Friday 27 August 2010

Breaking News: The top-secret contract of Sarah Palin with CSU Stanislaus Foundation has been published!


BREAKING NEWS - Just in:

The top-secret contract between Sarah Palin's agents, the Washington Speakers Bureau and the CSU Stanislaus Foundation has been published!

This happened in response to the ruling of the Superior Court of the State of California, which concluded that the contract was a public record and subject to disclosure.

We have hardly had a chance to look at the contract in detail - it can be downloaded HERE.

But what we can say is that the Washington Speakers Bureau were dealing with Susana Gajic-Bruyea, who had "one foot" in the University and "one foot" in the Foundation.

Take a look at Sarah's demands without the filter of the evil media. ;-)

Uncensored, just he facts. Sarah should be happy!

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Palingates was the first publication worldwide which revealed Sarah Palin's speaking fee, four days before the LA Times confirmed this fact.

The complete, extensive reporting by Palingates about the CSU Stanislaus affair can be found HERE.

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Screenshots of the first pages:

Sarah Palin CSU Contract - screenshot 1

Sarah Palin CSU Contract - screenshot 2

Sarah Palin CSU Contract - screenshot 3

Susana Gajic-Bruyea signed the contract EXPLICITLY in her function as Vice President for University Advancement AND Executive Officer for the Foundation Board!

This is the proof that the University always had the contract, right from the beginning. They never had ANY right to refuse the disclosure! See also the last page:

Sarah Palin CSU Contract - screenshot 4

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UPDATE:

Earlier today, AP reported that the University couldn't comply with the court order:

SACRAMENTO - A California university says it can't comply with a court order requesting Sarah Palin's contract for a June speech because it doesn't have the document.

California State University general counsel Dawn Theodora said Thursday that the contract belongs to the CSU Stanislaus Foundation, which handled the negotiations for Palin's speech at CSU Stanislaus.

She said the university would ask the nonprofit to release it.


However, now we know that Susana Gajica-Bruyea signed the contract in her role as Executive Officer for the Foundation as well as in her "University role" as Vice President for University Advancement. So this whole argument "the University doesn't have the contract" was nonsense right from the beginning. Susana Gajica-Bruyea might not have kept it in her "University cupboard", but surely in her "Foundation cupboard", and both are certainly pretty close to each other. In my opinion, the separation of the Foundation from the University doesn't really exist in practice, and the contract proves it.

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UPDATE 2:

That's what the foundation paid $ 75,000 + expenses for:

Sarah Palin CSU Contract - screenshot 5

30 minutes of "remarks" - and strictly "NO REMARKS" during the expensive private reception. ;-)

It's also interesting to note that originally the speech was not supposed to be broadcast - just three minutes of video ("no audio") for b-roll footage was originally allowed (the reversal of this decision proved to be a disaster for Sarah Palin).

Sarah Palin CSU Contract - screenshot 6


Apart from that, it's all in there: The bendy straws, the private jet (or first class flight), the SUV's, the deluxe hotel and not to forget: "Arrangements of the highest order" regarding security - due to the "high profile" of the speaker. But I thought she is just a private citizen...?

Sarah Palin CSU Contract - screenshot 7

The CSU scandal had it all:

A speaker who was chosen for political reasons by the Republican leadership of the University and the Foundation.

A contract which at first didn't exist, and from which pages 4-9 were then discovered by the students Alicia Lewis and Ashli Briggs in a dumpster, revealing that the "ordinary American" Sarah Palin had "rock star luxury demands."

The Palinbots retaliated and sent disgusting messages to California State Senator Leland Yee, who demanded transparency from the University.

Sarah Palin, who doesn't like it when her secret contracts are being published, then insinuated in public that the two students had stolen the contract.

Later, during her speech at CSU Stanislaus (video), Sarah Palin hurled more insults and called the students "dumpster divers" and "political operatives." Note the usual message: You do NOT cross Sarah Palin.

Internal emails from the University which were obtained through an FOIA request by California Aware then revealed that the University (or was it the Foundation, I am getting confused) had hired Republican PR-firms to deal with the crisis - including "shill comments" on news websites. The emails also revealed that the profits from the event were not supposed to be used for scholarships. In fact, the Foundation announces in public at the same time that scholarships are being cancelled.


For the speech, large parts of the University campus at Stanislaus were then fenced off on the day of the speech. An impressive number of students protested against Sarah Palin's appearance.

Sarah Palin's speech was atrocious and included several gross mistakes, like the non-existing Eureka College in California. However, the biggest disaster happened after the speech: The microphone for the live internet broadcast of the speech was still open when journalists who listened to the speech afterwards mercilessly slammed Sarah Palin's performance.

Palingates published a transcript of the speech and highlighted Palin's mistakes and "gaffes."

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UPDATE 3:

It will not be a surprise for our readers, but the complete contract also reveals that Sarah Palin lied in her speech about her "contractual demands."

From Fox40 News:

"Palin said during her fundraiser event that the "lamestream" media erroneously reported her requests in exchange for the speaking engagement, which included the straws and the water."

From Sarah's CSU speech transcript:

"Um, I am so honored to get to be here and before we get started let me just get through some logistics really quickly. First, um, I got my water... do I have my straz? I want my straz. And I want ‘em bent, pleaz, thank you. At least that’s what I read in some of the lamestream media outlets. Is that I was demanding straz or some ridiculous thing. So, I’m just so glad that we got some of those con contractual demands out of the way and finally settled."

So Sarah has been caught red handed - again.

Yes, she wanted her "bendy straz" - and much more, like a real "celebrity."

(h/t so_many_unanswered_questions)

Palin Bendy Straws

Sarah Palin mocks the bendy straws during the speech - which she DID request!
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UPDATE 4:

According to a press release issued by the school last month, the university brought in $473,000 from Palin's appearance, with $207,000 in net proceeds.

(...)

According to a document released last month, CSU Stanislaus spent $75,000 in guest speaker fees relating to Sarah Palin's appearance and more than $30,000 in payment to the Modesto and Turlock police departments for security the night of the event. An additional $42,000 was spent in event decorations, $30,000 was spent to cater the event and $80,000 was spent printing programs and contributing to other entertainment-related expenses.

At the day of the speech, Palingates exclusively revealed that members of the board of the CSU Stanislaus Foundation donated at least $ 90,000 themselves for the event - including $ 50,000 from Matt Swanson's company, who is the President of the Foundation. Therefore, they did everything to make sure that the event was not a failure. It is likely that actually much more money was donated from board members.

In addition, we revealed that at least one donor who had donated for scholarships in the past, now donated for this fundraising event instead.

We wrote back then:

According to Michael R. Leaveck, the real scandal, well hidden from public view is the fact that for example a donor like Gemperle Enterprises (Farms) was once a sponsor of CSU Stanislaus "Presidential Scholarships," a program that has been discontinued as of this year due to economic hard times. Instead, this year, Gemperle Farms is a $10,000 sponsor of the 50th Anniversary Black Tie Gala, featuring Sarah Palin!

Now, due to their own stupidity and over-eagerness to please Sarah Palin, the University will also have to pay the costs in the lawsuit against "Californians Aware", which the University lost. The court ordered that the University will have to pay all costs, including the legal fees of "Californians Aware." This surely will be a massive bill.

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UPDATE 5:

Alaska Dispatch has an interesting observation regarding Palin's contract:
One interesting tidbit is that the only audio recording allowed of Palin's speech in the original contract was one that must be sent to Linsday Hayes, a former speechwriter for the late Sen. Ted Stevens, within 24 hours of Palin's engagement. That embargo clause was canceled prior to the speech, and it ended up being recorded (watch it at the Modesto Bee). According to Democracy in Action, Hayes was the senior writer for the Republican National Committee in 2008, a senior associate at Nahigian Strategies, and once wrote for the late Sen. Ted Stevens.
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