"alles, das notwendig ist" is German for "All that is necessary".
I am including a serious response from a blog to which I read regularly. It is widely known on this blog of this high powered, whistle blowing, RNC insider who has "seen the light". He has spewed much about many things, and it has all transpired, to which he has subsequently enlightened hundreds of thousands and hopefully more in this country and around the globe. I feel that this should be repeated to all who read here in hopes to "spread the word"! Based on the history of mankind, and the fact that his statements have been routinely correct, this is not something that is baseless and should be discarded.
It should be noted that OTW means "other than whites"
* * * * * *
Whistle Blower:
I hope you are well staffed. I know for a fact that the RNC has for years had at the state level an expertly prepared organization whose single job is to prevent, suppress, or steal the vote of the opposition. These state organizations are maintained and funded by the state tax payer. Many of the employees of this organization have unofficial jobs in the system. They are often referred by the RNC as the State Gestapo. The branch within the SS that is assigned the task of dealing with the OTWs attempt at voiting is the KKK faction.
The KKK faction are hard nosed “anything deemed necessary” group. They get that motto from the State Gstapo. Their motto is “alles, das notwendig ist.”
These organizations are made up of some of the most intelligent white people in those states. The leaders have been educated in some of America’s most prestigious schools. They are rabid when it comes to white supremacy. Murder, mayhem. anything necessary has been done over the past two hundred years to keep that white supremacy.
The secret membership has been passed on through southern and other white families for hundreds of years. It provides jobs for the unskilled white person and insures that they get employment over their fellow american competitors for the same job. You would be surprised what those unskilled whites will do for those privileges.
We at the top of the RNC could care less about those white minions we use to maintain control of the country. But we do need them to do our dirty work. So we stoke them with red meat to keep them willing to do anything to preserve white supremacy.
It will take laws at the federal level that will be enforced to deal with this problem. These organizations are well entrenched in 42 of the 50 states. It is not by accident that whites have maintained total control of all the financial wealth in the country.
It has long been an operating principle that black males be given jail sentences whenever possible to disenfranchise the black vote. A cursory check state by state will show laws that are designed to impact the black population disproportionally to the white population.
The same cursory inspection of all the sentences handed out by state court judges will show an incredibly disproportionate sentencing of black males to jail and prison for the same or lessor offenses than whites. When sentenced, blacks are given many more years in prison and almost no chance of a parole. Any state by state investigation would conclude that the consistency by which this occurs state by state could not be coincidental.
The President of the United States will be privy to this information. Obama will learn that all the previous US presidents were privy to the information but did nothing to change or challenge this white conspiracy against the rest of America’s citizens. They have kept this secret even though they knew that white America as a whole, like their OTW citizens, would be appalled to learn of the SS organization. Bush’s parting gift to the SS organization was his issuance of a fiat granting entry into the USA by european (white) visitors. This was done to entice migration to the US by more whites and to stem the influx of OTWs, and the browning of America.
Immigration laws are used as a veiled attempt to stem the browning of America. Immigration is seldom used when illegal whites are confronted. The US is inundated with organized white criminal gangs. These gangs bring the espionage skills of the various now defunct KGB and similar spy agencies with them. They hate America and all it stands for. They are here to use our system that favors the color of their skin and their spy skills to enrich themselves at the expense of America’s security and interests.
They practice murder for hire, drugs, sex slavery, weapon sales, and espionage technology. They have been responsible for the transference of all types of weapons and technology to the enemies of the US. Yet, they are tolerated over the american OTW citizen because of their color. It is insane but true. Color is a serious disease in the SS organization and all the minions are afflicted with it. They will sacrifice government, children and god to it.
For this reason I don’t believe it will be possible for to prevent the states from manipulating the votes to prevent the election of Obama. She will be dealing with a formidable organization of tens of millions of diseased minions.
* * * * * *
This should be a wake up call for all in the United States. We have come too far for this election to be set to the wayside by the extreme right factions who wish to keep themselves blinded to the future promise of what this country has aspired to be and has reached the point of no return as shown by the public demand of change!
Make sure your keep your eyes and ears open on Nov. 4! Good luck, and cover your vote as well as your ass!
(c)Copyright 2008 Doug Boggs
Showing posts with label Repubican. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Repubican. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
The Iraqi Death Count
The number is shocking and sobering. I have recently included the small toll on the right column on this blog. I urge you to take the time to learn more through this organization on the horrors that the Repubican's have put this country, and our country through on this illegal invasion of this sovereign country.
For the accountability that Bush has continued to campaign for throughout his reign as ruler of this country, he and his cronies should be held accountable for the murders of these innocent Iraqi people, as well as, the murders of the Americans that went to fight in this illegal invasion. His premeditated actions should be prosecuted to the full extent of our laws as outlined in the book by Vincent Bugliosi, "The Prosecution of George W Bush for Murder".
It is at least 10 times greater than most estimates cited in the US media, yet it is based on a scientific study of violent Iraqi deaths caused by the U.S.-led invasion of March 2003.
That study, published in prestigious medical journal The Lancet, estimated that over 600,000 Iraqis had been killed as a result of the invasion as of July 2006. Iraqis have continued to be killed since then. The graphic above provides a rough daily update of this number based on a rate of increase derived from the Iraq Body Count. (See the complete explanation.)
The estimate that over a million Iraqis have died received independent confirmation from a prestigious British polling agency in September 2007. Opinion Research Business estimated that 1.2 million Iraqis have been killed violently since the US invasion.
This devastating human toll demands greater recognition. It eclipses the Rwandan genocide and our leaders are directly responsible. Little wonder they do not publicly cite it. Here is simple HTML code to post the counter to your website and help spread the word.
******
The following comes from the mission statement of this organization:
...We have seen through the Iraq war that unnecessary military actions can undermine civil liberties and democracy at home, and can be used to remove pressing domestic issues from the political agenda to the detriment of the great majority.
During the Cold War, the United States spent trillions of dollars on an arms race with the USSR, as well as wars such as Korea and Vietnam. Yet we were able to create Medicare, Medicaid, and enact large enough increases in Social Security to drive the poverty rate among the elderly down from 35 percent in 1959 to less than 12 percent by the end of the era. But for a number of reasons—fiscal, economic, and political—our current circumstances are very different.
For example, at the height of the Vietnam War in 1968, the U.S. gross federal debt was 43.5 percent of our economy and falling. Today it is over 67 percent and rising. Maintaining our current foreign and military policy and possible large increases in military spending (for example if we have an arms race with China, whose economy will be larger than ours within a decade) will lead to serious declines in U.S. living standards.
U.S. foreign policy therefore threatens to impede—perhaps as never before—the country's economic and social progress. It has become extremely important to the lives of all Americans, and we cannot afford to leave it in the hands of the "experts" without influence from the public.
Eventually the United States must move towards a more multilateral approach to foreign relations—one that relies less on raw U.S. military and economic power and more on international law and treaties, co-operation, and diplomacy. Our goal is to accelerate this transition through education, organization, and mobilization of concerned citizens.
For the accountability that Bush has continued to campaign for throughout his reign as ruler of this country, he and his cronies should be held accountable for the murders of these innocent Iraqi people, as well as, the murders of the Americans that went to fight in this illegal invasion. His premeditated actions should be prosecuted to the full extent of our laws as outlined in the book by Vincent Bugliosi, "The Prosecution of George W Bush for Murder".
It is at least 10 times greater than most estimates cited in the US media, yet it is based on a scientific study of violent Iraqi deaths caused by the U.S.-led invasion of March 2003.
That study, published in prestigious medical journal The Lancet, estimated that over 600,000 Iraqis had been killed as a result of the invasion as of July 2006. Iraqis have continued to be killed since then. The graphic above provides a rough daily update of this number based on a rate of increase derived from the Iraq Body Count. (See the complete explanation.)
The estimate that over a million Iraqis have died received independent confirmation from a prestigious British polling agency in September 2007. Opinion Research Business estimated that 1.2 million Iraqis have been killed violently since the US invasion.
This devastating human toll demands greater recognition. It eclipses the Rwandan genocide and our leaders are directly responsible. Little wonder they do not publicly cite it. Here is simple HTML code to post the counter to your website and help spread the word.
******
The following comes from the mission statement of this organization:
...We have seen through the Iraq war that unnecessary military actions can undermine civil liberties and democracy at home, and can be used to remove pressing domestic issues from the political agenda to the detriment of the great majority.
During the Cold War, the United States spent trillions of dollars on an arms race with the USSR, as well as wars such as Korea and Vietnam. Yet we were able to create Medicare, Medicaid, and enact large enough increases in Social Security to drive the poverty rate among the elderly down from 35 percent in 1959 to less than 12 percent by the end of the era. But for a number of reasons—fiscal, economic, and political—our current circumstances are very different.
For example, at the height of the Vietnam War in 1968, the U.S. gross federal debt was 43.5 percent of our economy and falling. Today it is over 67 percent and rising. Maintaining our current foreign and military policy and possible large increases in military spending (for example if we have an arms race with China, whose economy will be larger than ours within a decade) will lead to serious declines in U.S. living standards.
U.S. foreign policy therefore threatens to impede—perhaps as never before—the country's economic and social progress. It has become extremely important to the lives of all Americans, and we cannot afford to leave it in the hands of the "experts" without influence from the public.
Eventually the United States must move towards a more multilateral approach to foreign relations—one that relies less on raw U.S. military and economic power and more on international law and treaties, co-operation, and diplomacy. Our goal is to accelerate this transition through education, organization, and mobilization of concerned citizens.
Monday, September 8, 2008
Who is Sarah Palin?
This letter from Anne Kilkenny was written to some family members and a few friends on her knowledge of Sarah Palin as Anne is a resident and local of the same small town of Palin and has known her since 1992.
Since the release of this letter she has been interviewed by the NY Times, NPR, and other news organizations regarding this famed letter. We have included it in its entirety below.
******
Dear friends,
So many people have asked me about what I know about Sarah Palin in the
last 2 days that I decided to write something up . . .
Basically, Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton have only 2 things in
common: their gender and their good looks. :)
You have my permission to forward this to your friends/email contacts
with my name and email address attached, but please do not post it on
any websites, as there are too many kooks out there . . .
Thanks,
Anne
About Sarah Palin:
I think that one of the great things America and western democracies have contributed to the world is the ability to distinguish between disliking someone and disagreeing. We all need to work toward being able to agree to disagree. I like Sarah Palin. I disagree with her.
I wrote this letter to friends and family on August 31. It has since circulated throughout the Web.
About Sarah Palin
I am a resident of Wasilla, Alaska. I have known Sarah since 1992. Everyone here knows Sarah, so it is nothing special to say we are on a first-name basis. Our children have attended the same schools. Her father was my child's favorite substitute teacher. I also am on a first name basis with her parents and mother-in-law. I attended more city council meetings during her administration than about 99% of the residents of the city.
She is enormously popular; in every way she's like the most popular girl in middle school. Even men who think she is a poor choice and won't vote for her can't quit smiling when talking about her because she is a "babe."
It is astonishing and almost scary how well she can keep a secret. She kept her most recent pregnancy a secret from her children and parents for seven months.
She is pro-life. She recently gave birth to a Down's syndrome baby. There is no cover-up involved, here; Trig is her baby.
She is energetic and hardworking. She regularly worked out at the gym.
She is savvy. She doesn't take positions; she just puts things out there and if they prove to be popular, then she takes credit.
Her husband works a union job on the North Slope for BP and is a champion snowmobile racer. Todd Palin's kind of job is highly sought-after because of the schedule and high pay. He arranges his work schedule so he can fish for salmon in Bristol Bay for a month or so in summer, but by no stretch of the imagination is fishing their major source of income. Nor has her lifestyle ever been anything like that of native Alaskans.
Sarah and her whole family are avid hunters.
She's smart.
Her experience is as mayor of a city with a population of about 5,000 (at the time), and less than two years as governor of a state with about 670,000 residents.
During her mayoral administration most of the actual work of running this small city was turned over to an administrator. She had been pushed to hire this administrator by party power brokers after she had gotten herself into some trouble over precipitous firings, which had given rise to a recall campaign.
Sarah campaigned in Wasilla as a "fiscal conservative." During her six years as mayor, she increased general government expenditures by over 33%. During those same six years, the amount of taxes collected by the city increased by 38%. This was during a period of low inflation (1996-2002). She reduced progressive property taxes and increased a regressive sales tax, which even taxed food. The tax cuts that she promoted benefited large corporate property owners way more than they benefited residents.
The huge increases in tax revenues during her mayoral administration weren't enough to fund everything on her wish list though. Borrowed money was needed, too. She inherited a city with zero debt, but left it with indebtedness of over $22 million. What did Mayor Palin encourage the voters to borrow money for? Was it the infrastructure that she said she supported? The sewage treatment plant that the city lacked? Or a new library? No. $1 million for a park. $15 million-plus for construction of a multi-use sports complex, which she rushed through to build on a piece of property that the city didn't even have clear title to. That was still in litigation seven years later -- to the delight of the lawyers involved! The sports complex itself is a nice addition to the community but a huge money pit, not the profit generator she claimed it would be. She also supported bonds for $5.5 million for road projects that could have been done in 5-7 years without any borrowing.
While mayor, city hall was extensively remodeled and her office redecorated more than once.
These are small numbers, but Wasilla is a very small city.
As an oil producer, the high price of oil has created a budget surplus in Alaska. Rather than invest this surplus in technology that will make us energy independent and increase efficiency, as governor she proposed distribution of this surplus to every individual in the state.
In this time of record state revenues and budget surpluses, she recommended that the state borrow and bond for road projects, even while she proposed distribution of surplus state revenues: spend today's surplus, borrow for needs.
She's not very tolerant of divergent opinions or open to outside ideas or compromise. As mayor, she fought ideas that weren't generated by her or her staff. Ideas weren't evaluated on their merits, but on the basis of who proposed them.
While Sarah was mayor of Wasilla, she tried to fire our highly respected city librarian because the librarian refused to consider removing from the library some books that Sarah wanted removed. City residents rallied to the defense of the city librarian and against Palin's attempt at out-and-out censorship, so Palin backed down and withdrew her termination letter. People who fought her attempt to oust the librarian are on her enemies list to this day.
Sarah complained about the "old boy's club" when she first ran for mayor, so what did she bring Wasilla? A new set of "old boys." Palin fired most of the experienced staff she inherited. At the city and as governor she hired or elevated new, inexperienced, obscure people, creating a staff totally dependent on her for their jobs and eternally grateful and fiercely loyal -- loyal to the point of abusing their power to further her personal agenda, as she has acknowledged happened in the case of pressuring the state's top cop (see below).
As mayor, Sarah fired Wasilla's police chief because he "intimidated" her, she told the press. As governor, her recent firing of Alaska's top cop has the ring of familiarity about it. He served at her pleasure and she had every legal right to fire him, but it's pretty clear that an important factor in her decision to fire him was that he wouldn't fire her sister's ex-husband, a state trooper. Under investigation for abuse of power, she has had to admit that more than two dozen contacts were made between her staff and family to the person that she later fired, pressuring him to fire her ex-brother-in-law. She tried to replace the man she fired with a man who she knew had been reprimanded for sexual harassment; when this caused a public furor, she withdrew her support.
She has bitten the hand of every person who extended theirs to her in help. The city council person who personally escorted her around town, introducing her to voters when she first ran for Wasilla City Council, became one of her first targets when she was later elected Mayor. She abruptly fired her loyal city administrator; even people who didn't like the guy were stunned by this ruthlessness.
Fear of retribution has kept all of these people from saying anything publicly about her.
When then-Governor Murkowski was handing out political plums, Sarah got the best, chair of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission: one of the few jobs not in Juneau and one of the best paid. She had no background in oil and gas issues. Within months of scoring this great job, which paid $122,400 per year, she was complaining in the press about the high salary. I was told that she hated that job: the commute, the structured hours, the work. Sarah became aware that a member of this commission (who was also the state chair of the Republican Party) engaged in unethical behavior on the job. In a gutsy move, which some undoubtedly cautioned her could be political suicide, Sarah solved all her problems in one fell swoop: got out of the job she hated and garnered gobs of media attention as the patron saint of ethics and as a gutsy fighter against the "old boys' club" when she dramatically quit, exposing this man's ethics violations (for which he was fined).
As mayor, she had her hand stuck out as far as anyone for pork from Senator Ted Stevens. Lately, she has castigated his pork-barrel politics and publicly humiliated him. She only opposed the "bridge to nowhere" after it became clear that it would be unwise not to.
As governor, she gave the legislature no direction and budget guidelines, then made a big grandstand display of line-item vetoing projects, calling them pork. Public outcry and further legislative action restored most of these projects -- which had been vetoed simply because she was not aware of their importance -- but with the unobservant she had gained a reputation as "anti-pork."
She is solidly Republican: no political maverick. The state party leaders hate her because she has bit them in the back and humiliated them. Other members of the party object to her self-description as a fiscal conservative.
Around Wasilla there are people who went to high school with Sarah. They call her "Sarah Barracuda" because of her unbridled ambition and predatory ruthlessness. Before she became so powerful, very ugly stories circulated around town about shenanigans she pulled to be made point guard on the high school basketball team. When Sarah's mother-in-law, a highly respected member of the community and experienced manager, ran for mayor, Sarah refused to endorse her.
As governor, she stepped outside of the box and put together a package of legislation known as AGIA, which forced the oil companies to march to the beat of her drum.
Like most Alaskans, she favors drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. She has questioned if the loss of sea ice is linked to global warming. She campaigned "as a private citizen" against a state initiative that would have either a) protected salmon streams from pollution from mines, or b) tied up in the courts all mining in the state (depending on who you listen to). She has pushed the state's lawsuit against the Department of the Interior's decision to list polar bears as threatened species.
McCain is the oldest person to ever run for president; Sarah will be a heartbeat away from being president.
There have to be literally millions of Americans who are more knowledgeable and experienced than her.
However, there's a lot of people who have underestimated her and are regretting it.
Claim vs. Fact
* "Hockey mom:" true for a few years.
* "PTA mom:" true years ago when her first-born was in elementary school, not since.
* "NRA supporter:" absolutely true.
* Social conservative: mixed. Opposes gay marriage, but vetoed a bill that would have denied benefits to employees in same-sex relationships. (Said she did this because it was unconstitutional.)
* Pro-creationism: mixed. Supports it, but did nothing as governor to promote it.
* "Pro-life:" mixed. Knowingly gave birth to a Down's syndrome baby, but declined to call a special legislative session on some pro-life legislation.
* "Experienced:" Some high schools have more students than Wasilla has residents. Many cities have more residents than the state of Alaska. No legislative experience other than city council. Little hands-on supervisory or managerial experience; needed help of a city administrator to run town of about 5,000.
* Political maverick: not at all.
* Gutsy: absolutely!
* Open and transparent: ??? Good at keeping secrets. Not good at explaining actions.
* Has a developed philosophy of public policy: no.
* "A greenie:" no. Turned Wasilla into a wasteland of big box stores and disconnected parking lots. Is pro-drilling off-shore and in ANWR.
* Fiscal conservative: not by my definition!
* Pro-infrastructure: no. Promoted a sports complex and park in a city without a sewage treatment plant or storm drainage system. Built streets to early 20th century standards.
* Pro-tax relief: lowered taxes for businesses, but increased tax burden on residents
* Pro-small government: no. Oversaw greatest expansion of city government in Wasilla's history.
* Pro-labor/pro-union: no. Just because her husband works union doesn't make her pro-labor. I have seen nothing to support any claim that she is pro-labor/pro-union.
Why Am I Writing This?
First, I have long believed in the importance of being an informed voter. I am a voter registrar. For 10 years I put on student voting programs in the schools. If you Google my name, you will find references to my participation in local government, education, and PTA/parent organizations.
Secondly, I've always operated in the belief that bad things happen when good people stay silent. Few people know as much about Palin as I do because few have gone to as many city council meetings.
Third, I am just a housewife. I don't have a job she can bump me out of. I don't belong to any organization that she can hurt. But, I am no fool; she is immensely popular here, and it is likely that this will cost me somehow in the future. That's life.
Fourth, she has hated me since back in 1996, when I was one of the 100 or so people who rallied to support the city librarian against Sarah's attempt at censorship.
Fifth, I looked around and realized that everybody else was afraid to say anything because they were somehow vulnerable.
Caveats
I am not a statistician. I developed the numbers for the increase in spending and taxation two years ago (when Palin was running for governor) from information supplied to me by the finance director of the city of Wasilla, and I can't recall exactly what I adjusted for: did I adjust for inflation? For population increases? Right now, it is impossible for a private person to get any info out of city hall -- they are swamped. So I can't verify my numbers.
You may have noticed that there are various numbers circulating for the population of Wasilla, ranging from my "about 5,000" up to 9,000. The day Palin's selection was announced a city official told me that the current population is about 7,000. The official 2000 census count was 5,460. I have used about 5,000 because Palin was mayor from 1996 to 2002, and the city was growing rapidly in the mid-90s.
Anne Kilkenny
August 31, 2008
Since the release of this letter she has been interviewed by the NY Times, NPR, and other news organizations regarding this famed letter. We have included it in its entirety below.
******
Dear friends,
So many people have asked me about what I know about Sarah Palin in the
last 2 days that I decided to write something up . . .
Basically, Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton have only 2 things in
common: their gender and their good looks. :)
You have my permission to forward this to your friends/email contacts
with my name and email address attached, but please do not post it on
any websites, as there are too many kooks out there . . .
Thanks,
Anne
About Sarah Palin:
I think that one of the great things America and western democracies have contributed to the world is the ability to distinguish between disliking someone and disagreeing. We all need to work toward being able to agree to disagree. I like Sarah Palin. I disagree with her.
I wrote this letter to friends and family on August 31. It has since circulated throughout the Web.
About Sarah Palin
I am a resident of Wasilla, Alaska. I have known Sarah since 1992. Everyone here knows Sarah, so it is nothing special to say we are on a first-name basis. Our children have attended the same schools. Her father was my child's favorite substitute teacher. I also am on a first name basis with her parents and mother-in-law. I attended more city council meetings during her administration than about 99% of the residents of the city.
She is enormously popular; in every way she's like the most popular girl in middle school. Even men who think she is a poor choice and won't vote for her can't quit smiling when talking about her because she is a "babe."
It is astonishing and almost scary how well she can keep a secret. She kept her most recent pregnancy a secret from her children and parents for seven months.
She is pro-life. She recently gave birth to a Down's syndrome baby. There is no cover-up involved, here; Trig is her baby.
She is energetic and hardworking. She regularly worked out at the gym.
She is savvy. She doesn't take positions; she just puts things out there and if they prove to be popular, then she takes credit.
Her husband works a union job on the North Slope for BP and is a champion snowmobile racer. Todd Palin's kind of job is highly sought-after because of the schedule and high pay. He arranges his work schedule so he can fish for salmon in Bristol Bay for a month or so in summer, but by no stretch of the imagination is fishing their major source of income. Nor has her lifestyle ever been anything like that of native Alaskans.
Sarah and her whole family are avid hunters.
She's smart.
Her experience is as mayor of a city with a population of about 5,000 (at the time), and less than two years as governor of a state with about 670,000 residents.
During her mayoral administration most of the actual work of running this small city was turned over to an administrator. She had been pushed to hire this administrator by party power brokers after she had gotten herself into some trouble over precipitous firings, which had given rise to a recall campaign.
Sarah campaigned in Wasilla as a "fiscal conservative." During her six years as mayor, she increased general government expenditures by over 33%. During those same six years, the amount of taxes collected by the city increased by 38%. This was during a period of low inflation (1996-2002). She reduced progressive property taxes and increased a regressive sales tax, which even taxed food. The tax cuts that she promoted benefited large corporate property owners way more than they benefited residents.
The huge increases in tax revenues during her mayoral administration weren't enough to fund everything on her wish list though. Borrowed money was needed, too. She inherited a city with zero debt, but left it with indebtedness of over $22 million. What did Mayor Palin encourage the voters to borrow money for? Was it the infrastructure that she said she supported? The sewage treatment plant that the city lacked? Or a new library? No. $1 million for a park. $15 million-plus for construction of a multi-use sports complex, which she rushed through to build on a piece of property that the city didn't even have clear title to. That was still in litigation seven years later -- to the delight of the lawyers involved! The sports complex itself is a nice addition to the community but a huge money pit, not the profit generator she claimed it would be. She also supported bonds for $5.5 million for road projects that could have been done in 5-7 years without any borrowing.
While mayor, city hall was extensively remodeled and her office redecorated more than once.
These are small numbers, but Wasilla is a very small city.
As an oil producer, the high price of oil has created a budget surplus in Alaska. Rather than invest this surplus in technology that will make us energy independent and increase efficiency, as governor she proposed distribution of this surplus to every individual in the state.
In this time of record state revenues and budget surpluses, she recommended that the state borrow and bond for road projects, even while she proposed distribution of surplus state revenues: spend today's surplus, borrow for needs.
She's not very tolerant of divergent opinions or open to outside ideas or compromise. As mayor, she fought ideas that weren't generated by her or her staff. Ideas weren't evaluated on their merits, but on the basis of who proposed them.
While Sarah was mayor of Wasilla, she tried to fire our highly respected city librarian because the librarian refused to consider removing from the library some books that Sarah wanted removed. City residents rallied to the defense of the city librarian and against Palin's attempt at out-and-out censorship, so Palin backed down and withdrew her termination letter. People who fought her attempt to oust the librarian are on her enemies list to this day.
Sarah complained about the "old boy's club" when she first ran for mayor, so what did she bring Wasilla? A new set of "old boys." Palin fired most of the experienced staff she inherited. At the city and as governor she hired or elevated new, inexperienced, obscure people, creating a staff totally dependent on her for their jobs and eternally grateful and fiercely loyal -- loyal to the point of abusing their power to further her personal agenda, as she has acknowledged happened in the case of pressuring the state's top cop (see below).
As mayor, Sarah fired Wasilla's police chief because he "intimidated" her, she told the press. As governor, her recent firing of Alaska's top cop has the ring of familiarity about it. He served at her pleasure and she had every legal right to fire him, but it's pretty clear that an important factor in her decision to fire him was that he wouldn't fire her sister's ex-husband, a state trooper. Under investigation for abuse of power, she has had to admit that more than two dozen contacts were made between her staff and family to the person that she later fired, pressuring him to fire her ex-brother-in-law. She tried to replace the man she fired with a man who she knew had been reprimanded for sexual harassment; when this caused a public furor, she withdrew her support.
She has bitten the hand of every person who extended theirs to her in help. The city council person who personally escorted her around town, introducing her to voters when she first ran for Wasilla City Council, became one of her first targets when she was later elected Mayor. She abruptly fired her loyal city administrator; even people who didn't like the guy were stunned by this ruthlessness.
Fear of retribution has kept all of these people from saying anything publicly about her.
When then-Governor Murkowski was handing out political plums, Sarah got the best, chair of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission: one of the few jobs not in Juneau and one of the best paid. She had no background in oil and gas issues. Within months of scoring this great job, which paid $122,400 per year, she was complaining in the press about the high salary. I was told that she hated that job: the commute, the structured hours, the work. Sarah became aware that a member of this commission (who was also the state chair of the Republican Party) engaged in unethical behavior on the job. In a gutsy move, which some undoubtedly cautioned her could be political suicide, Sarah solved all her problems in one fell swoop: got out of the job she hated and garnered gobs of media attention as the patron saint of ethics and as a gutsy fighter against the "old boys' club" when she dramatically quit, exposing this man's ethics violations (for which he was fined).
As mayor, she had her hand stuck out as far as anyone for pork from Senator Ted Stevens. Lately, she has castigated his pork-barrel politics and publicly humiliated him. She only opposed the "bridge to nowhere" after it became clear that it would be unwise not to.
As governor, she gave the legislature no direction and budget guidelines, then made a big grandstand display of line-item vetoing projects, calling them pork. Public outcry and further legislative action restored most of these projects -- which had been vetoed simply because she was not aware of their importance -- but with the unobservant she had gained a reputation as "anti-pork."
She is solidly Republican: no political maverick. The state party leaders hate her because she has bit them in the back and humiliated them. Other members of the party object to her self-description as a fiscal conservative.
Around Wasilla there are people who went to high school with Sarah. They call her "Sarah Barracuda" because of her unbridled ambition and predatory ruthlessness. Before she became so powerful, very ugly stories circulated around town about shenanigans she pulled to be made point guard on the high school basketball team. When Sarah's mother-in-law, a highly respected member of the community and experienced manager, ran for mayor, Sarah refused to endorse her.
As governor, she stepped outside of the box and put together a package of legislation known as AGIA, which forced the oil companies to march to the beat of her drum.
Like most Alaskans, she favors drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. She has questioned if the loss of sea ice is linked to global warming. She campaigned "as a private citizen" against a state initiative that would have either a) protected salmon streams from pollution from mines, or b) tied up in the courts all mining in the state (depending on who you listen to). She has pushed the state's lawsuit against the Department of the Interior's decision to list polar bears as threatened species.
McCain is the oldest person to ever run for president; Sarah will be a heartbeat away from being president.
There have to be literally millions of Americans who are more knowledgeable and experienced than her.
However, there's a lot of people who have underestimated her and are regretting it.
Claim vs. Fact
* "Hockey mom:" true for a few years.
* "PTA mom:" true years ago when her first-born was in elementary school, not since.
* "NRA supporter:" absolutely true.
* Social conservative: mixed. Opposes gay marriage, but vetoed a bill that would have denied benefits to employees in same-sex relationships. (Said she did this because it was unconstitutional.)
* Pro-creationism: mixed. Supports it, but did nothing as governor to promote it.
* "Pro-life:" mixed. Knowingly gave birth to a Down's syndrome baby, but declined to call a special legislative session on some pro-life legislation.
* "Experienced:" Some high schools have more students than Wasilla has residents. Many cities have more residents than the state of Alaska. No legislative experience other than city council. Little hands-on supervisory or managerial experience; needed help of a city administrator to run town of about 5,000.
* Political maverick: not at all.
* Gutsy: absolutely!
* Open and transparent: ??? Good at keeping secrets. Not good at explaining actions.
* Has a developed philosophy of public policy: no.
* "A greenie:" no. Turned Wasilla into a wasteland of big box stores and disconnected parking lots. Is pro-drilling off-shore and in ANWR.
* Fiscal conservative: not by my definition!
* Pro-infrastructure: no. Promoted a sports complex and park in a city without a sewage treatment plant or storm drainage system. Built streets to early 20th century standards.
* Pro-tax relief: lowered taxes for businesses, but increased tax burden on residents
* Pro-small government: no. Oversaw greatest expansion of city government in Wasilla's history.
* Pro-labor/pro-union: no. Just because her husband works union doesn't make her pro-labor. I have seen nothing to support any claim that she is pro-labor/pro-union.
Why Am I Writing This?
First, I have long believed in the importance of being an informed voter. I am a voter registrar. For 10 years I put on student voting programs in the schools. If you Google my name, you will find references to my participation in local government, education, and PTA/parent organizations.
Secondly, I've always operated in the belief that bad things happen when good people stay silent. Few people know as much about Palin as I do because few have gone to as many city council meetings.
Third, I am just a housewife. I don't have a job she can bump me out of. I don't belong to any organization that she can hurt. But, I am no fool; she is immensely popular here, and it is likely that this will cost me somehow in the future. That's life.
Fourth, she has hated me since back in 1996, when I was one of the 100 or so people who rallied to support the city librarian against Sarah's attempt at censorship.
Fifth, I looked around and realized that everybody else was afraid to say anything because they were somehow vulnerable.
Caveats
I am not a statistician. I developed the numbers for the increase in spending and taxation two years ago (when Palin was running for governor) from information supplied to me by the finance director of the city of Wasilla, and I can't recall exactly what I adjusted for: did I adjust for inflation? For population increases? Right now, it is impossible for a private person to get any info out of city hall -- they are swamped. So I can't verify my numbers.
You may have noticed that there are various numbers circulating for the population of Wasilla, ranging from my "about 5,000" up to 9,000. The day Palin's selection was announced a city official told me that the current population is about 7,000. The official 2000 census count was 5,460. I have used about 5,000 because Palin was mayor from 1996 to 2002, and the city was growing rapidly in the mid-90s.
Anne Kilkenny
August 31, 2008
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