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Showing posts with label Alaska. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Alaska. Show all posts
Monday, October 27, 2008
Breaking: Stevens Found Guilty of Felony Corruption
Embattled Alaska Senator Ted "The Internet is a Series of Tubes!" Stevens was found guilty today on seven felony counts of corruption.
Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens was convicted of seven corruption charges Monday in a trial that tainted the 40-year Senate career of Alaska's political patriarch...
Stevens, 84, was convicted of all seven charges he faced of lying about free home renovations and other gifts he received from a wealthy oil contractor. Jurors began deliberating Wednesday at noon.
Stevens faces up to five years in prison on each count when he is sentenced Jan. 26, but under federal sentencing guidelines, he is likely to receive much less prison time, if any.
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Anchorage Daily News Endorses Obama
The Alaska newspaper of record, the Anchorage Daily News, endorsed Obama for President:
Sen. McCain describes himself as a maverick, by which he seems to mean that he spent 25 years trying unsuccessfully to persuade his own party to follow his bipartisan, centrist lead. Sadly, maverick John McCain didn't show up for the campaign. Instead we have candidate McCain, who embraces the extreme Republican orthodoxy he once resisted and cynically asks Americans to buy for another four years.
It is Sen. Obama who truly promises fundamental change in Washington. You need look no further than the guilt-by-association lies and sound-bite distortions of the degenerating McCain campaign to see how readily he embraces the divisive, fear-mongering tactics of Karl Rove. And while Sen. McCain points to the fragile success of the troop surge in stabilizing conditions in Iraq, it is also plain that he was fundamentally wrong about the more crucial early decisions. Contrary to his assurances, we were not greeted as liberators; it was not a short, easy war; and Americans -- not Iraqi oil -- have had to pay for it. It was Sen. Obama who more clearly saw the danger ahead.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
ADN: Sarah Palin is 'Ignorant' or 'Orwellian'
The Alaska Daily News put up a scathing rebuke in a new editorial in reaction to Sarah Palin's Troopergate scandal.
Quote of the article:
Sarah Palin's reaction to the Legislature's Troopergate report is an embarrassment to Alaskans and the nation.
She claims the report "vindicates" her. She said that the investigation found "no unlawful or unethical activity on my part."
Her response is either astoundingly ignorant or downright Orwellian.
Read the whole thing.
Friday, October 10, 2008
BREAKING: Investigator Finds Palin Illegally Abused Power
The Sarah Palin Troopergate investigation has concluded and the independent investigator retained by a bipartisan panel of Alaska legislators has concluded that:
SARAH PALIN VIOLATED ALASKA LAW AND ABUSED THE POWER OF HER OFFICE AS GOVERNOR.
That's right, Sarah Palin broke the law and abused the office of Governor of the State of Alaska.
More from ABC News:
So, to recap. Sarah Palin is now shown to be a corrupt, criminal politician who violated an Alaska law designed to prevent abuses of power by public officials by a report issued by a respected independent investigator retained by a majority-Republican panel of Alaska legislators.Sarah Palin abused her power when she fired her Public Safety Commissioner this July, a state investigation has concluded.
The Alaska legislature voted to release the 263-page report on the "Troopergate" scandal, a state kerfuffle which has come to haunt Gov. Sarah Palin's vice presidential bid. The scandal centered around her firing of Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan. Monegan and others believed Palin fired him because he refused to take action against Mike Wooten, a state trooper under him who had been involved in a messy divorce with Palin's sister, Molly.
The investigator, Stephen Branchflower, found that Monegan's refusal to fire Wooten "was not the sole reason" but was "likely a contributing factor" to his firing.
The result? There is absolutely NO intellectually honest reason for McCain to retain Sarah Palin as his running mate -- she is a craven, despicable criminal that violated the law. He must either dump her immediately or go down in history as one of the only candidates for President that found out that his running mate is a criminal and did nothing about it.
Period.
No argument necessary.
Update: The key passage of the report. Note the "violating" the law part:
For the reasons explained in section IV of this report, I find that Governor Sarah Palin abused her power by violating Alaska Statute 2952.110(a) of the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act.
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Sarah Palin: Palling Around with Secessionists
This video is pretty disturbing. Apparently, the secessionist American Independence Party that Sarah Palin and her husband have been palling around with for years sees Sarah Palin as their very own Manchurian candidate. As a guy at the top of the clip says: "Put the Republican label on it to get elected. That's all there is to it."
Friday, October 3, 2008
Palin: Losing Friends and Making Enemies in Alaska
Methinks that once McCain and Palin lose the election, Palin will be going home to a state that has largely soured on her lies and bull excrement:
Sarah Palin may be making new friends as she campaigns the nation, but at home, she's making new enemies. She better get elected vice president. If she returns to Alaska as governor, the reception will be frosty -- and not because winter has arrived.
In the last month, Palin has become something inconceivable during her first two years as the state's chief executive: A polarizing figure rapidly emptying the storehouse of good will she accumulated.
For starters, her relationship with the press has collapsed -- by her choice. She rarely talks to reporters. Her attack on the "media elite" at the Republican National Convention should have embarrassed her. There is no media elite in Alaska, and she generally received favorable press, except from a few conservative dissenters, as a candidate for governor and as governor.
You say she was unhappy with the eastern media, not the local scribes when she spoke to the convention. Well, during her recent visit to New York City she attended a dinner put together by Rupert Murdoch who, according to gossip columnist Cindy Adams, "piloted Sarah around" during the evening. Murdoch is one of the world's most influential media barons. Also present was Cathy Black, president of Hearst Magazines. Other VIPS on hand at Tao on 58th Street, where a Kobe rib eye steak costs $88, included Sarah Ferguson, Martha Stewart, designer Vera Wang and the Queen of Jordan. Not the media elite -- just the elite.
Read More
Monday, September 29, 2008
Palin Both Incompetent and a Liar
Reflecting on the Palin-Couric interview intellectual catastrophe, let us not forget that she is not only a bad interviewee but also a pathological liar. Andrew Sullivan sums up the state of her lies as of today:
Palin could not have asked her girls for permission to accept McCain's veep offer if she also says she accepted the offer unblinkingly and right away. Palin did fire a police chief even as she insisted to a reporter she hadn't. She did violate the confidential medical records of Mike Wooten. She hasn't met with any trade missions from Russia. She does not have any gay friends that anyone can find. She did not oppose the Bridge to Nowhere. She did not sell that plane on eBay. Her Teleprompter did not fail in her convention speech. Alaska's state scientists did not conclude that polar bears were in no danger. She did deny publicly that humans had anything to do with climate change.
Alaska does not provide "nearly 20 percent of the U.S. domestic supply of energy," as she claimed. The gas pipeline she touts as her major "mission accomplished" has not broken ground and may never do so. She did not take a pay-cut as mayor of Wasilla. And on and on. Anyone with Google can check all of these out. Including reporters.
Alaska Becomes McCainistan
Alaskans appear to be none-too-pleased that the operations of the Alaska Governor's and Attorney General's offices have been handed over to the McCain campaign:
As one watches Governor Palin stumble through the three interviews she’s done since being announced as John McCain’s vice presidential running mate, and as one reads the reports in the national media of Palin being sequestered far away from inquisitive reporters, and as one hears that requests for information about both her record as governor for the past 21 months and the legislative investigation into whether she improperly dismissed former Commissioner of Public Safety Walt Monegan are being shunted to the McCain campaign, it’s a bit jaw-dropping to attend one of the “truth squad” pressers and repeatedly hear that Palin is “an open book.” Actually it’s worse than jaw-dropping: It’s insulting.
A visibly frustrated Sean Cockerham of the Anchorage Daily News expressed what most in the room were thinking at Tuesday’s installment of the Palin “truth squad” charade: “[Governor Palin] says she’s an open book, she wants her story to be told, then why does she not speak to the press?”
Read More
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Best Lede from Associated Press Ever
Methinks the McCain/Palin "F*ck the Media!" strategy might be backfiring. Here's a recent lede from the normally McCain-friendly Associated Press:
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Less than a week after balking at the Alaska Legislature's investigation into her alleged abuse of power, Gov. Sarah Palin on Monday indicated she will cooperate with a separate probe run by people she can fire.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Palin's Illicitly Used Email Account Hacked
You know those stories out there about Sarah Palin using a personal Yahoo account to conduct government business in order to avoid public and court scrutiny?
Well, karma can be a bitch sometimes... Apparently the hacker group "anonymous", famous for going after the "Church" of Scientology, has now trained its sights on the Church of Palintology and hacked her Yahoo account. Not only that, it has downloaded the contents of her account and sent it to whistleblower site Wikileaks.
Here's an example of one of the emails they uncovered that demonstrates how she was improperly conducting state business from her personal Yahoo account (click the image to see a readable version):
Update: Here's a great quip about the situation from John Cole, who comments on the too-convenient outrage of far-right conservative nutjob Michelle Malkin, who has been a long-time supporter of, and apologist for, Bush's illegal wiretapping program:
This response from Malkin is awesome:“Where are the privacy absolutists now?”What is the big deal, Michelle? If you haven’t done anything wrong, you don’t have anything to hide, AMIRITE?
Seriously. I would never publish her private emails, but listening to Malkin kvetch about privacy is, after years of listening to her cheerlead the surveillance state, how do I put this… A BIT F*CKING RICH.
Monday, September 15, 2008
WSJ: McCain Lied; Palin Requested $453M in Earmarks
JOHN MCCAIN'S LIE: During an interview with the ladies of The View, John McCain claimed that Sarah Palin didn't take one red cent in earmarks during her term as governor of Alaska.
THE TRUTH: The conservative Wall Street Journal today goes into excruciating detail and tallies up the more than $453 million in earmarks that Sarah Palin has received during her 20 months as Alaska's governor.
What will the next lie be, Mr. McCain?
'Alaska Women Reject Palin' Rally Draws Record Crowds
From Mudflats (the go-to blog for Alaska politics):
Never, have I seen anything like it in my 17 and a half years living in Anchorage. The organizers had someone walk the rally with a counter, and they clicked off well over 1400 people (not including the 90 counter-demonstrators). This was the biggest political rally ever, in the history of the state. I was absolutely stunned. The second most amazing thing is how many people honked and gave the thumbs up as they drove by. And even those that didn’t honk looked wide-eyed and awe-struck at the huge crowd that was growing by the minute. This just doesn’t happen here.
So, if you’ve been doing the math… Yes. The Alaska Women Reject Palin rally was significantly bigger than Palin’s rally that got all the national media coverage! So take heart, sit back, and enjoy…Sarah Palin most definitely does not speak for all Alaskans.
There’s a photo gallery (with some great signs) here, and a video of the crowd here.
Friday, September 12, 2008
New McCain Lie: Palin Took No Earmarks as Governor
Add this to the running list of McCain lies and distortions. When asked to explain how Sarah Palin would help reform Washington in a recent interview on The View:
McCain said Palin has, and apparently will, reform "earmark spending." When reminded that Palin took all kinds of earmark money in Alaska, McCain said, "No, not as governor she didn't." Asked about Palin's mayoral tenure, McCain ignored the question.
BUZZ! Nope, sorry Senator, that answer is incorrect! Here's Think Progress:
McCain’s claim that Palin never accepted earmarks as the governor of Alaska is divorced from reality. In fact, she actively sought them:
– Though Palin did reduce Alaska’s earmark requests, “in her two years in office, Alaska has requested nearly $750 million in special federal spending, by far the largest per-capita request in the nation.”
– In March 2008, Palin wrote an op-ed in the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, saying that her “role at the federal level is simply to submit the most well-conceived earmark requests we can” and that her reduction of requests was a response “to the changing circumstances in Congress.”
– In February 2008, Palin’s office sent Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) “a 70-page memo outlining almost $200 million worth of new funding requests for the state.”
– In her most recent earmark requests, “Palin requested millions of federal dollars for everything from improving recreational halibut fishing to studying the mating habits of crabs and the DNA of harbor seals.”
Thursday, September 11, 2008
ABC News Exposes Palin Book Banning Inquiry
ABC News does some actual reporting and exposes more about Sarah Palin's "rhetorical inquiries' about banning books at the local library. See the video below.
My main question to anyone out there that sees this is the same as my main question to come out of the Troopergate investigations. Do you think that everyday, savvy politicians are stupid enough to come right out and actually ask for something nefarious to be done?
In Troopergate, of course we're likely not going to discover a smoking gun where Palin says to the Public Safety Commissioner: "You are hereby commanded to fire my sister's ex-husband or I will fire you in retaliation." We have gotten what we would have expected in an abuse of power investigation. She and her staff made pointed "inquiries" about the status of her sister's ex-husband with the police force and expressed "curiosity" about how crappy it would look for the department if they retained him. This is the way of sneaky, savvy politicians -- don't say it in a way that will get you caught.
This book banning thing is cut of the same cloth. Once she was elected mayor, she "rhetorically inquired" of the town Librarian what her reaction would be if Mayor Palin asked her to ban certain books. The Librarian responded negatively and said that wouldn't be appropriate. Guess what happened? The Librarian was sacked a couple months later. Big freaking surprise. So don't whine to me how no books were actually banned -- Sarah Palin was licking around the edges to feel out how receptive the Librarian would be to an under-the-table order to ban some -- gasp! -- gay-positive books. When she realized the Librarian wouldn't play ball, she fired her in order to appoint a more pliable alternative. Stay classy, Sarah.
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
The Sarah Palin Digest
Think Progress did a marvelous job compiling all we know at this point about Sarah Palin. Click on one of the links below to read up on all of the issues that have come to light thus far:
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Ruby Tuesday's Does Better Vetting Than McCain
Charlie Cook, the great political analyst, passed this along today: He spoke with someone who described going through three interviews before getting a job at Ruby Tuesday’s. If you generously construe the record, that’s one more discussion than McCain had with Palin. Maybe Ruby Tuesday’s should have done McCain’s vetting for him.
McCain Voicemail to Palin Leaked to Press
Click on the link below to listen to a voicemail McCain left for Sarah Palin that was leaked to the press today. As Matt Stoller notes:
[A]ll I can think is that there is no longer any meaningful difference between parody and reality. It's as if all those Americans who choose to pay attention to celebrity gossip instead of politics, leading to laments from the liberal village, were correct. Paying attention to politics makes you dumber. How the fuck did John McCain nominate an Alaskan separatist? What? Seriously? Really? Let me ask that again. Really?
Listen to the leaked voicemail here.
Palin Fought Against Ted Stevens? Lie.
There sure are a remarkable number of lies emerging in the first few days since Sarah Palin was chosen as McCain's VP. One talking point lie they're continuing to spread is that she was a staunch opponent of recently indicted Alaska Senator Ted Stevens. As it turns out, she was a director of his 527 political fundraising organization!
Palin's name is listed on 2003 incorporation papers of the "Ted Stevens Excellence in Public Service, Inc.," a 527 group that could raise unlimited funds from corporate donors. The group was designed to serve as a political boot camp for Republican women in the state. She served as one of three directors until June 2005, when her name was replaced on state filings.
Add this to the proven lie that she opposed the "Bridge to Nowhere", the absurd falsehood that being close to Russia gives her foreign policy experience, and her continued, proven mendaciousness with respect to the illegitimate firing of Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan and you are starting to get a picture of a two Republican polticians with little regard for the truth.
Why Not Vetting Sarah Palin Matters
I just want to drive this point home because I may have been a bit obtuse about it over the weekend. The simple fact of the matter is that John McCain did very little (if any) vetting on Sarah Palin before choosing her as his running mate. This is not arguable; it has been confirmed to the New York Times that vetting staff did not arrive in Alaska or conduct inquiries until late Thursday of last week (the very same day McCain made his pick and the day before he announced it to the world):
"Aides to Mr. McCain said they had a team on the ground in Alaska now to look more thoroughly into Ms. Palin’s background. A Republican with ties to the campaign said the team assigned to vet Ms. Palin in Alaska had not arrived there until Thursday, a day before Mr. McCain stunned the political world with his vice-presidential choice. The campaign was still calling Republican operatives as late as Sunday night asking them to go to Alaska to deal with the unexpected candidacy of Ms. Palin." (emphasis mine)
I don't have an enormous amount of time to go into the myriad ways this demonstrates how incomprehensibly reckless and irresponsible this decision was.
I believe any reasonably minded person out there would agree that vetting a VP candidate for potential scandals and red flags is an enormously important process to undertake.
Just imagine if the vetting team (or the media) uncovers a deal breaker -- NOW; after the choice has already been made! It would RUIN the McCain campaign by driving the final nail into the coffin of McCain's supposedly high-quality judgment and decision-making skills.
As hilzoy opines:
Here's John Cole:As far as I'm concerned, the story about Sarah Palin is what John McCain's decision to make her his running mate says about his judgment. And what this tells us is stunning. It is basic, basic politics that before you ask someone to become your running mate, you vet them thoroughly. You want to know what you're getting into, and you don't want any unfortunate surprises. Apparently, McCain didn't bother to do this. That's astonishing. It's like starting surgery before you do an initial medical workup and diagnosis, or handing all your money over to a financial advisor before you find out whether she's legitimate. In this particular case, there are two huge problems with what McCain did.
The first is the most obvious: in choosing a Vice Presidential nominee, McCain is choosing someone who might well end up taking over as President. This would be true for anyone, but it's especially true in McCain's case, since he is a 72 year old cancer survivor. Anyone who "puts country first", as McCain is fond of telling us he does, would have taken care to ensure that that person was up to the job, and had no unpleasant secrets like, oh, past membership in a fringe secessionist organization. Not bothering to do the most basic due diligence before naming her as his running mate is staggeringly irresponsible.
The second is that McCain was willing to take a huge gamble not just with our country, but with his own political interests. As I said earlier, gambling with the country is worse, but gambling with your own interests is a different kind of bad judgment, and worth noting in its own right. If you are selfish enough to put your own interests above the interests of your country, that's awful. But it doesn't move you into the realm of the wholly unpredictable, the people from whom you truly never know what to expect. (It's like being one of those dictators who are nonetheless rational enough that things like deterrence can work with them: you are bad, but bad in a way that makes it possible to anticipate what you might do next.)
Being willing to take a huge and reckless gamble with your own interests is not like that. It's not cool and collected selfishness that leaves room for some hope that if your interests and the interests of your country align, you might end up doing the right thing for the wrong reasons. It's sheer impulsive stupidity: an unwillingness to think, in even the most basic ways, before you act. That's a terrible trait in a President.
Vetting someone after you put them on the ticket [is] part of the change we can all believe in if we elect McSame.And Ben Smith:
I can't remember the last introduction to the national scene this rocky, and it gets worse every hour — and even before the investigative reporters have settled in to Anchorage.
To Josh Marshall:
A lot of attention is being given to Gov. Palin's daughter's situation. The much bigger deal is the expanding trooper-gate investigation, the fact that Palin lied in her Friday speech about her purported opposition to the Bridge to Nowhere, her apparent former membership in the secessionist Alaska Independence Party, and more. Individually, you can come to your own judgment about how consequential these stories are. What they show pretty clearly now -- in addition to the news that the McCain campaign is only now sending in a vetting team -- is that John McCain didn't do any serious vetting of Palin before he invited her to join his ticket and, he hopes, become Vice President of the United States.
Fundamentally, of course, this is about John McCain. And the real issue here is what this slapdash decision says about his judgment.
And, finally, the New York Times:
While there was no sign that her formal nomination this week was in jeopardy, the questions swirling around Ms. Palin on the first day of the Republican National Convention, already disrupted by Hurricane Gustav, brought anxiety to Republicans who worried that Democrats would use the selection of Ms. Palin to question Mr. McCain’s judgment and his ability to make crucial decisions.
At the least, Republicans close to the campaign said it was increasingly apparent that Ms. Palin had been selected as Mr. McCain’s running mate with more haste than McCain advisers initially described...
Although The Washington Post quoted advisers to Mr. McCain on Sunday as saying Ms. Palin had been subjected to an F.B.I. background check, an F.B.I. official said Monday the bureau did not vet potential candidates and had not known of her selection until it was made public.
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