So far the Republican election campaign in the States hasn't featured a puffin pooping on Barack Obama's head (if the current Canadian election is a mystery to you, click here to read about the Conservative party's puffin antics) but they're certainly experts in deceit and distortion. For instance, Senator McCain would have us believe his support for U.S. troops has been unwavering but in fact, "John McCain has voted no over 10 times on pro-veteran and active service member issues such as healthcare and body armor." Check out some of the bold-faced lies the McCain campaign has been telling both about Obama and McCain's own record:
And Palin is no feminist(except in the 2+2=5 1984 sense.)
"While Sarah Palin was mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, the police department was charging rape victims for their own rape kits." According to former Alaska Governor Tony Knowles, "There was one town in Alaska that was charging victims for this, and that was Wasilla." (*Alaska's rape rate is double the national average.) Wasilla Police Chief Charlie Fannon was a Palin appointee and given that the population of Wasilla is less than 10,000 people, it's highly unlikely she would've been unaware of this practice.
Sarah Palin doesn't believe in abortion, even in cases of rape and incest. (A report by the Center for American Progress found that "a significant correlation exists between childhood sexual abuse and teen pregnancy. An estimated 60% of teen girls’ first pregnancies are preceded by experiences of molestation, rape, or attempted rape. In one study, between 30 and 44% of teen mothers were victims of rape or attempted rape, and up to 20% of girls were pregnant as the direct result of rape.")
But at the same time Palin is unsupportive of pregnant teens (other than her own). Earlier this year she "used her line-item veto to slash funding for a state program benefiting teen mothers in need of a place to live."
In the words of Gloria Steinem:
“Palin...opposes just about every issue that women support by a majority or plurality. She believes that creationism should be taught in public schools but disbelieves global warming; she opposes gun control but supports government control of women's wombs; she opposes stem cell research but approves "abstinence-only" programs, which increase unwanted births, sexually transmitted diseases and abortions; she tried to use taxpayers' millions for a state program to shoot wolves from the air but didn't spend enough money to fix a state school system with the lowest high-school graduation rate in the nation; she runs with a candidate who opposes the Fair Pay Act but supports $500 million in subsidies for a natural gas pipeline across Alaska; she supports drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve, though even McCain has opted for the lesser evil of offshore drilling.”
McCain & Palin voice their anti-choice views:
Presidential Vice President nominee Palin also appears to take issue with the idea of intellectual freedom, something Time Magazine, The Boston Herald and The New York Times have written about and blogs such as Finding Wonderland: The WritingYA Weblog and AS IF! (Authors Support Intellectual Freedom) have picked up on.
Shortly after becoming mayor, former city officials and Wasilla residents said, Ms. Palin approached the town librarian about the possibility of banning some books, though she never followed through and it was unclear which books or passages were in question.
Anne Kilkenny, a Democrat who said she attended every City Council meeting in Ms. Palin’s first year in office, said Ms. Palin brought up the idea of banning some books at one meeting. 'They were somehow morally or socially objectionable to her,' Ms. Kilkenny said.
The librarian, Mary Ellen Emmons, pledged to 'resist all efforts at censorship,' Ms. Kilkenny recalled. Ms. Palin fired Ms. Emmons shortly after taking office but changed course after residents made a strong show of support.
To find out more about why countless female voters don't want Palin anywhere near the office of Vice President check out the Women Against Sarah Palin blog.
