By Patrick
Once upon a time...there was a female politician in the lonely and cold state of Alaska, a place many people did not care too much about. She wanted fame and power, and although some people thought she was quite dumb, our politician had realized something very important: In politics, it's all about building a movement for yourself. You need fans - and the best thing is: They will do the work for you, sometimes "dirty" work (if that is what you really want). If they are fanatic enough, they will lie and cheat for you and insult others. You don't even have to do it yourself. Often, they will even do it for free.
Sarah Palin's "rise to power" in Alaska has been well documented, as well as her "downfall." However, it is very interesting to note that fascinating revelations about exactly how Sarah Palin rose to power in Alaska recently were published by unlikely sources: By her father, Chuck Heath Sr. and her brother, Chuck Heath Jr. In their 2012 book "Our Sarah", they explained how Sarah Palin at a very early point had realized that you need an "online brigade" to drum up support for you - and how such a group of people, often volunteers, can be used with great effectiveness.
They write (pp. 167 and 168):
Finally, in October 2005, before a packed living room at her home, Sarah announced her decision. She was running for governor. (...) Sarah's announcement came early, which gave her an advantage. She also had a volunteer network already in place from the lieutenant governor's campaign. They hadn't been formally organized during the interim, but they were just the same. They went to work immediately. (...)
They also began an Internet group that operated on its own, apart from the campaign. Members of that group manned their computers and searched for blogs and news sites with articles about the governor's race. Using multiple e-mail-accounts, and sometimes multiple computers, they made it their own personal mission to post responses to every news article that touched on the issues and candidates. They diligently and relentlessly countered every negative comment and encouraged every positive response, not just with partisan invective but with well-researched facts. (...)
They conclude this chapter on page 173 and write:
On February 2, 2007, Adam Brickley, a student at the University of Colorado, created a blog entitled Draft Sarah Palin for Vice President. His first entry offered an argument for why she should be named as the vice presidential running mate for Rudy Giuliani, at the time the front runner for the Republican nomination for president in the 2008 election. Don (Benson) and the pro-Sarah Internet group learned about the blog a few days later and immediately began organizing support for a push to get Sarah on the ticket.
As they had done during the gubernational campaign, they searched the Internet for related blogs and news sites, where they posted comments and directed users to Brickley's blog. They located websites that invited users to vote in vice presidential preferential polls and made sure they voted for Sarah. With polls that did not include her name, they posted comments suggesting her as an alternative to others then being considered and encouraged sites to add her name to the list. Their help moved Sarah's name up in several of the informal polls, not all the way to the top but high enough to get noticed. That, in turn, generated discussions about her among news outlets. Before long she wasn't just the first female governor of Alaska. She was on the short list of names mentioned as a potential Republican vice presidential candidate.
Chuck Heath Jr. and Sr.: Their book wasn't so boring after all
Therefore Sarah Palin experienced the benefits of have a large group of supporters who defend you online and, ideally, shout down the opposition in online forums with lies, insults and heavily distorted or made-up "facts" - Scientology-style. Because that is what can be witnessed today on virtually every article which is posted online about the Quitter, with the supposedly "independent" website "Conservatives4Palin" (C4P) at the heart of this ugly "movement" for Sarah. Her online "mini-me's" imitate the "Governor" perfectly: They are mean, they play dirty and they surely don't let facts get in their way.
"Conservatives4Palin" have rather murky beginnings when at some point in early 2009, three supposed "grassroots activists" founded the website (see their "official story" about the start of the website). If you believe that this was an "independent" start-up, you might as well believe in Santa Claus. Co-founder Rebecca A. Mansour ("RAM") secretly vanished from the site later in 2009 with virtually no trace remaining, so to speak - until we at Palingates "found" her again in an exclusive revelation on February 1, 2010, when we reported that Rebecca A. Mansour secretly had become one of Sarah Palin's highly paid advisors.
That claim that "Conservatives4Palin" is independent from Sarah Palin has long been exposed as a lie. I recently wrote in my post about the practice of banning even mildly critical commenters from "Conservatives4Palin":
It is a website which claims to be independent from Sarah Palin and her official organizations, but Sarah Palin's former top-aide Frank Bailey inconveniently revealed in his book "Blind Allegiance to Sarah Palin" that Conservatives4Palin received their talking points from Palin-aide Meg Stapleton in 2009 in order to discredit Juneau-resident Chip Thoma (p. 323). As a result of the communications between Meg Stapleton and C4P, their writer Joey Russo published a bogus-story about the invented fact that Thoma wanted to "close down Piper Palin's lemonade stand."
So what fun fact have we got to report today? We recently wrote about Steve Flesher, a leading author and moderator at C4P, who is also the founder of "gayconservative.org." Steve Flesher proved just as "ban-happy" as "RAM" back in the old days. Anyone who "disrespects the Governor", which according to Steve Flesher also includes asking the question why Palin is silent on immigration issues, will get the boot from "Conservatives4Palin" - the fan club does not want to be disturbed.
It is therefore understandable that Steve Flesher does not like us too much. However, that is not very surprising, as his internet history proves that apart from being one of the most important authors at C4P, he has been one of Sarah Palin's most rabid and vicious "online defenders" during the recent years as well. Many people might not be aware of the fact that the very vocal pro-Palin online-commenter "snorp73" is actually Steve Flesher. He never identifies himself in the comments, but his sign-up history is partially online - you find it with a simple google-search:
In the meantime, Steve deleted his "snorp73" twitter account, but still uses his disqus-profile for combative and mostly insulting pro-Palin comments on blogs and articles (despite having a disqus-profile with his real name as well).
When my dear wife Kathleen recently left a comment on the "Atlantic Wire" article about John Olivers wonderful segment about Sarah Palin, Steve Flesher aka "snorp73" shot back with a remark which is more than eyebrow-raising in its hilarity, or might I even say "hypocrisy" - the conservative gay activist Steve Flesher, founder of "gayconservative.org", attacked Kathleen with a "gay slur." He responded to Kathleen:
"Low standards, mister-sister."
Screenshots:
Even for Steve Flesher, this has to a new low.
In some older comments "snorp73" actually mentioned that his is gay:
The "urban dictionary" has this to say about the phrase "mister sister".
Could you also say "hypocrisy?"
Funnily, that is what justifies banning commenters at "Conservatives4Palin", according to Steve Flesher:
To conclude, there are two other comments by Steve Flesher aka "snorp73" which are worth mentioning. But before doing that, I would like to point out the following - Steve Flesher aka "snorp73" is no stranger to check out other people's comment histories as well and commenting about it:
First, it is particularly interesting to note that Steve Flesher found it necessary to dismiss the allegation that Sarah Palin faked her pregnancy with Trig (which is, of course, a true fact and not just an allegation) with a flat out-lie.
On a Palin-related article at "The Hill" the commenter "nolaredhead" posted the following photo comparison in the comments, a photo-comparison which was originally created by our reader "Lidia17":
Steve Flesher aka "snorp73" responded to this photo with a very revealing comment:
"Nobody can prove that they correspond with the dates they claim to be taken on"...?
You really want to believe that, am I correct, Steve?
So let's make the fact-check. That's always great fun as far as Sarah Palin is concerned, did you know that, Steve?
Let's start with the picture on the right, taken on April 13, 2008. It's a real pleasure to confirm that authenticity of this photo, because you know, Steve, there was even a TV-report done about this photo, by KTVA-reporter Andrea Gusty, who interviewed Sarah while the photo was taken.
This is the TV-report about the photo, from April 2009:
This is the original photo, in the highest resolution available (click on photo to enlarge):
There was also a second photo published together with this one:
When were they published? Well, anonymously, on August 31, 2008, on flickr, by videographer Dan Carpenter, as we know today. He used the the flickr-account named "erik99559." This account has long been deleted, but the screenshots survive, as well as the original photos:
News of the anonymously posted picture spread suspiciously fast, because just one day later, on September 1, 2008, HuffPost writer Lee Stranahan, who today writes for Breitbart, used this photo to debunk that fast spreading claim that Sarah Palin faked her pregnancy:
See our post from April 17, 2011 with more facts and documentation about the "Gusty-pictures."
So I think we confirmed that authenticity of this photo, won't you agree, Steve?
Let's get to the second photo, from March 26, 2008, when Sarah Palin was only three weeks away from "giving birth" to a baby weighing more then six pounds.
There are actually several pictures existing from this day. The one in the picture-comparison above only came to light in August 2011 after they had been released by photo-agency Polaris (see our major post about these photos from August 2011).
Here is it again in its full glory:
Well, apart from the fact that we have a professional photo-agency website dating the photo on March, 2008...
...we also have several other pieces of documentation, as explained in great length in this post.
Originally, we had found a different picture from March 26, 2008 at a much earlier point, already late in 2008.
This was the original "nail in the coffin" picture from March 26, 2008 (click to enlarge), which was posted on flickr by the user "surfdaf":
The picture was taken on March 26, 2008, in the Alaska State Museum in Juneau where Palin signed Bill HB 259. Here is a news report from this event:
Here is a screenshot of Sarah Palin's official diary from that day, which was obtained through a FOIA request (click to enlarge):
Sarah Palin's complete official schedule from late 2007 and early 2008, which was obtained through a FOIA request, can be found HERE.
In addition, here is a screenshot from a news report about this event in the "Juneau Empire" - already including a picture which was taken by Brian Wallace:
The picture links to this short story - written by Brian Wallace, whose additional pictures from this event now appeared on the agency website virtually "out of the blue":
The "wayback Machine" also saved the official press release of the Governor's office for this event at the Alaska State Museum which took place on March 26, 2008.
The "nail in the coffin" picture with Palin's flat belly was upload to flickr on April 15, 2008, three days before Trig was officially born, by the user "surfdaf". It's not the only picture she uploaded from this event. There were several others as well.
Here are the original screenshots from flickr:
I even made PDF-hardcopies of the flickr-pages on November 30, 2008. You can access the PDF-document with the "nail in the coffin" picture HERE.
While "surfdaf" made the famous "nail in the coffin" picture private shortly after it was discovered, the other pictures are still online, "embedded" in a huge batch of other pictures from Alaska which were also uploaded to flickr on April 15, 2008.
So I guess we have this picture covered as well.
What do you say now, Steve? Where is the baby weighing more than six pounds which was presented only three weeks later on April 18, 2008? Where was it hiding? Because one thing is certain: On March 26, 2008, it certainly was not "there."
This was the situation on April 18, 2008:
Steve, maybe the answer to all these questions can be found in your own comments.
On June 27, 2011, when Sarah's fan, you included, were still certain of a presidential run, you commented:
So I guess we have this picture covered as well.
What do you say now, Steve? Where is the baby weighing more than six pounds which was presented only three weeks later on April 18, 2008? Where was it hiding? Because one thing is certain: On March 26, 2008, it certainly was not "there."
This was the situation on April 18, 2008:
Steve, maybe the answer to all these questions can be found in your own comments.
On June 27, 2011, when Sarah's fan, you included, were still certain of a presidential run, you commented:
You wrote:
"If she doesn't run, she irritates a massive following of people requiring her to at least give it a shot. She has to -- even if she loses --- to stay in the mix."
Actually, I agree with you here, Steve. If Sarah Palin had been aspiring to become the US President, she definitely should have attempted a run - even if she lost.
So why didn't she run, Steve?
And let me add: Why will she never run for anything else again, Steve?
You should think long and hard about these questions, Steve. Sometimes it's too hard to see the wood if there are too many bears and popes around, you know.
+++
Palin-biographer Joe McGinniss: "I think the Politicalgates archives are the best single available resource for anyone wondering why questions are still being asked about Sarah really being Trig’s birth mother." (from August 28, 2011)
Kathleen Baker, editor of Politicalgates, writes in the UK "Guardian" about Sarah Palin's faked pregnancy: "Sarah Palin, unreliable narrator"
Read all posts at Politicalgates about Sarah Palin's faked pregnancy with Trig - FOR THE COLLECTION, CLICK HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE AND HERE.
Download the research paper regarding Sarah Palin's faked pregnancy and the role of the media, written by Brad Scharlott, Associate Professor for Journalism at Northern Kentucky University - CLICK HERE.
Brad Scharlott's revised version of the paper has also been published by "Business Insider."
Read the old post at Palingates about the faked pregnancy with the pictures still intact in hardcopy HERE.
Read the old posts at Palingates online HERE (useful also for watching the video clips which were published with the posts).
Listen to Sarah Palin's own description of her unbelievable "Wild Ride" from Texas to Alaska, which happened on April 17, 2008: Sarah explains how she decided to make the trip, despite of the fact that her "water broke" the night before.
In addition, please don't hesitate to watch the excellent video-documentaries about "babygate" which our reader Lidia17 created - HERE, HERE and HERE.
