Mind boggling Sarah Palin

Why is Sarah Palin so upset about people writing about rumours of an investigation regarding the construction of her nice, warm home in Lake Wasilla? Why wasn't she upset when the rumours about irregularities during the building of the house and the sports complex first emerged many months ago?

I find it very strange that she's outraged about anybody referring to rumours of an investigation into her wrongdoings but let the rumours about the same wrongdoings go unchallenged for so long.

An investigation would give an innocent person the opportunity to be vindicated.

But this is Sarah Palin... the same Sarah Palin who managed to turn a late night joke about her 18 year old knocked-up daughter into the rape of her 14 year old daughter in the middle of the Yankee Stadium. This is the iconic woman whose image of motherly love for her special needs son was desecrated in an unspeakable act of photoshopping. Yes, her lunacy follows a clear pattern. She takes the facts, twists them out of recognition and lashes out in faux outrage.

The facts about the latest outrage are simple: people heard rumours of an investigation into long running rumours of wrongdoing and mentioned them. Sarah Palin immediately lashed out at these people for daring to mention the rumours about an investigation, conveniently leaving the wrongdoing in the background. In sum: rumours about being investigated is far more outrageous than rumours about doing wrong.

It seems we can talk all we want about her wrongdoings, lies and deceptions, but we can't suggest that there are rumours of an investigation into any of them.

I remember her first reaction to David Letterman's "slutty stewardess" joke. He said she had gone to Bloomingdale's to buy make up to update her slutty air stewardess look. She pointed out that she had not gone to Bloomingdales. (Therefore she didn't look like a slutty stewardess?)

By the same token, if there's no investigation, there's no wrongdoing?

"Trying to keep up w/getting truth to u, like proof there's no 'FBI scandal'," the governor tweeted.

The mind boggles...
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Sarah Palin is so transparent...

When Sarah Palin was elected governor of Alaska she wasted no time in appointing her cronies or having them go for interviews to fill important positions in the state's offices.

Jon Schmidt, Kristan Cole, Brad Cole and others were appointed to various boards and commissions.

Debbie Richter, a good friend and business associate, applied for the job of director of the Permanent Fund Dividend Division. She's now called Debbie Bitney.

Debbie's husband, John Bitney, was a key aide in Sarah Palin's 2006 gubernatorial campaign. When she took office, she gave Mr. Bitney a job as her legislative director, and a few months later stood beside him at a news conference and praised his work. Seven weeks later she fired Mr. Bitney for what her spokeswoman described as "poor job performance." What really happened? Governor Palin got a call from another old friend, Scott Richter, informing her that his wife, Debbie Richter, and Mr. Bitney were having an affair. Scott and Sarah's husband Todd are great friends.

I found some articles on Bloomberg and Juneau Empire.

Bloomberg:

Shortly after she was elected governor, Palin's office signed off on hiring Deborah Richter -- who attended college for a year then worked in bookkeeping and finance jobs -- as director of a division that distributes dividends to Alaskans from the state's oil-wealth savings account. Richter, who said she's known Palin for 13 years, was Palin's gubernatorial campaign treasurer and ran her inaugural committee.

The Richters and Palins also shared an investment: 30 acres of rural property near a lake in Petersville, Alaska, worth $47,300, according to Matanuska-Susitna Borough data.

"It sounds like a patronage deal for someone who ran your campaign; that's pretty normal,'' said Bill Buzenberg, executive director of the Center for Public Integrity in Washington. "What's not normal is that they have business dealings together.''

No evidence has emerged to suggest that laws were broken in the appointment.

"She was qualified,'' said Pat Galvin, commissioner of the Department of Revenue and Richter's boss. Galvin said he also interviewed other people for the job and that Richter has done well. He said Palin's office approved his selection of Richter.

Palin's gubernatorial spokesman, William McAllister, said the decision to hire Richter was Galvin's. "I have no knowledge of land ownership or college degrees,'' he said.

What would anybody expect them to say? "The governor told us to hire her friend and she turned out not to be terribly qualified but she was very nice, so we hired her." Yeah, right.

Juneau Empire:

Alaska Permanent Fund dividend checks barely made it out on time last year after a computer technician accidentally wiped out a data file containing hundreds of thousands of dividend applications.

After desperately trying to recover the file with help from Microsoft Corp., the Permanent Fund Dividend Division of the Department of Administration went to the backup tapes.

Then things got worse.

"The problem was, there was some file that linked information wasn't backed up," said Debbie Richter, division director. "That was an essential piece of the puzzle."

Eventually, the reports were released - minus the explanation of what had happened at the Permanent Fund Division.

Juneau freelance reporter Bob Tkacz was one of the reporters asking for the transition reports. He was dismayed at the response from a governor who had campaigned on openness.

"No other governor in my experience has ever kept those reports confidential, and certainly never censored them in the way the Palin administration did," he said.

Recovering from the Permanent Fund Division data loss involved calling in temporary workers to reconstruct lost data. Applications from the increasing number of applications filed online were able to be recovered; but paper applications had to be reconstructed by hand.

A snippet from the Bloomberg article appeared on TPM Muckraker and in one of the comments I found quotes from the Juneau Empire article and these questions:

Three thoughts:

Excuse me, but "manually reconstructing" thousands of several hundred dollar payments from a state royalty fund? That sounds like it could be open to abuse.

Who was the "contractor" hired to help sort it out? How much were they paid?

Why did the Governor refuse to allow disclosure of the mandated state audit report on the computer failure?


If it sounds fishy, it probably is. Sarah Palin specializes in fishy.

Link to FBI

(Hat tip to JMGUIZZ1)
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Reporting Sarah Palin, some talking points

One of my readers suggested writing up some talking points people could refer to when reporting Sarah Palin's misdeeds to various bodies.

RELIGIONGATE (contact AU)

2007/2008

Juneau Pentecostal church asked the Alaska state government for cash for a new youth center. Gov. Sarah Palin, who had recently started worshipping at the church, vetoed the legislative appropriation from the capital budget, explaining it was “not a state responsibility.”

But by the time this year’s budget negotiations rolled around, Palin had become very involved in the Juneau Christian Center, attending an increasing number of services there, touring the youth center with her family (she charged the state for Willow's travel to visit the center), citing the pastor as among her spiritual guides, and appearing with the pastor at a Martin Luther King Day celebration and a religious conference where he laid hands on her while praying.

During this year’s capital budget writing process, Palin penned a letter to lawmakers “in support of the Juneau Christian Center’s new state-of-the-art youth center,” and she approved $25,000 for the center in May, even as she sparked a backlash from officials around the state for slashing spending from projects they deemed crucial to their areas.

The posts under Religiongate should provide further ammunition. Part 2 in particular is very rich in links that support the argument about mixing state and religion.

Americans United for Separation of Church and State
518 C Street NE
Washington, DC 20002

Link to ACLU

HOUSEGATE (contact FBI)

The Palin family home is a two-storey, 3,450-square-foot, four-bedroom, four-bath, wood house situated on Lake Lucille. According to Palin’s income tax returns, the house was assessed at more than half a million dollars — $552,000 to be exact.

Todd Palin told Fox News that he built the 3,450 square-foot, half million dollar home himself with the help of some “buddies.” Coincidentally, at the same time that Todd and his “buddies” were building the Palin house, the $12.5 million dollar Wasilla sports complex and hockey rink was under construction right down the road.

Sarah Palin blocked an effort to require the filing of building permits as mayor of Wasilla, there is no record of who Todd’s “buddies” were, where the building materials came from or how they were paid for.

Again, the Housegate posts provide the necessary background when writing to the FBI.

Anchorage Division Office 101 E. 6th Ave.,
Anchorage,
Alaska, 99501

(907) 276-4441 ETHICS AND THE DEPARTMENT OF LAW (contact DOJ)

Sarah Palin's interim Attorney General has given an opinion regarding outside employment which conflicts with her previous AG's interpretation of the Executive Branch Ethics Act.

Present AG:

The law department has looked into whether the governor having a book contract conflicts with the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Acts, including its prohibition on accepting outside "employment for compensation."

The department concluded a book contract isn't employment, because it's not regular work for a salary or wage. State employees are allowed to provide services for their own financial benefit as long as it's on their own time, does not conflict with their official duties and does not involve using state equipment or resources, said the legal opinion, signed by deputy attorney general Richard Svobodny.

"A book publication project is compatible with your position as governor so long as it does not interfere with your official duties," Svobodny wrote to Palin.

Previous AG:

Since I serve as your designated ethics supervisor, I want to remind you that the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act requires that all state employees report to their designated ethics supervisors any outside employment or services benefiting their personal or financial interests by July 1 of each year. Although elected to your position, you are considered a public employee under the Ethics Act and must comply with the reporting requirement, if appropriate.

However, the Ethics Act also precludes "the head of a principal executive department of the state" from engaging in "outside employment."l The Office of the Governor is a principal department of the state.2 Therefore, as head of that office, you may not be engaged in outside employment. We construe "employment" to have its ordinary meaning.

• Any employment for which you are paid, but not your state employment.

• Examples: a job with another employer, work as an independent contractor, and work in your own business.

The Office of the Governor is a principal department of the state. Therefore, as head of that office, you may not be engaged in outside employment.

It would be interesting to seek the opinion of the DOJ as to which of the AGs has interpreted the Ethics Act correctly.

U.S. Department of Justice

950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW

Washington, DC 20530-0001

I hope these points make the task of reporting Sarah Palin's conduct a bit easier. Titles link to posts on each of the subjects listed above. If reporting online, the links are in brackets next to titles. Otherwise, all addresses are provided at the end of each section.

If any lawyers or activists out there would like to contribute and compile a list of talking points that make more sense than the above, please please please e-mail me: palingates@gmail.com
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Useful links

As the ethics complaints against Sarah Palin are dismissed one after the other as expected, people feel despondent and long to take some other action.

There are other avenues to report Sarah Palin's conduct, the Personnel Board is a dead end.

Here are three useful links that can be used by non-Alaskans as well:

CREW - Citizens for ethics - there's a tipline button on their website

Alaska FBI - It contains "how contact us" details

US Department of Justice - Contact details

I'm going to post these links permanently on the sidebar, together with the Recall procedure.

Another useful contact, regarding state and religion: Americans United

Details about Religiongate can be found here.
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"Sarah Palin guilty!" Music to our ears...

Former Senate candidate Ray Metcalfe is collecting signatures from Alaskans to put the following proposition on the ballot.

“Anyone found using their public office to enrich themselves, their relatives, close friends, business associates; past, present, or anticipated employers or contributors, is guilty of a class A felony. Anyone found securing enrichment by inducing public officials to violate this statute is guilty of bribery, a class A felony.”

The wording needs some fine tuning so it can stand in a court of law, but I like the general tone of his proposal.

If it goes ahead and becomes statute, we may hear the words "Guilty as charged on all counts" at the end of Sarah Palin's trial!

Class A felony = 20 years in prison.

That's plenty of time to contract MRSA. Oh, Karma!

Full details of story and petition: Mudflats
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When is fraud not fraud?

Something has been bugging me about Sarah Palin giving part of her children's travel expenses back to the state. It bugged me since I wrote the previous post about a pretend slap on the wrist.

ADN updated their report to include the following:


"Nothing in this agreement constitutes an admission of wrongdoing, and none has been found," the document said.

Palin's lawyer, Thoman Van Flein, took it a step further.

"The governor has been exonerated of all wrongdoing in this ethics act complaint. There is no finding of wrongdoing and there is no ethics violation," Van Flein said in a news conference.

As Petumenos described it, the governor agreed not to contest certain charges. He agreed not to file a formal accusation or take the case to a hearing.


Let's put this whole business in a clearer context, starting with a quote from Sarah Palin:

"I'm the mayor, I can do whatever I want until the courts tell me I can't." Now she's the Governor. She charges $60 per diem to make a phone call from her own home.

1. Sarah Palin filed expenses claims that included the cost of her children's travel to several events, when the children were clearly not attending them on state business.
2. Charges were challenged by reporters.
3. The governor had forms amended, changing the language to make it clear that the children were invited to events as part of First Family.
4. Ethics complaint filed.
5. Complaint investigated by the Personnel Board. All members of the board are appointed by the governor.
   
6. The same person who "investigated" Troopergate on behalf of the Personnel Board is asked to look into the claims.
7. They come to an arrangement where she pays "x" amount back and no further questions will be asked and no charges brought against the Governor.
   

If the reporters had not asked some questions, if the ethics complaint had not been filed, she wouldn't have to reimburse the state for anything. She would have kept the money for at least nine of the children's trips. Sarah Palin was aware that the expenses claims were fishy and deliberately had them amended so she could keep the money. The simple fact that she has been asked or offered to pay the money back shows that the claims were false.

Where I come from, this is called fraud. When an employee, any employee, files inaccurate expenses claims from their employers, gets the expenses reimbursed, have them challenged in some way, proceeds to amend the claims to try and validate them, the claims are investigated and this person is asked to pay the money back, the employee doesn't just pay the employer back, the employee gets fired and possibly faces criminal charges for fraud. No deals.

What makes this case any different? The claims were false, money was paid, claims were deliberately amended, claims were found to be indeed inaccurate and money has to be returned.

I believe it's about time Sarah Palin's ethics violations were investigated by an independent body, people a bit higher up who won't make any deals on terms dictated by Sarah Palin herself. She has to be investigated by an authority that won't validate fraud.

Updated report: ADN
Image: FBI logo
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