Say No to Sarah - Caution, Very Graphic Video

I've stayed out of this for a while.

But I'ev often said that I say what I think or know, regardless. So, to thine own self be true, even if it's me.

Warning: I'm going to say some things that some won't like, and may seem to disagree with people I normally agree with. So be it, I stink at politics, anyway.

The op is about Governor Palin's involvement in the wolf conservation program in Alaska. Aerial hunting of wolves to cut down the population, presumably to take the pressure off of the caribou population so that hunters, such as Palin, can continue to have a good hunt. In an interview I watched with her last night, she never said she hunted caribou for sport. In fact, she hunted them for food. She mentioned more than once that bagging a caribou or two per season put food on her table. You see, she came from nothing. Most politicos like Bush, Clinton, Gore, Mondale, Carter, came from money, and lots of it. She had nothing. She earned her own scholarships to get to college. She didn't have parents with trucks full of money to send her to the Ivy League. Everything she had she has earned with blood, sweat, and tears.

The point was made that the wolf population will decrease with the decreasing caribou population. Eventually, maybe. But evolution is not perfect and I can't see where starving to death takes less time than a well placed shot. Which leads to my next point. Allowing hunters to shoot wolves, a prey they don't normally track. BTW, it took L. David Mech quite some time to get within camera range of arctic wolves. That is approximately the same range as it would take to shoot a wolf, provided you are using a sighted and scoped .308 or a .243 with a high grain and load. Does anyone care to remember that the feds have lifted the endangered status from the gray wolves in the contiguous 48 because they have grown so numerous and bold that they are migrating away from Yellowstone onto the surrounding ranches and are impacting the livestock industry? No? Is that because no one from those areas is running for vice pres?

What is the most cost-effective way to reduce the predator population? Fly over with a few marksmen and take the shot. Same thing the feds do. A program, BTW, that would continue, even if Obama or Clinton were in office. I like wolves, too. It doesn't mean I'm going to let them run over my land if it is a detriment to the rest of the environment, just as too many caribou over-graze and hurt the environment. So, instead of paying hunters overtime to track wolves, what if we left them harvest the pelt and meat? What kind of outcry would that cause? Or is it simply because she is republican?

A republican, BTW, who took on big oil and state corruption and did not make herself the "darling" of anyone. She reminds me of my mother. More guts in her pinkie than most people have in their whole body, including the "etablishment" that she took on and defeated.

As for her daughter. So help me, if this country could elect Bill Clinton twice in spite of his documented adultery and bald-faced lying to the public about it, we can over-look Palin's honest account about her family challenges, which, imo, pale in comparison.

Or, is it still common practice to throw the baby out with the bathwater?

Conservation, like many jobs in government, is a job for grown ups. As a grown up, you sometimes have to do things you don't necessarily like or want to do, but must be done because the problem must be addressed.

I will not say no to Palin for following fed and state guidelines on conservation. Did you know that hunters do more for conservation than most people. They tend the herds of prey, care for the land, many times get vet care for the herd they harves. Oklahoma, more than once, has asked hunters to please harvest the old females who no longer reproduce as they are not strengthening the herd and are a drain on the resources. It's either that or bring wolves who sometimes don't care if they are killing a deer or your cow, and your dogs, and your other pets and animals in your little 15 acre slice of heaven. Conservation has worked for the wolf, now it must work for the caribou. And not just for Palin. But for the natives of Alaska, misnamed the eskimo, who have been living on the caribou and seal for millenia. Shall we now deprive the natives, many indeed, first americans, of their culture and tradition because Palin is a republican? I think I just threw up, a little.

Remind me to sand this soapbox a little bit. Those splinters are nagging.

Peace, love, understanding.

I think you're a little confused on a couple of fronts.  Clinton came from money, really?  Was it from his mother's side who was widowed 3 months before his birth and had to leave him with her parents and go find work?  Or maybe from his gambling, alcoholic stepfather whose name he adopted later in life?  Pfft, please, he came from nothing too, so what? 

Clinton disgraced himself as an adult while in office, so has Palin.  People have a problem with Palin supporting abstinence-only sex education because there's demonstrable evidence in her own family that IT DOESN'T WORK.  That's not a personal jab or because she's a woman, it's the fact that this is the same sex-ed policy she will push for when looking at national policy funding and that's something to consider when looking at candidates and their POLICIES.  If a male candidate was trumpeting the same agenda and came up with a pregnant teen child, the same hypocrisy could be pointed out.  I'm confused, why was it okay for Dan Quayle to pan a fictional character for having a child out of wedlock, but us ultra-left hippies can't point out a glaring similarity in situations.  Except of course, Murphy Brown was fictional, adult and self-sufficient.  I love how Bill O'Reilly had lots of opinions about Jamie Spears' parents being pin-heads but Bristol Palin's parents should be left alone?  Uh, okay, sure!

I don't criticize Sarah Palin for her personal hunting, it was the fact that she spent STATE FUNDS to attempt to influence an election on the topic of aerial hunting for predator control.  She's a hunter who can field dress a caribou, so what?  It's her policies as governor I have a problem with.  I may have personal opinions about her family situation but that's not what will influence my vote, it's her stand on abortion in the event of incest or rape, keeping money for the bridge to nowhere, attempts to oust state officials who supported her opponent in the election or trying to pressure a state police official to fire her former brother in law, her support of North Shore drilling and a natural gas pipeline in AK.  Things like that.  It's not based on spin because I took the trouble to research her history in AK in the words of Alaskan news reports BEFORE she was the VP candidate.

Sarah Palin in Alaskan Daily News Reports.

Did you know she was a member of the Alaskan Independence Party?  She supported the idea that a state has the right to secede from the United States!  Country first?  I don't think so! 

I still don't buy the arguments for the wolf hunting.  If it's such a remote area that they have to fly to it and hunters can't track from the ground, it's too far away to be a threat to humans or livestock and in that case, let nature handle it or come up with more humane ways to manage it.  Hunters weren't hurting for moose or caribou this winter when record low snowfalls helped increase their population because wolves couldn't catch them.  That's why the wolves were attacking household pets.  In that case, yes, shoot them when they're encroaching on humans or in self-defense, but  not when they're out in the wilderness doing what wolves will do.  The Inuit don't need to be worried, they are given exceptions and are the only population permitted to hunt  polar bears.  Their culture also respects the animal's spirit and they wouldn't engage in that type of senseless murder.

Palin on the issues, before she was the VP candidate and the party was in charge of crafting her image.  From 2006.

Palin said she has smoked marijuana -- remember, it was legal under state law, she said, even if illegal under U.S. law -- but says she didn't like it and doesn't smoke it now.

"I can't claim a Bill Clinton and say that I never inhaled."

In 2002, when she was running for lieutenant governor, Palin sent an e-mail to the anti-abortion Alaska Right to Life Board saying she was as "pro-life as any candidate can be" and has "adamantly supported our cause since I first understood, as a child, the atrocity of abortion."

Palin said last month that no woman should have to choose between her career, education and her child. She is pro-contraception and said she's a member of a pro-woman but anti-abortion group called Feminists for Life.

"I believe in the strength and the power of women, and the potential of every human life," she said.

Palin on Gay Rights 

Palin said she's not out to judge anyone and has good friends who are gay, but that she supported the 1998 constitutional amendment.

Elected officials can't defy the court when it comes to how rights are applied, she said, but she would support a ballot question that would deny benefits to homosexual couples.

"I believe that honoring the family structure is that important," Palin said.

Emphasis added above by me.

 $400,000 spent to "educate" Alaskans about aerial hunting prior to a ballot question on the subject.

Palin & the bridge to nowhere.

Palin on Abortion

Palin said she would support abortion only if the mother's life was in danger. When it came to her daughter, she said, "I would choose life."

Palin in her own words.

Palin explained her position in a questionnaire that year from the conservative group Eagle Forum Alaska:

"I am pro-life. With the exception of a doctor's determination that the mother's life would end if the pregnancy continued. I believe that no matter what mistakes we make as a society, we cannot condone ending an innocent's life."

What if her own daughter was raped and became pregnant? Palin was asked that in a Nov. 2, 2006, debate that aired statewide on public television. "I would chose life," Palin answered.

If my daughter is raped, I don't want Sarah Palin making that decision for her.

Alaskan Independence Party

I love this one, first they say she was a member and then Ooops, oh no, we were mistaken, nope, not a member, nosirreee.  A well-timed phone call from high ranking Republicans change their mind, perhaps?

BCMixs

Did you know she was a member of the Alaskan Independence Party?  She supported the idea that a state has the right to secede from the United States!  Country first?  I don't think so! 

 Once again, can we stick to the facts. Even the liberal Times admited that this accusation was false.

http://www.timeswatch.org/articles/2008/20080903132840.aspx

Times Buries Palin-Alaska Independence Party Correction on Page 18
After falsely stating on Tuesday's front page that Sarah Palin was once a member of the Alaska Independence Party, the Times "corrects" the record not on the Correction page but in a box at the bottom of page A18.

Posted by: Clay Waters
9/3/2008 4:08:34 PM

On Tuesday, the Times falsely asserted, in a front-page story by Elisabeth Bumiller, that Sarah Palin had once been a member  of the Alaska Independence Party. The McCain camp quickly refuted the allegation, and the Times ran a boxed correction on Wednesday…not on the Corrections page, but buried on page 18. "Party Officer Admits Error on Palin in Group," it read, as if the Times was not to blame for its bad reporting. An excerpt:

The information in the Times article was based on a statement issued Monday night by Lynette Clark, the party's chairwoman, who said Ms. Palin joined the party in 1994, and in 1996 changed her registration to Republican.

On Tuesday night, Ms. Clark said her initial statement was incorrect and had been based on erroneous information provided by another member of the party whom she declined to identify. The McCain campaign also disputed the Times report, saying Ms. Palin had consistently been registered as a Republican.

After checking the party's archives, Ms. Clark said she could find no documentation that Ms. Palin had been a member.

In an early Wednesday posting on the official John McCain website, "Bumiller Stands By Her Story...After Paper Retracts," campaign blogger Michael Goldfarb complained that reporter Bumiller still stood by her mistake:

Just to be clear, Bumiller asserted as fact what turns out to have been an "incorrect" statement by a single, unidentified source. Given that the story appeared on the front-page of this country's 'paper of record,' we might be forgiven for expecting a slightly more rigorous standard of reporting, yet Bumiller makes no apologies. Howard Kurtz reports in today's Washington Post:

Elisabeth Bumiller, the lead author of the Times report, said she is "completely confident about the story." As for the campaign's criticism, she said: "This is what they do. It's part of their operation."

She is completely confident in the word of a single source who has since retracted her claims? What kind of operation are the editors at the Times running?

Bumiller has a long history of anti-McCain coverage, as Times Watch has documented.

 I suspect there was pressure applied to change their answer regarding her membership, but that's just my opinion.  Her husband is a documented member, or was.  They both attended functions of the party and she recorded a message to the party stating "keep up the good work".  There are people who know first hand of her affiliation and I look forward to them surfacing.

As I said, it's her stand (well documented and not in dispute) on things like drilling, abortion, abuse of power and gay rights that will prevent me from voting for her.  Opinions regarding her family, her hypocrisy and her accent are just fodder for entertaining late night forum debates for me.   

Well said.

And while everyone is having a blast judging Palin because her grown daughter is pregnant, let me ask just how many here waited until legally married before having physical relations?

What's that? I only hear the chirping of crickets. To quote the Bible (because the phrase fits), before you can take the splinter out of your neighbor's eye, you must first removed the log in your eye.

If I was inaccurate in Clinton's financial upbringing, so be it. But that doesn't change the fact that Palin hunted for food, not for sport. And I noticed, once again, the first americans are overlooked. How american is that?

ron2

I like wolves, too. It doesn't mean I'm going to let them run over my land if it is a detriment to the rest of the environment, just as too many caribou over-graze and hurt the environment.

Humans hurt the environment, not wolves and caribou.  If the animals in question who are being shot, whether from the air or on land, were dogs, we would all be calling this animal abuse.

 It's got nothing to do with the bible or who had sex before marriage.  It has to do with a stand on abstinence only sex ed and then providing living proof that it doesn't work OR that your daughter went against your wishes as a parent and got BC and it failed.  Regardless which is the case, it has to do with her position and living proof of the weaknesses of that position.

The hunting of wolves and bears is not done to provide food for families, it's done to control the population of predators in an attempt to stabilize the population of their prey. However, the true effects of the program on moose and caribou populations are difficult to confirm.  "The exact number of moose or caribou saved by thinning wolf populations is hard to determine. Fish and Game's ungulate survival calculations are based on an average consumption of approximately 12 moose or 24 caribou per wolf per year." -Anchorage Daily News

  Again, please do your research before making claims, the eskimos (not the first americans, btw, since AK was late to the Union and other groups in the lower 48 were truly the first "Americans" like the Powhatan Indians, here in my area) are granted a great deal of exceptions to Alaska's hunting regulations.  As I said, they are permitted to hunt polar bears where no one else is. 

BCMixs

it's her stand (well documented and not in dispute) on things like drilling, abortion, abuse of power and gay rights that will prevent me from voting for her.

Ditto,...As for her daughter, people make mistakes.I don't know anyone except very conservative people who would judge her [daughter] for that.The media is going to harp on these private issues not because they are bias but because it sells, and in America capitalism rules.

We should cast our vote for those candidates that best represent our own personal views on issues and leave the heated emotion out of it.After all the dust settles those polititians will be sipping scotch and playing golf with each other.

Tena

 It is almost funny to see how deep the left will dig and the arguments they give to promote Obama and discredit McCain and Palin, they speak of Palin's lack of experience yet they promote as CIC (that is commander in chief) someone who has no experience. They talk about morality when their own guy openly speaks of his use of drugs, even cocaine. They talk of affiliations as in the Alaska independence, and yet there own number 1 has affiliations to a pastor who preaches hate, and gives awards to Farrakhan and visits Ghadaffi and their number one has fund-raisers at the home of a known terrorist who is not sorry for his terrorism. They judge harshly a woman who decided to take the hard road and allow an unplanned baby to live as if that is something to be ashamed of. I wonder how many of the liberal leaders or even liberals in general have had this same thing happen with a young teen and chosen abortion instead, therefore no-one will ever know of their “shame”.

 It would be funny if it were not so damn sad.

 

I don't care how far you stick your head in the sand, neither side is innocent in the mud slinging, admit it and move past it for your own sanity.  You say (general after this) that they "dig" for bad things, yet you mention each and every "infraction" you can for the other party, so what does that say about your own? I for one do not believe everything reporters write or say, and I do not believe in "people have the right to know" excuse for writing a story, there are some things that should remain private or off topic.

I also do not believe that just because you have met "this or that"  person, or attended a meeting, or have had a picture taken with them in the same room, that your inherently evil by association.

I firmly believe in innocent until proved guilty. I firmly believe that people who want to think bad of a person, always will, no matter what is said. It is a sad sad sad fact of life that we always think bad of someone based on information from someone else, and have to be convinced of the good in a person, a sad twist on that is that some people can never be convinced. I have never met any of these people, and yet people out there, who think they do, are trying to convince me that this person is the best thing since sliced bread and that person is the devil incarnate.

Now with that said let me add. I have no issue with experience, have not one thing against her as a working mom, or mom of a teenager who is pregnant. Many women before us worked to hard and gave up to much to be treated as an equal in the workforce, and to have some of the rights we as women do, to even consider throwing stones her way on any of those subjects. Let's just say that is right up there with saying women who don't breast feed are bad mother's....yeah, pretty lame, and a bit hypocritical wouldn't you say? I still have the nagging suspicion she was chosen because she is a woman, which makes me mad in a different way. And for the record I would LOVE to be proved wrong.

And now..................

I believe that she has her head buried in the sand on sex education, global warming, and abortion. And how anyone, and I mean anyone,  can think that shooting an animal from a helicopter or airplane is humane or decent in anyway, escapes me.

In terms of environment, we are the worst enemy, full stop. Mother nature deals her cards straight, in the wild you either live or die, eat or are eaten. Herds of deer and caribou flourish in the good years and languish in the bad, but the ones who also survive on them follow suit. So you and not one other person alive can convince me that shooting a live breathing animal in the middle of no where is saving the environment, if you think that, you, quite frankly, are part of the problem.(remember, these are general "you(s)";)

We, the environment terrorists that we are, or should I say our ancestors?, are ruining the world we live on, day in and day out. Every inch we take and grab for another house, sidewalk or shopping mall is just another nail in our own future. We take and take and take some more, never caring about who or what we are displacing.

Personally, I think aerial shooting and hunting should be banned period. And part of the banning is it can never be voted on again until we have a renewable source of energy, less cars and we stop building NEW homes and using the ones sitting abandoned and empty. I wish they would just auction abandoned property off, you can win one and only one and you can't resell for 10 years or something...anyway..different soapbox.............

If Sarah Palin would shift her stance on abortion in terms of incest and rape, advocate for better sex education beyond abstinence, and decided to stop the slaughter of wolves by something that flies in the air, and gives a thought to the environment and OUR impact on it, I would vote for her, and that is the honest truth. I like  John McCain, and even for a bit thought he was what we needed. I am concerned about his age and health, I don't see his being a POW as the be all end all of his campaign, and I am turned off by it, yes he served, yes he was a prisoner, and while I admire his dedication to our country, he did not do any more than thousands of others who have fought our wars in the past, or here in the now. It should NOT be part of what they are trying to tell us. I had an uncle by marriage die, DIE on his birthday on a land mine in Vietnam, my neighbor was there, so was his brother, my grandfather served overseas in WWII, and just recently a brother in law who has been to Iraq twice since it started. The first time guarding an ammo dump, the second time dismantling IED's, so don't label me un patriotic.

Ron? You there Ron? I thought you were going to sand this soap box down?................

Peace!

BCMixs

It has to do with a stand on abstinence only sex ed and then providing living proof that it doesn't work OR that your daughter went against your wishes as a parent and got BC and it failed. 

 And Obama claims to be a patriot, yet he associates with terrorists, he claims to be someone who will bring us all together yet he attended a church for 20 years that is racist. So based on your above statement I am correct in rejecting him as a unpatriotic racist.

 I do not think you can find anywhere, where abstinence only advocates state that the method is 100% effective, just like any other birth control. Abstinence is something that should be taught as the only means to 100% avoid pregnacy and the only means to 100% avoid STD's, but it also requires the person to abide by it. Personally I would be content with abstinence being taugh along with other forms of birth control.

 And please stand up if you can lay claim as a parent that your children have never done one thing wrong, one thing that goes against what you have taught them.

 I teach my kids not to lie and they have lied, I teach them my values and my beliefs and yet they fall on occasion, as do I.  Palin's kid's failure is not a reflection of her parenting skills nor of her values, kids fail often in spite of their parents best efforts because in the end the kid has their own choice to make. Yet their willingness to keep the child in my opinion shows more character just because doing so puts them at risk politicaly and they could easily have chosen abortion in which case you would have no mud to sling since you would have no knowledge of the pregnacy.

dgriego

Palin's kid's failure is not a reflection of her parenting skills nor of her values, kids fail often in spite of their parents best efforts because in the end the kid has their own choice to make.

I find it interesting how some of the most vocal right-wingers, such as Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly, blamed the parents when it was Jamie Lynn Spears who got pregnant. 

 Hey guys, the thread is not about Obama.  It's about Palin and her issues.  There's plenty to be said about Obama, McCain, and Biden, but this thread's topic is Palin and reasons to or not to vote for her and opinions on her stands (and her personal life, hey, it's the internet, what you gonna do?).

I agree Obama has his issues as well as all of them.  What it comes down to is are you going to buy rhethoric from both sides or will you do your homework to try to find the real deal about not what your chosen candidate is saying now, now what they're promising now, but rather, what they have done, how they have voted, and what they have supported in the past.  'Cuz you know, like Dr. Phil says, the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior.

I found McCain pretty palatable and was considering voting for him because I do have concerns about Obama on a couple of fronts.  This will sound crass and insensitive, but part of my consideration is the likelihood of the Pres dying in office and which VP I feel I can live with.  There are crazy racists who will probably target Obama if he's elected, that's an unpleasant fact, but there it is.  I see a PopeMobile in his future.  McCain has had multiple bouts of cancer and isn't exactly a gleaming picture of health.  So for me, if either of them dies, which VP can I most likely tolerate.  For me, it's Biden, I think he was a brilliant choice on the part of Obama.  I think McCain sank the ship when he chose Palin and outtakes of off mike commentary from other Republicans tell me I'm not the only one who thinks it. 

BCMixs

 Hey guys, the thread is not about Obama.  It's about Palin and her issues. 

This is a laughable comment! 

As I recall, this thread was about predator/population control.  Yet, it has spun into an off topic bashfest of Sarah Palin, which mods, & admin have chosen to ignore.

I love that this thread "is not about Obama."  That comment is definitely a pot & kettle moment.  At least IMO.

slip of the tongue?

 http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4614428455763271848&ei=jnDFSMmGCoG2rQLz9YG3BQ&hl=en

the whole interview.... 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpoAVAA1F30