Movies produced by right wingers always suck, and they never make money. (See the recent release of “Atlas Shrugged,” an “objectivist” fantasy based on Ayn Rand’s 1957 novel, which circled the drain after its first weekend, for example.) So it would have been a surprise if “The Undefeated,” the deceptively titled documentary about the Quitter from Wasilla had done boffo box office when it opened in limited release this weekend. Why anyone would waste their hard-earned money on a puff piece about a unpleasant, vindictive ignoramus is another question.
Here, from IndieWIRE, are the preliminary numbers:
— Polebrity Sarah Palin, writing on Facebook, on President Obama’s economic policies, ignoring the fact that it is her team that keeps walking away from the negotiating table.
If you ignore people who are desperate for attention, they will go away. Here’s proof:
Amid diminishing media interest, [the GOP’s most recent losing vice presidential nominee and former governor of Alaska who quit mid-term] has quit her high-profile bus tour halfway through and returned to Alaska with her family, according to RealClearPolitics.
The move puts a damper on widespread speculations that [the former governor’s] “One Nation” bus tour, which launched on Memorial Day, was a potential precursor to a potential White House bid for 2012. [She] never made it to her scheduled stops in the key primary states of Iowa and New Hampshire…
The “One Nation” tour launched with intense media interest, as reporters initially followed [her] and her family on the road, diligently trying to decipher the former half-term Alaska governor and ex-GOP vice presidential nominee’s 2012 intentions. But after being ignored and mislead [sic] and denied interviews or access, reporters’ attention fizzled.
What have you seen so far today and what are you going to take away from your visit?
– The question to Sarah Palin from a reporter in Boston to which she infamouly replied, “He who warned, uh, the…the British that they weren’t gonna be takin’ away our arms, uh, by ringin’ those bells and um by makin’ sure that as he’s ridin’ his horse through town to send those warnin’ shots and bells that uh we were gonna be secure and we were gonna be free…and we were gonna be armed.” When called on the massive flub later, Palin falsely claimed she was responding to an ambush question: “And in a shout-out, gotcha-type of question that was asked of me, I answered candidly. And I know my American history.”
PALIN: He who warned, uh, the…the British that they weren’t gonna be takin’ away our arms, uh, by ringin’ those bells and um by makin’ sure that as he’s ridin’ his horse through town to send those warnin’ shots and bells that uh we were gonna be secure and we were gonna be free…and we were gonna be armed.
Months ago, Lawrence O’Donnell correctly predicted the day on which Donald Trump would admit he was not running for president — that day, May 16, being the deadline for NBC’s announcement that they had picked up Trump’s reality show for another year. The fact that the show is the network’s top rated primetime show (or at least it was before the Donald aligned himself with the racist birther movement) should have been made it cinch that Trump never had any intention of running — that it was all a big publicity ploy.
And, if stories that NBC upped his salary to $60 million are true, as publicity ploys go, Trump’s fake presidential aspirations were stunningly effective.
Now O’Donnell has turned his sights on Sarah Palin. He reminds us that on March 2, Fox president Roger Ailes fired all the pols on his network who were seriously considering running for president. Palin and Mike Huckabee were not among them.
It was fun to be at the Madison capitol today to protest Sarah Palin and the tea partiers.
There were about 1,500 tea partiers, many bused in by Americans for Prosperity, the rightwing group funded by the Koch brothers.
The tea partiers were surrounded by about 3,000 or more pro-labor supporters, who let their presence be felt with raucous chants and boos and cries of “Shame, shame, shame!”
“Recall Walker,” the protesters chanted over and over again, as well as, “Hey, hey, ho, ho, Scott Walker has got to go.”
Another chant was “Tax, tax, tax the rich!”
As with all the historic Madison protests this year, creativity marked the signs of the pro-labor activists.
“I Can See Waulkersha From My Sign,” one of them said, playing off of Palin’s gaffe about Russia, as well as governor Walker’s name and Waukesha County, where highly irregular vote counting occurred during the recent Supreme Court race…
The tea partiers waved their usual “Don’t Tread on Me” flags and held signs that said “Walker for President,” “Walker/Palin,” and “Economic Freedom.”
One tea party sign seemed anti-Semitic: “Give It Up, Kloppenstein!” It was referring to JoAnne Kloppenburg, the candidate who ran for the Supreme Court against David Prosser. Kloppenburg is Jewish…
Rightwing provocateur Andrew Breitbart stirred up the tea party crowd.
And when Sarah Palin was announced, the tea partiers gave her a big ovation, and the protesters booed heartily…
Dumb gets old quick, according to a recent CNN/Gallup/USA Today poll. The better we know the Tea Party, the less we like it. Here’s how those surveyed rated the movement that gave us Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann, Florida Gov. Rick Scott, former Alaska partial-term Gov. Sarah Palin, and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, among others:
Favorable: 32%
Unfavorable: 47%
Never Heard Of: 7%
No Opinion: 14%
Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight took these results and combined them with earlier polls to show a trend tea baggers can’t deny. With each passing day, their approval numbers go down, down, down.
Silver concludes that Republicans, who scored 44% favorable and 48% unfavorable in the same CNN poll, have the most to lose if the tea baggers get dunked.
I’ve long been of the view that the Tea Party, despite nominating poor candidates in a couple of key races, was a significant net positive for the G.O.P. in 2010, both because it contributed to the “enthusiasm gap” and because it helped an unpopular Republican Party to re-brand itself in never-out-of-style conservative draping. But if the Tea Party ain’t over yet, the point in time at which it was an electoral asset for Republicans soon may be.
Pundits say that Trump’s $5,000 midterm bribe was an overreach,
And they agree that if lies were a crime, he’d be impeached.
Despite all the dividend promises he’s made,
The fact is, not one has ever been paid,
So even before the midterms, he already owes us $8,000* each.
*$5000 stimulus checks via “DOGE dividend”; $2000 stimulus checks via a “tariff dividend”; $1000-plus checks via “savings” from expiring Affordable Care Act subsidies
“The man is afraid of the voice of the people and that the people understand and know what he’s doing. He’s trying to stifle the ability of journalists to let the people of America know what’s really going on with their government.”
— “Kamala Harris called President Donald Trump’s ban of CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the White House ‘absolutely abhorrent,’” The Wrap reports.
“Not one of them is trained in technical skills. Not one research PhD, as opposed to China, where half the cabinet is science and technology PhDs. We’re led by grifters and fools.”
— Columbia professor Jeffrey Sachs, on X, on President Trump’s 35-person cabinet.
“Mr. President, some of your immigration enforcement efforts have gone too far… The same Hispanics who helped you get to the White House in 2024 feel betrayed today.”
— Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar (R-FL), breaking with President Trump in a direct-to-camera video.
“Donald Trump made over a thousand stock sales and purchases worth between $79m and $270m in July,” The Guardian reports. “His two largest sales were of Amazon and Microsoft stock, selling between $5m and $25m each on 20 July. That same day, he also sold up to $5m worth of Oracle and Costco stock, $500,000 to $1m in Nvidia, and bought up to $5m worth of shares in Intuit and Salesforce, among dozens of other transactions.”
“The unprecedented spate of mid-decade redistricting for the U.S. House has changed the congressional districts for one-tenth of Americans and significantly altered the makeup of at least one-fifth of districts, according to a new study,” the Associated Press reports.
A new Fox News Poll finds 71% of voters think the Trump administration lacks a clear strategy for ending the Iran War, including 95% of Democrats, 83% of independents, and 43% of Republicans. Sixty percent say U.S. military action against Iran was the wrong decision, while just 37% say it was right.
“The Trump administration last year spent $9.5 billion on paid administrative leave for federal workers as part of its plan to shrink the government and save taxpayers money, according to a new estimate by a congressional watchdog,” CNN reports.
Reuters has documented at least 470 targets of retribution under Trump’s leadership – from federal employees and prosecutors to universities and media outlets. The list illuminates the sweeping effort by the president and his administration to punish dissent and reshape the government.
Movies produced by right wingers always suck, and they never make money. (See the recent release of “Atlas Shrugged,” an “objectivist” fantasy based on Ayn Rand’s 1957 novel, which circled the drain after its first weekend, for example.) So it would have been a surprise if “The Undefeated,” the deceptively titled documentary about the Quitter from Wasilla had done boffo box office when it opened in limited release this weekend. Why anyone would waste their hard-earned money on a puff piece about a unpleasant, vindictive ignoramus is another question.
