Sarah Palin is a BAD idea. Here's why.

After Seeing Sarah Palin giving her speeches and rants over the last few weeks, I have been inspired to compile a large list of many reasons why Sarah Palin is a horrible and corrupt candidate. I deeply encourage everyone to spend the time and read all of these to understand the truth behind Sarah Palin. All of the following statements have been gathered from real, respectable sources.

1. If/when John McCain dies from old age/his 5th bout of cancer, Sarah Palin would become president.

2. Sarah Palin was quoted in an interview with Alaska Business Monthly in 2007, saying, “ I haven’t really focused much on the war in Iraq.”
She still has no public stance on the war.
(Just imagine someone who hasn’t followed the war suddenly having the most power over it.)

3. Remember how the Republicans tried to sell Palin when they announced she was their VP choice? By saying she was a Maverick who, as governor of Alaska, had fought the “Bridge to Nowhere”?
(The "Bridge to Nowhere" idea involved a huge waste of tax dollars to build a bridge to a tiny town over which no one would ever travel)
FALSE! Sarah Palin not only supported the Bridge to Nowhere, she made monthly treks to Washington D.C. to fight for the Bridge! She only changed her opinion after seeing how hated the idea was in Alaska.

4. Sarah Palin is currently under investigation for “abuse of power”, for attempting to force Walt Monegan, a Public Safety Commissioner, to fire a state trooper who had divorced Ms. Palin's sister.

5. Palin opposed the government’s listing polar bears and beluga whales as endangered. Both animals, conveniently, live in areas rich in oil and gas. She has also sued the Bush administration for its conclusion that, unless protected, polar bears face eventual extinction because of disappearing sea ice as the result of global warming.

6. Palin said in her speech that she "championed a reform" to end excessive government earmarking? Well, in her two years as governor, Alaska has requested nearly $750 million in special federal spending, by far the largest per-capita request in the nation.
And, “as mayor of tiny Wasilla, Ms. Palin hired a lobbyist to help the town secure at least 14 earmarks, worth $27 million between 2000-'03. She has been touted as a force in Mr. McCain's battle against earmarks.”

7. She not only supports amending the constitution to BAN same-sex marriage, she would support a ballot question that would deny benefits to homosexual couples. Benefits such as the ability to visit a partner in the hospital.

8. Palin supports having creationism taught in all public schools.

9. She supports No Child Left Behind, saying that Alaska’s kids progressed under it.

10. Palin supports drilling in Alaska...and she's Alaska's governor.
She also supports drilling in ANWR, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

11. She supports teaching intelligent design in public schools.

12. Palin supports government funding for faith-based home schooling materials. “The use of privately-purchased, faith-based materials should not be a reason for withholding funding." -Palin

13. During a Sean Hannity interview just a month ago, she was quoted saying, “As for that VP talk all the time, I tell ya, I still can’t answer that question until someone answers for me, what is it exactly that the VP does, every day?”

14. Sarah Palin attended a convention in 1994 of a group asking for Alaska’s secession from the USA. Palin later told the members of the convention to "keep up the good work" and wished the party luck on an "inspiring convention".

15. She opposes stem cell research. Find a cure for cancer??? Not under Palin.

16. This month, Palin issued a statement opposing a ballot issue that would have helped protect salmon from contamination due to mining.

17. Palin doesn’t think global warming is man-made.
"A changing environment will affect Alaska more than any other state, because of our location. I'm not one though who would attribute it to being man-made." ~Palin, on August 29, 2008.

18. Sarah Palin called the Iraq war "A task from God". Like the Crusades?

19. Palin's gubernatorial inauguration was sponsored by BP.(British Petroleum)

20. Sarah Palin says she will only support abstinence-only sex education classes in public schools.

21. As Mayor, Palin asked the library how she might go about banning books from their shelves. Time magazine reports that she then threatened to fire the shocked librarian for not giving "full support" to the mayor.

22. Palin opposes abortion even in cases of rape and incest.

23. Sarah Palin was able to lower income taxes as mayor of Wasilla because she assisted in raising sales taxes just a few months before.
If you think about it, lowering income taxes and raising sales taxes actually hurts the poor and helps the rich...Basic economics.

24. "During her 2006 gubernatorial campaign, unlike other candidates, she did not endorse more funding for schools, saying efficiencies can always be made. Palin also opposed funding for a state preschool program." -Wall Street Journal

25. As Alaska's governor, "Gov. Palin didn't make health care one of her top priorities" -Wall Street Journal. When she did comment on healthcare, she maintained that the government should not have a hand in healthcare, but that the free market should control it.

26. Though Sarah Palin did indeed place the "governor’s jet" on Ebay, it did not sell there, as both she and McCain have stated.
No one bid on the jet, and it therefore had to be sold in private to a “Valdez entrepreneur” for $2.1 million, which is $.6 million less than the price for which it was purchased.

27. Palin supports the “right” to “shoot down wolves from the air” in order to boost the numbers of caribou and moose for hunters,
and has frequently spoken out in favor of this “right”.

28. Early in her career as mayor, Palin fired Wasilla’s police chief, the finance director, city planner and other department heads.
"I do not feel I have your full support in my efforts to govern the City of Wasilla," she wrote in a letter to the police chief.
*****(Remember Palin is currently under investigation for “abuse of power”..)*****

29. As Alaska’s governor, Palin was “reluctant to support a significant expansion of the state's version of the Children's Health Insurance Program, called Denali KidCare.” -Wall Street Journal
(Kids don’t need health care???)

30. According to the New York Times, Sarah Palin has no known stances on domestic wiretapping, GITMO (Guantanamo Bay prison), immigration, Iraq, Iran, or Social Security. If someone has no stances on a certain issue that means that they have never talked about it.

31. "Gov. Sarah Palin's church is promoting a conference that promises to convert gays into heterosexuals through the power of prayer." (A little bit extreme, No??)
Palin has worshipped at this church for the past 6 years.

32. Sarah Palin, during her first 19 months as governor, billed Alaska taxpayers for 312 nights she spent at home. She charged a "per diem" (Per day) allowance which was meant to cover "meals and incidental expenses while traveling on state business." -Washington Post

"The governor's daughters and husband charged the state $43,490 to travel, and many of the trips were between their house in Wasilla and Juneau, the capital city 600 miles away”

33. "...A review of Palin's 20 months in office shows that aside from overseeing the National Guard's state-level emergency missions, as all governors do, the first-term governor played no role in any territorial defense or other national defense operations involving military forces." -The Boston Globe

34. Palin is 44 years old and received her first passport in 2006. I don’t think that she has very good foreign policy experience.

35. "McCain did not properly vet Alaska governor Sarah Palin in selecting her as his running mate, and... he interviewed her in person only on the same day he offered her the position." -Harpers Magazine, Weekly Review

36. Under Palin's leadership, the town of Wasilla charged rape victims for their own rape kits. A rape kit is also called a "sexual assault evidence collection" kit. Palin's administration insisted that taxpayers should not bear the burden for these criminal investigations.
(Are victims of burglary made to pay for evidence collecting? This is one of the most absurd things that I have ever known.)

37. Palin Left Wasilla $20 Million In Debt. As mayor of Wasilla, Palin cut taxes while simultaneously expanding the town’s operating budget by almost $2 million. She ended her term in 2002 with Wasilla $20 million in debt.

38. “Her signature project as mayor was the construction of the city's new hockey rink and sports complex. Palin asked the voters for permission to issue a $15 million bond and pay for it by boosting the sales tax from 2% to 2.5%. The referendum passed by a 20-vote margin, and the city began construction. It turned out, however, that Ms. Palin's administration had fouled up the land purchase and didn't have legal title. The matter ended up in court, and the city ultimately paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in interest and legal fees.
"Wasilla isn't broke, but that put a big dent in our reserve," says City Councilwoman Dianne Woodruff. (*Reminder- Palin left Wasilla $20 million in debt*)

39. When asked what insights into recent Russian actions she gained by living in Alaska, Palin answered: "They're our next door neighbors and you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska, from an island in Alaska."

40. Sarah Palin does not know what the Bush Doctrine is.
In her first television interview after being nominated McCain's VP choice, Palin paused for a few seconds after being asked her opinion on the Bush Doctrine and said,
"...In what respect?"
She continued to avoid the question until reporter Charlie Gibson explained the doctrine's meaning to her.
(The Bush Doctrine describes President George W. Bush's declaration 6 years ago that we have the right to a pre-emptive strike on any nation that we believe is going to attack us. Just FYI.) *Once again not very smart when it comes to foreign policy*

41. When there was a vacancy at the top of the State Division of Agriculture, Governor Sarah Palin appointed “a high school classmate, Franci Havemeister, to the $95,000 per year posistion. …What was Ms. Havemeister’s qualification for running the roughly $2 million agency??? Her childhood love of cows……
"Ms. Havemeister was one of at least five schoolmates Governor Palin hired, often at salaries far exceeding their private sector wages." ~New York Times

42. Dozens of e-mails obtained by the New York Times show that Sarah Palin's mayoral staff members studied whether conducting business through private e-mail accounts could allow them to avoid court orders demanding public records. (Now why wouldn’t she want courts to see her public records??)

43. As mayor of Wasilla, Sarah Palin "used city money to buy a white Suburban for the mayor’s use."
(Didn’t she sell the governor's jet on ebay because it was a waste of tax dollars???)

44. Palin wants to ban books: “In 1995, Palin, at that time a city councilwoman, told colleagues that she had noticed the book “Daddy’s Roommate” on the shelves and that it did not belong there,” according to Laura Chase, the campaign manager during Palin’s first run for mayor in 1996, and Former Wasilla Mayor John Stein.
“Ms. Chase read the book, which helps children understand homosexuality, and said it was inoffensive; she suggested that Palin read it.” “Sarah said she didn’t need to read that stuff,” Ms. Chase said. “It was disturbing that someone would be willing to remove a book from the library and she didn’t even read it.” -New York Times

45. (Speaking of Palin hiring her old school mates…)"The Wasilla High School yearbook archive now plays as directory of state government. Ms. Palin appointed Mr. Bitney, her former junior high school band-mate, as her legislative director and chose another classmate, Joe Austerman, to manage the economic development office for $82,908 a year." New York Times

46. Mayors across the state of Alaska, “from the larger cities to tiny municipalities along the southeastern fiords,” are incredibly frustrated with Palin’s frequent absences from state affairs. Records and interviews show that, often, their letters go unanswered and their pleas ignored. “During the last legislative session, some lawmakers became so frustrated with her absences that they took to wearing “Where’s Sarah?” pins.” -New York Times
“At an Alaska Municipal League gathering in Juneau in January, mayors across the political spectrum swapped stories of the governor’s remoteness.
How many of you, someone asked, have tried to meet with her? Every hand went up, recalled Mayor Fred Shields of Haines Borough.
And how many met with her? Just a few hands rose.” ~New York Times

47. "Last summer, Mayor Mark Begich of Anchorage...pressed Ms. Palin to meet with him because the state had failed to deliver money needed to operate city traffic lights.
At one point, records show, state officials told him to just turn off a dozen of them. Palin agreed to meet with Mr. Begich when he threatened to go public with his anger, according to city officials." -New York Times

Thank you for reading.
You can e-mail me with comments at aaronret@austin.rr.com