Inquiring Minds Wanted To Know: Was Sarah Palin's Pregnancy A Hoax?

Sure, throughout history, there have been women who chose to make an intentionally false claim of Pregnancy.

But, never ever has any woman made such a claim on the scale of this recent example...

Half-Governor Sarah Palin.  And uh, no... I Kid You Not.

Scandalous?

Absolutely!

Still... Apparently, La Palin wasn't actually preggers.

And, not only that, but Trig isn't Palin's son - he's her grandson.

Don't believe me?  I don't blame you.

I wouldn't have believed it myself... Sounds too National Enquirer-ish, right?

If you would simply suspend your disbelief for just a moment and listen to this:

There's a very real and growing body of evidence that all points to it being True that Sarah Palin's pregnancy was a great, big, manipulative Hoax.  I read through it and it has convinced me of its veracity.

Now, obviously, the mainstream press bowed and cowed in '08.

So, Now Is The Time To Investigate! (No time like the present, right?)

Hello Boys & Girls! Today's word is: "Fraud"... as in: "Sarah Palin, et al. perpetrated an enormous Fraud on the American people."

Hell... Where are those "Birthers" when you need them? (La Palin has yet to produce an authentic/official birth certificate, amongst other discrepancies.)

 Check out the documented evidence for yourself in the article from Business Insider (below).

Thanks to One Million Pissed Off Women for bringing this gem to my attention.

P.S.~ This is not a case of "going after someone's children", although that's what the first outraged defenders of Palin will, undoubtedly, cry out - with much gnashing of teeth and rending of clothes..

What it Is:  A case of then-Alaska governor and candidate for Vice President of the U.S.A., Palin, and untold numbers of helpers attempting to - well, no... they did put one over on all of America.

And I, for one, think that their bunko behavior Sucks.

I also think that all of the people who were instrumental/complicit in perpetrating this hoax need to be exposed, publicly,  as the Liars, Deceivers & Frauds that they work so hard to be and truly are.

Enjoy!

Peace,

L.

GOP Conservatives: "They're Afraid To Debate Us!" TRMS: "Let's Debate." GOP: "Er... Um, No."

There are numerous Conservative GOP candidates have gone to great extents to make their unhappiness with how they are covered on MSNBC, TRMS and Countdown known.

They complain, profusely, in fund-raising emails; they use them as a 'laugh line' in their stump speeches; they make the ludicrous claims: (courtesy of a Liz Cheney ad) "They (msnbc, et al) Are Afraid To Debate Us.".

These conservatives' cries of "foul" are utterly ludicrous for a very simple fact:

As an example: Despite having been repeatedly invited to appear in-person on TRMS and to have the opportunity to say, in their own words, what it is exactly that Rachel had (in their minds) gotten wrong about them - they've resolutely refused to do so.

And, to this day, they continue to refuse an open invitation.

So, I ask you, "Who, Exactly, Is Afraid Of Whom?".

Here's a brief yet fact-filled clip of Rachel explaining the blatant hypocrisy of their claims when one considers that they are the ones refusing to appear on the show. It also includes yet another warm, friendly, cheerful and open invitation from Rachel for any one of them to please come on the show to debate her.

Enjoy!

Sarah Palin vs The Fruit Fly... I'm Cheering For The Fruit Fly

After reading the following quote by Sarah Palin and watching the clip from a speech given in Pittsburgh last Friday...

Two words came to my mind:
(In the voice of a character called Gomer Pyle from an old B/W TV show.)

"Well, Gawwwwlllyy!"

Actually...

Ignorance isn't bliss...

Unless you are ignorant...

But, for the rest of us...

The (thankfully) well-read, educated, independently-thinking people...

To observe the ill-informed actions of and the impasssioned words of the ignorant is...

In two words:

Utterly Excruciating!

Here is Sarah Palin...
(In her choreographed "good 'ol girl" delivery)

attacking the funding of fruit fly research... this time done in the evil empire of Paris, France...

even though the very same sort of fruit fly research which she claims in her speech, with incredulity, makes no sense and doesn't serve 'the public good'...

has only greatly increased the medical community's understanding of the routes from gene to disease...

and which places the little critter on the same page as the more familiar mouse as one of the premier "model organisms for the field of genetics".

In the same speech, Palin - whose youngest son has special needs - says that "early identification of a cognitive or other disorder, especially autism, can make a life-changing difference".

Yes... But, even better than early identification or detection...

How about Prevention? or, dare we hope... Cure?

And... How might we accomplish this tremendously beneficial advance for the public good?

Enter the lowly, maligned, ridiculed fruit fly...

In one study - "... published just one day before Palin's speech— about the genetic cues that steer nerve fibres around during the growth of the fruit fly" — the results suggest that the paper will "have implications for the pathogenesis of Down's syndrome"."

"I kid you not."

Peace.
L.

(From: www.guardian.co.uk/)

Palin and the Fruit Fly:
How the Vice-Presidential Candidate Became a Laughing-Stock Among Scientists"
Adam Rutherford
Monday October 27 2008 21.00 GMT

"Although science hasn't featured prominently in the US election, Sarah Palin may have alienated herself from the entire basic research community. In her first policy speech last Friday, she called for the federal government to fund the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and focused on alerting people to the misspent money of Congress. Here's what she said:

"You've heard about some of these pet projects, they really don't make a whole lot of sense and sometimes these dollars go to projects that have little or nothing to do with the public good. Things like fruit fly research in Paris, France. I kid you not."



It's difficult to know where to start with this breathtakingly stupid comment. It is possible that she is referring to a specific research project about fruit flies that are a pestilence on olive trees, but bear in mind her folksy smug delivery, which says to me: "Look how ridiculous basic research is." Richard Wolffe, the senior White House correspondent for Newsweek, commented on this, with a generous prefix:

"I'm going to be as restrained and measured as I possibly can about this. But this is the most mindless, ignorant, uninformed comment that we have seen from Governor Palin so far, and there's been a lot of competition for that prize."

I concur. It is genuinely impossible to comprehend the importance of the humble black-bellied sugar lover to humankind. With only four chromosomes but having a version of something like 75% of disease-causing human genes, the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster is arguably on a par with the mouse as the founding model organism for the field of genetics.

Why do we study this particular irritating fly for humankind's benefit? Well, because we can. Many of the pathways from gene to disease in humans can be easily reproduced in flies, or are similar enough to be incredibly useful models for understanding how diseases evolve. That's how we learn to treat them. Practically, the fruit fly has a lifespan of around four weeks, meaning that we can examine and generate thousands of specimens in a research heartbeat. We can and do experiment on humans, but with great practical difficulty, even in the rare occasions when ethical concerns permit such experiments.

Here's a couple of examples. Palin said in the same speech that "early identification of a cognitive or other disorder, especially autism, can make a life-changing difference". Very true. Autism is an enormously complex spectrum of disorders that we are only just beginning to understand. A team of fruit fly researchers from the University of North Carolina last year showed that a protein called neurexin is a key component in making synapses — the connections between brain cells. They issued a response to Palin's idiotic statement, saying:

"The discovery, made in Drosophila fruit flies, may lead to advances in understanding autism spectrum disorders, as recently, human neurexins have been identified as a genetic risk factor for autism."

So, we don't know what neurexin does in people with autism, but we do know that they are connected genetically. And, thanks to the fly, we now know how neurexin works.

One might have thought that Sarah Palin would take a more active interest in one aspect of scientific research. Palin's youngest son has Down's syndrome, a genetic disorder caused by the presence of an extra chromosome 21. Although a geneticist by training, I am certainly no expert on the pathogenesis of this condition, nor the significance of Drosophila research into Down's syndrome. So, I typed "drosophila trisomy 21" into PubMed, the scholarly biomedical equivalent of Google. There were 109 results, the most recent published just the day before Palin's gaffe. The concluding sentence of that study — about the genetic cues that steer nerve fibres around during the growth of the fruit fly — suggests that the paper will "have implications for the pathogenesis of Down's syndrome".

These two are drops in the ocean of fruit fly research that have clinical relevance. Down's syndrome, Alzheimer's disease, autism, diabetes, ageing research, cancers of all types: that's a minuscule range of diseases that have been and continue to be utterly dependent on the fruit fly. Eight seconds' worth of Googling would have revealed that to Palin. Maybe it's not obvious to the general public how basic research translates into clinically relevant knowledge. But so much of the information we have about the workings of genes and proteins and therefore diseases comes from studying these little critters.

Sarah Palin's comments display an attitude that is blatantly anti-science. Worse, it's lazy, ignorant and gleefully so. Somewhere along the line, the Republicans have endorsed a candidate who is so short-sighted and glib that she inadvertently mocks an indescribably important field of which she might have a personal knowledge. Whatever happens on November 4, the fruit fly's contribution to the public good will always far outweigh that of Sarah Palin, and she would do well to show some respect. I kid you not."

*******************************

And from Christopher Hitchens - A great piece on the subject of Sarah at Slate.com:
"This is what the Republican Party has done to us this year: It has placed within reach of the Oval Office a woman who is a religious fanatic and a proud, boastful ignoramus. Those who despise science and learning are not anti-elitist. They are morally and intellectually slothful people who are secretly envious of the educated and the cultured. And those who prate of spiritual warfare and demons are not just "people of faith" but theocratic bullies. On Nov. 4, anyone who cares for the Constitution has a clear duty to repudiate this wickedness and stupidity."

(From: www.slate.com/Sarah Palin's War on Science:
The GOP ticket's appalling contempt for knowledge and learning.
Posted Monday, Oct. 27, 2008)

Extreme Make-Over: Sarah Palin Edition

As news reports announce Senator Barack Obama opening a double-digit lead over Senator John McCain - two weeks before the November 4th Election - the 'Joe Six-Pack' public persona of Sarah Palin - expertly-crafted by the McCain image machine (formerly of the G.W. Bush machine) - has been caught with toilet paper trailing from her high-end heels.

Breaking News:
It's been discovered that the Republican Party has invested more than $150,000 on clothes, cosmetics, hair and accessories for Sarah Palin and family since she was named as the vice-presidential candidate in August. According to financial records obtained by Politico.com, the high-style spending spree started in September.

$150,000... In One Month?!

Hmmm... It kinda flies in the face of her claim of being an "... average hockey mom" who is the candidate of the "Joe six-packs."

Not only that, questions are arising over the legality of Palin's wardrobe being paid for with McCain campaign donations.

Campaign finance experts cite the Federal Election Commission's opposition to campaign money being used to buy items for personal use.

In response, a campaign spokesperson weakly offered that the clothes would eventually be donated to charity. (That's all well and good, but it still doesn't answer the legality question.)

And, if you haven't noticed the change from August until now (I didn't... but I try not to actively pay any attention to her.)... that's probably because her look hasn't changed as much as the names on the labels and their prices.

After initially refusing to comment on the expensive wardrobe make-over, the McCain/Palin campaign turned to its recurring red herring: the media.

The news of this startling shopping spree comes out even as the Republicans have the gall to attack Senator Obama as a tax-and-spend Democrat.

In Other Good News (the kind that restores my belief that human beings can and will avoid causing their own self-destruction)...

According to a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll (of 1,159 registered voters, conducted from Friday to Monday with a margin of error of plus or minus 2.9 percentage points), "... the popularity of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has fallen. Voters are less likely to see the Republican vice presidential nominee in a positive light, and much more likely to report negative feelings, the Wall Street Journal said.

Forty-seven percent view Palin negatively, compared with 38 percent who see her in a positive light.

Fifty-five percent of voters say Palin is not qualified to be president, up from 50 percent two weeks ago."
(From: www.reuters.com/)

Whew!

Why do I have such an aversion to Sarah Palin?

Well, it's nothing personal... it can't be... I've never met her.

For me (and, thankfully, more than enough voting people) the Glaring Issue here isn't wardrobe or any other superficial item.

It is that - for still unidentified and utterly unimagineable reasons - Senator John McCain chose a completely unqualified person for Republican VP nominee.

And, I figure that, once the choice of Palin was announced to the media and the public and the cat was out of the proverbial bag... No matter what - if any - serious concerns or relevant questions that might come up regarding Palin, her qualifications, her past... the Republicans were stuck with her. It would be virtually impossible for McCain to announce (even if he really wanted to) -say at the RN Convention, "Oops! Heh... heh. My bad! Scratch that. How 'bout this one instead?". Though, at that time, I wished he would.

What makes her unqualified?
Where do I begin?

First and Foremost:
The simple fact is that she has no idea of what is required of/the duties expected of the person holding the position of Vice President of these United States?

This wouldn't be a problem for me... if she weren't aiming to try to occupy that position.

In more than one interview, when asked what the Vice President does or what she would do if she were to become Vice President, her responses have consistently made this fact excruciatingly obvious.

Examples:
1.) In an interview on KUSA, an NBC affiliate in Colorado:
Third grader Brandon Garcia wanted to know, "What does the Vice President do?"

Palin's response didn't just overflow with insincere rhetoric... it was patently false:
"[T]hey're in charge of the U.S. Senate so if they want to they can really get in there with the senators and make a lot of good policy changes that will make life better for Brandon and his family and his classroom."

2.) In an appearance on Hardball with Chris Matthews:
GOV. SARAH PALIN (R-AK), VICE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: "A vice president has a really great job because not only are they there to support the president's agenda, they're like the team member, the teammate to that president, but also they're in charge of the United States Senate. So if they want to, they can really get in there with the senators and make a lot of good policy changes that will make life better."

"As Colin Powell said on Sunday's "Meet the Press," the job of the vice president is to stand ready under the Constitution in the tragic circumstances to replace the president. Now, that's one role. The other role is to have only a tie-breaking role as presiding officer of the U.S. Senate. That's it. The Constitution specifically prescribes that. In fact, it says that's all that a person has the right to do."

"She believes somehow that the vice president of the United States has a commanding policy development role... and can lead the U.S. Senate. Where'd she get this from? You've got a candidate who doesn't know the job description."
(From:hardblogger.msnbc.msn.com/)

As Matthews put it succintly in a follow-up interview with McCain campaign spokeswoman, Nancy Pfotenhauer:

Matthews: "Somehow, in all these trips to Washington — through Neiman's, and through Saks, and through everywhere else she stopped off, she never picked up a copy of the Constitution. It is a problem. It is a problem, Nancy, and you know it."

Hello? America? This is a Serious Problem.

Whenever I've been job-hunting, I've researched the duties of the position I was seeking. I would Never interview for a job without knowing what the requirements/duties were. Would you?

The person who is the Vice President is a hair's-breadth away from the Presidency.

And, in the 2008 Race, in John McCain, we have a respectable candidate for President who made a singularly poor choice for a VP running mate.

Sarah Palin not only is unqualified and unprepared to be our Vice President...

She is - without question - unqualified and unprepared to be our President.

It isn't at all Personal.

It is a Simple Fact.

Since the McCain campaign is run by those who ran the G.W. Bush campaign, I can see where the rigid refusal to admit mistakes comes from... they raised it to a satirical art form.

But, a mistake was made. They refused to admit it. They refused to correct it. They named Sarah Palin and - after the announcement - for perpetuity... they saw no other option but to 'stay the course'... relying heavily on damage control teams, red herrings, name-calling and media-bashing along the way.

It's unfortunate, but it is what is.

Maybe they'll learn things from this experience...
Things like Humility... and the value of being able to admit making a mistake and the pride that comes with being Honest and the empowerment felt when you correct a mistake...

... Yeah, I know... But, I can Dream can't I?

Peace.
L.

What Are The Duties of the Vice President? & A Test of VP Worthiness.

Growing concerns about Sarah Palin's qualifications (or lack thereof) for possibly taking on the position of Vice President have inspired me to post several Blogs.

After reading that John McCain told ABC's Charlie Gibson that he considered Governor Palin's overseeing of the Alaska National Guard and Alaska's proximity to Russia to be 'credentials' for National Security experience...

Well, I didn't know whether to laugh or scream.

So, I did neither.

Instead, I went online and looked up:

What EXACTLY are the Duties and Responsibilities of the US Vice President?

(From: encarta.msn.com)

* "The vice president's most important role is to replace the president if the president dies or becomes unable to manage the country's affairs."

* "The vice president attends Cabinet meetings and sessions of the National Security Council, the president's chief advisory panel for formulating and implementing policies related to the military, foreign relations, and other national security issues."

* "The president also relies on the vice president to lead important presidential committees and panels, which study issues such as environmental protection, urban renewal, and reducing the size of the government bureaucracy. In addition, the vice president often travels to other countries to represent the president at international conferences, the funerals of foreign dignitaries, and other important events."

* "The vice president serves as president of the Senate, formally presiding over Senate deliberations."

* "The vice president also presides over a joint session of Congress when it formally counts electoral votes for presidential elections."

Hmmm....

That first one's REALLY scary when you look at one of the VP candidates.

So...

How can any of us get a better idea of which candidate is better suited for the job?

EUREKA!

I've got it!!



Here's A Perfect Means By Which to Tell Which Vice Presidential Candidate REALLY has the Skill Set Required of a Vice President of these United States of America.

A Test On LIVE Television...

On Stage Left: Senator Joseph Biden.

On Stage Right: Governor Sarah Palin.

Each candidate is provided with a chair, a desk and two Number 2 pencils.

To begin, each candidate is given a copy of a World Map with all countries outlined but unidentified.

Each candidate then has 30 minutes to correctly identify as many countries as possible with Extra Credit for correctly identifying their capitals and/or their current leaders/heads of state.

Now, That's What I Call A REALITY Show.

I think I'll email Charlie Gibson... Whaddya Think?

Peace.
L.

Yeah, She's Ready: Palin Links Iraq to 9/11 at Deployment Ceremony

My jaw dropped when I saw this article and video.

Yesterday, at a deployment ceremony for an Iraq-bound brigade of soldiers that included her son, sophomore Alaska Governor and McCain Vice-Presidential running mate, Sarah Palin, made statements linking fighting in Iraq to fighting those behind the 9/11 terror attacks.

My Gd... Even the Incompetent-In-Chief himself, George W. Bush finally acknowledged that Iraq had nothing whatsoever to do with the planning of or carrying out of the horrific attacks on September 11, 2001.

Someone should ask Palin if she's even aware of what country the majority of the hijackers came from... and if she can find that country on a map.

(Psst... Don't tell her... 15 of the 19 received their Visas in Saudi Arabia.)

Yeah, she's ready to be Vice President...
... Like I'm ready to be a brain surgeon!

Peace.
L.

From: thinkprogress.org/At Son's Troop Deployment Ceremony, McCain VP Candidate Palin Links 9/11 To Iraq.

On the seventh anniversary of the terror attacks, Alaska Governor and McCain vice-presidential running mate Sarah Palin linked the Iraq war to the attacks of September 11, 2001, "telling an Iraq-bound brigade of soldiers that included her son that they would 'defend the innocent from the enemies who planned and carried out and rejoiced in the death of thousands of Americans.'" "America can never go back to that false sense of security that came before September 11, 2001," said Palin at the deployment ceremony.

As the Washington Post's Anne Kornblut points out, "The idea that Iraq shared responsibility with al-Qaeda for the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, once promoted by Bush administration officials, has since been rejected even by the president himself."

Watch it:

Fact Check: Sarah Palin's ABC Interview

Recently, Sarah Palin (or her handlers/spin doctors) dug up and invoked Honest Abe Lincoln, when back-pedaling to try to explain her statement to an audience that the Iraq War was "...God's Will"... Even though she never mentioned good ol' Abe in that speech.

Now, when finding herself on the spot in a recent interview with ABC's Charles Gibson, she casts a long line into a fictional wishing well and tries to tell us - among other things - that, if we look back in history not just she, but other Vice Presidents had no experience with meeting foreign heads of state before they took office.

Go Fish!

That is utterly untrue, going back in history at least 30 years.

Then, when questioned about her glaring lack of diplomatic experience or even traveling to other continents on her resume, she offered that her inexperience translates to serving our country's desire for change in D.C.... that having such experience is the old Washington way of doing things.

Uh, Hello? Sarah? Yes, our country has a deep and justified desire for Change... But, that Does Not mean we want to replace the Incompetent-in-Chief with the Unqualified.

Peace.
L.

(From: abclocal.go.com/kgo)
Fact Check: Sarah Palin's ABC News Interview
Friday September 12, 2008 | 7:01 PM

By Mark Matthews

FAIRBANKS, AK (KGO) -- Charlie Gibson interviews Sarah Palin on domestic issues on Friday night. His questions to the Republican vice presidential candidate on Thursday night focused on foreign policy.

Here is a Fact Check of some the answers she gave.

Sarah Palin just applied for a passport two years ago, and has not travelled extensively outside of the country. Charlie Gibson asked her about her readiness to lead the country.

"Did you ever travel outside the country prior to your trip to Kuwait and Germany last year?," asked ABC News Charlie Gibson.

"Canada, Mexico and then yeah that trip that was a trip of a lifetime to visit our troops in Kuwait and stop and visit our injured soldiers in Germany. That was a trip of a lifetime and it changed my life," said Gov. Sarah Palin/(R) Vice Presidential Nominee.

"Have you ever met a foreign head of state?" asked Gibson.

"I have not, and I think if you go back in history and if you ask that question of many vice presidents they may have the same answer that I just gave you," said Palin.

Fact Check:
No they wouldn't, at least not going back the past 30 years.
Dick Cheney was secretary of defense before he was vice president.
Al Gore was a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and was a part of many congressional delegations to foreign countries. It was the same for Dan Qualyle, who lacked Gore's credentials but also sat on the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Before Quayle, George H.W. Bush was an envoy to China and the head of the CIA, and Walter Mondale was a senator for 16 years before becoming vice president, and was Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Palin went on to say what the country wants now is someone without the big resume.
"
We got to remember what the desire is in this nation at this time. It is for no more politics as usual and somebody's big fat resume maybe that shows decades and decades in that Washington establishment, where yeah they've had opportunities to meet heads of state," said Palin.

Gibson challenged Palin for flip flopping on global warming; taking on John McCain's position that global warming does have man-made causes.

"Call me a cynic, but I hear a little bit of change in your policy there when you say yes now your beginning to say it is man-made," said Gibson.

"I think you are a cynic, I have not said that. I believe in science and have such great respect for what they are telling us. I'm not going to disagree with the point that they make that mans activities can be attributed to changes," said Palin.

Fact Check:
That's false.
Just two weeks ago, Palin is told a conservative online news service: "A changing environment will affect Alaska more than any other state, because of our location." Adding that: "She isn't one though who would attribute it to being man-made."

Last year, she told the Fairbanks Daily that "She is not an Al Gore doom and gloom environmentalist blaming changes in our climate on human activity."