You know what kill’s me? It’s the fact that I keep hearing how the media has been in the pocket of Senator Obama this hold time and how hard it’s been to run against an African American to the point of making me nauseas’. On shows such as morning Joe and race for the white house as well as various others all I hear is distain dripping from nearly every comment, even a supposed complement has a backhanded insult attached. But you hear not a word about Governor Palin’s background and that’s not right, so please take a look below and call your local news stations and ask why they refuse to bring these issues to light
Vigilante Pals of Palin's not so Distant Past
By Russ Bellant Sun Oct 26, 2008 at 10:51:52 AM EST
"...the most compelling hypocrisy of the "terrorism" issue is Palin's own contemporary associations with fringe groups more committed to themes of antigovernment violence. A number of reports have noted, for instance, Palin's association with the Alaska Independence Party (AIP), a group that is trying to get Alaska to secede from the United States. Largely unreported is the deeper extremism of the AIP and its national party organization, the Constitution Party. The Ayers story is a distraction from the real and ongoing relationships that Sarah Palin has with armed rightists, a story she invites with her vacuous allegations on 'terrorism.' "
[vote up this story on Buzzflash] In the last weeks of their struggling national campaign, the McCain-Palin ticket and the Republican National Committee have chosen to attack Barack Obama for his rare and insignificant contact with Bill Ayres, a former Weather Underground member charged but not convicted of bombing federal targets at the height of opposition to the Vietnam War four decades ago.
Palin has led the charge that Obama "pals around" with terrorists, based solely on the very limited contact he had with Ayres decades after his Weather Underground days. Some of that contact is due to education projects funded by Walter Annenberg, who is also donating to the McCain campaign. Annenberg has not been accused of funding terrorism by McCain or Palin.
But the most compelling hypocrisy of the "terrorism" issue is Palin's own contemporary associations with fringe groups more committed to themes of antigovernment violence. A number of reports have noted, for instance, Palin's association with the Alaska Independence Party (AIP), a group that is trying to get Alaska to secede from the United States. Largely unreported is the deeper extremism of the AIP and its national party organization, the Constitution Party. The Ayers story is a distraction from the real and ongoing relationships that Sarah Palin has with armed rightists, a story she invites with her vacuous allegations on "terrorism."
The Constitution Party, formerly known as the U.S. Taxpayers Party (USTP), was founded in 1992 as an electoral vehicle for the growing vigilante movements that called themselves militias, as well as racists and violent antiabortion militants.
The origins of the national party go back to the American Independent Party of 1968, which was a joint effort of the John Birch Society and the Ku Klux Klan to run George Wallace for president. Various carryover elements, including the Birchers, led to the creation of the Constitution Party.
After the party was formed, a 1994 research report by Planned Parenthood, which was tracking antiabortion violence, characterized the group as "the new political home to a growing and unusual convergence of militant antiabortion leaders, elements of the violent and racist right, members of the John Birch Society and Far Right politicians."
Palin first attended an AIP event in 1994, according to ABC News interviews with party officials. By that time the theocratic and paramilitary elements of the party were manifest. An examination of who was part of the party at the time that she first made contact with the AIP and concurrent with her husband's joining the AIP, you can see the nature of the movement that she had comfort with:
* At a Wisconsin party convention in 1994, Rev. Matthew Trewhella called for the formation of church-based "armed militias" to fight abortion and bragged about training his 16 month old son on the identification of his trigger finger, according to a Planned Parenthood report on potentially violent antiabortion groups. Trewhella, a member of the national committee of the Constitution Party, also sold manuals on behalf of his Party titled Principles Justifying the Arming and Organizing of a Militia on methods of organizing and training "militias" and conducting house assaults. He recommended that that party members "buy each of your children an SKS rifle and 500 rounds of ammunition." Trewhella also publically cosigned a statement saying that killing abortion doctors was morally justifiable.
* Florida party head and National executive committee member Jeffrey Baker in 1994 also endorsed the "justifiable homicide" of any doctors who performed abortions, or their associates.
* Organizer Michael Bray had been convicted in 1985 and served four years in prison for bombing 10 clinics. He later wrote A Time To Kill, advocating the killing of doctors who perform abortions. He was characterized as the "father of violence" in Wrath of Angels, a book about antiabortion violence. Prior to this convention, a number of doctors who perform abortions had been wounded or killed and about 200 clinics had been bombed, torched or vandalized. The endorsement of these murders was not merely a symbolic statement..* Byron Dale, a 1994 convention speaker and workshop leader, had been a "confidant" of Gordon Kahl of the Posse Commitatus, a racist and anti-Semitic paramilitary group. Kahl killed two U.S. marshals in South Dakota before dying in a shootout. Dale said that he would kill any feds that tried to encroach on him.
* Randall Terry, who led the Operation Rescue blockades of abortion clinics, ran for Congress on the US Taxpayers Party ticket. He called for Christians to "take up the sword" and to "overthrow the tyrannical regime that oppresses them" so that they can install a theocratic regime based on "Biblical law." Other OR leaders involved with arrests for antiabortion actions were also Party leaders and candidates, according to the Planned Parenthood report.
* Prior to founding the Constitution Party, Howard Phillips, was the foremost American organizing support for the apartheid regime of South Africa and its African surrogates in the 1980's. He organized trips to South Africa for American sympathizers to meet the top political, intelligence and military leaders of the apartheid regime, which was the only surviving post World War II nazi party still holding power. Phillips and his allies supported Renamo, which the Ronald Reagan's State Department had condemned for having murdered over 100,000 civilians in Mozambique, as well as Unita, which was conducting killings in Angola. This writer attended one of his private organizing meetings where he marshaled his decades of political networking experience to push the Reagan State Department and the Congress to support the slave state of South Africa. Phillips was the 1992 and 1996 presidential candidate for his Party.
* Joining the formation of the Party and holding a seat on the national executive committee in 1994 was William K. Shearer of Lemon Grove, California. Shearer took his position after the folding of the Populist Party, a group formed by Willis Carto and his Liberty Lobby. Most notorious for creating the-holocaust-didn't happen propaganda and maintaining links to white supremacist groups, the Liberty Lobby and the Populist Party were condemned by the Anti Defamation League and the Atlanta-based Center for Democratic Renewal for what the latter group called "an amalgamation of neo-Nazis, skinheads, former Klansmen and other extremists who banded together."
In 1989 this writer attended a Populist Party meeting in Chicago chaired by Shearer where the featured speaker was David Duke. Security was provided by Art Jones, Chicago's foremost uniformed Nazi, who choked a TV news reporter with his necktie for critically questioning Duke at the meeting. Jones was also a regular participant in Aryans Nation gatherings when they were planning insurrectionist activities, at least two of which were witnessed by this writer. It is not clear why Shearer picked Jones to provide security or why Phillips selected Shearer for national leadership of the new Party.
During and after this period Sarah Palin maintained friendly relations with the Alaska branch of the Constitution Party for many years, according to many news reports. She attended their convention again in 2000 and in 2006 sought their support for her run for governor. In June 2008 she sent them a video wishing them "good luck on a successful and inspiring convention, keep up the good work and God bless you."
Her husband Todd joined the party during the period of militancy in 1995 and changed his voter registration in 2002 to "undeclared."
A recent review of the websites of the AIP and its parent Constitution Party demonstrates that these groups are still the home of the violence-inclined far right. The national platform, for instance, pledges to "support and encourage unorganized militia at the county and community level."
Its origins in the southern racist elements is reflected in the group's calls for repealing "hate crime legislation," the Voting Rights Act (which ended the disenfranchisement of millions of voters in the deep South) and, most tellingly, supports the claim that states ( not just Alaska ) can secede from the United States at any time. The plank on secession states that "each state's membership in the Union is voluntary."
The well-reported fact that the AIP advocates secession from the United States is also supplemented by the group's constitution, which requires playing only the Alaska Anthem, not the national anthem. This could not be lost on Palin, who has attended at least three AIP conventions and continues to praise them.
Another element of extremism in the Constitution Party is its assertion that the U.S. should be governed by "Biblical law" and places as their first policy plank a complete prohibition on all abortions, regardless of the circumstances. They also call for the repeal of the federal law that restricts antiabortion militants from physically disrupting clinics where abortions are performed.
The influence for these views comes from the Christian Reconstructionist movement founded by the late R.J. Rushdoony, a Constitution Party cofounder. The conservative evangelical magazine Christianity Today in 1987 published a critical article about Reconstructionist goals to assert Old Testament law over society in which "homosexuals, adulterers, blasphemers, astrologers and others will be executed." The formation of so called militias ( read: vigilante groups ) as the armed forces of Reconstructionism is the core of what the Constitution Party is about.
Reporters for Salon.com, funded by the Nation Institute for Investigative Journalism, found that Palin had local ties to this extremist movement. They reported that in Palin's successful campaign for mayor of Wasilla, that Mark Chryson, a long time state leader of the AIP, and Steve Stoll, a leader of the John Birch Society, played influential roles. "During the 1990's, when Chryson directed the AIP, he and another radical rightwinger, Steve Stoll, played a quiet but pivotal role in electing Palin as mayor of Wasilla and shaping her agenda afterward. Both Stoll and Chryson not only contributed to Palin's campaign financially, they played a major behind-the-scenes roles in the Palin camp before, during and after her victory."
Chryson told Salon that he stays in touch with secessionist groups in 30 states. He said that he and Palin worked to together to alter the state constitution "to better facilitate the formation of antigovernment militias." Chryson added that "every time I showed up her door was always open. And that policy continued when she was governor."
Palin also tried to install Stoll in a vacant city council seat when she was mayor, even though he was well known in the area as "Black Helicopter Steve," according to the Salon.com report, apparently due to his militia-like conspiracy theories.
When she was city council member, Palin posed for what appears to be her official photograph with a John Birch Society publication. The JBS is the ideological core of the so-called militia groups and coined the phrase that "the US is a republic, not a democracy" and opposed the public election of US senators, instead having them appointed by state legislatures, a view reflected in the Constitution Party platform. The Birchers became notorious years ago for characterizing the U.S. as partially communist and placed presidents such as Dwight Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon as complicit in the "Communist conspiracy."
Another arena in which militant talk is associated with prospectively violent results is in Palin's church life. Since becoming Governor, she has attended the Juneau Christian Church, which has affiliated itself with leaders of the "Toronto Blessing." The Toronto Blessing an ultracharismatic practice centered on "Holy Laughter"(otherwise known as hysterical laughter) which includes howling, barking like dogs, screaming, spasmodic jerking and rolling on floors as part of, even the substance of, "church" services. This has been reported on, taped and criticized by traditional, conservative evangelical ministries but it has spread across North America.This may sound harmless, but it binds members together in perceived antidemonic "power evangelism" to turn their cities into citadels for the righteous. One of those leaders, Rodney Howard Browne, exhorted congregants to great applause when he claimed that their movement is "going to shake this nation to its very foundations, to its very core...its going to shake America like a tsunami" and told them that "if it means death, so be it."
In a video posted by Bruce Wilson on the website of Talk To Action, Browne is described as closely linked to Palin's Juneau church and its minister. They are identified as part of a movement that seeks to "restructure the churches of America to do battle with evil prior to the return of Jesus. They are also preparing a generation of youth to serve as "Joel's Army" and to attack the "demonic strongholds" of America." Joel's Army refers to a violent end time army in the Old Testament book of Joel. Wilson previously published videos that caused John McCain to drop his affiliation with controversial ministers John Hagee and Rod Parsley.
It is unclear what Palin believes regarding the themes of violence of most the extreme elements of the groups that she has associated with for many years. But if she is going to use guilt by association methods based on activities that occurred decades ago, she has some more recent associations of her own to explain. If she believes her frequents assertions that the US is a "great nation," then why does she associate with secessionists that try to break it up? If she opposes domestic violence for political ends, how can she be associated with a group with leaders that have embraced `justifiable homicide"? It is disturbing that she declined to condemn the violence and murder against abortion providers in the NBC interview with Brian Williams, even though he asked her twice about that matter.
There is no statewide elected leader, either as governor or U.S. Senator, that has more extreme right wing, violence-prone associations that Sarah Palin. John McCain has asked us to endorse her, but even if the ticket fails this time, he has elevated her to a contending position for the 2012, energizing and empowering the extreme right in the process. No wonder that even some informed elements of the Republican Party are abandoning him.
If Sarah Palin isn’t a Member of the John Birch Society, She Should be
By mark karlin
Created 10/27/2008 - 8:09am
MARK KARLIN'S EDITOR'S BLOG
October 27
Sarah Palin has got a pass because the corporate news media has largely let her off the hook for her radical anti-American beliefs.
The mainstream press hasn’t explored the close relationship of Palin and her husband with the extremist, secessionist Alaskan Independence Party (AIP), because the McCain campaign says that she was never officially a "member." Of course, that’s a technicality because the Palins have been close to Alaskan Independence Party members, ideas and conventions, [1] with Governor Palin even sending a video tape welcome to the AIP convention [2] this year in Fairbanks, in which she commends them and indicates that she shares their values. And AIP members were among her earliest promoters for elected office, and Palin hasn’t forgotten them, not by a long shot.
And the corporate media has largely left unexplored Palin’s fanatical "Third Wave" End Times religious beliefs that promote her as a "prayer warrior" destined to take over the U.S. government to turn America into a Christian nation in which the non-believers will be shown the door. Not to mention that Palin has had a minister personally lay hands on her to protect her from witch doctors, has sat through a "Jews for Jesus" presentation in which the speaker espoused an "Elders of Zion" conspiracy theory about Jews, and proclaimed that the Iraq War is divinely inspired. And that’s just for starters.
But the corporate media listens to the campaign evasion that Palin doesn’t officially belong to a church (even though she is tied at the hip, thigh, and ankle bone to the Wasilla Assembly of God) and proclaims, "case closed."
In short, what passes as the mass media in America is acting like it doesn’t have a curious brain in any of its multi-billion dollar corporate body.
Supposing a teenager was caught driving around drunk, smashing into cars, and doing untold damage on numerous occasions. Supposing that whenever the case came to court the teenager’s lawyer pleaded to the judge that the teen could not be guilty of drunken driving because he didn’t have a driver’s license. Supposing the judge dismissed each case by saying, "I don’t know how the young man could be charged with drunken driving when he doesn’t have a license to drive. Case dismissed."
Well, that, "my friends" (to quote John McCain), is the stance of the establishment press – with few exceptions – toward Sarah Palin’s stark raving bonkers extremist views on several fronts.
Now, we have another group that she doesn’t officially belong to, but to whose outlook she clearly subscribes: The John Birch Society. (There is a photo going around the Internet [3], provided by Palin’s family, of her holding a John Birch Society publication from 1995, but that’s not really evidence of much. The evidence is in her beliefs, not what she has in her hand.)
While in Iowa over the weekend, speaking to a group that reportedly was filled with shouts of "Marxist," "Socialist," and "Communist" every time that Palin mentioned Obama, Palin said [4]:
"See, under a big government, more tax agenda, what you thought was yours would really start belonging to somebody else, to everybody else. If you thought your income, your property, your inventory, your investments were, were yours, they would really collectively belong to everybody. Obama, Barack Obama has an ideological commitment to higher taxes, and I say this based on his record... Higher taxes, more government, misusing the power to tax leads to government moving into the role of some believing that government then has to take care of us. And government kind of moving into the role as the other half of our family, making decisions for us. Now, they do this in other countries where the people are not free. Let us fight for what is right. John McCain and I, we will put our trust in you."
Whoa, that is certainly crossing over into John Birch Society extra-terrestrial whacko terrain!
So let’s go to the source -- the John Birch Society website -- for this quotation [5], which mirrors Palin’s, but with correct syntax:
"It is understandable that the severe crisis of traditional family life is fueling our overall cultural breakdown. It is also understandable why revolutionaries who wage war against God and man, and who see the family as an obstacle in their path, would work to subvert and destroy the family. Karl Marx, in his Communist Manifesto, explicitly called for the "abolition of the family." Both before and after Karl Marx, from ancient Sparta where children were taken away from their parents and brought up communally, to Nazi Germany, where the young were forced into the Hitler Youth, totalitarians have tried to supplant the family with the Almighty State. But try as they might, the family, though weakened at times, has never been destroyed."
On the John Birch Society website it also proclaims [6]: "Vibrant and healthy families are essential to securing limited government interference in a free society. Actions which empower families should be encouraged."
Of course, the corporate media will let this Palin John Birch Society affinity pass, because no doubt the McCain campaign will act indignant and say it is insulting to ask if she is a member.
Wake up dummies in the national press corps, membership is not the issue. If a person talks and acts like they are believers in the John Birch Society, membership doesn’t matter.
If Sarah Palin isn’t in the John Birch Society, she should be.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that one out, just a few Google searches.
Monday, October 27, 2008
Saturday, October 11, 2008
The First Amendment of the Constitution defends our rights as citizens to free speech, freedom of the press, freedom to worship as we choose (with no involvement from the state), freedom to petition and to assemble peacefully in protest. It allows us to broach controversial topics without fear of persecution, to question our government without consequential incarceration and to follow our beliefs without subsequent oppression.
Which makes the past 3 decades even more confusing. The Party that founded itself in the idea of upholding the Constitution and little else, less government and more personal responsibility, has become an ideological authority for half of America. The Party of Lincoln has become the Party of "Values" (Re: Christian Values), imposing their rhetoric upon the nation in the form of laws and legislation.
That would be fine, if this were a country founded in theocracy; it is not. As we decry Radical Islam and it's stranglehold on Middle Eastern politics, it would do us well to remember that extremism begins not with an explosion, but with persuasion.
- Kirtley
As governor, Palin at times bonds church and state
By GARANCE BURKE, Associated Press WriterSat Oct 11, 12:59 PM ET
The camera closes in on Sarah Palin speaking to young missionaries, vowing from the pulpit to do her part to implement God's will from the governor's office.
What she didn't tell worshippers gathered at the Wasilla Assembly of God church in her hometown was that her appearance that day came courtesy of Alaskan taxpayers, who picked up the $639.50 tab for her airplane tickets and per diem fees.
An Associated Press review of the Republican vice presidential candidate's record as mayor and governor reveals her use of elected office to promote religious causes, sometimes at taxpayer expense and in ways that blur the line between church and state.
Since she took state office in late 2006, the governor and her family have spent more than $13,000 in taxpayer funds to attend at least 10 religious events and meetings with Christian pastors, including Franklin Graham, the son of evangelical preacher Billy Graham, records show.
Palin was baptized Roman Catholic as a newborn and baptized again in a Pentecostal Assemblies of God church when she was a teenager. She has worshipped at a nondenominational Bible church since 2002, opposes abortion even in cases of rape and incest and supports classroom discussions about creationism.
Since she was named as John McCain's running mate, Palin's deep faith and support for traditional moral values have rallied conservative voters who initially appeared reluctant to back his campaign.
On a weekend trip from the capital in June, a minister from the Wasilla Assembly of God blessed Palin and Lt. Gov Sean Parnell before a crowd gathered for the "One Lord Sunday" event at the town's hockey rink. Later in the day, she addressed the budding missionaries at her former church.
"As I'm doing my job, let's strike this deal. Your job is going be to be out there, reaching the people — (the) hurting people — throughout Alaska," she told students graduating from the church's Masters Commission program. "We can work together to make sure God's will be done here."
A spokeswoman for the McCain-Palin campaign, Maria Comella, said the state paid for Palin's travel and meals on that trip, and for other meetings with Christian groups, because she and her family were invited in their official capacity as Alaska's first family. Parnell did not charge the state a per diem or ask to be reimbursed for travel expenses that day.
"I understand the per diem policy is, I can claim it if I am away from my residence for 12 hours or more. And Anchorage is where my residence is and I'm based from. And this trip took about four hours of driving time and time at the event, so I did not claim per diem for this one," Parnell told the AP.
Palin and her family billed the state $3,022 for the cost of attending Christian gatherings exclusively, including visits to the Assembly of God here and to the congregation they attend in Juneau, according to expense reports reviewed by the AP.
Experts say those trips fall into an ethically gray area, since Democrats and Republicans alike often visit religious venues for personal and official reasons.
J. Brent Walker, who runs a Washington, D.C.-based group that advocates for church-state separation, said based on a reporter's account, Palin's June excursion raised questions.
"Politicians are entitled to freely exercise their religion while in office, but ethically if not legally that part of her trip ought to not be charged to taxpayers," said Walker, executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty. "It's still fundamentally a religious and spiritual experience she is having."
The Palins billed the state an additional $10,094 in expenses for other multi-day trips that included worship services or religiously themed events, but also involved substantial state business, including the governor's inaugural ball and an oil and gas conference in New Orleans.
Palin also submitted $998 in expenses for a June trip to Anchorage that included a bill signing at Congregation Beth Shalom synagogue, the only non-Christian house of worship she has visited since taking office, according to the McCain campaign.
In response to an AP request, Comella provided a list showing that since January 2007 the governor had attended 25 "faith-based events," including funerals and community meetings held at churches. Many did not appear on the governor's schedule or her travel records.
Palin has said publicly her personal opinions don't "bleed on over into policies."
Still, after the AP reported the governor had accepted tainted donations during her 2006 campaign, she announced she would donate the $2,100 to three charities, including an Anchorage nonprofit aimed at "sharing God's love" to dissuade young women from having abortions.
An AP review of her time as mayor, from late 1996 to 2002, also reveals a commingling of church and state.
Records of her mayoral correspondence show that Palin worked arduously to organize a day of prayer at city hall. She said that with local ministers' help, Wasilla — a city of 7,000 an hour's drive north of Anchorage — could become "a light, or a refuge for others in Alaska and America."
"What a blessing that the Lord has already put into place the Christian leaders, even though I know it's all through the grace of God," she wrote in March 2000 to her former pastor. She thanked him for the loan of a video featuring a Kenyan preacher who later would pray for her protection from witchcraft as she sought higher office.
In that same period, she also joined a grass-roots, faith-based movement to stop the local hospital from performing abortions, a fight that ultimately lost before the Alaska Supreme Court.
Palin's former church and other evangelical denominations were instrumental in ousting members of Valley Hospital's board who supported abortion rights — including the governor's mother-in-law, Faye Palin.
Alaska Right to Life Director Karen Lewis, who led the campaign, said Palin wasn't a leader in the movement initially. But by 1997, after she had been elected mayor, Palin joined a hospital board to make sure the abortion ban held while the courts considered whether the ban was legal, Lewis said.
"We kept pro-life people like Sarah on the association board to ensure children of the womb would be protected," Lewis said. "She's made up of this great fiber of high morals and godly character, and yet she's fearless. She's someone you can depend on to carry the water."
In November 2007, the Alaska Supreme Court ruled that because the hospital received more than $10 million in public funds it was "quasi-public" and couldn't forbid legal abortions.
Comella said Palin joined the hospital's broader association in the mid-1990s. Records show she was elected to the nonprofit's board in 2000.
Ties among those active at the time still run deep: In November, Palin was a keynote speaker at Lewis' "Proudly Pro-Life Dinner" in Anchorage, and the governor billed taxpayers a $60 per diem fee for her work that day.
Palin also is one of just two governors who channeled federal money to support religious groups through a state agency, Alaska's Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. Palin has made it a priority to unite faith communities, local nonprofits and government to serve the needy, bringing her high marks — and $500,000 — from the Bush administration.
In fiscal year 2008, Alaska was one of only four states to receive $500,000 in federal grant money from the national initiative.
"The governor has a healthy appreciation for faith-based groups that serve Alaskans in need," said Jay Hein, who until recently directed national faith-based initiatives at the White House. "The grant speaks to their organizational strength, and the dynamism of Alaska's operation."
Several Catholic and Christian charities received funding, including $20,000 for a Fairbanks homeless shelter that views itself as a "stable door of evangelism and Christian service" and $36,000 for a drop-in center at an Anchorage mall that seeks to demonstrate "the unconditional love of Jesus to teenagers."
The state ensures all faith-based groups keep a strict separation between their work in the community and their prayer services to ensure recipients don't feel coerced, said Tara Horton, a special assistant to the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services. Though staffers reached out to nonprofits and religious groups of many faiths, mostly Christian organizations applied for funding, she said.
In June, when Alaska legislators decided to cut $712,000 in state support for the office, Parnell sent lawmakers an urgent letter asking them to put it back in the budget. A small portion of state funding was later restored.
"Gov. Palin is motivated by the needs out there, and faith-based and community initiatives are a great way to do that," Parnell said. "It matters not to state government what religion people belong to, so long as they are serving the public and the money they receive is used appropriately."
Still, a state worker who directs an Anchorage-based group that advocates for church-state separation, Lloyd Eggan, said Palin's administration hasn't done enough to assure voters that government money doesn't support ministry.
"That sort of thing is exactly what courts have said is barred by the First Amendment," Eggan said.
Which makes the past 3 decades even more confusing. The Party that founded itself in the idea of upholding the Constitution and little else, less government and more personal responsibility, has become an ideological authority for half of America. The Party of Lincoln has become the Party of "Values" (Re: Christian Values), imposing their rhetoric upon the nation in the form of laws and legislation.
That would be fine, if this were a country founded in theocracy; it is not. As we decry Radical Islam and it's stranglehold on Middle Eastern politics, it would do us well to remember that extremism begins not with an explosion, but with persuasion.
- Kirtley
As governor, Palin at times bonds church and state
By GARANCE BURKE, Associated Press WriterSat Oct 11, 12:59 PM ET
The camera closes in on Sarah Palin speaking to young missionaries, vowing from the pulpit to do her part to implement God's will from the governor's office.
What she didn't tell worshippers gathered at the Wasilla Assembly of God church in her hometown was that her appearance that day came courtesy of Alaskan taxpayers, who picked up the $639.50 tab for her airplane tickets and per diem fees.
An Associated Press review of the Republican vice presidential candidate's record as mayor and governor reveals her use of elected office to promote religious causes, sometimes at taxpayer expense and in ways that blur the line between church and state.
Since she took state office in late 2006, the governor and her family have spent more than $13,000 in taxpayer funds to attend at least 10 religious events and meetings with Christian pastors, including Franklin Graham, the son of evangelical preacher Billy Graham, records show.
Palin was baptized Roman Catholic as a newborn and baptized again in a Pentecostal Assemblies of God church when she was a teenager. She has worshipped at a nondenominational Bible church since 2002, opposes abortion even in cases of rape and incest and supports classroom discussions about creationism.
Since she was named as John McCain's running mate, Palin's deep faith and support for traditional moral values have rallied conservative voters who initially appeared reluctant to back his campaign.
On a weekend trip from the capital in June, a minister from the Wasilla Assembly of God blessed Palin and Lt. Gov Sean Parnell before a crowd gathered for the "One Lord Sunday" event at the town's hockey rink. Later in the day, she addressed the budding missionaries at her former church.
"As I'm doing my job, let's strike this deal. Your job is going be to be out there, reaching the people — (the) hurting people — throughout Alaska," she told students graduating from the church's Masters Commission program. "We can work together to make sure God's will be done here."
A spokeswoman for the McCain-Palin campaign, Maria Comella, said the state paid for Palin's travel and meals on that trip, and for other meetings with Christian groups, because she and her family were invited in their official capacity as Alaska's first family. Parnell did not charge the state a per diem or ask to be reimbursed for travel expenses that day.
"I understand the per diem policy is, I can claim it if I am away from my residence for 12 hours or more. And Anchorage is where my residence is and I'm based from. And this trip took about four hours of driving time and time at the event, so I did not claim per diem for this one," Parnell told the AP.
Palin and her family billed the state $3,022 for the cost of attending Christian gatherings exclusively, including visits to the Assembly of God here and to the congregation they attend in Juneau, according to expense reports reviewed by the AP.
Experts say those trips fall into an ethically gray area, since Democrats and Republicans alike often visit religious venues for personal and official reasons.
J. Brent Walker, who runs a Washington, D.C.-based group that advocates for church-state separation, said based on a reporter's account, Palin's June excursion raised questions.
"Politicians are entitled to freely exercise their religion while in office, but ethically if not legally that part of her trip ought to not be charged to taxpayers," said Walker, executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty. "It's still fundamentally a religious and spiritual experience she is having."
The Palins billed the state an additional $10,094 in expenses for other multi-day trips that included worship services or religiously themed events, but also involved substantial state business, including the governor's inaugural ball and an oil and gas conference in New Orleans.
Palin also submitted $998 in expenses for a June trip to Anchorage that included a bill signing at Congregation Beth Shalom synagogue, the only non-Christian house of worship she has visited since taking office, according to the McCain campaign.
In response to an AP request, Comella provided a list showing that since January 2007 the governor had attended 25 "faith-based events," including funerals and community meetings held at churches. Many did not appear on the governor's schedule or her travel records.
Palin has said publicly her personal opinions don't "bleed on over into policies."
Still, after the AP reported the governor had accepted tainted donations during her 2006 campaign, she announced she would donate the $2,100 to three charities, including an Anchorage nonprofit aimed at "sharing God's love" to dissuade young women from having abortions.
An AP review of her time as mayor, from late 1996 to 2002, also reveals a commingling of church and state.
Records of her mayoral correspondence show that Palin worked arduously to organize a day of prayer at city hall. She said that with local ministers' help, Wasilla — a city of 7,000 an hour's drive north of Anchorage — could become "a light, or a refuge for others in Alaska and America."
"What a blessing that the Lord has already put into place the Christian leaders, even though I know it's all through the grace of God," she wrote in March 2000 to her former pastor. She thanked him for the loan of a video featuring a Kenyan preacher who later would pray for her protection from witchcraft as she sought higher office.
In that same period, she also joined a grass-roots, faith-based movement to stop the local hospital from performing abortions, a fight that ultimately lost before the Alaska Supreme Court.
Palin's former church and other evangelical denominations were instrumental in ousting members of Valley Hospital's board who supported abortion rights — including the governor's mother-in-law, Faye Palin.
Alaska Right to Life Director Karen Lewis, who led the campaign, said Palin wasn't a leader in the movement initially. But by 1997, after she had been elected mayor, Palin joined a hospital board to make sure the abortion ban held while the courts considered whether the ban was legal, Lewis said.
"We kept pro-life people like Sarah on the association board to ensure children of the womb would be protected," Lewis said. "She's made up of this great fiber of high morals and godly character, and yet she's fearless. She's someone you can depend on to carry the water."
In November 2007, the Alaska Supreme Court ruled that because the hospital received more than $10 million in public funds it was "quasi-public" and couldn't forbid legal abortions.
Comella said Palin joined the hospital's broader association in the mid-1990s. Records show she was elected to the nonprofit's board in 2000.
Ties among those active at the time still run deep: In November, Palin was a keynote speaker at Lewis' "Proudly Pro-Life Dinner" in Anchorage, and the governor billed taxpayers a $60 per diem fee for her work that day.
Palin also is one of just two governors who channeled federal money to support religious groups through a state agency, Alaska's Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. Palin has made it a priority to unite faith communities, local nonprofits and government to serve the needy, bringing her high marks — and $500,000 — from the Bush administration.
In fiscal year 2008, Alaska was one of only four states to receive $500,000 in federal grant money from the national initiative.
"The governor has a healthy appreciation for faith-based groups that serve Alaskans in need," said Jay Hein, who until recently directed national faith-based initiatives at the White House. "The grant speaks to their organizational strength, and the dynamism of Alaska's operation."
Several Catholic and Christian charities received funding, including $20,000 for a Fairbanks homeless shelter that views itself as a "stable door of evangelism and Christian service" and $36,000 for a drop-in center at an Anchorage mall that seeks to demonstrate "the unconditional love of Jesus to teenagers."
The state ensures all faith-based groups keep a strict separation between their work in the community and their prayer services to ensure recipients don't feel coerced, said Tara Horton, a special assistant to the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services. Though staffers reached out to nonprofits and religious groups of many faiths, mostly Christian organizations applied for funding, she said.
In June, when Alaska legislators decided to cut $712,000 in state support for the office, Parnell sent lawmakers an urgent letter asking them to put it back in the budget. A small portion of state funding was later restored.
"Gov. Palin is motivated by the needs out there, and faith-based and community initiatives are a great way to do that," Parnell said. "It matters not to state government what religion people belong to, so long as they are serving the public and the money they receive is used appropriately."
Still, a state worker who directs an Anchorage-based group that advocates for church-state separation, Lloyd Eggan, said Palin's administration hasn't done enough to assure voters that government money doesn't support ministry.
"That sort of thing is exactly what courts have said is barred by the First Amendment," Eggan said.
Saturday, October 04, 2008
I have heard all kinds of BS in my life, but this takes not only the cake but the table in was setting on. How in the hell can anyone support these assholes, yes I said it and I hear so many people I work with, people at the gym at the store talk about the maverick, and I say where the hell is he? People get a grip!
Palin: Ohio Vets Are Unqualified Voters?
Watching John McCain attack our veterans has become the norm these past few years, with his status as a symbol for the American veteran merely a weird plot twist in his history; We have watched him stand on the Senate floor for five-and-a-half hours, leading the fight against the dwell time amendment that would give our troops more time between tours. We have seen him speak out against the 21st Century GI Bill that would expand education benefits for our troops for the first time since the Senator himself used them to pay for college. Like a bizarro-world version of Mark Foley ruthlessly fighting pedophiles while being one himself, so goes McCain's inexplicable record on veterans issues.
But finally, he's put his mouth where his money is. McCain and Palin, who both have children in the Armed Forces, have declared Ohio troops and hospitalized vets unqualified voters.
I get emails from McCain's Ohio arm to try to keep an eye on what they're doing there, since the state will probably decide the election, but happens to have a Republican party establishment that would purge every voter without a butler from the rolls if it had the chance. This is what they sent out after the debate last night under Palin's name:
The Obama-Biden Democrats and their allies are exploiting loopholes in Ohio election laws that we fear may result in unqualified voters casting ballots.
The "loophole in Ohio election laws" that Palin is talking about is not a loophole at all, just a very sensible premise that is standard for absentee ballots -- that a vote is not technically cast until it is tabulated. Republican groups cited a rule that requires 30 days between registration and voting and sought to disqualify absentee ballots that were filled out on the same day as registration. Same-day registration and filling out of absentee ballots is the best option available to unregistered troops abroad and hospitalized vets in VA facilities. The "Obama-Biden Democrats and their allies" are non-partisan veterans advocacy groups like Veterans For America and IAVA that fought tooth and nail to defeat a lawsuit that challenged this very sensible notion to protect thousands of troops and vets from disenfranchisement.
With deployed troops donating 6:1 in favor of Obama, the cynic in me can see why the GOP doesn't want their votes to count. Then the decent person in me chimes in and says, "I can't see how anyone could try to block a deployed soldier's right to vote and be able to live with themselves."
Despite Gov. Palin's strange relationship with colloquialism ("Hockey Moms across America," anyone? How many are there?), the use of the term "unqualified voters" in a country that generally lets citizens over the age of 18 vote is the kind of phrase that should've been phased out long before the word "email" was phased in. With regards to the only American citizens who don't get to vote, felons, that's left up to the states. In Ohio, felons are only disqualified from voting while incarcerated, and I'm pretty sure she isn't talking about prison visitors stuffing stacks of voter registration forms and absentee ballots into God-knows-where in the name of democracy, though that would be quite the heist.
That leaves the troops and hospitalized veterans, the target of this power-grab. Nope, don't want those dangerously unqualified voters pulling the levers at all...
Palin: Ohio Vets Are Unqualified Voters?
Watching John McCain attack our veterans has become the norm these past few years, with his status as a symbol for the American veteran merely a weird plot twist in his history; We have watched him stand on the Senate floor for five-and-a-half hours, leading the fight against the dwell time amendment that would give our troops more time between tours. We have seen him speak out against the 21st Century GI Bill that would expand education benefits for our troops for the first time since the Senator himself used them to pay for college. Like a bizarro-world version of Mark Foley ruthlessly fighting pedophiles while being one himself, so goes McCain's inexplicable record on veterans issues.
But finally, he's put his mouth where his money is. McCain and Palin, who both have children in the Armed Forces, have declared Ohio troops and hospitalized vets unqualified voters.
I get emails from McCain's Ohio arm to try to keep an eye on what they're doing there, since the state will probably decide the election, but happens to have a Republican party establishment that would purge every voter without a butler from the rolls if it had the chance. This is what they sent out after the debate last night under Palin's name:
The Obama-Biden Democrats and their allies are exploiting loopholes in Ohio election laws that we fear may result in unqualified voters casting ballots.
The "loophole in Ohio election laws" that Palin is talking about is not a loophole at all, just a very sensible premise that is standard for absentee ballots -- that a vote is not technically cast until it is tabulated. Republican groups cited a rule that requires 30 days between registration and voting and sought to disqualify absentee ballots that were filled out on the same day as registration. Same-day registration and filling out of absentee ballots is the best option available to unregistered troops abroad and hospitalized vets in VA facilities. The "Obama-Biden Democrats and their allies" are non-partisan veterans advocacy groups like Veterans For America and IAVA that fought tooth and nail to defeat a lawsuit that challenged this very sensible notion to protect thousands of troops and vets from disenfranchisement.
With deployed troops donating 6:1 in favor of Obama, the cynic in me can see why the GOP doesn't want their votes to count. Then the decent person in me chimes in and says, "I can't see how anyone could try to block a deployed soldier's right to vote and be able to live with themselves."
Despite Gov. Palin's strange relationship with colloquialism ("Hockey Moms across America," anyone? How many are there?), the use of the term "unqualified voters" in a country that generally lets citizens over the age of 18 vote is the kind of phrase that should've been phased out long before the word "email" was phased in. With regards to the only American citizens who don't get to vote, felons, that's left up to the states. In Ohio, felons are only disqualified from voting while incarcerated, and I'm pretty sure she isn't talking about prison visitors stuffing stacks of voter registration forms and absentee ballots into God-knows-where in the name of democracy, though that would be quite the heist.
That leaves the troops and hospitalized veterans, the target of this power-grab. Nope, don't want those dangerously unqualified voters pulling the levers at all...
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