http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=7152714&mesg_id=7152714Dear Keith,
Not only is Sarah Palin entirely unqualified to be VP, but she is allowing her native population to live in human waste. The thread above at Democratic Underground has many excellent sources.
Over the past 3 years, Alaska has received 50 million dollars to address this problem. (There is another 25 million still pending.) Alaska receives this money BY LAW thanks to Senator Ted Stevens and it is specifically earmarked for water and waste systems:
http://stevens.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=N...Congress Approves Agriculture and Rural Development Funding for Alaska
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Congress today approved the omnibus spending bill, which includes funding for the Department of Agriculture. The legislation funds a number of important programs that benefit Alaska, and particularly rural communities and villages. Much of this agriculture and rural development funding for Alaska was secured at the request of Senator Ted Stevens (R-Alaska).
The State will receive $25 million** to enhance rural Alaska sanitation systems under the Rural Community Advancement Program. This is a continuation of funding received over the past two years and is bolstered this year by a $13.75 million national program to provide technical assistance for rural water systems. In addition, the Denali Commission will receive $437,000 to address deficiencies in solid waste disposal sites which threaten to contaminate rural drinking water supplies.
“Alaska faces many unique challenges, but perhaps none greater than bringing our villages and small communities into the 21st century,” said Senator Stevens. “This effort has spanned several decades and continues with the passage of this year’s spending bill. These funds help ensure that Alaskans have access to the same basic water and sewage systems that Americans in the Lower 48 take for granted. Without this assistance, rural Alaskans are at an increased risk of disease and sickness. Clean drinking water and proper waste removal are important building blocks to healthy communities.”
The Federal government has dispensed this money (as required by law) to the State of Alaska, but people are still living in filth:
http://www.reznetnews.org/article/sarah-palin/whats-pal...While she understands Sarah Palin has only served as governor for two years, Stebing is disappointed she hasn't done more to improve the lives of Alaska Natives, many of whom live in remote, poverty-stricken areas. They are places where some are so poor they lack running water and sewage and must carry out their human waste in large pails called "honey buckets."
So, where has that money gone? It was dispensed by the Fed, by law, but Native populations are pissing into buckets and living near feces-laced lagoons, which of course, is a major health hazard:
http://66.218.69.11/search/cache?ei=UTF-8&p=NAtive+Amer...Throughout rural Alaska, but particularly in the Yukon-Kus-
kokwim Delta and the Northwest Arctic, the outbreak of diseases,
including hepatitis A, bronchitis, impetigo, and sometimes men-
ingitis, is believed to be partially attributed to the exposure to hu-
man waste caused by inadequate sanitation facilities. Because of
the frequent spillage of human waste that occurs on community
roads and boardwalks during its transportation to disposal sites or
sewage lagoons, the exposure of residents, particularly children, to such waste is frequent.
The fact that diseases such as hepatitis A occurs in epidemics has raised questions about
both their exact mechanism of transmission and the overall level of
disease eradication that can be achieved with sani-
tation technologies.
The Native villages with the most frequent out-
breaks of disease are those in which running water
is difficult to obtain and the principal method of
disposal is the honey bucket. In many cases, the
honey bucket system consists simply of a 5-gallon
plastic bucket lined with a plastic bag, with a toilet
seat on top of it. Once filled, the plastic bag is
sealed and the bucket is hand carried and emptied
into a haul container or sewage lagoon or some-
times dumped at a convenient location. In these
communities, honey buckets are used in homes,
by local governments, in commercial buildings,
and even in medical clinics.
Somewhere between USDA dispensing the money and the native villages, the money gets siphoned off for other things. It has to. We already know that Palin is no friend to the native peoples:
http://indiancountrynews.net/index.php?option=com_conte...Sarah Palin's hostile record on Tribal issues in Alaska
As soon as Palin was sworn in as Governor she set a firm course against Native subsistence rights. One of her very first decisions was to continue litigation that seeks to overturn every subsistence fishing determination the federal government has ever made in Alaska.
The goal of Palin's law suit (now known as Alaska versus Kempthorne) is to invalidate all the subsistence fishing regulations the federal government has ever issued to protect Alaska Native fishing in navigable waters. If successful, Palin's attack would move every subsistence issue into the courts and thus tie up Alaska Native subsistence for generations. The reason is no secret: to diminish subsistence fishing rights in order to expand sport and commercial fishing....
....Sadly, Palin's campaign has not stopped with her attacks on subsistence. At the very same time that she has challenged federal subsistence rights, she has waged a second battle against tribal sovereignty. While Palin pays lip service to the fact that Alaska Tribes are federally recognized, it is an empty statement because she insists they have no authority whatsoever to act as sovereigns despite that recognition-unless, she argues, the State first permits a Tribe to take some particular action.
So unyielding is Palin on tribal sovereignty issues that she has sought to block Alaska Tribes from even exercising authority over the welfare of Native children - again, unless the State through its courts first authorizes a Tribe to act. It is a position that is so extreme that, not only have the federal courts rejected it, but even her own state courts have rejected it. Nonetheless, Palin stubbornly refuses to relent, regardless of the consequence for village children caught in the middle of the resulting jurisdictional nightmare.
**
So, Sarah Palin is taking 25 million a year, NOT building water and sewage treatment projects because she really wants to remove these natives from tribal lands and open the land up to oil drilling.
This is a major humanitarian scandal and it must be covered!
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