DISQUS

The Washington Independent: Troopergate Report: Palin ‘Abused Her Power’

  • jupitor · 1 year ago
    Ya, she quielty, but Cnn, fox is saying it is nothing! Mccains camp blameing it on Obama! Even now Cnn, Fox cannot be fair and balance. What a laugh! My God, will they still say they vetted this woman? She saying you can't struest Obama, and here she is abuseing her Governors power! She need to go home to alaska, where they probally won't want her anymore than we want her.
  • Kwaayesnama · 1 year ago
    Dam the members of the partisan investigation committee they are picking on the bulldog with lipstick!

    Ops! Ten republicans and four democrats, blame them anyway it is McCain’s style of politics.

    Oh! I know it was the Moslems on the committee, what no Moslems?

    Ok! Lets blame the Blacks, what!!! No blacks?

    That leaves us with the fact that the members were sexist, lets get the Hillary Clinton supporters to protest the sexist Alaska legislature.

    If all else fails just blame the liberal media for reporting this.

    You go girl, wink, wink. ;-)
  • junior · 1 year ago
    Hey dip-wad, Sen. Kim Elton is a D NOT an R !!

    (D-Juneau)
  • junior · 1 year ago
    Alaska Legislative Council's democrat chairman, state Sen. Kim Elton:

    "I believe that these findings may help people come to a conclusion on how they should vote" in the presidential election."

    Sounds unbiased and non-partisan to me - NOT !!

    I thought this was an Alaska issue - it appears to be a front for the Obama campaign.
  • bacalove · 1 year ago
    Troopergate is a saga, something like: Mayberry has come to Washington!

    Now it is also coming to light that it looks like Sarah Palin has been using a Secret Service Earpiece (probably by brickhousesecurity.com) The thin white line coming down from her glasses appears to be a brickhousesecurity antenna and Reuters was refused earpiece checks before her debate with Joe Biden: http://www.youtube.com/...

    However, she was seen using Flash Cards constantly at her Vice Presidential debate with Joe Biden.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTqdYQ46wMU

    Is this why she can't -- won't go on Meet the Press, like every other Vice Presidential candidate who has gone before her? Sarah Palin is a total fruad perpetrated on the American people by the Republican party, who thought they would be able to steal Hillary voters from the Democrats. McCain's judgment and gamble did not pay off.
  • Donna · 1 year ago
    Does anyone see a theme here? Abuse of Executive Powers in Alaska...Statement during her one debate regarding the expansion of the Vice President's office and her role in the Legislature?
  • Tahut · 1 year ago
    Palin was caught red-handed abusing the public trust in pursuing a personal vendetta as governor using the executive branch, state resources and state personnel are proxies so as to keep a low profile while others did her bidding.

    What people don't understand, while the investigation was initially instructed to find the truth about the firing of a state official, it uncovered the the abuse of public trust co-mingled and intertwined with the firing making it hard to ignore.
  • Lena · 1 year ago
    Who is Sarah Palin??? Does anyone really knows? She refuse to take interviews from the media and when she does she sounds stupid. She just came on the scene about 6 weeks ago. Sarah Palin has a lot of nerves to question Obama, he has been on the national scene running for President for 2 years.
  • hread · 1 year ago
    It's exciting to know you can taser 10 year olds in Alaska with impunity. That should increase their population FAST.
  • Tahut · 1 year ago
    Some people require an electrical stimulus to keep their hearts beating. You need a taser wired to your brain to keep it electrically stimulated. Cause if you could think and read at the same time, you would know about the taser incident and wouldn't be making an a$$ out of yourself.
  • ajm8127 · 1 year ago
    This is just one more thing to tie the current republican ticket to the Bush administration. Abuse of power by elected officials is no small detail in a country where the people should have the power. So two different committees have found that:

    a.) John McCain has exercised poor judgment regarding economic decisions, and

    b.) Sarah Palin has no respect for the office she has held, and therefore, the people she was supposed to serve.

    And some Americans still want these people to run our executive branch. Given that leaders set an example, a precedent if you will, its no surprise that this country is in bad shape. We need a smart, honorable president, and neihter John McCain nor Sarah Palin fit the bill in my opinion.
  • Linda · 1 year ago
    Governor, Sara Palin is beginning to a look like a Vice-President Chaney with lipstick
  • Tahut · 1 year ago
    She's making Cheney look like a Saint. He only wanted to empower the unitary executive. Palin wants to empower herself .
  • William · 1 year ago
    If he was threatening a member of her family, why didn't she persue this thru the court. If he had been convicted, he would have been punished and lost his job as a trooper. But, if he had been fired as they wanted, he still be on the streets and they would be in more danger. This show that Sarah and Todd are not very smart thinkers.
  • Tahut · 1 year ago
    The threats date back to when Palin's sister was getting her divorce. From the judge's ruling, he saw the threats and innuendos emanating from all members of the Palin clan as "child abuse" and so stated. I suspect there were no threats made. It's easy for a family clan to make an accusation of verbal threats and think they are safe because its us against him.
  • Independent Mind · 1 year ago
    If there is ANY truth to him tasering a 10 yr old, he was a danger to anyone around him as he showed the worst judgement on this planet, and a HUGE liability to the state. I would fired him and then beat him with a wet stick for doing that to someone who couldn't have protected themselves.
  • Moshe · 1 year ago
    Palin as Olmert? Free flights, fancy clothes and life of luxury

    By Benjamin L. Hartman, Haaretz reporter


    It turns out, the difference between a pitbull and a hockey mom isn't just lipstick, its designer lipstick, Manolo Blahnik pumps, and a $2,500 Valentino jacket. That should keep you warm at the Iron Dog snowmachine race.

    It emerged this week that with the U.S. in the grip of one of its worst economic crises, the Republican National Committee had the clear and present judgment to run up a reported $150,000 bill to deck out Sarah Palin, the running-mate and rising Republican star who "is just like the rest of us", that is, if the rest of us drop a few thousand dollars at Nieman's on the way to the hockey rink.

    As the Huffington Post reported Wednesday, the splurges included a reputed $75,000 shopping spree in a single day at a Nieman Marcus (or "needless markup" as they're widely known) store in "not so sure it's real America still" Minneapolis, as well as $50,000 spent at Saks Fifth Avenue chains in no-longer real America St. Louis and 10th circle of hell New York City.

    In retrospect, though her rationale defending her foreign policy credentials was widely lampooned, it could be that Palin can in fact see Russia from Alaska; it would certainly explain how she came to adopt the fashion tastes of a Russian oligarch's wife since she became McCain's running mate.

    The revelations have the potential to be infuriating and puzzling to many mainly because they come from the campaign that has played the "elitist" card with reckless abandon, and has made a central issue of their campaign the idealization and ownership of working-class "small-town values", hard-to-pin-down ideals that presumably cannot be found within a hundred miles of a Saks or Nieman's branch. Furthermore, over the last week, said campaign has turned its entire message into the celebration of one Joe the Plumber, an everyman who works with his hands and whose endorsement apparently bears more weight than that of former secretary of state Colin Powell.

    From an Israeli-American point of view, Palin's "makeovergate" and the revelations this week that she billed the State of Alaska for thousands of dollars worth of commercial flights for her daughters, and for luxury hotel rooms for a family vacation, bear a certain resemblance to the travails and scandals of our disgraced outgoing prime minister Ehud Olmert, a man who came to power suddenly as vice premier, when the septuagenarian former warrior who swooped him into the halls of power fell terminally ill. Ring any bells?

    Although the case was later closed, the Rishon Tours affair involved allegations that Olmert used thousands of dollars in state funds to pay for foreign air travel flights for his family. During the investigation, it was alleged that the flights were paid in large part through the funneling of money intended for charity organizations, and by writing off the tickets as official state business, not dissimilar to claims that Palin air-freighted her daughters at the taxpayers expense while governor.

    Palin's shopping sprees were legal, but they do display a lack of judgment or consideration for how the acts may be perceived by the public. The fact that both Olmert and Palin seemed to be willing to put their careers or public approval in jeopardy for such petty rewards at a time when they were ostensibly well-off public servants seems reckless at best.

    In Palin's case, even if she was just following the advice of campaign handlers with blank checks who wanted to spruce up her image, the fact that she would take part in such a breakneck spend-a-thon at some of America's ritziest stores while the country is on the verge of depression, shows a bewildering level of obliviousness that Olmert could surely understand.

    While in office, both Olmert and Palin adopted the standpoint of cheapskate guests at an expensive wedding, or underpaid employees suddenly given an expense account, with the attitude that "hey, if some somebody else is paying for it, why not supersize it? Why not first-class? Who cares who's watching?" Or better yet, like guests who paid for an all-inclusive weekend in Eilat who assume that means not only can they avail themselves of the all-you-can-eat buffet, but they might as well pocket the silverware while they're at it.

    The decision is also indicative (again) of the McCain campaign's seeming ignorance of the power of the Internet and the instant fact-checking that has changed the nature of the news and political campaigns forever. Like with the quicksilver vetting process of the Alaska governor, which some say missed "Troopergate" and Palin's pregnant teenage daughter, or the repeated, groundless attacks on Obama that have been easily debunked by anyone with access to Google, Palin's spending sprees show an ignorance of the instant access to information and the 24-hour news cycle, and possibly, in the worst case, an outright contempt for the very public whose values they pander to.

    And what I'm wondering is, where did Joe the Plumber get the suit he was wearing on Fox News the other night