Tripp and Sarah on Cable Television BEFORE he was "BORN"

I've been rewarded again by meandering through old stuff. Thinking about Tripp, and wondering when he really was born,  searches for Tripp, Bristol, due date, baby, etc. brought up some things we know well, and some things that have been nearly forgotten.  


Then I found something I never saw before. I'll get to that in a while, but first, it helps to refresh our memory of the confusion over the date Tripp was due:

August 30, 2008 Wasilla resident Sue Williams said on a blog that Bristol was well into her third trimester. That would give her an October or November delivery.

September 1, 2008 the McCain Campaign announces Bristol Palin is “five months” pregnant. That would be a late November/early December delivery.  

October 13, 2008 Levi Johnston is quoted as saying Bristol is due December 18.  

Bristol Palin’s fabricated life story “Not Afraid of Life” says the due date was December 14.

On December 14, 2008  Chuck Heath announces on Grandparents.com that his granddaughter’s due to deliver December 20.  This gets repeated on all the low-rent gossip internet sites. One of them made a crack about him selling the story because he must have needed the money.

In Levi’s attempt at a memoir he says that on December 26 he went with Todd to the cabin because Bristol wasn’t due for another three weeks [mid-January].  (He also uses the December 18 and the mid-December timeframes. Levi is not a good liar.)


So, when was Bristol actually due?  My previous posts argue that she was due in November. I stand by that.  It's a fact that Sarah lies, and Bristol is another Sarah, so let's not waste time trying to pick a truth from a pack of lies.

What I want to know is, when was Tripp born?  I believe that it is a missing link to figuring out Babygate.  The truth has been so carefully protected, it HAS TO be significant. 


Many of us recall that the announcement of Tripp’s birth was sketchy, to say the least.

The Washington Post December 29, 2008   “Bristol Palin gave birth to her much-anticipated baby son on Saturday, People.com reported this evening.”

The above-sited quote is from the “corrected” version **** Update: People.com gave the birthdate in its original story as Sunday but has since changed it to Saturday; this item has been amended to reflect that change in reporting.**

What did the Governor’s Office say about this? According to Sarah’s favorite pay-for-celebrity-gossip magazine, People :

On Monday, Bill McAllister, a spokesman for Gov. Palin said, "This office will not be issuing any statements on [Bristol's baby]. We’re here to talk about state government and that matter falls outside of that."

Okay, so if the baby’s birthdate was a fib, the State of Alaska can’t be held accountable for deceiving the public (this time). Think they learned from their earlier mistake of misleading the public about an earlier baby?

(Brad Scharlott is on to this guy, Bill McAllister.  Check out Scharlott’s Beacon scharlottsbeacon.blogspot.com for some very interesting reading and some dynamite provocation directed at the self-proclaimed North Star and her constellation.)


It wasn't only the Palin Administration that would not comment. The New York Times reports from AP that: 

"Palin family members,
hospital employees and spokespeople for the governor's former running mate,
John McCain, either would not confirm the birth or did not return messages from
The Associated Press."

Now, why did they say that? Is that news?  Yes, perhaps so. Behind the scenes, the media know more than they put out front. Think John Edwards.


Which is my intro to this goodie:


In an old posting on a  website I’ve just discovered, I found a new nugget for us to inspect for clues. Fluther.com appears to be a random site where you post random questions and see if anyone comes up with answers.  Someone  going by “emilyrose” asked on December 11^th, 2008  “Did Bristol Palin have her baby?”

I remember they said it was due early December. Any word? I’m still on the conspiracy theory bandwagon that Trig is hers. Just for fun : )

“BRISTOLBABY”  answered with A CLAIM I  HAVE NEVER HEARD BEFORE.  She said:

I also saw a video of SP greeting the new boy grandchild on CNN and on MSNBC on Saturday December 20th. That was deleted and the page scrubbed online. 


So it was planted to make us believe the child was born. I thought at the time, that it was rare to actually have the baby on the predicted due date. (especially a first child).

I expect I will see the same video of SP bending over the child when they eventually release the news that the child has been born. Maybe christmas if they can come up with a baby by then.

bristolbaby 

A video of Sarah and newborn Tripp BEFORE CHRISTMAS?

A video that was deleted?  A web page scrubbed?  A familiar MO, don’t you agree?

This same “Bristolbaby” posted that answer and quite a few others. She is/was a Truther, saying she thought Trig was Bristol's and at that time in December 2008 she thought Bristol, if pregnant at all, would be delivering in February. 


Among the 38 comments which you can read here  there ensues a conversation about Trig, Bristol, and Sarah’s fake pregnancy. One contributor ”girlofscience” posted a link to palindeceptions. 


Can BRISTOLBABY be correct? Would she be lying? 


I want to believe she is another Sue Williams.  A person who posted on a blog and then was forgotten. A person with information that wasn't recognized as important. She didn't even know it was important. She thought it was phony footage because she didn't think Bristol was ready to deliver.


But she seems to be a person who had no ulterior motive other than to talk about the strange things that surround Palin pregnancies and births.


What did she see? One clip run on two networks. Sarah bending over a newborn. 


When did she see it? December 20, 2008. She offers a simple and plausible rationale for remembering that date. It matches the Chuck Heath announced date (which I found on other websites, not Fluther.com).  


Does Bristolbaby have a reason to lie?  I don't see any. She didn't make the rounds of anti-Palin blogs to make a big name for herself with this "scoop." This is the only place I found her or the comment.  She didn't even give it credence. She thought it was a fake - a borrowed kid.  


Bristolbaby joined Fluther.com on December 22, 2008 obviously to join the conversation about Bristol (a member points this out) and stayed an active member for three months. Her stats show she posted 3 questions (none about Palins, but one about Octomom), 141 responses and last visited the sight on March 17, 2009.


I believe her.

If this is true, there are people at CNN and MSNBC in  on this charade that Bristol gave birth late in December. What clue to Babygate would the actual Tripp birthdate provide?  Still don’t know, but I’m not going to quit digging.

Cottles and Weddings and Fear, Oh My!

In a comment thread over this past week, someone mentioned that the Palins are very busy. The Cottles’ have a wedding coming up and Palin’s have been invited. (Presumably the Cottles have been invited to Track and Britta’s wedding next month, too, heh?)  

Today, someone asked “who are the Cottles?”

This is a quick answer to that, which is too long for a comment thread and might be of interest to general readership.

Colleen Cottle served on the Wasilla town board when Sarah was mayor, and her son is one of Todd’s best friends. Colleen is not a Sarah-bot.

We first heard the name Colleen Cottle a little more than a week after Sarah lit up the stage at the convention. In Newsweek Mag Sept 12, 2008, the article Where the Bars Are Open Till 5 AM by Amanda Coyne included this passage:

That kind of Everywoman attitude made Palin popular here. In 1996 she beat incumbent Mayor John Stein, with 651 votes to his 440. Stein challenged her three years later, and she clobbered him, 826 to 292. Wasilla was enjoying an economic boom in those years, and residents had no reason to change course. Even Colleen Cottle, who consistently voted against Mayor Palin as a member of the city council, says she was an effective mayor. "She got things done," says Cottle.

Two Septembers later, Michael Gross wrote “Sarah Palin: The Sound and the Fury” --a much less flattering piece --after visiting Wasilla. Under a portion subtitled “City of Fear”,  Gross reports that when Wasilla residents are asked to comment about their former mayor,

a palpable unease creeps in. Some people clam up. Others whisper invitations to call later—but on this number, not that one, and not before this hour or after that one. So many people answer “Off the record?” to my initial questions that it almost seems the whole town has had media training.

He goes on to tell us that the only person interviewed who allowed their name to be printed was, again, Colleen Cottle. In this 2010 article she is more candid than when Sarah was running with John McCain for the most powerful next-in-line position in the country.

After one local Republican delivers 90 minutes of uninterrupted praise for Palin, I ask whom else I should talk to, and the answer comes so fast it’s like a cry for help—which is how, the next day, I end up in the living room of Colleen Cottle, who is the matriarch of one of Wasilla’s oldest families, and who served on the city council when Palin was mayor. She says she and her husband, Rodney, will pay a price for speaking candidly about Palin. Their son is one of Todd Palin’s best friends. “But it is time for people to start telling the truth,” Colleen says. She describes the frustrations of trying to do city business with a mayor who “had no attention span—with Sarah it was always ‘What’s the flavor of the day?’ ”; who was unable to take part meaningfully in conversations about budgets because she “does not understand math or accounting—she only knows buzzwords, like ‘balanced budget’ ”; and who clocked out after four hours on most days, delegating her duties to an aide—“but he’ll never talk to you, because he has a state job and doesn’t want to lose it.” This type of conversation is repeated so often that Wasilla starts to feel like something from The Twilight Zone or a Shirley Jackson short story—a place populated entirely by abuse survivors.

Colleen also shows up in the 2011 independent film and documentary by Nick Broomfield, “Sarah Palin: You Betcha.”  She doesn’t hold back, so  I guess she and Rodney survived whatever punishment was dealt. It’s a small town and friends and family circles overlap. Sometimes you just have to make nice whether you want to or not. Like at the weddings coming up.

So, that’s some background on the Cottles. 

Again, why do we care about these things? 

Here’s what Michael Gross said in September 2010 - long before we read it in books by Dunn, Bailey, or McGinniss:

"This is a person for whom there is no topic too small to lie about," he said. "She lies about everything."

"If we decide to let her keep lying and getting away with it, she's gonna still be around," he said. "But if we start returning to the standard that a politician has to talk with people, and a politician has to tell the truth, then she's outta here, because she can't stand up to that."

That, my friends, is why we continue to search for the truth, to question Palin logic, illogic, and lies, and to expose contradictions as we find them.

("Consious at last"-   I'm so glad you asked ! )

This Land Was Made for YOU and ME

For Thanksgiving 2011, I went looking for a version of  Woody Guthrie’s “This Land is Your Land” to share with you.  It’s a song Sarah probably doesn't like because far right-leaners and dominionist say it is a communist/Marxist theme song.  By now, you know me well enough to assume I’ve done a bit of research.  Here’s what I learned that I think is important to today’s Americans sitting down to give thanks together.

Woody Gutherie saw the Great Depression first hand. Americans then, like today, needed jobs, needed to feed their families, and sought assistance from the government. 

When "God Bless America"by Irving Berlin was topping the charts, Woody Gutherie had “had it” with Americans being fed the message “don’t worry about anything”  through songs and pop tunes.  "This World Is Not My Home” and  "Wrap Your Troubles In Dreams, and Dream Your Troubles Away" troubled him, too. Woody didn’t think it was right to tell people not to worry, that God was in the driver's seat. 

I’m not in a position to get into Woody’s religious beliefs, but I think it’s safe to say he would joint todays' Occupy Wall Street movement. He and Sarah Palin would have differences of opinion.  Michelle Bachmann might say he was anti-America. Newt would tell him to get a bath and a job.

But he isn't here. His time was earlier, and "This Land is Your Land" began to be written in 1940, a time when folks still hitch-hiked legally and safely. While he hitched north and east through Appalachia, Woody put together some verses. Eventually, they were written down on a piece of loose-leaf paper,. With "God Blessed America" at the top, he began the first verse:

This land is your land, this land is my land
From California to Staten Island

He stopped, crossed out "Staten", and put in "New York"

From the Redwood Forest, to the Gulf Stream waters
,  God Blessed America for me.

He wrote five more verses working in a fleabag hotel room. "All you can write is what you see," he wrote at the bottom. He signed and dated it  "Woody G."  February 23, 1940.  He didn't do anything with it for another five years, then it became published and popular. At least some of it did.  Some verses are less well known, and there’s good reason-- they challenged the big money monopolies that were quite comfortable letting "lesser people" struggle. Have you learned these verses?

Was a big high wall [there] that tried to stop me

A sign was painted, said, 'Private Property'
But on the back side it didn't say nothing
God blessed America for me

One bright sunny morning in the shadow of the steeple
By the Relief office I saw my people
As they stood hungry I stood there wondering if
God blessed America for me

 [1993:] And Woody later added a new last verse:

Nobody living can ever stop me
 As I go walking my freedom highway
  Nobody living can make me turn back
  This land was made for you and me

There’s some political history about the trimming of verses from “This Land is Your Land.” Washington Bigwheel Clark Clifford in March 1950 addressed the wealthy businessmen at Chicago's Executive Club explained it to peers:

"[...] The people have to feel that their small share of this country is as much theirs as it is yours and mine [...]." With only half of Woody's verses, This Land Is Your Land falls right into Mr. Clifford's trap. In other words, "Let people go ahead and sing the song. It makes them feel better. Meanwhile you and I know who really controls the country."

Everyone reading this is part of the 99%.  Well, almost everyone. The one percent that isn't?  Say "Hi" to Bristol, or Willow, or Sarah - you know one of them is on duty reading anti-Palin blogs even today. My message to the 1%:


"This land was made for you AND ME."

Here is Woodie Gutherie's song sung by Pete Seeger and Bruce Springsteen.  This links to the performance in Washington during  the Obama inauguration celebration.  (Warning – if you are so inclined, it will give you goose bumps.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YiEAcZhqojk

Pete Seeger has sat at my kitchen table. He’s a gentleman and a fighter. He fought for Civil Rights when dogs and hoses were used to punish protesters and now he’s fighting for the 99% in the OWS movement.  This Thanksgiving, I’m thankful for patriots like him, and thankful that the 2008 election turned out as it did.  Enjoy the day and your family, Truthers, we have much work yet to do

Oops, Levi Did it Again

This week, I found a statement near the end of Levi's book Deer in the Headlights that rocked me.

First, a short review: After Tripp was born and came home, Levi went back to work on the slope. On January 5, 2009 news broke that Levi was not qualified for the apprenticeship program and he immediately resigned. Three days later he arrived back in Wasilla and Bristol met him at the door saying she was breaking up with him. He packed up and was sent away.

When was that? January 8, 2009.  Okay, now then, when Levi  talked about the second engagement and the second break up that happened in early August 2010, he said:

Only a year and a half before, Bristol and I had split up for the first time-little more than a month after Tripp was born.  ( pg 251)



Well, well well. Levi, bless your heart. You are a Trig-truther's best friend.  Once again, you've told us your son was born late in November or early in December 2008. 

Until now, all of the first string players have stuck with the story that Tripp was born December 27, 2008, in spite of slip-ups that caused thinking people to scratch their heads in confusion.  Thank you, Levi, for this first person testimony that Tripp was actually born a month or so earlier than reported. You ought to know - you were there.

When this post gets read in Wasilla, Sarah, Bristol, Todd - they are going to say you are wrong Levi. Levi is lying again.

And you will do what you what you know you do when you are embarrassed or uneasy - you'll tell yourself that you don't care (pg 257).  Poor Levi, he has so many lies to keep up with he has to lie to himself to get by.

Levi, I still have sympathy for you.  The subtitle of your book is no joke : "My Life in Sarah Palin's Crosshairs."  No joke at all.  There's nothing funny about living in Sarah Palin's crosshairs.

Levi, do you know we don't believe Sarah? She can say you lied about this, but no one who has paid attention these past three years accepts her at her word, especially about babies.  Given Sarah's history with baby due dates and lies - Track, Trig, even Willow's birthdate was moved a couple days to make the story better in one telling-  the odds she'd tell the truth about a baby's birth are about the same as the odds her youthful glow will return.

Bristol is no better. She's the born-again virgin who invited you, Levi, back into her bedroom at night and continued to charge big money by day, claiming she was being abstinent (yes, she did more than promote the idea of abstinence, she claimed to be living it).

Sadie will probably never address this variation on Tripp's birth dates, either. Levi, you must be happy that her blog is dormant. It didn't get her or you any more time with Tripp. She hasn't posted on Immoral Minority in a very long time. There's no point. She can't tell the whole truth either. It's becoming more obvious all the time.  Sadie has to know what day she and Sherrie visited the hospital and saw newborn Tripp , but she's gone along with the December 27 lie.  My guess is that the truth would hurt you, Levi. And we know she loves her  brother (the guy who's name is tattooed on her wrist) and she would sell her honesty to protect him from...

From what?  The wrath of the Palins. That's pretty certain. But why?

No use asking Levi, he doesn't read these blogs. My whole address to him is folly. If he hears about this at all, it will be from a friend. 

So, Trig-Truthers, it continues to be up to us. We need to get our heads into this one:

Why would Tripp's late November/early December birth need to be covered up?

We were told Bristol was five months pregnant on September 1, 2008.  We "wackos' know the Palins have had other  full term babies at eight months - heck, doesn't everyone know that?  Just like Track's eight month gestation is of no consequence,  who really cares if Tripp was one month older than the McCain campaign announced?

In all the excitement of announcing the birth, the fudging of the due date shouldn't have amounted to more than a footnote, so why didn't it get announced?

And the really, really, super-humongous important thing is, even with an early December  delivery,  Bristol still couldn't be the mom of a baby born April 18, 2008.  So again, why the big cover-up?


And what does it matter?  Reasonable people will argue that we shouldn't care. They will say this is a waste of time. Trolls and Palinbots and Willow and Bristol and Sarah's paid blog-commentors will say that, too.

Reasonable thinkers and/or paid by Sarah PAC-rats, we are about to hear that Levi is wrong, or mistaken, or careless, or exaggerating. Levi's ghost writers messed up. Levi didn't bother to proof read his own book.

Let's explore those possibilities because I think they are all refutable.

Why we should care/ why this isn't a waste of time:

Because this very likely is rooted in Babygate.

The word was out that Bristol and Levi had been offered $300,000 for Tripp's first pictures. That's a lot of money. But they left it on the table.

For this couple who hadn't even finished high school to be passing up what amounted to more than twice the annual salary of the Governor of Alaska - just for posing for pictures!!-- there had to be a something HUGE at risk if the actual birthdate were to be revealed.

Very likely, that "something huge" is Babygate. And Babygate might be even bigger than any of us have yet imagined. What would make you pass up $300,000 if you were Levi?

Levi is wrong, or mistaken, or careless, or exaggerating:


 If anyone thinks Levi is lying, I'd like to refer you to my previous post which was  fashioned around an argument that new parents and other family members of newborns keep track of the age of the newest family member in days, then weeks, and then one month plus whatever.

It follows, then, that Levi wasn't being clever or lazy or forgetful when he said his son was over one month (just by a bit). He was being honest and unguarded.  He was talking about a deep hurt. The details are seared into his memory.

He might have been young, but he was a father who had witnessed his son's birth, held him minutes later,  gotten up in the night with bottle feedings and changed diapers, and had reluctantly returned to a job that took him away from the new little family unit; a job that kept him many miles away for week long shifts while his thoughts were with his baby and his "babe" back in Wasilla.

I believe Levi knew how old Tripp was when the door was slammed in his face separating him from his infant son. I believe Tripp was only a "little more than a month" when Bristol told him to pack
up and move out.

One other thing says we should believe Levi over Sarah. Unlike Sarah in the Fred Meyers, saying Tripp was "two months old," (my previous post) Levi didn't just round Tripp's age to one month. Even though he wrote his book in 2011 and years had passed, he still didn't round Tripp's age to simply "one month" when he looked back at that painful event. "A little over one month" resounds with heartbreaking accuracy. I believe Levi.

Levi's ghost writers messed up. Levi didn't bother to proof read his own book.

Levi's ghost writers did mess up. They  told the truth. Levi told them the truth, and for some reason he wanted it backed off. This is going to make an entirely separate post.

For now, suffice it to say, there was no reason for the writers to be makin' stuff up. And as for Levi proofing his own book - who are we kidding?

Well, you never know what a page out of Levi's book will give us. This is not the post I intended to write, and I'm still researching the green sweater post. But since this popped up - like a deer in the headlights - I had to deal with it.  There will probably be related posts following, so please come back.

My having missed this passage about Tripp's age the first time through Levi's book serves to reinforce my philosophy that it's worthwhile to retrace our own steps - that going over the same territory another time can turn up things we haven't seen before or things we looked at that didn't register as important.

As far as who and what to believe about Tripp's birthday?  Common sense says we should believe Levi.  And if you need to dig in and make an informed decision, and not rely purely on common sense, take a look at Sarah and Bristol's history of lying.  They've given us no reason to believe them.

All of this begs the question- WHY the lie?  Babygate, most likely.

But WHAT does this reveal about Babygate?  That is the $300,000 question.

The answer must be hiding in plain site. Let's go look for it! 

PS- If you are new the The Palin Place - welcome!  If you  want to know more about Tripp's and Trig's mysterious birth accounts and have not yet read the inaugural post for this blog, and this post,  you can follow the imbedded links to read more.

Let all of the poisons that lurk in the mud, hatch out.

While searching for comments on IM about Sarah’s “tubal” I used a word – cookies – that was in a suggestion from one of our Palin Place readers and it led to something interesting. It's not about Sarah's tubal, it’s something about Tripp’s age. 

If you’ve read “Hockey Sticks and Pregnancy Sticks,” you know I think the Palins lie about Tripps age. And if you've read "The Insiders: MeAgain and Sue Williams," you know why I think old stuff is worth a closer look. 

In a mundane post with unremarkable comments, March 16, 2009 on Immoral Minority we learn that Sarah set up a publicity stunt in Juneau with some of the youngest family members. They went to Fred Meyer to buy Girl Scout cookies. Sarah introduces the Girl Scouts to the children with her. 

"These are my children, Willow, Piper and [11-month-old] Trig," Palin told an excited group of Girl Scouts. Then Palin, 45, motioned to a baby bundled in a hoodie, held and bottle-fed by Piper. "And this is my grandbaby Tripp," she said of the infant son of her daughter Bristol, 18. "He's only 2-months-old. It's kind of surreal!," she added."

Missing from the Palin family group was Bristol, in the news after her split with Tripp's father Levi Johnston, 19. There's no mystery, though. "Oh, Bristol is over at the state capitol building golfing in a miniature golf tournament," Palin told PEOPLE. "It's a fundraiser and she's up there taking my place while I'm here." 

At that time, Immoral Minority was focused on the "Where's Tripp? Where's Bristol?" chapter in the perplexing saga of Palin family non-normal behaviors. Suspicion and supposition swirled around the comment thread,  Truthers trying to track down details of the mini-golf event.

What only two commenters pointed out was Sarah misstating Tripp's age. "And this is my grandbaby Tripp,...he's only 2-months-old."  

The readers who did catch that grabbed onto it as evidence that  Tripp Johnston was born later than December 27, 2008 . It was a popular theory at that time, and it’s still around.

First comment about it read:

mlaiuppa said...

What Saturday morning was this? Last Saturday?

Uh...Tripp would be almost three months old. 11 weeks old. That's almost 3 months. 

What Grandmother rounds DOWN her grandchild's age?

Slip of the tongue? Was Tripp born later than reported? Like....mid January?

7:36 PM

Mlaiuppa was right about the age thing. It's always been my experience that babies, when they are born, are referred to as hours old. That becomes days, and before long, we talk about weeks.  At the one month stage the rules, such as they are, change. It's common to use months and weeks together, but it's just as common to continue counting weeks. For example, 7 days after the one month "birthday" (which is ALWAYS noted by those who love a child) the age description becomes "one month and one week" or "five weeks." But no one ever goes backwards. 

Mlaiuppa makes a guess as to the reason and the direction that Sarah rounded Tripp's age, but we've learned more since then and I for one,  now believe Tripp was been born weeks before  he was outed by an out of town relative randomly called by a reporter in late December.

How does this fit with Babygate? My thoughts:

•   Starting with Track, then Trig, we know Sarah fudges baby due dates. 

•   That makes it easy to believe she would fudge the Tripp due date and birthdate if she had a reason.

•   Whatever the reason, Bristol and Levi went along. 

•   Sarah lies so often, she's become quite cavalier about it. (Think Paul Revere.) Misrepresenting  Tripp's age, his grandmother was not particularly careful about it. Two months was close enough. 

•   Sarah has so many lies going, she can't remember exact details.

•   On the other hand, Sarah showed an intentional effort to mention the two-month age. It wasn't for  the Girl Scouts. No. It was for People magazine readers so they would have it in their heads. (Tip to Sarah: If you wanted anyone to think your comment was made to the children, you shouldn't have used the work 'surreal.' )

•   The Palins misrepresented the stage of Bristol's pregnancy from the beginning for some reason we have yet to figure out. 

• It must be a really good reason, because the Johnstons continue to keep that secret, too! (Though Levi, bless his heart, gave some clues in Deer in the Headlights.)

The day is coming when we will discover why Tripp's birthday had to be fudged.  "It will be bad, exceedingly bad...but they have to have the whole terrible truth about just how bad it can be before they come to their senses. Let all of the poisons that lurk in the mud, hatch out."

(BTW Sarah, Todd, Bristol and Willow, those last lines are from Claudius the God, New York: Vintage Books, 1935; reprinted 1962 page 562.  How’s that homeschooling- college hopping- dropping out stuff been workin’ out for ‘ya?) 

It Takes a Village to Uncover a Hoax

In the pursuit of truth and fairness, we anti-Palin bloggers should be linking arms.  That said, when you finish my most recent post below and any other meanderings through the Palin Place, I encourage you to head on over and read Shay Tripp's blog and  Brad Scharlott's recent posts. They are rufflin' some feathers!

Shailey has a petition for the willing to sign, hoping to bring pressure on the police to release her last items, and she's published a book.  Brad argues that the Babygate hoax could be put on the doorstep of a couple federal agencies.     Check these out:

Shay's blog:  http://shaileytripp.yolasite.com/

Brad's blog: http://scharlottsbeacon.blogspot.com/2011_11_01_archive.html

Index Cards: When it Won't all Fit on the Palm of Your Hand

This is my last argument that Sue Williams heard the inside scoop from the Heath household during the first few days when truth was being blurted out by the stunned Wasilla-based friends of the family. To make this point, I first provide a set of depictions found in the 2010 book  Game Change, by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin who interviewed hundreds of people for their behind-the-scenes book. This is what they report happened inside the McCain/Palin camp during the last days of August and the first days of September, 2008:

• ·     Wednesday, August 27, McCain operatives Schmidt and Salter commenced grilling the governor of Alaska. “They asked her nothing to plumb the depths of her knowledge about foreign or domestic policy. They didn’t explore her preparedness to be vice president. They assumed she knew as much as the average governor, and that what she didn’t know, she would pick up on the fly” (pgs. 361-362).
• ·     From the moment Palin stepped ontstage in Ohio, McCain headquarters was in turmoil. The phone lines were jammed with calls from reporters trying to figure out who she was…the McCain press shop was just as clueless (366).
• ·     By the time Palin arrived in St. Paul on Sunday night, August 31, there were plenty of queries.  What foreign countries had she visited? Had she ever been to Iraq? Had she really killed the infamous Bridge to Nowhere in Alaska, as she claimed? Did she worship at a Pentecostal church where people spoke in tongues? Had her son, Track, been busted for drugs? And most incendiary of all, was her infant son, Trig, who had Down syndrome,  really her baby –or was he Bristol’s? (366)
• ·     Cloistered in a suite on the twenty-third floor of the Hilton, Sarah Palin was in the midst of an atmosphere of anarchy. “The place was a freaking madhouse, a Grand Central rush hour of aides, kids, and minions. But Palin had to concentrate. There was so little time and so much to do, so much to change. She was having an Eliza Doolittle moment, and it was keeping her mighty busy (369)
• ·     …Neiman Marcus bags were everywhere, along with several rolling garment racks loaded with suits and dresses. A fleet of Hollywood stylists in tight black jeans and high heels were hovering and strutting. Palin was in her robe, seated at a desk. [Nicole] Wallace was there coaching her on the pronunciation of the proper names in the text of her address, repeating them over and over like a speech therapist. Every so often, they would pause so that Palin could model a new outfit.     (369)
• ·     The McCain people knew so little about Palin that every time a press controversy erupted, someone had to race to the suite and find out directly from her what was true and what was false. Palin had barely settled in on Sunday night before she had to deal with drafting the statement concerning Bristol’s pregnancy.  Palin called her daughter in Alaska to tell her the revelation was coming – I love you, she reassured Bristol, you’re a good person—then turned to her fledgling team and said, all business, “Where were we?” (370).
• ·     It was amid this bedlam that Schmidt’s desired policy tutoring took place…In the days since the pick, Schmidt had spent enough time with Palin to get a sense of how much instruction she would need. “You guys have a lot of work to do,” he warned [Randy] Scheunemann.. “She doesn’t know anything.”…They sat Palin down at a table in the suite, spread out a map of the world, and proceeded to give her a potted history of foreign policy. (370-371).
• ·     Early on, she told her team that she absorbed information best from five-by-seven index cards…soon enough, she had multiple towering stacks of cards, which she referred to constantly, sitting quietly and porting over them, lugging them back to her room to memorize late at night (371)

All of the above sounds like the Sarah Palin we’ve watched, heard, read about, and learned about. All of it.  I left out the part where she wanted the media consultant to confirm for her “My brand is hair up, isn’t it?”  Oh yes, that’s Sarah from Wasilla, daughter of Sally and Chuck Heath.

Doesn’t it all sound exciting? Certainly she called her parents, and her sisters. Sarah must have been on the phone with her parents more than once, making plans for them to fly out for the convention, telling them not to worry about clothes, giving them the inside scoop of the whole whirlwind experience.

Do you think she mentioned the five-by-seven cards? After all, Chuck was a school teacher – a person who gave his life to helping others learn. 

Sarah might say, “Oh Dad, there sure is a lot of stuff I never gave a thought about. But it’s okay, I’m makin' cards just like you taught me. It’s like bein’ in high school again, except the test is going to be televised and that Senator O’Biden is going to try to show off like he's the teacher's pet. 

But, Dad, don’t worry.  I’ll memorize the talking points, you betcha.  They are just talking points. I can handle that. Just like we all did with the whole Trig birth story…ooops, I better not be sayin’ that, these phones could be bugged!”

In my imagination, Sarah's family told friends,  “Sarah says she’s being tutored on national issues and foreign affairs stuff. That McCain, he sure picked the right gal. Sarah will learn that stuff. No problem. She’s smart. Besides, it don’t mean anything yet,  it’s just campaign talkin’ points. Sarah’s a real trooper. Ooops, I forgot we aren't supposed to use that word."

And again, in my imagination, the close friends of the Heaths who heard that whispered to each other that Sarah would be exposed as the unqualified candidate she truly was.

Sue Williams said,  “there is no way Sarah is qualified for this post… will Sarah be another Eagleton?” and “She can’t be prepping for the cursory answers she’s going to have to memorize on every national and intl issue – AND remember what she said when and to whom re: her Troopergate cover-up attempts.”  

See? Sue Williams KNEW Sarah was “prepping for the cursory answers” to the issues.  

In those very first 24-48 hours the most that I would imagine would be that Sarah was busy getting wardrobe prep, locating family members including Levi (who had multiple voice messages left on his phone from both SP and Bristol), being introduced to the members of the McCain “Straight Talk Express,” posing for publicity shots, giving a couple interviews, and receiving instruction from the Secret Service, etc. 

But someone KNEW and was talking about Sarah memorizing national and international talking points. Which is easier to believe,  that insiders and friends of Heaths heard from Chuck and Sally and Molly that Sarah had to learn alot asap, or that,  on August 31,  Sue Williams made that up out of her head so she could engage with strangers on a blog?

Sue Williams is, to me, a proven resource of information regarding all Bristol pregnancies, be it Tripp, an earlier pregnancy and/or Trigg. 

It's time to accept that the Palins and Johnstons knew Bristol was carrying Tripp in early March 2008, and yet misrepresented his due date and his birthdate.  SW comments are part of the body of evidence supporting that. (If you are new to The Palin Place, and want to understand this more fully, you have some reading to do. Start with the oldest post.) 

My cold case review is finished for now. I've got something else I've been anxious to get on to. Bristol, the green sweater, and 2006. Oh, baby!

The Back of an Earring

Sometimes,  professionals whose jobs involve public service, fail miserably. Sometimes the police miss clues, sometimes the media back off a story. When they do, they can put us all at risk.

In Rochester, New York, a convicted murderer who had confessed to the 1988 crime was released this summer because of new evidence that pointed to another man as the killer. The other man had also been a suspect. A teenager at the time, he had bragged to friends that he’d killed a woman taking a walk along railroad tracks. The police questioned him. Yet, his story was discounted, and an innocent man was sent to prison. 

Six years after the seventy-eight year old was shot with a pellet gun and bludgeoned with the same weapon, a four-year-old girl was lured into a neighbor’s apartment and  strangled to death. For a few years, the case was unsolved. Once again, the killer told someone. Once again, he was questioned by police. This time, he led them to the body. Arrest-conviction-25-years to life in prison.

Time to revisit the closed case, right? But that would be admitting that they had failed to do their job thoroughly.  So, the police and the court system stood by their work. Closed case, closed minds. The DA said the conviction is evidence in itself, and they had sent the right person to prison in that earlier case. They refused to go back an even take a look. 

Yet, some people just won’t accept no for an answer. Thank God for the good people at the New York City based Innocence Project who have no mission other than the determination to see injustice undone. They got involved in the Rochester case, interviewed two convicted murderers, took a different tact, came up with a different opinion than the jury , the police, and the DA, and formed a new hypothesis.  They didn’t quit until the evidence was taken out of storage and reviewed for new clues. What did they discover that set a man free?  The back of an earring. (If you are interested in knowing more about this story, search Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, and the little girl's name Kali Poulton.)

Trig Truthers have something in common with the staff at the Innocence Project. The media failed the public when it chose not to pursue Babygate,  and we will not accept that.  Sarah Palin is a danger to America. When she took the national stage, hatred and racism, class warfare and religious intolerance leapt into the spotlight with her, and crowds of like minded people turned out to cheer. Some turned out with their guns and many with bigoted placards. When voices called out “kill him!” the campaign organizers cringed. But Sarah soaked it all up. She was a star with a following. She still is. This why we must continue to talk about Babygate. She is not gone. She is reloading. Her guns fire hate and they threaten every American, her influence is showing in the dumbing down of candidates running for national office.

What happened in Rochester, NY could happen and has happened other places.  It’s human nature to stick with your own opinion once it’s been formed and  a suggestion to someone that  they have missed a clue could be taken as an insult.  But if you are in certain professions, you have to be willing to reconsider. Law, medicine and media are among those types of professions.

I think we Trig Truthers need to question our long-held opinions and hard-earned conclusions. In our search for the truth about Trig and Sarah Palin, have we overlooked something?  Maybe there is something equally as easy to miss as the back of an earring, and yet this “something” could break the story wide open. That is why I’ve sifted through Sue Williams words written August 30 and 31, 2008.   

Guess what? I think I found something. It’s  small. It’s only four letters.  A word familiar to every Trig Truther. So familiar, in fact, it’s meaning is taken for granted. The word is….(drum roll please)……. prop!

Trig is a prop, it’s been said thousands of times. He’s used on a stage to enhance the believability of the story line that Sarah is a pro-life hockey mom from Wasilla, Alaska. We’ve seen it hundreds of times. Throughout  the campaign, later in magazines. on the Going Rogue book tour, etc.  It’s a fact. What’s to see?

Stay with me and ask yourself –how much attention did Trig get prior to Sarah’s nomination? He made the cover of People magazine, not bad for an infant no one outside one state had ever heard of. Other than that, he was tucked inside the folds of a sling at some photo ops for the governor, and …what else? I don’t recall. Does being on the cover of one magazine make a baby a photo prop? People who want to find evidence that Ruffles and RNC Trig either are or are not one and the same wish the baby had been a "photo prop" but the "photos" just aren't out there. He wasn't in front of a camera pre-RNC like he was post-RNC. It didn't happen.

Was the word meant to mean he went with Sarah to work? Dragging  a three-day old DS baby born prematurely and with a hole in his heart into an office for the sake of being seen as a tough female who isn’t going to let a little thing like that stop her from being seen doing her big important job makes him a child to be pitied.  A child with a lousy mother.  A child whose needs come after his own mother’s needs. That’s not a prop, that’s a pity. Unless, hmmmm, unless….Sarah is not Trig’s mother…

If Trig isn’t Sarah’s,  then he really is a prop. He’s an acquired thing, a stage setting.

Time to go to our cold case files. When was  the first time, on the blogs Trig was called a prop?   You might guess it was  in a blog written after his debut on stage with Sarah at the RNC. You would be wrong. It was from Sue Williams.

Let me set the stage (and yes, that’s a pun) for Sue’s use of the word “prop.”  Again, these are small clues, old statements, and different times. Try to imagine it is 2008 and we are reading the words of a woman who had seen Sarah at the  Fred Meyers in Wasilla, a woman who knows Sally and Chuck by name, and who remembers what it was like to have Sarah as mayor. 

Sue has heard things. Things from people who are closer than she is to the Heaths. These people have opinions about the Palin kids and the way the Saplins treat them – any of ‘em, all of ‘em. 

Sue Williams introduced the concept of Trig Palin being Sarah’s prop.  “How does one dash about the country for the next 66 days trying to pull off an image of the devoted mother of five…not to say anything about the needs of Trig. But maybe he doesn’t count, except as a talking point or a photo prop.”

Sarah might be a bad mother, “farming the kids out” as they said of her in Wasilla, but shouldn’t those same critics be glad to see her take Trig with her in a sling to a meeting or a bill signing? He wasn't being farmed out. Maybe, with the newest addition, she had become  a more devoted mother. Why are people still talking, is it because this is an acquired baby?

Sue Williams told us Sarah is famously quoted [among family friends] as saying, “My mom does whatever I need her to.” Doesn’t that bring to mind Sally holding baby Trig in a hospital corridor on April 18, 2008?  Yup, Sarah’s mother did what she was told to do, she held the new ‘prop’ and claimed Sarah had just birthed him that day. He was stage setting. He was an acquired prop.

In a sense, the story of Babygate is a story like what happened in Rochester when the police and the courts turned their backs on finding the truth. Professionals, in this case, the journalists, have failed to do their job to serve the public, and we believe the public is endangered by that failure. The media are protected by the Constitution for a reason. We need them.  Police and journalists both have made commitments to find the truth, seek evidence, warn the public of potential danger.

Now, I may be stretching here, so go ahead and challenge this, but I think Sue tipped us off to what inner Heath friends knew.  Trig is different than his siblings for more than just a chromosome. Sarah acquired Trig, to use as a prop and they used the word before any of us. 

If friends knew, then how has Babygate been kept under wraps sooooo long? Well, how did the real murderer go so many years without being convicted, even after he told friends? Odd things happen, folks.  We cannot close our minds to possibilities. If friends let a murderer walk the streets, friends would let a mom claim her grandchild as her own. (Besides, it's Wasilla.)

SW using the word 'prop' is a tiny thing buried in an old comment thread,  like the back of an earring imbedded in a chunk of wood.  It may not be enough proof now, but let’s remember we have it, where to find it, and where it came from.  Someday it may take on more importance.

Until then, Trig Truthers, press on! Do not accept no for an answer. 

Our work is important, and someone’s got to do it.

Cathy Baldwin-Johnson

Sue Williams’ statements about Dr. Cathy Baldwin-Johnston and Trig’s birth reveal  biases (we all have some), the ability to think critically (not everyone can), a level of open honesty, and a willingness to listen to an opposing opinion.

Sue Williams told us how she would have voted for Sarah for Lt. Governor, but a fellow Christian made some good observations that caused her to see things more clearly and she no longer supported Sarah’s run.  Neither did she think Sarah Palin should have become governor, and she says Sarah was not as popular a governor as we were told.

Sue provided, unwittingly, this insight into her ability to reason and  reconsider  when challenged with new information. It’s an argument for saying Sue would have listened to and used new facts and  observations, which led to reduced confidence in CBJ.  She went  from “she [CBJ] would not” lie, to the much milder  “not out of the realm of the possible”in 24 hours.

At first, Sue believed in CBJ:

… Sarah’s doc is Cathy Baldwin-Johnson, a family physician, who, a few years back, was awarded some sort of national Family Doctor of the Year award. CBJ (as she is known in these parts) wouldn’t lie. I think if you go back and read the more-or-less cover-up article put out by the Anchorage Daily News (adn) during this situation, where Sarah talks about conferring with CBJ, and CBJ is interviewed, CBJ was pretty careful not to say she felt like the travel was wise – but Sarah tried to pass it off as if she had CBJ’s approval.

What does “more or less cover-up article” mean? Could it mean Sarah wasn’t pregnant? I wish I could say I think so, but I don’t. On this first day of writing, Sue was protecting her own doctor’s reputation concerning the long flight from Texas to Alaska.

Below are CBJ travel-relevant quotes from the Anchorage Daily News article (the cover-up article) by Lisa Demers

The contractions slowed to one or two an hour, "which is not active labor," the doctor said.

"Things were already settling down when she talked to me," Baldwin-Johnson said. Palin did not ask for a medical OK to fly, the doctor said.

"I don't think it was unreasonable for her to continue to travel back," Baldwin-Johnson said.

…This was going to be Palin's last flight anyway, her doctor said.

Baldwin-Johnson said she had to induce labor, and the baby didn't come until 6:30 a.m. Friday.

(note: the online article of April 22, 2008 was “last updated” October 20, 2008 – two weeks and a few days before the election and seven weeks after Sue showed up on Mudflats.):

Then, is this whole birth story true? Sue W leaves some wiggle room:

I didn’t say nobody tells lies. Goodness, read the accounts of Sarah at and rew halcro.com and at the adn.com for the past six weeks. Make up your own mind about… lies… But, do I think CBJ, Sarah’s doc, would lie? I do not think so.

By the second day, Sue, with a sense of annoyance, admits she might be wrong:

My gosh. Give up the “doc could have lied shtick.” Okay. I suppose it’s not out of the realm of the possible.

How do I know CBJ? She happens to be my doctor. That’s how I know her.

Got to say it again. It is valuable to us to have this quick reversal on the record. CBJ was more to Ms. Williams than a nationally recognized local physician. CBJ was her own doctor. Sue heard something so big, about someone with whom she entrusted her own health and life, that she decided that perhaps that professional was, after all, capable of lying on a grand scale about Sarah Palin and Trig.  

Could the hospital staff have been involved in a cover up? Sue Williams, at first, thought not.

“Trust me, Sir, this is a Valley of few secrets. Everyone knows everyone and everything. There’s no way at all the hospital staff would be able/be willing to pull off that kind of a cover-up.”

By the next day she would at least consider that Trig could be Bristol’s:

Oh my gosh, you guys. Please. What do I care if Trig is Bristol’s baby? Maybe he was and now she’s pregnant again. I don’t know. That seems unlikely to me. Look, all I can tell you is Bristol is pregnant.

It’s been suggested before by many Truthers that CBJ’s statements about the birth might have been about Bristol. If so, the “facts” such as Palin didn’t ask for medical approval to fly are red herrings. Of the hard facts surrounding Trig’s birth, CBJ gives us these:

Trig’s mother (Sarah implied but not specified) was experiencing labor pains which slowed to one to two an hour.

In CBJ’s professional opinion, that’s not active labor.

Labor was induced by CBJ.

The birth took place at Mat-Su General.

Trig was born about 6:30 am Friday (implied to be April 18, 2008).

With a sense of annoyance, Sue admits she’s questioning:

My gosh. Give up the “doc could have lied shtick.” Okay. I suppose it’s not out of the realm of the possible.

How do I know CBJ? She happens to be my doctor. That’s how I know her.

What does this mean to us? It means that a person who did not want to believe CBJ would lie, heard something so big, from the Heath inner circle, that she had to reconsider.  

CBJ was the doctor with whom she entrusted her own health and life. Nevertheless, Sue decided that perhaps that professional was, after all, capable of lying on a grand scale about Sarah Palin and Trig. It is valuable to us to have this quick reversal on the record because whatever she heard, she heard it from the Heath inner circle.

Sue Williams was hearing inner Heath family reactions and problems while Sarah Palin and her family were being readied for introduction to the nation. There's a clue in Sue's words that points to behind the scenes in Minnianapolis - a true insider piece. I'll explain that next. 

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