Mayor Palin had $6M budget & spent > $40M in Funny Money!!!

[As governor h]er legislative accomplishments were principally in the oil and gas arena. In 2007, just after taking office, Palin acted on advice from a close circle of advisors and trashed a complex agreement Murkowski [(elected governor on November 5, 2002, defeating his Democratic opponent, Fran Ulmer, 56%-41%)], had negotiated with major oil producers for a $30 billion-plus, natural-gas pipeline.

Palin's alternative was a solicitation to bring in an independent pipeline company to do the project, arguing the state shouldn't let the major oil companies own most of Alaska's energy infrastructure. That process was played out in 2008, with the Legislature's approval of Calgary-based TransCanada Corp. to receive a state license entitling the Canadian company to a $500 million state subsidy in return for agreeing to meet certain requirements for a pipeline. ...
insideradvantagegeorgia.com/9-4-08/Palin_Analysis9419641.php

TransCanada Corp. to build a $1.7 billion 3,000 kilometres long US pipeline to carry heavy oil from central Alberta's oil sands to southern Illinois. About 40 per cent of the pipeline would come from the conversion of one of TransCanada's existing natural gas pipelines in the prairies to transport oil.
cbc.ca/money/story/2005/02/09/pipeline-050209.html

Besides Alberta's massive open pit mines major oil companies are rushing to exploit Alberta's oil sands, which ... could yield as much as 175 billion barrels of oil, making Canada second only to Saudi Arabia in crude oil reserves. ... the growing operations will drastically increase greenhouse gas emissions and result in an environmental catastrophe for Alberta's rivers and forests.
iht.com/ap/2008/08/20/Buffett-Gates-Oil-Sands.php

CONNECT THE DOTS!!!

The Veep’s Pipeline Push - Michael Isikoff, NEWSWEEK Aug 23, 2008

A two-year-old letter by Vice President Dick Cheney that pushed a controversial Alaska natural-gas pipeline bill is getting renewed scrutiny because of recently disclosed evidence in the Justice Department’s corruption case against Sen. Ted Stevens.

According to a Justice motion, Stevens told Allen for a $250,000 kickback, "I’m gonna try to see if I can get some bigwigs from back here and say, ’Look … you gotta get this done’." Two days later, Cheney wrote a letter to the Alaska Legislature urging members to "promptly enact" a bill to build the pipeline.

The executive director of Cheney’s energy task force is a lobbyist for firms slated to build the pipeline.
newsweek.com/id/154916

As Canada exploits Alberta’s oil sands the energy boom will result in an environmental bust. ... Toxic ponds made from the separation of oil from sand look more like lakes and take up 50 square miles of northern Alberta so far.

startribune.com/27312924

As mayor of Wasilla in January 1997, Palin notified the town librarian, Mary Ellen Emmons that she was being fired because she believed Emmons did not fully support her administration. She rescinded the firing of the librarian after pushback.

Do you see a pattern in sync with her TrooperGate abuse of power that mimics Goodling under GONZO regarding Iglesias, Lamb, et. al.?

Here's your sign:

• thinkprogress.org/goodling-forced-out-gay-attorney
• huffingtonpost.com/ethics-panel-finds
• nytimes.com/washington/29justice

Palin, in charge of the city's 25 officer Police Department, also instituted a policy requiring department heads to get her approval before talking to reporters.

During her second term as mayor, Palin hired an Anchorage-based lobbying firm to lobby for earmarks on advice from Senator Ted Stevens former chief of staff Steven Silver to secure nearly $27 million in earmarked funds for her 6,700 constituents. Despite that she managed to leave office with Wasilla $22 million in debt.

"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 reversed 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 ...

lasvegassun.com/news/experience-deficit

When you're done vivisecting Palin, perhaps focusing on matters that will make a difference to the multi trillion dollar DoD black budget to perpetuate war profiteering resulting in US TREASURY BANKRUPTCY (as of yesterday another BILLION for Georgia's recovery since kicking off the NEW COLD WAR), will overcome populace ADD.

Ya think?

Jews and other Americans still know little of Zionism's past. But today only programmed fanatics can come away pro-Zionist after reading plain facts. Indeed, according to the American Jewish Identity Survey (2001), less than 22% of all Jews declare themselves Zionist.

Opposition to Zionism also grows among liberal educated gentiles, every time their declared enemy, Pat Robertson, howls in favor of Orthodox Israel.

For complex historical reasons, the Vietnam anti-war movement and anti-apartheid campaign emphasized demonstrations over sustained education. Even in victory, little was left behind in the way of attention to foreign affairs among the broad masses. Even after 9/11, the ultimate attention getter, US public knowledge about the Arab world, Islam, the oil industry, Zionism, and Washington's involvement with them, is minimal. But the present anti-Iraq war movement has no choice but to systematically educate itself and the public. The issues are too complex for anything less. Ignorance or illusions about any of the players, here or there, means certain death for X number of Arabs, Israelis, Kurds, Muslims and Americans. ...
counterpunch.org/brenner1223.html

The Politics Of Anti-Semitism
How did a term, once used accurately to describe the most virulent evil, become a charge flung at the mildest critic of Israel, particularly concerning its atrocious treatment of Palestinians? This is the question considered in these 18 essays (by nine Jews and nine Gentiles), including Edward Said, Robert Fisk, Norman Finkelstein, Lenni Brenner, and Uri Avnery?.

If you'd prefer the RABBLE BABBLE shiny object approach, look in our own back yard. Particularly the Leah D. Daughtry srategery under BHO's DNC.

Leah D. Daughtry is the CEO of the 2008 Democratic National Convention Committee and chief of staff to Howard Dean, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee. She was formerly Acting Assistant Secretary for Administration and Management at the United States Department of Labor.

Daughtry is the daughter of prominent pastor, Herbert Daughtry, of the House of the Lord Church in Brooklyn, New York and the part-time minister of her own small Pentecostal congregation in Washington, D.C.

She directs the Democratic Party's Faith in Action initiative to reach out to Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, and Muslim voters.

In the 2008 DNC convention, Daughtry as convention CEO, denied non-religious groups participation in the interfaith service. ...

Can Leah Daughtry Bring Faith to the Party? - New York Times 2008-07-19
nytimes.com/2008/07/20/magazine/20minister-t.html