It’s been less than a week since Insane Train announced his choice of running mate, and we’ve already learned a lot about her. Here are just a few of the things that have come out about Miss Congeniality.
Her children’s names are Field, Cream, Dogwood, Bugler, and Calc — I mean, Track, Bristol, Willow, Piper, and Trig. Kind of cute, in a pothead, hippie kind of way, but such choices betray — like the photo at right — a distinct lack of taste and judgment.
She’s the subject of an ethics investigation in her home state for abusing her position as governor. Palin’s office pressured public safety commissioner Walt Monegan to fire her ex-brother-in-law, state trooper Mike Wooten, while Wooten was involved in a nasty custody battle with Palin’s sister. When Wooten wasn’t fired, Palin fired Monegan.
She’s a liar, and not even a good one. She got caught lying about the Monegan affair, and in her very first speech on the national stage she told a barefaced lie about the Gravina Island Bridge, the so-called Bridge to Nowhere.
Palin claimed to have opposed federal funding for the Gravina Island Bridge, when in fact she strongly supported the bridge until she realized the feds wouldn’t pay as great a share of the cost as she had expected. She also publicly objected to calling it “the bridge to nowhere,” telling the people of Ketchikan, “You’re not nowhere to me.” When she finally canceled the project, she blamed the cancellation on lack of federal funding.
Palin now describes herself as somebody who opposes earmark spending. As mayor of Wasilla, she repeatedly sought earmark spending, hiring a lobbyist with ties to Senator Ted Stevens to secure federal funding for the town. Stevens’ former chief of staff, Steven Silver, helped Palin secure $11.9 million in earmark spending, including spending on projects that were specifically criticized by McCain.
As Governor of Alaska, Palin has also eagerly sought federal funds for her state. This year, she submitted requests for projects totaling $197.8 million, including $2 million to research crab productivity in the Bering Sea.
She’s anti-abortion. She opposes abortion even in cases of rape and incest, she says, which may help to explain the odd circumstances surrounding her youngest son’s birth. According to Palin’s own story, the child was diagnosed with Down syndrome before birth. She didn’t announce her pregnancy until the seventh month, surprising everybody who worked with her. None of them had any idea she was pregnant. Palin flew to Texas to deliver a speech in her eighth month, and while she was in Texas her water broke. Showing scant concern for her unborn child, Palin delivered her speech, then boarded an eight-hour flight to Anchorage. Once in Alaska, she didn’t go straight to a well-equipped hospital in Anchorage, instead traveling by land to reach the Mat-Su Valley Regional Medical Center. Palin’s behavior was so odd, so reckless, that it helped give rise to gossip about the child’s birth. People speculated that the child wasn’t hers at all, but her daughter Bristol’s. But leave Bristol out of it, and assume that Palin’s story is accurate. Two explanations seem plausible: either Palin is a reckless woman with poor judgment, or she was hoping to “lose the baby.” Those of us who remember life before Roe v. Wade can well remember when women with unwanted pregnancies purposely took risks in the hope of a miscarriage. Did Palin, a 44-year-old woman in labor a month early with a special needs child, have similar hopes? Or is she just a fool?
To combat the rumors that Trig was really Bristol’s child, Palin announced that Bristol is already five months pregnant with another child. She could have just released her own medical records, but the pregnancy was bound to come out anyway, right? Despite the fact that Palin had agreed to run in the most high-profile election in the world and had announced the pregnancy herself, her campaign insisted it was a private matter and nobody should talk about it. Then they flew Levi, Bristol’s baby daddy, down from Alaska for a photo op with McCain. Then they announced that the two teens would marry in December. Maybe they’re hoping for a ceremony in the White House rose garden? Maybe Bristol has always dreamed of being in labor during her wedding? Or maybe they figure they can just keep pretending till after the election. One thing’s for sure; these people don’t think like anybody I’ve ever known.
Palin cynically uses her special needs baby and her pregnant teen daughter to build up her “pro-life” cred, while consistently placing her career ahead of her children’s welfare and privacy.
Palin is anti-gay and has consistently opposed gay rights, including allowing equal benefits for LGBT state employees.
When Palin first became mayor of Wasilla, she asked the librarian to cooperate in banning books Palin didn’t like from the library. The librarian refused. A few months later, Palin her to resign, saying she didn’t feel the librarian fully supported her. After a public outcry, the librarian was allowed to keep her job, and Palin said her letters to the woman had just been a “test of loyalty.” When Palin was running for a second term as mayor, the librarian finally resigned.
Palin and her husband attended the convention of the Alaskan Independence Party in 1994. The party, whose motto is “Alaska First — Alaska Always,” advocates secession from the United States. Its founder said, “The fires of hell are frozen glaciers compared to my hatred for the American government. And I won’t be buried under their damn flag. I’ll be buried in Dawson. And when Alaska is an independent nation they can bring my bones home.” Palin’s husband, Todd, joined the party and remained a member until 2002, when Palin ran unsuccessfully for lieutenant governor. Palin addressed the party’s convention in 2006.
Palin opposes real sex education, advocating abstinence only programs, instead. After all, it’s worked so well in her own family, hasn’t it?
Palin claims to oppose corruption, and Lindsey Graham has bragged, “Governor Palin took on Ted Stevens. If she can take him on, she can take on the Russians. Heh.” That’s a remarkably stupid statement, raising further questions about Graham himself, but one Republican at a time. Palin didn’t, in fact, “take on” Ted Stevens. She’s been closely allied with him, even running his 527 group. Stevens’ endorsement of Palin was featured on her website until last Friday, the day McCain announced her selection. On Friday, the endorsement was taken down from the website.
Palin downplays global warming, saying it’s not “manmade.”
Palin sued Bush’s Secretary of the Interior last month over polar bears. Palin wants the polar bear removed from the list of threatened species, because protecting polar bears interferes with oil and gas development in polar bear habitats.
Palin also wants to drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, something even McCain opposes.
Palin belongs to a wingnut independent church, Wasilla Bible Church, and was present on 17 August when a speaker from Jews For Jesus claimed that terrorist attacks on Israel were God’s punishment, sent because of the Jews’ lack of faith in Jesus. Palin’s former church, Wasilla Assembly of God, shut down the part of the church website containing sermons and speeches yesterday, removing, besides the sermons, a video of a speech Palin delivered there in June – the speech in which she described the Iraq war as “a task that is from God.” (Part of the video is available from the Huffington Post.) The church also removed a sermon in which its pastor questioned the salvation of anybody who voted for John Kerry.
Palin is a creationist and advocated teaching creationism in the public schools.
The McCain campaign did no serious vetting of Palin; in fact, her candidacy is apparently based mostly on an endorsement from the secretive and extremist Christian Right group, the Council for National Policy. The CNP, founded by Tim LaHaye, has included Pat Robertson, Bob Jones III, Phyllis Schlafly, Oliver North, Donald Wildmon, David Breese, John Ankerberg, Richard DeVos, Jerry Falwell, Tom Delay, Trent Lott, and Sun Myung Moon among a membership notable for its wild-eyed Christofacism. They love Sarah Palin.
We could go on and on, and probably will, but the fact is that Sarah Palin is a freakish bundle of extremism, superstition, deception, and lies, and finds her strongest support among people who want to force their own religious views on all Americans. It’s hard to imagine a more inappropriate choice for Vice President. Cindy McCain would be a much better choice than Palin; Kay Bailey Hutchinson would have been an almost infinitely better choice.
McCain’s selection of Palin indicates that — besides having no new ideas and besides voting with Bush 95% of the time — McCain is prepared to turn the country over to the likes of Pat Robertson if it will help him achieve power. The Palin endorsement betrays a profound lack of character, and a profound lack of patriotism or concern for his country, on McCain’s part.
Palin is obviously unfit for office — any office. McCain’s selection of Palin demonstrates that McCain is unfit for office, too.
Sources:
McCain had criticized earmarks from Palin
Supposed Reformer Secured Earmarks
Palins’ child diagnosed with Down syndrome
AP falsely suggests Palin supports benefits for same-sex partners of state employees
Palin pressured Wasilla librarian
Founder Of Group Palin Courted Professed “Hatred For The American Government”; Cursed “Damn Flag”
Palin’s husband was member of third party
Anti-Establishment Palin Gained Political Know-How Working on Stevens 527
Palin Speaks to Newsmax About McCain, Abortion
State will sue over polar bear listing, Palin says
Palin: Iraq war ‘a task that is from God’
The Council For National Policy Meets In Minn, Vets Palin
Secretive Right-Wing Group Vetted Palin
Thanks to Princess Sparkle Pony’s Photo Blog for the pic.
Here’s what Sam Harris has to say about Palin…..
http://articles.latimes.com/2008/sep/03/opinion/oe-harris3
I’m a Jewish believer in Jesus. Most blogs and news services have posted the same one paragraph of the six-page transcript of David Brickner’s message, giving the false impression that he is saying that a bulldozer attack by a deranged Palestinian is God’s judgment on the Jewish people. Please read the entire message for yourself at http://wasillabible.org/sermons.htm so that you can see Brickner’s remarks in context. Please also take a look at Mr. Brickner’s comments concerning his message at Wasilla Bible Church at the Jews for Jesus website, http://www.jewsforjesus.org.
Thank you for your comments, Matt. Brickner can try to spin it as he will, but this is what he said:
In that same sermon, among other things, Brickner also said: “And so all of the controversy that we see swirling in Jerusalem is really a mirror that the world looks into to see the controversy within. The Jerusalem Dilemma is the Wasilla Dilemma; it’s the dilemma of the human heart. And so it’s important for us to notice Jesus’ response to this unbelief, this rejection: ‘How often I’ve longed to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings.’ And Jesus says ‘Come under My wings, O Jerusalem. There’s a place of grace that I want to establish for you in spite of your unbelief.’ And so committed was Jesus to that place of grace that not many days after He said this, He stretched out His arms on a cruel cross and shed His blood to pay the penalty for your sin and for mine. But because of who He is—because He is the Messiah, the Anointed One of God—death could not hold Him, and the grave could not keep Him, and He rose again from the grave. And now that same resurrection power of God is available to be applied to the lives of all those who trust Him, in Jerusalem and around the world. That is the answer to the Jerusalem Dilemma, the dilemma of unbelief—the mercy and grace of God, this place of grace that whosoever will may come under and find God’s forgiveness.”
Please also take a look at Mr. Brickner’s comments concerning his message at Wasilla Bible Church, as well as an interview by Christianity Today with Mr. Brickner about this issue, at that same website.
I’ve read Brickner’s comments. The fact remains that he said what he said, and his meaning was *completely* unambiguous. His comments merely provide a theological background to his thought process.