Two aliens landed in downtown Juneau, Alaska near a gas station that was closed for the night. They approached one of the gas pumps which happened to still be sporting an old Sarah Palin for Governor sticker and the younger alien addressed it saying, ‘Greetings, Earthling. We come in peace. Take us to your leader.’
The gas pump, of course, didn’t respond.
The younger alien became angry at the lack of response.
The older alien said, ‘I’d calm down if I were you.’
The younger alien ignored the warning and repeated his greeting. Again, there was no response.
Annoyed by what he perceived to be the pump’s haughty attitude, he drew his ray gun and said impatiently, ‘Greetings, Earthling. We come in peace. Do not ignore us this way! Take us to your leader or I will fire!’
The older alien again warned his comrade saying, ‘You probably don’t want to do that. I really don’t think you should make her mad.’
‘Rubbish,’ replied the cocky, young alien. He aimed his weapon at the pump and opened fire. There was a huge explosion.
A massive fireball roared towards them and blew the younger alien off his feet, depositing him a burned, smoking mess about 200 yards away in a flowerbed.
Half an hour passed. When he finally regained consciousness, he
refocused his three eyes, straightened his bent antenna, and looked dazedly at the older, wiser alien who was standing over him shaking his big, green head.
‘What a ferocious creature!’ exclaimed the young, fried alien. ‘She damn near killed me! How did you know she was so dangerous?’
The older alien leaned over, placed a friendly feeler on his crispy friend and replied, ‘If there’s one thing I’ve learned during my intergalactic travels, you don’t want to mess with a woman who even has a penis, much less one who can loop it over her shoulder twice and then stick it in her ear.’
Anyone who knows me, knows I am subject to sudden explosions of random thoughts, all masquerading as good ideas, causing my entire world to make mutiple giant u-turns without signalling.
Sans warning, one or more truly scathingly brilliant ideas will pop into my head and I find myself so eager to see what they would look like outside of my head, I can actually short-circuit trying to give birth to all of them at once. My children have told me this is an actual visual event, from which they derive great amusement, and had they ever been able to predict their occurances, they could have, as teenagers, made good money selling tickets to their friends.
My children have quite vivid imaginations and are not to be trusted
I bring this up because this past week has been one long chain reaction of non-stop scathingly brilliant ideas popping into my head, so permeating the rest of my life there are no more clean dishes in the kitchen, the benchtops appear to have been decorated by a recent cyclone and my toes are cold from putting off going out and buying new slippers because last winter ate my old ones, and this winter descended in the middle of my creative streak running amok. One can always find warm toes. But to midwife a new idea being hatched, well… I have my priorities, after all:)
So… before I get sidetracked one more time, I’ve meant to address the comments made a post or two back about – well here. Let’s just pull up a couple and have a sticky beak:
Post title: C’mon Wasillans – Talk To Us
Date: 13 May 2009
Subject: Photos used by the Palin camp as proof Bristol could not have been pregnant in December 2007
Readers Comments:
There are two overflowing folders on my IE toolbar chockers with links saved from as far back as Septmber ’08. One is called comments, the other research. In them I have attempted to preserve links to newspaper articles, television and youtube video clips, assorted websites, chat threads and blogs all pertaining to or raising questions about the qualifications of Sarah Palin to assume the role of political world leader.
While most links to most of the places named above are either still active or politely redirect the reader to an archive, there are some that are just broken. Gone. Non-existant. Can you guess which ones? Stand clear, don’t let any sarcasm drip onto your good shoes…
In my haste to put together the post about these particular photos, two things prevented me from doing a more accurate job. First, I lost the connection to where each was originally posted. My notes show they had each, at separate times, been visible on the governor’s website photo album. The one on the outside deck had been dated December 2007 as what had attracted me to the photo initially was a thread discussion about how it could not have been taken in December or there would have been snow on the hills in the background.
The staircase photo had been amongst those displayed in the governor’s website photo album at least once, as, according to my notes, that’s where I first saw it. The outside deck photo reappeared on the governor’s website, this time dated September but that, too was short-lived. I do not recall if it was posted under the September date while the staircase photo was posted as December, but the trying to pass them off as having been taken four months apart is what initially piqued my interest enough to take notes so I could eventually refer to or write about them.
So two weeks ago when I saw both photos posted on Palin’s Deceptions, and read Audrey’s accounting, I siezed the opportunity to ‘finish my thoughts’ in my own post. By then, unfortunately, most of my research links had been disconnected and I was left with sketchy notes, and my second writing downfall, a tired memory coupled with the idea bug striking me in the wee hours of the morning – always a deadly time for me to share an opinion because there is almost always something askew.
ADN.com had pulled several articles from the previous spring, announcing only that they had been archived – maybe – and did not offer links to their archives (even though I am a subscriber to their paper). How odd that a reputable newspaper would actually say to it’s reader “the article you’re looking for might be achived…” What kind of publication doesn’t archive all of it’s writings? It becomes even more odd to note that even this message is now gone, replaced by a blank page. Blank. [See above link] Do they not have the money to properly archive their articles? Or are they just doing their governor’s bidding again…
Gov. Sarah’s website, I’ve discovered, changes with the whim wind. It doesn’t resemble any other governor’s website. I’m guessing it’s been revamped by at least a half-dozen staffers, each with the assigned goal of damage control rather than the desire to put together an informative government website for their citizens. And because of the many glaring mishaps, I’m guessing none of them ever worked on an actual government website before – ever.
One example of the unfortunate presentation of the gov.ak website is this…
While other first dude, first lady bio pages list their personal and business accomplishments with links to their pet philanthropic projects, like, say, feeding the homeless or promoting autism awareness, Alaska’s first dude’s page is shallow in content and unnecessarily links it’s page to a private corporation who clearly benefits financially from the governmental endorsement and free publicity. (If that’s not another Ethics Violation, it should be.)
Maria Shriver, first lady of California, on top of a huge list of accomplishments and active participation with women’s rights groups, etc. lists support of Special Olympics as a pet project.
Bob Eaves, first dude of North Carolina, lists having worked to create a memorial at UNC’s Chapel Hill, dedicated to alumni who died in war. He also lists his interests in sports, but there is no link to a sponsor’s page. It’s just a coment: Bob spends a lot of his time volunteering and following his North Carolina Tar Heels sports teams. He also enjoys reading, golf, hunting, fishing and skiing.And that’s how it should be.
But back to the photos. I have no problem with the fact that a Holiday photo-shoot for Gov. Sarah and her family was taken four months in advance. No problem at all.
I take full issue, however, with the fact these two photos have been portrayed – more than once – as proof positive Bristol could not have been pregnant in December of 2007, and at least once as having been taken on two separate occasions, four months apart, for the same purpose.
I greatly appreciate all your input – and aplogize for not having been clear in the original post. Sadly, my train of thought was derailed amidst all the broken links and it took your comments to see just how far I’d fallen off the track.
Fear not – it will happen again – and I’ll be counting on you to pull me back 🙂
On a different note altogether (See how quickly my mind bolts? Keep up!) this, is my next favourite comment:
I’m wondering, now, what it would take to get on the Governor’s Christmas Card list. Who is on this list? Anybody out there know? How much fun would it be to make getting on the Gov’s Christmas Card list a new goal?
Ok my feet are cold. I’m off to buy slippers and maybe set fire to the kitchen.
Hey, dont look at me. Listen to Sarah herself. It’s at 1:10 in her infamous right-to-life speech, given last April in Evansville Indiana.
So. To reiterate yesterday’s US headlines, in a state where the lead executives are not allowed to moonlight with a second job, Sarah Palin has been legally cleared by her hand-appointed legal hatchet team to enter into a contract with a publishing house, where an undisclosed amount of money will change hands in the form of a writer’s advance, this year, while she’s still the Governor of Alaska, to write a book about her life which will serve as a stepping-stone to the 2012 nomination for Presidency, a goal for which she heretofore has denied striving… and this circumvention of Alaska Law is OK because a) her legal team has declared a publisher’s advance is not ‘income’, and b) she’s promised (and of course we all know how reliable her word is) to only work on this project after hours, in her spare time.
Do all Alaska attorneys think the rest of us just fell off the cabbage truck or is it only Sarah’s attorneys? A writer’s advance is payment against future earnings. If Sarah gets one million dollars in the form of an advance, this means she will not be given any royalty payments until her book has earned her more than one million dollars.So no matter how you slice this pie, it’s I N C O M E.
The original purpose of a writer’s advance was to ensure the publisher, the one taking the financial risk, that the author would produce the promised copy in the time allotted. The advance was designed to give the struggling artist sustenance while creating his work, so he didn’t have to be distracted by working a normal job. In today’s market, the advance is more geared toward the publisher weighing how much money he stands to make against another publisher’s offer, but it still serves as a guarantee the author will produce the promised material by a specific date.
In Sarah’s case, its been announced her book deadline is set to coincide with Alaska legislature being in session. So when it comes down to the wire and there are only so many hours in a day, and she has to choose between finishing her book on time or attending legislative negotiations… can you guess which way she’ll tilt?
And… what spare time?
Sarah has two school-aged daughters, a son in Iraq, a teenage daughter living at home with her infant child and no income, a husband who promotes a major Alaskan sport requiring her to attend a certain number of events per season, a full-time job as Governor of the state of Alaska and an active, growing toddler with Downs Syndrome. Show me the way to her spare time. Please. The rest of us would like to go there too!
But let’s give Sarah-Superwoman the benefit of the doubt for a moment. Let’s say she has this mountain of old journals she’s diligently maintained thoroughout her life (even though no one has ever heard of these journals-which-gave-her-such-joy-to-write before) which provides so much background material, writing this book will be easy-peasy…
And let’s say that working on this book ends up not interfering with her dutiies as Governor (I can see the slash marks apearing on her calendar now of cancelled appointments) and let’s say her legal-schmegal team of experts actually have the expertise between them to redefine the term ‘income’ and re-write Alaska law long enough for her to get a book written and handed off to the publisher…
… I’m mentally stuck on the part where she says Alaska (because of it’s contribution to the oil industry) has no income tax for the state, no state sales tax, no state property tax. My mind has already fast-forwarded to that point in time where Sarah figures out how to get out of paying any federal income taxes on this book deal, either.
President Obama just promised the nation he’d close rank on upper echelon tax loopholes. But Sarah Palin has more experience at making egregious loopholes than Obama has at closing them:
As Mayor of Wasilla she authorized the start of construction on the building of a hockey rink-slash-community center, knowingly preempting the property title search, resulting in the city of Wasilla not only incurring $20 million of debt, but continuing, years later, to be embroiled in a costly legal battle over ownership of the land upon which the center is built. Which is sort of what a title search is supposed to prevent from happening . <insert eyeroll>
She immediatley selected a second piece of property aproximately one mile from the community center’s building site, eliminated all building code requirements in her town and had her husband put an unnamed construction crew together to build their now multi-million dollar house. After the house was built, the building codes were reinstated. There are local, ongoing investigations as to how much of her house is built from the same construction materials, (and by the same workers) as the community center – all paid for, of course, by the citizens of Wasilla.
As first-year Governor of Alaska she collected per diem money from fellow Alaskans for living in said house, falsely submitting day to day living expenses as routine travel expenses, and so far has not been made to pay any of it back.
Sorry Mr. President, but your federal taxation system doesn’t stand a chance against the new Governor-approved Alaska State Motto: Whatever Sarah Wants, Sarah Gets.
This isn’t the 1920’s. How does this happen?
First she positions herself in a role where she has immediate access to altering the law. Then she stacks the courts and upper legal state positions with hand-picked appointees who will exonerate her should anyone object to her alterations. Now shes free to do as she pleases. And she does.
If Sarah Palin were a man she’d be in jail right now.
C’mon Wasillans – speak up – before you have to start paying Sarah an import tax on heating oil only available from Senor Chavez because – one more time – your governor’s sole focus was on her own ambitions rather than your needs.
Slap my hand – I’ve pinched two photos from the Palin Deception blog. It’s ok though, I’m not actually stealing them, just borrowing them for an umm scientific experiment – yeah, that’s it – it’s for science! And I promise to give them back when I’m done. Honest!
The whole article is here and I highly recommend you have a sticky beak. Now, on to the reason for my thievery.
The question of the dates (and therefore the physical condition of Bristol Palin) of these photos has been very much the topic of discussion, and on more than one website. However, I would like to point the viewer in a slightly different direction. The clothing.
In both photos, one purported to have been taken in Juneau, circa September 2007 and the other in December 2007, the clothing and hairstyles are identical. The only difference in any one of the 6 outfits is Sarah’s red jacket.
The girls are in identical dresses. They have identical hairstyles, down to Piper’s headband. The men are in identical suits, shirts and even Todd is sporting the same shiney red tie in both photos. The men’s haircuts don’t show a three month growth.
And really, ladies, what are the odds you can get 6 family members dressed in the same outfits, with the same hair-cuts and styles, three months apart? What are the odds Sarah could get her frosted bangs to brush the exact same way three months apart?
Sarah must be a far more organized mother than I ever was. To think I could have gotten any of my daughters to find a particular pink headband they’d worn three months earlier so they could wear it in another photo op, three monthslater, would have been a miracle. I was lucky when ribbons or barrets lasted a whole week!
My guess is they photo’d ahead, (if there is such a word) so to have a Governor’s family photo during the Holiday months, which could include Bristol, visibly still not obvious with child. Of course, this would mean the timing of Trig’s entire gestation period was a lie. and not just about the identity of his true mother, but the whole date of his birth.
Where’s the photographer? Surely he or she isn’t above being cajoled into tellng the truth?
There is a new poll on TOPIX asking it’s readers to not only vote for whom they believe to be Trig Palin’s actual biological mother, but also asks the reasoning behind the vote.
I voted for Sarah Bristol. But my reasoning didn’t fit into the comment box *grins* so I thought I’d post it here;
Please understand my knowledge of Alaska and it’s Governor was nihl to nothing prior to Sarah stepping on the natonal stage last year as the VP candidate on John McCain’s Presidential ticket. Originally, I was behind McCain for the simple reason I had been a Hilary supporter and was gutted when she lost to the Still-Wet-Behind-The-Ears Senator Obama. But Sarah’s campaign of hate and disrespect for her fellow citizens changed everything. I began to campaign for Obama from my perch in Australia, having been won over by his relentless calm and unbounding logic regarding world affairs and economics – and fearful of the consequences a woman like Sarah Palin would proffer holding an executive office.
From the beginning, my gut has steered me away from taking anything Sarah Palin had to say at face value. So far, it’s looking like a pretty accurate instinct. So this is the reasoning behind my vote of ‘Bristol Palin is Trig’s natural mother”
My gut says this is how it all happened:
Bristol and Levi, having only been educated in abstinence and not actual birth control or STD prevention, succumb to teenage hormones and Bristol falls pregnant.
But during the first trimester, before Bristol starts showing or a plan can be made, one of her routine ultrasounds shows an abnormality. An amniocentesis is ordered. The baby has Downs Syndrome.
“How can this be? Bristol is too young to have a Downs baby! Only older women have that!”
“Well, no, actually, there are a percentage of young women who give birth to Downs babies every year. Statistically, it’s around .6%. That’s six out of every thousand pregnancies. There are actual support groups for young mothers Bristol’s age with Downs babies. I can give you a few numbers…”
But Sarah’s not thinking about support groups. The light in her brain has switched to the [on] position and a plan is hatched. Mom Sarah, realizing how other people would also associate a Downs baby with a late-in-life pregnancy, figures if she steps up and claims the baby is hers, no one would question it. She could avoid a scandal (teenage unwed mother and all that) and this pregnancy would not interfere with her political agenda. She’d only been Governor for a couple of months. This was not the time to test the public waters.
As soon as Bristol’s bump could no longer be hidden under a bulky sweatshirt, she’s pulled out of school and whisked away under the guise of having a case of mononucleosis so severe she requires complete bedrest, sans visitors. Sarah will wait until the very last minute to divulge her secret pregnancy.
After all, it’s also possible that the pregnancy would terminate itself. The doctor said there was a small but not uncommon chance that nature could intervene causing Bristol to miscarry. So she wouldn’t rush to tell people right away. She’d wait until at least the end of the second trimester.
In early March, Sarah begins wearing loose-fitting clothing. It was, after all, just faking a pregnancy. Not rocket science.
But Sarah’s impatient nature doesn’t have her slowing down. She maintains a busy schedule and keeps her eye on the political prize which lies ahead. She makes and keeps all speaking engagements. She adjusts the size of her belly, first with a simple band, then with the same fake bellies used by actresses to show the progressive phases of natural pregnancies. Which was heaps better because the band kept slipping, and she kept needing to explain why she wore her big coats indoors.
She would attribute the lack of swollen ankles and no increase in body fat to a healthy diet and good exercise. She could be pregnant and still do whatever she wanted to do. She would be the epitome of the modern woman.
Bristol going into labour while Sarah was out of state giving a speech tossed a monkey wrench into the mix, but it was still doable. The doctor had also explained that Bristol, being a first time mom would probably have a long labour. Sarah would have plenty of time to give her speech, get on the first plane out of Texas and with Todd at her side, get back to Wasilla before anyone was the wiser. She would make it home in time to say she’d comfortably delivered her baby, in her own state, by her own doctor.
As it was, Bristol didn’t deliver for several hours after she and Todd checked into the hospital. It was all good. They’d get through this politically unscathed.
The rumours of her being on the short list for the VP nomination turned out to be true. Senator McCain sent his scouts to meet with her. She assured them she was up to the task. Everything was going well.
The thing about not properly educating your children about sex, pregnancies and venereal diseases, is they are left to fumble around on their own. The old joke about the Catholic woman thinking ‘the rhythm method’ meant only having sex every Thursday night, isn’t so funny when you realize how many young women are left in the dark about how pregnancies actually happen.
I know, personally, a young woman who, at the age of 15, succumbed to having sex with her 2-year long boyfriend. She contracted herpes on their first intimate encounter. She was horrified. She looked me straight in the eye and said “but I don’t understand! I took a bath right after!”
A very common misnomer is that a woman cannot conceive directly after delivery. That while you are nursing, or bleeding from the delivery, you are safe to have unprotected sex. How appealing that must sound to many young people. Unprotected sex without consequences. No cumbersome rubber! Cool..
Enter baby Trip. And this time, Sarah can’t cover for her child. “Oh well, since we can’t hide her, we’ll just trot her out on the national stage as the pinup girl for abstinence-is-best and make some money off her speaking engagements. Bristol! You now believe in abstinence! Put down that basket of laundry and start writing your speeches!”
Well, that’s my story, and until someone from Wasilla who actually knows the truth, takes some responsibility and drags it out of the shadows and into the light of day, I’m sticking by it.
Hattip to The Immoral Minority (link is just over there >>) for the poll at Topix.
EDIT: Fixed stats number above. Correct stat is .6% (6/1000) rather than 6% as first posted. Thank you, ENOUGHwiththetrainwreck, for catching this error. (I should never try to work with numbers after midnight!)
Thank you so very much all of you who worked to find the missing links in the previous post on this subject. It seems C-SPAN remembered it was a News Network rather than a personal friend of Governor Palin and re-posted the Indiana speech(s) in its (their) entirety.
I’m not clear this is the exact clip I was after, given at the S.M.I.L.E. Breakfast in Evansville on Friday morning, the day after the right-to-life dinner on the evening prior – but part 8 has, if not the same, an identical explanation of Sarah’s personal choice to forego an abortion, including her statements about where Todd was, why he wasn’t in on the decision-making process, etc.
So even if it’s not the S.M.I.L.E. breakfast speech per se, it’s perfect. I’ve included part 7 so you folks in Alaska can chew the fat over her comments about how the press treated her prior to falling pregnant with Trig. It’s puzzling, at best, but fits right in with how she attempts to continually re-write history to suit her latest whim.
Putting the kick-in-the-teeth Sarah just gave the Pro-life movement aside, this by itself should make your head spin… Sarah claims to have found out she was pregnant while out of town. She elaborates, saying, only she and her doctor knew she was pregnant so ‘no one would know’ implying she could have had an abortion and no one would find out.
Two things, above all others, are radically wrong with this portion of Sarah’s speech. First and foremost is the simple fact that if she were genuinely a Pro-Life Advocate, worrying about who would find out what would be irrelevant because there would be no thought of abortion, period. That would be murder.
Second, and perhaps the more troubling to me, is why on earth would she have had a pregnancy test taken by an out of town doctor in the first place? Does she not know about home pregnancy tests? Do they not have those in Alaska? Why would an out-of-town doctor know about her pregnancy unless she sought medical advice of some kind? What prompted her to visit a doctor while out of town?
She didn’t bother to see an out-of-town doctor when her water broke while carrying a pre-mature baby known to have Downs syndrome – in fact, she made a huge fuss over not wanting to see any doctor but her own. (Hence, the long trek back to Alaska rather than checking into the nearest hospital in Texas.) So – why go to an out-of-town doctor for a pregnancy test one can purchase from any chemist and take in the privacy of one’s own home, only to turn around a year later and claim the reason you had to travel thousands of miles with a leaking placenta was because you needed to get to your own doctor?
Yes, my head is cocked sideways and I’m squinting again… Pick a story Sarah, any story…
The New Republic quotes Sarah’s speech here, and does quite a clean job of defending her right to make these statements and still consider herself a Pro-Lifer. However, their readers didn’t buy it and the comments which ensue end up being the better read. I especially liked this one, which I am happily pinching without seeking permission. Just call me guilty and hit me over the head with a gavel 🙂
blackton says:
What aggravates me about Palin is her acting as though her having a down’s syndrome child is a mark of heroism on her part. My wife and I recently had a baby, I am Palin’s age and even having one older parent increases the risk, but we had no amnio done. It was just something we did not even consider since we were having the baby and amnio presents some risk. We would only have done it at the express wish of the doctor.
How is it that she knew she was having a down’s baby unless she had an amnio? Maybe it is SOP for women her age but she could simply have asked if there was any risk to her life. If she were truly pro life she would not have known, as my wife and I did not know. We did not even want to know the sex except when having the ultrasound his little unit displayed itself prominently. We had 2 sons, and wanted a daughter, but que sera sera.
I am not pro-life, except personally. I told my wife before we got married that if she became pregnant she would have the baby unless her health were at risk, or we would not get married. It was not as draconian as it sounds since she felt the same way. Our adhering to our own principles doesn’t make us heroic, it is far easier to live by ones own code than to go against it.
But Palin, hell she wants to live by her code, get applauded for doing so, and have the option to violate her own code secretly if it ever becomes inconvenient while acting as though she were against the option. She is a disgrace. It is a mark of how loathsome Republicans have become that if she did not have a downs syndrome baby, but just a normal Iq baby, she probably never would have gotten picked as VP.
So there you have it Sarah – when you decided to tout yourself as Pro-Life to get a few votes, you really should have done your homework first and figured out what being a Pro-Lifer actually entailed. Oh wait. You don’t do homework, do you…
Hattip to Dr. Patois for the C-SPAN links – and all the inbetween digging around in the mud.
The following is a quote from The Immoral Minority (post 09 May 2009) regarding dismissal of the Sondra Tompkins ethics complaint filed against Gov. Sarah Palin by Alaska Attorney Thomas Daniel. By now, we all know the background story of the dozen or so ethics violations complaints lodged against the governor, but if it has somehow missed your desktop, the links in Gryphen’s post will bring you up to date.
However, I’m not here to discuss the ethics complaints. For me, there’s a far more insipient train of flawed logic which warrants attention. I first heard it in one of the Governors 2008 campaign speeches. It was veiled inside carefully chosen words, but it was there. Then I heard it distinct and clear in the middle of her Pro-Life speech given last month in Indiana. And now, here it is again, in black and white for all to read:
Regarding the trip to Evansville, Indiana, near the end of the legislative session, Daniel concluded that Tompkins was wrong again about the governor using her official position for personal gain. “The governor was not invited to speak at the right-to-life dinner in Indiana because she is governor of Alaska. Rather she was invited because of her national standing, her outspoken opposition to abortion, and her recent personal decision to forego an abortion.”
Pro-Life philosophy is founded on the basic principle that neither doctor nor mother have a right to decide to end fetal life. Pro-Life philosophy maintains that life begins at conception and aborting a fetus at any stage, for any reason is tantamount to murder. Pro-life advocates blow up abortion clinics resulting in hundreds of deaths to show how strongly they believe in this preservation of life. They tell camera and reporter alike that they represent and speak for the unborn child who cannot speak for itself.
Pro-Life advocates don’t believe in choice. By sheer definition, an advocate of Pro-Life does not choose to keep her pregnancy because at the heart of her belief she is morally obligated from the point of conception to keep it. No doubts. No questions. No wavering. No choice.
So when the national poster girl for Pro-Life uses the excuse of needing to leave important legislative negotiations to travel across country to give a speech because she needed to speak out about her having made a “recent personal decision to forego an abortion” to counteract an ethics violations complaint, it seems to me that very statement should be raising eyebrows at Pro-Life headquarters across the globe.
Let me say this one more time: Pro-Life advocates do not make personal decisions to forego abortions. They assist other, non-pro-life believers in making that decision. For the advocate themselves, there is no choice to be made.
And before one of Sarah’s staffers can swoop down and alter Thomas Daniel’s above quote, why not hear it from Sarah herself?
This video clip is a middle section of her speech in Indiana, where she detailshow she made her decision to keep baby Trigto a roomful of adoring fans – none of whom actually listened or they would have been as appalled as I am.
Sarah describes the circumstances surrounding how she made her choice (including the fact she was out of town, no one knew her therefore no one would know, not even Todd) at 4:40
Pro- Choice isn’t about abortion. Pro-Choice advocates choose to maintain their pregnancies every day. Pro-Choice is about having the right to make that choice to begin with, based upon an individual’s life circumstances and personal beliefs. For Sarah Palin to say she’s undergone and understands the thought process of choosing to either abort or maintain her 13 week old fetus with DSis an admission she made a choice – which completely opposes the Pro-Life philosophy – more or less shooting it in the foot.
As a true Pro-Life advocate, Sarah would not have entertained the idea of fetal termination when she first discovered her late-in-life pregnancy, as claimed. Not for one second would the thought of killing her 13 week old unborn child later on,waft over her soul. And I’ve been absolutely God-smacked that no one in the Pro-Life movement has picked up on this and called her to task.
Either you truly believe in something Sarah, or you’re just an aging vaudville act complete with smoke and mirrors and a bottle of snake oil to sell.
* * * * * * * * * * UPDATE * * * * * * * * * *
HOW CONVENIENT THAT ALL SEVEN OF THE SEVEN PART VIDEO OF SARAH’S SPEECH IN EVANSVILLE INDIANA HAVE SUDDENLY AND MYSTERIOUSLY DISAPPEARED FROM YOUTUBE.
MUST BE ALL THAT OPEN AND TRANSPARENT ALASKA AIR THE GOVERNOR KEEPS TELLING US ABOUT
If anyone has video footage of Sarah Palin’s speech commonly called the “Smile Breakfast” in Evansville Indiana, please contact me via this blog.
Many thanks to Dr. Patois for providing this link. All seven parts of the smile breakfastspeech can be viewed here. While all the clips are interesting, it is the sixth clip in the series which reveals Sarah Palin’s thought process for choosing to maintain her pregnancy – clearly illustrating to a roomful of Pro-Life followers, that she actively made a choice.
And poof it was gone! I did get to listen one more time, but by the time I posted the link the clip had been removed. The right-to-life speech given the night before was covered by C-SPAN. It’s likely they also covered the following morning’s breakfast speech in Evansville.
It occurs to me that if enough people requested it, if C-SPAN does control the footage, they might be coaxed into putting it back on public display.
Really Sarah, having copies of this speech removed from view only piques everyone’s curiosity, causing all of us to ask… what are you trying to hide missy?
The full story is told here by Jake Tapper at ABC News
In a nutshell, The Obama Administration has listened to the mounting evidence which shows the ineffectiveness of abstinence-only programs amongst teenagers. It’s proven enough for the people in charge of budgeting the cash to say ok, let’s put this money into something that actually works and fund those programs which teach our children protection, safety and pregnancy prevention instead of just preaching the no word.
(Sorry Sarah, looks like you’re wrong again.)
Just Say No was a wonderful sentiment and we thank Nancy Reagan for making the effort back in the day. The trouble is, it’s one of those good ideas that never actually worked. Not with recreational drugs in the last century, and not with teenage sex, in this one.
I remember that whirlwind campaign. It swept from state to state with countless teens chanting the slogan while wearing t-shirts with the neon pink lettering Just Say no. I also remember vividly the photo essays which followed showing some of those same teenagers, still dressed in the shirts, albeit now ragged and filthy, smoking dope and shooting heroin in schoolyards and condemned buildings. It makes me wonder how many teens out there are having sex and mocking us by hollerng abstinence oh baby abstinence yes yes yes!
Abstinence-only is a great idea. On paper. But in practical terms, it’s crap. In a world where your five year-old can watch television commercials depicting voluptuous young women, bare mid-riffed with sparkling belly rings, sell you a new car, the curiosity phase of growing up is really quite done by the time teenage years come along.
So to think today’s youth can be conned into virginity-retention with a catch-phrase or chastity pledge is more than naive. It’s wishful thinking. By lazy adults.
With each new generation, our children become more aware of their sexuality, and earlier. Our appetite for technology has over-exposed them to life-experiences our grandparents would never have imagined, and it just keeps on rolling.
The ultimate teenage pregnancy prevention program is going to lie in our ability as parents to grow up with our kids and at the very least recognize how different their environment is today, from ours at their age. We need to create open, honest dialogues with them as individuals and genuinely address each of the dilemas presented to them in today’s clime. We need to stop telling them they’re children while expecting them to behave as adults.
Abstinence is a very adult concept. It’s execution requires a stack of willpower, an inner drive to achieve a goal one passionately believes in, and an intensely supportive environment. To think any person between the ages of 12 and 17 has any of these skills, mindsets or supports is beyond ridiculous.
The following is a work of fiction.
Mostly fiction.
It’s sole purpose is give the reader a chance to try on another guy’s shoes.
Maybe see how a different opinion fits.
Or not.
You promised yourself no matter what was ever said or written about you, you would not be distracted. You would stay focused. The most important thing, in light of the many, gruelling tasks which lay on your desk demanding attention, was to stay focused. You’d asked your top advsors to meet with each other this morning for the purpose of prioritizing the next steps in your current list of Cleaning Up America chores, but the public outcry against your recent decision to not persue war crimes charges against the previous administration was, in fact, distracting. In the end, you crashed the meeting and asked them to instead revisit the feasibility of a war crimes tribunal with it’s resulting impact on the general public, presuming such a tribunal was genuinely the will of the people.
You would entertain any ideas worth discussion, though you were doubtful a feasible plan existed to hold GW accountable for the war in Iraq. The people who had helped you reach this conclusion were the cream of the intellectual crop, and were all now looking at you, standing there in your sweats and sneakers, with a collective deer-caught-in-the-headlights expression. You shook you head, took a seat and said “I know, I know, I thought this was a done deal too. But after the report card we got yesterday for making this decision, I just need to be sure it’s the right one.”
There was head-scratching and wriggling in chairs and a lot of coffee pouring, but nobody wanted to be the first ,so you opened the dialogue. “I’m looking at the volume of papers sprawled on this table and all I can think is, “There’s just not enough money. In order to finance something this big, we’d have to start shutting down programs we just got off the ground. Or borrow from China. Or both.”
First Person: “What if we were to single out a particular instance, like the blatant ignoring of the Sabri Report, and charge Bush with something like deployment of troops despite evidence purporting the deployment was unnecessary?”
Second Person: “I can tell you any action taken against the Bush Administration would sit well with several foreign delegations – and show the world we don’t think of ourselves as infallible. That we make mistakes, but we’re also big enough to take responsibility for them.”
Third Person: “Sure, and once we convict Bush of war crmes, then Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and the whole friggin’ Middle East see dollar signs and come at us with wrongful death, loss of property suits and we spend the next two generations getting clobbered in international courts, losing one case after the other.”
You listen carefully but clearly this has all been said before. You want the country to move forward. If we’re to have any chance at digging our way out of the financial, emotional and diplomatic mudflat in which the last eight years have left us wallowing, we need desperately to move forward. As long as GW is allowed to take center stage on any issue, anywhere, we can’t get momentum to move past him. And personally, you’re tired of living knee-deep in Republican mud.
The comments continue from around the table when finally the Attorney General hollers above the din, “Sarah Palin“, and everyone turned.
“The Alaskan governor?”
“Heh, the infamous clothes horse?”
“Isn’t she up on ethics charges?”
“Didn’t they impeach her after the campaign?”
“No, shes just given a speech at some pro-life dinner, I heard.”
“Why are you bringing her up?
The Attorney General crossed his arms and looked at his lap. “We can’t prosecute Bush for war crimes because of the exact same reasons the Alaska State Legislature could not hold Sarah Palin accountable for committing State Ethics Violations. And it’s not for lack of evidence. They’ve got all the evidence they need. Just like we have with Bush.
“But the government bodies required to do the investigating and prosecuting are all indebted to the governor. State witnesses who were in a position to corroborate the charges against the Palins were told by the Palins to ignore court subpoenas and not show up for court – and months later, not one of them has been made to either appear in court or spend one second in jail under contempt of court charges. Not one! They’re still getting away with it, for Christ’s sake.
“Thousands of emails containing state business were either destroyed outright or hidden from scrutiny by exorbitant fees and orchestrated delays until investigators finally just gave up trying to get at them. Sarah Palin is only the governor to a population of less than one million. Imagine how costly and fruitless gathering evidence against the Bush family would prove…
“Charging Bush with war crimes is a Pandora’s box waiting to bite the hand that opens it. There’s no telling how many more criminal acts would be uncovered by digging into the truth behind our declaring war on Iraq. How many other people would end up in jail cells because their acts would have been properly documented, and easier to trace than the President’s. So then we’re back to the days of Watergate and watching government employees who were just following orders, be the only ones put behind bars – while the man who concocted the orders in the first place, goes free.
“What was it Nixon said? If the President does it, its not illegal. That seems to work for the Alaska Governor as well. Might even be the mantra of what’s left of the Republican Party. Charge Bush with war crimes and you give them a new bone to chew on and use to further divide a country that badly needs to learn how to work together.”
The room is quiet. You lean forward in your chair.
The AG continues. “Look, all I’m saying is, if the state of Alaska can’t figure out how to hold their own governor accountable for ethics violations so flagrantly performed in the open that even high school kids in Kentucky know she committed them, then there’s not a chance in Hell this brand-new administration could pull off a major war crimes tribunal against GW and come out smelling like anything but pig-shit. And – it could easily prove to be more costly than the war itself.
You shift in your seat, elbows on knees, hands clasped, staring at your size 12 running shoes. This morning was supposed to be spent in the gym. Instead, you’ve got to look straight into the camera – again – and tell the public exactly what they don’t want to hear. Again. As much as it pains you in heart, mind, body and soul, the country cannot afford to bring charges against Bush, any of his administrators or employees, private or military, to help balance the monumental injustice they incurred on the world.
You can’t help thinking, if the Bush Administration, back on September 12, 2001, had just concerned itself with the task of healing, rebuilding and shoring up our own borders instead of rallying the call for justice – which we never attained anyway – that this morning, a lot more foreign countries would be our allies, a lot more Americans would still be alive, a lot fewer would be homeless, and you might have made it to the gym.
The following is a work of fiction.
Mostly fiction.
It’s sole purpose is give the reader a chance to try on another guy’s shoes.
Maybe see how a different opinion fits.
Or not.
18 September 2002
The Sabri Report flopped effortlessly from your hand to the coffee table. The officer who brought the report sat facing you, awaiting orders from his Commander In Chief. The fireplace to your left, alive with burning pine logs, was testiment to the approach of an early winter. You leaned back in the upholstered lounge chair and nervously stroked your chin. You stared straight into the fireplace for a moment before finally speaking.
“Who else has seen this?”
“Two others.”
“Which two?”
“The two men who gathered and translated the intell.”
“Nobody else?”
“French Intelligence.”
“Pfft. But our people, only those two guys?”
“Yes sir.”
“You trust them?”
“Yes sir.”
You stood and paced the short distance between your chair and the fireplace. If this intell was true you’d need to recall the troops already deployed, stop the deployment of any more and figure out a way to launch the biggest political apololgy since Nixon gave his it’s not my fault and I didn’t do it but I’ll resign so you can’t impeach me speech to the nation. This would make Clinton’s I didnt know a blow job was sex, honest! speech look almost believeable.
“What if this report is wrong. What if this Sabri guy’s just saying this to blow smoke up my ass so I’ll turn around and run home.”
“That’s highly unlikely sir.”
“Why is that unlikely? This has as much chance to be false as it has to be true.”
“Not really sir.”
“But why?”
“Because, sir, the French have been monitoring the Iraqi government for a very long time. They have impeccable sources. Their intell places the probability of this being accurate at more than 90%.”
“But it could be wrong.”
“Sir, due respect, but we’re the only ones saying they have these weapons and capabilities and desire to use them against the US.”
Dead silence.
“Bury this.”
“Sir?”
“Bury this and anyone who’s seen it. The French are idiots. My intell is just as good as theirs and says the weapons of mass destruction are in fact in Iraqi hands. Maybe Hussein got away with this crap with my father but he’s not getting away with it with me.”
You pick up the Sabri report and hand it to the officer.”You take this back. You destroy the intell. Then reword this to back my plan and then share it with whatshisface, that English fella…”
“Prime Miniser Blair, sir”
“Yeah, him – and that Australian guy who was here on 9/11…”
“Prime Minister Howard”
“Yeah, Howard. You share the revised report with them like we’re letting them in on top-secret stuff and they’ll be so grateful we confided in them, we won’t be the only ones sayng Saddam has the weapons.”
There’s an uncomfortable pause. In a subdued voice the officer asks, “Is that an order sir?”
You deliberately lock your eyes onto his to let him know who’s boss. You’ve become rather accustomed to this alpha-male role you were handed two years ago and nobody was taking it from you now. Not now.
“Yes, that’s an order.That’s a direct order from your Commander In Chief.”
“Yes sir.”
The man stood up. Your eyes are still locked onto his. “I’m serious. Bury the report. Look at it this way – Hussein is a terrible man. The whole Middle East will be better off without him. And don’t worry, our troops will uncover enough horrors to show we had reason to go there. You’ll see.”
“Sir -”
“Yeah?”
“Sir, the French have similar intell and have based their reputation…”
“Fuck the French. I know what’s best for America. Not the French.”
The officer, pressing The Sabri Report tightly to his chest, walks across the room and pulls the door open. You call to him as he leaves, “Trust me. They’ll get over it.”
23 April 2006 Iraq Foreign Minister Naji Sabri’s original intelligence report along with corroborating French and American intell are made public on the American television show CBS 60 Minutes. The CIA officers privy to the actual account stood up and told the truth they’d been under orders not to divulge.
It remains a mystery to me, why, in light of confirmation of this report to have been delared true and my encounter with CIA Director, George Tenet on that September morning, four years ago, to be declared accurate, why I have not been impeached. Seriously. Either my father has stronger Washington ties than even I realized, or the Republican Party has come full circle to my rescue to save itself from total humiliation, or I don’t know what else..
But I do know that from here on out, if I just keep playing at being the class clown, do what dad says and stay away from making any big decisions on my own, I’ll get through the last 18 months of my Presidency with my balls intact. It’s been a helluva ride.
The following is a work of fiction.
Pure fiction.
It’s sole purpose is give the reader a chance to try on another guy’s shoes.
Maybe see how a different opinion fits.
Or not.
You look out the office window and smile. The smartest decision you and your husband ever made was for you to run for Mayor. Winning that election was a piece of cake. It took little effort and only a few promises to derail your opponent. But it hadn’t gone unnoticed that barely one-fifth of the population had even bothered to vote at all, and that you barely got the majority of those votes. “I’ll do better next time”you remember thinking and now, looking out onto this beautiful snow-covered city, through the window of the Governor’s office – your office – you grinned, thinking “heh, I did just that!”
And if running for Mayor had been the smartest thing you’d done so far, running into The Senator at that State Fair, a while back, was the luckiest. He was a funny old bird and had taken a shine to you right away. He was politically savvy and (for whatever reason) eager to share his road to Washington D.C. with you. Forty years of successful wheeling and dealing inside the US Boys Club. Wow. He’d been a fountain of information and good advice.
The way he could manipulate the media and the public was inspiring, but you were here now. You had arrived. You didn’t want him upstaging you much longer. He was the darling politician of your state, but he was also in some legal hot water over undeclared gratuities. Add that to his age and well, he was more than likely on his way out.
So you’d picked his brain and done the photo ops and followed his wealth of adages (things like play ball with the boys, doll, and ol’ Uncle Sam will always take care of you). But you knew what you wanted now, and how to get it, and you no longer needed this seedy old man hitching his worn-out coattails to your brand-new wagon.
By the middle of your first term in office you’d already decided if the Senator was going to fall, you’d just step aside and let it happen.
Turns out the most important thing about politics, you learned on your own, anyway. In the first grade no less, when that nasty third-grader tried to steal your lunch and you had to sucker punch him to get it back – and then smile at the teacher and say “he musta fell but I’m watchin’ him closer now.”
You just do whatever you need to do, take full credit for things that turn out well and deny everything else. Oh, and smile. Always smile.
That’s pretty much what you’ve done with The Senator already – just kept smiling while he told you how to shortcut this or circumvent that – find Jesus– the public loves it when you tell ’em you found Jesus. The Senator was sure right about that one. Folks who carry bibles will follow you anywhere if you tell them you have one too. The ones who don’t will get behind your right to say you do, so latching onto religion is always a win-win, politically speaking.
As Mayor, you carefully surrounded yourself with people you could trust. Old friends for whom you could grease the wheel and keep in your debt enough to be sure they would never betray you, because when The Senator first told you no matter how hungry people get, nobody kills the cash cow! it made you laugh. But eventually you caught on and embraced the idea.
And now, as Governor, you could do even more. You could travel all across the country and as long as you gave one little speech somewhere, the taxpayers would be happy to pick up the tab for the whole trip. You could have anything your heart desired, now, and your faithful staffers would find a way to write it all off as state business. The Senator, God Bless him, taught you well.
As you stood there now, looking out onto the snowy landscape, you realized you’d been right from the start. This whole business of winning elections and holding office really wasn’t much different from the inner workings of a small-town beauty pageant. You smile into the camera, occasionally (and quite accidentally) spill fruit punch on a fellow contestants costume and most important – tell the judges the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Even if that means making it all up as you go along.
After all, it’s in everyone’s best interest that you keep winning.
The following is a work of fiction.
Pure fiction.
It’s sole purpose is give the reader a chance to try on another guy’s shoes.
Maybe see how a different opinion fits.
Or not.
August 8, 1974
You’ve taken off your comfortable size 11 penny loafers and slipped into the black dress shoes which had been laid out for you earlier. You lift the suit jacket from the brass valet and sling it over your arm, glancing out the side window one last time. The roses here are always so beautiful. You’re going to miss them.
It’s a particularly hot August this year, but strangely, you can’t feel the temperature. It’s as if your skin knows how inconsequential the weather is today. “They want to impeach me” you say under your breath but loud enough for the gentleman in the dark blue suit to hear.
“Yes sir”.
“In a sense, they’re blaming me for doing my job.”
“Yes sir.”
“They can’t possibly understand how important it was to know what the Democrats were up to back then – to stay one step ahead so my re-election wasn’t derailed. I didn’t just want to be re-elected you know. It wasn’t an ego thing like some are saying. I needed to be re-elected. The people needed me to stay their president. So much left to do. They still need me.”
“Yes sir.”
“They just don’t seem to know it. After all I’ve done for them. China. The draft. Everything. Hell, I even gave them the moon!” You let out a chuckle, but then slowly shake your head. “Still they want to impeach me. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.”
“No sir.”
“It’s not right you know. Whoever leaked the terrible rumour that started this – well it’s just not right. What my men did – that was my business, nobody else’s. They were just helping me find the enemy. Same way you look for termites when you know they’re there, but you just can’t see ’em.
“Loyal bunch. Damn, they were just protecting me and the country from the enemy. Those lousey dem- well. Well I’m not going to let them impeach me. Today I tell America I’m leaving office and that will be that. Gerry will have to figure out the rest.”
“Yes sir.”
“I’m just so disappointed they couldn’t see what I was trying to do for them. They just couldn’t see. And those two damned reporters – like children fighting over a hole in the ground – just couldn’t leave it alone. Had to keep digging. Prying.”
“Yes sir.”
A knock on the door draws your attention. Another suited gentleman enters and announces “Mr. President, it’s time.”
You look up, pulling the second blue suit into your dialogue. “This is just like sausage-making you know. People don’t want to to be told what goes into sausages they just want to grill them up and eat them.” You slip your arms into your jacket. “Government’s the same way. People don’t really want to know how it works, they just want their taxes low and their mortgages paid and have enough money left over to put their kids through college and gas in their cars.”
You walk toward the door and see the military escort waiting in the hall. You stop to salute. They each salute back. “Mr. President” one of them says, gesturing you to fall into place in front of him. You take another step forward, and then another. The last steps you’ll ever take down this corridor. You’re overcome with sadness.
“Funny thing is, it wasn’t the people doing the asking. Just the reporters,” you say to the blue suit beside you. “Deep throat. Bah. Americans shouldn’t have to know what their President has to go through to protect them from wrong-thinking people. To give them what they need. To keep them safe. They just shouldn’t have to know.”
As you turn the corner, the camera flashes start popping. You put on your best smile, raise your arm and wave to the crowd of reporters. And as you take in the profound image of The White House Rotunda crammed with people, you think righteously to yourself …
Oz Mudflats 