TLC Morphs into Fox News While Visiting Sarah Palin’s Alaska

Last updated on February 2nd, 2013 at 06:27 pm

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Every tragedy needs its clown and America’s current political nightmare has its clown in Sarah Palin. Ms. Palin, otherwise known as the great pedophile hunter of America, defamed journalist Joe McGinniss by suggesting he was a pedophile when he rented a house next to her house while he was writing a book titled “Sarah Palin’s Year of Living Dangerously”.

Said book was not intended to be nasty, but Palin took care of that by antagonizing Joe until he received the full wrath of her cult, which could only serve to open his eyes to the true nature of Ms Palin. We must remember all of the good work Ms Palin has done on behalf of children the country wide- why she outed David Letterman as a pedophile when he made a joke about her 18 year old daughter (the one who is selling abstinence after having quite a lot of sex outside of marriage, enough to produce at least one live child).

Joe the writer is now suing Sarah the pedophile hunter, or rather, the network promoting Sarah’s public image as a 2012 candidate, TLC, a subsidiary of the Discovery Channel for invasion of privacy and is demanding to be removed from the reality show over due to “unauthorized videotaped images of Mr. McGinniss which were obtained without his knowledge or consent.” Who can miss the irony of “discovery” in this context? Discovery will be had if TLC doesn’t back down after infringing upon Joe’s privacy rights.

And honestly, TLC knows better. It’s procedure to gather releases from anyone captured on video. In public places, notices are put up that you may be seen on such and such TV show if you walk through this area while they are shooting. The technique of blurring out the face of someone caught on tape without having signed a release is only used when the footage is considered necessary to the narrative of the story. That certainly doesn’t apply to a shot with no one else but Joe in it. They obviously chose this and used it intentionally, intending it to represent Joe the writer, the target of Palin’s wrath.

Why would TLC knowingly insert a shot of Joe reading on his deck, except to appease Sarah’s need for vengeance? They had to know Joe could sue. Perhaps they did this to drum up controversy (read: publicity, read: money) over Sarah’s show, which looks to be popular with the fundie Kate plus 8 crowd they’ve been courting, but lacks wide spread appeal. And by wide-spread, I mean people who read things other than Sarah Palin’s books on herself and Sarah Palin’s tweets…. Perhaps I’ve allowed my hopeful vision of America to color her appeal.

How many more people have watched the teaser now that Joe the Writer is suing? Uh huh. That’s right. Welcome to Discovery Channel’s Fox initiation into politics via money.
Once again, Sarah Palin is the clown in the midst of our national tragedy; a tragedy of Americans so dumbed down by reality TV and sensationalism that they often wouldn’t know the truth if it hit them on the head. Instead, they’ll just keep buying what the man is selling – no matter what side of the aisle the man is on, though the man is more often on the Republican side, by simple virtue of the profit at any cost model so carefully protected by the Right.

And so the winds of discontent now focus again on our national clown. The one running for President in 2012 and using a well-paid gig on TLC to rebrand herself as the all-American mom, who “reads” on her back slab and spends adorable time with her children in the Great Outdoors, now also, too, owned and branded by Sarah Palin.

This is Sarah Palin’s Alaska, just like her slush fund was the “Alaska Fund Trust”. Sarah is Alaska. Alaska is America. Love her. Vote for her. And remember, this is “not political”, even though you will never get to ask Palin any questions about her record or her ideas, because she is running the same campaign of personality she has always run. Her “ideas” are irrelevant. This is about how adorable she is and how hot she is and how you really wish your wife was just like her. It’s all so heart-warming, I can smell the apple pie from my kitchen window.

Not enough people are asking TLC and Discovery why they are selling political propaganda in the form of a “reality” TV show about a former governor who is going to run for President. Not only is she being paid for this publicity, but the state of Alaska funded part of this travesty in the form of rebates. Alaska has an incentive program for productions that spend more than $100,000 in “qualified” purchases that starts with a base of 30%, gets an additional 10% for hiring Alaskan crew and there is 4% more you can get for shooting rurally and in a specific season. “Unlike some incentive programs, we do not have salary caps or project caps. We do not require your company to be domiciled in Alaska, nor do we have minimum requirements for principle photography days or Alaska hire.” How convenient!

TLC really made out on this one, even after paying Sarah. Heck, they may have gotten a rebate even on paying Sarah her millions (depending upon the structure of the tax rebate and what qualifies, but it clearly states there is no cap on salaries) which means at the very least that Alaskans paid for part of this show. Nice work for a “small government” conservative grifter, eh? It’s amusing to note that the Governor’s administration put the finishing touches on this legislation right before she quit to pursue fame.

Government assistance, anyone? I would surmise Palin is also, too, taking advantage of this big government perk for her Wasilla Fox News studio.

Yes, that would be tax payer money going to fund political propaganda for a partisan figure running for the highest office in the land. And Discovery is playing stupid, claiming it’s all ok because they will have bloggers of both sides commenting on the show. As if their show is somehow worthy of such commentary (remember, this is only propaganda, no one can ask questions) and as if the office of our Presidency is some Greatest Race slop competition.

Having bloggers of both sides commenting on your propaganda does nothing to dispel the power of the image they’re broadcasting. It shouldn’t be on the air. She shouldn’t be being paid for it.

Sadly, Americans will eat this up as the Real Sarah, seeing as they’ve been happily doped by Reality TV for years now and still haven’t caught on that it is FICTION. It is written in advance. It is shot multiple times. It is edited. Reality would be unedited reality, when people did not know a camera was exposing them to the eyes of America. If you think people “forget” about the cameras as they are primed for their moment in the sun and set dressing ducks in to “fix” reality, you are sadly mistaken.

The only hope for this country is that this show bores the majority of people who are still somewhat tethered to reality and hence not as likely to be drawn in by a sentimentalist’s soap opera starring Herself as Number One Victim.

Reality TV is truly the dregs of the entertainment business; a Republican corporatist’s dream where no one is paid properly (save big names like Palin), the hours are grueling and the end product is crap. Sure, there are some nice folks in reality TV, but you do not meet the “real” so and so by watching their show. You meet the image who met the brand who sold you a book who is coming out with a line of cookware who hosts a TV show…

You meet the money maker for all of the people behind the scenes. You meet the person they want you to meet so you will buy their crap.

Even if TLC is proudly joining the ranks of Fox PAC TV (and it looks like they are), they certainly shouldn’t be using the power of their network to harass another Palin victim. Shame, shame, TLC. I can think of no lower point for the Discovery Channel than this.

Discovery indeed. Please name Sarah Palin in your suit, Joe. There are many questions Americans have and you may be their only hope. Country first, Joe. If not you, then who?

Update: Palin tweeted today, “Will discuss Fed’s quantitative easing plan(print $ out of thin air)tmrrw@ tools trade assn speech;then edit addl “Sarah Palin’s AK”episodes” about 6 hours ago via Twitter for BlackBerry® . This means that Palin has authority over editing, which makes an even stronger case that TLC handed her the reins to create political propaganda for the American TV audience. There is no reality here. Palin can edit out whatever she doesn’t like. And should Joe feel like suing herself directly, this fact proves a direct relationship between Palin and the final product.

Sarah Jones

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Sarah has been credentialed to cover President Barack Obama, then VP Joe Biden, 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, and exclusively interviewed Speaker Nancy Pelosi multiple times and exclusively covered her first home appearance after the first impeachment of then President Donald Trump.

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