Good Morning Chuckle

My email box is filled with queries about the recently revealed "Christmas - 2007" photograph of the Palin family, which was actually taken in September 2007. A post about this photograph (putting it into a context) is the works.

Meanwhile, just so you can spit YOUR coffee all over YOUR computer screen (you were warned - best to put the cup down now) I'd like to share the following letter. It was written by "Sarah Stelfox" hailing from Alberta, in a "letter to the editor" response to Vanity Fair's recent article on Sarah Palin.

I completely disagree with James Wolcott's description of Sarah Palin as "Margaret Thatcher with moose antlers," a term that is unfair to Ms. Thatcher, in particular, and moose in general. On second thought, I may have to allow the moose bit - for two reasons. Number one: Here in the Canadian Foothills, moose have a regrettable tendency to wander along the roadside, and when a car approaches, they panic, leave the shoulder, and run straight down the center of the road, oblivious to the fact that the car is both faster and stronger than they are. Number two: Although moose often have long legs and an impressive rack, their communication skills leave a lot to be desired, which makes them well suited to a solitary life in the bush, but somewhat awkward in urban settings, where logic and complete sentences are required.

Thank you Sarah Stelfox. We could not have said it better.

Enough is Enough

The Palin Deception website began seven and a half months ago, and the blog only very shortly after the site. Since the very beginning of my efforts to document the bizarre inconsistencies, troubling anomalies, and reasonable questions about Sarah Palin's alleged pregnancy (as well as the outright lies told by her directly,) I have attempted to rely heavily on the considerable photographic evidence available that she was never pregnant. To that end, on this blog and website, we have published literally scores of photographs in which her appearance is completely inconsistent with a forty-four year old woman five, six, seven, eight months pregnant with her fifth child. By and large, the main stream media has ignored this evidence.

This is made all the more ironic because the "Sarah Palin had Trig because Sarah Palin wouldn't lie" contingent has chosen to use a single "conclusive" photograph repeatedly to prove that Palin WAS pregnant, in spite of the fact that everyone must recognize logically that it is easy to appear pregnant if you are NOT (think of how many times it has been done convincingly on film and in theater) but it is nearly impossible to NOT look pregnant if you definitely are.



This photograph was allegedly taken on April 13, 2008, five days prior to Trig's birth. The problems with this photograph have been discussed in the past, in numerous posts on this blog, (here and here) but I will summarize the strongest points again.
1. The photo was released nowhere until after her VP nomination in late August.
2. The photo was released anonymously on Flickr in low resolution by one "Erik99559" to an account that was created solely to release this photo (and one other taken simultaneously.) Andrea Gusty (the reporter also shown in the photo,) in January did state publicly that the photo was taken with her camera, but she never explained who Erik is or was, why this photo was released only to Flickr, or why this was done anonymously four and a half months after the photo was taken. It also doesn't explain why, quietly, some time in the last six weeks, the account and photos just disappeared.
3. The photo was taken by a camera whose date was intentionally altered.
4. The photo was altered after it was uploaded to Flickr to lower the resolution.

Yet this single photo has been viewed as absolute proof positive that Palin was pregnant, and anyone who questions it is a "truther," "nut-job," "left wing looney" or worse. (Believe me, much worse - you should see my mail.)

Today, yet another photo has surfaced which - in my opinion - shows conclusively that Sarah Palin was faking a pregnancy in April of 2008, and frankly doing a fairly crappy job of it. This photo was taken on April 8, 2008 - exactly five days prior to the photo with Andrea Gusty in which she is conspicuously (even largely) pregnant and ten days prior to the announced birth date of Trig Palin. No, it's not terribly clear, and all we have is a photo of a photo, but in my opinion it's clear enough.



It was taken by a teacher, of a chance encounter between two students with Gov. Palin on a set of stairs of the capitol building in Juneau. Again, we see the floppy print scarf, tied in a full way, (again also begging the question why she continued to wear scarves - something she had claimed she did to HIDE her pregnant condition prior to March - AFTER the pregnancy was announced.) And again, careful examination shows the bulky scarf looking "poochey," but the LINE of the scarf on the left side of the photo (Palin's right), thanks to a clear side shot here, as it falls down against her body is completely, utterly straight. Contrast also the hand position. In the April 8th photo, her hand (clutching the two Blackberries,) rests almost flat against her abdomen. In the Gusty photo, she can barely clasp her hands in front of her.

Look above again at the Gusty photo. Try to picture what would happen to a scarf as it draped down her body if she were wearing one. (If any of you female readers are pregnant, similar to Sarah's build and close to delivery, by all means put on a jacket and scarf, have a photo of yourself taken at the same angle and we'll happily publish it for comparison!) Now look again at the April 8th photo. There is no doubt at all. In the Gusty photo, for a TV interview, she is wearing some sort of device or prosthetic to mimic a pregnant appearance. She goes out of her way to appear pregnant, largely so. On April 8th, quickly dashing up the stairs of the capitol, she relies on a floppy orange print scarf tied in a bulky fashion, and while moving quickly from place to place, the distracting floppiness and shape of the scarf did exactly what it was supposed to - mask the fact that there's nothing underneath. But - oh no - here are some pesky students who want a photo and, with no good reason to say no, she says yes. Bad idea. Because there's no six pound baby under that scarf. Not even close. As one very sharp blog reader said once, "Scarves hide hickeys. Not pregnancies."

So when is the charade going to stop? When will the main stream media put a stop to this "emperor's new clothes" charade? When will someone say, "Enough is enough?"

Pregnant with Piper? You betchya...!

Since the beginning of the controversy regarding Gov. Sarah Palin's pregnancy, one aspect that has been commented on continually is that her appearance last spring did not mesh with expectations of a "normal" pregnancy.

At the time of the announcement, March 5th, 2008, the news that she was expecting was regarded with utter astonishment. Although Palin claimed at the time that she had to announce the pregnancy when she did because "people were beginning to notice," and that her clothes were getting "snugger and snugger," in fact the only person who has ever stated this IS Gov. Palin. (Even the article in which Palin is quoted as saying her clothes were getting tighter has as its main theme the fact that no one - not even her staffers - suspected she was pregnant.)

And a quick digression: I have always wondered, after reading this explanation for the public acknowledgment of a pregnancy that was allegedly already in its seventh month, if no one had EVER "noticed" her clothes getting tight, at what point would Palin have announced it? It's a fair question. Or would she have just showed up with a baby one day? She seems to be implying exactly that.)

Not one person has ever come forward and stated that they even suspected Gov. Palin to be pregnant prior to March 5th, at which point she would have been – based on her own announced due date – approximately 29 weeks pregnant with her fifth child. Not one staffer, not one journalist, no one. One sole journalist, Cherie Shirrey of KTVA, within 48 hours of the controversy erupting in August, jumped to Palin's defense and claimed that she had seen Palin numerous times for interviews and "in the studio" prior to Trig's birth (implying that it was between the time of the announcement – March 5th – and the birth six weeks later) and that Palin was definitely pregnant. Here's the blog post I did about this last December. However, Palin's daily schedule (obtained under a FOIA request) for the two months prior to Trig's birth in fact shows not a single visit to this TV station's studio. I have personally written Ms. Shirrey asking her to corroborate her statement. I have inquired about the dates of these interviews, topics covered, and why no video or stills are available of any of these interviews. I have received no answer.

After the announcement of her nomination on August 29th, one photo had appeared of Gov. Palin pregnant with a previous child (prior to the alleged pregnancy with Trig in 2008.)



This photo was provided by her parents to the news media as part of a large group of family photos that were released very shortly (within a day or two) after her VP pick. Although in a couple of places it has been suggested that this is not actually Palin at all (based on the fact that frankly the woman in the photo does not seem to look much like Sarah Palin does now) neither the Palin family nor the McCain campaign retracted the photo or ever stated it was not she. This photo has been shown widely, specifically to cast doubt on whether she is Trig's mother, and has been effective in doing so. I believe that if they had been able to retract the photo by claiming that it was someone else and had been released by mistake, that they would have done so.

Her hairstyle and general appearance actually are consistent with other photos we have of her from the late eighties into the early nineties. This comparison below shows Palin, I believe, looking very much similar to the photo of her late in pregnancy.



(And, no, I have no clue at all why she is wearing a crown, so don't bother to ask.)

Although rumored to be of her late in her pregnancy with Track (in 1989), as far as I can determine that's never been confirmed. However, based on hairstyle, my guess is that the photo is either from Track's pregnancy or Bristol's pregnancy two years later (1991.) Willow was born in mid-summer, 1995, and based on the surroundings, I do not believe this to be a mid summer scene.

Regardless of the exact year, however, one thing is clear. Gov. Palin is not only pregnant, she is in this photo I would say larger than average, particularly so if this might be her first pregnancy. In precise medical terms, she's huge. This evidence of her being of certainly "normal" size (and then some) in a prior pregnancy has been largely ignored by those who support Palin. They feel comfortable ignoring this photo for one reason: we do not know "how pregnant" Palin is here. She could hypothetically be one day away from giving birth at full term, a point she never reached with Trig, who was allegedly born at 35 weeks. Palin might be, it's suggested, one of those women who just gets really big "right at the end." The picture therefore is worthless for comparison purposes, it's claimed.

And – again – whenever this is discussed, the same group of "she got big right at the end" naysayers also serenade us with plausible tales of how they themselves, (or their wives, sisters, co-workers, what have you) never looked pregnant either. Every one of these people seems to know LOTS of 110 pound women who never looked pregnant and then, miraculously, gave birth to healthy seven, eight, even nine pound children. I am sure there are exceptions to every rule, but in fact, in nearly thirty years of working with pregnant women, I have never met one who looked significantly less pregnant on a subsequent pregnancy (unless there was a very good physiological reason, such as a single pregnancy following twins) than she did on an earlier one. It just doesn't work that way. I know, you know it, Governor Sarah Palin knows it, and deep down, every Palin supporter who tries to feed us this line of bullpuckey knows it too.

Since September, I have been hoping that additional photos of Palin from a prior pregnancy would become available which would shed some additional light on this issue. Was her pregnancy with Piper, for example, as magically free of any of those pesky physical changes as her pregnancy with Trig apparently was?

I can say now that it was not. Additional photos have been found, though regrettably they are not of the best quality. We have located two photographs of her taken in late November/early December, 2000, during her pregnancy with Piper. Both are from the archives of the Frontiersman, the local newspaper for the Mat-Su Valley.

Originals are not available. We have the photos in three separate formats, copies made from microfiche (microfiche provided by the University of Alaska), Xerox copies made from the actual extant physical copies of the paper (in person at the Frontiersman offices), and digital photographs of the physical copies of the paper (also taken in person at the Frontiersman offices.) None of these methods are ideal. Yet, in both, in spite of the fuzziness of the copies, I believe she definitely looks pregnant.

Piper was born on March 22, 2001, according to this article on her projected due date. The first week of December, therefore, Sarah Palin would have been around 25 weeks pregnant. She looks, well, normal. At twenty five weeks into her fourth pregnancy. This is, fortuitously, exactly the same point of pregnancy she would have been at when these famous "Super Tuesday" photos were taken in Juneau.





Unlike many other photos of her taken in late winter / early spring 2008, where Palin seems to be determined to hide behind winter coats, trench coats, huge (and notably unattractive) floppy print scarves, tables, podiums, mannish black blazers, and her own children, these two shots are remarkably clear. She is slim-hipped and flat-chested, and, in my opinion, she shows utterly no signs of pregnancy whatsoever.

Here are the two photos. The first, dated December 1, 2000 would have been taken sometime in the prior week, so let's say between November 24th and November 30th.



The second, dated December 5, 2000, again could have been taken any point in the prior week: between November 30th and December 4th. In this second photo, Palin is holding something – I presume a coat – draped over her left arm. Here's our original:



Here's one we sharpened to try to bring up some contrast between what she is wearing and what she is holding.



Closely examining the photo shows a slightly greenish cast to the fabric in a few places. However, as the fabric falls between her body and that of the other woman it is impossible to differentiate between what she is holding and her dark clothing, due to the fact that newspaper "half tones" scan at 85 dpi, which is a very low resolution photograph to work from.

In spite of the drawbacks of these two photos, the fullness of Palin's shape – in both photos - is impossible to deny.

Palin's supporters – the "Sarah Palin had Trig because Sarah Palin would never lie" posse – have also stated that the reason Palin never looked pregnant with Trig is that in 2007-2008 she was "in the public eye" and "did not let herself go." These photos of her pregnant with Piper demonstrate this is false. Palin was in the public eye (she was mayor of Wasilla) and was also very fit (running competitively around this point in her life). How she looked with Piper in 2000-2001 should be a very good guide to how we might have expected her to look with a fifth pregnancy several years later.

Why she didn't is anyone's guess. Mine is that she was not pregnant.

Message. In. A. Bottle.

Well, not exactly in a bottle. More like on the Tyra Banks show.

Since the beginning of the controversy about who had given birth to Trig Palin a set of pictures that were published some time prior to May 5, 2008 on Mercede Johnston's MySpace page has given those of us who have tried to solve the riddle, basically, fits. The pictures have been discussed in several other posts on this blog, here. Here's one of them, the other two (one of Mercede with Bristol and one of Mercede with Sarah) can be seen at the posts linked above.



The captions - identifying Trig as Mercede's "baby brother" and Sarah Palin as "mommy in law" could never be adequately explained through "known" relationships. Certainly, many people - myself among them - thought that the captions indicated that Trig Palin was something "special" to Mercede Johnston, something far MORE special than just the younger brother of a good friend, though just how that was remained "obscure" as the captions, while terribly intriguing, were difficult to explain.

No matter how one "sliced and diced," Trig Palin was NOT Mercede's brother unless somehow her mother (Sherrie Johnston) was also Trig's mother... and that seemed beyond credibility... or if somehow Mercede's father was also Trig's father. But it never was possible to explain why, in such a circumstance, Sarah Palin would be motivated to fake a pregnancy. If Trig were Levi's son, Trig would be Mercede's nephew, and she did not say that. If he were merely her future sister-in-law's younger brother, Mercede's enthusiasm was hard to explain.

Initially, many people thought the pictures were taken in a hospital setting. After Gov. Palin did several interviews after the election in her home, we were able to prove conclusively that the photos were in fact taken in the Palin kitchen. While interesting, this made the photos in a way more obscure, since now they could only be dated to some point "before May 5th." We know this because on May 5th, Mercede received a comment about them on her MySpace page. Other than that, they could not be dated.

Today, Mercede Johnston, Levi Johnston, and Sherrie Johnston (their mother) appeared on the Tyra Banks show. In the background, numerous still photos were shown.

Including this one:



I've got news for everyone. Mercede is wearing exactly the same outfit, down to the earrings, as the photos released last year. Her hair is identical. The baby appears to be wearing the same outfit. Levi is sitting in the same chair in the Palin kitchen.
Compare for yourself:



This is NOT a photo of Levi with Tripp Johnston, allegedly born December 27, 2008.

This is a photo of Levi Johnston cradling tenderly Trig Palin, allegedly born April 18, 2008. It was taken the same day as the photos that Mercede put up on her MySpace page, some time before May 5th 2008.

Why in the world would this photo be selected for release on the Tyra Banks show unless Mercede is trying to send us a message, loud and clear? Surely, if Tripp IS Levi's child (and Trig is the son of his ex future mother-in-law) there would be no earthly reason to release photos of Trig with Levi on a show that was supposed to be about current events, i.e., Tripp's birth and the current relationship with Tripp's mother. But.. someone in the Johnston clan selected this photo. Of Levi cuddling Trig. Now almost a year ago. Intentionally. So I... and other "anonymous bloggers..." would see it. And we have.

Mercede, message received. Thank you.