The Governor of Alaska abruptly announced that she was abdicating her office on the occasion of the Governor’s Picnic on July 26th. The announcement left the nation’s pundits confused. They were not at a loss for words. They never are. But the confusion was spread across the breadth of the political spectrum. Why would a politically prominent incumbent Governor resign her office? Her rambling statement delivered in her back yard did not give us a clear reason. It did contain hints.
“Every one – all 15 of the ethics complaints have been dismissed. We’ve won! But it hasn't been cheap - the State has wasted THOUSANDS of hours of YOUR time and shelled out some two million of YOUR dollars to respond to “opposition research” – that’s money NOT going to fund teachers or troopers – or safer roads. And this political absurdity, the “politics of personal destruction” … Todd and I are looking at more than half a million dollars in legal bills in order to set the record straight. And what about the people who offer up these silly accusations? It doesn’t cost them a dime so they’re not going to stop draining public resources – spending other peoples’ money in their game.
“It’s pretty insane – my staff and I spend most of our day dealing with THIS instead of progressing our state now. I know I promised no more “politics as usual,” but THIS isn’t what anyone had in mind for ALASKA.”
There were more than 15 ethics complaints. There were 18 and three are still pending. The most serious of which is the establishment of the Alaska Fund Trust, a nation wide effort to raise funds to pay off Ms. Palin’s legal expenses. http://www.thealaskafundtrust.com/about/
That complaint filed April 27th alleges the misuse of power for Sarah Palin’s personal gain. Here in Illinois we are used to politicians who use their office and fund raising for personal gain with one Governor convicted and his successor indicted. We call it “Pay for Play”.
There is no doubt that paying off legal debts is a private benefit and one that results in taxable personal income to the beneficiary. The fund promised transparency and says on its website that it will make quarterly reports of receipts and expenditures available for public scrutiny. The first such report has yet to be filed. It may well be that Alaskan kitchen just got too hot for the nation’s premier hockey mom.
So Palin says she's quitting partly due to the fact that people are filing frivolous complaints occupying all of her time and driving her into massive debt. And your rebuttle to that is to note that 15 of those complaints have already been dismissed but three are still outstanding, including the MOST SERIOUS complaint filed of all... complaining that she dare try to raise funds for legal fees for defending herself against a series of frivolous complaints?
Maybe, I'm just not getting this. They're actually complaining... that she's trying to raise money... to pay for the legal funds... for all of the complaints... 15 out of 17 dismissed thus far... not including the complaint that she's raising money for all those frivolous complaints.
I haven't been following the Palin coverage at all since the election. Heard about some ethics complaints putting her in debt and such, but hadn't really heard one way or the other if the complaints had merit or if she was just playing the 'woe is me' card. But thanks to your description, I think it might be safe to say that Palin's personal hate-club have gone completely nuts trying to destroy her with anything and everything they got. Which is absurd since the only thing it took in the election was to interview her on national tv.
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Glock21 Op/Ed
Glock,
That sounds awfully like Blago's defense mantra...
3 Score + 10
Keith Hays
Pointing out that you seem to be making her point for her is the "Blago defense mantra?" [insert head scratching here]
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Glock21 Op/Ed
Others have pointed out, and I've been quite amused by, the fact that it took the "liberal" press just hours to go from "WTF?" to "ZOMG, this is such a brilliant move. 2012 all the way, baby!"
There seem to be two major theories out there on why she is doing this.
The first is that she has come to see her elected office as an anchor. She is now a celebrity and has, at least for a time, an opportunity to make a considerable amount of money. Whether this is the lecture circuit, a spot on Fox News, talk radio or whatever, people will pay to see her and hear her. And she does not at all give up the chance for future elected office.
The second theory is that there is something big out there yet unknown. Some call it the "other shoe" ,others call it the "iceberg" that make her stay in office untenable. Although she says that this decision has been in the works for some time, there is evidence that it was made and announced very suddenly. There are rumors of a looming indictment but not much to back up the rumors. It could also be a major health issue for her or a family member.
I'm wondering if there might be some kind of marital problem because I noticed that when she talked about the decision, she mentioned her children but not her husband.
SORRY FOLKS, I COULDN'T RESIST SHARING THIS.
Top 10 Real Reasons Sarah Palin Is Resigning As Governor:
10. She's pregnant again and is having John Edwards' baby.
9. She's "hiking the Appalachian Trail" with Mark Sanford.
8. She wants to spend more time teaching abstinence to her family.
7. She's joining the cast of "I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here!"
6. She wants to spend more time watching Russia from her house.
5. She wants to devote herself full-time to making comedians apologize for all the new jokes they're going to tell about her.
4. Her daughter Bristol actually IS having Alex Rodriguez's baby.
3. She's taking up Playboy's offer to pose nude as part of their upcoming "Governors Gone Wild" issue.
2. She came to the end of the Bridge to Nowhere that is her political career.
1. She didn't resign at all. It was an elaborate hoax pulled off by Tina Fey.
Posted by: Susan in Buffalo Grove | July 4, 2009 11:24 AM
http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog/2009/07/sarah_palin_timeout_or_flameou_1.html
3 Score + 10
Keith Hays
FOR WHAT IT IS WORTH THIS FROM THE AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE WEBSITE:
http://www.amconmag.com/postright/2009/07/04/palin-embezzlement-scandal/
Posted on July 4th, 2009 by Nathan P. Origer
MINT-AND-CORN COUNTRY, INDIANA — Courtesy of Ian Geldard, this from The Inquisitr:
Sources are saying that Sarah Palin’s sudden resignation as Alaska Governor is actually damage control because a major embezzlement scandal is about to erupt involving construction projects in her home town of Wasilla, Alaska.
Multiple sources have been digging around in the wake of Sarah Palin’s cryptic resignation speech Friday and they’ve found that when Palin was Mayor of her home town of Wasilla, AK in 2002, she was influental in the construction of the Wasilla Sports Complex and hockey arena. First of all, the $12mil+ project ended up in the hands of contractors who were friends of friends of Palin. Secondly, at around the same time the sports complex was being built, so was Palin’s new house. What’s interesting about that is the house is constructed from the exact same materials the sports complex was built with. The windows in both structures are the same, the wood is the same, pretty well everything.
When the house was being built, Palin, being Mayor at the time, influenced the bylaw requiring building permits in the town so that now there is no official list of the contractors who worked on her house.
3 Score + 10
Keith Hays
I've heard the same thing, and it will be interesting to see if it's true. If the investigation is real, I'm confident that conservatives will call for just as thorough investigation as they did for Whitewater.
What’s interesting about that is the house is constructed from the exact same materials the sports complex was built with. The windows in both structures are the same, the wood is the same, pretty well everything.
Gee is the wood, wood? I suppose the windows have glass in them. Sounds like too much of a coincidence to me, throw her in jail.
Believe it or not, Run, oak, maple and pine are different. Pella windows are different than Anderson windows. Romex is stamped and can be traced.
If it's innocent it's innocent. If it's graft it's graft. Let's wait and see. Stevens conviction was tossed out because of prosecutorial misconduct, not innocence. I bet the prosecutors, if there will be a prosection, will be much more careful.
Anchorage Daily News has an article about this, though mainly about the Palin response threatening legal action over defamation. Looks like an old rumor dug up from the campaign that isn't part of any actual investigation (at least no known one, at this time) that the Palin's are either reasonably peeved about (though arguably threatening groundless legal action as a public figure) or are seriously concerned about (though with no confirmation that the rumors are true yet).
The article linked above notes that reasoning behind the same work materials was due to the use of the same main supplier for both commercial and residential building materials being available at the time. I have no idea if this is accurate or not, but it seems pretty sound:
For what it's worth to you Palin lovers/haters and anybody in between.
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Glock21 Op/Ed
Palin is like watching a NASCAR race. I watch for the drama, the near misses, and the crashes but I don't really care who wins.
For what it's worth to you Palin lovers/haters and anybody in between.
I do like Palin, Every Kos post becomes fact and the News Media runs with it until they are proven completely wrong and then they come up with more garbage to spread.
"until they are proven completely wrong and then they come up with more garbage to spread."
Much like you. You are proved wrong every day here. All of your conclusions are the most simplistic idiocy possible. You can be refuted immediately at every turn, yet you keep coming back here to spread more ignorance.
Your moronic comment about the doors and windows is simply a new low for you, at least until later today or tomorrow, when you'll come back and sink farther.
Also, to Glochicken -- being a public figure does not make one unable to file suits in these instances. Of course, trying to explain anything to you is pointless, as you'll simply wipe away a puddle of drool and keep running in the same direction.
Just another day of the full-scale idiots on display here.
Time to ban Wenalway. Again.
It helps to ignore him as much as humanly possible to avoid encouraging him to repeat his pointless insults yet again. They'll eventually be deleted anyways, and as evidenced by plenty of other threads, engaging him has never been a worthwhile venture because repeating insults ad nauseum is all you'll ever get in return.
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Glock21 Op/Ed
It helps to ignore him as much as humanly possible to avoid encouraging him to repeat his pointless insults yet again. They'll eventually be deleted anyways, and as evidenced by plenty of other threads, engaging him has never been a worthwhile venture because repeating insults ad nauseum is all you'll ever get in return.
Yeah, it occurred to me that it'd be pretty easy to make a Wenalway bot that spews repetitive insults and empty threats, and I wondered if it'd be possible to tell the bot from the human.
Bot is fine or pet that writes comically weird comments that really mean nothing.
*yawn*
FBI weighed in on the investigation rumors. CNN has an article on it here.
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Glock21 Op/Ed
Glock:
Thanks for that post. Rumor has the capacity to become "fact" by virtue of repetition. The conspiracy theorists will have a tough time saying "Yeah, but..." to the FBI.
3 Score + 10
Keith Hays
Wow, I guess that pit bull in lipstick was actually a chicken in high heels.
According to CNN Sarah Palin wants you to know that she is not a quitter - of course she said that just 3 days after she announced that she was quitting.
"I am not a quitter. I am a fighter," Palin told CNN on Monday while on a family fishing trip, on the heels of her Friday bombshell announcement that she was resigning as Alaska's governor.
Palin did her interview standing on the shores of Dillingham, Alaska, wearing hip waders. She granted 10-minute interviews to CNN and three other news networks Monday.
She resigned because of the tremendous pressure, time and financial burden of a litany of ethics complaints in the past several months, she said. The complaints were without merit and took away from the job she wanted to do for Alaskans, Palin said.
"The decision to resign a year and a half before her term ends, and her rambling, often-disjointed resignation speech Friday, fueled days of debate among political analysts.
Her lawyer had a slightly different take.
No legal "bombshell" or personal scandal lies behind Palin's resignation, but off-color jokes by talk-show host David Letterman contributed to her decision to step down, Thomas Van Flein said.
The governor needed a break after being "on duty now for two and a half years solid," he said.
"There is no bombshell. There is no shoe to drop. There are no investigations of any type that I'm aware of -- no IRS audit, no federal investigation, no state investigation," Van Flein told CNN. "There is no legal reason in terms of a legal problem that compelled the governor to resign."
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/07/07/palin.resignation/index.html
If she can't take the pressure of two and a half years solid in the Governor's office; if she can't take being the butt of rather ugly and unfunny jibes on late night TV how does she expect to weather four long years in the Oval office?
3 Score + 10
Keith Hays
Well, this is national news so I'm not sure that any of us have a very informed opinion, but I have noticed a collective scratching of the head when it comes to this episode from Palin. Which surprises me. I watched the video last night for the first time and I think her motivation for quitting is simple: money. She has a book coming out which will most likely require a publicity tour. She rakes in millions of dollars for the GOP every time she speaks, but she keeps very little of it. She comes from a pretty middle-class (lower middle-class?) background and has not become wealthy as Governor of AK. At some point she has to look at all that revenue she is generating for the Republican coffers and think, "Where's my piece of the pie?"
It also, imo, fits her character. Sarah Palin cares about Sarah Palin. Not the GOP, not America, not "freedom," or whatever. Palin for Palin, simple as that.
It's about the money.
She comes from a pretty middle-class (lower middle-class?) background and has not become wealthy as Governor of AK.
Of course there was that modest little cottage that Todd and a few of his best buddies built for her when she was Mayor of Wasilla - appraised at a half a million....
3 Score + 10
Keith Hays
Possibly sweat equity, Keith, and no one ever said that housing values were inflated in only the lower 48 states...Also wouldn't be surprised to hear that somehow these materials were purchased at the contractor rate, not the retailer rate you or I would pay if we walked into that same building supply store.
I'm sure she's quitting to take time out to raise as many bucks for herself and her family as she can. If she fails to win the 2012 Republican Presidential nomination, we'll be treated to more whining by Sarah Palin about how she's held to a different standard, discriminated against, blah blah blah....
Perhaps we should selecting the cheeses to go with those whines.
Possibly sweat equity, Keith, and no one ever said that housing values were inflated in only the lower 48 states...
Sweat equity indeed. And could this be why the Palins are sweating?
Palin's personal spokeswoman, Meg Stapleton, sent out a statement from Van Flein [Palin's lawyer] attacking "false and defamatory allegations that the 'real' reasons for Governor Palin's resignation stem from an alleged criminal investigation pertaining to the construction of the Wasilla Sports Complex."
Rumors that Palin steered contracts for the 2003 construction of the Wasilla Sports Complex before leaving office as Wasilla mayor the previous fall, in return for work building her home about the same time, have been around at least since the vice presidential campaign last fall. They've resurfaced on many Web sites this weekend following her abrupt announcement she will resign from office in three weeks. Palin's house, almost 3,500 square feet with four bedrooms and four baths, is on a two-acre site along scenic Lake Lucille in Wasilla and is assessed at $532,500.
Van Flein wrote in his Saturday letter that the Palin family built the Lake Lucille house using Palin's husband, Todd, as general contractor. It said Todd "is no stranger to construction."
"The Palins used a combination of personal savings, equity from the sale of their private home, and conventional bank financing to build the house, like millions of American families" Van Flein wrote. http://www.adn.com/palin/story/853746.html
3 Score + 10
Keith Hays