More Political Links, this time about scariness
Palin Links, with a bit of McCain and a reference to Bush for Good Measure
Unless the Republicans give her a helluva crash course, in the Oct. 2 debate with Joe Biden, Sarah Palin will be the Dan Quayle of 2008.
Palin scares me TERRIBLY in her insistence that everyone should beleive in her God the way she does, her insistence that women shouldn't have access to necessary health care, that women who have sex are sluts who deserve what they get, that religion should be taught in science classes, that separation of church and state is not part of what this country should be and have. See under the cut for links and details.
Nothing Positive to Say, but Important Because They're Running For an Office that Could Give Her HUGE Amounts of Power
Alaskans Speak (In a Frightened Whisper): Palin is Racist, Sexist, Vindictive, and Mean
Many people in Alaska, and particularly Wasilla, are reluctant to speak or be quoted by name because they're afraid of her as well as the state Republican Party machine. Apparently, the power elite are as mean as the winters. There's ample evidence of Palin's vindictive willingness to destroy people she sees as opponents. Just ask the Wasilla town administrator she hired before firing him because he rebelled against the way Palin demanded he do his job, or the town librarian who refused to hold the book burning Walpurgisnach Mayor Palin demanded.
Sarah Palin, Hypocrite. Why she shouldn't complain about big government wasting taxpayer money.
The woman who made this complaint about big government taking your money is the governor of Alaska. Please take a moment to look at this U.S. Census chart showing federal-government expenditures, per capita, in the 50 states. You will observe that Alaska receives about $14,000 per citizen from the federal government. That's more than any other state, and a good $4,000 more than every other state except Virginia, Maryland, New Mexico, and North Dakota.
Palin Again Recites Lie About Bridge To Nowhere
As Josh notes, the falsehood has now been debunked by everyone from Newsweek to the Associated Press to the Wall Street Journal. But here's Palin keeping up with it anyway.
So, when might we see Sarah Palin talk to the media about, well, anything? According to Rick Davis, McCain's campaign manager, Palin won't tolerate an interview "until the point in time when she'll be treated with respect and deference." Fox News' Chris Wallace followed up, asking when voters can expect to see Palin answer tough questions from reporters. "When we think it's time and when she feels comfortable doing it," Davis said.
This person loves Jesus: Sarah Palin is on a "Mission from God"
On the night I visit the church, the congregation is huddled in a group, arms raised or clasped around each other, as the senior pastor, Ed Kalnins, leads them in prayer. "Lord, we know that you have made this church a platform," he exclaims. "You are using the wonderful Governor Palin to get your message of the gospel across."
Pastor Ed, as his flock calls him, moved to Wasilla in 1999 - three years after the town elected Palin as its mayor. What struck him the first time they met, he has said, was that in her eyes religion came first, politics second.
Her trajectory has run in parallel with that of her party. Her career took off precisely at the moment when the Christian right seized control of the Republican movement, casting out the fiscal conservatives who had traditionally held sway with their focus on such worldly matters as low taxes and small government.
The shift in the party's focus from mammon to God is illustrated perfectly in Palin's successful campaign to become mayor in 1996. All previous elections had revolved around such existential questions as how to improve the pavements and get litter off the streets. She ignored all that, campaigning instead against abortion and gun control and casting aspersions on her (Republican) opponent about his infrequent attendance of church.
Obama, McCain, and families like mine
If I weren't my daughter's legal parent, I couldn't be sure of getting legal custody of her in the event of my partner's death. My daughter wouldn't automatically inherit any of my property if I died, or receive any benefits from Social Security if I died or were disabled. I wouldn't automatically be able to visit my daughter in the hospital or make decisions about her medical care.
Adoption protects kids in LGBT families. McCain's against it.
There are 1,400 legal benefits of marriage. Married people can cover their spouses on their insurance. They can visit their spouses in the hospital and make decisions about their medical care. They can file taxes together. They have legal and financial protections if they divorce. They can inherit in the absence of a will and receive their spouse's pension or Social Security if their spouse dies.
Our legal paperwork to give our relationship as many legal protections as possible cost several thousand dollars. A Maryland marriage license costs $60.
In thirty states, it is perfectly legal to fire or refuse to hire someone simply because they are gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender. People lose their jobs. People have to hide and lie about their families in order to keep their jobs. People are afraid to move in together or have children because that will make it harder to stay in the closet.
One way to say very clearly to the McCain/Palin campaign that women's bodies and medical care and choices are important to HUGE numbers of us in the country: donate in their names to Planned Parenthood.
Letter from someone far cleverer and savvier than I:
Since Palin gave her speech accepting the Republican nomination for the Vice Presidency, Barack Obama's campaign has raised over $10 million dollars. Some of you may already be supporting the Obama campaign financially - I am, but I want to do more - anything. I am horrified by Palin's selection, furious, and frightened by it for many reasons, one of which is her position on women's issues. May I pass along the following fiendishly brilliant idea?
Make a donation (in any amount) to Planned Parenthood, in Sarah Palin's name. Here's the best part: when you make a donation to PP in her name, they'll send her a card telling her that the donation has been made in her honor. It won't change the election but it will support an important organization and it will make women's voices heard. (And even if this was cooked up by a PP person - I don't care!) Here's the link to the Planned Parenthood website:
http://www.plannedparenthood.org/
You'll need to check "make honorary or memorial gift," and fill in the name of the person you want to "honor", i.e. Palin. Fill in the address to let PP know where to send the "in Sarah Palin's honor" card. If you use the address for the McCain campaign headquarters, they'll get the message. McCain's headquarters address:
McCain for President, 1235 S. Clark Street, 1st Floor, Arlington, VA 22202
I'm a little confused. Let me see if I have this straight.....
* If you grow up in Hawaii, raised by your grandparents, you're "exotic, different."
* Grow up in Alaska eating mooseburgers: a quintessential American story.
* If your name is Barack you're a radical, unpatriotic Muslim.
* Name your kids Willow, Trig, and Track: you're a maverick.
* Graduate from Harvard law School and you are unstable.
* Attend 5 different small colleges before graduating: you're well grounded.
* If you spend 3 years as a brilliant community organizer, become the first black President of the Harvard Law Review, create a voter registration drive that registers 150,000 new voters, spend 12 years as a Constitutional Law professor, spend 8 years as a State Senator representing a district with over 750,000 people, become chairman of the state Senate's Health and Human Services committee, spend 4 years in the United States Senate representing a state of 13 million people while sponsoring 131 bills and serving on the Foreign Affairs, Environment and Public Works and Veteran's Affairs committees, you don't have any real leadership experience.
* If your total resume is: local weather girl (sports caster), 4 years on the city council and 6 years as the mayor of a town with fewer than 7,000 people, 20 months as the governor of a state with 650,000 people, then you're qualified to become the country's second highest ranking executive.
* If you have been married to the same woman for 19 years while raising 2 beautiful daughters, all within Protestant churches, you're not a real Christian.
* If you cheated on your first wife with a rich heiress, and left your disfigured wife and married the heiress the next month, you're a Christian.
* If you teach responsible, age appropriate sex education, including the proper use of birth control, you are eroding the fiber of society.
* If , while governor, you staunchly advocate abstinence only, with no other option in sex education in your state's school system while your unwed teen daughter ends up pregnant , you're very responsible.
* If your wife is a Harvard graduate lawyer who gave up a position in a prestigious law firm to work for the betterment of her inner city community, then gave that up to raise a family, your family's values don't represent America's.
* If you're husband is nicknamed "First Dude", with at least one DUI conviction and no college education, who didn't register to vote until age 25 and once was a member of a group that advocated the secession of Alaska from the USA, your family is extremely admirable.
OK, much clearer now.
"I Am the Very Model of a Modern Christian President">
I am the very model of a modern Christian President,
My sanctified advisers are both transient and resident,
I know our planet's history in milestones theological,
From Genesis to Malachi (but nothing geological).
I'm very well acquainted too with matters exegetical,
I parse the scientific into holy and heretical,
In embryonic stem cells, I see Satan's plan to capture us,
But space-based X-ray lasers make me positively rapturous!
Unless the Republicans give her a helluva crash course, in the Oct. 2 debate with Joe Biden, Sarah Palin will be the Dan Quayle of 2008.
Palin scares me TERRIBLY in her insistence that everyone should beleive in her God the way she does, her insistence that women shouldn't have access to necessary health care, that women who have sex are sluts who deserve what they get, that religion should be taught in science classes, that separation of church and state is not part of what this country should be and have. See under the cut for links and details.
Nothing Positive to Say, but Important Because They're Running For an Office that Could Give Her HUGE Amounts of Power
Alaskans Speak (In a Frightened Whisper): Palin is Racist, Sexist, Vindictive, and Mean
Many people in Alaska, and particularly Wasilla, are reluctant to speak or be quoted by name because they're afraid of her as well as the state Republican Party machine. Apparently, the power elite are as mean as the winters. There's ample evidence of Palin's vindictive willingness to destroy people she sees as opponents. Just ask the Wasilla town administrator she hired before firing him because he rebelled against the way Palin demanded he do his job, or the town librarian who refused to hold the book burning Walpurgisnach Mayor Palin demanded.
Sarah Palin, Hypocrite. Why she shouldn't complain about big government wasting taxpayer money.
The woman who made this complaint about big government taking your money is the governor of Alaska. Please take a moment to look at this U.S. Census chart showing federal-government expenditures, per capita, in the 50 states. You will observe that Alaska receives about $14,000 per citizen from the federal government. That's more than any other state, and a good $4,000 more than every other state except Virginia, Maryland, New Mexico, and North Dakota.
Palin Again Recites Lie About Bridge To Nowhere
As Josh notes, the falsehood has now been debunked by everyone from Newsweek to the Associated Press to the Wall Street Journal. But here's Palin keeping up with it anyway.
So, when might we see Sarah Palin talk to the media about, well, anything? According to Rick Davis, McCain's campaign manager, Palin won't tolerate an interview "until the point in time when she'll be treated with respect and deference." Fox News' Chris Wallace followed up, asking when voters can expect to see Palin answer tough questions from reporters. "When we think it's time and when she feels comfortable doing it," Davis said.
This person loves Jesus: Sarah Palin is on a "Mission from God"
On the night I visit the church, the congregation is huddled in a group, arms raised or clasped around each other, as the senior pastor, Ed Kalnins, leads them in prayer. "Lord, we know that you have made this church a platform," he exclaims. "You are using the wonderful Governor Palin to get your message of the gospel across."
Pastor Ed, as his flock calls him, moved to Wasilla in 1999 - three years after the town elected Palin as its mayor. What struck him the first time they met, he has said, was that in her eyes religion came first, politics second.
Her trajectory has run in parallel with that of her party. Her career took off precisely at the moment when the Christian right seized control of the Republican movement, casting out the fiscal conservatives who had traditionally held sway with their focus on such worldly matters as low taxes and small government.
The shift in the party's focus from mammon to God is illustrated perfectly in Palin's successful campaign to become mayor in 1996. All previous elections had revolved around such existential questions as how to improve the pavements and get litter off the streets. She ignored all that, campaigning instead against abortion and gun control and casting aspersions on her (Republican) opponent about his infrequent attendance of church.
Obama, McCain, and families like mine
If I weren't my daughter's legal parent, I couldn't be sure of getting legal custody of her in the event of my partner's death. My daughter wouldn't automatically inherit any of my property if I died, or receive any benefits from Social Security if I died or were disabled. I wouldn't automatically be able to visit my daughter in the hospital or make decisions about her medical care.
Adoption protects kids in LGBT families. McCain's against it.
There are 1,400 legal benefits of marriage. Married people can cover their spouses on their insurance. They can visit their spouses in the hospital and make decisions about their medical care. They can file taxes together. They have legal and financial protections if they divorce. They can inherit in the absence of a will and receive their spouse's pension or Social Security if their spouse dies.
Our legal paperwork to give our relationship as many legal protections as possible cost several thousand dollars. A Maryland marriage license costs $60.
In thirty states, it is perfectly legal to fire or refuse to hire someone simply because they are gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender. People lose their jobs. People have to hide and lie about their families in order to keep their jobs. People are afraid to move in together or have children because that will make it harder to stay in the closet.
One way to say very clearly to the McCain/Palin campaign that women's bodies and medical care and choices are important to HUGE numbers of us in the country: donate in their names to Planned Parenthood.
Letter from someone far cleverer and savvier than I:
Since Palin gave her speech accepting the Republican nomination for the Vice Presidency, Barack Obama's campaign has raised over $10 million dollars. Some of you may already be supporting the Obama campaign financially - I am, but I want to do more - anything. I am horrified by Palin's selection, furious, and frightened by it for many reasons, one of which is her position on women's issues. May I pass along the following fiendishly brilliant idea?
Make a donation (in any amount) to Planned Parenthood, in Sarah Palin's name. Here's the best part: when you make a donation to PP in her name, they'll send her a card telling her that the donation has been made in her honor. It won't change the election but it will support an important organization and it will make women's voices heard. (And even if this was cooked up by a PP person - I don't care!) Here's the link to the Planned Parenthood website:
http://www.plannedparenthood.org/
You'll need to check "make honorary or memorial gift," and fill in the name of the person you want to "honor", i.e. Palin. Fill in the address to let PP know where to send the "in Sarah Palin's honor" card. If you use the address for the McCain campaign headquarters, they'll get the message. McCain's headquarters address:
McCain for President, 1235 S. Clark Street, 1st Floor, Arlington, VA 22202
I'm a little confused. Let me see if I have this straight.....
* If you grow up in Hawaii, raised by your grandparents, you're "exotic, different."
* Grow up in Alaska eating mooseburgers: a quintessential American story.
* If your name is Barack you're a radical, unpatriotic Muslim.
* Name your kids Willow, Trig, and Track: you're a maverick.
* Graduate from Harvard law School and you are unstable.
* Attend 5 different small colleges before graduating: you're well grounded.
* If you spend 3 years as a brilliant community organizer, become the first black President of the Harvard Law Review, create a voter registration drive that registers 150,000 new voters, spend 12 years as a Constitutional Law professor, spend 8 years as a State Senator representing a district with over 750,000 people, become chairman of the state Senate's Health and Human Services committee, spend 4 years in the United States Senate representing a state of 13 million people while sponsoring 131 bills and serving on the Foreign Affairs, Environment and Public Works and Veteran's Affairs committees, you don't have any real leadership experience.
* If your total resume is: local weather girl (sports caster), 4 years on the city council and 6 years as the mayor of a town with fewer than 7,000 people, 20 months as the governor of a state with 650,000 people, then you're qualified to become the country's second highest ranking executive.
* If you have been married to the same woman for 19 years while raising 2 beautiful daughters, all within Protestant churches, you're not a real Christian.
* If you cheated on your first wife with a rich heiress, and left your disfigured wife and married the heiress the next month, you're a Christian.
* If you teach responsible, age appropriate sex education, including the proper use of birth control, you are eroding the fiber of society.
* If , while governor, you staunchly advocate abstinence only, with no other option in sex education in your state's school system while your unwed teen daughter ends up pregnant , you're very responsible.
* If your wife is a Harvard graduate lawyer who gave up a position in a prestigious law firm to work for the betterment of her inner city community, then gave that up to raise a family, your family's values don't represent America's.
* If you're husband is nicknamed "First Dude", with at least one DUI conviction and no college education, who didn't register to vote until age 25 and once was a member of a group that advocated the secession of Alaska from the USA, your family is extremely admirable.
OK, much clearer now.
"I Am the Very Model of a Modern Christian President">
I am the very model of a modern Christian President,
My sanctified advisers are both transient and resident,
I know our planet's history in milestones theological,
From Genesis to Malachi (but nothing geological).
I'm very well acquainted too with matters exegetical,
I parse the scientific into holy and heretical,
In embryonic stem cells, I see Satan's plan to capture us,
But space-based X-ray lasers make me positively rapturous!