Tag: Alaska

Let’s Be Fair To Palin

The union representing state troopers has backed off allegations that a drug investigation of Sherry Johnston was slowed down last fall to shield the national candidacy of Gov. Sarah Palin.

An inquiry Monday by officials for the Public Safety Employees Association concluded that investigators did not delay a search warrant for political reasons, said union president Rob Cox. Charges of political meddling erupted last week because of misunderstandings between investigators working on the case and senior state public safety officials, Cox said.

The drug-selling case against Johnston — whose son, Levi, is the father of Palin’s new grandson, Tripp — did draw unusual scrutiny from top public safety officials, Cox said. He said union and state officials hope to meet Tuesday to sort out any misunderstandings and determine whether political considerations had any effect at all.

Public Safety Commissioner Joe Masters issued a statement late Monday, repeating his assertion that the governor’s office was never clued in to the drug investigation and that trooper leaders were only trying to assure that the case was handled like any other.

“Events nationally, and their affects (sic) locally, certainly may have influenced Ms. Johnston’s behaviors and ultimately the timeline of the case,” Masters said. “However, the accusations that political motives were behind the decision on how to manage this case are baseless.

Was There More Palin Trickery?

As reported by the AP:

An investigator and the Alaska State Troopers’ union say political interference delayed the drug arrest of the mother of the boyfriend of Gov. Sarah Palin’s daughter Bristol.

The woman, Sherry Johnston, is the mother of Levi Johnston, who is the father of Bristol Palin’s newborn son, Tripp.

The investigator, Kyle Young, sent an e-mail message to the union, the Public Safety Employees Association, writing that the warrant for Ms. Johnston had been delayed because of the November general election. Ms. Johnston was arrested Dec. 18 on charges of selling the prescription painkiller OxyContin.

But Alaska’s public safety commissioner, Joseph A. Masters, and the troopers’ director, Col. Audie Holloway, said the case had been handled fairly.

Mr. Masters said neither Ms. Palin nor anyone else in the governor’s office knew the troopers were investigating Ms. Johnston until the warrant was served.

Mr. Masters said he then called Ms. Palin’s chief of staff, Mike Nizich, to alert him of a potential frenzy in the news media.

Busted Flat In Wasilla

Just cannot get enough of the Wasilla saga.

The mother of Levi Johnston, the Wasilla teenager who is the father of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s daughter’s unborn child, was arrested Thursday on drug charges.

The Anchorage Daily News reported Friday that Sherry L. Johnston, 42, was arrested by Alaska State Troopers at her Wasilla home and charged with six felony counts of misconduct involving a controlled substance.

The arrest was the result of an “undercover narcotics investigation,” according to police.

Does Springer do a show from Wasilla?  If not, might be a good ratings getter.

The Long Good-bye For Mr. Stevens

Alaska’s Republican Senator Ted Stevens has lost his bid for a seventh term in office after a knife-edge race against Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich.

The Democratic candidate led the Senate’s longest-serving Republican by 3,724 after Tuesday’s count, with only 2,500 overseas votes to be tallied

Mr Stevens, 85, was seen almost as an institution in his state, our correspondent says, to the extent that the airport in Anchorage was named after him.

But the Senate race in Alaska was plunged into controversy when Mr Stevens, 85, was convicted last month of lying about gifts he had received from an oil company.

His defeat means the Senate will have its first Democratic representative from Alaska for 30 years.

Say good bye to yet another corrupt official, to anothewr Republican.

More Firsts For Washington

You now know that the first African-American has been elected president of the United States and that the Repubs ran a woman for the first time and the oldest guy could have been elected, but there is more firsts.

A little more than a week after being found guilty on seven federal felony charges, Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens (R) was clinging to a slim lead today over Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich (D) with thousands of votes yet to be counted from Tuesday’s election.

If his lead holds up, Stevens would be the first convicted felon to win election to the Senate. Four other senators convicted of felonies resigned or left office at the end of their terms, according to the Senate historian’s office.

Here is another thought.  If Stevens is forced out of the Senate, would Palin resign and have the LT. Governor appoint her to finish his term?  It would get her a lot closer to the action if she wants to remain a driving force in the GOP.

Sen. Stevens To Get His

Senator Ted Stevens, Alaska’s dominant political figure for more than four decades, was found guilty on Monday by a jury of violating federal ethics laws for failing to report tens of thousands of dollars in gifts and services he had received from friends.

The jury of District of Columbia residents convicted Mr. Stevens, 84, on all seven felony counts he faced in connection with charges that he knowingly failed to list on Senate disclosure forms the receipt of some $250,000 in gifts and services used to renovate his home in Girdwood, Alaska.

The verdict comes a week before a second jury of sorts, the voters of Alaska, will decide whether to return him to the Senate or elect his Democratic opponent, Mayor Mark Begich of Anchorage. After Mr. Stevens’s indictment in July, he asked for a quick trial so he might clear his name before Election Day.

If Mr. Stevens loses his seat, the trial’s implications could be felt on a broad political scale, helping Democrats in their drive to win enough seats in the Senate to give them a filibuster-proof majority of at least 60 votes. Within an hour of the verdict’s becoming public, Democrats in Senate races around the country immediately sought to make the conviction an issue for their opponents, demanding that those who had received money from Mr. Stevens, who was generous with contributions to his colleagues, return it.

Here is a kicker.  Did you know that if he wins his election he can still be a senator, unless the senate throws his butt?  Ok, now why is it that a person that was convicted of a felony and has been a good guy cannot vote at all in some states?  That is a little sick–a felon can be a senator that leads this country, but a person cannot vote.

More On The Palin Pipeline

Gov. Sarah Palin’s signature accomplishment — a contract to build a 1,715-mile pipeline to bring natural gas from Alaska to the Lower 48 — emerged from a flawed bidding process that narrowed the field to a company with ties to her administration, an Associated Press investigation shows.

Beginning at the Republican National Convention in August, the McCain-Palin ticket has touted the pipeline as an example of how it would help America achieve energy independence.

“We’re building a nearly $40 billion natural gas pipeline, which is North America’s largest and most expensive infrastructure project ever, to flow those sources of energy into hungry markets,” Palin said during the Oct. 2 vice presidential debate.

Despite Palin’s boast of a smart and fair bidding process, the AP found that her team crafted terms that favored only a few independent pipeline companies and ultimately benefited the winner, TransCanada Corp.

_Instead of creating a process that would attract many potential builders, Palin slanted the terms away from an important group — the global energy giants that own the rights to the gas.

_Despite promises and legal guidance not to talk directly with potential bidders, Palin had meetings or phone calls with nearly every major candidate, including TransCanada.

_The leader of Palin’s pipeline team had been a partner at a lobbying firm where she worked on behalf of a TransCanada subsidiary. Also, that woman’s former business partner at the lobbying firm was TransCanada’s lead private lobbyist on the pipeline deal, interacting with legislators in the weeks before the vote to grant TransCanada the contract. Plus, a former TransCanada executive served as an outside consultant to Palin’s pipeline team.

_Under a different set of rules four years earlier, TransCanada had offered to build the pipeline without a state subsidy; under Palin, the company could receive a maximum $500 million.

Have you heard any of this in the TV media?

She Is A Fiscal Conservative?

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin calls herself a fiscal conservative who wants to “rein in government spending.” She says she “reformed the abuses of earmarks in our state.” Republican John McCain said during the last debate that his running mate has “cut the size of government.”

But Palin didn’t cut the size of government as mayor of Wasilla, and she hasn’t done so as Alaska’s governor, city and state budget records show. Spending in fast-growing Wasilla increased by 55% during her tenure from 1996-2002, records show. In nearly two years as governor, she has presided over a 31% spending hike by a state government that sought earmarks from Washington even as it reaped billions from higher oil prices and Palin-backed tax increases on oil companies.

Alaska’s spending bills are split into a capital budget for infrastructure projects and an operating budget that funds salaries and other general government expenses. In Palin’s first two years, the state operating budget has increased 31%, and capital spending remained roughly at the same level as the last two years under her predecessor, Republican Frank Murkowski, state records show.

Alaska’s capital budget is full of local projects because many local governments rely on state funding to meet basic needs. Most of Alaska is owned by the federal government, and only 25 municipalities levy a property tax, according to the state tax assessor’s office. The capital budget, therefore, is a grab bag of projects requested by communities through their state lawmakers.

Because 90% of the state’s revenue comes from the oil and gas industry, Alaska has been flush with cash in recent years. State coffers grew fatter still when Palin, with help from Democrats in the Legislature, increased taxes this year by billions on the energy industry.

Stop The Presses! The Report Is In!

Alaska Governor Sarah Palin abused her power by letting her husband press for the firing of a state trooper, a legislative probe found, while adding that she acted within her authority when she dismissed the state’s public safety commissioner.

“Governor Palin knowingly permitted a situation to continue where impermissible pressure was placed on several subordinates in order to advance a personal agenda,” said the state legislative investigator’s report released yesterday in Anchorage. The report also said Palin’s dismissal of the commissioner, Walt Monegan, was a “proper and lawful exercise” of her power to fire department heads for any reason.

Monegan has said he was dismissed for refusing to fire Trooper Michael Wooten, who was involved in a divorce and custody battle with Palin’s sister. The report on Palin, the Republican candidate for vice president, was released less than a month before the Nov. 4 election. Republican Presidential candidate John McCain‘s campaign rejected the findings as partisan politics.

The report “shows that the governor acted within her proper and lawful authority in the reassignment of Walt Monegan,” said Meg Stapleton, a spokeswoman for McCain’s campaign. “The report also illustrates what we’ve known all along: This was a partisan-led inquiry run by” supporters of Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama, she said.

The investigator wrote in the report that, “I find that Governor Sarah Palin abused her power by violating” a statute of the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act, which bars any official action to benefit a personal interest.

Violation of the ethics act could result in sanctions, including up to $5,000 in civil fines by a state ethics board, according to the law.

McCain’s campaign has criticized the probe as partisan because the lawmaker directing it, Hollis French, is a Democrat. The state Legislative Council, which ordered the investigation, is dominated by Republicans.

Palin’s Alaskan Rape Kit Policy

THis is from an Alaskan blogger Shannyn Moore:

Mountains of controversy are swirling around Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s strange policy of forcing rape victims to pay for their own rape kits while she was mayor of the now-infamous town of Wasilla.

The most interesting take I’ve found is posted by Alaska blogger Shannyn Moore who relates the following:

I sat with a rape victim during the “harvesting of evidence”. Mascara smeared eyes stared blankly out from a cave of shame. “We’ve got swimmers,” announced the forensic tech in the lab next door. My friend didn’t look surprised. In her 60’s, she was still asked if she felt the need for emergency contraception. Surviving the process would have only been compounded and made worse with an itemized bill; victimized twice courtesy of Sarah Palin and the city of Wasilla.

Much can be learned about the Palin Administration’s family values from reviewing their spending priorities. Former Chief of Police Irl Stambaugh included forensic rape kits (up to $1,200 per kit) in his budget requests. He was fired by Palin in 1997. In her termination letter, Palin wrote, “…I do not feel I have your full support in my efforts to govern the city of Wasilla. Therefore I intend to terminate your employment… ” Staumbaugh headed the police department since it was created in 1993. Before that, he served 22 years with the Anchorage Police Department rising to the rank of captain. Sarah Palin hired Charlie Fannon as the new Wasilla Chief of Police and said it was one of her best decisions as mayor. Fannon eliminated the forensic rape kits from the budget. Though the number of rapes weren’t reported, Fannon claimed it would save Wasilla taxpayers $5,000 to $14,000 a year.

Palin supporters ought to be taking a much closer look at her record on these types of issues (charging rape victims for evidentiary examinations so their attackers can be brought to trial) than whether she can juggle five children and the vice presidency. This, more than anything, should push women, pro-life and pro-choice, away from the McCain-Palin ticket. It’s one thing to oppose abortion on moral grounds. It’s quite another to charge crime victims for their own forensic examinations. Such a policy is nothing short of outrageous.