Some thoughts on Palin’s trip to S. Sudan: Politicians in the US state of Alaska have an issue. Incredibly, it’s over Sudan.

That’s courtesy of Sarah Palin, a “maybe, maybe not” presidential candidate in 2012, now planning an African “fishing” trip.

The issue, Alaska Dispatch newspaper reported Thursday, is the state’s failure to disinvest from institutions dealing with Sudan.

It first emerged in 2008 presidential elections.

On the campaign trail, vice-presidential candidate, Palin, implied as state governor she supported the disinvestment. Supporters of disinvestment said Palin administration opposed it. Support came too late to effect needed legislation.

The disinvestment was to punish the Sudanese government for committing genocide in Darfur. At the time, a story emerged that Palin thought Africa was a country. To Palin’s critics, that and her claim she could see Russia from Alaska, confirmed ignorance of foreign issues.

The disinvestment issue resurfaced shortly after Palin announced a trip to Sudan next month. She also had hoped to meet former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher on the way.

The Guardian reported a Thatcher ally saying, “That would be belittling Margaret. Sarah Palin is nuts.” Palin’s supporters in the US were incensed.

South Sudan’s July 9 independence celebrations feature in the trip. Faster Times, a US-based website, claimed Palin might “…undoubtedly offer deep insights into the challenges that today face the wonderful nation-state of Africa.”

Personal speculation is that Palin heard Congressman Donald Paine, a Democrat from New Jersey, would be in Juba. He’s a hero to the ruling President Salva Kiir Mayardit’s Sudan Peoples’ Liberation Movement/Army.

Pursuing ratings, the US media will focus on Palin, a Republican. Eclipse a Democrat and you earn kudos from the Republicans! It’s that petty. Another more plausible explanation is Palin is on an indirect vote fishing expedition in the event she vies for the presidency.

Televangelist Franklin Graham admires her. He had her on tow in Haiti last year. In addition to enticing souls into the Evangelicals God’s kingdom, Graham spews caustic criticism of Islam.

He has describes it with obnoxious adjectives, but defends Sudan President Omar al-Bashir, a Muslim, against the International Criminal Court. As for President Barak Obama, his father planted “seeds of Islam” in him. Apparently, conversion is an Evangelicals’ prerogative.

Graham also heads the humanitarian Samaritan’s Purse. Its activities in Sudan include supporting 10 hospitals. The Purse is also in a project to rebuild 500 churches destroyed in South Sudan’s civil war. Graham is undoubtedly a guest at the Juba gala, towing a photogenic trailer, Palin.

As the aborted Thatcher photo-op would have been, one with Mayardit, another with a Dinka child recuperating in a Purse hospital, just in case, would warm Evangelicals and conservative Christian’s voters in Palin’s favour.

Apparently, nobody told the Southern Sudanese nothing in Palin’s history indicates she ever cared about Sudan, let alone the South. Possibly Graham knows of a gem and sold it to Juba.

Alluding to Palin’s pursuit of grandeur in an article Huffington Post published, Glen Pierson wrote, “It is their (South Sudanese) time; don’t make it about you.” To the South Sudanese, former US First Lady Barbara Bush’s observations should suffice: “I think she’s happy in Alaska–and hope she stays there.”

From The Daily Nation
Reference: Why Is Sarah Palin Going to Sudan?

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   Ding-Bat ‘Death’ Palin(Left) and Lady Thatcher (Right)
“Lady Thatcher will not be seeing Sarah Palin. That would be belittling for Margaret. Sarah Palin is nuts.”

So says an unnamed ‘ally’ of former British Prime Minster Margaret Thatcher about Sarah Palin’s wishes to meet with the Iron Lady, according to the Guardian.” [ READ MORE ]

In an attempt to appear “Reaganesque” Sarah Palin sought an audience with former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. The former beauty queen and current reality star was kicked to the curb like yesterday’s garbage. America might be infatuated with Sarah Palin, but Margaret Thatcher doesn’t suffer fools gladly. The former governor of Alaska got exactly what she deserved, how dare she request a meeting with somebody of the stature of Thatcher.

I can imagine how Europe and the rest of the civilized world laughs at Americans for taking Sarah Palin seriously. It’s incumbent upon every journalist to mock Palin until she runs back to Alaska.

Palin will have to content herself with claiming that she can see Margaret Thatcher in London from the Fish and Chips restaurant in Wasilla.

Now that Palin has been properly chastised, let’s hope she will be kinder and gentler to her staff and the press.

Follow Robert Paul Reyes on Twitter: http://twitter.com/robertpaulreyes

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The Big Picture: June 03, 2011 — “Fair and balanced” Fox goes all-out for conservative politicians this week with glowing promotion of Sarah Palin, Chris Christie and Paul Ryan.
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Fox News’ Osama Bin O’Reilly Exposes The Moronic Shallowness of Sarah ‘Death Panel‘ Palin

Newshounds.US: “….With her lip curled in her perpetual petulance, Palin announced that Obama has allowed BP “to define the facts of this spill. You can never be allowed to do that as a CEO and be on a level playing field, being equals there at the table when you allow one side of the table, in this case, BP.. to define the facts.”

Asked how as a former oil executive she would stop the spill, Sarah said: “Stopping the gusher.” “That’s the number one priority of the nation.”

When pressed further, poor Sarah wondered why Obama “refused” to call in the Dutch and Norwegians — who are experts in building dikes and cleaning water! [ READ MORE ]

Palin debuts falsehood that Obama has not said oil spill is top priority [ READ MORE ]

Osama Bin O’Reilly Hammers Clueless IDIOT Sarah Palin

[ Newshounds.US Examines Ding-Bat Sarah Palin ]

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

President Obama’s Speech in FULL — From The Oval Office (06-15-2010)

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Reference: Iron Lady, Meet Pitbull in Lipstick — It’s a political cartoonist’s dream: Sarah Palin is reportedly planning a trip to England to meet her political idol, Margaret Thatcher. The Iron Lady, Britain’s first female prime minister, the infamous union-buster of the 80s meets the Pitbull in Lipstick. — [ READ MORE ]

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   By: Philip Ochieng
By the “man-bite-dog” criterion of news taught in our schools of journalism, what happened at the African Union summit the other day should have been but a snippet tucked far away in the rear pages of our newspapers. For there was absolutely nothing new in it.

It was nothing but a run-of-the-mill “dog-bite-man” story. It is what African and other Third World leaders routinely do.

They commit tyranny and robbery and murder all the time and then, when accosted either at home or in international councils — try to depict one another as archangels.

If it had been known in advance that the human rights issue would come before Their Excellencies, even a child would have predicted that they would vote to a man ? not to mention the woman from Monrovia — to defend to the hilt the Man-on-Horseback in Khartoum.

No, it was not because they all love the Sudanese strongman.

It was only because none of the other heads of state and government may be innocent of the actions for which Omar al Bashir is wanted by Mr Ocampo in the historic Dutch city of international “justice.”

If Mr Bashir is arrested and taken to The Hague — if the International Criminal Court (ICC) finds him guilty of gross violations of human rights in Darfur — he will have opened a hideous can of worms for all the present and many former African and other Third World rulers.

Indeed, that precedent may prove extremely dangerous even for First World leaders.

The ICC itself has been accused of selective thirst for the blood of former and present tyrants.

It seems to go after Third World despots with much more gusto than it does after developed world leaders.

The Third World’s intelligentsia — including Africa’s — may be waking up slowly.

If Mr Bashir and certain former African leaders are found guilty and punished, the intelligentsia may begin to demand from Mr Ocampo a good explanation why America’s Gang of Five is at large.

Our civil society movements may want to know why George Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Colin and Condoleeza Rice have not yet been mooted even for arrest for having ordered the murder of millions and millions of Iraqi and Afghan children and their parents.

The Spanish Daniel in The Hague may have to explain to humanity why Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and Jack Straw are still gallivanting all over the world as champions of freedom, democracy and human rights when they were central to the holocaust in the Middle East.

London, Washington, Paris, Rome and a city near The Hague may have to answer human rights questions about Latin America, Algeria, Korea, Kenya (during Mau Mau), Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Indonesia, Southern Africa and East Timor and other Portuguese colonies.

And the respondents may include John Kennedy, Richard Nixon, Harold Wilson, Ronald Reagan, George Bush Senior, John Major, Margaret Thatcher, Helmut Kohl, Jacques Chirac, Nicolas Sarkozy and Silvio Berlusconi.

Yet, notwithstanding all this, there is just no Ararat from which African heads of state can defend anyone among them.

All of them are guilty of one crime or another — including mal-government, looting, corruption, complete neglect of mass suffering, nepotism and tribalism.

How many have not trampled underfoot all the tenets and institutions of good governance? How many have not rigged elections?

How many have not tried to tamper with the constitution to make themselves presidents-for-life? How many have not colluded to assassinate their rivals?

How many have not tried to impose their sons as heirs? And — most germane to our topic — how many have not organised armed clashes and ethnic cleansing?

Darfur, then, is merely the most spectacular, most tragic, example of this heartless playing around with human life.

Otherwise, which one of Africa’s leaders has the moral or political or juridical authority to declare that Mr Bashir does not deserve to face justice in the Hague? Which? Bongo? Bouteflika? Guebuza? Mubarak? Mugabe? Museveni? Sirleaf-Johnson? Wade? Zenawi?

But, of course, our own sense of justice — the tenet that you are innocent until proved guilty — constrains us to give Mr Bashir the benefit of the doubt. It is within the realm of possibility that the Tartar is not guilty.

But the fact remains that, under his regime, millions of human beings have been slaughtered in Darfur and that the culprit-victim line appears to coincide with the race line. The culprit appears to belong to the same race as those in charge in Khartoum.

That is why it has been claimed — rightly or wrong — that the blood-thirsty Janjaweed militia has vital links with official Khartoum.

It is why the leaders of a country like Kenya, Uganda or Tanzania should have an active subjective interest in that matter — if, for one thing only, because blood is thicker than water.

But, much more important than that, it is imperative for the world to be quite clear in its mind who the culprit is.

Yes, Mr Bashir is innocent till proved guilty. But, because he is among the prime suspects, some internationally sanctioned judicial authority must be the one to give him the certificate of innocence.

That is why it is upon the ICC that it devolves to investigate Mr Bashir.

Nobody has the right or the knowledge to declare him guilty or innocent except an authority like the ICC, after it has gone thorough Mr Bashir’s secret cabinets with a toothcomb.

As for the other African leaders, as nearly as we can see, all of them defend Mr Bashir against Mr Ocampo merely so as to pre-empt the probability of judicial “radioactivity” catching up with them — the usual dog-bite-man story.

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When Senator Barack Obama steps onto the stage on Thursday, next to Berlin’s Victory column, the world will be expecting a momentous speech.

   Great speakers: Enoch Powell, Mikhail Gorbachev, Barack Obama

   Great speakers: John F. Kennedy, Nelson Mandela, Margaret Thatcher

A team of Telegraph writers has compiled what they believe are the most significant addresses of the 20th and 21st centuries. The first tranche, speeches 25-13, can be viewed here. The top 12 are published here.

They limited the list to one speech per historical figure — otherwise, Winston Churchill, John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King would have appeared more than once…….and, I think Obama’s speech on race relations delivered in Philadelphia on March 18, 2008, deserves to be in this list.

Notes: Video and Transcript of Senator Barack Obama’s Speech on Race – in Philadelphia on March 18, 2008