Last night, at 10 PM Alaska time, KTVA (CBS Affiliate in Anchorage) ran a two plus minute video segment discussing the photos that have been posted on the blog several times, notably here and here.
Here's the link to the segment. This segment contains a short video clip of the actual interview between Gov. Palin and Andrea Gusty on April 13th, 2008, as well as Andrea Gusty's unequivocal statement that both the photograph of her interviewing Gov. Palin and the photograph of Gov. Palin with Bill McAllister and Dan Carpenter were taken with her camera. According to Gusty, Carpenter took the photograph of the interview; she took the photo of Carpenter and McAllister.
Prior to the newscast, at this same link (at approximately 10 PM Eastern Time), a full eight minute unedited version of the actual newscast that had run that night was posted (with no comment whatsoever), including "weekend weather." (Clarification: The eight minute segment appears to have been around 9:30 PM Eastern (5:30 PM AK time) and remained up until some time after the ten p.m. newscast, when it was replaced by the report that Gusty actually did last night.) This contained a much longer version of the interview with Palin. I was unable to capture this prior to it being removed, and I regret this. If anyone reading this blog has it available, please contact me.
I did not post anything on this blog prior to the segment running, as we were unable to confirm until almost ten p.m Eastern that the segment was scheduled. The majority of the discussion in Gusty's report focused on another website; mine was only shown in a very brief flash, and I was never contacted for any comment, or for the credentials or identity of the individual who had done the Photoshop analysis for me. In an odd twist of events... someone, and we are still trying to determine who, emailed a large number of people who had at some point posted their email address in comments to my blog (for whatever reason) that the segment was going to run, yet I was never emailed.
Further comment on this development will be available later today.
A
No Time for Tuckerman
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Time. It is precious, they say. It flies, they say. And former Republican
Party Chair, former Dunleavy Chief of Staff, and now former University of
Alaska ...
1 year ago
261 comments:
1 – 200 of 261 Newer› Newest»Sorry but i always thought focusing on those photos was a distraction. The only thing fake about them, IMO, is the belly. This report makes us all look nuts. So the photos are real and were taken when they say. Does not mean she had that baby.
~BG
What's interesting is that the reporter never confirms that Sara did give birth to Trig - just that the photos and interview were real. When is she going to provide evidence that she actually gave birth to him?
I echo the first message that focusing on those two pictures were a tactical mistake. The point was always that SP may have looked pregnant, but that is not the same as being pregnant.
But trying to prove the photos faked, we have brought undo attention to them and jeopardized our collective reputation and our investigation. No lineup of experts will convince MSM now, and even if we proved these photos were altered, it would prove nothing. Instead, we looked like we were trying to hard to discredit a fact that turned out to be true.
When something like this happens, most people in MSM and watching will then assume that the entire argument is bogus. It is standard practice for any adversarial activity: ATTACK AT THE WEAKEST POINT.
Audrey et. al. have done a superb job, but that effort has been set back by the false assertion that the April 13 photos were artificially enhanced to make SP look more pregnant.
To restart, we all must admit -- as I did at the start -- that the photos were genuine, that we were wrong to suggest otherwise, but SP only looks pregnant and they are not proof that she was.
Dangerous
OK wow so there really is a video of Gusty and the Gov., and I guess they have verified the date.
So, Gusty -- coupla things: We get that you are at the center of this controversy.
We get that the pictures are real. 'Bout time you admitted that. How many times were you asked?
The glaring omission in your story is: can you say without a doubt that she was actually pregnant?
Did you ask her doctor? Could you get Mat-Su to issue an official statement, as MOST hospitals do in high-profile cases?
Just because Sarah Palin said, "Because I said so." -- Does that make it true?
Dangerous:
But trying to prove the photos faked, we have brought undo attention to them and jeopardized our collective reputation and our investigation.
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You are very very wrong on this. It was the mysterious nature of the photographs and the fact that none of the parties involved would own up to the photos -- that they were changed in flickr and picasa and were made to be a lower dpi -- i have a real hard time believing that Dan Carpenter, a cameraman/videographer took 72 dpi pics that were 3000x2000 in size.
Why didn't Dan and Andrea give them to the MSM when the story first hit in August, or how about in April when the story was going around in Alaska.
There were enough anomalies about the pictures and how they came to be and KTVA's refusal to release the video earlier after repeated attempts to acquire it, to not follow it, would have been foolish of us.
The fact that Audrey and co. has always maintained that ANY information that either supports or disproves our theories were welcome, because we were only after the truth.
If Andrea or Dan or Scott or Bill or KTVA had have come out months ago and said, here's these pics, we would have just said, ok, so she looks pregnant and move on.
we did not make any mistakes nor have we been discredited as we never made definitive statements, only that it was possible because of the circumstances.
Why would anyone think that Gutsy report is true? As far as I am concerned anyone who "associates" with Sarah is suspect. In other words she's lying too. They are using the oldest tactic in the book. Deflection. Let's not fall for it. The fact remains Sarah KNOWS she was not pregnant and we know she was not pregnant. As long as there is doubt it ain't over.
I haven't been able to view the video yet, but was it explained how the pics got from her camera onto Flickr if she didn't post them? Did she say who posted them?
This is where I start to get annoyed with the theory of photoshopping. I believe that if SP faked her pregnancy she would have worn a pillow, thus no photo altering would be an issue. We have wanted to hear from Gusty and now we have. And it still doesn't prove that SP wasn't pregnant. It just proves that she LOOKED pregnant that day.
I have said early on that photos won't be what breaks this case. As intriguing as they are, there are too many insignificant elements surrounding them.
What will break this case will be the doctor and her coming forward.
Jennifer
Step back and breathe everyone. What we are seeing here is absolutely incredible. Sarah Palin is so freaked out by BLOGS that she is now going to the MSM herself to try and discredit them.
All that tells me is that someone, somewhere has hit a very raw nerve with Sarah Palin.
But here is the crazy thing. The power to shut up the bloggers is with Sarah Palin herself. She and only she can put an end to the speculation once and for all.
The is only one truth. Trig is either her natural born son or he is not.
It doesn't take pictures or speculation or photo analysis to determine one very simple thing.
If Trig Palin was Sarah Palin's natural born son she would NOT be attacking bloggers. She would not be pressuring Andrea Gusty to show previously unseen footage that confirms nothing or changes anything.
She would be going public herself, with evidence that Trig was really her son.
You would think that a professional victim like Ms. Palin who has built a career on blaming others for everything and always deflecting responsibility for anything from herself, would jump at the chance to 'set the record straight'.
Simple logic people. Two choices.
A. Palin gave birth to Trigg. And if Palin gave birth to Trig, she would not give bloggers the time of day. She would laugh, pull out a birth certificate, a few delivery day photos and tell a few labor stories. She would show some pictures of Bristol from last spring and she would also allow a picture of Bristol and Tripp.
B. Palin did not give birth to Trig. And all she can do unless she wants to tell the truth is to freak out, give interviews about evil bloggers, play the pity card and the 'why are the picking on me and my family' card. She can pressure ADN newscasters to show previously unseen footage that proves nothing.
Simple logic. A or B
CHRIS from MICHIGAN posted this on-the-mark comment on the blog following the KTVA article:
"Andrea, you would have more credibility if you used correct grammar. "It should be 'a picture of Gov.Palin and me.'
"For the record, you and these photos are not at the center of the allegations. There is a mountain of evidence supporting the belief that Sarah is not Trig's biological mother.
"If your photos are real, as you say, all they do is show that Sarah Palin appeared looking pregnant. Things are often not as they appear.
"I urge all who are interested in finding the truth to visit palindeception.com."
I tend to agree with the comments here. There was too much focus on the Gusty pictures, etc. I think we just need to stick to the fundamental issues here:
1) The Sarah Palin flight across the country to deliver baby Trig. This story is very implausible obviously and pressure can be brought to bear on it.
2) Bristol Palin's alleged baby Tripp. Until a current verified set of pictures of Bristol looking un-pregnant are produced, the consensus is that she has yet to give birth.
I realize that both of these angles are pretty much dead ends unless someone is following Bristol around trying to snap her pic. And I doubt that anyone affiliated with the Mat-Su Clinic is going to produce a birth certificate so anyway.
I guess it's too much to ask the actual reporters up in Alaska to put the story to bed by actually doing a report on the story. Not a report on the bloggers. Not a report on the letters to the editor of the ADN, but an actual report. You know, go out and find Bristol and try to interview her and her friends. Go to Mat-Su and interview the staff. Like in the good ol' days when we had real live investigative journalists.
Those days are gone I guess.
A couple of weeks ago, in the midst of a storm of claims that the Gusty photos were faked composites, I posted my opinion as a professional photographer--one who works with Photoshop nearly every day--that I did not see any evidence of tampering with the images in question.
I looked closely at all the edges, experimented with the techniques utilized by a few posters, and checked perspective and vanishing point. Nothing appeared amiss--with the caveat--a big one--that we are analyzing a 72dpi image with a miniscule number of pixels to peep at and pull apart.
I concluded that nothing definitive could be ascertained from these image files. Nevertheless, many, if not most, people on this blog continued to believe that the photos were faked.
I remain skeptical of the Trig birth story and support the purpose of this blog--to get to the truth--but have never regarded these photos as something to focus on beyond the possibility that Palin was wearing some sort of padding. Let's move on.
OK--
But Gusty never brought up how the still photos got to the flickr site. Remember how she seemed surprised when they surfaced? Saying that she thought she had the only copies?
So the interview happened. I always thought it had. But that doesn't mean that the still photo posted on the internet couldn't have been photoshopped to spotlight or enhance the pregnant belly. Then posted close to the nomination.
I believe Gusty just poured gasoline on the fire. She's proved that it's news enough that rumors won't die.
And she did not prove to me that the photos had not been retouched and leaked. Nothing in that video shows that the SP in it is the same SP in the still photo.
At least not yet. Bring it on, Gusty.
(ps. and that closeup shot of Trig? no newborn, no way.)
Finally we see the film and hear from Gusty what we have been asking for, for months. What took them so long?
Are the photos altered? Something happened to that necklace. But I don't believe Gusty did it. She said she wasn't aware anyone else had the photo when it went viral.
Importantly as we've said here over and over, even if someone expanded the baby belly, by the time she was supposed to be 8 months pregnant, Palin would have made sure that she looked pregnant. It's the photos in February and March when she got from nowhere to there quickly, and ineptly, that tell much more.
Audrey and this blog have not focused on the photos. Read the many posts since it started. The unbelievable wild ride was the item that got Audrey started. The blog has provided a venue for discussion of those two photos. But when photo talk threatened to swamp the other lines of discussion, she gave it its own post, so that other discussion stayed paramount. One of Audrey's many wise moves.
So, where's Tripp? After all, he was Palin's answer to the Trig rumors. If she wants me to think that Bristol is Trig's mom, it's working.
Well, we asked Gusty to verify this and we got what we asked for.
The lesson to us all should be to focus only on the facts that we have and not try to manufacture new ones. I know I REALLY want to hear some new news on this showing the real truth. But that doesn't mean I can pull it out of thin air.
On the positive side, the notion of Sarah faking the pregnancy is definitely getting traction. Let's not lose momentum. I post this link on all of the blogs that I read whenever Sarah is discussed.
I think there's a sense of paranoia on Sarah's side that there's a group of us that is not letting this story die.
Interesting & very strange that there was a news report done on this. But, as some others have said, I also always thought the photos were genuine and not much could have been told from them since they were not the originals.
I am curious, though why Ms Gusty thought she was the only one who had the images. Who else had access to her SD card? Who would have copied them and uploaded them themselves without her knowledge?
I do believe there is a growing amount of pressure on the media and on the Gov herself to prove this story one way or another. Otherwise, why would a media outlet spend any time on these photos?
SP should hold a press conference with her physician(s) immediately so as to answer questions about Trip and Trigg.
It is very much in her interest to end the speculation so that her political future can move on.
Enough. Enough of these so called reporters. Not one of them should be considered credible until they ask the pertinent question directly:
"Governor Palin, will you make the following statement and will you authorize CBJ to confirm it for us?"
"I SP gave birth to my son, Trig Palin, on 4/18/08 at Mat Su Regional Medical Center with Dr. CBJ in attendance. Also attending me were Mat Su Regional staff: names here"
Yes or No. Ask the question or stop calling yourselves reporters. Why won't she say it? Why won't anyone ask it?
When Andrea took the photos did she then forward them or share them with the others in the photos? Maybe she is just clarifying that it was not her that retouched the photos. I still cannot get over the ambiguity of Sarah's face (in some of the analysis that were done) in the shot of them together. Maybe Andrea has not retouched the photos but whoever she sent them to did. She may be being manipulated out of blind trust. As I think many others have been in regards to Sarah Palin.
Jen said, "What will break this case will be the doctor and her coming forward."
So right. I was outlining my arguments last night and the only evidence I had trouble explaining away was CBJ's medical statement on election eve.
Shelby at 7:32, you're spot on. Here's a portion of what I posted in an earlier thread.
Bottom line, if Sarah Palin wants the rumors and further investigations into this story to stop, she can make that happen at any moment. She can come clean and admit any exaggerations (“wild ride” story might be a good start) and lies. For those parts of the story she continues to stand by that have been put into question by conflicting evidence and information, lack of customary evidence, or logic, she can provide irrefutable and unalterable proof. (And, Sarah, your repeated claims about the truth to the story or last night's news report from Gusty don't constitute proof. The Gusty video was a tactic aimed at deflecting and detracting from any further investigation. Nice try though.) If Sarah Palin is protecting a minor, she can admit her role without providing details on who was involved or what happened, and ask that people respect the privacy of all minors. I believe the overwhelming majority of people will respect that, as this has never been about digging into the lives of minors.
Unfortunately for her children and others close to the family, she has chosen to do none of this. Instead, she has chosen to withhold any actual proof, deflect attention to others, and ridicule those who question conflicting evidence and lack of evidence. Her choices, which she certainly has a right to make. However, choices have consequences. And, the consequences of her choices have resulted in an invasion of privacy and potential embarrassment and shame for her children and those close to her children. If she wants that stop, she can make it happen. The ball is, and has always been, in Sarah Palin’s court.
In my opinion SP has a huge narcissistic personality disorder. I also believe she is a pathological liar. Can anyone with professional experience comment of my opinion? Also, when this type of person crashes and burns what would we expect to see?
I was born in 1942 and grew up ducking under my desk during air raid drills and fearing Russian bombs; I am a fifth generation Washingtonian who watched the McCarthy hearings on television when I was a child; I knew of Richard Nixon’s dark side when he was just a senator; I lived across the street from the Watergate hotel the night we squarely faced a showdown over the Cuban missiles; I wallowed in Watergate; I witnessed in horror the stealing of the 2000 election. I have lived long enough to see perils that seem unimaginable. Nothing ever scared me more than the possibility that Sarah Palin might become vice President.
Gusty brags in this video that she "reports fact," when in truth her report contains several significant misrepresentations, and a few outright lies.
1) Gusty says "this picture is at the center of allegations of a pregnancy coverup." No, Gusty, it's not "at the center" of the allegations. This picture is just ONE of many things we've been looking at for months in our attempts to find proof that Sarah Palin has been pulling off a massive hoax on the American electorate.
2) Gusty goes on to say there are "at least two websites devoted to proving this picture a fake." There you go again, Gusty. These websites are not devoted to proving those photos fake; they are devoted to proving that Sarah's pregnancy was a fake. Either you're a terrible reporter who didn't really do her homework and didn't look at the sites, or you lied. Twice. Correction, please? (Or, to use the words of your idol/boss, "Say it ain't so.")
3) Gusty "reports" that Sarah gave birth four days after this interview. Oops! Wasn't Triggy Bear supposedly born on April 18th?
4) Gusty "reports" that "details like...Scott's untucked shirt were cited as definitive proof that Palin faked her pregnancy." Oh, dear; another lie, Gusty. Yes, we did look at some curious features in these photos, and Scott's untucked business shirt was one thing that was noticed, briefly--by maybe two commentors out of over a thousand. No one ever cited it as "proof" that the pregnancy was staged. Another lie, Gusty. Oh, say it ain't so!
4) If Gusty is, as she claims, interested in "setting the record straight," then she needs to 1) immediately post the original, high-definition versions of these photographs on her "anonymous" flickr account; 2) explain why she did not send the higher quality versions to Factcheck, why she did not admit that she owned the camera that took these photos, and explain a host of other problems with this entire scenario. And her station, if they expect to retain any shreds of credibility, need to require her to clean up her act as a reporter, or dump her.
On a side note, did you catch the audio that went with that strange video footage of Sarah poking at Trig in Todd's arms? In the original segment Gusty ran on her idol's new birthing, we didn't hear it. But in this segment, we clearly hear Sarah, poking at a soundly sleeping Trig, say, "He looks like he wants something to eat there." No, Sarah; he looks like he's sleeping!
New thoughts from Pat at the ADN - sounds like he is calling for McAllister to fish or cut bait:
(link to the entire essay below)
"I think most competent journalists would recognize "the persistence of bizarre claims surrounding the birth of any governor's son" as the basis of a potentially interesting story. Most competent journalists would also understand that the story doesn't work if it can't show that the claims are false. It's only a "bizarre conspiracy theory" if you can demonstrate that it's untrue, which is why we wanted to document the truth.
Why this isn't obvious to Bill McAllister, who has worked as a reporter, I can't explain."
http://community.adn.com/adn/node/136560
Why Pat didn't mention this to Greta on Fox last night, I'll never know.
Bravo Shelby!
I heartily agree with your post. If A. Halcro's blurb is any indicator of what's going on in Sarah's innersactium, her "newly officed," pr people are working overtime on new diversion strategies. Since I read that blog entry, I can't get it out of my head! It gives us a very accurate vision of what we already believed things were like in the "Queen's palace." Key people are abandoning ship and are talking. I think you are going to have a tough time quieting everyone Sarah. You are running around putting out fires, instead of your job, doing a disservice to your fellow Alaskans, and screwing up your family and remaining freinds perhaps beyond repair!
Once again, your attempt to quiet your doubters, will not bear fruit.
What do you think about the numbers on this site? Bet you never saw that coming! Bet you thought you could fix this! Bet you think you still can! What hubris my dear!
I believe this is the situation that occurred:
simplist scenario:
SP sends BP away when she and he boyfriends get caught, once too often, and an inevitable pregnancy looms...or, BP says she will not be subjected to her mother's tyranny and goes to live with aunt.
Sherri and "wild child" Track spend too much time together and Sherri ends up pregnant. She, not being particularly religious, has an amniocentisis, and discovers the sobering news. Track is forced " at mother's gunpoint," to enlist and Saint Sarah and Todd will adopt this child.
All of this threatens to derail her "carefully" created conservative image and her state's investment in her National aspirations, so...
She decides on a teency-weency coverup. No one has ever dared to question her in the past, this too will blow over...
Crazy fate steps in, and with the addition of a special needs child to her flock, all she ever dreamed of could finally come true!
But, the little rumors flying around AK are now being repeated a little louder, and nationally. She realizes, she might not have been as careful as she should have been to cover her tracks...
Well, she'll show them how wrong they are! She will announce BP's pregnancy, which is true, due to the fact that her forceful separation, did not work, she will take care of the inaccurate dates later...
She worries that Sherri may spill the beans as the monetary offers for her story are growing day-by-day, and those "pesky bloggers,"
just won't let this thing die!
Well, arresting Sherri seems a sure way to show her, and anyone else who would defect, who is in charge here!
The rest, as they say is this tumbling house of cards that you so clumsily built.
Yes, I feel sorry for your kids, they got a raw deal with you as a mom, but given years of therapy they might just start feeling better about themselves in their forties, or...
Do I feel sorry for you? NO.
Why don't you start by going to see a mental health professional before you have to admit all this bs to the public. They would be your best shot at understanding why you have behaved they way you have and to try to help you make ammends with your family.
Really Sarah, your recent counter attacks lack ANY SUBSTANCE, and you are wasting hard working Alaskans' money on the pr staff.
Time to seek professional help.
Penny in Paradise
I don't think we should beat ourselves up about following this lead. In any investigation you need to follow all leads and not every one will produce results. The way it has been handled on this blog is the proper way to investigate anything.
I wrote before that I could see no evidence that these photos were fake.
People should believe me.
This doesn't mean that Sarah isn't hiding something. It doesn't explain Bristol Palin's mysterious absence from school during what should have been the final semester of her senior year. It doesn't explain the weird story of Sarah's trip home from Texas.
My comment for the day:
It appears that the ADN does not consider the current Governor of Alaska to be a credible source.
The editor of the ADN says that they were unable to run a story on the "outrageous" Trig isn't Sarah's rumor that won't die, because they could not show that it was merely a rumor.
"Why wasn't I believed?"....Sarah Palin, interview on 1/5/09 with that right-wing guy whose name has escaped me.
Dangerous, perhaps we did bring undue attention to Photo#1 and Photo#2 by examining them in such detail -- and they still do look wonky when you analyze them the way MKaiser did -- but our examination of those photos plus all the others from late February 2008 to May 2008 for both Sarah Palin AND the supposedly premature Trig has attracted attention, that's for sure.
When one assembles the photos in an array with observations noted for each one, "mother" and child alike, the objective viewer will have questions, and more questions.
That's what happened to each one of us, and that's what will happen to the greater population who come here to look at what we've found.
Those 2 photos that Andrea Gusty was forced to come forth and verify merely settle the question about her veracity; they certainly don't answer any questions about Sarah Palin.
Audrey should not be the least bit apologetic about her analysis to date. Photos #1 and #2 were strange enough to warrant attention, and so they were examined.
I would hope that Audrey is compiling that assembly of photos with commentary at this very moment, if it hasn't already been done.
Well, I guess it was a slow newsday at KTVA!
A little odd that they would devote time to a report regarding a photo controversy that is still unknown to so many people. I guess, given that it is an Alaskan TV station, there may be enough local chatter about Trig and some contested pictures to warrant a story.
My personal take is that I doubt that this invloves Sarah calling in a favor to Gusty to run a story. I think Gusty is PISSED about having her rep as a professional journalist slandered and managed to convince KTVA to run a story that was both news-worthy and that would allow her try to clear her name as a Palin co-conspirator.
It's a very interesting report nonetheless, and it seems rather convincing that the photos were legit. While not every counter-point to the conspiracy narrative has to be viewed as the final word, likewise, not every piece of proposed conspiracy evidence is going to ultimately be accurate.
All that this newstory is going to mean to some people on this blog is that the photos are likely a dead end. It does nothing, in itself, to prove that Sarah was really pregnant and that Trig is her son.
But indeed, as others have already pointed out, this story will be used as ammo to say that "these tin-foil types got all worked up about fake pictures and then got blown out of the water with the truth".
That's why I believe the reaction by those who believe Sarah is lying is going to be important to the future credibility of the theory. People can go down the path of "Gusty is lying - She is a Palin patsy - There are still other photo irregularities that she didn't address", but that risks looking like people who can't accept conflicting information regarding a conspiracy.
To me, acknowledging that "this piece of evidence may not be what we had theorized it to be, but the newstory still does nothing to prove that Sarah was truly pregnant and is the birthmother of Trig", conveys a sense that this information isn't really a big setback to the basic premise, and it isn't needed to hold the story together.
Just my two cents.
Although, I have to tell you, that as one of the people who believes that Sarah gave birth to Trig, and knowing the amount of energy given to disproving those pictures, it certainly feels like a convincing piece of testimony in favor of Sarah.
I always felt that the photos were real, too. Regardless of whether or not the "belly" was real, that's a different story.
I still think that several possibilities need to be explored. If Palin faked the pregnancy, what was was the motivation behind doing that? If she didn't fake it, why was she so careless with a high-risk pregnancy? Why did she hide it until the THIRD trimester? Why did she continue trying to conceal the belly by wearing dark clothing and scarves?
I still believe that Trig is hers. As for why she was so secretive and careless... Only she can answer that. But she has already admitted that she had negative feelings, such as shame and disappointment, about the pregnancy. You fill in the blanks.
In my mind the news piece by Gusty does nothing to change my opinion on the baby saga/drama. It does however point out how much SP is worried and is bringing the spotlight to this issue in a way we on this blog never could.
I remember when the Obama/Ayres thing was being discussed everyday on the TV. My husband and I researched the non-profit and the story behind what was being reported and my husband kept saying why doesn't any of these people speak up? Why is Ayres silent? Why is everyone involved silent?
I said at the time and I believe it applies in this case: If what people are saying is wrong or flat out lying you should ignore it and let the situation play out. Getting in there and fighting every point is self defeating and gives credence to the discussion.
So thanks SP for verifying that this is a topic worth discussing. I am so happy that we can now start hearing some answers to all of the many questions we have.
Who are the folks writing the softball comments to the editor's article? Greta must know that she could raise her ratings to the skies by getting the whole story from SP. Ziegler didn't say if Bristol was pregnant when she opened the door to him, nor mentioned any
baby noise throughout his ridiculous interview. SP,
I'm afraid, is nearly without a leg to stand on.
I know a lot of people are upset, but more information to work with is never a bad thing.
And obviously people close to the issue are following this blog. Why bother if we are just a bunch of no-nothing crazies?
There are still discrepancies. Why would Dan Carpenter take a picture of Gusty? He works for a rival news organization. But more importantly, why did she take a picture of two rival reporters with Gov. Palin just for fun? Keep in mind McCallister was a rival reporter at the time.
There is also discrepancy in the dark, quiet hallways and the different end points she reported. All other sources have said the legislative session ended at noon and that there was quiet a loud commotion in the halls (see my earlier posts, I'll dig up the links).
There is still a lot of fishy stuff regarding this. My best guess is that she donned the pregnancy suit and shot this interview after the legislative session was long over. I'd speculated at another point in time. But maybe it was late April 13th.
Why can't we get video footage from the actual session and Gov. Palin's speech? The news media was there taking pictures. Again, I've been researching any thing we have on that April 13th day.
Also, we've got the cameraman's name. This is nothing to be upset about, just another piece to the puzzle to build on from here.
Is it just me or does Gusty look thinner on this new KTVV video than she does in the photo? I definitely want to know what she did to lose her weight.
And yes, Craig is right, I don't think this Gusty video changes a thing. Those of us that believe our own eyes and saw Gov. Palin with a flat stomach only 6-7 weeks before giving birth and a smaller stomach (4/10) only 3 days before this video, will always believe that Gov. Palin faked her pregnancy.
Now people like Craig on the other hand will always believe otherwise.
Keep your head up, Audrey. You are definitely on to something.
The naked truth is always chasing a well-dressed lie.
We did get off track with the pictures. So what. She is not forthright with the truth so there will be assumptions made. In no way does this reflect on the integrity of this website and to suggest it does is desperation on their part. They bit onto this because it is the one thing they can prove. They didn't mention any other evidence. Just because the pictures are real - certainly they don't expect us to believe the pregnancy was.
And yet another blurry 72 DPI pic from a slightly wider angle and Sp looking at the wall.
I am convinced. that something still smells!
Many have posted they think Sarah has narcissistic personality disorder. Actually, I think she’s a Sociopath. Check out the description at http://www.mcafee.cc/Bin/sb.html .
Glibness and superficial charm, grandiose sense of self, pathological lying, lack of remorse or guilt, shallow emotions, impulsive nature, contempt for those who seek to understand them, inability to admit mistakes, paranoid, tyrannical, despotic, emotional need to justify crimes, extreme narcissism and grandiose, may state readily that their goal is to rule the world… That’s our girl!
"She would not be pressuring Andrea Gusty to show previously unseen footage that confirms nothing or changes anything."
The key words here are "previously unseen". As Emma pointed out, Gusty makes a special point of saying that she interviewed SP "live". In fact, the little tag in the corner of the interview SAYS "live". Now why would anyone tag a video "live" if it wasn't airing at that very moment? It doesn't make sense.
Do we have someone with experience in broadcasting who could explain the process of 'filming live'. (I actually always thought the tag was something pasted in from the TV station's end - kind of like the yellow lines that are digitally pasted onto the football fields these days.)
Also, what was being aired at 5:00 p.m. on KTVA that night? Did a big story break and they had to cut the live interview at the last minute?
That said, the authenticity of the photos still does not confirm the authenticity of the pregnancy. But things are definitely heating up in Alaska!
the Pic that Audrey has and the one from Gusty today are not the same. todays pic has been smoothed over.
Y-Man, here is what's weird, AFTER you tell people you are pregnant, why keep hiding it with scarves?? That is the Question.
And not telling anyone, not even your own kids that it is a DS baby? I would never surprise other kids that way.
There are just so many things wrong with her story.
mc-midnightcajun--good points; instead of clarifying matters, Gushy Gusty just created more misinformation on this topic.
Plus, she only discussed "her" pictures (the version she posted on the KTVA site), not the versions posted to the Flickr account in August, which were the ones analyzed.
"Based on our experience, I do not think it would be constructive to include Bill McAllister, but that's up to you." (from previous post thread)
This is Pat Dougherty offering to meet with SP to discuss the whole Trig story. Odd that he would specifically mention Bill McAllister, the camera-man in this interview, as someone who might not help SPs cause. Was he (Bill) aware that the whole scene on April 13th was a set-up? While maybe Andrea was not?
Alex: you can get still photos from video, so maybe someone else accessed the video to make photos to post in Aug that would "prove" the pregnancy?
Craig's latest post is right on, particularly in how the fake-photo question will act as a surrogate for those supporting SP's version of events.
If we want MSM to pick up the story and apply their resources to investigateing it, it has to be with solid evidence, as was the March 26 picture and analysis. MSM will pick and choose its information for the stories it wants to do. It's pretty clear that MSM doesn't care as much about truth as a) defending their earlier reporting or lack thereof and b) gaining a sympathetic audience.
I want to remind everyone that MSM jumped on the Iraq War bandwagon early and banged the drums loudly. Everyone in MSM was convinced that Saddam had WMD, not even challenging Dick Cheney and what was certainly unproven, and probably knowingly fabricated statements about it.
Andrea Gusty effectively defended herself, at the expense of this investigation. She doesn't care about what we are doing, only herself and her professional image. So she threw us under the bus. It hurts, huh?
But I still ask Craig: what affirmative evidence do you have that SP is Trig's mother, other than her own statements and the luke-warm, unsubstantiated references by Dr. CBJ? It now seems that MSM is unwilling to consider that they may have missed the real story, so I think that argument, which has been your central one, is down the drain.
Dangerous
McMidnight ajun: you also just described Bush!!
I am still trying to understand why Gusty, Gov. Palin and the rest of the crew were still there at 5:00 PM doing a live video (and pictures?) when the Legislative Session was over at 1:00 PM. And if this video was live, why didn't it air on the news that night or later? Just still find all of this to be rather strange and possibly staged.
BlueTx, I am very sure that Audrey values your opinion but do know that unless Gov. Palin proves that she gave birth to Trig Paxson Van Palin, many of us (and there are many) will always believe that this is another one of Gov. Palin's lies. And since you said that she won't and shouldn't provide proof then I say that we continue to turn over every stone (even when a stone or two proves to have no evidence under it) until the truth reveals itself.
The naked truth is always chasing a well-dressed lie. And this lie is in its Sunday's best. :-)
Say what you want about the photo analysis discussions, but what I see is that this is what got Palin's attention and in a big way.
How those pictures showed up on the web and where did they came from and where is the video that accompanied them have been questions everyone has wondered about since they first appeared.
Yesterday, Gusty finally decided to address the questions. Palin also decided to attack 'anonymous' bloggers who by her strange Palin logic are now making the news.
I repeat. This website is making Sarah Palin nervous.
I don't agree with those that say we are the nut jobs. Sure a few people have some crazy theories and scenarios.
But here is what I think. I think most of us are just Moms who know you don't go from flat stomach to full-blown pregnancy stomach in a few weeks. Most of us know that a skinny woman having a late-life fifth preganancy is not going to be able to hide it from anyone for more than about 5-6 months tops. All of us know a premature special needs baby doesn't get released from the hospital a few day after birth. Every single one of us knows that when our water breaks (or leaks) we go immediately to either the doctor or the hospital. We do not stop at 'GO' or jump on a plan for 12 hours or give a speech.
There are a thousands of crazy websites on the internet. There a millions of crazy wingnuts with conspiracy theories about everything and everybody.
But those don't bother Sarah Palin. By trying to diffuse the conspiracy, Gusty shone a light that most people probably didn't have a clue was even on.
I repeat. Something is making Palin nervous. The truth is here.
There is something weird about those photos and nothing Andrea Gusty said or showed yesterday, answered any questions at all. It only raised more questions.
But the biggest question of all is, what is making Sarah Palin so nervous?
In my head, I can just hear Sarah Palin calling Gusty's office and just screaming at her...
"You were there, You KNOW those pictures are real! Put an end to this by stating you were there and you took the damn pictures!"
"I will have you fired, or NEVER give you a private interview again!", "I will have you blackballed from all Alaska Government proceedings from now on if you do not do this!"
Once again Sarah is trying to distract everyone with the shiny penny, all the while diverting the attention from the truth (that she was wearing some sort of pillow to look pregnant, because she just cannot see WHY it is wrong to PRETEND to be pregnant, possibly defraud insurance(theory?), just so a child can be part of her family.
As a Mother who had a hysterectomy at age of 21 due to cancer. Who has adopted my step-children as my own. I find this kind of dishonesty available! This gives a bad name to EVERY mother who has adopted a child, as it send the message, "A child is not good enough to be part of a family, unless it is born into it."
I do not care what her reasons are for defrauding the public, as NO reason would be good enough.
If she did it to protect someone from the stigma of rape, that rape could have been used (without using names and protecting the victim) politically as a way to stop the high rates of rape, the horrific way that rape victims are treated. etc.
If it was to hide a child from an abusive parent, that also could be used to open the publics eyes about that issue. If it was to cover for the pregnancy of a minor, that too could be used to educate teens (again without releasing names) about teen pregnancy. If it was done to prevent an abortion, it could have been used to promote herself even higher with the Pro-Life people (and even the pro-choice people would give her the respect for walking the walk, and talking the talk). Even if it was only about the child having Downs Syndrome, that could be used to show that ALL children need love and a family.
Bottom line, She either needs to come clean or offer more proof, than just her words.
spelling correction on my last post...the word should not be available, it should be appalling.
In response to Craig, whose ongoing commentary I respect, I agree that from a “selling this theory to others” perspective, it may be tactically better to stop talking about the photos. But I personally still have questions about them and am more interested in getting the answers than I am in appearing credible to the skeptics.
I don’t feel this blog is really analogous to a courtroom in which a lawyer has to pick and choose the strongest parts of her case in order to convince a jury. It seems to me a messier process, perhaps like the investigation that proceeds the trial. There will be many leads, some of which are dead ends. The difference is, of course, that this investigation is very public.
As for Gusty’s wacky piece, it seems not to have offered much that is new, in the sense of answering any of the questions about the photos. Consider:
1. She states that the pictures are genuine. So what? Didn’t she previously state that to factcheck.org?
2. She does not state that she posted them on Flickr, or who did. I read somewhere that she expressed surprise to factcheck.org that they surfaced on the internet, because she thought she had the only copies.
3. If that’s true, then who posted them and how did that person come to possess them? If it was the camera man, Dan Carpenter, how did he get the copies without Gusty’s knowledge? Why did he use a different name to post them (Eric99559)? Why did he reduce the resolution of the photos? Why did he post them when he did, months after they were taken?
I do not believe it is a mistake to ask the above questions or to analyze the photos for evidence of alterations. The photos may not have been altered, and there may be reasonable answers to the above questions, but we won’t know those things unless we do the analysis and ask the questions.
In those instances when reasonable answers are provided, there will of course be people who use those answers to proclaim that we are nuts. That’s undesirable, but I don’t think it’s so undesirable that we should restrict the questions we ask to avoid it.
As Audrey has said, these are perhaps the two most convincing photos of Sarah being pregnant. They didn’t appear until months after they were taken, and we still don’t know who posted them or how that person obtained them, even after the camera owner, Gusty, has commented on the situation twice. You don’t have to be wearing a tin foil hat to find that strange and to ask “why?”.
And, in answer to the inevitable reply from Palin supporters that if they answer these questions I and others will just find other things to question, that is absolutely correct. There is a long list of questionable issues concerning the pregnancy story. The questions surrounding these photos are just one small part. They should be easily answerable, but they haven’t been yet. Why not, Andrea?
Gusty's too little too late report does little to explain the glaring anomalies that exist in SP's birth story, expertly laid out and questioned by Audrey.
The photo from March 11, 2008 (from the meeting with Alaskan Youth for Environmental Action), the only one of the set that gets a clear shot of her abdomen, shows, although in a blurry photo, an entirely flat stomach.
3/11/2008
How one goes from entirely flat--no abdominal bump at all, to entirely full-bellied on 4/13/08 (i.e. in just over 33 days) defies biological explanation.
Seems to me that the photos prove Palin wore a fake belly that day because 5 days later both Palin and the airline said she did not look pregnant on the trip back from Texas.
It is interesting that the necklace is shown in the video and yet was missing on the picture in Flickr.
We have been seeing SP become increasingly frantic in her reactions to the blogging. She brought this whole thing up with the Ziegler interview.
We still do not know who Erik99559 is.
I think we should avoid using the water breaking aspect of the delivery story. The early interviews indicated that her father gave this detail and she reluctantly affirmed it. She is certainly not going to say at this point that her father was mistaken.
Interesting that this report was given on a Monday. Monday is traditionally a slow news day and is used for releases to maximize the impact.
We have many more points to make, and this has not trumped all of them.
sandra in oregon
BlueTx, I'm answering one comment of yours specifically, but this is also for anyone "out there" who's been reading Audrey's palindeception.com site and this blog:
You said, "all this other crazy stuff you have put forward has given SP the ammo to discredit you. It only takes one mistake to make you appear unbelievable."
This isn't a court of law, and we're not all expert witnesses called on the stand under oath to give testimony.
For a long long time this was a blog with entries by one person -- Audrey, with a gradually growing number of comments by visitors. It was only in the past couple of days this open-forum commentary was tightened up with a registration procedure, to lessen the number of "spam" comments and red herring tangents.
The previous open-forum commentary format allowed for hundreds of opinions, scores of theories, some of them unbelievable even to others of us regularly commenting here.
If someone is not an objective and discerning "outsider" but instead chooses to cherry-pick one of the more outlandish theories from this commentary/forum, and portray it as one of Audrey's findings, that can be easily dismissed by merely pointing to Audrey's main site.
@NakedTruth: Some Local news stations do their news twice, once around 5pm (a "family friendly" version done earlier) then again at 6pm, at least in all the cities I've ever lived in that's when the stations do it. Palin may have been finishing up some business before she left for the day and was still available to do an interview.
We really don't know if this was originally aired or not since most of us are not in Alaska and couldn't see this newscast.
The issue about these photos is a non-issue, now. They're legit and all they show is Palin looked pregnant. Not that she really was.
If Palin really was pregnant, then her judgment should be in question. I'd like to see someone ask her about it. I am very curious to hear her explanation why she'd take risks like she did.
I think the investigation should focus on photos that are genuine and that can be dated accurately. There are a number of photos that show inconsistent changes in SP's figure and any findings based on these would be more reliable than trying to prove that some photos may have been tampered with.
Contradictory statements would also provide more solid evidence.
The wild ride started all this and it still doesn't ring true. Her schedule in the third trimester seems extremely heavy in terms of long-haul flights. I can't see a doctor giving the go ahead to so many long flights, specially taking into account that this was a high risk pregnancy.
I pointed this out before: she had her hair tinted throughout the said pregnancy, which goes against doctors' advice. OK, so she ignores it and carries on with her hairdresser's appointments as usual,but it doesn't tally with her supermom, super experienced mother of four. So, either she was advised by her doctor and ignored it, or her doctor thought it was OK, as it was OK to fly frequently during the 3rd trimester and to take the wild ride.
The same schedule makes it almost impossible for SP to have had proper antenatal care, if the only doctor involved was in Wasilla or that neighbourhood during that period. Unless it's OK to have antenatal appoinments over the phone for a high risk pregnancy... just at it was OK to embark on the wild ride based on a phone "examination".
How many premature DS babies are released from hospital after 3 or 4 days? If she went straight back to work and Trig needed therapy for jaundice, how did she find the time to keep her commitments, follow his progress, breastfeed, etc? It's not impossible, but it sounds unlikely. For a champion of the cause of children with special needs, her behaviour comes across as very detached.
Although, having read Andrew Halcro's "A Day in the Life" and other Alaskan blogs, her workload is far from heavy and she takes days off at will, so she could have found the time to care for Trig after all... But that's not how SHE would describe her schedule.
All these little contradictory bits and pieces form a larger picture that points to her:
1) NOT having been pregnant.
Or:
2) Having a very strange shape-shifting pregnancy and a lousy doctor.
Coming up in the March issue of Esquire - Palin on Bloggers and the World of Journalism:
http://www.esquire.com/the-side/qa/sarah-palin-quotes-011309
"Bored, anonymous, pathetic bloggers who lie annoy me....I'll tell you, yesterday the Anchorage Daily News, they called again to ask — double-, triple-, quadruple-check — who is Trig's real mom. And I said, Come on, are you kidding me? We're gonna answer this? Do you not believe me or my doctor? And they said, No, it's been quite cryptic the way that my son's birth has been discussed. And I thought, Okay, more indication of continued problems in the world of journalism."
... and her answer to who Trig's real mom was in that somewhere??
No, NakedTruth, it's not just you.
Andrea Gusty does look slimmer in the introduction at the first part of her current video than she did in the Photo#1.
Don't know if that's because the Photo#1 really HAD been squeezed flatter, which would have widened both women and the cameraman, or if it's because Andrea Gusty did lose weight.
I'm still willing to think it's the former, because Sarah Palin's face does have that curiously flattened wider look than it did in the actual interview video which Andrea Gusty so helpfully provided for us to see.
NYC Hope Monger said...
In response to Craig, whose ongoing commentary I respect, I agree that from a “selling this theory to others” perspective, it may be tactically better to stop talking about the photos. But I personally still have questions about them and am more interested in getting the answers than I am in appearing credible to the skeptics.
I agree. As far as 'selling this theory' to others, who cares?
There is a question being asked here. And the answer to that question is either Palin is telling the truth or Palin is lying.
In my opinion, ALL circumstantial evidence that is available to the public at this time points to the probability that Palin is lying.
Any evidence that could help Palin is not available, and has in fact, been suppressed by the person who could most benefit from making it available – Sarah Palin herself. And that in itself wouldn’t be so strange if in fact, Ms. Palin herself didn’t seem so agitated that no one will just take her at her word.
What I also find somewhat interesting is how this website is clearly divided into different factions. There are those who are worried how the ‘outside’ perceives it. And there are those who just want to know the truth. I also find it interesting that those who fall in the first category also appear to be the most pro-Palin. Am I the only one who finds some irony in the fact that those believe Palin is telling the truth are ‘worried’ about how the rest of us are being ‘perceived’ by others?
I’m in the second half. I don’t really care what other’s perceptions are. I’m just looking at the evidence and trying to see what makes sense and what doesn’t. I just want the question answered. Is Palin lying or telling the truth?
It's just too bad that there was no opportunity offered to question the socalled expert who claimed them to be doctored photos. Some of us knew or were pretty sure last week that they were not faked. This is as much a reliance on an expert who wasn't an expert as anything else. Along with too many people who were in a hurry to believe the socalled expert. It's been very damaging to the cause and should be a lesson learned.
But it's still of no consequence to the real issue here and that is all the pictures which show dear Sarah as not being pregnant when she should have been.
It's funny that Sullivan has create a recent post on his blog that documents the exchange between the ADN editor and Palin, and that Sullivan has highlighted the passages in which the editor refers to requesting basic documentation to put this conspiracy to rest. Sullivan's implication is that some basic info from the Palins' would make this all go away.
Although this may be sufficient for Sullivan and the ADN editor, what they don't seem to realize is that the majority of those who don't believe Sarah, are well past accepting basic documentation as proof of Trig being Sarah's child. And many, in fact, won't accept any proof at this point.
So, once again I say, if the majority of your target audience will now accept little, if any, proof regarding this issue, why bother? This all gets back to my earlier-stated "lose-lose" scenario that the Palin camp is in if they provide info at this point.
That being said, Sarah just needs to shut up about the whole thing!!!
My advise to her: Okay already! We get the fact that you were hit hard during the campaign and some of it was very ugly. What's done is done. Who cares if 100% of the population isn't on board with you being Trig's birth mother. If you are telling the truth and nearly all of the blogosphere and the MSM is ignoring the rumours, then let it go. It's more important that you stop the adversarial relationship with the media and start to rebuild bridges. That means deflecting further comment to any more leading questions that tempt you to continue the victim narrative. That also means showing a little more humility and more personal accountability in some of the failings of your VP campaign.
Time to look forward, not backward.
Sandra, Sarah's story about her water breaking in Texas, and the doctor-approved wild ride back to Alaska is what got my attention in the first place.
If her water didn't break and her dad was confused or misled, she should have immediately corrected the story.
That first comment is what has led to the detailed scrutiny of the pictures, her family, all her later comments, etc.
"Oh, what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive." Sir Walter Scott
rpinME posts a message and includes this link to a photo which is claimed to be a picture which shows a flat stomach.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ayea/2343838325/sizes/l/in/set-72157604153868357/
Yet it doesn't serve that purpose at all! In fact it's blocked by a chair and would illustrate to me just the opposite. We need to be careful of not following up on this kind of claim being made by rpinME. The whole point being that we have better dated pictures which show a flat stomach at the time in question.
So what's with you rpinME? Wishful thinking or another motive.
@ Craig:
I don't think Sarah can shut up about any of it. As long as the rumors are out there, as long as no definite info is given out, it's attention on her. Even if it's negative attention it's attention. She want it. Needs it. Has to have it probably to validate her existence somehow.
If we all stopped bothering about her and all her judgment calls, she'd go nuts.
Did Gusty give herself away? She gave us two views of the same shot. Now we know the source of the cone of light. What about the dots on the floor????????????? Another smoking nail??????????
I repeat:
Gusty did the interview. That does not prove that the photos on the flickr site were not doctored versions of stills from the original interview.
Insert (or alter) Very Pregnant Sarah into Gusty interview photo. Post on the internet. Give to McCain campaign. Voila!
Gusty's as duped as the rest of us.
(Did any of you ever see the movie, "Wag the Dog," about making the public "see" a fake war to boost the president's ratings?)
to Ohio Mom:
The water breaking isn't necessary to question the "wild ride." She did say she thought she was about to go into labor, and certainly she should have been examined before she got on a plane. That was the irresponsible part.
sandra in oregon
This is as addictive as Bravo TV. She's on the run, people.
I'm sure Palin will say the Esquire interview was taken out of context.
;p
1. We are not professional mystery solvers. We pursue what we think warrants it, and some directions are dead ends. Not a problem for me. Esp so long as there remain so many trouts in the milk!
2. As I read over the posts of the last several topics, I keep saying to myself:
--I do NOT want to know who Trig's mother is.
--I want to know if SP's pregnancy was a hoax or not.
This is about only SP, no one else: Is she a liar, or should I apologize and start to trust her?
3. Gusty's claiming the SP+Gusty and 3Amigos photos are authentic makes it even HARDER to believe it's not a hoax, because it makes the later photos showing a far flatter pregnancy even harder to explain.
4. So, these photos were worth looking at closely after all:
--If authentic, how could SP have gotten smaller before delivery?
--If fake, a whole other story has to be explained.
5. I do not see myself as a conspiracy theorist. I just want to understand why so many data points don't fit together. Why is that wrong?
--Amy1
There is an important lesson in all of this, that Craig alluded to: when you imply that a professional like Andrea Gusty is a liar, dupe and/or co-conspirator in a hoax, that person is naturally going to want to publicly rebut such implications. ESPECIALLY if the implications are not true!
But moving beyond Gusty and her photos, the larger elephant in the room is CBJ. Go back and re-read her letter of Nov. 3. In it, she unambiguously affirms that SP was pregnant with and gave birth to Trig. Any theory of SP not giving birth to Trig has to impeach the credibility of CBJ and the veracity of this letter.
Dangerous is right that her statements are "unsubstantiated." But I disagree that they are lukewarm. Remember too that CBJ is a Fellow and 2002 Family Physician of the Year for her medical association. For her to sign her name to such a letter, for a national election candidate, is pretty significant evidence that can't just be tossed aside.
The only thing that will rebut the CBJ letter is an eyewitness to the hoax. (Imagine SP saying to ADN editor Pat Dougherty, handing him the letter: "Do you really want to go on the record calling my distinguished personal physician a liar?") SP not looking pregnant in some photos, Bristol being mysteriously absent, even the wildness of the wild ride, won't trump the CBJ letter in many people's eyes.
Of course, CBJ will remain silent unless asked by SP to go public. And I don't see that happening unless the national MSM picks up the story--which they won't, unless they have that eyewitness.
I think Gusty did us all a favor by posting the video. SHE is part of the MSM, and now potentially has stirred up the interest in this story again. Maybe NOW we will get some serious, honest, investigations going on by serious, honest, reporters.
SQ says: "But moving beyond Gusty and her photos, the larger elephant in the room is CBJ. Go back and re-read her letter of Nov. 3. In it, she unambiguously affirms that SP was pregnant with and gave birth to Trig. Any theory of SP not giving birth to Trig has to impeach the credibility of CBJ and the veracity of this letter."
NO - The doctor does no such thing!
From http://tinyurl.com/9yzsgw:
"Trig was born in good health at 35 weeks and was able to go home two days after his birth. He had minor problems with jaundice that required therapy in the hospital and at home for several days.
"At the time of his last office visit, he was growing and developing normally for a child with" Down Syndrome, the doctor said."
SHE DID NOT SAY THAT SARAH WAS THE BIRTHMOTHER! SHE SAID THAT TRIG WAS BORN (but not TO WHOM!), and that, upon follow-up visits, he was making normal progress for a DS baby!
I guess you could take the doctors letter and her refusal to name SP as birth mother ANOTHER smoking gun!
WOW - Been gone all day and just learned about the video that KTVA & Gusty suddenly made available to the public.
Very insightful comments here from Shelby, KaJo, mc-midnightcajun, and NYC Hope Monger. And as they've suggested, the questions Gusty left UNanswered are really quite intriguing & need to be scrutinized further.
So even though the KTVA segment was clearly intended to be a major setback for websites like this, I think it's actually going to have the opposite effect, much to SP's dismay.
This story is a LONG way from being over...
I just noticed something that gave me a chill. If you follow that link to KTVA at the beginning of the second paragraph of Audrey's current posting, you will see other links on the right side of the page. One of them is about the upcoming sentencing of an Alaska woman who had a baby in Colorado in Feb. 08 and left it to die in a closet. In what surely is no more than a tragic coincidence, the young mother was from -- you guessed it -- Wasilla.
Am I missing something or does Andrea Gusty simply not deal at all with the Carpenter/Palin/McAllister picture that was posted on the same Flickr account at the same time, and supposedly taken only a few minutes after the one photo with her in it?
Andrea speaks only to the "one picture." I find that strange, since there's been at least as much scrutiny of the "three amigos" shot as the Palin-being-interviewed shot.
And for goodness sake, Andrea, you could've nipped this in the bud by responding to any one of several e-mails asking you for information about those pictures and the live video. Instead you do a "quit picking on me" news story with several inaccuracies that leaves out a lot more info than it reveals?
What the heck is going on here?
Littl' Me:
The passage of the CBJ letter you quote is from the ADN article ABOUT CBJ's letter. It is incomplete.
The full letter is a pdf file linked on the right side of the ADN page you cite.
The third and fourth paragraphs of CBJ's letter, read together, are unambiguous: SP had a pre-term delivery at 35 weeks in 2008, and that baby is named Trig.
Correcting my prior post - I see where Andrea claims to have taken the "three amigos" shot -- "just a few minutes later," according to her.
What happened to SP's necklace? It is not visible in the live video. It is not visible in either of the pics that KTVA has on their Web site to accompany the story. But it sure is there a few minutes later when Sarah is standing between two newspeople.
Wierd...
So simple to say that many people won't accept proof, so why bother? Makes it so easy to reject that "burden of proof" we were writing about earlier.
Well, let's review - CBJ doesn't say anywhere that SP gave birth with CBJ attending on 4/18/08.
The reporter for ADN states that CBJ said that she had to induce labor, but not that she induced SP.
Note that there is no quote attributed to CBJ on this point. Although there are quotes such as "I don't think it was unreasonable for her to fly back" (note CBJ used the words 'I don't think', not 'I didn't think').
She is also quoted as saying "Things had already settled down by the time she spoke with me" Meaningless in terms of citing SP as the pregnant patient. Again no definitive that SP gave birth to Trig at Mat Su on 4/18 with CBJ attending.
As for her letter - she refers to the last pregnancy in the same vernacular as the first - how many deliveries and when. I assume she didn't deliver Track or Bristol Palin, yet she notes the deliveries in her letter, although she herself wasn't present. She does the same for this last alleged pregnancy. The bulk of the letter is actually about Trig's Down Syndrome and development. Perhaps she treats Trig and is very familiar with his record.
So CBJ has never, not once, confirmed that she attended SP as she gave birth at Mat Su on 4/18/08. Not Once.
Oddly it would appear she has taken great pains to avoid doing so.
Deniability & semantics.
The only thing SP is succeeding at right now is raising more and more questions among reasonable people who are asking for an exact statement (that SP gave birth on 4/18/08 at Mat Su to baby boy with CBJ attending her), confirmed by the licensed physician.
The ongoing machinations only confirm that there is something to hide. The unwillingness to make a definitive statement and end the story must be viewed in light of the recent resignations from her staff. Perhaps SP needed more firepower to try and halt the story.
Starting to quack like duck.
What I think is amazing is that most people in the American public did not really know about the Palin baby conspiracy or if they did they didn't give it much thought after the announcement of Bristol's pregnancy. Well, Sarah and Andrea have put it right back out there if front of the public. I don't think this will be to their advantage. I think some other information is going to come out and very soon. Sarah probably even is aware of it. I also think that this was an attempt( a preemptive strike) by Sarah to discredit the bloggers and the media for the next bomb that explodes. She doesn't want it to be believed. Let's see what's coming next!
A point that has been brought up by bloggers to ADN is that by discrediting bloggers SP could be alienating her 60,000 Team Sarah members.
BTW, I really wonder about those numbers. Way back in the 50's there was speculation that that Communist party had so many members because the ranks were filled with FBI spies.
sandra in oregon
Sandra, you just got my Astute Comment of the Day Award.
Audrey, KTVA put up the 8 minutes from April on the site!!!!!!
I still have a couple problems with the report.
1) Now Andrea Gusty admits to taking the three amigos picture. WHY? These people work for a different news team.
Bill McCallister's article:
http://tinyurl.com/9lkoq4
She calls Dan Carpenter a local photographer but he's more than that. He's a rival news photographer and a professional.
2) How did these pictures get "leaked"? If they were on her camera then someone must have stolen it and posted it at just the right time.
3)http://tinyurl.com/8rw5pf
I still think its weird that she keeps mentioning the "silent halls". Why not do the interview with the others they clearly did earlier?
4) All we want is the truth. Bloggers will always exist with theories. They can easily prove us wrong and now show that they are willing to provide information.
Palin gave an address to the legislature earlier that day:
http://tinyurl.com/9c2qcj
There should be photos and video from that day. KTUU has a screen shot from their report:
http://tinyurl.com/87yca2
Palin, you can continue to complain about the blogs but it is our first amendment right. You have the power to make this disappear by providing us evidence that the birth went as you said it went.
Hey Craig - if you're in Alaska, you might want to see if SP is hiring any one new for the Press Office. I am serious about this. She could use someone who can think clearly, respond to critics in a calm and reasoned manner AND construct a complete sentence. SVO, there, ya know, uh, perhaps?
BG, Dangerous, Henry B and others - I'm with you and add my appeal to those who insist on fanning the 'faked' photo flames to just DROP IT! Pretty please?
There's another Palin website that seems to be dealing with the idea of photo fakery exclusively. Those who want to continue to discuss the minutia of pixelation may be more comfortable over there.
Audrey and co. have put a lot of time and heart into the endeavor of looking for answers to the question: Who gave birth to Trig?
Personally, I tend to come down on the side that Trig is, indeed, a fruit of Sarah's womb. That being said, I still have an open mind.
Why Sarah Palin doesn't put this to rest is truly baffling. I can see WHY it would be a bad PR move to dump a load of docs on a MSM reporter to say, "SEE? There's the amnio, the Birth certificate, the charges for the prenatal care!"
Yet, it's a stranger and even, IMHO, an exceptionally poor PR strategy to continue to keep raising the issue under the guise of whining about the bloggers and the MSM.
Because of this, I cannot shut the door to other birth story possibilities.
My gut tells me something is not right. Or, maybe I'm just hungry.
Anyway, let's try to keep it credible. At the rate staff is bailing out of the Gov's Office, it may be likely that one of them might be persuaded to tell all.
You can always email Audrey privately.
This is really getting a lot of coverage. I said earlier and will say again - thanks SP, you have brought more light on this issue than any of us could.
http://mediamatters.org/columns/200901130015?f=h_column/
FishEye said...
I just noticed something that gave me a chill. If you follow that link to KTVA at the beginning of the second paragraph of Audrey's current posting, you will see other links on the right side of the page. One of them is about the upcoming sentencing of an Alaska woman who had a baby in Colorado in Feb. 08 and left it to die in a closet. In what surely is no more than a tragic coincidence, the young mother was from -- you guessed it -- Wasilla.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Don't throw any red herrings into this discussion please (Or at least read the article before insinuating things).The article clearly states "Hite was accused of giving birth to a boy, now called Gabriel, at a friend's Grand Junction home in February 2008. Prosecutors say she then put the boy in a bag, walked to her parents' home and left the bag in a closet.
Hite's parents found the boy's decomposing body in April."
Once again to all reading..PLEASE do not throw out things that only muddy the waters (that is what happened with the Gusty pictures)
Not sure if this has already been posted yet, but there's a very interesting post from the editor of the ADN with a full transcript of an email exchange between him and SP about the ADN's coverage of the Trig pregnancy story.
http://community.adn.com/adn/node/136523
I also recommend following the link from there to the MediaMatters article about the timeline of the MSM's coverage of the Trig birth story.
No question...the woman is truly clueless.
Blue TX
CBJ can raise her right hand in any courtroom or in any hearing or on any panel and truthfully state:
I never said I induced labor for Sarah Palin. I just said I induced labor while delivering a baby boy, subsequently named Trig Palin.
or, since no quote was attributed at all on this point:
"The reporter misquoted me or misunderstood"
Great pains to avoid making any statement about SP at all as the birth mother. CBJ has never once made any statement that SP was her patient. Not Once.
Sorry, but it took a few days to get to the wording of her letter. Great pains to avoid the statement.
Semantics, deniability.
If she doesn't make the definitive statement with CBJ at her side confirming for the sake of her own son and daughters, well it's clear that something stinks - and it ain't Trig's diapers.
Actually, BlueTx, 6 lb 2 oz is remarkably large for a 35 week delivery! Average weight at this point is 5 lb 4 oz...
Once again, Shelby, I agree with you.
How did we all get here? By bouncing theories off one another, finding fault with bits and pieces, and then changing that particular theory a bit and considering it again. We have many possibilities we've tossed aside for lack of evidence, yet still have unproven reasonable possibilities worth considering.
"Outlandish theories," maybe, but Sherri being the mom makes sense of much of our current concrete evidence.
Many of us have participated in this process, and it has done a lot to get us where we are today...closer than ever.
I am once again asking for all of us regular posters to this site to not judge or criticize one another, or be concerned how we are coming off to those who want to discredit us. It will be the smart msm member who finally breaks this story, by examining all the evidence, so let's not try to intimidate posters. Let everyone speak their mind. This is not a courtroom, simply a forum where we can share ideas.
What has been achieved here, can not be discounted, and it will be the reason the truth finally does come out. Do what you want...continue questioning, consider all possibilities, and fear no one!
penny
There is nothing that will ever convince you people. Just like the nuts who keep blathering about Obama not being a natural born citizen. The "smoking gun" photo turned out not to be a "smoking gun." The daughter had her baby too close to the time Trig was born that she could possibly have been the mother. But you won't stop and you never will, no matter what evidence you're presented. Spend your energies accumulating evidence what an idiot Palin is so that we're not afflicted with her again in 4 years, but give up the baby thing.
CBJ's letter is incredibly vague. She never states that she actually delivered Trig on April 18th or that she provided antenatal care to SP.
The paragraph where she goes into more detail regarding SP's last pregnancy reads more like Trig's medical record than SP's. Why so much detail about the state of his health? Is it to make the event (delivery) appear more real? To make the wild ride seem more acceptable or irrelevant?
This letter gave SP what she needed at the time, it looks like proof that she's Trigs natural mother, but I believe the language is deliberately vague for legal reasons.
The only references to herself in the first person are to state her credentials, that she has been SP's family physician since 1997, then towards the end of the 1st paragraph in the second page of the letter: "and as such I have not performed those tests on Governor Palin."
If things unravel and there's a court case, CBJ has a way out as there are no firm statements apart from those I've mentioned above...
If people want to read it without digging into the archives:
http://www.latimes.com/media/acrobat/2008-11/43179602.pdf
or
http://tinyurl.com/5ntqbp
Oh Henry! Trying to portray reasonable folks as whack jobs will not hold water. Mentioning the folks here in the same sentence as UFO sighters
won't be enough-too simplistic, and frankly overused during the campaign. The public is saturated with all the linking strategies.
I, along with many other reasonable folks, will continue to wait on a definitive statement from SP which is confirmed by CBJ.
That statement would make the following points:
1. SP gave birth at Mat Su Regional on 4/18/08 to baby boy, Trig Palin.
2. That CBJ attended SP and delivered Trig Palin
3. That Mat Su staff also attended the birth: names
Now that doesn't seem unreasonable to you, does it?
Why do you suppose CBJ and SP don't say it out loud? Can you give me one plausible reason?
The reporter is not part of the cover up. Palin could have worn a pj pillow, she had announced her news to AK. The entire stories about the pregnancy and birth and after just do not add up. An ext ream pro lifer would never had amniocentesis. I had my third child at 39 and when I found out the test had a 1 in 200 chance of aborting the baby, I said no way, it didn't matter anyway I was going through no matter what. Trigg was very large for four weeks early, my baby was 18 days early and weighed only 5 pounds. There's a lot more to her story then we know, but no one will believe anything Sarah says because there has been just too many lies from her. She also traveled to Los Angeles, in March 08 late in the pg. There is a video here, but she is wearing black with a scarf and is leaning forward so you can't tell anything. What's really funny about this clip is shes slamming Hillary about complaining about unfair media coverage. There are a bunch more videos and stories on this page about her too.
http://dailysource.org/palin
I don't care about TrigGate but would like to see the truth told. There are so many untruths having been bandied about by Palin that we should take a hard look at these and then make judgments on her ability to be truthful with her constituents in Alaska as well as the population of the USA. This was written before TrigGate became much of an issue and also prior to the Couric interview. Take a moment, step back and consider yourself to be an impartial observer personally reviewing this candidate's record, then read this article. Then decide whether or not this candidate is worthy of having the public take her on her word. (I know that that most commenters here have read this article, but in light of the most recent statements/arguments by Sarah Palin, I think it bears reading again regarding her record on telling the truth.) Fool me 12 times? Maybe, but perhaps not 13 (or 14 or 15 or more)
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/09/the-twelve-odd.html
KaJo and Naked Truth, Gusty looks slimmer in her recent I-team reports than she did in the April clips or photo. She has lost weight. Which is not to say her image is correct in the photo.
Several of you say something is making Palin nervous. Could it be that she can't show Tripp? Does she have a few weeks yet to wait?
FACT:
Palin could make all the rumors go away in an instant by producing real evidence that she is the birth mother of Trig Palin.
Since she has not produced one single shred of real documented and supported evidence that she is the birth mother of Trig Palin, she is either lying about it or she is perpetuating the rumors and criticizing others for her own means.
Either way she is clearly not right in the head and probably needs professional medical attention.
Nice link, CasaCalvo. Thank you. It's good to read facts once in a while.
That said, muckraking has never been tidy work. Somebody makes muck, and those who dare rake it get dirty. Audrey is a muckraker. And we're all just a gaggle of muckraking-sideliners tossing out our ideas and encouragement.
The rumors will not go away. Audrey's reader numbers indicate that interest is higher than ever. That's a fact.
I'm here for the long haul. Others can rake Sarah's financial muck or her poor management skills muck or her maddening lace of education muck, but Audrey's got the Trig muck covered.
Will someone here to tell me the html to provide an "embedded" link in my comment? thanks
How come no one is in Wasilla right now getting pictures? JLSpears certainly had paparazzi aplenty around her. Oh, wait, it's dark in Alaska right now but for an hour or 4 a day. And freeeeezing. But still. This birth seems important enough to verify that it actually occured.
Secondly, I read a comment somewhere today saying essentially: "Of course SP took off for Alaska to have her baby. She's a separatist. For her baby to be born outside of Alaska would be failure. The baby would be forever tied to Dallas, Texas and she couldn't have that."
That makes a lot of sense to me as an explanation. Not as a reason for flying while allegedly in labor with a special needs kid, but if the baby were hers, that would explain the "reasoning" to my satisfaction. It would not defend the reasoning or the action as sane.
Henry said:" The daughter had her baby too close to the time Trig was born that she could possibly have been the mother."
Well, the problem here is, Henry: NO-one has seen or heard the new addition to the Palin family! NO-one has any FIRSThand knowledge of Tripp being born, (or of Bristol actually being pregnant... - she seemed to be LACTATING (nursing) during the RNC phase...)
This is just a kind of 'deja-vue' repeat of last year, where there STILL is no official record of Trig's birth etc.
It is very obvious tha Andrea Gusty want to seperate herself from involvement in any cover up, and it is also obvious that SP and her staff are reading every last bit of this blog and getting extremely nervous about it.
But, true to form, Sarah cannot keep her mouth shut, and her hands off the keyboard. In her latest interview from Saturday with the Alaska standard she demands to know the names of these bloggers...hate to tell you Sarah, but we don't work for you!
I agree with the others about CBJ's election eve letter...it never says that Sarah physically gave birth to Trig.
So Sarah a little advice...put up or shut up, because this isn't going away....
Formerly posted as FW from VA
It is typical in any investigation to have more dead ends than live leads; but you only need a few of the live leads to prove the case. Let's move on to explore some of the other key issues and evidence over the coming days and weeks. I'm confident that we'll crack the case wide open sooner or later. We are in no hurry, and we won't go away.
I think that the loud whining sounds emanating from SP's mouth are intended to distract the MSM from the real story of the month --that there is absolutely zero independent evidence of Tripp's birth. No photos. No view of Bristol. Even the accounts of the birth of the "maybe baby" were full of holes. Thus it is all the more important for Sarah to go on the offensive to discredit the bloggers and accuse us of lying, so she can distract everyone's attention from the lack of a baby. Where's Tripp, Sarah?
I still don't get it how SP and Gusty can claim the picture of April 13/14 is original (i.e. not a 'fake' pregnancy pic), and then, almost in the same breath, SP claims that 'she did not show much' during this pregnancy. I mean, in the disputed picture, she 'seems' HUGE!
'Not showing' my a$$!!
To Palin Pregnancy Truth -
I worked at a local news station years ago and it is not unusual for reporters and crew members to be buddies with each other -- often you are reporting on the same story and in the same location standing around chatting. Especially in Alaska, where I imagine the news reporters are few and far between, I don't think it's unusual at all for Gusty to take a pic of Dan and vice versa.
I have to agree with Dangerous. This whole image analysis was doomed from the beginning, and it's making us look bad! We need to DROP IT PEOPLE!
regina:
CBJ's letter may not answer your questions, in the manner you would like. But I disagree that it is "incredibly vague."
It is a concise and specific statement of the facts of SP's medical history. Admittedly, it does not state which evaluations and procedures CBJ performed or observed herself. But that wasn't the purpose of the letter, was it?
But let's stipulate for the sake of argument that CBJ might not have been in attendance for all of SP's procedures and perhaps even Trig's birth (even though the ADN 4/22 article indirectly quotes CBJ as saying she induced labor, as BlueTX mentioned above).
Is it your position that CBJ, SP's personal physician, never ONCE observed and evaluated SP as being pregnant, throughout Trig's eight month term? Instead, CBJ just wrote that letter based on medical records (forged) by some unidentified medical professionals? And CBJ's "legal defense" will be, "Oh, I never once saw SP as being pregnant nor did I deliver Trig. I was just summarizing her medical records written by others, which I assumed to be accurate."
Maybe that happened. But, as I said in my original post, most people will believe CBJ's letter unless there is an eyewitness credibly alleging otherwise.
KEITH is on and about to dedicate one of the segments to SP's ESQUIRE interview.
TRUTHSEEKER2,
you nailed it: this is another WITNESS FOR THE PERSECUTION moment.
she is distracting us from the absence of any evidence of the new BABY!
Another earlier poster said to solve a mystery, one must look at the weakest point.
I read this blog every day and recently have noticed a lot of posts referencing Dr. CBJ. Is this what has SP up in Arms?
In her e-mail to the ADN complaining about the people they are bothering she specifically mentions...
"My Very Busy Doctor"
Very interesting!
DonG,
I respectfully disagree--this is the one photo from the set that actually SHOWS her abdomen, not hidden by the chair, you can see the flat abdomen--in black, and the empty space between her flat abdomen and the curve of the chair. If she was truly pregnant, at this stage, the baby should cause some sort of swelling that formed a gradual curve up from the lower part of her abdomen to her stomach.
All the other pictures in this series show only the blue jacket and scarf, which effectively hide the detail. I was struck by how flat the entire expanse of her abdomen is here something readily visible in this photograph, although it IS true that you can't see her upper belly, here, because it is behind the top of the chair.
This picture also should be looked at with the two that Patrick's Duncan put together with the graphic of where her stomach (non-existant in all these pictures) should be, in comparison with the April 13 stomach picture. (It's on flickr, but I don't have the link).
No ulterior motives here--the whole story (wild ride, etc), with the various pictures of the amazing flat/shape-shifting belly have me convinced that there's something rotten in Wasilla.
While Ms. Gusty says the pictures are real, now we know there are three pictures. Sarah belly looks huge in the photos, but I'm not sure that it is as big in the video. Could the belly have been added after the TV video shoot was complete exclusively for the Fuji pics? Can anyone with a better computer monitor see the big belly in the video?
Craig,
I wasn't looking for answers in CBJ's letter, I was paying attention at the wording of the letter.
I said "If things unravel and there's a court case..." not that the letter itself would lead to a court case.
So, whatever happens, CBJ is off the hook, don't you agree?
One more thing that just comes to my mind:
I have read comments on other topics here that 'all Palin women were together' at some outdoor function in March of last year.
Some posters used it as proof that Bristol could not have been pregnant at that time.
HOWEVER: Everybody comments only on being able to see Piper, Willow, and SP. I believe someone mentioned that Willow was gesturing for someone else to come into the picture.
NOBODY SAW BRISTOL in pictures that day - at least not *thus far*.
Some people have been asking for the interview as it showed on the air that night last April. If you go to the following page, there's one small 'play' button that goes to Gusty's recent piece. The little 'play' button below that replays the interview from April.
http://www.ktva.com/iteam/ci_11437597
I have to repeat what someone else said - the fact that this piece came out, and that Sarah has been talking about this lately show that this site IS having an influence.
Alex...
The html is as below (close the spaces between the "carrots" < > and the first letter, quotation mark or the slash mark / and yes, you use the quotation marks as indicated )
< a href="insert your URL here" > type any phrase you like here; it will be the link line, then < /a >
Remember, close all the spaces in the html.
-----------------
I tend to agree with some others here who have noted that the focus for Audrey and the rest of us here is the deception involved with Trig Palin's birth (and possibly the related alleged birth of Tripp).
There are other Alaska blogs concentrating on Sarah Palin's actions/inactions and untruths concerned with her performance as Governor, and if they so choose, they can branch off into the 20 or so -Gates that date back to Palin's mayoral days.
I've been strongly inclined to believe that Bristol is Trig's mother, because so much evidence points in that direction. As others have said, the apparent inconsistency with dates disappears if Trig was born earlier than 4/18 or if Tripp hasn't been born yet, both of which seem entirely plausible, if not likely.
What gives me pause is, if this is the case, why not come out with the "tearful adoption confession" that people here have talked about? Talk about setting yourself up as Saint Sarah! Going to heroic lengths to protect your child's reputation AND adopting DS baby?! I can come up with three answers: 1) There has been serious (legal?) culpability associated with the cover-up, if not the ruse itself, or 2) The obvious conclusion re: Trig is in fact wrong, in which case I agree, Sherry Johnston emerges as the most likely suspect, or 3) There is a dark side to the saintly story that is likely to come out once the floodgates are open.
Re: the KTVA video, I agree absolutely, major questions remain: IF the interview
happened and IF the photos are real, how did they come to be posted on Flickr under such strange circumstances? (Gusty herself can't explain it?!) I.e., why has all of this played out in such a bizarre way from the beginning, unless somebody felt compelled to respond, in a mad rush, to rumors they had reason to be worried about?
again i find myself agreeing with craig, at least in his first post on this thread:
"My personal take is that I doubt that this involves Sarah calling in a favor to Gusty to run a story. I think Gusty is PISSED about having her rep as a professional journalist slandered..."
i'm not an alaskan, so i can't speak to the true local feelings on how qualified of a journalist she is, -maybe everyone thinks she's a joke- but the woman appears to be a pretty big deal, and respected, in journalism up there.
i say this because she received her education in a the subject at northwestern university in chicago, quite a good school, she has won journalism awards, and she's native and a prominent voice for a native perspective on alaska issues. all this makes her an important and recognized role model for young native women there today.
so i don't think she'd take kindly to being dragged into a scandalous fraud -if one exists- or accused of the same when no such fraud exists.
i've followed this blog from the first day it went up from the website, because i found palin's "wild ride" so incredible, i still do.
and all i've learned is this:
*audrey tries (and very largely succeeds) to treat all the info and theories in a rational and highly credible way.
*the "smoking gun" pic is important. a comparison of it to the "with belly" gusty pics and the associated time line also seems very important.
*the "with belly" pics have never been available in a high enough resolution to make digital analysis of them conclusive of anything.
*"looking pregnant" doesn't mean you are, looking "not pregnant" is much more revealing.
*if SP is trig's birth mom, the "wild ride" is both very odd and very inconsiderate of the risks to her own life and her child's health (i stand by this one, i've commented about it AT LENGTH on other threads here.)
i've also learned some things about SP and her extended family, AK native health care, CBJ and mat-su regional, the politics of the ADN, etc. etc.
we should try to treat this like science -look for ALL available data and draw "most likely" conclusions from it. NOT form conclusions in advance and only search for data that supports them and only them.
sorry folks, but that's the only way to have credibility.
i still think either she was never pregnant, or she took a crazy risk traveling the way she did (and the only motivation i can think of for such behavior is she was trying to have a still-birth, or todd's AIP association has influenced her to the point she'd risk her life to bring another "real alaskan" into the world).
that doesn't mean anyone should drop this, i want the world to know about her craziness and poor judgment very badly, i just think we all need to go over in our minds what we "know" AND what evidence has led us to these conclusions.
luna
Alex -- I like your "photo"! Looks like Roz Chast drew it.
Here's how to put a live link into your post. If your URL (link) is
http://www.site.com
put <$A href=""> before,
and <$/a> after it, and
put the actual URL in between the quotes. In other words:
<$a href="http://www.site.com">
http://www.site.com
<$/a>
Of course the part in the middle (bold here)
<$a href="http://www.site.com">http://www.site.com<$/a>
does not have to be the URL -- it could be anything, because it's the part that shows. Some people repeat the URL, some people put "here" or "click here" or "my fave site" or anything you want to be highlighted as the link.
VERY IMPORTANT: I put $ in six places above, so you could see the coding. You have to delete each $ or the code won't work (which is why I put it there this one time). Delete all "$". Let me say it again: delete the $.
--Amy1
p.s.
i just realized i said "smoking gun" pic, i meant "nail in the coffin" pic as the one that is important, as she is so apparently small/flat.
l.
Even if Palin does turn out to be Trig's biological mother, it already is established that she is a liar, i.e. the bridge to nowhere, the firing of the librarian and police chief, her ex-brother=in-law, selling the state plane on ebay, and on and on. The woman is a pathological liar.
So don't say "if she lying..." We already know she is lying.
sg-
CBJ has not once stated that SP was under her care during this pregnancy. She has not once referenced attending SP during the birth of Trig Palin. Oddly careful to avoid that.
CBJ made her report on previous births of the older children based on info provided by the patient as she didn't deliver them.
Why would this time be different?
Of course, she may have delivered Trig Palin, but she simply avoids stating definitively that SP gave birth to him.
Deniability & semantics. It may surprise you that people do not believe that letter is a definitive statement from CBJ. By the way CBJ is the 'eyewitness', so why no definitive statement from SP, confirmed by SP? One reason sg?
So .... when will Mercedes Johnston appear on the news to defend her MySpace pictures (and the comments attached to each picture)? I don't suppose that Gusty could have done anything to defend those pictures/screenshots ... *giggle*
Those pictures and comments still strike me as very peculiar ... and likely only Mercedes could actually interpret what her comments really mean.
Looks as though ADN has posted a link to the 'history' of the "Trig Palin Conspiracy" here.
Thank you, Kajo and Amy1. I've tried and tried to get it right. Thanks! (The portrait was done by a high school student I taught.)
Wow....I was out of the country for awhile and so much has happened here while I was gone. I can't believe how much SP has been speaking out about this issue. Reading everything here in one sitting (which took a lot of time), I'm beginning to think that, since SP seems to love the limelight, even IF she is Trig's mother, she will never present any concrete proof. Keeping everyone guessing/interested keeps her name out there.
The video doesn't mean that we're on the wrong road or headed in the wrong direction...in fact the video clears up some of the things that we pointed out over the past few month.
No reason to turn back - let's keep diggin' the is truth rising & soon will be flowing over...
Hey Amy1
That link thing you sent did not work with the "img" tags as you had them. Just an FYI
DonG,
Looking more closely at the picture, I can see where you're coming from--I just would expect to see some kind of gentle curve starting just above the pubic bone if she truly were 30 weeks pregnant in the picture I linked, and the picture shows nothing like such a curve. The jacket does a good job of obscuring things, but the way she has her arm lifted to shake hands raises it up a bit, so that we can see enough of her lower abdomen, IMO, to say that it is flat, as it is in the March 14 photo Audrey analyzed in an earlier post.
Cooky:
CBJ, a distinguished physician, signed her name to a letter, released to national media, attesting to certain facts about Sarah Palin's medical history. Such facts included the claim that Sarah Palin delivered in 2008 at 35 weeks a Down Syndrome child named Trig.
You don't believe CBJ. That is your right.
But you haven't impeached CBJ's credibility nor produced an eyewitness to contradict her.
Why should anyone else share your opinion? Seriously, that's not a facetious question.
Keep in mind that "absence of evidence" is not always "evidence."
Alex, you can do it!
See the last two lines of the 1st para on Audrey's top page:
. . . discussing the photos that have been posted on the blog several times, notably here and here
Here is the coding for it (this time you'll have to delete the # I put into the coding below-- 8 of them -- I put them in to mess it up, so you can see the coding rather than having it work).
discussing the photos that have been posted on the blog several times, notably <#a href="http://www.palindeception.com/blog/2008/12/photoshop-report.html">here<#/a> and <#a href="http://www.palindeception.com/blog/2009/01/good-questions-clear-answers.html">here<#/a>.
Once you get it, it's ridiculously simple. But you can't make a single typo -- that's why people prefer to cut and paste rather than typing, which always gives you a typo.
In other words, you are putting these two terms on either side of the word that will be the link:
<#a href=" "> <#/a>
and inside the quote marks (of the first term, above) you put the URL you want. (Again, remember to remove the # before previewing or loading -- or the coding won't show in the preview box below.)
--Amy1
@ Amy1
I have been feeling bad about whoever the birth mother is. The fact is that they have been taken on Palin's "wild ride" with her...
Your point really states it all:
" As I read over the posts of the last several topics, I keep saying to myself:
--I do NOT want to know who Trig's mother is.
--I want to know if SP's pregnancy was a hoax or not."
I agree with this 100%. It is none of anyone's business who the mother is. The privacy of the birth mother doesn't need to be violated if Dr. CBJ or anyone else knows that Sarah Palin was not pregnant, and did not deliver Trig. It is about a public official lying,and commiting fraud to her constituants and the rest of America.
She manipulates and takes advantage of the reputations and honesty of the people around her. (Initially without them knowing it, and then the web is to entwined). Hopefully the truth will come out without other people being hurt. If there is someone out there who knows the truth and is having reservations...think about this I think it can be done.
Or maybe It's just a wish that the innocent can be kept protected...
For those wondering, the sticker on the cameraman's camera reads "SCOTT." There's a lead to work with.
Could Gusty please explain how those pictures got out if she wasn't the one who uploaded them to Flickr? Is KTVA investigating who illegallly obtained these photos?
I continue to believe that the person who posted them to Flickr did some messing around with them. The Flickr pictures look exceptionally grainy for a camera that was supposedly a very nice Fuji.
Do you know a woman-- anyone in your own life or in the world of celebrity or even in a movie-- to whom anything like the following has happened in the course of a year?
1. She gets pregnant at 44.
2. Poses for Vogue at 5 mo.
3. Her teen daughter drops out of school because of mono.
4. Teen daughter has a car wreck.
5. No one knows she is pregnant until she is 7 mo.
6. She takes a wild multi-hour plane ride at 9 mo while her waters are leaking, subjecting all on board to possible in-flight birth.
7. She has a Down Syndrome baby and is back to work 2 days later.
8. Teen daughter's boyfriend drops out of high school.
9. Possible dropout son is rumored to be a vandal and drug-user.
10. Dropout teen daughter gets pregnant.
11. Her church has a mysterious fire which destroys records and for which she takes the blame.
12. The purported future mother-in-law of teen daughter is arrested for drug-dealing.
13. When her grandson is born, there is no proof he exists.
14. Online photos of this woman mysteriously disappear.
15. Online photos of this woman mysteriously appear.
Truly defies imagination. It makes Job look like Mr. Rogers.
(Thanks for the lesson Amy1. I'm going to copy it for when I need it and try again. It's the typos that get me.)
If this photo link works, it will be the answer to sg's question: "Why should anyone else share your opinion? Seriously, that's not a facetious question."
How can anyone explain these photos without saying NOT PREGNANT?
http://i41.tinypic.com/2hmps0k.jpg
There are MORE photos. But these are enough.
If she were a private person, none of our business. But she campaigned on it, spoke publicly about it, waved that dear little guy around, involved her daughter in it, . . . .
And re all her other -gates, do you think any will ever be clear? Not with a masterful liar like this. But this question? Yes, eventually there will be a yes/no answer.
And that answer will guide us in our opinion of all the other grey-area -gates.
I would like to say that I retain an open mind still about whether the answer is yes or no, but when you look at these photos, what possible alternative explanation can there be?
Shelby (and others) said it: Audrey's blog is making SP nervous.
Others suggest the photos are a huge distraction.
Question: what actual evidence has been presented and discussed here, beyond circumstantial arguments, except for photographs? If photographs tell a grossly inconsistent story (3/26 versus 4/14) OR reveal clear evidence of tampering, that's as real as it gets.
RE: Alex at 7:55pm
Not only does this movie not exist, but someone should write the screenplay immediately! All of the hocus pocus and magic involved to achieve all that she has in the last 12 months would put the best student at Hogwarts to shame! (Harry Potter reference there...sorry, but it really is starting to seem like magic)
Thanks Alex for putting all of these points into such a concise and easy to follow posting. I've copied and pasted it into my favorite posts from this blog.
Alicia
Alex, Great Post!
My sound does not work on my computer as we speak. Watching both videos it is very obvious Gusty and Sarah are lying.
In the first video Gusty comes out like a steam engine and right at the end of her defensiveness before the palin pics 4 truth she has a little smirk on her face. Gusty's career is on the line and that is why she is mad. If you are telling the truth you come across with a different attitude.
1st video Sarah still looks different than the pic's we have of her on the same day in her office.
Look at Sarah about 1:34 check out the throat and facial gestures. Also look about 4:34 for the same kinds of scared and uneasy feeling looks.
In the second video around 5 min she also is uneasy & 5:05 is a nail.
Trig is not three days old in the video. He is at least a month!
The video of the legislators. I wonder what time Hollis & Guttenberg were filmed that day and who were the reporters? No boxes in the hall when Guttenberg was speaking.
Remember someone said the photos had dates of 2006 did they have times? It seems weird that the reports would be there during the day to film Hollis and Guttenberg and then come back to film the Gov.
When people get defensive they are lying and scared!
amy1-
it's very nice to see a pic progression all in one place on your link. however, some of the dates at the bottom are wrong, i don't know if you dated/created this page of just found it, so just letting everyone know.
the "nail" pic is from wednesday, march 26, 2008.
the gusty "belly" pic is from sunday, april 13, 2008, just 18 days later.
guess 4.13 was a "high amniotic fluid day" lol!
There is a way to get proof you know...Once Garbage has been put out to the curb it becomes public property. (Why so many reporters in Hollywood get "the dirt" on Celebrity's, or how Private Investigator's get information, and one of the ways that identity theft is done.
There are (supposedly) two babies in that house. Therefore LOTS of diaper DNA, and not hard to get DNA from other family members in the house to test it against.
Now if I was a reporter I would be on my knees begging to be sent to Wasilla to do just that (after all isn't that how the National Inquirer busted John Edwards?)
There is a new article on the ADN editor blog:
http://tinyurl.com/78n56n
Here SP asks ADN editor to simply fact check! Isn't that what they've been trying to do and she is objecting to?
SP says CBJ doesn't want to comment further and SP joins her in saying 'enough is enough'. She will no longer try to prove Trig is her son. She doesn't need to prove it - just say it (not privately to the editor but publicly) and have CBJ confirm it. Such a burden for her?
She actually does state here in this email "I told you I gave birth to Trig" - this is the first time I've seen the words 'gave birth'. Finally - now if she would just finish it off: at Mat Su Regional Medical Center on 4/18/08 with CBJ in attendance." CBJ confirms and I certainly accept their word. It's just that I haven't seen or heard their 'word' as yet and I'm wondering why not.
Interestingly SP does not respond to the editor's email response to her initial complaints.
If Dr. CBJ is so 'distinguished' and capable, why would she be the attending doctor for triple-high-risk delivery, even though she is not an OB/Gyn?
Somehow, that fact has been lost in the discussion. A good doctor would have referred this case -- if what they say is true -- to a qualified specialist, and had the delivery in a place with NICU. She also would have ORDERED Sarah Palin to immediately seek a medical exam in Texas, whether she planned to fly back or not.
The record indicates that Dr. CBJ did none of those things. Therefore, all of her opinions and statements are suspect.
She is, however, a noted expert on child sexual abuse, and might have been an attending doctor for a birth of a child to a minor not known to be giving birth to a DS baby. That would make sense, and explain her reticence to talk about anything, and even lie to protect the minor child, with the parent's permission.
Dangerous
Alex wrote:
6. She takes a wild multi-hour plane ride at 9 mo while her waters are leaking, subjecting all on board to possible in-flight birth.
Worse than that, she put her own life and that of her baby at risk. I keep going back to that. What kind of mother would do that?
Palin and the ADN editor have exchanged emails again, which were published in another editor's blog late today:
http://tinyurl.com/78n56n
Here is short quote from SP:
"I told you I gave birth to Trig. My family and I were interviewed by local and national press on this, as was my doctor."
Her doctor was interviewed by local and national press?
When?
The exchange of emails is very interesting, to say the least.
sg-
I believe CBj is completely credible (and highly respected) based on her practice, research, educational background & of course, her medical license. Which is exactly why I wonder that she was so very exacting in her letter and so careful to avoid the statement that she attended SP at Mat Su Regional on 4/18/08 as she gave birth to baby boy, Trig.
You seem to be pushing the need for an 'eyewitness' ? There is no need to look further than CBJ and the Mat Su staff in attendance right? So why doesn't SP make her declarative, definitive, precise statement and ask CBJ to simply confirm her 'eyewitness' account:
"I SP gave birth to Trig Palin at Mat Su on 4/18/08 and CBJ attended me. I give CBJ permisson to confirm this."
sg- Can you give a single reason why that hasn't happened? That is not a facetious question either.
Sad that she won't claim it, she should be proud and grateful to do so, now and forever, if in fact she did have the blessing of giving birth to a beautiful boy.
I'd like to think well of SP, I hope she's not the coward she appears to be right now.
This is hilarious!
SP THINKS she can try to bury the fake pregnancy "rumour" by
1) exposing it herself (of COURSE she'll talk about it, that old gossip!)
2) using Andrea Gusty to try and bury the rumours again (I didn't think they were actually friends. I just assume Sarah needs a friend like her - this is one of those times the "friendship" paid off)
Poor Andrea. I think Palin used her pretty blatantly. Doesn't sound like AG really researched her story, either. It sounds to me like she reported exactly what Palin told her to. The carefully guarded wording sounds staged or coaxed to me. The only thing she could say for sure is that they were both present when the photo was taken.
I don't care about photos, they're too easily doctored. I care about the facts I've heard, mostly from Sarah Palin herself, that DO NOT ADD UP.
Pictures or facts - I think everyone here can agree that the facts speak louder than the pictures.
What has Sarah learned from this blog?
There is much more evidence in the facts than in the photos. I have a hunch about the KTVA/Gusty piece.
SP IS TRYING TO MAKE THE PICTURES SPEAK LOUDER THAN THE FACTS.
Deflection!!!
She has, again, and again in her own mind, squashed the rumours by not doing anything at all!
My opinion is that Sarah brought Andrea's attention to this site and told her that the pictures could destroy AG's journalistic credibility. They probably had a conversation that didn't even mention Trig or a pregnancy hoax, but focused on what this could do to AG's career as a journalist. Sarah would have to make it seem like she didn't care one way or the other about ridiculous rumours, but that Andrea'd better say something, because these pictures were obviously not photoshopped. They were Andrea's pictures. I can just hear Sarah saying "now, Andrea, we both know those pictures are yours because they were taken with your camera, and this Audrey lady has used your pictures of me to base her crazy theory on. So why not just say something about how you know those are real?".
I don't think Sarah's above manipulating any situation, any way, any way, any way she can to have it be in her favour.
I think there's a good chance Gusty is so concerned with her own career, that she just reported this after considering Sarah's advice - to not be a joke amongst her peers, to just "say somethin' once and fer all"!, to protect her own reputation as well as that of the station's - and of course the underlying implication that she should do it, because Sarah is her friend.
That last part, Sarah doesn't need to say. People like her do a lot of implying. I'm not sure if she's a sociopath or a narcissist, but I have read a lot about both disorders (having known a few) and she exhibits a few of the behaviours of both of them. The blaming is a huge red flag. It's one thing for someone to get angry first and blame someone defensively, then typically realize how they were at fault after some reflection. But SP reflects and comes up with new reasons how everyone but her is to blame. Also, they way anyone who questions it is "crazy"; this is a form of gaslighting. If the people "accusing" her are crazy, then she is a helpless victim of everyone's craziness. The longer she's been quiet, the more people will wonder why and try to fill in the blanks that she very easily could with one press release. That's why all the speculation. But that doesn't mean people are crazy. Are there some questions you just shouldn't ask, lest someone think you're being ridiculous?
And doesn't a lot of this speak to integrity and trust, at the bottom? Shouldn't it be okay to ask those questions? I am now seeing a disturbingly private governor getting very publicly defensive about some things she can so easily refute, but doesn't.
There's a lot about her personality that I've seen in action. That's why I have an open mind to pretty much any scenario.
Sarah does not want to refute the rumours. So why does she even bother to sound off?
Deflection. She is trying to distract the people who are asking questions.
Sarah doesn't want lies printed in the paper, yet she doesn't offer any truths. You don't need to be a conspiracy theorist or a liberal democrat to find that more than curious.
Why does she have such a problem with anyone wanting to know about her personal life - so suddenly? And, if she doesn't want anyone asking, why does she divulge so much of her own and her family's personal life?
To appear transparent, but to not really be.
It's all about looks with this one and the light is exposing the cracks. I squealed when I saw the KTVA post.
Audrey, you can probably get ready for the interview requests that I'm sure will come your way. I'm guessing you're already working on your rebuttal detailing that the main purpose of your website is NOT to promote a sensational hoax, but to bring and hold a hypocritical politican to some moral and ethical accountability. You're not even being mean about it. I think most of us here are asking fairly reasonable questions and really aren't asking for unreasonable answers in return.
But still none are being offered.
SP talking about pictures she saw on the internet being real and not staged? Says, and answers, nothing. It's an attempt to discredit Audrey, Morgan and this website, but this is all she knows. She can't make herself look good, so she'll do her best to make someone else look bad.
It isn't working. New people are visiting this website and they are looking at all that's been presented, not just the pictures.
Something's got to give!
Thinking about the many posts and comments, made me think just what Sarah herself has been bringing to attention the most. Only what she wants the attention on, unfair media treatment and mostly about Trigg. Funny how in all the interviews after her grandson was said to be born, Canada, Right Wing Nut Guy, Esquire, etc. she never says a word about her new grandson. Is it hard for her to remember to talk about him, or is it he hasn't been born yet? It's been long enough for the highest bidder for photos to make a deal and publish them by now. No one has questioned her about her lies, or to explain herself about the most telling interview of all; the prank call. If they have she probably won't comment on any of them, so they get nothing to show or print.
And now we have this most recent quote from the ADN editor's blog entitled "More from the Palin-Dougherty chronicles"
This is part of Sarah Palin's email to its editor:
"Pat, we have cooperated. I told you I gave birth to Trig. My family and I were interviewed by local and national press on this, as was my doctor. We released my medical summary to national press. How much more "cooperation" can we provide before that line of questioning ends? ....
I will no longer continue to try to prove that Trig is my son. . . unless you offer to pay for a DNA test that can finally kill the most asinine story I have ever been asked to comment on. (I'm only half-joking!)"
-----------------
Once again, Gov. Palin, "BECAUSE I SAID SO" is NOT an answer.
It is not "cooperating".
Joking about a DNA test at this point mocks the very people who wanted to help you.
"Because I said so" is what a mom says to a child, not a GOVERNOR to the largest newspaper editor in her STATE.
I thought this was a crazy story, too. Then I saw with my own eyes the dead-end photo links on your state website. Most of your pictures from early 2008 were deleted. Why?
Whitewashing, stalling (that medical statement released on Election Eve) and all-out whining smells to high heaven of a MASSIVE COVER-UP, not "cooperation".
rpinME- I looked at the picture in question and I saw her blouse falling in a line above the chair which would indicate to me that her belly could have been large and distended. However I wouldn't say that would be conclusive evidence that she was pregnant. I would also say that it would not be conclusive evidence that she wasn't pregnant and that's what you have implied.
There is another picture of Palin where there are five pictures in a row across the screen where the middle picture is a digitally enhanced copy of the one to it's left. It shows Palin with a very flat stomach and if that's dated correctly then that is the conclusive evidence for me. Not your picture which you are talking about here. That's my opinion fwiw.
rpinME- This is the group of photos I was referring to in my last post.
http://i41.tinypic.com/2hmps0k.jpg
Sorry, I didn't have them at the time. I would like to apologize for my challenging comment previously made to you now. My only excuse was that I felt I had to ferret out your motives but now I understand that you are above board.
This group of pictures referred to here in this link are the best evidence I've seen to date but I'll look again at the one with the back of the chair obscuring.
I think our best chance now is to get this group of pictures I'm talking about to the MSM and the public because I think this is the compelling evidence we have. Can an honest person deny such evidence?
Ennealogic said the necklace isn't visible in the live video, but it is there. In the first part it's hidden beneath Palin's right collar.
By the way, on the page for Gusty's piece, there are two video links; the one on the bottom is the full live interview with Palin.
Amy 1: Two of the dates are wrong. The 3/19 should be 4/13.
sandra in oregon
I posted this in the other thread by accident, meant to post it here:
Everyone relax! It is just a story on a local CBS affiliate in Alaska. Nobody in the lower 48 will know anything about it, unless they are on this blog. It was a clear attempt to discredit us, but we just won't let that happen. We will persevere until the truth comes out.
This is from the Huffington Post, and includes tons of great comments too:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/01/13/palin-lashes-out-at-bored_n_157569.html
Dangerous (my favorite poster), would you mind emailing me your analysis? I would love to read it. I think if you click on my name, you can get my email address.
Thanks again to all. Keep on keepin' on!
Amy, why are you dating the interview photos as 3/19? I thought they were 4/13?
Also, I was wondering why everyone is so determined to get this story into the MSM.
As I see it, the objective is to make sure this woman and her obvious psychological problems can no longer govern in any capacity.
Shouldn't we be more focused on getting the word out to law enforcement officials than the media? I would sleep much better at night knowing that there is an official investigation ongoing to expose her crimes.
I'm not a lawyer, but I think she committed fraud by lying to consituents by using the official state press office to issue fraudulent press releases (and possibly insurance fraud too if Trig wasn't legally adopted). Isn't this something the sheriff or state troopers or FBI would be interested in? Shouldn't we forward our photo timeline/condensed evidence to them?
I'm interested in what you all think.
Quote
Dangerous:
But trying to prove the photos faked, we have brought undo attention to them and jeopardized our collective reputation and our investigation.
I don't think that anyone was trying to prove the photos were fake; I think that people were trying to investigate them so that they could actually use them as evidence to say "she did look pregnant on a legitimate photo". The investigation into these photos was to prove they were REAL and not FAKE!
Wouldn't it be hilarious (assuming Bristol is yet to give birth); if she actually has a baby girl. They announced early on it would be a boy, it’s announced Bristol has had a baby boy; Tripp. Wouldn’t it be so ironic if the initial scans proving it were a boy was actually wrong!
Emma,
If Sarah Palin is protecting a minor, she can admit her role without providing details on who was involved or what happened, and ask that people respect the privacy of all minors. I believe the overwhelming majority of people will respect that, as this has never been about digging into the lives of minors.
Spot on. If Sarah is covering for either Bristol or Willow (as Dangerous keeps insisting); all SP needs to do is stand up; admit it was a lie and she was protecting her daughter...everyone would then assume it was Bristol...leaving Willow out of it (if she was Trig's mam). Or same for Track; I was protecting a child....etc. She doesn't need to say which child; it needn't even be her child...so long as the truth comes out.
Amy1:
Regarding the sequence of photos in your link:
http://i41.tinypic.com/2hmps0k.jpg
We now know that the timeline given for the photos at that link is wrong.
The fourth and fifth photos, which the link says were taken on March 19, were in fact taken on April 18, according to Andrea Gusty's recently released videotape.
Re London Bridges' comment above (1/13 5:43PM):
I agree that Palin's belly looks larger in the Gusty still photo vs. the KTVA video (really only visible at the very end of the "live" segment). But to my eyes, SP's belly in the 3 Amigos photo more closely resembles that seen on the video.
I do think Gusty is trying to preserve her own reputation as a journalist who "reports facts", but she seems to have SP's knack for distorting things along the way (mentioning the dark offices, boxes in the hall, photog's untucked shirt as some sort of "proof" the pics are real and/or unaltered) and distracting from the real issues.
I still believe the Gusty photo was
"adjusted" after the fact, to make Palin look more pregnant that she actually appeared on April 13. SP's facial profile is just not right in that photo (released on 8/31), and I'd like to think that some talented photo-sleuth can capture a near-profile image from the video for comparison purposes.
My guess is that Gusty was NOT involved in altering the original photo and is trying to set the record straight on her role, just in case the forgery ever comes to light. What she knows (or has come to realize) now is another story altogether....
I too am interested in what Dangerous is proposing in regard to the other daughter. I sent my email in last week and didn't get a response.
Dangerous can you please send me your senario re this child, my email address is on my profile.
Thanks.
dipsydoodlenoodle: yes, it would be amusing if Bristol's baby turned out to be a girl, but usually a prenatal ultrasound error is the opposite. In other words a male fetus is mistakenly identified as a female simply because no "distinctively male" features show up on the ultrasound scan at the time...
Happened to a friend of mine about 20 years ago (TONS of baby shower gifts in pink because of the ultrasound "diagnosis", but baby turned out to be a boy) - I think US accuracy & interpretation has improved quite a bit since then!
Oops...
In my post at 1:16AM, I mistyped the date of the Gusty photos as April 18.
The correct date, of course, is April 13.
Sorry!
HI all,
I am a retired flight attendant, and there is no way that a pregnant lady that far along would be allowed to fly. She would have to have her doctor's approval in writing and then it would be up to the captain if he wanted to take the responsibility to have her as a passenger on his flight. The captain alone would make that determination. At least it worked that way on United. He would have had to have known that he had someone, even the govenor, that far along in her pregnancy on his flight. And it is not unusual for the flight crew to have a photo taken with celebrities on flights. And I think that Ms. Palin considers herself a celebrity.
I don't know if anyone has tried to contact anyone from the particular flights she took, but the flight crew would certainly know if there was someone this pregnant on board. I have read the comments that they did not know she was at this stage of pregnancy, what that seems it could be delved into a little deeper. Someone must be able to talk to someone that worked those flights.
Keep up the good work.. Pam
About all of SP's email exchanges with ADN.
The state's budget is broken, interior Alaska had quite a few issues because of the extreme cold, the legislative session is about to begin. But the BEST use of the Governor's time is a running email exchange with the ADN about left-wing conspiracy theories about Trig's birth.
I guess I don't understand why this is such an important issue to her.
i finally watched the KTVA video of AG defending herself.
someone mentioned here before that AG does appear to be thinner in the recent one than the one in question.
a KAREN-from-OR commented at the station's website:
...
"I firmly believe that what we're seeing in Andrea's interview picture clasped by Gov. Palin's hands is NOT real, that it's a carefully fitted empathy belly, and that she switched brands in late March because the OTHER brand was visibly rectangular...not a good look for a "pregnant" woman.
...
Did you not wonder how/why Gov. Palin was discharged with a 35-36 week special-needs high-risk preemie the day after delivery and how she could walk without pain to her office 3 days later?
Maybe YOU weren't complicit in the coverup; not overtly and intentionally, anyway, I'll grant you that. But you're definitely not an "investigative" reporter, or even very curious."
on another matter:
i was disappointed that KO is not aware of this and other sites pursuing the hoax. he implied that it is only SP who is keeping the story alive.
I'm puzzled by the email Sarah sent to the ADN editor to apologize about not replying to his email of two weeks ago. It just doesn't have the same syntax or rhythm of anything I've seen of her writing or heard in her speech. Perhaps she had someone edit it before she sent it?
so SP's newly published email to pat d. @ ADN says
"I told you I gave birth to Trig. My family and I were interviewed by local and national press on this, as was my doctor."
does anyone remember/can now find CBJ actually giving "an interview" in print or tv media that specifically addressed the birth of trig? not he "health summery" as palin calls it, but an actual interview, anywhere?
if one's out there (and palin phrases it as if there is at least one in existence) how have we missed discussing it here?
perhaps someone should contact ADN and ask if they or any other fine media/AP outlet they're aware of posses these interviews. i'd love to read them, yet i doubt the CBJ one exists.
the heat has obviously been turned up a notch. keep the faith!
Amy1 - Awesome arrangement of photos. The change from March 14th to 19th alone says it all!
Sorry Amy1 - I have to retract the 3/14 to 3/19 change. The Gusty photo was supposedly taken 4/13.
When did the Governors' conference in Texas start? She must have flown down there the next day...
Punkinbugg quotes this amazing part of Palin's email to the ADN editor:
"I will no longer continue to try to prove that Trig is my son. . . unless you offer to pay for a DNA test that can finally kill the most asinine story I have ever been asked to comment on. (I'm only half-joking!)"
PLEASE ADN, jump on this!
Use three DNA tests to determine if Sarah and Todd are Trig's parents. Then you won't need CBJ or anyone else to talk to you. (I say to include Todd, because I think Sarah's DNA could be found if Trig's mom is Bristol.)
This is an interesting video about Tripp's birth. Sandra S. Westfall, People.com's national political correspondent, quotes SP several times. Around 03:21 she starts talking about Levi and goes on to say he dropped out of HS, that Bristol dropped out as well and that the Governor told her she was happy they weren't going to rely on handouts from the State.
Didn't SP make a HUGE fuss about inaccurate reporting in the media about them being HS dropouts? Judging by this clip, this reporter was an insider: "the Governor told me this... the Governor told me that..."
I find this interesting because SP seems to change her stories from one day to the next. About anything and everything. Doesn't she keep track of her own statements (lies)? Or is it an attempt to create a smokescreen?
http://tinyurl.com/9ksjcg
*******
I made a comment on Jan 13 @11:58 am in which I made a summary of what can be observed in genuine photos and inferred from statements from SP and her own account of the facts as she sees them. I also based some of my questions on well known medical advice, familiar to any woman who has been pregnant.
By contrasting SP's behaviour to what is expected to be sound medical advice, there are different conclusions that could be drawn from it:
If SP was indeed pregnant at 43/44 years of age with a DS baby:
She flew 18,000 miles in the third trimester, including the wild ride, continued to colour her hair, etc.
So,
1)She was given good advice about all of the above by CBJ but chose to ignore it. (Good Doctor, Bad Sarah)
2)She was not advised by CBJ regarding frequent longhaul flying in the third trimester, was not advised to seek medical attention after leaking amniotic fluid and experiencing non Braxton-Hicks contractions, was not advised to stop using hair colouring products. (Bad Doctor, Good/Naive Sarah)
3)Was advised, etc, ignored said advice but was not challenged by doctor and continued wreckless behaviour during pregnancy. (Good Doctor, Bad Sarah, Bad Doctor)
Can anybody add other scenarios?
My own conclusions prompted me to have a closer look at CBJ's letter. Comment on Jan 13 @3:40 pm.
I don't believe SP was pregnant at all, so CBJ would not be worried about a malpractice suit regarding a high-risk pregnancy, but she could be implicated in fraud, hence the vagueness of her letter.
Other inconsistencies: Piper year of birth is wrong. SP said she had the amnio when she was 13 weeks pregnant, CBJ says it was in the second trimester.
Has SP ever said categorically that CBJ delivered Trig? If she didn't, that could be part of a "get-out" clause for CBJ.
Unless her recent hysteria about the press is part of a smokescreen to hide something else, she appears to be very worried about the MSM relying on anonymous bloggers for their hard fact news!
(ok, amy1 and kajo. Here goes--)
So the ball's in Sarah's court. Yesterday back to the ADN editor she writes
I will no longer continue to try to prove that Trig is my son. . . unless you offer to pay for a DNA test that can finally kill the most asinine story I have ever been asked to comment on. (I'm only half-joking!)
leaving the opportunity wide open. And what does the lilly-livered poor-excuse-for-a-journalist reply?
We have no further interest (unless you really want us to help out with a DNA test; that would be too sensational to pass up).
Oh, Woodward and Bernstein where are you?! Yes, yes, yes we'd love to pay for a DNA test!
Palin's latest email to the ADN is just odd to say the least.
Once again she appears to be worrying way too much about something that IF SHE WERE TELLING THE TRUTH she shouldn't be worrying about.
Message to Ms. Palin: There are legitimate reasons to doubt your versions of what transpired here. The doubts arise from some very damning pictures, a lack of certfiable evidence, a stunning lack of eyewitnesses to the blessed event and a birth story that defies all logic and common sense as ANY mother (yourself included) who has given birth knows.
Here is the thing Sarah Palin.
Audrey has pictures - pictures that show you not pregnant when you should be.
You have nothing except your word (which due to prior confirmed lies is no longer reliable) and the rather strange cryptic reporting from an elusive doctor who could clear all this up with a simple press conference but for some reason chooses to remain anonymous and noncommittal.
Your attempts to bully the editor of ADN are not just pathetic, they are the actions of a desperate individual.
The very fact that the editor of the ADN is publishing your emails tells me something. It tells me that he too is confused by your actions. He asked for simple clarification SO HE COULD SUPPORT YOU IN YOUR VERSION OF THE STORY AND MAKE IT GO AWAY.
Not only did you not assist him, you turned on him to the point that he made your very strange attacks public.
That is not helping you!
Deflection will not make this go away.
My personal take is that the truth doesn't help you a bit in that it goes beyond protecting someone. I truly believe that the only person you are really concerned with protecting at this point is yourself.
So there it is:
Pictures vs your word. Your word means nothing because you have proven time and time again that you will lie when it benefits you. The pictures are very damning and you know it!
The time time for deflection is over. Perhaps that DNA test isn't such a bad idea. After all this is YOUR political future you are trying to protect.
The Washington Monthly's website, a bona fide establishment fixture, has today picked up the exchange of emails between Palin and ADN. Can the MSM be far behind? The explosive mixture of anomalies, evasions, and promised events not happening seems to be reaching a critical mass.
The weirdly askew carpet pattern to the left of Gusty's left foot in the new April 18th photo needs to be checked out by someone in Juneau. It's either very sloppy carpet laying or blatant evidence of photoshopping.
It's crucial that Audrey keep the pressure on. And by pressure I mean insisting that the generally agreed rules and protocols of logical, fact based and responsibility-accepting public debate be imposed on Palin.
And why not take Sarah up on her mock-sincere offer to allow a DNA test of Trig's parentage? Treat her winking squeeze of ADN's hand as a proposal of marriage, something that used to happen in 19th century novels.
As noted in one of the comments above - If Sarah Palin is offering to let ADN do DNA testing I say go for it, I am sure there more then a few folks who would even like to contribute to help cover the cost.
I was thinking - what if Sarah Palin IS Trig's birth mother option - and what that implies...
Such as she has a very deep-seated (perhaps even pathological) need for attention so by not clearing the issue up once and for all she gets to play victim, throw tantums and pity parties, and keep herself in the news
and\or also on a more frightening side, that she knew the Trig would have DS and did all she could to cause a miscarriage
In a lot of ways - Proving that she is Trig's birthmother is a lot more damaging to her image and future political career --
just covering up a lie (most likely to protect her daughter) and adopting a DS baby would promote her to sainthood among her supporters, and for a lot of other folks, though not happy being lied to, could in some small way sorta understand it.
Perhaps the truth is she is Trig's birth mother - and by not once and for all proving it, she keeps us all talking about it, and allows wild theories to be tossed around...
because that way we are distracted from the more harsh cruel reality that would be revealed
perhaps we need to spend equal time discussing the implications of what it means if Sarah Palin did give birth to Trig, post details and information about that possibility as well
It also shows that our main goal is to find out the truth - either way - makes no difference to us - we do not want to harass any teegagers or reveal any one else's secrets - we just want the truth about Sarah Palin to be under covered.
My summary of Sarah's Bad Year (above) has a few mistakes. And as mentioned, of course, SP endangered herself and her unborn child as well as all the folks on board those wild jet rides. It was late when I wrote it. Sorry.
But I was overwhelmingly struck by this catalogue of unsavory events. My disfunctional family at its worst never had a year that bad. (Church fire, drugdealer friend) If a therapist were to hear that much drama, he/she would immediately conclude that the chaos is self-induced and comes from unstable choices.
I need no other proof of Sarah's danger that the Bad Year. And considering the events I've listed as "facts," I can only imagine the "secrets."
DNA test? I'm in.!
I am interested in revisiting the "wild ride" as it is called. I think some of the picture evidence is compelling and it is convincing, but I had a reminder of how dangerous childbirth is to the baby and to the mother even in the 21st century.
My daughter and I had a long conversation yesterday about the risks of childbirth in earlier times and today after she saw an article about a woman in Brazil dying in childbirth. Even with all the technology and knowledge we have it is still a potentially dangerous situation.
SP if in fact was pregnant really put herself and her unborn baby in serious danger by getting on the plane in Dallas without first getting medical attention. I don't care how many babies she already had or what someone 2000 miles away recommended. I am not convinced by anything I have heard so far to convince me that she acted in her or her babies best interest.
blue tx-
thanks for addressing the truth of the" CBJ interviews" statement.
interesting that you would site that ADN article, as i googled before i posted my question/challenge and it was the only thing remotely approaching an interview i could find as well. and i've already read for other reasons way too many times by now.
the only line in the whole thing that implies CBJ delivered baby trig out of sarah palin's womb is this:
"Baldwin-Johnson said she had to induce labor, and the baby didn't come until 6:30 a.m. Friday."
that's it, and it's not a direct quote, and it doesn't mention mother or baby by name. i hardly thinks it qualifies as, "interviewed by local and national press on this."
if you're willing to count that single line as an extensive interview -hell even a very brief but very clear interview- then i'm sorry to say it, but i feel your standards for accountable journalism are about as strict as SP's. which means you just make them up as it suits you.
anyone finding a real "interview" anywhere?
blue tx:
I'm a little curious about that interview with the good doctor? Who interviewed her? Was it in person, over the phone, written?
There is very little information there and the doctor has never allowed herself to be quoted or interviewed again.
And read the interview carefully. Once again the doctor never says she delivered Sarah Palin's baby.
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. (this could be Palin checking on the status of someone else.)
"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. (Once again could be talking about someone else and why would Palin need a medical ok if she wasn't pregnant?)
Baldwin-Johnson said she had to induce labor, and the baby didn't come until 6:30 a.m. Friday
doesn't say what day and doesn't say who she induced.
Let's put it this way. If this is was a orchestrated cover-up to protect a minor and there is some evidence suggesting that, everything that is put out there is open for interpretation. The doctor could be protecting a minor and agreed to the cryptic remarks as part of the cover-up.
Pictures indicate that Sarah Palin was not pregnant. These remarks do not prove she was.
And once again, NO DOCTOR IN THIS COUNTRY is going to allow an 8-month pregnant woman who is her patient and is leaking amniotic fluid to get on a plane and fly 12 hours. I would like to hear ONE doctor say they would be okay with that. And despite what your are saying, CBJ did not say that.
DNA
Will someone knowledgable about DNA comment?
Wouldn't Trig's DNA match Sarah's if he were Bristol's (or Willow's) child?
His DNA would not match if he were borne by a mother outside Sarah's direct lineage?
If Sarah Palin, in fact, demanded that Andrea Gusty do a segment debunking the April 13 fake picture theory, the last laugh is on Ms. Gusty.
This is an exact cut and paste Gusty quote from the ADN web page:
"" ... They also claim I am part of the conspiracy: that I am helping Sarah Palin cover up her fake pregnancy.
That simply is not true. ..."
Gusty, here clearly states (Palin's "fake pregnancy."
English 101: She did not say "alleged fake pregnancy."
I rest my case.
Jennifer -- I see the HuffPost article as GOOD for our side.
Also, re asking law enforcement to deal with this: it's not a crime to lie to the public. Insurance fraud is someone else's business. Not a crime to fake a pregnancy.
I am not talking about crime: SP presented herself as the ethics queen in AK, the one who is in a position to show us the way re morality. To show us the good woman who lives her values.
If she then perpetrated a hoax on us all, involved her family, lied repeatedly and enthusiastically -- esp about such an issue -- I call that an ethics violation. I don't think it will be a crime until she lies while under oath in a court.
And when I say "if," I urge you to look at the photos and tell me it ain't so.
(I DID get them dated wrong -- thanks! -- and therefore out of order, and there's a couple more I should add--later today.)
BlueTX
Induced labor for SP? - She didn't say so.
She only said she induced labor. And that according to the reporter, not even direct quote.
CBJ never once said SP was the birth mother of Trig.
Show me where in the comments to ADN, CBJ says SP is the birth mother, or gave birth to Trig Palin please. Not where she simply left the impression.
Oddly you repeatedly re-craft the article to assert that CBJ has made declarative/definitive statements that SP gave birth though clearly she has not ever made those statements. Beyond the ADN comments you cite, she has given no interviews or comments that I've located.
Dropping a seed or two won't be effective on this forum Blue. It's not about perception, it's about the facts.
Now SP & CBJ tell ADN they are far too busy to make any further statements on this. Really? Wow, if it were my child I think I'd shout it from rooftops and repeat it as often as people would let me.
How long would it take SP to say: "I gave birth to Trig at MatSu Regional on 4./18/08 with CBJ attending me" CBJ says "I confirm that statement" . Too busy? How sad for her son. And for the teenage daughter she hides behind and for the doctor whose reputation she clouds.
If SP is silent it will speak louder than she ever imagined.
Sarah, make the precise declarative statement, and be happy to do it. Accept the blessing graciously and stop taking it for granted or political gain.
By the way not one person has offered a single reason SP can't make the declarative statement and have CBJ confirm it.
I never saw CBJ interviewed. I saw quotes supposedly by her in that first ADN article. To whom did she give those quotes? Not stated. To SP, who gave them to the ADN's reporter? I have NEVER seen a chain of attribution for that one single place where the MD is quoted.
The letter is so fraught with questions that it could well be a forgery. It was released at 10 PM the night before the election. If I were CBJ I wouldn't touch it either. Why should I, unless I'm forced to, by law.
Guy, guys -- NOT a DNA test! That's too much info. It involves Trig. Hands off Trig or the family, please. We want to know only if the preg was a hoax.
I would wonder, too, if we aren't wrong and all that would imply. So many of our clues, although compelling, could be viewed another way.
But then I look at the photos. How can anyone see those photos and have a doubt?
As numerous people have noted, this farce we've seen unfolding in the last week or so is because of the vivid tale that is told by juxtaposing the March 26 Nail In The Coffin pic and the Gusty April 13 pic. Whether or not there is also a Tripp Who? element to this farce, I do not know.
I do not think that it is a coincidence that SP's staff person requested the ADN Editor post that e-mail where suddenly she said that she gave birth to Trig. Not only have several people here mentioned the odd and evasive "I am Trig's mom" language but MKaiser made the same point in a post on her website Palin Pics 4 Truth. SP is lying. At this point, what's the point in trying to parse your words? Similarly, the DNA test half-offer is not real but for show so let's not dignify that with a response. She only wants us to look crazy.
-Mom of One, Esq.
MomME:
I was a baby who was supposed to be a boy but turned out to be a girl.
Granted, I was born in the 1980s, so ostensibly technology is better now, but still, it happens!
Well, if ADN won't pony up for the DNA test then perhaps we can take up a collection and fund one for her!
But just a word of caution to the Gov: Remember the Dem race in 1988 for pres....Gary Hart. Saying he had nothing to hide, he challenged the press to follow him on the campaign trail and that they did. I believe within a week of that challenge the press snapped a pic of him with Donna Rice on his lap...end of said political aspirations!
I sure do miss true investigative journalism!
DNA testing sounds great, but I'd want to be sure that someone unbiased and reliable is there when the samples are taken, labeled, and sent for analysis!! Maybe an out-of-state lab would be best, too. You know, just in case....;)
Those saying they will accept Dr. CBJ's simple statement that she attended the birth of Trig need to be aware that if Sarah has lied about all this, CBJ has already said enough to lose her license, if it comes out that Sarah is not Trig's mother. Go back and read the newspaper reports published right after the birth. CBJ talks about inducing labor. And the Nov election letter, however carefully crafted, also says enough to get her accused of being complicit in fraud. If she is lying for Sarah, CBJ has already said enough that from here on out she MUST lie, to protect her own career.
So be careful, those of you who keep saying, "I'll be happy if we only see..." Because CBJ's behavior in all this is shady--very shady. And I'm sorry, but I don't think the simple fact that someone has an MD hanging on their wall makes them an unimpeachably ethical person. (As the mother of a doctor, I can say that!)
It's ironic, isn't it, that Sarah could come out and tearfully say she did this for altruistic reasons, and a huge chunk of her followers would probably believe her. It's the people like CBJ and Gusty who would be destroyed. Not that I feel sorry for them.
On a side note, am I the only one who's tired of being dismissed as a "crazy conspiracy theorist"? When did not swallowing a public official's obviously ridiculous lie make you a CCT? Have we reached that point, that if we don't believe everything our "leaders" tell us we brand ourselves as nuts?
BlueTx,
I get what you are saying but the statement you refer to is not a quote from CBJ. ADN states in the article that Baldwin-Johnson said she had to induce labor, and the baby didn't come until 6:30 a.m. Friday. Induce labor for whom and when? Who is the baby? More cript writing if you ask me.
This goes back to what we keep telling you- no where does CBJ quotes that Sarah Palin gave birth to Trig. CBJ will not clearly and directly state this because I don't think she can.
This is why in the most recent e-mail response to ADN, Gov Palin states 'At this point, I do not blame my doctor for not wanting to comment further, and I join her in saying enough is enough, I will no longer continue to try to prove that Trig is my son.'
Is this because CBJ can't comment further due to she did not deliver Trig Paxson Van Palin from Gov. Palin and don't won't to go on record as stating she did? I think this is our answer.
The naked truth is always chasing a well-dressed lie.
Jan 14 @7:19 am
Oops! I meant to write "reckless"
Maybe some references to the whole SP saga as a trainwreck influenced my choice of words!
******
Lady Rose @ 7:44 am raises the possibility of SP being Trig's natural mother after all. That would be definitely far more damaging to her AND her doctor considering her own account of the wild ride. The word "reckless" comes to mind very forcefully...
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