Hat tip to Grizzly Bay. Here are some facts about John McCain’s choice for Vice President, Sarah Palin:

(1) She is presently under investigation in Alaska for abuse of power

Sarah Palin is being investigated for abuse of power (7/08) after she fired the Dept. of Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan. Palin pressured Monegan to fire her sister’s ex husband who is a state trooper. When Commissioner Monegan refused, Palin fired him. Audiotapes released last month reveal that aides to the 44-year-old governor pressured Safety Director Walter Monegan to dismiss Trooper Mike Wooten, after Wooten allegedly threatened Palin’s father during a messy child custody fight with the governor’s sister Molly. Monegan refused to do so and was fired on July 11 and replaced by an official who had previously been suspended for sexual harassment.

Palin said Monegan was let go for failing to fill trooper vacancies and invited a close examination of her role in the matter. The Alaska state legislature obliged, allocating $100,000 to investigate. The results of the probe are expected on Oct. 31, less than a week before the general election.

… We’ve had eight years of a president and vice president who have abused their executive power, using the awesome capabilities of the state to spy on Americans, inserting fake news in the media, pressuring news organizations not to run important stories, silencing protests by penning in all critics in remote “free speech” zones, attacking individual critics with White House-directed campaigns that border on treason, as in the case of the outing of CIA undercover operative Valerie Plume, whose husband had criticized a Bush argument for invading Iraq, and threatening government scientists who wanted to report their legitimate findings on climate change.

We have seen over these past eight years just what abuse of power can do to destroy democratic government and a free society.

So now we have Gov. Palin, whom evidence suggests may have abused her power as governor of Alaska to fire the state’s public security director after he blocked her efforts to destroy the career of a low-level state trooper who happened to be her former brother-in-law, because she wanted to avenge a sister engaged in an ugly post-divorce custody dispute. …

Of All the Reasons McCain’s Palin Pick is Awful, Evidence of Her Abuse of Power is the Worst

… We rely on elected officials not to use the power of their office to pursue personal agendas or vendettas. It’s called an abuse of power. There is ample evidence that Palin used her power as governor to get her ex-brother-in-law fired. When his boss refused to fire him, she fired his boss. She first denied Monegan’s claims of pressure to fire Wooten and then had to amend her story when evidence proved otherwise. The available evidence now suggests that she 1) tried to have an ex-relative fired from his job for personal reasons, something that was clearly inappropriate, and perhaps illegal, though possibly understandable in human terms, 2) fired a state official for not himself acting inappropriately by firing the relative, 3) lied to the public about what happened and 4) continues to lie about what happened.

These are, to put it mildly, not the traits or temperament you want in someone who could hold the executive power of the federal government.  Getting Real About Palin

(2) She strongly supports big oil

Palin is aligned with the oil industry on two key issues. She favors drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and many offshore areas. Palin represents one of the few real petro-states within the United States. Big Oil is big business in Alaska, and the state relies on oil and gas tax and royalty revenues for more than 80 percent of its budget. The state’s coffers runneth over; every resident of Alaska gets a check from the state, a dividend for his or her share of the oil and gas extracted from the ground. Oh, and Palin’s husband works as a field operator for BP, one of the main operators on the North Slope. Oil interests are largely Alaska’s interests.

(3) She is adamantly opposed to reproductive rights for women
Palin Pro-Life Reference Links
Christian Coalition: We love Palin and the GOP’s most pro-life platform yet
Christian Coalition of America Applauds John McCain’s Choice of Pro-Life Governor Sarah Palin www.cc.org/pressrelease/christian_coalition_america_applauds_john_mccain039…
McCain Turns Hard Right, Goes All-In With “Pro-Life” Sarah Palin as Veep
McCain’s Surprising Sarah Palin Selection

(4) She has no federal or international experience. Prior to being governor (for less than two years) she was only the mayor of a small town and a beauty queen!

(5) She believes global warming is not human caused and is opposed to listing the polar bear as an endangered species.  Palin denies climate change realities on first day as McCain’s running mate – 29 Aug 08 – What are the ramifications of a US Vice President that is willing to shrug off the scientific realities of global warming?
Guess we’ll find out if John McCain takes the White House. In an interview with Newsmax today, McCain’s vice-presidential running mate Sarah Palin stated that:
“A changing environment will affect Alaska more than any other state, because of our location. I’m not one though who would attribute it to being man-made. “

Palin Buys Climate Denial PR Spin – Ignores Science

Greenpeace sent out a comprehensive look at Palin’s history on environmental issues
Palin environmental backgrounder PDF

(6) She’s a creationist who believes intelligent design should be taught along side evolution in public schools. McCain’s VP Wants Creationism Taught in School

The legal record suggests that Palin’s approach is not just ignorant of the facts, but a plain violation of the Constitutional boundary between church and state. Recall, for example, the December 2005 United States District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania decision in Kitzmiller vs. the Dover Area School District.

As reported in the Anchorage Daily News during her race for the governorship of Alaska, Sarah Palin offered up a classic anti-evolution answer when asked during a televised debate whether creationism should be taught with evolution in the public schools:
“Teach both,” Palin said. “You know, don’t be afraid of information… I am a proponent of teaching both.”

Is Sarah Palin A Creationist?

John McCain, as you may remember, signed on as the keynote speaker at a Feb. 2007 event at the Discovery Institute, the major lobbying group for Intelligent Design.

Focus on the Family’s James Dobson says he’ll vote for McCain now

(7) She supports drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and anywhere else big oil wants

(8) She supports Pebble Mine which will destroy the richest salmon run in the world

(9) She supports aerial shooting of bears and wolves in Alaska

(10) She is pro-war
Palin is seemingly unaware of McCain’s Iraq plan
Palin On Iraq
The Thinnest Of Wisps Of Sarah Palin’s Foreign Policy Views Emerge

It appears that McCain has chosen a female Vice President, who is farther to the right than he is. She’s the anti-thesis of Hillary Clinton. To me this looks like a desperate attempt to win the support of women voters and the support of the right wing religious fundamentalist voters.   What do you make of his choice?

Update: Here’s more about Palin to consider

Palin didn’t back McCain in the primary. She stayed neutral in Alaska’s January primary — perhaps on account of McCain’s opposition to drilling in Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. “A lot of us are sitting back and waiting to see if there will be new players in there,” she said in 2007. “That’s probably why that box that says ‘none of the above’ is so popular right now.”

Oil scandals – In a state whose politics have been defined of late by oil scandals Palin is linked to scandals involving indicted Sen. Ted Stevens (who offered an endorsement of her Friday) and Rep. Don Young. She’s also clashed with McCain over Arctic drilling — she wants drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which he has continued to oppose.

According to an Anchorage Daily News clip e-mailed to reporters, Palin accepted $5,000 in contributions from company executives and their wives during her failed 2002 lieutenant governor’s bid — which represented about 10 percent of her minuscule war chest that year.

Bridge to Nowhere – When she became governor Palin sold Gov. Frank Murkowski’s state-owned jet and canceled Stevens’ much-maligned “bridge to nowhere,” was also a vocal critic of oil field services giant Veco, a major player in Alaska politics that’s now accused of improper relationships with Stevens and Young.

There was also some pandering right from the start. “I told Congress `Thanks but no thanks on that bridge to nowhere,’ ” Palin reported to the crowd in Dayton, Ohio. “If our state wanted a bridge, I said, we’d build it ourselves.”

But the state kept the bridge money.

Sarah Palin supported Ketchikan ‘bridge to nowhere’ during 2006 race for Alaska governor

Palin accused of using ‘Bridge to Nowhere’ issue to gain stature

Palin has much to prove

Bridge to Nowhere abandoned

Stevens and Young, redux. Palin has distanced herself from the state’s two most popular politicians, but both appeared at Palin fundraisers during her 2006 gubernatorial bid.

Palin unqualified to serve as vice president

The environment. As governor, Palin vetoed wind power and clean coal projects, including a 50-megawatt wind farm on Fire Island and a clean coal facility in Healy that had been mired in a dispute between local and state governments.

Palin’s $268 million in vetoes hit dozens of projects across the state. She reduced funding for things like artificial turf at Service and Palmer high schools, expansion of Covenant House for homeless and runaway youths in Anchorage and support of the group Arctic Power’s lobbying in Washington, D.C., to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil development.

Palin eliminated other projects entirely. That includes study of a second bridge between Juneau and Douglas Island, a Cook Inlet Housing Authority community center for seniors, Ketchikan Little League batting cages and big utility projects through the Railbelt Energy Funds.

Hundreds of other projects remain in the budget, including $25 million for the Fire Island Wind Farm that she vetoed last year. Palin also left in $15 million each for a UAA sports arena and port of Anchorage expansion.

She also didn’t veto a controversial $2 million for an “academic based” conference meant to highlight arguments that global warming isn’t threatening the survival of polar bears

Palin’s veto ax lops $268 million from budget

She supports Pebble Mine which will destroy the richest salmon run in the world. She supports aerial shooting of bears and wolves in Alaska. She believes global warming is not human caused.

Sarah Palin On The Environment

Mayoral performance. Palin has cited her mayoral work as a central part of her qualification to serve as governor. But at the beginning of her term, asked by the local newspaper how she would run the city without six experienced department heads that she fired, she made the job sound like no big deal: “It’s not rocket science. It’s $6 million and 53 employees.”

Palin, who portrays herself as a fiscal conservative, racked up nearly $20 million in long-term debt as mayor of the tiny town of Wasilla — that amounts to $3,000 per resident. She argues that the debt was needed to fund improvements.

And, maybe, censorship. As noted before Palin she is adamantly opposed to reproductive rights for women. She supports teaching creationism, intelligent design alongside evolution in public schools. According to the Frontiersman newspaper, Wasilla’s library director, Mary Ellen Emmons, said that Palin asked her outright if she “could live with censorship of library books.” Palin later dismissed the conversation as a “rhetorical” exercise.