I have to thank Gov. Sarah Palin for her speech last night. You see, the one or two lies that I caught, and the mean-spirited rhetoric, created in me a fierce desire to pick apart all the negative claims in her speech. And I learned a lot.
- I already knew that she had initially supported the "Bridge to Nowhere" ($200--$400 M bridge in AK that received national attention) and later changed her mind. What I learned: not only did she support the earmark for the bridge during her campaign, and argue in favor of the bridge while in office (the earmark was removed, but the funds were given to AK) she ALSO kept the money. So in no way did she say "No, thanks" to Congress .
- I did not think that she had lowered taxes as the Governor. And she did not. Instead, she increased corporate taxes (there are no state income taxes in Alaska) and proposed refunding $1,200 of this "windfall" to people living in Alaska.
- I was deeply offended by her criticism of Sen. Obama's time as a community organizer. Then i realized that I wanted to know more about his community organizing days. And I learned that he worked for a Christian community group, made up of both Catholic and Protestant churches, and helped support laid-off steelworkers. He also led a protest that pressured the city into testing apartment units for asbestos after their residents learned that a project manager on-site was having asbestos removed from his office.
- I was suspicious of the claim that Barack Obama had not authored any significant legislation. Not true. Turns out that he passed a number of significant bills, including ethics bills hailed as the most comprehensive since Watergate, a bill in Illinois requiring that police tape-record interrogations in capital cases, and important anti-proliferation bill that he co-authored with a Republican Senator, and a number of amendments that provided benefits for veterans including: 1) free meals and phone calls to family while receiving physical therapy (some veterans had fallen behind in their bills because meals were not provided); 2) provided mandatory, face-to-face mental health screening within 30 days for returning military personnel; 3) helped homeless veterans to obtain housing.
Want to take action? Check out this fabulous post from NOW California , which tells you how.
So thank you, Gov. Palin. Really. For inspiring me to learn more about the candidate I support, so that I can put the lies you spread to rest, with authority, next time someone spouts them off in my presence.
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I hope this blows up in her face. I'm really looking forward to the debates where she will actually have to discuss her own experience. I read about the same points you wrote on here.
Great post.
The sheer nastiness and negativity of all the speeches (especially Giulani. What a complete asshole!) comes to bite the Republican party in the ass.
I must thank Sarah Palin for infuriating me to the core of my being that I was able to find this sight. For that I am greatful.
RiotGrrl--Thanks for the article. There were so many good fact checking pieces, I didn't have room for them all.
Pamela--I really hope people do take them down for the nastiness, particularly about community organizing.
Alicia--Fury can be a good thing. I think the people who picked her thought, ah ha! a woman! we will win over those eeeviil feminists, and our response has been, um, no, nice try though.
Shame on Hillary for not going head to head with Palin and challenging her record on women!
A McCain/Palin win would have disastrous long term consequences for women's rights. Overturning Roe v. Wade is only the beginning.
How can Hillary stand by and watch and fail to denounce this woman. Is Hilary showing solidarity because Palin is female? Palin is the anti-woman candidate.
How can Hillary allow even one of the women who loved and supported her candidacy throw her support behind Palin without informing her constituents, loudlly and clearly of the dire consequences of a McCain/Paliln win.
We need you now, Hil!! Where are you?!
I am not a Sarah Palin fan. However, I think it would be cool if corporations got higher taxes and that money was given back to the people. That doesn't sound too bad to me. I say this bacause there is a record number of volunteerism going on, if if people had a little extra money to combat this awful economy, I think that there would be even more support for non-governmental and grassroots orginizations. That bridge to nowhere thing though: seriously fucked up.