Now that Palin accepted Letterman's apology, will she stop charging rape victims for evidence kits?

[derby378]

I mean, sure, if she wants to talk about the dignity of women everywhere, that's cool, but she needs to tell her government to stop charging crime victims for rape kits and then turning them over to obnoxious debt collectors.

Last I heard, rape kits were supposed to be paid for by this mysterious source of income known as "taxes."

[RedCloud]

1. Right on and write on! Rape stats from Alaska vis a vis USA

Here's the stuff from the FBI on how Palin treats the subject of rape in her state:

http://www.swivel.com/graphs/show/17602366

[zbdent]

2. That should be in a LTTE ...

firing off now ...

[undeterred]

3. I thought she did that as mayor of Wasila, not as governor.

[CitizenPatriot]

4. here's some info from an article

I wrote on Palin (posted in editorials) -- please include whatever you want in your LTTE. spread the truth around!

Palin's record as a "feminist":

Alaska’s reported rate of rape per capita is 2.6 times the national average.

Anchorage has the ninth highest sexual assault rate of any city in the United States, and Fairbanks is ranked first, at 4.7 times the national average.

Alaska's child abuse rate is six times higher than the national average.

The state continues to rank first or second nationally in the number of chlamydia cases, a ranking it has held since 2000. In 2006, the last year data was available from the Center for Disease control, Alaska ranked 25th in rates of gonorrhea and 28th in syphilis.

The Alaska birthrate among women ages 15-19 in 2006 was 44.3 per 1,000 teens, up 19 percent from 2005.

Palin as Feminist Mayor of Wasilla:

Grant Decreased to Children’s Shelter: The Dorothy Saxton Youth Shelter provides residential care and rehabilitation to endangered children, including victims of sexual abuse. Sarah Palin’s fiscal year 2000 budget decreased the Wasilla city grant to the shelter by 25%.

Rape Kit Funding Transferred to Victim’s Insurance: the line item paying for rape kits was slashed from $4,200 in FY99 to $1,000 in FY00.

Contracted Out Early-Intervention Services Eliminated: Wasilla runs a Youth Court, a program of early intervention for troubled teenagers. Some of the services (it is unclear what these services were) provided by the court were contracted out. The FY2000 budget eliminated funding for these services.

Fiscal conservatives are screaming, “she’s a real conservative!” Except, um…she INCREASED the budget for…um…the mayor’s legal defense fund as a result of two lawsuits for wrongful termination brought as a reaction to Palin’s actions. Sound familiar?

A 1.5 million dollar land grab was also included in the budget (well, it started off a lot cheaper, but they paid 5 times the initial cost of the land due to gross incompetence of Mayor Palin, who failed to clear title to the land. Therefore, the city faced more…legal fees. Yes, that’s right. There’s always money for legal fees, but never money for rape kits.)

There was also money for Mayor Mobile. One that she forgot to pay taxes on.

Oh, and then she also needed money because she had to hire an administrator to do her…well, her job. There was 50,000.00 for that job, but again..no money for unwed mothers, rape kits, sexual violence protection, etc.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jacob-alperinsheriff/mayor-palin-left-wasi...

Palin as Feminist Governor of Alaska 2008:

Trimmed by $1.1 million funds the Alaska legislature had allocated for Covenant House Alaska this year for a capital construction project. Covenant House Alaska is a state-supported program that includes a transitional home where new teenage mothers can spend up to 18 months learning money management and parenting skills.

Palin voided $15,840 the legislature had allocated for a Women, Infants, Children (WIC) provider.

And then there’s Walt Monegan’s firing. Walt Monegan was on his way to DC to get money for a much needed anti-sexual violence program.

"The last straw," her lawyer (Van Flein) argued, came when Monegan planned a trip to Washington, D.C., to seek federal funds for an aggressive anti-sexual-violence program.

The project, expected to cost from $10 million to $20 million a year for five years, would have been the first of its kind in Alaska, which leads the nation in reported forcible rape.

While she claimed she fired Monegan over an "unauthorized trip", the governor's staff actually authorized the trip. A state travel authorization form shows that Palin's chief of staff, Mike Nizich, approved Monegan's trip to Washington, D.C.

We're not even half way done with her record, and I’m not feeling the Palin feminist thing. It’s looking like Sarah Palin is a feminist in name only. A FINO, if you will. So close to finito, and yet not quite.

Just for giggles, let’s do a quick check on Letterman’s record. He is the president and primary contributor to American Foundation for Courtesy and Grooming. This foundation has donated nearly $2.5 million dollars in a four year total to a number of organizations. Below is just a partial list of some of the causes that Letterman has supported:

Muscular Dystrophy Family Foundation
Special Olympics of Indian
Marion County Children's Guardian Home
Indiana School for the Deaf
Riley Children's Foundation
University of Indianapolis Center for Aging and Community
Choteau Youth Special Olympics, in Montana and Montana Special Olympics
Michael J. Fox Foundation
Larry King Cardiac Foundation
Paul Newman's Hole in the Wall Gang Camp (for disabled children)
Breast Cancer Foundation
Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation

[lpbk2713]

8. Thanks for the info.

I am not surprised Dave donates to all those causes, and he would be the last one to talk about it in public.

Now the RW Media Hatemongers would be a different story. I'm sure they would only give if there was something in it for them.
And you can be sure they would boast and brag about how much they gave, and no doubt exaggerate the amount.

[emilyg]

5. Update

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


http://www.lifenews.com/nat4364.html

[derby378]

6. If Alaska has stopped charging for rape kits, that's cool

In some cities down here in Texas, however, they still do. We've got more work ahead of us.

[emilyg]

7. I read that about Texas - shame.

[CitizenPatriot]

10. that's not true

"However, recently released budget documents show that Sarah Palin directly shifted the cost of the rape kits from the police department to the victims in her budget for fiscal year 2000. If what a former city council member told CNN is true, that "Palin would review each department's budget line by line," then she either knew about the funding shift and approved it or was negligent in her role as state executive."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jacob-alperinsheriff/sarah-palin-instituted-ra_b_125833.html

I've seen the PDF of the budget. She cut funds for rape kits, transferred it to the victim.

http://www.cityofwasilla.com/index.aspx?page=136

she claims now that she didn't know about it, but she signed the budget and she was in charge of the budget. she sure paid attention to it enough to give increase spending by 97% administratively (a few expenses: salary for someone to do her job and legal defense fund costs).

You can do further research here

http://www.sarahpalinexposed.com/wp-content/uploads/Palin-2006-Vetting-Document/Palin-2006-Vetting-Document%2012.html

[emilyg]

12. How about something more

recent than 2000.

[CitizenPatriot]

13. I guess you didn't read the vetting report?

it was dated 2006.

As for "more recent than 2000", are you admitting that she DID charge people for rape kits, but now it's OK because it was in 2000?

I mean, you say the "far left" is smearing her, then I post links proving the "smear" is actually TRUE, and now you say I need something more recent.

OK, well-- there's a bit on her record re women upthread, but in no way do you get to say the far left has been smearing her and then when I post the facts, you say it has to be more recent.

Why? She was a mayor. She's only been a mayor and a governor, and she hasn't been a gov for very long. She was also unemployed between those two jobs, so she's not going to have a "record" to go on since then, save her record as gov, which is upthread.

[dorkulon]

14. lifenews.com?

Really going to the mat for ol' Sarah, eh?

http://mediamatters.org/columns/200810070007

[marshall]

9. Send that in to Letterman

The jokes just keep writing themselves.

[Blue_In_AK]

11. That was just in Wasilla when she was mayor

and former governor Tony Knowles called her on the carpet for it. The State of Alaska never has and does not now charge for rape kits.