Palin Gives First Lengthy Newspaper ‘Interview’ — To Hometown Weekly

Alaskan wilderness in winter

This afternoon in the journal Editor & Publisher there is a report that Alaska Governor Sarah Palin has FINALLY given an in-depth interview … with her hometown weekly newspaper, The Frontiersman, VIA EMAIL!!  Appearing on the front page of today’s edition, The Frontiersman ran the “interview” in its entirety with both the questions posed to Gov. Palin and the answers received by the newspaper.  The responses could have been written by anyone within the McCain campaign and consists of the usual vague Republican talking points the vice presidential candidate has given on her stump speeches and the very few interviews Gov. Palin has granted the media thus far in the campaign.

Sarah Palin has finally given a lengthy newspaper interview, but it was not with The New York Times, Washington Post or other large daily. Instead, it appears today in her hometown Wasilla, Alaska, weekly, The Frontiersman — and only via email.

The paper ran the interview on its front page today with the intro: “The responses here were not edited and are preceded by the verbatim questions posed to her.”

Asked, for example, to name any mistakes she had made as mayor of the town she only came up with underestimating her opponents. She also deflected any blame in the “trooopergate” controversy, the book-banning charges and the allegations that she had something to do with rape victims having to pay for their own medical test.

“I’m not going to win over anyone in the media elite – I’m going to do my best for the American people,” she declared.

She also continued to say of the Bridge to Nowhere, “I cancelled the project,” even though this has been challenged by various fact-checking organizations.

Here are a few excerpts from the first three queries. The entire interview is at The Frontiersman:

1. Your name had been whispered as one of any number of potential Sen. John McCain running mates for months before the official announcement. At what time did you realize you had a legitimate chance to be that choice?

I first met John seven months ago in Washington. I was immediately impressed by the Senator’s candor, warmth and humor. We are both mavericks, and we hit it off right away. The idea of this being a possibility became real when I flew to Arizona three days before I was announced as his selection.

2. What successes did you have and what mistakes did you make during your time on Wasilla City Council and as Wasilla mayor?

Since my time as a city councilmember, mayor, and now, of course, as governor, I’ve been an active reformer. Right away, I think I saw that Wasilla’s government as a “good old boys network” – and knew we had an opportunity to change and progress this city. When I was elected mayor, I immediately took charge and shook things up, as you know. Our tax cuts and strategy for growth were big successes. The big mistake is always underestimating how much opposition you face as a real reformer, but I love the valley so much I was going to do what the city council staff and I felt was right for the people who live and work here.

3. We’re confident you were aware that being added to the presidential ticket would open up your personal life to public scrutiny. Were you prepared for the level of media and tabloid coverage of your past and family? Please explain how you and your family are dealing with this and whether you believe your family – and those of the other three candidates on the national ticket – are out of bounds, or does the public have a legitimate interest in the private lives of candidates?

Nothing really prepares you for hatred and made-up stories. But it’s nothing like the hard times of a family that’s lost a job, lost health insurance, or lost a son or daughter in battle. I would hope that the privacy of my children would be respected, as has been the tradition for the children of previous candidates. Obviously, it hasn’t been so far. I think part of the media frenzy is because I haven’t been a part of the Washington establishment and that I’m not as well known to the powers that be in Washington. I’m not going to win over anyone in the media elite – I’m going to do my best for the American people. And of course all candidates want to shield their children from the rancor and bitterness. My personal e-mails being hacked into really took the cake because of all the violation of confidence and privacy that others felt when they saw the e-mails they sent to me were posted on Web sites around the world. Concern for my family’s safety was also paramount because pictures and contact information for my kids were published and their receipt of all the harassing calls and messages has been very concerning.

Breaking News: Palin Implicated By Witness in ‘Troopergate’ Probe

Alaskan citizen at Anti-Palin Rally

In an exclusive, investigative report by Jason Leopold published on The Public Record September 29, 2008 and mentioned today by Andrew Sullivan of The Atlantic in his “Palin’s Petty Abuse of Power” Daily Dish, a witness has finally provided testimony in the Troopergate ethics investigation of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.  It would seem that Gov. Palin, her husband Todd Palin, and her staff member did much more than just pressure Alaska Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan to fire Palin’s former brother-in-law, Alaska State Trooper Mike Wooten.

An Alaska woman who owns a company that processes workers’ compensation claims in the state has told an independent investigator that she was urged by the office of Gov. Sarah Palin to deny a benefits claim for Palin’s ex brother-in-law, a state trooper who was involved in an ugly divorce and child custody dispute with Palin’s sister, despite evidence that the claim appeared to be legitimate, according to state officials who were briefed about the conversation.

Murlene Wilkes, the proprietor of Harbor Adjusting Services in Anchorage, had originally denied that she was pressured by Gov. Palin’s office to deny state trooper Mike Wooten’s claim for workers compensation benefits.

But Wilkes changed her story two weeks ago when she was subpoenaed by Steven Branchflower, the former federal prosecutor who was appointed in July to probe allegations Gov. Palin, Republican presidential candidate John McCain’s running mate, abused her office by abruptly ousting Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan, state officials knowledgeable about her conversation with Branchflower said.

Monegan has said he felt pressured by Gov. Palin, her husband, Todd, and several of her aides to fire Wooten. Branchflower’s investigation centers on whether Palin fired Monegan because he refused to fire Wooten.

Palin initially welcomed the investigation, which was approved unanimously in July by the state’s Legislative Council, which has a Republican majority. However, after McCain picked Palin in late August to be his vice presidential running mate, national and state Republicans began suggesting that the investigation was a partisan witch-hunt against Palin.

Despite pressure from the McCain-Palin campaign – and the refusal of Todd Palin and some Palin aides to honor subpoenas seeking their depositions – senior Alaskan legislators said Branchflower still intended to finish his report on the controversy by Oct. 10.

The workers’ compensation issue is likely to be a major focus of Branchflower’s report, according to state officials knowledgeable about the course of the investigation.

Wilkes has a $1.2 million contract with the state to handle workers compensation claims. Her contract with the state was up but her firm was recently given a new contract despite the fact that there were others who provided the state with a lower bid than Wilkes’s firm. One of the other applicants who submitted a lower bid has appealed the decision.

Wilkes told Branchflower she believed it was impressed upon her from Palin’s office that she would lose the contract if she did not deny the claim, state officials knowledgeable about her testimony said. 

Although Wooten did receive worker’s compensation benefits for about three months, his claim was suddenly denied and he was forced to hire a lawyer and appeal the issue, which dragged on for more than six months. It’s unknown if Wilkes played any role in denying Wooten worker’s compensation benefits. 

According to John Cyr, the executive director of the Public Safety Employees Association, the union that represents Wooten and other state troopers, Wooten was approved for workers compensation benefits in January 2007. He filed for benefits due to a back injury he suffered when he pulled a dead body from a wrecked automobile and slipped on icy pavement.

The same month Wooten started receiving workers compensation benefits, Todd Palin began following Wooten around “snapping pictures of him,” Cyr said.

“Frank Bailey was getting people to say that [Wooten] was lying on his worker’s comp form,” Cyr said. “The governor’s family was following Mike around everywhere. They forwarded that information to the worker’s comp division.”

Cyr said Wooten had been received his benefits checks totaling $11,000 without any problems until “somewhere between the end of March and the first of April.”

“Out of nowhere [Wooten's] workers comp claim was contravened, which basically means he got a letter saying he wasn’t entitled to benefits anymore,” Cyr said in an interview. Documents show that a state lawyer intervened in the case. Wooten “hired an attorney and filed a counterclaim against the state. Eventually, in November 2007 there was a settlement. Part of that settlement included an operation on [Wooten's] back in California. This was a serious injury and he was flat broke and had to file for bankruptcy because his claims were denied. There was absolutely a personal vendetta against this trooper by the governor and the governor’s staff.”

However, according to documents in Wooten’s case, the trooper had a preexisting condition that resulted in his disability claims being denied.

But Branchflower has obtained evidence that extends beyond Wilkes’s statements that shows the denial of Wooten’s benefits was due to Palin’s office involvement in the case, according to the officials knowledgeable about this aspect of the probe.

Branchflower has apparently zeroed in on a routing slip dated Aug. 21-about a month after the ethics probe into Palin was launched-from the Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development shows Wooten’s workers comp file was pulled and sent to the attention of Mike Monagle, a state manager with the workers’ compensation division.

“Wooten, as requested,” the routing slip says, which was made out to the attention of “Mike Monagle.”

“A request came in to return all of Wooten’s [worker's comp] files to Juneau [the state capital],” according to a note and routing slip faxed to Cyr from the worker’s compensation division. “The person who asked to route the files was told the files were being copied for the governor.”

It’s unclear why Palin’s office requested Wooten’s workers compensation files or how it factors into Branchflower’s investigation.

Branchflower confronted Wilkes with evidence-including statements made to Branchflower by one of Wilkes’s former co-workers-that showed her previous statements were contradicted and that Palin’s office did try to intervene and contacted her to ensure Wooten did not receive benefits for a back injury he said he received while on the job.

Wilkes told Branchlower that she received phone calls and personal visits from Palin officials, including Palin’s husband, Todd Palin, and was told to deny Wooten’s application for worker’s compensation claims because he lied about his physical condition, these people said.

Wilkes said Todd Palin had shown her photographs of Wooten on a snowmobile during the time he was allegedly unable to work as evidence that he was not entitled to benefits, these people said. It is unknown whether Branchflower has determined that any laws were broken as a result of Palin’s office alleged interference in her ex brother-in-law’s workers compensation case.

Immediately after being sworn in as Governor of Alaska, Palin and her husband and several senior aides conducted what amounted to a rogue investigation into suspicions that Wooten was faking a job-related injury as a state trooper, according to state documents, law enforcement officials and former aides to Palin.

The investigation was conducted using the resources of Gov. Palin’s office and had the goal of destroying Mike Wooten’s career with the Alaska state troopers, the documents and the interviews reveal.

A little-noticed passage in a transcript of a conversation between Frank Bailey, Palin’s director of boards and commissions, and Alaska State Trooper Lt. Rodney Dial shows that Palin’s office had developed information against Wooten that was turned over to the state’s worker’s compensation board, purportedly to prove that Wooten was not too sick or injured to work.

In the Feb. 28, 2008, conversation with Dial, Bailey disclosed that Gov. Palin and her husband had uncovered information about the trooper that was not publicly available and had collected statements about Wooten going “snowmachining” when he was out on workers comp for a back injury.

“The situation where [Wooten] declared workers comp, but then was caught on an eight-mile snowmachining [sic] trip days – days after, you know, that – that started coming up there,” Bailey said. “So we collected statements that we forwarded on to worker’s comp.”

In January 2007, the same month Wooten began collecting workers comp benefits and less than 30 days into Palin’s term as governor, Todd Palin invited new public safety commissioner Monegan to the governor’s office, where Todd Palin urged Monegan to reopen the Wooten case. After checking on it, Monegan said he informed Todd Palin that he couldn’t do anything because the case was closed.

In an interview with the Washington Post, Monegan said that a few days later, the governor also called him about the Wooten matter and he gave her the same answer. Monegan said Gov. Palin brought the issue up again in a February 2007 meeting at the state capitol, prompting a warning that she should back off.

Palin Implicated By Witness in ‘Troopergate’ Probe

Gov. Palin Camp Continues To Suggest Special Awareness On Russia — Due to Diomede Islands?

Aerial view of the Diomede Islands; the Russian territory of Big Diomede is on the left and the US island of Little Diomede on the right.

Let’s further examine Alaska Governor Sarah Palin’s foreign policy experience due to Alaska’s close proximity to Russia and her assertion that from Alaska you can ‘see’ Russia.  Her claim of ‘seeing’ Russia appears to be true; the Diomede Islands, one of which belongs to Russia, can be seen from Alaska, at least from an airplane.  The Diomede Islands are comprised of two rocky islands situated in the middle of the Bering Strait between the mainland of the US state of Alaska and Siberia, Russia.  Although at their closest the islands are approximately 2.4 miles apart, they are separated by the International Date Line, with a time difference of 23 hours, The US island of Little Diomede (total area 2.8 sq. mi.) has a settlement of 146 people as of 2000, with over 92% of the inhabitants Native Americans. 

The Diomede Islands in the Bering Sea

The Russian island of Big Diomede (total area 11 sq. mi.) is populated by the Inupiat, the Inuit people of Alaska’s Northwest Arctic and North Slope boroughs and the Bering Straits region.  What foreign policy experience Gov. Palin has been able to glean from being able to see a small, barren and sparsely populated Russian island (inhabited by Alaska Natives) from a plane is completely unclear to most American voters. 

In an article by Scott Conroy for the CBS News, published September 21, 2008, there is little evidence of any foreign policy insights GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin has learned from her state’s proximity to Siberia, Russia.

As Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin prepares to meet with a slew of world leaders in New York to coincide with the opening of the United Nations General Assembly, questions remain over her thin foreign policy resume.

Though it is not uncommon for governors running for national office to have limited exposure to international events, the Palin campaign has nonetheless made an effort to highlight the Alaska governor’s bona fides on Russia. But the idea that Palin has gleaned any special awareness of the world’s largest nation through her work as governor of Alaska stands on flimsy ground.

In her first national television interview since joining the Republican ticket less than two weeks ago, ABC’s Charlie Gibson pressed Palin on her foreign policy experience, leading her to tout repeatedly her home state’s geographical position.

“You’re in Alaska,” Palin said. “We have that very narrow maritime border between the United States, and the 49th state, Alaska, and Russia.”

Palin then reminded Gibson three separate times that Russia is Alaska’s “next door neighbor.” When Gibson pressed Palin on what insights the state’s proximity to a sparsely populated region of Siberia gives her into Russia’s actions in the Caucus region – which is thousands of miles away from Alaska – the governor stayed on message.

“They’re our next door neighbors, and you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska, from an island in Alaska,” she said.

On a clear day, it is, in fact, possible to see the unpopulated Russian island of Big Diomede from the Alaskan island of Little Diomede, which is inhabited by a small native population. Still, Palin’s hometown of Wasilla isn’t much closer to the Russian capital of Moscow (4,318 miles) than New York City is (4,663 miles).

But rather than downplaying Palin’s suggestion that she possesses special knowledge of Russia, the McCain/Palin campaign has continued to tout Alaska’s proximity to the world’s largest nation as a feather in her cap, without offering any evidence of actual experience Palin has in Russian affairs.

Asked to provide concrete examples of Palin’s foreign policy experience, Palin spokeswoman Tracey Schmitt highlighted the governor’s dealings on energy issues and foreign trade and mentioned the 2007 trip she took to visit U.S. troops in the Middle East and Germany.

Schmitt added, “She is Governor of the only state with two international borders – a land border with Canada and a maritime border with Russia.”

CBS News made several inquiries over the course of two days to another campaign spokesperson asking for details on any practical experience Palin had with Russia. The spokesperson said that campaign staffers were gathering evidence related to trade issues, but no such information was disseminated.

A spokesperson at the governor’s office in Juneau directed all inquiries to the McCain/Palin campaign. Told that the inquiry was related to Palin’s role as the governor of Alaska – not as a vice presidential candidate – the spokesperson said that state ethics legislation required that all questions “fueled by the governor’s candidacy” must be directed to the campaign. The spokesperson provided a phone number for a campaign spokeswoman Meg Stapleton. A phone message left on Stapleton’s voicemail was not returned.

In the ABC interview Palin was asked in the event that Georgia joined the NATO alliance and was subsequently attacked by Russia, whether the United States would have to go to war with Russia.

“Perhaps so,” Palin said. “I mean, that is the agreement when you are a NATO ally, is if another country is attacked, you’re going to be expected to be called upon and help.”

Dr. Charles Kupchan, a Georgetown University professor of international relations and senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, agreed that NATO would have little choice in such a case.

“The spirit of Article Five is an attack on one is an attack on all, and as a result of that, there is a presumption that if Georgia were a NATO member, or if any other NATO member would attack, that the alliance would invoke Article Five and come to its defense,” Kupchan said. “NATO could decide in a certain circumstance that it was not going to respond militarily, but that would obviously call into question NATO’s credibility in its commitment to collective defense.”

In a statement issued last month, Democratic nominee Barack Obama said, “I have consistently called for deepening relations between Georgia and transatlantic institutions, including a Membership Action Plan for NATO, and we must continue to press for that deeper relationship.”

Aside from the ABC interview, Palin herself has not continued to tout Alaska’s proximity to Russia as an example of her foreign policy knowledge. Instead, she often mentions on the campaign trail her work in striking a deal to construct a nearly $40 billion natural gas pipeline from Alaska, which would lead through Canada into the continental United States, as evidence that she has been at the forefront of making the U.S. energy independent.

“In general, the main way governors get involved in foreign countries is economic – they try to get countries to invest and go on trade missions, but very rarely do they get involved in issues of national security, in part because the Constitution prevents them from doing so,” Kupchan said.

“I think its fair to say [Palin's] exposure to most foreign policy issues is minimal. Had she been a governor for a long time and gotten involved in politics on the broader national stage, that would be different.”

Asked what foreign policy credentials Palin might bring with her to Washington, Dr. Gerald McBeath, the political science department chair at the University of Alaska – Fairbanks, pointed to Alaska’s military bases and said that Palin would certainly be aware of security operations surrounding them.

“It used to be more critical in the Cold War than it is now,” McBeath added.

McBeath also noted that Alaska is within striking range of missiles that could be launched from North Korea.

A senior campaign aide who agreed to speak on the condition of anonymity admitted that Palin’s knowledge of Russia may be limited to the way someone from Miami might obtain a general feel for Latin America.

“It is very much being able to look off the tip of Alaska,” the aide said. “Metaphorically, I’m talking about.”

Palin Camp Continues To Suggest Special Awareness On Russia

Satellite photo of the Bering Strait between Alaska (United States) and Serbia (Russia) … the two small islands in the middle are the Diomede Islands.

Jewish Voters Find it Hard to Vote for Palin

Sen. John McCain & Gov. Sarah Palin

In an opinion piece published in The Morning Call today, Richard Kohn considers the difficulties many Jewish voters have with the candidacy of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as the Republican vice presidential running mate of Senator John McCain.

There has been much said about both candidates courting the Jewish vote. The truth is, the Republicans are just talk in this area. If John McCain had any respect for the Jews in America, he wouldn’t have chosen Sarah Palin as a running mate.

The executive director of the National Jewish Democratic Council, Ira Forman, cited a ”cultural distance” between Palin and almost all American Jews. ”She’s totally out of step with the American Jewish community,” he said.

Palin’s social conservatism, her paper-thin record on Israel, and — perhaps most importantly — her cultural roots in evangelical Christianity may be a major turnoff to Jewish voters. Just a few weeks ago, Palin’s church, the Wasilla Bible Church, gave its pulpit over to David Brickner, the executive director of Jews for Jesus, a ministry that has drawn wide criticism from the organized Jewish community and the Anti-Defamation League.

As Gov. Palin sat unprotesting in her church, Brickner described terrorist attacks on Israelis as God’s ”judgment of unbelief” on Jews who haven’t embraced Christianity.

Florida Rep. Robert Wexler has attacked Palin for appearing at a 1999 event with Pat Buchanan — who has attacked the influence of ”the Israeli lobby” in America.

Barack Obama’s choice for VP may be Catholic, but Joe Biden is a long-time friend of Israel. Neither he nor Sen. Obama have any intention of pushing their religious views on others.

New Evidence: Palin Had Direct Role In Charging Rape Victims For Exams

Rape kits are used to investigate sexual assault crimes

Although the subject of Wasilla Alaska rape victims having to pay for their own medical exams was previous explored here on the Sarah Palin Truth Squad, this additional report further clarifies Alaska Governor Sarah Palin’s character and actual knowledge of the practice during her administration as Wasilla’s mayor.   Detailing yet another one of Gov. Palin’s untruths, as reported on the Huffington Post by Jacob Alperin-Sheriff on September 11, 2008, this in-depth evidence speaks directly to the issue of this candidate’s honesty as a government official entrusted with the welfare of the citizens and her sense compassion as a human being.

The Palin rape kit billing controversy has made its way from OfftheBus all the way to CNN. In her story on the controversy, Jessica Yellin claimed to have found no evidence in city records that Sarah Palin was aware that sexual assault victims were being billed for forensic testing. However, recently released budget documents show that Sarah Palin directly shifted the cost of the rape kits from the police department to the victim in her budget for fiscal year 2000. Given that the CNN article quotes a former city council member as saying “Palin would review each department’s budget line by line,” even if an underling wrote up the actual budget, she knew about the funding shift, and still signed off on the budget.Under Sarah Palin’s administration, Wasilla cut funds that had previously paid for the medical exams and began charging victims or their health insurers the $500 to $1200 fees. Although Palin spokeswoman Maria Comella wrote USA Today that the GOP vice presidential nominee “does not believe, nor has she ever believed, that rape victims should have to pay for an evidence-gathering test…To suggest otherwise is a deliberate misrepresentation of her commitment to supporting victims and bringing violent criminals to justice.” However, the evidence from Wasilla’s budget records says otherwise.

The mayor of Wasilla before Sarah Palin, John C. Stein, was also a Republican, though the office was and continues to be non-partisan. Mayor Stein was defeated by Sarah Palin in a campaign that brought in the NRA, Republican partisans, and various dirty tricks, including a possible whisper campaign that Mayor Stein was Jewish (he is a Christian, but is “proud of such a reputation”). He now runs the Sitka Sound Science Center, a marine research facility in Sitka, Alaska.

Mayor Stein told OffTheBus that he didn’t “think victims were billed while [he] was mayor,” but that he wasn’t certain. He did mention that “Wasilla participated in establishing a Sexual Assault Response Team to set-up a one-stop forensic exam room for victims,” evidence of a pro-victim police department. In order to confirm his assertion about the billing policy, he recommended I contact current police chief Angella Long for confirmation. She did not return my request for comment.

However, I was able to eventually track down Irl Stambaugh, police chief of Wasilla from the founding of the department until Sarah Palin fired him for “not fully supporting her efforts to govern.” Stambaugh sued for breach of contract, but lost when a federal judge ruled that “police chiefs serve at the behest of the mayor unless otherwise specified.” He later served as the executive director of the Alaska Police Standards Council.

It turns out that Wasilla did not bill sexual assault victims for the cost of rape exams while Irl Stambaugh was chief of police. As chief, he had included a line item in the budget to pay for the cost of such exams. He had only just heard about the Mayor Palin/Chief Fannon policy today, and was just as shocked to hear about it as I was.

In an earlier piece, I had mistakenly said that the exams were covered under a general “contingency” funding. In fact, the department’s first full-year budget, for fiscal year 1994 (July 1, 1993-June 30, 1994), included a line item specifically to pay for medical examinations. This line item was denoted “contractual services”, and was described on page G-26 of that budget (available in this PDF on page 42) as covering “costs for medical blood tests for intoxicated drivers & medical exam/evidence collection for sexual assaults.” As a member of the city council at the time, Palin was required to read and approve this budget. The contractual services line item was more succinctly described in the 1995 and 1996 budgets as “costs for medical blood tests or exams as required for evidence.”

Starting with the last budget under Mayor John Stein, the FY97 budget (July 1, 1996-June 30, 1997), the line item explanations became less detailed, with the explanation for the “contractual services” line item for several departments combined into one. The explanation reads “Contractual Services/General-medical testing, road maintenance, equipment rental, airport snow removal.” A table below lists the allocations and spending for the “contractual services” line item from FY94-FY99 (the budgets for the italicized years were submitted by John Stein; the others by Sarah Palin)

Fiscal Year	Police Department Contractual Services Line Item
	Allocated	Spent
FY94	$3,000	$1,359.62
FY95	$2,500	$2,5788.88
FY96	$2,500	$1365.50
FY97	$3,995	$3,605.74
FY98	$4,000	$2,658.64
FY99	$4,200	$4,159.25

For FY 2000, however (July 1st, 1999-June 30th, 2000), only $1,000 was allocated for the “contractual services” police department line item. Note that page A-1 of the budget (available here) states that “the Wasilla city council hereby adopts the operating budget for the Fiscal Year 2000, as presented by the Mayor and introduced on April 26, 1999.” At the bottom of this page is Sarah Palin’s signature.

The actual line-item showing the cut in funds allocated for contractual services can be found on page F-28. The line item index confirming that this line-item still referred to “medical testing, road maintenance, equipment rental, airport snow removal” can be found on page H-5 of the line-item index for fiscal year 2000 (available here).

Of the insufficient $1,000 allocated, only $152 had been used by December 31st, 1999, according to data from the FY2001 budget. That budget was “submitted by Mayor Sarah Palin” on April 24, 2000. At this time, the bill banning the “victim pays” policy was under consideration in the state House, and as a result, this budget included the FY99-level $4,000 allocation for “contractual services,” and starting in June of 2000, the city began paying for the exams again. The interesting thing about the $152 spent during that 6-month time period (there were probably 5 sexual assaults reported during that period) is that it was not even enough to cover a single rape kit, using the $300-$1,200 range given by the original Frontiersman article. Perhaps Fannon was still using the fund for intermittent DWI blood testing, which had skyrocketed as a result of his decision to shift back bar closing times to 5 a.m. from the 2 a.m. closing time set by former Police Chief Irl Stambaugh.

The budget document for the 1999-2000 fiscal year includes a budget message by Mayor Sarah Palin. According to item A.6 of Section 2.16.020 of the Wasilla Municipal Code, the mayor must “repare and submit an annual budget and capital improvement program for consideration by the council, and execute the budget and capital program as adopted.” This message ends as follows:

Though change is sometimes initially unsettling (and in the Woodrow Wilson: “if you want to make enemies, try to change something.”) It is Administration’s desire that this budget format be viewed objectively. I look forward to council discussions and continued input from our residents on the budget as we mindfully prioritize the public’s dollars to plan, construct and improve our vital infrastructure.

At the end of the letter, under the words “Sincerely,” is the signature of Sarah Palin. The McCain/Palin campaign did not respond to requests for comment.

The Obama/Biden campaign theme is “change we can believe in.” Given Governor Palin’s own words and actions in this budget, perhaps the McCain/Palin campaign’s theme ought to be “change that is unsettling.”

 

 

 

Gov. Sarah Palin’s Mysterious Trade Missions to Russia

In a September 26, 2008 article published in Salon.com, questions still remain from Alaska Governor Sarah Palin’s assertion that she and Alaska “have trade missions back and forth” with Russia, as she has stated last week in an interview with Katie Couric (see “trade missions” comment by Gov. Palin 50 seconds into the clip).

As John McCain reminds us, “Russia is right next to Alaska; Sarah Palin understands that.” But when pressed by Katie Couric about what, exactly, that understanding lent her in the way of foreign policy savvy, the Republicans’ vice-presidential nominee couldn’t come up with a lot of specifics:

COURIC: Explain to me why that enhances your foreign policy credentials.

PALIN: Well, it certainly does because our — our next door neighbors are foreign countries. They’re in the state that I am the executive of. And there in Russia –

COURIC: Have you ever been involved with any negotiations, for example, with the Russians?

PALIN: We have trade missions back and forth. We — we do — it’s very important when you consider even national security issues with Russia as Putin rears his head and comes into the air space of the United States of America, where — where do they go? It’s Alaska. It’s just right over the border. It is — from Alaska that we send those out to make sure that an eye is being kept on this very powerful nation, Russia, because they are right there. They are right next to — to our state.

As you might notice, Palin only cites one discernible foreign interaction under her purview: Trade missions.

I spent some time on the Governor’s Web site seeking more details about her trade negotiations with Russia. There’s a press release about Gov. Palin’s meeting with a trade mission from the Yukon, but nothing about Russia anywhere in the archives. Tony Knowles, a Democrat who was governor from 1994-2002, led a trade mission — back in 1997, while Palin was running Wasilla — to the remote island of Sakhalin, off the coast of Siberia. That seems to be about it for Russia-Alaska trade missions lately.

When asked for examples of trade missions with Russia that have taken place under Palin’s watch, gubernatorial spokeswoman Kate Morgan refused to answer the question. Morgan said she could not legally discuss any trade missions with me because she’s a state employee and I had first heard this claim through the Couric interview, which was part of Palin’s campaign for the vice-presidency. When I pointed out that any trade missions that occurred would have been official state business, Morgan again noted that I had learned about them in the context of the campaign. “The law is very stringent,” she said, and recommended that I contact the McCain-Palin campaign. Two spokespeople did not respond to requests for comment.

An article published two weeks ago in the Seattle Times notes that a politician from Russia’s Far East did in fact meet with Palin in Anchorage, and urged her to come to Russia. One of Palin’s trade specialists is also quoted saying that no trade missions with Russia are currently on the agenda: “I am not aware of any plans but that doesn’t mean she wouldn’t [arrange any].”

The article noted that Anchorage is host to an organization called the Northern Forum, a council of regional governments from all the northernmost countries of the world. But the Palin administration cut the Forum’s budget from $75,000 to $15,000, and stopped the practice of sending representatives to its meetings.

Palin’s Mysterious Trade Missions

Map of Alaska and Russia

The Lies And Lies And Lies Of Sarah Palin (Videos)

Prominent political commentator Andrew Sullivan, writing for The Atlantic, has been spot-on in his critiques of Alaska governor and GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin.  Today he showcases but a few of the countless lies told to the American voters by Sarah Palin, ‘enabled’ by John McCain and his GOP presidential campaign staff.

I’m posting this because none of the direct, indisputably proven, factual untruths that Palin has uttered has yet to be retracted by this candidate or her running mate. When you have a leading politician running on a record of outright lies, and those lies are deemed irrelevant, you have a problem. Each one has been fact-checked to near-death. They are not the usual political lie – hyperbole, parsing, exaggeration, spin. They are factual, checkable, indisputable untruths.

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.

These are all documented, bald-faced factually irrefutable lies. More to the point: she refuses to cop to them or be held accountable for them or take questions about them. Until she does, we can rightly infer there is no reason to believe anything she says, and that includes her recent medical history. A liar like this cannot be taken on trust. We have to verify it all.

Release the medical records and tax returns now.

The Lies And Lies And Lies Of Sarah Palin

Alaska Natives Question Gov. Palin’s Support – Natives Ignored & Undermined by Palin Administration

Alaska governor and GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin

When American voters hear of the high favorability ratings of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, it would seem that all Alaskans ‘love’ their new governor.  In a September 29, 2008 article by Rachel D’Oro for the Associated Press, the viewpoints of Alaska’s Native population appear to have been largely overlooked.

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin routinely notes her husband’s Yup’ik Eskimo roots. But those connections haven’t erased doubts about her in a community long slighted by the white settlers who flocked to Alaska and dominate its government.

Since she took office in 2006, many Alaska Natives say they’ve felt ignored when she made appointments to her administration, sided with sporting interests over Native hunting rights and pursued a lawsuit that Natives say seeks to undermine their ancient traditions.

Alaska’s population today is mostly white but nearly a fifth of its people are Native Americans – primarily Alaska Natives. Blacks and Asians combined make up less than 10 percent of the state’s population.

As a result, race relations in Alaska are different from those in other states. Palin inherited a complex, sometimes strained relationship with Alaska Natives. There is a wide economic disparity between its predominantly white urban areas and the scores of isolated Native villages, and competition between sport hunting rights and tribal sovereignty.

Early in her administration, Palin created a furor by trying to appoint a white woman to a seat, held for more than 25 years by a Native, on the panel that oversees wildlife management. Ultimately, Palin named an Athabascan Indian to the game board, but not before relations were bruised.

When a game board chairman suggested Alaska Natives missed a meeting because they were drinking beer, the remark struck a chord since the Alaska Native community is wracked by alcohol abuse. Palin, a candidate for governor at the time, asked him to resign.

Critics felt the man’s remarks rose to the level of misconduct that would have allowed the governor to fire him and were appalled Palin didn’t do more to get him off the board once she became governor later that year.

“He should have been removed,” said Lloyd Miller, a tribal rights attorney based in Anchorage. “When your conduct fractures the public trust, it’s misconduct.”

When Palin this summer fired Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan, a Native, she replaced him with a non-Native. His successor resigned after 10 days on the job, when a previously undisclosed reprimand that stemmed from a sexual harassment claim against him came to light.

The Monegan firing is the subject of two state investigations. Palin is accused of firing Monegan because he refused to fire her sister’s former husband, a state trooper.

Two weeks after she was tapped as John McCain’s running mate, Palin named a Native to Monegan’s old position.

But Duke University political science professor Paula McClain, who went to high school in Alaska and now specializes in minority relations, said Palin’s actions suggest she has “a political tin ear or that she simply doesn’t care.”

“In a state like Alaska, how can you not be aware of how not reappointing a Native is going to play? At best, she’s naive,” McClain said.

Alaska Natives – the term includes indigenous Eskimo, Aleut and Indian populations – tend to lean Democrat. Many prominent Native leaders have endorsed Democrat Barack Obama for president.

But the mother of Palin’s husband, Todd, is a quarter Yup’ik Eskimo. Each summer, he heads to his birthplace in Western Alaska to work in the Bristol Bay commercial salmon fishery.

Palin’s family ties would suggest she would be more sensitive to Native issues, said Stephen Haycox, a University of Alaska Anchorage history professor. But in her 21-month tenure, the governor has used those ties mostly to highlight her experiences in commercial fishing, moose hunting and general outdoorsmanship.

“She has not manifested, so far, any extraordinary measures on behalf of Alaska Natives,” Haycox said.

Alaska Inter-Tribal Council Chairman Mike Williams of Akiak said he’s been seeking an audience with Palin to address tribal concerns ever since she was elected governor, but her staff keeps telling him that her schedule is full.

“She’s so busy that she doesn’t have time for the tribes. There needs to be respect and a dialogue,” said Williams, who is also Yup’ik Eskimo.

This time of year, Williams is busy putting away meat, fish and berries for the winter – supplies that are critical to survival in cash-poor rural villages – and he said he wants to explain to Palin how increased pressures from sport hunting and fishing as well as oil and mining have eroded native hunting lands. 

Alaska Natives question Gov. Palin’s support

Protesters hold signs at a Hold Palin Accountable rally organized by Alaskans For Truth, in Anchorage, Alaska Saturday, Sept. 27, 2008. Hundreds of people showed up to demand Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, Sen. John McCain's GOP running mate, uphold her promise to cooperate with the state Legislature's investigation into her firing of Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan, who is part Alaska Native.

Palin Took Freebies, Help Selling House As Mayor

The former home of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin on Wasilla Lake in Wasilla, Alaska, is seen Wednesday, Sept. 24, 2008. Two months before Palins tenure as mayor ended in 2002, she asked city planning officials to forgive zoning violations so she could sell the house.

Yet more of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin’s distortions and lies have been revealed in regards to her tenure as mayor of Wasilla, Alaska.  Contrary to her self-proclaimed role as a fighter against corruption, Mayor Palin was not at all above accepting gifts and seeking favoritism, both for herself and her friends.  In a report by Brett J. Blackledge for the HuffingtonPost.com published September 28, 2008, he scrutinizes the many benefits and perks of Mayor Palin’s administration.

Though Sarah Palin depicts herself as a pit bull fighting good-old-boy politics, in her years as mayor she and her friends received special benefits more typical of small-town politics as usual, an Associated Press investigation shows.

When Palin needed to sell her house during her last year as Wasilla mayor, she got the city to sign off on a special zoning exception _ and did so without keeping a promise to remove a potential fire hazard.

She gladly accepted gifts from merchants: A free “awesome facial” she raved about in a thank-you note to a spa. The “absolutely gorgeous flowers” she received from a welding supply store. Even fresh salmon to take home.

She also stepped in to help friends or neighbors with City Hall dealings. She asked the City Council to add a friend to the list of speakers at a 2002 meeting _ and then the friend got up and asked them to give his radio station advertising business.

That year, records show, she tried to help a neighbor and political contributor fighting City Hall over his small lakeside development. Palin wanted the city to refund some of the man’s fees, but the city attorney told the mayor she didn’t have the authority.

Palin claims she has more executive experience than her opponent and the two presidential candidates, but most of those years were spent running a city with a population of less than 7,000.

Some of her first actions after being elected mayor in 1996 raised possible ethical red flags: She cast the tie-breaking vote to propose a tax exemption on aircraft when her father-in-law owned one, and backed the city’s repeal of all taxes a year later on planes, snow machines and other personal property. She also asked the council to consider looser rules for snow machine races. Palin and her husband, Todd, a champion racer, co-owned a snow machine store at the time.

Palin often told the City Council of her personal involvement in such issues, but that didn’t stop her from pressing them, according to minutes of council meetings.

She sometimes followed a cautious path in the face of real or potential conflicts _ for example, stepping away from the table in 1997 when the council considered a grant for the Iron Dog snow machine race in which her husband competes.

But mostly, like other Wasilla elected officials at the time, she took an active role on issues that directly affected and sometimes benefited her. Her efforts to clear the way for the $327,000 sale of the Palin family home on Lake Wasilla is an example.

Two months before Palin’s tenure as mayor ended in 2002, she asked city planning officials to forgive zoning violations so she could sell her house. Palin had a buyer, but he wouldn’t close the deal unless she persuaded the city to waive the violations with a code variance.

The Palins, who were finishing work on a new waterfront house on Lake Lucille about two miles away, asked the city for the variance. The request was opposed by one planning official and some neighbors.

“I would ask that the Wasilla Planning Commission apply the exact same rules in this situation that it would apply to other similar requests so that our community can see that being a public figure does not give anyone special benefits,” urged neighbor Clyde Boyer Jr. in a 2002 note to the city.

The Palins’ house was built by the original owner too close to the shoreline and too close to adjacent properties on each side, including a carport that stretched so far over it nearly connected the two houses.

The Palins didn’t create the zoning problems, but they should have known about them when they bought the house, wrote Susan Lee, a code compliance officer with the Matanuska-Susitna Borough, in response to the Palins’ request. The borough, similar to a county government, makes recommendations to the city, which has final say.

Lee, in recommending the city reject the request, noted that the exception was needed to resolve an “inconvenience” the Palins experienced while trying to sell their house. In 1989, another borough planner told a previous owner that a variance for the carport couldn’t be approved because it didn’t meet required conditions and was a potential fire hazard.

But in August 2002, Wasilla Planner Tim Krug approved a “shoreline setback exception” for the Palins’ house being built too closely to the water. He sent an e-mail to the mayor saying he was drafting another variance for the side of the house built too close to the property line, but that he understood from her that the other side “will be corrected and the carport will be removed.”

Krug asked Palin to let him know if he was wrong in his impression that the carport would be removed.

A few minutes later, the mayor e-mailed back: “Sounds good.”

On Sept. 10, 2002, the seven-member Wasilla Planning Commission unanimously approved a variance for both sides of the property, with language covering “all existing structures.” Less than a week later, the Palins signed a deed to sell the house to Henry Nosek.

The carport was never removed.

Nosek said Sarah Palin didn’t do anything more than any other citizen would have done.

“I sincerely don’t feel that Sarah used her position as mayor at the time to get that accomplished,” said Nosek, who no longer lives in the home.

James Svara, professor of public affairs at Arizona State University and author of “The Ethics Primer for Public Administrators in Government and Nonprofit Organizations,” suggested such behavior is part of small-town politics.

“Small towns are first-person politics, and if people are close, it’s hard to separate one’s own personal interest and one’s own personal property from the work of the city,” Svara said. The key questions from an ethics standpoint include whether the politician makes a potential conflict of interest known and removes himself or herself from actions related to it, he added.

“I think in a small town there is a greater likelihood that people will accept that you will pay careful attention to friends and neighbors,” he said, adding that there may be some local gossip about it, but not a lot of public scrutiny. “At the national level, there will be far more people watching, there will be far more pressures to come forward to try to influence the outcome.”

Sarah Palin Endorses Hamas?!?!

Author and national correspondent Jeffrey Goldberg, writing for The Atlantic, points out another major Sarah Palin gaffe in her interview last week with Katie Couric, a mistake which seems to have received no press coverage whatsoever.  Once again Alaska governor and GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin illustrated her complete lack of foreign policy knowledge by answering one of Couric’s questions on democracy and the Hamas election victory as though Hamas were allies of the United States, whom we should protect!

How can it be that some people still pretend that Sarah Palin is suited for high office? This country has never seen someone so comprehensively unprepared for the vice presidency; Dan Quayle was Metternich by comparison. I’ve watched Sarah Palin’s interview with Katie Couric three times, and my astonishment does not diminish. Her nonsensical answer about Russia has deservedly been highlighted, but let me focus on another question, this one concerning the export of democracy. Couric asked, “What happens if the goal of democracy doesn’t produce the desired outcome? In Gaza, the U.S. pushed hard for elections and Hamas won.”
 
Palin’s answer, in full, was this: “Yeah, well especially in that region, though, we have to protect those who do seek democracy and support those who seek protections for the people who live there. What we’re seeing in the last couple of days here in New York is a President of Iran, Ahmadinejad, who would come on our soil and express such disdain for one of our closest allies and friends, Israel … and we’re hearing the evil that he speaks and if hearing him doesn’t allow Americans to commit more solidly to protecting the friends and allies that we need, especially there in the Mideast, then nothing will.”

The issue here is not that Palin didn’t know the answer. There are many possible answers to this question, some of which are right and some of which are wrong. The issue here is that she didn’t know the question. Because she was apparently ignorant of the subject, she endorsed Hamas’ victory, and, in essence, called for the U.S. to “protect” Islamists who seek to use democratic elections to lever themselves into power. And, of course, Ahmadinejad came to power in a more-or-less democratic election. Palin’s answer was truly remarkable. A person who could be President of the United States has shown herself to be completely ignorant of one of the most vexing and important foreign policy questions of the day. Freshman congressmen know how to answer this question. Here’s one possible Republican response:

“Yes, Katie, it’s true that if you push for democracy, sometimes you get an outcome that you don’t want. This happened in Gaza with Hamas, and I think the Bush Administration was as surprised as everyone else. So the lesson here is that you have be careful when you try to export democracy. But I still believe that, over the long-term, democracy is the best antidote to terrorism that we have. What we have to do, though, is know when to push, and know when not to push. And every day, we have to do the hard work of advocating for press freedom, and the rule of law, and for all those things that build a civil society.”

See? Not that hard. Unless you don’t:

a)    Know what happened in Gaza;
b)    Know where Gaza is;
c)    Know who rules Gaza today;
d)    Care.

 I want to wait and see Palin on Thursday night in her debate with Joe Biden; perhaps her performance in the Couric interview was abnormally bad. But I have a terrible feeling that John McCain has placed this country – and, of lesser importance, his campaign – in an untenable position.