Sarah Palin - Beauty Pageant Video

Team Lara Croft,

Your first mistake was to take anything written in the NYT at face value. It’s no longer a reputable newspaper of facts. It’s now an advertising arm of the Obama campaign.

And it seems quite evident their mission is also to keep American’s dumb to confirmed facts that can be proven in a court of law.

The truth is here:

But, in reality, none of these charges can be found and Jim Geraghty of NRO has done a little investigative work to prove it.

Geraghty looked to see how often Wasilla and Palin were mentioned in the debates about the rape kit bill. But he finds that there is not one mention of the town of Wasilla in the hearings over the bill. Far from being the mayor that had “complaints about her administration’s policy” (as the Chi Trib says) being the one forcing the state legislature to pass the law, Wasilla is not mentioned at all in the debates about the bill.

The Democratic sponsor of the legislation, Eric Croft, told USA Today recently that “the law was aimed in part at Wasilla, where now-Gov. Sarah Palin was mayor.” Yet in six committee meetings, Wasilla was never mentioned, even when the discussion turned to the specific topic of where victims were being charged.

Geraghty also could not find a single instance of a rape victim ever having been charged for her own rape kit.

To clarify: In preparation to attend a hearing and support the bill, one of the state’s top law-enforcement officials found no case of a rape victim ever being charged. And roughly a month after 30 Democratic lawyers, investigators, and opposition researchers, not to mention reporters from every major news agency in the country, landed in Alaska, we still have no instances to consider.

Additionally, Geraghty found that it was the hospitals in Alaska, not the police agencies, that were passing the bills on to the victims’ insurance companies. And the idea that only Wasilla had such a policy is blasted out of the water by Geraghty who notes that Juneau also had the same policy of charging rape victims for their rape kits.

In fact, at a Finance Committee hearing, Representative Gail Phillips (R., Homer) “read for the record, a statement from a woman in Juneau who had experienced the charges as indicated.” Compare Juneau (population 30,711 in 2000) to Wasilla (population 5,469).

On top of all of that, there are no stories prior to Sarah Palin being offered the billet as VP by John McCain that makes the claim that Palin was informed of or involved in this policy of charging rape victims for rape kits. And, since there was only one rape reported in the city between 1996 and 2000 when the story first came to the papers, it’s no wonder she wasn’t aware of the policy. When would it ever have come up? Does anyone think that any given mayor of any American town is fully cognizant of every single policy or law in their city, especially if it is a law not in use because of a lack of situations to bring it to light?

For her part, Palin spokeswoman Maria Comella has said that the governor “does not believe, nor has she ever believed, that rape victims should have to pay for an evidence-gathering test.”

In the end, it seems that this story is a wild exaggeration about Palin’s role in this policy.

Palin’s Wasilla To Rape Victims: Bring Your Checkbook

Posted September 9, 2008 | 11:29 AM (EST)

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Hat tip to AmericaBlog for this one.

In 2000, then-Governor Tony Knowles signed a bill in Alaska that ensured law enforcement around the state would pay for the processing of “Rape Kits” - forensics evidence collected in rape cases. Seemed common sense enough. Knowles noted, correctly, that we don’t charge robbery victims the cost of dusting for prints, so why would be charge rape victims the cost of gathering evidence to apprehend their assailant?

Except one little town objected, and had previously refused to foot the bill to solve rape cases - Wasilla, under Mayor Sarah Palin.

Reported the local paper, The Frontiersman, at the time:

While the Alaska State Troopers and most municipal police agencies have covered the cost of exams, which cost between $300 to $1,200 apiece, the Wasilla police department does charge the victims of sexual assault for the tests.

Now, look, maybe this was long-standing policy, instituted far before Palin took office in Wasilla. Maybe she had been appointing people who would overturn this policy. Uh, no. After taking office, Palin fired the police chief, Irl Stambaugh (which made her a subject of a recall effort) and replaced him with Charlie Fannon. Fannon’s view of paying to solve rape cases?

Wasilla Police Chief Charlie Fannon does not agree with the new legislation, saying the law will require the city and communities to come up with more funds to cover the costs of the forensic exams.

So, for four years - from 1996, when Palin took office to 2000 when this law was passed - Palin didn’t seem to have a problem with charging rape victims to solve their own crime. And if she did, she certainly didn’t communicate that to her hand-picked Police Chief, who didn’t have a problem with it.

I guess that’s one way to be a “Maverick.”

Of course, I’d be willing to say that Palin was just a part-time Mayor with very little oversight or responsibility, and it’s unfair to say she could do something about it.

But, as Palin has made clear, being Mayor was “kiiiiiind of like being a community organizer, except you have actual responsibility.” And, of course, John McCain and his campaign have made clear that as Mayor, Palin had a ton of responsibility and decision-making pressure, which is why she’s ready to assume the Presidency from Day One.

As much as this seems like a post about Sarah Palin, it’s really not. It’s about John McCain. What I want to know is at what point in the vetting process, after going through Mayoral records, did the McCain campaign learn that Palin condoned the charging of rape victims the cost of processing rape kits? And after they found out, before he selected her, did he discuss the matter in the extensive discussions he had with Palin about her record and her views?

Oh wait, that’s right he didn’t do any of this, because he made his decision after a short phone call. And now he has, on his ticket, someone who didn’t seem to think that charging rape victims for forensics processing in their rape cases was all that big of a problem. Or, at least it wasn’t a big enough problem to use her “responsibility” to change the policy.

One heartbeat away from being President.

Team Lara Croft,

Your posting a Sept 9th story to prove a more current knowledge of the facts is really quite sad.

The fact is no rape kits were ever charged in Wasilla. And the Democrat (who is supporting Obama) that wrote the bill to ban the rape kits now all of sudden claims (eight years later) that Wasilla was a major factor in him writing the bill.

Funny thing is that Wasilla is not mentioned ONCE in the transcripts.

Now Team Lara Croft, you can believe political motivated asseretions all you want but do not kid yourself……they’re not facts.

BTW, I’m a pro-choice woman and I feel very comfortable having a pro-life woman like Sarah Palin as VP. There is no history that I have found of her inserting her religious beliefs into government.

Team Lara Croft is full of it. All she has is talking points and her “facts” have been proven false.

Case closed. Sheryl wins.