Mike and Molly had a rocky marriage. When the marriage broke up, there was a bitter custody fight that is still ongoing. During the custody investigation, all sorts of things were brought up about Wooten including the fact that he had illegally shot a moose (yes folks this is Alaska), driven drunk, and used a taser (on the test setting, he reminds us) on his 11-year old stepson, who supposedly had asked to see what it felt like. While Wooten has turned out to be a less than stellar figure, the fact that Palin's father accompanied him on the infamous moose hunt, and that many of the dozens of charges brought up by the Palin family happened long before they were ever reported smacked of desperate custody fight. Wooten's story is that he was basically stalked by the family.
After all this, Wooten was investigated and disciplined on two counts and allowed to kept his position with the troopers. Enter Walt Monegan, Palin's appointed new chief of the Department of Public Safety and head of the troopers. Monegan was beloved by the troopers, did a bang-up job with minimal funding and suddenly got axed. Palin was out of town and Monegan got "offered another job" (aka fired) with no explanation to Alaskans. Pressure was put on the governor to give details, because rumors started to swirl around the fact that the highly respected Monegan was fired because he refused to fire the aforementioned Mike Wooten. Palin vehemently denied ever talking to Monegan or pressuring Monegan in any way to fire Wooten, or that anyone on her staff did. Over the weeks it has come out that not only was pressure applied, there were literally dozens of conversations in which pressure was applied to fire him. Monegan has testified to this fact, spurring an ongoing investigation by the Alaska state legislature. But, before this investigation got underway, Palin sent the Alaska State Attorney General out to do some investigative work of his own so she could find out in advance what the real investigation was going to find. (No, I'm not making this up). The AG interviewed several people, unbeknownst to the actual appointed investigator or the Legislature! Palin's investigation of herself uncovered a recorded phone call retained by the Alaska State Troopers from Frank Bailey, a Palin underling, putting pressure on a trooper about the Wooten non-firing. Todd Palin (governor's husband) even talked to Monegan himself in Palin's office while she was away. Bailey is now on paid administrative leave.
As if this weren't enough, Monegan's appointed replacement Chuck Kopp, turns out to have been the center of his own little scandal. He received a letter of reprimand and was reassigned after sexual harrassment allegations by a former coworker who didn't like all the unwanted kissing and hugging in the office. Was he vetted? Obviously not. When he was questioned about all this, his comment was that no one had asked him and he thought they all knew. Kopp, defiant, still claimed to have done nothing wrong and said to the press that there was no way he was stepping down from his new position. Twenty four hours later, he stepped down. Later it was uncovered that he received a $10,000 severance package for his two weeks on the job from Palin. Monegan got nothing.
After extensive news coverage about all this nasty behind-the-scenes scandal, which is definitely NOT squeaky clean, Palin's approval ratings fell to 67%, still high, but a far cry from the 90% number that's being thrown around so glibly by the Republicans today. Alaskans are quickly becoming disillusioned once again.
More on:
Mudflats (an Alaska blog)
Sunday, September 7, 2008
A Wasilla city councilperson, on Sarah Palin
This is a signed e-mail that has gone out to many people. Having removed the person's name, I've gone ahead and cut and pasted. It is all public information and not rumor or other B.S.
>She is savvy. She doesn't take positions; she just "puts things out there" and if they prove to be popular, then she takes credit. Her husband works a union job on the North Slope for BP and is a champion snowmobile racer. Todd Palin's kind of job is highly sought-after because of the schedule and high pay. He arranges his work schedule so he can fish for salmon in Bristol Bay for a month or so in summer . . .
> Sarah campaigned in Wasilla as a "fiscal conservative". During her 6 years as Mayor, she increased general government expenditures by over 33%. During those same 6 years the amount of taxes collected by the City increased by 38%. This was during a period of low inflation (1996-2002). She reduced progressive property taxes and increased a regressive sales tax which taxed even food. The tax cuts that she promoted benefited large corporate property owners way more than they benefited residents.
>
> The huge increases in tax revenues during her mayoral administration weren't enough to fund everything on her wish list though, borrowed money was needed, too. She inherited a city with zero debt, but left it with indebtedness of over $22 million. What did Mayor Palin encourage the voters to borrow money for? Was it the infrastructure that she said she supported? The sewage treatment plant that the city lacked? or a new library? No. $1m for a park. $15m-plus for construction of a multi-use sports complex which she rushed through to build on a piece of property that the City didn't even have clear title to, that was still in litigation 7 yrs later--to the delight of the lawyers involved! The sports complex itself is a nice addition to the community but a huge money pit, not the profit-generator she claimed it would be. She also supported bonds for $5.5m for road projects that could have been done in 5-7 yrs without any borrowing.
. . .
> She's not very tolerant of divergent opinions or open to outside ideas or compromise. As Mayor, she fought ideas that weren't generated by her or her staff. Ideas weren't evaluated on their merits, but on the basis of who proposed them.
>
> While Sarah was Mayor of Wasilla she tried to fire our highly respected City Librarian because the Librarian refused to consider removing from the library some books that Sarah wanted removed. City residents rallied to the defense of the City Librarian and against Palin's attempt at out-and-out censorship, so Palin backed down and withdrew her termination letter. People who fought her attempt to oust the Librarian are on her enemies list to this day.
>
. . .
>
> She has bitten the hand of every person who extended theirs to her in help. The City Council person who personally escorted her around town introducing her to voters when she first ran for Wasilla City Council became one of her first targets when she was later elected Mayor. She abruptly fired her loyal City Administrator; even people who didn't like the guy were stunned by this ruthlessness.
>
> Fear of retribution has kept all of these people from saying anything publicly about her.
>
> When then-Governor Murkowski was handing out political plums, Sarah got the best, Chair of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission: one of the few jobs not in Juneau and one of the best paid. She had no background in oil & gas issues. Within months of scoring this great job which paid $122,400/yr, she was complaining in the press about the high salary. I was told that she hated that job: the commute, the structured hours, the work. Sarah became aware that a member of this Commission (who was also the State Chair of the Republican Party) engaged in unethical behavior on the job. In a gutsy move which some undoubtedly cautioned her could be political suicide, Sarah solved all her problems in one fell swoop: got out of the job she hated and garnered gobs of media attention as the patron saint of ethics and as a gutsy fighter against the "old boys' club" when she dramatically quit, exposing this man's ethics violations (for which he was fined).
>
> As Mayor, she had her hand stuck out as far as anyone for pork from Senator Ted Stevens. Lately, she has castigated his pork-barrel politics and publicly humiliated him. She only opposed the "bridge to nowhere" after it became clear that it would be unwise not to.
>
> As Governor, she gave the Legislature no direction and budget guidelines, then made a big grandstand display of line-item vetoing projects, calling them pork. Public outcry and further legislative action restored most of these projects--which had been vetoed simply because she was not aware of their importance--but with the unobservant she had gained a reputation as "anti-pork".
My comments. If one remembers that Alaska is a wilderness state, and that a fire hose of cash is on full, 24-7, compared to, say, Pennsylvania, one gets it right. Just imagine a facsimile of that fire hose right beside her, turned on full, as she speaks; then imagine, proportionally to population, a smaller, garden hose spraying loose change at Biden's feet, when he talks. Who has the bona fides to talk about standing up to excess, reigning in corruption, fighting for working people (who don't get freebies, ever)?
>
I have also eliminated the bulk of the text, which tells us in plain prose much of what is well known already about Palin. The au., who was one of the city councilpeople who thwarted Palin's efforts to censor the local library, has been on the outs with her since then (since 1996), and moreover, cannot justify the figures she cites so as to take into account inflation or other mitigating factors. Nonetheless . . .
So:
So:
> Sarah campaigned in Wasilla as a "fiscal conservative". During her 6 years as Mayor, she increased general government expenditures by over 33%. During those same 6 years the amount of taxes collected by the City increased by 38%. This was during a period of low inflation (1996-2002). She reduced progressive property taxes and increased a regressive sales tax which taxed even food. The tax cuts that she promoted benefited large corporate property owners way more than they benefited residents.
>
> The huge increases in tax revenues during her mayoral administration weren't enough to fund everything on her wish list though, borrowed money was needed, too. She inherited a city with zero debt, but left it with indebtedness of over $22 million. What did Mayor Palin encourage the voters to borrow money for? Was it the infrastructure that she said she supported? The sewage treatment plant that the city lacked? or a new library? No. $1m for a park. $15m-plus for construction of a multi-use sports complex which she rushed through to build on a piece of property that the City didn't even have clear title to, that was still in litigation 7 yrs later--to the delight of the lawyers involved! The sports complex itself is a nice addition to the community but a huge money pit, not the profit-generator she claimed it would be. She also supported bonds for $5.5m for road projects that could have been done in 5-7 yrs without any borrowing.
. . .
> She's not very tolerant of divergent opinions or open to outside ideas or compromise. As Mayor, she fought ideas that weren't generated by her or her staff. Ideas weren't evaluated on their merits, but on the basis of who proposed them.
>
> While Sarah was Mayor of Wasilla she tried to fire our highly respected City Librarian because the Librarian refused to consider removing from the library some books that Sarah wanted removed. City residents rallied to the defense of the City Librarian and against Palin's attempt at out-and-out censorship, so Palin backed down and withdrew her termination letter. People who fought her attempt to oust the Librarian are on her enemies list to this day.
>
. . .
>
> She has bitten the hand of every person who extended theirs to her in help. The City Council person who personally escorted her around town introducing her to voters when she first ran for Wasilla City Council became one of her first targets when she was later elected Mayor. She abruptly fired her loyal City Administrator; even people who didn't like the guy were stunned by this ruthlessness.
>
> Fear of retribution has kept all of these people from saying anything publicly about her.
>
> When then-Governor Murkowski was handing out political plums, Sarah got the best, Chair of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission: one of the few jobs not in Juneau and one of the best paid. She had no background in oil & gas issues. Within months of scoring this great job which paid $122,400/yr, she was complaining in the press about the high salary. I was told that she hated that job: the commute, the structured hours, the work. Sarah became aware that a member of this Commission (who was also the State Chair of the Republican Party) engaged in unethical behavior on the job. In a gutsy move which some undoubtedly cautioned her could be political suicide, Sarah solved all her problems in one fell swoop: got out of the job she hated and garnered gobs of media attention as the patron saint of ethics and as a gutsy fighter against the "old boys' club" when she dramatically quit, exposing this man's ethics violations (for which he was fined).
>
> As Mayor, she had her hand stuck out as far as anyone for pork from Senator Ted Stevens. Lately, she has castigated his pork-barrel politics and publicly humiliated him. She only opposed the "bridge to nowhere" after it became clear that it would be unwise not to.
>
> As Governor, she gave the Legislature no direction and budget guidelines, then made a big grandstand display of line-item vetoing projects, calling them pork. Public outcry and further legislative action restored most of these projects--which had been vetoed simply because she was not aware of their importance--but with the unobservant she had gained a reputation as "anti-pork".
My comments. If one remembers that Alaska is a wilderness state, and that a fire hose of cash is on full, 24-7, compared to, say, Pennsylvania, one gets it right. Just imagine a facsimile of that fire hose right beside her, turned on full, as she speaks; then imagine, proportionally to population, a smaller, garden hose spraying loose change at Biden's feet, when he talks. Who has the bona fides to talk about standing up to excess, reigning in corruption, fighting for working people (who don't get freebies, ever)?
>
Thursday, September 4, 2008
One more on Palin
Let's be honest. Palin is a master stroke by the GOP and we are deluding ourselves if we echo the line about McCain's "unpredictable" behavior in choosing her.
She is a prime catch, and she will damage the Democrats.
The GOP taunted Obama that he's popular in part because of "celebrity." Then, they caught whiff unexpectedly of some truth lying in the nest of deceit, and said, "Hey, wait a minute. What about if we really use celebrity, like in American Idol? We might be able to do Obama one better."
They know this is so, because they know the caliber of the voter they are after. Let's take a look at this statistically:
Say 90% of Hillary voters know enough about themselves and the world not to support McCain-Palin. That remaining 10% of the pants-suit brigade are too wrapped up in themselves and their worlds to care about much else, and will tell themselves the right stories so as to feel good about voting for an image, a face and a story, rather than a leader with a plan for them.
Every attack on her lack of experience can be refitted as an attack on Obama, and what's left over, as an attack on "hockey moms" all over the country. That's because there is nothing there, really, to attack. She's a cipher.
The most brilliant part of the Palin strategy is that it binds the evangelical right to McCain on election day, much, much more closely than if a qualified rightist Christian were chosen: say, a doctor or another mellifluous patrician. That's because such a VP candidate would offer a target, being a politician who had been angling for national power all his life, and left a record therein. Because Palin is a nonentity, giving her the VP slot puts the entire evangelical Right in McCain's debt. They know that they owe nothing to Palin herself, and so, they will express their appreciation and vote, and fight all the harder for Palin rhetorically.
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Why Palin?
Chris Matthews: "Four years is a lot different from four days."
"She has to tell us a little more about who she is . . ."
Says the old Christian compromiser, Trent Lott. There are other things that matter, he tells Brokaw, besides ability to lead the nation. "My wife . . . really likes what she sees."
What David Brickner actually said in Sarah Palin's Assemblies of God congregation on August 17th
There’s a lot that I could tell you about. I want to encourage you to stop at the literature table after the service; that has a lot of free material as well as some not-so-free stuff. Since I was here last time, we produced this DVD, called “Forbidden Peace,” which tells the story of how Israelis and Arabs are coming to faith in Jesus, and then being reconciled together through the power of His love. And we’re seeing that happen in the ministry of Jews for Jesus. And so we want to encourage you to be involved, to support us in the offering if God should lead you; but most importantly, to recognize what’s happening there right now, I believe, is the fulfillment of God’s promises. And I say that with some fear and trepidation, because I am not a prophet, nor the son of a prophet, and I work for a non-profit organization. ☺
But what we see in Israel, the conflict that is spilled out throughout the Middle East, really which is all about Jerusalem, is an ongoing reflection of the fact that there is judgment. There is judgment that is going on in the land, and that’s the other part of this Jerusalem Dilemma. When Jesus was standing in that temple, He spoke that that judgment was coming, that there’s a reality to the judgment of unbelief. He said “I long to gather you, but...” what? “You were unwilling.” God never forces His way on human beings. And so because Jerusalem was unwilling to receive His grace, judgment was coming. He says, “Look, your house has left you desolate!” What did He mean by that? Remember where He is. He’s standing in the temple there in Jerusalem, the place where God had promised, through Moses,
“There I will meet with you, there I will hear your prayers, and there I will forgive your sin.”
And now Jesus in that temple, just before going to the cross, says, ‘From now on this place is desolate.’ And Jesus’ words have echoed down through the centuries. Not a generation after He uttered this promise, Titus and his Roman legions marched into that city and destroyed both the city and the temple. And from that day until this very present there has been no temple, and there is therefore no sacrifice in Judaism. Only we could sacrifice in...the only place was in the temple. And therefore there has been, and there is today, no confidence of atonement, no confidence of forgiveness. If you were to stand outside of a synagogue on the day of atonement and ask those leaving the service, “Did God hear your prayers? Were your sins forgiven on this most holy of all days?” the answer would be, “I hope. I hope, but who can know?” Who indeed but those of us who have come under the wings of the Almighty, who’ve entered into that place of grace where forgiveness is assured for the dilemma of human life. Judgment is very real and we see it played out on the pages of the newspapers and on the television. It’s very real.
When Isaac [David Brickner's son] was in Jerusalem he was there to witness some of that judgment, some of that conflict, when a Palestinian from East Jerusalem took a bulldozer and went plowing through a score of cars, killing numbers of people. Judgment—you can’t miss it. And Jesus talks about it, but He didn’t leave us there. There’s a promise of a return from this judgment. Jesus concludes His message there in the temple by saying this—‘I tell you, you will not see Me again, you will not experience what I have come to bring, this place of grace which I have and will soon establish...you will not see Me again until you say, until you’re able with conviction to articulate, these words: “Baruch hab-ba bashem Adonai—Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.”’ Once again quoting again from a Psalm, this time Psalm 118:
The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief...the chief corner stone. And this is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes.
Save now, we beseech Thee; save now, O Lord!
Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.
‘You will not see Me until you can acknowledge Me as the One who’s come, as the stone once rejected by the builders, but now the chief, until you say “Jesus, You’re the Messiah!”’ Not many days after He said these words there were some three thousand Jews who saw Him. After His death, burial, resurrection, and ascension to glory, Peter on the day of Pentecost preached in Jerusalem. And the Holy Spirit fell, and those three thousand heard the word of God, and they repented. They turned from their unbelief to faith, and He came to dwell in their hearts. They saw Him.
And I’m so grateful to God that here I am some two thousand years later, a Jew who has said to Jesus, “Baruch Hab-ba bashem Adonai”; and yet most of my people have not. They’re still waiting. And therein lies the burden of my heart, and of Jews for Jesus, and I want to invite you to share that burden with us today. I want you to do it in a very specific way, by singing these very words of the Lord from Psalm 118. I’m gonna ask the band to come back up and help me.
Baruch hab-ba bashem Adonai.
Cribbed from church's downloadable sermons, first referenced by Politico.com, lest anyone care.
Well, they are Christians! This is how serious Christians in this country think and feel. Of course they want to convert the Jews of Israel to Christianity. It figures in the Pentacostal vein of millenarian thinking, where the Holy Land hosts the Second Coming of Jesus, and the world is consumed in flames! Why can't we take this rather more seriously — surely if you think that God has the earth in his hand and is liable to destroy or transform it at any time, you are less concerned with environmentalism and social progress? A DUHHH!
But what we see in Israel, the conflict that is spilled out throughout the Middle East, really which is all about Jerusalem, is an ongoing reflection of the fact that there is judgment. There is judgment that is going on in the land, and that’s the other part of this Jerusalem Dilemma. When Jesus was standing in that temple, He spoke that that judgment was coming, that there’s a reality to the judgment of unbelief. He said “I long to gather you, but...” what? “You were unwilling.” God never forces His way on human beings. And so because Jerusalem was unwilling to receive His grace, judgment was coming. He says, “Look, your house has left you desolate!” What did He mean by that? Remember where He is. He’s standing in the temple there in Jerusalem, the place where God had promised, through Moses,
“There I will meet with you, there I will hear your prayers, and there I will forgive your sin.”
And now Jesus in that temple, just before going to the cross, says, ‘From now on this place is desolate.’ And Jesus’ words have echoed down through the centuries. Not a generation after He uttered this promise, Titus and his Roman legions marched into that city and destroyed both the city and the temple. And from that day until this very present there has been no temple, and there is therefore no sacrifice in Judaism. Only we could sacrifice in...the only place was in the temple. And therefore there has been, and there is today, no confidence of atonement, no confidence of forgiveness. If you were to stand outside of a synagogue on the day of atonement and ask those leaving the service, “Did God hear your prayers? Were your sins forgiven on this most holy of all days?” the answer would be, “I hope. I hope, but who can know?” Who indeed but those of us who have come under the wings of the Almighty, who’ve entered into that place of grace where forgiveness is assured for the dilemma of human life. Judgment is very real and we see it played out on the pages of the newspapers and on the television. It’s very real.
When Isaac [David Brickner's son] was in Jerusalem he was there to witness some of that judgment, some of that conflict, when a Palestinian from East Jerusalem took a bulldozer and went plowing through a score of cars, killing numbers of people. Judgment—you can’t miss it. And Jesus talks about it, but He didn’t leave us there. There’s a promise of a return from this judgment. Jesus concludes His message there in the temple by saying this—‘I tell you, you will not see Me again, you will not experience what I have come to bring, this place of grace which I have and will soon establish...you will not see Me again until you say, until you’re able with conviction to articulate, these words: “Baruch hab-ba bashem Adonai—Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.”’ Once again quoting again from a Psalm, this time Psalm 118:
The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief...the chief corner stone. And this is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes.
Save now, we beseech Thee; save now, O Lord!
Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.
‘You will not see Me until you can acknowledge Me as the One who’s come, as the stone once rejected by the builders, but now the chief, until you say “Jesus, You’re the Messiah!”’ Not many days after He said these words there were some three thousand Jews who saw Him. After His death, burial, resurrection, and ascension to glory, Peter on the day of Pentecost preached in Jerusalem. And the Holy Spirit fell, and those three thousand heard the word of God, and they repented. They turned from their unbelief to faith, and He came to dwell in their hearts. They saw Him.
And I’m so grateful to God that here I am some two thousand years later, a Jew who has said to Jesus, “Baruch Hab-ba bashem Adonai”; and yet most of my people have not. They’re still waiting. And therein lies the burden of my heart, and of Jews for Jesus, and I want to invite you to share that burden with us today. I want you to do it in a very specific way, by singing these very words of the Lord from Psalm 118. I’m gonna ask the band to come back up and help me.
Baruch hab-ba bashem Adonai.
Cribbed from church's downloadable sermons, first referenced by Politico.com, lest anyone care.
Well, they are Christians! This is how serious Christians in this country think and feel. Of course they want to convert the Jews of Israel to Christianity. It figures in the Pentacostal vein of millenarian thinking, where the Holy Land hosts the Second Coming of Jesus, and the world is consumed in flames! Why can't we take this rather more seriously — surely if you think that God has the earth in his hand and is liable to destroy or transform it at any time, you are less concerned with environmentalism and social progress? A DUHHH!
But what he didn't say is, he was glad about the killing of Jews.
Sarah Palin's nannies and friends and husband and daughter
The news that Sarah Palin, Gov. of Alaska (R), will take the VP slot under McCain, has been accompanied by a massive denial that parenting takes time and effort.
Palin is projected as so super capable and smart that she can "juggle" a family and a career. Somehow she can work 9 to 7 and cook dinner at the mansion for her five children and care for her newborn, but she'll be on-the-job . . .
Palin is projected as so super capable and smart that she can "juggle" a family and a career. Somehow she can work 9 to 7 and cook dinner at the mansion for her five children and care for her newborn, but she'll be on-the-job . . .
As anyone who actually has children knows, someone has to care for the home and kids. It is not a magic trick.
So either her husband Todd is doing the real work, or her eldest daughter, now pregnant, or other members of the family, or a nanny or nannies, full time or not.
The labor to raise kids must be counted. It ain't coming from Palin's arms and legs and head and heart during all those hours when the kids are awake and not in school. It's coming from her wallet, perhaps, but . . . .
Other people are doing the work. Let's not participate in the classist denial of labor that the media is doing.
Other people are doing the work. Let's not participate in the classist denial of labor that the media is doing.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
