Some Facts To Consider - Race To The White House

Alaska is not your typical American State and Wasilla Alaska is not your typical small town in America. In 1999 this city consisting of less than 7,000 people paid Sarah Palin, the mayor, $68,000 a year salary. John McCain has chosen Sarah Palin as his Vice Presidential running mate. Alaska used to be viewed by cruisers for its breathtaking scenery but now it will become known as the state where the Republicans chose a female for Vice President.

When compared to the other 49 states, the State of Alaska has different rules:
1. Alaska residents pay no state income tax, and only a few cities have a sales tax.
2. Every year, practically every man, woman and child in Alaska receive a share of the state's oil wealth just for living here. Last year's check was $1,600 each. This is known as the permanent fund dividend (PFD) check. The amounts change annually. An additional $1,200 will be added to the 2008 PFD thanks to an energy rebate approved by Governor Palin.
3. The 1975 Supreme Court decision, Ravin v. State, ruled that it was legal for adults to possess marijuana in their own homes as long as the quantity was not sufficient to constitute "intent to deliver." This legalized the possession of up to four ounces of marijuana for personal use. The courts have ruled owning a small amount of marijuana is protected by the privacy clause of the Alaska constitution.

Sarah Palin served the town of Wasilla Alaska as mayor for 2 terms which ended in 2002. During her tenure, she approached the town librarian about the possibility of banning some books. The librarian, Mary Ellen Emmons, pledged to "resist all efforts at censorship." Ms. Palin fired Ms. Emmons shortly after taking office but changed course after residents made a strong show of support. Ms. Emmons left her job and Wasilla a couple of years later.
Sarah Palin fired the police chief and asked for the resignations of the public works director, city planner, and museum director. Others were forced out. Ms. Palin also changed the town's traditional ways with a surprise rule: No employee was to talk to the news media without her permission.

Moving from Mayor of Wasilla to Governor of Alaska meant she had more power and authority. Her recent attempt to use this power and fire Walt Monegan, Commissioner of Public Safety, has caused an investigation. The Alaskan legislative council approved $100,000 dollars for the investigation of whether Sarah Palin abused her power.

Sarah Polin solicited money from Congress to help build "The Bridge to Nowhere" and is now spending that money with no strings attached. Sarah also has reduced the funding for special education by 62 percent. This does not show any sincerity to her VP speech when she told parents they would have a friend in Congress.

Here's a copy of the Anne Kilnenny email that's been getting passed around by email for the last few days. Anne claims to be a Wasilla Alaska resident. Snopes.com and others have verified her identity.

She paints a picture of Sarah Palin that Karl Rove might not appreciate. Judge for yourself:

The Anne Kilkenny Email:

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 life-style 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 2 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 6 years as Mayor, she increased general government expenditures by over 33%. During those same 6 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 taxed even 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. $1m for a park. $15m-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 7 yrs 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 $5.5m for road projects that could have been done in 5-7 yrs 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/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 because 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 2 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 & gas issues. Within months of scoring this great job which paid $122,400/yr, 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).
Anne Kilkenny
annekilkenny@hotmail.com
August 31, 2008

Validated by Daily Journal
Alaska resident writes about VP nominee Palin
09/05/2008, 4:02 pm

By Susy Schultz Managing Editor
815-937-3330
sschultz@daily-journal.com
On the Internet, comments, posts, articles and information fly.

But anonymity rules. So, John Doe just might be Jane. And can you trust that the friendly grassroots campaign you just joined isn't really organized by a top political strategists?

The Daily Journal would like to know and maybe you would, too.

Recently, we received a note about the Web post, "Letter from Anne Kilkenny," about Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the Republican vice presidential nominee. We thought for sure it was not really, "a resident of Wasilla, Alaska" who has known Palin since 1992 as the post claims.

So, we checked it out. Kilkenny does exist, and she does live in Alaska. We reached her by phone and asked if she wrote the rather long note that calls Palin "smart" but also questions her abilities.

We asked Kilkenny, "Did you write that letter?" She replied skeptically, "Well, I don't know. Read me parts of it. I'll tell you if it's mine or not."

After we read it to her, she said, "Yes, I wrote that." She sent it out to 40 people, brothers, sisters and friends, on Sunday -- two days after U.S. Sen. John McCain announced Palin as his choice. On Wednesday, if you enter Kilkenny and Palin's names on Google, about 200 sites refer to this letter.

Why did she do it? Kilkenny told The Daily Journal she wanted to offer people information and her experiences. She does not flatter Palin, but she said she did vote for Palin when she ran for city council.

"How affirming it has been," she said. "I am pleased to know how idealistic Americans are. They want information not just the politics of destruction."

Verdict: Agree with it or not, the letter is authentic.
As Mayor, she had her hand stuck out as far as anyone for pork from Senator Ted Stevens. Lately, she has c

Animal Rights lovers will take an interest in Govenor Palin's ability to kill animals.

Read the entire article at:
http://www.tellingthoughts.com/us-politics/palin-the-predator

On November 16, 2005, two Alaskan bridge projects known as "The Bridge to Nowhere" were defeated in Congress. House and Senate negotiators took the rare step of eliminating a requirement that $442 million be spent to build the two bridges. The $442 million was turned over to the State of Alaska with no strings attached. The Governor and other lawmakers of Alaska were allowed to spend the money for transportation projects as they saw fit, including the bridges should they so choose to construct them.

Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans August 29, 2005. Most of the major roads traveling into and out of the city were damaged. Levee breaches in New Orleans also caused widespread loss of life, with over 700 bodies recovered in New Orleans by October 23, 2005. While the nation mourned and sent monetary assistance, Alaska lawmakers complained that Alaska needed assistance to grow and were able to defeat a move in the Senate to direct "The Bridge to Nowhere" money to hurricane relief. Senator Ted Stevens, a powerful Republican from Alaska, had threatened to resign if the Senate shifted the money to the Gulf Coast.

Sarah Palin supported "The Bridge to Nowhere." During her two terms as Mayor of Wasilla, she made annual trips to Washington to lobby for federal money from the state's Congressional delegation, mainly Representative Don Young and Senator Ted Stevens, both Republicans. Also while mayor, she directed Wasilla to employ Washington lobbyist to press for federal money for the town, helping obtain more that $8 million in earmarks for projects ranging from waterworks to a shelter. Earmarks are close to sacrosanct in Alaska, which routinely reaps more money per resident for such projects than any other state because of the seniority and aggressiveness of Mr. Stevens and Mr. Young (both now mired in unrelated corruption inquiries.)

Sarah Palin's recent claims "I told Congress, Thanks, but no thanks on that Bridge to Nowhere" is a blatant lie. In November 2005, "The Bridge to Nowhere" earmark ceased to exist and Alaska was given $442 million to spend with no strings attached. Palin was elected governor in November 2006, a year after this decision was made.

Alaska is one of the top recipients of federal money. In 2003, the latest year for which figures are available, Alaska received $1.89 in federal spending for every $1 the state paid in taxes to Washington, according to the Tax Foundation, a nonpartisan research organization. Critics say Alaska gets so much money from Washington because the state's Congressional delegation, led by Senator Ted Stevens and Representative Don Young, both Republicans, is remarkably skilled at bringing home the pork.

The Government served the American people unjustly in this situation. It's wrong to give a state like Alaska $442 million for a purpose that no longer exists while another state like Louisiana is recovering from a natural disaster. Two individuals, Ted Stevens and Don Young have too much power and influence. This explains why Ted Stevens wants to run for another term at the age of 84 even though he has been indicted on 7 counts. As a citizen of the United States of America, I want Alaska audited.

Some things you didn't know about Sarah Palin
Mature

Sarah Palin was a small town mayor until less than two years ago. What we don't know about her could fill a book. Here are a few things we're learning about Palin.

Sarah Palin left the finances of her town Wasilla in tatters when she moved on in 2002 (h/t xgz). She wanted a legacy as mayor, it seems, and pushed hard for the town to build a hyper-expensive sports complex. But Palin screwed the More.. process up badly. Instead of buying the land for the complex when it was offered, her administration allowed a developer named Gary Lundgren to snap it up. Then Wasilla tried to seize the land from Lundgren through eminent domain. In the end, what with court costs Wasilla paid at least $ 1.7 million for land it could have bought for less than one tenth that sum - if the purchase had been handled properly. For this incompetence, Wasilla is still paying a steep price: higher taxes and cutbacks in services. In other words Palin is about as efficient as Michael Brown, onetime head of FEMA.

Diarist loyalson, a resident of Wasilla, has more to say about the damage Palin did to his town while she was mayor.

On the single most debated issue of our times, the Iraq war, Sarah Palin similarly was out to lunch until as recently as last spring. Shortly after becoming governor, she was asked her views on the surge (h/t LizzyPop):

Alaska Business Monthly: We've lost a lot of Alaska's military members to the war in Iraq. How do you feel about sending more troops into battle, as President Bush is suggesting?

Palin: I've been so focused on state government, I haven't really focused much on the war in Iraq. I heard on the news about the new deployments, and while I support our president, Condoleezza Rice and the administration, I want to know that we have an exit plan in place; I want assurances that we are doing all we can to keep our troops safe. Every life lost is such a tragedy.

John McCain would have us believe that Iraq is the central battle in the war on terror, and yet he selects as his running mate somebody who was paying almost no attention to the Iraq war for 4 long years after the invasion.

So what was Palin focused on?

Alaska Business Monthly: It's extremely early to ask this, but when your tenure as governor is over, what would you like to have accomplished? How would you like to be remembered?

Palin: I want people to remember me as having always conducted the state's business in an upright and honest manner. I want them to understand that I put Alaska first in every decision I made.

Try to square that with the troopergate scandal, in which Palin allegedly misused her power as governor by bringing inappropriate pressure for two employees to be fired. What's perhaps most interesting is that Palin appears to have begun misusing power almost as soon as she got any real power.

Speaking of inconsistencies, earlier this month Palin praised Barack Obama's energy plan (h/t Excelscior1). Here is the cached version of the press release that had been posted at the Governor's website. The original document has been scrubbed sometime during the last day (since Aug. 28). I wonder if that could have anything to do with McCain's selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate?
Less..
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=6a0_1220056841

The Democratic Convention
The Republican Convention

http://elections.nytimes.com/2008/president/conventions/videos/dems.html

http://elections.nytimes.com/2008/president/conventions/videos/gop.html

Find out where each candidate stand:
http://elections.nytimes.com/2008/index.html

Your swiftboat tactics won't work this time. There is too much at stake and I don't have time to play games!

You've received you last bump in the poles after the Republican National Convention. Your sequestered VP candidate has had her chance to speak. That's all the time you have.

How dare you attempt to snatch away from me the message of hope and bringing change to Washington. Jay-Z once again - you don't know who you're messing with - brush shoulder, brush shoulder!

In the midst of all this, Mr. Obama had a private lunch on Thursday with someone he battled with for much of the year but who knows how to put the Republicans on the defensive: former President Bill Clinton.