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Fact Check: Palin's book goes rogue on some facts

Calvin Woodward
The Associated Press
Sat, 14 Nov 2009 00:24 EST

Palin book: McCain aides had me 'bottled up'

Washington - Sarah Palin's new book reprises familiar claims from the 2008 presidential campaign that haven't become any truer over time.

Ignoring substantial parts of her record if not the facts, she depicts herself as a frugal traveler on the taxpayer's dime, a reformer without ties to powerful interests and a politician roguishly indifferent to high ambition.

Palin goes adrift, at times, on more contemporary issues, too. She criticizes President Barack Obama for pushing through a bailout package that actually was achieved by his Republican predecessor George W. Bush - a package she seemed to support at the time.

A look at some of her statements in "Going Rogue," obtained by The Associated Press in advance of its release Tuesday:

Sott Editors
SOTT.net
Tue, 10 Nov 2009 13:37 EST

The US Army has seen record suicide rates (Fort Hood alone saw ten this year), record levels of criminal behaviour in soldiers at home and abroad: numerous veterans are returning from the wars and picking up where they left off "because they can't turn it off". Morale is woeful as soldiers question the purpose of America's wars abroad. Consider that in August,

A Fort Hood soldier was sentenced Wednesday to a month in jail for refusing to deploy to Afghanistan over his beliefs that the war violates international law.

Spc. Victor Agosto, 24, of Miami, pleaded guilty to disobeying lawful orders and was sentenced at the central Texas Army post.

"I really had no Army way of being consistent with my conscience," Agosto said. "The courts haven't recognized soldiers' rights to refuse an order they believe to be illegal.... I believe future courts will find that the Afghanistan war is illegal because it violates international law."

Fort Hood US Army base in the heart of Texas is home to some 50,000 US soldiers, their families and civilian support staff. The complex is next door to the town of Killeen where in 1991 another infamous shooting took place: a man rammed his truck into a cafe and shot dead 23 people, yelling beforehand, "This is what Central Texas did to me!"

Monica Villamizar
Al Jazeera
Thu, 12 Nov 2009 01:04 EST

As its troops continue to face lengthy and mutiple tours of duty in Afghanistan and Iraq, the United States is looking at new ways to attract potential army recruits.

The US military says the economic downturn and rising unemployment are sending more and more young people into their recruiting offices.

Dahr Jamail
Truthout.org
Wed, 11 Nov 2009 08:28 EST

The military operates through indoctrination. Soldiers are programmed to develop a mindset that resists any acknowledgment of injury and sickness, be it physical or psychological. As a consequence, tens of thousands of soldiers continue to serve, even being deployed to combat zones like Iraq and/or Afghanistan, despite persistent injuries. According to military records, over 43,000 troops classified as "nondeployable for medical reasons" have been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan nevertheless.

The recent atrocity at Fort Hood is an example of this. Maj. Nidal Hasan had worked as a counselor at Walter Reed, hearing countless stories of bloodshed, horror and death from dismembered veterans from the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. While he had not yet served in Iraq or Afghanistan, the major was overloaded with secondary trauma, coupled with ongoing harassment about his being a Muslim. This, along with other factors, contributed towards Hasan falling into a desperation so deep he was willing to slaughter fellow soldiers, and is indicative of fissures running deep into the crumbling edifice upon which the US military stands.

Obama's Pesticide-Pushing Nominee

Kate Sheppard
Mother Jones
Fri, 13 Nov 2009 18:43 EST

The president taps an exec from the pesticide lobby - which slammed Michelle Obama's organic garden - for a top agriculture post.

When Michelle Obama announced plans to plant an organic garden at the White House, nearly everybody thought it was a great idea. Everybody except for the pesticide industry. Representatives from a branch of the industry's main trade association, CropLife America (CLA), wrote to the First Lady asking her to respect the role of "conventional agriculture;" they added in a separate note to supporters that the thought of the White House's chemical-free vegetables made them "shudder." But the public swipe at the president's wife didn't stop the administration from nominating senior CLA executive Islam "Isi" Siddiqui to a key post: chief agricultural negotiator for the office of the US Trade Representative (USTR). If confirmed, Siddiqui will be responsible for, among other things, negotiating international agreements governing the use of pesticides.

Senator David Vitter (R-Formaldehyde)

Andy Kroll
Mother Jones
Thu, 12 Nov 2009 18:10 EST

In May, President Obama nominated a renowned scientist known as the "father of green chemistry" to head the EPA's Office of Research and Development. For an administration that supports ambitious climate change legislation and stresses the importance of sustainability, the nomination of Paul Anastas, director of Yale's Center for Green Chemistry and Green Engineering and a former White House environment director, was very much in keeping with its broader agenda. Anastas' nomination was unanimously approved in committee in July, and his confirmation seemed all but assured. Yet six months later Anastas still isn't confirmed. Standing in his way is Senator David Vitter (R-La.), whose block on Anastas' nomination raises questions about Vitter's close ties to the formaldehyde industry.

Good Food Nation

Peter Dizikes
MIT News
Tue, 10 Nov 2009 16:06 EST

© Urban Design Lab at the Earth Institute, Columbia University
A map of northeastern cities depicts their proposed “foodsheds,” the areas that naturally supply metropolitan areas with their food.

MIT researchers think America's obesity epidemic can be reversed via 'foodsheds,' in which healthier, more affordable food is produced and consumed regionally.

In the last three decades, childhood obesity in the United States has become a massive public-health problem. According to the Centers for Disease Control, between 1980 and 2006 the percentage of obese teenagers in the United States grew from 5 to 18, while the percentage of pre-teens suffering from obesity increased from 7 to 17. Such children often become overweight adults, leaving themselves especially susceptible to heart illness, Type 2 diabetes, strokes, and some forms of cancer.

Thom Jensen
KATU News
Fri, 13 Nov 2009 08:14 EST

A Clackamas County woman fights to clear her name after her identity is stolen and police arrest her in front of her family for crimes she didn't commit.

Kim Fossen came to KATU News last week after Clackamas County deputies shackled her and locked her up in front of her two-year-old child on a felony fugitive warrant, accusing her of theft and prostitution.

The warrant was out of the state of New York charging her with burglary in the second degree and grand larceny.

Fossen sat in jail for more than a day but she wasn't the criminal; instead, it was 22-year-old Lien Thi Huynh, a Miami Beach escort who was using Fossen's identity for at least three years and committing crimes in her name.

But in Naples, Florida police finally got the right person - Huynh - the fake Kim Fossen.

Marc Rubin
The Examiner
Fri, 13 Nov 2009 06:34 EST

Thomas Jefferson made one thing very clear in his notes and letters. The First Amendment clause that states "congress shall make no law with respect to the establishment of religion" was not so much to foster freedom of religion, though that is certainly a by product, but to make sure the government of the United States was, and always would,have, free from religion.

The one thing Jefferson and the Founders made clear and wanted to be very sure of, was that there would never be anything in the United States like the Church of England of which Jefferson and most of the Founders had a very low opinion .

Jefferson specifically wrote in his letters that the First Amendment regarding religion was designed, in Jefferson's words, "to build a wall between the government and the church". The Founders wanted to make sure the church would never have any official influence or hand in the affairs of state.

All indications are now that it was the US Conference of Catholic Bishops who were instrumental in the anti-abortion amendment that was attached to the health care reform bill in the House. And that wall established by the Constitution was taken down by Nancy Pelosi and Barrack Obama when they caved in to political pressure by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops who are credited with creating the anti- abortion language in the health care bill.

Greg Mitchell
Huiffington Post
Thu, 12 Nov 2009 11:30 EST

With the publication of an interview with Sgt. Mark Todd, the actual cop who gunned down the killer at Fort Hood -- following its account of an unnamed eyewitness last night -- the New York Times finally underlined what some of us noticed from nearly the start: the media fell hook, line and sinker once again for a military account of what happened during the tragedy.

First, it was the "death" of Major Hasan, not corrected for many hours. Then, for days, the story of how a female cop brought down the shooter, even as she was receiving serious wounds. Yet I noticed just hours after the attack that scattered eyewitnesses, via the Web and Twitter, were saying that the killer re-loaded after Kimberly Munley went down.

How could he have done that if she had just plugged him four times, supposedly ending the rampage? Some of those witnesses said they yelled at the second cop to shoot Hasan--which he did, and then went up and kicked his gun away. Yet for days the media rarely questioned the military's "official" story of Munley as savior. The New York Times was one of many who put Munley on the front page and declared, on Nov. 7, that she was the person who nailed Hasan. Its headline: "She ran to gunfire, and ended it." It said flatly that she "brought down the gunman."

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