I need to get this off my chest...

Seriously, not a day has gone by since Sarah Palin was announced as McCain's VP that I haven't heard something completely outrageous about her, her past as a public servant, or the policies she supports. That more people aren't screaming out their concerns over her has me baffled.

She has wanted to ban books from libraries. She has fired people for personal reasons and her administration in Alaska refuses to answer the subpoenas summoning witnesses to the Alaska legislature for questioning about how she has abused her executive power. She has taken more money per capita for her state for pork barrel projects from the Federal government than any other state, and hired lobbyists in Washington to get Alaska even more pork barrel money, while saying she doesn't support pork barrel politics. And her husband was a member of the Alaska Independence Party from 1995 until 2002, which supports and has supported Alaska succeeding from the US and whose motto is "Alaska First!" According to the head of the AIP, both Sarah and Todd Palin attended their convention in 1994...

She doesn't care about the environment or global warming. She doesn't want polar bears to be protected under the Endangered Species Act and encourages the shooting of wolves of any age, from the ground or from helicopters (in a practice that is incredibly barbaric, fyi, since entire packs are often killed by running them to exhaustion and then wiping them out with guns). She hates wolves so much that she wanted to pay hunters $150 for each wolf leg they brought in, something that the Alaska courts ruled illegal, and she took $400,000 in state funds to fight a ballot initiative to limit the aerial hunting of wolves. Because of Sarah Palin, for the first time since 1958, it is legal to shoot and kill bears and their cubs in the state of Alaska. Why, you might ask? So that more sport hunters will be able to not only kill these predators, but also to increase the number of moose and caribou in the state so that it will be easier for sport hunters to find and kill those animals as well... you know, on the weekends or on vacation when they aren't being doctors and lawyers and politicians in Anchorage and Juneau and Wasilla... Now, I have no problem with hunting, but I have a big problem if you're not going to eat what you kill and you're just doing it to put a head on your wall and brag to your friends about how many you've gotten this season. I have an even bigger problem with hunting if you kill predators to increase the number of pray animals just to have even more things to shoot easier with your big, high-powered, couldn't-get-away-if-they-wanted-to hunting rifles. Barbarians! And it's arrogantly reckless of Sarah Palin to encourage it, against the recommendations of hundreds of scientists, never mind to actually want these policies.

Ahem... To continue... She's anti-choice. She's a creationist and believes creationism should be taught in public schools as a legitimate scientific theory. She doesn't believe in family planning or medically accurate sex education. She believes that homosexuals can become heterosexual if they just pray hard enough. And she believes that fighting the Iraq war is, and I quote, "a task from God" to the American people... She also didn't know what Bush's foreign policy on fighting terrorism was until it was explained to her on camera during her first interview since becoming the Republican VP candidate yesterday. She said that she believes American military forces should be able to enter any foreign country, without the permission of that sovereign nation's leadership, to go after whoever or whatever we want to, despite the violation to international laws, etc. etc. etc. that such action would pose. And she isn't sure what a Vice President does from day-to-day exactly but she hopes there's a lot to do because she likes to keep busy. o.O Bzuh? I'm sure there was more, but this is all I can remember off the top of my head.

And today is no different, the outrage continues:

Despite denials by the McCain campaign, there is documentary evidence that Palin knew about (or at the very least had the legal responsibility to know) and did nothing to stop the police department of Wasilla charging rape victims $500 - $1200 for post-rape exams in 1998-1999, until the legislature of Alaska, outraged by the practice, outlawed it statewide... I don't know how any woman, regardless of religious background, could allow such a thing to happen when she had all the power necessary to prevent it. You can read more about it, with links to evidence, here.

Seriously, I'm afraid of what I'll hear about her tomorrow...