Palin pre-empts state report, clears self in probe

edonline

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Palin pre-empts state report, clears self in probe - Yahoo! News

Palin pre-empts state report, clears self in probe
By MATT APUZZO, Associated Press Writer

Trying to head off a potentially embarrassing state ethics report on GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, campaign officials released their own report Thursday that clears her of any wrongdoing.

Sen. John McCain's running mate is the subject of a legislative investigation into whether she abused her power as governor by firing her public safety commissioner. The commissioner, Walter Monegan, says he was dismissed in July for resisting pressure from Palin's husband, Todd Palin, and numerous top aides to fire state trooper Mike Wooten, Palin's former brother-in-law.

Lawmakers are expected to release their own findings Friday. Campaign officials have yet to see that report — the result of an investigation that began before she was tapped as McCain's running mate — but said the investigation has falsely portrayed a legitimate policy dispute between a governor and her commissioner as something inappropriate.

"The following document will prove Walt Monegan's dismissal was a result of his insubordination and budgetary clashes with Governor Palin and her administration," campaign officials wrote. "Trooper Wooten is a separate issue."

Monegan said Thursday that he doesn't know what to expect from the legislative panel's own report.

"I just hope that the truth is figured out," Monegan told The Associated Press on Thursday. "That the governor did want me to fire him, and I chose to not. You just can't walk up to someone and say, 'I fire you.' He didn't do anything under my watch to result in termination."

Palin's critics say that shows she used her office to settle family affairs.

"When you're the governor, you leave your household hat at home and you become governor," said state Senate President Lyda Green, a Republican who has frequently clashed with Palin.

The campaign's report instead blames former campaign opponent, Andrew Halcro, who has a blog, of conspiring with Wooten to pin Monegan's dismissal on the family's dispute with Wooten. Three days after Monegan was fired, they say, Wooten told his ex-wife, Palin's sister, that: "You guys are going down. Get ready for the show."

Two days after that confrontation, they say, Halcro and Wooten met at a hotel bar in Anchorage for more than three hours — and that evening, Halcro posted the first accusations on his blog that Monegan had been fired because of a vendetta against Wooten by the Palin family.

"It is tragic that a false story hatched by a blogger after drinks with Trooper Wooten led the legislature to allocate over $100,000 of public money to be spent in what has become a politically driven investigation," the 21-page report concludes.

Although the report describes Wooten as a separate issue, the McCain campaign goes into great detail about the "rogue" trooper and his "long history of unstable and erratic behavior." The campaign describes allegations of violence, including threatening Palin's family and shooting his stepson with a stun gun.

The report also includes allegations that Wooten cheated the workers' compensation system. Todd Palin has said he had numerous conversations with government officials about why Wooten was allowed to stay on the job.

"The Palins make no apologies for wanting to protect their family and wanting to bring attention to the injustice of a violent trooper keeping his badge and abusing the workers' compensation system."

But Todd Palin said he never pressured anyone, including his wife.

The McCain campaign says the investigation has become "muddied with innuendo, rumor and partisan politics."
 

D_N Flay Table

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bulllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllshit.
I hate Caribou barbie.
If I have to listen to her punk ass talk for the next four years...
I am seriously leaving the country.
 

patronpk

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That's what OJ should have done before indictment & trial - he'de be a free man now & could work on the McCain -
Palin poopwagon!!
 

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whooooooo GIVES A FUCK IF SHE TRIED TO FIRE SOME FUCKING STATE TROOPER WHO TASERED HER NEPHEW!!! Does anyone really care about this? Get a fucking life if you do. Fucking "troopergate". Do some pushups!!!
 

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edonline

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whooooooo GIVES A FUCK IF SHE TRIED TO FIRE SOME FUCKING STATE TROOPER WHO TASERED HER NEPHEW!!! Does anyone really care about this? Get a fucking life if you do. Fucking "troopergate". Do some pushups!!!

I care if it's an abuse of her power as governor. I also if her husband was involved in the hiring and firing og governmental employees. I also care that she didn't wait for the official report but rather decided that she decided she didn't nothing wrong and that her word should be the truth.
 

Skull Mason

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I care if it's an abuse of her power as governor. I also if her husband was involved in the hiring and firing og governmental employees. I also care that she didn't wait for the official report but rather decided that she decided she didn't nothing wrong and that her word should be the truth.

C'mon, do you REALLY care? If he deserved to be fired, was it REALLLLLY abuse of power?

With the stock market crashing, everyone going broke, the world at war, AIDS across the globe, Obama running around with Ayers- do you REALLY give a fuck?
 

edonline

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C'mon, do you REALLY care? If he deserved to be fired, was it REALLLLLY abuse of power?

With the stock market crashing, everyone going broke, the world at war, AIDS across the globe, Obama running around with Ayers- do you REALLY give a fuck?

Yes, I do give a fuck because Sarah Palin has the potential to be in the second highest position in the United States government and so far, she has demonstrated that she can be a very dangerous individual. She also already said and done things to indicate that she doesn't give a damn about the Constitution and civil liberties. It may sound cliched, but I'd rather lose all of my money in the stock market than to be deprived of my civil rights.
 

curious n str8

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Yes, I do give a fuck because Sarah Palin has the potential to be in the second highest position in the United States government and so far, she has demonstrated that she can be a very dangerous individual. She also already said and done things to indicate that she doesn't give a damn about the Constitution and civil liberties. It may sound cliched, but I'd rather lose all of my money in the stock market than to be deprived of my civil rights.
What civil liberties are you talking about?
 

Calboner

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What the Troopergate Report Really Says - TIME

Some excerpts:
The 263 pages of the report show a co-ordinated application of pressure on Monegan so transparent and ham-handed that it was almost certain to end in public embarrassment for the governor.

***

Monegan consistently emerges as the adult in these conversations, while the Palin camp displays a childish impetuousness and sense of entitlement.

One telling exchange: Deputy Commissioner John Glass, who worked under Monegan, told Branchflower he was "livid" after a Palin staffer, Frank Bailey, went outside the chain of command and called a state trooper in far-off Ketchikan to complain about Wooten. Why had Bailey called the trooper? Because, Bailey said, this trooper had gone to church with Sarah Palin back in Wasilla, so he felt "comfortable" talking to him about Wooten. Glass, too, tried to sound the warning that continuing to pressure anyone and everyone in the matter would end in "an unbelievable amount of embarrassment for the Governor and everybody else".

Another amateurish sign: Todd Palin's outsize role in the mess. Branchflower said it was out of his jurisdiction to pass judgment on the First Gentleman, but his report paints an extralegal role for Todd Palin that would have made the Hillary Clinton of 1992 blush. In the report, the head of Gov. Palin's security detail says that Todd spent about half of his time in the governor's office — not at a desk (he didn't have one), but at a long conference table on one side of the office, with his own phone to make and receive calls. It became a shadow office, the informal Department of Getting Mike Wooten Fired.

***

So what does this say about the possible Vice-President of the United States? Certainly not as much as her enemies would have hoped. She was only directly involved in a small bit of the pressure campaign — a meeting or two and a couple of emails. She can thank Monegan for not having her hands dirtier; it was he who told her to keep herself at "arm's length" from any Wooten conversations.

But even though she won't likely face any legal repercussions, the amateurism and cronyism of her brief administration hardly leaves Palin sitting pretty. Troopergate's final verdict may be even more damaging than a rebuke: her administration was, at least this regard, just as self-motivated as the Washington fat cats and lobbyists she hopes to unseat.



 

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The unfortunate part is that we have to let the official investigators do their job, and it is their report and theirs alone that really counts.

We also have to consider that this investigation started before she was chosen as a running mate for the number one GOP candidate.

Palin is in a bad spot, she now is taking a page from her idol who is currently sitting in the white house and commissioning her own report which of course and obviously is going to portray she, the Governor as the victim in the whole thing.

I would personally question this report a great deal more if the investigation into her ethics performance had been launched after she had been invited to share the GOP's invitation to the highest office.

Considering John McCain's age and past health problems there is more than an average chance that this lady could end up in the number one driver's seat with her finger on the button. I really strongly think that we need to realize especially in the McCain campaign that there is real danger here.

If questions about respect for the United States Constitution and ethics are to be raised, they need to be raised before the election and not after.

Right now we as citizens of the United States are under a microscope in many foreign lands. U.S. Citizens are often spit upon in foreign countries because we are not percieved in a favorable light because of actions taken under the current sitting President.

I do not necessarily think Obama/Biden have the answers here, but I have no faith in McCain?Palin at all. These individuals are sadly an ultra-conservative re-run of the past eight years.

I have read both candidates websites and I only wish that I had seen a clear direction of leadership with the McCain/Palin ticket. It is totally saturated with problems which give total control to the same groups and individuals who have caused many of the problems we now have.

The other thing we need to do as well is to eliminate "big oil" from influence in the White House. Look up the employer of Todd Palin. Then remember that no matter what position he holds in that industry, that position will change because he is sleeping next to the Vice-President of the United States and just maybe the President if something were to happen to John McCain.

There are too many questionable relationships here that are really obvious. I am not comfortable with Obama, but, since they won't give us the "none of the above" box on a ballot, I don't feel like I have a choice.