When I was Living There...

On July 9th, Levi Johnston gave a press conference in his lawyer's office in Alaska.

He states clearly and explicitly that he was living with the Palins before she was selected as McCain's running mate. What? BEFORE late August 2008? Why would he be living there then?

1. He's lying. Palin's spokesperson, Meghan Stapleton, has already released a statement claiming this.

"It is interesting to learn Levi is working on a piece of fiction while honing his acting skills," Palin family spokeswoman Meghan Stapleton said in an e-mail to The Associated Press.

The Palins have steadfastly denied that Levi ever "lived" with them, though it's been reported in numerous publications, including People magazine, which has over the months tended to be quite favorable to Palin.

2. He's telling the truth. So why would he have been living with the Palins prior to August 2008? Because they liked Levi and were cool about Levi and Bristol's relationship and openly allowed their daughter's boyfriend to spend the night? OR Because Levi and Bristol were jointly caring for a child who was not born on December 27, 2008?

Since Levi began going public in spring of 2009, thing just have not added up. There have been lots of little slip-ups. Sherry Johnston described to People magazine on (or around) January 5th how Levi and Bristol had spent their first "weeks" as parents. Only problem was that, as of January 5th, Tripp supposedly was barely a week old, had not even been home from the hospital a full week, and simultaenously the Anchorage Daily News was reporting that Levi was not even IN Wasilla.

When Levi was describing to Larry King how they told Sarah that Bristol was pregnant, he very clearly slips up and starts to say she was sixteen... then quickly corrects it to say "eighteen." Except she was neither, IF the Tripp pregnancy was "as reported." If Tripp was born December 27th 2008, and Levi stayed with the Palins to care for him, Bristol would have been 17 when she got pregnant. Here's the video... watch to around the four minute point. Look at Levi's eyes when he makes the slip up. He knows exactly what he said.



It's been stated in numerous places that Levi was actively involved with the Palins after the campaign right up until after Tripp's birth in late December. But then other places, Levi has stated that things started to fall apart "right after the campaign." And when Sarah Palin was interviewed in her home by Matt Lauer on November 11th, he asks her point blank about Levi and Bristol's plans. She won't even answer the question and is so cold to the topic that it's as if a door has slammed. It's more than clear that things were already off - way off - between Bristol and Levi as of that point. Yet ... he lived there - in December - prior to Tripp's birth?

Things that make you go HMMMM...

An Interesting Slip?

I had wanted to make this blog post before announcing our new discussion board "Team Truther," but I did not get to it. Please read the post below this one as well, if you have not - on the announcing of our new board.

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In the last 2-3 days, there have been two comments made by players in this drama to press that have been noticed as - perhaps - being indicative of what we believe the "real story," may be, specifically that Bristol Palin is the mother of both Trig Palin and Tripp Johnston.

One comment, I believe, is NOT significant, but the other may be. First, let's talk about Levi's comment, as quoted in the Daily Beast, that his "boys" were going to be "so mad" when they saw the new clothing he'd acquired in Los Angeles. While it's easy to jump on this, and say, "Boys! He said 'boys'!", I believe that in this context Levi is referring to "male friends." My daughters frequently say that they are doing somthing with "my girls," to mean that they are socializing that evening with an all-female group. (Not large groups of granddaughters that I am somehow unaware of!) Infants and toddlers are not going to be "mad" about parental clothing choices, and I find the idea that he was talking about babies when he said this implausible.

The second comment, however, is, I think, far more worthy of comment. Buried deep in the transcript of Sarah Palin's interview with Wolf Blitzer is the following sentence, regarding the identity of the daughter that David Letterman's joke referred to: It wasn't my older daughter, who's in college and taking care of her young family.

"Family." That word choice is very very interesting.

Long Long Ago and Far Far Away, I was a student. I studied, not medicine or science (areas of endeavor that would ultimately have helped me in what I ended up doing professionally) but history and linguistics. Linguistics is, as we always tried to explain to other tipsy undergrads in bars, the study of "Language" with a capital "L" NOT languages, with a small "l." Although as an adult, I have never done anything with my linguistics degree professionally, nuances of language and grammar have always fascinated me.

To a native speaker of English, I believe "family" in this context implies more than one child. It's a collective noun that implies a group. Now, if someone says, "John and Sue are starting a family," we all know that this means they are having their first baby, because they are having the FIRST member of what might become a group.

But when someone is staying home, taking care of a "young family," this means children. If she had ONE baby, I believe a native English speaker would say, "at home with her baby." The natural way for Gov. Palin to have expressed this would have been: It wasn't my older daughter, who's in college and taking care of her new baby. Or even: It wasn't my older daughter, who's in college and taking care of Tripp.

Of course - this proves nothing. Those of us who doubt Palin's birth tale need no more proof; those who think she walks on water will find this - at best - an insignificant slip of the tongue, and at worst we'll get the typical comments: "Oh, I say 'family' all the time when I mean one child." Yeah, right. And I'm sure you say this to your friend who is nine months pregnant with her fifth eight pound child and who doesn't look pregnant at all! Amazing.

A nail in the coffin? Probably not. An interesting slip o' the tongue to file away? Definitely.

Bristol Palin: Homeschooler?

The Palins have certainly given the phrase “school choice” new meaning over the past few years. Since Sarah Palin was elected governor in 2006, her children have attended schools in Wasilla, Juneau, Anchorage, and Michigan. They have also been kept out of school for considerable periods of time, for example, during last fall's campaign, leading to a situation where seven year old Piper actually stated on camera to Matt Lauer that she was having a hard time catching up.

In several private conversations I have had with reporters and others in Alaska, I have been told that Gov. Palin had come under considerable, though mostly under the radar, scrutiny (even some criticism) regarding how inconsistently her children attended school, and how glibly they were moved from place to place. Track, for example, attended most of his senior year in Michigan, allegedly to play on a more prominent hockey team, but when his hockey prospects dimmed he was, in March of his senior year, brought back to Wasilla where he finished the year at Wasilla High School. Having shepherded six children through high school I cannot fathom a teen changing schools three quarters of the way through his senior year, but maybe that's just me being too picky or something.

Exact details concerning the whereabouts of Bristol Palin, however, have been harder to pin down. In particular, Bristol’s attendance during the 2007-08 school year has been questioned on this site and on others. This school year, of course, is the focus of our interest. Why?

1. Someone had to be pregnant with Trig Palin during most of what would have been the 2007 - 2008 school year. If it were not Sarah Palin, it had to be someone else. Period.
2. Photographs of Bristol Palin taken in September of 2007 when compared to June of 2007 show physical changes which are consistent with pregnancy. Does this prove she WAS pregnant? No. Does it suggest that she could have been? Yes.
3. "Something" appears to have happened in Bristol Palin's life during the summer of 2007. She went from being openly in school in the spring of 2007, attending First Family events (albeit reluctantly), posting frequently on social networking sites, working at a coffee shop in early summer of that year, to... as far as we can tell... dropping almost totally out of sight by early fall. She was photographed in Juneau in mid September 2007, then no other photograph of her exists until late April of 2008. ONE family photograph (containing Bristol) released by the Palin family to the media of "Christmas 2007" has been shown to actually have been taken Christmas 2006.
4. Rumors that Bristol Palin WAS pregnant were circulating in Alaska as early as December of 2007, long before Trig was allegedly born in April of 2008.

So obviously Bristol's school attendance during the fall of 2007 is of considerable interest to those of us who are trying to get solid answers to this mystery. Imagine our surprise, then, when out of the blue two days ago comes a totally new, previously unheard of revelation from Levi Johnston to GQ Magazine: he and Bristol, at some point during this 2007 - 2008 school year, homeschooled TOGETHER at the Palin home.

My initial response: Huh?

Her attendance during that year at both Wasilla and Anchorage West has been extensively questioned based on conflicting reports, and spotty information. Of course, neither school will (or should) give any information about a minor student "on the record." So what is known must be pieced together from media reports, which often contradict each other. Wasilla High Assistant Principal Mark Okeson told the media in September that Bristol had transferred to Anchorage “midyear”, though he admitted: “I never heard the story why.” This certainly makes it sound as if she attended Wasilla until Christmas 2007 and then left. The National Enquirer reported that Sarah banished Bristol to live with her Aunt Heather in Anchorage after learning of her pregnancy. And Kyle Hopkins at the Anchorage Daily News, speaking with Heather Bruce shortly after Sarah’s nomination, confirmed from Bristol's own aunt that Bristol attended Anchorage West “in the spring." Bristol's attendance was also confirmed by a private source who has stated to me that Bristol, a friend of her child's, attended Anchorage West in January and February, leaving some time before mid-March 2008.

Yet, the details surrounding the transition from Wasilla to Anchorage remain fuzzy. If Tripp was born at or close to full term in late December, 2008, Bristol could not have known about her pregnancy prior to either very late April or early May of 2008. Anchorage West's LAST day of school in 2008 was May 16th. So it is absurd to suggest that she lived with Heather Bruce AND went to school at any point during her pregnancy with Tripp. She didn't. If it is true that she lived with Heather Bruce while pregnant AND she attended school, it MUST refer to a prior pregnancy.

We do know from Sarah Palin’s interview with Alaska Magazine that, as of fall 2007, the plan at that point had been for Bristol to stay in Wasilla to finish out her high school career. If so, it would be understandable. Not many teenagers appreciate being taken away from friends, favorite teachers, and social events right in the middle of high school.

But, there may have been another option, and, based on Levi's recent statement to GQ, one that may well have been utilized by the Palins. In an article published by the Boston Herald on September 2, 2008, WHS principal Dwight Probasco stated that, while Levi did play for the Wasilla Warriors hockey team during the 2007-08 season, he was not attending classes that year--instead, he was homeschooled via the Mat-Su Correspondence Study School. Here's the exact quote:

Principal Dwight Probasco explained Levi’s decision to drop out: “School might have interfered with Levi’s moose-hunting, so he did a home school course. He continued to play on the ice hockey team, even though he stopped coming to classes two years ago. I understand he is now out of work.”

And now, a new article in GQ magazine not only confirms that Levi was homeschooling during that school year, but appears to impart some additional information that we had not heard before. Referring to Levi at that time:

“The previous year [this has to refer to 2007-2008] he’d been in a homeschool scenario. Alaska boasts the most lax homeschooling rules of any state in the union, in the sense that they have literally almost no rules. Levi was doing his learning online, through a Brigham Young University program. Unsupervised, at the Palins’ house, where Bristol Palin was homeschooling, too.”

The timeline for Bristol's homeschooling is--what a surprise--unclear. It is generally accepted, though, that she began attending Anchorage West at some point in 2008, so this article appears to be referring to the months prior to that. Read that again. This article is now strongly suggesting that Bristol was NOT in fact attending Wasilla High in the fall of 2007, but was "homeschooling."

Wow. Bristol Palin - popular, athletic, good student, missed all of her friends at Wasilla High SO much while in Juneau the previous spring that she decided to... home school? IN Wasilla? What's wrong with this picture?

And adding gasoline to the intrigue fire is a quote from Gov. Palin herself, in August of 2007, where she states specifically to interviewer Armstrong Williams that, the previous day, Bristol (and her siblings) had been registered for school. In fact, what Gov. Palin specifically says is, "Four kids, four different schools." No mention of homeschooling here whatsoever. (Forgive the digression, but I must point out another curious fact: the fourth kid can only be Track, and since he had graduated from high school the previous spring, this has to refer to registering for community college or some other higher education source. Yet... within a month he's changed his mind and has enlisted in the military. It's been suggested many places that Track's enlistment decision was abrupt, and motivated, at least in part, by something other than pure patriotism. This certainly seems to confirm that his mother, in August of 2007, had no clue he was about to enlist.)

Something just ain't right here, folks. Homeschooling is one of the button issues of the religious right. If Palin had homeschooled any of her children for any time at all, don't you think it would have been used during the campaign? Good grief, they used everything else they could find. But no... homeschool prior to the fall of 2008 was never mentioned once that I can find in connection with the Palin family.

I have suspected for a long time that Bristol Palin did not attend school in the fall of 2007, but have not been able to prove it. Does this chance comment from Levi Johnston (just keep talking, kid) provide conclusive proof? No. Does it bring us one step closer? I think so.

MySpace Part Three

It has always been my preference to focus on the evidence that Sarah Palin was not pregnant in March and April of 2008, and let the question of the identity of Trig Palin’s biological mother play second fiddle. But, in spite of our preference to leave the Palin daughters out of the equation, we have not been able to avoid that completely. Bristol Palin was named nationally as Trig's mother in numerous places as early as August 29, 2008, and she was brought into the game by her own mother on September 1, when Sarah Palin chose to "prove" that she WAS Trig's mother, not by providing Trig's birth certificate or a clear statement by her physician, but by stating that her daughter was then five months pregnant, thus precluding Bristol's having given birth previously in mid-April.

Bristol Palin is by no means the only possibility for Trig Palin's birth mother. However, the persistence of the rumors that she was pregnant dating to before Trig's birth, coupled with the complete lack of photographs of her from the time period, makes it difficult not to continue to consider her the most likely "other mother."

Since September, numerous people have been looking to social networking websites, like MySpace for additional info about "Life and Times at Wasilla High." As we've stated previously, MySpace has NOT provided us concrete proof about this issue, specifically who Trig's mother is OR whether Bristol Palin was pregnant. But the MySpace comments do give a glimpse into the lives of Bristol, Levi and their circle of friends. And what we can see does indicate that something "changed" as early as July 2007 and that something was amiss during the winter of 2007-2008.

A number of the comments already published here have been suspicious, but none have been conclusive. For example, we’ve seen that Bristol made a series of interesting comments to her friend Johnny in the spring of 2007, including one stating that Gov. Palin had confronted her about possibly being pregnant. Other comments made to her girlfriends also merit attention:

June 22, 2007 9:40 PM
Hey, call me NOW!!

June 25, 2007 1:33 AM
:( now im a mother duck for that baby!

(Note from Audrey: This curious comment is discussed in more detail at the very end of this post.)

June 25, 2007 1:50 AM
ha ha im a slut. but sounds good…what number?

Without context, however, these comments can be interpreted in numerous ways. And, during this same period, other examples show Bristol to be happy and social, engaging in typical summertime activities. This makes it all the more strange when, in late June 2007, she suddenly disappears from MySpace, and is mentioned by name only once after that, even by her good friends.

Please be clear that we have no evidence that as of late June 2007, she actually did stop using MySpace abruptly. It's possible that she could have. Perhaps she became bored with MySpace. Perhaps her computer broke. Perhaps her friends just stopped talking both ABOUT her and TO her as of that date. But it's also quite possible (even probable) that she continued to use MySpace for months after this… and then at some point between late June 2007 and late August 2008, for reasons that we do not know at a point in time we cannot pinpoint, a decision was made to remove Bristol's page from the site, as well as delete any and all comments she made to friends, and apparently either to delete (or asked to be deleted) comments others made about her between themselves.

Because of this, our conclusions are drawn as much from what's NOT there as from what is.

What does our research show post-June 2007? One of the only comments that directly references Bristol after that time (and the only one that uses her name) has already been published, from September 2007, in which one girl (Kaila) is joking with Jenny Jo, who is a good friend of Levi’s off-and-on girlfriend Lanesia, because Jenny Jo had threatened to beat Bristol up for Lanesia.

9/28/2007 Kaila to Jenny Jo:
haha, you were gonna fight Bristol for Lanesia.. idk, it was freakin hilarious though. you were getttin ready to take on like 394083 people yourself. haha..funny ass shit. call me tonight bia.

Is this because Levi and Bristol’s relationship has just been discovered? The problem with this comment is that it references something that happened earlier, "you were gonna fight…" but there is no date context. Was this something that happened the previous night or three months earlier? We don't know.

In any case, by January 2008, Lanesia had moved on to a different relationship, indicating that Bristol and Levi most likely became “official” sometime in either the summer or the fall of 2007.

Although she had a new boyfriend, one specific comment shows that Lanesia might still have harbored some residual feelings for Levi. In late January 2008, there is a burst of chatter that may be significant, though it's inconclusive at the same time. First, messages are left between a young man named Tylor to our old friend Jenny Jo.

In the first, Tylor asks Jenny Jo: "Who do you want to beat up?" (indicating that Jenny Jo has told Tylor that she's angry with someone) and the second – in response to something Jenny Jo then said back to Tylor that we cannot see – "THEY F***ED?"

Is Tylor a newcomer to some gossip? Does the gossip even have anything at all to do with Bristol Palin? The next couple of exchanges certainly indicate the strong possibility that Levi and Bristol are involved. Tylor immediately posts to Rachelle (the sister of Johnny – who has been identified as Bristol's boyfriend prior to Levi) "ARE YOU SERIOUS"

Again, why do we think this has anything to do with Bristol? Because just a couple hours later, Lanesia then posts back to Rachelle:

yea i heard and #### no never again she messed that up to many times and i aint one to talk shit about a girl and go be tight with them but no im not she totally messed up by Fn my Xbf

These exchanges indicate that something surprising was revealed in late January 2008. Lanesia's "yea I heard" can only mean there is new information which involved a girl who was "fn" Lanesia's "xbf," and from our research, the only ex-boyfriend of Lanesia was Levi Johnston. And, although Levi had been linked with several other girls in 2005 and 2006, from 2007 on, the only two girls mentioned in conjunction with Levi were Lanesia herself and Bristol Palin. It would be easy to say that "new shocking" info would be that Bristol was pregnant. Yet – two of the comments specifically mention just sexual activity – as if that might be the "new" thing, which then becomes hard to explain in the context of someone wanting to beat Bristol up FOR Lanesia at least four months earlier.

And then… in this sequence… nothing more.

We can only come back to what was said before: For a popular girl who had an active social life and many friends, and who had been a regular MySpace user, the complete absence of any mention of Bristol through this time period is astonishing. It's important to reiterate that the only comments we can link to her (with the one exception of the comment from September 2007, which makes reference to her being "beat up") do not contain her name.

For example, in April 2008, 8 days before Trig’s official birthdate, an older Wasilla teen named Dannie, someone not closely connected to the primary social group, makes this curious comment on a friend’s MySpace:

April 10, 2008 12:03 AM
…i want to tell you something kinda funny so when you call remind me about the governor’s kid…

Something to do with Bristol?

After that comment, there is nothing more to be found in MySpace about any of the Palins until the end of August. The pregnancy that was announced by the Palin campaign on September 1, 2008 was said to be an “open secret” in Wasilla. Really? Because in spite of the fact that many of the teens’ MySpace profiles were used extensively between April-August 2008, neither Mercede nor any other person makes even one mention of Bristol or the pregnancy. Not one.

Mercede's MySpace page was public until midafternoon on September 1, 2008. We have screen shots of the entire thing. She is so close to her older brother Levi that she had posted several pictures of them together, in which she calls him "her best friend" in the world. She has had his name tattooed on her wrist. Yet not one post about this exciting "open secret" that her dear brother was to become a father, which would make her a new auntie? No.

Numerous comments exist on many girls' pages in which pregnancies, showers, and babies are discussed, in some cases with great excitement and positive feelings. But regarding Bristol, Levi and the Tripp pregnancy... well, it doesn't seem to exist. The only thing we do have is a photograph of Bristol and Mercede together from April 25, 2008 in which Mercede refers to Bristol as her sister-in-law. This is after Trig's birth but before it is plausible that it was known that she was pregnant with Tripp.

Then, the morning of August 29, 2008 arrives, and with it, John McCain’s announcement of his running mate.

On that day, there is an occasional comment along the lines of --hey, did you see who got picked?--but generally nothing more than that. But on the afternoon of the 29th, Dannie (the one who had heard something "kinda funny" about the governor’s kid) does have a specific question, and she poses it to another Wasilla teen, Zach, again someone not tightly connected to the primary group. Because Zach's MySpace profile is private, we cannot see the initial question to him, but his answer is this:

August 29, 2008 3:39 PM
I know who started it. Tylor [last name deleted by PD]
I think that’s how you spell his name

There is no context surrounding this remark to aid interpretation. All we know is that Zach says that Tylor started “it”. Because Zach identifies Tylor by his first and last name, we know for sure that this is the same Tylor who was involved in the exchanges regarding the surprising news back in January.

Fast forward a bit to September 3, the day of Sarah Palin’s speech at the Republican National Convention. Not only is the Palin/Johnston pregnancy an “open secret” in Wasilla, it’s now the most famous pregnancy in the entire United States. The governor of Alaska is on the ticket; her oldest daughter has been outed as a pregnant unwed teen on the national news; said daughter and her hockey star fiance are being seen all over the world. That should warrant quite a few MySpace comments. No need to keep it on the down-low anymore. Right? Or at least a couple of comments? Actually: zero.

Well, maybe just one, a cryptic question--asked by a girl named Kelci of Kaila (the same Kaila who was involved in the exchange with Jenny Jo about beating up Bristol a year earlier):

September 3, 2008 6:06 PM
bp?

Kaila's answer is not known because Kelci's profile is private, but, after receiving a response, she comments back to Kaila

September 4, 2008 6:02 PM
mmmmm gotcha. that’s what I figured but I wasn’t fasho
whadddup?

For the uninitiated, "fasho" in teen speak means "for sure." So Kelci is saying, "That's what I thought [about whatever it is they were talking about concerning "bp"] but I wasn't sure."

But what could it be? If we're to believe that Bristol’s pregnancy is an "open secret" in Wasilla, and that Levi and Bristol are an established, even engaged, couple, why is it that the only possible mention of it at this point (OR throughout the entire previous summer OR during the entire following campaign) is this one girl who dares use only initials? Hmmm.

And what could this girl be asking? We believe she is a relative of Kaila (though we can't confirm that 100%); she also lives in the Wasilla area, and she is friends with many of the same people as Kaila. So she wouldn’t be confirming simply that Bristol is pregnant, because everyone already knows that, right?

So what are my conclusions?

1. Bristol Palin was "scrubbed" from MySpace as of an arbitrary date. This date seems to be around July 1, 2007, though the date the scrubbing was actually done is completely unknown. Numerous comments from before this date existed as of September 1, 2008 (though many have since been removed) including one fairly troublesome one about her mother questioning whether or not she was pregnant. Only one comment exists which mentions her by name after that date, and NO comments from her.

2. There was chatter about something surprising, even shocking, in late January 2008 that involved Levi Johnston, and in all probability, Bristol Palin. This was far too early for her to have been pregnant with Tripp. However, considering earlier comments, it seems too late to have been simply that the two young people were in a relationship.

3. There is not a single mention of Bristol, Levi, or Bristol's pregnancy throughout the entire summer of 2008, even though it was supposed to have been an "open secret" in Wasilla. A single comment, mentioning Bristol only by using her initials, strongly suggests on September 3rd that there is something more going on than just the supposed "open secret. " It was something that there was gossip about, something that some young people in Wasilla (who should have been connected with the group) were unaware of. Something about Tripp's pregnancy was not "as presented" on September 1, 2008, though what exactly that is is completely unclear. Dates? Who the father might be?

The MySpace information is confusing, at time contradictory, and terribly incomplete. Yet, overall, it's hard to escape the conclusion that the timelines of neither the Trig nor the Tripp pregnancies seem plausible based on what is being said (and not said) among teenagers in Wasilla.

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PS. Those who have read this far (!) will probably note that no comment has been made about a curious post from late June, 2007, in which Bristol states:

:( now im a mother duck for that baby!

(For those who don't know, the ":( " is a "frowny face" indicating unhappiness.)

This comment has caused quite a bit of private debate and discussion among those affiliated with this blog. Certainly, it is hard to say it is not significant: it is the second to last thing still available from Bristol on MySpace (only her "now I'm a slut" comment came later, by a couple of minutes) AND – good grief! - it mentions a baby!

But what does it mean? It has been suggested that she is being forced to gestate a child, like a mother duck sitting on eggs. Several of the Palin Deception researchers subscribe to this theory, and find it extremely significant.

It has also been suggested that, in spite of the timing, it has nothing to do with Bristol being pregnant or not pregnant. I for one find the use of the phrase "that baby" to indicate that she is talking about something separate from her, possibly a child (Piper, who was five at the time?) she was being forced to babysit for. (And ducklings follow mother ducks around constantly.)

If Bristol Palin had said, ":( now im a mother duck for THIS baby!" I would be saying that I found it highly indicative of pregnancy. But the use of the word "that" to me means she is talking about something she is not happy about, something she has actual disdain for. Most teenaged women who become pregnant and decide to keep the baby tend to be excited about it (naively perhaps, but still excited.) The negative tone of this comment indicates to me that she is talking about something else. I do not know what.

But I am presenting both sets of thoughts here, and the reader needs to decide for himself on this one.

Message. In. A. Bottle.

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

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



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

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

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

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

Including this one:



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



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

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

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

Mercede, message received. Thank you.

MySpace Part One

First, this post has been greatly delayed as I struggled – with the assistance of the researchers who compiled all of this material for me – concerning the issue of just how much material to post – and how to present it.

Ultimately, we have made the decision not to release nearly as much information on the blog as we had originally intended. Instead, we will be posting much longer – and more detailed information – on the website proper.

We've ultimately made the following decision that both for this blog post and for the web posting of more extensive data, only Bristol Palin, Levi Johnston, and Mercede Johnston will be identified by name. (The names of all other MySpace teens (regardless of age) have been changed to completely random "fake" names). Bristol, Levi, and Mercede have voluntarily spoken to the press; thus they are now considered "fair game." There is considerable evidence that Bristol has made misleading statements to the press on more than one occasion, if not outright lied.

At this time, I plan on doing three posts concerning the MySpace material: this one, a second which discusses an overview, and a third which considers explicitly whether or not Bristol was pregnant at the time she was announced to have been pregnant (i.e., roughly early April to late December 2008.)

Is Bristol Palin Trig’s mother? This is a question which, frankly, we preferred to avoid as much as possible for months, instead focusing on the discrepancies in Sarah Palin’s implausible tale. The rumors and reports that Bristol Palin was pregnant originated well before she could possibly have been pregnant with Tripp. This is beyond dispute. If Tripp Palin was born the last week in December, 2008, Bristol would have become pregnant around the first week in April 2008. Yet Sue Williams, a Wasilla caterer who spoke to the press within hours of Palin's nomination as VP (and who is NOT a Palin supporter) claimed that Willow's eighth grade boyfriend was telling people in Wasilla early in April, prior to Trig's birth on April 18th, that Bristol was pregnant. So positive was Ms. Williams of her information that she insisted late in August that Bristol was well into her third trimester and due "soon." Sarah discussed (and denied) rumors that Bristol was pregnant with Bill McAllister (at the time a news reporter, though later he became her press secretary) at some point before she announced her own pregnancy on March 5th. In one of my earlier posts, these reports of pregnancy rumors and of her unexplained absence from school were detailed in depth. There has also been much discussion on the blog about Bristol’s absence from any events from late fall until spring, with the possible (and as yet unconfirmed) exception of an event for the American Heart Association on February 15, 2008.

The MySpace material in many cases raises as many questions as it answers. On this blog, I have tried to avoid including information that, while shocking, has no bearing on the central question of who Trig's mother is or the general credibility of the Palin family. We plan on releasing far more of the MySpace material soon on the website itself, largely in a "raw" format. Readers will be free to peruse the information and draw their own conclusions.

One of the first questions that will be asked is how we verified who any of these people are. How can we be sure? For those who are not familiar with how MySpace works, I will give a brief overview. There are two kinds of information that are available on MySpace. The first is material on pages that are public. Public means exactly that. Anyone can see and peruse the entire page. We can see photos, music choices, quotes, and other information he or she has posted identifying him or herself. For those who have never been on MySpace, someone's "front page" on MySpace is a bit like a scrapbook page that is public, created for everyone to look at.

There is no requirement on MySpace that a person use his or her real name. Often people do, but equally often they do not. When a young person posts a picture of himself and says, "My name is Joe Smith and I go to Such and So High School," it is usually easy to verify that that person is who he say he is. Sometimes, of course, the person does not use a real name, though quite often they do identify themselves accurately as to town and school, so there is an additional step that must be taken, (based on photos and friend connections) to identify that "Hot Sue" for example, is Susan Jones. In our case, for example, Mercede Johnston's MySpace handle is "Sadie."

The second way to get information about people is that we can see comments ON public pages FROM the person, even if that person's page itself is private or in some cases deleted from MySpace completely. In this case, it is often very difficult to be sure of what some comments mean, because we are only seeing half of the comments, like hearing half of a phone conversation. Sometimes you can get a very good idea of what the conversation is about; other times, you are lost.

Bristol Palin's page was deleted (or possibly made private, then later deleted) prior to her mother's pick as VP, though we do not know when. In fact, after June 2007, there is only one comment that we can find on anyone's page that mentions Bristol by name, though there are several comments that use her initials that we are sure refer to her. This is very odd, since Bristol was a popular girl who had many friends. Furthermore, according to the McCain campaign and media reports it was common knowledge that Levi and Bristol were expecting a baby in late 2008. Did this warrant a comment on NO ONE'S page? Not one person thought to mention it? Or – more likely – were comments "scrubbed" at some point? Scrubbing is very difficult to prove after the fact, unless one is watching for it prior to the scrubbing occurring. For example, we know comments that had been visible on some of the Wasilla friends' pages through November 2008, were removed in November, after the election. We can prove this easily because we have screen shots of the pages both before and after. But since no one was watching the pages of Wasilla Alaska teenagers prior to late August, 2008, the full story is very difficult to piece together. However, one oddity we noted: one young woman, a close friend of Bristol's, who we will refer to as "Fanny" normally received dozens of comments a month. Suddenly, in a period of more than a month in the Spring of 2007, absolutely none. We can verify Fanny was active on MySpace – she was leaving comments on other friends' pages but her page was scrubbed completely. Proof of anything? No. Mysterious? Very.

So, how do we know what (few) comments remain are actually from Bristol Palin? We can see that the comments come from someone named "Bristol," but how do we know for sure who this is? We can be sure it's Bristol Palin, for the following reason: comments that were made by this Bristol can be indisputably tied to known events in Bristol Palin's life, as follows:

1. On October 12th, 2006, Bristol commented on a friend's page that she would be driving in four days. This corresponds exactly to Bristol Palin's sixteenth birthday.
2. In June of 2007, Bristol made several references to working at Nordstrom's. From Sarah Palin's financial disclosure forms, we know that Bristol Palin worked at Nordstrom's at that time.
3. On one occasion, Bristol makes very negative comments about having to attend an event in Glenallen Alaska. We know from Sarah Palin's schedule that an event, which included the "First Family" occurred on that day.

Does the MySpace page material answer with any certainty whether Bristol Palin gave birth to Trig OR whether Sarah did not? No, it does not. But it gives clear glimpses into the Palin family life, and specifically into Bristol Palin, that are sharply at odds with the all American family that was portrayed to the media. This is particularly relevant coming now, as Levi Johnston has purportedly told Tyra Banks (in an interview to be shown tomorrow) that he was allowed to spend the night openly at the Palin home, even though, according to him, Gov. Palin almost certainly knew that he and Bristol were having sex. I believe that, in spite of Palin's heated denials, this is confirmed from her daughter's own MySpace comments. At one point, she jokes with Levi that he apparently left some clothes at her home.

The view of teen life in Wasilla Alaska gleaned from the fifty or so MySpace pages that our researchers have followed diligently shows a sad, disappointing, in fact, very upsetting tale. If these are the family values that the McCain campaign hoped Gov. Palin would bring to America, all I can say is "no thanks." Drug and alcohol use is detailed, even boasted about regularly, by teens as young as fourteen and fifteen. Young women who are no more than fifteen discuss who is f***ing whom with the ease of a discussion about who will pick up the pizza. Bristol Palin, presented to the country by her mother as an honor student, at age 16 does not spell the word "decided" correctly.

Coming tomorrow: Six specific things the MySpace analysis shows us.

My name is... (what?) My name is... (who?)

In the world of social networking for young adults, MySpace is one of the leaders in the field. Sharing pictures, comments, videos, and music is incredibly easy. MySpace profiles can be personalized in hundreds of different ways, letting people express their individuality freely, if sometimes chaotically. Indeed, looking at some pages is enough to bring on an instant migraine.

With all of the fun to be had at the click of a mouse, it’s easy to forget the warning: don’t post anything on the Internet that you wouldn’t want your mother (or, for that matter, your spouse, boss, or local law enforcement agents) to see. During the past week alone, MySpace use has contributed to the investigation of an animal control officer in Virginia,

http://www.wvec.com/news/norfolk/stories/wvec_local_032609_peta_ani...

the arrest of a 14-year-old girl for posting nude photos of herself,

http://www.nj.com/jjournal/stories/index.ssf?/base/xclude/123822159...

and a stabbing at a Texas middle school.

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/APStories/stories/D973VKJ01...

Clearly, people post much on MySpace that, in retrospect, they may wish they had kept to themselves. Often, this information is viewable not only by those on one’s “friend list” but by the entire world, should we all care to look. Such is the case with the MySpace research on this blog. Everything to be published here was accessible to the general public at the time it was found. We have screen shots of all pages. Nothing was obtained by "hacking." Much of this information may still be public.

In order to make some sense out of the hundreds of comments received, we had to determine which (if any) had been left by Bristol and/or Levi. A curious aspect of MySpace is that comments posted are not necessarily deleted, even if the person who wrote the comments has cancelled his or her MySpace account. Many times, these comments remain visible for months, and, though the user name and picture may be gone, the anonymous comment will still link back to a page that contains the user’s MySpace ID number. Since there were no comments that clearly identified either Bristol or Levi right off the bat, the assumption was that we were dealing with deleted accounts.

In Bristol’s case, we received a tip on two comments that were made by a deleted account holder, but which linked back to the same MySpace user ID number:

Oct 12, 2006
surb what up?? haha yeah i know i know, you were right, but six days!!! waahoo, then ill be driving your lovley ass everywhere :)
love ya sruuuub - yo busump

June 19, 2007 (portion of comment)
ha ha yeah he changed my password on this to b-ris p. and I always think of him for sure.

In the first comment, the writer appears to be referencing her upcoming 16th birthday on October 18, 2006, which corresponds with Bristol’s 16th birthday. The second comment speaks for itself. There were other comments received as well that corroborate this particular account as belonging to Bristol.

At around the same time, we also received a tip on a comment left by a “levi” on the MySpace of a young man in the Wasilla area. It was a fairly routine comment, but it linked back not to a deleted account, but to a MySpace profile page that could only be described as “well-scrubbed”: no graphics, the barest of personal details, just three friends (two of which led to deleted accounts), and two comments (one of which was spam).

Although the personal details matched what we know about Levi (e.g., this “levi” is from Wasilla, his Zodiac sign matches Levi Johnston’s birthdate, and he states “I don’t want kids”), there was no easy way to tell if this was the Levi we were interested in. His is a popular name in Alaska, and after the news of Bristol’s pregnancy was released in September, fake Levi pages popped up on MySpace.

Then we realized that the only worthwhile comment remaining on this Levi’s page…came from the user ID number already identified as belonging to Bristol.

More on that to come in the next post.