Oh, and now that this thread is back, I think it's a good place for this article:

Palin's town used to bill victims for rape kits at USA Today

Summary: In 2000, Alaska passed a statewide ban on the practice of making rape victims pay for their own forensic medical examinations. They did this because Wasila, a small town with a mayor Sarah Palin, was the only town in the state that did this. If you were raped in Wasila while Palin was mayor, and you wanted to find out who did it through DNA evidence, you had to pay a lot of money.



Here's a quote, and my favorite part, the last few paragraphs:


In 2000, there were 497 rapes reported in Alaska, FBI statistics show. That's a rate of 79.3 per 100,000 residents, the highest in the nation.

Nationally, victims' advocates have for years reported scattered instances of rape victims being required to pay for their forensic tests, says Ilse Knecht of the National Center for Victims of Crime in Washington. Those complaints have subsided somewhat after Congress in 2005 passed a law requiring states to provide rape exams free of charge or reimburse victims for the costs, says Knecht, whose group supported the provision.

"The reason we passed the legislation was that we saw it was prevalent enough to be a pretty considerable problem," Knecht says. "There are no other victims of crime that end up being billed for evidence collection."

The Senate version of the legislation that included the rape-exam provision was sponsored by Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware, the Democratic vice presidential nominee. Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama was one of 58 co-sponsors; Republican presidential nominee John McCain was not.




Rubang's take: More evidence that Joe Biden is the best candidate for feminists and Palin is the worst. Compare his Violence Against Women Act to her "stop whining and work harder" mentality.

@ Ghost - those rape kits are why that head trooper got fired. According to documents, Palin's staff said she fired Moneghan because he flew to D.C. to lobby for funds to pay for the kits.

She's soooooo going down - but with McCain saying he's suspending his camp and doesn't - what a stunt. All to delay his debate and cancel hers. What a louse.

My bad - Country First.

Wow........that's just plain fucked up.  Way to put another road block in the way of women reporting rape in a system that already makes it embarassing and burdensome enough for them to make the accusations in the first place.

I worked in a criminal attorney's office and know from personal experience that a lot of rapes never even get reported.

But obviously because Palin is a woman she is the right choice for women, or at least that is what some people would like us to believe.

It's either personal or political with that chick. One way or another, you get in Plain's way, look out. She's a pitbull with lipstick - and pitbulls won't win cordial contests.

McCain is in trouble . . .
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/31357_Video-_Couric_vs._Palin

She doesn't come off very smart, imo.
But, she is looking great!!!

Couric's questions were unfair, imo, but Palin could have answered so much better. She is looking and sounding like a rookie.

But, she is so pretty.

"I'll get back to on that!" WTH!!

But, she is hot.

Dang, kid, you went around the world with this response.

Oh well. Good night.

Palin is anti earmarks.  This is more proof, vote for McCain.

This is why I laugh at all of it.  Earmarks aren't always bad.  Sometimes a bridge is good for the whole nation, sometimes it's not.

Rape kits for a small town would be a good earmark when the state can't pay for them but should be paid out of all those oil profits.

That's why you can't just talk about "total earmarks requested", that is one of the roles of a Governor, Senator, or Representative; to ask for money when it's needed and is good for the whole country.

Chris Rock was on Larry King, he said something to the effect of:

Sarah Palin just had her third television interview, I've done more interviews than that today.

No, the rape kit situation was an issue of the state not just Wasilla.  There was a statewide investigation into the practice before she became governor and during the hearings Wasilla was never even mentioned once by name.  The problem is that when they went in digging for dirt they found a story in Wasilla about Wasilla being one of the towns with the outdated policy and went ahead with the story neglecting to mention that it was far from the only town and was not an issue or position Palin ever supported.

It also has nothing to do with the Monegan issue which you would know if you had even bothered to read some of the numerous .pdf documents that are out there about this sham of a case.  One of the reasons monegan was fired was because he refused to hire on new troopers with funding designated for it.  The legistlature and the budget appropriated those funds specifically for staffing and he wouldn't cooperate. Of course that was just the first issue.

The issue you've been confused by is that he put a request for travel in with the governor's office and listed it as a meeting with Lisa Murkowski.  His real intentions were only made clear shortly before he left and is when he was actually transfered.  The real reason for his visit was to try and talk to the legislative delegation about adding earmarks for bolstering their ability to handle sexual assault cases through personnel (which he had funding for already) and materials.  The problem is that Palin's staff had told him repeatedly to submit a budget request for this and that it would be considered for that year or the next..he requested it late in the budgetting process so it was actually a bit of an olive branch to offer even an attempt at squeezing it in that year.

In addition to that he was going around her back and putting together budget proposals with Hollis French (the guy leading the legislative investigation btw) and in general ignoring her requests and her staffs request for him to work within the bounds of the normal budgeting procedure before trying to use more radical approaches.  He even admits his transfer was his own fault in the email he put out to most of the governor's staff when he left.  He talked about how he had failed to work with the governor and that others shouldn't take the path he did.  Again actually go do some research before throwing out info that is simply unsubstantiated.

Also I should point out that the legistlature is not authorized by their constituion to investigate the executive branch and in fact is only empowered to investigate for purposes that further legislation.  The 3-member panel they are now working with is the only constituionally prescribed method for investigating. Don't take my word...read here.

The Personnel Board, Attorney General’s office, and designated ethics supervisors generally are responsible for applying the Ethics Act. When an ethics complaint is filed against the governor, lieutenant governor or attorney general, the complaint is referred to the Personnel Board, which retains Independent Counsel to perform the duties ordinarily performed by the attorney general

Here is a head start on the research:

On August 29th, 2008, Thomas Van Flein sent a letter to Independent Counsel for Sen. French, Steve Branchwater introducing himself as Palin’s legal counsel. Sen. French was not CC’d on this letter.

On Sept 1st, a letter came in response… not from Branchwater, but from Sen. French, himself. French’s letter was directly to Van Flein, CC’d to no one… not even his own legal counsel, Branchwater.

ethics disclosure

branchflower complaint

suspension details

emails about wooten

Sarahs trooper interview

notes from the interview

Todds trooper interview

Note that there is even more info out there for those who want it.  Ignorance is a choice on this issue, it is well documented and extremely clear cut once you have the facts.

PS - If you only read one of these, read this one. It explains the stupidity of this whole thing very well.

This is missleading to the maximum.  What is so hard about some research? Newsbusters killed this one.

Old Media Pushes False 'Rape Kit' Charge Against Gov. Palin

At least since September 8 the extreme left has been pushing a lie that Governor, then Mayor, Sarah Palin "charged rape victims for rape kits" performed upon them in the Alaskan town of Wasilla. The charge stems from a May 22, 2000 article in the local Wasilla paper The Frontiersman and has been spun from a comment made by the Wasilla Police Chief. This comment was somehow made into a Sarah Palin policy. Evidence of the incident, though, shows no involvement by Palin at all. Still, many Old Media outlets continue to keep illegitimately linking this rape kit billing claim to Sarah Palin, even though the truth is easily discovered.

As mentioned first up was The Frontiersman story from 2000. In that story Police Chief Fannon was quoted as standing against legislation that would force local municipalities to pick up the costs of rape kits being performed. In the interview Fannon said that, upon conviction, he favored the criminals being charged for the costs.

The story mentions that Fannon claimed that at the time Wasilla did have a policy that rape victims' insurance would be charged for the kits being performed but there was no mention that victims themselves were charged and no claim that any ever were. It should be pointed out that The Frontiersman is the local Wasilla paper, so, consequently, the story did not mention what the policy was in any other Alaskan city outside the area the paper covers other than to say that "most municipal police agencies have covered the cost of exams." This last phrase has been focused on by Palin's detractors and spun from "some municipalities" into "all" (except Wasilla) and presented as some sort of proof that she hates rape victims.

After Palin was picked to be VP, on September 8, a blog called Americablog found the old story and brought it up as evidence of "a rather nasty window into Sarah Palin." Americablog is run by a man named John Aravosis, a Democratic strategist, sometimes gay activist, and Washington D.C. lawyer who once worked for Alaska Senator Ted Steven before he, Aravosis, formally switching to the Democratic Party.

Later that day The Daily Kos also picked it up and from here it began to morph even further adding false claims to the story. In one of those additions to the story, Kos blogger Steven R claimed that Palin hired Police Chief Fannon because he was in favor of charging rape victims for rape kits. Steven R said he was "Pro-Charging Rape Victims for their OWN TESTS!!!" (bold in original). I cannot find this claim anywhere prior to the meme being picked up by the Old Media echoing this Kos diarist.

According to the Uniform Crime Reports for Wasilla, up until 2000 only one rape had been reported to police in Wasilla. The Kos diarist tried to claim that one rape reported equalled one rape conviction alleging that all the "other" rapes were not convicted. But the report clearly says that it was one rape reported not one rape convicted. The Daily Kos Diarist was trying to make it seem as if there were all sorts of rapes going on that weren't being reported and, presumably, all sorts of victims being charged for rape kits.

In any case, from here the Old Media began to pick up the charge that Palin had put in place or at least agreed with this charging of victims policy. On September 12, for instance, The L.A. Times repeated the charge.

When Sarah Palin was mayor of Wasilla, the city billed sexual assault victims and their insurance companies for the cost of rape kits and forensic examinations.

The L.A. Times also helped further the warped claim that made it seem that the only Alaskan town that charged victims for rape kits was Palin's Wasilla.

Then-Gov. Tony Knowles said Thursday that Wasilla was unique in the state in charging rape victims for costs incurred by law enforcement in trying to solve the crime.

This charge then began to appear in all sorts of opinion columns, blogs and in the comments sections of many of the Palin stories in papers all across the country.

On September 21, the Chicago Tribune repeated the tale, as well. The Chi Trib tried to spin this tale into one that made Palin notorious in the Alaska State Legislature over the practice.

While she was mayor of Wasilla, her town was the only one in Alaska that required rape victims to pay for their own forensic tests. Charging victims for the "rape kits" necessary to collect evidence and convict sexual predators was a "cost-cutting" measure that continued until complaints about her administration's policy prompted the Alaska State Legislature to pass a bill that banned this anti-victim practice statewide.

On September 22, it was CNN's turn to highlight the charge. CNN also pushed the false idea that out of all of Alaska's towns only Wasilla insisted on perpetrating this policy quoting former Democratic State Rep. Eric Croft to that effect.

Former state Rep. Eric Croft, a Democrat, sponsored a state law requiring cities to provide the examinations free of charge to victims. He said the only ongoing resistance he met was from Wasilla, where Palin was mayor from 1996 to 2002.

Farther down in the story, CNN does reveal that there are no records and no proof that Palin ever even knew about this charging the victim policy. CNN also finally mentions that Wasilla wasn't the only town in Alaska that had this policy.

Many other papers also mention that Palin charged victims for their own rape kits. Papers such as Denver Daily and Philadelphia Weekly, for instance. There are far more than the few I mention here.

So, the impression all these stories leave us with is that the town of Wasilla was a major impediment to passage of a bill in the state legislature that would end the policy of charging rape victims for their own rape kits being administered. We are told that "Palin charged rape victims" and we are told that she hired a new police chief because he also wanted to charge victims. One would think that if all this were true, Palin would have been all over Alaska's news in the year 2000 because of it. But, in reality, none of these charges can be found and Jim Geraghty of NRO has done a little investigative work to prove it.

Geraghty looked to see how often Wasilla and Palin were mentioned in the debates about the rape kit bill. But he finds that there is not one mention of the town of Wasilla in the hearings over the bill. Far from being the mayor that had "complaints about her administration's policy" (as the Chi Trib says) being the one forcing the state legislature to pass the law, Wasilla is not mentioned at all in the debates about the bill.

The Democratic sponsor of the legislation, Eric Croft, told USA Today recently that “the law was aimed in part at Wasilla, where now-Gov. Sarah Palin was mayor.” Yet in six committee meetings, Wasilla was never mentioned, even when the discussion turned to the specific topic of where victims were being charged.

Geraghty also could not find a single instance of a rape victim ever having been charged for her own rape kit.

To clarify: In preparation to attend a hearing and support the bill, one of the state’s top law-enforcement officials found no case of a rape victim ever being charged. And roughly a month after 30 Democratic lawyers, investigators, and opposition researchers, not to mention reporters from every major news agency in the country, landed in Alaska, we still have no instances to consider.

Additionally, Geraghty found that it was the hospitals in Alaska, not the police agencies, that were passing the bills on to the victims' insurance companies. And the idea that only Wasilla had such a policy is blasted out of the water by Geraghty who notes that Juneau also had the same policy of charging rape victims for their rape kits.

In fact, at a Finance Committee hearing, Representative Gail Phillips (R., Homer) “read for the record, a statement from a woman in Juneau who had experienced the charges as indicated.” Compare Juneau (population 30,711 in 2000) to Wasilla (population 5,469).

On top of all of that, there are no stories prior to Sarah Palin being offered the billet as VP by John McCain that makes the claim that Palin was informed of or involved in this policy of charging rape victims for rape kits. And, since there was only one rape reported in the city between 1996 and 2000 when the story first came to the papers, it's no wonder she wasn't aware of the policy. When would it ever have come up? Does anyone think that any given mayor of any American town is fully cognizant of every single policy or law in their city, especially if it is a law not in use because of a lack of situations to bring it to light?

For her part, Palin spokeswoman Maria Comella has said that the governor "does not believe, nor has she ever believed, that rape victims should have to pay for an evidence-gathering test."

In the end, it seems that this story is a wild exaggeration about Palin's role in this policy. There is no proof that she ever knew about the policy until long after the situation hit the news, it is untrue that her town was "unique" in blocking the measure, no evidence that she, herself, was notorious for the policy, and no proof that any victims were ever charged for rape kits. In fact, according to the Uniform Crime Report there were only 5 rapes reported in the 6 years she was mayor of Wasilla and four of those happened after the state law in question was passed.

In fact, this whole thing looks like another case where the media has been programmed by the nutroots and Democratic operatives.

Yet, the media still repeatedly bring this false charge up at every possible opportunity. Geraghty is right. The Old Media and the Obama campaign owes Palin an apology.

For the record I have no idea how they got the Obama campaign involved in this.  But their sources are legit, I've checked myself, feel free to do so yourself...although I doubt anyone will since the name of this game seems to be throw crap at the wall and see what sticks. And of course if nothing sticks throw more crap!

But that game is drawing to a close, match point.