Saradise Lost - Chapter Sixty-Nine -- Uh, Oh! Translation Needed & Palin Appearances Being Canceled

Meanwhile, Gov. Palin canceled an appearance in Florida today, and the campaign has backed out of some upcoming California and Washington state fundraisers that were sold out.

Saradise Lost - Chapter Sixty-Eight -- Palin's Positives Crash

Whatever her approval ratings might be in Alaska right now, Sarah Palin's national approval ratings are going down. Steadily and surely.

Additionally, I'm still waiting for an in-depth report by a credible national or international reporter who came up to Alaska since August 29th, who praises her record here. Anybody read one yet?

Palin's positives vs. negatives:


DATE------POSITIVE----------NEGATIVE----------------NET
9/11............52.......................35..........................+17
9/12............51.......................37..........................+14
9/13............49......................40...........................+9
9/14............47.......................42..........................+7
9/15.............47......................43..........................+4
9/16.............45......................44..........................+1
9/17.............44......................45...........................-1
9/18.............42......................46..........................-4

Saradise Lost - Chapter Sixty-Seven -- $50,000 to Turn Sarah's Wasilla Ciy Hall Office Into a Bordello Scene, But No Money for Rape Investigations?

The efforts these past nineteen days, of Outside reporters, up here investigating the true Sarah Palin, are coming into more stark contrast with the efforts of the team of GOP slime attorneys and political hitmen sent up here by the McCain campaign and RNC that same late August day.

Every hour.

The reporters, by and large, have come and gone. The GOP attorneys are here until election day, as they do more subversion of our state's ways and of our excellent constitution, in a few days, than a horde of Exxon attorneys were able to do to us and our founding document in a generation.

Who is going to detail this all-too-obvious comparison first? Perhaps, Progressive Alaska, but I know Shannyn Moore is investigating it in more depth. And Celtic Diva, and Mudflats.

Here's another obvious linkage, provided by the non-MSM bloggers in Alaska, as we coordinate with bloggers and writers worldwide:

How come Sarah Palin could come up with $50,000 to redecorate the Wasilla mayor's office to look like a New Orleans madame's office, but couldn't come up with the same amount of money to fund more than four years of forensic exams for Wasilla rape victims?

David Talbot from salon.com wrote yesterday:

Carney, Palin's estranged former mentor, and others in city hall were astounded when they found out about a lavish expenditure of Palin's own after her 1996 election. According to Carney, the newly elected mayor spent more than $50,000 in city funds to redecorate her office, without the council's authorization.

"I thought it was an outrageous expense, especially for someone who had run as a budget cutter," said Carney. "It was also illegal, because Sarah had not received the council's approval."

According to Carney, Palin's office makeover included flocked, red wallpaper. "It looked like a bordello."

Although Carney says he no longer has documentation of the expenditures, in his recollection Palin paid for the office face-lift with money from a city highway fund that was used to plow snow, grade roads and fill potholes -- essential municipal services, particularly in weather-battered Alaska.

Carney confronted Mayor Palin at a City Council hearing, and was shocked by her response.

"I braced her about it," he said. "I told her it was against the law to make such a large expenditure without the council taking a vote. She said, 'I'm the mayor, I can do whatever I want until the courts tell me I can't.'"

"I'll never forget it -- it's one of the few times in my life I've been speechless," Carney added. "It would have been easier for her to finesse it. She had the votes on the council by then, she controlled it. But she just pushed forward. That's Sarah. She just has no respect for rules and regulations."

And back in May, 2000, when the Alaska Legislature had to devote days crafting legislation to overcome another Palin "shocker," the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman wrote:

While the Alaska State Troopers and most municipal police agencies have covered the cost of exams, which cost between $300 to $1,200 apiece, the Wasilla police department does charge the victims of sexual assault for the tests.

Wasilla Police Chief Charlie Fannon does not agree with the new legislation, saying the law will require the city and communities to come up with more funds to cover the costs of the forensic exams.

In the past we've charged the cost of exams to the victims insurance company when possible. "I just don't want to see any more burden put on the taxpayer," Fannon said.

According to Fannon, the new law will cost the Wasilla Police Department approximately $5,000 to $14,000 a year to collect evidence for sexual assault cases.

Should our progressive Alaska bloggers hold our breath until the Anchorage Daily News catches up to this story? Not a chance, folks.

We have important work to do.

Saradise Lost - Chapter Sixty-Six -- PALIN TRUTH SQUAD: BURNING BRIDGES IN ALASKA

-- by Shannyn Moore


I attended Governor Sarah Palin’s press conference this week. I witnessed the “Palin Truth Squad” first hand. It was as “truthy” to politics as the Jeffrey Dahmer Cooking School would be to the culinary arts. It made me nauseous.

With a precarious political atmosphere in Alaska, we are still making our way through indictments, trials, and federal penitentiary sentences; the past two years of bipartisan work and healing thrown under the bus in attempt to win the White House.

National political assassins have invaded Alaska.

They were visible and in full force at the McCain-Palin press conference yesterday. Alaskans don’t roll that way. People get cranky, even nasty at times, over politics and what they think is best for the state. Alaska Lawmakers are sitting in federal prison for selling their votes and it wasn’t this nasty. The McCain-Palin ticket has become a poster child for partisan politics on steroids. On November 5th, the day after this election, the shrapnel of this campaign will be strewn across Alaska. It’s going to take Dr. Phil and a few Barry White albums to get the healing started.

Right off the bat, a full-on assault of character was laid out-Walt Monegan the target. Megan Stapleton, lead off hitter for the Palin Truth Squad was polished, assertive, dramatic, professional, fantastic….and LYING! For all of her assertions of Walt’s “loose cannon” behavior, you would have thought he was tasing Alaska children. A stack of emails from or regarding Monegan, chosen by Palin’s state paid attorney, were released to prove his incompetence.

I asked why, if he was such a terrible employee, was he offered another position in government? How could they risk something so important as the oversight of alcohol in rural Alaska? After all, alcohol is a huge contributor to our domestic violence and rape statistics. Megan’s answer felt like an out of control carnival ride for all the disingenuous spin!

Her co-“truther” is Edward O’Callaghan. He looks and acts like the evil and unstoppable Agent Smith from “The Matrix”. Six weeks ago he left his job as Co-Chief of the Terrorism and National Security Unit of the U.S. Attorney’s office in New York. Does the McCain camp consider a bipartisan group of Alaska Lawmakers to be terrorists?

The “last straw,” Megan-Super-Spokes-Model Stapleton said, was a July trip Monegan planned to Washington D.C. to seek federal money for investigating and prosecuting sexual assault cases. You would have thought he was planning to lobby Washington D.C. for a new super trooper jet-boat, complete with lightening bolts, water cannons, cup holders and satellite television. If it is true Monegan was fired for trying to drum up funds to protect Alaskans, I’m more disturbed than if he was fired for NOT carrying out an old family proxy vendetta against Trooper Wooten.

Four days before Walt Monegan was fired, John Katz, the governor’s special counsel and inaugural PTSer, in a July 7 e-mail, noted two issues 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 Senator Stevens.” Why the continuing theme of subverting the treatment of epidemic sexual assaults in Alaska?

Last Friday I sat through the subpoena hearings. The “Remote Control Legislator”, Gene Therriault, who would check his blackberry and then ask texted questions, was the knight in tarnished armor. Challenging reason and truth, the only thing transparent was his political crush on Sarah Palin.

Republican Senator Charlie Huggins, sitting in camo pants, wishing he was sitting on the edge of a muskeg listening to the sounds of love lorn moose, presented the best side of Alaskans. He announced himself as a McCain voter, and said he would also vote for subpoenas. So have many other Republicans in this investigation.

I never believed the argument from their party in the 90s over Bill Clinton’s lie. But I think now, when I see a Republican put truth and knowledge in front of protecting their party, some of them may have been telling the truth.

The partisan accusations are coming from partisan Republicans. Representative Bob Lynn is one of five Republican Lawmakers filing a law suit, all designed by the Palin Truth Squad, to stop the investigation of Sarah Palin’s abuse of power allegations. Just a couple of weeks ago, Lynn was a delegate on the floor of the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis. What isn’t “partisan” about that?

The PTS has posters with pictures of Alaska Democratic leadership and big arrows pointing to a photo of Obama. It is vulgar and flies in the face of truth and justice. Frankly, I didn’t expect anything different from John McCain. Sarah Palin knows better. How dare she sacrifice Alaska for the White House. The PTS is giving me PTSD…

Saradise Lost - Chapter Sixty-Five -- Wikileaks Material Being Removed From the Web Faster Than the Met Labs Went Up in Wasilla When Sarah Was Mayor

Posted by MadDog at Campaign Silo, a couple of hours ago:

What is really weird about this, is that even the cached pages on Google for the Wikileaks Sarah Palin hacked emails are gone.

Just flippin’ gone!

Like this one.

And this one.

For non-techies, let me see if I can explain this.

1. Wikileaks had a webpage or two about the “Hacked Sarah Palin emails” on its own site (Wikileaks) servers.
2. You can’t get to those Wikileaks webpages anymore.
3. You can’t even get to the Wikileaks site itself anymore.
4. Google had its own cached webpages from the “Wikileaks Hacked Sarah Palin emails webpages”, located on its own (Google) servers, and you can’t get to those anymore.

Does the word “Conspiracy” ring a bell?

One might logically assume that someone with Federal power intervened at both Wikileaks and Google, and said “shut it down!”.

One might even go further and assume that someone with Federal power said “if you don’t do what we say, we’ll arrest you!”

Note: Earlier in the day, I downloaded the Wikileaks Zip file of the “Hacked Sarah Palin emails”.

After looking at the stuff, I ended up deleting the Zip file and its contents since they were no more than what had been displayed at Wikileaks. I guess I should have kept them for ya’ll. *g*

Additional Note: Wikileaks, at the time the “Hacked Sarah Palin emails” webpage was up, had a “curious” little sentence that said, in effect, “we’re looking through the rest of the emails and should “interesting other stuff” be observed, we’ll post it.”

So, Here some of them go, before they're completely disappeared:

Obama's New Campaign Spot on the Economy

Saradise Lost - Chapter Sixty-Four -- Alaska Rep. Les Gara Blasts Atty. Gen. Talis Colberg's Flip-Flop

-- by Rep. Les Gara


New McCain Stall Of Troopergate Investigation:

Part Karl Rove, Part Laurel and Hardy

Since Monday the McCain camp has stepped up its personal attacks against Alaskans. They’ve continued their D.C.-style tactics against neighbors in this small state. The game plan is to find an excuse to stop our Legislature's Troopergate investigation, and hide evidence McCain’s folks really don’t want to surface before November’s election. It’s been a little Karl Rove, and parts Laurel and Hardy. How else can you explain the following?

Last Friday the Attorney general’s office promised state witnesses would comply with subpoenas the Legislature issued last week. This Tuesday the Governor's Attorney General flip flopped, and announced that state witnesses wouldn’t comply because, well, and I’m paraphrasing here - he’s changed his mind. And in what has to be an idea hatched after a 4th Martini at Chilkoot Charlies, Governor Palin's attorneys have filed a motion to dismiss the ethics claim she filed against herself two weeks ago.

Yup. She really filed a complaint against herself.

Tuesday she said she’s discovered, after a thorough investigation of herself, that she’s done nothing wrong. Does anyone know how to get a hold of Jon Stewart and Tina Fey?

It's silly season up here in the far north, but this week's moves are aimed at one thing: John McCain's effort to find cover for being disingenuous. See, before Governor Palin’s nomination for the Republican VP spot, she did the honest thing. She admitted the evidence - of roughly 20 contacts between her staff and husband with Public Safety officials, seeking the firing of Governor Palin's former brother-in-law - might lead a reasonable person to the conclusion that the she misused her office to fire a state employee. So when Alaska's Republican-led Legislature called for an investigation, she did the honorable thing and said she and her staff would comply. She denies any wrongdoing.

Things changed on August 29 when Governor Palin was added to the McCain ticket. Since then his handlers have told her she can't testify. They don’t want the evidence in this case to come out. They don’t want her to testify under oath. They don’t want other witnesses to testify under oath.

So they have engaged in daily maneuvers to attack, as disloyal to the McCain campaign, anyone who wants the investigation to move forward. They've now attacked two well respected prosecutors, and perhaps the state's most highly regarded law enforcement official - the Public Safety Commissioner she hired, and then fired, Walt Monegan.

Every day this week McCain operatives have sung the same tune. Today a guy with an East Coast accent, who knows nothing about Alaska, stood in front of a McCain-Palin banner to lead the attacks against people he doesn't know. At press conferences on Monday and Tuesday campaign staffer Megan Stapleton spit vitriol to repeat her argument that this investigation is really a “Democratic” attack on Governor Palin.

See, that's easier than just saying their VP has reneged on her promise to testify. It's easier than just saying they don't want anyone testifying before the November election. It's easier than admitting they are stonewalling a legislative investigation.

Here are a few things they failed to say. There are a few small facts that make it hard to style this as a Democratic investigation. One is that Alaska is a Republican State. We have a Republican Governor and a Legislature of 34 Republicans and 26 Democrats. This summer the Legislature's Legislative Council voted 12-0 (8 Republicans and 4 Democrats) to hire an investigator, and appointed Democratic Senator Hollis French, a well-respected former prosecutor, to find an investigator. Governor Palin stated she and her employees would comply with the investigation. French then hired Steve Branchflower, a former DA who most recently was hired by legislative Republicans to run the state's Office of Victims rights.

And on Friday the Senate Judiciary Committee voted 3-2 (2 Democrats and 1 Republican in favor); and the House Judiciary Committee issued a 7 - 0 (5 Republicans, 2 Democrats) advisory vote, to issue subpoenas to witnesses the McCain camp had previously stopped from testifying.

Over the last two days McCain's outside operatives have vilified former prosecutor Hollis French - as an Obama supporter who must have called this investigation to hurt the McCain ticket. But French was appointed to oversee the investigation by a 12 - 0 Legislative Council vote, and is probably the state's most respected legislator - by Republicans and Democrats alike. He’s so popular the Republican Party couldn’t find anyone to run against him this year.

They've called former Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan - a Native Alaskan who has served Republican and Democratic Administrations with honor, and put his life on the line in uniform - "insubordinate." Odd, given that when Governor Palin fired him she offered him a different job. I guess being "insubordinate" was a job requirement for the new position. And they've challenged the independence of an investigator and former DA, who has no animus anyone can find.

Those Swift boat ads taught the McCain folks that if you say something untrue enough times, it can stick.

My favorite moment of the week came when Governor Palin's attorneys filed a motion to dismiss Palin's ethics complaint against herself. Stay with me. Her attorneys have been buying the peyote, not me. See, on August 29 they needed to find a way to stop the Legislature's investigation. They tried asking the Republican leaders to call it off, and take one for the team.

But the Senate President and others honorably said no. So they came up with an argument that the State Personnel Board - 3 people appointed by Governor Palin and her Republican predecessor Frank Murkowski - had "exclusive jurisdiction" to investigate wrongdoing by the Governor. The Legislature wasn't amused. So Governor Palin then filed a complaint against herself.

That, they said, put "jurisdiction" in the hands of their friends at the Personnel Board. They argued that since the Personnel Board was now proceeding with an "investigation", the Legislature couldn't.

To put icing on the cake, on Monday the Governor's attorneys moved to dismiss the Governor's case against herself. They said, and I loosely paraphrase again - that they tried really hard and just couldn't find any evidence that the Governor did anything wrong. OK. I can't believe I just wrote that. And I wish it weren't true.

These are the things you have to do when your Presidential candidate doesn't want his VP to honor a promise, and doesn't want evidence to come out before an election. These are the things you have to do if your folks aren't going to comply with a subpoena. That's because without spin the headline might read: "McCain Interferes With Investigation Palin Agreed To." How easy it is to re-write a headline. They learned that during the Swift boat campaign too.

All we can hope for is that members of the press will remember what they learned in journalism school. Not to repeat the spin of political operatives without reporting the truth. Not to write "he said she said" stories, and pretend the truth is somewhere in the middle. But to report the facts. No matter how you spin it, Governor Palin promised to comply with this Legislative Investigation. McCain's folks got her to change her position. And the Legislature that voted for the investigation did so on a bi-partisan basis. End of story. End of headline.

Over the next few days McCain's folks will try to get local legislators to step in line, out of party loyalty, and reverse their vote to investigate Troopergate. But many local Republicans, like Senate President Lyda Green, have so far refused to play those politics.

Stay for more from McCain's Campaign for "Change." They've tried to change the truth. They've succeeded at changing Governor Palin's promise to comply with this investigation. Let's see what they'll change next.

Comedy Interlude No. Five

Saradise Lost - Chapter Sixty-Three -- AK Atty. Gen. Talis Colberg Shames All Alaskans

My good friend and former colleague, Alaska Attorney General Talis Colberg, has all but sold his soul to the Karl Rove-esque squad of goons sent by the McCain campaign and the RNC to Alaska.

They came here, beginning on the late afternoon of August 29th, to derail democracy in the Far North. With the able help of Alaska's MSM media, kowtowing to people like former human being Bill McAllister, who is orchestrating putting the blow job knee-pads onto the knees of the editors of the Anchorage Daily News, KTUU TV, APRN and others here, something really bad is happening.

The KTUU video of Colberg's statement today regarding how his office is going to derail the pre-nomination, non-partisan, unanimously mandated investigation into discovering the truth behind the bizarre dismissal of Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan, isn't up yet.

But when Judy saw him making his statement, she swore and swore (she doesn't swear much), almost grabbing a shoe to throw at the TV, toward the image of a man she had, until then, deeply respected.

In one fell swoop, Colberg went from being one of our most honorable AG's to what may come to be regarded as our worst. He has dishonored his sterling record, his family's image, and his high office, by enabling the McCain Straight Talk Express bus, to throw Alaskans, and our constitution under its desperately grinding tires.

image of Talis Colberg giving the 2007 commencement speech at Mat-Su College. In the speech, he did me honor, by acknowledging my 13 years service as the College's band director, as I directed my last performance there.

Saradise Lost - Chapter Sixty-Two -- Wherein Don Young Attempts to Tie Himself To Sarah's Coat-tail

hat tip to Dillon