On Issues: Palin
On the Issues
http://www.ontheissues.org/Sarah_Palin.htm
Sarah Palin news portal at Anchorage Daily News
http://www.adn.com/sarah-palin/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_positions_of_Sarah_Palin
Note: wiki site, double check information with alternate and legit source(s)
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2008 Republican National Convention, Palin's religious views became the subject of media interest and even scrutiny. She had attended a Pentecostal church for 26 years which practiced laying on of hands and speaking in tongues during church services. She was quoted as saying that she had grown up in the Pentecostal Assembly of God church and that nothing about the service disturbed her.
he said the Iraq War was a task from God and that it was God's will that the Alaska gas pipeline be completed.
Palin expressed dismay on her Twitter account that the floodlights of the Empire State Building would not be changed blue and white in honor of Mother Teresa's 100th birthday. Palin asked why the building's owner "won't honor Mother Theresa's compassionate, selfless efforts for humanity, but [you will] honor [the] Communist Mao?"...referring to the Empire State Building's September 9, 2009 lighting scheme, when it was bathed in red and yellow to mark the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China.
Opposes the construction of Cordoba House, a proposed Islamic cultural center and 13-story mosque planned to be built in New York City on Park Place between West Broadway and Church Street, two blocks away from Ground Zero.
"Ground Zero Mosque supporters: doesn't it stab you in the heart, as it does ours throughout the heartland? Peaceful Muslims, pls refudiate [sic], then corrected to "Peaceful New Yorkers, pls refute the Ground Zero mosque plan if you believe catastrophic pain caused @ Twin Towers site is too raw, too real"
"Peace-seeking Muslims, pls understand, Ground Zero mosque is UNNECESSARY provocation; it stabs hearts. Pls reject it in interest of healing".
A strong proponent of gun ownership rights, and a lifetime member of the National Rifle Association,has stated that she is against a ban on semi-automatic firearms.
Opposed to abortion in almost all cases, including rape and incest, but not if the life of the mother is endangered.
Believes embryonic stem cell research causes the destruction of life, this research is inconsistent with her pro-life position and she does not support it.
"explicit sex-education programs, school-based clinics and the distribution of contraceptives in schools".
Member of Feminists for Life since 2006.
2006, Palin declared that she supported the 1998 Alaska constitutional amendment that proposed adding "...a marriage may exist only between one man and one woman", opposed state covered health and retiree benefits to same-sex partners of state employees. Has stated that she supports a Federal Constitutional Amendment to ban same-sex marriage.
"If the legislature passed a death penalty law, I would sign it. We have a right to know that someone who rapes and murders a child or kills an innocent person in a drive-by shooting will never be able to do that again."
Opposed to efforts to decriminalize or legalize marijuana.
"We must close the border. They're called 'illegal aliens' for a reason, and if they're not going to follow the rules, they should not be in our country."
Illegal aliens should not be "rewarded for bad behavior": "We won’t complicate it any more. Let’s keep it simple, and let’s say, ‘No, if you are here illegally and you don’t follow the steps that at some point through immigration reform we’re going to be able to provide, and that is to somehow allow you to work. If you’re not going to do that, then you will be deported. You will be gone." Palin emphasized that more border enforcement should come first and said that current attempts at reform should "learn from history".
A fiscal conservative
September 2008, responding to Katie Couric's question asking if America can enter another Great Depression without the $700-billion bailout, Palin said, "Unfortunately, that is the road that America may find itself on. Not necessarily this, as it's been proposed, has to pass or we're going to find ourselves in another Great Depression. But, there has got to be action – bipartisan effort – Congress not pointing fingers at one another but finding the solution to this, taking action, and being serious about the reforms on Wall Street that are needed."
Mayor of Wasilla, the town paid a lobbying firm $24,000 to $36,000 per year to help secure federal earmarks for the town. Palin herself went to Washington to ask for more earmarks from the state's congressional delegation. According to a review by Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonpartisan group, Wasilla (a town of 6,700 residents) benefited from $26.9 million in earmarks in Palin's final four years in office.
Palin wrote and posted to her Facebook page include Statement on the Current Health Care Debate (August 7, 2009) and Concerning the "Death Panels" (August 12, 2009). She also mentioned death panels in a statement she made to the New York state Senate Aging Committee" and in a Wall Street Journal editorial, both dated September 8, 2009. Palin expressed her opinion of Obama’s plans for health care reform, stating in part in the first article:
Democrats promise that a government health care system will reduce the cost of health care, but as the economist Thomas Sowell has pointed out, government health care will not reduce the cost; it will simply refuse to pay the cost. And who will suffer the most when they ration care? The sick, the elderly, and the disabled, of course. The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s "death panel" so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their "level of productivity in society," whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil.
Palin's spokesperson said that Palin's "death panel" statements referred to H.R. 3200 Advance Care Planning Consultation page 425.
PolitiFact, "Palin seems to acknowledge that the counseling isn't explicitly mandatory, but that in practice it would be." PolitiFact concluded that "the end-of-life counseling sessions in the House bill are voluntary."
In early November 2009, Palin said that despite other's prior denials that it contained "death panels", the health care legislation voted on by the U.S. House of Representatives had a "provision mandating bureaucratic panels that will be calling the shots regarding who will receive government health care".
Interview with Barbara Walters, Palin acknowledged that none of the health care bills included the actual word pair; "No, death panel isn't there.
How she came up with the term "death panels," Palin said, "To me, while reading that section of the bill, it became so evident that there would be a panel of bureaucrats who would decide on levels of health care, decide on those who are worthy or not worthy of receiving some government-controlled coverage. Since health care would have to be rationed if it were promised to everyone, it would therefore lead to harm for many individuals not able to receive the government care. That leads, of course, to death." Palin also clarified that, "The term I used to describe the panel making these decisions should not be taken literally."
"Our opponents, they have some strange ideas about raising taxes. To them, raising taxes – and Joe Biden said it again today – raising taxes is about patriotism. To the rest of America, that's not patriotism. Raising taxes is about killing jobs and hurting small businesses and making things worse. This isn't about anyone's patriotism – it's about Barack Obama's poor judgement.".
An opposition to the listing of polar bears as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. Opposed strengthening protections for beluga whales in Alaska's Cook Inlet.
September 23, 2009 speech in Hong Kong, Palin said that "we need to maintain a strong defense" even in our current economic difficulties. She expressed her opposition to ending production of the F-22 Raptor fighter aircraft and C-17 cargo aircraft.
Supported repeal of "don't ask, don't tell", the United States military policy which restricts efforts to discover or reveal closeted gay, lesbian, and bisexual service members or applicants, while barring those who are openly gay, lesbian, or bisexual from military service.
"I don't think so right now. I was surprised that the President spent time on that in his State of the Union speech when he only spent about 9 percent of his time in the State of the Union on national security issues. And I say that because there are other things to be worried about right now with the military. I think that kind of on the back burner is sufficient for now. To put so much time and effort and politics into it — unnecessary."
"I've never heard Henry Kissinger say, 'Yeah, I'll meet with these leaders without preconditions being met.' "[165][166] Five days earlier Kissinger had made a televised statement of his position regarding Iran: "I am in favor of negotiating with Iran...[and] I do not believe that we can make conditions for the opening of negotiations."
However, Kissinger does not advocate negotiations at the presidential level.
A leader like [Iranian President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad, who is not sane or stable when he says things like that, is not one whom we can allow to acquire nuclear energy, nuclear weapons."
" is downright dangerous because leaders like [Ahmadinejad], who would seek to acquire nuclear weapons and wipe off the face of the Earth an ally like we have in Israel, should not be met with without preconditions and diplomatic efforts being undertaken first.".
"Let there be no doubt: I will always keep the threat of military action on the table to defend our security and our ally Israel."
"I believe that the Jewish settlements should be allowed to be expanded upon, because that population of Israel is going to grow. More and more Jewish people will be flocking to Israel in the days and weeks and months ahead. And I don't think that the Obama administration has any right to tell Israel that the Jewish settlements cannot expand."
On the Issues
http://www.ontheissues.org/Sarah_Palin.htm
Sarah Palin news portal at Anchorage Daily News
http://www.adn.com/sarah-palin/
Use my daughter Bristol as a teaching tool for others. (Oct 2008)
Constitution does offer an inherent right to privacy. (Oct 2008)
Abortion should be states’ issue, not federal mandate. (Oct 2008)
While mayor, Wasilla charged rape victims for rape kits. (Sep 2008)
Rejected sympathy for Down’s Syndrome son, as gift from God. (Aug 2008)
Opposes embryonic stem cell research. (Aug 2008)
Every baby is created with a future and potential. (Aug 2008)
Safe Haven bill: allow surrendering newborns without penalty. (Feb 2008)
Adoption is best plan for permanency for foster care kids. (Oct 2007)
Pro-life. (Nov 2006)
Choose life, even if her own daughter were raped. (Nov 2006)
If Roe v. Wade got overturned, let people decide what’s next. (Oct 2006)
Opposes use of public funds for abortions. (Oct 2006)
Pro-contraception, pro-woman, pro-life. (Aug 2006)
Only exception for abortion is if mother’s life would end. (Jul 2006)
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McCain Flip Flops
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_positions_of_John_McCain
Note: wiki site, double check information with alternate and legit source(s)
McCain is a difficult person to vote for and/or support. His stance chances so often that mid-term he's gone in an completely different direction than when you voted him in. This has nothing to do with compromising on issues, its a tactical approach to issues.
2000 elections: changing his stance on flying the Confederate flag at the state capitol from a "very offensive" "symbol of racism and slavery" to "a symbol of heritage"
later saying "I feared that if I answered honestly, I could not win the South Carolina primary. So I chose to compromise my principles."
On religion:
2007: "I just have to say in all candor that since this nation was founded primarily on Christian principles, personally, I prefer someone who has a grounding in my faith."
September 30, 2007: "What I do mean to say is the United States of America was founded on the values of Judeo-Christian values, which were translated by our founding fathers which is basically the rights of human dignity and human rights."
September 30, 2007: “I would vote for a Muslim if he or she was the candidate best able to lead the country and defend our political values.”
2000: supported the federal ban on offshore drilling for oil, 2008, reversed his longstanding objection to offshore drilling
He does stand strong-ish on:
Roe v. Wade, "I'd love to see a point where it is irrelevant, and could be repealed because abortion is no longer necessary. But certainly in the short term, or even the long term, I would not support repeal of Roe v. Wade, which would then force X number of women in America to [undergo] illegal and dangerous operations."
February 18, 2007, McCain stated, "I do not support Roe versus Wade. It should be overturned."
but, against federal funding of birth control and sex education and insurance plans that cover prescription drugs to also cover birth control.
Support/opposition to comprehensive immigration reform.
1998 McCain opposed an Arizona proposal to end affirmative action. 2008: "...favors a proposed referendum in Arizona that would ban affirmative action.."
1996 McCain voted against the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, 2006: The day that the leadership of the military comes to me and says, 'Senator, we ought to change the policy,' then I think we ought to consider seriously changing it."
DADT, once open for change, now strong: NO
Opposed tax cuts in favor of deficit reduction, he now favors tax cuts
Against publicly funded health care, universal health care, or health coverage mandates. Instead, he favors tax credits of up to $5,000 for families to get health insurance. Would pay for individual tax credits primarily by eliminating the tax break currently offered to employers for providing health insurance to employees, on taxes he seems to go both directions.
