Here are 13 myths being spread about Sarah Palin:

1. Daily Kos: Palin cut Special Education budget by 62%.

   Leftist Lie: Actually Palin increased the education budget for all students including special needs. In fact, earlier this year Governor Palin approved a bill that raises spending for students with special needs to $73,840 in fiscal 2011, from the current $26,900 per student in fiscal 2008!!!



2. Whoopi Goldberg: Palin wants Alaska to secede succeed from the United States. the New York Times reported that Sarah Palin had belonged to the Alaskan Independence Party in the early 1990s instead of the Republican Party but corrected the story later.

   Liberal misreporting: Actually she's been registered as a Republican since May 1982.



3. Internet Email: Palin tried to have a number of books banned. When the librarian refused to ban the books, Palin tried to get her fired.

   Not true: The bogus Sarah Palin Banned Books List.

   Taylor Griffin, a spokesman for the McCain campaign, said that Palin asked the head librarian, Mary Ellen Emmons, on three occasions how she would react to attempts at banning books. He said the questions, in the fall of 1996, were hypothetical and entirely appropriate. He said a patron had asked the library to remove a title the year before and the mayor wanted to understand how such disputes were handled.

   Records on the city's Web site, however, do not show any books were challenged in Wasilla in the 10 years before Palin took office.

   Palin notified Emmons she would be fired in January 1997 because the mayor didn't feel she had the librarian's "full support." Emmons was reinstated the next day after public outcry, according to newspaper reports at the time.



4. Democratic Congressman Robert Wexler of Florida (in an effort to sway the Jewish vote): Palin supports a "Nazi sympathizer" (Buchanan).

   McCain-Palin campaign spokesman Michael Goldfarb writes: "Governor Palin has never worked for any effort to elect Pat Buchanan -- that assertion is completely false. As Mayor of Wasilla, Sarah Palin did attend an event with Mr. Buchanan in her home town where reports described her wearing a Buchanan for President button. She wore the button as a courtesy to Mr. Buchanan and in an effort to make him feel welcome during his visit, but immediately sent a letter to the editor of her local paper clarifying that the button should not have been interpreted as an endorsement of any kind."



5. Palin pushed for teaching creationism in Alaska's schools. Or to be more accurate, according to Matt Damon, she believes dinosaurs roamed the Earth 4,000 years ago.

   Nope, you dope. In an interview on 27 Oct 2006,

   Palin said she meant only to say that discussion of alternative views should be allowed to arise in Alaska classrooms: "I don't think there should be a prohibition against debate if it comes up in class. It doesn't have to be part of the curriculum."

   She added that, if elected, she would not push the state Board of Education to add such creation-based alternatives to the state's required curriculum.

   
   

   Now this was said almost two years ago which I agree with and I'm an atheist. What's wrong with allowing the discussion to come up? If someone wants to debate how many angels can fit on the head of a pin, let them go at it. Why let someone harbor primitive ideas in their head when it can be brought out into the clear light of argument and discussion?



6. LA Progressive: Palin Is "Racist, Sexist, Vindictive, And Mean". The reason no one will say anything bad about Palin? They're afraid of her. Yeah, every man, woman and child refuses to say anything against her because she is so evil.

   Have you ever heard such nonsense?

   Also according to the source above, Sarah exclaimed, "So Sambo beat the bitch!" when Obama finally won the Democratic Party presidential nomination.

   So this "Racist, Sexist, Vindictive, And Mean" person somehow became the most popular governor in the country with a 90% approval rating. I can't imagine how mean and vindictive can a person be to intimidate an entire state into falsely giving her such a high approval rating. Boy, Alaskans must really be scared of her.

   Here's a refutation of the racist charge:

   Celtic Diva's Blue Oasis, "The Progressive Curmudgeon" may have journalistic history, but I think he's making a mistake on this one. **UPDATED**

   If you are talking about the "racist epithets" article, I don't know. I've never heard anyone make that claim and I've lived here 25 years and have lots of Valley friends. Also, her husband is part Yupik...enough to be a member of the Native Corporation. That's no proof, of course, as people can justify anything in their heads. However, it would make the use of those epithets rather ironic.

   
   


7. 

   Unfortunately this myth was too quickly exposed as a photo-shopped fraud. But I ask you, what would have been the harm if it were true?



8. Palin increased state spending as Governor.

   Interestingly the money for the increased spending came not from taxes (Alaska has no statewide income or sales tax) but from her efforts to get more royalties and taxes on oil producers. For years Alaska has struggled financially but in the first two budget years under Palin, the state government has stashed almost $6 billion of surplus revenues in various reserve and savings accounts in anticipation of future drops in the price of oil. Aside from some capital projects the extra spending actually went to the citizens of Alaska.

   I wish New Jersey would send me a surplus check.



9. Palin hid her pregnancy from her own children and parents as well as the people of Wasilla until seven months into it.

   So what? Walk a mile in someone else's shoes. Is it possible Sarah had had miscarriages before and didn't want to make premature announcements? Is it possible some women do not like to blab about their pregnancy until they are pretty sure the baby is going to make it? My wife didn't tell our mailman she was pregnant until after the baby was born, so what?

   Are we going to put everyone under a microscope that fine? What, are we striving to elect saints?



10. She left her city Wasilla in shambles and in debt and raised taxes by 38%.

    Interestingly her small shambles of a town grew by more than 40% from the time she was mayor. That taxes increased by 38% seems appropriate for a rapidly growing town. This is just inconsequential nattering by a person who hates Palin.



11. She's absolutely opposed to abortion.

    Well, except when the life of the pregnant woman is imperiled. As for promoting anti-abortion when governor, Palin declined to call a special legislative session on some pro-life legislation when it came up because she is opposed to abortion only for herself. If Roe v. Wade got overturned she would let people of each state decide what's next. So there.



12. Anne Kilkenny: They call her "Sarah Barracuda" because of her unbridled ambition and predatory ruthlessness.

    No, they call her "Sarah Barracuda" because that was the nickname she earned playing high school basketball.

    
    Photo Credit: News of the World
    
    
13. Palin flip-flopped on global warming during the Charles Gibson interview.

    What she said to Gibson was, "I believe that man's activities certainly can be contributing to the issue of global warming." "Can" does not mean "is" and even if she really meant man's activity might be contributing what she said in an interview with a Fairbanks newspaper last year was, "I'm not an Al Gore, doom-and-gloom environmentalist blaming the changes in our climate on human activity."

    There's a big difference between saying human activity has some affect on the environment and thinking that the end of the world is near because of global warming.

Here's a complete list of Sarah Palin on the issues.

This has been a Thursday 13 post [# 39] and is updated on certain Thursdays.