Sarah Palin - Unfit to Serve

Palin skipped paying property taxes on cabins, records show

2010-02-05T17:33:00.000-08:00

Hypocrisy alert, but what's new? I thought that Christians were supposed to be honest. Seems like its ok to cheat, as long as it's your government that you are cheating...local, state, federal...cheat away. Jesus saves. Even if you were the Chief Executive Officer of a State! ~Deb

Palin skipped paying property taxes on cabins, records show

By The Associated Press
Thursday, February 4th, 2010 -- 9:01 pm

Records show that Sarah Palin hasn't paid any property taxes on cabins that have been built on two backcountry plots partially owned by the former Alaska governor.
It's unclear how long ago the structures were built, but records show that there are no tax assessments for the workshop, sauna and house-sized cabins spotted Thursday in an aerial survey.
Property taxes totaling $156.13 were paid on the land in 2009 — but that bill did not include anything for the structures because the local assessor didn't know about the new construction nearly 100 miles north of Anchorage.
The issue has attracted the attention of local tax officials who conducted a scheduled aerial survey of the properties on Thursday. The area is accessible only by floatplane, snowmobile or four-wheeler.
Dave Dunivan, the assessor for the Matanuska-Susitna Borough, said such a survey had not been done in five years, before construction started on the cabins.

Palin's attorney, Thomas Van Flein, said it is not the responsibility of property owners to report structures that go up on their land.

"It is the borough's job," he said in an e-mail. "The property taxes on this parcel are fully paid and have never been delinquent."

Dunivan, however, said owners are required by state law to report any omissions or errors in their tax assessments. Often, the borough learns of new structures in remote areas when neighbors report them. Dunivan said no one has called the borough on the Palin lots, among many in the region to add structures, the flyover survey found.

"Typically, if there are errors, we hear from owners," he said. "If there are omissions, we don't. Every once in a while we do have someone call us about omissions, but not often."

The properties are located along Safari Lake — an undeveloped area located near Denali State Park — and owned by Palin, her husband Todd and a family friend, Scott Richter. According to borough records, the tax assessments are sent to Richter's post office box in Big Lake.
There is no phone listing in Alaska for Richter and he could not be reached Thursday.
The matter first appeared Wednesday on an Alaska political blog site, Mudflats, which has been critical of Palin, the 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate.
Palin resigned as governor last summer and has since written a best-selling memoir. She signed on as a Fox News commentator last month.
Dunivan said a photo of a large cabin posted on the site — and later reported on the Huffington Post Web site — is one of the structures spotted in the flyover.
"This is another blatant attempt to manufacture a story about the Palins following more defamatory swipes," Palin's spokeswoman Meghan Stapleton said in an e-mail to The Associated Press.
Van Flein said work is still being done on the cabins, but both are usable. He said construction began on one of the cabins in 2006, but he didn't know when construction started on the second one.
The two parcels of land, separated by one lot, total 25 acres and had a combined value of $30,000 in 2007 through 2009, according to assessment records. Dunivan said the data collected in Thursday's survey will be calculated into 2010 assessment notices being mailed out at the end of the month.
It's too soon to estimate how much the structures will increase the taxes due, Dunivan said.
The cabins are the size of large homes rather than the average backcountry cabin, but square footage estimates were not immediately available.
Local real estate broker, Claus Steigler, said most cabins in the area are closer to the 500-square-foot range. Because they are in a hard to reach area, they generally sell for only $40,000 to $60,000, including the land.
One large log cabin reachable by road is listed at $229,000, but it's still on the market after two years, Steigler said.

Palin cabins not noted in tax assessments

Cabins on Palin properties not noted in borough tax assessments

RACHEL D'ORO
AP News

Feb 04, 2010 22:14 EST

Records show that Sarah Palin hasn't paid any property taxes on cabins that have been built on two backcountry plots partially owned by the former Alaska governor.

It's unclear how long ago the structures were built, but records show that there are no tax assessments for the workshop, sauna and house-sized cabins spotted Thursday in an aerial survey.
Property taxes totaling $156.13 were paid on the land in 2009 — but that bill did not include anything for the structures because the local assessor didn't know about the new construction nearly 100 miles north of Anchorage.
The issue has attracted the attention of local tax officials who conducted a scheduled aerial survey of the properties on Thursday. The area is accessible only by floatplane, snowmobile or four-wheeler.
Dave Dunivan, the assessor for the Matanuska-Susitna Borough, said such a survey had not been done in five years, before construction started on the cabins.
Palin's attorney, Thomas Van Flein, said it is not the responsibility of property owners to report structures that go up on their land.
"It is the borough's job," he said in an e-mail. "The property taxes on this parcel are fully paid and have never been delinquent."
Dunivan, however, said owners are required by state law to report any omissions or errors in their tax assessments. Often, the borough learns of new structures in remote areas when neighbors report them. Dunivan said no one has called the borough on the Palin lots, among many in the region to add structures, the flyover survey found.
"Typically, if there are errors, we hear from owners," he said. "If there are omissions, we don't. Every once in a while we do have someone call us about omissions, but not often."
The properties are located along Safari Lake — an undeveloped area located near Denali State Park — and owned by Palin, her husband Todd and a family friend, Scott Richter. According to borough records, the tax assessments are sent to Richter's post office box in Big Lake.
There is no phone listing in Alaska for Richter and he could not be reached Thursday.
The matter first appeared Wednesday on an Alaska political blog site, Mudflats, which has been critical of Palin, the 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate.
Palin resigned as governor last summer and has since written a best-selling memoir. She signed on as a Fox News commentator last month.
Dunivan said a photo of a large cabin posted on the site — and later reported on the Huffington Post Web site — is one of the structures spotted in the flyover.
"This is another blatant attempt to manufacture a story about the Palins following more defamatory swipes," Palin's spokeswoman Meghan Stapleton said in an e-mail to The Associated Press.
Van Flein said work is still being done on the cabins, but both are usable. He said construction began on one of the cabins in 2006, but he didn't know when construction started on the second one.
The two parcels of land, separated by one lot, total 25 acres and had a combined value of $30,000 in 2007 through 2009, according to assessment records. Dunivan said the data collected in Thursday's survey will be calculated into 2010 assessment notices being mailed out at the end of the month.
It's too soon to estimate how much the structures will increase the taxes due, Dunivan said.
The cabins are the size of large homes rather than the average backcountry cabin, but square footage estimates were not immediately available.
Local real estate broker, Claus Steigler, said most cabins in the area are closer to the 500-square-foot range. Because they are in a hard to reach area, they generally sell for only $40,000 to $60,000, including the land.
One large log cabin reachable by road is listed at $229,000, but it's still on the market after two years, Steigler said.

Hockey Mom for Obama

2008-11-11T09:29:00.000-08:00

Spendthrift Sarah

2008-10-26T17:55:00.001-07:00

http://news.bostonherald.com/news/politics/2008/view/2008_10_26_Sarah_Palin_spends__50G_on_remodel_jobs/srvc=home&position=also

Sarah Palin spends $50G on remodel jobs

By Laura Crimaldi
Sunday, October 26, 2008
http://www.bostonherald.com
2008 Campaign

GOP vice presidential hopeful Sarah Palin spent more than $51,000 in taxpayer funds to remodel the governor’s Anchorage office suite and spruce up her mansion and office in Juneau, a Herald review of expense records shows.

Palin spent most of the funds, $45,137, in April to build and furnish three offices inside her suite at the Robert B. Atwood Building in Anchorage, records show.

In June 2007, Palin spent $5,380 for labor and materials on a 72-inch wooden display case in her Juneau office. The case houses a football and basketball signed by players from championship high school teams, native artwork, a Klondike Trail mug and other items, said gubernatorial spokesman William D. McAllister.

Another $1,205 was spent in February 2007 on blinds for an arched window and stairwell at the governor’s mansion in Juneau.

The McCain-Palin campaign said it would characterize the remodeling expenses as “routine.”

“Gov. Palin has a long record of cutting wasteful spending, using her veto pen to eliminate nearly a half-billion dollars from the budget,” said Jeff Grappone, New England communications director. “She sold the state’s luxury jet, scrapped the governor’s personal chef and got rid of the personal driver.” ( She kept the chef and the personal driver. She vetoed such things as funds that help unwed mothers to independence. -ed.)

On the campaign trail, Palin has touted that record.

“I came to office promising to control spending by request if possible and by veto if necessary,” she said in her convention address.

The money spent for remodeling has not been previously publicized. Alaska government watchdogs said it did not change their opinion of the governor, who is well-regarded in a state infamous for its profligate pols.

“The lady’s literally done a good job up here,” said Donna Gilbert, president of the Interior Taxpayers’ Association in Fairbanks, who noted a mayor in Fairbanks once spent $50,000 on a bathroom.

However, state Sen. President Lyda Green - a Republican who has clashed with Palin over policy - said the cost to remodel the Anchorage offices was “extravagant.”

“As far as I am concerned, that’s excessive to spend that much on four cubby holes,” Green said.

The work on the Anchorage site created new offices for Kelly Goode, Palin’s legislative director, and Roseanne Hughes, director of external communications, McAllister said. The third office is reserved for “traveling staff,” who divide their time between Anchorage and Juneau, which are located 571 miles apart, McAllister said.

A Palin staffer said the Juneau mansion’s new blinds were installed to provide privacy.

“The residence manager determined that the blinds were necessary to prevent observation from the street of the family members,” administrative director Linda J. Perez said in an e-mail.

Mike McBride, past president of the Alaska Voters Organization, did not take issue with the expenses. “It’s not a tremendous amount of money. Things in Alaska cost substantially more than they do in other parts of the country,” McBride said. “It’s not an unreasonable number.”

Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/politics/2008/view.bg?articleid=1127815

McCain campaign says Palin is a diva

2008-10-26T17:51:00.000-07:00

http://www.ptinews.com/pti%5Cptisite.nsf/0/8FA457D4F9DE5612652574EE002519B8?OpenDocument

New York, Oct 26 (PTI) With US Presidential elections barely 9 days away, long brewing tensions between key advisers of Republican presidential candidate John McCain and his running mate Sarah Palin have escalated so much that they have spilled out in public.

With McCain trailing behind his Democrat opponent Obama in the polls as per the recent surveys, recrimations have started between his key advisers and Palin. The Cable News Network (CNN) here quoted at least one adviser suggesting that Palin has gone 'rogue.' Another McCain source claimed that she appears to be looking out for herself more than the campaign, according to the CNN, playing for her own future and sees herself as the next leader of the party.

"She's no longer playing for 2008; she's playing 2012," Democratic pollster Peter Hart said. "And the difficulty is, when she went on 'Saturday Night Live,' (a satirical TV show) she became a reinforcement of her caricature.... And at the end of the day, voters turned against her both in terms of qualifications and personally." Several McCain advisers were quoted by the CNN as saying they are becoming increasingly frustrated, but an associate of Palin told the network that she is simply trying to "bust free" of what she believes was a damaging and mismanaged roll out.

Pointing towards the Alaska Governor's recent spate of disregarding the orders from the advisers, a McCain source cited an instance in which she labelled robocalls -- recorded messages often used to attack a candidate's opponent -- "irritating" even as the campaign defended their use.

Also, they pointed to her telling reporters she disagreed with the campaign's decision to pull out of Michigan.

"She is a diva. She takes no advice from anyone," said a McCain adviser. PTI

Anchorage Daily News: Obama for President

2008-10-26T12:01:00.000-07:00

http://www.adn.com/opinion/view/story/567867.html

Obama for president

Palin's rise captivates us but nation needs a steady hand
(10/25/08 19:37:58)

Alaska enters its 50th-anniversary year in the glow of an improbable and highly memorable event: the nomination of Gov. Sarah Palin as the Republican vice presidential candidate. For the first time ever, an Alaskan is making a serious bid for national office, and in doing so she brings broad attention and recognition not only to herself, but also to the state she leads.

Alaska's founders were optimistic people, but even the most farsighted might have been stretched to imagine this scenario. No matter the outcome in November, this election will mark a signal moment in the history of the 49th state. Many Alaskans are proud to see their governor, and their state, so prominent on the national stage.

Gov. Palin's nomination clearly alters the landscape for Alaskans as we survey this race for the presidency -- but it does not overwhelm all other judgment. The election, after all is said and done, is not about Sarah Palin, and our sober view is that her running mate, Sen. John McCain, is the wrong choice for president at this critical time for our nation.

Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic nominee, brings far more promise to the office. In a time of grave economic crisis, he displays thoughtful analysis, enlists wise counsel and operates with a cool, steady hand. The same cannot be said of Sen. McCain.

Since his early acknowledgement that economic policy is not his strong suit, Sen. McCain has stumbled and fumbled badly in dealing with the accelerating crisis as it emerged. He declared that "the fundamentals of our economy are strong" at 9 a.m. one day and by 11 a.m. was describing an economy in crisis. He is both a longtime advocate of less market regulation and a supporter of the huge taxpayer-funded Wall Street bailout. His behavior in this crisis -- erratic is a kind description -- shows him to be ill-equipped to lead the essential effort of reining in a runaway financial system and setting an anxious nation on course to economic recovery.

Sen. Obama warned regulators and the nation 19 months ago that the subprime lending crisis was a disaster in the making. Sen. McCain backed tighter rules for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, but didn't do much to advance that legislation. Of the two candidates, Sen. Obama better understands the mortgage meltdown's root causes and has the judgment and intelligence to shape a solution, as well as the leadership to rally the country behind it. It is easy to look at Sen. Obama and see a return to the smart, bipartisan economic policies of the last Democratic administration in Washington, which left the country with the momentum of growth and a budget surplus that President George Bush has squandered.
On the most important issue of the day, Sen. Obama is a clear choice.

Sen. McCain describes himself as a maverick, by which he seems to mean that he spent 25 years trying unsuccessfully to persuade his own party to follow his bipartisan, centrist lead. Sadly, maverick John McCain didn't show up for the campaign. Instead we have candidate McCain, who embraces the extreme Republican orthodoxy he once resisted and cynically asks Americans to buy for another four years.

It is Sen. Obama who truly promises fundamental change in Washington. You need look no further than the guilt-by-association lies and sound-bite distortions of the degenerating McCain campaign to see how readily he embraces the divisive, fear-mongering tactics of Karl Rove. And while Sen. McCain points to the fragile success of the troop surge in stabilizing conditions in Iraq, it is also plain that he was fundamentally wrong about the more crucial early decisions. Contrary to his assurances, we were not greeted as liberators; it was not a short, easy war; and Americans -- not Iraqi oil -- have had to pay for it. It was Sen. Obama who more clearly saw the danger ahead.

The unqualified endorsement of Sen. Obama by a seasoned, respected soldier and diplomat like Gen. Colin Powell, a Republican icon, should reassure all Americans that the Democratic candidate will pass muster as commander in chief.

On a matter of parochial interest, Sen. Obama opposes the opening of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, but so does Sen. McCain. We think both are wrong, and hope a President Obama can be convinced to support environmentally responsible development of that resource.

Gov. Palin has shown the country why she has been so successful in her young political career. Passionate, charismatic and indefatigable, she draws huge crowds and sows excitement in her wake. She has made it clear she's a force to be reckoned with, and you can be sure politicians and political professionals across the country have taken note. Her future, in Alaska and on the national stage, seems certain to be played out in the limelight.

Yet despite her formidable gifts, few who have worked closely with the governor would argue she is truly ready to assume command of the most important, powerful nation on earth. To step in and juggle the demands of an economic meltdown, two deadly wars and a deteriorating climate crisis would stretch the governor beyond her range. Like picking Sen. McCain for president, putting her one 72-year-old heartbeat from the leadership of the free world is just too risky at this time.

Copyright © Sun Oct 26 12:02:29 PDT 20081900 The Anchorage Daily News (www.adn.com)

Charles Manson-Obama linked at Republican rally

2008-10-19T14:28:00.000-07:00

Setting:

Duluth Sportsmen for Coleman political rally

Cast of characters:

Norm Coleman, U.S. Senator from Minnesota

Todd Palin, husband of Sarah Palin, Republican candidate for Vice President

Props:

Hand-lettered sign reading "Charles Manson Was a Community Organizer"

I thought at first that the First Dude was holding this sign. But it was a member of the audience.

You say, well it wasn't Todd. I say I am sorry for making that mistake.

However, entry to Republican events is TIGHTLY CONTROLLED to a degree that surprises most people. That sign could not have made it to the front of the rally unless those in power wanted it there.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Of course, John McCain shouldn't be held responsible for the outrageous behavior of his supporters-- hey, wait a minute...

Palin's fans speak

2008-10-19T04:08:00.000-07:00

Having been around since the first SNL broadcast. Just like some old rock bands cannot capture the mood of the old days, SNL writers just don't get that more than 50% of their stuff does not cut it. I would have hoped Sarah Palin would not of waist her time on the show. Take all the liberal shows and biased comedy hours and you realize - black and white, cats and dogs, men and women, mars and venous. Likw night and day - polorized !! There is an extreme lack of communication between liberals and us conservatives that I wish could improve. Maybe McCain should have said, when I am president I will have you on my cabinet, just like Hilary said Obama could be her VP. Now that would prove McCain is the better moderate. That would shake it up and probably be what you needed to change the voting polls. Something other than attack attack attack for someone who is such a moderate. What ever happened to revers psychology.

McCain is the little tug that could.

****
to rick4484: spoken like a true elitist. Don't choke on your latte. The truth about Obama may just burn your mouth. Obama's true social agenda has its roots in eugenics. Sounds like you're in that mix. If the Republicans win the election it will be the will of the majority of the people. Obama wants a redistribution of wealth. That IS socialism. Most Americans don't want that. What is the failed experiment, democracy or capitalism? My identity as an American does not rest on who is in the White House or what other countries think about us. If, heaven forbid, Obama wins we will all be no less Americans at least initially but we may become a French colony.

****

Obama's made a fool out of himself more than a few times also, but I'll just link to the YouTube vid in the interest of time.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ap2Cg_FDRy4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5R6kVry4_c

Frankly, I love liberals who say what Bill Ayers did in the 60s doesn't matter because BO was only eight years old...LOL If Palin had her political coming out party in the home of a radical right winger who had bombed abortion clinics when she was a little girl the liberals at CNN, ABC, CBS, and NBC wouldn't shut up about it.

I can't wait till you libs count the votes and see that the Acorn's fraud didn't overcome the Bradley effect and the chosen one and the human gaffe machine have failed. Next time, vote for Hillary Clinton, at least she'd have a real shot.

http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSTRE49G6ZE20081019?pageNumber=2&virtualBrandChannel=10112&sp=true

****

I think I get the whole Sarah Palin fan base now. None of them can finish sentences, and neither can Sarah.

Among Rock-Ribbed Fans of Palin, Dudes Rule

2008-10-19T03:32:00.000-07:00

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/19/us/politics/19palin.html?th&emc=th

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

October 19, 2008
Among Rock-Ribbed Fans of Palin, Dudes Rule
By MARK LEIBOVICH
BANGOR, Me. — It is not unusual for fans of Sarah Palin to shout out to the Alaska governor in the midst of her stump speeches. It is noteworthy, however, that the crowds are heavily male.

“You rock me out, Sarah,” yelled one man, wearing a red-checked hunting jacket as Ms. Palin, the Republican vice presidential candidate, strode into an airplane hangar here on Thursday. He held a homemade “Dudes for Sarah” sign and wore a National Rifle Association hat. Kenny Loggins’s “Danger Zone” blared over the loudspeakers, and the man even danced a little — yes, a guy in an N.R.A. hat dancing in a hangar, kind of a Sarah Palin rally thing.

“I feel like I’m at home,” Ms. Palin said, looking out at a boisterous crowd of about 6,000. “I see the Carhartts and the steel-toed boots,” she said, the first reference being to a clothing brand favored by construction workers and the burly types who make up much of the “Sarah Dude” population. “You guys are great,” she said while signing autographs.

Guys think Ms. Palin is great, too, or at least many of those who come to hear her. They sometimes go to extraordinary lengths. “I woke up at 2 a.m. so I could get my work done before 6 and get here by 7,” said Mike Spencer, a chef from Dexter, Me. Mr. Spencer waited in the chilly hangar — in a “Nobama” T-shirt — for almost three hours.

At the height of Palinmania, soon after she made her national debut in September, Ms. Palin’s popularity among men was striking. Her favorability ratings were higher among men than women (44 percent to 36 percent), according to a New York Times poll, even though she was chosen in part because of her expected appeal to women. Since then, Ms. Palin has endured a tough month politically, and her favorability ratings have dropped among both sexes, but more so among men (down 13 points, to 31 percent in the latest Times poll.)

She has been widely attacked, even by a growing number of conservatives, as being essentially unserious and uncurious. “She doesn’t think aloud. She just ...says things,” the Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan wrote Friday. “She does not speak seriously but attempts to excite sensation.”

All the while, Ms. Palin’s stoutest defenders are often the Joe Sixpacks in her crowds, who shrug off her critics, ridiculers and perceived adversaries in the news media. They say they appreciate Ms. Palin for, above all else, how “real” and “like us” she is.

“Katie Couric and Tina Fey are going to do their thing, but it doesn’t bother me at all,” said Rob McLain, an insurance agent from Avon, Ind., who attended a packed Palin rally at an amphitheatre in Indiana on Friday night. Mr. McLain wore a “Proud to be voting for a hot chick” button and was joined by his wife, Shannan (“Read my lipstick” button on lapel), and his 6-week-old son, Jaxon (“Nobama” button on beanie).

“The criticism is part of the process,” Mr. McLain said, adding of Ms. Palin, “Who can’t trust a mother?”

The testosterone flows at many of her events. Head-banging guitar chords greet her: she entered a fund-raiser in North Carolina on Thursday to the decidedly un-dainty chords of AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck.” “That was kinda cool,” she marveled from the stage. Everyone laughed. The event raised $800,000.

While there are plenty of women, including wives and daughters of male fans, at Ms. Palin’s appearances, they acknowledge they are outnumbered. “This is not a ladies campaign,” declared Linda Teegan at a rally in Weirs Beach, N.H., on Wednesday. She was taking a crowd snapshot. “There seem to be lots and lots of guys here,” she said. “I’d guess 70-30, maybe 65-35, men to women. It’s quite noticeable to me.”

The dudes tend to make themselves noticed. “You tell ’em baby,” a man yelled out at a rally Wednesday night on a high school football field in Salem, N.H.

And Ms. Palin tells ’em, peppering her rallies with references to guy-themed stuff — hunting, fishing, hockey. She introduced her husband, Todd, as Alaska’s First Dude.

“He is a guy who knows how to work with his hands,” she said to loud applause.

Her recent events drew scruffy high-schoolers in backward baseball caps, tank-topped bikers in bandanas and long-bearded veterans in berets. They crashed the rope line for photos and autographs. “Marry me, Sarah,” a man implored in Weirs Beach, N.H., while Ms. Palin held up a tow-headed toddler and patted his little chest. She ignored, or didn’t hear, the proposal, but signed the dude’s ratty baseball cap.

Yes, some men come to ogle the candidate, too. “She’s beautiful,” said a man wearing a John Deere T-shirt in Weirs Beach. “I came here to look at her,” he said, and his admiration for Ms. Palin’s appearance became more and more animated. Sheepish over his ogling, he declined to give his real name (“Just call me ‘John Deere’ ”).

But some male fans do seem to feel a deeper connection to Ms. Palin. To a surprising degree, they mention the unusual nature of her candidacy, the chance to make history, break the glass ceiling.

“They bear us children, they risk their lives to give us birth, so maybe it’s time we let a woman lead us,” said Larry Hawkins, a former truck driver attending a rally late Thursday at Elon University in North Carolina. Mr. Hawkins said he would rather vote for Ms. Palin than for “McCain and Obama combined.”

Men have done plenty to mess up the country, he said. “The sexual drives and big egos of male leaders have gotten in the way of politics in this country.” Mr. Hawkins said he talked to fellow truckers, and a lot of them feel the same way. “They think it’s time for a woman, too,” he said. “This one. Palin is our kind of woman.”

There is a kind of “conservative feminism” here, and several men cite the appeal of Ms. Palin as a can-do caretaker. She can be glimpsed lugging an overstuffed bag of books, papers and baby supplies onto her plane and bottle feeding her infant son, Trig.

“I love the idea of someone like her being allowed into the White House,” said Matt Cude, who drove three-hours to Weirs Beach from Jericho, Vt. It would be “absolutely fantastic,” he said, both for women and for the country.

Mr. Cude brought along his teenage daughter, Kate, who was holding a copy of National Review, with Ms. Palin on the cover. Kate made her way to the front of a rope line and asked Ms. Palin to sign it. Ms. Palin did so, signing her name in large letters across the headline, which said, “The One.”

Massive Palin Scandal Brewing

2008-10-18T14:19:00.000-07:00

Whoa! It's the Alaska right-wing criminal conspiracy! How cute. They are all in bed together.

Not that Democrats are immune from charges of helpin' out their buddies...it's just not INSTITUTIONALIZED as it is for the Republicans.

http://plaidlemur.wordpress.com/2008/10/13/massive-palin-scandal-brewing/

Monegan's Fears for Job

2008-10-12T13:24:00.000-07:00

Page 22

Mr. Monegan testified about his thoughts on the drive back to his
office following his meeting with Mr. Palin:
MR. MONEGAN: Well, on the drive back, as I was reflecting on the meeting -- drive back to the office, I was thinking that in essence, they certainly didn't like the idea that Wooten was still employed. And they wanted severe discipline, probably termination, and that -- and if this was going to build, I had this kind of ominous feeling that I may not be long for this job if I -- if I didn't somehow respond accordingly.
MR. BRANCHFLOWER: So your career you thought might be in jeopardy unless you took some decisive action that might result in Trooper Wooten's dismissal from the force; is that your testimony? MR. MONEGAN: Yes. And -- but the flip side of it, I also got to augment with that that having been a police officer, I certainly believe in rules and regulations and laws and whatnot. And there is a certain part that you will not step over. So I was -- I felt that if there is a term where you start to feel pressure, you are between laws and selfpreservation, so to speak."

Monegan's First Meeting with "The First Gentleman"

2008-10-12T13:17:00.000-07:00

Page 18

MR. BRANCHFLOWER: What were they pictures of?
MR. MONEGAN: What I recall, one looked like a moose and -- that had been shot. There may have been others, but I just glanced through them while I'm, again, trying to pay attention to Todd talking to me about Trooper Wooten.
MR. BRANCHFLOWER: Well, what -- what did he tell you about Trooper Wooten? MR. MONEGAN: Well, he told me that this particular trooper had -- had gone through a divorce with Molly, which is one of the sisters of the governor, and that it was -- this particular individual wasn't and shouldn't have been a trooper, that he didn't model himself well as a trooper, that they had filed complaints. They had worked with Colonel Grimes, and actually went to her office and talked to them about Trooper Wooten. And the allegations included the taking of a moose illegally, tasering an 11-year-old stepson of Wooten's, drinking while driving in the patrol car, having a beer while he was driving his patrol car. And there may have been a couple of others, but the details on that, I don't recall.
MR. BRANCHFLOWER: And did he say that he and the governor
had met with the folks who handled that matter in the prior
administration?
MR. MONEGAN: I believe he kept using the term "we." We went to
go talk to, we, we. And so I assumed it was he and Sarah, of course.

The First Gentleman

2008-10-12T13:14:00.000-07:00

Pages 14 & 15

MS. BYRNE: Sure. I believe it was either Janice Mason or Sunny Cayce
that called and said that the First Gentleman would like to have a meeting
with Commissioner Walt Monegan. At that time I was not familiar with the
Branchflower Report to the Legislative Council
Page 15 of 263
October 10,2008
Vol. One - Public Report
term "First Gentleman" or didn't hear her correctly, so I kept asking her
"who?" and she eventually said "Todd Palin". I said, "Oh, okay" so we set
the time and the place, which was the Governor's Office in Anchorage, and
that was how the appointment was set was that phone call.

Palin Praises Monegan

2008-10-12T13:12:00.000-07:00

Pages 13 and 14

In her November 28, 2006 press release, Governor-elect Palin praised Monegan and said:
Walt Monegan is a familiar name to many in South central and rural Alaska. Monegan recently retired after 32 years in law enforcement with the Anchorage Police Department - the last five as the Chief of Police. Monegan oversaw a staff of 574 employees and an $80 million budget. Starting as a patrol officer and rising steadily through the ranks, Monegan has experience in every facet of public safety, including internal affairs, crime prevention, communications, emergency operations, training, antigang efforts, school/youth liaison and Crime stoppers. Monegan is credited
Monegan transcript page 8, line 23.
Monegan transcript, page 10, line 22.

Branchflower Report to the Legislative Council
Page 14 of 263
October 10,2008
Vol. One - Public Report
with enhancing police effectiveness by installing mobile computers in police vehicles; implementing advanced 91 1 service to Alaska's largest municipal population; writing plans to address gang and youth violence; supporting the establishment of professional standards for village public safety officers; establishing a Citizens Police Academy and resurrecting police traffic units to address drunken driving. Monegan has a bachelor's degree in Organizational Administration from Alaska Pacific University and an Associate's degree from the University of Alaska, Anchorage. His advanced professional education includes senior government executive training at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government, the FBI's National Executive Institute and the National Crime Prevention Institute. He and his wife, Terry, have four adult children and one grandchild. Monegan lives in Anchorage. "Chief Monegan will bring to the Department of Public Safety the perspective of a career professional peace officer and administrator with a proven record of using resources effectively to address the changing public safety needs of Alaskans," said Palin. "As an Alaska Native from the Lower Kuskokwim village of Nyac, he understands the special public safety on a statewide basis. We are fortunate to have such an experienced and well-rounded police professional heading the Department of Public Safety.

Sarah Palin refused to cooperate

2008-10-12T12:57:00.000-07:00

Page 8

Out of deference to her position, no subpoena was issued for Governor Sarah
Palin. However, she was requested to cooperate with the investigation by providing a sworn statement. She has not done so. Governor Palin's sister Molly McCann was requested by me to give a deposition; she declined through her attorney.

John McCain's Rage is a National Security Concern

2008-10-12T10:31:00.000-07:00

From Robert Greenwald, Brave New Films. Colleagues, military, private citizens describe McCain's volatile temper and instability.

Demand access to McCain's psychiatric records!

McCain's You Tube Problem: over 6 million views!
McCain contradicting himself, evading when confronted with evidence.

McCain responds, "I know challenges of space even though I wasn't an astronaut." when asked about his healthcare coverage.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHcPXfgD4jM&NR=1

Sarah Palin Issues Report, Clears Self

2008-10-12T09:13:00.000-07:00

This article appeared on Yahoo News on Friday, October 10. The content of the link has since changed, but fortunately I captured it before the change. Yahoo often changes content on its links. That's not a good idea. Memory hole, anyone?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081010/ap_on_el_ pr/palin_troopergate

"But Todd Palin said he never pressured anyone, including his wife."

By MATT APUZZO, Associated Press Writer

1 minute ago

ANCHORAGE, Alaska - Trying to head off a potentially embarrassing state ethics report on GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, campaign officials released their own report Thursday that clears her of any wrongdoing. Sen. John McCain's running mate is the subject of a legislative investigation into whether she abused her power as governor by firing her public safety commissioner. The commissioner, Walter Monegan, says he was dismissed in July for resisting pressure from Palin's husband, Todd Palin, and numerous top aides to fire state trooper Mike Wooten, Palin's former brother-in-law.

Lawmakers are expected to release their own findings Friday. Campaign officials have yet to see that report — the result of an investigation that began before she was tapped as McCain's running mate — but said the investigation has falsely portrayed a legitimate policy dispute between a governor and her commissioner as something inappropriate."The following document will prove Walt Monegan's dismissal was a result of his insubordination and budgetary clashes with Governor Palin and her administration, " campaign officials wrote. "Trooper Wooten is a separate issue."Monegan said Thursday that he doesn't know what to expect from the legislative panel's own report."I just hope that the truth is figured out," Monegan told The Associated Press on Thursday. "That the governor did want me to fire him, and I chose to not. You just can't walk up to someone and say, 'I fire you.' He didn't do anything under my watch to result in termination. "

Palin's critics say that shows she used her office to settle family affairs. "When you're the governor, you leave your household hat at home and you become governor," said state Senate President Lyda Green, a Republican who has frequently clashed with Palin.McCain spokesman Taylor Griffin, who distributed the campaign's report, said it was written by the McCain-Palin campaign staff and based on public filings and Todd Palin's affidavit. The report blames former campaign opponent, Andrew Halcro, who has a blog, of conspiring with Wooten to pin Monegan's dismissal on the family's dispute with Wooten. Three days after Monegan was fired, they say, Wooten told his ex-wife, Palin's sister, that: "You guys are going down. Get ready for the show."

Two days after that confrontation, they say, Halcro and Wooten met at a hotel bar in Anchorage for more than three hours — and that evening, Halcro posted the first accusations on his blog that Monegan had been fired because of a vendetta against Wooten by the Palin family. "It is tragic that a false story hatched by a blogger after drinks with Trooper Wooten led the legislature to allocate over $100,000 of public money to be spent in what has become a politically driven investigation, " the 21-page report concludes.

Although the report describes Wooten as a separate issue, the McCain campaign goes into great detail about the "rogue" trooper and his "long history of unstable and erratic behavior." The campaign describes allegations of violence, including threatening Palin's family and shooting his stepson with a stun gun. The report also includes allegations that Wooten cheated the workers' compensation system. Todd Palin has said he had numerous conversations with government officials about why Wooten was allowed to stay on the job. "The Palins make no apologies for wanting to protect their family and wanting to bring attention to the injustice of a violent trooper keeping his badge and abusing the workers' compensation system."

But Todd Palin said he never pressured anyone, including his wife. The McCain campaign says the investigation has become "muddied with innuendo, rumor and partisan politics."

I have more Foreign Policy Experience Than Sarah Palin

2008-10-12T08:51:00.000-07:00

http://www.laprogressive.com/2008/10/11/good-grief-i-have-more-foreign-policy-experience-than-sarah-palin/ Go here to read the entire article from The Progressive Curmudgeon

Sarah Palin’s “Foreign Policy” Experience: 12 Hours Over 19 Months

Jan 19, 2007 – Palin meets with Fentie for 30 minutes, with Lloyd for 30 minutes, and with Bell for 30 minutes. She does not attend the PNWER dinner hosted that night by the Canadian government for Alaskan officials and business leaders.

Feb 24, 2007 – In Washington, DC, for a National Governors Assn. meeting, Palin attends a reception at the Italian embassy. She stays for 30 minutes before leaving for a dinner hosted by the Republican Governors Assn.

Mar 10, 2007 – Palin hosts the annual Fur & Ice reception in Fairbanks for about 30 diplomats and international tourism representatives. A Palin news release issued before the event noted, “Governor Sarah Palin will welcome members of Alaska’s diplomatic corps to Fairbanks to view the ice carvings of Ice Alaska’s 2007 World Ice Art Championship.” Following the afternoon reception, Palin attends the NCAA rifle championships.

Mar 19, 2007 – Palin meets with 10 foreign exchange students.

April, 3, 2007 – Palin spends 15 minutes filming a short video message for a trade show in China.

April 4, 2007 – In Juneau, Palin meets with British Columbia’s premier Gordon Campbell and several of his aides for about 90 minutes.

April 16, 2007 – Palin meets with Taiwanese officials for an hour.

May 15, 2007 – Palin holds a “brief courtesy” meeting with Martin Uden, then the head of the British consulate in San Francisco. The calendar notes, “He’ll be visiting Juneau today off of one of the Cruise Ships.”

July 23-26, 2007 – Palin visits Kuwait to meet with members of the Alaska National Guard. (After Palin was selected as McCain’s running mate, her aides, referring to this trip, said she travelled to Ireland, Germany, Kuwait and Iraq. But on this visit, she did not go beyond the Kuwaiti-Iraq border and her “visit” to Ireland consisted of a refuelling stop.)

Aug 27, 2007 – David Akov, Israeli consul general for the Pacific Northwest, pays a 30-minute “courtesy call” on Palin.

Sept 12, 2007 – Palin holds a 15-minute-long “courtesy” meeting with Hideo Fujita, the new chief of Japan’s consulate in Anchorage.

Sept 13, 2007 – Palin holds a 15-minute long “courtesy” meeting with Peng Keyu, the head of the Chinese consulate in San Francisco.

Oct 15, 2007 – Palin meets Iceland’s president, Olafur Ragnar Grimsson, for 30 minutes. Grimsson is in Alaska to attend the Arctic Energy Summit Technology Conference. (After she became McCain’s running mate, she was asked if she had ever met with a world leader. She said, no — forgetting this meeting.)

Jan 4, 2008 – Palin holds a 10-minute-long phone conversation with Canadian Minister of Industry Jim Prentice. Her calendar also refers to “Canadian officials phone calls” that day.

Jan 21, 2008 – Palin is schedule for a brief “stop by” visit with Joe Balash, a Palin aide, and Brian Mason, a member of the legislative assembly of Alberta, Canada. The calendar says, “Balash Office would like a picture w/GOV.”

March 8, 2008 – Palin welcomes guests to the 2008 Fur & Ice reception for the diplomatic corps. Diplomats from the Philippines, South Korea, the Slovak Republic, South Africa, Hungary, Indonesia, Italy, Poland, Finland, Germany, and Egypt attend. Her calendar lists no separate meetings with any of them.

May 22, 2008 – At 7:15 am, Palin calls Yukon Premier Dennis Fentie; for ten minutes they discuss news that her administration will ask the state legislature to award a license for a 1,715-mile-long natural gas pipeline to TransCanada. (Her administration has turned down bids from other conglomerates, including ConocoPhillips.) Later, she has a five-minute-long phone call with Canadian Minister of Industry Jim Prentice.

Aug 11-12, 2008 – Palin attends a reception and delivers welcoming remarks for the 8th Conference of Arctic Parliamentarians which includes delegates from Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden, and the United States. This year, it holds panels on human health in the Arctic region, Arctic marine policy, adaptation to climate change, and energy resources in the Arctic. After welcoming the delegates, Palin leaves to attend a “dedication and blessing ceremony” for a cultural and visitors center in Fairbanks.

No Magic From the GOP Version of Penn and Teller

2008-10-11T02:29:00.000-07:00

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/10/AR2008101002555_pf.html

By Dana Milbank
Saturday, October 11, 2008; A03

"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."

-- Franklin D. Roosevelt, March 4, 1933

"We'll get through this deal."

-- George W. Bush, Oct. 9, 2008

President Bush peeked out the window of the Oval Office yesterday morning at the crowd awaiting him in the Rose Garden, then went back to pacing. He had little reason to be enthusiastic about the task at hand.

It was the 20th time in recent days that he had tried to calm the markets, according to a CBS News tally. The previous 19 times, the market ignored him and continued its downward plunge. And this time would be no different.

A few minutes before he walked into the Rose Garden to say that "the American people can be confident in our economic future," the Dow Jones industrials were trading as high as 8530. A few minutes after his speech, the index was at 8224.

His chore of reassuring the markets thus completed, Bush turned to more pleasant tasks. He hopped on Air Force One and flew down to Florida for the first of the day's two fundraisers. He had some urgent work to do on the Republican Party's liquidity crisis.

The country desperately needs strong leadership now, but there's none to be found at the White House. The president is voicing the right sentiments, even if his words (Thursday's "we'll get through this deal") are characteristically clumsy. He's even affecting the right demeanor, between concern and confidence. But nobody seems to care.

Maybe it's his approval rating, now trading at pennies on the dollar. Maybe it's because his credibility was shot by his administration's previous claims about Saddam's nukes and yellowcake and cakewalks and being greeted as liberators and mission accomplished. Either way, White House press secretary Dana Perino had some difficulty explaining the president's role as she briefed reporters aboard Air Force One on the way to Florida.

"What's the communications strategy for the president on this crisis?" asked the Associated Press's Deb Riechmann. "I mean, we've heard from him almost every single day since the bailout was announced, yet every time he talks, the Dow goes down."

"That's not true, Deb," Perino replied, but she allowed that "the Dow has gone down every day for several days in a row."

"So you think it helps if he is talking about it all the time?"

"If he wasn't talking all the time, I can guarantee you the questions from the media would be to me, 'Why is the president not talking?' " the piqued Perino parried, adding that "it is important" that Americans "know that the leader of the free world has his full attention focused on helping solve this problem."

Except, of course, when he's raising $2 million for the GOP at the home of a Miami developer and on an island resort off South Carolina.

Even John McCain's presidential campaign manager was moved to remark on Bush's ineffectuality.

"There's very little a candidate for president -- and, after watching today, very little a president -- can say about what's happening in the stock market," Rick Davis told reporters after the president's Rose Garden statement, as a way to explain McCain's silence on the market plunge.

But maybe Bush isn't getting enough credit for his performance in the economic crisis. For years, his critics have scolded him for failing to come up with a global warming plan and an energy policy, but now he has achieved both. With the economy crashing, gas prices are down sharply on recession fears. And with industry collapsing, carbon emissions are bound to be lower.

The White House tried to add some frills to the bully pulpit for yesterday's attempt at market calming. They brought out the presidential lectern and placed it at an angle that would make the Oval Office the backdrop. The arranged planting boxes full of bronze mums framed the podium, and an aide scurried over to remove a clump that had fallen a few minutes before the speech.

Bush skipped the happy talk that has discredited so many of his war speeches and gave a frank assessment. "We have witnessed a startling drop in the stock market -- much of it driven by uncertainty and fear," he said. "This has been a deeply unsettling period for the American people."

His emotions seemed to swing with his words. He allowed himself a slight smile as he promised to "restore stability to our markets," and he shifted his feet as he warned that "anxiety can feed anxiety."

There were moments, of course, when Bush was being Bush. He accidentally said "we are exercising" the rescue plan before making that "executing," and White House stenographers saw fit to add a "sic" when he said the Treasury was doing many things "to help bank rebuild capital." He threw in the obligatory heck-of-a-job praise for his advisers ("we have an outstanding economic team carrying out this effort"), and the usual assertion that his views are unassailable ("it is the right plan").

But he avoided his tendency to sugarcoat. "Our system of credit has frozen," he said, and "key markets are not functioning." And he eschewed his bring-'em-on bravado as he pledged: "We know what the problems are, we have the tools we need to fix them, and we're working swiftly to do so."

The president turned to go, ignoring a reporter's question about whether the government could sustain its intervention in the markets. Only when Bush got to Coral Gables for his fundraiser did the market begin to trim its losses.

These people ignored subpoenas

2008-10-11T02:07:00.000-07:00

Branchflower Report, Page 4

Note that Todd Palin is now complaining that they did not talk to him before they issued the Report. ~Ed.

Subpoenas Issued
A number of subpoenas were issued by the Senate Judiciary Committee on
September 12 and 19, 2008. The subpoenas commanded those persons subpoenaed to
appear a week later before the committee to give sworn testimony in this matter. The
following individuals were properly served [either personally served by a process server
or whose attorney accepted on their behalf], and the person failed to appear:
1. Dianne Kiesel - Director, Personnel and Labor Relations - State of Alaska
Department of Administration;
2. Annette Kreitzer - Commissioner of Administration - State of Alaska
Department of Administration;
3. Nicki Neal - Director of Personnel - State of Alaska Department of
Administration;
4. Brad Thompson - Director, Division of Risk Management, State of Alaska
Department of Administration;
5. Michael Nizich - Acting Chief of Staff to Governor Palin;
6. Ivy Frye - Special Assistant, Constituent~External Affairs for Governor
Palin;
7. Kris Perry - Director of Governor Palin's Anchorage Office;
8. Janice Mason - Governor Palin's Scheduler and Executive Secretary
9. Todd Palin - The First Gentleman;
10. Randy Ruaro - Deputy Chief of Staff to Governor Palin.
Also subpoenaed was Frank Bailey, who complied with his subpoena by providing
a copy of his sworn deposition, given in this matter to counsel for Governor Palin and
Todd Palin Mr. Thomas Van Flein on August 26, 2008. His attorney was medically
unavailable to accompany Mr. Bailey for his appearance before the Judiciary Committee
on September 26,2008.

Now Can We Legalize Pot?

2008-10-11T00:25:00.000-07:00

Bill Maher comments on Troopergate and other political believe-it-or-nots

The Branchflower Report: Reports of Palin's Innocence are Exaggerated

2008-10-10T23:29:00.000-07:00

Branchflower Report, State of Alaska website, Page 12.

Todd Palin's call to John D. Glass about Trooper Wooten

Veteran Alaska law enforcement officer John D. Glass received a call from Todd Palin on November 8, 2006, four days after Sarah Palin was elected Governor of Alaska.

Mr. Palin wanted to talk about Mike Wooten. At the time Glass was the Chief of Police for the Wasilla Police Department. He was appointed Deputy Commissioner of Public Safety by Walt Monegan a short while later. At the time he received the call from Palin, Chief Glass had two vacant police officer positions on his police force.

Chief Glass testified:

MR. GLASS: Todd had basically told me that he did not want Wooten
hired as a City police officer, that Wooten was a very bad trooper and
needed to be fired from his job as a trooper, and that Wooten should not be
considered at all as a City police officer.

The Branchflower Report: Reports of Palin's Innocence are Exaggerated

2008-10-10T20:46:00.000-07:00

Branchflower Report, Page 12.

Todd Palin's call to John D. Glass about Trooper Wooten

Veteran Alaska law enforcement officer John D. Glass received a call from Todd Palin on November 8, 2006, four days after Sarah Palin was elected Governor of Alaska.

Mr. Palin wanted to talk about Mike Wooten. At the time Glass was the Chief of Police for the Wasilla Police Department. He was appointed Deputy Commissioner of Public Safety by Walt Monegan a short while later. At the time he received the call from Palin, Chief Glass had two vacant police officer positions on his police force.

Chief Glass testified:

MR. GLASS: Todd had basically told me that he did not want Wooten
hired as a City police officer, that Wooten was a very bad trooper and
needed to be fired from his job as a trooper, and that Wooten should not be
considered at all as a City police officer.

Sarah Palin’s Feminine Wiles Fall Short

2008-10-06T00:44:00.000-07:00

http://www.laprogressive.com/2008/09/28/sarah-palins-feminine-wiles-fall-short/

by Sharon Kyle –

Shortly after the Katie Couric-Sarah Palin interview, a slew of reports hit the Internet assessing the VP candidate’s performance. Try as I might, I was hard pressed to find a single report that looked favorably on Palin’s delivery. Slate’s Christopher Beam said that Palin resembled, “a high-schooler trying to BS her way through a book report.” New York Times reporter Bob Herbert said “the idea that the voters of the United States might install someone in the vice president’s office who is too unprepared or too intellectually insecure to appear on, say, “Meet the Press” or “Face the Nation” is mind-boggling.” He then likened the election of Palin to “putting an unqualified pilot in the cockpit of a jetliner.

So when I watched the Palin-Couric interview, I wasn’t completely surprised to see Palin fumbling. I suspected this would surface sooner or later. Why else would the McCain campaign shield her from the media for so long? Just two days earlier when Palin was to meet with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, campaign aides told reporters they could not go into the meetings but the photographers and video camera crew were invited in. When a couple of major news outlets reportedly threatened to remove their camera crews altogether, campaign spokeswoman Tracey Schmitt was quoted as saying the reporter ban was a miscommunication.

Still, when watching the events of that day on CNN and MSNBC and reading about them in other media, it was impossible to get a grasp of the dialogue exchanged between Palin and Karzai or any of the other foreign leaders she met that day. The average citizen is still left wondering — who is Sarah Palin?

But as I sat through more of the interview with Couric, Palin’s ability to stay on point was even worse than I’d imagined. Couric seemed to rattle Palin, zooming in on hard-hitting questions while staring with a blank face — looking directly and unwaveringly at Palin as she stumbled and bumbled to find a coherent answer. Palin squirmed in her seat as an apparent uneasiness seemed to rise from within but Couric refused to offer up a smile or a nod. While watching this exchange, it occurred to me that maybe the problem was that one of Palin’s tools was rendered ineffective with Couric.

The Alaskan Governor is an attractive woman – perhaps she is adept at using her charm and beauty to distract from other possible shortcomings. Couric didn’t seem to be biting and Palin was clearly operating outside of her comfort zone.

To see if I was on to something with this theory, I went to YouTube and replayed the Palin interview with Charles Gibson of ABC, carefully observing the way she handled Gibson. Within the first 7 or so minutes into day 1 of the first interview, Sarah Palin addressed Charles Gibson as “Charlie” no less than five times. At one point, when they were on the grounds of her home in Alaska, she touched his arm. These are subtle gestures that can easily be dismissed as personal style but when compared to the way she interacted with Katie Couric, I’m not so sure. In replaying the Couric interview, I never heard Palin refer to Couric as “Katie”. Theirs was a strictly professional exchange and this did not seem to work in Palin’s favor.

According to a recent CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll, “ 62 percent of men questioned have a favorable opinion of the Alaska governor, nine points higher than women.” The poll also indicated that there is a gender gap when it comes to whether Palin is qualified to serve as president. Fifty-seven percent of male respondents said Palin was qualified, 14 points higher than women. I don’t doubt the McCain camp chose Palin for this very reason. In a piece written by Mary Lyon entitled, “Advantage Biden“, Lyon points out that the CNN audience meters showed that “men were somewhat more taken with the pretty lady at the podium.”

In a piece entitled, “Desperately Searching for Sarah,” NBC National Journal Reporter Carrie Dann asserts that web searches say something about what we really want to know. NBC News uses an online research company, Hitwise, to compile and analyze what people are searching for on the web. According to Dann, “Palin” searches caused web traffic to spike to almost 30 times that of any other candidate by the date of Palin’s convention speech.

Dann says volume fell almost as quickly as it rose but added that searches containing the keywords “Sarah Palin legs”, “Sarah Palin Vogue”, and “Sarah Palin sexy photos” have outranked searches for legitimate policy positions such as earmarks investigation since Palin entered the race. Dann claims that NBC believes that what people search for says a lot about how the campaigns are making their message stick. I don’t know what the Palin searches say about the message the McCain campaign is sending but it seems to say something about how a large percentage of men are thinking.

But, although the polls indicate that Palin is favored by men, it is not all men. Even conservatives such as George Will are saying enough is enough. Fareed Zakaria has asked that she step down and Jack Cafferty’s exasperation over the spector of a Palin presidency can only be given justice by providing you with the video to watch for yourself (see below).

This takes us to the question of how Palin handled the vice presidential debate. Although most pundits and viewers gave it to Biden, Palin did not make a fool of herself. When asked who was more captivating and engaging, most said it was Palin. This piece was originally written before the debate. In the unedited version I predicted that unlike McCain with Obama, Palin would not have trouble making eye contact with Biden. She set the tone by walking right up to Biden and asking if it would be okay if she called him “Joe”. Kind of like when she talked to “Charlie”.

Palin Sued for Private E-Mails About State Business

2008-10-05T19:03:00.000-07:00

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/10/04/palin_sued_for_private_e-mails.html

This is a much larger issue than "Troopergate." Although we know that Palin fires people simply for disagreeing with her, it's not as serious a violation of the public trust as using private email for government business. Public business must be conducted under the gaze of the public!

If this is what Palin means by running an open government, she must have taken her lessons from Dick Cheney.

Deb

Palin Sued for Private E-Mails About State Business
By Matthew Mosk
ANCHORAGE -- In a lawsuit filed in Alaska Superior Court, a Republican activist seeks to force Gov. Sarah Palin to produce copies of official correspondence she sent and received on private e-mail accounts.

Andrée McLeod filed the suit Wednesday and publicized it in a news release today. "Rather than using her state e-mail account, throughout her two-year tenure as Governor of Alaska, defendant Sarah Palin, as a matter of routine, has used, and, on information and belief, continues to use, (at least) two private e-mail accounts... to conduct official business of the State of Alaska," the suit alleges.

The suit is the latest front in a battle McLeod is waging over Palin's e-mail. In June, she filed an open-records request and received four boxes of redacted e-mails. But more than 1,100 others were withheld, an action Palin justified by claiming executive privilege. McLeod appealed that claim last month before going to court last week.

McLeod has questioned whether Palin was using private e-mail accounts to conduct state business in a manner that would skirt open-records laws. In one notable e-mail, a Palin aide apologized for discussing state business on a public account. "Whoops!" Palin aide Frank Bailey wrote, after addressing an e-mail to the governor's official state address. "Frank, this is not the Governor's personal account," a secretary reminded him.

A spokeswoman for the McCain-Palin campaign has acknowledged the use of private accounts. "As a champion of government accountability and transparency, Governor Palin was exercising an abundance of caution to ensure that all state and personal business matters were being kept separate," Meghan Stapleton said recently. "Governor Palin is committed to serving with the highest regard toward ethics."

But McLeod said she believes the Palin administration fostered a "culture of corruption" in Alaska where neither she nor her top aides were accountable to rules of transparency in government.

"The extent of the use of these private e-mail accounts demonstrates the extent of deception that the governor is operating under," McLeod said in an interview today. "The process is corrupt. The overall question now becomes, how did it become so broken that nobody could tell her, 'Don't do that.' That's why I'm going to the courts."

Palin had routinely used a Yahoo e-mail address until abruptly abandoning it after hackers penetrated the account on Sept. 17 and posted screen-captures from its inbox on the Internet.

Last week, The Washington Post reported that Palin maintained an additional private e-mail account, which she used to communicate with a small circle of staff members outside the state government's secure official e-mail system, according to sources at the Wasilla company that established the system.

McLeod, a former state employee who once was close to Palin, has also filed an ethics complaint against the governor and others, citing e-mail traffic that appeared to show that her office improperly helped a Palin fundraiser obtain a civil service position.

Joe Biden Explains the Relative Dangers of Corn Syrup and Terrorism

2008-10-05T19:00:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cj_icg26N0I

Katie Couric RILLY annoys me!

2008-10-05T16:17:00.000-07:00

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/03/palin-on-fox-news-couric_n_131655.html

Appearing on a friendlier news outlet, Gov. Sarah Palin said she was "annoyed" with the way Katie Couric handled their interview and complained that the CBS Evening News host failed to give her the opportunity to take a proverbial axe to Barack Obama.

In a portion of her sit-down with Fox News correspondent Carl Cameron, Palin claimed that Couric's questions -- which produced a series of staggeringly embarrassing responses -- put her in a lose-lose position.

"The Sarah Palin in those interviews was a little bit annoyed," she said. "It's like, man, no matter what you say, you are going to get clobbered. If you choose to answer a question, you are going to get clobbered on the answer. If you choose to try to pivot and go to another subject that you believe that Americans want to hear about, you get clobbered for that too."

For the record, Couric asked her, among other things, what type of news sources she turns to for information, which Supreme Court decisions she disagreed with, why Alaska's proximity to Russia gave her foreign policy experience, her opinion of the bailout package for Wall Street, and where she thought Vice President Dick Cheney erred. Which one of those questions was designed to trip her up (as opposed to, say, give viewers a better sense of her character and views) is tough to ascertain.

Later in her interview with Cameron, Palin offered a sense of what she thinks would have been a fairer set of questions. Unsurprisingly, they all would have provided her the opportunity to rail against Obama.

"In those Katie Couric interviews, I did feel that there were lot of things that she was missing in terms of an opportunity to ask what a VP candidate stands for, what the values are represented in our ticket. I wanted to talk about Barack Obama increasing taxes, which would lead to killing jobs. I wanted to talk about his proposal to increase government spending by another trillion dollars. Some of his comments that he's made about the war, that I think may, in my world, disqualify someone from consideration as the next commander in chief. Some of the comments that he has made about Afghanistan -- what we are doing there, supposedly just air raiding villages and killing civilians. That's reckless. I want to talk about things like that. So I guess I have to apologize for being a bit annoyed, but that's also an indication of being outside the Washington elite, outside of the media elite also. I just wanted to talk to Americans without the filter and let them know what we stand for."

I'm Confused!

2008-09-30T06:49:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mg5tl87rEE4

Video comparing Obama's and Palin's experience. Obama objectively wins.

John and Sarah in St. Paul

2008-09-29T06:38:00.000-07:00

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/21831?email

A thoughtful, brilliant overview of the McCain/Palin ticket.

Snip: That the seventy-two-year-old's choice of Sarah Palin as a possible successor had been deeply irresponsible by any standard of governance seemed to matter to only a few Republican dissenters. ("If it were your decision, and you were really putting your country first," asked David Frum, the former Bush speechwriter turned blogger and think tank gadfly, "would you put an untested small-town mayor a heartbeat away from the presidency?") What mattered now, as the convention resumed, was whether McCain could regain control of what's known in the political consultants' game as "the narrative."

Will Someone Put Sarah Palin Out of Her Misery?

2008-09-29T06:36:00.000-07:00

Palin Is Ready? Please.

Will someone please put Sarah Palin out of her agony? Is it too much to ask that she come to realize that she wants, in that wonderful phrase in American politics, "to spend more time with her family"? Having stayed in purdah for weeks, she finally agreed to a third interview. CBS's Katie Couric questioned her in her trademark sympathetic style. It didn't help. When asked how living in the state closest to Russia gave her foreign-policy experience, Palin responded thus:

"It's very important when you consider even national-security issues with Russia as Putin rears his head and comes into the airspace of the United States of America. Where--where do they go? It's Alaska. It's just right over the border. It is from Alaska that we send those out to make sure that an eye is being kept on this very powerful nation, Russia, because they are right there. They are right next to--to our state."

There is, of course, the sheer absurdity of the premise. Two weeks ago I flew to Tokyo, crossing over the North Pole. Does that make me an expert on Santa Claus? (Thanks, Jon Stewart.) But even beyond that, read the rest of her response. "It is from Alaska that we send out those ..." What does this mean? This is not an isolated example. Palin has been given a set of talking points by campaign advisers, simple ideological mantras that she repeats and repeats as long as she can. ("We mustn't blink.") But if forced off those rehearsed lines, what she has to say is often, quite frankly, gibberish.

Couric asked her a smart question about the proposed $700 billion bailout of the American financial sector. It was designed to see if Palin understood that the problem in this crisis is that credit and liquidity in the financial system has dried up, and that that's why, in the estimation of Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson and Fed chairman Ben Bernanke, the government needs to step in to buy up Wall Street's most toxic liabilities. Here's the entire exchange:

COURIC: Why isn't it better, Governor Palin, to spend $700 billion helping middle-class families who are struggling with health care, housing, gas and groceries; allow them to spend more and put more money into the economy instead of helping these big financial institutions that played a role in creating this mess?

PALIN: That's why I say I, like every American I'm speaking with, were ill about this position that we have been put in where it is the taxpayers looking to bail out. But ultimately, what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the health-care reform that is needed to help shore up our economy, helping the--it's got to be all about job creation, too, shoring up our economy and putting it back on the right track. So health-care reform and reducing taxes and reining in spending has got to accompany tax reductions and tax relief for Americans. And trade, we've got to see trade as opportunity, not as a competitive, scary thing. But one in five jobs being created in the trade sector today, we've got to look at that as more opportunity. All those things under the umbrella of job creation. This bailout is a part of that.

This is nonsense--a vapid emptying out of every catchphrase about economics that came into her head. Some commentators, like CNN's Campbell Brown, have argued that it's sexist to keep Sarah Palin under wraps, as if she were a delicate flower who might wilt under the bright lights of the modern media. But the more Palin talks, the more we see that it may not be sexism but common sense that's causing the McCain campaign to treat her like a time bomb.

Can we now admit the obvious? Sarah Palin is utterly unqualified to be vice president. She is a feisty, charismatic politician who has done some good things in Alaska. But she has never spent a day thinking about any important national or international issue, and this is a hell of a time to start. The next administration is going to face a set of challenges unlike any in recent memory. There is an ongoing military operation in Iraq that still costs $10 billion a month, a war against the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan that is not going well and is not easily fixed. Iran, Russia and Venezuela present tough strategic challenges.

Domestically, the bailout and reform of the financial industry will take years and hundreds of billions of dollars. Health-care costs, unless curtailed, will bankrupt the federal government. Social Security, immigration, collapsing infrastructure and education are all going to get much worse if they are not handled soon.

And the American government is stretched to the limit. Between the Bush tax cuts, homeland-security needs, Iraq, Afghanistan and the bailout, the budget is looking bleak. Plus, within a few years, the retirement of the baby boomers begins with its massive and rising costs (in the trillions).

Obviously these are very serious challenges and constraints. In these times, for John McCain to have chosen this person to be his running mate is fundamentally irresponsible. McCain says that he always puts country first. In this important case, it is simply not true.

Posted by Fareed Zakaria on September 28, 2008 10:56 PM

In Financial Food Chains, Little Guys Can’t Win

2008-09-28T14:52:00.000-07:00

In my humble opinion, Ben Stein has always been an arrogant heartless smartaleck who delighted in humiliating people. Who knew that he actually considered himself a little guy? Who knew that he was able to succinctly lay out the path that led us here?

The one fact he omitted, that brings everything into perspective, is that the value of the entire global economy, according to Wikipedia, is around $65 trillion dollars. This amount is roughly equivalent to the amount of debt held in credit-swaps, or what he calls credit-default swaps. So for every monetary action of the global market, there is a derivative ready to nullify it. Warren Buffett was right: derivatives were the “weapons of financial mass destruction.”

So, what Congress and Bush actually want us to do is to give the speculators money to support their derivatives market.

It's called, in the vernacular, a Ponzi Scheme. Oh so recently, most of the major global banks claimed to have settled with the investors in a similar Ponzi Scheme. This Scheme was worth a measly $330 Billion. Investors were deceived into thinking that auction-rate securities were equivalent to money market accounts. The banks caved under threat of criminal fraud charges. No bailout for the boys on this one. They have to cough up the money from their profits. Which is what should happen in the larger case as well. Let them fail. It's all a derivative-backed illusion. Show us the little man behind the curtain right now. Like Stein says, what else did the great swamis Paulson and Bernanke miss?

~Deb

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/28/business/28every.html?th&emc=th

September 28, 2008

Everybody’s Business
In Financial Food Chains, Little Guys Can’t Win

By BEN STEIN

IMAGINE, if you will, that a man who had much to do with creating the present credit crisis now says he is the man to fix this giant problem, and that his work is so important that he will need a trillion dollars or so of your money. Then add that this man thinks he is so indispensable that he wants Congress to forbid any judicial or administrative questioning of anything he does with your dollars. You might think of a latter-day Lenin or Fidel Castro, but you would be far afield.

Instead, you should be thinking of Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. and the rapidly disintegrating United States of America, right here and now. But I am getting ahead of myself. First, I am furious at what the traders, speculators, hedge funds and the government have done to everyone who is saving and investing for retirement and future security. Millions of us did nothing wrong, according to the accepted wisdom of the age. We saved. We put a large part of our money into the stock market, as we were urged to do. Because the market wasn’t at ridiculously high levels, it seemed prudent to invest in broad indexes, foreign indexes and small- and large-cap indexes.Now we have had the rug pulled out from under us. Our retirements have been put into severe jeopardy. The “earnings” part of those price-to-earnings ratios turns out to have been fiction for some financial companies, which normally account for a big part of total corporate earnings. In fact, earnings of giant finance players were often wildly negative, creating a situation rarely seen since the Great Depression, when the aggregate earnings of the Dow 30 were negative.

The current negativity occurred because of wild, casino-type operations of big finance players, creating liabilities way beyond anything we could have reasonably expected. This looks a lot like theft on a spectacular scale — of our wallets, our peace of mind, our futures. Second, according to what I hear from my betters in the world of finance, the most serious problems are not with the bundles of subprime mortgages themselves — a large but not lethal quantum as far as I can tell — but with derivatives contracts tied to subprime and other dicey debt.

These contracts are superficially an attempt to “insure” against risks of default, hence the name “credit-default swaps.” In fact, they are an immense wager — which anyone with lots of money or borrowing ability can enter — about how mortgage-backed bonds, leveraged loan bonds, student loan bonds, credit card bonds and the like will perform. These wagers entail amounts many times larger than the total of subprime loans. In fact, there are roughly $62 trillion in credit-default swap derivatives out there, compared with about $1 trillion of subprime mortgages. These derivatives are “weapons of financial mass destruction,” in the prophetic words of Warren E. Buffett. (Apparently believing that the worst is over, at least for one big investment bank, Mr. Buffett is now investing in Goldman Sachs.)

The swaps market has been unregulated. It has been just a lot of people making bets with one another. Some of them made incredibly fortunate payoff wagers against the mortgage bonds, using credit-default swaps as their wagering vehicle. I am not sure who the big winners are, but they are out there, and the gains were big enough to cripple the part of Wall Street on the losing side of the bets. Almost no one (except Mr. Buffett) saw this coming, at least not on this scale. But let’s get back to the man of the hour. Why didn’t Mr. Paulson, the Treasury secretary, see it? He was once the head of Goldman Sachs, an immense player in the swaps world. Didn’t people at Treasury have a clue? If they didn’t, what was going on in their heads? If they did, why didn’t they do something about it a year ago, when saving the world would have been a lot cheaper? If Mr. Paulson and Ben S. Bernanke, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, didn’t see this train coming, what else have they missed? What other freight train is barreling down the track at us?

All of this would be bad enough. But by far the most terrifying item I read in my morning paper last week was this: Mr. Paulson demanded that Congress forbid judicial review of his decisions on use of the money in the mortgage bailout. This would amount to an abrogation of the Constitution. Not only would his decisions be sacrosanct and above the law, but so would the actions of his pals in the banking world in connection with this bailout. The people whose conduct got us into this catastrophe have not only taken our money, hopes and peace of mind, but they apparently also want a trillion or so more dollars to put into their Wall Street Buddy System Fund. This may be the most dangerous attack on the law in my lifetime. What anarchists even dared consider this plan? Thank heaven that minds more devoted to the Constitution on Capitol Hill are questioning this shocking request. By the way, if we are actually thinking about tossing the Constitution out the window, why not simply annul these credit-default swap contracts? With that done, the incomprehensibly large liability of the banks would cease, and we wouldn’t need this staggering bailout. Shouldn’t we consider making the speculators pay some of the price?

WE have survived housing-price corrections before. Why is this one causing so much anguish? It must be the side bets, the credit-default swap bets, multiplying the effect of the housing downturn many times over. Maybe we should just get rid of these exotic bets and start again without them. “Insurance” on market moves is always a bad idea, because it does not tamp down market disruptions but instead greatly magnifies them — as in the disastrous effect of “portfolio insurance” in the 1987 crash. Then there was Mr. Paulson’s insistence that there be no compensation caps for executives of companies being bailed out by the factory workers, the farmers, the schoolteachers and the medical doctors. He told a skeptical Congress on Tuesday that if these caps were put into place, bank executives simply wouldn’t participate in the bailout or sell us suckers their debts. Fine with me.

If the banks are in good enough shape so that petulant executives can simply opt out rather than live on a few million a year, maybe we don’t need the bailout at all. Maybe we would be better off if those executives simply bailed out and were replaced by people with more sense and more patriotism. One final little thought bubbles into my mind: Maybe the bailout should not be of the banks at all, but of homeowners themselves. Maybe if we make the government the buyer of last resort of homes, we will stabilize the markets, stabilize the debt associated with the markets and take the gain out of the credit-default swaps for the speculators. Yes, price would be a huge issue, but so it is for Mr. Paulson’s plan for buying debt from banks. Why not? We do it for farmers. Why not for the individual homeowner? Oh, right. Because Treasury secretaries don’t know any of those people. Ben Stein is a lawyer, writer, actor and economist. E-mail: ebiz@nytimes.com.

Sarah Palin: She Can't Stop Lying!

2008-09-20T20:33:00.000-07:00

http://www.236.com/video/2008/sarah_palin_to_the_nth_power_9002.php

You've already heard it a hundred times. Sarah Palin says she opposed the, "Bridge to Nowhere," but as Charlie Gibson recently pointed out, she was for the Bridge before she was against it. Well, facts don't matter in a presidential campaign, so Palin's been repeating the story at every public appearance. She seems to have forgotten about a little invention called the video camera.

We didn't.

A Post Turtle

2008-09-20T19:01:00.001-07:00

While suturing a cut on the hand of a 75-year old Texas rancher whose hand was caught in a gate while working cattle, the doctor struck up a conversation with the old man. Eventually the topic got around to Sarah Palin and her bid to be a heartbeat away from being President.

The old rancher said, 'Well, ya know, Palin is a post turtle.'

Not being familiar with the term, the doctor asked him what a post turtle was. The old rancher said, 'When you're driving down a country road and you come across a fence post with a turtle balanced on top, that's a post turtle.' The old rancher saw a puzzled look on the doctor's face, so he continued to explain. 'You know she didn't get up there by herself, she doesn't belong up there, she doesn't know what to do while she is up there, and you just wonder what kind of dumb ass would put her up there to begin with.

When Atheists Attack!

2008-09-20T18:59:00.000-07:00

http://www.newsweek.com/id/160080/page/1
When Atheists Attack
A noted provocateur rips Sarah Palin—and defends elitism.

Sam Harris
NEWSWEEK
From the magazine issue dated Sep 29, 2008
Let me confess that I was genuinely unnerved by Sarah Palin's performance at the Republican convention. Given her audience and the needs of the moment, I believe Governor Palin's speech was the most effective political communication I have ever witnessed. Here, finally, was a performer who—being maternal, wounded, righteous and sexy—could stride past the frontal cortex of every American and plant a three-inch heel directly on that limbic circuit that ceaselessly intones "God and country." If anyone could make Christian theocracy smell like apple pie, Sarah Palin could.

Then came Palin's first television interview with Charles Gibson. I was relieved to discover, as many were, that Palin's luster can be much diminished by the absence of a teleprompter. Still, the problem she poses to our political process is now much bigger than she is. Her fans seem inclined to forgive her any indiscretion short of cannibalism. However badly she may stumble during the remaining weeks of this campaign, her supporters will focus their outrage upon the journalist who caused her to break stride, upon the camera operator who happened to capture her fall, upon the television network that broadcast the good lady's misfortune—and, above all, upon the "liberal elites" with their highfalutin assumption that, in the 21st century, only a reasonably well-educated person should be given command of our nuclear arsenal.

The point to be lamented is not that Sarah Palin comes from outside Washington, or that she has glimpsed so little of the earth's surface (she didn't have a passport until last year), or that she's never met a foreign head of state. The point is that she comes to us, seeking the second most important job in the world, without any intellectual training relevant to the challenges and responsibilities that await her. There is nothing to suggest that she even sees a role for careful analysis or a deep understanding of world events when it comes to deciding the fate of a nation. In her interview with Gibson, Palin managed to turn a joke about seeing Russia from her window into a straight-faced claim that Alaska's geographical proximity to Russia gave her some essential foreign-policy experience. Palin may be a perfectly wonderful person, a loving mother and a great American success story—but she is a beauty queen/sports reporter who stumbled into small-town politics, and who is now on the verge of stumbling into, or upon, world history.

The problem, as far as our political process is concerned, is that half the electorate revels in Palin's lack of intellectual qualifications. When it comes to politics, there is a mad love of mediocrity in this country. "They think they're better than you!" is the refrain that (highly competent and cynical) Republican strategists have set loose among the crowd, and the crowd has grown drunk on it once again. "Sarah Palin is an ordinary person!" Yes, all too ordinary.

We have all now witnessed apparently sentient human beings, once provoked by a reporter's microphone, saying things like, "I'm voting for Sarah because she's a mom. She knows what it's like to be a mom." Such sentiments suggest an uncanny (and, one fears, especially American) detachment from the real problems of today. The next administration must immediately confront issues like nuclear proliferation, ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (and covert wars elsewhere), global climate change, a convulsing economy, Russian belligerence, the rise of China, emerging epidemics, Islamism on a hundred fronts, a defunct United Nations, the deterioration of American schools, failures of energy, infrastructure and Internet security … the list is long, and Sarah Palin does not seem competent even to rank these items in order of importance, much less address any one of them.

Palin's most conspicuous gaffe in her interview with Gibson has been widely discussed. The truth is, I didn't much care that she did not know the meaning of the phrase "Bush doctrine." And I am quite sure that her supporters didn't care, either. Most people view such an ambush as a journalistic gimmick. What I do care about are all the other things Palin is guaranteed not to know—or will be glossing only under the frenzied tutelage of John McCain's advisers. What doesn't she know about financial markets, Islam, the history of the Middle East, the cold war, modern weapons systems, medical research, environmental science or emerging technology? Her relative ignorance is guaranteed on these fronts and most others, not because she was put on the spot, or got nervous, or just happened to miss the newspaper on any given morning. Sarah Palin's ignorance is guaranteed because of how she has spent the past 44 years on earth.

I care even more about the many things Palin thinks she knows but doesn't: like her conviction that the Biblical God consciously directs world events. Needless to say, she shares this belief with mil-lions of Americans—but we shouldn't be eager to give these people our nuclear codes, either. There is no question that if President McCain chokes on a spare rib and Palin becomes the first woman president, she and her supporters will believe that God, in all his majesty and wisdom, has brought it to pass. Why would God give Sarah Palin a job she isn't ready for? He wouldn't. Everything happens for a reason. Palin seems perfectly willing to stake the welfare of our country—even the welfare of our species—as collateral in her own personal journey of faith. Of course, McCain has made the same unconscionable wager on his personal journey to the White House.

In speaking before her church about her son going to war in Iraq, Palin urged the congregation to pray "that our national leaders are sending them out on a task that is from God; that's what we have to make sure we are praying for, that there is a plan, and that plan is God's plan." When asked about these remarks in her interview with Gibson, Palin successfully dodged the issue of her religious beliefs by claiming that she had been merely echoing the words of Abraham Lincoln. The New York Times later dubbed her response "absurd." It was worse than absurd; it was a lie calculated to conceal the true character of her religious infatuations. Every detail that has emerged about Palin's life in Alaska suggests that she is as devout and literal-minded in her Christian dogmatism as any man or woman in the land. Given her long affiliation with the Assemblies of God church, Palin very likely believes that Biblical prophecy is an infallible guide to future events and that we are living in the "end times." Which is to say she very likely thinks that human history will soon unravel in a foreordained cataclysm of war and bad weather. Undoubtedly Palin believes that this will be a good thing—as all true Christians will be lifted bodily into the sky to make merry with Jesus, while all nonbelievers, Jews, Methodists and other rabble will be punished for eternity in a lake of fire. Like many Pentecostals, Palin may even imagine that she and her fellow parishioners enjoy the power of prophecy themselves. Otherwise, what could she have meant when declaring to her congregation that "God's going to tell you what is going on, and what is going to go on, and you guys are going to have that within you"?

You can learn something about a person by the company she keeps. In the churches where Palin has worshiped for decades, parishioners enjoy "baptism in the Holy Spirit," "miraculous healings" and "the gift of tongues." Invariably, they offer astonishingly irrational accounts of this behavior and of its significance for the entire cosmos. Palin's spiritual colleagues describe themselves as part of "the final generation," engaged in "spiritual warfare" to purge the earth of "demonic strongholds." Palin has spent her entire adult life immersed in this apocalyptic hysteria. Ask yourself: Is it a good idea to place the most powerful military on earth at her disposal? Do we actually want our leaders thinking about the fulfillment of Biblical prophecy when it comes time to say to the Iranians, or to the North Koreans, or to the Pakistanis, or to the Russians or to the Chinese: "All options remain on the table"?

It is easy to see what many people, women especially, admire about Sarah Palin. Here is a mother of five who can see the bright side of having a child with Down syndrome and still find the time and energy to govern the state of Alaska. But we cannot ignore the fact that Palin's impressive family further testifies to her dogmatic religious beliefs. Many writers have noted the many shades of conservative hypocrisy on view here: when Jamie Lynn Spears gets pregnant, it is considered a symptom of liberal decadence and the breakdown of family values; in the case of one of Palin's daughters, however, teen pregnancy gets reinterpreted as a sign of immaculate, small-town fecundity. And just imagine if, instead of the Palins, the Obama family had a pregnant, underage daughter on display at their convention, flanked by her black boyfriend who "intends" to marry her. Who among conservatives would have resisted the temptation to speak of "the dysfunction in the black community"?

Teen pregnancy is a misfortune, plain and simple. At best, it represents bad luck (both for the mother and for the child); at worst, as in the Palins' case, it is a symptom of religious dogmatism. Governor Palin opposes sex education in schools on religious grounds. She has also fought vigorously for a "parental consent law" in the state of Alaska, seeking full parental dominion over the reproductive decisions of minors. We know, therefore, that Palin believes that she should be the one to decide whether her daughter carries her baby to term. Based on her stated position, we know that she would deny her daughter an abortion even if she had been raped. One can be forgiven for doubting whether Bristol Palin had all the advantages of 21st-century family planning—or, indeed, of the 21st century.

We have endured eight years of an administration that seemed touched by religious ideology. Bush's claim to Bob Woodward that he consulted a "higher Father" before going to war in Iraq got many of us sitting upright, before our attention wandered again to less ethereal signs of his incompetence. For all my concern about Bush's religious beliefs, and about his merely average grasp of terrestrial reality, I have never once thought that he was an over-the-brink, Rapture-ready extremist. Palin seems as though she might be the real McCoy. With the McCain team leading her around like a pet pony between now and Election Day, she can be expected to conceal her religious extremism until it is too late to do anything about it. Her supporters know that while she cannot afford to "talk the talk" between now and Nov. 4, if elected, she can be trusted to "walk the walk" until the Day of Judgment.

What is so unnerving about the candidacy of Sarah Palin is the degree to which she represents—and her supporters celebrate—the joyful marriage of confidence and ignorance. Watching her deny to Gibson that she had ever harbored the slightest doubt about her readiness to take command of the world's only superpower, one got the feeling that Palin would gladly assume any responsibility on earth:

"Governor Palin, are you ready at this moment to perform surgery on this child's brain?"

"Of course, Charlie. I have several boys of my own, and I'm an avid hunter."

"But governor, this is neurosurgery, and you have no training as a surgeon of any kind."

"That's just the point, Charlie. The American people want change in how we make medical decisions in this country. And when faced with a challenge, you cannot blink."

The prospects of a Palin administration are far more frightening, in fact, than those of a Palin Institute for Pediatric Neurosurgery. Ask yourself: how has "elitism" become a bad word in American politics? There is simply no other walk of life in which extraordinary talent and rigorous training are denigrated. We want elite pilots to fly our planes, elite troops to undertake our most critical missions, elite athletes to represent us in competition and elite scientists to devote the most productive years of their lives to curing our diseases. And yet, when it comes time to vest people with even greater responsibilities, we consider it a virtue to shun any and all standards of excellence. When it comes to choosing the people whose thoughts and actions will decide the fates of millions, then we suddenly want someone just like us, someone fit to have a beer with, someone down-to-earth—in fact, almost anyone, provided that he or she doesn't seem too intelligent or well educated.

I believe that with the nomination of Sarah Palin for the vice presidency, the silliness of our politics has finally put our nation at risk. The world is growing more complex—and dangerous—with each passing hour, and our position within it growing more precarious. Should she become president, Palin seems capable of enacting policies so detached from the common interests of humanity, and from empirical reality, as to unite the entire world against us. When asked why she is qualified to shoulder more responsibility than any person has held in human history, Palin cites her refusal to hesitate. "You can't blink," she told Gibson repeatedly, as though this were a primordial truth of wise governance. Let us hope that a President Palin would blink, again and again, while more thoughtful people decide the fate of civilization.

Harris is a founder of The Reason Project and author of The New York Times best sellers “The End of Faith” and “Letter to a Christian Nation.” His Web site is samharris.org.

Palin Calling for an End to Investigation She Requested

2008-09-18T10:30:00.000-07:00

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=5827023&page=1

The outrageousness of this new twist surpasses my wildest imaginings. She called for an investigation, the Republican-dominated Alaska Senate Committee voted for it. Now she wants to end it because it might be getting close to information that she does not want revealed?

And the reason that she now gives for Monaghan's firing is that he sought money to help victims of sexual crime? Why would anyone find THAT reason more legitimate than the ostensible and logical reason for his firing: that he defied pressure from the governor's office into an internal matter having to do with intra-family feuding?

Someone give me a drug that will help this situation make sense, ok? If she has nothing to hide, then she should allow the investigation to continue. If she has something to hide, well...she is doing a good job of making that perfectly clear...she has something to hide.

Update: A suit has now been filed to stop the investigation. http://www.abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=5816914&page=1

~Deb

Palin Calling for an End to Investigation She Requested
Alaska AG Also Has New Objections to Probe
By EMMA SCHWARTZ and JUSTIN ROOD
Sept. 17, 2008—

GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin shifted her tactics for the second time in three weeks on the "Troopergate" investigation, this time calling to end the very investigation that she herself called for and the one the McCain campaign had said was the only proper venue for a probe.

Palin's Attorney General, who initially launched an internal probe into Palin, even before the legislature began theirs, is now asking the legislators to withdraw their subpoenas of Palin aides and Palin's husband.

When the Alaska Legislature's Legislative Council, a Republican-dominated panel of 14 legislators which conducts business when the Legislature is out session, voted to investigate the firing of former Public Safety Commissioner Walter Monegan in July, Palin pledged her full support.

But almost immediately after joining the GOP ticket, Palin's Troopergate strategy veered sharply. Despite her earlier vows of full cooperation with the probe, she declared it unlawful. The legislature lacked the authority to investigate the matter, she said. Instead, it should be handled by the state personnel board, Palin asserted -- a panel which is under her authority.

Palin promptly filed an ethics complaint against herself, prompting the panel to begin its own probe. "GOVERNOR PALIN CALLS FOR FORMAL REVIEW OF REPLACEMENT OF COMMISSIONER MONEGAN," headlined the Sept. 2 press statement released by her lawyer's office announcing the move. "I. . . look forward to the Personnel Board's investigation," Palin's statement read.

But on Monday, Palin shifted tactics again: Her attorney, Thomas V. Van Flein moved to stop that panel's efforts, saying the governor's lawyers had reviewed all the evidence and saw no grounds for any investigation. In his filing, Van Flein argued there was "no probable cause" for such an investigation.

McCain-Palin campaign spokesman Taylor Griffin said the move was not a flip-flop. "The filing on the 15th was the mechanism to provide evidence to the personnel board investigation, which they will now have to consider. The governor is cooperating fully with the unbiased, nonpartisan investigation by the personnel board," said Griffin. He said he expected they will gather evidence themselves.

Now, Alaska Attorney General Talis Colberg has sent a letter asking legislators to withdraw the subpoenas they had approved for 10 state employees. In his letter, Colberg wrote that the employees would only testify unless the full state Senate or Legislature voted to compel their testimony.

Colberg launched his own internal administration probe before the legislature began its own -- and before Palin moved onto the Republican ticket. Critics reportedly criticized Colberg's probe saying it was an effort to tamper with witnesses before the state's investigator reached out to them.

Colberg did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Colberg owes his position to Palin, who handpicked him to the position in 2006 and appointed him successor to the lieutenant governor last year. Before his nomination as state attorney general, Colberg was unknown on the state level, having no experience in criminal or oil and gas law. He was a former member of the Matanuska-Susitna Borough Assembly who was considering a job as director of the Alaska State Fair Board at the time of his appointment, according to press reports at the time.

Copyright © 2008 ABC News Internet Ventures

Barbies for War!

2008-09-17T10:34:00.000-07:00

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/17/opinion/17dowd.html?em

September 17, 2008
Op-Ed Columnist
‘Barbies for War!’
By MAUREEN DOWD
WASHINGTON

Carly Fiorina, the woman John McCain sent out to defend Sarah Palin and rip anyone who calls her a tabula rasa on foreign policy and the economy, admitted Tuesday that Palin was not capable of running Hewlett-Packard.

That’s pretty damning coming from Fiorina, who also was not capable of running Hewlett-Packard.

Carly helpfully added that McCain (not to mention Obama and Biden) couldn’t run a major corporation. He couldn’t get his immigration bill passed either, but now he’s promising to eliminate centuries of greed on Wall Street.

The Wall Street Journal reported that McCain was thinking about taking Palin to the U.N. General Assembly next week so she can shake hands with some heads of state. You can’t contract foreign policy experience like a rhinovirus. To paraphrase the sniffly Adelaide in “Guys and Dolls,” a poy-son could develop a cold war.

The latest news from Alaska is that the governor keeps a tanning bed in the Juneau mansion. As The Los Angeles Times pointed out, when Palin declared May 2007 Skin Cancer Awareness Month in Alaska, the press release explained that skin cancer was caused by “the sun and from tanning beds.”

I sautéed myself in Sarahville last week.

I wandered through the Wal-Mart, which seemed almost as large as Wasilla, a town that is a soulless strip mall without sidewalks set beside a soulful mountain and lake.

Wal-Mart has all the doodads that Sarah must need in her career as a sportsman — Remingtons and “torture tested” riflescopes, game bags for caribou, machines that imitate rabbits and young deer and coyotes to draw your quarry in so you can shoot it, and machines to squish cows into beef jerky.

I talked to a Wal-Mart mom, Betty Necas, 39, wearing sweatpants and tattoos on her wrists.

She said she’s never voted, and was a teenage mom “like Bristol.” She likes Sarah because she’s “down home” but said Obama “gives me the creeps. Nothing to do with the fact that he’s black. He just seems snotty, and he looks weaselly.”

Ten Obama supporters in Wasilla braved taunts and drizzle to stand on a corner between McDonald’s and Pizza Hut. They complained that Sarah runs government like a vengeful fiefdom and held up signs. A guy with a bullhorn yelled out of a passing red car: “Go back to the city, you liberal Communists!”

At gatherings in The Last Frontier, pastors pray for reporters, drilling evokes cheers and Todd Palin is hailed as a guy who likes to burn fossil fuels.

I had many “Sarahs,” as her favorite skinny white mocha is now called, at the Mocha Moose. “I’ve seen her at 4 a.m. with no makeup,” said manager Karena Forster, “and she’s just as beautiful.”

I stopped by Sarah’s old Pentecostal church, the Wasilla Assembly of God, and perused some books: “The Bait of Satan,” “Deliverance from PMS,” and “Kissed the Girls and Made them Cry: Why Women Lose When They Give In.” (Author Lisa Bevere advises: “Run to the arms of your prince and enter your dream.”)

In Anchorage Saturday, I went by a conference conducted by James Dobson’s Focus on the Family and supported by Sarah’s current church, the Wasilla Bible Church, about how to help gays and lesbians “journey out” of same-sex attraction.

(As The Times reported recently, in 1995, Palin, then a city councilwoman, told colleagues she had seen “Daddy’s Roommate” on the shelf of the library and did not approve. The Wasilla Assembly of God tried to ban “Pastor, I Am Gay” by Howard Bess, a liberal Christian preacher in nearby Palmer.)

Anne Heche’s mother, Nancy, talked about her distress when her daughter told her she was involved with Ellen. Jeff Johnston told me he had “a struggle” with homosexuality “for a season,” but is now “happily married with three boys.” (Books for sale there included “Mommy, Why Are They Holding Hands?” and “You Don’t Have to Be Gay.”)

I covered a boisterous women against Palin rally in Anchorage, where women toted placards such as “Fess up about troopergate,” “Keep your vows off my body,” “Barbies for war!” “Sarah, please don’t put me on your enemies list,” and “McCain and Palin = McPain.”

A local conservative radio personality, Eddie Burke, who had lambasted the organizers as “a bunch of socialist, baby-killing maggots,” was on hand with a sign reading “Alaska is not Frisco.”

“We are one Supreme Court justice away from overturning Roe v. Wade,” he excitedly told me.

R. D. Levno, a retired school principal, flew in from Fairbanks. “She’s a child, inexperienced and simplistic,” she said of Sarah. “It’s taking us back to junior high school. She’s one of the popular girls, but one of the mean girls. She is seductive, but she is invented.”

YouTube censors viral video documentary on Palin's churches

2008-09-16T07:10:00.000-07:00

http://www.talk2action.org/story/2008/9/13/1538/09770

YouTube censors viral video documentary on Palin's churches
By Bruce Wilson Sat Sep 13, 2008 at 03:03:08 PM EST
Sarah Palin was baptized at Wasilla Assembly of God and attended the church for over two and a half decades, and she has been publicly blessed by a number of pastors and religious leaders employed by and associated with that church.

Last Sunday our research team released a video, a ten-minute mini-documentary, focusing on the Wasilla Assemblies of God and the video seemed on the verge of a massive "viral" breakthrough when YouTube pulled it down, citing "inappropriate content".

At the point the video was censored by YouTube it had been viewed by almost 160,000 people. The short of it is that YouTube has censored a video documentary that appeared to be close to having an effect on a hard fought and contentious American presidential election.

Running on a Lie

2008-09-16T06:50:00.000-07:00

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/15/AR2008091502471.html?nav=hcmoduletmv

In Sarah Palin's view of Christianity, apparently, once you say you are saved, any sort of immoral behavior is JUST FINE with The Lord.

Running on a Lie

By Eugene Robinson
Tuesday, September 16, 2008; A21

What kind of person tells a self-aggrandizing lie, gets called on it, admits publicly that the truth is not at all what she originally claimed -- and then goes out and starts telling the original lie again without changing a word?

Sarah Palin is beginning to seem like quite an unusual woman, and I'm not talking about her love of guns and "snow machines," her faith, her family or any of the presumably non-elite attributes that we in the "elite media" are accused of savaging. Wrongly accused, I should add; reporters are doing nothing more sinister than trying to find out who she is, how she thinks and what she has done in office.

One deeply troubling thing we're learning about Palin is that, as far as she's concerned, unambiguous fact doesn't appear to rise even to the level of inconvenience.

I'm sorry, but to explain my point I have to make another visit -- my last, I hope -- to the never-built, $398 million "Bridge to Nowhere" that was to join the town of Ketchikan, Alaska, with its airport on the other side of the Tongass Narrows.

You'll recall that in her Republican convention speech, Palin burnished her budget-hawk credentials by claiming she had said "thanks but no thanks" to a congressional earmark that would have paid most of the cost. A quick check of the public record showed that Palin supported the bridge when she was running for governor, continued to support it once she took office and dropped her backing only after the project -- by then widely ridiculed as an example of pork-barrel spending -- was effectively dead on Capitol Hill.

In her interview with ABC's Charles Gibson, Palin 'fessed up. It was "not inappropriate" for a mayor or a governor to work with members of Congress to obtain federal money for infrastructure projects, she argued. "What I supported," she said, "was the link between a community and its airport."

Case closed. Except that on Saturday, days after the interview, Palin said this to a crowd in Nevada: "I told Congress thanks but no thanks to that Bridge to Nowhere -- that if our state wanted to build that bridge, we would build it ourselves."

That's not just a lie, but an acknowledged lie. What she actually told Congress was more like, "Gimme the money for the bridge" -- and then later, after the whole thing had become an embarrassment, she didn't object to using the money for other projects.

I'm not shocked to learn that politicians sometimes lie. To cite an example that comes immediately to mind, John McCain's campaign ads attacking Barack Obama have taken such liberties that even Karl Rove says he wonders if they've gone too far. But it's weird for a politician -- or anyone else, really -- to maintain that an assertion is true after admitting that it isn't true.

Maybe Palin cynically believes she can keep using the "no thanks" line and manage to stay one step ahead of the truth police. Maybe she calculates that audiences would rather believe her than their lying eyes. Or maybe she really believes her own fantasy-based version of events. Maybe the Legend of Sarah Palin has become, on some level, more real to her than actual history.

And quite a legend it's turning out to be. The Post reported Sunday that as mayor of tiny Wasilla, Palin pressured the town librarian to remove controversial books from the shelves, cut funds for the town museum but somehow found the money for a new deputy administrator slot and told city employees not to talk to reporters.

And the New York Times reported Sunday that as governor, Palin appointed a high school classmate, Franci Havemeister, to a $95,000-a-year job as head of the State Division of Agriculture. Havemeister "cited her childhood love of cows as a qualification for running the roughly $2 million agency," the Times reported, noting her as one of at least five schoolmates to whom Palin has given high-paying jobs in state government.

Nothing against cows. Nothing against high-school BFFs and being true to your school. But a different picture of Sarah Palin is beginning to emerge. The McCain campaign would like us to see a straight-talking, gun-toting, moose-eviscerating, lipstick-wearing frontierswoman. Instead, we're beginning to discern an ambitious, opportunistic politician who makes no bones about rewarding friends and punishing those who stand in her way -- and who believes that truth is nothing more, and nothing less, than what she says it is.

The writer will answer questions at 1 p.m. today at http://www.washingtonpost.com. His e-mail address is eugenerobinson@washpost.com.

Read more from Eugene Robinson at washingtonpost.com's new opinion blog, PostPartisan.

Palin's Project List

2008-09-15T11:29:00.000-07:00

"She also has sought $4.5 million to upgrade an airport on a Bering Sea island that has a year-round population of less than 100."

"The state's earmark requests stand out in part because its state government is among the wealthiest in the U.S. Flush with oil and gas royalties, it doesn't impose income or sales taxes. In fact, money flows the other way: Every man, woman and child this year got a check for $3,200."

McCain Campaign
Says Record Shows
Drop in Requests
By LAURA MECKLER and JOHN R. WILKE
September 15, 2008; Page A5

Last week, Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain said his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, hadn't sought earmarks or special-interest spending from Congress, presenting her as a fiscal conservative. But state records show Gov. Palin has asked U.S. taxpayers to fund $453 million in specific Alaska projects over the past two years.

These projects include more than $130 million in federal funds that would benefit Alaska's fishing industry and an additional $9 million to help Alaska oil companies. She also has sought $4.5 million to upgrade an airport on a Bering Sea island that has a year-round population of less than 100.

Getty Images
Gov. Sarah Palin sought more than $130 million in federal funds for the Alaskan fishing industry.
Sen. McCain has made the battle against earmarks and wasteful spending a centerpiece of his campaign. He has never sought earmarks for his state of Arizona and vows to veto pork-barrel spending bills that come to his desk as president, saying these projects should go through normal budget review. And he derides the argument that states often make: that they're funding important projects.

"If they're worthy projects they can be authorized and appropriated in a New York minute," he explained on his campaign bus earlier this year, before Gov. Palin joined the ticket. "If they're worthy projects I know they'd be funded."

During an appearance Friday on ABC's "The View," Sen. McCain said Gov. Palin shared his views, and hasn't sought congressional earmarks. "Not as governor she hasn't," he said.

In fact, in the current fiscal year, she is seeking $197 million for 31 projects, the records show. In the prior year, her first year in office, she sought $256 million for dozens more projects ranging from research on rockfish and harbor-seal genetics to rural sanitation and obesity prevention. By comparison, her predecessor, Gov. Frank Murkowski, sought more than $350 million in his last year in office.

The McCain campaign said Sunday that Gov. Palin's overall record is one of fiscal discipline. "Her record is cutting the number of earmark requests from the previous administration sizably," said McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds, and she has vetoed wasteful state spending.

As for Sen. McCain's televised comments on Friday, Mr. Bounds added, "If he gave viewers a mistaken impression, it certainly wasn't intentional."

In an interview with ABC News on Friday, Gov. Palin herself suggested she no longer seeks earmarks for her state. "The abuse of earmarks, it's un-American, it's undemocratic, and it's not going to be accepted in a McCain-Palin administration. Earmark abuse will stop."

When pressed about her record as governor, she said: "We have drastically, drastically reduced our earmark request since I came into office. This is what I've been telling Alaskans for these years that I've been in office, is no more."

Alaska's success with earmarks is due in part to the power of Sen. Ted Stevens, the top Republican on the Senate Appropriations Committee. The state's earmark requests stand out in part because its state government is among the wealthiest in the U.S. Flush with oil and gas royalties, it doesn't impose income or sales taxes. In fact, money flows the other way: Every man, woman and child this year got a check for $3,200.

The McCain campaign has also come under fire for saying on the stump and in TV ads that Gov. Palin killed the controversial "Bridge to Nowhere," a $223 million earmark linking the mainland to a sparsely populated island. In fact, she supported the project initially and killed it after it was widely criticized and Congress allowed the state to use the funds for other projects.

On the campaign trail, Gov. Palin has repeatedly attacked Sen. Obama on earmarks. "Our opponent has requested nearly one billion dollars in earmarks in three years. That's about a million for every working day," she said at a rally in Albuquerque, N.M.

Sen. Barack Obama requested a total of $860 million in earmarks in his Senate years, according to Taxpayers for Common Sense. That doesn't include $78 million for projects that were national in scope and had been requested by many lawmakers. Sen. Obama halted all earmark requests in fiscal 2009.

It is difficult to compare Sen. Obama's earmark record with Gov. Palin's -- their states differ in size, for instance, and the two candidates play different roles in the process. But using the same calculation that the McCain campaign uses, the total amount of earmarked dollars divided by the number of working days while each held office (assuming a five-day workweek, every week, for both), Gov. Palin sought $980,000 per workday, compared with roughly $893,000 for Sen. Obama.

Mr. Bounds, the McCain campaign spokesman, called this an "apples and oranges comparison" because Sen. Obama sought more than Gov. Palin and because she cut earmark requests.

Write to Laura Meckler at laura.meckler@wsj.com

Sarah Palin a Mortal Threat, Not a Distraction

2008-09-15T09:47:00.000-07:00

. Sarah Palin is a mortal threat to the possibility of Obama winning, not a distraction. The reason is simple: if she can add a couple of points to McCain from defecting white women and the newly-energized right wing religious base without losing more independent votes, McCain pulls ahead in some key states.

The dangerous tendency of the Obama campaign and its Democratic surrogates is to not fight back, but treat Palin as a "distraction" from McCain, the economy, the issues they feel familiar with, etc.

If they assume that the Palin bubble will return to earth naturally, or that the mainstream media and Saturday Night Live will do the job for them, the Obama campaign is mistaken.

There needs to be a controlled message that treats Palin as an extension of McCain, not a bobble-head to be laughed at.

The message has to cut off independent and women's support for McCain-Palin and, if possible, divide some of the right-wingers. Not an easy task.

Perhaps the point is that we've already suffered eight years under a president Bush and vice-president Cheney who were, in Palin's words, so "wired in a way to be committed to the mission" that they could neither blink nor think. She and McCain, like Bush and Iraq, are faith-based missions that will crash on us.

An excellent editorial in Sunday's NY Times makes the connection from McCain to Palin in terms that will reach independent and moderate voters. It should be quoted and widely circulated. The choice of an unqualified candidate to be a heartbeat from the presidency of a 72 year old man with four melanomas "was shockingly irresponsible," the Times said.

I think we can see in McCain-Palin a kind of faith-based extremism that reminds us of Bush and, even more, the persona of Gen. Custer.

We have seen where righteous faith-based politics goes in the Supreme Court decisions, corruption scandals, the official lies, and the unnecessary wars of the past eight years, all carried out in the name of what both McCain and Palin now call "God's plan."

2. The McCain-Palin foreign policy is a mortal threat to America from the same neoconservatives who brought us Iraq wrapped in lies. Her neocon speechwriters had the audacity to repeat the 2002 claim that Iraq was behind 9/11. She told her son's Iraq-bound troops that "you'll be there to defend the innocent from the enemies who planned and carried out and rejoiced in the deaths of thousands of Americans." [NYT, 9/14] This was the original lie of Bush's war.

We cannot give the Republicans an advantage with their false clams of "victory in sight." We have to emphasize the three-trillion dollar cost of the war, and we have to connect the war to the price of oil. Democratic consultants should stop compartmentalizing the economy like it was 1992 all over again.

This is apparently not the advice of the biggest Democratic heavyweights like Bill Clinton and James Carville who tend to revert to "it's the economy, stupid." But it's not 1992. It's the 9/11 era, the Iraq War era, the War on Terrorism era -- and also the middle of the worse economic and energy crisis in memory. The issues are tied together. Not enough people will vote on "lunch bucket" issues if they think McCain-Palin will protect them from terrorists, but they might vote against McCain-Palin if they think they are being lied to again.

This is Your Nation on White Privilege

2008-09-15T09:42:00.000-07:00

http://www.zcommunications.org/zspace/commentaries/3618 Subscription Required

This is Your Nation on White Privilege

By Tim Wise
ZSpace: Sep 13, 2008

For those who still can't grasp the concept of white privilege, or who are
constantly looking for some easy-to-understand examples of it, perhaps this
list will help.

White privilege is when you can get pregnant at seventeen like Bristol Palin
and everyone is quick to insist that your life and that of your family is a
personal matter, and that no one has a right to judge you or your parents,
because "every family has challenges," even as black and Latino families
with similar "challenges" are regularly typified as irresponsible,
pathological and arbiters of social decay.

White privilege is when you can call yourself a "f**kin' redneck," like
Bristol Palin's boyfriend does, and talk about how if anyone messes with
you, you'll "kick their fuckin' ass," and talk about how you like to "shoot
shit" for fun, and still be viewed as a responsible, all-American boy (and a
great son-in-law to be) rather than a thug.

White privilege is when you can attend four different colleges in six years
like Sarah Palin did (one of which you basically failed out of, then
returned to after making up some coursework at a community college), and no
one questions your intelligence or commitment to achievement, whereas a
person of color who did this would be viewed as unfit for college, and
probably someone who only got in in the first place because of affirmative
action.

White privilege is when you can claim that being mayor of a town smaller
than most medium-sized colleges, and then Governor of a state with about the
same number of people as the lower fifth of the island of Manhattan, makes
you ready to potentially be president, and people don't all piss on
themselves with laughter, while being a black U.S. Senator, two-term state
Senator, and constitutional law scholar, means you're "untested."

White privilege is being able to say that you support the words "under God"
in the pledge of allegiance because "if it was good enough for the founding
fathers, it's good enough for me," and not be immediately disqualified from
holding office--since, after all, the pledge was written in the late 1800s
and the "under God" part wasn't added until the 1950s--while believing that
reading accused criminals and terrorists their rights (because, ya know, the
Constitution, which you used to teach at a prestigious law school requires
it), is a dangerous and silly idea only supported by mushy liberals.

White privilege is being able to be a gun enthusiast and not make people
immediately scared of you. White privilege is being able to have a husband
who was a member of an extremist political party that wants your state to
secede from the Union, and whose motto was "Alaska first," and no one
questions your patriotism or that of your family, while if you're black and
your spouse merely fails to come to a 9/11 memorial so she can be home with
her kids on the first day of school, people immediately think she's being
disrespectful.

White privilege is being able to make fun of community organizers and the
work they do--like, among other things, fight for the right of women to
vote, or for civil rights, or the 8-hour workday, or an end to child
labor--and people think you're being pithy and tough, but if you merely
question the experience of a small town mayor and 18-month governor with no
foreign policy expertise beyond a class she took in college--you're somehow
being mean, or even sexist.

White privilege is being able to convince white women who don't even agree
with you on any substantive issue to vote for you and your running mate
anyway, because all of a sudden your presence on the ticket has inspired
confidence in these same white women, and made them give your party a
"second look."

White privilege is being able to fire people who didn't support your
political campaigns and not be accused of abusing your power or being a
typical politician who engages in favoritism, while being black and merely
knowing some folks from the old-line political machines in Chicago means you
must be corrupt.

White privilege is being able to attend churches over the years whose
pastors say that people who voted for John Kerry or merely criticize George
W. Bush are going to hell, and that the U.S. is an explicitly Christian
nation and the job of Christians is to bring Christian theological
principles into government, and who bring in speakers who say the conflict
in the Middle East is God's punishment on Jews for rejecting Jesus, and
everyone can still think you're just a good church-going Christian, but if
you're black and friends with a black pastor who has noted (as have Colin
Powell and the U.S. Department of Defense) that terrorist attacks are often
the result of U.S. foreign policy and who talks about the history of racism
and its effect on black people, you're an extremist who probably hates
America.

White privilege is not knowing what the Bush Doctrine is when asked by a
reporter, and then people get angry at the reporter for asking you such a
"trick question," while being black and merely refusing to give one-word
answers to the queries of Bill O'Reilly means you're dodging the question,
or trying to seem overly intellectual and nuanced.

White privilege is being able to claim your experience as a POW has anything
at all to do with your fitness for president, while being black and
experiencing racism is, as Sarah Palin has referred to it a "light" burden.

And finally, white privilege is the only thing that could possibly allow
someone to become president when he has voted with George W. Bush 90 percent
of the time, even as unemployment is skyrocketing, people are losing their
homes, inflation is rising, and the U.S. is increasingly isolated from world
opinion, just because white voters aren't sure about that whole "change"
thing. Ya know, it's just too vague and ill-defined, unlike, say, four more
years of the same, which is very concrete and certain.

White privilege is, in short, the problem.

Tim Wise is the author of White Like Me (Soft Skull, 2005, revised 2008),
and of Speaking Treason Fluently, publishing this month, also by Soft Skull.
For review copies or interview requests, please reply to
publicity@softskull.com

As Mayor of Wasilla, Palin Cut Own Duties, Left Trail of Bad Blood

2008-09-14T10:50:00.000-07:00

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/13/AR2008091302596.html?wpisrc=newsletter

As Mayor of Wasilla, Palin Cut Own Duties, Left Trail of Bad Blood

By Alec MacGillis
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, September 14, 2008; A01

"Palin limited her duties further by hiring a deputy administrator to handle much of the town's day-to-day management. Her top achievement as mayor was the construction of an ice rink, a project that landed in the courts and cost the city more than expected.

Arriving in office, Palin herself played down the demands of the job in response to residents who worried that her move to oust veteran officials would leave the town in the lurch. "It's not rocket science," Palin said, according to the town newspaper, the Frontiersman. "It's $6 million and 53 employees."

WASILLA, Alaska -- On Sept. 24, 2001, Mayor Sarah Palin and the City Council held their first meeting after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The council condemned the attacks and approved a $5,000 gift to a disaster relief fund. Palin said she would try to obtain materials from both attack sites to include in the town's "Honor Garden."

And then the council and mayor returned to their normal business: approving funds to upgrade the public well, issuing a restaurant permit and taking up a measure forbidding residents from operating bed-and-breakfasts in their homes. After a lively debate, the bed-and-breakfast measure lost, 4 to 1.

Since joining the Republican ticket, Palin has faced questions about whether she is qualified to be vice president or, if necessary, president. In response, the first-term Alaska governor and Sen. John McCain point to the executive qualifications she acquired as Wasilla mayor, a six-year stint from 1996 to 2002 that represents the bulk of her political experience.

Palin says her time as mayor taught her how to be a leader and grounded her in the real needs of voters, and her tenure revealed some of the qualities she would later display as governor: a striving ambition, a willingness to cut loose those perceived as disloyal and a populist brand of social and pro-growth conservatism.

But a visit to this former mining supply post 40 miles north of Anchorage shows the extent to which Palin's mayoralty was also defined by what it did not include. The universe of the mayor of Wasilla is sharply circumscribed even by the standards of small towns, which limited Palin's exposure to issues such as health care, social services, the environment and education.

Firefighting and schools, two of the main elements of local governance, are handled by the Matanuska-Susitna Borough, the regional government for a huge swath of central Alaska. The state has jurisdiction over social services and environmental regulations such as stormwater management for building projects.

With so many government services in the state subsidized by oil revenue, and with no need to provide for local schools, Wasilla has also made do with a very low property tax rate -- cut altogether by Palin's successor -- sparing it from the tax battles that localities elsewhere must deal with. Instead, the city collects a 2 percent sales tax, the bulk of which is paid by people who live outside town and shop at its big-box stores.

The mayor oversees a police department created three years before Palin took office; the public works department; the parks and recreation department; a planning office; a library; and a small history museum. Council meetings are in the low-ceilinged basement of the town hall, a former school, and often the only residents who show up to testify are two gadflies. When Palin was mayor, the population was just 5,500.

Palin limited her duties further by hiring a deputy administrator to handle much of the town's day-to-day management. Her top achievement as mayor was the construction of an ice rink, a project that landed in the courts and cost the city more than expected.

Arriving in office, Palin herself played down the demands of the job in response to residents who worried that her move to oust veteran officials would leave the town in the lurch. "It's not rocket science," Palin said, according to the town newspaper, the Frontiersman. "It's $6 million and 53 employees."

Further constraining City Hall's role is the frontier philosophy that has prevailed in Wasilla, a town that was founded in 1917 as a stop along the new railroad from Anchorage to the gold mines further north. The light hand of government is evident in the town's commercial core, essentially a haphazard succession of big-box stores, fast-food restaurants and shopping plazas.

The only semblance of an original downtown is a small collection of historic cabins that have been gathered for display in a grassy area beside a shopping center. Most residents live in ranch houses scattered through the woods. Churches, offices, stores and most other buildings are made of corrugated metal or composite materials. Standing in contrast to the utilitarian architecture are the lakes and majestic peaks.

Many of those in town were astonished to learn that Palin had been named McCain's running mate six years after leaving City Hall.

"I was happy in a way, because it is a new beginning for the country, but also I am very worried due to her lack of experience," said Darlene Langill, a self-described arch-conservative who served on the City Council during Palin's first year in office.

Duane Dvorak, the city planner when Palin took office, said the mayor's ambition had been plain to see, but added: "My sense is that this opportunity maybe came along before she was ready for it or thought it would come along."

The McCain campaign declined to respond to questions about Palin's tenure as mayor, but the current mayor, Dianne Keller, said Palin's tenure has prepared her to be vice president.

"Executive experience is executive experience. Whether you are a mayor or a governor or an executive at a company, the duties and responsibilities are the same," said Keller, who served on the City Council under Palin.

* * *

As constrained as Palin's duties as mayor were, her rise to power in Wasilla allowed her to hone the sharp political instinct that has guided her since. When she ran for City Council in 1992, it was as a young PTA mother and daughter of a well-liked local family.

But in her four years on the council, she picked up on sentiment that was building against the three-term incumbent, John Stein, who pushed for the 2 percent sales tax to pay for road, sewer and water upgrades. These investments laid the way for the city's growth, but they also unnerved some residents.

"People said, 'What are you doing to my city? I liked it better when we didn't have government,' '' said Richard Deuser, the city attorney at the time. "And Sarah really pandered to that resentment, that resistance to change. Sarah became their person."

Running against Stein, Palin called for an end to his "tax-and-spend mentality" -- and introduced Wasilla to the kind of socially conservative campaigning that was taking hold across the nation. A national antiabortion-rights group sent cards to voters praising Palin, and her brochures said she was "endorsed by the NRA." After she won with 616 votes -- 58 percent of the total -- a local TV station referred to her as Wasilla's "first Christian mayor," even though Stein and his predecessors were also Christian.

Palin took office as mayor in October 1996 with a show of force. She fired the museum director and demanded that the other department heads submit resignation letters, saying she would decide whether to accept them based on their loyalty, according to news reports at the time. She clashed with Police Chief Irl Stambaugh over his push for moving bar closing time from 5 a.m. to 2 a.m. and for his opposition to state legislation to allow people to carry guns in banks and bars.

In notes that he took during a meeting in Palin's first week on the job, Stambaugh wrote that the new mayor told him "that the NRA didn't like me and that they wanted change," according to the Seattle Times, which reviewed the notes at a federal archive in Seattle. Stambaugh was fired on Jan. 30, 1997, partly, the mayor said, because he had not taken seriously her request for a weekly progress report "on at least two positive examples of work that was started, how we helped the public, how we saved the City money, how we helped the state, how we helped Uncle Sam." Stambaugh filed a wrongful-termination suit, which he lost.

Palin also differed with the librarian, Mary Ellen Emmons. The Frontiersman reported at the time that Palin asked Emmons three times in her first weeks in office whether she would agree to remove controversial books. The librarian said she would not. The McCain campaign has confirmed Palin's questions but said that she never demanded removal of any specific books. Palin also fired Emmons on Jan. 30 but reinstated her after an uproar.

Although the town had a $4 million surplus, Palin cut the museum budget by $32,000, and the three older women who worked there quit instead of deciding which would have to go. But Palin dipped into the budget to create the deputy administrator slot, which some council members complained was at odds with her small-government stance. She told city officials not to talk to reporters.

A recall effort in early 1997 fizzled out, but hard feelings lingered. "Working in small towns, I had never seen someone come in and clean house like that in such a precipitous manner. It was pretty scary and emotional," said Dvorak, the city planner, who left after eight months.

Deuser, the former city attorney, said it was upsetting to hear the McCain campaign refer to Palin's takeover as a matter of getting rid of the "good ol' boy network."

"They were just good public servants who did a really admirable job and deserved better," said Deuser, who was replaced in 1997.

Jeff Carney, another local attorney, said Palin was just trying to assert herself against skeptics. Members of the town's old guard "thought they could run over her and were bothered that she could think for herself and make up her own mind up and not do what someone older and wiser told her to do," he said.

In 2006, Palin told the Anchorage Daily News she learned from it all. "At the time, it seemed perplexing that people would object. I was very bold about what needed to be done," she said. "It was rough with a staff who didn't want to be there working with a new boss. I learned you've got to be very discerning early on and decide if you can win them over or not. If you can't, you replace them early on."

Palin's replacements included a public works director who lacked engineering experience but was married to a top aide to a former Republican governor, and she made a former state GOP lawyer city attorney, according to the Daily News. Langill, the former councilwoman, said the new hires fit Palin's management style.

"Sarah always did and still does surround herself with people she gets along well with," she said. "They protect her, and that's what she needs. She has surrounded herself with people who would not allow others to disagree with Sarah. Either you were in favor of everything Sarah was doing or had a black mark by your name."

But things did run more smoothly from then on, and department directors whom Palin hired said she was good at delegating authority and letting them do their job. "She's a quick study," said Don Shiesl, who took over public works in 1998. "She's a heck of a public speaker and she works her magic on people. Give her four years, with some training, and she'll be up to snuff. She's not dumb, she'll be able to catch on to stuff real quick."

* * *

The town's coffers swelled as more stores moved in, letting Palin reap the political benefits of Stein's sales tax and infrastructure upgrades. With her natural charisma putting voters at ease after the initial turbulence, she was reelected in 1999 to the $68,000-a-year job. The budget expanded by nearly half during Palin's tenure as she increased spending on police and public works but kept a lid on city planning and the library, and further reduced the property tax.

Further buttressing the budget were the earmarks Palin sought for the town after hiring a Washington lobbyist for $38,000 a year. The town secured $27 million in all, including $1.9 million for a transportation hub, $900,000 for sewer repairs and $15 million for a rail project.

Despite the city's flush accounts, the police department under the chief Palin hired to replace Stambaugh required women who said they had been raped to pay for examination kits themselves, a policy Palin now says she rejects. State legislation passed a year later required the town to pay for the kits.

The social-issues platform of Palin's first campaign found little outlet in town, beyond some symbolic moves such as declaring Wasilla a "City of Good Character" and a resolution opposing the legalization of marijuana. Instead, she focused on continuing the city's growth and development. Her second city planner, Tim Krug, said last week that the city would sometimes "lighten" regulations, to "make things more welcoming."

Some in town had for years pressed the city for a new space for the cramped library. Palin, who calls herself a "typical hockey mom," instead focused on building a sports complex with an NHL-size rink. In 2002, by a 20-vote margin, voters approved a $14.7 million bond to be financed by a half-cent sales tax hike.

Palin had forged ahead with the project despite a lingering legal dispute over whether the city had ownership of the land. A judge had initially ruled in the city's favor, but it later lost on appeal and had to pay $1.3 million more for the land.

"The only accomplishment of note was the building of the sports complex . . . and it was bungled," said Deuser, the former city attorney. Keller, the new mayor, defended Palin, saying she had relied on legal advice in proceeding with the project.

Bound by term limits, Palin ran for lieutenant governor in 2002, came in a strong second and was later rewarded with a high-paying spot on the state Oil and Gas Conservation Commission.

In September 2002, she presided over her last City Council meeting. The council took up an ordinance to ban sex shops. The police chief announced that Raymond Chiemlowski was promoted to sergeant. Keller "reported that traffic lights on Knik-Goosebay Road will be turned on soon and encouraged everyone to use caution while adjusting to the new traffic pattern."

And with that, at 9:48 p.m., Sarah Palin's final meeting as mayor of Wasilla was adjourned.

Obama and the Palin Effect

2008-09-13T23:07:00.000-07:00

This is from Deepak Chopra's MySpace blog.

"Obama and the Palin Effect"

Sometimes politics has the uncanny effect of mirroring the national psyche even when nobody intended to do that. This is perfectly illustrated by the rousing effect that Gov. Sarah Palin had on the Republican convention in Minneapolis this week. On the surface, she outdoes former Vice President Dan Quayle as an unlikely choice, given her negligent parochial expertise in the complex affairs of governing. Her state of Alaska has less than 700,000 residents, which reduces the job of governor to the scale of running one-tenth of New York City. By comparison, Rudy Giuliani is a towering international figure. Palin's pluck has been admired, and her forthrightness, but her real appeal goes deeper.

She is the reverse of Barack Obama, in essence his shadow, deriding his idealism and exhorting people to obey their worst impulses . In psychological terms the shadow is that part of the psyche that hides out of sight, countering our aspirations, virtue, and vision with qualities we are ashamed to face: anger, fear, revenge, violence, selfishness, and suspicion of "the other." For millions of Americans, Obama triggers those feelings, but they don't want to express them. He is calling for us to reach for our higher selves, and frankly, that stirs up hidden reactions of an unsavory kind. (Just to be perfectly clear, I am not making a verbal play out of the fact that Sen. Obama is black. The shadow is a metaphor widely in use before his arrival on the scene.) I recognize that psychological analysis of politics is usually not welcome by the public, but I believe such a perspective can be helpful here to understand Palin's message. In her acceptance speech Gov. Palin sent a rousing call to those who want to celebrate their resistance to change and a higher vision.

Look at what she stands for:
--Small town values -- a denial of America's global role, a return to petty, small-minded parochialism.
--Ignorance of world affairs -- a repudiation of the need to repair America's image abroad.
--Family values -- a code for walling out anybody who makes a claim for social justice. Such strangers, being outside the family, don't need to be heeded.
--Rigid stands on guns and abortion -- a scornful repudiation that these issues can be negotiated with those who disagree.
--Patriotism -- the usual fallback in a failed war.
--"Reform" -- an italicized term, since in addition to cleaning out corruption and excessive spending, one also throws out anyone who doesn't fit your ideology.

Palin reinforces the overall message of the reactionary right, which has been in play since 1980, that social justice is liberal-radical, that minorities and immigrants, being different from "us" pure American types, can be ignored, that progressivism takes too much effort and globalism is a foreign threat. The radical right marches under the banners of "I'm all right, Jack," and "Why change? Everything's OK as it is." The irony, of course, is that Gov. Palin is a woman and a reactionary at the same time. She can add mom to apple pie on her resume, while blithely reversing forty years of feminist progress. The irony is superficial; there are millions of women who stand on the side of conservatism, however obviously they are voting against their own good. The Republicans have won multiple national elections by raising shadow issues based on fear, rejection, hostility to change, and narrow-mindedness.

Obama's call for higher ideals in politics can't be seen in a vacuum. The shadow is real; it was bound to respond. Not just conservatives possess a shadow -- we all do. So what comes next is a contest between the two forces of progress and inertia. Will the shadow win again, or has its furtive appeal become exhausted? No one can predict. The best thing about Gov. Palin is that she brought this conflict to light, which makes the upcoming debate honest. It would be a shame to elect another Reagan, whose smiling persona was a stalking horse for the reactionary forces that have brought us to the demoralized state we are in. We deserve to see what we are getting, without disguise.

DeepakChopra. com As I give loving awareness, so I receive it also. — Deepak Chopra, The Deeper Wound. - Why is God Laughing?:The Path to Joy and Spiritual Optimism ...

www.deepakchopra. com/ - 55k - Similar pages

In Office, Palin Hired Friends and Hit Critics

2008-09-13T23:04:00.000-07:00

In Office, Palin Hired Friends and Hit Critics

By JO BECKER, PETER S. GOODMAN AND MICHAEL POWELL

WASILLA, Alaska — Gov. Sarah Palin lives by the maxim that all politics is local, not to mention personal. So when there was a vacancy at the top of the State Division of Agriculture, she appointed a high school classmate, Franci Havemeister, to the $95,000-a-year directorship. A former real estate agent, Ms. Havemeister cited her childhood love of cows as one of her qualifications for running the roughly $2 million agency.Ms. Havemeister was one of at least five schoolmates Ms. Palin hired, often at salaries far exceeding their private sector wages. When Ms. Palin had to cut her first state budget, she avoided the legion of frustrated legislators and mayors. Instead, she huddled with her budget director and her husband, Todd, an oil field worker who is not a state employee, and vetoed millions of dollars of legislative projects. And four months ago, a Wasilla blogger, Sherry Whitstine, who chronicles the governor’s career with an astringent eye, answered her phone to hear an assistant to the governor on the line, she said.“You should be ashamed!” Ivy Frye, the assistant, told her. “Stop blogging. Stop blogging right now!”Ms. Palin walks the national stage as a small-town foe of “good old boy” politics and a champion of ethics reform. The charismatic 44-year-old governor draws enthusiastic audiences and high approval ratings. And as the Republican vice-presidential nominee, she points to her management experience while deriding her Democratic rivals, Senators Barack Obama and Joseph R. Biden Jr., as speechmakers who never have run anything.But an examination of her swift rise and record as mayor of Wasilla and then governor finds that her visceral style and penchant for attacking critics — she sometimes calls local opponents “haters” — contrasts with her carefully crafted public image. Throughout her political career, she has pursued vendettas, fired officials who crossed her and sometimes blurred the line between government and personal grievance, according to a review of public records and interviews with 60 Republican and Democratic legislators and local officials.Still, Ms. Palin has many supporters. As a two-term mayor she paved roads and built an ice rink, and as governor she has pushed through higher taxes on the oil companies that dominate one-third of the state’s economy. She stirs deep emotions. In Wasilla, many residents display unflagging affection, cheering “our Sarah” and hissing at her critics.“She is bright and has unfailing political instincts,” said Steve Haycox, a history professor at the University of Alaska. “She taps very directly into anxieties about the economic future.” “But,” he added, “her governing style raises a lot of hard questions.”Ms. Palin declined to grant an interview for this article. The McCain-Palin campaign responded to some questions on her behalf and that of her husband, while referring others to the governor’s spokespeople, who did not respond.Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell said Ms. Palin had conducted an accessible and effective administration in the public’s interest. “Everything she does is for the ordinary working people of Alaska,” Mr. Parnell said.In Wasilla, a builder said he complained to Mayor Palin when the city attorney put a stop-work order on his housing project. She responded, he said, by engineering the attorney’s firing. Interviews show that Ms. Palin runs an administration that puts a premium on loyalty and secrecy. The governor and her top officials sometimes use personal e-mail accounts for state business; dozens of e-mail messages obtained by The New York Times show that her staff members studied whether that could allow them to circumvent subpoenas seeking public records. Rick Steiner, a University of Alaska professor, sought the e-mail messages of state scientists who had examined the effect of global warming on polar bears. (Ms. Palin said the scientists had found no ill effects, and she has sued the federal government to block the listing of the bears as endangered.) An administration official told Mr. Steiner that it would cost $468,784 to process his request.When Mr. Steiner finally obtained the e-mail messages — through a federal records request — he discovered that state scientists had in fact agreed that the bears were in danger, records show.“Their secrecy is off the charts,” Mr. Steiner said. State legislators are investigating accusations that Ms. Palin and her husband pressured officials to fire a state trooper who had gone through a messy divorce with her sister, charges that she denies. But interviews make clear that the Palins draw few distinctions between the personal and the political.Last summer State Representative John Harris, the Republican speaker of the House, picked up his phone and heard Mr. Palin’s voice. The governor’s husband sounded edgy. He said he was unhappy that Mr. Harris had hired John Bitney as his chief of staff, the speaker recalled. Mr. Bitney was a high school classmate of the Palins and had worked for Ms. Palin. But she fired Mr. Bitney after learning that he had fallen in love with another longtime friend. “I understood from the call that Todd wasn’t happy with me hiring John and he’d like to see him not there,” Mr. Harris said. “The Palin family gets upset at personal issues,” he added. “And at our level, they want to strike back.”Hometown MayorLaura Chase, the campaign manager during Ms. Palin’s first run for mayor in 1996, recalled the night the two women chatted about her ambitions. “I said, ‘You know, Sarah, within 10 years you could be governor,’ ” Ms. Chase recalled. “She replied, ‘I want to be president.’ ”Ms. Palin grew up in Wasilla, an old fur trader’s outpost and now a fast-growing exurb of Anchorage. The town sits in the Matanuska-Susitna Valley, edged by jagged mountains and birch forests. In the 1930s, the Roosevelt administration took farmers from the Dust Bowl area and resettled them here; their Democratic allegiances defined the valley for half a century. In the past three decades, socially conservative Oklahomans and Texans have flocked north to the oil fields of Alaska. They filled evangelical churches around Wasilla and revived the Republican Party. Many of these working-class residents formed the electoral backbone for Ms. Palin, who ran for mayor on a platform of gun rights, opposition to abortion and the ouster of the “complacent” old guard. After winning the mayoral election in 1996, Ms. Palin presided over a city rapidly outgrowing itself. Septic tanks had begun to pollute lakes, and residential lots were carved willy-nilly out of the woods. She passed road and sewer bonds, cut property taxes but raised the sales tax. And, her supporters say, she cleaned out the municipal closet, firing veteran officials to make way for her own team. “She had an agenda for change and for doing things differently,” said Judy Patrick, a City Council member at the time. But careers were turned upside down. The mayor quickly fired the town’s museum director, John Cooper. Later, she sent an aide to the museum to talk to the three remaining employees. “He told us they only wanted two,” recalled Esther West, one of the three, “and we had to pick who was going to be laid off.” The three quit as one.Ms. Palin cited budget difficulties for the museum cuts. Mr. Cooper thought differently, saying the museum had become a microcosm of class and cultural conflicts in town. “It represented that the town was becoming more progressive, and they didn’t want that,” he said. Days later, Mr. Cooper recalled, a vocal conservative, Steve Stoll, sidled up to him. Mr. Stoll had supported Ms. Palin and had a long-running feud with Mr. Cooper. “He said: ‘Gotcha, Cooper,’ ” Mr. Cooper said.Mr. Stoll did not recall that conversation, although he said he supported Ms. Palin’s campaign and was pleased when she fired Mr. Cooper.In 1997, Ms. Palin fired the longtime city attorney, Richard Deuser, after he issued the stop-work order on a home being built by Don Showers, another of her campaign supporters.Your attorney, Mr. Showers told Ms. Palin, is costing me lots of money. “She told me she’d like to see him fired,” Mr. Showers recalled. “But she couldn’t do it herself because the City Council hires the city attorney.” Ms. Palin told him to write the council members to complain. Meanwhile, Ms. Palin pushed the issue from the inside. “She started the ball rolling,” said Ms. Patrick, who also favored the firing. Mr. Deuser was soon replaced by Ken Jacobus — then the State Republican Party’s general counsel. “Professionals were either forced out or fired,” Mr. Deuser said.Ms. Palin ordered city employees not to talk to the press. And she used city money to buy a white Suburban for the mayor’s use — employees sarcastically called it the mayor-mobile.The new mayor also tended carefully to her evangelical base. She appointed a pastor to the town planning board. And she began to eye the library. For years, social conservatives had pressed the library director to remove books they considered immoral.“People would bring books back censored,” recalled former Mayor John Stein, Ms. Palin’s predecessor. “Pages would get marked up or torn out.”Witnesses and contemporary news accounts say Ms. Palin asked the librarian about removing books from the shelves. The McCain-Palin presidential campaign says Ms. Palin never advocated censorship. But in 1995, Ms. Palin, then a city councilwoman, told colleagues that she had noticed the book “Daddy’s Roommate” on the shelves and that it did not belong there, according to Ms. Chase and Mr. Stein. Ms. Chase read the book, which helps children understand homosexuality, and said it was inoffensive; she suggested that Ms. Palin read it.“Sarah said she didn’t need to read that stuff,” Ms. Chase said. “It was disturbing that someone would be willing to remove a book from the library and she didn’t even read it.”“I’m still proud of Sarah,” she added, “but she scares the bejeebers out of me.”Reform CrucibleRestless ambition defined Ms. Palin in the early years of this decade. She raised money for Senator Ted Stevens, a Republican from the state; finished second in the 2002 Republican primary for lieutenant governor; and sought to fill the seat of Senator Frank H. Murkowski when he ran for governor.Mr. Murkowski appointed his daughter to the seat, but as a consolation prize, he gave Ms. Palin the $125,000-a-year chairmanship of a state commission overseeing oil and gas drilling.Ms. Palin discovered that the state Republican leader, Randy Ruedrich, a commission member, was conducting party business on state time and favoring regulated companies. When Mr. Murkowski failed to act on her complaints, she quit and went public.The Republican establishment shunned her. But her break with the gentlemen’s club of oil producers and political power catapulted her into the public eye. “She was honest and forthright,” said Jay Kerttula, a former Democratic state senator from Palmer.Ms. Palin entered the 2006 primary for governor as a formidable candidate. In the middle of the primary, a conservative columnist in the state, Paul Jenkins, unearthed e-mail messages showing that Ms. Palin had conducted campaign business from the mayor’s office. Ms. Palin handled the crisis with a street fighter’s guile. “I told her it looks like she did the same thing that Randy Ruedrich did,” Mr. Jenkins recalled. “And she said, ‘Yeah, what I did was wrong.’ ”Mr. Jenkins hung up and decided to forgo writing about it. His phone rang soon after.Mr. Jenkins said a reporter from Fairbanks, reading from a Palin news release, demanded to know why he was “smearing” her. “Now I look at her and think: ‘Man, you’re slick,’ ” he said.Ms. Palin won the primary, and in the general election she faced Tony Knowles, the former two-term Democratic governor, and Andrew Halcro, an independent. Not deeply versed in policy, Ms. Palin skipped some candidate forums; at others, she flipped through hand-written, color-coded index cards strategically placed behind her nameplate. Before one forum, Mr. Halcro said he saw aides shovel reports at Ms. Palin as she crammed. Her showman’s instincts rarely failed. She put the pile of reports on the lectern. Asked what she would do about health care policy, she patted the stack and said she would find an answer in the pile of solutions.“She was fresh, and she was tomorrow,” said Michael Carey, a former editorial page editor for The Anchorage Daily News. “She just floated along like Mary Poppins.” GovernmentHalf a century after Alaska became a state, Ms. Palin was inaugurated as governor in Fairbanks and took up the reformer’s sword. As she assembled her cabinet and made other state appointments, those with insider credentials were now on the outs. But a new pattern became clear. She surrounded herself with people she has known since grade school and members of her church. Mr. Parnell, the lieutenant governor, praised Ms. Palin’s appointments. “The people she hires are competent, qualified, top-notch people,” he said.Ms. Palin chose Talis Colberg, a borough assemblyman from the Matanuska valley, as her attorney general, provoking a bewildered question from the legal community: “Who?” Mr. Colberg, who did not return calls, moved from a one-room building in the valley to one of the most powerful offices in the state, supervising some 500 people.“I called him and asked, ‘Do you know how to supervise people?’ ” said a family friend, Kathy Wells. “He said, ‘No, but I think I’ll get some help.’ ” The Wasilla High School yearbook archive now doubles as a veritable directory of state government. Ms. Palin appointed Mr. Bitney, her former junior high school band-mate, as her legislative director and chose another classmate, Joe Austerman, to manage the economic development office for $82,908 a year. Mr. Austerman had established an Alaska franchise for Mailboxes Etc.To her supporters — and with an 80 percent approval rating, she has plenty — Ms. Palin has lifted Alaska out of a mire of corruption. She gained the passage of a bill that tightens the rules covering lobbyists. And she rewrote the tax code to capture a greater share of oil and gas sale proceeds.“Does anybody doubt that she’s a tough negotiator?” said State Representative Carl Gatto, Republican of Palmer. Yet recent controversy has marred Ms. Palin’s reform credentials. In addition to the trooper investigation, lawmakers in April accused her of improperly culling thousands of e-mail addresses from a state database for a mass mailing to rally support for a policy initiative. While Ms. Palin took office promising a more open government, her administration has battled to keep information secret. Her inner circle discussed the benefit of using private e-mail addresses. An assistant told her it appeared that such e-mail messages sent to a private address on a “personal device” like a Blackberry “would be confidential and not subject to subpoena.” The governor’s office did not respond to questions on the topic.Ms. Palin and aides use their private e-mail addresses for state business. On Feb. 7, Frank Bailey, a high-level aide, wrote to Ms. Palin’s state e-mail address to discuss appointments. Another aide fired back: “Frank, this is not the governor’s personal account.”Mr. Bailey responded: “Whoops~!”Mr. Bailey, a former mid-level manager at Alaska Airlines who worked on Ms. Palin’s campaign, has been placed on paid leave; he has emerged as a central figure in the trooper investigation. Another confidante of Ms. Palin’s is Ms. Frye, 27. She worked as a receptionist for State Senator Lyda Green before she joined Ms. Palin’s campaign for governor. Now Ms. Frye earns $68,664 as a special assistant to the governor. Her frequent interactions with Ms. Palin’s children have prompted some lawmakers to refer to her as “the babysitter,” a title that Ms. Frye disavows.Like Mr. Bailey, she is an effusive cheerleader for her boss.“YOU ARE SO AWESOME!” Ms. Frye typed in an e-mail message to Ms. Palin in March.Many lawmakers contend that Ms. Palin is overly reliant on a small inner circle that leaves her isolated. Democrats and Republicans alike describe her as often missing in action. Since taking office in 2007, Ms. Palin has spent 312 nights at her Wasilla home, some 600 miles to the north of the governor’s mansion in Juneau, records show. During the last legislative session, some lawmakers became so frustrated with her absences that they took to wearing “Where’s Sarah?” pins. Many politicians say they typically learn of her initiatives — and vetoes — from news releases. Mayors across the state, from the larger cities to tiny municipalities along the southeastern fiords, are even more frustrated. Often, their letters go unanswered and their pleas ignored, records and interviews show. Last summer, Mayor Mark Begich of Anchorage, a Democrat, pressed Ms. Palin to meet with him because the state had failed to deliver money needed to operate city traffic lights. At one point, records show, state officials told him to just turn off a dozen of them. Ms. Palin agreed to meet with Mr. Begich when he threatened to go public with his anger, according to city officials.At an Alaska Municipal League gathering in Juneau in January, mayors across the political spectrum swapped stories of the governor’s remoteness. How many of you, someone asked, have tried to meet with her? Every hand went up, recalled Mayor Fred Shields of Haines Borough. And how many met with her? Just a few hands rose. Ms. Palin soon walked in, delivered a few remarks and left for an anti-abortion rally.The administration’ s e-mail correspondence reveals a siege-like atmosphere. Top aides keep score, demean enemies and gloat over successes. Even some who helped engineer her rise have felt her wrath.Dan Fagan, a prominent conservative radio host and longtime friend of Ms. Palin, urged his listeners to vote for her in 2006. But when he took her to task for raising taxes on oil companies, he said, he found himself branded a “hater.” It is part of a pattern, Mr. Fagan said, in which Ms. Palin characterizes critics as “bad people who are anti-Alaska.” As Ms. Palin’s star ascends, the McCain campaign, as often happens in national races, is controlling the words of those who know her well. Her mother-in-law, Faye Palin, has been asked not to speak to reporters, and aides sit in on interviews with old friends. At a recent lunch gathering, an official with the Wasilla Chamber of Commerce asked its members to refer all calls from reporters to the governor’s office. Diane Woodruff, a city councilwoman, shook her head.“I was thinking, I don’t remember giving up my First Amendment rights,” Ms. Woodruff said. “Just because you’re not going gaga over Sarah doesn’t mean you can’t speak your mind.”

A Gidget for God's "Truth"

2008-09-13T09:35:00.000-07:00

http://www.truthout.org/article/sarah-palin-a-gidget-gods-truth

SATURDAY 13 SEPTEMBER 2008

Truthout Original

Sarah Palin: A Gidget for God's Truth
Tuesday 09 September 2008

by: Steve Weissman, t r u t h o u t | Perspective (reader comments follow)

"The Constitution established the United States of America as a Christian nation," declared John McCain back in September 2007. With his vice-presidential pick of Governor Sarah Palin, he has found a winsome soul mate who is even more of a Christian nationalist, eager to use government to impose her religious views on the rest of us.

Palin's stance on abortion illustrates her approach. As she proudly declares, she sees the Bible as literally true, which leads her to believe that aborting a fetus is murder. That position contradicts our long history of common and statutory law. She then goes on to conclude that government should severely punish anyone who has an abortion or performs one, even in the case of rape or incest. She also opposes stem cell research.

Also see:
Steve Weissman |
America's Religious Right: Saints or Subversives? •

McCain hears God less extremely, but the Republican platform echoes Palin, and if she ever became president, she would feel completely justified in making her religious belief a litmus test for appointees to the Supreme Court.

Her attitude toward gays and lesbians is similar, though observers in both the gay press and corporate media have misrepresented the firmness of her convictions. The confusion stems from a legal suit that some same-sex couples filed in 1999, arguing that Alaska had no right to deny domestic partners of state employees the same health and pension benefits that the state gave to married spouses. The case made its way to Alaska's Supreme Court, which ruled in 2005 that the state could not discriminate against the domestic partners.

In the political firestorm that followed, the Alaska legislature passed a bill forbidding state officials to pay the benefits. Alaska's attorney general then declared the bill unconstitutional, and the newly inaugurated Governor Palin felt legally obliged to veto it. But, she loudly proclaimed her opposition to spousal benefits for domestic partners and signed a separate bill calling for a state referendum, which she said would lay the groundwork for overturning the state Supreme Court ruling.

She also declared her long-time opposition to same-sex marriage, a position she had displayed as early as 1998 when she enthusiastically backed a constitutional amendment to ban the practice in Alaska.

"I believe that honoring the family structure is that important," she told the Anchorage Daily News in 2006. She was "not out to judge anyone and has good friends who are gay." But, she explained, her opposition grew out of her strong religious views.

Palin's religious convictions, and her willingness to use the power of government to force them on others, has won strong backing from far-right groups, such as James Dobson's Focus on the Family, the Family Research Council, Phyllis Schlafly's Eagle Forum, and the Council for National Policy, the normally secretive network of right-wing preachers, political operatives, and fat cats who have been a major force in the Republican Party ever since they backed Ronald Reagan for president.

These overlapping groups view homosexual acts as "an abomination" and have led the fight against what Dr. Dobson calls "the radical Homosexual agenda." Focus on the Family will soon bring to Anchorage a conference on "curing homosexuality" through the power of prayer, an event that Palin's hometown church in Wasilla is actively promoting.

In the same vein, Palin has opposed extending hate crime laws to protect gays and lesbians, called for teaching creationism in public schools, and - as mayor of Wasilla - looked into banning books from the public library because they contained inappropriate language.

She described the building of a $30 billion natural gas pipeline in Alaska as "God's will," which she would work to carry out as governor.

She supports the presence of US troops in Iraq as a "task that is from God."

And she has told colleagues that Christ will return within her lifetime, which raises questions about what sort of Armageddon she has in mind.

However absurd one finds all this, Palin's religious convictions should normally remain her own private concern. But her eagerness to use public office to enforce and implement what she believes makes her beliefs a matter of enormous public importance.

If you don't believe me, just listen to the enormous support Palin is receiving from Dr. Dobson, "End Time" author Tim La Haye, and others on the Christian right. Dobson once swore he would never vote for John McCain. He now calls McCain's choice of Palin "outstanding" and is promising his enthusiastic support.

Sarah Palin is their gal, and if she is elected vice president, these warriors of God could find themselves only a heartbeat away from their long-held goal of turning America into an ultra-rightwing Christian nation.
»

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A veteran of the Berkeley Free Speech Movement and the New Left monthly Ramparts, Steve Weissman lived for many years in London, working as a magazine writer and television producer. He now lives and works in France.

Comments
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This piece contains
Sat, 09/13/2008 - 10:44 — QueerAlaskan (not verified)
This piece contains inaccurate information on the issue of same-sex domestic partner benefits in Alaska. See the articles posted to http://www.bentalaska.com/search/label/Sarah%20Palin for more accurate information on this history and Palin's involvement in it.
Let's see: Thou shalt not
Sat, 09/13/2008 - 00:38 — Anonymous (not verified)
Let's see: Thou shalt not kill... fetuses. Thou shall kill Muslims... and anyone else who gets in my way.
""She supports the presence
Fri, 09/12/2008 - 22:01 — Verbatim (not verified)
""She supports the presence of US troops in Iraq as a "task that is from God." "" It is particularly useless to presume that we may act as instruments of God or that we are implementing His will. To dare presume is to try to justify not the higher calling but the inconceivable--and the misdeeds some of us would rather attribute to God. For it is mostly when we act out what we believe to be God’s wrath that we fool ourselves into believing that we are implementing his will. Only very seldom do we act out His justice, kindness and patience, to really implement His will.
I am sick to death of the
Fri, 09/12/2008 - 13:50 — C.J.Gelfand (not verified)
I am sick to death of the constant insertion of religion into politics and government, to the point where I will start tearing out my hair if I hear one more person start proselytizing! Our constitution gives us the right to practice, or not practice religion, whatever the case. Our country was never meant to have a state religion, and religion must remain a private matter if we are to be a nation at peace with ourselves. Why isn't it enough for all you religionists to practice what you believe without hitting all the rest of us on the head constantly to make us live your way? What are you so insecure about? Stop the paranoia--people of different beliefs are not out to get you. All religions and philosophies (except those based on hatred) are at our disposal to help us lead a good life. There is not only one way to go. And try thinking for yourselves for a change. I know of no other way to encourage rampant fascism than to let others do your thinking for you without asking your own questions.
Because this column is about
Fri, 09/12/2008 - 10:43 — elizabeth (not verified)
Because this column is about the reactionary religion of a key political candidate, I am sharing comments below providing an alternative perspective regarding that religion. It is not my usual practice, but in this case, it is on topic and appropriate. My comments also come full circle as they are applied to my observations of the candidate. We progressive Christians like to think that we are actually attempting to live according to the Gospels. For example, even if the framers hadn't made the separation of church and state clear, Jesus mostly certainly did. It's also crucial that we take back the word "evangelical" from the fundamentalists, literalists and millienials. Paul charged all Jesus-followers to be evangelical (from the Greek, same root as "heaven" and "angel"). It means we live by the Gospels and use our lives as examples to share the Good News. This is relevant because it is so misunderstood and misused, now by a major candidate for VP (and the media just absorbs it as if she were a theologian). It is not our job to aggressively convert or judge people, unlike the message of the fundamentalists who have hijacked this basic concept and twisted it every way to Sunday, as Sarah Palin does. We also live by the Gospels (and the New Testament), not by the Hebrew Scriptures. The Hebrew Scriptures are in the Christian bible for context, not for instruction, but fundamentalists mistakenly give the Hebrew scriptures more weight than our own. Jesus gave us all the instruction needed for Christians, love God and love your neighbor as yourself. That is not the message I hear repeated by Sarah Palin, nor does she live a life of example according to the Gospels (at least not in public). Publicly, she appears to be a true believer in the worst possible ways. And this concerns me at least as much if not more than the secular concerns I noted in my first post, which was edited by someone other than me, leaving out these concerns, and also leaving other progressive Christians wondering where the progressives were among those commenting. Elizabeth Rose, O.C.P.
I live in Wyoming and attend
Fri, 09/12/2008 - 03:25 — The sHiZ NiCk!!!! MaSTer MMM!!!!! (not verified)
I live in Wyoming and attend a private charter school. Can't tell you the name of the school or the names of the people (I promised my G.F. that I wouldn't). I remember my high school's history teacher last year, he asked my freshmen class this question: What's more important, the Bible or the U.S. Constitution? A few timidly raised their hands up for the Constitution, but the majority quickly raised up their hands in support of the Bible. The teacher asked why they voted that way. One said: "Because Jesus is supreme over anything written by men and that why the Bible is more important because its words comes from God." Another student said, "Because I learned that if it wasn't for the Constitution, you may not have the freedom to believe in the Bible." That student was beaten up after school was out. Some guys in the football team beat him up so bad he was put into the hospital, and he was in traction and partial body casts for 14 months. He transferred to another school. The history teacher that taught the course, he was fired, cut. Seems that a lot of religious parents complained to the local school board about what he was teaching. The science teacher for the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th periods was fired too, a week later. I guess they didn't like him teaching the concept of evolution in biology, or geology, as to the age of the Earth. They said our school's better off, now that science, history and biology are now taught by these new Christian teachers that mince no words about convincing the class to vote Republican when they enter into their senior year. Now, almost all the students in our school go to school with a small Bible in our pockets. I don't carry a Bible in my back pocket. FIGHT THE POWER, FIGHT THE CORPORATE BEYOTCHES OF AMERICA, YEEEEEEEAAAAAAHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Many Religious Right
Fri, 09/12/2008 - 02:57 — Anonymous; I live in a neighborhood full of Evangelists (not verified)
Many Religious Right activists have attempted to rewrite history by asserting that the United States government derived from Christian foundations, that our Founding Fathers originally aimed for a Christian nation. This idea simply does not hold to the historical evidence. Of course many Americans did practice Christianity, but so also did many believe in deistic philosophy. Indeed, most of our influential Founding Fathers, although they respected the rights of other religionists, held to deism and Freemasonry tenets rather than to Christianity. 1799, Treaty of Tripoli, Article 11: "...the United States is in no way a Christian nation..." Unanimously by both chambers of Congress and signed by John Adams, the "father" of the Declaration of Independence. The United States Constitution serves as the law of the land for America and indicates the intent of our Founding Fathers. The Constitution forms a secular document, and nowhere does it appeal to God, Christianity, Jesus, or any supreme being. (For those who think the date of the Constitution contradicts the last sentence, see note 1 at the end.) The U.S. government derives from people (not God), as it clearly states in the preamble: "We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union...." The omission of God in the Constitution did not come out of forgetfulness, but rather out of the Founding Fathers purposeful intentions to keep government separate from religion. From the 1rst Amendment of the U.S. Constitution: “Congress shall make NO law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.” [capital letters, mine] Moreover, the mentioning of God in the Declaration does not describe the personal God of Christianity. Thomas Jefferson who held deist beliefs, wrote the majority of the Declaration. The Declaration describes "the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God." This nature's view of God agrees with deist philosophy and might even appeal to those of pantheistical beliefs, but any attempt to use the Declaration as a support for Christianity will fail for this reason alone. Note 1: The end of the Constitution records the year of its ratification, "the Seventeenth Day of September in the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and Eighty seven." Although, indeed, it uses the word "Lord", it does not refer to Jesus but rather to the dating method. Incredibly, some Christians attempt to use this as justification for a Christian derived Constitution. The term simply conveys a written English form of the Latin, Anno Domini (AD), which means the year of our Lord (no, it does not mean After Death). This scripted form served as a common way of dating in the 1700s. The Constitution also uses many pagan words such as January (from the two-headed Roman god, Janus), and Sunday (from the word Sunne, which refers to the Saxon Sun god). Can you imagine the ludicrous position of someone trying to argue for the justification of a pagan god based Constitution? The same goes to any Christian who attempts to use a dating convention as an argument against the Constitution's secular nature, and can only paint himself as naive, or worse, as dishonest and deceiving. (For a satire on using calendar words to support pagan Gods, see The United States: A Country founded on paganism. http://www.nobeliefs.com/pagan.htm
I must say it is refreshing
Fri, 09/12/2008 - 00:15 — Anonymous (not verified)
I must say it is refreshing to hear someone takes the bible literally these days. The bible having been scorned as a book giving testament only to the corruption of human nature. May Palin be president if for me to be given the pleasure of me knowing what someone like her could do behind the reins.
I am so tired of the
Thu, 09/11/2008 - 22:59 — Anonymous (not verified)
I am so tired of the hypocrisy. The Republican machine has questioned the patriotism of both Barack and Michelle Obama. They have gone so far as to accuse Michelle Obama's fist bump as a terrorist action! Then we are told that Palin's family is hands off! So do we just ignore the information that Sarah Palin's husband is affiliated with a secessionist group and she is supportive of his involvement? This is a man who wants the state of Alaska to secede from the US! The last time this occurred, we ended up engaging in a Civil War! Is this not treasonous behavior. This smells of militia mentality. My grandfather used to say, if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it is a duck!
Palin is indeed scary. She
Thu, 09/11/2008 - 22:53 — V. Selanik (not verified)
Palin is indeed scary. She is a glib know it all and that tells you right away she is not qualified. Compare Palin with Nancy Pelosi...another mother of five who waited until her children were mature before she went into politics. Her education is sketchy and shows her lack of connecting with the modern educated women of America.
Read Katha Pollit's
Thu, 09/11/2008 - 21:44 — altovuelo (not verified)
Read Katha Pollit's excellent column about Palin in the current issue of The Nation: "Lipstick on a Wing Nut": http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080929/pollitt
Thu, 09/11/2008 - 14:00 — Dana (not verified)
Palin is really Cheney with lipstick (not Bush)
To Mr. Anderson, I am so
Thu, 09/11/2008 - 04:55 — Anonymous (not verified)
To Mr. Anderson, I am so sick of the Christians' hypocrisy:I love how Christians interpret "Creator" to mean a Caucasian-looking deity floating in the heavens as opposed to "Nature." I love how Christians seem to embrace any reference to GOD as a reference to something "above" or "different" from "Nature." Perhaps that is what eases their minds when they vote for people whose policies destroy the very "Nature"that GOD (whatever he/she/it is to an individual) obviously intended for humans to live in balance with. And if you truly believe all people are "created equal," whether by Nature, or the floating white head you envision, you should believe that "he" would not condone prejudices against those who are "different" than how you perceive yourself to be. I'm sickened by the fact that most Christians I know vote for people that are obviously immoral because of rhetoric about abortion and gay rights. Do abortion and gay rights really weigh on your day-to-day life MORE than all the other injustices we impose as a nation on ourselves, our children and other nations. Wake up! -S
It is obvious that the GOP
Thu, 09/11/2008 - 02:58 — truth! not deceit or spin (not verified)
It is obvious that the GOP is DESPERATE at this point, and it is sickly comical to watch the republicans and christian extremists wave their flags so fervently that they have blinded themselves to the truth. Palin Scares me, and so does McCain. Neither are fit for the White House, McCain is a hothead selling just more of the same (and cannot stick to his own stories), and Palin... a mother of a newborn Down Syndrome child - shouldn't that be her first priority? And she also can't keep her facts straight! But then again we are at war, and the truth is always the first casualty in war. I just hope that Obama wins the election and that he isn't just a wolf in sheep's clothing and will make the changes so desperately needed in were not only this country is headed, but the entire world. wake up people across the land! Unplug FOX news and go out into your community and talk about what really matters, right here, right now. Register to VOTE! Follow your heart, not what corpmedia is spinning into your heads! (OK, I'm talking sugar in the candy shop... but still...)
John McCain is not only a
Thu, 09/11/2008 - 02:45 — Jeanot (not verified)
John McCain is not only a war hero, but is actually a "war lover." He has supported every military move by this nation, and looks first for a power or military response to every conflict that pops up. His instant reaction to the situation in Georgia ("We are all Georgians") shows he has no appreciation for the complexity of the situation. Where thoughtful analysis is called for we get quick gut reactions...helped along by close advisors were recently paid agents for one of the participants. We see in this case that it wasn't a simple matter of the Big Bad Bear running roughshod over its neighbor...all sorts of religious, ethnic, nationalistic divisions were in the mix. There usually are two or more sides to most issues, and unless our leaders can see this we are in for endless conflict. John McCain doesn't seem to get this.
PLEASE! PLEASE! PLEASE! I am
Thu, 09/11/2008 - 02:36 — Anonymous (not verified)
PLEASE! PLEASE! PLEASE! I am begging some of the posters here! STOP refering to right-wing evangelicals as "Christians", as if all Christians agree with them. I don't care what religioun you espouse, or if you're an atheist. That's your business, but when you refer to the evangelical right-wing as "Christians", some honest Christians get offended and actually think your attacking them. Liberalism IS NOT LESS CHRISTIAN. It is just MORE HONESTLY Christian. Please don't give these sleazebags more fuel to add to their burning cross. The ONLY thing they believe in is the sanctity of Holy Oil Industry.
I am convinced that she
Thu, 09/11/2008 - 02:21 — Anonymous (not verified)
I am convinced that she TRIED TO CAUSE A MISCARRIAGE with her latest baby. Why else did she go out of her way to avoid medical treatment and schedule a trip to Dallas while she was leaking amniotic fluid and was obviously going into labor a month early?
Palin is Bush with lipstick.
Thu, 09/11/2008 - 01:31 — Anonymous (not verified)
Palin is Bush with lipstick.
Along with books being
Wed, 09/10/2008 - 21:42 — Anonymous (not verified)
Along with books being banished, women's right set back 2000 years, faux-Christianity forced down our gullets, gay rights abolished, education bankrupted, all intellectuals, artists and dissenters best beware. They are next to be eliminated. We've seen it all before. Remember?
1799, Treaty of Tripoli,
Wed, 09/10/2008 - 20:08 — bob sauerbrey (not verified)
1799, Treaty of Tripoli, acticle 11: "...the United States is in no way a Christian nation..." Unanimously by both chambers of Congress and signed by John Adams, the "father" of the Declaration of Independence. McCain, Palin, and their supports may know their bible, but they a certainly ignorant of history.
Saint Francis of Assisi,
Wed, 09/10/2008 - 18:24 — Fulvia (not verified)
Saint Francis of Assisi, Italy, the Saint who was talking to the the wolf, and teach love to all creature, to the sun to the star to the moon, because all were beautiful and all of them creation of God. I really don't see any link with the appalling misbelieve of Palin and the true Christianity.
Good piece and some
Wed, 09/10/2008 - 17:18 — elizabeth (not verified)
Good piece and some excellent comments. So glad to see the prescient Margaret Atwood novel "The Handmaid's Tale" mentioned. That book has haunted me since 2002 because it was clear even then that we are on the same path. (I read it when it came out in the 80s and saw the excellent film adaptation when it came out in the early 90s.) I would change only one thing. Somehow, growing up in Alaska made Sarah Palin talk not like Gidget, but like a Valley Girl. A Valley Girl spewing invective and inhuman filth. Maybe the campaign is hoping that we'll be like dogs, responding more to the tone of voice than to what is said. And it is sad but true that there are voters who would vote for an ignorant Valley Girl. (Ironically, REAL Valley Girls grew up and many of them have gone on to fine lives and careers.) I've followed Sarah Palin for years, ever since I saw "the moose hunter" hunting wolves from a helicopter. I come from a long line of hunters, and that is NOT hunting. It's vicious and lacks any sense of sport or fair play. That told me everything I needed to know about Sarah Palin, although having her on my radar, I've learned a lot since, enough to almost faint when McCain announced her for the ticket, because I have not found one politically redeeming quality about this woman. And I'm a woman who would really like a woman president. But she has to be the best possible candidate, because if we have a woman in the WH who is as stupid and ignorant as the current crop, it will set women's rights back decades.
has anyone thought this
Wed, 09/10/2008 - 14:16 — Anonymous (not verified)
has anyone thought this woman could be the anti christ?
ditto!! Stop
Wed, 09/10/2008 - 14:02 — Anonymous (not verified)
ditto!! Stop whining! Let's use this time well, to be the best, and win this election. Lets get active, now. Nothing could be more important. What else? What else can we do?
Our Declaration of
Wed, 09/10/2008 - 11:40 — Anonymous (not verified)
Our Declaration of Independence does not come from Christian origins. Most of the founding Fathers were Freemasons,and Huminists, or claimed no religious belief at all. If you want to argue this passage "The laws of Nature and Natures God" is clear they are talking about "mother nature" or science "natures God" It's PAGAN all over!!
hey sarah? the bible is what
Wed, 09/10/2008 - 11:08 — Anonymous (not verified)
hey sarah? the bible is what you follow?so i would guess Psalm 137 would be the policy for iraq and such?after all we are doing gods work there arnt we? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psalm_137
Christian Republican males
Wed, 09/10/2008 - 10:24 — Jesus wept (not verified)
Christian Republican males will vote for McCain because, among other things, they think on some semiconscious or unconscious level that it will improve their chances of getting into the panties of women that look and think like Palin. So what if McCain's policies, combined with Palin's relgious extremism turns this country into a fascist, militant theocracy that goes bankrupt. These chickenhawks voted for the tits and boobs, and Jesus, and Bush-Mccain's machismo war machines that make them obscenely rich... so what do they care what would Jesus do if he was here again, because they believe that Jesus will forgive them of all their selfishness, greed and arrogance; as a result, they believe that when the time comes and they've ruined the Earth, they can take their wealth and power with them to heaven after they become immortal by the way of the Rapture. So in that way, the unchristian neocons that claim they are Christians, can have their cake and eat it, too... at the expense of our rights, drained us of all of our money and our very lives of course, but what do they care? Thanks to Bush in power, they got theirs.
We fought a Civil War and
Wed, 09/10/2008 - 10:21 — Anonymous (not verified)
We fought a Civil War and killed 1,000,000 of our fellow citizens a hundred and fifty years ago, in what was at base a conflict within the culture of this country. We didn't learn the lesson then, and we probably won't learn it this time, only this time there will be no use to learning it, cos there won't be anything to put back together again. The Lincoln of our time - Barack Obama - is villified for appealing to the better angels of our nature. I remember when America had ideals and hope and faith, and I have watched these past 60 years as they have all turned to dust and facsimile.
"Thou shalt not take the
Wed, 09/10/2008 - 10:00 — Anonymous (not verified)
"Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord, thy God in vain." A pipeline? "God's will"?!? Why are the fundamentalist Christians not coming out of the woodwork to burn this blasphemous bitch at the stake, politically speaking?
What can all of us do at
Wed, 09/10/2008 - 05:25 — Joan (not verified)
What can all of us do at this stage of the game? Palin Palin is on the scene, alive and well. Now let's get out the vote and challenge the Republicans.Lets go to swing states and talk to people. Get on the phone lines. Make sure all our friends are registered and voting. Make sure the election is not stolen. Support, speak, protest, flood the media when they lie and let the candidates lie. Let's use this time well, to be the best, and win this election. Lets get active, now. Nothing could be more important. What else? What else can we do?
I am so damned sick of all
Wed, 09/10/2008 - 04:09 — Anonymous (not verified)
I am so damned sick of all the religious crap in our politics I could puke! This is what happens people when you don't get involved! The religious right has been working this path for decades! Wake up or you'll get what you deserve with Bush II and the sociopath.
she's beautiful no
Wed, 09/10/2008 - 03:30 — Anonymous (not verified)
she's beautiful no doubt! he loves it! but maybe he chose her because the both have the letter 'in' in their name. how sane!
to j. andersen,(see
Wed, 09/10/2008 - 03:24 — kl (not verified)
to j. andersen,(see above) unalienable rights are human rights. this republican party supports taking unalienable human rights and listing them under crimes and criminal behaviors. back to the drawing board. thanks for the history lesson. pro-life and pro-choice.
Choice is the whole point,
Wed, 09/10/2008 - 01:48 — kcjones (not verified)
Choice is the whole point, M. If America "chooses" the progressive/liberal way for her to go, over the traditional values/conservative way, either way the other half will be screaming they don't want to be forced to do what their opponents have chosen democratically! I don't want to see young children "forced" to be indoctrinated in public schools about the normalicy of homosexuality when I believe with all my heart they've been emotionally twisted somehow, somewhere in their lives, even if they are wonderful, productive, loving people in every other aspect. I don't believe abortion is about "choice" when the fetus is a viable, separate human being who just so happens to be inside their mother's womb. (abortion scripture, btw: Proverb 6:17....which should also convict some Republican warmongers) In fact, if you want something to talk to Christians about, try scripture. Try Proverbs 6:16-19 and apply them to President Bush, for example...And for all you people who think we actually evolved from nothing (ie: spontaneously generated), try watching Michael Behe's movie "Unfolding the Mysteries of Life". I challenge anyone to watch that and deny intelligent design. Or, "The Privileged Planet". Same deal. I'm not red or blue. I'm purple. Both platforms have awesome and horrible attributes. But "Hypocracy Now" (spelled that way on purpose) was the mantra for the last elections. PRO-WAR!! PRO-LIFE!! vs FREE LUV!! PRO-CHOICE!! Let's have some intelligent input on how we can actually live democratically. You know, extremists on both sides actually pull people to the middle, which is good. And for the record, I believe God's will will be done whoever is elected President, and that's what gives me peace. Jesus was no dullard. There are powers that be way beyond most of our understanding.
It is extremely embarrassing
Wed, 09/10/2008 - 01:10 — The embarrassed pastor (not verified)
It is extremely embarrassing and difficult to be a liberal Christian minister in this day and age. There are so many Christians (like those everyone is writing about) who have bastardized the religion and made it into something it is not. I wish people would understand that Jesus was an iconoclast, speaking out against the hypocrites of his day. If we would really pay attention to what he was saying and if we endeavored to follow his suggestions for living a good life, we would understand that what the Christian right and fundamentalists are expounding are man made rules that have nothing to do with Jesus' message. I asked my husband the other day where he would like to move to if the Republicans win. So far, Canada is the favorite. I don't know if they'll take us, but we can try. Pray for the highest good for our country.
As a Canadian, all I can say
Wed, 09/10/2008 - 00:04 — Peg Young (not verified)
As a Canadian, all I can say is, "God (assuming It exists) help America."
The ball is in Joe Biden's
Wed, 09/10/2008 - 00:00 — Carole Auger-Richard (not verified)
The ball is in Joe Biden's camp. Here's an exceptional occasion to kill the Palin myth! Go Joe go!
Sarah Palin is scary . Very
Tue, 09/09/2008 - 23:39 — Anonymous (not verified)
Sarah Palin is scary. Very scary indeed. She as well as John McSame are obviously just puppets of the right wing good 'ol boys that want to stay in power and turn back the clock . Where will it end, in armageddon? I can't believe a person with such an old brain who believes the word of the bible is true) could potentially be the comander in chief. If they steal the election for a third time, it will be time to get the hell out. God bless us all.
These are not Christians,
Tue, 09/09/2008 - 23:22 — Anonymous (not verified)
These are not Christians, but ANTI-Christians. Very very insightful, since in Greek anti can mean "instead of" or a replacement-counterfeit (cf: Liddell and Scott's unabridged Lexicon of Classical Greek). These wingnut Christians are indeed anti-Christians in every sense of the Greek word. Ironically, they may represent the very Anti-Christ they claim is presented in the Apocalypsis of St. John. Just a thought, but how wonderfully ironic.
Any one who says the United
The big dichotomy... I
Tue, 09/09/2008 - 22:47 — mapsguy1955 (not verified)
The big dichotomy... I don't get how the party of the neocons gets the votes of the Christian right. Were those all Christians at the ENRON parties? Didn't jesus say something about turning the other cheek? The Republican mantra is not "Drill Baby Drill", but "The world is REALLY scary, you should be terrified of anyone who doesn't think like us, it might make you GAY or you might be forced to have an ABORTION". The right couldn't possible be more wrong.
I think the diversity of
Tue, 09/09/2008 - 22:32 — Mike (not verified)
I think the diversity of religions is yet another positive dynamic at this unique time. Catholicism, United Church of Christ, Latterday Saints, United Methodist, Baptist, and Assembly of God. I think that if Tim Russert was still with us he would say, "What a country!"
Have the republicans noticed
Tue, 09/09/2008 - 22:28 — Anonymous (not verified)
Have the republicans noticed that they have completely lost control of their party? The sponsorship of McCain and Palin for America's highest office is an irresponsible, possibly criminal act, for which this country will pay dearly if they are elected. Listen to Obama please: America is better than this. Note to McCain: Constantly blowing your own horn about your POW experience does not convince anyone that you are better qualified. Lying about your opponent makes you look dishonorable. What a shame. Picking Sarah Palin makes you look like an idiot and a pawn, not a statesman. Sorry, old man.
So, dean men and women of
Tue, 09/09/2008 - 21:47 — granny (not verified)
So, dean men and women of the "professional" media, when are you going to visit her church, record the rolling and dancing and tongues-talking and armeggadon-expecting, and put it out there for all to see? If you would attack Barack Obama through attacks on his paastor, the same treatment should be accorded to Palin and her pastor. And has anyone vetted McCain's pastor, if he goes to chruch for other than press-op moments?
Christ taught us to love
Tue, 09/09/2008 - 21:22 — Anonymous (not verified)
Christ taught us to love God; to love your neighbor as yourself and to love your enemy. The"new and everlasting covenant" is about promoting the common good, not the chosen few of the old covenant. These people are not Christians-they're Anti-Christians
I'd like Palin to tell us
Tue, 09/09/2008 - 20:57 — M (not verified)
I'd like Palin to tell us what verse of her precious Bilble forbids abortion. Oh, KCJONES. There is a qualitative difference between gays (why you mention them as a voting bloc is mind boggling) and liberals. It's the democratic concept of "choice" which Republicans don't believe in. We won't MAKE you live a life you don't want. You, however, will force everyone to live the life YOU decide for us. That's just a tiny difference, don't you think? It's called Democracy. Ever hear of it?
You can't believe the Bible
Tue, 09/09/2008 - 20:43 — Anonymous (not verified)
You can't believe the Bible is literally true and believe that aborting a fetus is murder. Genesis 2:7 says that Adam wasn't a living soul until God gave him the breath of life. Exodus 21:22 says that if two men are fighting and cause a woman to abort her child, they must pay the father for the loss of his property, the fetus. Ecclesiastes 6:3 says that unless a man has a good life and a proper burial it is better that he be stillborn. People who say they believe the Bible is literally true should read it some time, Especially those scriptures where God commands the Israelites to commit genocide, killing men, women, children and that would include pregnant women and their fetuses. I don't believe God commits murder or commands others to do so.
I think calling Sarah Palin
Tue, 09/09/2008 - 20:42 — Oakjoan (not verified)
I think calling Sarah Palin "Gidget" is a VERRRY big mistake. Gidget was a cute, bouncy, sweet thing. There is NOTHING sweet about Palin. I can easily picture her using a German accent and saying "Vee vill conquer Poland!" A person who holds such ugly and wrong-headed beliefs is anything but cute. She is out to force her beliefs on all of us. This is doubly dangerous since she has proved during her political career that she has few moral scruples. I'm not afraid of her Armageddon and other fundamentalist beliefs, I am terrified of her history of unscrupulous and self-serving behavior in politics (getting back at enemies by having them fired, attempting to bring Fahrenheit 451 to the local library, changing her stance on issues when it became politically expedient). Of course this is not exactly far from the usual politicians' changeable stances, but they usually at least have the smarts to realize they'll be found out eventually. Most of them are not the subjects of governmental investigation as Palin is now. End of rant.

Zombie feminists of the RNC

2008-09-11T18:45:00.000-07:00

http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2008/09/11/zombie_feminism/index.html

Zombie feminists of the RNC

How did Sarah Palin become a symbol of women's empowerment? And how did I, a die-hard feminist, end up terrified at the idea of a woman in the White House?

By Rebecca Traister

Sep. 11, 2008 | I have been dreaming about Sarah Palin. (Apparently, I'm not alone.) I wish I could say that I'd been conjuring witty, politically sophisticated nightmares in which she leads troops into Vancouver or kindergartners in the recitation of "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God." But, alas, mine have been nonsensical, kiddie-style doozies in which she kidnaps my cats, or enjoys a meal with my girlfriends while I bang on the restaurant window. There's also a chilling one, in which a scary witch stands on a wind-swept hill and leers at me.

What troubles me most -- aside from the fact that there is suddenly a Republican candidate potent enough to so ensnare my psyche -- is my sense that these are dreams in which it matters very much that Palin is a woman.

I have been writing about feminism for more than five years; I have been covering the gender politics of the 2008 presidential election for more than two. And I am absolutely gobsmacked by the intensity of my feelings about Sarah Palin. I am stunned not only by the way in which her candidacy has changed the rules in the gender debate, or how it is twisting and garbling the fight for women's progress. But I'm also startled by how Palin herself is testing my own beliefs about how I react to women in power.

My feelings about Palin have everything to do with her gender -- a factor that I have always believed, as a matter of course, should neither amplify nor diminish impressions of a person's goodness or badness, smartness or dumbness, gravitas or inconsequence. Why are my rules changing?

I am still perfectly capable of picking out the sexism being leveled against the Alaska governor by the press, her detractors and her own party. Every time someone doubts Palin's ability to lead and mother simultaneously, or considers her physical appeal as a professional attribute, or calls her a "maverette," I bristle.

But that's the easy stuff. The clear-cut stuff. I'm far more torn about the more subtle, complicated ways in which Palin's gender has me tied in knots.

Perhaps it's because the ground has shifted so quickly under my feet, leaving me with only a slippery grasp of what the basic vocabulary of my beat -- feminism, women's rights -- even means anymore. Some days, it feels like I'm watching the civics filmstrip about how much progress women made on the presidential stage in 2008 burst into flames, acutely aware that in the back of the room, a substitute teacher is threading a new reel into the projector. It has the same message and some of the same signifiers -- Glass ceilings broken! Girl Power! -- but its meaning has been distorted. Suddenly it's Rudy Giuliani and Rick Santorum schooling us about pervasive sexism; Hillary Clinton's 18 million cracks have weakened not only the White House's glass ceiling, but the wall protecting Roe v. Wade; the potential first female vice president in America's 200-year history describes her early career as "your average hockey mom" who "never really set out to be involved in public affairs"; and teen pregnancy is no longer an illustrative example for sex educators and contraception distributors but for those who seek to eliminate sex education and contraception.

In this strange new pro-woman tableau, feminism -- a word that is being used all over the country with regard to Palin's potential power -- means voting for someone who would limit reproductive control, access to healthcare and funding for places like Covenant House Alaska, an organization that helps unwed teen mothers. It means cheering someone who allowed women to be charged for their rape kits while she was mayor of Wasilla, who supports the teaching of creationism alongside evolution, who has inquired locally about the possibility of using her position to ban children's books from the public library, who does not support the teaching of sex education.

In this "Handmaid's Tale"-inflected universe, in which femininity is worshipped but females will be denied rights, CNBC pundit Donny Deutsch tells us that we're witnessing "a new creation ... of the feminist ideal," the feminism being so ideal because instead of being voiced by hairy old bats with unattractive ideas about intellect and economy and politics and power, it's now embodied by a woman who, according to Deutsch, does what Hillary Clinton did not: "put a skirt on." "I want her watching my kids," says Deutsch. "I want her laying next to me in bed."

Welcome to 2008, the year a tough, wonky woman won a primary (lots of them, actually), an inspiring black man secured his party's nomination for the presidency, and a television talking head felt free to opine that a woman is qualified for executive office because he wants to bed her and have her watch his kids! Stop the election; I want to get off.

What Palin so seductively represents, not only to Donny Deutsch but to the general populace, is a form of feminine power that is utterly digestible to those who have no intellectual or political use for actual women. It's like some dystopian future ... feminism without any feminists.

Palin's femininity is one that is recognizable to most women: She's the kind of broad who speaks on behalf of other broads but appears not to like them very much. The kind of woman who, as Jessica Grose at Jezebel has eloquently noted, achieves her power by doing everything modern women believed they did not have to do: presenting herself as maternal and sexual, sucking up to men, evincing an absolute lack of native ambition, instead emphasizing her luck as the recipient of strong male support and approval. It works because these stances do not upset antiquated gender norms. So when the moment comes, when tolerance for and interest in female power have been forcibly expanded by Clinton, a woman more willing to throw elbows and defy gender expectations but who falls short of the goal, Palin is there, tapped as a supposedly perfect substitute by powerful men who appreciate her charms.

But while the Republicans would have us believe that Palin can simply stand in for Hillary Clinton, there is nothing interchangeable about these politicians. We began this history-making election with one kind of woman and have ended up being asked to accept her polar opposite. Clinton's brand of femininity is the kind that remains slightly unpalatable in America. It is based on competence, political confidence and an assumption of authority that upends comfortable roles for men and women. It's a kind of power that has nothing to do with the flirtatious or the girly, nothing to do with the traditionally feminine. It is authority that is threatening because it so closely and calmly resembles the kind of power that the rest of the guys on a presidential stage never question their right to wield.

The pro-woman rhetoric surrounding Sarah Palin's nomination is a grotesque bastardization of everything feminism has stood for, and in my mind, more than any of the intergenerational pro- or anti-Hillary crap that people wrung their hands over during the primaries, Palin's candidacy and the faux-feminism in which it has been wrapped are the first development that I fear will actually imperil feminism. Because if adopted as a narrative by this nation and its women, it could not only subvert but erase the meaning of what real progress for women means, what real gender bias consists of, what real discrimination looks like.

Perhaps that's why my reaction to Palin is so bone-deep, and why she is shaking some of my convictions about how to approach gender. When, last Sunday, I picked up the New York Post, with its front-page headline "Ladykiller: Hillary to Check Hockey Mom" next to photos of Palin in porno librarian mode and Clinton with her teeth bared, I didn't roll my eyes in disgust at the imagined cage match. Instead, I envisioned it. And I enjoyed it. I was overcome by the desire to see Clinton take on Palin, not only checking her but fouling her, smushing her, absolutely crushing her. Get her, Hillary! Don't let her channel all the energy generated by you and your Democratic supporters into anti-woman, pro-God government! You are the only one who can stop her.

It's true that the last time I had this kind of visceral yearning for a politician to save the day was on the evening of Sept. 11, when the only person whose face I wanted to see on my television was Bill Clinton's. Perhaps when the Clintons took office in my 18th year, they became imprinted on my brain as my presidential parent-figures, my ur-protectors. But it's hard not to notice that if that's the case, it's Bill I want to nurture and soothe me, and Hillary I want to show up, guns blazing Ripley-style, to surprise the mother alien just as she is about to feast on independent voters, protectively shouting, "Get away from them, you bitch!"

There I go again with the hyper-feminized anxieties. I think it's mostly that I want Hillary Clinton -- the imperfect history maker whose major selling points for "First Woman..." status, in retrospect, included the fact that she was not a Republican, not pro-life, did not believe in teaching creationism alongside evolution, had never inquired about the feasibility of banning books, understood the American economy, supported universal healthcare and did not kill wolves from planes -- to make Sarah Palin go away and stop threatening to make history I don't want to see made.

It is infuriating that Clinton, her supporters and, yes, also those Obama supporters who voiced their displeasure at the sexist treatment Clinton sometimes received, and also female voters, and also females full stop, are being implicated in feminism's bastardization.

But if we inadvertently paved the way for this, then the Democratic Party mixed the concrete, painted lanes on the road, put up streetlights and called it an interstate. The role of the left in this travesty is almost too painful to contemplate just yet.

For while it may chafe to hear Rudy Giuliani and John McCain hold forth on the injustice of gender bias, what really burns is that we never heard a peep or squawk or gurgle of this nature from anyone in the Democratic Party during the entire 100 years Hillary Clinton was running for president, while she was being talked about as a pantsuited, wrinkly old crone and a harpy ex-wife and a sexless fat-thighed monster and an emasculating nag out for Tucker Carlson's balls. Only after she was good and gone did Howard Dean come out of his cave to squeak about the amount of sexist media bias Clinton faced. That may not be pretty to recall, especially in light of the Grand Old Party's Grand Old Celebration of Estrogen. But it's true. And it's also true that if there hadn't been so much stone-cold silence, so much shoulder-shrugging "What, me sexist?" inertia from the left, if there had been a little more respect (there was plenty of attention, of the derisive and annoyed sort) paid to the unsubtle clues being transmitted by 18 million voters that maybe they were interested in this whole woman-in-the-White-House thing, then the right would not have had the fuel to power this particular weapon.

Which leads us to my greatest nightmare: that because my own party has not cared enough, or was too scared, to lay its rightful claim to the language of women's rights, that Sarah Palin will reach historic heights of power, under the most egregious of auspices, by plying feminine wiles, and conforming to every outdated notion of what it means to be a woman. That she will hit her marks by clambering over the backs, the bodies, the rights of the women on whose behalf she claims to be working, and that she will do it all under the banner of feminism. How can anybody sleep?

-- By Rebecca Traister

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Pulling the Curtain on Palin

2008-09-10T01:46:00.000-07:00

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/08/AR2008090801907.html?nav=hcmoduletmv

By E. J. Dionne Jr.
Tuesday, September 9, 2008; Page A23

"'Rick Davis, McCain's campaign manager, gave the game away when he said on "Fox News Sunday" that she would not meet with reporters until they showed a willingness to treat her "with some level of respect and deference.'

Deference? That's a word used in monarchies or aristocracies. Democracies don't give "deference" to politicians. When have McCain, Obama, Biden or, for that matter, Hillary Clinton asked for deference? "

* *

John McCain's campaign acknowledged this weekend that Sarah Palin is unprepared to be vice president or president of the United States.

Of course, McCain's people said no such thing. But their actions told you all you needed to know.

McCain, Barack Obama and Joe Biden all subjected themselves to tough questioning on the regular Sunday news programs. Palin was the only no-show. And it's not just the Sunday interviews. She has not opened herself to any serious questioning since McCain picked her to be next in line for the presidency.

McCain's advisers clearly don't trust Palin to answer questions about policy and don't want her to answer many of the questions that have been raised about her tenure as governor of Alaska.

Rick Davis, McCain's campaign manager, gave the game away when he said on "Fox News Sunday" that she would not meet with reporters until they showed a willingness to treat her "with some level of respect and deference."

Deference? That's a word used in monarchies or aristocracies. Democracies don't give "deference" to politicians. When have McCain, Obama, Biden or, for that matter, Hillary Clinton asked for deference?

A few hours later came the announcement that Palin would grant an interview to ABC News's Charlie Gibson. Recall that Gibson was the co-host of an ABC News debate last April during which Obama faced a relentless pounding. Here's hoping that a sense of fairness will lead Gibson to be comparably tough on Palin this week. If he treats her more deferentially than he did Obama, we will know that McCain's war on the media is working.

From the moment Palin was picked, reporters immediately began to ask questions, a lot of them. Because she was so little known outside Alaska, her views on many issues, particularly foreign policy, are a mystery. Voters also need to know how McCain went about reaching what will probably be the most important decision he makes during this campaign.

A week ago, Elisabeth Bumiller of the New York Times cited McCain sources questioning "how thoroughly Mr. McCain had examined her background before putting her on the Republican presidential ticket." She reported that Palin had been selected "with more haste than McCain advisers initially described." (She also mistakenly reported that Palin belonged to the Alaskan Independence Party. It was her husband, Todd, who had been a member.)

McCain's people trashed Bumiller, saying she had opted to "make up her own version of events." Steve Schmidt, McCain's chief strategist, said the Times had written "an absolute work of fiction" about the vetting process while Karl Rove told his Fox News viewers that the Times "got it wrong."

It turned out that the McCain side misled journalists. Bumiller was right about the vetting. The lesson is that McCain's counselors are not interested in fair treatment, and they are certainly not interested in the truth.

If the media cave to McCain's pressure, it will be the third time this decade that conservative attacks led reporters to tilt to the right.

During the 2000 battle over Florida, Al Gore's perfectly defensible efforts to win a hand recount ran into a buzz saw of criticism from nonpartisan commentators, many of whom urged Gore to withdraw "gracefully." In the buildup to the Iraq war, the Bush administration and its supporters savaged the patriotism of many who raised questions about its strategy and its plans. Now, McCain hopes Palin will skate through the next two months without any real scrutiny or questioning.

It is hugely unfortunate that the first big story about Palin -- other than questions raised about whether she fired the head of the Alaska state police for refusing to dismiss her former brother-in-law -- concerned her 17-year-old daughter's pregnancy. It's not just that Bristol Palin should be left alone, but also that the intense interest in this story gave McCain's bullies an excuse to push aside legitimate questions about Palin's record and knowledge.

Of course, Palin's handlers are being hypocritical: They want to focus on her family life and her identity as a hockey mom when doing so helps them and to push aside any story that mars this perfect picture. Conservatives are always against identity politics until they are for it.

Nonetheless, what matters is not Palin's personal life but whether she is prepared to assume the presidency if called upon. The actions of McCain's lieutenants suggest that they know the answer. And they are doing everything they can to keep the media from finding it.

postchat@aol.com

Obama: McCain/Palin "Not Telling the Truth"

2008-09-10T01:33:00.000-07:00

http://www.truthout.org/article/obama-mccainpalin-not-telling-truth

Monday 08 September 2008

»
by: Keith Olbermann, MSNBC Countdown

Keith Olbermann interviews Senator Barack Obama on MSNBC's "Countdown," where they addressed "stretching the bounds of spin" by McCain and Palin. (Photo: Newsday)
Part One: Keith Olbermann's interview with Barack Obama.

Interview Transcript

Keith Olbermann: Senator, thanks for your time. I'm sorry I couldn't join you in person, but I had to update people on quarterback injuries or something like that.

Video of Barack Obama's responses at original link above.

(Laughter)
Senator Barack Obama: Thanks, Keith.

Keith Olbermann: This is...

Senator Barack Obama: Lousy day for quarterbacks.

Keith Olbermann: Yes, it is. Brady is out. This is more about campaign tactics to start with rather than issues. But it seems sometimes like tactics have replaced issues altogether. "He fights pork barrel spending," said this new McCain/Palin ad, "she stopped the 'Bridge to Nowhere.'"

I mean, it sounds a little like "Remington Steele," but I'm confused otherwise. As late as October of 2006, Mrs. Palin insisted to voters in Alaska that not only would she defend that infamous bridge, but she also said - and here's the quote - "She would not allow the spinmeisters to turn this project or any other into something that's so negative." What are Senator McCain and Governor Palin doing in this new commercial, do you think?

Senator Barack Obama: They're not telling the truth. You know, I mean, it's - I think we've all gotten accustomed to being able to spin things in politics. But when you've got somebody who was for a project being presented as being against it, then that, you know, stretches the bounds of spin into new areas.

And you know, as far as John McCain is concerned, you know, I think that Senator McCain has, on occasion, broken with his party, but this notion that, as he said at his convention, that he would tell the lobbyists that they're not going to be running Washington anymore, who is he going to tell, his campaign chairman, Charlie Black, his campaign manager, Rick Davis, two of the largest corporate lobbyists in Washington with client lists that extend into every major industry?

You know, there is just a sense that they're making these assertions that ignore the facts of their campaigns and their past history. And I think people should be troubled by that.

Keith Olbermann: And Governor Palin hired a lobbyist to get earmarks to the tune of $27 million for a 6,000-person town which is - in its own scope, is kind of a neat trick, but it does seem to counterbalance the basic platform of the Republican Party.

You said that they're not telling the truth here, but when the stuff is a gross distortion, whether it's about their own positions or yours, or facts in your history or whatever, what can you do about it? And why do people hesitate to use the word "lie" about these things?

Senator Barack Obama: Well, look, we have been very clear about the fact that this argument John McCain and Sarah Palin are making, that they are agents of change, just won't fly. It defies their history and their background.
And we saw it in the convention that they wouldn't talk about the basic issues that are really going to make a difference in the lives of middle class families.

So you know, I'm happy to have legitimate policy debates with them on where we want to take health care, what we want to do about energy, what we want to do about education, what are we going to do about the war in Iraq.

But you know, for them to run an ad that basically doesn't present an accurate record of their positions on issues I think should raise some questions about how they would approach an administration.

Keith Olbermann: To something from your own convention, maybe the most compelling moment of your acceptance speech in Denver was that one strongly voiced word, "enough." A lot of people who have felt angry about what has been done to this country in the last seven or eight years have that same sense of urgency and simplicity to it.

Have you thought of using on the campaign trail and in your speaking engagements, more exclamation points? Have you thought of getting angrier?

Senator Barack Obama: Well, I'll tell you what, with two months to go, I think everybody needs to feel a sense of urgency. You know, when I hear John McCain suggest that he is going to bring about change, I am reminded of the cartoon that Tom Toles did in "The Washington Post" where he has McCain say: "Watch out, George Bush, with the exception of the economy, tax policy, foreign policy, health care policy, education policy, and Karl Rove politics, we're really going to shake things up in Washington."

You know, the fact of the matter is, is that not only has John McCain agreed with George Bush 90 percent of the time, this is the party that has been in charge for eight years. And they're now trying to run against themselves despite a few months ago having argued that - John McCain saying that, listen, I've been supportive of George Bush, boasting about it.

You know, I said, I think on Saturday in Indiana, the American people aren't stupid. They are going to get it. But we've got to make sure that we are being clear, not only that they will not bring about change, but the very specific kinds of changes we want to bring, in terms of green technology jobs in America, investing in our education system, making college more affordable, making health care accessible to every American, that contrast, if we go into November, with that contrast on the minds of the American people, I think we're going to do well.

Keith Olbermann: But clearly it must not be fully on their minds because the race is as close as it is. And nobody's burst into laughter at the latest Republican ad, at least not many Republicans have.

Have the Republicans succeeded in muddying up this election in kind of overcomplicating it so the point is not as simple as you just made it.

Sixty years ago Harry Truman went out and campaigned very simply, looked out at people in trouble because of a Republican Congress at that point and the impact it had on their lives and he said, "How many more times do you have to be hit over the head till you figure out who's hitting you?"

I mean, has your campaign in some way not kept it that simple?

Senator Barack Obama: You know, we've actually been driving this point home and I think the convention drove it home. But look, the Republicans can't govern but they run smart campaigns and frankly, they are not always policed by the media as effectively as they should be.

I was struck with how little scrutiny some of the claims that John McCain and Sarah Palin were making, how little they were subjected to scrutiny coming out of the convention. It's our job to press the point and make the case and I think that the Republicans have been pretty successful at working the refs during this game.

But yeah, I have confidence in the American people that if we just drum home the fact that the country is off course, that middle class families are struggling, your wages and incomes have gone down under George Bush. Under Democrats, they went up. Unemployment has gone up. Unemployment was down under Bill Clinton.

If we just keep on being clear about how we are going to rebuild this economy, then I think we are going to end up winning this campaign.

Keith Olbermann: And there are extraordinarily large developments in terms of that economy. Especially in the last couple of days, especially about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. They were created as a kind of gentle encouragement by government to more home ownership, to make it more possible.

There is nothing gentle about it, it is now fully taxpayer funded subsidization of home interest rates and home ownership. Should this be the way it is? Is this a permanent solution or did we just add $5 trillion to the national debt? What do we do now about this?

Senator Barack Obama: Well, I don't think it's going to be $5 trillion. That's the amount of debt that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are holding. But a lot of those are good mortgages. People are paying them. We are going to see some losses. Taxpayers are going to take a hit. How big it is, we don't yet know.

And I have to be fair on this one. Republicans and Democrats I think in Congress did not pay enough attention to the structural problem with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac which was, they are quasi public, quasi private institutions. They are making big profits and their CEOs are taking in big bonuses when times are good. But there is this implicit federal guarantee when times are bad.

And that was a structural problem that needs to be fixed.

But the problem of not regulating the financial markets effectively generally, not seeing that the subprime mortgage crisis was leading to a mess, not updating some of our financial regulations since the 1930s, that's been, I think, an example of the neglect on the part of the Bush administration over the last eight years whose view is basically anything goes and the government just has to stay out of the way. That has ironically hurt the market and one of the things we have got to rediscover is a little bit of well-applied regulation and transparency and accountability actually helps the market, helps the economy grow.

And that's what I want to restore when I'm president.

Keith Olbermann: You pointed out last week how little time at their convention Republicans spent talking about the economy. I think the time might have been zero, zero, zero. I'm not sure. We weren't running a clock. But if the election does, in fact, hinge on the economy, on how Americans are doing, has there been thought given to breaking this down to its simplest element, in much the way one of the Republican icons, Mr. Reagan did during the 1980 campaign, and ask the voters if today, are you better off now than you were eight years ago?

Senator Barack Obama: Oh, absolutely. And I often do that on the campaign trail.

And we're going to just keep on repeating that.

I mean, this is - this should not be complicated. Here's what it comes down to. Under George Bush's stewardship, with an assist from John McCain and the rest of the Republican Party, the economy is weaker now than it has been in a very long time. Unemployment is higher.

Poverty is higher. More people are uninsured. Wages and incomes have flat-lined. Middle-class folks who used to feel secure now feel unstable. We've got more homes being lost to foreclosure than at any time since the Great Depression.

And John McCain does not have any discernible difference from George Bush when it comes to economic policy. He's got the same economic policy. So if you like what has happened under George Bush's presidency, you should vote for John McCain. If you think that we have to move this country in a fundamentally different direction, then you should vote for me. And that is going to be the case that we make throughout this election, and frankly, that's not the conversation that the McCain campaign wants to have.

Rick Davis was very explicit. John McCain's campaign manager said this campaign is not going to be about the issues. That was his assertion. Well, I think that the American people expect it to be about the issues. They deserve it to be about the issues. That's what we're going to keep on pressing in the weeks that will remain.

Keith Olbermann: In terms of getting that and other messages out, Rachel Maddow wanted me to ask this question, so I'm doing this on her behalf, because her new show is starting tonight. Given - given the tone that the campaign has taken, I mean, this Georgia congressman last week, Mr. Westmoreland, who called you and your wife, quote, "uppity." In that context, do you regret putting the brakes on the 527 groups who would have produced or could have produced hard-hitting ads that would have been sharing your sympathies?

Senator Barack Obama: You know, I'll tell you what, Keith, I am confident that the American people, once the dust has settled, are going to say to themselves, "Do we really want to do the same thing we've been doing for the last eight years? Or do we want something new?" I think there's a genuine sense of anxiety out there, not just about immediate economic prospects but the sense that we are not living up to what's possible in America, that we're not delivering on the American promise.

And I think that understandably people are saying to themselves, gosh, we like Obama, we like his message, but we haven't known him that long, let's really lift the hood, kick the tires, you know, take them out and watch them work hard.

And you know, let's take a look at these debates and then we're going to make up our mind in mid-October. And I think that by the time this thing is all over, the contrast is going to be clear and I believe the American people are going to make the choice for a new direction in the country.

And I'm looking forward to helping to lead that.

Keith Olbermann: One more campaign question. It pertains to not knowing someone or something. This is a question I have not really heard asked directly of anybody in a position perhaps to answer it, let alone answered.

In your opinion, is Governor Palin experienced enough and qualified enough to become president of the United States in the relatively short-term future?

Senator Barack Obama: Well, you know, I'll let you ask Governor Palin that when I'm sure she'll be appearing on your show.

(Laughter)
Senator Barack Obama: But rather than focus on a resume, I just want to focus on where she wants to take the country. As far as I can tell, there has not been any area, economic policy or foreign policy, in which she is different from John McCain or George Bush.

In many ways, in fact, she agrees with George Bush even more than John McCain. So if John McCain agrees with Bush 90 percent of the time, maybe with her it's 97 percent. And so my - the thrust of our argument is going to be that the McCain/Palin ticket is offering the same stuff that has resulted in the middle class struggling, not seeing their incomes go up, seeing their costs go up, falling deeper into debt, at risk of losing their homes to foreclosure, unable to save or retire.

Those are going to be I think the issues that ultimately matter to the voters, and that's why I'm trying to offer to them a very clear set of prescriptions, very clear ideas about what we intend to do, how we want to change the tax code, stop giving tax breaks to companies that ship jobs overseas, give 95 percent of Americans tax relief.

Have an energy policy that is serious about climate change, is serious about weaning ourselves off of Middle Eastern oil, investing in solar and wind and biodiesel so we've got energy independence and creating jobs here in the United States, having a health care system that makes sure that we don't have 47 million people without health insurance.

That message of possibility is, I think, the one that the American people are looking for.

Eagle Forum 2006 Governor's Candidate Questionnaire

2008-09-09T15:27:00.000-07:00

Eagle Forum 2006 Governor's Candidate Questionnaire

Monday, July 31, 2006
2006 Gubernatorial Candidate Questionnaire

The following questionnaire was sent to all candidates for Governor with their responses listed in the order we received them.
JB = John Binkley (R ) http://www.binkley06.com/
SP = Sarah Palin (R ) http://www.palinforgovernor.com/
FM = Frank Murkowski (R ) http://www.frankmurkowski.com/
MH = Merica Hlatcu (R )
GH = Gerald Heikes (R ) http://www.heikesontherock.com/
TK = Tony Knowles (D) http://tonyknowles.com/
EC = Eric Croft (D) http://www.ericcroft.com/
BL = Bruce Lemke (D)
EB = Eddie Burke (AIP) http://www.eddieburke.com/
DD = Daniel DeNardo (AIP)
DW = DonWright (AIP)

1. Complete the sentence by checking the applicable phrases (you can check more than one).
Abortion should be:
Banned throughout entire pregnancy.
Legal to save the life of the mother.
Legal in case of rape and incest.
Legal if the baby is handicapped.
Legal if the baby has a genetic defect.
Legal in the first trimester.
Legal in the second trimester.
Legal in the third trimester.
Other:__________________

JB: Banned throughout entire pregnancy.
Legal to save the life of the mother.
SP: I am pro-life. With the exception of a doctor’s determination that the mother’s life would end if the pregnancy continued. I believe that no matter what mistakes we make as a society, we cannot condone ending an innocent’s life.
FM: No Response
MH: No Response
GH: No Response
TK: No Response
EC: No Response
BL: No Response
EB: No Response
DD: No Response
DW: No Response

2. Will you support the right of parents to opt out their children from curricula, books, classes, or surveys, which parents consider privacy-invading or offensive to their religion or conscience?
JB: We should always encourage parents to participate in the curricula decisions of our school.
SP: Yes. Parents should have the ultimate control over what their children are taught.
FM: No Response
MH: No Response
GH: No Response
TK: No Response
EC: No Response
BL: No Response
EB: No Response
DD: No Response
DW: No Response

3. Will you support funding for abstinence-until-marriage education instead of for explicit sex-education programs, school-based clinics, and the distribution of contraceptives in schools?
JB: We should not exclude abstinence-until-marriage education programs.
SP: Yes, the explicit sex-ed programs will not find my support.
FM: No Response
MH: No Response
GH: No Response
TK: No Response
EC: No Response
BL: No Response
EB: No Response
DD: No Response
DW: No Response

4. Will you support efforts to raise or lower the mandatory age of education? Why or why not?
JB: No.
SP: No, again, parents know better than government what is best for their children.
FM: No Response
MH: No Response
GH: No Response
TK: No Response
EC: No Response
BL: No Response
EB: No Response
DD: No Response
DW: No Response

5. Will you support an effort to expand hate-crime laws?
JB: No.
SP: No, as I believe all heinous crime is based on hate.
FM: No Response
MH: No Response
GH: No Response
TK: No Response
EC: No Response
BL: No Response
EB: No Response
DD: No Response
DW: No Response

6a. Do you support the expansion of gambling in Alaska?
JB: No.
SP: No, in so many cases, gambling has shown ill effects on families and as Governor I would not propose expansion legislation.
FM: No Response
MH: No Response
GH: No Response
TK: No Response
EC: No Response
BL: No Response
EB: No Response
DD: No Response
DW: No Response

6b Would you sign any bills that expand gaming in our state?
JB: No.
SP: No.
FM: No Response
MH: No Response
GH: No Response
TK: No Response
EC: No Response
BL: No Response
EB: No Response
DD: No Response
DW: No Response

7. Do you support statewide restrictions on the use of eminent domain to transfer property from one private owner to another?
JB: Yes.
SP: Yes.
FM: No Response
MH: No Response
GH: No Response
TK: No Response
EC: No Response
BL: No Response
EB: No Response
DD: No Response
DW: No Response

8. Do you support parental choice in the spending of state educational dollars?
JB: As it relates to home schooling, we should give parents options in program spending.
SP: Within Alaska law, I support parents deciding what is the best education venue for their child.
FM: No Response
MH: No Response
GH: No Response
TK: No Response
EC: No Response
BL: No Response
EB: No Response
DD: No Response
DW: No Response

9. Do you support legislation requiring labor unions to obtain permission from their members before using dues for political purposes?
JB: No Response
SP: Yes, unions represent their workers and as such, should be accountable to them
FM: No Response
MH: No Response
GH: No Response
TK: No Response
EC: No Response
BL: No Response
EB: No Response
DD: No Response
DW: No Response

10. Do you support the Alaska Supreme Court’s ruling that spousal benefits for state employees should be given to same-sex couples? Why or why not?
JB: No. The constitutional amendment was clear to me.
SP: No, I believe spousal benefits are reserved for married citizens as defined in our constitution.
FM: No Response
MH: No Response
GH: No Response
TK: No Response
EC: No Response
BL: No Response
EB: No Response
DD: No Response
DW: No Response

11. Are you offended by the phrase “Under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance? Why or why not?
JB: No.
SP: Not on your life. If it was good enough for the founding fathers, its good enough for me and I’ll fight in defense of our Pledge of Allegiance. (The Pledge of Allegiance was written in 1892 by Francis Bellamy (1855-1931), a Baptist minister, a Christian Socialist. "Under God" was not added until 1954. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pledge_of_Allegiance. -ed)
FM: No Response
MH: No Response
GH: No Response
TK: No Response
EC: No Response
BL: No Response
EB: No Response
DD: No Response
DW: No Response

12. In relationship to families, what are your top three priorities if elected governor?
JB: I will always support and work to strengthen families.
SP: 1. Creating an atmosphere where parents feel welcome to choose the venues of education for their children.
2. Preserving the definition of “marriage” as defined in our constitution.
3. Cracking down on the things that harm family life: gangs, drug use, and infringement of our liberties including attacks on our 2nd Amendment rights. (That's the only liberty that she finds important?)
FM: No Response
MH: No Response
GH: No Response
TK: No Response
EC: No Response
BL: No Response
EB: No Response
DD: No Response
DW: No Response

Sarah Palin's Alaskonomics

2008-09-09T13:29:00.000-07:00

Sarah Palin's Alaskonomics
By Michael Kinsley

Sarah Palin thinks she is a better American than you because she comes from a small town, and a superior human being because she isn't a journalist and never lived in Washington and likes to watch her kids play hockey. Although Palin praised John McCain in her acceptance speech as a man who puts the good of his country ahead of partisan politics, McCain pretty much proved the opposite with his selection of a running mate whose main asset is her ability to reignite the culture wars. So maybe Governor Palin does represent everything that is good and fine about America, as she herself maintains. But spare us, please, any talk about how she is a tough fiscal conservative.

Palin has continued to repeat the already exposed lie that she said, "No, thanks," to the famous "bridge to nowhere" (McCain's favorite example of wasteful federal spending). In fact, she said, "Yes, please," until this project became a symbol and political albatross.

Back to reality. Of the 50 states, Alaska ranks No. 1 in taxes per resident and No. 1 in spending per resident. Its tax burden per resident is 21/2 times the national average; its spending, more than double. The trick is that Alaska's government spends money on its own citizens and taxes the rest of us to pay for it. Although Palin, like McCain, talks about liberating ourselves from dependence on foreign oil, there is no evidence that being dependent on Alaskan oil would be any more pleasant to the pocketbook.

Alaska is, in essence, an adjunct member of OPEC. It has four different taxes on oil, which produce more than 89% of the state's unrestricted revenue. On average, three-quarters of the value of a barrel of oil is taken by the state government before that oil is permitted to leave the state. Alaska residents each get a yearly check for about $2,000 from oil revenues, plus an additional $1,200 pushed through by Palin last year to take advantage of rising oil prices. Any sympathy the governor of Alaska expresses for folks in the lower 48 who are suffering from high gas prices or can't afford to heat their homes is strictly crocodile tears.

As if it couldn't support itself, Alaska also ranks No. 1, year after year, in money it sucks in from Washington. In 2005 (the most recent figures), according to the Tax Foundation, Alaska ranked 18th in federal taxes paid per resident ($5,434) but first in federal spending received per resident ($13,950). Its ratio of federal spending received to federal taxes paid ranks third among the 50 states, and in the absolute amount it receives from Washington over and above the amount it sends to Washington, Alaska ranks No. 1.

View photos of Sarah Palin here.

Under the state constitution, the governor of Alaska has unusually strong powers to shape the state budget. At the Republican Convention, Palin bragged that she had vetoed "nearly $500 million" in state spending during her two years as governor. This amounts to less than 2% of the proposed budget. That's how much this warrior for you, the people, against it, the government, could find in wasteful spending under her control.

One thing Barack Obama and McCain disagree on is an oil windfall-profits tax. McCain is against it, on the theory that it is a tax and therefore bad and also on the theory that it would discourage domestic production. Obama is for it, on the theory that if oil companies can make a nice profit when oil sells for $50 per bbl., they can still make a nice profit when it sells at more than $100, even if the government takes a bit and spreads the money around to those who are hurting from higher oil prices.

Although Palin's words side with McCain in this dispute, her actions side with Obama. Her major legislative accomplishment has been to revamp Alaska's windfall-profits tax in order to increase the state's take. Alaska calls it a "clear and equitable share" tax. The state assumes that extracting oil from the tundra costs about $25 per bbl. and takes as much as 75% of the difference between that and the sale price.

Why is a windfall-profits tax good for Alaska but not for the U.S.? Well, it's obvious, isn't it? People in Alaska are better than people in the rest of the U.S. They're more American. Although there are small towns and farms and high school hockey teams in the lower 48, there are fewer down here, per capita, than in Alaska. And there are many more journalists and pollsters and city dwellers and other undesirables who might benefit if every American had the same right to leech off the government as do the good citizens of Sarah Palin's Alaska

Palin Flouts Law Regarding Native Rights

2008-09-09T10:49:00.000-07:00

1. Palin has attacked Alaska Native Subsistence Fishing

Perhaps no issue is of greater importance to Alaska Native peoples as the right to hunt and fish according to ancient customary and traditional practices, and to carry on the subsistence way of life for future generations.

Governor Sarah Palin has consistently opposed those rights. Once in office, Governor Palin decided to continue litigation thatseeks to overturn every subsistence fishing determination the federal government has ever made in Alaska.
(State of Alaska v. Norton, 3:05-cv-0158-HRH (D. Ak).)

In pressing this case, Palin decided against using the Attorney General (which usually handles State litigation) and instead continued contracting with Senator Ted Stevens' brother-in-law's law firm (Birch, Horton, Bittner & Cherot).

The goal of Palin's law suit is to invalidate all the subsistence fishing regulations the federal government has issued to date to protect Native fishing, and to force the courts instead to take over the roll of setting subsistence regulations. Palin's law suit seeks to diminish subsistence fishing rights in order to expand sport and commercial fishing.

In May 2007, the federal court rejected the State's main challenge, holding that Congress in 1980 had expressly granted the U.S. Interior and Agriculture Departments the authority to regulate and protect Native and rural subsistence fishing activitiesin Alaska.
(Decision entered May 15, 2007 (Dkt. No. 110).)

Notwithstanding this ruling, Palin continues to argue in the litigation that the federal subsistence protections are too broad, and should be narrowed to exclude vast areas from subsistence fishing, in favor of sport and commercial fishing. Palin opposes subsistence protections in marine waters, on many of the lands that Natives selected under their 1971 land claims settlement with the state and federal governments, and in many of the rivers where Alaska Natives customarily fish.
(Alaska Complaint at 15-18.)

Palin also opposes subsistence fishing protections on Alaska Native federal allotments that were deeded to individuals purposely to foster Native subsistence activities. All these issues are now pending before the federal district court.
2. Palin has attacked Alaska Native Subsistence Hunting
Palin has also sought to invalidate critical determinations the Federal Subsistence Board has made regarding customary and traditional uses of game, specifically to take hunting opportunities away from Native subsistence villagers and thereby enhance sport hunting.

Palin's attack here on subsistence has focused on the Ahtna Indian people in Chistochina. Although the federal district court has rejected Palin's challenge, she has carried on an appeal that was argued in August 2008.
(State of Alaska v. Fleagle, No. 07-35723 (9th Cir.).)

In both hunting and fishing matters, Palin has continued uninterrupted the policies initiated by the former Governor Frank Murkowski Administration, challenging hunting and fishing protections that Native people depend upon for their subsistence way of life in order to enhance sport fishing and hunting opportunities. Palin's lawsuits are a direct attack on the core way of life of Native Tribes in rural Alaska.

3. Palin has attacked Alaska Tribal Sovereignty

Given past court rulings affirming the federally recognized tribal status of Alaska Native villages, Palin does not technically challenge that status. But Palin argues that Alaska Tribes have no authority to act as sovereigns, despite their recognition.
So extreme is Palin on tribal sovereignty issues that she has sought to block tribes from exercising any authority whatsoever, even over the welfare of Native children, adhering to a 2004 legal opinion issued by the former Murkowski Administration that no such jurisdiction exists (except when a state court transfers a matter to a tribal court).
Both the state courts and the federal courts have struck down Palin's policy of refusing to recognize the sovereign authority of Alaska Tribes to address issues involving Alaska Native children.
Native Village of Tanana v. State of Alaska, 3AN-04-12194 CI (judgment entered Aug. 26, 2008) (Ak. Super. Ct.); Native Kaltag Tribal Council v. DHHS, No. 3:06-cv-00211-TMB (D. Ak.), pending on appeal No 08-35343 (9th Cir.)).

Nonetheless, Palin's policy of refusing to recognize Alaska tribal sovereignty remains unchanged.

4. Palin has attacked Alaska Native Languages

Palin has refused to accord proper respect to Alaska Native languages and voters by refusing to provide language assistance to Yup'ik speaking Alaska Native voters. As a result, Palin was just ordered by a special three-judge panel of federal judges to provide various forms of voter assistance to Yup'ik voters residing in southwest Alaska.
Nick v. Bethel, No. 3:07-cv-0098-TMB (D. Ak.) (Order entered July 30, 2008).

Citing years of State neglect, Palin was ordered to provide trained poll workers who are bilingual in English and Yup'ik; sample ballots in written Yup'ik; a written Yup'ik glossary of election terms; consultation with local Tribes to ensure the accuracy of Yup'ik translations; a Yup'ik language coordinator; and pre-election and post-election reports to the court to track the State's efforts.

In sum, measured against some the rights that are most fundamental to Alaska Native Tribes – the subsistence way of life, tribal sovereignty and voting rights – Palin's record is a failure.

Lloyd B. Miller
Sonosky, Chambers, Sachse,
Miller & Munson, LLP
900 West Fifth Avenue, Suite 700
Anchorage, Alaska 99501
Telephone: (907)258-6377
Facsimile: (907)272-8332
E-Mail: lloyd@sonosky.net
Temporary New York City phone: (212) 204-6394

Palin Billed State for Hundreds of Nights Spent at Home

2008-09-09T03:32:00.000-07:00

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/08/AR2008090803088.html?wpisrc=newsletter

Palin Billed State for Nights Spent at Home
Taxpayers Also Funded Family's Travel

By James V. Grimaldi and Karl Vick
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, September 9, 2008; A01

"Palin charged the state a per diem for working on Nov. 22, 2007 -- Thanksgiving Day. The reason given, according to the expense report, was the Great Alaska Shootout, an annual NCAA college basketball tournament held in Anchorage.

In separate filings, the state was billed about $25,000 for Palin's daughters' expenses and $19,000 for her husband's."

ANCHORAGE, Sept. 8 -- Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has billed taxpayers for 312 nights spent in her own home during her first 19 months in office, charging a "per diem" allowance intended to cover meals and incidental expenses while traveling on state business.

The governor also has charged the state for travel expenses to take her children on official out-of-town missions. And her husband, Todd, has billed the state for expenses and a daily allowance for trips he makes on official business for his wife.

Palin, who earns $125,000 a year, claimed and received $16,951 as her allowance, which officials say was permitted because her official "duty station" is Juneau, according to an analysis of her travel documents by The Washington Post.

The governor's daughters and husband charged the state $43,490 to travel, and many of the trips were between their house in Wasilla and Juneau, the capital city 600 miles away, the documents show.

Gubernatorial spokeswoman Sharon Leighow said Monday that Palin's expenses are not unusual and that, under state policy, the first family could have claimed per diem expenses for each child taken on official business but has not done so.

Before she became the Republican Party's vice presidential nominee, Palin was little known outside Alaska. Now, with the campaign emphasizing her executive experience, her record as mayor of Wasilla, as a state oil-and-gas commissioner and as governor is receiving intense scrutiny.

During her speech at the Republican National Convention last week, Palin cast herself as a crusader for fiscal rectitude as Alaska's governor. She noted that she sold a state-owned plane used by the former governor. "While I was at it, I got rid of a few things in the governor's office that I didn't believe our citizens should have to pay for," she said to loud applause.

Speaking from Palin's Anchorage office, Leighow said Palin dealt with the plane and also trimmed other expenses, including forgoing a chef in the governor's mansion because she preferred to cook for her family. The first family's travel is an expected part of the job, she said.

"As a matter of protocol, the governor and the first family are expected to attend community events across the state," she said. "It's absolutely reasonable that the first family participates in community events."

The state finance director, Kim Garnero, said Alaska law exempts the governor's office from elaborate travel regulations. Said Leighow: "The governor is entitled to a per diem, and she claims it."

The popular governor collected the per diem allowance from April 22, four days after the birth of her fifth child, until June 3, when she flew to Juneau for two days. Palin moved her family to the capital during the legislative session last year, but prefers to stay in Wasilla and drive 45 miles to Anchorage to a state office building where she conducts most of her business, aides have said.

Palin rarely sought reimbursement for meals while staying in Anchorage or Wasilla, the reports show.

She wrote some form of "Lodging -- own residence" or "Lodging -- Wasilla residence" more than 30 times at the same time she took a per diem, according to the reports. In two dozen undated amendments to the reports, the governor deleted the reference to staying in her home but still charged the per diem.

Palin charged the state a per diem for working on Nov. 22, 2007 -- Thanksgiving Day. The reason given, according to the expense report, was the Great Alaska Shootout, an annual NCAA college basketball tournament held in Anchorage.

In separate filings, the state was billed about $25,000 for Palin's daughters' expenses and $19,000 for her husband's.

Flights topped the list for the most expensive items, and the daughter whose bill was the highest was Piper, 7, whose flights cost nearly $11,000, while Willow, 14, claimed about $6,000 and Bristol, 17, accounted for about $3,400.

One event was in New York City in October 2007, when Bristol accompanied the governor to Newsweek's third annual Women and Leadership Conference, toured the New York Stock Exchange and met local officials and business executives. The state paid for three nights in a $707-a-day hotel room. Garnero said the governor's office has the authority to approve hotel stays above $300.

Asked Monday about the official policy on charging for children's travel expenses, Garnero said: "We cover the expenses of anyone who's conducting state business. I can't imagine kids could be doing that."

But Leighow said many of the hundreds of invitations Palin receives include requests for her to bring her family, placing the definition of "state business" with the party extending the invitation.

One such invitation came in October 2007, when Willow flew to Juneau to join the Palin family on a tour of the Hub Juneau Christian Teen Center, where Palin and her family worship when they are in Juneau. The state gave the center $25,000, according to a May 2008 memo.

Leighow noted that under state policy, all of the governor's children are entitled to per diem expenses, even her infant son. "The first family declined the per diem [for] the children," Leighow said. "The amount that they had declined was $4,461, as of August 5."

The family also charged for flights around the state, including trips to Alaska events such as the start of the Iditarod dog-sled race and the Iron Dog snowmobile race, a contest that Todd Palin won.

Meanwhile, Todd Palin spent $725 to fly to Edmonton, Alberta, for "information gathering and planning meeting with Northern Alberta Institute of Technology," according to an expense report. During the three-day trip, he charged the state $291 for his per diem. A notation said "costs paid by Dept. of Labor." He also billed the state $1,371 for a flight to Washington to attend a National Governors Association meeting with his wife.

Gov. Palin has spent far less on her personal travel than her predecessor: $93,000 on airfare in 2007, compared with $463,000 spent the year before by her predecessor, Frank Murkowski. He traveled often in an executive jet that Palin called an extravagance during her campaign. She sold it after she was sworn into office.

"She flies coach and encourages her cabinet to fly coach as well," said Garnero, whose job is equivalent to state controller. "Some do, some don't."

Leighow said that the governor's staff has tallied the travel expenses charged by Murkowski's wife: $35,675 in 2006, $43,659 in 2005, $13,607 in 2004 and $29,608 in 2003. Associates of Murkowski said the former governor was moose hunting and could not be reached to comment.

In the past, per diem claims by Alaska state officials have carried political risks. In 1988, the head of the state Commerce Department was pilloried for collecting a per diem charge of $50 while staying in his Anchorage home, according to local news accounts. The commissioner, the late Tony Smith, resigned amid a series of controversies.

"It was quite the little scandal," said Tony Knowles, the Democratic governor from 1994 to 2000. "I gave a direction to all my commissioners if they were ever in their house, whether it was Juneau or elsewhere, they were not to get a per diem because, clearly, it is and it looks like a scam -- you pay yourself to live at home," he said.

Knowles, whose children were school-age at the start of his first term, said that his wife sometimes accompanied him to conferences overseas but that he could "count on one hand" the number of times his children accompanied him.

"And the policy was not to reimburse for family travel on commercial airlines, because there is no direct public benefit to schlepping kids around the state," he said. The rules were articulated by Mike Nizich, then director of administrative services in the governor's office, said Knowles and an aide to another former governor, Walter Hickel.

Nizich is now Palin's chief of staff. He did not return a phone call seeking comment. The rules governing family travel on state-owned aircraft appear less clear. Knowles said he operated under the understanding that immediate family could accompany the governor without charge.

But during the Murkowski years, that practice was questioned, and the state attorney general's office produced an opinion saying laws then in effect required reimbursement for spousal travel.

Research editor Alice Crites in Washington contributed to this report.

Sarah Palin's Churches and The Third Wave: New Video Documentary

2008-09-08T00:40:00.000-07:00

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bruce-wilson/sarah-palins-churches-and_b_124611.html

Sarah Palin's churches are actively involved in a resurgent movement that was declared heretical by the Assemblies of God in 1949. This is the same 'Spiritual Warfare' movement that was featured in the award winning movie, "Jesus Camp," which showed young children being trained to do battle for the Lord. At least three of four of Palin's churches are involved with major organizations and leaders of this movement, which is referred to as The Third Wave of the Holy Spirit or the New Apostolic Reformation. The movement is training a young "Joel's Army" to take dominion over the United States and the world.

Along with her entire family, Sarah Palin was re-baptized at twelve at the Wasilla Assembly of God in Wasilla, Alaska and she attended the church from the time she was ten until 2002: over two and 1/2 decades. Sarah Palin's extensive pattern of association with the Wasilla Assembly of God has continued nearly up to the day she was picked by Senator John McCain as a vice-presidential running mate. Palin's dedication to the Wasilla church is indicated by a Saturday, September 7, 2008, McClatchy news service story detailing possibly improper use of state travel funds by Palin for a trip she made to Wasilla, Alaska to attend, on June 8, 2008, both a Wasilla Assembly of God "Masters Commission" graduation ceremony and also a multi-church Wasilla area event known as "One Lord Sunday." At the latter event, Palin and Alaska LT Governor Scott Parnell were publicly blessed, onstage before an estimated crowd of 6,000, through the "laying on of hands" by Wasilla Assembly of God's Head Pastor Ed Kalnins whose sermons espouse such theological concepts as the possession of geographic territories by demonic spirits and the inter-generational transmission of family "curses". Palin has also been blessed, or "anointed," by an African cleric, prominent in the Third Wave movement, who has repeatedly visited the Wasilla Assembly of God and claims to have effected positive, dramatic social change in a Kenyan town by driving out a "spirit of witchcraft."

The Wasilla Assembly of God church is deeply involved with both Third Wave activities and theology. Their Master's Commission program is part of an three year post-high school international training program with studies in prophecy, intercessory prayer, Biblical exegesis, authority and leadership. The pastor, Ed Kalnins, and Masters Commission students have traveled to South Carolina to participate in a "prophetic conference" at Morningstar Ministries, one of the major ministries of the Third Wave movement. Becky Fischer was a pastor at Morningstar prior to being featured in the movie "Jesus Camp." The head of prophecy at Morningstar, Steve Thompson, is currently scheduled to do a prophecy seminar at the Wasilla Assembly of God. Other major leaders in the movement have also traveled to Wasilla to visit and speak at the church.

The Third Wave is a revival of the theology of the Latter Rain tent revivals of the 1950s and 1960s led by William Branham and others. It is based on the idea that in the end times there will be an outpouring of supernatural powers on a group of Christians that will take authority over the existing church and the world. The believing Christians of the world will be reorganized under the Fivefold Ministry and the church restructured under the authority of Prophets and Apostles and others anointed by God. The young generation will form "Joel's Army" to rise up and battle evil and retake the earth for God.

While segments of this belief system have been a part of Pentecostalism and charismatic beliefs for decades, the excesses of this movement were declared a heresy in 1949 by the General Council of the Assemblies of God, and again condemned through Resolution 16 in 2000. The beliefs and manifestations of the movement include the use of 'strategic level spiritual warfare' to expel territorial demons from American and world cities. Worship includes excessive charismatic manifestations such as hundreds of people falling, 'slain in the spirit,' and congregations laughing, jerking, and shrieking uncontrollably.

In early 2008 an outbreak of those phenomena commenced at the palatial former ministry estate of Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, recently bought up and restored by prominent Third Wave author and leader Rick Joyner's Morningstar Ministries. The (spiritual) "breakout" lasted for many weeks and was publicized in an extensive collection of video footage available on YouTube. Healing services in the Third Wave movement claim to heal the sick and injured through methods that in some cases can appear bizarre - including, as in recent cases involving Todd Bentley, the patient being head butted or kicked by the anointed healer. Recipients of such "spiritual" or miraculous healing make a wide range of astonishing claims - to have been cured of life-threatening illnesses, had joints repaired or replaced, been given gold teeth or gold fillings, regrown stunted limbs and even had deformed skeletal structures straightened and reshaped. Worldwide mission efforts of the movement are built around the idea of combating witches, warlocks, and generational curses, which prevent churches from being able to take root.

Mike Rose, senior pastor of Juneau Christian Center has a long relationship with Rodney Howard -Browne, credited with being the instigator of the outbreak of 'Holy Laughter' around the world, including the Toronto Airport Revival. Thomas Muthee visited Wasilla Assembly of God and gave 10 consecutive sermons at the church, from October 11-16 2005. As both Palin and Wasilla AoG Head Pastor Ed Kalnins have attested, Thomas Muthee 'prayed over' Sarah Palin and entreated God to "make a way" prior to Palin's successful bid for the Alaska governorship. Muthee made a return visit to the Wasilla Assembly of God in late 2008. Thomas Muthee's Word of Faith Church is featured in the "Transformations" video which details an account on how Muthee drove "the spirit of witchcraft" out of Kiambu, Kenya, liberating the town from its territorial demonic possession and enabling a miraculous societal transformation. The "Transformations" video set is used as an argument for social improvement through spiritual instead of human means, and as the best method for fighting corruption, crime, drugs and even environmental degradation.

In the video, producer George Otis declares that after Thomas Muthee and his followers banished the "spirit of witchcraft" from the town, the crime rate in Kiambu dropped almost to zero, along with the rate of alcoholism, and according to Otis most of the residents of the town joined churches. The "Transformations" video has helped spark a network of 'Transformation' ministries and mission organizations and 'transformation' has become a buzz word for change based on supernatural instead of human efforts.

The Third Wave, also known as the New Apostolic Reformation, is a network of Apostles, many of them grouped around C. Peter Wagner, founder of the World Prayer Center. This center, which was built in coordination with Ted Haggard and his New Life Church in Colorado Springs, was featured in an article by Jeff Sharlet in Harpers, May 2005, "Soldiers of Christ." Sharlet was one of the first to write in the secular press about the World Prayer Center which is often referred to by those familiar with the Third Wave as the 'Pentagon for Spiritual Warfare.' It features computer systems that store the data of communities around the world, mapping out unsaved peoples' groups and spiritual mapping information for spiritual warfare. Wagner has his own group of about 500 Apostles in his council and each of these Apostles has ministries under their authority, sometimes hundreds or thousands. Recently various networks of Apostles came together to form the Revival Alliance. Leaders of the Revival Alliance including Rick Joyner of Morningstar anointed Todd Bentley whose Lakeland Healing Revival has recently been a controversial topic in the Evangelical world.

Wagner's top leaders often conduct spiritual warfare campaigns against the demons that block the acceptance of their brand of Christian belief, such as 'Operation Ice Castle' in the Himalayas in 1997. Several of their top prophets and generals of intercession spent weeks in intensive prayer to "confront the Queen of Heaven." This queen is considered by them to be one of the most powerful demons over the earth and is the Great Harlot of Mystery Babylon in Revelation. (The "Great Harlot [or 'whore'] of Mystery Babylon" theme also figures prominently in the sermons of Texas megachurch pastor and Christians United For Israel founder John Hagee, former endorser of John McCain's 2008 presidential bid.) Wagner and his group also claim that the Queen of Heaven is Diana, the pagan god of the biblical book Ephesians and the god of Mary veneration in the Roman Catholic Church. Following the 'Operation Ice Castle' prayer excursion which included planting a flag for Jesus on Mt. Everest, one of the lead prayer intercessors from the excursion, Ana Mendez, reported that there had been dramatic results including, "millions have come to faith in Asia... and other things happened which I believe are also connected...an earthquake had destroyed the basilica of Assisi, where the Pope had called a meeting of all world religions; a hurricane destroyed the infamous temple 'Baal-Christ' in Acapulco, Mexico; the Princes Diana died... and Mother Theresa died in India, one of the most famous advocates of Mary as Co-Redeemer."

Church of the Rock, led by Senior Pastor David Pepper, has taken their youth to participate in 'The Call, Nashville.' This event is held at various locations around the country under the leadership of Lou Engle, also featured in the movie "Jesus Camp." At these events youth are worked into a frenzy of anger and consternation at supposed national moral corruption. Engle, who shuffles while he preaches in imitation of Jewish prayer, is featured toward the end of the "Jesus Camp" video documentary.

The Third Wave movement is cross-denomination and is not synonymous with any specific denomination, nor is it synonymous with Evangelical or Fundamentalist. Although the movement emerged from Pentecostalism, it draws its support from a variety of denominations and religious streams. They believe they are forming a post-denominational church to take the world for the end times. To date, all of the writing and objections to this movement have emerged from other Evangelicals and Fundamentalists who believe the movement to be unbiblical. Also, it is other conservative churches that refuse to embrace the 'outpouring of the Spirit' that are targets of much of the anger of the movement.

You can find more information on the Third Wave movement and additional links to the activities of Palin's churches on www.Talk2action.org in the following articles:

Sarah Palin's Churches and the Third Wave, Part One

Sarah Palin's Churches and the Third Wave, Part Two (with embedded video.)

CNN Documents Palin's Numerous Misstatements

2008-09-08T00:25:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Tc7BF_Fd7I

2008-09-08T00:12:00.000-07:00

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=5747205&page=1

Palin to Sit Down With ABC News' Charlie Gibson
Veep Pick Is Elusive Target for the Democrats
Sept. 7, 2008

{"She's not scared to answer questions. But you know what? We run our campaign, not the news media. And we'll do things on our timetable," Davis said.}

Gov. Sarah Palin will sit down with ABC News' Charlie Gibson for her first interview since winning the Republican vice presidential nomination, the network's news division confirmed today.

(ROBYN BECK/AFP/Getty Images)Palin accepted the nomination to be Sen. John McCain's running mate 10 days ago, but has yet to submit to questions from reporters covering the election.

The Alaskan governor was taunted by the spokesman of her Democratic counterpart, Delaware Sen. Joe Biden, for not submitting to a grilling by the press.

Reporters covering Biden gave the candidate a cardboard cutout of McCain, and Biden spokesman David Wade promptly used the gag to take a poke at Palin.

Palin in Spotlight: 'Average Hockey Mom' Slams Obama's 'Change' Mantra See How Gov. Sarah Palin Bent the Facts "You realize you could've made history if you'd found a cardboard cut-out of Governor Palin," Wade said. "That's the closest she would've been to taking tough questions from the national media since she was selected." "Then again, I guess the Republicans are continuing their recent history of keeping their vice-presidential picks in secure, undisclosed locations," he added, in reference to Vice President Dick Cheney's use of an "undisclosed location" after the Sept. 11 attacks. "Yet another way that McCain-Palin is more of the same."

The McCain campaign, however, has complained that the press coverage of Palin has been sexist and intrusive in asking whether she is capable of being a mother to five children and vice president at the same time, and delving into the pregnancy of her 17-year-old umarried daughter.

Rick Davis, McCain's campaign manager, told Fox News today that Palin wouldn't subject herself to any tough questions from reporters "until the point in time when she'll be treated with respect and deference."

Davis shrugged off the criticism and said Palin would do interviews, "When we think it's time and when she feels comfortable doing it."

"She's not scared to answer questions. But you know what? We run our campaign, not the news media. And we'll do things on our timetable," Davis said.

Palin was campaigning in New Mexico today.

Sarah Palin's Media No-Show

2008-09-08T00:00:00.000-07:00

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2008/090708a.html

From Tony :)

Editor’s Note: Sunday’s lineup of TV interview shows listed three of the four nominees on the two national tickets. The only no-show was Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, fitting with the decision since her selection not to have her subjected to questions from reporters.

In this guest essay, writer Mary MacElveen urges the U.S. news media to refrain from writing any more puff pieces on Palin until she makes herself available to reporters’ questions:

During the GOP national convention, Republicans were openly hostile towards the news media.

Given the fact that they have little to offer we the people and given these past eight years of failed leadership, it is understandable.

Yet we the people have the right to see how candidates such as Gov. Sarah Palin hold up to immense pressure. It is a great indicator how they will react to it while on the job.

Washington, D.C., is very different than Wasilla, Alaska, or even governing Alaska itself in its complexity. I would have loved to have seen Tim Russert interview her and if he were still alive, much could have been learned from that interview.

After all, Palin can possibly be but a heart beat away from the presidency itself.

Most likely she is cramming for her one-time-only debate with Sen. Joe Biden and in that debate the questions are limited and the time to answer them is also limited. Biden knows the intricacies of foreign policy since he is the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations committee, but what of her knowledge?

Back in the 2000 presidential campaign, it was all about how many would like to invite George W. Bush to their backyard barbeques. Will this one be about how many would like to invite Sarah Palin to an afternoon tea? Here we go again.

I recall an old joke, “You know you are going to have a bad day when Mike Wallace shows up at your door.” No truer words could be said of Wallace. He was the champion when it came to getting the goods so to speak. I do think she would have squirmed in his hot-seat.

As I headed towards the grocery store on Saturday, I was listening to my car radio as they started to report on the Freddie Mac and Fanny Mae story. Every news station I listened to aired Sarah Palin’s opinion of the government takeover (by the way she favors this move).

Absent was any opinion coming from Sen. Barack Obama or Sen. Joe Biden. But I did not care what her opinion of the government move was since she has yet to be fully vetted by any news organization.

Anyone can cite an opinion, but we the people have the right to have questions put to that person asking the all important questions of “Why” or “How come?”

As of Sunday morning, Sarah Palin has yet to meet the press, the last three words again reminded me of Tim Russert.

According to Politico.com, “Palin has yet to sit down for or even schedule an issues-oriented interview with any newspaper, magazine or television network.”
Ah, there is that operative word, “issue.” At this point, the Republicans are running as fast as they can from the issues and as we all saw at their convention were only prone to sniping at the Democrats and the “liberal elites.”

Why they think that the media is liberal is beyond me. The media is owned by various corporations, so it is the corporate media.

Biden Speaks

In fact, Joe Biden in this brass-knuckle response to the Republican convention stated in this feed, “What do you talk about when you cannot explain the last eight years of failure.”

Biden even quoted McCain's campaign manager Rick Davis saying, “This campaign is not about issues.”

Excuse me?! I do not know about you, but I would like to hear through detailed interviews of Palin how she will solve the problems most Americans are facing today instead of poking fun at Obama when she called into question his work as “a community organizer.”

America, nothing can be learned of how we as a country go forward when one reads, in the Politico article: In the meantime, Fox News is rolling out a special (as are other networks): ‘Gov. Sarah Palin: An American Woman,’ a one-hour biography hosted by Greta Van Susteren that includes ‘exclusive video and photos’ and ‘interviews with her family, friends and colleagues’ — but not Palin herself.”

Why bother to watch this program if Palin cannot be pinned down on how to solve the problems that many Americans are facing today?

Immediately after the Republican convention, viewers saw both Palin and McCain speaking to groups of supporters in both Michigan and Pennsylvania, both of which are battle ground states. Stations such as CNN, MSNBC and Fox covered them extensively. Where is the quid pro quo?

I would love to challenge the mainstream media not to cover any campaign stop by these Republican candidates. Why give them the air time when Palin will not avail herself to any questioning?

The people have the right to know. All we are hearing are the recycled quips we heard at their convention. Nothing new is being learned of Palin.

The other night, Sen. Barack Obama went into the lions den when he was interviewed by Bill O’Reilly who has been openly hostile towards Democrats and that is courage.

My fantasy would be for Palin to be interviewed by Amy Goodman of “Democracy Now.” This feisty governor would not know what hit her since Goodman herself has been addressing the many issues that Palin is not speaking of.

Will this be yet again another administration cloaked in secrecy when it should be transparent? I think that is a fair question.

Since Palin is against embryonic stem cell research, I would love to hear her interviewed on this issue with Michael J. Fox present. As we all know, he suffers from Parkinson’s Disease.

Instead of being corralled, let her see for herself how many Americans are suffering.

She is against abortion even in the most extreme cases of rape and incest. I would love to see her interviewed at a rape crisis center. Wouldn’t you?

And speaking of abortion, why not put the question to her of exactly how she intends to care for so many women if they are forced to carry their pregnancies to term? Will she be in favor of stacking more conservative/pro-life judges to the Supreme Court?

In closing, I would love for all the major news organizations to put forth a news blackout directed at the McCain/Palin ticket.

If they complain, it is up to the news media to say, “You avail Palin to us and then we will start covering your campaign.” It is as simple as that. Until such time, should I see her on my television set, I will simply turn the channel. So should we all.

Mary MacElveen, a Long Island-based writer, can be reached at her e-mail address, xmjmac@optonline.net

Palin Unsure about Church-State Separation

2008-09-07T23:58:00.001-07:00

http://www.zimbio.com/Sarah+Palin/articles/343/Sarah+Palin+Believe+Separation+Church+State

From Tony :)

Does Sarah Palin Believe in the Separation of Church and State?
EmailWritten by JJ on Sep-3-08 12:38pm
O'FALLON, MO- AUGUST 31: Presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain's (R-AZ) vice presidential pick Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin waits to be introduced to speak during an event at T.R. Hughes Ballpark . August 31, 2008 in O?Fallon, Missouri. McCain is campaigning before heading to the Republican National Convention. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images North America)

Judging from her past appearances at the Wasilla Assembly of God church and her association with its lead pastor, Ed Kalnins , it appears likely Sarah Palin has some issues with separating church and state.

During the 2004 election season, when Bush was up for reelection pastor Ed Kalnins didn't mince words about how he felt about Democratic nominee John Kerry.

"I'm not going tell you who to vote for, but if you vote for this particular person, I question your salvation. I'm sorry," Kalnins said. "If every Christian will vote righteously, it would be a landslide every time."

That's one of the many quasi-political religous statements common from Kalnins, the lead pastor of the Assembly of God church in Wasilla, Alaska, which was previously attended by Republican VP candidate Sarah Palin.

Kalnins' sermons and speeches were posted on the Assembly of God Web site until recently when they were removed due to the large volume of traffic the site was receiving. In them, Kalnins also revealed his opinion that the 9/11 attacks and the war in Iraq were part of a "world war" in which Jesus Christ called on his true believers to be willing to sacrifice their lives.

The controversial opinions have surfaced as the national press takes a closer look at Palin leading up to her appearance at the Republican National Convention.

Perhaps most interesting is a video filmed in June, 2008 in which Palin appears with Kalnins. In it she says U.S. soldiers in Iraq are on a task from God and that the war is "God's plan." She then calls for the people of the church to pray for an oil pipeline.

"I think God's will has to be done in unifying people and companies to get that gas line built."

In the same video, pastor Kalnins later explains that it's important for Alaska to tap into its natural resources because he believes "Alaska is one of the refuge states in the last days."

The combined statements paint a picture of a church where politics and religion are bound together. While some of the views may be common among some evangelical Christian churches, they certainly lie outside the mainstream.

By choosing Palin, with her seemingly extreme political and religous views, the McCain campaign is now running the risk of alienating moderate voters who are reluctant to support a candidate who so freely ties God to political workings.

What do you think? Is Sarah Palin's political background cause for concern? Vote here.

Are Evangelicals Really Sold on Palin?

2008-09-06T17:58:00.000-07:00

Saturday, Sep. 06, 2008
Are Evangelicals Really Sold on Palin?
By Amy Sullivan

"Over the past few years, a growing number of Evangelicals have been consciously distancing themselves from the more extreme stands of the Christian right. They live in the suburbs, hold graduate degrees, and while they might not want their children reading certain novels, would be embarrassed by attempts to ban certain books from libraries, as Palin is reported to have briefly considered while mayor of Wasilla, Alaska. They don't attend churches where speakers charge that violence against Israelis is divine punishment for the failure of Jews to accept Jesus, as happened at one of Palin's churches two weeks ago (though Palin has now issued a statement saying she does not agree with those views). And they would disagree with Palin's decision to use her line-item veto as Governor to slash funding for an Alaska shelter that serves teen mothers."

Sure, John McCain's selection of Sarah Palin to be his running mate fully consumed a GOP convention that was supposed to be focused on thumping Barack Obama over the head. And it may have raised questions about McCain's own judgment and seriousness. But, as we have been told ad nauseam since the surprise choice was announced last Friday, Palin has already provided one unquestionable, invaluable assist to the Republican campaign: with one sweep of her perfectly manicured hand, she has supposedly erased McCain's Evangelical problem and united the base that proved so key to George W. Bush's victory in 2004. (See photos of Sarah Palin here.)

To a degree, that's true. Palin's pro-life credentials are impeccable — she opposes abortion in all circumstances, even in cases of rape and incest, except when a delivery will result in death. And her strong, open religious faith will make her the perfect person to reach out to conservative Evangelicals, who still don't fully trust the Republican nominee. But McCain and his aides may not want to say hallelujah just yet. While Palin is inspiring rhapsodies from the lions of the Christian right, her appeal to more moderate and younger Evangelicals — as well as independent swing voters — may be limited.

Lost in the stampede of social conservatives to embrace Palin this past week is the fact that she is culturally outside the mainstream of Evangelicalism. Over the past few years, a growing number of Evangelicals have been consciously distancing themselves from the more extreme stands of the Christian right. They live in the suburbs, hold graduate degrees, and while they might not want their children reading certain novels, would be embarrassed by attempts to ban certain books from libraries, as Palin is reported to have briefly considered while mayor of Wasilla, Alaska. They don't attend churches where speakers charge that violence against Israelis is divine punishment for the failure of Jews to accept Jesus, as happened at one of Palin's churches two weeks ago (though Palin has now issued a statement saying she does not agree with those views). And they would disagree with Palin's decision to use her line-item veto as Governor to slash funding for an Alaska shelter that serves teen mothers.

That goes double for younger Evangelicals. These voters tend to be even more pro-life than their parents, but abortion isn't always a priority that moves their votes — it wasn't when McCain was alone on the ticket, and there's no reason for that to change with the addition of Palin. More important, Palin has problematic stances on many of the issues that do motivate young Evangelicals. Her insistence that global warming is not man-made, for instance, is unlikely to appeal to those Evangelicals who have embraced so-called "creation care" in the past few years. This is particularly relevant to the current race, as young Evangelicals account for much of that demographic's undecided bloc. No one knows what the size of their impact may be in November because young Evangelicals are consistently underrepresented in polls of white Evangelicals. (Even a TIME poll of likely white Evangelical voters conducted last month used a sample in which just 10% of respondents were between 18 and 35. That age group made up 22% of the total electorate in 2004, and its share of the electorate is expected to increase this year.)

At first glance, it may seem ridiculous to say that McCain has an Evangelical problem at all, considering that he already has commanded support in the high 60s or low 70s. As of last week, however, the percentage of white Evangelicals who planned to vote for McCain was still 10 points lower than the final percentage of those voters who went for Bush in the last presidential election. The most conservative Evangelicals — the ones who served as foot soldiers for the Bush-Cheney campaign, mobilizing their neighbors and fellow parishioners — were the least enthusiastic about McCain's candidacy. And many leaders of the Christian-right establishment were ostentatiously withholding their endorsements of the Arizona Senator.

McCain's difficulty exciting white Evangelicals has been twofold. The people in the pews had lingering questions about his commitment to the pro-life cause. McCain's "maverick" political reputation has led many women, including some angry Hillary Clinton supporters who have thrown their support behind him, to assume that he must also buck the GOP's staunch opposition to abortion — and many Evangelicals worry about just the same thing, despite the Senator's lifelong record of supporting nearly all abortion restrictions. While McCain tried to address that concern by declaring at Rick Warren's Saddleback Forum held last month that "life begins at conception," his continued flirtation with pro-choice running-mate possibilities like Joe Lieberman and Tom Ridge hurt his efforts to make inroads.

His tense relationship with Christian-right leaders has had different roots. They have spent the campaign looking for signs that McCain, who during his 2000 presidential run famously referred to some of them as "agents of intolerance," is one of them; instead he revealed that while he attends a Baptist church in Phoenix, he has not been baptized. But what about that moving POW guard story, you might ask? The one about the guard who drew a cross in the sand to share his Christian identity with McCain? That tale, it turns out, is actually a large part of the problem for Evangelical leaders. In off-the-record conversations, they complain that the story is about someone else's faith — which is one reason McCain has recently added a line about how he and the guard "were just two Christians, venerating the cross" — and that surely McCain must have an example of his own faith from the past 40 years.

But they're mostly annoyed that it's the only answer McCain gives to any question about religion or faith. It's the story he told last spring at a gathering of conservative leaders when asked to explain his faith in God. "He blew that question off by telling us about the faith of his jailer," direct-mail pioneer Richard Viguerie fumed to the Los Angeles Times afterward. "It was very obvious to those three or four hundred conservative leaders there." One month later, McCain pulled out his trusty tale once again when a student at a town-hall event asked what effect his faith would have on his "executive decision-making."

There is no doubt that Palin will help calm the doubts of that core Evangelical base and leadership. While many pundits have wondered whether social conservatives will recoil from the news that Palin's 17-year-old daughter is five months pregnant, they're clearly not grasping the mores of that community. If Bristol Palin were the daughter of Democratic parents, she would undoubtedly be held up as an example of the failures of a liberal, permissive culture. Instead, she is viewed — as are the majority of teenage mothers in Evangelical churches — as a Christian who sinned, is forgiven, and needs to be embraced and supported.

The revelation about her daughter's pregnancy, and the fact that Palin herself chose to give birth to a baby with Down Syndrome, are just another part of the compelling picture Palin can paint of her faith. She was baptized in the Catholic Church and for most of her life belonged to an Assemblies of God congregation — a Pentecostal denomination. In high school, Palin was the local leader of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, and most recently she moved her family to a nondenominational Evangelical church in her hometown.

That move away from the Pentecostal Church, which took place in 2002 when Palin first ran for lieutenant governor in Alaska, is the only potential sign she has given that her religious beliefs might be a political liability. Her spokeswoman now says that Palin does not identify herself as a Pentecostal. Historically Pentecostals and other Evangelical Protestants haven't always gotten along, largely because of theological differences. Pentecostal theology elevates the role of the Holy Spirit and includes belief in spiritual gifts, such as healing and speaking in tongues. But the groups have often been able to set aside their doctrinal disagreements for political purposes. Pat Robertson, a Pentecostal, and the late Jerry Falwell, a Fundamentalist, famously had bitter theological disputes but still joined forces as leading figures of the Christian right. (See photos of Jerry Falwell here.)

Palin's red-meat conservatism and Evangelicalism will almost certainly play well with those party faithful who attended the Republican National Convention this week. But with fewer than 60 days until Election Day (and a month before the start of early voting in many states), the McCain campaign's continued courting of the more traditional base spells trouble for any efforts to expand his appeal to independent voters and less conservative Evangelicals. If so, McCain may find himself quoting a bowdlerized verse of Scripture in November: What does it profit a man to gain the Christian right and lose the White House?

Click to Print Find this article at:
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1839190,00.html

E-mail on Sarah Palin grabs spotlight

2008-09-05T22:32:00.000-07:00

By Robert Farley, Times Staff Writer
In print: Saturday, September 6, 2008

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Anne Kilkenny of Wasilla set out to tell out-of-town friends about Sarah Palin, but she has been quoted worldwide.

Campaign 2008

The first draft of Anne Kilkenny's e-mail went to her mother in California. Then she sent it out to a few dozen friends and family members, many "in the lower 48." That was Sunday.

[ERIK HILL | Anchorage Daily News]

Today, Kilkenny's words, the observations of a Wasilla, Alaska, homemaker who remembers Gov. Sarah Palin when she was mayor, have circled the globe. The letter is posted on a thousand Web sites. It's being cited in countless blogs and e-mails.

Kilkenny, 57, has been quoted on the front page of the New York Times. She has been interviewed by the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, four British papers, L'Express from France and Der Spiegel from Germany, to name just a few. She has gone on TV with ABC and NBC and CNN, which spent four hours at her house yesterday. She has spoken with National Public Radio.

Kilkenny is now a significant voice in the national discussion of the presidential election, but she began with a modest goal. She merely wanted to answer out-of-town friends who asked: "You're from Wasilla, what's Sarah Palin like?"

Kilkenny was more than a casual observer. She says she attended virtually every City Council meeting in Palin's first year as Wasilla mayor in 1996. She is not a fan.

Kilkenny put her thoughts in a 6-page e-mail in which she praised Palin as smart, energetic and hardworking but also labeled her intolerant, ambitious and ruthless. Kilkenny was perhaps the first to spread the story, now being widely reported, of how Palin once tried to fire the town librarian after the librarian made it clear that she would oppose efforts to remove books from the local collection. Palin was the freshly elected mayor then, and although she didn't have any particular books in mind, she posed what she later called "rhetorical" questions about how objectionable books could best be removed.

Kilkenny was part of the insurgency that saved the librarian, Mary Ellen Emmons, from dismissal by Palin, who had asked for Emmons' resignation, according to news accounts at the time. Palin relented after a public uprising.

Kilkenny, whose husband is retired, says Palin left the city in debt over pet projects. And she concludes "there has to be literally millions of Americans who are more knowledgeable and experienced than she" who would be better suited to be vice president.

At the top of the e-mail, Kilkenny told friends they should feel free to distribute the e-mail to friends. But, she asked, "please do not post it on any websites as there are too many kooks out there."

Ha ha ha.

Within hours, she was getting e-mails referencing her "blog."

"What blog? Did I blog?" she wondered. She had never blogged before.

Google "Anne Kilkenny and Palin" and you'll get more than 17,000 page hits now. Her letter has become a popular chain e-mail. "Intellectually, you realize there is this pyramid effect," Kilkenny said. "But it's still mind-boggling."

A couple of factors conspired to propel Kilkenny's letter to Web fame. First, few Americans outside Alaska had ever heard of Palin before she was announced as Sen. John McCain's running mate. Since that day just a week ago, the public has had a voracious appetite for information about her.

Second, Kilkenny provides a critical voice. Palin is wildly popular in Alaska, and even more so in Wasilla, a town beaming with pride at having one of their own nominated to become vice president of the United States.

Kilkenny's critical voice has appealed to journalists, who have called by the dozens, eager for a perspective that differs from the hometown boosters. More than one reporter has called with just two questions: "Are you a real person? Did you write this?"

She's not sure how all this may be playing with her neighbors. She's been so inundated with calls and interviews, she hasn't had time to leave the house. Her mother worries about the attention. She suggested her daughter change her phone number and move in with her until the firestorm passes.

But so far the e-mail response has been overwhelmingly positive, Kilkenny said. Many have praised her courage. Others have written in defense of Palin. That's okay with Kilkenny too.

Kilkenny, a Democrat, said she does not share Palin's political point of view. But for those who are socially conservative, she said, her e-mail should be in some ways reassuring. "I want people to know," she said. "If they are social conservatives, they can trust that's who she is."

Overall, she's been pleased with the tone of responses.

"The American public is not a vicious, vindictive, ugly group of people," she concluded. "They care deeply about their country. They take their responsibility as citizens very seriously. My faith in the American people was really pumped up."

Another thing she has learned: The public is very distrustful of the media. "But they are very trustful of me," she said.

Which she finds a little alarming. Because, she said, they really don't know who she is. She could be anyone.

"I have known Sarah since 1992..."

2008-09-05T22:30:00.000-07:00

Letter to the editor of the Anchorage Daily News:

"I have known Sarah since 1992..."
Posted by Alaska_Politics

Posted: September 4, 2008 - 12:11 pm

From David Hulen in Anchorage --

The e-mail below has been bouncing around the Internet since Sunday. It was written by Anne Kilkenny of Wasilla - stay-at-home mom, letter-to-the-editor writer and longtime watcher of Valley politics. She's a registered Democrat. She was one of the delegates to the Conference of Alaskans in Fairbanks back in 2004. Her bio from the conference is here.

She e-mailed this letter over the weekend to family and friends Outside, and (despite her request not to post it) it went viral on the Internet very quickly, showing up on blogs and Web sites all over. Since then, Kilkenny has been inundated with phone calls and e-mails. She said she stayed up until 3 a.m. last night answering e-mails, and found nearly 400 new ones waiting when she logged on this morning.

It's posted here with her permission.

***

Dear friends,

So many people have asked me about what I know about Sarah Palin in the last 2 days that I decided to write something up . . .

Basically, Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton have only 2 things in common: their gender and their good looks. :)

You have my permission to forward this to your friends/email contacts with my name and email address attached, but please do not post it on any websites, as there are too many kooks out there . . .

Thanks,
Anne

ABOUT SARAH PALIN

I am a resident of Wasilla, Alaska. I have known Sarah since 1992. Everyone here knows Sarah, so it is nothing special to say we are on a first-name basis. Our children have attended the same schools. Her father was my child's favorite substitute teacher. I also am on a first name basis with her parents and mother-in-law. I attended more City Council meetings during her administration than about 99% of the residents of the city.

She is enormously popular; in every way she's like the most popular girl in middle school. Even men who think she is a poor choice and won't vote for her can't quit smiling when talking about her because she is a "babe".

It is astonishing and almost scary how well she can keep a secret. She kept her most recent pregnancy a secret from her children and parents for seven months.

She is "pro-life". She recently gave birth to a Down's syndrome baby. There is no cover-up involved, here; Trig is her baby.

She is energetic and hardworking. She regularly worked out at the gym.

She is savvy. She doesn't take positions; she just "puts things out there" and if they prove to be popular, then she takes credit.

Her husband works a union job on the North Slope for BP and is a champion snowmobile racer. Todd Palin's kind of job is highly sought-after because of the schedule and high pay. He arranges his work schedule so he can fish for salmon in Bristol Bay for a month or so in summer, but by no stretch of the imagination is fishing their major source of income. Nor has her life-style ever been anything like that of native Alaskans.

Sarah and her whole family are avid hunters.

She's smart.

Her experience is as mayor of a city with a population of about 5,000 (at the time), and less than 2 years as governor of a state with about 670,000 residents.

During her mayoral administration most of the actual work of running this small city was turned over to an administrator. She had been pushed to hire this administrator by party power-brokers after she had gotten herself into some trouble over precipitous firings which had given rise to a recall campaign.

Sarah campaigned in Wasilla as a "fiscal conservative". During her 6 years as Mayor, she increased general government expenditures by over 33%. During those same 6 years the amount of taxes collected by the City increased by 38%. This was during a period of low inflation (1996-2002). She reduced progressive property taxes and increased a regressive sales tax which taxed even food. The tax cuts that she promoted benefited large corporate property owners way more than they benefited residents.

The huge increases in tax revenues during her mayoral administration weren't enough to fund everything on her wish list though, borrowed money was needed, too. She inherited a city with zero debt, but left it with indebtedness of over $22 million. What did Mayor Palin encourage the voters to borrow money for? Was it the infrastructure that she said she supported? The sewage treatment plant that the city lacked? or a new library? No. $1m for a park. $15m-plus for construction of a multi-use sports complex which she rushed through to build on a piece of property that the City didn't even have clear title to, that was still in litigation 7 yrs later--to the delight of the lawyers involved! The sports complex itself is a nice addition to the community but a huge money pit, not the profit-generator she claimed it would be. She also supported bonds for $5.5m for road projects that could have been done in 5-7 yrs without any borrowing.

While Mayor, City Hall was extensively remodeled and her office redecorated more than once.

These are small numbers, but Wasilla is a very small city.

As an oil producer, the high price of oil has created a budget surplus in Alaska. Rather than invest this surplus in technology that will make us energy independent and increase efficiency, as Governor she proposed distribution of this surplus to every individual in the state.

In this time of record state revenues and budget surpluses, she recommended that the state borrow/bond for road projects, even while she proposed distribution of surplus state revenues: spend today's surplus, borrow for needs.

She's not very tolerant of divergent opinions or open to outside ideas or compromise. As Mayor, she fought ideas that weren't generated by her or her staff. Ideas weren't evaluated on their merits, but on the basis of who proposed them.

While Sarah was Mayor of Wasilla she tried to fire our highly respected City Librarian because the Librarian refused to consider removing from the library some books that Sarah wanted removed. City residents rallied to the defense of the City Librarian and against Palin's attempt at out-and-out censorship, so Palin backed down and withdrew her termination letter. People who fought her attempt to oust the Librarian are on her enemies list to this day.

Sarah complained about the "old boy's club" when she first ran for Mayor, so what did she bring Wasilla? A new set of "old boys". Palin fired most of the experienced staff she inherited. At the City and as Governor she hired or elevated new, inexperienced, obscure people, creating a staff totally dependent on her for their jobs and eternally grateful and fiercely loyal--loyal to the point of abusing their power to further her personal agenda, as she has acknowledged happened in the case of pressuring the State's top cop (see below).

As Mayor, Sarah fired Wasilla's Police Chief because he "intimidated" her, she told the press. As Governor, her recent firing of Alaska's top cop has the ring of familiarity about it. He served at her pleasure and she had every legal right to fire him, but it's pretty clear that an important factor in her decision to fire him was because he wouldn't fire her sister's ex-husband, a State Trooper. Under investigation for abuse of power, she has had to admit that more than 2 dozen contacts were made between her staff and family to the person that she later fired, pressuring him to fire her ex-brother-in-law. She tried to replace the man she fired with a man who she knew had been reprimanded for sexual harassment; when this caused a public furor, she withdrew her support.

She has bitten the hand of every person who extended theirs to her in help. The City Council person who personally escorted her around town introducing her to voters when she first ran for Wasilla City Council became one of her first targets when she was later elected Mayor. She abruptly fired her loyal City Administrator; even people who didn't like the guy were stunned by this ruthlessness.

Fear of retribution has kept all of these people from saying anything publicly about her.

When then-Governor Murkowski was handing out political plums, Sarah got the best, Chair of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission: one of the few jobs not in Juneau and one of the best paid. She had no background in oil & gas issues. Within months of scoring this great job which paid $122,400/yr, she was complaining in the press about the high salary. I was told that she hated that job: the commute, the structured hours, the work. Sarah became aware that a member of this Commission (who was also the State Chair of the Republican Party) engaged in unethical behavior on the job. In a gutsy move which some undoubtedly cautioned her could be political suicide, Sarah solved all her problems in one fell swoop: got out of the job she hated and garnered gobs of media attention as the patron saint of ethics and as a gutsy fighter against the "old boys' club" when she dramatically quit, exposing this man's ethics violations (for which he was fined).

As Mayor, she had her hand stuck out as far as anyone for pork from Senator Ted Stevens. Lately, she has castigated his pork-barrel politics and publicly humiliated him. She only opposed the "bridge to nowhere" after it became clear that it would be unwise not to.

As Governor, she gave the Legislature no direction and budget guidelines, then made a big grandstand display of line-item vetoing projects, calling them pork. Public outcry and further legislative action restored most of these projects--which had been vetoed simply because she was not aware of their importance--but with the unobservant she had gained a reputation as "anti-pork".

She is solidly Republican: no political maverick. The State party leaders hate her because she has bit them in the back and humiliated them. Other members of the party object to her self-description as a fiscal conservative.

Around Wasilla there are people who went to high school with Sarah. They call her "Sarah Barracuda" because of her unbridled ambition and predatory ruthlessness. Before she became so powerful, very ugly stories circulated around town about shenanigans she pulled to be made point guard on the high school basketball team. When Sarah's mother-in-law, a highly respected member of the community and experienced manager, ran for Mayor, Sarah refused to endorse her.

As Governor, she stepped outside of the box and put together of package of legislation known as "AGIA" that forced the oil companies to march to the beat of her drum.

Like most Alaskans, she favors drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. She has questioned if the loss of sea ice is linked to global warming. She campaigned "as a private citizen" against a state initiative that would have either a) protected salmon streams from pollution from mines, or b) tied up in the courts all mining in the state (depending on who you listen to). She has pushed the State's lawsuit against the Dept. of the Interior's decision to list polar bears as threatened species.

McCain is the oldest person to ever run for President; Sarah will be a heartbeat away from being President.

There has to be literally millions of Americans who are more knowledgeable and experienced than she.

However, there's a lot of people who have underestimated her and are regretting it.

CLAIM VS FACT
*"Hockey mom": true for a few years.

*"PTA mom": true years ago when her first-born was in elementary school, not since.

*"NRA supporter": absolutely true

*social conservative: mixed. Opposes gay marriage, BUT vetoed a bill that would have denied benefits to employees in same-sex relationships (said she did this because it was unconstitutional).

*pro-creationism: mixed. Supports it, BUT did nothing as Governor to promote it.

*"Pro-life": mixed. Knowingly gave birth to a Down's syndrome baby BUT declined to call a special legislative session on some pro-life legislation

*"Experienced": Some high schools have more students than Wasilla has residents. Many cities have more residents than the state of Alaska. No legislative experience other than City Council. Little hands-on supervisory or managerial experience; needed help of a city administrator to run town of about 5,000.

*political maverick: not at all

*gutsy: absolutely!

*open & transparent: ??? Good at keeping secrets. Not good at explaining actions.

*has a developed philosophy of public policy: no

*"a Greenie": no. Turned Wasilla into a wasteland of big box stores and disconnected parking lots. Is pro-drilling off-shore and in ANWR.

*fiscal conservative: not by my definition!

*pro-infrastructure: No. Promoted a sports complex and park in a city without a sewage treatment plant or storm drainage system. Built streets to early 20th century standards.

*pro-tax relief: Lowered taxes for businesses, increased tax burden on residents

*pro-small government: No. Oversaw greatest expansion of city government in Wasilla's history.

*pro-labor/pro-union. No. Just because her husband works union doesn't make her pro-labor. I have seen nothing to support any claim that she is pro-labor/pro-union.

WHY AM I WRITING THIS?

First, I have long believed in the importance of being an informed voter. I am a voter registrar. For 10 years I put on student voting programs in the schools. If you google my name (Anne Kilkenny + Alaska), you will find references to my participation in local government, education, and PTA/parent organizations.

Secondly, I've always operated in the belief that "Bad things happen when good people stay silent". Few people know as much as I do because few have gone to as many City Council meetings.

Third, I am just a housewife. I don't have a job she can bump me out of. I don't belong to any organization that she can hurt. But, I am no fool; she is immensely popular here, and it is likely that this will cost me somehow in the future: that's life.

Fourth, she has hated me since back in 1996, when I was one of the 100 or so people who rallied to support the City Librarian against Sarah's attempt at censorship.

Fifth, I looked around and realized that everybody else was afraid to say anything because they were somehow vulnerable.

CAVEATS
I am not a statistician. I developed the numbers for the increase in spending & taxation 2 years ago (when Palin was running for Governor) from information supplied to me by the Finance Director of the City of Wasilla, and I can't recall exactly what I adjusted for: did I adjust for inflation? for population increases? Right now, it is impossible for a private person to get any info out of City Hall--they are swamped. So I can't verify my numbers.

You may have noticed that there are various numbers circulating for the population of Wasilla, ranging from my "about 5,000", up to 9,000. The day Palin's selection was announced a city official told me that the current population is about 7,000. The official 2000 census count was 5,460. I have used about 5,000 because Palin was Mayor from 1996 to 2002, and the city was growing rapidly in the mid-90's.

Anne Kilkenny
August 31, 2008

The Anti-Abortion Mommy: Five Questions for Sarah Palin

2008-09-05T00:30:00.000-07:00

Okay, I think we all agree that even though she's probably a very nice human being, the Sarah Palin VP pick is deeply problematic.

From the looks of how she's being positioned in the GOP, she's the foil for a host of horrifying scenarios they've got planned, from the continued erosion of first amendment rights to the exponential growth of the prison-industrial complex.

Anyway.

If I ran into her at a hunting-themed bar at the Anchorage airport, I'd walk right up and ask some questions--because she's so accessible, you know?

1. I really, truly respect your privacy, but I read on the net that your fifth baby may be your daughter's. Even if that is just a vicious lefty-commie smear, your seventeen year-old is really pregnant, right? Listen, I love babies, and I get you're anti-abortion and pro-abstinence, but don't you think you should be pro-birth control, too? And teen moms who aren't your daughter?

2. What on earth does the bear on your office sofa symbolize? Bear market? Bear Stearns? Father Bear, Black Bear, Childbearing, Bearing down? Your victory against environmentalists who want to protect polar bears from extinction? I know I'm not alone when I wonder what you feel when you rest your back against all that dark fur. Dominance, protection, hunger, compassion? It would tell us a lot about who you are and what you would do with the living organism we call earth.

3. Your mother-in-law says you don't bring anything to the table other than your gender and political affiliation. What did you do to her last Thanksgiving? Is she responsible for the Eskimo-Yupiik part of your husband and if so, is she upset he married a woman who wants to drill on native lands? Or is your husband's mom pro-sovereignty, and still coming to terms with the whole Alaskan statehoood thing?

4. The way you congratulated and undermined Hillary at the same time was clever. That part about 18 million cracks in the glass ceiling, and the American people being ready to break all the way through. But Hillary has faced down some of the most dangerous forces on the planet, and won eighteen million votes, too. What experience do you have surviving physical, psychological, cultural or any other kind of warfare?

What's your position on Darfur? Tibet? North Korea? I think you and Sarkozy might get on, but what about Putin? Are you ready to go over the fine points with Vladimir? Are you up for challenging Hu Jintao on the age of the gymnasts on the Chinese Olympic team, or on the oil pipeline China is running from Somalia?

And finally:

5. Have you sat down and had a long talk with your husband about this whole thing? I'm not saying it's an issue, but we're talking five kids, in Washington, DC. We're talking state dinners, applications to Sidwell Friends, and a landmine of completely uncharted masculinity issues. Can your marriage hold up? Just how secure is your husband?

And maybe more important, would your husband's role in your life encourage you to support a broader Family Leave Act? Like the one in Sweden, where parents are entitled to eighteen months paid Parental Leave?

But seriously. I hope you're making the right choice. Because should you manage to pull off a miracle and end up VP, it's going to get very hot in your kitchen. And if you don't, you're going to have to live knowing your nomination may have unified and cemented the victory of the democratic party in 2008 and beyond.

Either way, I wish you and your family the best. Like it or not, we really are all in this together.

Palin: Democrats spreading misinformation and lies

2008-09-04T18:47:00.000-07:00

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080905/ap_on_el_pr/cvn_palin

By SARA KUGLER, Associated Press Writer
19 minutes ago

"In the fundraising letter issued Thursday, she cited "the Obama-Biden Democrats" and said the "misinformation and flat-out lies must be corrected."

She did not take questions from reporters."

So, if she did not take questions from reporters, how do we know which misinformation and lies she is complaining about? Palin always lacks specifics, except when it comes to her extremist views, which lack any factual foundation. -ed

MINNEAPOLIS - Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin on Thursday blamed supporters of the Democratic presidential ticket for spreading "misinformation and flat-out lies" about her and her family.

But her spokeswoman said Obama's campaign was not responsible, even though a Palin fundraising letter named the Democratic ticket with the words: "the Obama-Biden Democrats have been vicious in their attacks directed toward me, my family and John McCain."

The Obama campaign has raised questions about Palin's qualifications based on her six years as mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, and less than two years as governor, but Obama himself has said her family should be off-limits. He also said he would fire any staffer who talks about it.

Palin spokeswoman Maria Comella said: "We appreciate the fact that he came out and condemned this kind of personal attack." Asked whether Palin thought Obama or his running mate, Delaware Sen. Joe Biden, were personally responsible for the attacks mentioned in the letter, Comella said, "No."

Asked who was to blame, the spokeswoman said, "You want me to tick through all the stuff that's been ticking through all the blogs the past few days? What about the stuff that was on Daily Kos, that rumor that was spread?"

Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton said "the only 'flat-out lie' is this ridiculous claim, and it proves that John McCain has wasted no time in teaching Sarah Palin the ways of the Washington he's inhabited for the last 26 years."

By acclamation, the Republicans nominated Palin as their vice presidential pick Thursday night, an almost anticlimactic step after McCain's surprise selection of her last Friday and her speech Wednesday night.

Palin herself met with Republican governors Thursday and said afterward that leading a state means you have to make decisions and not just vote "present."

"We don't have a 'present' button as governor — we are expected to lead, we are expected to take action and not just vote 'present,'" said Palin, who is in her first term as Alaska's governor. "So there's a big difference, of course, between the executive and legislative branches and our experience."

Palin was referring to Obama's days in the Illinois Senate, when he voted "present" dozens of times among the thousands of votes he cast in his eight years there. The move is common among Illinois lawmakers, but has become a favorite Republican complaint about Obama.

The vice presidential candidate met with the governors on the morning after her speech to the Republican National Convention. In the days since her selection as John McCain's running mate was announced, questions have been raised about the 44-year-old governor's qualifications and experience, and it was revealed that her unmarried, 17-year-old daughter is five months pregnant.

In the fundraising letter issued Thursday, she cited "the Obama-Biden Democrats" and said the "misinformation and flat-out lies must be corrected."

Palin said Thursday that she has "a big job cut out in front of me running for vice president."

She did not take questions from reporters.

People for the American Way-Action Site

2008-09-04T17:28:00.000-07:00

John McCain and his Vice Presidential pick Sarah Palin have positions that are absolute anathema to many of our core American values. In recent days the GOP has tried to bully members the media and anyone else who dares criticize or question Palin's extreme positions. Yet every day we learn more about about the efforts of both John McCain and Sarah Palin to pander to the Religious Right.

Sarah Palin, purporting to speak for small-town America, women and basically everyone who is not a member of the "Washington, DC elite," used her speech last night at the Republican National Convention to stoke the fires of the culture war. It's just another page out of the Far Right's decades-old playbook. It makes us furious and we're sure you feel the same.

So we're asking Americans just like you to stand up and say, "Sarah Palin Does Not Speak For Me!"

Please sign our public letter to Sarah Palin now and ask your friends to join as well. If you're really riled up, make a sign or poster and send us a picture of you holding it so we can post it on the web and send it with the letter to Gov. Palin.

http://site.pfaw.org/Palin

Denying a rape victim the right to choose abortion: That's not the American Way
Prohibiting partner benefits for same-sex couples: That's not the American Way
The teaching of religious creationism in public school science classes: That's not the American Way.

The banning of books from public libraries: That's not the American Way
Opposing hate crimes laws that protect gays and lesbians: That's not the American Way
She opposes freedom of speech, reproductive choice, gay equality and gives short shrift to separation of church and state. She doesn't speak for us. If she doesn't speak for you, add your name to the statement now and send it on to your friends.

http://site.pfaw.org/Palin

Top GOP Pundits Fault Palin Selection

2008-09-04T14:07:00.000-07:00

http://www.truthout.org/video/top-gop-pundits-fault-palin-selection

Mike Murphy and Peggy Noonan, GOP pundits, caught talking while live mic catches candid conversation.

For full story, see this page.

Palin hasn't ordered Alaska National Guard to do anything

2008-09-03T22:20:00.000-07:00

http://www.kansascity.com/445/story/780734.html

Palin hasn't ordered Alaska National Guard to do anything
By GEORGE BRYSON
McClatchy Newspapers
When presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain introduced Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate last Friday, the Arizona senator emphasized her role as the commander in chief of the Alaska National Guard.

Later, when questions were raised about Palin's lack of experience in national and international affairs, the McCain campaign pointed again to her military command experience as governor. Some reporters have tried to follow up.

"Can you tell me one decision that she made as commander in chief of the Alaska National Guard?" CNN journalist Campbell Brown asked Monday while interviewing McCain campaign spokesman Tucker Bounds. "Just one?"

Bounds couldn't, because Palin has never personally ordered the state guard to do anything.

Instead, here's what he said: "Any decision she has made as the commander of the (Alaska) National Guard that's deployed overseas is more of a decision than Barack Obama's been making as he's been running for president for the last two years."

However, the governor has no command authority overseas or anywhere in the United States other than Alaska, said Maj. Gen. Craig Campbell, the service commander of the Alaska National Guard.

"When members of the National Guard are federalized, they work for the president," Campbell said Wednesday. "It's not just overseas. They could be federalized to go to other states or they could even be federalized in the state."

Occasions in which Palin retains command authority over the 4,200-member Alaska National Guard are whenever the Guard responds to in-state natural disasters and civic emergencies, said Campbell, who also serves as the commissioner of the state Department of Military and Veterans Affairs.

Some examples?

"We've deployed individuals in state service all over the state under Sarah Palin," he said. "We had defense men down in Seward for the (Mount) Marathon run doing security.

"Out west and northwest we had erosion problems, and the National Guard was involved in some of the protection out there. About three days ago, the Army National Guard picked up a lady from Little Diomede (Island) ... at the request of state troopers."

Did Palin directly approve each of those activities?

No, Campbell said. The governor has granted him the authority to act on his own in most cases, including life-or-death emergencies - when a quick response is required - and minor day-to-day operations.

"Some authorities have been given to me that she has acknowledged that I can execute," he said. "For others I have to ask her each time."

The recent decision to deploy a C-17 cargo plane from the Alaska Air National Guard to Louisiana to assist during the Hurricane Gustav response was an occasion in which Campbell briefed the governor's office and sought its approval, he said. Chief of Staff Mike Nizich signed off on it.

Last year, Palin journeyed abroad to visit 500 members of the Alaska Army National Guard who were stationed in northern Kuwait for 15 months. She also stopped at a U.S. military hospital in Landstuhl, Germany, to visit wounded Alaskans, including regular Army troops based at Fort Richardson.

The journey marked the first time that Palin had traveled overseas, according to Sharon Leighow, a spokeswoman in the governor's office.

The flooding that occurred in Fairbanks in late July - for which the Guard sent trucks north to provide clean drinking water - didn't require the governor's approval, Campbell said.

Natural disasters are fairly sporadic, said Jeremy Zidek, the public information officer for the state Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, which is part of Campbell's department.

Last year, during Palin's first year as governor, there wasn't much action, Zidek said. "Thankfully, we didn't have any major disasters."

In 2006, however, during former Gov. Frank Murkowski's last year in office, the Guard assisted at a tragic fire at a schoolhouse and church in Hooper Bay.

The Alaska National Guard receives about 75 percent of its funding from the federal government, Campbell said. All the federal funding is pre-allocated by Congress.

The state maintains Army National Guard bases in 76 locations in Alaska and Air National Guard bases in three locations.

Bryson reports for the Anchorage Daily News.

An Alaskan Comments

2008-09-03T22:07:00.000-07:00

http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2008/09/03/as-palin-gets-picked-over-some-eyes-turn-to-culvahouse/

"She has consistently supported drilling in ANWR, use of coal-burning power plants (as I write this, a new coal plant is being built in her home town of Wasilla), strip mining, and almost anything else that will unnecessarily exploit the diminishing resources of Alaska and destroy its environment."

As an Alaskan, I am writing to give all of you some information on
Sarah Palin, Senator McCain’s choice for VP. As an Alaska voter, I
know more than most of you about her and, frankly, I am horrified that
he picked her.

The most accurate description of her is red neck. Her husband works in
the oil fields of Prudhoe Bay and races snow mobiles. She is a life
time member of the NRA and has worked tirelessly to allow
indiscriminate hunting of wildlife in Alaska, particularly wolves and
bears. She has spent millions of Alaska state dollars on aerial
hunting of these predators from helicopters and airplanes, dollars
that should have been spent, for example, on Alaska’s failing school
system.We have the lowest rate of high school graduation in the
country. Not all of you may think aerial predator hunting is so bad,
but how anyone (other than Alaska wolf-haters, of which there are
many, most without teeth), could think this use of funds is
appropriate is beyond me. If you want to know more about the aerial
hunting travesty, let me know and I will send some links to
informative web sites.

She has been a strong supporter of increased use of fossil fuels, yet
the McCain campaign has the nerve to say she has “green” policies. The
only thing green about Sarah Palin is her lack of experience. She has
consistently supported drilling in ANWR, use of coal-burning power
plants (as I write this, a new coal plant is being built in her home
town of Wasilla), strip mining, and almost anything else that will
unnecessarily exploit the diminishing resources of Alaska and destroy
its environment.

Prior to her one year as governor of Alaska, she was mayor of Wasilla,
a small red neck town outside Anchorage.The average maximum education
level of parents of junior high school kids in Wasilla is 10th grade.
Unfortunately, I have to go to Wasilla every week to get groceries and
other supplies, so I have continual contact with the people who put
Palin in office in the first place. I know what I’m talking about.
These people don’t have a concept of the world around them or of the
serious issues facing the US. Furthermore, they don’t care. So long as
they can go out and hunt their moose every fall, kill wolves and bears
and drive their snow mobiles and ATVs through every corner of the
wilderness, they’re happy. I wish I were exaggerating.

Sarah Palin is currently involved in a political corruption scandal.
She fired an individual in law enforcement here because she didn’t
like how he treated one of her relatives during a divorce. The man’s
performance and ability weren’t considered; it was a totally personal
firing and is currently under investigation. While the issue isn’t
close to the scandal of Ted Steven’s corruption, it shows that Palin
isn’t “squeaky clean” and causes me to think there may be more issues
that could come to light. Clearly McCain doesn’t care.

When you line Palin up with Biden, the comparison would be laughable
if it weren’t so serious. Sarah Palin knows nothing of economics
(admittedly a weak area for McCain), or of international affairs,
knows nothing of national government, Social Security, unemployment,
health care systems - you name it. The idea of her meeting with heads
of foreign governments around the world truly frightens me.

In an increasingly dangerous world, with the economy in shambles in
the US, Sarah Palin is uniquely UNqualified to be vice president. John
McCain is not a young man. Should something happen to him such that
the vice president had to step in, it would destroy our country and
possibly the world to have someone as inexperienced and inappropriate
as Sarah Palin. The choice of Palin is a cheap shot by McCain to try
to get Hillary supporters to vote for him. when McCain introduced her
today, Palin had the nerve to compare herself with Hillary and
Geraldine Ferraro. Sarah Palin, you are no Hillary Clinton.

To those of you who, like me, supported Hillary and were upset that she
did not get the nomination, please don’t think that Sarah Palin is a
worthy substitute. If you supported Hillary, regardless of what you
think the media and the democratic party may have done to undermine
her campaign, the person to support now is Obama, not Sarah Palin. To
those of you who are independent or undecided, don’t let the choice of
Palin sway you in favor of McCain. Choosing her shows how unqualified
McCain is to be president. To those of you who are conservative, I
guess you have no choice for president. But please try to see how the
poor choice of Palin tells us a great deal about McCain’s judgment.
While the political posturing inherent in the choice of Palin is
obvious, the more serious issue is the fact that the VP is, literally,
a heartbeat away from the presidency. Sarah Palin is totally and
unequivocally unqualified to be vice president, let alone president.
I know this is a lengthy and emotional email, but the stakes are high.
I thought it might help for all of you, regardless of political
affiliation, to know something about Palin from someone who has to
live with her administration in Alaska on a daily basis.

Comment by Harmon Bring - September 3, 2008 at 2:47 pm

Archives of Alaska Papers Reveal Disturbing -- And Goofy -- Details from Palin's Past

2008-09-03T21:38:00.000-07:00

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003845449

"Palin told The Associated Press that she and her husband, Todd, made a bet on whether Murkowski would run. If the governor says he'll enter the race, Palin has to get the Big Dipper tattooed on her ankle. If Murkowski says no, Todd gets a wedding ring inked on his finger."
[Anchorage Daily News (Alaska), 5/26/06]

Archives of Alaska Papers Reveal Disturbing -- And Goofy -- Details from Palin's Past

By Greg Mitchell

Published: September 03, 2008 2:10 PM ET

NEW YORK The McCain team may not have vetted Sarah Palin with boots on the ground in Alaska, but the Democrats sure did -- two years ago when she ran for governor. The oppo-research, compiled in a 62-page document with countless summaries or direct quotes, largely from local newspapers, covers all of the important issues you would expect to see, from her views on abortion and abstinence to tangled oil pipeline questions.

But it also gets into some quirky, if revealing, areas as well, such as Palin founding a company called "Rouge Cru" -- what she called a "classy" way to say redneck -- in case her political career didn't work out a few years ago.

Politico.com obtained a copy and printed merely a handful of the hundreds of findings on Tuesday. These included serious matters such as her use of the mayor's office in political campaigns. But it also posted a PDF of the entire document which few have probably examined. Here some of the more outrageous, or surprising, revelations -- strictly from newspaper clips. They are posted here under their heading in the document. Note: The Frontiersman is the local paper in Wasilla.

DEATH PENALTY

Palin Said "Hang 'Em Up" When Asked About the Death Penalty. Asked about the death penalty, in extreme cases such as the murder of a child, Palin said, "My goodness, hang 'em up, yeah." [Anchorage Daily News , 8/18/06]

RELIGION

Palin wrote a Letter to the Editor saying only, "San Francisco judges forbidding our Pledge of Allegiance? They will take the phrase 'under God' away from me when my cold, dead lips can no longer utter those words. God bless America." [Juneau Empire, 6/30/02]

WALMART

Palin Presided Over a Wedding at a Walmart. He worked in the pets department. She was a cashier. A romance blossomed. And when it came time to say ''I do,'' they chose -- where else? -- an aisle next to menswear. Sandwiched between racks of cotton pants and surrounded by ''Back-to-School Specials'' signs, Jake McCowan and Rosalyn Ryan exchanged vows last week at the place where they met, work and fell in love: the Wasilla Wal-Mart. A crowd of 200, including passengers from a tour bus and several dozen curious shoppers, watched the two employees tie the knot in an afternoon ceremony officiated by Wasilla Mayor Sarah Palin. ''It was so sweet,'' said Palin, who fought back tears during the nuptials. "It was so Wasilla." [Anchorage Daily News (Alaska), 8/28/99]

Palin Delivered "Non-Answers" On Expanding Health Care Coverage and Walmart. "Asked about expanding health care coverage and about Wal-Mart's corporate conduct, she delivered non-answers with a disarming smile." [Anchorage Daily News (Alaska), 1/30/06]

USED PUBLIC FUNDS FOR POLITICAL GAIN

In her 2002 Lt. Governor bid, Mayor Palin used city employees, telephones, computers, fax machines for campaign fundraising and literature. On her candidate registration form, she used her City Hall fax number, and her mayoral e-mail address. Records show that Wasilla city property was used to contact supporters, donors, media contacts, and media purchasing. [Anchorage Daily News, 7/21/06]

GENDER CARD

Stambaugh Sued for Gender Discrimination After Palin Said She Was Intimidated by His Size. After Palin fired Irl Stambaugh, the police chief, he sued the city in part based on gender discrimination. The [Wasilla] Frontiersman wrote, "The gender discrimination issues stem from statements Palin allegedly made to others that she was intimidated by Stambaugh's size. He stands over 6-feet tall and weighs more than 200 pounds, which, the lawsuit said, is attributed to his gender." [Frontiersman, 2/26/97]

Palin Went to See Ivana Trump at Costco, Saying Alaska was So Desperate for "Any Semblance of Glamour and Culture". "Sarah Palin, a commercial fisherman from Wasilla, told her husband on Tuesday she was driving to Anchorage to shop at Costco. Instead, she headed straight for Ivana. And there, at J.C. Penney's cosmetic department, was Ivana, the former Mrs. Donald Trump, sitting at a table next to a photograph of herself. She wore a light-colored pantsuit and pink fingernail polish. Her blonde hair was coiffed in a bouffant French twist. 'We want to see Ivana,' said Palin, who admittedly smells like salmon for a large part of the summer, 'because we are so desperate in Alaska for any semblance of glamour and culture.'" [Anchorage Daily News (Alaska), 4/3/96]

Palin Explained that She Couldn't Run for Senate Because Then She Couldn't Be the "Team Mom." "A hockey mom and a former standout athlete herself, Palin said she understood her son's concerns. 'How could I be the team mom if I was a U.S. senator?' she said." [Anchorage Daily News (Alaska), 4/24/04]

LYING

Palin Exaggerated Work Experience for Mayoral Campaign. In 1997, Frontiersman columnist Paul Stuart wrote that after Palin had criticized her opponent for using City Hall resources for political gain, "when Palin was asked back then (by me) why the lodge where she claimed, in her campaign, to have gained her management experience, had no record of a borough business license or of paying any bed tax, she paused and said it might have been because the place had no clients for a year or so." In an article describing the possibility of recalling Palin, the Frontiersman wrote the "reasons include Palin's alleged falsification of her credentials during the campaign last fall." [Frontiersman, 1/22/97, 2/5/97]

Frontiersman Editorial Said Palin Made Statements That Were "Patently Untrue," Said She Had Shown "Unrepentant Backpedaling and Incessant Whining." A Frontiersman editorial wrote, "Wasilla residents have been subjected to attempts to unlawfully appoint council members, statements that have been shown to be patently untrue, unrepentant backpedaling, and incessant whining that her only enemies are the press and a few disgruntled supporters of former Mayor John Stein." [Frontiersman editorial, 2/7/97]

Frontiersman Editorial: Palin Doesn't Grasp the Truth. A Frontiersman editorial wrote, "Mayor Palin fails to have a firm grasp of something very simple: the truth." [Frontiersman editorial, 2/7/97]

PERSONAL

Palin's Brother-In-Law Appeared on Reality Dating Show. Lt. Gov. candidate Sarah Palin thought it might help her campaign when brother-in-law Jack McCann showed up as a desirable catch on the new "reality" TV show, "Looking for Love: Bachelorettes in Alaska." That hope lasted until she actually saw an episode of the series, which turns out to be your basic meat market twitch & grin. "Oh Lord," she said. "My sisters and I watched it in horror." Jack, who is scheduled to appear again even though he crashed a mountain bike in the first episode, is pretty cute and has a sense of humor, Sarah reports. "He described his occupation . . . as an office environment consultant," she said.
"He sells furniture." [Anchorage Daily News (Alaska), 6/9/02]

Palin told The Associated Press that she and her husband, Todd, made a bet on whether Murkowski would run. If the governor says he'll enter the race, Palin has to get the Big Dipper tattooed on her ankle. If Murkowski says no, Todd gets a wedding ring inked on his finger.
[Anchorage Daily News (Alaska), 5/26/06]
*
[For more on Palin and media: Visit E&P's first-ever blog, launched today, at: The E&P Pub.]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Greg Mitchell (gmitchell@editorandopublisher.com) is editor. His latest book on Iraq and the media is "So Wrong for So Long."

Links referenced within this article

The E&P Pub
http://www.eandppub.com
gmitchell@editorandopublisher.com
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/mailto:gmitchell@editorandopublisher.com

Find this article at:
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State Probing Palin's Troopergate

2008-09-03T21:34:00.000-07:00

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/09/03/cbsnews_investigates/main4413750.shtml

State Probing Palin's Troopergate

WASILLA, Alaska, Sept. 3, 2008
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(CBS) CBS News Investigative Producer Laura Strickler and Intern Kim Lengle wrote this story for CBSNews.com.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alaskans refer to it as “troopergate” but the McCain campaign is convinced the investigation into Alaska Governor Sarah Palin’s attempts to fire her ex-brother-in-law, state Trooper Mike Wooten, will show no wrongdoing. Palin allegedly demanded that Wooten be fired from his job while Wooten was in the midst of a bitter divorce with her sister. The results of the investigation will be released a few days before the November election.

The focus of the investigation will surround whether Palin abused her power as governor by pressuring Public Safety Commissioner, Walt Monegan, to fire Wooten. After Monegan declined to fire Wooten, Palin asked him to step down. Investigators will try and figure out if the two incidents are related, Palin says they are not.

A senior official from the McCain campaign close to the vetting process says they were "convinced there was no impropriety" after thoroughly researching the firing. The source also said they "spent a lot of time" looking into it.

John Cyr runs the Public Safety Employees Association that represents Wooten. Cyr’s organization is planning to file a new round of ethics complaints against the Palin administration related to the fring of Monegan. He says the national spotlight on the four-year-old issue is quite a change, "I don’t have a strategy, I am the executive of a little union at the fringe of the earth," Cyr told CBS News.

And Cyr notes that according to his records, Wooten has not had a formal complaint filed against him in his eight years as a trooper with the exception of the raft of complaints from the Palin family. He says his office handles about 40 serious trooper complaints each year.

According to The Associated Press, the Palin family accused Wooten of drinking a beer while in his patrol car, illegal hunting and taser-ing his 11-year-old stepson. They also claimed Wooten threatened to kill Sarah Palin's father.

“He is 6 foot 5 and goes 285 - which is not bad if you are an Alaska state trooper, but it doesn’t make you exactly sympathetic in the eyes of the public,” Cyr told CBS News.

But while Wooten has support of the union, one Alaska trooper who did not want to be named tells CBS News in his opinion the accusations against Wooten reflect negatively on all troopers, "Wooten had been making extremely poor decisions and I would never want to work with the guy.”

Wooten is currently on the job as a trooper in the Mat-Su Valley region of Alaska which includes the town of Wasilla, Palin's hometown. The region he patrols is the size of the state of West Virginia, Cyr says.

By Laura Strickler
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