Sarah Palin’s Wolf Kill Program Increasing Moose For Non-Alaskan Trophy Hunters

Alaskan Wolves - Alaska is home to the largest remaining population of gray wolves in the United States. But ironically, at the same time that heroic efforts proceed to restore wolves to portions of their former habitat in the lower 48 states, wolves in Alaska continue to be intensively hunted and killed.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — An Alaska wildlife management program in which wolves are shot from low-flying airplanes and black bears are baited and snared is helping to increase the numbers of moose and caribou, state wildlife officials say.

The program has long been the target of wildlife conservation groups who view it as state-sponsored slaughter. Last fall, one of those groups launched an ad criticizing then-Gov. Sarah Palin, the Republican vice-presidential candidate, for expanding the program.

State officials contend the program is aimed at helping rural Alaskans, who rely on hunting to survive and had complained there wasn’t enough game to hunt and eat.

The program began under Palin’s predecessor, Gov. Frank Murkowski. Private citizens are permitted to shoot wolves from the air or conduct land-and-shoot hunting of wolves in six rural areas of the state.

Since the program began in 2003, over 1,000 wolves and hundreds of black bears have been killed in an effort to drive down the number of predators.

Palin Once Favored End-Of-Life Counseling

Congressman Earl Blumenauer of Portland, Oregon's 3rd District, sponsored the end-of-life counseling amendment characterized by conservative politicians as the formation of 'death panels' to euthanize seniors.

Portland, Ore. – Health insurance reform continues to grip both chambers of Congress and the Obama administration; it also remains a focal point of former GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, whose criticism of Portland’s contribution to the House health reform bill fueled a conservative uprising.

President Obama this week noted that the end-of-life counseling amendment, sponsored by Portland’s U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer, had been used by conservatives and a “prominent politician” to spread “cynical and irresponsible” charges. Obama referred to Palin and her claim that the amendment would lead to so-called death panels for senior citizens.

Tina Fey Wins Emmy Award For Sarah Palin spoof

Actress Tina Fey poses with her Emmy award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series for her portrayal of Governor Sarah Palin on "Saturday Night Live" at the Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards in Los Angeles, September 12, 2009.

Is Tina Fey an Emmy winner? You betcha. Fey received an Emmy Award on Saturday for her impersonation of Republican vice presidential contender Sarah Palin on “Saturday Night Live.”

Accepting her trophy for best guest actress in a comedy, Fey thanked “SNL” producer Lorne Michaels and her parents, “who are lifelong Republicans, for their patience.”

Tina Fey made reference to Palin, who resigned in July as governor of Alaska less than a year after she was chosen as Senator John McCain’s running mate in last year’s U.S. presidential election.

“Mrs. Palin is an inspiration to working mothers everywhere because she bailed on her job right before Fourth of July weekend,” Fey said in her acceptance speech. “You are living my dream. Thank you, Mrs. Palin!”

Sarah Palin: Neocon Pawn?

The same old hawks recruit Palin to pressure Obama on Afghanistan, while ignoring their own past.

Sarah Palin during a press conference on November 13, 2008.

Here come the neocons again—and this time with Sarah Palin.

A group of conservative foreign policy advocates—including a bevy of neoconservatives—this week sent President Barack Obama a letter urging him to stand firm in Afghanistan and vowing their support for him (on Afghanistan) if he did so. The letter was organized by the Foreign Policy Initiative, a think tank put together by leading neoconservatives Bill Kristol and Robert Kagan, and signers included the pair and such neocon stalwarts as David Frum, Max Boot, Robert Kagan, John Podhoretz, Clifford May, Danielle Pletka, Randy Scheunemann, Dan Senor, and Gary Schmitt. But two high-profile right-wingers also added their names: Sarah Palin and Karl Rove.

Track Palin Involved in Vandalism Rampage – Real Reason for Army Enlistment?

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin holding Trig Palin as her son Track Palin and daughters Bristol, Willow and Piper Palin look on during day three of the Republican National Convention. Palin's husband Todd Palin and Bristol's boyfriend Levi Johnston are also pictured on the right.

Sarah Palin has not been afraid to emphasize that her oldest son Track has joined the Army and will soon be sent to Iraq. While commentators have questioned her ethics for trying to use her son’s military service for political advantage, there are now concerns Gov. Palin may have also concealed the true reason behind her son’s hasty enlistment, something which would put him in a less than flattering light.

There are now allegations that her son Track was involved in a vandalism rampage a couple of years earlier and that his run-in with the law contributed to his decision to enlist in the Army.

On December 5, 2005, the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman reported that Alaska State Troopers had arrested four teenage boys for the previous week’s vandalism of school buses. The boys deflated the tires of 44 buses, broke mirrors and unplugged 110 buses from their engine-block heaters, which caused the buses not to start in subzero weather. The incident was serious enough to force the school district to close schools for a day on November 29.

Palin No Longer Writing Her Own Script

Sarah Palin's ghostwriter working on her "death panels" op-ed.

It’s already been pointed out by several others that Sarah Palin has a new ghostwriter on staff and that she is clearly not the auteur of her most recent scribbles on Facebook and most certainly not the primary author of her op-ed yesterday in the Wall Street Journal.

Yes, the latter continues her unyielding obsession with Barack Obama by trying to upstage his healthcare address to the nation today, but it’s clearly the work of someone who can write cohesively and thinks in a linear fashion. The piece doesn’t even sound like Palin. Tina Fey this isn’t. Hopefully Palin’s memoirs capture some of her peculiar dexterity with the English language. (A genius like Mark Twain might have pulled it off, but rumor has it that he’s not around any more.)

Trying to pass off Palin as a policy wonk on national health care issues is simply going a bit far. This dog simply will not hunt.

Sick and Wrong

How Washington is screwing up health care reform – and why it may take a revolt to fix it

President Obama vs. the GOP on Health Care Reform.

Let’s start with the obvious: America has not only the worst but the dumbest health care system in the developed world. It’s become a black leprosy eating away at the American experiment — a bureaucracy so insipid and mean and illogical that even our darkest criminal minds wouldn’t be equal to dreaming it up on purpose.

The system doesn’t work for anyone. It cheats patients and leaves them to die, denies insurance to 47 million Americans, forces hospitals to spend billions haggling over claims, and systematically bleeds and harasses doctors with the specter of catastrophic litigation. Even as a mechanism for delivering bonuses to insurance-company fat cats, it’s a miserable failure: Greedy insurance bosses who spent a generation denying preventive care to patients now see their profits sapped by millions of customers who enter the system only when they’re sick with incurably expensive illnesses.

The cost of all of this to society, in illness and death and lost productivity and a soaring federal deficit and plain old anxiety and anger, is incalculable — and that’s the good news. The bad news is our failed health care system won’t get fixed, because it exists entirely within the confines of yet another failed system: the political entity known as the United States of America.

Sarah Palin’s New Death Panel

The GOP is slowing down healthcare reform to a snail's pace.

Sarah Palin popped up again today on the Wall Street Journal’s Op-Ed page to renew her accusation that President Obama was advocating “death panels.” Never mind that lawmakers have already abandoned the proposal that gave rise to the original “death panel” hysteria, namely, a provision allowing Medicare to pay doctors no more than once every five years to counsel patients about their options for “end of life” care. (Some top geriatricians think such counseling would actually give the elderly more control by encouraging them to declare their preferences while they’re still capable of doing so. But I digress.) This time, Palin attacked Obama’s proposal to beef up MedPAC — the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission. The 17-member MedPAC makes recommendations to Congress about how much doctors and hospitals should be paid for the services they provide. To insulate these decisions from political pressure, Obama has proposed giving a new version of MedPAC the power to set reimbursement levels, with Congress retaining the power to veto those decisions before they take effect. To Palin, though, this amounted to giving “an unelected, largely unaccountable group of experts” the power to make life-and-death decisions about care.

Why I Loved Obama’s Health Care Speech

President Obama urges Congress to overhaul health care, spells out details; denounces misrepresentations, and evokes Senator Kennedy’s moral stance.

I loved Pres. Obama’s speech. It rallied dispirited Democrats, reassured disenchanted independents and intimidated Republicans. He called a lie a lie, and pledged to call out the right-wing thugs if (well, when) they continue lying.

The President shone a spotlight on the sin of rescission — the process by which insurance companies protect their profits by dumping customers when they get sick. This outrage has been under-covered by the media, but congressional hearings revealed that just three insurance companies have kicked 20,000 customers off their plans. They included the woman President Obama referred to tonight, whose aggressive breast cancer was denied treatment because she once had acne. The congressional hearings uncovered documents proving that the insurance companies had saved themselves $300 million by kicking those folks off — and insurance bureaucrats got bonuses and promotions based on who they dumped. This is an outrage. If Sarah Palin wants to see a real-world death panel, she should look no further than the corporate insurance executives whom she and her fellow Republicans so zealously defend.

Will The Media Take the Sarah Palin Bait?

Sarah Palin speaking at the Republican Governors Association conference.

Sarah Palin, the former Republican vice presidential candidate, has every right to submit an opinion piece on health care to the Wall Street Journal’s op-ed page, and they’ve got every right to print it. But Palin’s existence in this debate does not (a) lend her voice any credibility and, beyond that, even if you believe that her experience as a state governor does give her at least a modicum of credibility, it does not follow that, because her voice is credible, it ought to be influential. Newt Gingrich is influential by rights; he’s done the work, come up with original ideas, and been in the trenches. (Replacing Medicare with vouchers…not new or remotely plausible, even if GOPers do well in the next two elections. Quoting Ronald Reagan talking about that type of proposal…not new. Etc.)