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An Alaska judge refused Thursday to throw out subpoenas for members of Gov. Sarah Palin's administration in the State Legislature's investigation of her firing of her public safety commissioner.
Anchorage Superior Court Judge Peter Michalski rejected a request by Palin's Republican allies to shut down the investigation and ruled that the subpoenas were issued properly by the state Senate Judiciary Committee.
Kevin Clarkson, a lawyer for five GOP lawmakers who filed suit in September, said the date was arbitrarily chosen by the lawmakers overseeing the investigation.
"There's no magic to this October 10 date," Clarkson said. The bipartisan committee that authorized the investigation stated only that it be conducted "in a timely manner," he said.
Peter Maassen, the attorney for the lawmakers leading the inquiry, called the suit "a complete perversion of the process" and said the Legislature had the authority to conduct its investigation.
The former Anchorage prosecutor hired to conduct the investigation, Stephen Branchflower, is slated to complete his report by October 10. In an affidavit filed ahead of Thursday's hearing, he said he has begun to draft his report despite the refusal of several Palin aides and her husband, Todd, to comply with subpoenas issued by the state Senate Judiciary Committee.
Assistant Attorney General Jan Hart DeYoung had asked Michalski to dismiss the subpoenas for top seven members of Palin's administration, arguing that the committee had no authority to issue them.
Palin, now the Republican vice presidential nominee, sacked Public Service Commissioner Walt Monegan in July, citing disagreements over budget issues. But Monegan has said he believes that he was fired because he resisted pressure to fire Palin's ex-brother-in-law, State Trooper Mike Wooten. An Alaska judge refused Thursday to throw out subpoenas for members of Gov. Sarah... more
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bshipp
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1 year ago
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While Palin has seemingly been successful with her constant self-aggrandizing as a champion of her home state and Americans everywhere, many supportive Alaskans are having trouble with the Governor's reliance on the same one-liners that made her so appealing for that first week. While Palin has seemingly been successful with her constant self-aggrandizing as a... more
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Sarah Palin and Joe Biden face off in the "Don't Mess Up" Bowl, the bailout bill passes, and John McCain's looking to thread the electoral needle.
CAMPAIGN UPDATE knows that election news and weird jokes go together like a popped-collar meathead and a vacant-eyed blonde. Created by Mark Ganek and Brett Erlich, Campaign Update strives to be the dumbest smart show on television.
Bookmark us and check us out every weekday at current.com/campaignupdate.Sarah Palin and Joe Biden face off in the "Don't Mess Up" Bowl, the bailout bill... more
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Story Highlights
51 percent say Democratic Sen. Joe Biden wins vice presidential debate
Republican Gov. Sarah Palin exceeds expectations, 84 percent say
Palin beats Biden on likability, 54-36
87 percent say Biden is qualified for job, 42 percent say Palin is
Next Article in Politics »
(CNN) -- A national poll of people who watched the vice presidential debate Thursday night suggests that Democratic Sen. Joe Biden won, but also says Republican Gov. Sarah Palin exceeded expectations.
Poll respondents give Sen. Joe Biden the edge over Gov. Sarah Palin in ability to express views.
The CNN/Opinion Research Corp. said 51 percent of those polled thought Biden did the best job, while 36 percent thought Palin did the best job.
But respondents said the folksy Palin was more likable, scoring 54 percent to Biden's 36 percent. Seventy percent said Biden was more of a typical politician.
Both candidates exceeded expectations -- 84 percent of the people polled said Palin did a better job than they expected, while 64 percent said Biden also exceeded expectations.
How Palin would perform had been a major issue for the Alaska governor, who had some well-publicized fumbles during interviews with CBS' Katie Couric leading up to the debate.
Respondents thought Biden was better at expressing his views, giving him 52 percent to Palin's 36 percent.
On the question of the candidates' qualifications to assume the presidency, 87 percent of those polled said Biden is qualified and 42 percent said Palin is qualified.
Story Highlights
51 percent say Democratic Sen. Joe Biden wins vice presidential... more
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Liberals are saying Comrades, er uh I mean fellow Democrats, "Palin has zero experience as a Community Organizer". How could she possibly be ready to be President?
Sarah Palin has NO plagiarism experience as well.
Sarah Palin will NOT appease Iran and Syria, not to mention Ayers, Wright, Farrakhan and The Nation of Islam.
How many articles has she written for Harvard Law Review?
We have not heard her say "um", "uh" or "er" once, so how could she possibly communicate with Obama followers?
Sarah Palin has NEVER even fulfilled any kind of quota.
Our Obama-Messiah has created a whole new class of Americans, 'Bitterclingers' who might see this 'SarahCudda' as relating to them. Quoting our 'Obama' "this is NOT unacceptable".
This woman doesn't represent 'The American Woman', she didn't even allow her young to die in a dirty hospital utility room alone.
Sarah Palin was pictured with a gun and a soldier. Need we say more about her lack of Patriotisim?
Horrors of Horrors her husband is probably a 'vicious' Promise Keeper.
Sarah Palin is a mockery to 'women' everywhere! She's like some sort of different species of human!
Liberals are saying Comrades, er uh I mean fellow Democrats, "Palin has zero... more
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Story Highlights
On mortgage crisis, Palin says, "Darn right, it was the predator lenders"
She advises people ask parents at a soccer game if they want feel for economy
Former opponent: "She clearly has a very canny ability to connect with people"
Story Highlights
On mortgage crisis, Palin says, "Darn right, it was the predator... more
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Republican VP candidate says Obama is running as though his opponent is President Bush and its a strategy that's 'wearing pretty thin.'Republican VP candidate says Obama is running as though his opponent is President Bush... more
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"US Republican vice presidential hopeful Sarah Palin took her first swipe at her Democratic counterpart Saturday, casting Joe Biden as a Washington insider incapable of change.
"The choice a presidential nominee makes for a running mate says a lot about him," Palin told a flag-waving crowd at an airport hangar in the western state of Colorado.
"Senator Biden can claim many chairmanships across many, many years in Washington and certain many friends in the Washington establishment, but even those admirers would not call him an agent of change."
The Republican ticket, solidified just this past week shortly after standardbearer John McCain chose Palin, the 44-year-old governor of Alaska, to be his running mate, has been trying to poach Democratic White House nominee Barack Obama's mantle of change by promising to reform Washington.""US Republican vice presidential hopeful Sarah Palin took her first swipe at her... more
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BuddyP
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1 year ago
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Consider this:
1. McCain has a significant chance of dying in office.
2. Palin is a global warming denier.
3. If the the next president doesn’t provide very strong climate leadership at home and abroad then we have doomed our children and countless generations after them to ever worsening misery and suffering.
What is the morality of electing a President or Vice President who doesn’t understand the urgent need for very strong domestic action and international leadership to mitigate man-made climate change?
What does McCain’s choice of Palin say about whether he really considers global warming a priority issue, given that he put a global warming denier a heartbeat away from the presidency (see “No climate for old men“)? What does it say about his judgment? At least they found common, albeit Luddite, ground on renewable energy (see “Pork queen Palin is an earmark expert, NOT energy expert” and “The truly clean technologies don’t work”).
Let’s go through the three points:
1. Politico has published the actuarial analysis at “McCain and the politics of mortality“:
According to these statistics, there is a roughly 1 in 3 chance that a 72-year-old man will not reach the age of 80, which is how old McCain would be at the end of a second presidential term. And that doesn’t factor in individual medical history, such as McCain’s battles with potentially lethal skin cancer….
… for a man who has lived 72 years and 67 days (McCain’s age on Election Day this year), there is between a 14.2 and 15.1 percent chance of dying before Inauguration Day 2013
In short, there is a substantial chance that Palin could end up President.
2. Newsmax has Palin’s views on warming:
Q: What is your take on global warming and how is it affecting our country?
A: A changing environment will affect Alaska more than any other state, because of our location. I’m not one though who would attribute it to being man-made.
This makes Palin a typical conservative. A recent poll revealed that only 27% of Republicans believe the earth is warming because of human activity, such as the burning of fossil fuels (see “The deniers are winning, especially with the GOP“). Needless to say, if humans aren’t the cause of global warming, then it’s a random cycle that will eventually reverse itself, so you’d be crazy to mandate sharp reductions in greenhouse gas emissions like McCain (says he) wants.
Despite all the conservative blather about family values, if you are global warming denier, then you simply don’t care about the nation’s or the world’s children.
3. “If there’s no action before 2012, that’s too late. What we do in the next two to three years will determine our future. This is the defining moment,” warned IPCC head Rajendra Pachauri last fall when the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released its major multi-year report synthesizing our understanding of climate science. And remember that Pachauri was handpicked by the Bush administration to replace the “alarmist” Bob Watson. It’s the facts that make scientists alarmists, not their politics.
Only a president who understands that humans are the cause of global warming can provide the aggressive leadership needed to achieve deep greenhouse gas emissions cuts in this country — and convince the rest of the planet, including countries like China, India, and Russia to join us. Only genuine presidential leadership on climate can avert centuries of misery, including many tens of feet of sea level rise, loss of fresh water supplies to a billion people, desertification of one third the planet, and extinction of more than two thirds of all species on land and sea (see “Is 450 ppm politically possible? Part 0: The alternative is humanity’s self-destruction“).Consider this:
1. McCain has a significant chance of dying in office.
2.... more
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Sarah Palin attacked Obama's patriotism today over his association with former Weatherman Bill Ayers -- a move that makes it perfectly legitimate to raise questions about the Palins' associations with a group founded by an Alaska secessionist who once professed his "hatred for the American government" and cursed our "damn flag."
In Colorado today, Palin seized on the big front-page New York Times story about Ayers and Obama, which concludes that the two men "do not appear to have been close," to launch her most vicious attack yet on the Illinois Senator -- a harbinger of what's to come.
"This is not a man who sees America as you and I do -- as the greatest force for good in the world," Palin said. "This is someone who sees America as imperfect enough to pal around with terrorists who targeted their own country."
If Palin is going to say this, it is now perfectly legitimate to point out that she repeatedly courted a secessionist group founded by someone who openly professed hatred of the American government, cursed our flag, and wanted to secede from the Union. Sarah's husband, Todd Palin, was a member of this group, which continues to venerate that founder to this day, for years.Sarah Palin attacked Obama's patriotism today over his association with former... more
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BuddyP
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1 year ago
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Seth Graham Smith's reasoning here is undeniable. Obama had better hope not too many people read this article! Seth Graham Smith's reasoning here is undeniable. Obama had better hope not too many... more
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Sarah Palin is coming to the Los Angeles area today and we need your help. We'll have a giant, electronic billboard outside of Palin's rally where we'll be displaying questions for the McCain-Palin campaign from Californians across the state.
To submit a question for our electronic billboard, text the keyword ASK then the question to the number 69866
For example, send to 69866: ASK You said you'd run a respectful campaign on the issues, what happened?
Keep your questions under 160 characters including spaces and remember to keep them family friendly since we're showing them in public.
They have live streaming video of the billboard..hope my question goes up!
What would you want to ask Sarah Palin??Sarah Palin is coming to the Los Angeles area today and we need your help. We'll have... more
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lulu81
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1 year ago
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Sarah Palin might not give a good interview, and John McCain's advisers might not trust her to give a press conference, but in a highly structured debate like the one we are going to see on Thursday night, she has the ability to be dominant.
Because the format allows for very little give-and-take between Palin and Joe Biden, her "values"-oriented debating style stands a good chance of succeeding. The central feature of her debate style is that rather than getting bogged down in facts and specifics, she instead says what she is for and what she is against using terms like "healthier," "stronger," "more prosperous," and "fairer."
Andrew Halcro, who has debated her, explains his experiences debating Palin:
I've debated Governor Palin more than two dozen times. And she's a master, not of facts, figures, or insightful policy recommendations, but at the fine art of the nonanswer, the glittering generality. Against such charms there is little Senator Biden, or anyone, can do.
That sounds like a backhanded compliment, and perhaps it is, but that doesn't change the fact that Palin's debating style works, as you can see for yourself in this video that I edited together.
For the video, I looked at her past debates and randomly grabbed six answers that I thought were pretty good. These weren't cherry-picked answers, they were just the first six answers that I thought she handled effectively. (I only rejected one answer in which I felt she was too defensive about her experience.)
Given the debate's format on Thursday night, I expect Palin will do just fine. I will be quite surprised if she gets caught off guard or has a moose-in-headlights moment.
I don't think she'll display much in the way of specifics, but she will get the values-oriented language right, and that should be good enough at least for a draw, and that will mean she beats expectations.
Of course, the real political issue in the debate isn't whether or not Palin meets or beats expectations, it's whether she is able to make a case for John McCain that John McCain hasn't yet been able to make for himself.
That's something no vice presidential candidate in history has been able to do, and should serve as a reminder that in the end, this election is still between Barack Obama and John McCain.
Sarah Palin might not give a good interview, and John McCain's advisers might not... more
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At least three times last night, Sarah Palin, the adorable, preposterous vice-presidential candidate, winked at the audience. Had a male candidate with a similar reputation for attractive vapidity made such a brazen attempt to flirt his way into the good graces of the voting public, it would have universally noted, discussed and mocked. Palin, however, has single-handedly so lowered the standards both for female candidates and American political discourse that, with her newfound ability to speak in more-or-less full sentences, she is now deemed to have performed acceptably last night.
By any normal standard, including the ones applied to male presidential candidates of either party, she did not. Early on, she made the astonishing announcement that she had no intentions of actually answering the queries put to her. "I may not answer the questions that either the moderator or you want to hear, but I'm going to talk straight to the American people and let them know my track record also," she said.
And so she preceded, with an almost surreal disregard for the subjects she was supposed to be discussing, to unleash fusillades of scripted attack lines, platitudes, lies, gibberish and grating references to her own pseudo-folksy authenticity.
It was an appalling display. The only reason it was not widely described as such is that too many American pundits don't even try to judge the truth, wisdom or reasonableness of the political rhetoric they are paid to pronounce upon. Instead, they imagine themselves as interpreters of a mythical mass of "average Americans" who they both venerate and despise.At least three times last night, Sarah Palin, the adorable, preposterous... more
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BuddyP
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1 year ago
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Slight nuance in the use of the word between us and our US cousins by the look of things.
dSlight nuance in the use of the word between us and our US cousins by the look of... more
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Nothing like second guessing the top of the ticket and thinking she's more popular with voters than he is.Nothing like second guessing the top of the ticket and thinking she's more popular... more
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Link to this video Michael Tomasky reviews the performances of Sarah Palin and Joe Biden in the US vice-presidential debate
Link to this video Michael Tomasky reviews the performances of Sarah Palin and Joe... more
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Highlights:
Fifty-one percent of debate watchers say Biden did best job, CNN poll says
Eighty-four percent of debate watchers said Palin did better than expected
Biden more likely to bring change, according to 53 percent of debate watchers
Highlights:
Fifty-one percent of debate watchers say Biden did best job, CNN poll... more
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Friday October 3, 2008 10:03 EDT
How Sarah Palin blew it
Joe Biden and Sarah Palin were talking to two different Americas Thursday night. Actually, that's unfair to Joe Biden; he was trying to talk to everyone. I can say for certain, though, that Sarah Palin was talking to -- and winking at -- her own private Idaho, and for long stretches of the debate, it was an unnerving experience.
We could be in for a few days of pro-Palin commentary, since her subjects and verbs corresponded. For at least the first hour, she held her own; she was funny sometimes, occasionally charming. Still, the Obama-Biden ticket will survive it. Biden was stronger on every single substantive point, and that's the impression that will last.
But the pit bull in lipstick was back. After her disarming "Hey, can I call you Joe?" Palin was vicious, with a winning smile. After a passionate Biden plea to "walk with me in my neighborhood," in Delaware and Scranton, where "the middle class has gotten the short end," she ridiculed him: "Say it ain't so, Joe, there you go again! Pointing backwards again!"
There were two key moments for me when Sarah Palin blew it badly. One was substantive, one was symbolic. The substantive was her bizarre statement about being happy that Dick Cheney had expanded the powers of the vice-presidency, and wanting to expand the powers more. I think that's what she said, it was one of many moments I didn't entirely understand her point, but I got her overall meaning. Biden came back with a decisive: "Vice President Cheney has been the most dangerous vice president in American history," and he defended the existing limits on vice-presidential power. Point: Biden. Big time.
The symbolic moment Palin flubbed was subjective, of course. But I instant-messaged a friend that she lost the debate when Biden choked up over losing his wife and child in a car accident in which his sons were critically injured -- and she went straight back into "John McCain is a maverick." I truly expected her to express human sympathy with Biden, and her failure to do so showed me something deeply wrong with her. But maybe that's just me.
She made other mistakes that others have already caught: She called the top commander in Afghanistan "General McClellan"; his name is David McKiernan. She said the troop levels in Iraq are down to pre-surge levels; they're not. She simply didn't answer a lot of the questions. Moderator Gwen Ifill tried to pull her back, but Palin is stubborn; she had her talking points, and she stuck to them.
I thought Biden and Palin tied for the first third of the debate, that Palin actually won the second third on moxie and charisma, not policy (Biden looked visibly angry at a few points, and that's never good), but Biden cleaned her clock in the last third. He quoted his dad telling him, "Champ, when you get knocked down, get up!" -- and he listened to his father. Biden got up, and he won the debate.
We'll see how it plays out in the days to comFriday October 3, 2008 10:03 EDT
How Sarah Palin blew it
Joe Biden and Sarah Palin... more
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That will buy quite a few six packs. The Palins own their lakefront house plus two vacation homes - yeah, she's a regular joe.That will buy quite a few six packs. The Palins own their lakefront house plus two... more
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