Sarah Cashes In Again

 

DON WARKENTIN:  Junior College President is Sarah’s Latest 100K+ benefactor.

 

 

Even while asking SarahPAC donors for a new round of contributions, (“I know what a sacred trust it is to be asking you to contribute your hard-earned money to SarahPAC,”)–oops, wait a minute, wait a minute, hold it right there:

Asking for donations to a political action committee is a “sacred trust?”

Trust because you have to trust her not to spend the money on herself?

Sacred because Sarah herself is the sacred one God personally chose to prepare America for the return of Jesus, which she has said she knows will occur during her lifetime on earth?

Sacred trust: just one more phrase whose meaning eludes Sarah and her ghostwriting team of C students.

But speaking of C students, Sarah will plump up her personal treasure chest to the tune of $115,000 on Sunday when she speaks at West Hills Junior College in Lemoore, California, thirty miles south of Fresno.

Preparations have reached fever pitch.
The school’s president, Don Warkentin, says proceeds from ticket sales will go toward maintenance of the new Golden Eagle Arena, a $24 million indoor sports facility.

Sarah should feel right at home, no doubt reminded of the $18 million indoor sports arena she built while mayor of Wasilla, leaving the city staggering under the weight of long term debt.

But at least one West Hills JC student sees Sarah’s $115,000 fee as money well spent. Deseree Soto told a local ABC station,
“I think it’s actually really good… we always need someone to come down and motivate the students.”

Sarah’s speech will be entitled “More Power to the C Student,” echoing her recent comment to Greta Van Susteren.

45 Responses to “Sarah Cashes In Again”

  • cranberry:

    Sure says a lot for education in America to have Sarah Palin as the featured speaker. How can she motivate students if her own kids don’t even go to school? If I were a student at the college, I would be deeply embarrassed.

    Used to be that colleges were in the business of education, not just bringing in money.

  • brbr2424:

    More California state funds go to the aid of helping a middle aged man live out his high school fantasy of getting the mean girl head cheerleader to pay attention to him. Surely this joker could have played out his fantasy with some other has been for less than $115,000. But oh yeah, it’s not his money. Like the Cal State board members who drooled for Sarah, he seems a little math challenged. The cost of having her speak is greater than $115k because they will need to rent fences and hire security etc etc. Hiring Sarah only makes sense if you net more than you would by simply sending a letter asking for donations, or hosting a cocktail party with free entertainment provided by the music students.

  • Sharon_too_also:

    Jeeze Joe, get with the program. Dincha know – C’s the new A – what are you some kinda dinosaur?

  • kate:

    “The event is expected to rake in between $100 to $200 thousand. The school’s foundation paid $115-thousand to land Sarah Palin.”
    Let’s assume they bring in $150K.
    Palin Fees $115K
    200 OT workers @ $22.50/hour @ 3 Days ~ $13,500 estimate
    Materials estimated @ $5,000
    Total Profit estimated at $16,500

    *scratching head*

  • jk:

    I followed one of your links and saw that Cornel West will be speaking there next year. The thought that Sarah Palin and Cornel West will be using the same stage is mind blowing. I guess we should commend the president of the college for being creative in his drive to raise funds. It’s just too bad that a bottom feeder like Sarah Palin will benefit. Laura Bush will also be a future guest speaker but, really, who cares? No offense, Laura, but unless you’re going to denounce your husband’s politics or break dance or something…b.o.r.i.n.g.

  • Freesia:

    lol

    Yes Deseree Soto – let Sarah Palin be your motivation to “not end up like Sarah Palin”. Grifting for a living.

    Let her motivate you to end up educated and qualified in your chosen career, instead of meandered through 5 colleges in 6 years to end up with a journalism degree that apparently did not teach her to write or speak in coherent sentences so that she has to have a ghost writer and a team of ghost tutors and crib notes written on her hand to fake her way through a softball interview.

    Let her motivate you to pass your own opportunity and education on to your own children should you have them instead of ending up with 2 high school drops, and another poor little neglected truant who’s well on her way to being the 3rd.

    Let Sarah Palin serve as your warning sticker that being a con artist and making a lot of money from it earns you no respect and no dignity. Meanwhile you can enjoy watching Don Warkentin grin in a most unseemly way as he pretends that a borderline illiterate is there to promote education. *Palin wink*

  • VictoriaJ:

    Only in this country would anyone let a moronic anti-education shrew like Palin; at one hundred fifteen thousand dollars for a couple of hours trumpet the wonders of being a C student— at an institute of higher learning. Are you kidding me? Are we really at this point?

  • karenw729:

    Hey Joe,

    Can you write something about $arah’s speech next month to the Exceptional Foundation of Baldwin County (Alabama)? They’re paying her $100,000 to speak at their fundraiser for—get this— starting up a charity to help those with disabilities such as DS. $arah with the big Alaskan heart loves her little Trig so much she’s going to take $100k out the hands of other DS children.

    Oh, and let’s not forget that in addition to her speaking fees $arah also gets first class airfare and hotel lodging and meals for herself and whoever she wants to schlep along to google stuff for her.

  • Pam:

    She is against elitist b students. Why work any harder than you have to dontcha know.

  • Juan Day:

    Sarah should held out for the money and an honorary degree for all her kids and Todd.
    That’s the only way the Palins will get a degree.

  • Sally:

    The man who is starting that nonprofit is paying the Grifter out of his own pocket for her Alabama speech. These people are unbelievable!

  • Sally:

    It’s a wonder she doesn’t want an honorary degree…it would be worth about as much as the one she says she got in Idaho, although the one picture of her in cap and gown shows her with a tassel of the wrong color for her college of study.

  • lftismygame:

    I wonder about the timing of this “speech” as the nutters are questioning the President’s academic record. Is this to soften the reaction against possible release of her own records which if better than C- will be amazing?

  • Freesia:

    Over at Crooks & Liars blog there was a comment from Dave Niewert, who graduated from the University of Idaho and he says the following:

    “A word about Sarah Palin’s journalism degree: She and I graduated from the same school, the University of Idaho. (She arrived at the school a year after I graduated.) The difference is that when I attended there, I was highly active in the communications community, and was editor of the school paper for a year. Sarah Palin, in contrast, never even wrote a story for the Argonaut, let alone for the J school’s other chief outlet, the UI News Bureau; no one at the school’s TV station remembers her or has any record of her doing work there. Indeed, the professor who signed her degree barely remembers her, as she was one of those students who simply showed up for class, got a grade, and went home.

    Given that kind of background, Palin was lucky to even get a shot at sports reporting for a small Alaska TV station, which was the extent of her actual experience as a journalist.” http://crooksandliars.com/karoli/challenge-sarah-palin-produce-your-academic

    No writing for the papers, no working in the studio. But she got a journalism degree. I see. And what I would like to know? How many of her professors were men?

  • Dr Who:

    What stupid title. And how sick that this woman who obviously doesn’t value education is speaking at a college! What kind of school is this? My kids wouldnt go there and sorry with the high price of education today, getting Cs is not acceptable! Unless it is a kid that works hard but doesn’t do well on tests or something.
    Sarah is an idiot and you can tell she doesn’t value a college education by looking at her kids.
    She represents the dumbing down of America which is not a good thing.
    I’ve got to look up this school. Is it a Christian school?

  • True Blue Girl:

    Just, wow. This seems like a particularly unwise decision regarding both speaker and fee. Community and junior (2-year) colleges are under especially close scrutiny in these days of budge cutbacks, given their heavy local tax drain and questionable quality regarding workforce preparation OR credit transfer to 4-year degree-granting institutions. And then there’s the longstanding taint of poor leadership…

  • Mary:

    Is that really the title of her speech?!

  • FrostyAK:

    The entirety of her screech, “Edumacation? Look at me an Brisdull, we’re doing just fine and we don’t need no stinking edumacation!”

    ‘$115,000. please. And don’t forget the damn bendy straws! It’s in the contract!’

  • Joe:

    No, that’s a joking reference to her song of praise about C students in the Van Susteren interview.
    I don’t her speeches have titles.

    –Joe

  • Mary:

    Thanks. I knew about the interview, but wouldn’t put it past her to up the ante and insist that her speech have that title!

  • karenw729:

    I believe her position at the TV station was just internship. I read somewhere else that the station described as having “attended” UI, not graduated, thus sparking controversy over whether or not she got her degree.

    I’m a J school grad and I concur about the ramifications of her lack of activity during college. I worked on the school newspaper for years. All the serious journalism students did and we looked down on those that didn’t. Not because we were elitists or anything like that, it’s just that we knew the best way to learn was through practical experience. It was actually quite competitive to get a spot on the school paper staff and get stories published. $arah was just another lazy student looking for a relatively easy degree.

  • Sunny Skies:

    “All power to the C student” is the topic of her talk? At a community college? That doesn’t sound very inspirational to me. She has indicated many times her disdain for education and has highlighted that by not valuing education in her own family. Her “word salad” speech clearly shows that she cannot articulate any intelligent conversation but rather spews forth sound bites intended to incite outrage.

    I hope the A students will picket and boycott the speech, those students who value their education beyond the acquisition of a diploma. Don’t forget that Dubya was barely a C student and when he got “power” he ruined the Nation.

  • Freesia:

    Well that’s the Palin way isn’t it? Why bother to learn it or do it if you can just fake it enough to make it look as if you did for your rubes. Hence her insistance on being “Governor” Palin after she spent 2 years with her husband helping with the driving and then she stood in front of a bunch of honking water fowl and quit.

    I have a vision of her walking into a class room and saying to the professor (as she did to Andrew Halcro re knowledge for governing) “I hear you spout off facts and figures…and I wonder if it really makes a difference”.

    In my vision she then pops her bubble gum.

  • Melly:

    I’m among the dumbfounded. Excellence has become excellentishness, and nothing to write home about, in fact something to be scorned. More poison from Palin. So in love with herself and her rrrrogue way a lookin’ at things. You go grrrlll, straight to hell. I feel bad that my 6 y-o-granddaughter will, for the foreseeable future, have to grow up sharing the planet with you. Me, I can take it, but she’s so unspoiled on the excellence thingy. I don’t want you near her.

  • Karen:

    Guys, what, are you C Students? The C Student title was a joke. Funny, get it?

  • lilybart:

    Don’t forget expenses, private jets for at least two if not more and hotel rooms at the best place in Fresno. So, add on a bunch more cash!! $25,000?

  • Melly:

    The title’s a joke. Her tip of the hat to C students was the other night in her logorrhea with Greta.

  • kate:

    I was assuming $15K of the $115K fee covers transportation and hotel. If I’m wrong, they’re in the red. Good.

  • Joe:

    Maybe if I make a joke I should signify with an * or other symbol to indicate my tongue is in cheek.

    But in attacking President Obama on the Van Susteren show, she said–unjokingly–“More power to C students.”

    The real joke is Sarah speaking at an institution supposedly devoted to higher learning.

    And to benefit their new sports arena, rather than any academic programs?

    As far as I know, West Hills fields teams only in soccer, golf, wrestling and cross-country.
    For that, they need a new $24 million indoor sports arena?

    –Joe

  • Scorpie:

    But, not to worry Kate. Some dingbat at the peepond says that Scarah often gives her fee back to the hosts.

  • Scorpie:

    Ahhhhhhhhhh Joe, but have you ever been to the south end of the San Joaquin Valley in California? Not a lot going on but bingo at ‘The Palace’.

  • My partner Kathleen Baker, who is the editor of Politicalgates, today managed to publish an article
    about “Babygate” in the comment section of “The Guardian”:

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/apr/28/sarahpalin-alaska

    http://politicalgates.blogspot.com/2011/04/sarah-palin-unreliable-narrator.html

    We hope you all like it. Please go over to the “Guardian” and comment there. Many thanks!

  • Joe:

    I spent a week in Bakersfield one night.

    –Joe

  • KarenJ:

    I’ll bet her tax statements don’t show that…

    Before she resigned, her financial reports sure didn’t.

  • Scorpie:

    Geez Joe that made me laugh out loud. Was born and raised in California. Spent 34 years in the valley before I moved to Louisiana.

  • Just to let you all know, the article at “The Guardian” has been taken down temporarily, because they have to re-word it due to the strict British libel laws. They told us that they article will go up quite soon again. The original version is still available on our website.

  • carollt:

    I was a mostly A student in college and graduated with honors from a very tough school. I majored in accounting and have been an auditor for my entire career. This former honor student has doubts about Mrs. Palin and her degree. First of all, I don’t think she received a degree. I base this on the fact that at various times Mrs. Palin has said that she had a degree in communications and then it was a degree in journalism. Anyone with a degree can usually remember what the degree was. For example, I am never confused about my degree in accounting. I have never once in my life said my degree was in finance, for example. I also base my belief that Mrs. Palin does not have a degree on, let me say this kindly, her inability to string together a proper sentence. One would think that someone with a degree in communications or journalism would be able to speak and write much better than she does.

    But as I am reminded in your story above, Mrs. Palin’s lack of education has certainly not hurt her abililty to make bank, if you will. Let me paraphase Paul Simon “her lack of education hasn’t hurt her none, but can she read the writing on the wall?” The writing is certainly on the wall. Can you read what it says Mrs. Palin?

  • Karen:

    I also believe she probably never graduated, but I do have to say that I have “flip-flopped” on my own degree: I have a degree in Journalism from the Mass Comm school of my college. I will usually say I graduated in “print journalism” or with a “Journalism degree” but will sometimes say “Communications” if the person I am speaking to gives me that look your dog gives you when he doesn’t know what the hell you are talking about. 😉

  • Ottoline Lyme:

    I think the writing on the wall says that various Repub fat cats have been and still are tasked with making quiet deals with schools like West Hills Junior college — the fat cat slips them a large donation, the school pays SP’s fees for speaking out of some school “foundation,” SP continues to have a podium, she remains in the news, and Rupert and his pals sit back to watch how much longer SP can keep all the balls in the air, distracting her base from the substantive issues of our time.

    Right after the election was over, it seemed to be common knowledge that SP would be toast in 10 minutes. Based on that, no one could believe that she would get a book contract, certainly not one with a $7M advance. Of course it was predicted that her book could not possibly sell. The various Palingates were coming home to roost in 10 minutes, too. But what happened? Rupert’s $7M funded a looooong run. So far. And even with babygate facts so easily available online, Scharlott’s article, the leaked Bailey book, and the imminent Dunn book — she ain’t down yet.

    Joe: you’ve got to be able to whack a home run. Can you?

  • True Blue Girl:

    I attended college on a full ride academic scholarship, won several somewhat prestigious writing awards, and worked as a journalist, editor and publisher in the newspaper business for 25 years. I don’t consider myself anything but modestly talented and hugely fortunate, although in my field I was also considered quite young for my achievements, and attractive enough that I made an effort to downplay it. That said, I cringe at the idea of sharing a “journalism” field (in quotes as a special use, given her actual communication concentration and lack of a body of professional work), a college degree, or even a gender with this shameless grifter.

  • VERY SORRY TO SAY that the Guardian has pulled the article by Kathleen AGAIN, now for the second time – even the reworded version. We will see what happens next…keep the fingers crossed that everything will turn out to be fine. The communication with the Guardian is very friendly and open. They will consult with their lawyers and will get back to us tomorrow.
    http://politicalgates.blogspot.com/2011/04/sarah-palin-unreliable-narrator.html

  • KatzKids:

    The Fresno area is red, red, red, so it’s no surprise that she’s speaking there with no protests but it’s only a fundraiser for her personal bank account, with nothing left to go to the school. The whole thing, including the topic of her speech is disgusting.

  • Joe:

    This becomes a story in and of itself.

    –Joe

  • lilly lily:

    Sure is an inspiration to the dumb and dumber generation.

    I can see her as their shining North Star. How to get ahead using your elbows and good looks.