MetaFilter posts tagged with alaska and Palin

Because Metafilter will Never Be Rid of Her

Weebot — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 17:07:42 -0800

Vanity Fair recently published "It Came From Wasilla", Todd Purdum's lengthy profile piece about Sarah Palin, her involvement with and the inside workings of the McCain campaign, and her political future. While a lot of the stuff in Purdam's article have been reported elsewhere, they haven't been reported with this much detail or with this context. Purdam documents Palin's meteoric rise in Alaska, her relationship with her fellow Alaska politicians, as well as her icy relationship with the McCain staff.

Letting It Go, or Not

billysumday — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 12:49:16 -0800

Prominent blogger Andrew Sullivan develops an unhealthy obsession over the (lack of) details surrounding the birth of Sarah Palin's youngest child. Sullivan really, really won't let it go. Persistent rumors lead the editor of the Alaska Daily News to, "finally decide, after watching this go on unabated for months, to let a reporter try to do a story about the 'conspiracy theory that would not die' and, possibly, report the facts of Trig's birth thoroughly enough to kill the nonsense once and for all." Palin releases press release slamming the paper. Editor of paper publishes email from Palin's office along with his response. Palin complains about "bored, anonymous, pathetic bloggers who lie," says episode is, "more indication of continued problems in the world of journalism." She also thinks Katie Couric is bad at journalism, not the center of everybody's universe, and is exploiting Palin. Mike Huckabee disagrees, says Couric was "extraordinarily gentle" with Palin. Political pundits and journalists are left scratching their heads - is she crazy? Or a crazy genius? 2012 is just around the corner.

Troopergate Update

gyc — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 20:26:43 -0800

An independent investigator hired by the Alaska Personnel Board has cleared Governor Sarah Palin of wrongdoing in the Troopergate controversy. (Executive summary and recommendations of the report). As previously covered in MeFi, the Alaskan legislature had conducted its own investigation and had concluded that Governor Palin had indeed abused her power in dismissing Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan, but the independent investigator concluded that the Legislature's special counsel used the wrong state law as the basis for his conclusions and also misconstrued the evidence in the investigation.

You Betcha

XQUZYPHYR — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 18:00:14 -0800

Legislative panel concludes that Palin abused the power of her office. A Republican-dominated Alaska State Legislative panel voted unanimously this evening to release to the public the results of the investigation into Governor Sarah Palin's dismissal of Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan. (Full report PDF here) Among four key points released in the report, the most significant "concludes that Palin violated the state's executive branch ethics act, which says that 'each public officer holds office as a public trust, and any effort to benefit a personal or financial interest through official action is a violation of that trust.'"

EPIC FAIL: The Astroturf is always greener on the other side.

Skygazer — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 03:07:09 -0800

Rusty Shackleford over at right-wing anti-Muslim jihad blog The Jawa Report has posted that the Obama campaign, in an effort to portray Sarah Palin a member of the secessionist Alaska Independence Party, is engaged in a smear campaign through the use of viral video and astroturf techniques on You Tube. Shackleford claims the narrator of the smear video has worked previously on ads put out by the Obama campaign. And that “This same voice-over artist has worked extensively with [Obama campaign manager] David Axelrod's PR firm, which has a history of engaging in "phony grassroots efforts.” Shackleford also posits that the haste with which the individual who posted the video on You Tube, “eswinner,” or Ethan S. Winner, an executive for the public relations firm Winner & Assoc., removed the video proves an Obama campaign cover up in the works and that Winner & Assoc. were most likely paid by Axelrod to execute an Astroturf smear campaign against Sarah Palin. Axelrod's PR firm had a brief relationship with Winner & Assoc. from a Detroit Mayor's initiative they worked in separate capacities in 1996. Winner and Assoc, work predominately for big oil and utility companies, but also handle political campaigns and initiatives throught a subsidiary: Winner & Mandabach. Shackleford, although he presents the piece as having a high probability of being correct, admits, as his legal team advises him to, that much of it is "conjecture" and "speculation," Yet in his eagerness to expose Obama as a lowdown Chicago style political operator, he fails to discover, until he reads it here, that there is, indeed, an individual with a suspicious and compelling tie to the Winner & Assoc. public relations firm. That person is Sen. John McCain. In 2002 John McCain worked for Winner & Mandabach, a subsidiary of Winner & Assoc., to convince the people of Arizona to vote “YES” on proposition 202. One of three competing Indian gaming initiatives supported by the 17 Tribes coalition of Arizona. The 17 tribes hired Winner & Mandabach to see to it that there proposition was the one that would become law. McCain was brought in by Winner & Mandabach as a third-party player to lend his name and support to ads and mailings. The proposition was opposed by Arizona Christian groups and denied the state of Arizona $300 million dollars in annual taxes annually or imposing greater oversight and regulation. What compensation was made available to McCain for his services? “While candidates, PACs and party committees are held accountable for political funds, Indian tribes file nothing. … Disclosure only comes from those who file reports indicating they received donations from a tribe. … [T]here is no way to double check the accuracy of the reports.” McCain was twice chairman of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, in 1995–1997 and 2005–2007. (On a side note for those who know of him, Prop 202 was also supported by human rights violator and denier of constitutional rights Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio (Previously on Metafilter.)

An Inconvenient Wolf

Brian B. — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 19:34:04 -0800

Enemy of the State. Wolves in Alaska are gunned down from the air for cash bounties, their orphaned pups often discovered by agency biologists in the field and killed. Alaskans soon vote on proposition 2 to stop the controversial slaughter that serves the interests of large game hunters.