Last updated on August 10th, 2014 at 05:28 pm
Sarah Palin, FINO
Palin is a Feminist in Name Only.
NOW has reached out to defend Palin after the infamous Letterman v Palin circus last week and the angry right is calling for Letterman to be fired. What a dust-up.
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I think most of us realize that Letterman was referring to Palin’s 18 year old daughter, and not the younger girl whom Palin claimed Letterman was referring to. Bristol, the 18 year old, is the one we know from the campaign trial. She is now an Abstinence Only Spokes Model for The Candie’s Foundation. In October 2008, Candies advertised with images of Bristol and Levi next to Jamie Lynn Spears. Nuff said on that front (the hypocrisy of the right is evident in their horrific treatment of unwed mother Jamie). Bristol is pretty well known, and Willow looks a lot like Bristol. Mistakes happen.
Palin is calling all feminists to arms. OK. Well, Palin as feminist is hard to swallow, but she suggests we let her record speak for her. So, let’s take a peek.
Hmmm:
Alaska’s reported rate of rape per capita is 2.6 times the national average.
Anchorage has the ninth highest sexual assault rate of any city in the United States, and Fairbanks is ranked first, at 4.7 times the national average.
Alaska’s child abuse rate is six times higher than the national average.
The state continues to rank first or second nationally in the number of chlamydia cases, a ranking it has held since 2000. In 2006, the last year data was available from the Center for Disease control, Alaska ranked 25th in rates of gonorrhea and 28th in syphilis.
The Alaska birthrate among women ages 15-19 in 2006 was 44.3 per 1,000 teens, up 19 percent from 2005.
Palin as Feminist Mayor of Wasilla:
Grant Decreased to Children’s Shelter: The Dorothy Saxton Youth Shelter provides residential care and rehabilitation to endangered children, including victims of sexual abuse. Sarah Palin’s fiscal year 2000 budget decreased the Wasilla city grant to the shelter by 25%.
Rape Kit Funding Transferred to Victim’s Insurance: the line item paying for rape kits was slashed from $4,200 in FY99 to $1,000 in FY00.
Contracted Out Early-Intervention Services Eliminated: Wasilla runs a Youth Court, a program of early intervention for troubled teenagers. Some of the services (it is unclear what these services were) provided by the court were contracted out. The FY2000 budget eliminated funding for these services.
Fiscal conservatives are screaming, “she’s a real conservative!” Except, um…she INCREASED the budget for…um…the mayor’s legal defense fund as a result of two lawsuits for wrongful termination brought as a reaction to Palin’s actions. Sound familiar?
A 1.5 million dollar land grab was also included in the budget (well, it started off a lot cheaper, but they paid 5 times the initial cost of the land due to gross incompetence of Mayor Palin, who failed to clear title to the land. Therefore, the city faced more…legal fees. Yes, that’s right. There’s always money for legal fees, but never money for rape kits.)
There was also money for Mayor Mobile. One that she forgot to pay taxes on.
Oh, and then she also needed money because she had to hire an administrator to do her…well, her job. There was 50,000.00 for that job, but again..no money for unwed mothers, rape kits, sexual violence protection, etc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jacob-alperinsheriff/mayor-palin-left-wasilla_b_128011.html
Palin as Feminist Governor of Alaska 2008:
Trimmed by $1.1 million funds the Alaska legislature had allocated for Covenant House Alaska this year for a capital construction project. Covenant House Alaska is a state-supported program that includes a transitional home where new teenage mothers can spend up to 18 months learning money management and parenting skills.
Palin voided $15,840 the legislature had allocated for a Women, Infants, Children (WIC) provider.
And then there’s Walt Monegan’s firing. Walt Monegan was on his way to DC to get money for a much needed anti-sexual violence program.
“The last straw,” her lawyer (Van Flein) argued, came when Monegan planned a trip to Washington, D.C., to seek federal funds for an aggressive anti-sexual-violence program.
The project, expected to cost from $10 million to $20 million a year for five years, would have been the first of its kind in Alaska, which leads the nation in reported forcible rape.
While she claimed she fired Monegan over an “unauthorized trip”, the governor’s staff actually authorized the trip. A state travel authorization form shows that Palin’s chief of staff, Mike Nizich, approved Monegan’s trip to Washington, D.C.
We’re not even half way done with her record, and I’m not feeling the Palin feminist thing. It’s looking like Sarah Palin is a feminist in name only. A FINO, if you will. So close to finito, and yet not quite.
Just for giggles, let’s do a quick check on Letterman’s record. He is the president and primary contributor to American Foundation for Courtesy and Grooming. This foundation has donated nearly $2.5 million dollars in a four year total to a number of organizations. Below is just a partial list of some of the causes that Letterman has supported:
Muscular Dystrophy Family Foundation
Special Olympics of Indian
Marion County Children’s Guardian Home
Indiana School for the Deaf
Riley Children’s Foundation
University of Indianapolis Center for Aging and Community
Choteau Youth Special Olympics, in Montana and Montana Special Olympics
Michael J. Fox Foundation
Larry King Cardiac Foundation
Paul Newman’s Hole in the Wall Gang Camp (for disabled children)
Breast Cancer Foundation
Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation
The list is so long, I can’t print it all here. But, you get the idea. Evil David Letterman, a man Palin can’t trust her 15 year old daughter around, even on national TV, has been spreading his money around to causes which benefit children…women…the disabled…etc.
Oh, and that reminds me. Palin keeps referring to evil Letterman and his pedophilia re her “14 year old daughter”. Willow is actually 15. 15.5. As in, was 15 last January.
Wonder when the gov will explain why she felt compelled to lie about her daughter’s age?
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
