Saturday, September 13, 2008

Palin To Rape Victims: Bring Your Checkbook

While the storyline is that John McCain selected Alaska Governor Sarah Palin to appeal to women voters, I continue to be dumbfounded by Palin's anti-women agenda both while mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, and now on the campaign trail where she doesn't support equal pay for equal labor. Other than Christianist women who want to remain bare foot and pregnant and in the home, I do not see what Ms. Palin has to offer women voters other than her gender. Does McCain really think women are that stupid? Apparently so. Of all the things that have come out about Palin one of the cruelest is the fact that under her watch Wasilla was the ONLY jurisdiction in Alaska to charge rape victims for rape kits which cost between $300 to $1,200 apiece. Imagine. You've been raped, Mayor Sarah wants your to have to pay for the rape kit, and then, if given her way, you'd be forced to carry your rapist's child since all abortions would be illegal. Here are highlights from Huffington Post:
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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."
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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?
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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.

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