Professor Scharlott finally has the opportunity to publish his carefully researched article over at the Business Insider.

Courtesy of the Business Insider:

Three years ago, a sitting state governor and candidate for the vice-presidency of the United States, Sarah Palin, told a story about how she had given birth to her fifth child, Trig. 

Some details of this story quickly struck many observers as strange. As more information came to light, some observers came to suspect that, for unclear reasons, Palin had fabricated her pregnancy and lied about it--initially to her Alaska constituents and later to the country. 

Palin reacted angrily to this theory, and it was quickly dismissed as "nonsense" by much of the mainstream media and ignored during the 2008 Presidential campaign. Since then, attempts to settle the question once and for all have been met with silence or anger by those affiliated with Palin. 

Although Palin's supporters have successfully framed lingering questions about the Trig pregnancy as politically motivated attacks, the fact is that legitimate questions remain. And the one person who could instantly and forever put an end to the questions, Sarah Palin herself, has refused to address them. 

This article looks at some of the questions that remain about Palin's story. In my opinion, given that Sarah Palin was a vice-presidential candidate at the time she told this story--and is still often mentioned as a Presidential candidate--the world deserves a final, definitive answer to this question.

(To read the rest of this article please click the link at the top.)

Professor Scharlott left out a few portions that he considered might be too much for the average reader to absorb, including the different babies presented as Trig, but if you want to read the article in its entirety (Including a preponderance of foot notes) you can visit Scribd by clicking here.

Joe McGinniss really brought the babygate story out into the national spotlight so now is the perfect time to start writing about it and talking about it, to introduce the idea of the hoax to as many people as possible.

Personally THIS is what I have been working for, lo these many years, and I am beyond thrilled to see the story addressed by so many people, at so many different venues.

Wow, is September great or what?

Joe McGinniss puts it all on the line with "The Rogue."

"Stop reading this review! Stop it I say! The only truth is my truth, everything else is a lie!"

Now you are going to read a lot of reviews about The Rogue, that will be rife with spoilers and chock full of all of the best parts, like a movie preview that contains every important scene resulting in the actual viewing of the movie to be almost anti-climatic.

This review will NOT be one of those.

But I will tell you this.  Joe McGinniss does not hold back in this book. And in fact takes a rather stunning, and potentially reputation damaging risk.

And he does it for all of you.

Perhaps its best if I start at the beginning.

When Joe came to Alaska that summer in 2010, he asked to meet me for coffee on only his second day in our fair state.  We met at the Starbucks only about five minutes from my house, where we had a rather interesting conversation.

During that talk Joe asked me to explain why I continued to pursue Babygate.

You know that is one of those conversations that I am always hesitant to engage in with people, because I am never sure how they will respond. But Joe asked, so I carefully laid out my case.

Looking back on it now I believe that Joe was just trying to figure out if I was crazy or not. (Later I learned that a number of journalists and authors had been warned to steer clear of me.) Apparently Joe determined that I was not only NOT crazy, but that my questions concerning Palin's birth story with Trig were more than valid.

However he also informed me that if I expected him to pursue that topic I needed to find him people willing to talk about it, preferably with documentation or eyewitness accounts to share.

I want you to know that I did my level best.  I made phone calls, I sent e-mails, and I even went out to Wasilla to meet some of these people face to face.

But I failed.

Even after Joe left Alaska he said "Jesse I need something more than what I found up there."  So I tried some more, and  essentially ran off people who had once claimed repeatedly to be willing to talk to "the right journalist or author."  (If freaking Joe McGinniss was not "the right author" who in the hell were they waiting to interview them?)

But as you know I kept digging.  Sadly some of my more explosive posts on the topic occurred AFTER Joe had already submitted his manuscript. And still they did not really represent what could be considered concrete proof that she had faked that pregnancy.

So when I received my copy of Joe's book I did not expect much about babygate to be addressed. (I would be proven wrong about that.)

Essentially Joe decided to write a book that is more or less two books in one.

One book is all about Sarah Palin, and her upbringing, politics, and the celebrity status that she enjoys today. The other book is about Joe's experiences as the "most hated neighbor in America."

All through the book Joe weaves back and forth between these two narratives, using the incidents that happened to him in 2010 to illustrate what makes people so afraid to speak out about the Palins, and then revisiting Sarah's life story to better understand why she and Todd react to perceived adversity the way that they do. As well as how a lack of consequences in the past reinforced their vindictive natures today.

In the hands of a less gifted writer this could have been a confusing mishmash of conflicting timelines and seemingly unrelated pieces of information, but Joe knits the two narratives together almost seamlessly.

Essentially we learn, just like we did in Geoffrey Dunn's book, that Sarah Palin uses people up like tissue paper and casts them aside with virtually NO thought to how they might be affected by her callousness. And if anybody dares to challenge her right to treat them like garbage, Todd steps in and essentially intimidates them into accepting their fate without argument.

The level of anger that has built up over the years from taking this abuse, can best be illustrated by the rather unbelievable number of guns offered to Joe while he is staying next door to the Palins. (I cannot help but wonder if at least a few of these friendly Wassilians were not harboring a secret fantasy that Joe WOULD actually feel the need to use one of these firearms and forever remove the Palin plague from their lives forever. I know that seems harsh, but I have spoken to several of their neighbors who feel a great deal of animosity toward that family, and I do not see it as being out of the realm of possibilities.)

Despite the fear that Palin seems to instill in people, Joe manages to conduct a number of "on the record" interviews, with the participants agreeing to allow Joe to use their full names in his book. These include Wasilla resident Catherine Mormile, ex-Wasilla Mayor John Stein, Rev. Howard Bess, and Palin's former Head of Security Gary Wheeler. (More on Gary later.)

As most of us would expect the book also contains a number of interviews with people who would rather NOT be named in the book. However it is a hard case to make that THEIR anonymous information is any more damaging than the information provided by those willing to stick their necks out.

Essentially the information, whether anonymous or with names firmly attached, harmoniously blends together like colors sharing the same palette, to paint a picture of Sarah Palin that is clearly defined and altogether disturbing.

In one of my favorite interviews in the book Joe manages to get one of Palin's so called "friends" to speak to him, though oddly she also demands anonymity.

This person claims to have known Sarah for fifteen years, though it appears that she has really only had minimal contact with Palin mostly consisting of attending the same aerobics class and through a "Christmas ornament exchange" that Palin stopped attending several years ago. This interviewee did not have any real conversations with Sister Sarah, and in fact barely knows the woman, but hey at least ONE person does not hate the Palin family in Wasilla! (Though this poor woman laments the fact that she never received a card from Sarah when her father died, she also insists that Joe write down that Palin always "deals with stress with grace and dignity." Poor little Zombie rat!)

Anyhow you will read more about all of that in the many reviews still to be written about "The Rogue," as well as from Joe himself during his numerous upcoming interviews this week and next. So lets' move on to the reason that you all really wanted to read MY review.

What does Joe address concerning "babygate?" As it turns out, far more than any of us could have expected.

Throughout Chapter Nineteen Joe does not actually SAY that he does not believe Palin's version of events, but through quotes from Andrew Sullivan buoyed up by the suspicions of those that know her that she pulled a fast one, he leaves little doubt that he finds the whole thing virtually impossible to swallow.

At one point Joe addresses the fact that her flight to and from Dallas was the ONLY ONE ON WHICH HER SECURITY STAFF DID NOT ACCOMPANY HER. And in case you are a little slow on the uptake as to the reason why that was the case, her Head of Security Gary Wheeler lays out what would have transpired if he HAD flown with her: "if he'd been there and her water had broken at 4:00 AM on April 17, he would have whisked her to a Dallas hospital as soon as possible, and certainly wouldn't have let her fly to Alaska twelve hours later!" Of course he wouldn't. No reasonable person who cared about the Governor's well being would.

All in all when you see Palin's version of events presented in black and white, in an actual book written by a well known and highly regarded author, it quite literally defies all logic.

I am of the opinion that if anybody who was NOT a dyed in the wool Palin-bot were to read that chapter they would throw the book down in disgust afterward and proclaim, "The bitch lied!"

Which brings me to what I perceive as the heroism of Joe McGinniss.

Joe did not HAVE to address the pregnancy issue in his book, and doing so opens him up to a barrage of attacks from the mainstream media as well as what remains of  Palin's ardent supporters.  Leaving it out would certainly not have hurt sales, considering the rather salacious tidbits that are contained within its pages, and it is doubtful that including it will result in that many more sales either

In Frank Bailey's book he made excuses for why Palin did not appear pregnant.

Nick Broomfield, though he interviewed me for over an hour on the topic, seems to have avoided it completely.

To his credit Geoffrey Dunn addresses the "Wild Ride" head on but carefully avoids slanting his coverage one way or the other.

So WHY did Joe take the risk, when so many before him had avoided it like the plague?

My opinion?  He did it for his friend Andrew Sullivan. I'd like to think he did it for me. I KNOW he did it for you. And he did it because it was the right thing to do and SOMEBODY had to do it!

And because Joe took such a risk with his reputation, with his career, and, let's face it, with the sales of his book, he has very graciously teed up this subject in such a way that it is now positioned perfectly for Fred to come in with his book, focused solely on "babygate" and the media's malpractice in not covering it, and knock it right out of the ball park.

In my opinion heroism like that needs to be rewarded, so if you have not ordered your copy of The Rogue, please do so now.  I seriously doubt that you will be disappointed.

The Wild Ride, Palin-bots, and the importance of reading comprehension.

"Good job helping with the smoke and mirrors, there Frank!"

Somebody alerted me today that there was some a NEW revisionist history being discussed over at the Sea O'Pee, excerpted from a  new Sarah Palin fanzine written by somebody named Frank Aquila.

I took a deep breath and took the plunge, where I discovered this:

Within days of my research of Governor Palin, and my consideration of other possible candidates as choices for the McCain ticket, Trig Palin was born on April 18, 2008. Sarah had been in Texas as the keynote speaker at an energy conference. She began to experience labor pains, but continued to finish her important speech. She contacted her current doctor, who had also delivered her daughter Piper. Sarah caught an Alaska Airlines flight from Dallas to Anchorage, with a stop in Seattle, where she was examined by doctors before returning to Alaska to deliver Trig. Sarah would later say, ”I am not a glutton for pain and punishment. I would have never wanted to travel had I been fully engaged in labor.” Either way, Sarah has always taken the unconventional road and, even if she does not admit it herself, she is one tough lady.

"What?" I began thinking.   "Is this some new attempt to rewrite history by the Sarah in anticipation that Joe and Fred's book  will bring her whole crazy story out to be examined by a new, heretofore unaware, audience?"

And then I got excited, because that would mean they were in a panic, and making a really stupid mistake by changing a very well known story after all of these years. As well as introducing new medical personnel who we could then attempt to contact in order to question their involvement. Of course we would fail to locate this "doctor" because, as we all know, Sarah was not pregnant and had no need to see doctor during that flight.

But then I began to wonder if even Sarah Palin would make a mistake this careless. After all of this time it did not make much sense.

And then I suddenly realized where Aquila had come up with his new version of events.

Actually it was not new at all. It was, in fact, from the earliest known version of the incident which we now refer to as the "Wild Ride."

Journey with me now to the wayback machine, to an ADN story from April 22, 2008.

Palin kept in close contact with Baldwin-Johnson. 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. 

So the Palins flew on Alaska Airlines from Dallas to Anchorage, stopping in Seattle and checking with the doctor along the way. 

"I am not a glutton for pain and punishment. I would have never wanted to travel had I been fully engaged in labor," Palin said. After four kids, the governor said, she knew what labor felt like, and she wasn't in labor. 

Sound familiar?  Except, as anybody with reading skills can discern, the article refers to Palin checking with Baldwin-Johnston, "the doctor" in this scenario, and NOT a Seattle based doctor during her layover.

Clearly THIS is the story that Aquila used as his "research" into Palin's delivery of Trig.

Only his lack of reading comprehension, possibly combined with his difficulty imagining anybody NOT checking in with a Seattle doctor if they were in labor, inspired him to create an entirely new scenario where Palin visited a medical professional before continuing on to Anchorage, and from there all the way to the Mat-Su Regional Hospital, where the "birth" took place.

But just to be clear the ONLY doctor that Sarah Palin was able to manipulate into putting their medical career in jeopardy to help her to fake this birth was Catherine Baldwin-Johnson. A woman who traded away every ounce of her integrity, and now lives the life of a virtual hermit, in service to a woman who abandoned her to her fate without even a glance backward once she had served her purpose.

As one time friend Catherine Mormile describes in "The Rogue:"She recruits those who feel worthless and powerless and uses them as tools. Lyda Green and I call them Zombie rats."

Pretty much sums it up, don't you think.

And this Frank Aquila is just the most recent Zombie rat, in a long line of Zombie rats,  to attempt to provide cover for a woman who would not even bother to piss on him if he were being consumed by flames right in front of her.

Perhaps the best review of "The Rogue" so far. And a little additional information from me.

Courtesy of The Star:

Weighing in at 318 pages, The Rogue isn’t merely an act of character assassination — it is one long, hard, steel spike through the political heart of Sarah Palin. 

Whatever remote chance remained that the conservative firebrand might one day end up in the White House is poised to unravel Tuesday, when the controversial Joe McGinniss book hits stores. 

Put aside the jaw-dropping allegations of cocaine and adultery. Forget about the claim Palin and former NBA player Glen Rice had a one-night tryst back in 1987, when she was a single young reporter and he was a university basketball player. And never mind the insider accounts of the almost Biblical vengeance Sarah and Todd Palin visited upon enemies, real or perceived, during the march from Wasilla, Alaska, to where they reside today, at the astronomically high-paying intersection of Washington and Hollywood. 

The Sarah Palin portrayed in The Rogue is nothing short of a born-again hypocrite — and one so self-obsessed, yet so utterly unaware of herself, as to not even know it.

I quite literally JUST finished reading my copy, and will have a comprehensive review for you on Monday.

What I will say is that Joe McGinnis did NOT shy away from "babygate" as so many have claimed.

In fact he did a remarkable job of sticking his neck out to make sure that the widest possible audience would hear Palin's ridiculous story of the "pregnancy." As well as her version of the Wild Ride to her fake delivery at Mat-Su Regional hospital. Not to mention how few people living up here in Alaska believe her version of events.

Joe did a great service to ALL of us, as well as to Fred whose book will essentially take up where "The Rogue" leaves off.

In other words, to borrow a phrase that I first heard used somewhere else, GAME ON!

Professor Scharlott offers a $10,000 reward for PROOF that Sarah Palin gave birth to Trig Paxson Van Palin.

$10,000 reward poster

For immediate release: 

$10,000 REWARD OFFERED FOR PROOF SARAH PALIN GAVE BIRTH TO SON TRIG 

NEWPORT, KY (September X, 2011) – A journalism professor at Northern Kentucky University has posted a flier on the Internet offering a $10,000 reward to anybody who can provide verifiable and irrefutable proof that Sarah Palin is the birth mother of Trig, the boy she claims she delivered on April 18, 2008. 

The flier shows two pictures of Palin, one taken 23 days before the alleged birth, the other five days before April 18, 2008. The pictures show a seemingly impossible change in the progress of Palin's pregnancy in that 18-day span. 

Over the last three years, numerous Internet sites have made the argument that Palin must have faked the birth. Circumstantial evidence supporting their theory includes the fact that no hospital has verified the birth, Palin waited until her seventh month to claim she was pregnant and often appeared remarkably slender for a 44-year-old mother having her fifth child, and Palin has never released Trig's birth certificate. Palin supporters have said that pictures can be deceiving, and that it is absurd to think she faked the birth. 

Brad Scharlott, an associate professor of journalism, has read rumors online for years, and is now offering the $10,000 reward because he wishes to find the truth about the controversy. 

"The circumstantial evidence that Sarah Palin pulled off a pregnancy hoax, possibly to enhance her political standing, seems overwhelming," Scharlott said, but added that he is still open to the possibility that Palin did give birth to Trig, and would gladly give the reward money to anyone who provides proof. 

The flier says that acceptable proof would include, but not necessarily be limited to, medical records, a birth certificate, or notarized statements from hospital personnel involved in the delivery. 

For full details on how to claim the reward, the flier can be found at Scribd.com: http://www.scribd.com/doc/65089616/10-000-reward-poster or seen below. 

How is THAT for upping the ante?

You know $10,000 might even be enough to tempt somebody VERY close to the Mama Grizzly!

Bristol, Willow, Track, Todd are you paying attention?

More tidbits from "The Rogue."

Here are a few of the juicier portions courtesy of Joe McGinniss interview on Slate.com:

The juiciest quotes and stories in The Rogue come from anonymous sources, but McGinniss says he nixed "90 percent of the anecdotes I heard," sticking to the ones he could confirm. 

McGinniss reports that the Palins told the original owner (Of the house that Joe rented) that they were going to cut a path through her property. "Todd told her, very plainly, that Sarah was mayor and they could do whatever they wanted, and it would be a mistake for her to try and stop them." The Palins even put up a fence with the ugly back side facing the neighbor's house. 

One friend recalls that Sarah wasn't much in the kitchen when she married Todd. "She can't cook shit. She couldn't do grilled cheese. She'd burn water." John Bitney, the husband of a woman who took care of Palin's kids, notes that when Todd was out, "I'd walk into that kitchen and Bristol and Willow would be sitting there with a burnt pot of Kraft Mac and cheese on the stove and they'd be trying to open one of those Ramen noodle packs, and Sarah would be up in her bedroom with the door closed saying she didn't want to be disturbed." 

On the governor's own diet: "One day she came in with Oreos, bread, bags of fast food, and she ate everything and then disappeared and came out of the bathroom later with blurry eyes, her hair up, and her knuckles red." 

Another friend says that Track Palin joined the army on the advice of his father: "You're gonna do this because you owe us. This is gonna look good for us and you're gonna do it." The state trooper who drove Track and Sarah to the enlistment office tells McGinniss that "there was quite a lot of emotion in the back seat of that car, but patriotism was not one of the emotions." (Joe also confirms Mercede's version of Track's enrollment as having been done to get him out of the way while Sarah was the Governor of Alaska.)

In high school, a classmate claims, Palin liked to sleep in the nude, because "she said it wasn't healthy for girls to sleep with clothes on." Later on, Palin's rivals in her first mayoral race claim she spread rumors of them acting luridly in a step-aerobics class, telling the instructor that she felt uncomfortable because they were "ogling her butt." 

I will also report a little tidbit from MY reading concerning Sarah and Todd's sex life, which just as Levi reported two years ago, is virtually non-existent. Joe also includes a quote that I have heard attributed to Todd numerous times of "Well I know I had sex at least four times, because I have four kids."

And that was BEFORE Sarah's "pregnancy" with Trig.

I have paged ahead a little to see what awaits me, and though Joe does not DEFINITIVELY state that Palin faked her pregnancy, he gives the bizarre circumstances surrounding the "delivery" at Mat-Su Hospital and the fact that people close to her have serious doubts, PLENTY of space in the book.

In other words there is no way this will NOT keep coming up as a topic of discussion on talk shows and during interviews.

Let me close this post out by offering up today's Doonesbury comic.

And by also providing a link to the Mike Tyson interview about Palin and Glen Rice that everyone is discussing. But let me warn you that THIS is quite raunchy! So if you have any doubts about not being offended, DO NOT click the link!

In case I have been too vague in the past let me just say definitely that YES you need to buy and read this book!

McGinniss is a very gifted writer, and even if this were NOT about Sarah Palin it would still be a fascinating book to read. But since it IS about her, that just makes it all the more satisfying.

Brad Scharlott gives Sarah Palin the chance to put the Babygate question to rest for good. Did she take it?

This was from the conversation that Brad and Laura had on her blog yesterday:

LN: People probably wonder why bloggers don’t go to Palin directly and pose their questions. And perhaps snorting, “Oh right, like she’d answer me” isn’t a good enough answer. Instead, I asked Rebecca Mansour many times on Twitter to respond to my blog posts. And I invited her, many times, to do an interview with me. It was only fair. And she was predictably mute.You, on the other hand, went directly to Sarah. Tell us about that, Brad. 

BS: I’ve revised my original Babygate paper as a magazine article. A couple of weeks ago I sent that to Sarah Palin’s Wasilla address, and she received it on August 15, according to the USPS tracking service. In a cover letter I asked her to respond to the article, and I also asked six specific questions that stem from it, such as whether she was truly pregnant in 2008 and whether she wore a fake pregnancy belly when Andrea Gusty interviewed her. I told her I planned to publish the article within a month, and I promised her I would include her response with it. Of course, she has not responded. So what can we concluded from that? 

LN: One, she’s too big for us. And I can honestly understand that (although word has it that she is afraid of me.) There are a lot of demands on her time. Why? I have no idea. But there are. Two, why add fuel to the fire? To respond to you and/or me, or any blogger, lends credence to what we are saying. She’s hoping we’ll go away. Three, like I said in an earlier comment. We use subjects and verbs. And we use them in agreement. I think Anon on Gryphen's blog is right: that scares her. 

BS: Well, if she did NOT perpetrate a hoax, there would be an extremely important reason to respond to my letter and article. In that cover letter, I wrote:“As you may recall from your journalism studies in college, you are considered a ‘public figure/official’ for First Amendment purposes, in light of NY Times v. Sullivan. By providing you this opportunity to respond to my paper, I trust I am demonstrating beyond any doubt that my article bears no ‘actual malice’ towards you.”Since I was forewarning her that I plan to publish the article, by NOT responding she essentially forfeits any conceivable opportunity to sue for defamation. That is not the same as admitting she is guilty, of course, but could you imagine an innocent high-level politician ignoring an article that made such sensational allegations of wrongdoing? After all, I’m not just any crackpot. Palin knows my paper in April made news around the world.

You know one of the reasons that has been offered up as to WHY Palin does not simply produce the birth certificate and do away with all of this speculation, is because IT WORKS FOR HER!

The argument is that because people keep bringing up this issue that it makes THEM seem like lunatics, and by refusing to shut them down Palin appears above it all and is essentially taking the high road. (In fact Palin often brings up the "conspiracy" about Trig's birth in her speeches. It ALWAYS gets a laugh and a smattering of applause from the audience.)

Now this theory was all but rammed down my throat by a good friend who wanted desperately for me to drop the subject. (I won't out them here, but I am sure most of you can figure it out.) But of course I never did, because I never bought into that theory. Nor did I believe that keeping the investigation into babygate alive was actually helping her.

Oh sure it gave her a laugh line or two for a speech, but does anybody really believe it helped to sustain her popularity?

But for the sake of argument, let's just assume that it did. Let's assume that much of Sarah Palin's ability to garner sympathy and appear relevant stemmed from the fact that her supporters felt she was persecuted by these "crazy" liberals who had the gall to suggest that she would fake the birth of her own child.

However the Sarah Palin of today is significantly less popular than the Sarah Palin of two years ago. We are currently witnessed the crumbling of her political aspirations, the desertion of many of her past supporters, and the dimming of her relevancy to the media.

Yet the investigation, and number or people discussing babygate, is now larger than ever.

Even an author as well known as Joe McGinnis has publicly addressed it, and there is a book coming out whose sole purpose is to introduce the topic to an even wider audience.  So even if the argument could have been made two years ago that the subject of babygate was helping Sarah Palin in some way, that argument certainly could NOT be made today.

But you know what might help Sarah Palin at this point?  Producing proof that Trig is her biological son.

Imagine how much attention it would garner if Palin were to suddenly come out and show the world that the crazies were wrong all along, and that she was just playing them for a bunch of fools. Think of how she could play up how her family was victimized by these horrible people who went after her precious children so aggressively all to prove something that her evidence now demonstrated to be false.

Hell her smiling face would be all OVER the news, her potential political career would be revitalized, and the donations would come pouring in.

Not only that but imagine her joy at embarrassing Joe McGinniss, Professor Scharlott, Laura Novak, and Andrew Sullivan. Not to mention squashing the reputation of a certain pain-in-the-ass Alaskan blogger.

Yep, if ever there were a time to finally shut all of us up for good, this would be it.

So what do you say Sarah? Are you ready to finally put us all in our place?

Afterbirth: Examining the other end of Sarah Palin's inexplicable pregnancy.

So we all know that Sarah Palin simply did NOT look pregnant even weeks before supposedly giving birth on April 18, 2008, as indicated by this picture taken on March 26, 2008.

And we also know that she somehow managed to balloon up to a much more acceptable size for a woman claiming to be almost eight months pregnant only two weeks later, as indicated by this picture from April 13, 2008.

And of course we have NO earthly idea how such a dramatic weight gain can be explained.

Okay well maybe we do.

However what I have never really explored is the dramatic weight LOSS that Sarah Palin seems to have experienced AFTER the "birth" of Trig. Yes, believe it or not, Sarah Palin is SUCH an amazing woman that not only did her pregnancy not show until right around the time that Trig was ready for solid foods, but she also managed to get right back down to her canned food throwing weight even faster!

At least that is what I had been told.  Finding pictures to prove it has been a little more challenging.

I did have this one from May 3rd, of Sarah and our good friend Mercede. But people kept saying that even though her legs look skinny, and she is bending over in a way that women who just gave birth fifteen days earlier simply should NOT be able to bend over, that you could not really tell anything definitive because the loose fitting sweatshirt kept you from seeing her postpartum. Oookay.

So I am assuming that if I had a picture from earlier that same day in which you COULD see her stomach that it might prove to the naysayers that she lost her "pregnancy" weight much too fast to be explained by 21st century science, right?

Will this do? This is from earlier the same day at the VFW Post in Mountain View.

Does that look two weeks postpartum to you?

What?  Too hard to see?  Here let me help.

Is that better?

You know she looks pretty darn slim to me, how about all of you?

But that is just one picture, hardly concrete evidence right?

So here is Palin only twelve days later, on May 15, 2008.

Right about here is where all of the Palin-bots come rushing over to say things like "Aw c'mon Gryphen!  Aren't you reaching a little? Why I had a girlfriend/wife/ co-worker/pet basset hound who lost all of THEIR baby weight in just a matter of days!  Perhaps Sarah Palin is just somebody who, due to her tight abs and dedication to running that nobody ever sees her do, is able to snap right back into shape. I am really a fan but THIS time I think you are barking up the wrong tree. Now if you will excuse me I have to call SarahPAC and get my check."

Well I am not an expert on pregnancy, but I do know that people don't usually "snap back into shape" faster with their fifth pregnancy than they did with their fourth pregnancy. (So you know what's coming right?)

The above is a picture of Sarah Palin from April 15, 2001, almost exactly one month after giving birth to future Palin family bodyguard, Piper Palin. Gee I guess her abdomen took a little bit longer to "snap back" in those days.

So let me see if I have this straight.

Sarah Palin suddenly announces to the world that she is pregnant on March 5, 2008 to the surprise of every single one of her co-workers, the journalists who constantly follow her around, her security staff, her entire family, and (if my sources are accurate) Todd Palin himself.

Then she starts wearing heavy jackets and long scarves making it hard to tell, if I may borrow a quote from Alaska Airlines spokeswoman Caroline Boren, "the stage of her pregnancy by observation."

However she seems to remain relatively thin until April 13th, when she suddenly balloons up just five days before "giving birth," which occurs only after she has been leaking amniotic fluid for almost eighteen hours and flown on a commercial airline from Texas all the way to Alaska.

Afterwards she simply leaves the hospital and resumes wearing her pre-pregnancy wardrobe as if nothing ever happened.

As if NOTHING ever happened.

So essentially Sarah Palin's ENTIRE pregnancy is encapsulated in this one GIF.

If GIF does not work, try clicking on it.

Have you EVER seen a pregnancy that even remotely compares to the Sarah Palin pregnancy?

And if you haven't (And believe me I KNOW you haven't) then what is the ONLY possible explanation?

Mudflats is a MUST read today. Update: Palin QUITS Iowa speech!

If you have not been there yet, I suggest that you do not delay as it has confirmation of many of the stories about the Palins that we have been hearing for a long time. (Just click here to visit.)

They do not say anything too revelatory about babygate (If Frank actually knows the truth, as has been suggested, then it appears he did not share it, or swore Jeanne and Ken to secrecy), but it does suggest what others in her inner circle thought might be the reason she was so tiny throughout her pregnancy.

The claim that Sarah was never actually pregnant with her special needs child Trig—a widely circulated rumor that became known as “Babygate”—was partially based on Sarah shocking the world by announcing her pregnancy at seven months. Prior to that, nobody had suspected a thing. The revelation was even a surprise to staff, Frank Bailey, and the media. Even State Senator (and, according to Sarah and staff an evil-doer) Lyda Greene incredulously said, “It’s wonderful. She’s very well disguised. When I was five months pregnant, there was absolutely no question that I was with child.” 

How did Sarah manage to hide that pregnancy for so long? That question seemed to defy explanation to all except a small number of personal insiders who expressed alarming speculation. During her pregnancy with Piper (and it was suggested later with Trig), Todd asked a friend whom he thought knew about such matters, “As unhealthy as her eating is, what can those diet pills do to the baby?” 

The friend explained to him, “I’m not sure, but I’d be concerned about having a failure-to-thrive child.” (Failure to thrive is where there is a significant interruption in the expected growth rate during early childhood and can result from malnutrition). Was Sarah so vain as to try and hide her pregnancy and prolong her petite, almost perfect figure through drastic means? It’s a proposition that shocked everyone, including, reportedly, her husband.

This might have been something that was discussed by people with no understanding of pregnancy but as many of you can probably already surmise for yourselves, the diet pills might help to keep most of a soon-to-be-mother's body slim, the baby is still growing inside of her, and it would in fact look even MORE pronounced against an emaciated frame.

And as you can see from these two pictures taken on March 26, 2008, Palin did NOT appear nearly as skinny as we see her today, nor does she appear pregnant. She might have been taking diet pills at this time, but it in NO WAY explains the oddness of the square pillow in her belly.

Nor does it explain how she ballooned up to to her April 13 size in just a few weeks.

However we were to desperately cling to that explanation instead of admitting the truth that should be obvious to everybody who saw her then you would have expected  Trig to have been equally as emaciated when he emerged from his starvation period in the womb, and as you can see by pictures of the child presented as Trig by the Heaths on the day of his "birth" such was not the case.

Like I said, binging and purging, and pounding down diet pills does not adequately explain this bizarre "pregnancy."

I don't know why this is still being trotted out as a possible excuse by people who I am relatively certain do not buy into it, but I think most people, who are NOT trying to protect Palin's birth mythology, are well aware of what the overwhelming evidence demonstrates.

Having said that I still suggest that you head on over to the Mudflats and read the article as it is chock full of information about Todd and Sarah's battles, Sarah's lack of parenting skills, and her crazy mood swings.

Update: Okay I have no reason to think this is related to the Mudflats post, but Palin just quit her September 3, Iowa speech. Courtesy of Politico:

Sarah Palin canceled her Saturday appearance at a tea party rally in Indianola, Iowa, a person close the former Alaska governor told The Wall Street Journal. 

The person cited “continual lying” from event organizers at Tea Party of America, including a recent mixup over whether former U.S. Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell of Delaware would also speak. 

Okay Sarah Palin quit because of "lying?" Ouch! The irony makes my head hurt!

Please, we all know she quit because the organizers had the audacity to schedule Christine O'Donnell on the same day. Palin lives by the law of the Highlander, "There can be only one!"

Of course on the plus side, there is DEFINITELY an opening for Christine O'Donnell to give a speech, and this time she does no have to worry about being tripped by that nasty old bitch as she walks off stage.

Update 2: Apparently the Teabaggers themselves have NOT been informed that her highness may not be coming. My somewhat educated guess is that SHE does not want to go, but that her "people" are flipping out that she might cancel yet again.

I am interested in how this all plays out, because it sounds to me like Palin might be having one of her manic episodes.

What do you think?  Will she show up, or not?

Let's get a few things straight about my dedication to Babygate.

You know the internet is a big place, and there is no way I could possibly know what is happening on every corner of it.  In fact I often don't even know what is happening on the blogs in my very own blogrolls.

I just don't have the time to read all of the posts, and I especially don't have the time to read the comments. (Hell folks sometimes I only have time to skim the comments on my own blog.)

However occasionally I receive an e-mail, or a comment on IM, asking the most bizarre questions imaginable. And I have to wonder if it is a serious question, and that they are really that ignorant, or whether or not somebody is just fucking with me.

Usually it turns out that it was the result of a conversation that was started, or even an apparently definitive statement that was made, on another blog.

So let me address a few that have cropped up recently. (And no folks this will NOT become a regular feature.)

1) Have I stopped working on Babygate?

Seriously?  Somebody actually suggested that, and people BELIEVED them?

Why in the hell would I have put so much time and effort, and suffered such attacks on my character, if I was not determined to stick it out until the end?  Does THAT even sound like me?

You know that same meme has come up before.

It was being bandied about right before my "Tale of Two Babies" post, it was being talked about right before I introduced all of you to Fred, I remember hearing about it right around the time I posted the new pictures of Levi, and I even heard about it right before I wrote the "No Longer a Conspiracy Theory" LESS THAN ONE MONTH AGO.

Now ask yourself, do I REALLY seem like somebody who is no longer working on Babygate?

And then ask yourself this, "What would be the motivation of somebody making such a claim?"

2) Has Gryphen been paid off/threatened/convinced by Sarah/Mercede/Levi to NOT reveal things he knows about Babygate?

Number one I CANNOT be paid off. Period.

And nobody has ever even tried that approach with me, because I am pretty sure that even somebody as arrogant and ignorant as Sarah Palin herself realizes that I would be writing the next day's post in my head the entire time they were providing me with the material.

As for threats, well you know what they did, and you know how I responded. Does anybody really think my defiant attitude has changed in these last few years?

Did Mercede convince me not to tell some terrible secret about her family?

Well that would be the most reasonable of the unreasonable assumptions, because I would do just about anything for Sherry and Sadie. But NO that is not accurate either.

It IS true that there are things I know concerning what is going on with the Johnstons that I am not talking about, but it is not babygate related, nor is it a "terrible secret." And besides much of it will be revealed in the coming months, just like Sadie's Playboy shoot which I kept silent about until the news broke elsewhere.

3) Is Gryphen the mysterious "Anonymous" commenter from the "Nick Broomfield" post?

Wrong again. And I am a little unclear as to what my motivation would be for posting comments anonymously.

For the record I have NEVER posted anonymously on my blog, or any other blog.

I really only know of one blogger who did that regularly, or used a variety of screen names to hide their identity, but he was never a truly legitimate blogger, only a parasite. (I am sure that most of you will have little difficulty unraveling this particular mystery,)

4) Is Gryphen "Fred?"

Nope.  In fact I have never even met Fred.

However hopefully very soon all of you will have a much better idea of who Fred is, as well as his progress on the babygate book. There is even talk about a website, and I will gladly post the link when everything is up and running.

I am sure there are other questions and imaginative suppositions out there, but hopefully this will keep the conspiracy theories down to a low roar for at least a couple of weeks.

Let me add a few more bits of information.

It may not seem like it, but I actually DO have a real job.  In fact I am never NOT on the job.

Therefore I am not always able to sit down and write a long post, such as this one, and may only have time to post a link and jot down a few thoughts, before being called away to do what I am actually paid to do.

Writing about babygate requires new information, time to research that information, and time to write out the post that best utilizes the new data.  And often while that is going on there are other important stories that I feel should be addressed, so it may take me awhile to get a babygate post ready for your consumption. (I actually have just such a post on the back burner right now.)

And another thing, this blog is not JUST about Sarah Palin and babygate. In fact when I started the blog in November of 2004, I did not even know Sarah Palin existed. So even though the work to reveal her lies and obfuscations have often dominated my posts, I fully intend to continue on well after Sarah Palin is nothing more than a $100 question on Jeopardy.

Anyhow I hope that answers some of your questions, and puts some minds at ease.

As always thank you for visiting my humble Alaskan blog, but do yourself a favor once in a while and step away from your computer and enjoy the last of this great summer.  It will be winter soon enough and I don't want any of you blaming me for keeping you inside while the sun was waiting for you to come out and play.

Namaste my friends.

Laura Novak and Professor Scharlott discuss the difficulties of getting the "babygate" story into the mainstream media.

Courtesy of Laura Novak's blog:

LN: Anyway, I know that in this time since we’ve worked together, you’ve re-written your paper and pushed it out into the world a few more times. Tell us where you are with all of that. 

BS: I’ve rewritten it in magazine format. The original format was as an academic research paper, but it was in truth always more of a journalistic expose than a theoretical paper. The theory part, about the spiral of silence, was only the last five pages; the first 20 pages was an expose of Babygate. So in rewriting it, I have made its form true to its overriding original purpose: to expose the shortcomings of the press in covering Babygate, which necessitated exposing Babygate itself. 

LN: They go hand in hand don’t they? And I can say having read all the versions that you make an excellent case for both. Your writing is tight and sophisticated. And it’s also evolved as you’ve worked through the story. Explain what your goal was with that. 

BS: The rewrite is shorter, bolder, and much more forceful than the earlier paper. In the original paper, I avoided any mention of Gryphen’s “Tale of Two Trigs” theory. In the rewrite, I include that stuff. And I think the multiple Trigs idea has probably spooked some magazines from accepting the article. That does not surprise me. In April, I would not even mention in radio interviews the possibility of different babies being shown as Trig at different times. I did not have a strong sense then that that part of the story was almost certainly true and crucial to understanding what happened. But now I do feel that way. 

LN: And yet, the editors you’ve submitted to are still not biting. What kinds of things are they saying? 

BS: Here is part of a nice rejection note I got from a British publication: “Thank you for your interesting read. I am sorry but I am not sure that it is something we would take on as I would need to start from scratch to satisfy myself of all sources etc. and I am not 100% sure that even this would get to the bottom. What is needed is a whistleblower. Her daughter's doctor – or something.”The online editor of a different publication, one in the U.S., indicated he definitely would use my article, in fact would feature it, based on seeing my original paper. After I sent the revision, he decided he’d better check with his publisher, who said no. 

LN: How did you react when you heard back from both these editors? 

BS: Their reactions did not surprise me. If you haven’t really familiarized yourself with the facts surrounding the hoax, it does sound a bit surreal. 

LN: In your paper you are very critical of the press for being timid and easily manipulated by Palin. Now you sound sympathetic to those who will not accept your revised article for publication. Aren’t you being inconsistent? 

BS: Well, I need to draw a distinction. It was the press corps covering Palin in 2008 that deserves the most criticism. There were red flags back then that a hoax had probably happened. When the McCain campaign responded to the fake-birth rumors by throwing Bristol under the bus and claiming she was five months pregnant – and thus could not be Trig’s mother – the journalists’ bullshit sirens should have been blaring. (As it turns out, since more than one baby has almost certainly been displayed as Trig at different times, there’s no telling what relation Bristol has to the current “normal ears” Trig with Down syndrome.) As for current editors who are encountering much of this Babygate stuff for the first time, I can understand how they might find my revised paper on the very edge of believability, despite all the evidence I present. 

LN: So isn’t this a Catch-22: Many editors find the Babygate saga unbelievable because no one in the mainstream press has written about it, but no one in the mainstream press will write about it for fear that people will find it unbelievable? 

BS: Yep. That sums it up nicely.

There is much more and I do encourage you to to click the link at the top and read the rest at Laura's blog.

As most of you who have been visiting here at IM know all too well, this problem with being taken seriously by the MSM  is one of the most frustrating parts of this campaign to reveal, what may in fact be, one of the most amazing political hoaxes of all time.

I cannot tell you how much I appreciate the efforts of Brad and Laura to find a way to present the evidence in the most palatable way possible so that newspapers and periodicals will find it impossible to resist.

 I would also like all of you to know that they are not alone in their struggle to get the truth about this perplexing mystery out to the public.  Fred and his researchers have also been working their fingers to the bone trying to craft a book that will be difficult, if not impossible, for the MSM to ignore.

And toward that end they have started to carefully comb through Palin's recent email dump and discovered some very interesting inconsistencies. As many of you know, contrary to what Palin supporters and journalists at large seemed to think, there were things to discover in those emails.

I personally was able to find some very interesting emails myself which demonstrated Sarah's lack of compassion, proved she orchestrated fake letters to the editor, and convinced at least one holdout that she most likely faked her last pregnancy.

Fred and his researchers have dug even deeper, and hope to bring out some information that will impress even jaded "babygate" experts like us.

And if that was not enough to wake you up this morning, I also have a potential lead that may finally answer one of the biggest questions surrounding the "babygate" saga.

Stay tuned.

New tidbits leak out from Mercede Johnston's Playboy interview. Oh, the Grizzled Mama is NOT going to like this very much! Update!

Mercede and her mother Sherry. Palin victims no more.

Courtesy of TMZ:

19-year-old Mercede Johnston (above left) just WENT OFF about the entire Palin crew -- calling Sarah Palin a bad mom who's "never there for [her kids]" ... adding, "She doesn't make her kids go to school.

She'd rather parade them around and put on a show, at book signings or conventions."

As for Bristol -- "Everything is about her, her, her. She has to have her own way. She'll be supersweet and then she turns into the most evil person I've ever known ... Honestly, she is the meanest person."Mercede adds, "I didn't know someone could be so vindictive and evil ...[She's] a sociopath. She doesn't think anything she could do or does is wrong."

Mercede also claims Bristol and Levi PLANNED their pregnancy -- saying, "They were trying to conceive for months." 

And for good measure ... Mercede explains why Sarah would have been a TERRIBLE president saying, "I think she'd have had a mental breakdown if she was elected [president] ... She can't even answer Katie Couric's questions." 

Just when you think Sarah's day could NOT get any worse.

You know I waited with bated breath for this summer (and the fall) to finally arrive, but even I did not realize just how many things were coming down the pike to help put an end to Sister Sarah's career as a political hatemonger.

Numerous tell-all books, a damning documentary, Michele Bachmann stealing her thunder, a painfully poor propaganda piece that failed to ignite her political career, unexpected grandbabies, a Playboy interview that reveals unflattering truths about the Palin family, newly discovered pictures proving she was not pregnant with Trig, the list just goes on, and on, and on.

Don't the Germans have a word for this? Schadenfreude if I am not mistaken.

(I looked it up for you Palin-bots so that you would not hurt your tiny little brains. Just click this link.)

Update: It looks like Hollywood Life has a few more tidbits:

Mercede tells Playboy of Sarah’s eldest son Track, “He would do a lot drugs. He did OxyContin but mostly cocaine. He didn’t choose to go into the army; he went there because his mom made him, to get him out of the way…” Track did ship out during his mother’s campaign, though it is uncertain when exactly he enlisted. 

He may not be the only fan of the drug either as, the interviewer writes; “Someone trying to get my attention makes the incredible claim to have snorted coke with [Sarah] at the Mug Shot (a local bar) and points to the very spot on the bar where said lines were cut up.” This is, of course, to be taken with a grain of salt. 

Mercede also labels Bristol as a thief, among other things. When asked what Bristol is into, Mercede says; “stealing her parents credit cards to order clothes. Literally. And chasing after men and partying.” 

Mercede goes on to say that she could bring any number of men to meet the interviewer and have them show some of the nude pics Bristol has sent them.

Okay I knew about the stolen credit cards, the boy chasing, and partying, but the nude pics of Bristol are a new one on me.

Not that I would have been interested if I had known about their existence.

Update2: More from Hollywood Life:

She is furious about Sarah’s treatment of her brother Levi, who is the father of Sarah’s grandson, Tripp. “Not once did Sarah contact us and say, ‘Is this okay?’”, about her decision to take Levi into the spotlight, when she became John McCain‘s running mate in 2008. 

After all — Levi was only 18 at the time and hardly able to stand up to the powerful Governor of Alaska. “She literally took Levi from a hunting trip and flew him to the Republican Convention. He didn’t have a choice. I don’t blame John McCain — this is all Sarah Palin. She didn’t have to announce on stage that Bristol was pregnant. She doesn’t care, as long as she’s going to the top. But it’s screwed my whole family up. Levi was a prop, and once they didn’t need him, he was out the door.” 

No matter what your political persuasion you have to admit that Mercede’s accusations have a ring of truth when it comes to the Palin treatment of her brother. 

For good measure, Mercede also calls Bristol — “the most evil person I’ve ever known” and a “sociopath” and claims that she , Mercede, has been virtually excluded from baby Tripp’s life. 

Now, we all know that Sarah Palin can dish it out against her political opponents … and Katie Couric. She’s even been accused of inciting violence against Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords by placing her district in crosshairs on an “attack map” that she featured on her facebook. 

Do we really need a “Pitbull in lipstick” or a Mamma Grizzly ( Mercede calls that Sarah nickname “retarded” ) leading our country now? A woman who’s instinct is to attack even the father and aunt of her “beloved” grandchild, rather than reach out and make them a part of her family? 
  
Damn! Sarah and Bristol really screwed the pooch when they pissed Sadie off!

I actually don't know everything that Sadie talked about in the Playboy interview because she signed a non-disclosure agreement and was not supposed to talk about it. Technically I was not even supposed to know about the pictorial, but she did not want me to find out from anybody else.

P.S. I almost forgot to say that I also heard that story about the cocaine use by Sarah at the Mug-Shot. And no it was NOT from Sadie.

Just for fun.

Thanks again to Azure Ghost

Since we are on the topic I will let you all know that I have been chasing some leads that I stumbled onto while doing research on the pictures from Monday's post, and I learned a rather interesting bit of information.

It should come as no surprise to most of you that Governor Palin was by no means camera shy.  In fact she was often far more interested in talking to the media, and having her picture taken in those days than actually doing her job. My understanding is that while it was very difficult to get Palin to attend important meetings, it was a breeze to get her to show up to events that would get her name and picture in the paper.

However according to a few sources Palin suddenly became camera shy right around the middle of March, and only showed up a handful of times in public venues, at which she only stayed for short periods of time making it very difficult for photographers to do their jobs. Of course the exception to this, was the Elan Frank video for which Palin seemed to have been quite comfortable allowing herself to be videotaped by the Israeli filmmaker. (It also should be noted that she may very well have thought that the footage would not be shown in the United States.)

This behavior seems to have continued right up until April 18, after which Palin went right back to her usual attention seeking behaviors.

In fact at least one of my sources said that looking back it almost seemed that she had something to hide. (And yes, this person is still on the fence about the faked pregnancy.)

I DID think to ask several people if they were struck by Palin's rapid weight loss after Trig was born, but they said, quite understandably, that they were mostly focused on the new baby, whom she took with her everywhere, and really never noticed anything about her physique postpartum.

Anyhow I am still chasing down leads, but I thought you all might enjoy that bit of behind the scenes info.

Sarah Palin and the fastest growing baby bump in the west!

For all of you who are still clinging to the idea that somehow Palin WAS pregnant, and that the photographic evidence suggesting that she wasn't is not compelling enough, I would like you to explain this.

Image courtesy of my friend Emrysa.

It does not take a doctor, a nurse, or even just a person who has been pregnant, to recognize that a fetus simply does not develop THAT quickly in such short amount of time.

As evident from my post yesterday, Palin appeared to be no more than a few months pregnant (With, apparently, Sponge Bob Squarebaby) on March 26, 2008, and then suddenly on April 13, 2008, ballooned up to the image you see on the right.

I think what is obvious is that Palin was simply winging the fake pregnancy thing at first, and then realized that she needed a more convincing disguise to fool the lazy reporters, and constituents she might bump into further down the line, so she purchased something a little more convincing to wear toward the end of her incredibly short "pregnancy."

Does anybody disagree, or think they have a better theory?

If so, I would love to hear it.

No longer a conspiracy theory, "Babygate" is real! And the pictures of Sarah Palin from March 26, 2008 prove it! Update!

My good friend Audrey once referred to this picture as "The Nail in the Coffin." Because in her mind and the mind of many others, it proved without a doubt that Palin could simply NOT have been 32 weeks pregnant when the photo was taken.

But for some reason it never quite proved enough for some people.

Perhaps these pictures taken on the very same day, as Palin was leaving the museum, will finally convert the unbelievers.

(Click the thumbnails to see the high resolution images.)

This was written as a description below the photographs:

March 26, 2008, Juneau, Alaska, USA: In April 2011, Professor Bradford Scharlott at Northern Kentucky University wrote an academic paper stating that the "conspiracy theory" suggesting Palin is not Trig's mother is likely true and the American media is pathetic for not pursuing the story more aggressively. Scharlott walks through all of the evidence supporting the theory in the article, suggesting Trig is actually Palin's grandson. The article discusses photos of Palin in what is said to have been a late-stage pregnancy, the leisurely 20-hour trip home that Palin took after she supposedly went into labor in Texas, the refusal of the hospital where Trig was supposedly born to even confirm that he was born there (let alone who was the mother), strange statements from Palin's doctor and the McCain campaign, and so on. Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin exits the Alaska State Museum with her husband Todd after a bill signing ceremony. Palin announced 3-weeks prior that she was 7-months pregnant with her fifth child.

And the photos were further authenticated during a discussion with the AP photographer Brian Wallace on July 31, 2011.

Here is a close up of Palin's supposedly seven month pregnant belly.

And as if that were not enough, let us not forget that only a little over two weeks later that THIS is what Sarah Palin managed to look like on a KTUU broadcast on April 13, 2008.

Here is the video of the interview to allow further scrutiny.



(I need to give a HUGE hat tip to Laura Novak who made the initial call to Polaris images and got the information that we needed to purchase these images.  Thank you Laura.)

Update: There are apparently a couple of visitors who are being purposefully obtuse and asking how these pictures prove anything, as if they were the sum total of the evidence available to prove that Sarah Palin did not give birth.  Of course they could not be more incorrect.

Let me provide just a few examples and the rest you can find using a tool I like to call "Google."

1) The Sarah Palin pregnancy. What are the odds?

And for thsoe who are looking for an eyewitness Palin's lack of a pregnant belly.

2) Exclusive! My interview with Shailey Tripp.

And for those brave souls who REALLY want to find out how convoluted this fraud was.

2) A Tale of Two Babies by Sarah Palin.

As promised here is the update on the long awaited book about Sarah Palin's faked pregnancy, and the culpability of the American press for not revealing the deception.

Just smile Todd. Trust me, NOBODY will ever figure out what we did.

Thank you for patiently waiting through the weekend for this update.  With no further ado, I will let Fred fill you in on the book's progress and just when we can expect to see it in our local bookstores.

The book is nearly finished, and large sections of the book were turned into our publisher's legal department in late June. We are still shooting for a release date within the next four - six weeks. 

However, there have been some hold-ups, and I'll share the status of that now. I noticed that after Gryphen kindly posted my request for title ideas back in May, many people asked if there were going to be any great new revelations in the book. Would we finally have the answer? At the time, the answer to that was - honestly - no. 

My original hope for the book was to, first, present, in one place, an iron clad summary of the material that have been collected by multiple researchers that Sarah Palin's pregnancy with Trig was not as presented to the public in March and April of 2008. One way that the mainstream media has been able to ignore the story is that the bits and pieces have been scattered on multiple blogs and websites, and presented piecemeal. Each piece, then, is argued about and ignored individually. The weight of the story, however, when presented as a coherent whole, becomes overwhelming. Crafting this "coherent whole" was and continues to be a very difficult job. For example, there are actually about fifty separate photos from the time frame of March 4th through April 18th that are relevant to the story, and tough decisions had to be made about what material to put in the book and what to leave out, since we simply cannot use it all. The main market for the book is going to be those who know almost nothing of the story. Too little evidence and the story falls flat. Too much and the main point - that the media ignored terribly glaring inconsistencies in multiple areas - gets lost. 

Secondly, the thrust of the book was to show how and why the mainstream media first during the campaign and second, since, have ignored the story

The "smoking gun" was the presentation of all the material together in such a way that the weight of the evidence made the idea that she had faked the pregnancy plausible beyond any reasonable doubt. As I am an attorney, the reasonable doubt angle is one that I explored a great deal in the chapters on the pregnancy evidence.This was, as I said, the original plan for the book.

Then, on June 10th, thousands of pages of Palin's emails were released. Within 24-48 hours, the Palin apologists were shouting, "There's nothing to see here!" and encouraging everyone to move on, even though no one could possibly have read even a fraction of the mail in that time. 

One extraordinarily interesting discrepancy was pointed out by Gryphen in his blog on June 13th, when he shared the enormous disconnect of Palin sending herself a draft copy of the letter she intended to release to friends and family after the baby was born. This letter was sent six weeks before Palin's announced due date and eleven days before the child's announced "birth." Numerous other media outlets had already commented on the letter, most taking the position that it actually "proved" Sarah Palin was Trig's mother, with none noticing the eye-popping discrepancy that she referred to her pregnancy in the past tense and as "easy" when she still supposedly had six weeks to go.

This discovery led me to believe that there was "plenty to see here." I put any new writing and editing on hold as I, with the help of two very dedicated research helpers, have pored over emails. Our persistence has paid off. The bread crumbs are tiny (more like crumbs of crumbs), but the trail is there. No, of course there is no email stating, "I woke up this morning and decided to fake a pregnancy." If there were, it would have been found weeks ago and the story would be over. 

But, as any good Catholic school-boy knows, there are sins of commission, and sins of omission. 

Those who spent months (paid for by the state of Alaska) redacting Sarah Palin's emails likely pulled out a lot of "commissions," but they missed the omissions, because they could not possibly know what to look for. We did. I can now tell you with confidence that there will be new material in the book. After almost three years, there is more to find...

I'm sorry that all of you who have been waiting for the book will have to wait a bit longer. Prior to the release of the emails, I believed that an August 15th release date for the book was realistic. Now, I am working terribly hard to make this all come together by September 1. 

Also, for all who are wondering about a title, we have made a decision, but are not yet releasing it.
Fred

Coming soon, an update on the progress of the "babygate" book.

Sarah Palin on March 26, 2008. Eighteen days before "birth" of Trig Palin.

I currently have in my possession an e-mail from the author of the upcoming "babygate" book.

I will post it fairly early tomorrow morning because, and some of you may not be aware of this, IM receives more visitors on the weekdays than on the weekends.  In order for the most people to have the opportunity to read what Fred has written I decided it would be best to post it on a day that saw more traffic so that I would not have people asking me over and over again about an update.

I think that most of you will be very pleased with the information, though for some of the more impatient ones it might be a little frustrating.

Just like with Joe and Geoffrey's books, there are ALWAYS new revelations which threaten to change the tenor of the book or delay its release.  I learned long ago that patience is my best friend.

Speaking of patience, I should also let you know that there are many MORE revelations coming out about the Grizzled Mama, and her "Alaska mafia." Including one that I heard just the other day that I am hoping like crazy I can manage to prove, because even among the most jaded Palin watchers this one will be huge.

One thing I can share is that some, who are claiming to be in the know, are convinced that Palin actually WILL announce her candidacy during her speech in Iowa on September 3rd.

I remain somewhat skeptical, but as I have said before I would not put ANYTHING past this lunatic.

I know a couple of authors who would be thrilled if Palin DID launch a short lived, ultimately doomed campaign in early September.  And I do have to admit that it would certainly bring more players into the "Sources for Gryphen" family.

I guess that would not be all bad now would it?

Update: I was just now watching Meet the Press, and sitting there with my plate of eggs watching David Gregory ask David Plouffe just WHICH bills the government will pay for certain if the debt ceiling does NOT get raised by Tuesday suddenly just pissed me the hell off!

So I would like to vent a little.

When the Tea Party was in its infancy and nobody was paying it much attention, the Koch brothers arranged for Sarah Palin to make appearances on their behalf and essentially, along with the spastic Glenn Beck, become the face of the Teabaggers. Because of her unrivaled name recognition she brought tons of undeserved attention to what was clearly a very unsophisticated astro-turf group of angry racists, who, over time, were polished with corporate money enough so that they were able to choose and back candidates who are currently holding our country hostage.

While that was taking place there were those who were working overtime to convince me to drop the babygate story because it was never going to "make any difference."

"Just focus on the wild ride story, Gryph.  That will be enough to stop her if enough people hear about it.  The babygate story just makes you, and ALL of us, seem like crazy conspiracy theorists."

Of course I refused, and as my reward I found myself isolated.  I learned over time that journalists were steered away from me, for fear I would bring up"that crazy conspiracy story."

At one point I was so close I could taste it, to REALLY blowing this whole thing up. But I was sabotaged by those I considered my friends. In my personal opinion if I had received more support, and if others had worked side by side with me, Sarah Palin would NEVER have been able to provide the spark that the Koch brothers used to start the Teabagger bonfire.

So I would just like to take a moment to say FUCK YOU!

Fuck you for playing it safe.  Fuck you for worrying about appearances more than truth.  And fuck you for being a coward.

And while I am on this rant I would also like to say fuck you to those who wanted the babygate story all for themselves.  Fuck you for driving people off of the net who were selflessly working to bring this story to the American people.  Fuck you for chasing away sources who were timidly coming forward, until they realized that people might soon learn their true identities. And fuck you for damaging the reputation of good people because YOUR ego demanded that you get credit for EVERYTHING.

Okay I am done now.  Sorry if some of you found that offensive or a little out of character, but damn I have been holding that inside for years.

The babygate story is NOT just about a mother protecting her daughter, or her family.  It is MUCH deeper and uglier than that. And once it is really out there in the public consciousness, it should serve as the stepping stone to revealing all kinds of political manipulations and Faustian deals that might finally awaken a slumbering populace and get them to focus on taking back their country from the corporations and political fat cats who have held the reins of power for much, much too long.

And with that Gryphen steps off of his soapbox.  Thank you for listening.