We were recently sent this via email and it makes for very interesting reading. Does America really need another maverick in the White House?
It took Sarah Palin 6 years and 5 schools to score one bachelor’s degree in journalism from a mediocre state school.
Sarah Palin brought divisiveness to Wasilla, running for mayor on a platform of social issues.
As mayor of Wasilla, population 6,000 (at the time) with a budget less than 12 million, Sarah Palin felt the need to create a position for someone to help her run the town. Note that this is smaller than the size of most colleges in the US, so basically her mayoral experience is the equivalent of running a tiny college.
As mayor, she asked the librarian how she felt about banning books and when the librarian said she was against it, Palin fired her–rehiring her after public outcry.
Wasilla is the meth capital of the nation.
She fired the police chief for supporting her opponent and supporting a curfew for bars; she installed a man who fought the state of Alaska for the right to bill rape victims for their rape exams; despite the public nature of the debate, Palin never stepped in and ordered the police chief to stop billing for rape kits.
The residents of Wasilla were so upset at her “leadership” that they tried to institute a recall of Palin.
Palin forced the town to buy her a $25,000 SUV and she spent $50,000 to redecorate the mayor’s office, for which she failed to seek the legally required preauthorization.
As mayor, she cut property taxes but raised the sales tax to 2% to fund a multimillion dollar sports center on Wasilla. The mayor had the facility built on land that was under litigation and left Wasilla with over $20 million in debt as they still try to get ownership of the land.
As mayor, she hired a lobbyist in Washington and visited DC herself to petition senators for over $235 million in earmarks–more than the city of Boise, Idaho received.
Palin won her campaign for governor only because the other two running were so unpopular.
Palin, as mayor and governor, supported the Alaska Independence Party and addressed their conventions, which wants to secede from the United States and links to sites that advocate white supremacy. Palin’s husband belonged to the AIP until 2002.
Palin attended a Pentecostal church well into 2005 and credited a visiting preacher whose claim to fame was outing a ‘witch’ in his native Africa with laying hands on her and effecting her rise to mayor.
Palin did not even have a passport until one year ago, indicating a Bush-like level of incuriosity.
Palin spoke at her church and claimed that she could do everything in Juneau to improve Alaska but if Alaskans “weren’t right with God, it wouldn’t matter.”
Palin’s church had a guest speaker from “Jews for Jesus,” multiple times who said Palestinian terrorism against Jews was their punishment from God for not believing in Jesus.
As governor, Palin billed the State for spending over 312 nights at her own house. She will not release her taxes but it is unlikely she claimed those expenses as required.
She charged Alaska’s government for travel expenses for her children to the tune of more than $50,000–illegal under current tax law.
She harassed her ex-brother-in-law to the extent that a judge said she was guilty of child abuse and threatened to have her jailed if she did not stop.
As governor, she illegally obtained her brother-in-law’s personnel files and intervened in an attempt to get his Worker’s Compensation camp denied.
As governor, she, her staff, and her husband, pressured the Commissioner to fire her brother-in-law; when he refused, she fired him. She later claimed it was for cause because he was going to DC to lobby for money to help rape victims, particularly children. Alaska has the highest rate of rape and child abuse in the nation, and her staff signed off on the authorization to send him.
As governor, she requested millions in earmarks–more per citizen than any other state.
She supported the Bridge to Nowhere and only came out against it when Congress had already canceled the project. She kept the $235 million in federal funds however and built a “road” to nowhere, that is now useful only for recreational sports.
She authorized a program to kill wolves from helicopters, paying a $150 bounty for each left foreleg despite research suggesting wolves did not pose any serious threat to moose/elk herds.
She sued the federal government to reverse their claim that polar bears are endangered because it could interfere with oil drilling. She lied in a NYT editorial and claimed her special research supported her claim they were not endangered; the scientists actually concluded the opposite.
She supports funding for a second bridge to nowhere that links Wasilla to Stevens’ town.
She cut funding for disabled veterans sports, for the Special Olympics, for streetlights in Anchorage and for road repair, and to repair crumbling schools, some of which have been rated dangerous.
She approved tens of thousands in funding for stadium lights and astroturf and new kitchens at the Wasilla sports complex.
She hired as her agricultural secretary a highschool classmate whose qualifications were listed as a love of cows in childhood.
She hired several other unqualified classmates for various government positions and fired others who were more qualified.
Her husband Todd runs a shadow governorship; he is included in high level confidential meetings and corresponds with government officials.
She claimed to run the National Guard but the head of Alaska’s national guard said the governor would only activate the Guard in emergencies and Sarah Palin had delegated that responsibility to him. The Pentagon controls all international operations of the Guard.
She lied and said she went to Ireland and Iraq then later admitted her stop in Ireland was to refuel at the airport and she never actually crossed into Iraq.
She said she had foreign policy experience because an uninhabited island off the cost of Siberia is visible from an uninhabited island off the cost of Alaska.
Not only did she not know what the Bush doctrine was (which one might argue is forgivable), she did not even understand that it related to his rationale for the war in Iraq.
She opposes abortion even for women who are raped or the victims of incest.
She supports a group that believes Alaska will be the last refuge at the end of the world.
She had no idea what the vice president of the United States did up until a month ago.
She claimed a few months ago that she had not even paid attention to the Iraq war or what was going on in relation to Iraq to that point.
She agreed to cooperate with a republican-led initiative to investigate her firing of the public safety commissioner then refused to cooperate.
She lied about initiating no contact to the public safety commissioner about firing her ex-brother-in-law.
She vocally promoted the idea of engaging in war with Iran and with Russia and falsely accused Russia of instigating the conflict with Georgia despite the FIVE former secretaries of State who say the conflict was actually initiated by Georgia.
She has not given a press conference or taken a single impromptu question from the press since her nomination.
She can barely string a coherent sentence together.
She claimed to have started a major pipeline project that actually only exists on paper and may not even be constructed for 10 years, if ever.
She erroneously claimed Alaska produces 20% of the nation’s energy (it does not even produce 20% of the nation’s gas/oil).
She increased the budget for the government of Alaska’s operations by almost 17% and expanded the size of the Alaskan government in only 20 months in office.
She used a Yahoo email account for State business with the deliberate attempt to keep information out of reach of subpoenas.
During her campaign, she wanted to have a stand in participate in the debate for her.
Since her election 20 months ago, she has spent a total of 86 days at the governor’s office. Republicans and democrats in the legislature call her “No-show Sarah.”
She did not fire the chef. She reassigned her and uses her primarily as a babysitter.
I received a lot of spirited comments from the last post, so I thought I’d keep poking the bear with the stick. There’s an assumption going through the topic of Sarah Palin’s (non)relationship to the Alaskan Independence Party that works
We were recently sent this via email and it makes for very interesting reading. Does America really need another maverick in the White House?
December 5th, 2008 at 10:18 am
I received a lot of spirited comments from the last post, so I thought I’d keep poking the bear with the stick. There’s an assumption going through the topic of Sarah Palin’s (non)relationship to the Alaskan Independence Party that works
May 17th, 2010 at 3:17 am
Good share, great article, very usefull for us…thanks!