The U.S. House of Representatives this week voted to end a 25-year-old ban on oil and natural gas drilling off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. The Senate is expected to follow within a few days. However, there are some concerns that allowing new drilling will adversely impact the environment, coastal tourism and will not help lower petroleum or natural gas prices anytime soon.
Both of our presidential candidates, Arizona Sen. John McCain and Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, support offshore drilling, although to different degrees. McCain fully supports lifting the ban and increasing offshore drilling. The Washington Post reported that McCain earlier this week said, "We must embark on a national mission to eliminate our dependence on foreign oil. We have untapped oil reserves of at least 21 billion barrels in the United States. But a broad federal moratorium stands in the way of energy exploration and production. . . . It is time for the federal government to lift these restrictions.”
In McCain’s presidential campaign eight years ago, he took the opposite position regarding offshore drilling. And, since becoming the GOP nominee in March, McCain has presented himself as a friend of the environment by touting his plans to combat global warming and his opposition to drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and in the Everglades.
Environmental groups across the country now are criticizing McCain for backing the repeal of the ban. “It’s disappointing that Senator McCain is clinging to the failed energy policies of the past,’ Tiernan Sittenfeld, legislative director for the League of Conservation Voters, told The Washington Post. The Sierra Club’s political director, Cathy Duvall, said McCain had been portraying himself as a “friend of the environment,” casting himself far away from the way President Bush seems to view the environment and the impact offshore drilling would have. Duvall told the Post that McCain “is using the environment as a way to portray himself as being different from George Bush. But the reality is that he isn’t.”
Meanwhile, Obama was charged with flip-flopping on his views regarding offshore drilling. According to various newspaper reports, Obama said he would be willing to compromise on his position against offshore oil drilling, but only if it were part of a more overarching strategy to lower energy costs.
“My interest is in making sure we’ve got the kind of comprehensive energy policy that can bring down gas prices,” Obama told The Palm Beach Post. Obama added that he would not support a plan that “suggests this drilling is the answer to our energy problems.”
There has been some discussion among environmentalists, politicians and oil producers that even if offshore drilling begins immediately, it would not help reduce natural gas or oil prices for at least a decade. The Chicago Tribune reported that even if the ban on offshore drilling is lifted, drilling might not necessarily happen. But, the Tribune said, lifting the ban could mean the U.S. Department of the Interior may issue drilling leases in Atlantic waters by 2011.
The issue of offshore drilling now is front and center in the race for president. The issue almost has become more a political one than an environmental one. Part of the reason for that could well be that even amongst scientists, there is some disagreement about the environmental impact offshore drilling may have on marine and land life. More likely, the reason offshore drilling has become of such paramount importance in this election is that taxpayers are hurting. We’re hurting at the pump and we’re hurting at home as temperatures start decreasing and we start thinking about having to turn on the heat. Both candidates think they have the right answer, but with the presidency on the line, one wonders if McCain and Obama are thinking about the drastic impact offshore drilling will have on our lives.
According to a 2000 report titled “A Survey of Offshore Oilfield Drilling Wastes and Disposal Techniques to Reduce the Ecological Impact of Sea Dumping,” by Jonathan Wills, M.A., Ph.D., “Most of the major ingredients of drilling fluids have a low toxicity to marine organisms. A few specialty chemicals sometimes added to drilling fluids to solve certain problems are toxic.” Those “specialty chemicals” include diesel fuel. The same report goes on to say that some of the water-based drilling fluids already being used on the U.S. Continental Shelf include mixtures of clays, barium, chromium, lead and zinc, often at levels that are “substantially higher” than those usually found in natural marine sediment.
The report also says that “the composition of drilling fluids is so variable and the circumstances of their use so different that there is an extremely wide range of concentrations that cause different toxic effects, ranging from the practical absence of toxic effects to lethal toxicity.”
The Natural Resources Defense Council surveyed the adverse effects of offshore drilling and reported that, “Offshore drilling in the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) could do serious, irreparable damage to our oceans, coastal communities, and marine life,” including, but not limited to damaging coastal lands, economies and communities.
“Offshore oil and gas operations have detrimental effects onshore. These operations require roads, pipelines, and processing facilities to be built on America’s beaches, wetlands and coastal areas,” the NRDC report states. “Current drilling projects in the Outer Continental Shelf in the Gulf of Mexico have destroyed more wetlands than exist between New Jersey and Maine. These activities hurt local communities and damaged economies that depend upon these resources for tourism, coastal recreation and fishing.”
The NRDC report further states that fish and marine life consumed by humans possibly could be contaminated by “huge quantities of waste that contain toxic and radioactive pollutants.” Some of those pollutants are mercury, lead and cadmium. Cadmium is known to cause cancer and is largely used in batteries and pigments for plastic products. Other pollutants left in the water by offshore drilling include radium, an extremely radioactive material, as well as other toxic chemicals such as benzene, arsenic, lead, radium, naphthalene, zinc, and toluene. Naphthalene is best known as the primary ingredient of mothballs, while toluene is widely used as an industrial feedstock, but also as a solvent. Toluene is also used as an inhalant drug for its intoxicating properties.
One must think: If these chemicals are in the water, where we swim and fish, they must be in the marine life we eat. But the health hazards don’t stop there. The NRDC report states that emissions from drilling an average “exploration well,” which may or may not produce oil or natural gas, includes “50 tons of nitrogen oxides (NOx), 13 tons of carbon monoxide, six tons of sulfur dioxide, and five tons of volatile organic compounds.” Drilling from an operational well includes 50 tons of NOx, 11 tons of carbon monoxide, eight tons of sulfur dioxide and 38 tons of volatile organic hydrocarbons. The most common VOC is methane, which is the primary component of natural gas. There also are artificial VOCs, including paint thinners and dry cleaning solvents.
If that’s not enough to make your flesh crawl and ponder a life without natural gas and oil, consider this: The seismic surveys used to determine if oil or natural gas is present can seriously affect gray whales, sperm whales, beaked whales and bowheads, and can injure fish at substantial distances. “Fish are particularly vulnerable to hearing loss that can significantly threaten their survival. Many fish, including salmon, which are endangered in portions of the United States, have swim bladders that can rupture when exposed to intense sounds like those emitted through these types of surveys,” according to the NRDC. Bony fish like salmon have “swim bladders” to help them maintain buoyancy in the water. The swim bladder is a sac inside the abdomen that contains gas. Oxygen makes up the largest percentage of gas in the swim bladder, while nitrogen and carbon dioxide make up the rest. So, if a salmon’s swim bladder ruptures, it is possible that the fish next to will absorb some of those gases, and those gases would be in the salmon you eat.
All of this may be a bit boring, but it is information that must be considered with the doors to more offshore drilling about to open. And while the above information is important — if not a bit frightening — even more so is the possibility of more oil spills.
Between 1981 and 2005, there have been more than 180 large oil spills in the Outer Continental Shelf, each spewing more than 2,100 gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, according to the NRDC. And as storms and hurricanes have intensified so have the number of oil spills. The NRDC reports that Hurricanes Katrina and Rita alone resulted in 125 spills of oil products from drilling platforms and rigs, as well as pipelines on the OCS. Those two spills sent some 685,000 gallons of oil products into the water. The cost to clean up the Katrina spills far exceeded $150 million, according to a Homeland Security report.
The question is, then, is offshore drilling the answer to the nation’s fuel woes? If the first drilling leases aren’t even going to be handed out for three years, how will lifting the ban on offshore drilling help us now, today, when we fill up at the gas station or heat our homes? One must wonder if lifting the ban is simply a political move to make it seem like the government is stepping in to help, or is this really going to help? One also must wonder how much is this going to cost us in dollars and cents, and would investing in alternative energy sources be less costly, less harmful, and more sustainable?
Right now, there’s not much the average Joe or Jane can do about the ban; it’s in the government’s hand. But every Joe and Jane in these United States can take a stand, either for more offshore drilling or against it, by contacting his or her senators and representatives, and by voting on Election Day.
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Copyright 2009 Bulldog News Services
Friday, September 26, 2008
Friday, September 19, 2008
Palin not a true “reformer,” not experienced, not qualified enough for country’s second highest office
Sarah Palin, current governor of Alaska and vice-presidential candidate, is on the attack, and for good reason: she has almost nothing to show Americans that she is ready to be second in line to the presidency. Since she has virtually no record compared to Barak Obama and his running mate Sen. Joe Biden, she has taken to slinging nasty comments, off-hand remarks and outright lies about her opponents.
So far, all many of us know about Palin is that she is being a hailed a “bulldog,” and a “maverick” by residents of her tiny hometown, Wasilla, Alaska (population estimated between 5,000 and 7,500), and governor of one of the largest yet least populated states in the land. If those are the only credentials needed for being “a heartbeat away from the presidency,” then Palin could have a great chance of being elected. If being a former beauty queen and local weather girl/sportscaster were pre-requisites for becoming our next vice-president, certainly her chances of being elected alongside Arizona Sen. John McCain would be substantial. Perhaps voters will consider her four years on the Wasilla City Council and six years as mayor of Wasilla enough “experience” in domestic affairs to supersede the experience of the Obama-Biden ticket.
If one looks closely, one will learn that Palin has virtually no experience in foreign affairs, unless you count her one and only trip to neighboring Canada and last year’s brief trip to Kuwait and Germany last year. She’s also visited Mexico, but haven’t many of us? Palin also took college courses in Hawaii and Idaho. In an recent interview with ABC News, Palin admitted that she has never met a foreign head of state.
Yet, Palin claims to have more experience in governance than Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama, a Harvard graduate who spent three years as a community organizer, was the first black President of the Harvard Law Review, created a voter registration drive that registered 150,000 new voters, spent 12 years as a Constitutional Law professor, spent eight years as an Illinois State Senator representing a district with more than 750,000 people (more people than the entire state of Alaska), became chairman of the state Senate's Health and Human Services committee, spent four years in the United States Senate representing a state of 13 million people while sponsoring 131 bills and serving on the Foreign Affairs, Environment, Public Works and Veteran's Affairs committees.
In her acceptance speech during the Republican National Convention, she, as well as other speakers there, mocked Obama’s experience as a community organizer, saying that is not a real job. Perhaps she forgot that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a community organizer, as were Abraham Lincoln and Ghandi. And then there was Jesus Christ, a fellow whose workings, teachings and community organizing brought millions upon millions of people to Christianity. Palin herself is a Christian, or so she says, and subscribes to Jesus’ teachings. But if you follow her line of thinking regarding community organizers, Palin would not consider Jesus qualified to be President of the United States. Would she have considered Dr. King a good candidate for president? One wonders.
Jesus Christ was, and still is, considered by millions to have been a reformer. Palin describes herself as a “reformer,” much as McCain considers himself to be a "reformer." Webster’s Dictionary defines “reformer” as one who practices “reform,” a transitional verb meaning: 1) to put or change into an improved form or condition, 2) to amend or improve by change of form or removal of faults or abuses, 3) to put an end to (an evil) by enforcing or introducing a better method or course of action, 4) to induce or cause to abandon evil ways.
An examination of Palin's record contradicts her self-portrait. According to an article written by reporters with the New York Times and the Star Tribune, Palin is anything but a reformer. “When there was a vacancy at the top of the state Division of Agriculture, she appointed a high school classmate, Franci Havemeister, to the $95,000-a-year job. A former Real Estate agent, Havemeister cited her childhood love of cows as one qualification for running the roughly $2 million agency. Havemeister was one of at least five high school classmates Palin hired, often at salaries far exceeding their private sector wages.” It remains unclear if any other appointees professed a love of cows. If that procedure for hiring family and friends as staff members sounds familiar to you, it should. President Bush and Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich have done much the same thing.
The article goes on to say, “As governor, [Palin] assembled her Cabinet and made other appointments, those with insider credentials were now on the outs. But a new pattern became clear: She surrounded herself with figures drawn from her personal life — former high school classmates, people she had known since grade school and fellow churchgoers.” Is this Palin’s idea of “reform?”
The New York Times/Star Tribune article also said, “Palin runs an administration that puts a premium on loyalty and secrecy. The governor and her top officials sometimes use personal e-mail accounts for state business; dozens of e-mail messages obtained by the New York Times show that her staff members studied whether that could allow them to circumvent subpoenas seeking public records.” Putting a premium on “loyalty and secrecy” also may seem familiar to you, as that is what the Bush Administration has practiced for nearly eight years now. It also sounds a bit like the way disgraced former President Richard Nixon ran his White House. Is that what Palin means by “reform?”
Reminiscent of Blagoviech’s foolhardy and possibly illegal and unconstitutional political antics, Alaska legislators currently are investigating accusations that Palin and her husband, Todd, pressured officials to fire a state trooper who had gone through a messy divorce with Palin's sister. Palin, of course, has denied the accusation. Blagojevich himself is under multiple federal investigations involving corruption, pay-to-play state jobs and contracts, and fundraising
Blagojevich steadfastly has refused to live in the governor’s mansion in Springfield, choosing instead to conduct most of his official business and sideshow antics from Chicago. Blagojevich takes a state plane from Chicago to Springfield, on the rare occasions he actually goes to Springfield; each trip costs taxpayers $6,000. Similarly, Palin has spent 312 nights at her Wasilla home, charging the State of Alaska a per diem for each night spent there since becoming governor, according to various newspaper reports. The Washington Post earlier this month reported that Palin earns $125,000 a year, but she claimed and received $16,951 from the state because “her official ‘duty station’ is in Juneau,” some 600 miles away. The New York Times/Star Tribune article said, “She is often described by Democrats and Republicans alike as a leader missing in action. Some legislators became so frustrated with her absences that they took to wearing yellow "Where's Sarah?" pins.” Perhaps our legislators here in Illinois should wear similar pins asking, “Where’s Rod?”
By the way, Palin also has charged the state of Alaska for travel expenses to take her children on official out-of-town missions. And her husband has billed the state for expenses and a daily allowance for trips he makes on official business for his wife.
Palin also calls herself a "reformer" because, as governor, she refused to accept federal financial assistance for “earmarks,” also commonly known as “pork” or “pet” projects. One such project, for which Palin initially pushed hard, was the now-infamous “Bridge to Nowhere.” According to journalist Andrew Sullivan, whose work you may have seen in TIME magazine, Palin routinely and repeatedly has used the phrase: "I told the Congress 'Thanks, but no thanks,' for that Bridge to Nowhere” in her campaign speeches. In McCain-Palin ads, the claim is that she actually "stopped the Bridge to Nowhere," Sullivan reported.
Those statements are unabashedly untrue. The fact of the matter is in 2006, Palin ran for governor on a "Build-the-Bridge" platform, attacking “spinmeisters” for insulting local residents by calling them "nowhere” and urging speed "while our congressional delegation is in a strong position to assist,” according to Sullivan and, of all sources, Wikipedia. About two years after the introduction of the bridge proposals—a month after the bridge received sharp criticism from, of all people, McCain—and nine months into Palin's term as governor, Palin canceled the Gravina Bridge, blaming Congress for not providing enough funding. Alaska will not return any of the $442 million to the federal government. Instead, Palin is spending a portion of the funding—some $25 million—on a Gravina Island road to the place where the Bridge to Nowhere would have gone, expressly so that none of the money will have to be returned, according to Wikipedia. Is that what Palin means by “reform?”
Palin also is supporting a $600 million bridge and highway project to link Anchorage to Wasilla, according to The Associated Press. The project is moving “full speed ahead,” reports The AP, despite concerns that the bridge could actually worsen traffic. There is some concern that the Anchorage to Wasilla bridge may threaten a population of beluga whales.
The AP also reported that McCain has derided both the “Bridge to Nowhere” and Palin’s new bridge project as “wasteful.” Read any newspaper, magazine or online news account, and you’ll come to the conclusion that Palin's record on the “Bridge to Nowhere” has emerged as a central point of controversy in the campaign over her recent public claims that she had originally opposed it, when indeed quite the opposite was true. Some people could consider this a lie, a misunderstanding or even a half truth. Some people believe that Palin made the statement simply in an attempt to align herself with McCain's anti-earmarks philosophy.
Getting back to the beluga whale issue, the National Marine Fisheries Service is evaluating whether the isolated beluga whales that breed and feed in the Wasilla bridge waterway's strong tides should be listed as endangered under the federal Endangered Species Act. Palin has publicly urged the government not to list Cook Inlet beluga whales as endangered. (Palin also believes that polar bears should not be placed on the endangered species list.)
Palin got herself into another sticky situation by declaring during her acceptance speech at the RNC that she sold the previous governor's state airplane because it was too costly to keep. She said, "I sold on e-bay." But that also was not true. Palin did put the plane up for sale on e-bay, but it didn't sell there; it was sold to a private entity. Was she lying? Stretching the truth? Making a good sound bite? That's up to voters to decide, but it's statements such as that that make some people wonder exactly how truthful Palin has been so far in this campaign, and if elected, how truthful will she be as vice-president.
As a “reformer,” Palin has forced Alaska’s schools to teach “abstinence only,” with no other option for sex education, including information about condoms, the Pill or other forms of birth control. This coming from a woman who was pregnant when she married and now has an unwed, pregnant teenage daughter. Apparently, Palin is not terribly concerned about practicing what she preaches. Palin has openly and vehemently stated she is absolutely against all forms of abortion, unless the procedure is needed to save a woman’s life. She has stated time and again that she will work to overturn the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision granting women the right to terminate an unintended, unwanted or medically dangerous pregnancy. That would be a reform, certainly, but would it be for the betterment of America? Would that be better for women? Do Palin and McCain (who also wants to overturn Roe) really think that doing so will end abortion altogether? If so…well, perhaps they ought to rethink that idea.
As Palin and McCain continue campaigning during the next 40-some-odd days leading to Election Day, voters will need to listen carefully to all the candidates, including Obama and Biden, and vet out the truth however we can. Meanwhile, Palin and McCain likely will continue to mock and dismiss the political records of Obama and Biden, but a quick peek at Obama’s resume on his Web site may convince some voters that perhaps Palin is all bark and no bite when it comes to determining who has more legitimate experience.
Look for yourselves and you will learn that as a member of the Illinois State Senate, Obama worked with both Democrats and Republicans to help working families get ahead by creating programs like the state Earned Income Tax Credit, which in three years provided more than $100 million in tax cuts to families across the state, according to his Web site. He also pushed through an expansion of early childhood education, and after a number of inmates on death row were found innocent, Obama worked with law enforcement officials to require the videotaping of interrogations and confessions in all capital cases.
In the U.S. Senate, Obama, with the help of Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK), passed a measure to rebuild trust in government by allowing every American to go online and see how and where every dime of their tax dollars is spent. Obama also has been championing ethics reform that would root out Jack Abramoff-style corruption in Congress. Abramoff, you might remember, was the powerhouse Washington lobbyist who admitted to running a wide-ranging corruption scheme that ensnared lawmakers, Capitol Hill aides and government officials. He currently is in prison.
Obama’s online resume states that, as a member of the Veterans' Affairs Committee, he fought to help Illinois veterans get the disability pay they were promised, while working to prepare the VA for the return of the thousands of veterans who will need care after Iraq and Afghanistan. Recognizing the terrorist threat posed by weapons of mass destruction, he traveled to Russia with U.S. Sen. Dick Lugar (R-IN) to begin a new generation of non-proliferation efforts designed to find and secure deadly weapons around the world.
Obviously, one must take any political candidate’s online resume with a grain of salt and do his or her own homework on the candidate. After all, every candidate lists only the best of his or her political achievements. Once duly informed with the facts, one can cast an educated vote for the people she or he believes to be the better choice for all of the United States.
Palin may indeed be a “maverick” and a “reformer,” but voters must consider her record under such labels. Do Americans really need a vice-president who already is under investigation for allegedly firing a former state trooper/brother-in-law to help out her sister? Do Americans really need a vice-president who has no foreign policy experience? Do Americans really need a vice-president whose domestic policy has affected fewer than 700,000 people?
The United States does need reform, does need change. But she does not need a self-confessed “reformer” who lies, does little more than belittle her opponents in her campaign speeches and changes her story to fit her campaign needs and those of John McCain. The United States does not need another ethically challenged leader who needs to carry around colored note cards with her when she is being interviewed about national and international issues. Sarah Palin has barely enough practice as governor for the residents of her own state to judge her performance. The United States does not need a “maverick” who is ready to turn our Constitution upside down. The United States does not need a vice-president whose experience is little at best and questionable at worst.
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So far, all many of us know about Palin is that she is being a hailed a “bulldog,” and a “maverick” by residents of her tiny hometown, Wasilla, Alaska (population estimated between 5,000 and 7,500), and governor of one of the largest yet least populated states in the land. If those are the only credentials needed for being “a heartbeat away from the presidency,” then Palin could have a great chance of being elected. If being a former beauty queen and local weather girl/sportscaster were pre-requisites for becoming our next vice-president, certainly her chances of being elected alongside Arizona Sen. John McCain would be substantial. Perhaps voters will consider her four years on the Wasilla City Council and six years as mayor of Wasilla enough “experience” in domestic affairs to supersede the experience of the Obama-Biden ticket.
If one looks closely, one will learn that Palin has virtually no experience in foreign affairs, unless you count her one and only trip to neighboring Canada and last year’s brief trip to Kuwait and Germany last year. She’s also visited Mexico, but haven’t many of us? Palin also took college courses in Hawaii and Idaho. In an recent interview with ABC News, Palin admitted that she has never met a foreign head of state.
Yet, Palin claims to have more experience in governance than Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama, a Harvard graduate who spent three years as a community organizer, was the first black President of the Harvard Law Review, created a voter registration drive that registered 150,000 new voters, spent 12 years as a Constitutional Law professor, spent eight years as an Illinois State Senator representing a district with more than 750,000 people (more people than the entire state of Alaska), became chairman of the state Senate's Health and Human Services committee, spent four years in the United States Senate representing a state of 13 million people while sponsoring 131 bills and serving on the Foreign Affairs, Environment, Public Works and Veteran's Affairs committees.
In her acceptance speech during the Republican National Convention, she, as well as other speakers there, mocked Obama’s experience as a community organizer, saying that is not a real job. Perhaps she forgot that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a community organizer, as were Abraham Lincoln and Ghandi. And then there was Jesus Christ, a fellow whose workings, teachings and community organizing brought millions upon millions of people to Christianity. Palin herself is a Christian, or so she says, and subscribes to Jesus’ teachings. But if you follow her line of thinking regarding community organizers, Palin would not consider Jesus qualified to be President of the United States. Would she have considered Dr. King a good candidate for president? One wonders.
Jesus Christ was, and still is, considered by millions to have been a reformer. Palin describes herself as a “reformer,” much as McCain considers himself to be a "reformer." Webster’s Dictionary defines “reformer” as one who practices “reform,” a transitional verb meaning: 1) to put or change into an improved form or condition, 2) to amend or improve by change of form or removal of faults or abuses, 3) to put an end to (an evil) by enforcing or introducing a better method or course of action, 4) to induce or cause to abandon evil ways.
An examination of Palin's record contradicts her self-portrait. According to an article written by reporters with the New York Times and the Star Tribune, Palin is anything but a reformer. “When there was a vacancy at the top of the state Division of Agriculture, she appointed a high school classmate, Franci Havemeister, to the $95,000-a-year job. A former Real Estate agent, Havemeister cited her childhood love of cows as one qualification for running the roughly $2 million agency. Havemeister was one of at least five high school classmates Palin hired, often at salaries far exceeding their private sector wages.” It remains unclear if any other appointees professed a love of cows. If that procedure for hiring family and friends as staff members sounds familiar to you, it should. President Bush and Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich have done much the same thing.
The article goes on to say, “As governor, [Palin] assembled her Cabinet and made other appointments, those with insider credentials were now on the outs. But a new pattern became clear: She surrounded herself with figures drawn from her personal life — former high school classmates, people she had known since grade school and fellow churchgoers.” Is this Palin’s idea of “reform?”
The New York Times/Star Tribune article also said, “Palin runs an administration that puts a premium on loyalty and secrecy. The governor and her top officials sometimes use personal e-mail accounts for state business; dozens of e-mail messages obtained by the New York Times show that her staff members studied whether that could allow them to circumvent subpoenas seeking public records.” Putting a premium on “loyalty and secrecy” also may seem familiar to you, as that is what the Bush Administration has practiced for nearly eight years now. It also sounds a bit like the way disgraced former President Richard Nixon ran his White House. Is that what Palin means by “reform?”
Reminiscent of Blagoviech’s foolhardy and possibly illegal and unconstitutional political antics, Alaska legislators currently are investigating accusations that Palin and her husband, Todd, pressured officials to fire a state trooper who had gone through a messy divorce with Palin's sister. Palin, of course, has denied the accusation. Blagojevich himself is under multiple federal investigations involving corruption, pay-to-play state jobs and contracts, and fundraising
Blagojevich steadfastly has refused to live in the governor’s mansion in Springfield, choosing instead to conduct most of his official business and sideshow antics from Chicago. Blagojevich takes a state plane from Chicago to Springfield, on the rare occasions he actually goes to Springfield; each trip costs taxpayers $6,000. Similarly, Palin has spent 312 nights at her Wasilla home, charging the State of Alaska a per diem for each night spent there since becoming governor, according to various newspaper reports. The Washington Post earlier this month reported that Palin earns $125,000 a year, but she claimed and received $16,951 from the state because “her official ‘duty station’ is in Juneau,” some 600 miles away. The New York Times/Star Tribune article said, “She is often described by Democrats and Republicans alike as a leader missing in action. Some legislators became so frustrated with her absences that they took to wearing yellow "Where's Sarah?" pins.” Perhaps our legislators here in Illinois should wear similar pins asking, “Where’s Rod?”
By the way, Palin also has charged the state of Alaska for travel expenses to take her children on official out-of-town missions. And her husband has billed the state for expenses and a daily allowance for trips he makes on official business for his wife.
Palin also calls herself a "reformer" because, as governor, she refused to accept federal financial assistance for “earmarks,” also commonly known as “pork” or “pet” projects. One such project, for which Palin initially pushed hard, was the now-infamous “Bridge to Nowhere.” According to journalist Andrew Sullivan, whose work you may have seen in TIME magazine, Palin routinely and repeatedly has used the phrase: "I told the Congress 'Thanks, but no thanks,' for that Bridge to Nowhere” in her campaign speeches. In McCain-Palin ads, the claim is that she actually "stopped the Bridge to Nowhere," Sullivan reported.
Those statements are unabashedly untrue. The fact of the matter is in 2006, Palin ran for governor on a "Build-the-Bridge" platform, attacking “spinmeisters” for insulting local residents by calling them "nowhere” and urging speed "while our congressional delegation is in a strong position to assist,” according to Sullivan and, of all sources, Wikipedia. About two years after the introduction of the bridge proposals—a month after the bridge received sharp criticism from, of all people, McCain—and nine months into Palin's term as governor, Palin canceled the Gravina Bridge, blaming Congress for not providing enough funding. Alaska will not return any of the $442 million to the federal government. Instead, Palin is spending a portion of the funding—some $25 million—on a Gravina Island road to the place where the Bridge to Nowhere would have gone, expressly so that none of the money will have to be returned, according to Wikipedia. Is that what Palin means by “reform?”
Palin also is supporting a $600 million bridge and highway project to link Anchorage to Wasilla, according to The Associated Press. The project is moving “full speed ahead,” reports The AP, despite concerns that the bridge could actually worsen traffic. There is some concern that the Anchorage to Wasilla bridge may threaten a population of beluga whales.
The AP also reported that McCain has derided both the “Bridge to Nowhere” and Palin’s new bridge project as “wasteful.” Read any newspaper, magazine or online news account, and you’ll come to the conclusion that Palin's record on the “Bridge to Nowhere” has emerged as a central point of controversy in the campaign over her recent public claims that she had originally opposed it, when indeed quite the opposite was true. Some people could consider this a lie, a misunderstanding or even a half truth. Some people believe that Palin made the statement simply in an attempt to align herself with McCain's anti-earmarks philosophy.
Getting back to the beluga whale issue, the National Marine Fisheries Service is evaluating whether the isolated beluga whales that breed and feed in the Wasilla bridge waterway's strong tides should be listed as endangered under the federal Endangered Species Act. Palin has publicly urged the government not to list Cook Inlet beluga whales as endangered. (Palin also believes that polar bears should not be placed on the endangered species list.)
Palin got herself into another sticky situation by declaring during her acceptance speech at the RNC that she sold the previous governor's state airplane because it was too costly to keep. She said, "I sold on e-bay." But that also was not true. Palin did put the plane up for sale on e-bay, but it didn't sell there; it was sold to a private entity. Was she lying? Stretching the truth? Making a good sound bite? That's up to voters to decide, but it's statements such as that that make some people wonder exactly how truthful Palin has been so far in this campaign, and if elected, how truthful will she be as vice-president.
As a “reformer,” Palin has forced Alaska’s schools to teach “abstinence only,” with no other option for sex education, including information about condoms, the Pill or other forms of birth control. This coming from a woman who was pregnant when she married and now has an unwed, pregnant teenage daughter. Apparently, Palin is not terribly concerned about practicing what she preaches. Palin has openly and vehemently stated she is absolutely against all forms of abortion, unless the procedure is needed to save a woman’s life. She has stated time and again that she will work to overturn the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision granting women the right to terminate an unintended, unwanted or medically dangerous pregnancy. That would be a reform, certainly, but would it be for the betterment of America? Would that be better for women? Do Palin and McCain (who also wants to overturn Roe) really think that doing so will end abortion altogether? If so…well, perhaps they ought to rethink that idea.
As Palin and McCain continue campaigning during the next 40-some-odd days leading to Election Day, voters will need to listen carefully to all the candidates, including Obama and Biden, and vet out the truth however we can. Meanwhile, Palin and McCain likely will continue to mock and dismiss the political records of Obama and Biden, but a quick peek at Obama’s resume on his Web site may convince some voters that perhaps Palin is all bark and no bite when it comes to determining who has more legitimate experience.
Look for yourselves and you will learn that as a member of the Illinois State Senate, Obama worked with both Democrats and Republicans to help working families get ahead by creating programs like the state Earned Income Tax Credit, which in three years provided more than $100 million in tax cuts to families across the state, according to his Web site. He also pushed through an expansion of early childhood education, and after a number of inmates on death row were found innocent, Obama worked with law enforcement officials to require the videotaping of interrogations and confessions in all capital cases.
In the U.S. Senate, Obama, with the help of Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK), passed a measure to rebuild trust in government by allowing every American to go online and see how and where every dime of their tax dollars is spent. Obama also has been championing ethics reform that would root out Jack Abramoff-style corruption in Congress. Abramoff, you might remember, was the powerhouse Washington lobbyist who admitted to running a wide-ranging corruption scheme that ensnared lawmakers, Capitol Hill aides and government officials. He currently is in prison.
Obama’s online resume states that, as a member of the Veterans' Affairs Committee, he fought to help Illinois veterans get the disability pay they were promised, while working to prepare the VA for the return of the thousands of veterans who will need care after Iraq and Afghanistan. Recognizing the terrorist threat posed by weapons of mass destruction, he traveled to Russia with U.S. Sen. Dick Lugar (R-IN) to begin a new generation of non-proliferation efforts designed to find and secure deadly weapons around the world.
Obviously, one must take any political candidate’s online resume with a grain of salt and do his or her own homework on the candidate. After all, every candidate lists only the best of his or her political achievements. Once duly informed with the facts, one can cast an educated vote for the people she or he believes to be the better choice for all of the United States.
Palin may indeed be a “maverick” and a “reformer,” but voters must consider her record under such labels. Do Americans really need a vice-president who already is under investigation for allegedly firing a former state trooper/brother-in-law to help out her sister? Do Americans really need a vice-president who has no foreign policy experience? Do Americans really need a vice-president whose domestic policy has affected fewer than 700,000 people?
The United States does need reform, does need change. But she does not need a self-confessed “reformer” who lies, does little more than belittle her opponents in her campaign speeches and changes her story to fit her campaign needs and those of John McCain. The United States does not need another ethically challenged leader who needs to carry around colored note cards with her when she is being interviewed about national and international issues. Sarah Palin has barely enough practice as governor for the residents of her own state to judge her performance. The United States does not need a “maverick” who is ready to turn our Constitution upside down. The United States does not need a vice-president whose experience is little at best and questionable at worst.
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