"Alaska Women Reject Palin" Rally
Please scroll down to see photographs of the rally.
"...by most accounts the largest protest rally in the history of Alaska."
by frsbdg
Sun Sep 14, 2008 at 07:30:42 AM PDT
We begin in Anchorage, Alaska, where a group of average women decided to hold a small rally to let it be known that their Governor, Sarah Palin, does not represent their views on many of the issues that are important in their lives.
They put together a press release and sent it to the Anchorage media outlets. A local right-wing talk show host broadcast the names and phone numbers of the two organizers over the air. They began receiving a series of harassing phone calls for the remainder of that afternoon. The leading TV station picked up the story on Thursday. Alaska Public Radio Network put up some audio.
An anonymous caller contacted the local media on Friday afternoon and told them they were one of the organizers, and the rally had been cancelled. Someone even faxed forged a document saying the Secret Service had cancelled the permit for the rally, even though no permit is required. Some people were putting an awful lot of effort in to making sure no dissent would be heard from Alaska.
Well, it didn't work. Despite overcast skies and a forecast for rain, there was a rally here today. Oh man, was there! In fact, it was by most accounts the largest protest rally in the history of Alaska. The Anchorage Daily News wrote that the rally drew an "estimated" 1500 people. Let me be clear: the organizers used a hand-clicker and counted at least 1,483 Alaskans, mostly women, who showed up to say that Sarah Palin does not speak for them. They also counted 93 McCain/Palin supporters. The national media loves to say that Sarah Palin enjoys an "80% popularity rating" in Alaska. Do the math on today's rally, and you'd need a faith-based calculator to get 80%. This was grassroots activism at its best....
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Side By Side - Whose Qualifications Do You Pick?
Sent to this blog by a Massachusetts woman in Merrimac Valley - "Who is qualified to be President?"
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, 4 years on the city council and 6 years as the mayor of a town with less than 7,000 people, 20 months as the governor of a state with only 650,000 people, then you're qualified to become the country's second highest ranking executive and next in line behind a man in his eighth decade.
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 then left your disfigured wife and married the heiress the next month, you're a true 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 your husband is nicknamed 'First Dude, ' with at least one DWI 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, it's so much clearer now.
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, 4 years on the city council and 6 years as the mayor of a town with less than 7,000 people, 20 months as the governor of a state with only 650,000 people, then you're qualified to become the country's second highest ranking executive and next in line behind a man in his eighth decade.
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 then left your disfigured wife and married the heiress the next month, you're a true 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 your husband is nicknamed 'First Dude, ' with at least one DWI 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, it's so much clearer now.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Elayne Clift of Vermont Adds to the Diversity of Palin Information
Elayne Clift - Words: 1040
AN OPEN LETTER TO SARAH PALIN - From Elayne Clift of Vermont
Okay, you did it. You hoodwinked your party and a lot of other Americans too, I suspect, with your cheerleader’s charm and your finger-waving fervor. You got yourself called “Hottest VP.” Some say you “knocked it out of the park.” Well, I think you should be knocked out of the park, Sarah, and here’s why.
First, your hypocrisy is astounding. How can you possibly say that something like an unplanned pregnancy is a personal matter deserving of privacy? Doesn’t every woman who grapples with a painful abortion decision deserve the same privacy? What rock have you been living under that enables you to advocate for abstinence-only sex education when you can’t even teach that dubious value to your own daughter? Why do you speak of love and support for children (including the unborn) when your party refuses to legislate policies that would offer them decent healthcare and early childhood education and provide their mothers with a modicum of support, including paid maternity leave?
You are a selfish woman, Sarah, with dubious priorities. “J’accuse”, as writer Emile Zola wrote -- but you must pardon me for exposing my elitist education -- because as a mother myself, I cannot fathom how you would subject a teenage daughter in trouble to the kind of public scrutiny she now must endure in the interest of your own ambitions. At the risk of sounding like a failed feminist, I must also say that being the mother of a special needs child too, I just don’t get how you can abdicate the desperately important advocacy and monitoring that will be required in these first years of your son’s life. (I know your husband is deeply involved and responsible, but believe me, Sarah, no one does it like a mom.) As you said yourself, “Children with special needs inspire special love.” Where is your special love, Sarah? Family values, I might remind you, are not just a set of lofty ideals wrapped in grandiose rhetoric; they involve making hard choices in the best interest of everyone in the family.
By now many people are finding you either mean-spirited or remarkably ignorant. I think you are both. Nothing revealed these characteristics so much or so shockingly as your attack (and Rudy Guliani’s) on community organizing. “I guess a small town mayor is sort of like a ‘community organizer’ except that you have actual responsibilities,” you said. Don’t you get it, Sarah? Community organizing is what your beloved faith-based charities do! Community organizing by women all around this country is what happened in the 1970s and 80s to enable you to be taken seriously as a candidate for vice president, and to stand, God forbid, a heartbeat away from being the CEO of the most powerful country on earth. Community organizing is what got us the Americans with Disabilities Act which will serve your son well as he matures. I will never, ever, forgive you, Sarah, for your snide, sarcastic, demeaning, despicable disrespect for one of America’s finer traditions – or for your surly attacks on the media, America’s Fourth Estate and a pillar of any democracy.
Your much anticipated coming out party was billed as a way for all of us to get to know who you are. Well, Sarah, I know who you are. You are the bully in the sandbox, the teenager who thinks she can get her way by being flirtatious, the adult who thinks she can get by without doing the hard work and get ahead without paying much dues, the politician who believes that lies are more expedient than facts. I know who you are, Sarah, and I don’t like or trust you. I find you duplicitous, shallow, insulting and frighteningly retro – all qualities I am terrified to contemplate in a V.P. or a president.
For the record, by the way, here are just a few reasons, reported by the Associated Press, that I find you duplicitous and dishonest:
· You said you had protected taxpayers by vetoing wasteful spending but the truth is that as mayor of Wasilla you hired a lobbyist and went to Washington every year to support earmarks for the town totaling $27 million. Since you’ve been governor Alaska has requested nearly $750 million in special federal funding, the largest per capital request in the country. And that Bridge to Nowhere? You only dropped the idea after it was ridiculed nationally.
· You accused Barack Obama of never having authored a major law or reform, “not even in the state senate.” The fact is that as a new senator Mr. Obama worked in a bipartisan way to pass federal legislation, now law, that helped intercept illegal shipments of WMDs and made it harder to stockpile conventional weapons. He also co-sponsored major ethics reform legislation.
· You falsely accuse Mr. Obama of planning to raise all kinds of taxes without fully sharing his complete and complex tax plan. In reality, just for starters, the McCain-Palin plan would raise taxes for middle income taxpayers by 3% while the Obama-Biden plan would provide $80 billion in tax breaks, mainly for poor workers and the elderly.
· You and Mr. McCain continue to inflate your experience and role as governor in a state that ranks 47th in terms of population. For example, you may be in charge of your state’s national guard, but your authority does not include calling those guards into actual military service. (Alaska has one of the smallest state guards in the country, by the way.) Contrary to what John McCain has claimed, you do not have national security as one of your primary responsibilities.
Sarah, Sarah, Sarah. Even your own political pundits, Peggy Noonan and Mike Murphy, were caught by a live mike calling your speech “political [expletive]” and bemoaning the fact that “It’s over.” Honey, I’m afraid that as the truth keeps surfacing and folks get beyond your being a “hotty,” and when you must finally respond to the press on the Sunday morning talk shows or at press conferences, and when the spotlight shines down upon you as you debate your formidable, experienced opponent you will no longer be the toast of your party. You will simply be toast. And that’s something I wouldn’t find hard to swallow at all.
# # #
Elayne Clift writes about women, politics and social issues from Saxtons River, Vt.
AN OPEN LETTER TO SARAH PALIN - From Elayne Clift of Vermont
Okay, you did it. You hoodwinked your party and a lot of other Americans too, I suspect, with your cheerleader’s charm and your finger-waving fervor. You got yourself called “Hottest VP.” Some say you “knocked it out of the park.” Well, I think you should be knocked out of the park, Sarah, and here’s why.
First, your hypocrisy is astounding. How can you possibly say that something like an unplanned pregnancy is a personal matter deserving of privacy? Doesn’t every woman who grapples with a painful abortion decision deserve the same privacy? What rock have you been living under that enables you to advocate for abstinence-only sex education when you can’t even teach that dubious value to your own daughter? Why do you speak of love and support for children (including the unborn) when your party refuses to legislate policies that would offer them decent healthcare and early childhood education and provide their mothers with a modicum of support, including paid maternity leave?
You are a selfish woman, Sarah, with dubious priorities. “J’accuse”, as writer Emile Zola wrote -- but you must pardon me for exposing my elitist education -- because as a mother myself, I cannot fathom how you would subject a teenage daughter in trouble to the kind of public scrutiny she now must endure in the interest of your own ambitions. At the risk of sounding like a failed feminist, I must also say that being the mother of a special needs child too, I just don’t get how you can abdicate the desperately important advocacy and monitoring that will be required in these first years of your son’s life. (I know your husband is deeply involved and responsible, but believe me, Sarah, no one does it like a mom.) As you said yourself, “Children with special needs inspire special love.” Where is your special love, Sarah? Family values, I might remind you, are not just a set of lofty ideals wrapped in grandiose rhetoric; they involve making hard choices in the best interest of everyone in the family.
By now many people are finding you either mean-spirited or remarkably ignorant. I think you are both. Nothing revealed these characteristics so much or so shockingly as your attack (and Rudy Guliani’s) on community organizing. “I guess a small town mayor is sort of like a ‘community organizer’ except that you have actual responsibilities,” you said. Don’t you get it, Sarah? Community organizing is what your beloved faith-based charities do! Community organizing by women all around this country is what happened in the 1970s and 80s to enable you to be taken seriously as a candidate for vice president, and to stand, God forbid, a heartbeat away from being the CEO of the most powerful country on earth. Community organizing is what got us the Americans with Disabilities Act which will serve your son well as he matures. I will never, ever, forgive you, Sarah, for your snide, sarcastic, demeaning, despicable disrespect for one of America’s finer traditions – or for your surly attacks on the media, America’s Fourth Estate and a pillar of any democracy.
Your much anticipated coming out party was billed as a way for all of us to get to know who you are. Well, Sarah, I know who you are. You are the bully in the sandbox, the teenager who thinks she can get her way by being flirtatious, the adult who thinks she can get by without doing the hard work and get ahead without paying much dues, the politician who believes that lies are more expedient than facts. I know who you are, Sarah, and I don’t like or trust you. I find you duplicitous, shallow, insulting and frighteningly retro – all qualities I am terrified to contemplate in a V.P. or a president.
For the record, by the way, here are just a few reasons, reported by the Associated Press, that I find you duplicitous and dishonest:
· You said you had protected taxpayers by vetoing wasteful spending but the truth is that as mayor of Wasilla you hired a lobbyist and went to Washington every year to support earmarks for the town totaling $27 million. Since you’ve been governor Alaska has requested nearly $750 million in special federal funding, the largest per capital request in the country. And that Bridge to Nowhere? You only dropped the idea after it was ridiculed nationally.
· You accused Barack Obama of never having authored a major law or reform, “not even in the state senate.” The fact is that as a new senator Mr. Obama worked in a bipartisan way to pass federal legislation, now law, that helped intercept illegal shipments of WMDs and made it harder to stockpile conventional weapons. He also co-sponsored major ethics reform legislation.
· You falsely accuse Mr. Obama of planning to raise all kinds of taxes without fully sharing his complete and complex tax plan. In reality, just for starters, the McCain-Palin plan would raise taxes for middle income taxpayers by 3% while the Obama-Biden plan would provide $80 billion in tax breaks, mainly for poor workers and the elderly.
· You and Mr. McCain continue to inflate your experience and role as governor in a state that ranks 47th in terms of population. For example, you may be in charge of your state’s national guard, but your authority does not include calling those guards into actual military service. (Alaska has one of the smallest state guards in the country, by the way.) Contrary to what John McCain has claimed, you do not have national security as one of your primary responsibilities.
Sarah, Sarah, Sarah. Even your own political pundits, Peggy Noonan and Mike Murphy, were caught by a live mike calling your speech “political [expletive]” and bemoaning the fact that “It’s over.” Honey, I’m afraid that as the truth keeps surfacing and folks get beyond your being a “hotty,” and when you must finally respond to the press on the Sunday morning talk shows or at press conferences, and when the spotlight shines down upon you as you debate your formidable, experienced opponent you will no longer be the toast of your party. You will simply be toast. And that’s something I wouldn’t find hard to swallow at all.
# # #
Elayne Clift writes about women, politics and social issues from Saxtons River, Vt.
Letter from Alaska Woman on Palin - She is Vindictive: Claim Versus Fact
Subject: The more information the better, I always say
Date: Sat, 6 Sep 2008 15:03:27 +0000
Here is a native Wasilla resident who is not afraid to speak out about Sarah Palin.
Sean-492003
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
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 inherit ed 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 she was 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 f actor 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 initiative 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 unconstitutional) .
*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.
Date: Sat, 6 Sep 2008 15:03:27 +0000
Here is a native Wasilla resident who is not afraid to speak out about Sarah Palin.
Sean-492003
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
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 inherit ed 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 she was 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 f actor 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 initiative 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 unconstitutional) .
*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.
Letter from Alaska Woman on Palin - She Believes in Aerial Hunting
Sent: Thursday, September 04, 2008 10:44 AM
Subject: FW: V.P. Choice - Info from Alaska - woman alum of Bryn Mawr in Pennsylvania
This is an email I received from a good friend in New York City. She is a Bryn Mawr (in Pennsylvania) graduate, and is a physician currently engaged in cancer research at Columbia University. This is an email she received from a Bryn Mawr classmate of hers who lives in Alaska.
Because you, like me, may never have heard of Sarah Palin until today, you may find this an interesting perspective from an Alaskan resident. Bill
Dear classmates of Bryn Mawr -
As an Alaskan, I am writing to give all of you some information on Sarah Palin, Senator McCain's choice for VP. As an Alaska voter, I know more than most of you about her and, frankly, I am horrified that he picked her.
The most accurate description of her is red neck. Her husband works in the oil fields of Prudhoe Bay and races snow mobiles. She is a life time member of the NRA and has worked tirelessly to allow indiscriminate hunting of wildlife in Alaska, particularly wolves and bears. She has spent millions of Alaska state dollars on aerial hunting of these predators from helicopters and airplanes, dollars that should have been spent, for example, on Alaska's failing school system. We have the lowest rate of high school graduation in the country. Not all of you may think aerial predator hunting is so bad, but how anyone (other than Alaska wolf-haters, of which there are many, most without teeth), could think this use of funds is appropriate is beyond me. If you want to know more about the aerial hunting travesty, let me know and I will send some links to informative web sites.
She has been a strong supporter of increased use of fossil fuels, yet the McCain campaign has the nerve to say she has "green" policies. The only thing green about Sarah Palin is her lack of experience. She has consistently supported drilling in ANWR, use of coal-burning power plants (as I write this, a new coal plant is being built in her home town of Wasilla), strip mining, and almost anything else that will unnecessarily exploit the diminishing resources of Alaska and destroy its environment.
Prior to her one year as governor of Alaska, she was mayor of Wasilla, a small red neck town outside Anchorage. The average maximum education level of parents of junior high school kids in Wasilla is 10th grade. Unfortunately, I have to go to Wasilla every week to get groceries and other supplies, so I have continual contact with the people who put Palin in office in the first place. I know what I'm talking about. These people don't have a concept of the world around them or of the serious issues facing the US. Furthermore, they don't care. So long as they can go out and hunt their moose every fall, kill wolves and bears and drive their snow mobiles and ATVs through every corner of the wilderness, they're happy. I wish I were exaggerating.
Sarah Palin is currently involved in a political corruption scandal. She fired an individual in law enforcement here because she didn't like how he treated one of her relatives during a divorce. The man's performance and ability weren't considered; it was a totally personal firing and is currently under investigation. While the issue isn't close to the scandal of Ted Steven's corruption, it shows that Palin isn't "squeaky clean" and causes me to think there may be more issues that could come to light. Clearly McCain doesn't care.
When you line Palin up with Biden, the comparison would be laughable if it weren't so serious. Sarah Palin knows nothing of economics (admittedly a weak area for McCain), or of international affairs, knows nothing of national government, Social Security, unemployment, health care systems - you name it. The idea of her meeting with heads of foreign governments around the world truly frightens me.
In an increasingly dangerous world, with the economy in shambles in the US, Sarah Palin is uniquely UNqualified to be vice president. John McCain is not a young man. Should something happen to him such that the vice president had to step in, it would destroy our country and possibly the world to have someone as inexperienced and inappropriate as Sarah Palin. The choice of Palin is a cheap shot by McCain to try to get Hillary supporters to vote for him. When McCain introduced her today, Palin had the nerve to compare herself with Hillary and Geraldine Ferraro. Sarah Palin, you are no Hillary Clinton.
To those of you who, like me, supported Hillary and were upset that she did not get the nomination, please don't think that Sarah Palin is a worthy substitute. If you supported Hillary, regardless of what you think the media and the democratic party may have done to undermine her campaign, the person to support now is Obama, not Sarah Palin. To those of you who are independent or undecided, don't let the choice of Palin sway you in favor of McCain. Choosing her shows how unqualified McCain is to be president. To those of you who are conservative, I guess you have no choice for president. But please try to see how the poor choice of Palin tells us a great deal about McCain's judgment.
While the political posturing inherent in the choice of Palin is obvious, the more serious issue is the fact that the VP is, literally, a heartbeat away from the presidency. Sarah Palin is totally and unequivocally unqualified to be vice president, let alone president.
I know this is a lengthy and emotional email, but the stakes are high. I thought it might help for all of you, regardless of political affiliation, to know something about Palin from someone who has to live with her administration in Alaska on a daily basis.
Jackie S.
Subject: FW: V.P. Choice - Info from Alaska - woman alum of Bryn Mawr in Pennsylvania
This is an email I received from a good friend in New York City. She is a Bryn Mawr (in Pennsylvania) graduate, and is a physician currently engaged in cancer research at Columbia University. This is an email she received from a Bryn Mawr classmate of hers who lives in Alaska.
Because you, like me, may never have heard of Sarah Palin until today, you may find this an interesting perspective from an Alaskan resident. Bill
Dear classmates of Bryn Mawr -
As an Alaskan, I am writing to give all of you some information on Sarah Palin, Senator McCain's choice for VP. As an Alaska voter, I know more than most of you about her and, frankly, I am horrified that he picked her.
The most accurate description of her is red neck. Her husband works in the oil fields of Prudhoe Bay and races snow mobiles. She is a life time member of the NRA and has worked tirelessly to allow indiscriminate hunting of wildlife in Alaska, particularly wolves and bears. She has spent millions of Alaska state dollars on aerial hunting of these predators from helicopters and airplanes, dollars that should have been spent, for example, on Alaska's failing school system. We have the lowest rate of high school graduation in the country. Not all of you may think aerial predator hunting is so bad, but how anyone (other than Alaska wolf-haters, of which there are many, most without teeth), could think this use of funds is appropriate is beyond me. If you want to know more about the aerial hunting travesty, let me know and I will send some links to informative web sites.
She has been a strong supporter of increased use of fossil fuels, yet the McCain campaign has the nerve to say she has "green" policies. The only thing green about Sarah Palin is her lack of experience. She has consistently supported drilling in ANWR, use of coal-burning power plants (as I write this, a new coal plant is being built in her home town of Wasilla), strip mining, and almost anything else that will unnecessarily exploit the diminishing resources of Alaska and destroy its environment.
Prior to her one year as governor of Alaska, she was mayor of Wasilla, a small red neck town outside Anchorage. The average maximum education level of parents of junior high school kids in Wasilla is 10th grade. Unfortunately, I have to go to Wasilla every week to get groceries and other supplies, so I have continual contact with the people who put Palin in office in the first place. I know what I'm talking about. These people don't have a concept of the world around them or of the serious issues facing the US. Furthermore, they don't care. So long as they can go out and hunt their moose every fall, kill wolves and bears and drive their snow mobiles and ATVs through every corner of the wilderness, they're happy. I wish I were exaggerating.
Sarah Palin is currently involved in a political corruption scandal. She fired an individual in law enforcement here because she didn't like how he treated one of her relatives during a divorce. The man's performance and ability weren't considered; it was a totally personal firing and is currently under investigation. While the issue isn't close to the scandal of Ted Steven's corruption, it shows that Palin isn't "squeaky clean" and causes me to think there may be more issues that could come to light. Clearly McCain doesn't care.
When you line Palin up with Biden, the comparison would be laughable if it weren't so serious. Sarah Palin knows nothing of economics (admittedly a weak area for McCain), or of international affairs, knows nothing of national government, Social Security, unemployment, health care systems - you name it. The idea of her meeting with heads of foreign governments around the world truly frightens me.
In an increasingly dangerous world, with the economy in shambles in the US, Sarah Palin is uniquely UNqualified to be vice president. John McCain is not a young man. Should something happen to him such that the vice president had to step in, it would destroy our country and possibly the world to have someone as inexperienced and inappropriate as Sarah Palin. The choice of Palin is a cheap shot by McCain to try to get Hillary supporters to vote for him. When McCain introduced her today, Palin had the nerve to compare herself with Hillary and Geraldine Ferraro. Sarah Palin, you are no Hillary Clinton.
To those of you who, like me, supported Hillary and were upset that she did not get the nomination, please don't think that Sarah Palin is a worthy substitute. If you supported Hillary, regardless of what you think the media and the democratic party may have done to undermine her campaign, the person to support now is Obama, not Sarah Palin. To those of you who are independent or undecided, don't let the choice of Palin sway you in favor of McCain. Choosing her shows how unqualified McCain is to be president. To those of you who are conservative, I guess you have no choice for president. But please try to see how the poor choice of Palin tells us a great deal about McCain's judgment.
While the political posturing inherent in the choice of Palin is obvious, the more serious issue is the fact that the VP is, literally, a heartbeat away from the presidency. Sarah Palin is totally and unequivocally unqualified to be vice president, let alone president.
I know this is a lengthy and emotional email, but the stakes are high. I thought it might help for all of you, regardless of political affiliation, to know something about Palin from someone who has to live with her administration in Alaska on a daily basis.
Jackie S.
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