Sarah Palin

As the convention wrapped up with an hourlong address by and Q&A with Sarah Palin — broadcast live on CNN, Fox, MSNBC and C-Span — it was clear that the organizer’s massive and controversial gamble had mostly paid off. More than 200 members of the media had descended on Nashville to write probing stories on the Tea Party Movement.

Since the first announcements about the National Tea Party Convention, in November 2009, the high-priced, first-of-its kind event has been a magnet for controversy, a divisive subject within the burgeoning movement and a punching bag for local and national media.

New Jersey is poised to become the 14th state to allow the use of medical marijuana by people suffering from debilitating diseases under a bill that received legislative approval on Monday, the Record of Bergen County reports.

A report in The Daily Beast this morning showed that Sarah Palin is less John Madden and a more automotive industry executive — at least when it comes to what was billed as a “bus tour” for her best-selling book Going Rogue.

Some states, struggling to balance their budgets, are selling or leasing public property, including state office buildings, prisons and major toll ways, and Stateline.org has a story that examines the pros and cons of such decisions.

According to the Project for Excellence in Journalism, former Alaska Governor and Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin was the third-most discussed news story of the week from November 16-22, trailing only health care and the economy. The “uproar created by a recommendation that women in their 40s did not need routine mammograms” ranked fourth [...]

Sarah Palin is headed to a town near you… provided you live in the conservative town of Roswell, New Mexico.
Steve Terrell of the Santa Fe New Mexican reported today that the former Republican Vice-Presidential candidate is headed to Roswell on December 1 as part of promotional tour for her book, Going Rogue: An American Life. [...]

Help to states might be on the way. Tucked within the U.S. House’s version of health reform legislation last week is a $23.5 billion pot of money meant for states to pay for six more months of extra Medicaid funding, The Washington Post reports. State officials across the land are crossing their fingers hoping that [...]

According to the Pew Research Center, the health care debate was the number one news story of the week, at least when it comes to media coverage (though, in what may be a sad testament to the state of the media, balloon boy was number three — edging out Afghanistan). And that’s reflected in today’s [...]

A new decision by the Barack Obama administration on the Energy Star program is getting some criticism from Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M. Both Congress and the Obama administration want to tighten standards for the energy efficient product program, but disagree on how to do so.

On health care reform, the bad actors seem to get the most attention from the media. In particular, it’s the screamers who don’t want to debate, but instead disrupt, that make the headlines. And that’s not always right.

There is widespread misconception about what the health care proposals being developed in Congress will do — and how much they’ll cost, according to the “Seven Falsehoods About Healthcare,” a new report by FactCheck.org, a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania.
Among the falsehoods: “the bill is paid for” and [...]

I know I’m weighing in about a year late on this, but I spent last week tromping around Sarah Palin’s turf and I just have to share what I saw and heard about the tough-talking governor from her friendly constituents in Alaska.

One of the pages on the New Mexico Republican Party’s Web site is devoted to the words of “great Republicans.” There are the usual suspects there (Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan) along with some more questionable choices — both former Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice and current U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan.

A new documentary on Gov. Sarah Palin looks to rally a GOP ready for a conservative’s-conservative to stick it to the mainstream media in 2012.