palin's witchhunting pastor problem (or why harry potter should not travel to kenya)

palin's pastor problem

Pastor Thomas Muthee, who Sarah Palin credited with "awesome prayers" that helped her become the Alaska Governor, once led a witch hunt in Kenya. Figuratively, you may be wondering. Nope. Unfortunately not. In 2005 Muthee led an actual, old school, Salem-style witch hunt.

in related news: why harry potter should NOT travel to kenya

From Reuters (5/22/08) - NAIROBI - A mob has burned to death at least 11 people accused of witchcraft in an area of west Kenya where traditional beliefs run deep, police said on Wednesday. "Their houses were torched. Eight women and three men suspected of being witches died," Kenya's deputy police spokesman Charles Owino said...

Traditional African beliefs, Christianity and Islam co-exist peacefully in Kenya. But there is widespread suspicion of sorcery, particularly in west Kenya, which has a long tradition of witch doctors and faith healers. Owino said almost all the victims were elderly Kenyans, aged between 70 and 90, although one was nearer 40.

In 1993, eight elderly people from Kisii were also accused of witchcraft and burned to death in their huts by a mob.

yikes. i guess no one does expect the spanish inquisition.

olbermann's take

tina fey glasses

best SNL skit in a decade at least.

vagina monologues weigh in on palin

Eve Ensler, the American playwright, performer, feminist and activist best known for 'The Vagina Monologues', wrote the following about Sarah Palin

Drill, Drill, Drill

I am having Sarah Palin nightmares. I dreamt last night that she was a member of a club where they rode snowmobiles and wore the claws of drowned and starved polar bears around their necks. I have a particular thing for Polar Bears. Maybe it's their snowy whiteness or their bigness or the fact that they live in the arctic or that I have never seen one in person or touched one. Maybe it is the fact that they live so comfortably on ice. Whatever it is, I need the polar bears.

I don't like raging at women. I am a Feminist and have spent my life trying to build community, help empower women and stop violence against them. It is hard to write about Sarah Palin. This is why the Sarah Palin choice was all the more insidious and cynical. The people who made this choice count on the goodness and solidarity of Feminists.

But everything Sarah Palin believes in and practices is antithetical to Feminism which for me is part of one story -- connected to saving the earth, ending racism, empowering women, giving young girls options, opening our minds, deepening tolerance, and ending violence and war.


I believe that the McCain/Palin ticket is one of the most dangerous choices of my lifetime, and should this country chose those candidates the fall-out may be so great, the destruction so vast in so many areas that America may never recover. But what is equally disturbing is the impact that duo would have on the rest of the world. Unfortunately, this is not a joke. In my lifetime I have seen the clownish, the inept, the bizarre be elected to the presidency with regularity.

Sarah Palin does not believe in evolution. I take this as a metaphor. In her world and the world of Fundamentalists nothing changes or gets better or evolves. She does not believe in global warming. The melting of the arctic, the storms that are destroying our cities, the pollution and rise of cancers, are all part of God's plan. She is fighting to take the polar bears off the endangered species list. The earth, in Palin's view, is here to be taken and plundered. The wolves and the bears are here to be shot and plundered. The oil is here to be taken and plundered. Iraq is here to be taken and plundered. As she said herself of the Iraqi war, 'It was a task from God.'

Sarah Palin does not believe in abortion. She does not believe women who are raped and incested and ripped open against their will should have a right to determine whether they have their rapist's baby or not.

She obviously does not believe in sex education or birth control. I imagine her daughter was practicing abstinence and we know how many babies that makes.

Sarah Palin does not much believe in thinking. From what I gather she has tried to ban books from the library, has a tendency to dispense with people who think independently. She cannot tolerate an environment of ambiguity and difference. This is a woman who could and might very well be the next president of the United States. She would govern one of the most diverse populations on the earth.

Sarah believes in guns. She has her own custom Austrian hunting rifle. She has been known to kill 40 caribou at a clip. She has shot hundreds of wolves from the air.

Sarah believes in God. That is of course her right, her private right. But when God and Guns come together in the public sector, when war is declared in God's name, when the rights of women are denied in his name, that is the end of separation of church and state and the undoing of everything America has ever tried to be.

I write to my sisters. I write because I believe we hold this election in our hands. This vote is a vote that will determine the future not just of the U.S., but of the planet. It will determine whether we create policies to save the earth or make it forever uninhabitable for humans. It will determine whether we move towards dialogue and diplomacy in the world or whether we escalate violence through invasion, undermining and attack. It will determine whether we go for oil, strip mining, coal burning or invest our money in alternatives that will free us from dependency and destruction. It will determine if money gets spent on education and healthcare or whether we build more and more methods of killing. It will determine whether America is a free open tolerant society or a closed place of fear, fundamentalism and aggression.

If the Polar Bears don't move you to go and do everything in your power to get Obama elected then consider the chant that filled the hall after Palin spoke at the RNC, 'Drill Drill Drill.' I think of teeth when I think of drills. I think of rape. I think of destruction. I think of domination. I think of military exercises that force mindless repetition, emptying the brain of analysis, doubt, ambiguity or dissent. I think of pain.

Do we want a future of drilling? More holes in the ozone, in the floor of the sea, more holes in our thinking, in the trust between nations and peoples, more holes in the fabric of this precious thing we call life?


Eve Ensler

September 5, 2008

palin links iraq to 911

FORT WAINWRIGHT, Alaska, Sept. 11 -- Gov. Sarah Palin linked the war in Iraq with the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, 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."

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.

via washington post

brain rape

link via salon

As a woman who does not believe what Palin believes, the thought of such an opportunistic anti-female in the White House -- in the Cheney chair, no less -- is akin to ideological brain rape. What this Republican blowup doll does with her own insides in accord with her own faith is her business. But, like the worst and most terrifying of religious extremists, she seems very comfortable with the idea of imposing her own views on everyone else.

I did not think that women being downgraded to second-class, three-holed chattel would be a pressing concern in my lifetime. I thought it was like polio, or witch burning -- an inhumane error that had already been corrected. But after eight years of Republican hegemony, and now the potential ascendance of this sheep in ewe's clothing, I am so mortally offended I feel like it is really time for women to be angry, hardcore and disgusted again. Not just with old white Christian patriarchs and their hopelessly calcified, religiously condoned misogyny, but also with the self-abnegating, submissive female Uncle Tommies whose ambitions and eagerness to please the powerful males of their tribe are so desperate that they would sell out their sovereignty over their own bodies. And yours too.

(snip)

Sarah Palin and her virtual burqa have me and my friends retching into our handbags. She's such a power-mad, backwater beauty-pageant casualty, it's easy to write her off and make fun of her. But in reality I feel as horrified as a ghetto Jew watching the rise of National Socialism.

that's how i've been feeling too... like a jew watching the rise of the nazis in 1936. it's nice to hear from another person who feels the same way.

oy...

trojan moose

Her critics like to say that Palin hasn't accomplished anything. I disagree: in the space of ten days she's succeeded in distracting the entire country from the horrific Bush record -- and McCain's complicity in it. My friends, that's accomplishment we can believe in.

Just look at the problem John McCain faced. George Bush has a disastrous record, and the country knows it. John McCain -- the current one, not the one who vanished eight years ago -- has no major disagreements with George Bush (and I'm sorry, wanting to fire Donald Rumsfeld a bit sooner doesn't qualify) and wants to continue his incredibly unpopular policies for another four years. The solution? Enter Sarah Palin, a Trojan Moose carrying four more years of disaster...

link via huffington post

a new anti-feminist low for palin - making woman pay for their own rape kits

link: palin's administration made women pay for their own rape kits

from the diary of prof frink @ dailykos

During her time as mayor she hired a lobbyist linked to the now disgraced and convicted Jack Abramoff. The city of 6,500 obtained $26.7 million in pork-barrel earmarks during her last four years as mayor, that’s a per capita of over $1000 per person, expensive for even Alaska. Steven R has already written a wonderful diary about a policy position of her appointee as Police Chief, Charlie Fannon.Chief Fannon went on the record with his opposition to a law signed in May of 2000 requiring that cities foot the bill for rape kits for victims, essential to the conviction of the perpetrator. You see, until that time, Wasilla expected women to pay for their own kit for $300-$1300, on the premise that the kit would be paid for by the fines and penalties assessed of the eventual convict, assuming a conviction was forthcoming.

    A city swimming in federal earmark money that can’t afford to help ensure that victimized women don’t have to pay for the evidence to seek justice, this is the city that Palin led as mayor. Between 2000 and 2005 Wasilla averaged 2 arrests per year for rape. This number does not count attempted rapes.This also doesn’t account that the DOJ estimates that as little as 26% of rapes go unreported, or those who are never arrested and charged for a notoriously hard to try and convict crime. In 2003, her last budget, Wasilla had a total budget of $12.5 million including capital projects (Ordinance 02-23 (am), 5/13/2002). In 2000, said Chief Fannon, "I just don’t want to see any more burden put on the taxpayer" when asked about the rape kit law.

    Maybe she could have used of the $27 million in earmarks the city had obtained. Just how many rape kits could she have afforded with that? Assuming the maximum price of $1300 per kit, that money could have bought 20,538 kits. Alaska averaged 541 rape arrests per year between 1996 and 2002. That means that just the federal pork money Wasilla obtained could have provided enough rape kits to provide the entire state of Alaska with rape kits for at least 30 years. And yet Sarah Palin’s own police chief couldn’t see the point in "burdening the tax payers" with the costs of the kits for his town’s women.

more lies from mccain and palin

"How many saw her speech a couple of nights ago? Wasn't it fabulous?" McCain said Friday during a campaign stop in Cedarburg, Wisconsin. "You know what I enjoyed the most? She took the luxury jet that was purchased by her predecessor and sold it on eBay — and made a profit."

But it turns out the twin-engine Westwind II was a tough sell on the Web — and the state eventually pulled it offline and sold it through an ordinary brick-and-mortar brokerage, for a loss, a spokeswoman said Friday.

link: palin's jet didn't sell on ebay

what we know about palin - week 1

today is the one week anniversary of the announcement of sarah palin's appointment as the republican vice-presidential nominee.  i've put together a listing of bunch of information about palin that has come to light in the last week.

perhaps i'll start a weekly roundup of all the delightful information that comes to light about this ultra-conservative, anti-choice, oil-drilling, earmark-demanding, polar-bear killing, loyalty-demanding bully who's got a sneer that makes dubya look like a benevolent deity.

enjoy.

anne kilkenny, a concerned citizen from wasilla, alaska (palin's hometown - the one she was mayor of) who knows sarah palin well, wrote a letter on august 31, 2008 to a few friends which is now circulating wildly through the internet.

the mccain camp is trying to halt the "troopergate" investigation into palin's firing of walter monegan because of his failure to fire her sister's ex-husband (even though she'd been demanding that her ex-brother in law be fired for over a year!).  "there's a question as to whether [the investigation] should continue" said one mccain/palin advisor.  because she's a woman, no doubt.

palin attended five different colleges in six years before graduating from the university of idaho.  all five schools claim that the mccain camp contacted none of them during palin's background investigation and "vetting process."  it is as yet unknown why she had to switch colleges every year.

though she casts herself as a "fresh face" and "maverick," republican party officials say that she's been being "groomed for higher office" since her run for mayor of wasilla in 1996.

the anchorage daily news has the story about palin, upon securing the mayorship of wasilla in 1996, threatening and then firing the city librarian for refusing to ban books, as well as firing the former police chief, irl stambaugh, an action which violated civil rights laws that prohibit retaliation for politial activity.  she also fired 3 other city directors in the same sweep, and claimed, at the time, that the firings were simply loyalty tests.  

a group of citizens residing in wasilla discussed a recall of palin due to the controversial firings, but decided not to pursue it as they did not want to be "divisive."

politico.com talks about the 2006 research document put together by palin's opponent in the alaska gubernatorial race, describing her overzealous conservatism and micromanaging, bullying governing style.

the seattle times has a lengthy article reviewing many of the issues that have arisen upon palin's propulsion into the national spotlight, including her controversial firings, her vindictive nature, her firing of walter monegan, the public safety commissioner, for refusing to fire her brother-in-law, her rare, bizarre appearances at alaskan gubernatorial debates in 2006, and of course, her flip-flopping on the bridge to nowhere.

sarah palin gives her best recital ever

watching sarah palin recite her speech tonight at the RNC in st. paul was fairly excruciating, but i'm all in favor of "know thy enemy." so i watched. a bunch of really good speech-writers have clearly been awake for the last 6 days - which is when we first heard of this person, because mccain couldn't decide on a vp until 3 days prior to the convention... more comforting judgment skills there - writing this stunningly mobilizing, red meat-throwing, really mean speech for her to recite. and palin is an incredibly charismatic and well-spoken mouthpiece for the efficient, vicious soundbytes that were contained in that speech... and i'm sure will be in many to come.

of course she's well spoken. i mean, she was ms. alaska after all. her voice is kind of annoying though. some kind of michigan/wisconsin accent but minus the cuteness and plus the smarminess.

in any case, the speech that was written for this former beauty queen to recite (and she gets an A!) was essentially a stream of patent lies and vicious insults. her tone during her recital was sarcastic, smarmy, snide, condescending, nasty. the words though, spouting out of the sweetly smiling mouth of a pretty, "spunky" woman with "moxie," seemed to lose their sarcasm and meanness as they flowed out over the audience of adoring delegates, who transformed them, somehow, into hope and joy, as they responded to this woman who they have been praying will be "the one." and tonight, she seemed to answer their prayers.

they want their obama too, after all. they don't want to miss all the fun this year. and now they get to have a "historic" candidate too, just like the democrats. how proud they must feel!

the delegates weren't very excited before. bad year to be a republican. hurricane on the first day bringing back ghosts of katrina. bush, first sitting president not to attend the convention of his own party since 1972... most unpopular president in half a century. the republican delegates were lackluster. they had no focus. they were confused.

until this woman appeared, as if from heaven, and showed them the light.

oh and by the way, she wasn't being vicious, or mean, no, she was just being a strong woman, and how dare the damn democrats say she shouldn't be strong just because she's a woman? those dems, always fighting against feminism and women's rights... when will they learn?

feminism, used against us by the patriarchal enemies. oh goddess, deliver us!

i think we know why mccain picked her now. she's exactly what they needed, someone to be the nasty republican attack dog while maintaining their grace and charm, without looking like cheney, or rove, or bush. she's damn good at it, that evil bitch.

the other factor is mccain's decision has got to be that poor down's syndrome baby. after palin's recital, when the family and then mccain come out to stand with her, she grabs that baby and hold him right next to her face, so he's in all the camera shots.

it's a perfect pity party... retarded baby and pow veteran who's lost all his teeth and can't raise his arms above his shoulders. if the dems pulled this, the republicans would be calling pity party.

it's disturbing to me the way she seems to throw her children into the ring without a care, using them as political tools. the republicans can threaten the media all they like but palin released the statement about her daughter's pregnancy, and i fervently hope the media will not back down on this, now that they're actually doing their jobs.

the most oxymoronic, hypocritical moment of perhaps the entire convention (competing with her derogatory rant about how obama is the celebrity candidate - when that's exactly what she has become) was when, amongst a stream of nasty insults to obama's character, morality and experience, palin sarcastically accused obama of being "afraid someone won't read them their rights," referring to the evil arab terrorists in guantanamo i guess.

the dirty arabs shouldn't have rights, this much is clear. come on, they bombed, well, there was 911... remember? i know it's been 7 years but we can still manipulate it to our advantage - we're really good at doing it!

so let me just reiterate the obvious here: the entire republican national convention has been centered for days around john mccain's heroism in surviving torture in a vietnamese pow prison camp.

i completely agree that mccain is an amazing person for having survived that, and is to be honored and respected for his service, perhaps particularly for choosing not to be released before other prisoners who had been there longer, a display of great honor.

*as an aside, i'm not sure that's the kind of decision making process that we would want in a leader... someone who would just stay (and keep every single american with him) in a terrible situation, for honor and only honor, denying any other complexities of the situation in favor of the one track he is doggedly set on, not to be deterred. this kind of stubbornness (which the republicans like to couch as being a "maverick") is actually reminiscent of a certain president we know. change? doesn't sound like it.

in any case, this whole week has been a grand ol' "mccain is a hero, he choose to be tortured for us, just like jeebus did" party. and the message about torture has been, pretty consistently, that it is generally a bad thing.

but palin, and i couldn't believe the words were actually coming out of her mouth; it was the closest i've come to breaking the tv set - used as an attack the fact that obama wants prisoners to be mirandized, offering this to her audience as proof that he is clearly the biggest pussy who has ever walked the face of the earth.

that she says this is bad enough. that the line gets a standing ovation is far more disturbing. her statements leading up to that one got good applause, but the "read them their rights" line gets the crowd on their feet, hungry for blood.

"Victory in Iraq is finally in sight ... he wants to forfeit.

"Terrorist states are seeking new-clear weapons without delay ... he wants to meet them without preconditions.

"Al Qaeda terrorists still plot to inflict catastrophic harm on America ... he's worried that someone won't read them their rights?'

(cheers and standing ovation)

why does that get the biggest response? the only rational explanation i can think of is that torturing arab prisoners is somehow revenge for vietnam... how else could such an anti-torture convention cheer for the idea of people being held without being mirandized? i mean besides the fact that they only really care of white people are being tortured.

does she, do they, think that no one should have fought for john mccain and his fellow pows to be treated according to international human rights law when they were staying at the hanoi hilton? or is it like, well, mccain had to go through it, so these bastards do too?

someone, somewhere in the party must realize this glaring hypocrisy. right?

watch the video/read the transcript of palin's recital here. if you think you can stand it.

republican insiders caught by hot mic talking shit about mccain and the palin pick

on the most critical night of the year so far for the mccain-palin ticket, two republican insiders, mike murphy and peggy noonan, were talking with chuck todd on msnbc. the segment wrapped up... but the mikes were still on.

transcript

Chuck Todd: Mike Murphy, lots of free advice, we'll see if Steve Schmidt and the boys were watching. We'll find out on your blackberry. Tonight voters will get their chance to hear from Sarah Palin and she will get the chance to show voters she's the right woman for the job Up next, one man who's already convinced and he'll us why Gov. Jon Huntsman.

(cut away)

Peggy Noonan: Yeah.

Mike Murphy: You know, because I come out of the blue swing state governor world: Engler, Whitman, Tommy Thompson, Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush. I mean, these guys -- this is how you win a Texas race, just run it up. And it's not gonna work. And --

PN: It's over.

MM: Still McCain can give a version of the Lieberman speech to do himself some good.

CT: I also think the Palin pick is insulting to Kay Bailey Hutchinson, too.

PN: Saw Kay this morning.

CT: Yeah, she's never looked comfortable about this --

MM: They're all bummed out.

CT: Yeah, I mean is she really the most qualified woman they could have turned to?

PN: The most qualified? No! I think they went for this -- excuse me-- political bullshit about narratives --

CT: Yeah they went to a narrative.

MM: I totally agree.

PN: Every time the Republicans do that, because that's not where they live and it's not what they're good at, they blow it.

MM: You know what's really the worst thing about it? The greatness of McCain is no cynicism, and this is cynical.

CT: This is cynical, and as you called it, gimmicky.

MM: Yeah.

story via talking points memo

juneau

link

more about palin... and more, and more...

The Associated Press: Campaign money hurts Palin's outsider image

GOP vice presidential pick Sarah Palin accepted at least $4,500 in campaign contributions in the same fundraising scheme at the center of a public corruption scandal that led to the indictment of Sen. Ted Stevens.

The contributions, made during Palin's failed 2002 bid to become Alaska's lieutenant governor, were not illegal for her to accept. But they show how Palin, a self-proclaimed champion for clean government, has been part of an Alaska political system that is now under the cloud of an ongoing FBI investigation.

It's the latest in a string of revelations that raise questions about whether John McCain's presidential campaign had sufficiently investigated the background of Palin, 44, a little-known governor new to the national stage.

(snip)

The list of potentially embarrassing details grew Tuesday:

- Her husband once belonged to a fringe political group in Alaska with some members supporting succession from the United States.

- In her earlier career as mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, Palin hired a lobbyist to help the tiny town secure at least 14 earmarks, worth $27 million between 2000-2003. McCain has touted Palin as a force in his long battle against earmarks.

- Under her leadership this year, Alaska asked for almost $300 per person in requests for pet projects from Stevens, one of McCain's top adversaries. That's more than any other state received, per person, from Congress.

- The head of the firm hired to defend Gov. Palin in a state ethics investigation was previously her family's lawyer and is permitted to bill the state up to $95,000 for work in the current case. It involves the dismissal of public safety commissioner Walt Monegan after he refused to fire a state trooper who had divorced the governor's sister.

- Palin opposed the U.S. government's listing of a variety of animals as endangered, including the polar bear and the beluga whale, both of which inhabit areas also rich in oil and natural gas.

good move, john...

mccain picks vp with um... experience

sarah palin, republican vice-presidential nominee

21 Reasons Why McCain's VP Pick is HILARIOUS!

(some snips)
1. Completely undercuts one of McCain’s main arguments against Barack Obama — that Obama lacks the experience to be president. If Obama isn’t experienced enough, what the hell is Palin? Should be hilarious to watch McCain and the republicans try to answer that one.
~~~
6. Palin is in the middle of an investigation over whether she used her influence to get her former brother-in-law, State Trooper Mike Wooten, fired. When Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan refused to fire Wooten, Monegan was suddenly fired. Palin and her administration forcefully claimed they had nothing to do with it, but they had to reverse that stance when a tape surfaced of a call with one of her staff saying that Palin wanted Wooten fired. Firing dedicated public servants (a state trooper, no less), for political/personal reasons? DOJ attorney scandal, anyone?
~~~
8. Palin was the chairwoman of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, which “oversees oil and gas drilling, development and production, reservoir depletion and metering operations on all lands subject to the state's police powers”. Just the change America needs — another VP looking to enrich the oil industry. Totally undercuts McCain’s claim that he bucks the repubs by being more green and is not in the pocket of Big Oil.
~~~
12. Palin thinks creationism should be taught in schools. Enough said.
~~~
13. Palin is anti-choice. While this might make the 10% of Americans who want all abortions outlawed happy, it will alienate the vast majority of Americans. Not everyone knows that McCain wants Roe vs. Wade overturned and will do so if he can get more Supreme Court justices, and when they find that out, they run from McCain. Now they have one more person to run from.
~~~
14. Palin doesn’t think humans have caused climate change. Another knock on McCain’s attempts at greenwashing.
~~~
16. Palin becoming president would do for women what Alberto Gonzales has done for Latinos and what Condoleeza Rice has done for black women — set them back a decade or more.