Saturday, September 13, 2008

USA Today: Anti-Palin rally draws hundreds in Alaska

Anti-Palin rally draws hundreds in Alaska
USA Today
September 13, 2008

ANCHORAGE (AP) — Hundreds of people protesting the policies of Republican vice presidential candidate and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin lined a busy street on Saturday, waving signs and chanting "Obama!"

The protest came about two hours after Palin delivered a rousing speech at Anchorage's new convention center before leaving the state to return to the campaign trail. Palin was named John McCain's running mate on Aug. 29. This was her first return since then to her home state.

The protesters, including supporters of presidential candidate Barack Obama and those who don't agree with Palin's positions on abortion, polar bears, Iraq and other issues, lined one side of the street near Anchorage's main library building.

A much smaller number of mostly pro-Palin supporters were on the other side of the street, chanting "Sarah! Sarah!"

Police were at the scene, but there were no immediate reports of clashes.

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Anti-Palin rally draws hundreds in Alaska

CNN: Palin never in Iraq, campaign now says

CNN: Palin never in Iraq, campaign now says
September 13, 2008

(CNN) -- Sarah Palin did not visit troops in Iraq, a spokesperson for the Republican vice presidential nominee confirmed Saturday, as new details emerged about the extent of the Alaska governor's foreign travel.

In July of last year, Palin left North America for the first time to visit Alaskan troops stationed in Kuwait. Palin officials originally said her itinerary included U.S. military installations or outposts in Germany and Kuwait, and that she had visited Ireland.

A Palin aide in Alaska said Iraq was also one of the stops on that trip.

The Boston Globe reported Saturday that Palin visited the Iraqi side of a border crossing -- but never journeyed past the checkpoint. Earlier, campaign aides confirmed reports that Palin's time in Ireland on that trip had actually been a refueling stop.

The Obama campaign -- which has increasingly accused the McCain campaign of deliberately lying in ads and on the stump -- was quick to highlight that story, along with a news report that explored whether the McCain campaign has been sending out wildly inflated crowd estimates.

The McCain team has twice pointed to law enforcement as the source for those estimates -- but the same officials denied to Bloomberg News that they had provided the numbers cited by the Republican nominee's campaign.

"The McCain campaign said Gov. Palin opposed the bridge to nowhere, but now we know she supported it," said Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor in a statement. "They said she didn't seek earmarks, but now we know she hired a lobbyist to get millions in pork for her town and her state. They said she visited Iraq, but today we learned that she only stopped at the border. Americans are starting to wonder, is there anything the McCain campaign isn't lying about?"

A Palin spokesperson also confirmed that the governor had visited Mexico on a personal vacation. She has also visited Canada.

The Palin revelations Saturday are the latest in a series of barbs between the two presidential campaigns.

McCain, appearing Friday on ABC's "The View," was aggressively pressed on Palin's qualifications to be vice president as well as his new campaign ads that several independent fact-check groups have called misleading...

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CNN: Palin never in Iraq, campaign now says

NYTimes: In Office, Palin Hired Friends and Hit Critics (please read!)

(My note: This is a very telling and important article...please read it in its entirety.)

In Office, Palin Hired Friends and Hit Critics

By JO BECKER, PETER S. GOODMAN AND MICHAEL POWELL
Published: September 13, 2008

WASILLA, Alaska — Gov. Sarah Palin lives by the maxim that all politics is local, not to mention personal.

So when there was a vacancy at the top of the State Division of Agriculture, she appointed a high school classmate, Franci Havemeister, to the $95,000-a-year directorship. A former real estate agent, Ms. Havemeister cited her childhood love of cows as one of her qualifications for running the roughly $2 million agency.

Ms. Havemeister was one of at least five schoolmates Ms. Palin hired, often at salaries far exceeding their private sector wages.

When Ms. Palin had to cut her first state budget, she avoided the legion of frustrated legislators and mayors. Instead, she huddled with her budget director and her husband, Todd, an oil field worker who is not a state employee, and vetoed millions of dollars of legislative projects.

And four months ago, a Wasilla blogger, Sherry Whitstine, who chronicles the governor’s career with an astringent eye, answered her phone to hear an assistant to the governor on the line, she said.

“You should be ashamed!” Ivy Frye, the assistant, told her. “Stop blogging. Stop blogging right now!”

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In Office, Palin Hired Friends and Hit Critics

Obama gets tough - McCain / Palin exposed

John McCain's ads are LIES. Here's the video proof.

John McCain Caught in the SAME LIE AGAIN!

McCain barbs stirring outcry as distortions

McCain barbs stirring outcry as distortions
Republican candidate's attacks on Obama come under fire from all sides.
By MICHAEL COOPER and JIM RUTENBERG MSNBC
Sept. 12, 2008

Harsh advertisements and negative attacks are a staple of presidential campaigns, but Senator John McCain has drawn an avalanche of criticism this week from Democrats, independent groups and even some Republicans for regularly stretching the truth in attacking Senator Barack Obama’s record and positions.

Mr. Obama has also been accused of distortions, but this week Mr. McCain has found himself under particularly heavy fire for a pair of headline-grabbing attacks. First the McCain campaign twisted Mr. Obama’s words to suggest that he had compared Gov. Sarah Palin, the Republican vice-presidential nominee, to a pig after Mr. Obama said, in questioning Mr. McCain’s claim to be the change agent in the race, “You can put lipstick on a pig; it’s still a pig.” (Mr. McCain once used the same expression to describe Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s health plan.)

Then he falsely claimed that Mr. Obama supported “comprehensive sex education” for kindergartners (he supported teaching them to be alert for inappropriate advances from adults)...

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McCain barbs stirring outcry as distortions

Sarah Palin's appeal to working-class women may be limited

Sarah Palin's appeal to working-class women may be limited

For many of these critical swing voters, economic interests trump any admiration of the Alaska governor's maternal grit, and some are repelled by her sarcastic jabs at Obama.

By Faye Fiore and Peter Wallsten,
Los Angeles Times Staff Writers
September 7, 2008

UNIONTOWN, PA. -- Trish Heckman, a 49-year-old restaurant cook and disappointed Hillary Rodham Clinton supporter, watched last week as the country's newest political star made her explosive debut.

She followed the news when John McCain introduced Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his vice presidential running mate, paid attention to the raging debate over her qualifications, even tuned in to watch her dramatic speech at the Republican convention.

But when it came down to an issue Heckman really cares about -- sending a daughter to college on $10.50 an hour -- her desire to see a woman reach the White House took a back seat to her depleted savings account.

"I wanted Hillary to win so bad, but I saw Sarah, and it just didn't work for me," said Heckman, taking a break in the empty courtyard of J. Paul's restaurant in a downtown struggling to revive. "I have no retirement. Obama understands it's the economy. He knows how we live."

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Sarah Palin's appeal to working-class women may be limited

A Palin example - Edmonton Sun

A Palin example
Republicans' v-p pick says the right things, but actions don't follow
By MICHAEL COREN Edmonton Sun

Tempting as it is to write about imaginary puffins pooping on Stephane Dion, fatuous Tory television ads about how kind and nice Stephen Harper is and that nice old and slightly dotty auntie from the Green Party who has been allowed to debate with the big boys, I have to respond to those who apparently have sent me to hell for daring to criticize Sarah Palin.

Last week I praised this admirable woman but wondered if she could care properly for a tiny handicapped baby, a seven-year-old child and a heavily pregnant teenage daughter, while being vice president of the most powerful country on earth.

This, according to various letters, made me either a "raving liberal" or part of the "mainstream media socialist club." Golly, who knew? My Order of Canada must surely be in the mail as we speak.

Of course the low taxes and low morals types on the political right, who care only about the economy and their right to do whatever they want, couldn't give a flying tax cut about family.

But others who claim to believe in life and faith should know better. They have been the first to criticize people like Hillary Clinton allegedly for being poor mothers and we know how they would react if a Democrat or liberal woman ran for senior office with the same family commitments as Sarah Palin.

She would be condemned by all sorts of people now screaming for Sarah.

They would argue that she symbolized the left's indifference to children and to traditional values.

Let's be blunt here. Being pro-life does not mean merely allowing a child to be born, marvellous though that is. It also means caring for that child. That is something that the genuine pro-life movement established long ago, contrary to the caricature that is painted of them by their opponents.

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A Palin example
Republicans' v-p pick says the right things, but actions don't follow

Palin should be laughingstock to all feminists

Palin should be laughingstock to all feminists
Instead, this fast talker is a star -- and that scares me

BY MARY MITCHELL Sun-Times Columnist
September 13, 2008

Sarah Palin makes me sick. I hate that she was able to steal Barack Obama's mojo just by showing up wearing rimless glasses and a skirt.

I hate that she makes Joe Biden look like John McCain and John McCain look like the maverick he is not.

I hate that Palin reminds me of Susan Sarandon's feisty character in "Thelma & Louise." I loved Sarandon in that movie, yet I couldn't stand Palin's feistiness at the Republican National Convention.

Sarah Palin makes me sick -- not because she may speak in tongues -- but because she is a fast talker.

Not even ABC's Charlie Gibson can slow Palin's mouth.

I disagree with the people who claim Gibson caught her off guard during her interview when he asked her whether she agreed with the "Bush Doctrine."

"In what respect?" Palin fired back without so much as a stutter.

In fact, it was Gibson doing the sputtering as he pressed Palin to answer a question that he didn't seem to know the answer to himself.

It irks me that Palin is being painted as some kind of "New Age Feminist" by the so-called "elite" media.

She isn't.

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Palin should be laughingstock to all feminists

Palin's track record marked by bitter clashes

Palin's track record marked by bitter clashes
Tim Harper, Washington Bureau The Star
Sept 13, 2008

WASILLA, ALASKA –Twelve years before she became America's right-wing sweetheart, Sarah Palin rode another wave of "change" to power.

Immediately after her election as mayor, the self-described pit bull ran into trouble in this tiny community tucked into Alaska's Matanuska-Susitna Valley, sparking a colourful internecine political battle. It was remarkable even by the intense, incestuous standards of America's Last Frontier.

John McCain's Republican presidential running mate arrived as mayor already facing allegations she had introduced conservative social issues – including her anti-abortion position – into the mayoral campaign. She even questioned why the incumbent mayor's wife still used her maiden name.

As mayor, she fired administrators, gagged others and tried to move a museum out of the downtown.

She mused about banning books, was accused of being in the pocket of the National Rifle Association, dissolved a commission seeking ways to improve the city's problem with drinking and driving, and faced charges she had tried to break laws to put her supporters on council. On Day 120 of her administration, the first day such a move was allowed by law, she faced an incipient recall movement.

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Palin's track record marked by bitter clashes

Alaska probe seeks subpoenas as Palin halts cooperation By Ken Dilanian, USA TODAY Sept 13, 2008 ANCHORAGE — A few months ago, before she was selecte

Alaska probe seeks subpoenas as Palin halts cooperation
By Ken Dilanian, USA TODAY
Sept 13, 2008

ANCHORAGE — A few months ago, before she was selected as the Republican vice presidential nominee, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin promised complete cooperation in the legislature's investigation into whether she improperly fired her public safety director.

How things have changed.

A joint legislative committee Friday voted to subpoena Palin's husband, Todd Palin, and a dozen others as part of its probe into whether the Alaska governor used her office to settle a personal score.

Lawmakers took that step because several members of Palin's administration in recent days canceled interviews with the legislature's investigator, former prosecutor Stephen Branchflower. In a statement, Palin's second in command, Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell, called the investigation a "complete farce."

"I'm disappointed by the complete hijacking of what should be a fair and objective process," Parnell said. "It is troubling to see partisan Democrats and Obama supporters abuse their power, the legal system and trust of Alaskans to smear Governor Palin to score political points."
FIND MORE STORIES IN: AmerisourceBergen Corp. | Anchorage | Sarah Palin | Sen. Obama | Wasilla | Alaskans | Todd Palin | Mike Wooten | Governor Palin | Stephen Branchflower | Frank Bailey | Sen. Charlie Huggins

Democrats and Republicans on the committee hotly disputed that. While one Republican sought to delay the subpoenas and another voiced opposition to them, other Republicans said the investigation should go forward.

"I do not support Sen. Obama," said Sen. Charlie Huggins, a Republican from Palin's hometown of Wasilla, who was wearing camouflage hunting pants. "I'm simply here today, with a short break in my moose hunting, to say, let's get to the facts."

At issue is whether Palin, her husband Todd or her aides acted inappropriately when governor sacked Public Safety Director Walt Monegan in July after he refused to dismiss Palin's former brother-in-law, Mike Wooten, a state trooper whom the governor said had threatened her family. The trooper has denied making such threats.

The investigative report is due Oct. 10 — well in time to become grist for the presidential campaign.

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Alaska probe seeks subpoenas as Palin halts cooperation

Palin, McCain contradict each other on spending

Palin, McCain contradict each other on spending
Carla Marinucci, SF Chronicle Political Writer
Saturday, September 13, 2008

In a televised interview Friday, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin defended her request for an estimated $200 million in federal projects from Congress - even as earlier in the day her GOP running mate John McCain insisted Palin had never sought money from Congress.

In a second ABC interview with Charlie Gibson, the GOP vice presidential candidate acknowledged that she has supported millions of dollars in congressional money - including the famed "Bridge to Nowhere" - to allow Alaska "to plug into ... along with every other state, a share of the federal budget in infrastructure."

But she said she and McCain would seek to reform that system.

She also told Gibson that Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama probably regrets not naming Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton to be his running mate - and dismissed as an "old wives' tale" reports that she had tried to ban books in public libraries.

McCain, for his part, faced an even tougher grilling on the usually friendly daytime show "The View," where hosts including Barbara Walters, Joy Behar and Whoopi Goldberg jabbed him on issues like abortion, his "maverick" record, separation of church and state, and his campaign attack ads.

Asked by Walters about Palin's statements that she would reform Washington, McCain insisted that she would "reform all of Washington, just like she did ... in Alaska. Earmark spending, which she vetoed half a billion dollars worth," said McCain.

When reminded by Walters that Palin took earmarks in Alaska, McCain said, "Not as governor she didn't."

"She took government out of the hands of the special interests," he said.

Independent analysts and the Web site of Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, have both noted that under Palin's leadership as governor, Alaska has requested 31 earmarks worth nearly $200 million - an amount that taxpayer groups say places Alaska as the per capita leader on such fundraising.

McCain appeared a little riled when Behar aggressively challenged him on his latest campaign ads - one accusing Obama of supporting sex education for kindergartners and another suggesting sexism in the use of the phrase "putting lipstick on a pig."

"Those ads aren't true. They're lies," said Behar, as Walters noted that McCain himself used the lipstick phrase to describe Clinton's health care proposal.

"They're not lies," McCain said, adding that Obama "chooses his words very carefully ... this is a tough campaign. And he shouldn't have said it."

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Palin, McCain contradict each other on spending