Hot off the presses...Sarah Palin resigning as Governor of Alaska

[Analogman]

Levi has the answers.

 

Levi Johnston talks about Palin's resignation

AP

 

Levi Johnston speaks during a news conference in Anchorage, Alaska, on Thursday, AP – Levi Johnston speaks during a news conference in Anchorage, Alaska, on Thursday, July 9, 2009.

 

By MARY PEMBERTON, Associated Press Writer Mary Pemberton, Associated Press Writer – 2 mins ago

 

ANCHORAGE, Alaska – The former fiance of Gov. Sarah Palin's 18-year-old daughter says he thinks he knows why the Alaska governor is resigning — concerns over money.

 

Levi Johnston, 19, whose wedding to Bristol Palin was called off earlier this year, says he believes the governor is resigning over personal finances.

 

Johnston says he lived with the Palin family from early December to the second week in January. He claims he heard the governor several times say how nice it would be to take advantage of the lucrative deals that were being offered, including a reality show and a book.

 

"I think the big deal was the book. That was millions of dollars," said Johnston, who has had a strained relationship with the family but now says things have improved.

 

Palin has a book deal, but compensation details haven't been disclosed. The governor has said she is facing more than $500,000 in legal fees.

 

"It is interesting to learn Levi is working on a piece of fiction while honing his acting skills," Palin family spokeswoman Meghan Stapleton said in an e-mail to The Associated Press.

 

Johnston made his comments at a news conference Thursday at the office of his attorney, Rex Butler.

 

Johnston came forward, Butler said, because Alaskans want to know why Palin has decided to resign. She made the announcement last Friday.

 

Johnston also is pursuing his own book deal. He is working as a carpenter while also pursuing a movie deal.

[ikol]

Doesn't that suggest, though, that the problem is not with the system but with the public?

 

Which would also suggest that the problem is not lack of ability to pay for preventative medicine but instead lack of motivation.

[M. (hristine]

The problem with health care in this country is endemic, begins with breastfeeding and how we produce food (can we see the difference in two pieces of salmon, one having lived it's natural life and deep orange in color, the second 'farm raised' corn fed pasty fleshed) and ends with the political clout of the insurance and pharmaceutical industries. The system is broken. We are fucked if we don't fix this. You can politicize this issue all you want, but I see a cross section of this populace every day and it ain't pretty, folks.

 

This birthday wish from my cousin really pissed me off:

 

"In her diary, Grandma writes that she gets to see you for the first time a couple of days after you were born and she describes you as a "living doll". A day or two after that, the hospital sends your dad the bill.... $122. You were a bargain! I used the internet to calculate 1957 dollars to 2009 dollars and the index rate is about 1:8. So, even indexed for inflation, that's only about $1000. "

 

And those were the days when moms stayed in hospital 4 days after their babies were born.

 

There is a Sanskrit word prana, meaning life force or breath. By sucking the breath out of our food, we're putting ourselves at the mercy of industrial vampires.

[uncool2pillow]

The problem with health care in this country is endemic, begins with breastfeeding and how we produce food (can we see the difference in two pieces of salmon, one having lived it's natural life and deep orange in color, the second 'farm raised' corn fed pasty fleshed) and ends with the political clout of the pharmaceutical industry. We are fucked if we don't fix this. You can politicize this issue all you want, but I see a cross section of this populace every day and it ain't pretty, folks.

 

A bit of hyperbole there. Organic and natural is a better option for sure, but can we produce enough affordable food that way to feed all of us?

 

"In her diary, Grandma writes that she gets to see you for the first time a couple of days after you were born and she describes you as a "living doll". A day or two after that, the hospital sends your dad the bill.... $122. You were a bargain! I used the internet to calculate 1957 dollars to 2009 dollars and the index rate is about 1:8. So, even indexed for inflation, that's only about $1000. "

 

And those were the days when moms stayed in hospital 4 days after their babies were born.

 

Are the services provided in the hospital today equal to what they were in 1957? Have you seen the (secular meaning here) miracles performed in the NICU? The technology and innovations made to make that possible isn't free. Is 4 days in the hospital in 1957 equivalent to 2 or 3 days today?

 

IMO, one of the reasons health care is so expensive is that so few of us see the real cost. We pay our pittance of a co-pay and let our insurance, paid for largely by our employer cover the rest. This increases demand for health care which increases cost. Once health care becomes nationalized it will have to be rationed because we'll all demand care for everything if were even further detached from the real cost.

 

There are serious problems with our health care system today. I don't pretend know how to fix them, but I think we need to think through all the consequences of any "fix" because we think anything has to better than what we have. I don't think that's true.

[Good Old Neon]

The problem with health care in this country is endemic, begins with breastfeeding and how we produce food (can we see the difference in two pieces of salmon, one having lived it's natural life and deep orange in color, the second 'farm raised' corn fed pasty fleshed) and ends with the political clout of the insurance and pharmaceutical industries. The system is broken. We are fucked if we don't fix this. You can politicize this issue all you want, but I see a cross section of this populace every day and it ain't pretty, folks.

 

 

From NPR - the photos accompanying this story speak volumes.

 

Turning The Camera Around: Health Care Stakeholders

 

When 22 senators started working over the first health care overhaul bill on June 17, the news cameras were pointed at them -- except for NPR's photographer, who turned his lens on the lobbyists. Whatever bill emerges from Congress will affect one-sixth of the economy, and stakeholders have mobilized. We've begun to identify some of the faces in the hearing room, and we want to keep the process going.

 

The photos (there are four of them) - http://www.npr.org/news/specials/2009/hearing-pano/

 

I can't help but wonder how many of these lobbyists were there to represent us, the people.

[uncool2pillow]

From NPR - the photos accompanying this story speak volumes.

 

Turning The Camera Around: Health Care Stakeholders

 

When 22 senators started working over the first health care overhaul bill on June 17, the news cameras were pointed at them -- except for NPR's photographer, who turned his lens on the lobbyists. Whatever bill emerges from Congress will affect one-sixth of the economy, and stakeholders have mobilized. We've begun to identify some of the faces in the hearing room, and we want to keep the process going.

 

The photos (there are four of them) - http://www.npr.org/news/specials/2009/hearing-pano/

 

I can't help but wonder how many of these lobbyists are there to represent us, the people.

One of the reasons we have to be skeptical of a government fix. We're asking a governmental system that's corrupt and broken to fix this system?

[M. (hristine]

A bit of hyperbole there. Organic and natural is a better option for sure, but can we produce enough affordable food that way to feed all of us?

I see what people buy from the grocery. I work at one. Most of it is packaged. A simple diet with intensly alive ingredients would go a long way in feeding us and removing the layer of fat that is becoming thicker and thicker.

 

 

Are the services provided in the hospital today equal to what they were in 1957? Have you seen the (secular meaning here) miracles performed in the NICU? The technology and innovations made to make that possible isn't free. Is 4 days in the hospital in 1957 equivalent to 2 or 3 days today?

 

IMO, one of the reasons health care is so expensive is that so few of us see the real cost. We pay our pittance of a co-pay and let our insurance, paid for largely by our employer cover the rest. This increases demand for health care which increases cost. Once health care becomes nationalized it will have to be rationed because we'll all demand care for everything if were even further detached from the real cost.

 

 

 

Described this way, the insurance model is philosophically 'socialism'.

 

From NPR - the photos accompanying this story speak volumes.

 

Turning The Camera Around: Health Care Stakeholders

 

When 22 senators started working over the first health care overhaul bill on June 17, the news cameras were pointed at them -- except for NPR's photographer, who turned his lens on the lobbyists. Whatever bill emerges from Congress will affect one-sixth of the economy, and stakeholders have mobilized. We've begun to identify some of the faces in the hearing room, and we want to keep the process going.

 

The photos (there are four of them) - http://www.npr.org/news/specials/2009/hearing-pano/

 

I can't help but wonder how many of these lobbyists were there to represent us, the people.

Christ.

[Sir Stewart]

This thread isn't fun anymore.

[M. (hristine]

I'd like to take Sarah Palin's glasses off and, and, and...

[MattZ]

This thread was G.O.N.'d.

[uncool2pillow]

Back on topic... Just read this by Peggy Noonan. Certainly not a favorite writer, often too impressed with her own cleverness, but she nails how many conservatives feel about Palin. It reads like a more polite version of Matt Taibbi's piece about her in Rolling Stone last year.

 

http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB124716984620819351-lMyQjAxMDI5NDE3MDExNjA5Wj.html

 

She was hungry, loved politics, had charm and energy, loved walking onto the stage, waving and doing the stump speech. All good. But she was not thoughtful. She was a gifted retail politician who displayed the disadvantages of being born into a point of view (in her case a form of conservatism; elsewhere and in other circumstances, it could have been a form of liberalism) and swallowing it whole: She never learned how the other sides think, or why.

 

In television interviews she was out of her depth in a shallow pool. She was limited in her ability to explain and defend her positions, and sometimes in knowing them. She couldn't say what she read because she didn't read anything. She was utterly unconcerned by all this and seemed in fact rather proud of it: It was evidence of her authenticity. She experienced criticism as both partisan and cruel because she could see no truth in any of it. She wasn't thoughtful enough to know she wasn't thoughtful enough. Her presentation up to the end has been scattered, illogical, manipulative and self-referential to the point of self-reverence. "I'm not wired that way," "I'm not a quitter," "I'm standing up for our values." I'm, I'm, I'm.

[bobbob1313]

I see what people buy from the grocery. I work at one. Most of it is packaged. A simple diet with intensly alive ingredients would go a long way in feeding us and removing the layer of fat that is becoming thicker and thicker.

 

don't mean to be a dick, but you didn't answer his question, which was a fair and good one.

 

The resources are not available at this time to Mass produce healthy, natural, 'alive' food at a feasible cost. There's a reason the foods that are cheapest are the worst for you. It's a lot easier and cheaper to feed your family on mcdonald's dollar menu than on natural, wholesome, organic foods.

 

And that's not really a problem with an easy fix. Production costs are so much lower on prepackaged, mass produced shit that for a lot of people it's the only way to go.

 

Maybe if we stop subsidizing farmers and let the market dictate what they should grow, we might be able to see a change in our diets, but as long as the current system we have in place is around, we'll continue to be filled with shit. And neither side has any intentions of changing the way we produce food, and by extension, how we eat. Michelle Obama can plant all of the natural gardens she wants on the white house lawn, but change in this instance can't start at homefir the overhelming majority of Americans.

[Good Old Neon]

Michelle Obama can plant all of the natural gardens she wants on the white house lawn, but change in this instance can't start at homefir the overhelming majority of Americans.

 

Well sure, but have you seen her melons?

[uncool2pillow]

Well sure, but have you seen her melons?

Did Jude hack into Good Old Neon's account?

[bobbob1313]

Well sure, but have you seen her melons?

From a purely asthetic point of view, palin > Michelle.

 

However, we've seen much more of michelle's melons. Mrs palin needs to step up.

[Good Old Neon]

Back on topic... Just read this by Peggy Noonan. Certainly not a favorite writer, often too impressed with her own cleverness, but she nails how many conservatives feel about Palin. It reads like a more polite version of Matt Taibbi's piece about her in Rolling Stone last year.

 

http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB124716984620819351-lMyQjAxMDI5NDE3MDExNjA5Wj.html

 

Noonan nailed it.

 

In other news, that kid named after a pair of pants is starting to talk, and, insofar as Palin is concerned, it’s exactly flattering.

 

From Andrew Sullivan:

 

She was really really stupid to piss him off:

 

He claims he heard the governor several times say how nice it would be to take advantage of the lucrative deals that were being offered, including a reality show and a book. “I think the big deal was the book. That was millions of dollars,” said Johnston, who has had a strained relationship with the family but now says things have improved.

 

She quit to join the Limbaugh-Coulter industry. But you've got to love the response:

 

“It is interesting to learn Levi is working on a piece of fiction while honing his acting skills,” Palin family spokeswoman Meghan Stapleton said in an e-mail to The Associated Press.

 

If I were Levi, I'd get myself a book deal. He's the only one who seems sane. And maybe he could scoop Sarah. You know that for that money, she's gotta have some beans to spill. And a calendar? That would sell.

[bobbob1313]

Like 10 months ago wasn't Levi the butt of all kinds of jokes?

 

Now that he's all pissed off and attacking palin we like him now?

 

I hate palin, but fuck him too. He's an idiot who's looking to capitalize off of his involvement with her. And how much of the money he gets for a book will go to take care of his child, do you think?he's taking advantage of a situation, and if it was anyone but palin I bet tons of people here would be criticizing him.

[Dude]

I think Levi's amusing because he's gone rogue from the Palin campaign. Seeing how he was meticulously packaged for the Republican National Convention, holding Bristol's hand, swearing he was going to marry her, and seeing how sour things have come since then is intensely gratifying.

[bobbob1313]

I think Levi's amusing because he's gone rogue from the Palin campaign. Seeing how he was meticulously packaged for the Republican National Convention, holding Bristol's hand, swearing he was going to marry her, and seeing how sour things have come since then is intensely gratifying.

 

the kids got a nose for money and complete lack of principles, so I guess that's a good thing. He's gonna make a fantastic politician whenever he figures out which side gives him more opportunities.

[John Smith]

Like 10 months ago wasn't Levi the butt of all kinds of jokes?

 

Now that he's all pissed off and attacking palin we like him now?

 

I hate palin, but fuck him too. He's an idiot who's looking to capitalize off of his involvement with her. And how much of the money he gets for a book will go to take care of his child, do you think?he's taking advantage of a situation, and if it was anyone but palin I bet tons of people here would be criticizing him.

 

 

Umm, Levi is still the butt of jokes. He get s little press for putting forth his view. Regardless of it's validity he is still/or at least was close to the center of the Pain universe and in our tabloid culture his words will get heard digested and analyized. But he is still a tool of major proportions. He is the Kfed of the Palin world.

[moxiebean]

Johnston also is pursuing his own book deal. He is working as a carpenter while also pursuing a movie deal.

good luck with that.

[Dude]

the kids got a nose for money and complete lack of principles, so I guess that's a good thing. He's gonna make a fantastic politician whenever he figures out which side gives him more opportunities.

 

He's an opportunist, just like Palin is. He has zero future in politics, but I see plenty of possible reality TV shows in his future where he can bicker with Gary Coleman, Spencer Pratt and Patti Blagojevich.

[MattZ]

bobbob will set everyone straight. One post at a time.

[Guest Jules]

 

I hate palin, but fuck him too.

Personally, I say fuck everybody.

[bobbob1313]

bobbob will set everyone straight. One post at a time.

 

ok. I'm sorry.