09.28.08
Posted in News! at 5:51 pm by Anna
Okay folks…
I’ve been away for a while - got incredibly busy with work.
I’m back now to say…I actually feel sorry for Sarah Palin!
I don’t blame the McCain camp for keeping her from the media - she can’t put a sentence together. Her confidence is sinking daily (with good reason), and every interview seems to get worse! I mean, there are 6th graders who can do a better job answering questions about the bailout.
I have lost so much respect for McCain, for putting billions of lives at risk by putting her in a position to be potential prez…Can we impeach a candidate? 
Yesterday’s SNL skit with Tina Fey just nailed it!
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09.12.08
Posted in News! at 12:03 pm by Anna
To Decide
To Choose
To Trust our own best judgement
To Know what is best for our bodies, our families
To Take responsibility for whether or not we have the means & ability to raise a child in the way he/she deserves
Women don’t have the right. It is that simple.
We do not have the right to follow our hearts.
To use the power of our minds.
To guide the course of our own lives.
We don’t have the right. Maybe we’re not smart enough.
Women do not have the right to think our own thoughts.
To revel in our femininity.
To be glad that we are women.
We don’t deserve to be respected, much less adored & admired for the unique, quirky, exquisite creatures that we are.
We don’t have that right. Perhaps we don’t deserve it.
John McCain’s wife Cindy doesn’t have the Right to help him before an interview, without him calling her a C*NT in public, in front of reporters.
She DOES have the right to smile after being humiliated in public, then defend her humiliator during the campaign to fulfill his lifelong dream of attaining glory and power.
Chelsea Clinton doesn’t have the right to be a normal teenager without John McCain making this ugly joke in front of reporters: “Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly? Because her father is Janet Reno.”
I guess Chelsea, Janet & Hillary don’t have the right to receive respect or common decency either. (But make sure you lay off Bristol, you sleazy media.)
Polar Bears don’t have the right to survive as a species.
The earth doesn’t have the right to be protected, respected, kept in tact.
(But we have the right to destroy it and then wonder why we live in a state of constant natural disaster)
OUR CHILDREN DO NOT HAVE THE RIGHT TO BE SAFE!
Anyone who tries to teach them how to protect themselves against inappropriate touching or sexual predators should be publicly mocked and portrayed as a predator himself!!
(Like the “honorable” McCain did to Obama in his latest so-called ad.)
We do not have the Right to natural, renewable energy - not as long as the oil companies can still squeeze & screw us for every last penny we own.
Women do not have the RIGHT to make up their own minds about the election either. We must be manipulated by a token woman, a symbol with a skirt, so we blindly follow the blind…to our own defeat and destruction. Cheering all the way, about the latest crack in the glass ceiling.
Women (and men for that matter) do NOT have the right to criticize, question, or do anything other than worship Sarah Palin. If we wonder about her alleged abuses of power, or her lack of basic foreign policy experience, not to mention her extreme world views…we are just SEXIST!
Women DO have the right to do whatever McCain says. To think what he thinks. To do his bidding at every turn. And to take his abuse with a smile. Like Cindy. And like in the dark ages.
Yup, that’s right.
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09.10.08
Posted in News! at 9:52 pm by Anna
AP - Anchorage
In a bizarre turn of events Wednesday night, Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin returned to her home state into the welcome arms of the Alaskan GOP Party, which put on an elaborate rally in support of the Republican Vice Presidential candidate.
The awed Palin was seen mouthing the word, “Wow”, over and over again as she and husband Todd Palin passed their baby son back and forth to each other.
Shortly after the rally however, Governor Palin stunned the audience by saying, “Well I unfortunately don’t have a speechwriter for this occassion, so Alaska for one last time, it’s just you and me.”
At this the crowd proffered a deafening cheer.
Palin then proceeded to list all the names of the people who did not do her bidding when she was “just the Mayor of a tiny town with a $6 million dollar annual budget” in her words. The crowd listened in stunned silence as her voice rose and grew in anger.
Palin continued on with a litany of “unsupportive” and “faithless” people who disagreed with her during her 18 months as Governor of the state; and who refused to align themselves with her “vision of God’s plan.”
The feisty Republican then criticized the Alaskan GOP Party for not jumping to her defense the past few weeks when “the media smeared me”.
With a flick of the hand and nasal whine that would make the Donald himself green with envy, Palin squeeked into the mic, “You’re fired.”
Okay, so that was a silly farsicle. Now the Real Underlying Issue!
If Sarah Palin tried to fire the Wasilla Librarian for refusing to ban books; and allegedly fired a gov’t official for refusing to fire her ex-brother in law…Who else do you think she may have tried to …or wanted to…or thought of…or succeeded in firing…and for what?
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Posted in News! at 7:14 am by Anna
I just heard on ABC News that the Librarian of the Wasilla Library was interviewed briefly. She basically said that Sarah Palin asked her if she’d be willing to remove certain books from the Library. As the President of the National Library Association, she said all the books were bought according to standards and guidelines, so No. She would not support banning any books.
A few weeks later she was fired.
The community uproared. (I heard they almost recalled her as Mayor, but I don’t know if that’s true.)
Sarah Palin was forced to reinstate the Librarian. But she quit 2 years later anyway, because she said Sarah Palin made it so hard for her.
She said Sarah Palin’s treatment of her was very rough, and it’s a time in her life she doesn’t care to revisit.
Says a lot about Sarah Palin. And probably, TrooperGate. I predict a lot more is going to come out about these types of stories. And it should. We need to know the truth about what kind of woman this really is. And what kind of leader she would potentially be (hope not).
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09.08.08
Posted in News! at 10:40 am by Anna
Just a heads up that CNN is doing a special tonight called Palin’s Faith. It supposedly talks about her religious beliefs and addresses the things she’s said about the Iraq War being part of God’s plan, etc. I think it’s important to know.
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09.06.08
Posted in General, News! at 11:05 am by Anna
>>
Even though Obama has been attacked a lot lately, and even misquoted, he fought back today and did it like a real leader. He didn’t take any cheap shots (like Palin regularly does). He spoke with class and dignity. And humor. He was smiling & everybody up (including himself.)
Aside from his personality, to me this shows real confidence & conviction in what he believes. He had no need to get over-defensive. He’s just on a mission, and he’s determined. That’s how he struck me, at least.
Props to Obama for that!
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Posted in News! at 10:42 am by Anna
Latest poll I saw on CNN.com says Obama leading McCain.
Obama: 45%
McCain 42%
Unsure 13%
A big percentage of unknowns…
I guess McCain didn’t get the bump he hoped for by choosing Palin.
Apparently most voters don’t believe she is qualified enough to be VP. While Republicans seem to like her a lot, Democrats & Independents have a high disapproval rate. The Independents’ perspectives are what is telling.
I saw Palin’s speech yesterday. She is feisty to be sure, but I was disappointed by 2 things:
1) She made the case for John McCain by talking about his POW experience. God bless him for that, but that is not what makes someone a good President.
2) She took Obama’s comments about the surge out of context. She made it sound like Obama admitted the surge was the best thing to happen since the parting of the Red Sea. Which is not true - I saw what he said on the O’Reilly Factor, and what he really said was that, yes, the violence was down but the underlying issues about the war are still unsolved. And that is why the surge was and is not the be-all, end-all solution that John McCain pretends it is.
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Posted in News! at 7:58 am by Anna
Interesting. I thought the evangelicals would be worshipping McCain by now. I guess it just goes to show that you can’t buy peoples’ votes quite that easily…you can’t take womens’ votes for granted because you choose a woman running mate; nor can you win the evangelicals over automatically just because you choose someone conservative.
John McCain himself has flip-flopped terribly on Roe v. Wade…I’m sure they remember that…
This is from Time.com
Sure, John McCain’s selection of Sarah Palin to be his running mate fully consumed a GOP convention that was supposed to be focused on thumping Barack Obama over the head. And it may have raised questions about McCain’s own judgment and seriousness. But, as we have been told ad nauseam since the surprise choice was announced last Friday, Palin has already provided one unquestionable, invaluable assist to the Republican campaign: with one sweep of her perfectly manicured hand, she has supposedly erased McCain’s Evangelical problem and united the base that proved so key to George W. Bush’s victory in 2004.
To a degree, that’s true. Palin’s pro-life credentials are impeccable — she opposes abortion in all circumstances, even in cases of rape and incest, except when a delivery will result in death. And her strong, open religious faith will make her the perfect person to reach out to conservative Evangelicals, who still don’t fully trust the Republican nominee. But McCain and his aides may not want to say hallelujah just yet. While Palin is inspiring rhapsodies from the lions of the Christian right, her appeal to more moderate and younger Evangelicals — as well as independent swing voters — may be limited.
Lost in the stampede of social conservatives to embrace Palin this past week is the fact that she is culturally outside the mainstream of Evangelicalism. Over the past few years, a growing number of Evangelicals have been consciously distancing themselves from the more extreme stands of the Christian right. They live in the suburbs, hold graduate degrees, and while they might not want their children reading certain novels, would be embarrassed by attempts to ban certain books from libraries, as Palin is reported to have briefly considered while mayor of Wasilla, Alaska. They don’t attend churches where speakers charge that violence against Israelis is divine punishment for the failure of Jews to accept Jesus, as happened at one of Palin’s churches two weeks ago (though Palin has now issued a statement saying she does not agree with those views). And they would disagree with Palin’s decision to use her line-item veto as Governor to slash funding for an Alaska shelter that serves teen mothers.
That goes double for younger Evangelicals. These voters tend to be even more pro-life than their parents, but abortion isn’t always a priority that moves their votes — it wasn’t when McCain was alone on the ticket, and there’s no reason for that to change with the addition of Palin. More important, Palin has problematic stances on many of the issues that do motivate young Evangelicals. Her insistence that global warming is not man-made, for instance, is unlikely to appeal to those Evangelicals who have embraced so-called “creation care” in the past few years. This is particularly relevant to the current race, as young Evangelicals account for much of that demographic’s undecided bloc. No one knows what the size of their impact may be in November because young Evangelicals are consistently underrepresented in polls of white Evangelicals. (Even a TIME poll of likely white Evangelical voters conducted last month used a sample in which just 10% of respondents were between 18 and 35. That age group made up 22% of the total electorate in 2004, and its share of the electorate is expected to increase this year.)
At first glance, it may seem ridiculous to say that McCain has an Evangelical problem at all, considering that he already has commanded support in the high 60s or low 70s. As of last week, however, the percentage of white Evangelicals who planned to vote for McCain was still 10 points lower than the final percentage of those voters who went for Bush in the last presidential election. The most conservative Evangelicals — the ones who served as foot soldiers for the Bush-Cheney campaign, mobilizing their neighbors and fellow parishioners — were the least enthusiastic about McCain’s candidacy. And many leaders of the Christian-right establishment were ostentatiously withholding their endorsements of the Arizona Senator.
McCain’s difficulty exciting white Evangelicals has been twofold. The people in the pews had lingering questions about his commitment to the pro-life cause. McCain’s “maverick” political reputation has led many women, including some angry Hillary Clinton supporters who have thrown their support behind him, to assume that he must also buck the GOP’s staunch opposition to abortion — and many Evangelicals worry about just the same thing, despite the Senator’s lifelong record of supporting nearly all abortion restrictions. While McCain tried to address that concern by declaring at Rick Warren’s Saddleback Forum held last month that “life begins at conception,” his continued flirtation with pro-choice running-mate possibilities like Joe Lieberman and Tom Ridge hurt his efforts to make inroads.
His tense relationship with Christian-right leaders has had different roots. They have spent the campaign looking for signs that McCain, who during his 2000 presidential run famously referred to some of them as “agents of intolerance,” is one of them; instead he revealed that while he attends a Baptist church in Phoenix, he has not been baptized. But what about that moving POW guard story, you might ask? The one about the guard who drew a cross in the sand to share his Christian identity with McCain? That tale, it turns out, is actually a large part of the problem for Evangelical leaders. In off-the-record conversations, they complain that the story is about someone else’s faith — which is one reason McCain has recently added a line about how he and the guard “were just two Christians, venerating the cross” — and that surely McCain must have an example of his own faith from the past 40 years.
But they’re mostly annoyed that it’s the only answer McCain gives to any question about religion or faith. It’s the story he told last spring at a gathering of conservative leaders when asked to explain his faith in God. “He blew that question off by telling us about the faith of his jailer,” direct-mail pioneer Richard Viguerie fumed to the Los Angeles Times afterward. “It was very obvious to those three or four hundred conservative leaders there.” One month later, McCain pulled out his trusty tale once again when a student at a town-hall event asked what effect his faith would have on his “executive decision-making.”
There is no doubt that Palin will help calm the doubts of that core Evangelical base and leadership. While many pundits have wondered whether social conservatives will recoil from the news that Palin’s 17-year-old daughter is five months pregnant, they’re clearly not grasping the mores of that community. If Bristol Palin were the daughter of Democratic parents, she would undoubtedly be held up as an example of the failures of a liberal, permissive culture. Instead, she is viewed — as are the majority of teenage mothers in Evangelical churches — as a Christian who sinned, is forgiven, and needs to be embraced and supported.
The revelation about her daughter’s pregnancy, and the fact that Palin herself chose to give birth to a baby with Down Syndrome, are just another part of the compelling picture Palin can paint of her faith. She was baptized in the Catholic Church and for most of her life belonged to an Assemblies of God congregation — a Pentecostal denomination. In high school, Palin was the local leader of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, and most recently she moved her family to a nondenominational Evangelical church in her hometown.
That move away from the Pentecostal Church, which took place in 2002 when Palin first ran for lieutenant governor in Alaska, is the only potential sign she has given that her religious beliefs might be a political liability. Her spokeswoman now says that Palin does not identify herself as a Pentecostal. Historically Pentecostals and other Evangelical Protestants haven’t always gotten along, largely because of theological differences. Pentecostal theology elevates the role of the Holy Spirit and includes belief in spiritual gifts, such as healing and speaking in tongues. But the groups have often been able to set aside their doctrinal disagreements for political purposes. Pat Robertson, a Pentecostal, and the late Jerry Falwell, a Fundamentalist, famously had bitter theological disputes but still joined forces as leading figures of the Christian right. (See photos of Jerry Falwell here.)
Palin’s red-meat conservatism and Evangelicalism will almost certainly play well with those party faithful who attended the Republican National Convention this week. But with fewer than 60 days until Election Day (and a month before the start of early voting in many states), the McCain campaign’s continued courting of the more traditional base spells trouble for any efforts to expand his appeal to independent voters and less conservative Evangelicals. If so, McCain may find himself quoting a bowdlerized verse of Scripture in November: What does it profit a man to gain the Christian right and lose the White House?
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09.04.08
Posted in News! at 2:38 pm by Anna
I read this article on Time.com…Someone else wrote her entire speech, and she just basically read it, like a news anchorman, or an actress….
On one hand, maybe I can forgive some of the nastiness…Is she a nice person when she’s writing her own speeches? (I’m skeptical.)
On the other hand, can she not think for herself at all? Now I feel I know even less about who she really is, how she really thinks….and how strong she really is. How does she react to challenges without McCain’s Carl Rove team??
The Man Behind Palin’s Speech
By MASSIMO CALABRESI / WASHINGTON
As Democrats and Barack Obama’s campaign scrambled to attack Sarah Palin’s well-received acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minn., on Wednesday night, they latched on early and hard to the fact that it was penned by former Bush speechwriter Matthew Scully. But the story is more complicated than just the recycling of a Bush staffer into John McCain’s fold, and it tells you more about how McCain’s camp intends to use Palin than it does about the continuing influence of the current White House.
The clues are in the text itself. Scully started working on the vice-presidential speech a week ago, before he or anyone else knew who the nominee would be, and it’s not hard to pick out the parts that would have been the same regardless of who delivered it. Scully unspooled two centrist themes via Palin that have been key to the McCain message: the idea that the Republican nominee puts service to country ahead of career and the notion that he’s the true representative of Middle America. Both themes implicitly push Obama and Biden to the left, and Scully made them explicit with lines accusing the Democrats of élitism and talking down to working-class voters.
Once Palin was chosen, Scully tailored the speech to the Alaska governor, highlighting her biography and using her PTA background and local political experience (contrasted so memorably with Obama’s work as a community organizer) to bolster his two themes. Where much media attention in the wake of her surprise naming has focused on Palin’s views on cultural issues like abortion, the speech carefully steered away from ideological touchstones. Palin was shown as an average mainstream American looking to bring change to Washington, further bolstering McCain’s overarching message of reforming the wasteful Federal Government.
Scully was a good choice to help moderate Palin’s right-wing image. A veteran of the early Bush White House, his specialty was crafting Bush’s pro-life message in a way that would not offend soccer moms or mainstream Catholics who get nervous around some of the more extreme Evangelical rhetoric. A former protégé of the late pro-life Democratic governor of Pennsylvania, Bob Casey, Scully has a history of finding rhetorical unity for voters on the right and in the center.
The Palin-Scully pairing is anything but a guaranteed fit, though. Palin is known as an avid hunter; Scully is best known for his vigorous defense of animal rights. A vegetarian who is regularly critical of the NRA and much of the hunting community, he is a passionate advocate for doing away with the more brutal versions of blood-sport, including aerial hunting, which Palin supports.
Don’t be surprised, though, if the combination continues. McCain wanted to pick a centrist Vice President not just because he liked candidates such as Joe Lieberman and Tom Ridge, but because he badly needs to close the gap in swing states like Ohio, Iowa and Wisconsin, where he trails Obama. But he had to pick a cultural conservative like Palin because he couldn’t risk alienating an already demoralized base. If Palin was viewed as the most likely right winger to sell in the swing states, Scully is the right pick to help repackage her from a base pleaser into a bridge builder.
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Posted in News! at 9:58 am by Anna
I wouldn’t say I was totally turned off. I would say somewhat. I hate the idea of attacking a woman running for VP, but hate even more, the idea that John McCain may think he can manipulate my thinking just by choosing a woman as a running mate. Thanks John, but I’m not that easy.
She obviously prides herself on being a “pitbull” & the Repubs seem to love that about her. But it seems her sarcasm is backfiring. I don’t like when people are mean, it’s a turn-off. And it’s easy to attack a Democrat in a room full of Republicans…But what would she really contribute to the White House? Has she answered that question??
Here are results of a focus group done with undecided women voters in Nevada:
Posted by the Huffington Post
In two different focus groups of Clinton-supporting Nevada women — married and unmarried — conducted immediately after Gov. Sarah Palin’s Wednesday night speech to the Republican National Convention, a few common reactions quickly took shape.
First, women in both groups were impressed with Palin’s speaking ability and poise. But they were hardly convinced that she was qualified to be vice president, or that she truly represented the “change” they were looking for, especially in light of what was deemed an overly harsh “sarcasm” pervading her address.
The (mostly) anonymous proceedings were webcast live to reporters, who were told in a press release that the Nevada focus groups would include “some former Hillary Clinton supporters who are now undecided or are weak supporters of Barack Obama or John McCain.” No party identification was made available, though the approximately two dozen women were reportedly between 30 and 60 years old.
In the “married” group, when one attendee kicked off the discussion by saying “she’s a good speaker, and a crowd pleaser,” the rest of the room articulated their agreement. “I didn’t expect to be as impressed as I was,” said another respondent. But then another woman added: “Once she started mudslinging, I thought, it’s the same old crap as other politicians. McCain used her to get the women’s vote. And she’s using McCain.”
“Thank you,” another woman responded. “That really upset me; there was no need for that. It was snippy.”
The unmarried group also voiced similar objections to the harsh, partisan edge of Palin’s remarks. “I’m not impressed with her at all as a person,” one said, citing her “finger pointing” and general sarcasm after the group had generally agreed that she was a talented public speaker.
Still not all focus group members thought Palin came off too harsh. “She didn’t seem very aggressive to me at all,” said one unmarried participant.
But in both groups, narrow majorities said they held a more negative view of Palin after her speech. “She comes off pretty cutthroat,” said one.
On other issues, women in both groups said they wanted to hear more of Palin’s own policy views, outside the realm of energy. Education, heath care, the economy and Iraq were all cited as areas in which women were hungry for more information — especially in light of McCain’s age. “I think America is concerned, because of McCain’s age, that we’re gonna have a female president who’s maybe inexperienced. The nation needs to know what her issues are,” said one married respondent, which prompted another to add: “I don’t think she’s got what it takes.” An unmarried participant said she had yet to hear enough “in regards to her personal views, which could be implicated on us if McCain was to die.”
When prompted to respond to Palin’s steadfast opposition to abortion — even in cases of rape or incest — no woman in either group stepped forward to defend the Alaskan Republican. “I don’t dig that,” said one married woman, matter of factly.
But there were other points on which the participants expressed pride in Palin’s achievement. “She earned what she’s got — as far as not marrying into it. I like that about her,” said one married respondent. “Let’s hope she has a good showing,” said another who had expressed disappointment over Palin’s abortion views.
The groups — which were coordinated by Anna Greenberg and Stan Greenberg of Greenberg, Quinlan, Rosner Research — were commissioned by the Women’s Voices/Women Vote Action Fund, which describes itself as “dedicated to encouraging unmarried women to bring their voices to our nation’s political conversation and to advocate for policies important to them.”
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