The Huffington Post
Frank Schaeffer
Posted November 11, 2008 | 03:00 PM (EST)
The small smear of red on the otherwise blue electoral map looks more like a minor bloodstain on a dirty Band-Aid than anything resembling a national political party. Who voted for McCain/Palin in bigger numbers than they even voted for Bush/Cheney? Only one shrinking group: uneducated white folks in the deep south and a few folks in Appalachia. Take away the white no-college-backwoods-and/or-southern McCain/Palin vote and the Republicans would have been approaching single digit electoral college oblivion.
Sarah Palin will never hold national office nor will any Republican at the presidential level for a long time to come. Why? Because America has uneducated jerks in it but is not a nation of uneducated jerks. The Republicans are done, hoisted on the petard of their own "southern strategy."
The Republican Party is only a step away from becoming the fringe of the fringe, identified more with cross-burning weirdoes wearing hoods, folks like the Alaska secessionist party, all those gun owners stocking up on assault weapons before the "Socialist/United Nations/Obama/Muslim" conspiracy comes to fruition, than with anything remotely like a serious national political force.
The Republican Party--and I speak as a former lifelong Republican who, up through the 2000 primary campaign supported John McCain and even worked for him by arguing his case on various conservative and religious radio stations--is now the toy of the Rush Limbaugh windbags. These folks include outright crazies (such as Sarah Palin's Assemblies of God pals who are waiting for Spaceship Jesus to rescue them and/or rooting out "witches" from their midst), white racists and a few not-very-bright attention seekers, including Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity etc.
Read their blogs! Listen to their talk radio! You'll be in the twilight zone of front page tabloid fantasy on a par with Bat Boy Attacks! headlines. Bill Buckley roll over.
The Religious Right, the racists, the anti-gay hate-mongers are now not only marginalized but thoroughly out of step with even members of their own former constituency. For instance the Gordon College student newspaper (Gordon is an influential Evangelical College north of Boston) endorsed Obama this year. Many young evangelicals voted for the Democrats. James Dobson, Fox News, Limbaugh et al. were utterly powerless to do more than stir up hate. They are losing the next generation of their "base."
Meanwhile many former Republicans--like me--ran to Obama as fast as our legs could carry us and away from our willfully "we're not an elite" moronic former party. Republican commentators such as David Brooks and George Will mourned the loss of the Republican center. Others noted the Republicans have become anti-intellectual. "Anti-intellectual?" They wish! How about simply anti-literate?
Meanwhile the fringe of the fringe is holding meetings where they'll talk to themselves and look at the "facts" of their alternative universe in order to figure out "what went wrong." These are the same "leaders" (like William Kristal) who think Sarah Palin has a big political future!
Sarah Palin will never be president because the right wing of the Republican Party has perfected the art of believing their own bullshit, starting with the idea that is-Africa-a-country-or-a-continent?-Palin has a future. Palin and her fans don't know it yet, but having reduced itself to a grim angry joke, the Republican Party has also divorced itself from American politics and, along with that dirty used Band-Aid, is destined for the garbage can.
What's the best defense against the rube/Palin voters derailing the Republican Party forever? If the statistics of who voted for whom are correct, the education of white people in the deep South and their economic empowerment is the best answer. Maybe it will take a black Democratic president to figure out some affirmative action program that can get our southern born-again white underclass into colleges and thereby save the Republican party.
Frank Schaeffer is the author of CRAZY FOR GOD-How I Grew Up As One Of The Elect, Helped Found The Religious Right, And Lived To Take All (Or Almost All) Of It Back. Now in paperback
Showing posts with label Palin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Palin. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Saturday, November 1, 2008
A Letter to Sarah Palin from God
Ellis Weiner
Huffington Post
Posted October 31, 2008
NOTE: The following words occurred to me, seemingly out of nowhere, in the innermost recesses of the mind of my brain. I can only conclude that they came from God. I present them, therefore, not as a "writer" but as a medium, a messenger transmitting the divine text and converting it, as best I can, from a mode of pure thought into the publicly-accessible form of the written word. E.W.
Dear Sarah:
I would ask, "How are you, child?" but for two things. One, who knows better than I, Who Am That I Am, how you are? And two, my purpose in communicating with you here is not to ask how you are, but to tell you how you are.
You are a disappointment to Me, Sarah.
You seem to think, as do many of your co-religionists, that what you profess to believe -- and, indeed, what you may actually in fact believe -- is more important than what you do. You seem to be under the impression that advertising an ardent belief in Me (or Us, if you prefer) absolves you of any responsibility to act in accordance with what you know -- or, at least, what you should know -- constitute My values and precepts.
The list of your transgressions is extensive, and includes:
- That, while you know full well My admonition to Love Thy Neighbor, you spread calumny and derision about half of the population, presuming to declare who is and who is not "the real America."
- That, while you are fully aware of My Commandment forbidding you to bear false witness, you utter lies and deceptions on a routine basis, verily, you seem unable to speak publicly without lying. You have lied about opposing the Bridge to Nowhere; you have lied about firing the librarian and police chief of Wasilla; you have lied about your previous statements regarding climate change; you have lied about Alaska's contribution to your nation's oil and gas production; you have lied about Barack Obama's position regarding habeas corpus; you have lied about your use of a TelePrompter at the Republican convention; and in manifold other ways have you lied, and lied, and lied.
- That, while you are entirely acquainted with My intention to bestow upon Man dominion over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, yet you play fast and loose and get cute with, and otherwise wink at, the danger posed to all living creatures (including Man) by climate change; and you profess to be unsure as to whether these perils are caused by Man, while all reputable study affirms this analysis beyond dispute.
- That, while you are surely acquainted with My Son's admonition that you "beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye," yet you persist in criticizing Obama's (modest, progressive) taxation plans as constituting "socialism," and abjure it as an evil, whilst never acknowledging that your own Republican Party put in place laws that have resulted in the most egregiously "socialistic" takeover of the nation's banks in history; moreover, your own state of Alaska--particularly under your administration--is the most socialist of all the fifty states, in its collective taxing of the oil industry and its distribution, to every man, woman, and child in the state, a check upwards of three (3) grand each year.
- That, while you proudly profess to believe in "freedom," you have lately complained that if newspapers criticize you for "negative campaigning," they are abridging your First Amendment rights under the Constitution--as though "freedom" means only your ability to say anything that enters in unto your head (regardless of how baseless or slanderous) but does not apply to the press.
Of the sheer stupidity of this last assertion I, Who Am Eternal, shall say nothing, for I love all my creations, regardless of how ignorant, unsophisticated, or just plain dumb. Similarly, I will pass over your inability to answer the simplest question in a coherent sentence, your meanness of spirit, and the great selfishness and want of taste you display in subjecting your poor children to the travails, exhaustion, and abuse of a national presidential campaign.
Rather, Sarah, it is your hypocrisy and mendaciousness that mightily offend Me. I am, as you know, a just and compassionate God. But even I (blessed be Me and blessed be My Name) have a limit to My patience. Thus, I find not only that you are unqualified to be Vice-President of the United States. I find that you are a human person deficient in those basic qualities (honesty, decency, compassion, modesty, personal integrity, a respect for knowledge, and a concern for truth) that are pleasing unto Me and which ought to constitute the character of the righteous woman.
You are not just a bad candidate. You are a bad person. I only hope you will awaken to this fact, acknowledge the error of your ways, and take steps to atone for these transgressions before the Day of Judgment, when I shall be forced to render a decision concerning your eternal fate.
Yours in Me, etc.,
God
cc. Jesus Christ
Huffington Post
Posted October 31, 2008
NOTE: The following words occurred to me, seemingly out of nowhere, in the innermost recesses of the mind of my brain. I can only conclude that they came from God. I present them, therefore, not as a "writer" but as a medium, a messenger transmitting the divine text and converting it, as best I can, from a mode of pure thought into the publicly-accessible form of the written word. E.W.
Dear Sarah:
I would ask, "How are you, child?" but for two things. One, who knows better than I, Who Am That I Am, how you are? And two, my purpose in communicating with you here is not to ask how you are, but to tell you how you are.
You are a disappointment to Me, Sarah.
You seem to think, as do many of your co-religionists, that what you profess to believe -- and, indeed, what you may actually in fact believe -- is more important than what you do. You seem to be under the impression that advertising an ardent belief in Me (or Us, if you prefer) absolves you of any responsibility to act in accordance with what you know -- or, at least, what you should know -- constitute My values and precepts.
The list of your transgressions is extensive, and includes:
- That, while you know full well My admonition to Love Thy Neighbor, you spread calumny and derision about half of the population, presuming to declare who is and who is not "the real America."
- That, while you are fully aware of My Commandment forbidding you to bear false witness, you utter lies and deceptions on a routine basis, verily, you seem unable to speak publicly without lying. You have lied about opposing the Bridge to Nowhere; you have lied about firing the librarian and police chief of Wasilla; you have lied about your previous statements regarding climate change; you have lied about Alaska's contribution to your nation's oil and gas production; you have lied about Barack Obama's position regarding habeas corpus; you have lied about your use of a TelePrompter at the Republican convention; and in manifold other ways have you lied, and lied, and lied.
- That, while you are entirely acquainted with My intention to bestow upon Man dominion over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, yet you play fast and loose and get cute with, and otherwise wink at, the danger posed to all living creatures (including Man) by climate change; and you profess to be unsure as to whether these perils are caused by Man, while all reputable study affirms this analysis beyond dispute.
- That, while you are surely acquainted with My Son's admonition that you "beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye," yet you persist in criticizing Obama's (modest, progressive) taxation plans as constituting "socialism," and abjure it as an evil, whilst never acknowledging that your own Republican Party put in place laws that have resulted in the most egregiously "socialistic" takeover of the nation's banks in history; moreover, your own state of Alaska--particularly under your administration--is the most socialist of all the fifty states, in its collective taxing of the oil industry and its distribution, to every man, woman, and child in the state, a check upwards of three (3) grand each year.
- That, while you proudly profess to believe in "freedom," you have lately complained that if newspapers criticize you for "negative campaigning," they are abridging your First Amendment rights under the Constitution--as though "freedom" means only your ability to say anything that enters in unto your head (regardless of how baseless or slanderous) but does not apply to the press.
Of the sheer stupidity of this last assertion I, Who Am Eternal, shall say nothing, for I love all my creations, regardless of how ignorant, unsophisticated, or just plain dumb. Similarly, I will pass over your inability to answer the simplest question in a coherent sentence, your meanness of spirit, and the great selfishness and want of taste you display in subjecting your poor children to the travails, exhaustion, and abuse of a national presidential campaign.
Rather, Sarah, it is your hypocrisy and mendaciousness that mightily offend Me. I am, as you know, a just and compassionate God. But even I (blessed be Me and blessed be My Name) have a limit to My patience. Thus, I find not only that you are unqualified to be Vice-President of the United States. I find that you are a human person deficient in those basic qualities (honesty, decency, compassion, modesty, personal integrity, a respect for knowledge, and a concern for truth) that are pleasing unto Me and which ought to constitute the character of the righteous woman.
You are not just a bad candidate. You are a bad person. I only hope you will awaken to this fact, acknowledge the error of your ways, and take steps to atone for these transgressions before the Day of Judgment, when I shall be forced to render a decision concerning your eternal fate.
Yours in Me, etc.,
God
cc. Jesus Christ
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
AP Investigation: Palin practiced small-town politics to help friends, neighbors and , herself
WPIX News
By BRETT J. BLACKLEDGE
WASILLA, Alaska (AP) _ Though Sarah Palin depicts herself as a pit bull fighting good-old-boy politics, in her years as mayor she and her friends received special benefits more typical of small-town politics as usual, an Associated Press investigation shows.
When Palin needed to sell her house during her last year as Wasilla mayor, she got the city to sign off on a special zoning exception — and did so without keeping a promise to remove a potential fire hazard.
She gladly accepted gifts from merchants: A free "awesome facial" she raved about in a thank-you note to a spa. The "absolutely gorgeous flowers" she received from a welding supply store. Even fresh salmon to take home.
She also stepped in to help friends or neighbors with City Hall dealings. She asked the City Council to add a friend to the list of speakers at a 2002 meeting — and then the friend got up and asked them to give his radio station advertising business.
That year, records show, she tried to help a neighbor and political contributor fighting City Hall over his small lakeside development. Palin wanted the city to refund some of the man's fees, but the city attorney told the mayor she didn't have the authority.
Palin claims she has more executive experience than her opponent and the two presidential candidates, but most of those years were spent running a city with a population of less than 7,000.
Some of her first actions after being elected mayor in 1996 raised possible ethical red flags: She cast the tie-breaking vote to propose a tax exemption on aircraft when her father-in-law owned one, and backed the city's repeal of all taxes a year later on planes, snow machines and other personal property. She also asked the council to consider looser rules for snow machine races. Palin and her husband, Todd, a champion racer, co-owned a snow machine store at the time.
Palin often told the City Council of her personal involvement in such issues, but that didn't stop her from pressing them, according to minutes of council meetings.
She sometimes followed a cautious path in the face of real or potential conflicts — for example, stepping away from the table in 1997 when the council considered a grant for the Iron Dog snow machine race in which her husband competes.
But mostly, like other Wasilla elected officials at the time, she took an active role on issues that directly affected and sometimes benefited her. Her efforts to clear the way for the $327,000 sale of the Palin family home on Lake Wasilla is an example.
Two months before Palin's tenure as mayor ended in 2002, she asked city planning officials to forgive zoning violations so she could sell her house. Palin had a buyer, but he wouldn't close the deal unless she persuaded the city to waive the violations with a code variance.
The Palins, who were finishing work on a new waterfront house on Lake Lucille about two miles away, asked the city for the variance. The request was opposed by one planning official and some neighbors.
"I would ask that the Wasilla Planning Commission apply the exact same rules in this situation that it would apply to other similar requests so that our community can see that being a public figure does not give anyone special benefits," urged neighbor Clyde Boyer Jr. in a 2002 note to the city.
The Palins' house was built by the original owner too close to the shoreline and too close to adjacent properties on each side, including a carport that stretched so far over it nearly connected the two houses.
The Palins didn't create the zoning problems, but they should have known about them when they bought the house, wrote Susan Lee, a code compliance officer with the Matanuska-Susitna Borough, in response to the Palins' request. The borough, similar to a county government, makes recommendations to the city, which has final say.
Lee, in recommending the city reject the request, noted that the exception was needed to resolve an "inconvenience" the Palins experienced while trying to sell their house. In 1989, another borough planner told a previous owner that a variance for the carport couldn't be approved because it didn't meet required conditions and was a potential fire hazard.
But in August 2002, Wasilla Planner Tim Krug approved a "shoreline setback exception" for the Palins' house being built too closely to the water. He sent an e-mail to the mayor saying he was drafting another variance for the side of the house built too close to the property line, but that he understood from her that the other side "will be corrected and the carport will be removed."
Krug asked Palin to let him know if he was wrong in his impression that the carport would be removed.
A few minutes later, the mayor e-mailed back: "Sounds good."
On Sept. 10, 2002, the seven-member Wasilla Planning Commission unanimously approved a variance for both sides of the property, with language covering "all existing structures." Less than a week later, the Palins signed a deed to sell the house to Henry Nosek.
The carport was never removed.
Nosek said Sarah Palin didn't do anything more than any other citizen would have done.
"I sincerely don't feel that Sarah used her position as mayor at the time to get that accomplished," said Nosek, who no longer lives in the home.
James Svara, professor of public affairs at Arizona State University and author of "The Ethics Primer for Public Administrators in Government and Nonprofit Organizations," suggested such behavior is part of small-town politics.
"Small towns are first-person politics, and if people are close, it's hard to separate one's own personal interest and one's own personal property from the work of the city," Svara said. The key questions from an ethics standpoint include whether the politician makes a potential conflict of interest known and removes himself or herself from actions related to it, he added.
"I think in a small town there is a greater likelihood that people will accept that you will pay careful attention to friends and neighbors," he said, adding that there may be some local gossip about it, but not a lot of public scrutiny. "At the national level, there will be far more people watching, there will be far more pressures to come forward to try to influence the outcome."
___
Associated Press writer Sharon Theimer in Washington contributed to this report.
By BRETT J. BLACKLEDGE
WASILLA, Alaska (AP) _ Though Sarah Palin depicts herself as a pit bull fighting good-old-boy politics, in her years as mayor she and her friends received special benefits more typical of small-town politics as usual, an Associated Press investigation shows.
When Palin needed to sell her house during her last year as Wasilla mayor, she got the city to sign off on a special zoning exception — and did so without keeping a promise to remove a potential fire hazard.
She gladly accepted gifts from merchants: A free "awesome facial" she raved about in a thank-you note to a spa. The "absolutely gorgeous flowers" she received from a welding supply store. Even fresh salmon to take home.
She also stepped in to help friends or neighbors with City Hall dealings. She asked the City Council to add a friend to the list of speakers at a 2002 meeting — and then the friend got up and asked them to give his radio station advertising business.
That year, records show, she tried to help a neighbor and political contributor fighting City Hall over his small lakeside development. Palin wanted the city to refund some of the man's fees, but the city attorney told the mayor she didn't have the authority.
Palin claims she has more executive experience than her opponent and the two presidential candidates, but most of those years were spent running a city with a population of less than 7,000.
Some of her first actions after being elected mayor in 1996 raised possible ethical red flags: She cast the tie-breaking vote to propose a tax exemption on aircraft when her father-in-law owned one, and backed the city's repeal of all taxes a year later on planes, snow machines and other personal property. She also asked the council to consider looser rules for snow machine races. Palin and her husband, Todd, a champion racer, co-owned a snow machine store at the time.
Palin often told the City Council of her personal involvement in such issues, but that didn't stop her from pressing them, according to minutes of council meetings.
She sometimes followed a cautious path in the face of real or potential conflicts — for example, stepping away from the table in 1997 when the council considered a grant for the Iron Dog snow machine race in which her husband competes.
But mostly, like other Wasilla elected officials at the time, she took an active role on issues that directly affected and sometimes benefited her. Her efforts to clear the way for the $327,000 sale of the Palin family home on Lake Wasilla is an example.
Two months before Palin's tenure as mayor ended in 2002, she asked city planning officials to forgive zoning violations so she could sell her house. Palin had a buyer, but he wouldn't close the deal unless she persuaded the city to waive the violations with a code variance.
The Palins, who were finishing work on a new waterfront house on Lake Lucille about two miles away, asked the city for the variance. The request was opposed by one planning official and some neighbors.
"I would ask that the Wasilla Planning Commission apply the exact same rules in this situation that it would apply to other similar requests so that our community can see that being a public figure does not give anyone special benefits," urged neighbor Clyde Boyer Jr. in a 2002 note to the city.
The Palins' house was built by the original owner too close to the shoreline and too close to adjacent properties on each side, including a carport that stretched so far over it nearly connected the two houses.
The Palins didn't create the zoning problems, but they should have known about them when they bought the house, wrote Susan Lee, a code compliance officer with the Matanuska-Susitna Borough, in response to the Palins' request. The borough, similar to a county government, makes recommendations to the city, which has final say.
Lee, in recommending the city reject the request, noted that the exception was needed to resolve an "inconvenience" the Palins experienced while trying to sell their house. In 1989, another borough planner told a previous owner that a variance for the carport couldn't be approved because it didn't meet required conditions and was a potential fire hazard.
But in August 2002, Wasilla Planner Tim Krug approved a "shoreline setback exception" for the Palins' house being built too closely to the water. He sent an e-mail to the mayor saying he was drafting another variance for the side of the house built too close to the property line, but that he understood from her that the other side "will be corrected and the carport will be removed."
Krug asked Palin to let him know if he was wrong in his impression that the carport would be removed.
A few minutes later, the mayor e-mailed back: "Sounds good."
On Sept. 10, 2002, the seven-member Wasilla Planning Commission unanimously approved a variance for both sides of the property, with language covering "all existing structures." Less than a week later, the Palins signed a deed to sell the house to Henry Nosek.
The carport was never removed.
Nosek said Sarah Palin didn't do anything more than any other citizen would have done.
"I sincerely don't feel that Sarah used her position as mayor at the time to get that accomplished," said Nosek, who no longer lives in the home.
James Svara, professor of public affairs at Arizona State University and author of "The Ethics Primer for Public Administrators in Government and Nonprofit Organizations," suggested such behavior is part of small-town politics.
"Small towns are first-person politics, and if people are close, it's hard to separate one's own personal interest and one's own personal property from the work of the city," Svara said. The key questions from an ethics standpoint include whether the politician makes a potential conflict of interest known and removes himself or herself from actions related to it, he added.
"I think in a small town there is a greater likelihood that people will accept that you will pay careful attention to friends and neighbors," he said, adding that there may be some local gossip about it, but not a lot of public scrutiny. "At the national level, there will be far more people watching, there will be far more pressures to come forward to try to influence the outcome."
___
Associated Press writer Sharon Theimer in Washington contributed to this report.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Has Sarah Palin Been Picked as the Titular Head of the Coming Police State?
By Naomi Wolf, Huffington Post. Posted September 24, 2008.
Palin will help to establish a true and irreversible 'fear society' in this once free once proud nation.
Please understand what you are looking at when you look at Sarah "Evita" Palin. You are looking at the designated muse of the coming American police state.
You have to understand how things work in a closing society in order to understand "Palin Power." A gang or cabal seizes power, usually with an affable, weak figurehead at the fore. Then they will hold elections -- but they will make sure that the election will be corrupted and that the next affable, weak figurehead is entirely in their control. Remember, Russia has Presidents; Russia holds elections. Dictators and gangs of thugs all over the world hold elections. It means nothing. When a cabal has seized power you can have elections and even presidents, but you don't have freedom.
I realized early on with horror what I was seeing in Governor Palin: the continuation of the Rove-Cheney cabal, but this time without restraints. I heard her echo Bush 2000 soundbites ("the heart of America is on display") and realized Bush's speechwriters were writing her -- not McCain's -- speeches. I heard her tell George Bush's lies -- not McCain's -- to the American people, linking 9/11 to Iraq. I heard her make fun of Barack Obama for wanting to prevent the torture of prisoners -- this is Rove-Cheney's enthusiastic S and M, not McCain's, who, though he shamefully colluded in the 2006 Military Tribunals Act, is also a former prisoner of war and wrote an eloquent Newsweek piece in 2005 opposing torture. I saw that she was even styled by the same skillful stylist (neutral lipstick, matte makeup, dark colors) who turned Katharine Harris from a mall rat into a stateswoman and who styles all the women in the Bush orbit -- but who does not bother to style Cindy McCain.
Then I saw and heard more. Palin is embracing lawlessness in defying Alaskan Legislature subpoenas -- this is what Rove-Cheney, and not McCain, believe in doing. She uses mafia tactics against critics, like the police commissioner who was railroaded for opposing handguns in Alaskan battered women's shelters -- Rove's style, not McCain's. I realized what I was seeing.
Reports confirmed my suspicions: Palin, not McCain, is the FrankenBarbie of the Rove-Cheney cabal. The strategy became clear. Time magazine reported that Rove is "dialed in" to the McCain campaign. Rove's protege Steve Schmidt is now campaign manager. And Politico reported that Rove was heavily involved in McCain's vice presidential selection. Finally a new report shows that there are dozens of Bush and Rove operatives surrounding Sarah Palin and orchestrating her every move.
What's the plan? It is this. McCain doesn't matter. Reputable dermatologists are discussing the fact that in simply actuarial terms, John McCain has a virulent and life-threatening form of skin cancer. It is the elephant in the room, but we must discuss the health of the candidates: doctors put survival rates for someone his age at two to four years. I believe the Rove-Cheney cabal is using Sarah Palin as a stalking horse, an Evita figure, to put a popular, populist face on the coming police state and be the talk show hostess for the end of elections as we know them. If McCain-Palin get in, this will be the last true American election. She will be working for Halliburton, KBR, Rove and Cheney into the foreseeable future -- for a decade perhaps -- a puppet "president" for the same people who have plundered our treasure, are now holding the US economy hostage and who murdered four thousand brave young men and women in a way of choice and lies.
How, you may ask, can I assert this? How can I argue, as I now do, that there is actually a war being ramped up against US citizens and our democracy and that Sarah Palin is the figurehead and muse for that war?
Look at the RNC. This is supposed to be McCain's America. But you see the unmistakable theatre of Rove's S and M imagery -- and you see stages eight, nine and ten of the steps to a dictatorship as I outlined them in The End of America. Preemptive arrest? Abusive arrest? "Newly released footage, which was buried to avoid confiscation, shows riot cops arresting and abusing a giant group of people for nothing."
Journalists were arrested -- for reporting. Amy Goodman and ABC producers were arrested. Jane Hamsher of Firedoglake and others were forced to lie face down as armed agents tied their hands behind their backs. The riot police wore the black S&M gear of the Rovian fantasy life and carried the four foot batons cops carry in North Korea. All this is not John McCain's imagery or strategy: it is Karl Rove's.
In McCain-Palin's America, citizens who are protesting are being charged as terrorists. This means that a violent war had been declared on American citizens. A well known reporter leaked to me on background that St Paul police had dressed as protesters and, dressed in Black -- shades of the Blackshirts of 1920 -- infiltrated protest groups. There were also phalanxes of men in black wearing balaclavas, linking arms and behaving menacingly -- alleged "anarchists." Let me tell you, I have been on the left for thirty years and you can't get three lefties to wear the same t-shirt to a rally, let alone link arms and wear identical face masks: these are not our guys. Agent Provocateurs framing protesters and calling protest "terrorism" constitutes step ten of a police state:
"In what appears to be the first use of criminal charges under the 2002 Minnesota version of the Federal Patriot Act, Ramsey County Prosecutors have formally charged 8 alleged leaders of the RNC Welcoming Committee with Conspiracy to Riot in Furtherance of Terrorism… [they] 7 1/2 years in prison under the terrorism enhancement charge which allows for a 50% increase in the maximum penalty."
"Paid, confidential informants… infiltrated the RNCWC on behalf of law enforcement. They allege that members of the group sought to kidnap delegates to the RNC, assault police officers with firebombs and explosives, and sabotage airports in St. Paul. Evidence released to date does not corroborate these allegations with physical evidence or provide any other evidence for these allegations than the claims of the informants. Based on past abuses of such informants by law enforcement, the National Lawyers Guild is concerned that such police informants have incentives to lie and exaggerate threats of violence and to also act as provocateurs in raising and urging support for acts of violence."
Under the Palin-Rove police state, you will see escalating infringements on your access to a free internet:
"Sarah Palin was baptized at Wasilla Assembly of God…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…"
Under the coming Palin-Rove police state, you will witness the plans now underway to bring Iraqi troops to patrol the streets of our nation. This is not McCain's fantasy: it is Rove's and Cheney's.
Under the Palin-Rove police state, there will be no further true elections. Mark Crispin Miller has done sensational and under-reported investigating t o establish that -- as I warned -- indeed the GOP staffers on the US Senate Judiciary Committee have been .
The evidence is also buried on the Website of the Majority House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
WASHINGTON -- Republican staff members of the US Senate Judiciary Commitee infiltrated opposition computer files for a year, monitoring secret strategy memos and periodically passing on copies to the media, Senate officials told The Globe. >From the spring of 2002 until at least April 2003, members of the GOP committee staff exploited a computer glitch that allowed them to access restricted Democratic communications witho ut a password. Trolling through hundreds of memos, they were able to read talking points and accounts of private meetings discussing which judicial nominees Democrats would fight -- and with what tactics.
Do you think that spying like this will ever end under a Palin-Rove regime? Dream on. If she and McCain are elected, then every single strategy memo and speech and debate prep note from every opposition candidate from now and on into forever will be read by the regime in power while it is still in the computers of the challengers.
Under the Palin-Rove police state, citizens will be targeted with state cyberterrorism. Bruce Fein of the American Freedom Agenda, a former Reagan official, warned me three years ago that the Bush team went after a Republican who had crossed them through cyberstalking: they messed with his email, messed with his phones and I believe messed with his bank account -- he became a cyber-pariah, unemployable and haunted. With modern technology, there really is less place to hide from the state than there was in East Germany in the Cold War era. I remember feeling a chill: of course. That is the wave of the future once we breach the protections around citizens of FISA and the fourth amendment. That way lies the abyss for us all.
Am I trying to scare you? I am. I am trying to scare you to death and ask you to scare your Republican and independent friends most of all. How do you know when it is war on citizens? When there are mass arrests, journalists are jailed, the opposition is infiltrated, rights are stripped and leaders start to ignore the rule of law.
Almost everyone I work with on projects related to this campaign for liberty has been experiencing computer harassment: emails are stripped, messages disappear. That's not all: people's bank accounts are being tampered with: wire transfers to banks vanish in midair. I personally keep opening bank accounts that are quickly corrupted by fraud. Money vanishes. Coworkers of mine have to keep opening new email accounts as old ones become infected. And most disturbingly to me personally is the mail tampering I have both heard of and experienced firsthand. My tax returns vanished from my mailbox. All my larger envelopes arrive ripped straight open apparently by hand. When I show the postman, he says "That's impossible." Horrifyingly to me is the impact on my family. My childrens' report cards are returned again and again though perfectly addressed; their invitations are turned back; and my daughters many letters from camp? Vanished. All of them. Not one arrived. Try explaining that to a smart thirteen year old. Try explaining it in a way that still makes her feel secure and comfortable.
I am not telling you this because it's about my life. I am telling you this because it is about your life -- whoever you are, Conservative or Liberal, independent or evangelical. Your politics will not protect you in a police state. History shows that nothing protects you in a police state. This is not about my fear and anxiety: it is about what awaits you and everyone you love unless you see this for what it is:
Scharansky divided nations into "fear societies" and "free societies." Make no mistake: Sarah "Evita" Palin is Rove and Cheney's cosmetic rebranding of their fascist push: she will help to establish a true and irreversible "fear society" in this once free once proud nation. For God's sake, do not let her; do not let them.
Palin will help to establish a true and irreversible 'fear society' in this once free once proud nation.
Please understand what you are looking at when you look at Sarah "Evita" Palin. You are looking at the designated muse of the coming American police state.
You have to understand how things work in a closing society in order to understand "Palin Power." A gang or cabal seizes power, usually with an affable, weak figurehead at the fore. Then they will hold elections -- but they will make sure that the election will be corrupted and that the next affable, weak figurehead is entirely in their control. Remember, Russia has Presidents; Russia holds elections. Dictators and gangs of thugs all over the world hold elections. It means nothing. When a cabal has seized power you can have elections and even presidents, but you don't have freedom.
I realized early on with horror what I was seeing in Governor Palin: the continuation of the Rove-Cheney cabal, but this time without restraints. I heard her echo Bush 2000 soundbites ("the heart of America is on display") and realized Bush's speechwriters were writing her -- not McCain's -- speeches. I heard her tell George Bush's lies -- not McCain's -- to the American people, linking 9/11 to Iraq. I heard her make fun of Barack Obama for wanting to prevent the torture of prisoners -- this is Rove-Cheney's enthusiastic S and M, not McCain's, who, though he shamefully colluded in the 2006 Military Tribunals Act, is also a former prisoner of war and wrote an eloquent Newsweek piece in 2005 opposing torture. I saw that she was even styled by the same skillful stylist (neutral lipstick, matte makeup, dark colors) who turned Katharine Harris from a mall rat into a stateswoman and who styles all the women in the Bush orbit -- but who does not bother to style Cindy McCain.
Then I saw and heard more. Palin is embracing lawlessness in defying Alaskan Legislature subpoenas -- this is what Rove-Cheney, and not McCain, believe in doing. She uses mafia tactics against critics, like the police commissioner who was railroaded for opposing handguns in Alaskan battered women's shelters -- Rove's style, not McCain's. I realized what I was seeing.
Reports confirmed my suspicions: Palin, not McCain, is the FrankenBarbie of the Rove-Cheney cabal. The strategy became clear. Time magazine reported that Rove is "dialed in" to the McCain campaign. Rove's protege Steve Schmidt is now campaign manager. And Politico reported that Rove was heavily involved in McCain's vice presidential selection. Finally a new report shows that there are dozens of Bush and Rove operatives surrounding Sarah Palin and orchestrating her every move.
What's the plan? It is this. McCain doesn't matter. Reputable dermatologists are discussing the fact that in simply actuarial terms, John McCain has a virulent and life-threatening form of skin cancer. It is the elephant in the room, but we must discuss the health of the candidates: doctors put survival rates for someone his age at two to four years. I believe the Rove-Cheney cabal is using Sarah Palin as a stalking horse, an Evita figure, to put a popular, populist face on the coming police state and be the talk show hostess for the end of elections as we know them. If McCain-Palin get in, this will be the last true American election. She will be working for Halliburton, KBR, Rove and Cheney into the foreseeable future -- for a decade perhaps -- a puppet "president" for the same people who have plundered our treasure, are now holding the US economy hostage and who murdered four thousand brave young men and women in a way of choice and lies.
How, you may ask, can I assert this? How can I argue, as I now do, that there is actually a war being ramped up against US citizens and our democracy and that Sarah Palin is the figurehead and muse for that war?
Look at the RNC. This is supposed to be McCain's America. But you see the unmistakable theatre of Rove's S and M imagery -- and you see stages eight, nine and ten of the steps to a dictatorship as I outlined them in The End of America. Preemptive arrest? Abusive arrest? "Newly released footage, which was buried to avoid confiscation, shows riot cops arresting and abusing a giant group of people for nothing."
Journalists were arrested -- for reporting. Amy Goodman and ABC producers were arrested. Jane Hamsher of Firedoglake and others were forced to lie face down as armed agents tied their hands behind their backs. The riot police wore the black S&M gear of the Rovian fantasy life and carried the four foot batons cops carry in North Korea. All this is not John McCain's imagery or strategy: it is Karl Rove's.
In McCain-Palin's America, citizens who are protesting are being charged as terrorists. This means that a violent war had been declared on American citizens. A well known reporter leaked to me on background that St Paul police had dressed as protesters and, dressed in Black -- shades of the Blackshirts of 1920 -- infiltrated protest groups. There were also phalanxes of men in black wearing balaclavas, linking arms and behaving menacingly -- alleged "anarchists." Let me tell you, I have been on the left for thirty years and you can't get three lefties to wear the same t-shirt to a rally, let alone link arms and wear identical face masks: these are not our guys. Agent Provocateurs framing protesters and calling protest "terrorism" constitutes step ten of a police state:
"In what appears to be the first use of criminal charges under the 2002 Minnesota version of the Federal Patriot Act, Ramsey County Prosecutors have formally charged 8 alleged leaders of the RNC Welcoming Committee with Conspiracy to Riot in Furtherance of Terrorism… [they] 7 1/2 years in prison under the terrorism enhancement charge which allows for a 50% increase in the maximum penalty."
"Paid, confidential informants… infiltrated the RNCWC on behalf of law enforcement. They allege that members of the group sought to kidnap delegates to the RNC, assault police officers with firebombs and explosives, and sabotage airports in St. Paul. Evidence released to date does not corroborate these allegations with physical evidence or provide any other evidence for these allegations than the claims of the informants. Based on past abuses of such informants by law enforcement, the National Lawyers Guild is concerned that such police informants have incentives to lie and exaggerate threats of violence and to also act as provocateurs in raising and urging support for acts of violence."
Under the Palin-Rove police state, you will see escalating infringements on your access to a free internet:
"Sarah Palin was baptized at Wasilla Assembly of God…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…"
Under the coming Palin-Rove police state, you will witness the plans now underway to bring Iraqi troops to patrol the streets of our nation. This is not McCain's fantasy: it is Rove's and Cheney's.
Under the Palin-Rove police state, there will be no further true elections. Mark Crispin Miller has done sensational and under-reported investigating t o establish that -- as I warned -- indeed the GOP staffers on the US Senate Judiciary Committee have been .
The evidence is also buried on the Website of the Majority House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
WASHINGTON -- Republican staff members of the US Senate Judiciary Commitee infiltrated opposition computer files for a year, monitoring secret strategy memos and periodically passing on copies to the media, Senate officials told The Globe. >From the spring of 2002 until at least April 2003, members of the GOP committee staff exploited a computer glitch that allowed them to access restricted Democratic communications witho ut a password. Trolling through hundreds of memos, they were able to read talking points and accounts of private meetings discussing which judicial nominees Democrats would fight -- and with what tactics.
Do you think that spying like this will ever end under a Palin-Rove regime? Dream on. If she and McCain are elected, then every single strategy memo and speech and debate prep note from every opposition candidate from now and on into forever will be read by the regime in power while it is still in the computers of the challengers.
Under the Palin-Rove police state, citizens will be targeted with state cyberterrorism. Bruce Fein of the American Freedom Agenda, a former Reagan official, warned me three years ago that the Bush team went after a Republican who had crossed them through cyberstalking: they messed with his email, messed with his phones and I believe messed with his bank account -- he became a cyber-pariah, unemployable and haunted. With modern technology, there really is less place to hide from the state than there was in East Germany in the Cold War era. I remember feeling a chill: of course. That is the wave of the future once we breach the protections around citizens of FISA and the fourth amendment. That way lies the abyss for us all.
Am I trying to scare you? I am. I am trying to scare you to death and ask you to scare your Republican and independent friends most of all. How do you know when it is war on citizens? When there are mass arrests, journalists are jailed, the opposition is infiltrated, rights are stripped and leaders start to ignore the rule of law.
Almost everyone I work with on projects related to this campaign for liberty has been experiencing computer harassment: emails are stripped, messages disappear. That's not all: people's bank accounts are being tampered with: wire transfers to banks vanish in midair. I personally keep opening bank accounts that are quickly corrupted by fraud. Money vanishes. Coworkers of mine have to keep opening new email accounts as old ones become infected. And most disturbingly to me personally is the mail tampering I have both heard of and experienced firsthand. My tax returns vanished from my mailbox. All my larger envelopes arrive ripped straight open apparently by hand. When I show the postman, he says "That's impossible." Horrifyingly to me is the impact on my family. My childrens' report cards are returned again and again though perfectly addressed; their invitations are turned back; and my daughters many letters from camp? Vanished. All of them. Not one arrived. Try explaining that to a smart thirteen year old. Try explaining it in a way that still makes her feel secure and comfortable.
I am not telling you this because it's about my life. I am telling you this because it is about your life -- whoever you are, Conservative or Liberal, independent or evangelical. Your politics will not protect you in a police state. History shows that nothing protects you in a police state. This is not about my fear and anxiety: it is about what awaits you and everyone you love unless you see this for what it is:
Scharansky divided nations into "fear societies" and "free societies." Make no mistake: Sarah "Evita" Palin is Rove and Cheney's cosmetic rebranding of their fascist push: she will help to establish a true and irreversible "fear society" in this once free once proud nation. For God's sake, do not let her; do not let them.
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Palin and Clinton-I Challenge You to Compare!
Actual Segment:
Now look what Fox News shows below. They showed a short clip of the SNL footage to make it look like they were making fun of Hillary being upset about not being the first female in the White house. The point of the skit was to point out the absurdity of Sarah Palin nomination, which it brilliantly did.Fox News decided to choose one of the least funny segments of that sketch and coincidentally also one of the few segments that didn't make fun of Palin's incompetence to be vice president. I wonder who they're supporting this election? Thanks Rupert Murdoch!
Now look what Fox News shows below. They showed a short clip of the SNL footage to make it look like they were making fun of Hillary being upset about not being the first female in the White house. The point of the skit was to point out the absurdity of Sarah Palin nomination, which it brilliantly did.Fox News decided to choose one of the least funny segments of that sketch and coincidentally also one of the few segments that didn't make fun of Palin's incompetence to be vice president. I wonder who they're supporting this election? Thanks Rupert Murdoch!
Monday, September 15, 2008
The Palin interviews: Ignorance in the service of the ultra-right
By Bill Van Auken
15 September 2
WSWS.org
ABC's broadcast over three nights of the interview between the network's anchorman Charles Gibson and Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin served to expose the candidate's ignorance and ultra-right politics, while skirting around some of the most crucial questions underlying her improbable candidacy.
Equally revealing has been the reaction of the Obama campaign and the Democratic Party, which have given Palin a pass on everything said in the interview except her attempt to once again identify herself with the runner-up in the Democratic primaries, Senator Hillary Clinton. An angry reaction issued over the name of Florida Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz had more the character of a protest over brand name infringement than any substantive response to Palin's positions.
Ignored in the Democratic response was Palin's presentation of political views that are significantly to the right of the Bush administration, including foreign policy positions that pose the clear threat of a nuclear third world war.
In its tone, the interview was undoubtedly one of the most peculiar exchanges to be staged in recent American political history.
Gibson's approach often resembled that of an impatient and skeptical professor quizzing one of his failing students. For her part, Palin came off as semi-robotic, clearly feeding back talking points which Republican campaign operatives have crammed into her head in the little more than two weeks since her surprise selection as Senator John McCain's running mate.
There is little doubt that many of the nearly 10 million viewers who tuned in to the interviews did so at least in part out of morbid curiosity, watching to see if the untested and virtually unknown governor of Alaska would seriously disgrace herself on national television.
Palin fumbled some questions and had an evident "deer in the headlights" moment when asked about the "Bush Doctrine," something with which she was clearly unfamiliar, even after Gibson helpfully explained it to her.
Behind the packaged image, the qualities that Sarah Palin brings to American politics are religious-based bigotry and hostility to democratic rights, anti-intellectualism, phony right-wing populism and unwavering support for American militarism, in short, the stock and trade of the Republican right.
The dangers posed when this kind of ignorance, backwardness and reactionary outlook becomes fused with state power became clear in the ABC interview.
After Palin declared her support for the admission of the former Soviet republics Ukraine and Georgia into the US-led NATO alliance, Gibson asked her whether this meant that the US would be obliged to go to war against Russia if Moscow again sent troops into the region.
"Perhaps so," replied Palin, in a matter-of-fact tone that suggested that war between two countries controlling stockpiles of nuclear weapons capable of incinerating the world was the most obvious, common-sense solution to a geopolitical crisis. "I mean, that is the agreement when you are a NATO ally, is if another country is attacked, you're going to be expected to be called upon and help," she continued.
She repeatedly described Russia's action in Georgia as "unprovoked," when even the Bush administration's State Department has claimed that it warned Georgia not to attempt an armed takeover of the autonomous, Russian-aligned regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
Asked about what insight she had concerning the country against which she is so blithely prepared wage war, Palin claimed-erroneously-that one could see Russia from part of Alaska.
Similarly, Palin was asked what attitude Washington should take towards a decision by Israel to carry out airstrikes against Iran's fledgling nuclear program.
"Well, first, we are friends with Israel and I don't think that we should second guess the measures that Israel has to take to defend themselves and for their security," responded Palin.
While Gibson pressed her on this point, she clung doggedly to this position, twice repeating the phrase about not "second guessing" any action by Israel.
That Washington must routinely "second guess" such decisions-despite the undeniably inordinate influence exercised by Israel and the Zionist lobby over US foreign policy-apparently never occurred to Palin. Nor, apparently, that such an Israeli attack would almost certainly result in Iranian retaliation that could include attacks on US occupation troops in Iraq, including her own son, who deployed there on September 11.
Then there was the exchange on the "Bush Doctrine," about which much has been made in the media. Palin's initial fumbling was understandable. Gibson asked her "Do you agree with the Bush doctrine," and she replied by indicating she believed he was referring to "his world view."
When Gibson went on, however, to indicate that, no, he meant "the Bush doctrine, enunciated September 2002, before the Iraq war," it became clear that Palin had not a clue that he was referring to the doctrine of "preventive war" by which Bush arrogated to US imperialism the right to militarily attack any country in the world that it saw as a potential threat to its interests.
Palin babbled on about her agreement with Bush's effort to "rid this world of Islamic extremism, terrorists who are hell bent on destroying our nation" and affirmed that any "mistakes" or "blunders" in the process could be corrected with the election of new leadership.
Nonetheless, even from her standpoint of ignorance, Palin's responses made it clear that she embraces the essence of the "Bush Doctrine"-unrestrained American militarism.
Asked about whether the US had the right to carry out cross-border attacks against Pakistan, without the permission of that country's government-something that is already taking place on the orders of the Bush White House-Palin responded: "In order to stop Islamic extremists, those terrorists who would seek to destroy America and our allies, we must do whatever it takes and we must not blink, Charlie, in making those tough decisions of where we go and even who we target."
So emerges the Palin corollary to the Bush doctrine: go anywhere and target anyone, just don't blink.
On domestic issues, the combination of ignorance and duplicity continued to characterize Palin's responses. Asked about her recorded differences with McCain on global warming, she denied the existence of any such disagreements and asserted her belief that "man's activities certainly can be contributing to the issue of global warming, climate change."
Just last year, however, she faithfully echoed the line of the extreme right and the oil lobby, telling an Alaska newspaper, "I'm not an Al Gore, doom-and-gloom environmentalist blaming the changes in our climate on human activity."
Palin reiterated her well-known opposition to abortion rights, calling for the overturning of the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision and stating her belief that abortion should be banned even in cases of rape and incest. While Palin described this view as her "personal opinion," Gibson made no attempt to press her on the fact that she favors merely a state-by-state approach to abortion, but advocates making it illegal everywhere, regardless of the sentiments of the pro-choice women she claimed to "respect."
Gibson asked her about the well-established fact that as the newly elected mayor of Wasilla she had pressured the town librarian about banning of books deemed unacceptable by the Christian right. Her denial-calling it "an old wives' tale"-was left unchallenged.
Significantly, what went entirely unexplored in the Gibson interview were Palin's extensive ties to the extreme right and Christian fundamentalism. There was no question about her relationship with the Alaskan Independence Party, which her husband joined and whose conferences she herself attended and addressed. The party, which calls for Alaska to secede from the United States, is an affiliate of the Constitution Party, an ultra-right electoral party whose program incorporates the outlook of a Bible-based fascism.
No question was asked about Palin's attitude towards dominionism, the doctrine of the Christian fundamentalist right that the US is a "Christian nation" and that all of its laws and institutions should be run according to Biblical law.
The only reference to Palin's religious-political views came in Gibson's question about remarks made to her church to the effect that the US troops fighting the dirty colonial-style war in Iraq are "on a task that is from God." Gibson asked her if she believed that the US is "fighting a holy war."
The candidate's improbable response was that she was merely echoing a statement made by Lincoln. While the Republicans regularly drag Lincoln's name through the mud, this is rather extreme, given his oft-stated contempt for organized religion.
Neither the media nor the Democrats have any interest in exposing this dirty secret of American politics, that the most significant popular "base" of the Republican Party-the most consistent defender of the corporations and finance capital-is composed of extreme right-wing and fascistic elements, including the most reactionary tendencies within Christian fundamentalism.
Under normal circumstances, Palin's ignorance of international relations and limited political understanding would have disqualified her for the vice-presidential nomination of one of the two main big business parties. The sole reason for McCain's choosing her as his running mate was the desire to "energize" this ultra-right base.
The Democrats have chosen to ignore this issue entirely. Nor have they issued any response to Palin's statements regarding war on Russia and Iran. Having embraced the "surge" in Iraq, Obama is running not as an antiwar candidate in any sense, but as the advocate of a more strategically thought-out and even more robust form of American militarism. As such, he has issued his own bellicose statements against Russia, Iran and Pakistan.
That Palin could even be considered as the Republican Party's vice presidential candidate is testimony not only to the extreme right-wing trajectory of this party itself, but also to the spinelessness of the Democrats and their inability and unwillingness to wage any serious attack on either the Republican Party or the ultra-right.
There are clearly some misgivings within the American ruling elite over this strategy and the pitfalls of having an individual like Palin a "heartbeat away" from a presidency occupied by a 72-year-old man with significant health problems. The Washington Post published an editorial on the interviews describing them as "unsettling." Her performance, the paper stated, was "not disqualifying, but it was also far from comforting."
15 September 2
WSWS.org
ABC's broadcast over three nights of the interview between the network's anchorman Charles Gibson and Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin served to expose the candidate's ignorance and ultra-right politics, while skirting around some of the most crucial questions underlying her improbable candidacy.
Equally revealing has been the reaction of the Obama campaign and the Democratic Party, which have given Palin a pass on everything said in the interview except her attempt to once again identify herself with the runner-up in the Democratic primaries, Senator Hillary Clinton. An angry reaction issued over the name of Florida Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz had more the character of a protest over brand name infringement than any substantive response to Palin's positions.
Ignored in the Democratic response was Palin's presentation of political views that are significantly to the right of the Bush administration, including foreign policy positions that pose the clear threat of a nuclear third world war.
In its tone, the interview was undoubtedly one of the most peculiar exchanges to be staged in recent American political history.
Gibson's approach often resembled that of an impatient and skeptical professor quizzing one of his failing students. For her part, Palin came off as semi-robotic, clearly feeding back talking points which Republican campaign operatives have crammed into her head in the little more than two weeks since her surprise selection as Senator John McCain's running mate.
There is little doubt that many of the nearly 10 million viewers who tuned in to the interviews did so at least in part out of morbid curiosity, watching to see if the untested and virtually unknown governor of Alaska would seriously disgrace herself on national television.
Palin fumbled some questions and had an evident "deer in the headlights" moment when asked about the "Bush Doctrine," something with which she was clearly unfamiliar, even after Gibson helpfully explained it to her.
Behind the packaged image, the qualities that Sarah Palin brings to American politics are religious-based bigotry and hostility to democratic rights, anti-intellectualism, phony right-wing populism and unwavering support for American militarism, in short, the stock and trade of the Republican right.
The dangers posed when this kind of ignorance, backwardness and reactionary outlook becomes fused with state power became clear in the ABC interview.
After Palin declared her support for the admission of the former Soviet republics Ukraine and Georgia into the US-led NATO alliance, Gibson asked her whether this meant that the US would be obliged to go to war against Russia if Moscow again sent troops into the region.
"Perhaps so," replied Palin, in a matter-of-fact tone that suggested that war between two countries controlling stockpiles of nuclear weapons capable of incinerating the world was the most obvious, common-sense solution to a geopolitical crisis. "I mean, that is the agreement when you are a NATO ally, is if another country is attacked, you're going to be expected to be called upon and help," she continued.
She repeatedly described Russia's action in Georgia as "unprovoked," when even the Bush administration's State Department has claimed that it warned Georgia not to attempt an armed takeover of the autonomous, Russian-aligned regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
Asked about what insight she had concerning the country against which she is so blithely prepared wage war, Palin claimed-erroneously-that one could see Russia from part of Alaska.
Similarly, Palin was asked what attitude Washington should take towards a decision by Israel to carry out airstrikes against Iran's fledgling nuclear program.
"Well, first, we are friends with Israel and I don't think that we should second guess the measures that Israel has to take to defend themselves and for their security," responded Palin.
While Gibson pressed her on this point, she clung doggedly to this position, twice repeating the phrase about not "second guessing" any action by Israel.
That Washington must routinely "second guess" such decisions-despite the undeniably inordinate influence exercised by Israel and the Zionist lobby over US foreign policy-apparently never occurred to Palin. Nor, apparently, that such an Israeli attack would almost certainly result in Iranian retaliation that could include attacks on US occupation troops in Iraq, including her own son, who deployed there on September 11.
Then there was the exchange on the "Bush Doctrine," about which much has been made in the media. Palin's initial fumbling was understandable. Gibson asked her "Do you agree with the Bush doctrine," and she replied by indicating she believed he was referring to "his world view."
When Gibson went on, however, to indicate that, no, he meant "the Bush doctrine, enunciated September 2002, before the Iraq war," it became clear that Palin had not a clue that he was referring to the doctrine of "preventive war" by which Bush arrogated to US imperialism the right to militarily attack any country in the world that it saw as a potential threat to its interests.
Palin babbled on about her agreement with Bush's effort to "rid this world of Islamic extremism, terrorists who are hell bent on destroying our nation" and affirmed that any "mistakes" or "blunders" in the process could be corrected with the election of new leadership.
Nonetheless, even from her standpoint of ignorance, Palin's responses made it clear that she embraces the essence of the "Bush Doctrine"-unrestrained American militarism.
Asked about whether the US had the right to carry out cross-border attacks against Pakistan, without the permission of that country's government-something that is already taking place on the orders of the Bush White House-Palin responded: "In order to stop Islamic extremists, those terrorists who would seek to destroy America and our allies, we must do whatever it takes and we must not blink, Charlie, in making those tough decisions of where we go and even who we target."
So emerges the Palin corollary to the Bush doctrine: go anywhere and target anyone, just don't blink.
On domestic issues, the combination of ignorance and duplicity continued to characterize Palin's responses. Asked about her recorded differences with McCain on global warming, she denied the existence of any such disagreements and asserted her belief that "man's activities certainly can be contributing to the issue of global warming, climate change."
Just last year, however, she faithfully echoed the line of the extreme right and the oil lobby, telling an Alaska newspaper, "I'm not an Al Gore, doom-and-gloom environmentalist blaming the changes in our climate on human activity."
Palin reiterated her well-known opposition to abortion rights, calling for the overturning of the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision and stating her belief that abortion should be banned even in cases of rape and incest. While Palin described this view as her "personal opinion," Gibson made no attempt to press her on the fact that she favors merely a state-by-state approach to abortion, but advocates making it illegal everywhere, regardless of the sentiments of the pro-choice women she claimed to "respect."
Gibson asked her about the well-established fact that as the newly elected mayor of Wasilla she had pressured the town librarian about banning of books deemed unacceptable by the Christian right. Her denial-calling it "an old wives' tale"-was left unchallenged.
Significantly, what went entirely unexplored in the Gibson interview were Palin's extensive ties to the extreme right and Christian fundamentalism. There was no question about her relationship with the Alaskan Independence Party, which her husband joined and whose conferences she herself attended and addressed. The party, which calls for Alaska to secede from the United States, is an affiliate of the Constitution Party, an ultra-right electoral party whose program incorporates the outlook of a Bible-based fascism.
No question was asked about Palin's attitude towards dominionism, the doctrine of the Christian fundamentalist right that the US is a "Christian nation" and that all of its laws and institutions should be run according to Biblical law.
The only reference to Palin's religious-political views came in Gibson's question about remarks made to her church to the effect that the US troops fighting the dirty colonial-style war in Iraq are "on a task that is from God." Gibson asked her if she believed that the US is "fighting a holy war."
The candidate's improbable response was that she was merely echoing a statement made by Lincoln. While the Republicans regularly drag Lincoln's name through the mud, this is rather extreme, given his oft-stated contempt for organized religion.
Neither the media nor the Democrats have any interest in exposing this dirty secret of American politics, that the most significant popular "base" of the Republican Party-the most consistent defender of the corporations and finance capital-is composed of extreme right-wing and fascistic elements, including the most reactionary tendencies within Christian fundamentalism.
Under normal circumstances, Palin's ignorance of international relations and limited political understanding would have disqualified her for the vice-presidential nomination of one of the two main big business parties. The sole reason for McCain's choosing her as his running mate was the desire to "energize" this ultra-right base.
The Democrats have chosen to ignore this issue entirely. Nor have they issued any response to Palin's statements regarding war on Russia and Iran. Having embraced the "surge" in Iraq, Obama is running not as an antiwar candidate in any sense, but as the advocate of a more strategically thought-out and even more robust form of American militarism. As such, he has issued his own bellicose statements against Russia, Iran and Pakistan.
That Palin could even be considered as the Republican Party's vice presidential candidate is testimony not only to the extreme right-wing trajectory of this party itself, but also to the spinelessness of the Democrats and their inability and unwillingness to wage any serious attack on either the Republican Party or the ultra-right.
There are clearly some misgivings within the American ruling elite over this strategy and the pitfalls of having an individual like Palin a "heartbeat away" from a presidency occupied by a 72-year-old man with significant health problems. The Washington Post published an editorial on the interviews describing them as "unsettling." Her performance, the paper stated, was "not disqualifying, but it was also far from comforting."
Sunday, September 7, 2008
Palin church promotes converting gays
By RACHEL D'ORO, Associated Press Writer
Saturday, September 6, 2008
(09-06) 14:18 PDT Anchorage, Alaska (AP) --
Gov. Sarah Palin's church is promoting a conference that promises to convert gays into heterosexuals through the power of prayer.
"You'll be encouraged by the power of God's love and His desire to transform the lives of those impacted by homosexuality," according to the insert in the bulletin of the Wasilla Bible Church, where Palin has prayed for about six years.
Palin's conservative Christian views have energized that part of the GOP electorate, which was lukewarm to John McCain's candidacy before he named her as his vice presidential choice. She is staunchly anti-abortion, opposing exceptions for rape and incest, and opposes gay marriage and spousal rights for gay couples.
Focus on the Family, a national Christian fundamentalist organization, is conducting the "Love Won Out" Conference in Anchorage, about 30 miles from Wasilla.
Palin, campaigning with McCain in the Midwest on Friday, has not publicly expressed a view on the so-called "pray away the gay" movement. Larry Kroon, senior pastor at Palin's church, was not available to discuss the matter Friday, said a church worker who declined to give her name.
Gay activists in Alaska said Palin has not worked actively against their interests, but early in her administration she supported a bill to overrule a court decision to block state benefits for gay partners of public employees. At the time, less than one-half of 1 percent of state employees had applied for the benefits, which were ordered by a 2005 ruling by the Alaska Supreme Court.
Palin reversed her position and vetoed the bill after the state attorney general said it was unconstitutional. But her reluctant support didn't win fans among Alaska's gay population, said Scott Turner, a gay activist in Anchorage.
"Less than 1 percent of state employees would even apply for benefits, so why make a big deal out of such a small number?" he said.
"I think gay Republicans are going to run away" if Palin supports efforts like the prayers to convert gays, said Wayne Besen, founder of the New York-based Truth Wins Out, a gay rights advocacy group. Besen called on Palin to publicly express her views now that she's a vice presidential nominee.
"People are looking at Sarah Palin as someone who might feasibly be in the White House," he said.
Saturday, September 6, 2008
(09-06) 14:18 PDT Anchorage, Alaska (AP) --
Gov. Sarah Palin's church is promoting a conference that promises to convert gays into heterosexuals through the power of prayer.
"You'll be encouraged by the power of God's love and His desire to transform the lives of those impacted by homosexuality," according to the insert in the bulletin of the Wasilla Bible Church, where Palin has prayed for about six years.
Palin's conservative Christian views have energized that part of the GOP electorate, which was lukewarm to John McCain's candidacy before he named her as his vice presidential choice. She is staunchly anti-abortion, opposing exceptions for rape and incest, and opposes gay marriage and spousal rights for gay couples.
Focus on the Family, a national Christian fundamentalist organization, is conducting the "Love Won Out" Conference in Anchorage, about 30 miles from Wasilla.
Palin, campaigning with McCain in the Midwest on Friday, has not publicly expressed a view on the so-called "pray away the gay" movement. Larry Kroon, senior pastor at Palin's church, was not available to discuss the matter Friday, said a church worker who declined to give her name.
Gay activists in Alaska said Palin has not worked actively against their interests, but early in her administration she supported a bill to overrule a court decision to block state benefits for gay partners of public employees. At the time, less than one-half of 1 percent of state employees had applied for the benefits, which were ordered by a 2005 ruling by the Alaska Supreme Court.
Palin reversed her position and vetoed the bill after the state attorney general said it was unconstitutional. But her reluctant support didn't win fans among Alaska's gay population, said Scott Turner, a gay activist in Anchorage.
"Less than 1 percent of state employees would even apply for benefits, so why make a big deal out of such a small number?" he said.
"I think gay Republicans are going to run away" if Palin supports efforts like the prayers to convert gays, said Wayne Besen, founder of the New York-based Truth Wins Out, a gay rights advocacy group. Besen called on Palin to publicly express her views now that she's a vice presidential nominee.
"People are looking at Sarah Palin as someone who might feasibly be in the White House," he said.
Palin: The Real Scandal
By Leonard Doyle in Anchorage
The Independent (UK)
September 6, 2008
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/palin-the-real-scandal-920803.html
Seen from the air, Sarah Palin's state is an
environmental wonderland. From Anchorage to the Arctic
National Wildlife Refuge, there is a vast landscape of
snow-capped peaks, fjords, crystal glaciers, coastal
lagoons, wide river deltas and tundra.
The guardian of this wilderness - and Governor of
Alaska - has, this week, become one of the most
recognisable faces in the world. But behind her beaming
smile and wholesome family values is a woman aligned
with the big oil and coal firms that are racing to
exploit Alaska's vast energy reserves. In the short
term, that has bought her popularity at home.
"I love the woman," the pilot on our flight shouts over
the noise of the engine, "especially what she wants to
do with oil, we just have to drill more, there is no
alternative. What's the point of leaving it all in the
ground?"
It is a stance that guaranteed John McCain's new
running mate a rapturous reception at the Republican
convention this week where the response to the coming
energy crisis was a chant of "drill, baby, drill".
But the woman who could soon be a 72-year-old's
heartbeat away from the United States presidency has an
environmental policy so toxic it would make the
incumbent, George Bush, blush.
Mr McCain has stressed he is concerned about global
warming and has come out against drilling in the Arctic
reserve. But, in recent weeks, he has wobbled on the
issue. And environmentalists are describing Mrs Palin,
who denies climate change is man-made, as "either
grossly misinformed or intentionally misleading".
She wants to start drilling. She wants to block US
moves to list the polar bear as an endangered species.
And she has allowed big game hunters to shoot Alaska's
bears and wolves from low-flying planes.
The 44-year-old governor says a federal government
decision to protect the polar bear will cripple energy
development offshore. As a result, she is suing the
Bush administration, which ruled the polar bear is
endangered and needs protection.
The US Geological Survey says climate change has shrunk
Arctic summer sea ice to about 1.65 million sq miles,
nearly 40 per cent less than the long-term average
between 1979 and 2000.
In such a situation it was unconscionable for Governor
Palin to ignore overwhelming evidence of global
warming's threat to sea ice, says Kassie Siegel of the
Centre for Biological Diversity.
"Even the Bush administration can't deny the reality of
global warming," Ms Siegel said. "The governor is
aligning herself and the state of Alaska with the most
discredited, fringe, extreme viewpoints by denying
this."
Governor Palin would also like to bring open-cast coal
mining to Alaska's Brooks Range Mountains, an act of
environmental vandalism in the eyes of many.
The Palin administration has allowed Chevron to triple
the amount of toxic waste it pours into the waters of
Cook Inlet. This, even though the number of beluga
whales in the bay has collapsed from 1,300 to 350 - the
point of extinction - because of pollution and
increased ship traffic.
On the Republican convention floor she said: "We
Americans need to produce more of our own oil and gas
and take it from a gal who knows the North Slope of
Alaska: We've got lots of both."
The fact that drilling won't solve every problem "is no
excuse to do nothing at all", she said, putting the
country on notice that "starting in January, in a
McCain-Palin administration, we're going to lay more
pipelines ... build more nuclear plants ... create jobs
with clean coal ... and move forward on solar, wind,
geothermal and other alternative sources".
Mrs Palin also took a swipe at Barack Obama's
environmental stance saying: "What does he actually
seek to accomplish, after he's done turning back the
waters and healing the planet?"
Her support in Alaska relies on squeezing more money
for the state from the oil companies themselves. In
Alaska, every man woman and child is in line for a
bonus cheque of about $2,000 (£1,100) from the state's
massive oil wealth fund. This is, in effect, a vote-
buying machine for the would-be Vice-President.
Governor Palin wants nothing to hinder the oil
companies. She maintains that polar bears are well
managed and their population has dramatically increased
over 30 years as a result of conservation. And if the
ice should go away, then they will adapt to living on
the land.
Many oil companies abandoned Alaska when prices fell in
the 1980s but they have been rushing back to drill and
prospect areas that are among the least hospitable on
earth. That spirit of the Klondike is already in full
swing in Prudhoe Bay the epicentre of oil production
and one of the world's largest industrial complexes.
It's so big that BP, UPS and FedEx operate a special
fleet of jets from Anchorage just to service to the
region.
Hundreds of spills involving tens of thousands of
gallons of crude oil and other petroleum products occur
in the area each year. Decades-old spills are still a
problem and 17,000 acres of wildlife and marine habitat
have already been destroyed.
But Prudhoe is just a tiny fraction of the area being
targeted by Governor Palin and the oil companies. A
similar fate of environmental destruction awaits the
entire coastal plain as well as the special areas of
the western Arctic - home to migratory caribou herds,
musk oxen, wolverines, grizzly and polar bears should a
McCain-Palin administration be elected.
The oil boom has attracted oilmen from across America.
One of them is Todd Palin, husband to the vice-
presidential candidate who works for BP on Alaska's
North Slope.
It is illegal to hunt polar bears, and that is not
about to change. But in an area known as "Polar Bear
Seas", from Point Hope on Alaska's far western edge to
the pristine coastal plain of the Arctic National
Wildlife Reserve, one tenth of the world's polar bear
population is at risk, as well as beluga and bowheaded
whales and bearded and spotted seals.
Big game hunters are happy to pay lots of money to
shoot wolves and bears from the air. They also chase
them across the snow to the point of exhaustion and
then land the planes on skis, shooting them from point-
blank range. The animals are considered endangered
across the "lower 48" states of America, but not
Alaska. The hunters keep and sell the animals' pelts.
Last year, Mrs Palin proposed offering a bounty of $150
per wolf, as long as the hunter provided the wolf's
foreleg as proof of the kill. The measure did not pass.
She even spent $400,000 on a state-funded campaign to
block attempts to end the hunt.
Its not just wildlife conservationists who object. Many
ordinary Alaskans also condemn the practice as
barbaric.
Trish Rolfe, who runs the Sierra Club's Alaska office,
thinks Governor Palin has been a disaster for Alaska's
environment. "The idea that she stands up to the oil
companies is a joke," she says.
"The governor pays lip service to the issue of global
warming but denies it is man made. She will not even
spend money to help the Inupiaq villages which are
about to fall into the sea."
The Independent (UK)
September 6, 2008
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/palin-the-real-scandal-920803.html
Seen from the air, Sarah Palin's state is an
environmental wonderland. From Anchorage to the Arctic
National Wildlife Refuge, there is a vast landscape of
snow-capped peaks, fjords, crystal glaciers, coastal
lagoons, wide river deltas and tundra.
The guardian of this wilderness - and Governor of
Alaska - has, this week, become one of the most
recognisable faces in the world. But behind her beaming
smile and wholesome family values is a woman aligned
with the big oil and coal firms that are racing to
exploit Alaska's vast energy reserves. In the short
term, that has bought her popularity at home.
"I love the woman," the pilot on our flight shouts over
the noise of the engine, "especially what she wants to
do with oil, we just have to drill more, there is no
alternative. What's the point of leaving it all in the
ground?"
It is a stance that guaranteed John McCain's new
running mate a rapturous reception at the Republican
convention this week where the response to the coming
energy crisis was a chant of "drill, baby, drill".
But the woman who could soon be a 72-year-old's
heartbeat away from the United States presidency has an
environmental policy so toxic it would make the
incumbent, George Bush, blush.
Mr McCain has stressed he is concerned about global
warming and has come out against drilling in the Arctic
reserve. But, in recent weeks, he has wobbled on the
issue. And environmentalists are describing Mrs Palin,
who denies climate change is man-made, as "either
grossly misinformed or intentionally misleading".
She wants to start drilling. She wants to block US
moves to list the polar bear as an endangered species.
And she has allowed big game hunters to shoot Alaska's
bears and wolves from low-flying planes.
The 44-year-old governor says a federal government
decision to protect the polar bear will cripple energy
development offshore. As a result, she is suing the
Bush administration, which ruled the polar bear is
endangered and needs protection.
The US Geological Survey says climate change has shrunk
Arctic summer sea ice to about 1.65 million sq miles,
nearly 40 per cent less than the long-term average
between 1979 and 2000.
In such a situation it was unconscionable for Governor
Palin to ignore overwhelming evidence of global
warming's threat to sea ice, says Kassie Siegel of the
Centre for Biological Diversity.
"Even the Bush administration can't deny the reality of
global warming," Ms Siegel said. "The governor is
aligning herself and the state of Alaska with the most
discredited, fringe, extreme viewpoints by denying
this."
Governor Palin would also like to bring open-cast coal
mining to Alaska's Brooks Range Mountains, an act of
environmental vandalism in the eyes of many.
The Palin administration has allowed Chevron to triple
the amount of toxic waste it pours into the waters of
Cook Inlet. This, even though the number of beluga
whales in the bay has collapsed from 1,300 to 350 - the
point of extinction - because of pollution and
increased ship traffic.
On the Republican convention floor she said: "We
Americans need to produce more of our own oil and gas
and take it from a gal who knows the North Slope of
Alaska: We've got lots of both."
The fact that drilling won't solve every problem "is no
excuse to do nothing at all", she said, putting the
country on notice that "starting in January, in a
McCain-Palin administration, we're going to lay more
pipelines ... build more nuclear plants ... create jobs
with clean coal ... and move forward on solar, wind,
geothermal and other alternative sources".
Mrs Palin also took a swipe at Barack Obama's
environmental stance saying: "What does he actually
seek to accomplish, after he's done turning back the
waters and healing the planet?"
Her support in Alaska relies on squeezing more money
for the state from the oil companies themselves. In
Alaska, every man woman and child is in line for a
bonus cheque of about $2,000 (£1,100) from the state's
massive oil wealth fund. This is, in effect, a vote-
buying machine for the would-be Vice-President.
Governor Palin wants nothing to hinder the oil
companies. She maintains that polar bears are well
managed and their population has dramatically increased
over 30 years as a result of conservation. And if the
ice should go away, then they will adapt to living on
the land.
Many oil companies abandoned Alaska when prices fell in
the 1980s but they have been rushing back to drill and
prospect areas that are among the least hospitable on
earth. That spirit of the Klondike is already in full
swing in Prudhoe Bay the epicentre of oil production
and one of the world's largest industrial complexes.
It's so big that BP, UPS and FedEx operate a special
fleet of jets from Anchorage just to service to the
region.
Hundreds of spills involving tens of thousands of
gallons of crude oil and other petroleum products occur
in the area each year. Decades-old spills are still a
problem and 17,000 acres of wildlife and marine habitat
have already been destroyed.
But Prudhoe is just a tiny fraction of the area being
targeted by Governor Palin and the oil companies. A
similar fate of environmental destruction awaits the
entire coastal plain as well as the special areas of
the western Arctic - home to migratory caribou herds,
musk oxen, wolverines, grizzly and polar bears should a
McCain-Palin administration be elected.
The oil boom has attracted oilmen from across America.
One of them is Todd Palin, husband to the vice-
presidential candidate who works for BP on Alaska's
North Slope.
It is illegal to hunt polar bears, and that is not
about to change. But in an area known as "Polar Bear
Seas", from Point Hope on Alaska's far western edge to
the pristine coastal plain of the Arctic National
Wildlife Reserve, one tenth of the world's polar bear
population is at risk, as well as beluga and bowheaded
whales and bearded and spotted seals.
Big game hunters are happy to pay lots of money to
shoot wolves and bears from the air. They also chase
them across the snow to the point of exhaustion and
then land the planes on skis, shooting them from point-
blank range. The animals are considered endangered
across the "lower 48" states of America, but not
Alaska. The hunters keep and sell the animals' pelts.
Last year, Mrs Palin proposed offering a bounty of $150
per wolf, as long as the hunter provided the wolf's
foreleg as proof of the kill. The measure did not pass.
She even spent $400,000 on a state-funded campaign to
block attempts to end the hunt.
Its not just wildlife conservationists who object. Many
ordinary Alaskans also condemn the practice as
barbaric.
Trish Rolfe, who runs the Sierra Club's Alaska office,
thinks Governor Palin has been a disaster for Alaska's
environment. "The idea that she stands up to the oil
companies is a joke," she says.
"The governor pays lip service to the issue of global
warming but denies it is man made. She will not even
spend money to help the Inupiaq villages which are
about to fall into the sea."
The most interesting perspective on Palin I have yet to read
This is the most useful and interesting perspective on Sara Palin that I've ever read or heard. A open letter from a resident of Wasilla, Alaska. It has been verified by several major news sources including the NY Times and Washington Post. Please PLEASE PLEASE take time to read it (the whole thing) and pass it on verbally or by email. We all can make a difference together! (Sorry if you read this already)
Peace.
_________________________________________________________
The email of the hour is a lengthy one on Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin's record as a small-town mayor and Governor of Alaska. It was signed by one Anne Kilkenny, who claims she is longtime resident of Wasilla, Alaska and was able to observe Sarah Palin's governing style firsthand.
Did she really write it? Yes, she did. Does she really live in Wasilla? Yes, she does. And, in case you hadn't already guessed, she's a Democrat.
A note to all by Anne Kilkenny
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
[ Note by web_admin: This was already posted on Washington Independent
comments area and was meant by the author to be read by many, but
readers need sourcing. The NY Times has talked with Anne since. ]
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
initiaitive 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 unconsitutional).
•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
Peace.
_________________________________________________________
The email of the hour is a lengthy one on Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin's record as a small-town mayor and Governor of Alaska. It was signed by one Anne Kilkenny, who claims she is longtime resident of Wasilla, Alaska and was able to observe Sarah Palin's governing style firsthand.
Did she really write it? Yes, she did. Does she really live in Wasilla? Yes, she does. And, in case you hadn't already guessed, she's a Democrat.
A note to all by Anne Kilkenny
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
[ Note by web_admin: This was already posted on Washington Independent
comments area and was meant by the author to be read by many, but
readers need sourcing. The NY Times has talked with Anne since. ]
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
initiaitive 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 unconsitutional).
•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
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