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In times like these with wars and financial crisis, I know that it may be easy to forget even as deep and abiding a concern as the right to life, and it seems that our opponent kind of hopes you will forget that. He hopes that you won’t notice how radical, absolutely radical his idea is on this, and his record is, until it’s too late.

– Sarah Palin, who would have the government make abortion and even emergency contraception absolutely illegal even in cases of rape and incest committed against 12 year old girls, referring to Barack Obama, who agrees with the U.S. Supreme Court on Roe v. Wade

Yesterday, the Connecticut Supreme Court legalized gay marriage in that state.

Current weather:

Where’s the hurricane?

Don’t say you weren’t warned. The story of government abuse of spying powers truly broke three and a half years ago, right after the 2004 election. George W. Bush was caught breaking the law, listening in on the personal conversations of millions of Americans, and grabbing information about their private use of the Internet as well. We wrote about it then, and we’ve been writing about the issue ever since.

But what did Americans do? Some engaged in activism to defend their rights. Most, however, just shrugged, mumbled, “Whatever they have to do to protect me from terrorists…”, and looked the other way. Then, in 2006 Congress legalized the illegal program, and did it again in 2007, expanding the spy program even further.

John McCain was in on the dirty deal - and Jim was on the job a couple of weeks ago when he personally confronted John McCain on the FISA Amendments Act - this year’s law granting George W. Bush even more telecommunications spying powers.

But, don’t kid yourself that this is a partisan election issue. It’s not. Barack Obama gave his support to the Big Brother spying programs to wiretap our communications just like John McCain did. So did many other Democrats in Congress.

This morning, we’re learning specifics about the what the FISA Amendments Act has been used for - it’s not counterterrorism. Two people who have been working on the inside of the National Security Agency’s spy programs authorized by the Protect America Act and FISA Amendments Act report that they were ordered to listen to, record, and even transcribe the personal telephone calls of American journalists, non-profit aid workers, and even U.S. military officers. The transcribed telephone calls included phone sex between spouses temporarily separated from one another.

None of these people were suspected of terrorism, or even having any acquaintances that were suspected of terrorism.

The FISA Amendments Act isn’t a Terrorist Surveillance Program. It’s being used against Americans who are serving their country, and the world, overseas. It’s being used against their family members back home. It’s being used to keep government records on just what American wives are telling their American husbands about just what sexy things they’re going to do for them when the couples are reunited.

Why is the government listening in on and transcribing these conversations? For blackmail?

These allegations come from just two of the huge number of people working for the NSA to spy on Americans’ private conversations. What other kinds of spying against us is being done that we aren’t being told about?

These revelations are shocking, but they’re only surprising if you haven’t been paying attention to what your government has been up to for the last eight years. I suspect, therefore, that most Americans will be very surprised to hear this news.

Making the rounds, source unknown.

“There’s a place in Hell reserved for women who don’t support other women.” — Sarah Palin, October 4 2008

Yes, you got that right: women, you’re going to Hell if you don’t vote for Sarah Palin.

The underlying principle: people should vote for other people who were born into the same group… or they will go to Hell.

Further applications of the Palin principle:

There’s a place in Hell reserved for men who don’t vote for other men.
There’s a place in Hell reserved for whites who don’t vote for other whites.
There’s a place in Hell reserved for Christians who don’t vote for other Christians.
There’s a place in Hell reserved for people who vote on the basis of policies.
There’s a place in Hell reserved for people who vote on the basis of ideas.
There’s a place in Hell reserved for people who think.

Take note in the headline for this article. The subject is not Mark Buse is Gay, though that’s the story that’s being told elsewhere around the Internet today. The subject is that John McCain is happy to deny his own Senate Chief of Staff equal rights.

Mark Buse, John McCain’s Chief of Staff in the Senate has been outed as gay, though it seems that he never tried to hide his sexuality from people around him. That’s no big deal. It’s weird to me that Buse would campaign against his own interests by helping John McCain, but self-loathing is equal opportunity psychology, present among heterosexuals as well as homosexuals. Besides, being Chief of Staff to a powerful senator is a good job. Maybe Buse, like many Americans, puts his personal ambitions ahead of his liberty and ethical integrity.

The big deal is the decision by John McCain to oppose equal rights for people like Mark Buse. John McCain ought to be aware by now that many of the people he works with are not heterosexual. Yet, McCain seems to have no compassion for them, or respect for their rights as guaranteed by the Constitution. Equal protection under the law doesn’t appear to matter to John McCain, even when it’s denied to his own colleagues.

That’s the real scandal as I see it, not what some Washington D.C. insider likes to do during his private time.

In her more recent statements, Sarah Palin has been coached to utter statements such as these regarding her views on women’s personal freedom:

Y’know, with my respect for the sanctity of life and my belief in the potential of life I know that this aspect of the abortion issue is very sensitive, and, you know, is a very private matter also.

“Oh, great,” you’re supposed to think, “Sarah Palin thinks abortion is a sensitive and private matter.” “Oh, gee,” you’re supposed to conclude, “I guess if Sarah Palin became President she would respect women’s right to control their own bodies, you know, with abortion being a sensitive and private matter and all.”

The problem is that when Sarah Palin has been specifically asked for her policy views about what practices she would put into the law to restrict Americans’ freedoms, she’s hummed a different tune. When asked by the 2006 Eagle Forum Questionnaire to complete the sentence, “I believe abortion should be _______,” Palin wrote:

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.

In a 2006 gubernatorial debate on KAKM-TV, Sarah Palin told you exactly what she’d do if she got the chance:

Libby Casey: Suppose Senator John Doe puts forth a constitutional amendment that would outlaw abortion even in cases of rape or incest, and he asked you to attend the announcement and support him in that. Would you do it?

Sarah Palin: You’re, you’re asking if… in front of me were legislation that I would be asked to sign?

Libby Casey: No, if he was going to put forth a constitutional amendment, and he just wanted your support, you know, as a party member, as the leader of the state.

Sarah Palin: Um, I would. I would. And it’s no secret that I’m pro-life and I don’t hide that and nor am I ashamed of that but I am pro-life and yes, a, a proposal like that, I would stand by it.

There you have it, twice over: vote for Sarah Palin and you’ll get policies that force 12-year-old girls who’ve been raped by a teacher to carry and bear and be a parent to the rapist’s child. We’re talking about 7th grade girls here. Yes, it happens, and yes, Sarah Palin wants to give the rapist a special prize and the raped girl a special burden… because Sarah Palin prizes her sensibilities over the right to self-determination of an entire nation of women and girls. Forget Sarah Palin’s pretty, distracting words about how “private” and “sensitive” the issue is. She’s told you, point blank, what she would like to do if given the political power. Should the increasingly old and cancerous John McCain die, she wants to be your President.

Maybe some of you out there still don’t believe that Sarah Palin would really do this, even though she’s told you more than once that this is exactly her intention. Maybe you think Sarah Palin is lying to you.

That’s an understandable suspicion, considering that Sarah Palin has already lied to you about cooperating with the Troopergate investigation, that Sarah Palin has already lied to you about having “killed the Bridge to Nowhere” when she actually supported it until the Congress killed it, that Sarah Palin has already lied to you about the amount of energy produced by the state of Alaska, that Sarah Palin has already lied to you about the scientific consensus of Alaska state agencies regarding the threatened status of the Polar Bear.

Yes, considering the track record of Sarah Palin as a liar, it’s understandable that you might think Sarah Palin has lied to you about her policy plans on abortion, too. Maybe, just maybe, she’s a clandestine pro-choice activist seeking to fool all the anti-choice activists into voting her into office so she can whip off her mask and with a “ha ha!” appoint Gloria Steinem to the Supreme Court. Maybe. And maybe I am actually the Queen of Spain.

But I take the point; when you’re dealing with a liar, you can’t really trust in the liar’s words. If you want to know what a liar is going to do in the future, you have to look at what they’ve done in the past.

Fine. As David Talbot reports with more than one source, here’s what Sarah Palin has actually done in the past…

Some background: In 1996, the evangelical church community of which Sarah Palin is a part engaged in a successful campaign to take over the board of the only hospital in the Matanuska-Susitna Valley which offered abortions. After the takeover, the new evangelical hospital board declared that the hospital would offer no abortions. A local OB-GYN doctor named Susan Lemagie filed suit in court with ten women who as a consequence had to travel far out of state to obtain abortions, seeking a court ruling that the hospital, a nonreligious nonprofit institution built using state and other public funds, must offer the legal public health service of abortion. Dr. Lemagie’s coalition won in court, based on the Alaska Supreme Court’s reading of Roe v. Wade and Article I Section 22 of the Alaska Constitution: “The right of the people to privacy is recognized and shall not be infringed.” The court stated:

A woman’s control of her body, and the choice whether or when to bear children, involves the kind of decision-making that is “necessary for . . . civilized life and ordered liberty.” Baker, 471 P.2d at 401-02. Our prior decisions support the further conclusion that the right to an abortion is the kind of fundamental right and privilege encompassed within the intention and spirit of Alaska’s constitutional language. “[D]ecisions whether to accomplish or prevent conception are among the most private and sensitive.” …

We stated in Breese v. Smith, 501 P.2d 159, 169 (Alaska 1972), that “few things [are] more personal than one’s body.” [Fn. 8] In Breese, a school policy regulating hair length was at issue; the regulation was held unconstitutional because the State failed to show a compelling interest that justified the policy. Id. at 170-72. Surely “few things are more personal” than a woman’s control of her body, including the choice of whether and when to have children. Of all decisions a person makes about his or her body, the most profound and intimate relate to two sets of ultimate questions: first, whether, when and how one’s body is to become the vehicle for another human being’s creation; second, when and how–this time there is no question of “whether”–one’s body is to terminate its organic life….

For the above reasons, we are of the view that reproductive rights are fundamental, and that they are encompassed within the right to privacy expressed in article I, section 22 of the Alaska Constitution. These rights may be legally constrained only when the constraints are justified by a compelling state interest, and no less restrictive means could advance that interest. These fundamental reproductive rights include the right to an abortion.

A set of evangelical Christians in the Mat-Su Valley were incensed and outraged that Dr. Susan Lemagie would dare employ her legal right to go to court with a constitutional challenge. They were so incensed and outraged that they picketed Lemagie’s clinic for months. Lemagie’s poised 16-year-old daughter recalled in a 1998 issue of Newsweek the intense community pressure raised against not only her mother but her 12-year-old self for daring to defend women’s legal right to an abortion:

The initial community reaction to the case was troubling. At school, many of my conservative friends became more distant… “Your mom’s the only doctor in the state who does abortions,” my fourth-grade classmate shouted as he bolted across the playground, leaving me, red-faced and furious, on the swings…. Comments occasionally floated toward me in the halls: “Her mom kills babies. Isn’t that so disgusting?!” Local preachers from varying denominations condemned my mother from the pulpit. Picketers began protesting at the hospital across the street from my mom’s clinic. In late ‘94, when the national papers carried stories about bombed abortion clinics and murdered doctors, they moved to the sidewalk outside the clinic. My mother no longer talked about managed care and AIDS; she talked about buying a bulletproof vest.

I don’t think my family ever seriously believed that a fanatic with an automatic rifle lurked across the parking lot from my mom’s office, but the horrific thought remained in my 12-year-old brain. Small bands of picketers showed up maybe once a week throughout the first winter after the lawsuit was filed. Whipped by the January wind, their crimson ears looked as if they wanted to detach and wait in the car for their owners. My dad made a point of taking a picture of every car, every license plate, every group of grim strangers holding hideous pictures of infant corpses. “If a bomb ever went off,” he told me recently, “I could have just dropped off prime-suspect identification at the police station.”

Mr. Lemagie wasn’t paranoid to take care: the sister of one of my wife’s friends is one of the people killed by anti-abortion activists.

Who was one of the picketers so determined to deny all Alaska women the right to an abortion, no matter that abortion is legal in Alaska? Who was one of the picketers so outraged that Dr. Susan Lemagie exercised her right to judicial review as an American citizen? Who was one of the picketers, so sure of her moral rectitude that she would attempt to shut down Dr. Susan Lemagie, law and liberty be damned?

According to two sources, Sarah Palin.

Do you want Sarah Palin to be president?

You know, the Republicans tried really hard to fix everything just right for Sarah Palin to take her first-ever question from an actual member of the American public. They shut down public access to the “town hall” in Grand Rapids so that people in the town weren’t welcome to come. They made it a ticketed event, distributing tickets exclusively through Republican Party offices.

The one thing they couldn’t control was their candidate.

Sarah Palin faced this simple request yesterday:

Give us some details and examples of your strategies and plan for economic empowerment for women.

Palin’s response?

Sarah Palin: Well first let me take a shot at that, and I’ll tell ya, I’m a product of Title IX in our schools, where equal education and equal opportunities in sports really helped propel me into the—I guess into the position that I’m in today where…

John McCain: Could I mention she was a point guard on a state championship basketball team?

Sarah Palin: Sports were very, very important to me growing up, you know just learning about self discipline and healthy competition and about what it takes to win and even how to graciously lose sometimes. But how to win, that’s what it teaches ya. Now, I was a product of Title IX where legislation allowed that equal opportunity. Now if we have to still keep going down that road to create more legislation, to get with it in the 21st century, to make sure that women do have equality especially in the work place, then we’re there because we understand that in this age we have all got to be working together. I respect you so much that you are a Democrat recognizing that John McCain and me as a team of mavericks understand where you’re coming from, and we can work together on these issues. But yup, equality for women, for all, that’s going to be part of the agenda and I thank you for that question.

“Details and examples of your strategies and plan for economic empowerment for women”?

1. Sports are great.
2. Let girls and women play sports.
3. Let’s work together and stuff.
4. John McCain and me are mavericks.

Drill, baby, drill.

Liberal linkage: Women Against Sarah Palin.

A few letters written in to the website:

As a woman and a registered Republican I am very concerned about the choice of Mrs. Palin as a vice-presidential candidate. I do not believe that she stands for most American woman as she is against a woman’s right to choose in medical decisions concerning her own body, she has demonstrated an intolerance for differing beliefs, she does not believe in birth control or sex education. I was planning on voting for McCain but the Republican ticket has lost my vote because of this choice.
–Carol C., Tiverton, RI

Sarah Palin is the epitome of an old-style woman: a ruthless pawn of powerful men, spewing platitudes that fit a by-gone world where human beings thought nature was to be harnessed, surmounted, as the means to progress. We know better now. Nature is telling us we are too many, too careless, too heedless of the natural consequences of our wasteful ways. We can use wind, solar power, conservation, diplomacy, intelligence, education, thoughtfulness, science, creativity and wisdom. Palin is against all these. She is a patsy for Rove and his greedy schemes. I am against her and all she stands for. I stand for being a thinking woman with brains and choices and rights and respect for the Earth.
–Sansea S., New Haven, Vermont

As a resident of rural Alaska, I speak from a perspective of one who has had to experience the detrimental policies and world view of Palin. Any thought I may have given to listening to what McCain has to say has now been completely annihilated due to his choice of running mate. Palin can not be allowed anywhere near a position of power in this country if we want to retain any semblance of what this country fundamentally and consitutionally upholds.
–Marian M., Alaska

I couldn’t support to candidate less: I enjoy my reproductive rights
and reading uncensored library books. I take responsibility for
climate change and I want to help the polar bear. Creationism in
classrooms? Abstinence only sex-ed? What year is this??
–Amy F., Boston

Broadcast September 12 2008:

Charles Gibson: Roe v. Wade, do you think it should be reversed?

Sarah Palin: I think it should.

John McCain’s own website:

John McCain believes Roe v. Wade is a flawed decision that must be overturned.

Elect John McCain to be President and Sarah Palin to be President after his incapacitation or death, and women across the country will lose their right to self-determination. That’s what’s at stake in this election.

The Department of the Interior acknowledged today that a large number of government officials have been caught in a corruption ring involving employees of big oil companies - Hess, Chevron and Shell Oil, to name a few. There were bribes. There were exchanges of illegal drugs. Government officials were given sexual favors by oil company employees.

This news is only the result of an internal investigation by the Bush Administration. Once independent inquiries begin, the full scope of this oil industry corruption may go quite a bit further.

The government officials so far identified are in positions of decision-making power over oil company leases for drilling on public lands and in public waters. It’s very interesting to me that so many members of Congress have hopped on board the bandwagon recently for additional oil drilling leases, and for expanded offshore drilling rights - smack where the newly discovered corruption is centered.

It would be foolish for Congress to pass legislation authorizing expanded drilling before the bribery and other crimes are fully investigated… Foolish, or simply corrupt.

(Sex, drugs and oil podcast)

Let’s say you’re a twelve year old kid who’s been raped and impregnated by your uncle or your grandfather or your father. Should you have to bring the resulting fetus to term and become a 12-to-13-year-old mother? Or should you have the legal right to choose to abort the fetus, which at 9 weeks weighs a total of 2 grams?

Sarah Palin says tough luck, kiddo. So you’re 12 years old. So you’ve been raped. So you’re a victim of incest. You’ve got a 2 gram fetus inside you and Sarah Palin says if she were in charge you’d have to keep it.

2006 Gubernatorial Debate at KAKM-TV in Anchorage:

Libby Casey: Suppose Senator John Doe puts forth a constitutional amendment that would outlaw abortion even in cases of rape or incest, and he asked you to attend the announcement and support him in that. Would you do it?

Sarah Palin: You’re, you’re asking if… in front of me were legislation that I would be asked to sign?

Libby Casey: No, if he was going to put forth a constitutional amendment, and he just wanted your support, you know, as a party member, as the leader of the state.

Sarah Palin: Um, I would. I would. And it’s no secret that I’m pro-life and I don’t hide that and nor am I ashamed of that but I am pro-life and yes, a, a proposal like that, I would stand by it.

Did you think she wasn’t serious? KTOO reporter Christopher Clark asked a follow-up question:

Christopher Clark: Ms. Palin, if I may interject here, we know that you’re pro-life, but there are certain different shades of gray of pro-life. If a women were, say, uh, raped and got pregnant because of the rape, would that be an instance in which you would allow her to have an abortion?

Sarah Palin: Well, I don’t think it would be up to me individually as an individual, but…

Christopher Clark: Would it be against the law?

Sarah Palin: In the case of the life of the mother being in jeopardy, I think there, that is the acceptable exception and I think I’ve gone on record on that.

In the same debate, Sarah Palin reflected on abortion for her personally or for her family, and said it would be for her personally a “very private matter” in which “I would choose”:

Sarah Palin: Y’know, with my respect for the sanctity of life and my belief in the potential of life I know that this aspect of the abortion issue is very sensitive, and, you know, is a very private matter also. But personally, I would choose life.

Christopher Clark: Let me ask a question that was raised by a member of the audience on this issue. Let’s say your daughter was pregnant or your son was involved in a pregnancy. I mean, it was before marriage or anything like that. What would your reaction be, your reaction and your advice to him or her?

Sarah Palin: Um, again, I would choose life and certainly I’m quite confident that you’re going to be asking my opponents those same scenarios.

Christopher Clark: I will. But if your daughter had been raped, would that be something you would feel would be…

Sarah Palin: Again, I would choose life.

Did you get that? Sarah Palin would make choices for her or for her daughter, and they would be a “very private matter,” but she would take away the ability of every parent or child around the country to make choices in the matter. Above them, she would place her own Writ controlling every woman’s and every child’s body from the Oval Office in Washington, DC.

Lest you think Sarah Palin was just having a hypothetical lapse right there, consider her written response to the 2006 Eagle Forum Questionnaire:

Question: Complete the sentence by checking the applicable phrases (you can check more than one).
Abortion should be:
Banned throughout entire pregnancy.
Legal to save the life of the mother.
Legal in case of rape and incest.
Legal if the baby is handicapped.
Legal if the baby has a genetic defect.
Legal in the first trimester.
Legal in the second trimester.
Legal in the third trimester.
Other:__________________

Sarah Palin: 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.

Are you a 12 year old victim of rape and incest, a 7th grader who has been forcibly impregnated by her own relatives? Well, tough. If Sarah Palin’s in charge of the country, you won’t get to control what happens to your body. If Sarah Palin’s in charge of the country, Sarah Palin will control what happens to your body.

Did I mention that Sarah Palin is running to be in charge of the country?

We said it with John Edwards. We said it with Larry Craig. Ages ago, we said it with Bill Clinton. Now the time has come to say the same with Sarah Palin.

Personal sex is personal. Public policy is public. The two shouldn’t be mixed. Politicians should not be denied public office on the basis of their private sex lives.

Nonetheless, the National Enquirer says that it has evidence that Sarah Palin had an extramarital sexual affair recently. The publication says it’s going to release a big story about it all next week.

That’s titillating news, but hardly surprising. Todd Palin seems to almost always out of the home, on an oil rig or a fishing boat.

But really, it doesn’t matter. It might not even be true.

Sarah Palin is a bad vice presidential candidate because she is inexperienced, poorly educated, inconsistent, unethical, disrespectful of the Constitution, politically extremist and mentally unstable. We don’t need a Palin sex scandal to conclude that Sarah Palin should never be given a job in the White House.

If Sarah Palin is really getting some action on the side, that’s her business, and her husband’s business. It isn’t ours.

Republican Rep. Deborah Pryce of Ohio made the following claim regarding Sarah Palin and Ohio voters during a press interview yesterday during the Republican National Convention.

I think the women are so excited. Even the pro-choice women in Ohio are excited! There is a huge bump for our ticket with Sarah on it because she is a real leader.

I don’t know what pro-choice Ohio women Deborah Pryce is talking to, but I at a party last night I bumped up against quite a few. The most popular phrase regarding Sarah Palin was “does John McCain think we are stupid?” I heard that more than once. I also overheard a woman telling someone else that “if McCain thinks we’ll just vote for someone with the same parts, he’s got another thing coming.”

Are you a pro-choice woman from Ohio? Tell me what you think of Sarah Palin.