Dissecting the Palin Rumor Mill
How rumors about the vice-presidential candidate spread so quickly.
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In my new and unexpected role as the Pajamas Media answer to Hedda Hopper, I’ve spent a lot of time looking at the rumors about Sarah Palin that have appeared in the weeks since John McCain announced her nomination. (The new list is up to 91 and still growing.) Its given me a whole new insight into rumors and how the press responds to them. It seems to be very predictable — and very artificial.
Let’s look at a recent one, #83. The rumor, as it was reported, was that Palin had “cut the Special Olympics funding in half.” Now, here are the facts (and thanks to Warren Throckmorton for digging this out):
- The 2006 budget was $250,000.
- The 2007 budget as passed by the Alaskan legislature was $650,000
- After Palin used her line-item veto authority, the new budget was $275,000
So we see the facts of the story are that it was a “Beltway budget cut”: more money, but not as much as someone wanted. The facts aren’t as interesting as the history of the story, though. It appears to have started, in this case, with the New York Times, which casually says:
Democrats have pointed, sometimes correctly, sometimes erroneously, to items in the state budget for the disabled that Ms. Palin cut. According to state documents, she cut the state’s Special Olympics budget in half.
Step one: assert something in a way that doesn’t stand out.
Notice this isn’t a main point of the story.
The next mention, and the first one I find from Alaska, is from KTUU TV Anchorage on September 14, which says:
While the Special Olympics did not want to make any comments about budget cuts, Channel 2 News looked into the governor’s funding of the program.
Records show Palin actually increased their funding by $25,000. However, that amount is only half of what the program asked for.
“This governor from the very start has a very clear record of her support for children with special needs,” said Palin’s campaign spokesperson Meghan Stapleton. “Since taking office she has nearly tripled funding for those with special needs in the public school system.”
The Department of Education in Early Development says funding for special needs and intensive needs has gone up $73 million since Palin took office.
So by the 14th, the story had already been debunked. Nonetheless, Think Progress covers the story on September 15, and in an update, links to the KTUU story, correcting the notion that a 10 percent increase is a cut. But right about the same time, there are hundreds of occurrences of the story that don’t link to the Think Progress story or to the New York Times story, much less the correction.
Okay, it could all be coincidental, or it could be a bunch of people who aren’t linking back to their sources. In any case, we see what seems to consistently be step two.
Step two: repeat the story, unsourced, across many sites.
On the 17th, Daily Kos comes out with “liberal talking points.” Olbermann reports it (not picking up the correction, of course).
The interesting question here is, well, how? What is the mechanism?
I’m a big believer in Heinlein’s Razor: “never ascribe to malice, that which is adequately explained by stupidity,” and its corollary, “believe simple malice before conspiracy.” The way these Palin rumors got around, however, has always had some peculiar aspects.
First, it seems to happen so fast: the same text gets posted in so many places, sometimes literally hundreds of them, nearly simultaneously. (Doug Ross has investigated one of these, with interesting results.)
Second, as we see with a lot of the “Palin cut the budget of X” stories, they seem to come out in a very regular fashion: the budget stories, in particular, appear about every three days. (Palin Rumor #91 came out yesterday: Palin cut funding to Catholic charities. The real story, first ferreted out by Warren Throckmorton, is that Palin “cut” funding by increasing it a mere six times, instead of the eleven times originally proposed.)
Third, these stories often directly touch on something that has just been noticed in the mainstream press: “Palin cut ’special needs’ funding” came out shortly after she mentioned being an advocate for special needs children in her acceptance speech; “Catholic charities” came out after questions about Biden losing support among blue-collar Catholics made it appear that Palin might be attracting more Catholic voters.
A budget with hundreds of line-item vetoes or changes offers hundreds of opportunities for this kind of story: every line-item veto represents someone whose ox has just been gored. The correlation between the particular line-item and other political stories seems far more than just random.
Still, it’s possible to explain this without assuming there is some central controller — a Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy — passing them around.
But Rusty Shackleford at the Jawa Report may have changed my mind.
Charlie Martin is a Colorado computer scientist and nearly-successful screenwriter who contributes to the Flares Into Darkness political blog as ‘Seneca the Younger,’ and blogs under his own name at the aggressively non-political Explorations blog.
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76 Comments
1. Paul:Excellent advice. My default response to political rumor emails has been to believe the exact opposite. I haven’t been wrong yet this year.
Sep 23, 2008 - 9:34 am 2. ex-democrat:great post, Charlie. the real storyline for all of these rumors appears to be:
“Obama Supporters So Craven They’ll Happily Spread Vicious Lies About The Opposition (Including, When Found Out, The Lie That The ‘Opposition Does It Too!’)”
Oh, and also:
“Obama And His Campaign Team Dirtiest In Living memory.”
Sep 23, 2008 - 9:41 am 3. Robert Hurley:What is not a rumour is that she is totally unqualifed to be Vice President
Sep 23, 2008 - 9:46 am 4. schnargley:There you go again, Charlie, wrangling over words like “cut” just to try to defend Palin’s compassionless administration. “What’s in a word?” somebody or other once said, I think.
Speaking of words and the vicious unfounded rumor that Barry Obama is a Muslim (of course there is nothing wrong with a U.S. President being Muslim), I totally prove he is even more Christian than Christ was at my blog. Just click my name.
Sep 23, 2008 - 9:52 am 5. David:Robert, but she is vastly more qualified than Obama, who has not held any executive post, I am glad I am not an American if he wins, god what am I saying, over in Europe us plebs are not thought intelligent enough to vote on key constitutional matters about who makes decisions and whether they are liable to being judged at the ballot box, but of course I am one of those little people. The future of democracy in Europe was in display in Cologne this weekend, if Obama gets in, the USA will go the same way so as a European watching the fascists getting ever closer, go McCain and go Palin, I wish I was able to vote for somone like Palin in Europe, but we end up with hard left or soft left as our only choices.
Sep 23, 2008 - 9:58 am 6. Lisa:Hurley…
If that’s the case then Obama is totally unqualified to be President.
Hmmm… do I vote for a man who is qualified and experienced to be President or do I vote for the man who befriends terrorists, doesn’t want to stand up to Iran and is completely unqualified for the job?
Sep 23, 2008 - 10:11 am 7. Shan T:Robert Hurley: “What is not a rumour is that she is totally unqualifed to be Vice President.”
Perhaps true, but far more qualified than Barack Obama. Consider his background:
* Community Organizer: Fail (look @ Grove Parc)
* Chair of Chicago Annenberg Challenge: Fail (by its own measures, failed to increase students’ test scores despite burning through $110 million!)
* State Senator: Fail (Voted Present 130 times and moved lockstep w/Chicago Machine)
* Senate: Fail (Sponsored nothing of substance, held no committee meetings and spent most time running for higher office)
Nice track record!
What did I miss?
Sep 23, 2008 - 10:13 am 8. HRPKathy:Well, Mr. Hurley,
I can promise you Sarah Palin doesn’t think FDR was president and doing televised explanations of the Great Depression like Joe Biden does. (did you miss his interview on CBS - don’t look now but Drudge has the story.)
The problem with the rumor mill is that the media doesn’t fulfill their obligations to debunk before reporting so they are complicit rather than watchdogs. Fake but accurate has become a national media motto.
Sep 23, 2008 - 10:14 am 9. Chuck Pelto:TO: Charlie (Colorado)
RE: Special Olympics Technique
Reading your report of how the Democrats twisted what actually happened in Alaska over this after Palin assumed her duties as governor, I’m reminded of a political commercial I saw the other day here in Colorado about proposed Amendment 50.
As a fellow Coloradan, I’m sure you’re aware of the commercial to which I refer. However, for the others who are not being ‘brainwashed’, allow me to explain the technique.
It’s about raising the ’stakes limit’ in three heretofore ‘depressed’ mountain communities that were authorized legalized casino gambling some years ago in order to help their flagging economies.
The way the proponents of this state constitutional amendment put it, it’s a ‘moderate’ increase.
However, if you look at the amendment, the change goes from ’small stakes’, i.e., $5 bets, to what THEY CALL ‘MODERATE’ of $100 bets.
This is anything but ‘moderate’ and it harkens to Bill Clinton’s understanding of English when he said, “It all depends on how you define ‘is’.”
In this case, the word in question is ‘moderate’. In the statistical sense, a 10% increase is considered ’significant’. NOT ‘moderate’.
Someone has decided to play fast and loose with English in order to support their political agenda.
In your article, it’s a similar situation. Someone is twisting the English language to suit their particular needs. And it harkens back to a rather acrimonious general meeting of Denver Mensa where a professor of constitutionsal law came and said, “There are no such things as ‘constitutional rights’. They are all ‘textual rights’. Change the ‘text’ and you change the meaning.
In this case, you change the ‘definition’ of a word and you change the whole law.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
Sep 23, 2008 - 10:20 am 10. Dennis:[Lawyer, n., One skilled at circumventing the law.]
It’s interesting, this is the second time in a week that i’ve heard of the Beltway Budget Cut. The first time was over the weekend during our Washington State Governor’s Debate where the incumbent Democrat accused the Republican opponent of cutting a billion dollars from the education budget. The Republican, Dino Rossi, (even though he’s a milquetoast) effectively explained this kind of budget cutting accusation that he didn’t cut a budget that was actually there, but he reduced the amount proposed.
I really wish these politicians wouldn’t distort the facts like this. It just serves to give them an air of dishonesty which I’m sure isn’t in their best interests. The problem is, that many people never get to hear what they really mean by “budget cuts”.
Sep 23, 2008 - 10:24 am 11. David Thomson:“Still, it’s possible to explain this without assuming there is some central controller — a Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy — passing them around.”
Nope, not in this case. But why should anyone find it surprising? Barack Obama is something of a student of Saul Alinsky—and this is what the radical leftist guru taught. The Democratic presidential candidate is a very dangerous man. I am convinced that race guilt, however, prevents many people from frankly addressing the abundantly clear evidence. They would be far less hesitant if Obama possessed blue eyes and blond hair. Instead, our politically correct culture encourages one to treat a smiling “man of color” as if he were another Bill Cosby or Sidney Poitier.
Sep 23, 2008 - 10:25 am 12. Anthony (Los Angeles):Great post, and I’m glad you mentioned the “Obama is a Muslim” and “wasn’t born in the US” rumors. There are enough valid reasons to oppose him without descending to rumor-mongering that only destroys one’s own credibility.
Sep 23, 2008 - 10:29 am 13. Boyd:” she is vastly more qualified than Obama, who has not held any executive post”
Not quite. He had 4 years as the executive head of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge organization. Wonder why the Obama people don’t use that particular retort to claims that Palin has more executive experience? Maybe because as Kurtz says Of Wiiliam Ayers during this time, “as the key founder and guiding spirit of CAC, he (Ayers)was effectively running the show.”?
Sep 23, 2008 - 10:37 am 14. tomw:Just go here:
Sep 23, 2008 - 10:42 am 15. geokstr:http://www.factcheck.org
At least the republicans had the good sense to put their outstanding young trainee at the bottom of the ticket instead of the top.
And can you dig it? Shnargley actually uses the debate tactic made famous by the serial pants-dropping sexual harrasser that is the hero of the left, parsing the meaning of what the definition of “cut” is.
This particularly fraudulent argument has been used by democrats for decades. Pass a bill or budget with a ridiculously large increase on especially sensitive line items, and then have your compliant media allies attack the subsequent smaller appoved increase as a “cut” showing how the republicans hate mothers, children and small animals.
Snargley, you guys may be better at using the internet to defame, smear, ridicule and outright lie about your opponents. Most of us on the right choose not to stoop that low.
However, the internet does offer us the capability to go around your echoes in the old media and learn the facts. In the past, it was impossible for the average citizen to access, for example, two years of the budgets of Alaska. Now we can much more easily prove what a lying SOB you are.
I would agree with others here that the author’s contention that this odious phenomenon is used equally by both sides is incorrect, by a long shot.
I follow lots of political blogs, and the ones on the right spend most of their times fighting the smears from the left, researching the real facts, and trying to get them out. We are so far mostly just playing defense.
Unfortunately, like in football, the perfect offense will always win over the perfect defense, because the offense is the only side with advance information of what is coming next. Look for there to be dozens of “October surprises” from the left, each one more outrageous than the next, with little time to refute tehem. I’m sure they are holding out what they consider to be the best ones until the last minute.
I can only hope our team has some hot ones of their own.
Sep 23, 2008 - 10:50 am 16. Xanthippe:I cannot remember an election where people wrangled so much over whether one is “qualified” to be president or vice-president.
According to our Constitution, they’re all qualified to be President or Vice-President.
Why not argue instead over substantive matters of record? Like political positions.
Sep 23, 2008 - 11:04 am 17. Charlie (Colorado):Robert Hurley: Victor Davis hansen had what seems to me to be the perfect answer: how is it a half-term Governor is unqualified to be Vice President, but a half-term Senator is qualified to be President?
Dennis: I really wish these politicians wouldn’t distort the facts like this.
Me too. While I’m wishing, I want a pony.
David: “Still, it’s possible to explain this without assuming there is some central controller — a Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy — passing them around.”
Nope, not in this case.
Sorry, David, but you’re wrong. For example, it could be that these rumors are being generated ad ho by a collection of people who would like to see Obama win, and then propagated via the hoardes of people who read Daily Kos, MyDD, Democratic Underground, and the HuffPo. However, Rusty Shackleford’s work, and the existence of the email list he and others discovered, makes me more suspicious that that there is a VLWC involved.
Tomw: Don’t trust only Factcheck.org. The NRA ad response, for example, in badly flawed.
Sep 23, 2008 - 11:07 am 18. Charlie (Colorado):geokstr: I actually read Snargley’s comment as ironic. It’s humor — although whether it was on purpose or not I guess is still open.
Sep 23, 2008 - 11:10 am 19. rocketeer:Awesome article!!! I’d really like to see some further investigation into Winner & Associates to see what mischief they’re really up to. This article really highlights what investigative journalism used to be and what it could be again if only the media was interested more in the truth and less in supporting an agenda. Keep up the great work!!
Sep 23, 2008 - 11:12 am 20. Chuck Pelto:TO: geokstr
RE: Offense vs. Defense
I’m reminded of a military axiom….
That applies to REAL LIFE as well as to football.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
Sep 23, 2008 - 11:13 am 21. Chuck Pelto:TO: Xanthipple
RE: Why?
Don’t you think that the ability to work in the environment is a matter of ‘political position’?
If we sustained another Islamofascist attack, a la 9-11, which way they would respond is unimportant?
Regards,
Chuck(le)
Sep 23, 2008 - 11:16 am 22. Lisa:[Stupid is not being able to think beyond the next hammer-blow of Life. -- CBPelto]
Oh and there is another rumor out and about that she cut the funding to prevent teen pregnancy.
Sigh.
Sep 23, 2008 - 11:20 am 23. Charlie (Colorado):As always folks, thanks for all the comments, especially the kind ones.
I also wanted to acknowledge the PJM Editors’s help on this; it went through several changes at the last minute as Rusty Shackleford’s work came out, and they had to, in particular, save me from saying “Step one” was followed directly by “Step three.”
Sep 23, 2008 - 11:21 am 24. gailtalk.blogspot.com:WHY DO THE LIBERALS HATE SARAH PALIN?
Can you imagine if someone hacked into Obama’s personal email? What an outrage! The media, the ACLU, and all the liberals would be in an uproar! We continue to hear about the Patriot Act violating our freedoms, even though no one has found any evidence of that being the case. Yet there is a deafening silence about the invasion of Sarah Palin’s privacy. She probably deserved it because she probably was conducting government business in her personal email. Never mind that there is no evidence of that.
Charlie Rangel’s comments “You got to be kind to the disabled”, referring to Palin, go largely unmentioned by the mainstream media. I guess Rangel is trying to get the subject off his unpaid taxes.
Clinton pulled out of the Israeli protest against Ahmadinejad, claiming she didn’t expect it to be a partisan event. Didn’t she think it would be partisan if it included her and not a prominent Republican? More likely Clinton didn’t want to share the spotlight. Or Clinton decided Palin posed a greater threat than nuclear weapons in the hands of Ahmadinejad.
Saturday Night Live has sunk to a new low, with the subject so disgusting and vile that I won’t repeat it here. Suffice it to say it was a horrendous attack on Palin’s husband. Can you imagine if it were directed to Michelle Obama? Saturday Night Live would likely be off the air permanently!
Ignorant celebrities making insane comments .. Matt Damon worried Palin thinks there were dinosaurs 4,000 years ago. Woody Allen spouting “It would be a disgrace and a humiliation if Barack Obama does not win”. Sandra Bernhard rant, too horrifying to quote. Rosie O’Donnell’s ridiculous comments .. the list goes on ..
Then we have the Emmy Awards last night. A constant theme of disdain for McCain, Palin and Bush, with no mention of Obama, except to extol the virtues of community organizers.
Why do the liberals hate Sarah Palin? Why do they have to tear her down? What are they really afraid of? They claim she has no experience, yet seem to be unaware that she has way more experience than their idol, Obama. I’m guessing they are terrified of her. She is a threat to their cultural agenda. An affront to their values! A woman who didn’t have an abortion!!! We might notice that those who have claimed to be for women’s rights, are truly just for liberal women’s rights. They have to tear her down before she infects the rest of the country with her radical ideals. . The only problem is, lots of us agree with Sarah Palin!
Sep 23, 2008 - 11:30 am 25. Charlie (Colorado):gailtalk.blogspot.com
If anyone doesn’t know about the SNL skit, I linked it at Explorations.
Have a look yourselves, but it seems to me to be (a) really funny, and (b) to be entirely at the expense of the (literally!) insular Manhattanites who think every place west of the Hudson is Dogpatch without the humor.
Sep 23, 2008 - 11:42 am 26. Charlie (Colorado):Lisa, I think that’s #37: “No, she didn’t cut funding for unwed mothers; yes, she did increase it by “only” 354 percent instead of 454 percent, as part of a multi-year capital expenditures program. No, the Washington Post doesn’t appear to have corrected their story. Even after this was pointed out in the comments on the story.”
If you have a different version, let me know, preferably with a link or a copy of the email. Thanks.
Sep 23, 2008 - 11:47 am 27. Robert Hurley:No matter how you parse the nomination, whe is unqualified
Sep 23, 2008 - 11:50 am 28. Charlie (Colorado):No matter how you parse the nomination, whe is unqualified
I presume you’re speaking of Obama and Biden, and point out that the plural state of being verb is “are”.
Sep 23, 2008 - 11:52 am 29. ex-democrat:gailtalk.blogspot.com - let’s be completely honest here and admit that a large number of those who hate palin are either (a) women who’ve had abortions and are secretly ashamed/tormented by that fact, and (b) men whose women have had abortions - or might in the future.
Sep 23, 2008 - 12:10 pm 30. Chuck Pelto:TO: Robert Hurley
RE: Yeah?
Where you been asleep all this time, boy?
She’s as ‘qualified’ as President Reagan was when he was governor of the great state of California.
Whereaw Obama’s only been the toddler of the Chicago Democrat Political Machine.
Prover your point, boy. Or shut the flock up.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
Sep 23, 2008 - 12:16 pm 31. Dissecting the Palin Rumor mill - Pajama Media — Warren Throckmorton:[The Truth will out…..}
[...] Martin, keeper of an extensive list of claims regarding Sarah Palin, put up a thoughtful article today regarding the Palin rumor mill. He lists a couple of debunkings from this site as well as [...]
Sep 23, 2008 - 1:19 pm 32. denise:The groundwork for all of these Palin rumors is the “she was not vetted” theme. If you believe that McCain just drew her name out of a hat, then it’s easier to buy that there are major skelatons in her closet.
If Biden had skelatons, it sure seems that someone would have found them before now. So a new story would automatically be met with suspicions.
Sep 23, 2008 - 2:51 pm 33. Rebecca:Charlie, I appreciate this article, and the work you’ve done in debunking these rumors.
I’m a little surprised, though, considering the amount of work that it has turned into, to see you repeating the standard balancing act.
When I heard the first ten Palin rumors, statements like,
“This applies to a lot of the rumors on both sides, frankly. “Obama is a secret Muslim.” “Palin was a member of a secessionist party.” “Obama wasn’t born in the USA.” “McCain wasn’t born in the USA.””,
seemed fair and even handed. In fact, if there is a lesson to be gleaned from something, there is no sense in refusing to learn it simply because the other guy is more at fault.
Your Palin rumors are up to an astounding 91, since she was announced as the VP candidate, 25 days ago. That’s 3.64 rumors per day, and they show no signs of stopping. Yet every time these falsehoods are pointed out, the necessity to be fair and balanced, or, in some cases, rationalize the lies, the Palin smear is compared to one of a handful of Obama rumors. What we are looking at here is not tit for tat, it’s the rat-a-tat-tat of a machine gun, and that puts this situation beyond the kind that Heinlein was addressing.
Rusty dug deeper because there was something going on that couldn’t be explained as politics as usual. Nor is the tired canard that invokes “Rovian plots” and “Vast Right Wing Conspiracies” going to cut it, though the liars are smugly satisfied with their own rationalizations.
That doesn’t mean that the rest of us are compelled to shove motes in our eyes on their behalf.
Sep 23, 2008 - 3:01 pm 34. A Stoner:Someone should put together all of the rumors in a list that also adds the context of who as far putting these things out there. Who started the rummor. Who ran with the rummor. Who debunked the rummor.
Sep 23, 2008 - 3:09 pm 35. nohype:Do this with Palin as well as Barack. Side by side analysis
ex-democrat: wrote:
“gailtalk.blogspot.com - let’s be completely honest here and admit that a large number of those who hate palin are either (a) women who’ve had abortions and are secretly ashamed/tormented by that fact, and (b) men whose women have had abortions - or might in the future.”
The level of hatred toward Sarah Palin is bizarre and fascinating. I think that Barack Obama is spectacularly unqualified to be president, but I do not hate him. I see people who do not respect him and have contempt for him, but not much hatred. The same for McCain. Why the hatred toward Sarah Palin? Why the desire to see her humiliated and destroyed?
Maybe the statement of Carol Fowler, that Palin’s “primary qualification seems to be that she hasn’t had an abortion,” holds part of the answer. Sarah Palin stands as a living rebuke to those who have CHOSEN to engage in the baby-making act and then have CHOSEN to kill their babies that resulted from the first choice. There is something unnatural about this second choice that we can rationalize in our conscious minds, but deep down our animal brains know that this action is not right. It violates the very logic of evolution.
When a person is rebuked, when do they object most strenuously? I think it is when they are in denial. When you are told something that deep down you know is true but you do not want to admit it even to yourself, you object and attack the messenger. I wonder if something like this is not source of some or much of the hatred of Sarah Palin.
Sep 23, 2008 - 3:23 pm 36. Charlie (Colorado):Denise, in fact the “was not vetted” was one of the first rumors, although for historical reasons it ended up down the list. I think the key is not the “was not vetted”; that’s an effect rather than a cause. I think the cause is that the press was dumb enough to imagine that McCain wouldn’t take someone from outside the usual list, so that even though people like Beldar, and me, and the folks who put the PJM Veepstakes list together were saying she was a good candidate six months or more ago, it seemed to <i.them that she was a big surprise.
Since the media didn’t know about her, and since she was a game changer in the R direction, she Must Be Bad. So they buy any silly-ass rumor.
Rebecca, I understand your point, but there are a lot of people doing that, frankly. I’m having enough of a time just keeping UP with the damn things.
Stoner, I’m trying to gather that up, but again I wasn’t thinking of making a career out of this when I started the list. If you wanted to do some of the research and send me links, I’d certainly update with them.
Sep 23, 2008 - 3:27 pm 37. nick:Ture statement : palin cut the Special Olympics funding the legislature appropriated , for 2008 in half.
what is the rumor?
Sep 23, 2008 - 4:12 pm 38. Andrew Garland:Satire: The Top Ten Rumors about Governor Palin
1. Diplomat asked Palin to fetch coffee. “She didn’t act like a Governor” he said.
Sep 23, 2008 - 4:13 pm 39. Between this and the Jawa Report… « Cadillac Tight:2. Call to Wasilla library interrupted operations. “Palin talked for half an hour”, says librarian.
3. Palin’s children may not be citizens due to technicalities of Alaska Purchase.
4. Palin campaign operative asked for gun rack over VP Seal.
5. Sarah Palin did not inspire character Sarah Conner in the movie “The Terminator”. “She inspired the Terminator character”, reports screenwriter.
6. Secret sources report “Al-Qaeda will never surrender to a woman, may it please Allah”.
7. Palin was not vetted about future pregnancy. Federal law prevented asking.
8. Palin denies rumors of “virgin birth”, despite religious leanings.
9. “Killing moose is overflow hostility”, says psychiatrist.
10. When Bridge to Nowhere cancelled, 35 homeless denied shelter beneath.
[...] Between this and the Jawa Report… Posted on September 23, 2008 by Joe Tobacco I’m just about inclined to bar any further posts or comments regarding Sarah Palin on the blog. Seriously, take a look. [...]
Sep 23, 2008 - 4:17 pm 40. Charlie (Colorado):Ture statement : palin cut the Special Olympics funding the legislature appropriated , for 2008 in half. what is the rumor?
That that’s a true statement in any sense except the peculiar inside the beltway sense that any decrease in the budget request is a cut.
Look, Alaska has a Gubernatorial line-item edit. That means a budget item isn’t final until the Governor signs off. This means the legislature can fob all the responsibility for balancing a budget off on her. So the $550,000 (not $650,000, sorry that was a typo that Warren Throckmorten pointed out to me) was a suggestion, or a request, and more than double the previous year. Palin turned that into $275,000, which was a 10 percent increase.
An increase is not a cut.
Sep 23, 2008 - 4:58 pm 41. Charlie (Colorado):Gold star on those, Andrew.
Did you hear that it’s not global warming that’s killing polar bears? It’s Sarah. With her bare hands.
Sep 23, 2008 - 5:00 pm 42. Cannoneer No. 4:Rusty Shackleford will be on The Andrea Shea King Show in 15 minutes.
He was on The Rusty Humphries Show last night.
Sep 23, 2008 - 5:48 pm 43. UnmooredLefty:Robert Hurley: How odd. Since she has pretty much the same experience as Obama, that would mean he totally isn’t qualified to be VP, let alone president. Step on your own d*ck much?
Sep 23, 2008 - 5:49 pm 44. Cannoneer No. 4:Rusty Shackleford will be on The Andrea Shea King Show in 8 minutes.
Sep 23, 2008 - 5:51 pm 45. Kelly:Snaggle-tooth (Schnargley) you wouldn’t know a Christian if one came up and bit you on the ass. Not that one would want to get 100 feet from you. Obama is not a Christian. Just like Satan, he pretends to be. Just a little bit of truth and he will be able to fool anyone. Just like he has you. Sad thing is, is that you don’t realise what a fool you really are. One day you will.
Sep 23, 2008 - 6:17 pm 46. Beldar:Charlie: The “thespian” thing isn’t apocryphal. It goes back to Florida politician George Smathers, who never lost an election. I updated his work to apply it to John Kerry in 2004.
Sep 23, 2008 - 7:44 pm 47. schnargley:Ouch!
Did one just bite me…there?
Sep 23, 2008 - 8:09 pm 48. nlcatter:FACT
Reached at her home … Palin said she planned to meet with Stambaugh and Emmons this afternoon. She also disputed whether they had actually been fired. ”There’s been no meeting, no actual terminations,” she said.
This was another odd lie - easily disproven:
Stambaugh’s response was to read part of the letter given to him. ”Although I appreciate your service as police chief, I’ve decided it’s time for a change. I do not feel I have your full support in my efforts to govern the city of Wasilla. Therefore I intend to terminate your employment. . . . ” ”If that’s not a letter of termination, I don’t know what is,” he said.
daily dish
Sep 23, 2008 - 8:27 pm 49. nlcatter:12 facts
- She has lied about the Bridge To Nowhere. She ran for office favoring it, wore a sweatshirt defending it, and only gave it up when the federal congress, Senator McCain in particular, went ballistic. She kept the money anyway and favors funding Don Young’s Way, at twice the cost of the original bridge.
- She has lied about her firing of the town librarian and police chief of Wasilla, Alaska.
- She has lied about pressure on Alaska’s public safety commissioner to fire her ex-brother-in-law.
- She has lied about her previous statements on climate change.
- She has lied about Alaska’s contribution to America’s oil and gas production.
- She has lied about when she asked her daughters for their permission for her to run for vice-president.
- She has lied about the actual progress in constructing a natural gas pipeline from Alaska.
- She has lied about Obama’s position on habeas corpus.
- She has lied about her alleged tolerance of homosexuality.
- She has lied about the use or non-use of a TelePrompter at the St Paul convention.
- She has lied about her alleged pay-cut as mayor of Wasilla.
- She has lied about what Alaska’s state scientists concluded about the health of the polar bear population in Alaska.
You cannot trust a word she says. On anything.
Sep 23, 2008 - 8:27 pm 50. nlcatter:the issue was not balancing budget
it was - did the line item need big increase?
probably not but
in Colorado taxpayers do not pay for special olympics community does, I guess in alaska people are not as charitable
but there were other items that she did cut in 1/2 from legislature and may have been needed.
Sep 23, 2008 - 8:37 pm 51. bllnkl the Atheist:In a color-blind world, the Republicans have the CHANGE ticket.
In a dangerous world, the Republican’s have the wise ticket.
If a Governor isn’t ready for the White House, who is? Tell me quick, before I die laughing.
In the real world, the Democrats can’t abide broken glass ceilings, scared and stuttering, they run from women, but make nice like gentlemen should.
In the romanticised world of Democrats, the government is God and for “smart Ivy League educated hemming and hawing types. But the real God of human faith is for dumb non-Ivy league people–like Newton who seemed to deal with reality alright–and Palin who doesn’t get in a know about it. They just have differing views.
Sep 23, 2008 - 10:05 pm 52. Charlie (Colorado):nicatter, there’s not a single one of those things that includes a source other than Andy, who also pushed the “not Sarah’s baby” thing.
Come back with sources, or demonstrate that you’re a fool.
Sep 23, 2008 - 10:14 pm 53. Benson:Ah, but John McCain was in fact not born in the USA:
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1157621
For the first eleven months of his life, he was literally stateless. He was naturalized by act of Congress. He’s constitutionally unqualified to be president. He knew he would have to deal with that, so he sought legal advice from two respected constitutional scholars (Laurence Tribe and Theodore Olson). Their opinion is in the above document, along with a thorough explanation of why it’s ignorant and wrong. McCain bought an opinion tailored to suit his needs. The scholarship of that opinion is shallow and meretricious. Read it, and the refutation of it by a law professor who deals with all the ramifications.
This “rumor” is pure fact, as you will see if you investigate. But it is a kind of ghost, a very inconvenient truth and a huge embarrassment. No judge would dare allow the issue to come anywhere near him. So we’ll all create an alternate reality, and in that make-believe universe, it will be a rumor.
Sep 23, 2008 - 10:16 pm 54. Jeb:Wow, the conspiracy theorists are out in force. Did the Ron Paul camp switch it allegiance to McCain? Quick cut and paste your conspiracy theories everywhere. The word needs to get out.
Sep 23, 2008 - 11:11 pm 55. Palin slashes Special Olympics Budget: Accurate statement still unfair? « Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub:[...] Charlie Martin at Pajamas Media takes up the conservatives’ cudgel, that it’s unfair to …. [...]
Sep 24, 2008 - 1:58 am 56. SAF:Robert Hurley:
Neither is Obama qualified to be President. He has done less.
McCain and Biden are qualified for the job. Now it is fair to say you don’t like one or the other for any reason you choose.
But if you are going to throw the experience rock at Palin it also hits Obama. I actually heard the other day from one of Obama’s supporters that one of Obama’s qualifications for the job is that he beat Hillary in the primaries.
If you like Obama vote for him. But please don’t tell us he is any more qualified than Palin.
Sep 24, 2008 - 4:08 am 57. Savaging Sarah Palin - Webmaster Forum:[...] I’m sorry if you can’t process facts, Bob. I stated facts. Why are you finding them so difficult to understand? Perhaps as a Republican you find it difficult to accept that McCain picked completely the wrong person for the job? That I can understand. I’m sorry that you can’t distinguish between facts presented honestly and those presented with such a slant so as to make them appear as negative toward one’s political target as possible. Oh, by the way, here’s a ‘fact’ that you missed: Governor Palin used her line-item veto to make a budget cut from $650,000 to $275,000 in spending for Special Olympics. Sounds absolutely horrible, right? Well, it is a ‘fact’. The slant, however, comes in omitting another relevant ‘fact’: The Alaska state legislature (Does Greater Manchester have a legislature? I suppose a City Council counts as one.) had increased that budget item from $250,000 the previous year to $650,000. Governor Palin only permitted a 10% increase in funding instead of the proposed tripling of the budget item. That’s a horrible cut? Some people would like you to think so. http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/dissect…in-rumor-mill/ [...]
Sep 24, 2008 - 4:40 am 58. Greg:Concerning the ‘cut’ which was a real ‘increase’.
The Democrats and the media has used this very effectively before. I seem to recall it was with Bush the Elder that the Democrats and Media made the claim that a 7% increase in social security was a ’slash-cut which would leave millions of seniors starving’. Some in the media even admitted that it was not true - but then continued to repeat it over and over to the public on the news broadcasts.
That lie (and it was an outright lie since they knew it was false) was one of the reasons I left the Democratic Party.
Sep 24, 2008 - 5:36 am 59. nlcatter:sources? i dont provide sources to morons who dont know how to use Google - such as mccain
Sep 24, 2008 - 7:38 am 60. Charlie (Colorado):Benson, that one was actually adjudicated, and decided in McCain’s favor. I don’t have time to look now, but googling through volokh.com should lead to it quickly.
Sep 24, 2008 - 7:58 am 61. Robert Hurley:SAF:
It looks from the polls right now that the majority of the voters disagree with you
Sep 24, 2008 - 8:14 am 62. Matt Hurley:Charlie,
I read your list last week after I received a comment on my blog that sounded just absurd. I didn’t see this one on your list…
Here is the link to the comment on my blog: http://www.haloscan.com/comments/maestromatt/1912881281340776364/#716837
And here is the comment itself: “Has anyone heard about this apparent lesbian affair that Governor Palin had in college? You’d think that a little thing like having a gay relationship with a professor would come up during the screening process but maybe McCain needed a woman to be on the ticket so badly that he wasn’t as thorough as he should have been?? Now, the press is going to have a field day, and other Christians like me are going to be just as disgusted by her behavior. Those are most certainly not values I share. ” I have an email address and an IP address if anybody wants to try and track this rumor down…
I think it is total BS and said so…
Sep 24, 2008 - 8:25 am 63. Charlie (Colorado):Sure enough. This one is like the “brother in jail” one: just a casual comment dropped in a blog.
Okay, I’m putting this up as #95; let’s see if we can track how it propagates.
Sep 24, 2008 - 10:21 am 64. #95: Palin had an illicit and scandalous relationship in college | Explorations:[...] to Matt Hurley in the comments to my “Palin Rumors Dissected” article at [...]
Sep 24, 2008 - 10:31 am 65. Chuck Pelto:TO: All
RE: Proving Charlie’s Point
He/She/It offers such wonderful supporting documentation for all these claims. Typical ‘progressive’ comportment.
I can do the same.
{sarcasm}
Did you know that n———- is a homosexual who buggers chickens and is sodomized with gerbils by his alien significant-other during full moon ceremonies of Chthulu worshipers?
I will not offer any proof of these ‘facts’, just as he/she/it doesn’t offer any in their allegations about Palin. But what does evidence matter? Eh? After all….it’s all in your head….if you’re of their ilk.
{/sarcasm}
Sheesh….it makes you wonder what color of chalk they’ve been snorting.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
Sep 24, 2008 - 10:39 am 66. Chuck Pelto:[Evil has many tools, but a lie is the handle that fits them all.]
TO: All
RE: Ahem
As I was saying about providing evidence to support baseless allegations….
’nuff said.
In a high school debate, this character would be classified as a ‘Loser’. And the same applies in this discourse.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
Sep 24, 2008 - 10:41 am 67. Chuck Pelto:[Prejudice, a vagrant opinion without visible means of support.]
TO: All
RE: Heh
The distaff just reported that a relation—her side—had e-mailed her the list of 100 books banned by Palin.
She replied to that e-mail stating it was a bogus list and provided links to prove that point. [Note: Something cretins like nlcatter refuse to do.]
She recently received an apology from her relation saying she was forwarding the information from sources that she heretofore had trusted as reliable.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
Sep 24, 2008 - 11:44 am 68. beemer:[Look upon it as education in reality.]
“Benson: Ah, but John McCain was in fact not born in the USA:”
But John McCain was born to US Citizens, even if outside the US. The law in 1936 stated that all persons born to two US citizen parents outside the “limits and jurisdictions of the United States” are citizens at birth, irregardless of the 1937 law. Therefore, they are born American citizens and are classified as citizens at birth under 8 USC 1401.
If John McCain isn’t legal, then neither was Al Gore, who was born in DC, which is not a state, but a federal territory.
Sep 24, 2008 - 2:20 pm 69. Teri Pittman:I was on a sewing forum of all things, and found a section that seemed to be devoted to electing Obama. The main post in the forum quoted all the usual bogus things about Palin. Another poster said that she asked her brother, who lives in Alaska about Palin. He told her yes she’s a right winger, but we hope she loses because we need her up here to clean up the corruption. Did this cause the other posters to think that maybe they’d made a mistake? Nope, went right back to quoting the same old crap. The problem is that we have a certain amount of the population with completely closed minds, that will believe any lie fed to them by the Dems. It’s a lot like my co-worker who, at the start of the Iraq war, told me that the UN hadn’t passed a single resolution against Iraq. In fact, it had passed 19 and he was totally uninterested in seeing the proof.
Sep 24, 2008 - 2:29 pm 70. Caliyat:Thanks so much for tracking down all the False Evidence Appearing Real(read:FEAR)being perpetrated by those desperate to stop Sarah Palin.
Sep 24, 2008 - 3:02 pm 71. Donnie Mac Leod:Why is the old media so ready, willing & anxious to believe, print & broadcast wild falsehoods about Gov.Palin ??? Yet these same professionals seem completely incapable of delving into Obama’s Chicago Dem-machine political training and track record in Illinois.
Don’t be at all shocked if we see the 2008 equivalent of 1960’s Chicago voting machine irregularities hand the election to Chicago machine political product Obama.
On a full moon Palin & Satan have been known to have wizard & witch boiling ceremonies, where new born Inuit children are sacrificed to the god Odin. True Story. I work in Barack’s office and his campaign managers told me so.
Gullibility is sometimes measured by the desire to accept a lie that suits a hate mongers bigotry.
Sep 24, 2008 - 4:05 pm 72. nick:a book list?
all one has to do is check snopes and Fackcheck
Sep 24, 2008 - 6:47 pm 73. Marc Malone:to see it taht was false and True that Palin put out lies -
I see nlcatter is here on this thread posting the exact same posts he put on another thread; the exact same. I fed the troll elsewhere. Don’t make my mistake.
Sep 24, 2008 - 7:44 pm 74. Nightly Ramble:Bailout covering Obama; Self-inflicted wounds; Gaffe-O-Matic; more | BitsBlog:[...] Palin Smear disproved. And, another. Etc, Etc. Etc. Meanwhile, did you know that Obama and Biden both helped to keep the “Bridge to [...]
Sep 25, 2008 - 1:05 pm 75. bear:Bensen don’t be an idiot.
Idon’t know much about Palin, and truthfully, I don’t think she’s a good choice, but unqualified…that’s an opinion, not a fact. Benson raises an argument in fact that has been hashed over countless times. why waste your breath?
The partisans are getting ugly. At least the conservatives are a little more civil about it.
JACO
Sep 25, 2008 - 1:54 pm 76. Benson:Sorry I missed the responses to my comment. This is way, way too late.
McCain is not constitutionally qualified to be president, as is made very clear by the document to which I referred. Read it, then speak.
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1157621
No court has adjudicated anything…the case was never tried, because the judge said the person requesting an injunction had no standing to ask for relief. As for the 1936 law, again, see the document and then respond. The Canal Zone was THE glaring exception in immigration law when McCain was born, as Congress intended at the time. The document explains the problems with “limits and jurisdictions,” and the “insular cases,” as well. Volokh? I searched the site and found no reference to or awareness of the document linked above; basically, Tribe and Olson were taken as the authorities since their March, 2008 opinion, but that is invalid and does not proceed from a knowledge of the legislation. As you will see if you look.
Read the paper to which I linked. That will bring you up to date (it’s from July, 2008). Until you inform yourself, you will have to rely on supposition and error, as well as vague but false recollections..”Oh, that was taken care of,” and “Look it up, it’s in there somewhere.”
Until you admit that you might learn something by doing some reading, you will have to resort to telling me not to be an idiot. My response: I’m doing my part, now don’t you be lazy.
If you have a source you can send me to, please provide it.
Oct 1, 2008 - 10:39 am