More Skeletons

8 More Shocking Revelations About Sarah Palin

More skeletons come out of Palin's closet.

Isaac Fitzgerald and Tana Ganeva, AlterNet:

Yesterday AlterNet ran a piece titled "Top Ten Most Disturbing Facts and Impressions of Sarah Palin." And in only 24 hours, almost as many exaggerations, misrepresentations and outright lies have reared their ugly heads. If you already read yesterday's piece, here's the next installment:

1: Palin Tried to Ban Books From Local Library

Thanks to Bush, the Republican Party is not strongly associated with intellectualism. But Sarah Palin has apparently taken the conservative derision for book-learnin' to a whole new level: Time reports that as mayor of Wasilla, Palin asked the town librarian how to go about banning books from the local library.

2: Palin Apparently Doesn't Put "Country First"

Officials of the Alaskan Independence Party say that Palin was once so independent, she was once a member of their party, which since the 1970s has been pushing for a legal vote for Alaskans to decide whether or not residents of the 49th state can secede from the United States.

And while McCain's motto -- as seen in a new TV ad -- is "Country First," the AIP's motto is the exact opposite -- "Alaska First -- Alaska Always."

3: Palin's Love Affair With Earmarks

… under her leadership, the state of Alaska has requested 31 earmarks worth $197.8 million in next year's federal budget …

As mayor of the small city of Wasilla, Alaska, Palin appears to have made use of the system she now decries, hiring a Washington lobbyist, Steven Silver, to represent the town.

After he was hired, the city obtained funding for several projects, including a city bus facility that received an earmark valued at $600,000 in 2002. That year a local water and sewer project received $1.5 million in federal earmarks, according to Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonpartisan watchdog organization.

Hmmm, Steven Silver, why does that name sound familiar? Talking Points Memo is quick to remind us:

… Silver appears to have additional ties that could further undercut Palin's image as a squeaky-clean reformer. According to Senate lobbying disclosure reports examined by TPMmuckraker, from 2002 to 2004 Silver listed as a client Jack Abramoff's lobbying firm, Greenberg Traurig. On Greenberg's behalf, Silver lobbied the federal government on "issues relating to Indian/Native American policy," "exploration for oil and gas" and "legislation relating to gaming issues" -- the very issues that Abramoff headed up for Greenberg at the time.

4: Palin Slashed Funding for Teen Moms

Palin reduced funding for Covenant House Alaska by more than 20 percent, cutting funds from $5 million to $3.9 million. Covenant House is a mix of programs and shelters for troubled youths, including Passage House, which is a transitional home for teenage mothers.

5: Crazy Reverend, Crazy Church

Apparently, Sarah Palin's God was a vengeful God -- one that made Himself helpful to the Bush administration from time to time by damning critics of the president, Democrats and other irredeemable sinners. The Huffington Post writes that the church's preacher, Ed Kalinins:

… preached that critics of President Bush will be banished to hell; questioned whether people who voted for Sen. John Kerry in 2004 would be accepted to heaven; charged that the 9/11 terrorist attacks and war in Iraq were part of a war "contending for your faith;" and said that Jesus "operated from that position of war mode." [snip]

"What you see in Iraq, basically, is a manifestation of what's going on in this unseen world called the spirit world. … We need to think like Jesus thinks. We are in a time and a season of war, and we need to think like that. We need to develop that instinct. We need to develop as believers the instinct that we are at war, and that war is contending for your faith. … Jesus called us to die. You're worried about getting hurt? He's called us to die."

6: McCain Picking Palin Reeks of Sexism

...When it comes to sexism, it seems the party that isn't for equal pay or for a woman's right to choose should take a quick look in the mirror before accusing others of sexism. In fact, McCain's idea that women will vote for the McCain/Palin ticket just because Palin has a vagina is incredibly condescending, as Ann Friedman at the American Prospect writes:

Palin's addition to the ticket takes Republican faux-feminism to a whole new level. As Adam Serwer pointed out on TAPPED, this is in fact a condescending move by the GOP. It plays to the assumption that disaffected Hillary Clinton supporters did not care about her politics -- only her gender. In picking Palin, Republicans are lending credence to the sexist assumption that women voters are too stupid to investigate or care about the issues, and merely want to vote for someone who looks like them.

7: Palin Can't Even Run a Car Wash

...Good for her, nothing wrong with a little public service cushioned by some private business while raising a family. But by the time Palin was governor of Alaska, her business had run into trouble, as Matthew Mosk reports for the Washington Post:

State records show the business ran into trouble with Alaska's division of corporations business and professional licensing after Palin became governor of the state in 2006.

A Feb. 11, 2007, letter to the governor's business partner advises that the car wash had "not filed its biennial report and/or paid its biennial fees," which were more than a year overdue.

The warning letter was written on state letterhead, which carried Palin's name at the top, next to the state seal.

On April 3, 2007, the state went further and issued a "certificate of involuntary dissolution" because of the car wash's failure to file its report and pay state licensing fees.

8: Lied About Foreign Travel

In an attempt to inflate her nonexistent foreign policy credentials, Palin's spokespeople stated shortly after her nomination that she had traveled to Germany, Kuwait and Ireland: you know, the three countries most likely to give rise to catastrophic national security emergencies in the next four years.

But not only is Palin's travel history unimpressive, it was also being blatantly misrepresented. According Jim [John] Aravosis, an Irish blogger has just revealed that Palin was in Ireland for a brief refueling layover.