Palin’s Family Values: Un-Married with Children

As the Palin family continues their bizarre interpretation of good old-fashioned RNC family values, it’s amazing that Sarah manages to keep a straight face.

Now that the First Grandbaby has appeared more than a week late without benefit of the protections afforded those born into marriage, one has to ask why. Considering how apoplectic Evangelical Christians are about preserving teen virginity through ineffective chastity pledges, blocking sex education, and preventing LGBT marriages, it’s rather bizarre that the most public Evangelical politician doesn’t see the need to trot her kid down to the local Justice of the Peace? Hey, what’s good enough for Mama Palin and the First Dude should be good enough for the youngins, right?

For LGBT Americans denied the right to raise their children within the protection of marriage, the intentional out-of-wedlock Republican Evangelical Christian birth has to be yet another slap in the face. They’re waiting for the summer? Why– so they can have a big party and their baby can be the ring bearer?

Just wondering– what would have happened if Palin was moving this week to Washington, as Vice President? Would Bristol have gone with them, dragging the baby along, or would First Grandma have left Bristol behind to care alone for her new baby?

What about the First Grandbaby’s other illustrious grandma, Sherry Johnson, busted for possession? Apparently she sells Oxycontin pills for ten bucks a pop, giving grandmas and coffee klatches everywhere a bad name. Would her Secret Service detail make it tough for her to make it to her coffee klatch?

In Wasilla will the First Teen Parents live apart or will the First Dude-er be around for diaper duty, midnight feedings, and such? Or is he just visiting his child in the home of his not-yet-inlaws?

Is it meanness to focus on the family’s dysfunction, or is it a necessity, given Palin’s thirst for the political limelight and her ability to turn catastrophes from political suicide into a mere flesh wounds? American history is littered with the bodies of politicians felled by photo opps with vicious rabbits, tanks, boats named “Monkey Business”, and stained dresses, and it would be easy to assume that Palin’s surreal Cohen Brothers-esque Turkey Farm appearance sealed her fate. However, Palin’s biggest skill seems to be her ability to put an acceptable spin on things that Teflon Ronnie couldn’t have imagined. It would be a mistake to dismiss her, because marginalized and disgruntled rural blue-collar Americans feel she is one of them.

Before we ever get to the next election cycle, keep an eye on Palin, because she isn’t’ going to go away and she isn’t going to change her bullying Wild Wild West political style. She used her office to get her former brother-in-law fired, and managed to weasel out of that one. Now troopers report that her campaign stalled investigation into felony drug possession charges against daughter Bristol’s Baby Daddy’s own Momma (did you get that? There will be a quiz at the end.).

Palin brightly natters on, like a pretty Granny Clampitt, trying to sell her brood and her politics as the Poster Family for Evangelical Christian (Republican) values. What she does with her own family is her business until it gets sold to us packaged as good old-fashioned American values and politics-as-usual, appearing next on a ballot near you.

First Bully Palin and Tasergate

If you don’t care about Troopergate, you will when the report hits the fan. Hopefully, it won’t be after you voted for McCain/Palin. It doesn’t matter that the First Dude and the First Despot won’t testify. They already have. Here are a few highlights from the State of Alaska investigation on Palin’s complaints against her former brother-in-law, Mike Wooten.

First of all, in 2000 she wrote him a glowing letter of recommendation on her mayoral letterhead– without mentioning that Wooten was at the time dating her sister. Conflict of interest? That’s chump change for Palin.

She called him a “fine role model for my own children”, and said she had never seen him “aggitated” [sic] in the presence of children.

In 2005, Palin’s sister’s marriage went sour, and the complaints rolled in, all from Palin. Wooten was openly dating a woman named Angie Johnson. Palin and the First Dude hired a PI to follow him. They brought complaints of violence, drunk driving, and abuse against him, yet had no explanation that all the events were either not reported at all or were reported 1-3 years after they happened. Here’s an example:

The Tasering: Horrible man to taser his kid, right? According to records, which are all here, Wooten’s stepson stated that he agreed to be tasered to “try it”, and it was done in “demo mode”, on the floor, with pillows, darts taped, and for “a second or two”. The demo was done the presence of Bristol, who watched. Wooten’s wife was upstairs and did nothing to stop him. Even though it took time to set up the demo, going to the garage to deploy the prongs into a cardboard box, then setting up pillows, taping the prongs to Payton’s arm and shorts. And, even longer, because the first demo didn’t work, and they had to retape the prongs. Was the mother trying to stop him? No. Did she ever report it? No.

According to the record, “Payton related that his mother was aware that he was going to be tased and that she was upstairs with the children. Payton advised that his mother was yelling not to do it. Payton stated that he wanted to be tased to show that he’s not a mommy’s boy in front of Bristol. Following being tased he went upstairs to tell his mother that he was fine.”

Poor judgement, granted, but child abuse? No. Did Payton brag about it at school? Yes.

Gets more interesting when they interviewed Bristol. According to the record, “Bristol stated that Mike then activated the Taser for 5 to 6 seconds.” Really? Even though Payton said it was a second or two. Remember– her mom the First Witness Tamperer was in the interview.

Continuing on, “Bristol stated that Payton volunteered to be tased, and that Mike had offered to see if she wanted to try also.”

The investigator asked about why bring it up now, and her answer is quite telling:

“Bristol was asked why she waited so long and brought the incident up after two years. She then stated ‘because of the divorce and stuff.‘ Bristol further advised that she just learned that the Taser had killed a lot of people while researching it with her mom.”

These interviews happened in June 2005. Apparently dissatisfied with the results of the investigation, Palin started a new slew of accusations in August 2005, emailing Colonel Grimes with “new” claims and “new” witnesses. Still, they didn’t hold up. The Solid Waste Disposal employee he was supposed to have gotten into a fight with testified that “Wooten was not rude or inappropriate in his behavior.” The people at the bar he was supposed to have roughed up? Not a problem. People who saw him drinking? They heard it from somebody else (Palin), but didn’t see it themselves.

Sarah Barracuda, frustrated, started dragging out records from his previous divorce, saying Wooten was violent and alcoholic. Sooooo…… I guess that her character reference for him was….. wrong?

That moose he shot “out of season”? It was his wife’s tag. He took her hunting, she cried, he took the shot. She told her dad that SHE shot it, according to Heath Palin’s testimony, and SHE signed the tag saying she shot the moose. When the investigator asked her why she signed the tag, she said she was “naive” about these things. Hardly. When did it come up? When it happened? No. During the divorce. Who got punished? Was it the person who paid for the tag and signed that she’d shot the moose herself? No. Why not?

In the divorce order of January 31, 2006, Judge Suddock scolded Palin and her family for their on-going attacks against Wooten, and threatened to give custody to WOOTEN if they didn’t stop.

Obviously, they haven’t stopped, especially since the custody issues are rearing their ugly heads again. In the smoking gun phone call made by Frank Bailey in February 2008, it’s obvious that Palin had been continuing attempts to get Wooten fired. In the phone call, Bailey says that the Palins are “frustrated that it’s been over a year”, referencing how long she’d been in office and using that position to get Wooten fired. In the Frank Bailey call, he describes how the Workman’s Comp office is “across the hall” and the file was “walked over to their office”.

There is enough information already on the record that there is absolutely no way for Palin to escape serious consequences in this matter. She knows that, so the only choice left is for her to drag it out hoping to get by on her MILF-y good looks long enough to pull the wool over our eyes.

I know everyone’s eyes are rolling up in their heads at this point, but this is really important. Keep reading, not just the blogs but the actual documents which are readily available.

Keep asking questions. And tell everybody.

Bristol and Levi’s Wedding

So, when’s the Big Day for Bristol Palin and the First Baby Daddy, Levi Johnston? Lemme see– if the First Grandbaby is due in December, they’d better get busy pretty quick, since the Palin babies seem to come a month early.

To please her evangelical base, the First Shotgun Wedding should happen before the baby gets here, so the baby won’t be the First Bastard. Before the November 4th election would bring her some votes in Florida and Ohio. Palin and the First Dude went to the city clerk without telling their parents, even grabbing a couple of senior citizens from the nearby retirement home to be their witnesses.

So, why not march those kids down to the courthouse and make an honest girl out of Bristol? Is Levi remembering that he actually doesn’t want kids, as he said on his Facebook profile?

Are they waiting instead to make a tasteful political event, when McCain’s ratings need it the most? Will they sell the photo rights to TMZ or People Magazine to fund the baby’s college fund? Or maybe, the First Teen Parents’ college funds?

Where will the First Teen Parent Couple live after they’re married? At his parents’ home– or hers? The baby will be due shortly before the First Grandma and the First Grand-Dude plan to move to Washington, D.C.

Will the First Teen Parents move with them to D.C., or will the First Grandma move 4,312 miles away just when her oldest daughter needs her mom the most?

Is Bristol really in school in Anchorage or is she “home schooled”? By whom? Sarah apparently can’t govern without the First Dude, but apparently the kids don’t need their parents between now and November 4th? Why pull Bristol out of school in Wasilla where all her friends and support system are, and when her parents and Baby Daddy Levi live in Wasilla? Why separate Levi and Bristol?

Babies with Down Syndrome need lots of therapies in their first months, and getting schlepped around the country from one speaking engagement to another doesn’t leave time for Baby Trig to receive those.

It looks to me like it’s all about Sarah First. Everybody else gets in line, and everybody else’s needs come after her political ambitions.

Meanwhile, she’s hoping to position herself in such as way to limit our parenting choices. She wants us to leave her kids alone, but she wants to decide what we do with ours….

Blinking at Condoms and Bananas

At the recommendation of mothers older and wiser than myself, I put my teen daughters on the Pill and provided them with a bottomless container of condoms. No strings attached and no questions asked.

After bolstering myself with a glass of wine and a few tears on my friends’ shoulders, I pulled myself together, and did my job as a mom. I didn’t blink.

Of course my girls were mortified to talk openly with their mom about sex, and we were all uncomfortable. But we didn’t blink. We talked anyway, and collapsed into giggles to diffuse the tension. Between giggles, they heard that we care about them and want them to be safe. We also were clear that we don’t want them to have sex as a teenager, but if they do, we want them to be smart and safe.

After the giggles subsided, life went on as usual. Because sex and birth control had become a safe topic, our daughters shared worries about friends who engaged in risky sexual behavior, and doled out condoms trying to help.

Our daughters have repeatedly said they are grateful and proud that they can talk to their parents about sex and birth control.

Having an uncomfortable conversation with your kids isn’t a big deal. Watching your child deal with unplanned pregnancy is. Palin’s squeamishness and reliance on hope as a birth control method resulted in her daughter’s life being changed forever.

Nobody wants teenagers to have sex, get pregnant, or have to deal with the consequences. Facing reality and putting my teens on double birth control is my way of wrapping them in bubble wrap.

Palin’s parenting choices are her business until she interferes with how the rest of us parent our kids. No bananas and condom demos at school, but she does want ignorant Christian silliness taught in our science classes.

Palin and her daughter get the “choice” of how to deal with their unplanned pregnancies, but she clearly wants to overturn Roe v. Wade, ban “explicit” birth control information, and keep us from having choices. Even if it’s rape. Even if it’s incest. Even if her daughter and her “baby daddy” don’t finish school.

Obviously, she doesn’t care if there are more unplanned pregnancies, more teenagers not finishing their education.

Don’t blink. This really matters.

Palin cuts special needs budget 62%

Palin’s record on special needs is pretty scary. She cut the budget for special needs children in Alaska by 62%. What will she do when she’s in the White House?

Devastating ABC Investigative Report on Troopergate

Thorough summary of the situation. Very damning for Sarah Palin. Watch it yourself and make up your own mind:

Watch Sarah Barracuda Burn It to The Wick

The Republicans don’t do their homework, and apparently don’t care if Bristol and Levi do theirs.

Although McBush and Palin stole their VP theme song from women’s rocker group Heart’s classic, “Barracuda”, they obviously didn’t get permission– or vet the lyrics. Check this out:

If the real thing dont do the trick
No, you better make up something quick
You gonna burn burn burn burn it to the wick
Ooooooohhhh, barra barracuda.

Oh, she’s gonna burn all right… she won’t hold up under scrutiny, and you don’t have to scratch the surface much to see that she’s more than happy to make things up when “the real thing don’t do the trick”.

It’s hard to know where she’s going to fizzle, but my guess is that American women are going to turn on her quickly. We don’t like liars, smug women, or moms who let their kids drop out of school while using them as props for their political gain.

If she presents herself as a hockey mom, we want to see her at Levi’s games, too.

Bristol and Levi drop out– WHY?

So, please explain why Sara Barracuda Palin, self-proclaimed “hockey mom” isn’t encouraging Bristol and Levi to stay in school– and play hockey? She doesn’t want to be a Hockey Mother-in-Law? Would she fly back for those tournament games?

It’s the kids’ senior year, and they’ve dropped out. Why is it that they can’t attend school with their friends and play hockey when the baby won’t be here until after the end of 1st semester?

Yet, Palin missed a day or two of work having her pre-term special needs baby, but Bristol can’t go back for her senior year of high school? Palin can have 5 kids AND be the VP, but Bristol and Levi can’t go to school?

Unless, they’ll be on the campaign trail with her INSTEAD of going to school?

Sarah Sarah Pants on Fi’ah

Sarah Palin is a lot of things, but she’s not someone who tells the truth. The Anchorage Daily News points out that she’s stretched the truth in multiple situations.

She claims to be against “pork”, AKA government earmark funds, but she bellied up to the trough early.

As Mayor of tiny Wasilla, then with fewer than 5,000 residents, she grabbed a staggering $27 MILLION in earmarked funds for that town alone. Alaska has more earmarked funds than any other state in the country.

She said that NOBODY pressured Public Safety chief Monegan to fire her ex-brother-in-law Wooten, still embroiled in a custody battle with her sister.

Yet, when the smoking gun audio surfaced with obvious proof that her staffer Frank Bailey clearly leaned on a DPS supervisor, she claimed she didn’t know, and that she “could understand how some could perceive it” as pressure. How would you interpret 24 calls from Governor’s office calls saying, “Todd and the Governor can’t understand why nothing’s happened after a year…”?

When questions arose about the firing, Palin initially said that she fired chief Monegan because he wasn’t doing enough on dealing alcoholism issues in the state— so then WHY would she offer him the head of the Alcohol Bureau Commission?

She said that trooper Wooten was dangerous and she had to rush to the house to ensure her safety– only to leave her watch post outside her window to attend a meeting. Sister’s life in danger– or not?

Palin claims trooper Wooten shot a moose out of season. The truth is that Wooten’s then-wife, Molly, begged him to get her dad off her back by taking her moose hunting. It was the last day of the season, and her dad was pressuring her to fill the tag– or Palin’s DAD would take the tag and use it. Wooten went with her, and when she didn’t want to take the shot, he downed the moose. The DNR “slapped him on the wrist” because it was an absurd claim made by Palin who clearly wants to punish him for ongoing child custody issues with her sister.

The divorce judge advised the Palin family to quit trying so hard to get Wooten fired.

The list goes on… and on…. and on. Stay tuned.

The Anchorage Daily News is doing a great job and has the details and documents posted on their website.

Drop-outs Bristol and Levi being punished, protected or exploited?

What will happen to Bristol? The soon-to-be married teen mom will give birth a few weeks before her mom plans to move to Washington D.C.

Will Bristol, Levi and baby move with them, leaving all their friends and  family behind, or will Gov. Palin leave without them, so they can “grow up sooner than planned”?

If a kid ever needed her mom to be there for her, this would be the time.

Instead, the KIDS are suffering:

Both kids are pulled from school, sacrificing their senior year for what? The baby isn’t even here yet. The Gov. can squat between the furrows and have her baby, between keynote speeches and cross-country flights, but her daughter can’t go to school when she’s pregnant? 

The Gov. covers up the pregnancy and says the girl has mono, like it’s 1970 again and pregnancy is a disease that someone can catch. Heck, Palin didn’t even tell her own staffers she was having a baby until she was 7.5 months along….

The teen father is a hockey star. He can’t play hockey and be a dad? The Gov. can have FIVE kids, including a special needs newborn and still be a mom, so please explain the difference.

Are we PUNISHING the kids for getting pregnant by pulling them out of school? PROTECTING them from the public eye? Wasilla High School is where their friends and support system are. They aren’t being protected by being kept out of school.

If they want to protect these kids, why put them in the public eye so their MySpace page, meant for their teen FRIENDS is plastered all over MTV’s webpage? (Oh, that’s right– Obama made MTV do it. And I suppose it’s his fault that the media stalks Britney Spears, too?)

Now, the kids that Palin begs for us to “leave alone” will be publicly paraded around in Palin’s entourage, expected to sit up straight, slap a happy face on a very scary situation, and not mess things up for Mommy.

Mommy Palin is still Sarah Barracuda. Only now, her kids are in her way. So, they’ll give it a good try, bless their hearts. But, they shouldn’t have to be pregnant teens in a fishbowl. On stage on TV, waving the flag for Mommy Barracuda Palin.