It's Sarah Palin

Yup. Gettin' there.

Or should I say, got there.

Ah, there we go.

It'll be 50 pages before the election ever gets here.

You're not even listening to me anymore are you?

Why would he listen to a farmer?

Well, my neighbors don't listen to Abba for one.


Of course, how would I know, he's two miles away.

More about the so-called scandal.

http://www.floppingaces.net/2008/08...ating-msm-distortions-to-the-truth/#more-7482

You still on dial-up?

I have relatives from there.

This means war.

Okay, they ARE still on dail-up, but still.

Dail-up? Hell, I figured they still used smoke signals. I hear tell streaming video is a bitch.

And people think performing Dragonforce on the hard setting in Guitar Hero was difficult...

Here's an idea: Quit. Get a new job. And no I don't want to hear any bullshit about it from you either. Any boss that won't even at least talk about raises and passes me over for a bonus is going to be a boss short one fucking employee.

Good news for Obama!!

He did manage to score some major support after his historic acceptance speech Thursday night.

Congratulations on your post-convention bounce with a key demographic!

My ex used to have a boss that did that kind of bullshit. He would brag about how proud of them he was and how they were the jewels of the office. And yet they would go years without a raise, not to mention they didn't make that much to begin with anyway.

He died about 4 years ago and since then his family has taken over the company and all they care about is how much they can squeeze out of it. I finally got my ex to listen to reason and get out of there before they drove her over the edge. I just wished she would have left that place a long time before.

What exactly is Palin's stance on abortion, does anyone know? And for that matter, what is the general consensus (if any) on this issue among Republicans these days?

Do you want to take down Roe v. Wade completely or do you consider it pretty much a done deal after all this time? Is it that you have some problems with its implementation and just want to make sure the availability of abortion doesn't conceal that it should primarily be used as a last resort, or is overturning Roe v. Wade a big priority in the Republican party?

In the context of her personal beliefs, she's strongly pro-life.

I have a bigger, more important question. Is this her personal belief or has she actively tried to overturn Roe v. Wade (or similar) by supporting or signing such legislation?

If no, bah. She's entitled to her beliefs. If yes, then we may have a problem. After all, I personally find abortion to be detestable in the vast and overwhelming majority of instances. However, I ride the fence politically at this point. Ain't none of my business.

Roe vs. Wade isn't going to be overturned. It's just a tool both sides use to rally the masses.

Don't take this the wrong way, Forbin, but talk is cheap. It costs the company NOTHING to tell someone how valuable they are. If your wife thinks her wage is unfair (or, to put it a better way, uncompetitive), she should demand a raise and quit if it isn't delivered. Your wife, by accepting what the boss tells her (on the one hand that she's worth three people, on the other that he won't consider a raise) is consenting to the situation.

If my employer pays me X per hour and I think I'm worth X+5, my options are simple: (1) continue to work for less than I think I'm worth, (2) argue for a raise based on my contributions, or (3) quit. The company isn't in business to make sure I'm satisified with my salary; that's MY job.

That may be, but that doesn't necessarily mean sexism at work.

Well personal beliefs are fine, everyone is entitled to them. But has she ever been faced with making a choice in her official capacity on whether to uphold the intent of Roe v. Wade, and if so, how did she come down on the matter?

I know that a few months ago Obama was faced with upholding the spirit of Roe v. Wade when it came to the mental health exception to late term abortions, and sadly he didn't come through in that instance for those that are pro-choice. I'm just curious to see how Palin has reacted in similar circumstances.

I've found no efforts at making her personal beliefs past into any laws in reguards to Roe v Wade slip from the books.
Try a search.

Good idea. Will check out AK's legislative history to start...

I suspect that if she had, we'd have seen something other than quotes on her personal beliefs by now.

Yea, I'm thinking someone would have been dancing about it right here already.

Doesn't look like the AK legislature took up any abortion issues in 2006, and the ones from 2007/2008 didn't make it out of committee to come across her desk. So for now, as far as I can tell there really isn't much to judge her on in terms of how she's dealt with abortion professionally.

The main vibe you get from the party as a whole right now is that Roe is unwise and should be overturned and the issue returned to the individual states. In effect, it would be similar to homeschooling - it's legal everywhere, but under varying terms and conditions in each locality.

To the larger question of Roe...whether you are pro-life or pro choice, you shouldn't be defending Roe. No less a pro-choicer than Ruth Bader Ginsberg has conceded that as a legal decision, Roe is "bad science and bad law"

Abortion, or privacy in that context, is simply NOT a constitutional issue and on pure legal reasoning, you can make an easier legal case for the "personhood" of the unborn under the constitution than you can the "right" protected by Roe.

If we lived in a world where the court was only a court and not a tool for social engineering and back-door legislating, Roe would never have had a chance.

(Do you know that Judge Blackmon was manipulating his fellow justices to rule as he wanted them to on the case before they even heard it?)

(Did you know that the attorney who argued for the plaintiffs LIED that the pregnancy was a result of rape in order to garner sympathy? Did you know that Doe's attorney did not even inform her client she was party to the case until it was over with, and that neither woman even WANTED an abortion?)

But the decision now has been elevated to iconic status that none dare challenge and survive, a political third rail.

Stupid and illogical, of course....but such is life in the U.S. of A.

Well I agree with you that abortion should be legal everywhere, and Roe v Wade, for all its faults, was a big step toward achieving that. Making abortion illegal I think would cause more problems than it would solve and the medical reasons alone, for those that would try and get abortions on the black market if it were illegal, are pretty staggering IMO.

Do you believe that all states would codify choice into law? I know there was a process to this end in place at the time, but I'm not so sure that this would work even today (in all honesty, I can't really comment on the political field in all 50 states so specifically). However, I do believe that guaranteeing this option to all citizens is important and may be part of the reason why some feel federal legislation on this matter was the most efficient way to go.

Ginsburg is my favorite SC Justice -- she and I have the same birthday -- and I have read some of her opinions on this matter. It is true that she has written "Roe, I believe, would have been more acceptable as a judicial decision if it had not gone beyond a ruling on the extreme statute before the court. … Heavy-handed judicial intervention was difficult to justify and appears to have provoked, not resolved, conflict." That said, as I mentioned above, I think Roe did do a lot of good too in terms of bringing this country to terms with whether we should allow abortions or not.

So am I correct in assuming that as a matter of policy Republicans don't want to outlaw abortions, or am I being too optimistic and a McCain/Palin presidency will probably outlaw abortions completely?

In the hard core Red States, the only legal abortion would be to save the life of protect from permanent physical injury, the mother.

In mostly right wing states you could add the rape/incest provision.

And get progressively more liberal from their the more left wing the state.

The standing "game plan" of all pro-life Republicans with the power to participate in the process is to appoint "strict constructionist" judges who will be willing to re-examine roe and construct a replacement case on more narrow and leagally sound (i.e. constitutional) grounds.

no major Republican office holder, to my knowledge, speaks of Constitutional amendments anymore because the probability of success is too low to expend the political capital to try, and most of them were far prefer to have the present document read correctly rather than alter it.


McCain absolutely wouldn't support it, and Palin has given no indication she would advance it (though I suspect that in the unlikely event such an amendment ever reached her desk she would surely sign it)