When Rick Warren finished the invocation at the inauguration I said to my friends, "This makes me so sad. I hope Obama puts wolves back on the endangered species list to make up for the insult to gay people."
The next day, the news was that wolves would be protected.
I was so happy to hear that Obama really did care and really was going to make things better.
Now i hear this was not really true.
The murder of the very same wolves we have fought so hard to protect may well begin in a few weeks, and not under the Bush administration but under Obama's.
I am about to lose the hope I just started to believe was not false.
I am ready to believe, Obama. Protect the wolves and show us that you really are a man of reason and that you genuinely care about all of America.
Actress Ashley Judd stars in a new campaign targeted at Sarah Palin's alleged "anti-conservation agenda" and her promotion of the killing of wolves and bears in Alaska.
Defenders Action Fund launched the campaign today with a new Website, EyeonPalin.org. In a video, Judd condemns Palin for promoting the aerial killing of wolves and even accuses her of suggesting $150 bounties for the severed forelegs of killed wolves.
"Now back in Alaska, Palin is again casting aside science and championing the slaughter of wildlife," Judds recites somberly.
"Palin even proposed a $150 bounty for the severed foreleg of each killed wolf. And now she is encouraging even more aerial killing. it is time to stop Sarah Palin and stop this senseless savagery."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/02/02/ashley-judd-slams-sarah-p_n_163312.html
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
There has to be a balance. Today President Obama signed the Kids Health Insurance Bill (http://news.aol.com/article/obama-signs-kids-health-insurance-bill/316804?flv=1) while poor Sarah Palin still continues on her wolk killing sprees, backing the continuity of shooting wolves, (even pups), in order to "protect" her loved Kariboo hamburguers. But, there are voices and there are voices.Actor Ashley Judd has literally caught the bull by the horns and there is a new group, (as mentioned in the article above), that has determined that they will spend their time Palin watching, and good for them. These are no times to be risking children's futures by allowing a mad woman from Alaska, (she should be taking care of her constituents, and lets pray for them, because a volcano is about to erupt in ALASKA), to go around killingg animals that are harmless to humans unless attacked. Try to watch Ashley Judd's video. It is so sad I just can not post it...
I would have never stopped my life to write this note if I had known that she has her boots on and is getting things rolling in case that the scenario gets bad and people have to be rellocated to safe grounds.But, thinking about it, what does a volcano eruption mean for the environment, and the other 49 states, and the World?
Say no to Sarah Palin, loud and clear. This is the time to renew America, and surely, you do not do it by killing wolves!!!
GOOD FOR YOU ASHLEY JUDD...
Sarah Palin is an animal hating, money/power hungry person. She founded the disgusting aerial hunting program which involves chasing a pack of wolves in a helicopter until they pass out from exaustion and the the evil ones proceed to toture them to death. This "program" disgusts me, makes me ill to the thought, and just to think about anyone so mentally and morally sick as Sarah Palin in office makes me feel hopeless. I know Obama and Biden would never allow such a twisted, foul, thing to happen, let alone help it. Anyone willing to let a murderer into office needs to have a nice long talk with an open-minded democrat like Barack Obama. He loves the enviroment and cares about the animals. People who are disgusted by nature disgust me, and Obama is definately not one of those people. He is a trustworthy person, and the McCain Campain's racist slander about Senator Obama is uncalled for, let alone wrong in so many ways. It doesn't matter where he comes from or what he believes if he has a good heart. And I think he does... :)
------PS Oka m. is my nickname. I'm Kim, and I'm 12 years old
Obama’s Plan to Adopt:
http://network.bestfriends.org/obamafamilydog/news/29375.html
The Truth About Sarah Palin:
http://www.grizzlybay.org/SarahPalinInfoPage.htm
Humane Legislative Fund:
https://community.hsus.org/humane/notice-description.tcl?newsletter_id=27497157
First Obama was a wolf going after Palin. Then there was an ad depicting what the aerial hunting of wolves is really like, a past time Palin endorses and enjoys as family fun. Now, wolves are back in this campaign.
Remember the story about the little boy who cried wolf? I fear that Bush and the Republicans have injected fear and panic into our culture so often in order to push forward a conservative agenda that it is very hard to believe that things are actually as bad as they are. Remember the weapons of mass descruction? Code Orange? Does anyone tsill have the plastic wrapper to cover their windows in the event of biological warfare?
I know that this crisis is for real. Yet, I can't help believing that it is solvabale without a repeat of the Great Depression.
All the political posturing that is coming out of this isn't a solution.
The solution will be found when we all come together and agree as a nation to sacrifice and to collaborate rather than compete.
Will someone in the media please notice that all of the items that Barack Obama suggested helped bring about consensus on the bailout, while McCain's pseudo-intervention has stalled it?
The solution will be found when we all come together, authentically.
Wolves aren't really that dangerous. They are distractions, facts of nature, a life form. Lying, cynicism and calculated manipulation of the American people are, however, quite dangerous.
If I didn't believe so strongly in Obama-Biden, I would be discouarged.
Mark Morford on Palin:
Truly, among women in the know and especially among those who fought so hard to bring Hillary Clinton to the brink of history, nausea and a general recoiling appear to be the universal reactions to Palin's sudden presence on the national stage, stemming straight from the idea that there's even a slight chance in hell such an antagonistic, anti-female politico could be within a 72-year-old heartbeat of becoming the most powerful and iconic woman of all time.
It cannot be true, they say. The universe must be joking; it would not dare dump such a homophobic, Creationist evangelical nutball on us, this anti-choice, God-pandering woman who's the inverse of Hillary, this woman of deep inexperience who abhors birth control and supports abstinence education and shoots exhausted wolves from helicopters and hates polar bears and actually stands for everything progressive women have resented since the first pope Swift-Boated Eve.
http://www.sfgate.com/columnists/morford/
I am noticing that wolves are quite present in the 2008 campaign. McCain has an ad depicting Barack Obama as a wolf going after Sarah Palin because it is the only way he can win, or some other such "political silliness." I find this strange because the real wolf problem is Sarah Palin's. I don't recommend this video because it is brutal but if you want to understand the significance of wolf symbolism, see http//actionfund.defenders.org/palintvwolf. I warn you that this video is very painful to watch.
Wolves are complicated creatures. They are wild and noble beings, but they also kill livestock. Having just returned from the brink of extinction, they are strong. Yet, vulnerable because we can eliminate them, and we almost have. Wolves remind us of our place in the natural world and evoke images of agency, strength and spirit.
Barack Obama and Joe Biden are two experienced politicians whose ideals and beliefs make them easy targets for people who are fundamentally frightened of and against the idea of change, or like the symbolism of wolves, against the concept of life as free, wild and complex.
The Republicans want to kill that stuff off in all of us because they don't believe in people and therefore don't want them to become involved in and invested in the governement. Barack Obama and Joe Biden want wolves to flourish. They want us all to bring ourselves into the government and guide it to its own success. Our society is always a a frontier because we humans are always challenging the boundaries of the past to create new expansiveness for human potenetial
The video of the aerial shooting of a wolf is upsetting. But this is what Sarah Palin believes in, and the killing off of the wolf in all of us is what the Republican party believes is right.
See This video
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THIS INFORMATION WAS COPIED FROM DEFENDERS OF WILDLIFE
DEFENDERSACTIONFUND.ORG/PALIN
Sarah Palin and the EnvironmentGovernor Sarah Palin has an extreme anti-conservation record on issues ranging from global warming, energy and drilling to wildlife and habitat protection.
Aerial hunting of wolves and bears
Governor Palin is an active promoter of Alaska's aerial hunting program whereby wolves and bears are shot from the air or chased by airplanes to the point of exhaustion before the pilot lands the plane and a gunner shoots the animals point blank.
Palin offered a $150 bounty for wolves to entice hunters to kill more wolves in certain parts of the state, with hunters having to present a wolf's foreleg to collect the bounty.
She actively opposed a ballot measure campaign seeking to end the aerial hunting of wolves by private hunters and approved a $400,000 state-funded campaign aimed at swaying people's votes on the issue.
She also introduced legislation to make it easier to kill wolves and bears and which would have also removed the aerial hunting initiative from the ballot and block the ability of citizens to vote on the issue.
The Board of Game, which she appoints, has approved the killing of black bear sows with cubs as part of the program and expanded the aerial control programs.
The media is currently looking into reports that state officials implementing one of the aerial wolf killing programs illegally killed five-week old wolf pups just outside their dens.
Global Warming
As recently as August 2008, Governor Palin questioned whether man-made fossil fuel emissions are responsible for global warming, defying worldwide scientific consensus (Newsmax 8/29/08). And her drill-drill-drill approach to energy issues will do nothing to ease the causes of global warming, promote the use of clean, renewable energy sources, or break our addiction to foreign oil.
Endangered Species
Palin has repeatedly opposed the listing of endangered animals under the Endangered Species List despite overwhelming scientific evidence that such listings are warranted.
Polar Bear
The U.S. Geological Survey predicts that loss of summer sea ice - crucial habitat for polar bears - could lead to the demise of two-thirds of the world's polar bears by mid-century, including all of Alaska's polar bears. The Bush administration has proposed listing the polar bears as threatened under the ESA to help protect polar bear habitat from threats such as oil and gas development.
Governor Palin has actively opposed the listing of the polar bear despite the fact that Alaska's top marine mammal biologists agreed with the federal scientists who believed the bear should be listed. She wrote the Secretary of Interior urging him not to list the bear on the ground it might hurt the state's oil- and gas-dependent economy. After the bear was listed, she recently filed suit seeking to overturn the listing of polar bears.
Beluga Whales
Alaska's Cook Inlet beluga whales are a unique group of white whales whose numbers have dramatically declined in the past two decades due to pressures ranging from pollution to increased ship traffic. Governor Palin opposes the listing of the Cook Inlet beluga whales, citing the listing as a threat to oil and gas development, despite their genetic uniqueness and the fact that their numbers have decreased from 1,300 in the 1980s to about 350 today.
Drilling
Palin is a strong supporter of drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, a vital wilderness area. It is home to hundreds of thousands of caribou who use the refuge as a calving ground, more than one million migratory birds, and countless other wildlife. It's the most important onshore denning habitat for female polar bears. Senator McCain himself has repeatedly voted to protect this pristine wilderness area. Palin is also a supporter of drilling in Bristol Bay and other offshore sites despite the risks to sensitive marine wildlife in the area, including the endangered polar bear and Beluga whale.
Clean Water and Pebble Mine
Governor Palin actively campaigned against a state ballot measure this summer aimed at protecting Alaska's Bristol Bay. The mining industry seeks to develop a gold and copper mine in the area that would pollute the Bay's headwaters and threaten the spawning grounds for the largest remaining wild salmon run. The initiative would have prevented large-scale mining operations from dumping waste materials into salmon watersheds.
Check out this link which features a commercial that is trying to be run to show the cruelties of Sarah Palin against the wolf population. They need as many donations as possible to get this ad running. Please help if you can and spread the word.
https://secure.defenders.org/site/Donation2?idb=0&df_id=1547&1547.donation=form1&autologin=true&s_src=6JY08WDC4F&s_subsrc=6JY08WDC4F_EJI08D2a&JServSessionIdr012=yo1vsqitw3.app27a
thanks!
I recently heard about this term while listening to the Thom Hartmann show last week and was dumb-founded to hear about this tactic that was used during the 2004 Election, specifically in Ohio. The Republican Party is determined that they are going to stay in power and will stop at nothing to make sure they do. Please take a few minutes and click the links to the following stories concerning this issue.
http://www.truthout.org/article/nearly-600000-voters-subject-possible-caging-ohio
http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/10432334/was_the_2004_election_stolen
Of course you don't hear about any of this on any network news cycle and only one cable news broadcaster has spoken about it. That of course is the MSNBC champion of democracy, Keith Olbermann! Go Keith! This effort to disenfranchise voters is disgusting and the GOP have made the last two elections a blatant takeover of power and have turned this country down a path toward facism. No wait, maybe it's socialism, no it's fascism. Of for heaven's sake, I wish the administration would make up their mind.
And, on a side note, here is nice little story about the new GOP darling Sarah Palin and her undying love for wolves. NOT!
https://secure.defenders.org/site/SPageServer?pagename=c406_090308palinwolf&JServSessionIdr012=9efh7nked1.app23a
Is Hawaii really part of America?Is Alaska really part of America?
Charismatic star power when speakingDitto
Sometimes sounds like an egg-headSounds like a ditto-head
Opponents try to paint spouse as not patriotic (“Proud“ statement) Ditto (Alaska Independence Party)
Opposes more drilling for oil in AlaskaAsked churchgoers to pray for a natural gas pipeline in Alaska
His former church pastor doesn’t always watch his tongue In her church they speak in tongues
Has somewhat rigid position on abortion Has extremely rigid position on abortion
Believes in faith-based initiatives Practices faith-based politics
This is just shameful. This shows you what the Obama/Biden campaign is really all about.
Obama claims he is running a campaign opposed to special interest groups. What puts the lie to such claims is this button put out by the Obama campaign:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v343/SGeorge/Obama_polar_bears.jpg
Sept. 10, 2008
To all CNN journalists and news producers, #6
Big kudos to Campbell Brown and staff of the Election Center for tonight’s program. It was exhilarating to watch the factual content of your program on so many fronts. Kudos to Campbell for interrupting one partisan commentator (former press secretary to Newt Gingrich) when he tried to answer a question by ducking it and talking about something somebody in South Carolina did. Kudos to Randi Kaye for a more in-depth look at Palin’s record as Mayor and Governor.
Keep the facts coming!
Respectfully,
Carol Benham
Sept. 11, 2008
To CNN Journalists and news producers, #7
No more lipstick stories, please, or any other phony charges of outrage over imagined and nonsensical slights. Let’s get back to the issues and report facts about the record of Gov. Sarah Palin. There’s so much we need to know about Gov. Palin’s record and performance in office. How about investigating and reporting on these issues:
The Wall St. Journal has reported on issues and problems with the building of the sports complex she championed: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122065537792905483.html
The New York Times (and others) have reported on her unusual practice of claiming per diem while working at home as Governor: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/10/us/politics/10billing.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
ABC News has run investigative pieces on Palin’s firing of the city librarian after inquiring about the librarian’s views on censorship. Palin rescinded the dismissal only after a public outcry. There was no list of books to be banned, but taken in context, the firing of the librarian is a telling story: http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=5766173&page=1
ABC News has reported on Palin’s firing of the Wasilla police chief and why he says he was fired: http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=5713866&page=1
The Associated Press has reported that a judged warned the Palin family three years ago not to disparage her sister’s ex-husband. As we all know, the Palin family and staff did anyway and brought pressure to bear on the Public Safety Commissioner to fire the trooper.
Gov. Palin, after promising complete cooperation with the Legislative inquiry into the possible abuse of her office regarding attempts to pressure the Public Safety Commissioner to fire her sister’s ex-husband, is now fighting the inquiry, claiming the Legislature has no jurisdiction. This seems like a blatant attempt to slow the process down until after the election.
Reported by a veterans organization, Palin’s promotion of Alaska National Guard commander smells like old-fashioned bribery: http://www.vetvoice.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=1869
Gov. Palin’s attempt to stop the federal government from placing polar bears on the endangered species act
Gov. Palin’s support of aerial hunting for wolves, and a rumored offer she made to give $150 to each hunter that brought in a right foreleg of a wolf.
I count on CNN for facts and news, delivered without bias. Don’t let these diversionary tactics about personal slights, real or imagined, keep us from learning the facts in the days remaining before Americans vote.
This is why Palin shouldn't be our next VP and why McCain shouldn't be our next President! Don't vote for McCain and Palin!
Sarah Palin Ad from Heart of the Wolf Org. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4v_kOFSV2I Please check out this ad and pass it along. Mike Wagner Founder and Director of Heart of the Wolf Organization
http://www.heartofthewolf.org
SALON has an excellent article on Palin's "preditor control" program to reduce some wolf populations by "by 60 to 80 percent" despite, (or maybe in-spite) of science to the contrary. Shooting these animals without scientific backing is like sending fugitives to the death chamber without a trial - is that the kind of leader we need running our country?
A FORUM FOR EX-CHANGE
Monday, September 1, 2008 I received a letter from Natasha of the Care2 Campaign, regarding Alaska's annual Wolf Slaughter extravaganza. The letter and petition are printed below. Scroll down and go right to it, or allow me to vent first:
McCain's running mate shoots Moose with lead bullets. She eats Moose with her AIP-member, BP oilman hubbie and 4 (or is it 5?) children. She likes to get up close to the helpless animal 'til she sees the whites of the eyes. Then she pulls the trigger.
I guess there's not enough slaughtered meat in Alaska's wanna-be-free-from-the-United States supermarket shelves, for she also continues to OK the aerial "culling" of Alaska's mighty wolves, so her hundreds of thousands of Moose and Caribou won't be hunted and eaten by the (diminishing) wolf population, allowing Ms. NRA and associates to continue to bond. After all, why waste a good bottle of Gallo or a 12-pack of Bud on a measly package of store-bought beef? Or.... perhaps Ms. ex-beauty queen turned newscaster turned mayor turned governor knows the dirty secret most of us are kept in the dark about: alot of those poor cows are sick and "downed" right before their horrific slaughter, because factory farming is a disgusting, disease ridden - but BIG - business.
So she's turned Alaskan wolf slaughter into an art form. Here's how: she gives thumbs up for hunters to pack into airplanes. They circle and circle the wolf families for hours, exhausting them until they cannot run anymore. Then, amidst hi-fives and hoopla, they murder from above, leaving bloody wolf carcasses strewn in for thousands of miles in the virgin snow. The lead bullets used are poisoning hawks, falcons and other near-extinct birds who finish off the dead animals, thus killing THEM and causing THEIR extinction, too.
Lately, hunters have said, "hell with flying, I wanna get up close and personal, like our sexy governor does!". They and their hunter sons and daughters stake out wolf dens, (illegal, but so what? Who's monitering them?). They sneak up when the wolves are sleeping, place their rifle barrels right behind the head, and assassinate them - parents first, then the orphaned pups. Family values 101, GOP style.
But wait, there's more: Ms. Governor Woman, no wuss, has decreed that Polar Bears should not be categorized as endangered. (In FACT, because the ice up there is melting so fast, Polar Bears have nothing to float on after swimming for miles, so they tire, then drown.) This allows no excuse for BP Oil not to drill in Anwar, despite years of calls, petitions, and letters from WE THE PEOPLE (in the lower 48, the nation that Alaska wants to be free of), saying, pleading, hell, SCREAMING "NO!!". Palin is a life long hunter and member of the NRA. What can we expect? She's against abortion of human fetuses, (and would surely turn Roe v. Wade around in a heartbeat, if given the chance) but animals aren't thought to have spirits or souls like humans. (How do WE know that for sure??) So to Ms. Palin, killing wild animals and their pups doesn't count as a sin, right? As abortion does, I mean. Besides, killing unarmed, innocent, animals and their pups is damn fun!! Hell, the family that spills, kills and grills together......And all that untapped OIL...mmmm, mmmm, good! The republicans think they can throw a woman at it's evangelical base. For the confused, insulted, enraged democrats, they think WE think Palin is Clinton, and Clinton is Palin - I mean, we all look alike in a pants suit, don't we?
Are evangelicals THAT stupid to buy that crap? Are women, red or blue, going to take that? The Republicans are DESPERATELY betting on it.
This last minute "shock & awe" Palin debacle has revealed more about McCain's "shoot first, ask questions later" mentality than anything he can ever say or do ever again.
I pray that more hurricanes, tornadoes, and floods reign down on the RNC and the GOP campaign, where ever and whenever they convene, right up until November 4th, so we'll all be spared the gut-wrenching spectacle of lil Georgie and Johnnie playing patty-cake behind their star spangled lectern. I think I'd actually return to a church, any church, if God did us all THAT one favor. Let's say a prayer for the spirits and the souls of all the slaughtered animals killed in the name of human consumption and protein-fortified energy. God, let those angry animal spirits and souls enter us, and give us enough thrust to finally wipe ourselves off the face of your once-beautiful planet!!
Wanna do something for the wolves??? Read on, cut and paste, and sign the petition below:***********************************************************************************A letter I received from the CARE2Campaign: Dear Dyan,Thank you so much for speaking out and signing our petition to urge Congress to end aerial hunting of wolves. Your signatures are working – there are over 125 co-sponsors of the Protect America’s Wildlife (PAW) Act in Congress now!But as we are making progress in Congress, there is unfortunately some sad news to report. Last week, Alaska voters defeated a ballot initiative that would have ended the state's brutal aerial hunting program. This news, on top of the recent brutal and illegal killing of 14 wolf pups shows how much we still need to do to protect our wildlife.That is why we need your help. As we prepare for another bloody aerial hunting season in Alaska, we must redouble our efforts to pass the PAW Act. Please spread the word and help us end aerial hunting of wolves forever – ask three friends to sign our petition today!Now more than ever we need to ensure that this important bill gets passed. Just weeks ago, state wildlife agency personnel staked out a known wolf denning site -- a practice that is illegal under Alaska law -- and, using helicopters, they gunned down 14 adult wolves from the air, part of an effort to boost caribou populations in Southwest Alaska.When they landed, they found the 14 helpless pups in the nearby dens -- just weeks old -- and methodically shot each one in the head. 28 wolves gunned down in all.Please ask three friends to join you in signing our petition to Congress today: http://go.care2.com/e/9Ep3/VyLs/AGY89You can use our tell-a-friend tool to send your friends a message, or copy the sample message below and send a personal email to all the wildlife lovers you know:Sample email: Hi - Alaska is the only state in the nation where trophy hunters can gun down wolves from airplanes or chase wolves to exhaustion and then shoot them from the ground. As recently as July, state wildlife agency personnel in Alaska staked out a known wolf denning site -- a practice that is illegal under Alaska law -- and, using helicopters, gunned down 14 adult wolves from the air. When they landed, they found the 14 helpless pups in the nearby dens -- just weeks old -- and methodically shot each one in the head. 28 wolves gunned down in all. Alaska's state officials continue to let brutal aerial hunting happen by exploiting a loophole in federal law. When this year's hunting season begins, hundreds of wolves could be killed yet again. Please join me in signing this petition to urge Congress to close the loopholes and end aerial hunting of wolves: http://go.care2.com/e/9Ep4/VyLs/AGY89 Wolf opponents in Idaho and Wyoming are eager to follow Alaska's cruel example. Hundreds of wolves could be killed in the Northern Rockies if these states get their way. Please sign the petition to save America's wolves and end aerial hunting: http://go.care2.com/e/9Ep4/VyLs/AGY89 Thanks! Natasha Thank you for helping us spread the word to save wolves,NatashaCare2 Campaign Team Posted by DYRO ENTERTAINMENT at 9:33 AM 0 comments
A sample from alternet..Try it if you like real news!
Sarah Palin's Big, Sleazy Safari
By John Dolan, AlterNet. Posted September 2, 2008.
Most people had never heard of Sarah Palin when she was named the Republican VP nominee. But I'd been hearing her name all too often, because I belong to a group called Defenders of Wildlife -- and in her time as governor of Alaska, Palin has used her position as governor of Alaska to ruin the Alaskan wilderness in every way she could.
Her most recent "victory" came on Aug. 26, when Alaska's voters defeated Measure 2, an initiative that would have banned hunting wolves from airplanes for sport.
Palin organized a campaign against Measure 2 and funded it with $400,000 of state money. For most of us, the idea of zooming around in a private airplane over snowbound wilderness just for the chance to spot a terrified wild dog and blow it apart with a high-powered rifle is insane. But there's a whole culture out there in love with the idea. Palin did her part by playing the tired old Alaskan pioneer card, saying that lower-48 naysayers who dared to object to the idea of dive-bombing wildlife didn't "understand rural Alaska."
Alaska isn't really very hard to understand. It consists of a minority that loves the wilderness and an overwhelmingly Republican majority that wants to squeeze all the cash it can get out of the state before the oil dries up, the fish die out and the wildlife disappears. Nowhere else does the Republican formula of manipulating the suckers by playing on their silly hatreds and even sillier vanities play out more clearly than in Alaska.
To get an idea of Palin's core constituency, just go to the home page of Safari Club International, one of the groups that fought hardest against Measure 2 -- and is now gloating loudest over this proud victory.
Even the name is a little skewed -- "safari"? When was the last time you heard that word? Most people are trying hard to forget the "safari" era, when rich white jerks had themselves carried into the African wilderness by nameless black servants, at vast expense, to kill animals they could barely identify.
But for Palin's core constituency, "safari" is still the dream. And Measure 2 would have interfered with that dream, the dream of strafing social canids from a Cessna plane. Alaska politics runs on the vast opportunities for graft offered by a small, easily manipulated constituency addicted to subsidies and self-delusion. Alaskans like to imagine themselves the last pioneers, hardy individualists, etc. -- which makes them classic suckers for Republican propaganda. And they also like the petty cash that trickles down to them from the mining companies, timber companies and hunting guides who make the real money. Palin, an undistinguished part-time sportscaster on a local TV station, was a perfect non-threatening mouthpiece for the companies that want to gouge as much oil, ore and timber from Alaska as they can -- while it lasts.
Palin is totally consistent in her anti-environmental stance. She not only wants to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling, but actually vowed to sue the EPA if it dared to declare polar bears an endangered species.
It's hard for most people to understand this sort of hatred for the great mammal species struggling to hang on at the edges of this continent. But then, Palin is an Alaska Republican. And Alaska's Republican politicians are the most corrupt, ignorant and generally loathsome political clique in America, bar none. The so-called "dean" of the gang is Sen. Ted Stevens, finally indicted this year after a lifetime of graft. One of the crimes of which Stevens is accused sums up the relationship between Alaska's Republican ruling gang and its big-money backers: a construction crew hired by an oil company called Veco jacked Stevens's house up on stilts and added a whole new floor featuring two bedrooms and a bathroom -- just returning all the legislative favors Stevens had done for it over the years.
Palin was one of the founding members of Stevens' 527 corporate slush fund, which skated around campaign finance laws to allow the senator to raise unlimited funds from big oil and other exploiters. Stevens' fund bore the self-parodying name "Ted Stevens Excellence in Public Service Inc." -- which is pretty droll, considering that Stevens is not only corrupt but one of the stupidest people in the Republican Party, no small feat in itself. In fact, Stevens' only claim to the attention of the American people before he finally met his fate was for defining the Internet as "a series of tubes." Thanks to YouTube, you can actually hear Sen. Stevens dithering for several minutes before uttering that famous phrase. A warning, though: Listening to Stevens will cure you forever of the idea that America is a meritocracy.
This just in from SFGATE
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/08/31/BARB12KSHM.DTL
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We can't tell you how Republican vice presidential pick Sarah Palin would do on national defense, but when it comes to defending Alaska's right to shoot wolves, she's not afraid to pull the trigger.
Just ask Rep. George Miller. Miller, D-Martinez, a member of the House Natural Resources Committee, introduced federal legislation last year to end Alaska's policy of allowing people to shoot wolves from airplanes - a practice used to keep the number of wolves in check so they don't eat all the state's moose and caribou. Miller - who has strong support from environmental groups around the country - deemed the kills cruel and unnecessary to preserve the moose and caribou population. What's more, he said, they violate federal law banning airborne hunting. Faster than you can cry wolf, Palin told the East Bay congressman and his Washington pals to butt out. "Congressman Miller doesn't understand rural Alaska (and) doesn't comprehend wildlife management in the North," the Alaska governor said in a statement issued last September. Miller is also clueless to the fact that game hunters rely on the moose and caribou "to put healthy food on their families' dinner tables," Palin said. Miller, however, tells us there are plenty of moose and caribou for native Alaskans to hunt. He says his bill, still waiting to be heard in committee, is really about stopping the state from handing out licenses to sportsmen "in the name of predator control." "Shooting wolves from airplanes probably doesn't look like a good deal to most Americans," he said. Wolves aren't the only item on Palin's list. She's also taken on the federal government over polar bears, suing the Interior Department on Alaska's behalf in reaction to the feds' decision to list the animals as threatened. She believes the listing will cripple oil and gas development in sensitive areas - and, in any case, says the enviro argument that global warming threatens to wipe out the polar bears' habitat is a crock. In case you were wondering, Miller, who just returned from the Democratic National Convention, doesn't think much of Palin as a vice presidential candidate. "I just don't get it," he says. "Her incredible lack of experience is serious." Worth noting: Democrats had good reason to be nervous going into the Denver convention - and the problem looked to be bigger than just the bruised feelings between the Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton camps. Recent polls of California voters show that going into Denver, Obama's support among key independent voters had dropped nine points in a month - cutting his lead over John McCain to less than 10 points in this bluest of blue states. A poll by the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California showed Obama's lead over McCain dropping to 48 percent to 39 percent among all likely voters - down six points from July. Obama is still comfortably ahead of McCain statewide, and institute pollster Mark Baldassare noted that a Republican hasn't carried California since the first George Bush in 1988- so odds are Obama will still take the state.
