A buddy of mine sent me the following email. I haven’t seen this particular email on Snopes.com yet, so instead of debunking it just for his benefit, I thought I’d try to do it for everyone’s.
The email begins:
Don’t dismiss the fact that Sarah Palin is Commander of the Alaska
National Guard– consider this.Alaska is the first line of defense in our missile interceptor defense system.
The 49th Missile Defense Battalion of the Alaska National Guard is the unit that protects the entire nation from ballistic missile attacks. It’s on permanent active duty, unlike other Guard units.
After September 11th, President Bush changed the law so that in the event of an emergency, he becomes the Commander-in-Chief of any state’s National Guard. If the Alaskan National Guard is going to intercept a missile, it’s not going to be on the Governor’s orders. It’s going to be on the President’s.
Additionally, in an interview with the Sacremento Bee, the adjutant general of the Alaskan National Guard confirmed that “Palin hasn’t ordered Alaska National Guard to do anything“:
“When members of the National Guard are federalized, they work for the president,” Campbell said Wednesday. “It’s not just overseas. They could be federalized to go to other states or they could even be federalized in the state.”
Occasions in which Palin retains command authority over the 4,200-member Alaska National Guard are whenever the Guard responds to in-state natural disasters and civic emergencies, said Campbell, who also serves as the commissioner of the state Department of Military and Veterans Affairs. [Since Palin has been governor, there have been neither]
The email continues:
As governor of Alaska , Palin is briefed on highly classified military issues, homeland security, and counterterrorism. Her exposure to classified material may rival even Biden’s and certainly by far exceeds Obama’s.
Both Senators Obama and Biden are members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Sen. Obama is a member of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs. How much you wanna bet they’re more in the loop than the Governor of Alaska?
She’s also the commander in chief of the Alaska State Defense Force (ASDF) a federally recognized militia incorporated into Homeland Security’s counterterrorism plans.
Other “federally recognized” organizations “incorporated into Homeland Security’s counterterrorism plans” include the Juneau chapter of the Rotary Club. I’m not knocking the Rotary Club (I’m married to a loyal Rotarian), but I’m just saying, if you got a club and you want to help out in the event of a crisis, you can probably get recognition from the Department of Homeland Security.
Palin is privy to military and intelligence secrets that are vital to the entire country’s defense. Given Alaska ’s proximity to Russia , she may have security clearances we don’t even know about.
“May” indeed. I’m guessing she isn’t privy to more military and intelligence secrets than any other governor, and definitely not more than the members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
According to the Washington Post, she first met with McCain in February, but nobody ever found out. This is a woman used to keeping secrets.
Nobody ever found out? They met at a National Governor’s Association meeting, and there were six other governors in the room at the time. According to McCain’s campaign, they then met for 15 minutes where the Senator asked her questions about the pipeline she’s trying to build, and came away impressed. And as the Draft Palin blog noted, she already had a bunch of buzz around her name on February 8, 2007, and on February 26, Palin told an interviewer for the Washington Post that she would be interested in being tapped on a national level. Since we know that McCain didn’t make his pick until the last possible moment, and that he in fact preferred Leiberman but instead caved to the right wing of his party, I think it’s safe to say there were no “secrets” being kept here.
She can be entrusted with our national security, because she already is.
She can’t even be trusted to tell the truth about the “bridge to nowhere.” Nor can she be trusted to not try to ban books. How the hell can be trusted to tell Americans what they need to hear.
11 Comments
Wait can you debunk the email I got about a Nigerian guy who needs some money and after I give it to him I will then get more money. Thanks
Is that email sent from McCain/Palin or is it just a wackjob email that goes right into the spam folder.
Also snopes has pretty much debunked the book banning so take that for what it is worth. So let’s settle down with the rumor mongering.
http://www.snopes.com/politics/palin/bannedbooks.asp
I would be more worried about her stance against Russia (wanting Georgia in Nato). Russia scares me. It scare mot of Europe too, that is why they like having our bases there.
It’s not that she didn’t try to ban books. It’s that the list of books included in that email is a load of shit. But the fact that she speculated about banning books and then wanted to fire the librarian when the librarian put up a stink about it, that’s true,
“but news reports from the time show that Palin had threatened to fire her for not giving “full support” to the mayor.”
Still looking for the reports, its hard to filter out the noise.
Check out this email I got from Jess (aka Princess of the Valley — FYI: “the Valley” includes Wasilla).
Instead of posting the whole email, I’ll just send you to the Snopes page that says this particular email has a valid origin with a Wasilla resident. Snopes also gives the whole text of the email.
Here’s the relevant part though:
“While Sarah was Mayor of Wasilla she tried to fire our highly respected City Librarian because the Librarian refused to consider removing from the library some books that Sarah wanted removed. City residents rallied to the defense of the City Librarian and against Palin’s attempt at out-and-out censorship, so Palin backed down and withdrew her termination letter.”
No filter necessary. This person was there.
Oh, and the “wackjob” who sent me the original email, for those real-world friends of mine who know who I’m talking about, is the Vin Man.
I don’t know where he got it, but the text from the email originated on the right-wing website, Blackfive.net.
In the comments to that post, you can also read about the right-wing response to the adjutant general of the Alaskan National Guard’s claim that Palin hasn’t ordered the National Guard to do anything, but if you want a filtered version of that, check out Crooks & Liars’ Rightwing Disses General To Boost Palin.
So it was from a wackjob. ;)
I could really careless about what she did with the NG. Clinton I am sure did not have all that much experience sending out troops in Arkansas. That and she is a VP, and even if she was President I have seen pics of her shooting polar bears in a bikini so I am sure she will be fine.
Goddamn, those are some good books she tried to get rid of :0)
Yay! For banned books. There’s a group here in Tacoma that meets monthly to read banned books at a bar. God, how lucrative.
Take that Palin.
The National Guard has ALWAYS been Federal. Bush didn’t change any law. The Governor may utilize the Guard for natural disasters and state incidents (riots, etc), but only UNARMED. Any time the Guard is mobilized with weapons, the President and usually Congress are involved (this does not apply to normal training activities, only to mobilizations). (Art IV, sec 10, para 3, US Constitution is the base reference.)
If a Guard unit is on “active duty,” the Governor has nothing to say about how it is commanded. FYI, ALL Guard units have a full time cadre to manage operations. (My wife is one such, and I’ve got 23 years Army and AF, 17 of it Guard.)
While the unit in question is real, and AGR status, that means Alaska has nothing to do with it other than possibly providing real estate (land, buildings) for them to use.
reference here:
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=2483
I’m not aware that any governor gets any special briefings, and ALL Congress members hold a Top Secret clearance.
And FYI, I am certainly not an NObama fan, to put it mildly. (keep the change, please)
Wait, she tried to ban Harry Potter books published in 97 and 99…in 96?
Nice list;-)
And I’m not clear on why conservatives would try to ban Clockwork Orange or Brave New World, among other books that destroy liberalism.;-)