While - thankfully for us Nutmeggers - Connecticut is way down near the bottom of this list, it is obvious that rape in Alaska is a very serious issue that is and has been begging to be dealt with properly. Unfortunately for Alaskans, Sarah Palin has made it a budgetary priority to ignore these issues.
Now, Palin's views on abortion are extremist to the point of including the fact that she does not believe in abortion even in cases of rape or incest. Also, Palin was against even paying for victim's rape kits to determine if there were resulting STDs and or pregnancies, as well as searching for DNA evidence to use as evidence.
Of course, and as has proven the case over and over again, both the McCain campaign and Sarah Palin tried to lie their way out of that.Despite denials by the Palin campaign, new evidence proves that as mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, Sarah Palin had a direct hand in imposing fees to pay for post-sexual assault medical exams conducted by the city to gather evidence.
Palin's role is now confirmed by Wasilla City budget documents available online.
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 earlier this week 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,"
If you didn't have the money to pay for it you would not get this support from her town until later when the State of Alaska passed a law mandating that rape kits had to be provided to victims. Eight years ago, during Mayor Palin's reign of terror, the state of Alaska passed a law specifically with then Mayor Palin's back-assward town, Wasilla, in mind in order to protect victims from Palin's radical policy.
You would think that warped view would be enough to throw the average American woman for a loop. But Sarah Palin is even worse than that simple position since, according to the McCain campaign, she fired Monegan - one of the Alaskan state officials at the heart of Troopergate - because Monegan was trying to get more money from the Feds to help prosecute cases of sexual assault.Eight years ago, complaints about charging rape victims for medical exams in Wasilla prompted the Alaska Legislature to pass a bill -- signed into law by Knowles -- that banned the practice statewide.
"There was one town in Alaska that was charging victims for this, and that was Wasilla," Knowles said
A May 23, 2000, article in Wasilla's newspaper, The Frontiersman, noted that Alaska State Troopers and most municipal police agencies regularly pay for such exams, which cost between $300 and $1,200 apiece.
"(But) the Wasilla police department does charge the victims of sexual assault for the tests," the newspaper reported.
It also quoted Wasilla Police Chief Charlie Fannon objecting to the law. Fannon was appointed to his position by Palin after her dismissal of the previous police chief. He said it would cost Wasilla $5,000 to $14,000 a year if the city had to foot the bill for rape exams.
That's right... According to the McCain campaign, Palin fired Monegan because he was trying to find more resources to prosecute rapists and other criminals involved in sexual assault cases. A problem that she had previously hampered as Mayor of Wasilla when she refused to pay for rape kits.I had thought I'd hit a dead end in my investigations of the Wasilla rape kit billing controversy. Then this comes out:
The McCain campaign says it can prove Monegan was fired in July because of insubordination on budget issues
...
The "last straw," the campaign said, was a trip Monegan planned to Washington in July to seek federal money for investigating and prosecuting sexual assault cases.In a July 7 e-mail, John Katz, the governor's special counsel, noted two problems with the trip: the governor hadn't agreed the money should be sought, and the request "is out of sequence with our other appropriations requests and could put a strain on the evolving relationship between the Governor and Sen. Stevens."
That's right: they claim Chief Monegan was fired for trying to get money to investigate and prosecute rapists, because Palin didn't want to do so.
In McCain's and Palin's sick and perverted world view they seem to view this as wise budgetary decisions? We'll ask the victim's of rape and sexual assault if they want to apologize to Palin for creating this monetary burden for ya tomorrow, OK John and Sarah?
For now... WTF were they thinking?
The more I read on Monegan and Sarah Palin in the Troopergate scandal, the more and more Monegan comes off as someone trying to get things done to improve the safety and security of the people of Alaska in spite of Sarah Palin's best efforts to squander money on bridges to nowhere while ignoring serious criminal activity.
As a side note: The Yahoo article has changed since DemocraticLuntz first found this quote - been rewritten and edited - to read this way:
The last straw, the McCain campaign said, was in July, when Monegan planned to travel to Washington to seek federal money for a plan to assign troopers, judges and prosecutors who could exclusively handle sexual assault cases — one of the state's most intractable crime problems.
In a July 7 e-mail, John Katz, the governor's special counsel, noted two problems with the trip: The governor hadn't agreed the money should be sought, and the request was "out of sequence with our other appropriations requests and could put a strain on the evolving relationship between the Governor and Sen. (Ted) Stevens."
Just thought readers would want to know if they decided to click through... And Bloggers would want to know in case they are looking for quotes for their own Blog. I don't know if there were any other major changes to the article other than what I put in BOLD.
Previously Brewed in New Milford:
Palin's Troopergate Troubles Start To Spin Out of Control
Just an update on the impeachment for abuse of power story that I wrote about on Friday. Via Steve Benen at The Political Animal:
Interestingly enough, the right wing only seems to want to address Palin's charges concerning Wooten being an asshat, but they completely ignore the very credible evidence of serious abuses of power and the fact that their family was directly involved in some of the asshat things Wooten did, as well.THE CRIME AND THE COVER-UP.... At her kickoff event in Ohio yesterday, Sarah Palin boasted about having rejected congressional funds for the infamous "bridge to nowhere." Soon after, we realized that Palin wasn't telling the truth about one of her signature issues, on her very first day as a candidate for national office.
Now, some might say this is excusable, because Palin's remarks were written by McCain campaign aides, and the McCain campaign barely knows who Palin is. That's probably true.
But lying about an alleged abuse of power is far more serious.
Remember the expression, the cover-up is worse than the crime? It's plainly true in the case of Palin firing Alaska Public Safety Commissioner Walter Monegan. Take a look at this video, from the ABC affiliate in Alaska, and notice that Palin seems to have been caught, rather blatantly, misusing her power and then lying about it.
While we're at it, read this rather extraordinary report from the Washington Post about just how embarrassing this scandal is for Palin.
For that matter, let's not forget that Palin fired the Alaska Public Safety Commissioner for the most dubious of reasons, and then replaced him with a guy facing a credible sexual harassment accusation, and who was out of the job two weeks later. What a great example of sound judgment.
I am sitting back and laughing because, outside of Alaskan Blogs, there were maybe about a dozen Blogs that had even one of the many stories I had bundled together on Friday about Palin being a pothead, her "Bridge to Nowhere!", whether or not she will be inducted into the Alaskan CBC... And, of course, the impeachment story, known as Troopergate, that many Blogs were playing catch up on.
Brewed here weeks ago:
McCain Pick Pot Head Palin Running From Impeachment
Anyone that thinks this is going to win over former Hillary Clinton supporters already firmly in the Democratic party fold don't understand the fact that Hillary supporters were and are strongly Pro-Choice for the most part.
Her lifetime membership in the NRA may help solidify one of McCain's many weaknesses in his own party base, as well as her advocating religion in schools under the banner of "creationism" may help solidify some of the Christian fundies, but I fail to see how any of it will get her anywhere with moderates or women, in general. Some of the Christian fundamentalists may even despise her just for the fact that she is woman seeking power.
As for her supposed record of cleaning up Alaskan politics and conservative cred?
Well? Palin did smoke pot and, yes, she did inhale:
Palin said she has smoked marijuana -- remember, it was legal under state law, she said, even if illegal under U.S. law -- but says she didn't like it and doesn't smoke it now.Breaks laws but says it is OK... Sounds bush-like. IOKIYAR, to say the least.
Palin gave up on the Alaskan bridge to nowhere when it became a hot button showcase issue for Senator Steven's wasting tax dollars.
And any doubt about her place on the ticket to distract from corrupt Republicans can be removed here:The $398 million bridge would have connected Ketchikan, on one island in southeastern Alaska, to its airport on another nearby island.
Gov. Sarah Palin said Friday the project was $329 million short of full funding.
"We will continue to look for options for Ketchikan to allow better access to the island," the Republican governor said. "The concentration is not going to be on a $400 million bridge."
Yep... She has an image as some kind of political reformer but she is just another booster of the Corrupt Bastards Club. Obviously the feelings are mutual:
I bet Governor Palin wishes she could take this commercial back.
And she is running from possible impeachment in her state too:
Got caught and threw others under the bus. Can you get any more bush than that? Yes she can... Here she tried to head off an investigation by having a farce inquiry of her own.Palin, who has previously said her administration didn't exert pressure to get rid of trooper Mike Wooten, also disclosed that members of her staff had made about two dozen contacts with public safety officials about the trooper.
"I do now have to tell Alaskans that such pressure could have been perceived to exist although I have only now become aware of it," Palin said.
But Palin said her decision to fire Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan last month had nothing to do with his refusal to dump trooper Mike Wooten.
The governor said evidence of what she called a "smoking gun" conversation, and other calls made by her aides, only recently surfaced as the attorney general started an inquiry at her request into the circumstances surrounding her firing of Monegan. Palin wanted the review because a special investigator hired by the Legislature is about to investigate the firing and a legislator has been quoted in a newspaper story talking about impeachment.
Gov. Sarah Palin is trying to find out what the Legislature's special investigator might discover as he probes her controversial firing of Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan.Obviously Sarah Palin wants the inquiry for ethics reasons... Not to head off any damaging information that might come up in a real independent investigation.
Questions have been raised since Monegan's firing about whether Palin, her family, or members of her administration pressured Monegan to fire Wooten, a Mat-Su-based trooper involved in a rough divorce from the governor's sister.
Sarah Palin has Corrupt Bastards Club written all over her.
If you want to have a little fun...Alaska political corruption probe refers to a widespread investigation from 2004 to the present by the Public Integrity Section of the U.S. Department of Justice, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and Internal Revenue Service into political corruption of lawmakers in the Alaska State Legislature, focusing in particular on lawmakers' official actions in relation to the oil industry, fisheries, and private corrections industry. As of May 2007, the investigation has resulted in indictments against four current and former Alaska state legislators on corruption charges; and guilty pleas by two executives of the oilfield services company VECO Corporation to charges of bribery and conspiracy to impede the Internal Revenue Service. Indications are that further indictments may be forthcoming as the investigation progresses.
Former Representative Tom Anderson was indicted in December 2006 on allegations of extortion and bribery involving his support of a private corrections company. Anderson was convicted of all seven felony counts on July 9, 2007. Former House Speaker Pete Kott (R-Eagle River), former Representative Bruce Weyhrauch (R-Juneau), and current Representative Vic Kohring (R-Wasilla) were arrested and arraigned on May 4, 2007 on charges of accepting bribery and extortion related to their support of an oil tax law favored by the oilfield services company VECO Corporation.[1] On May 7, 2007, VECO Corporation founder and CEO Bill Allen and Vice President for Community & Government Affairs Rick Smith pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Anchorage to charges of bribery and conspiracy to impede the Internal Revenue Service.[2]
Last November voters identified corruption as the number one issue affecting their vote, in short: vote the bastards out! We here at the C.B.C. couldn’t agree more but there are plenty more of these bastards out there in politics, the media and big business so let’s hear more about them. Play Who’s Your Corrupt Bastard? our award winning national contest ripped straight from the headlines of Alaska politics where you can win fabulous prizes and call out your favorite corrupt public figure. Peruse The Bastard Files for a look at current nominees. We are also the official headquarters for the now infamous Corrupt Bastard Club Gear - perfect for that corrupt bastard in your life.Of note is that Josh Marshall says that this wouldn't be the first time that a politician has abused their power to settle family scores in this way. In Connecticut we don't have to look any further than Governor Rell's hit job on any policing effort when her son was caught with a stolen jet ski.
I mentioned this last week, and bears mentioning again:
Get back to me later on today to see what the media will be talking about tomorrow... If you want a good idea of what the pundits will be talking about today just look in my archives for the past week or so. lol jkI am doing the best I can to be out ahead of everything that is "NEWS" here, more so than usual... And I think I have been well ahead of the curve on the biggest stories of the campaign in the last month or so. Certainly running with pack of Bloggers that are lookin' way back over their shoulders at the flailing and floundering Traditional Media.
And there is still a lot more to come on this pitiful Palin pick...
I am just not irresponsible enough to start posting based on rumors of her daughter being - or having been - pregnant, or any of the other weird and wacky stories floating around the internet concerning the birth of Trig. But, apparently these stories worry the right wingnuts enough to start refuting them before they make any big splashes in the news. Go figure?
Here we are talkin' about someone that not only should never have been picked as McInsane's running mate, but she knows she is completely unprepared for this, via kos:
In an interview just a month ago, she dissed the job, saying it didn't seem "productive." In fact, she said she doesn't know what the vice president does. Larry Kudlow of CNBC's "Kudlow & Co." asked her about the possibility of becoming McCain ticket mate. Palin replied:Since all muck is best when it is local, I am going to farm you out to a pretty good Alaskan Blog, Mudflats, that has a decent handle on the entire Troopergate scandal, and this story really does read like a trashy novel:Palin replied: "[A]s for that V.P. talk all the time, I'll tell you, I still can't answer that question until somebody answers for me what is it exactly that the V.P. does every day?
You will find about 800 comments there now, and a lot of it concerns rumors from locals on the Palin kids' origins, so to speak. They are debating whether Sarah Palin was ever pregnant OR if their daughter Bristol is or has been pregnant OR if Sarah Palin had the amniocentesis tests done because she might have been considering having an abortion, among other interesting subjects.So, if McCain had made his selection six months ago, the squeaky-clean governor meme would have made a little more sense. But, Sarah Palin is currently under an ethics investigation by the Alaska state legislature. The details of this investigation read like a trashy novel, and I suspect that the players will soon have newfound celebrity on the national stage. I’ll try to explain for all you non-Alaskans who suddenly have good reason to want to know more about Sarah Palin. For those of you not interested in trashy novels, feel free to skip ahead. Here it is…what we in Alaska call “TrooperGate”.
Sarah Palin’s sister Molly married a guy named Mike Wooten who is an Alaska State Trooper. 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.
All of these issues are things that should instantly kill Palin's already lukewarm support from the Christian Fundamentalists, Christianists, and Christofascists IF they are proven true. You have to remember that while most of these groups may celebrate her far right wing religious positions, there are many among those groups that don't like women that go to work, never mind chasing that supposed manly power.
And as a last note...You hear guys using this word a lot on the internet when they talk about Sarah Palin - some girls use this term too - but here is someone bringing a whole new meaning to the word MILF:
Sarah Palin's hometown rallied around her as mayor - now Republicans wonder if the rest of America will warm up to the surprise pick from cold country.Holy Crap! Her mother-in-law eFed her good...Though her mother-in-law has doubts.
Faye Palin admitted she enjoys hearing Barack Obama speak, and still hasn't decided which way she'll vote."
[update] The McCain campaign is in a Bush-like desperation mode to try and stall anything from moving on Palin's Troopergate:
The "tainted with politics" claim? I guess it is based on the fact that 3 Republicans and 2 Democratic members on a committee looking into claims of Palin's abuse of power voted to go forward with subpoenas and a formal inquiry...A former top Justice Department prosecutor now working for John McCain's presidential campaign has been helping to direct an aggressive legal strategy aimed at shutting down a pre-election ethics investigation into Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.
The growing role of Edward O'Callaghan, who until six weeks ago served as co-chief of the terrorism and national security unit of the U.S. attorney's office in New York, illustrates just how seriously the McCain campaign is taking the so-called "troopergate" inquiry into Palin's firing last summer of Walt Monegan,
Alaska's Public Safety Commissioner.O'Callaghan emerged publicly for the first time this week when he told reporters at a McCain campaign press conference, in Anchorage, that Palin is "unlikely to cooperate" with an Alaskan legislative inquiry into Monegan's firing because it had been "tainted" by politics.
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