Sarah Palin Suggests Coin Conspiracy In Wisconsin Speech

Sarah Palin didn't allow press at her speech Friday at a Wisconsin Right to Life fundraising banquet, and attendees were barred from bringing cell phones, cameras, laptops, or recording devices of any kind. But Politico managed to get a few reporters in to hear the former Alaska governor again raise the specter of death panels and claim an anti-Christian conspiracy in the redesign of U.S. coins.

While Palin didn't use the phrase "death panels," she implied that rationed care would lead to elderly or disabled people being denied care to save money.

"What may they feel about an elderly person who doesn't have a whole lot of productive years left," Palin asked the audience of about 5,000. (Tickets were $30 each.) "In order to save government money, government health care has to be rationed... [so] then this elderly person that perhaps could be seen as costing taxpayers to pay for a non-productive life? Do you think our elderly will be first in line for limited health care?"

Palin made the "death panel" charge explicitly in a Facebook post the following day. "We had been told there were no "death panels" in the bill either," she wrote. "But look closely at the provision mandating bureaucratic panels that will be calling the shots regarding who will receive government health care."

In Wisconsin, Palin also expressed fear over the moving of "In God We Trust" to the edge of American coins.

"Who calls a shot like that?" she demanded. "Who makes a decision like that?"

She added: "It's a disturbing trend."

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Comments

[retromega]

06:26 PM on 12/07/2009

Imagine getting the kind of mielage that Sarah Palin gets for this statement: "health care will be rationed". Amazing! That is better said: "Health care is rationed". It is something anyone who lives in a small town or goes to church knows. Why? Because they are doing bake sales, spaghetti feeds, raffles, drawings, auctions and whatever anyone can think of to pay for some friend or fellow church goers TREATMENT!

WHY DOESN'T SARA PALIN KNOW WHAT'S GOING ON IN HER CHURCH? No one in her church gets sick? Really? Or is it that she is too important to attend?

[XzibitX]

06:44 AM on 11/14/2009

Sarah Palin, the media Creation. She's Joe The Plumber on steroids and I don't even know why the MSM goes bonkers every time this aging bag of fiction plots another skeevy move on her dvmbed down sycophants that follow her petty, vindictive, gutter politics. She's as fake as a $3 bill.

[bryanetahoma]

11:49 PM on 11/12/2009

Sarah Palin not allowing cameras or press into her speech basically made it so more people would want to know what was so controversial that she didn't want cameras quoting what she said. If she wouldn't have made it a big deal it wouldn't have been a big deal.

[Anemocracy]

12:16 PM on 11/12/2009

The fault lies with the person in charge of reading aloud to her.

[iwaswonderin]

12:33 PM on 11/12/2009

How true. Wait til Sarah P (is it Prejean?) starts the much anticipated "Going Ragu" book tour and spouts incitefully about her life. Comedians never had it so good.

[One WI Now]

11:43 AM on 11/12/2009

We actually snuck a flip camera in and got audio of this portion of the speech -- head over to the One Wisconsin Now youtube channel at http://www.youtube.com/onewisconsinnow to hear the audio and read the transcript.

[Goliadkin]

03:07 PM on 11/12/2009

Thanks for posting this! That's Sarah alright, shrill, paranoid, dissociated. And it's such a stupid idea. Moving "In God We Trust" to the edge of the coin doesn't make the phrase any more or less prominent, unless your looking for that to be the case. This is sheer demagoguery. The fact that people applaud this nonsense is the most disturbing part.

[clamperken]

10:41 AM on 11/12/2009

Who's God is this exactly that we're to put our trust in? Can anyone out there answer this question?

[SusieDavis]

02:51 PM on 11/12/2009

Obama

[Goliadkin]

03:07 PM on 11/12/2009

Stunning retort!

[clamperken]

10:38 AM on 11/12/2009

Has this foolish woman ever done any homework in her life? No wonder it took her five or six colleges to get a degree in journalism. Still not sure what she had to do to receive that diploma. *wink, wink*

[j4m3z]

09:41 AM on 11/12/2009

In God We Trust shouldn't even be on the money at all. Let's keep moving it right off the edge! Not only is she scary crazy, but it's even scarier that there are people that would actually pay $30 to hear her comedy act. You couldn't pay me to listen to her screech.

[Cory111]

08:01 AM on 11/12/2009

This Gal has been eating way too much blubber...

[jimf1673]

07:21 AM on 11/12/2009

One day soon, after a hard day's work, just sit back with your favorite adult beverage and consider what this country would be like had John McCain been elected POTUS and Sarah Palin had become VPOTUS ? Think about Sarah sitting as chair of the senate ? And your worst possible nightmare, what if President McCain had died in office - a very distinct possibility at his age. With the unintelligible verbal diarrhea Sarah speaks now, can you imagine Sarah your POTUS ? The thought of it makes me shiver. How could have the selection process boiled down to someone the Darwin selection process somehow overlooked ?

[juggernaut1729]

06:21 AM on 11/12/2009

Having "In God We Trust" on the currency is unconstitutional. I am disappointed that our Supreme court disagrees.

But yes, she is mostly correct about the 'death panels'. Government cannot magically decrease the cost of healthcare. It can either shift the cost or refuse to pay it.... which means that it can either raise taxes or ration care.

Because of the Government rationing of healthcare, some people will inevitably die.
Is it too much of a stretch to call that a 'death panel' ?

[Northernview]

08:31 AM on 11/12/2009

There's nothing magical about finding efficiencies in the health care system.

Currently, Americans pay approximately 50% more for their heath care than Canadians, and over 40 million of your countrymen are still left without coverage. How can a patriotic American settle for such third rate coverage?

Canada's H1N1 vaccinations are proceeding in a relatively orderly fashion with everyone entitled to receive the vaccination free of charge. Pregnant women who are deemed high risk but are bed ridden and cannot make it to an immunization clinic will have the vaccine brought to them. Again - no charge.

It works. Right next door. Believe it or not, the USA doesn't have all the answers. Doing things better isn't magic - it's our goal, isn't it?

[jumpingjackflash]

01:50 PM on 11/12/2009

So how come so many Canadians come to this country for procedures?

[ThermoChemist]

11:11 AM on 11/12/2009

Palin is "in error" for insinuating that these so-called "Death Panels" are something completely new that Pres. Obama is proposing. She acts like it's some foreign concept being thrust upon America; and only her great intellect was able to uncover this dastardly plot against "real Americans".

In reality, such things have existed for years in one form or another. In fact, SHE and other Repubs have endorsed such things (in one form or another).

GWB - Death Panels in Texas?
http://www.statutes.legis.state.tx.us/Docs/HS/htm/HS.166.htm

The Texas Advance Directives Act (1999) signed into law while GWB was Governor of Texas

Palin: For ‘Death Panels’ Before She Was Against Them?
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/08/13/palin-deathpanel-flipflop/

Newt Gingrich praised end-of-life consultations
http://trueslant.com/matttaibbi/2009/08/12/newt-gingrich-changes-whats-left-of-his-mind-on-end-of-life-care/

Grassley Voted For So-Called "Death Panel" In 2003
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/14/grassley-voted-for-socall_n_259750.html

Sen. Isakson in 2007
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x4012751
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2009/08/is_the_government_going_to_eut.html

Reps. Boehner and McCotter, both claimed end-of-life consultations could result in "government encouraged euthanasia," also voted for similar policy in 2003.
http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/senate-republicans/multiple-republican-leaders-voted-in-2003-for-measure-they-now-decry-as-government-euthanasia/

[mamacat]

05:21 AM on 11/12/2009

There are many ideas that come to mind after reading this article, but my comments would not be appropriate for a public forum. Let's just say, it is pretty obvious that Ms. Palin has never attended a class in logic.

[kape]

03:21 AM on 11/12/2009

As if health care were not already severely rationed in this country by the insurance companies. Only in America could such a flake appear in the same sentence as "President".

[karenzee]

01:28 AM on 11/12/2009

The problem is Palin's not just stupid, she's dangerous. An elderly friend of mine was telling me that one of her friends (also around 80) had gotten denied for a scan that would detect early recurrance of a form of bone cancer, though blood tests would be covered. According to the woman's doctor, by time it would show up in bloodwork it would be dangerously late to treat it. My friend followed this by saying to me "This is what we were afraid would happen. Because she's elderly, she's being denied life saving tests." (Death Panels, anyone?) Well, I was shocked but did my best to explain to her that we have not yet had any sort of health reform. That this was just the insurance companies doing what they do all on their own and this was exactly the sort of thing we were hoping to do away with by reform. She didn't seem totally convinced and then expressed her concern that she would have to change from the insurance she has and likes or face a fine. I told her that wasn't true but by now I was totally disheartened. These are the people who don't have internet access, aren't computer savvy and take what they hear at it's word, the scarier it sounds the truer it probably is. Sarah Palin and all the other lying fear mongers who target the most vulnerable, should be gagged and fined for the harm they're doing. Shame on them.

[SusieDavis]

02:53 PM on 11/12/2009

Obama is brilliant, and extremely dangerous.

[yweston]

12:06 AM on 11/12/2009

You mean the main stream "LIBRUL" media isn't pushing that theory as "fact"? You mean P@l!n said something "useless" that the LIBRUL media didn't promote and the Sunday Morning News programs didn't discuss as if she said something "Legitimate".