Just when I said I was going to be funny about this

I just can't be. Miles Mogulescu has published this article and I'm going to have to post a chunk of it. Make no mistake, Sarah Palin is no friend of women. As Mogulescu writes "These views place Palin on the extreme right-wing of the American political spectrum and should raise serious concerns among moderate, centrist and independent voters. The McCain campaign will try to bury these views behind a rosy picture of an all-American hockey mom and mother of five with a Downs Syndrome baby. Despite Republican attacks on media coverage of Palin, the media seems to be focusing on the personal aspects of Palin's story and not the issues."

So here are some of the article's fact points:

** Palin does not believe that global warming is caused by human activity. In an interview for the September issue of the conservative magazine Newsmax, Palin said"A changing environment will affect Alaska more than any other state, because of our location. I'm not one though who would attribute it to being man-made."

** Gov. Palin recently sued the Bush's own Interior Secretary for determining, based on the scientific evidence, that the polar bear is an endangered species. Documents released through a Freedom of Information Act request show that Alaska's state biologist agrees with the science of Bush's Interior Department, not Palin. "She's either grossly misinformed or intentionally misleading," according to Kassie Siegel of the Center for Biological Diversity. "Even the Bush administration can't deny the reality of global warming. The governor is aligning herself and the state of Alaska with the most discredited, fringe, extreme viewpoints by denying this."

** In response to a questionnaire from the far-right Eagle Forum, Palin responded that she opposes abortion even in the case of rape or incest. While a Gubernatorial candidate, Palin stated that if her then 14-year old daughter were raped, she would not permit her to have an abortion. This places Palin on the far right of the anti-abortion movement. Even many pro-life supporters agree that abortion should be permitted in these extreme circumstances, Sarah Palin disagrees. In fact, when a majority of the legislature in the heavily pro-life state of South Dakota recently put an abortion ban on the ballot which would band abortion even in cases of rape or incest, many pro-lifers opposed the ban and it was defeated by the voters.

** There are serious questions whether Palin even believes in birth control. While in general, a candidate's personal family decisions should be outside the realm of political discussion, the pregnancy of Palin's 17-year old daughter raises questions about Palin's beliefs on birth control. Palin is a member of the deceptively named "Feminists for Life" who would criminalize not only abortion but the IUD and hormonal birth control methods (e.g. the pill). Although Palin's decision to keep and raise a baby with Down's syndrome may be admirable, the same questions are raised by Palin herself, already the mother of 4 other children, becoming pregnant at age 44. Palin is lucky that her failure to educate her daughter about contraception only led to an out of wedlock pregnancy. It could have led her to contract a sexually transmitted disease.

* Far from putting "Country First", Palin has been closely associated with the far-right wing whack job Alaska Independence Party which questions the legality of the vote for Alaska to join the union and wants to hold a referendum for Alaska to secede. Just 6 months ago, Palin gave a speech to the AIP conventions calling on them to "keep up the good work" and wished the party luck on what she called its "inspiring convention." Palin's husband was an AIP member for 7 years until 2002 and she and her husband both attended AIP's 2000 Convention. AIP founder Joe Vogler said "I'm an Alaskan, not an American...I've got no use for America". There is evidence that Vogler was connected to domestic terrorism--He died in a plastic-explosives sale gone bad.

** Palin's home church, the Juneau Christian Center, and its pastor Mike Rose advocates Dominionsim and is closely connected to the Dominionist movement. Rose is an advisor to Rodney Howard-Browne's Revival Ministries, one of the leading Dominionist organizations. Palin's church is also connected with the "Joel's Army" movement which uses stealth methods to recruit teens to the cause. One cannot definitely connect Palin to these extreme politico-religious views, but she certainly has her own "Pastor problem".