removed from the queue, thus reducing the number of people waiting. Oh she is just too good to be true – what a mind.
But a cynic might honestly ask what’s the point of Palin even bothering to highlight her mavericking of the Alaska’s health care problems? According to Palin, one of the reasons she resigned as governor before her term was complete was because of all the baseless charges being hurled at her. It’s not clear why she published today’s post, other than to attempt to set the record straight, but here’s how it ends.
What is the lesson in all of this? Even with good intentions, the government generally cannot provide better health care services than the private sector. Beware of complex federal laws purporting to offer government health care. For those who want nationalized medicine, take heed of this lesson.
Wait … so Palin was able to utilize the government to solve a health care problem, however, that success only proves that we shouldn’t use the government to solve health care problems? Um … OK.
–
The Public Record
Here’s a link to Palin’s Facebook post
Here’s a document of Palin’s Facebook post I created (pdf)
Here’s the story published on the Anchorage Daily News: “Troubled Alaska health programs face federal restriction” about Alaska’s health care problems.
Howard Dean responds to the media’s response to Sarah Palin’s death-panels-for-grannies claim. This absurd story highlights the danger of trying to provide objective coverage of an issue when one side is clearly lying. Does the media, like the conservative Media Research Center keeps barking about, have to provide the conservative side in this debate? I don’t think so. Journalists are under no obligation to present an academically dishonest argument as anything but a lie. Journalists who do present the “death panel” story as a legitimate issue in the debate over health care reform are doing a disservice to their country.
The Media Research Center, a conservative organization, published this story on their propaganda apparatus called News Busters. It’s more right-wing spin on Obama’s “death panels.” Do conservatives really believe that Obama wants to kill off the sick and the elderly? Perhaps they’re projecting their own desire to get rid of Medicare and let the elderly fend for themselves in the private insurance market, which would result in lots of old people dying. The “death panel” tactic is an interesting one because it will probably succeed in scaring enough people to kill health care reform.
Interesting story over at Muckety about the connections between Erik Prince/Blackwater/Media Research Center/Swift Boaters of Truth and other right-wing groups. Read the Muckety report.
Newt Gingrich defends Sarah Palin’s false claim that Pres. Barack Obama is trying to murder the elderly and the sick with “death panels” on “The Week” with George Stephanopoulos.
The Daily Show poignantly exposes the absurdity of Palin and Gingrich’s claim that Obama would like nothing more than to murder your grandmother in her sleep.
Cyberattacks’ Aftershocks Hit the Web This about the Twitter/Facebook DoS/malware attacks. Twitter has been ripe for this type of attack, so it’s no surprise, and it won’t be the last one.
