1. Re: Hillary. She belonged to a very unsavory prayer group (though unsavory while within Versailles guidelines).

2. Re: DogEmperor's on Palin as a Dominionist. I don't think the thesis gelled, and it all got taken apart in comments.

Honestly, there's absolutely nobody I trust to write about Palin (except maybe Anglachel -- and even she has to rely on sourcing she doesn't control). I mean, I used to trust the New Yorker, and then Hendryk Herzberg started sucking up to Obama, and soon fandom was everywhere. So, I read their profile of Palin with a dose of salts.

Down's syndrome babies, though, have certain conditions that makes handling them the way you would any other baby much riskier. Among these is a tendency to poor neck muscle tone / development, which increases the risk of cervical spine injuries. It's recommended to keep Down's babies in rearward-facing car seats, for example, as long as possible rather than to the 30-35 lb. cutoff with non-Down's babies, as well as possibly turning off passenger airbags for persons with Down's and related atlantotaxial insufficiency:

The physicians recommended turning off an air bag if a safe sitting distance or position cannot be maintained by a driver because of scoliosis or achondroplasiaor by a passenger because of scoliosis or Down syndrome and atlantoaxial instability

.

So even on a remote road at a low speed, the risk to the child was sufficient to make considering the law inconvenient and therefore disregardable is a big argument against this woman, whether I like her or not. A five-month-old child is not a football, and shouldn't be handled as carelessly as if s/he were.

Basically, anyone who stood in the way of the O juggernaut was going to be destroyed by whatever means were handy. It's not a reflection on the merit of those who stood in his way to acknowledge that fact.

here.

let me know when you find the rape kits.

The bills didn't even get to the police department. Not one minute of legislative testimony singled out Wasilla (that's for the record and anyone who says otherwise is lying). The bill was to prevent hospitals passing the charge along to patient's insurance companies and then to patients when their insurance wouldn't pay.

Here is the minutes of the testimony that is online:

LAUREE HUGONIN, Director, Alaska Network on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault, came forward to testify. She clarified that while it may be true that Deputy Commissioner Smith may not have found an instance where law enforcement has forwarded a bill, hospitals have. It has happened in the Mat-Su Valley, on the Kenai Peninsula, and in Southeast, and that is why the bill is being brought forward. It is important to keep the word "indirectly" in there or to state "not charge health insurance." "Unfortunately, Representative Brice, if you just say victim, there are still agencies who take it that means sending me the statement. They don't consider my insurance the victim." It is important to encapsulate that indirectly. She reemphasized that often it is DFYS that is bringing children forward and billing Medicaid, and DFYS has that arrangement with Medicaid.

What was happening was that the bills for the rape kits were never even reaching the police departments because the hospitals used it as a profit device. Again, the police chief was objecting to a chunk of money being removed from his budget that he felt he couldn't afford. Most states provide small communities with funding for expensive criminal procedures so that victims aren't hurt by budget shortfalls.

And here is what the city of Wasilla says for the record.

he Finance Department searched all financial records on our system for fiscal year 2000, 2001 and 2002. There are no records of billings to or collections from rape victims or their insurance companies in our system. The financial computer system goes back to the beginning of fiscal year 2000, and accounts receivable backup documentation goes back six (6) years per our records retention schedule.

A review of files and case reports within the Wasilla Police Department has found no record of sexual assault victims being billed for forensic exams. State law AS 18.68.040, which was effective August 12, 2000, would have prohibited any such billings after that date.

Here is the Slate article on the smear.

And here is an article from NRO debunking the whole story as well.

So, in summary, no testimony indicated that there were problems in Wasilla. No journalist has found a victim in Wasilla who was billed. The city can find no record that a victim or a victim's insurance company was billed by the police department. So, Sarah, this is a smear, pure and simple. And it's a smear that exploits rape victims. You're better than this. Don't defend this garbage.

This is where the story falls apart:

Two holes in that logic are plainly apparent. First, local hospitals administered the post-assault examinations, which means hospitals likely generated the bills sent to the victims or their insurance companies, not the town of Wasilla. But it was the town of Wasilla that set the policy instructing the hospital to bill the victim. (And naturally, the hospital/patient records in question remain confidential.) So the fact that the town can't find any collection records is not surprising since the hospital did the collecting.

In other words, for years, the local hospital billed the Wasilla police department when it brought in a rape victim to be tested. After the town adopted a new policy, the Wasilla police instructed the hospital to bill the victim or her insurance company...

In order for him to be accurate, he must prove - and he doesn't - that the police department instructed the hospitals to bill the patients. There is no evidence of that. There is plenty of testimony in front of the legislature about hospitals billing victims and their insurance companies, but not one word of testimony that the police arranged for. In fact, the only testimony about it, recounts it as an "internal" decision that is made by the hospital.

When you find evidence that someone was, in fact, billed and that the police requested that the hospital bill the patient, you'll have something. Until then, it is a smear. And it is a smear that exploits rape victims for partisan purposes.

Illinois included. While our current president was a state legislator. Why don't you scream at him about too, or are you only going to hold Palin responsible?

That's another thing that made this attack so sexist, is that there are 100's of politicans in this country that are connected to similiar laws, and it never made a stink before. So why the double standard? The only discernable reason was the fact that's she's a woman.