This'n'That; September 22nd[Coupons;FluffyCareSupport;Palin;Carter;

Help With Stuff....

With Fluffy obama effectively driving the American economy into the toilet, the U-6 unemployment rate reaching 16.5% and every citizen needing help with groceries and other necessities, coupons may be a possible answer. The following sites might be of some help:

• Nearly every manufacturer has coupons listed for download and printing at their sites.
• http://www.wickedcooldeals.com/
• http://www.coupons.com/
• http://www.smartsource.com/
• http://www.refundcents.com/
• http://www.moneysavingmom.com/
• http://www.neverpayretailagain.net/
• http://www.findstuff.com/
• http://www.couponalbum.com/
• http://www.eversave.com/
• http://www.gotit.com/
• http://www.toseeka.com/
• http://www.look.com/

A possible caution: Googling "coupons" will result in thousands of pages of expired coupons along with those still in force.

"FluffyCare" Support Dwindling Quickly

Fifty-six percent (56%) of voters nationwide now oppose the health care reform [read: federal control of personal information and finances] proposed by Fluffy obama and congressional democRATs. That’s the highest level of opposition yet measured and includes 44% who are Strongly Opposed. Just 43% now favor the proposal, including 24% who Strongly Favor it. But the overall picture remains one of stability. While the numbers have bounced a bit following nationally televised appearances by Fluffy to promote the plan, opposition has generally stayed above 50% since early July. Support has been in the low to mid 40s. The number who Strongly Oppose the plan has remained above 40% and the Strongly Favor totals have been in the mid-20s. This suggests public opinion is hardening when it comes to the plan that is currently working its way through Congress.

Whatever Sarah Palin's Strategy-It's Working!!

Since resigning her post as governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin has essentially gone dark, making almost no public appearances and successfully avoiding the media outlets that are clamoring to talk to her. But that doesn’t mean Palin has been quiet. Relying almost exclusively on social media to get her message out, Palin has managed to carve out her own high-profile place in the national FluffyCare debate, on energy policy and on tort reform. While Palin isn’t the only major political figure to try alternative means of communication to bypass the media, her unique ability to remain in the headlines while avoiding the spotlight suggests she may be the first to pull it off successfully. For several days in August, the national health care debate turned to focus on so-called “death panels,” in large part because of two widely-publicized Palin Facebook posts accusing democRATic authors of the House proposal of creating bureaucratic entities to decide end of life care. The post was immediately rebuked by democRATs, and even by some republicRATs as untrue and irresponsible. But rather than immediately firing back at her critics when reporters came calling for a response, or issuing a press release defending her claim, Palin waited five days to post her response on Facebook. The post, simply titled “concerning the ‘death panels,’” went up shortly before midnight on a Wednesday night. By late Thursday morning, a write up of her statement was on the homepage of dozens of national and local newspapers. The post also quickly became one of the most mentioned topics within the political blogosphere. “I can’t answer what her strategy is, but I can say that it’s working,” said GOP strategist Mary Matalin. “A large issue of why this works is that she has been so demonized and made fun of by the mainstream press.” With more than 850,000 “friends” following her every statement closely on Facebook, Palin trails only Fluffy as the most popular politician on the site. And when Palin ended her Twitter feed after resigning as governor, close to 140,000 people were following her—again, second only to obama. “It’s the most passive form of communication there is, it’s only effective if people are dying to go to your Facebook page,” noted Marjorie Dannenfelser, the president of the Susan B. Anthony List, an organization designed to advance pro-life women in politics, and co-founder of Team Sarah, [ http://www.teamsarah.org/ ] a network of Palin supporters. “She’s got this quality that Howard Dean had in terms of the completely organic liberal movement he tapped into.” Former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer, a media strategist who does not count himself as a Palin supporter, said the former Alaska governor’s style and appeal lends itself to the online medium. “Facebook is perfectly suited for someone as polarizing as Sarah Palin,” he said. “It’s the ideal way for her to keep in touch, to rev up her base and go around the mainstream media.” While Palin has used her Facebook page to weigh in with lengthy posts on health care, energy policy and tort reform, it has also enabled her to highlight causes with a more personal dimension, such as a favorite charity, the celebration of Constitution Day and the commemoration of the eighth anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks. “She’s trying to cut across the grain because everyone has been saying what a dope she is and she’s going into depth on these issues,” said Matalin. “This is a good strategy because it works and because it’s long form. In an ad or any visual form, you could never take the kind of deep dive on a lot of these issues.” Her establishment of one of the most powerful social media brands in politics has coincided with her effort to all but drop off the mainstream media grid. Since her television news blitz shortly before resigning as governor, a chaotic period in which she was even interviewed wearing waders while fishing, Palin has not appeared on cable or network television. She has issued very few statements to the media and her press contacts have become markedly less responsive to press requests. While Palin will be delivering a September 23 speech to investors in China, the event is closed to the press. To some degree, Palin’s strategy may be driven by necessity. The former governor has operated with a skeleton crew since leaving the governor’s office, with a team consisting of only a handful of staffers employed by her political action committee located in Virginia. Even so, the practice of shutting out major print, television and news outlets is a sure route to obscurity—and Palin in the past has given every indication that she has an interest in continuing her career as a public figure. But even as she’s all but vanished from the public view, Palin has managed to amplify her voice and expand her reach online. The ranks of her Facebook friends have swelled by several hundred thousand since the announcement of her resignation, after remaining somewhat static at around 500,000 through the spring and summer. Palin has been able to pick up so much online momentum because “she is so exciting. She represents a gigantic movement in this country that is distrustful of Washington and finds her appealing for all the same reasons that the mainstream media finds her unappealing,” Fleischer said. “This is where social networks are most effective. It lets you focus on your core constituents and fan bases, and few politicians can actually claim they have a fan base.” Still, Fleischer warned that Palin’s ability to drive hundreds of thousands of individuals to her Facebook page will not get her past the media filter. “Facebook is one way to go around the mainstream media, but when you add it all together the mainstream media still exists,” he said. “She loves the unfiltered medium because she can make her statement and not be questioned directly about any nuances,” one former Palin staffer told POLITICO. “It speaks to the power of Facebook and social networking in general. Here’s a case where Facebook postings are being picked up by [the Associated Press] and the national media. As politicians—we’re taking note of these media based on how well they’re working for her.” Another longtime Alaska insider and close observer of Palin called the strategy “brilliant,” but said it was sad to watch her relationship with the press deteriorate to such a point. The Alaska source noted that prior to getting picked as Sen. John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) running mate, Palin once brought cookies to reporters stuck hanging around the state capitol on a Saturday for a special legislative session. “There was so much difficulty in her getting her message out without it being deliberately, in my opinion, twisted by members of the media,” the insider said. “Now, even if a story gets twisted, they all know they can go right to Facebook and see what she said.”

Carter's Reason? He Grew Up That Way!!

Jimmy "Peanut" Carter is 84 years old and grew up in the south-south Georgia. While he was a youngster, the words negro, negra and nigger were standard words of the day-rarely if ever, any negative connotation; 'black' was the color of your 15 year-old Ford and 'African-American' was someone who actually came from Africa themselves, NOT their great-great-great-great grandfather, twice removed!! While he's three decades removed from the White House, he still has the power to make democRATs run....away, that is!! From the White House to the out-house on Wednesday, democRATs raced to distance themselves from the former president’s claim that racism was behind Rep. Joe Wilson’s “You lie” outburst and other attacks on Fluffy obama. “Listen, he’s the former president, and he’s entitled to his point of view,” said Senate Majority Whip Dink Durbin (d-Ill.). “I personally believe Fluffy obama and his administration are focused on the issues, and I agree with that.” “I don’t see this as a racial issue,” added Sen. Jim Webb (d-Va.). “There are a lot of people upset about how we on the democRATic side can engage like we have been, and there’s a lot of anger out there. So, I don’t see it as a racial issue.” “I didn’t agree with it,” Sen. Kay Hagan (d-N.C.) said of Carter’s remarks. Congressional democRATs have no interest in starting a racial argument that could turn off swing district voters whose support the party will need if it plans on keeping its grip on Congress in 2010. And the current occupants of the White House made it clear Wednesday that they have no interest in bringing race back to the fore of any discussion about obama. “The president does not believe that criticism comes based on the color of his skin,” White House press secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters in his Wednesday briefing. “We understand that people have disagreements with most of the decisions that we’ve made and most of the extraordinary actions that had to be taken by both this administration.” Carter said Tuesday that there’s “an inherent feeling among many in this country that an African-American should not be president,” and that that feeling drives some of the anti-obama dissent. He isn’t the first to suggest that race is driving some of the anti-obama animus. Reps. Lacy Clay (d-Mo.) and David Scott (d-Ga.), among others, have suggested that Wilson wouldn’t have interrupted a white president. And New York Times communist columnist Maureen Dowd wrote that “fair or not,” she heard “an unspoken word in the air: You lie, boy!” But by and large, congressional democRATs have tried to keep the race factor out of the Wilson debate. With their resolution Tuesday night reprimanding Wilson, democRATs had sought to refocus their narrative toward their efforts to turn around the nation’s economy and pass a sweeping health care reform bill. Leaders had spent Tuesday trying to prevent anger among black lawmakers from boiling over in that evening’s floor debate about a resolution reprimanding Wilson. During a caucus meeting just hours before the start of the debate, democRATic leadership aides said that Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, an African-American from Wilson’s South Carolina, pleaded with his fellow democRATs to keep the debate far from the racial issue. But Carter’s comments brought them right back to it — even as they tried to get away. “I just think 2010 will be about — as most midterm elections are — the whole economic well-being of America,” said Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), who heads up the DemocRATic Senatorial Campaign Committee. “And that’s what the focus should be.” “We should take our cue from obama,” Dink Durbin said. "As his personal friend for many years, I can tell you, he is the last person to raise this issue.” Wilson brushed off Carter’s comments Wednesday, saying that they were a “distraction” — a point with which some of Wilson’s critics agreed. democRATic Rep. Chet Edwards, who has represented a conservative, heavily white Texas district for 18 years, said he didn’t believe there was any evidence to support Carter’s assertion that racial factors had motivated Wilson. “I just don’t want a divisive dialogue on race to become a battering ram of division for our country,” he said. Alabama democRATic Rep. Artur Davis agreed. “It’s not a productive or healthy conversation,” he said.

Til Nex'Time....