Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Palin's Long Resume

And NONE of it gives her ANY right to be anywhere NEAR the White House, much less IN it! Very long, but well worth reading... From the Facebook group 1,000,000 Strong Against Sarah Palin

If McCain is elected as President, Sarah Palin will be a heartbeat away from running our country- and if that doesn’t scare the hell out of you, it should. There is significant risk of this occurring in his first term alone, augmented by McCain's age and history of cancer. 18% of presidents have died in office. The possibility that Palin could become president if McCain is elected is very real indeed. Do we really want Palin to take over the United States government in the event that McCain is unable to fulfill his duties?

Sarah Palin's resume on being able to run a government that represents over 300 million people:

-Business/Professional Experience: Television sports reporter, 1987-1989; Co-owner of a commercial fishing operation, 1988-2007; owner, sport vehicle rental business, 1994-1997; chairwoman, Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, 2003-2004
(
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/p/sarah_palin/index.html?scp=1-spot&sq=Sarah%20Palin&st=cse)

-Political Office: Governor of Alaska, elected 2006; mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, 1996-2002; Wasilla City Council, 1992-1996
(
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/p/sarah_palin/index.html?scp=1-spot&sq=Sarah%20Palin&st=cse)

- Bachelor's degree in journalism (with a minor in political science) from the University of Idaho. It took her 6 years and 5 school transfers to obtain this degree. Nevertheless, a journalism degree is not particularly relevant nor beneficial for a president. Dick Cheney even received a masters degree and started a doctoral degree. She would be the first president since Herbert Hoover (who even went to Stanford) to have an irrelevant degree. All presidents since then have had degrees (except Truman who went to law school for 2 years, but had 35 years government experience) related to the military, business, law and politics. Since 1897, only two presidents have had degrees not related to being an administrator in some way. Those presidents only served one term and are considered unsuccessful by historians.
(
http://www.adn.com/palin/story/516085.html)
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_palin)

- Wasilla City Council from 1992 to 1996, then mayor 1996 – 2002. As mayor of Wasilia, Palin built - as her legacy - a $15 million multi-use indoor ice arena on land that did not belong to the city. It will cost Wasilla at least an additional $1.67 million to acquire the land which the town is attempting to pay for by cutting library services, postponing capital improvement projects, and raising fees. Most cities under 10K don't have such expensive facilities. This put her town into debt. This is against the GOP platform against wasteful spending and throwing the gov't into debt.
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_palin)

- Threatened a lawsuit to stop the listing of polar bears on the endangered species list, fearing that it would hurt oil and gas development in the bears' habitat off Alaska's northern and northwestern coasts. She has also been a vocal critic of scientists who suggest that climate change is leading to the decrease in polar bears in Alaska.
(
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jiV2WBHEmiS0_TAkxcdOD_WFHDkAD92S4MS04)
(
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSN2145097820080522)

- Is responsible for approving a $400,000 state-funded propaganda campaign to justify Alaska's barbaric wolf slaughter from the skies.
(
http://dwb.adn.com/front/story/9253882p-9168881c.html)

- Palin tried last year to have the state pay $150 for every wolf killed, but the state superior court shot that down as an illegal use of bounty payments, which were outlawed in that state in 1984.
(
http://www.slate.com/id/2199140/)

- Her Husband works for BP energy corporation at an oil field on Alaska's North Slope (family ties to oil company)

- Zero Foreign policy experience, if you exclude her negotiating with foreign energy companies to exploit American resources. She is considered the leader of the Alaskan national guard but this is largely symbolic since she does not have authority to send the national guard into war. Biden, Obama, Cheney and McCain have all worked on legislation on national foreign policy. There are 17 border states, just because you're a governor of a border state doesn't mean you have national foreign policy experience.

- Does not know what the V.P. actually does. “As for that V.P. talk all the time,” she told CNBC’s Larry Kudlow in late July, “I tell ya, I still can't answer that question until somebody answers for me: What is it exactly that the V.P. does every day? I'm used to being very productive and working real hard."
(
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4gkPXSDtGQ)

- She has a total of a little under 2 years in state government. In comparison, Sen. Obama has 7 years of experience in state government and 3 years in federal government.

- She has less experience (beyond the local level) in government than Obama, McCain, and Biden.****** If she assumes the presidency within McCain's first term, she would assume office with less experience beyond the local level in the government than ANY OTHER PRESIDENT IN THE HISTORY of the United States.******

- Palin has said she is "as pro-life as any candidate can be" and called abortion "an atrocity." She has supported mandatory parental consent, and while she is pro-contraception, has also indicated her preference for abstinence education over "sex-ed programs." She would permit abortion in cases where the mother's life was endangered, but not in the case of rape or incest.
****** Important Note: There is nothing wrong with being pro-life. To clarify, Palin is not only pro-life but ANTI-choice.******
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Palin)
(
http://dwb.adn.com/news/politics/elections/governor06/story/8049298p-7942233c.html)
(
http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0908/Palin_opposed_sexed.html)

- Supports Death Penalty

- Supports unrestricted right to keep and bear arms and is a member of the National Rifle Association. Palin says, "I am a lifetime member of the NRA and I support our Constitutional right to bear arms." In 2004 in the U.S., 1804 children and teenagers were murdered in gun homicides, 846 committed suicide with guns and 143 died in unintentional shootings.

- Palin recently said that the war in Iraq is "God's task." She's even admitted she hasn't thought about the war much—just last year she was quoted saying, "I've been so focused on state government, I haven't really focused much on the war in Iraq."
(
http://thinkprogress.org/palin-digest/#fp)
(
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/02/palins-church-may-have-sh_n_123205.html)

- In August 2008, according to an interview she claimed to have had no idea what the Bush administration's plans were for Iraq and defended her stance stating it has nothing to do with state affairs, even though Alaska has a large military base.

- Is a member of Feminists for Life; she backs capital punishment, and opposes same-sex marriage.

- Supported Alaska's decision to amend its Constitution to ban same-sex marriage and would support a ballot question to deny benefits to homosexual couples.
(
http://dwb.adn.com/front/story/8508726p-8401181c.html)
(
http://www.pinknews.co.uk/news/articles/2005-3343.html)

- Although Palin is aware of a climate change, she fails to recognize that we, as gas-guzzling humans, have played a large part in it. She is not interested in alternative energy choices. She's interested in drilling in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge.

- Palin said in a 2006 debate that she supports teaching creationism alongside evolution in public schools on the grounds that "healthy debate is so important." In the same debate, she said she believed in a creator and avoided an up-or-down stance on evolution.
(
http://www.thelangreport.com/religion-or-lack-of/sarah-palin-wants-creationism-taught-in-school/)

- Palin never left the country before July 2007 when she needed to first obtain a passport before visiting Alaskan National Guard troops stationed in Kuwait.
(
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/30/us/politics/30veep.html?_r=1&ref=politics&oref=slogin)

- As mayor, former city officials and Wasilla residents
said that Palin approached the town librarian about the possibility of banning some books, though she never followed through and it was unclear which books or passages were in question.
(
http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1837918,00.html)
(
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/03/us/politics/03wasilla.html)
(
http://news.bostonherald.com/news/2008/view.bg?articleid=1117009&srvc=2008campaign&position=15)

- As a city council member in 1995, Ms. Palin told colleagues that she saw "Daddy’s Roommate" on the library shelf and said it didn't belong there. When suggested that she read the book herself, "Sarah said she didn't need to read that stuff." Despite this, the 2008 McCain-Palin presidential campaign released a statement stating that Republican Party vice presidential nominee Ms. Palin was not involved in censorship.
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daddy%27s_Roommate)

- Six months ago, Palin told members of the fringe Alaska Independence Party—who advocate for a vote on secession from the union—to "keep up the good work" and wished the party luck on what she called its "inspiring convention."
(
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-aip3-2008sep03,0,6399468.story)

- Palin's husband was a member of the Alaskan Independence Party (a secessionist group that wants Alaska to secede from the U.S. to either join Canada or become its own country). He did not leave the AIP until 2002, when his wife became involved in statewide Republican politics.
(
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-aip3-2008sep03,0,6399468.story)

- As mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, Palin enforced a policy of charging rape victims for their own rape examinations: an exam that costs $1200.
(
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/21/palin.rape.exams/index.html)
(
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jacob-alperinsheriff/sarah-palin-instituted-ra_b_125833.html)

- Palin is against Stem Cell Research.

- Sarah Palin recently claimed that she turned down federal funding for the Bridge to Nowhere. However, in her 2006 campaign for governor she was an enthusiastic supporter of the project saying that Alaska should take advantage of earmarks "while our congressional delegation is in a strong position to assist."

- When asked if she believed in the Bush doctrine, Palin had no clue what the Bush doctrine even was, no less an opinion on whether she believed in it or not. The Bush doctrine, which flung open the doors to the catastrophe in Iraq, was such a fundamental aspect of the administration’s foreign policy that it staggers the imagination that we could have someone so close to the White House who doesn’t even know what it is.
(
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/13/opinion/13herbert.html?_r=3&em&oref=slogin&oref=slogin)

- In an interview with Couric, Palin defended her puzzling claim that geographic proximity makes her some sort of expert on Russia; went nearly blank when queried about McCain's achievements as a big-business regulator; agreed America "may find itself" on the road to another Great Depression; and, promoting a troop surge in Afghanistan, casually suggested that it "will lead us to victory there, as it has proven to have done in Iraq."
(
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-na-onthemedia26-2008sep26,0,3542588.story)

- In an interview with Couric, Palin was asked to cite an example of a newspaper or magazine that she read regularly prior to being named as McCain's running mate. Three separate times, Couric tried to elicit a response from Palin about which specific newspapers she reads. Seemingly caught off guard, Palin could not name a single news source, but when pressed, she replied that she has read "all of them."
(
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/09/30/eveningnews/main4490618.shtml)

- In July of 2008, Palin became the subject of a state ethics investigation for abuse of power in Alaska: in late July, Alaska's state legislature voted to hire an independent investigator to find out whether she tried to have a state official fire her ex-brother-in-law from his job as a state trooper. She has also refused to call for the resignation of Alaska Senator Ted Stevens despite his indictment for allegedly hiding gifts received from an oil firm.

***** - Abused her power as Alaska's governor and violated state ethics law by trying to get her ex-brother-in-law fired from the state police.
(
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/10/palin.investigation/index.html)

- Can see Russia from her house.

If you have anything you'd like to change, edit, or add to Palin's resume, please post it on this board thread: 
http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?topic=6530&uid=27408324140
Do not send me a message because I probably will not see it.

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