Gov. Palin: Alaska Airlines’ Prayer Cards; It’s hip to be offended?

As posted today on Facebook:

It seems astonishing that someone would be offended by a simple prayer card placed on an airline’s meal tray, but I guess that’s the politically correct world we live in now. A few days ago, Rev. Franklin Graham gave me a heads up that Alaska Airlines may discontinue its nice, decades-long Alaskan tradition of including a little prayer card on flight meal trays. Rev. Graham is a frequent flyer to Alaska on Alaska Airlines because of his missionary work. Of course, as an Alaskan I’m also a frequent flyer on this airlines, which always seems to provide superb service. When I heard from Rev. Graham, I immediately sent the following letter to the CEO and President of Alaska Airlines.

It feels so odd that some may be offended by a little card with an encouraging non-denominational verse from the Psalms, but how often do we hear complaints about tawdry ads or billboard images flashing at us everywhere we turn? People of faith and common decency just shrug and move on from the constant assault on their sensibilities; we don’t call for censorship – at least I don’t. So, why in this day and age must every reference to faith in God be censored from the public square? Why must a private company buckle under pressure from a handful of people who find a little card saying “the Lord is my shepherd” offensive? I’m sure there are many more people who appreciate the cards, or at least are ambivalent about them.

Is it any wonder that people of faith feel their beliefs are constantly marginalized or even under outright attack when we hear reports like this and stories about Catholic institutions being forced to sue the Obama administration over their right to conscience objections? This Alaska Airlines story is just about a simple meal card, but for these Catholic institutions it’s about an issue that cuts to the heart of their deepest religious beliefs.

Here is the letter I sent to Alaska Airlines, and I encourage other customers to let their voices be heard. Granted, it’s hip to wage war on American traditions lately – especially anything faith-based – but for many of us it’s just not in our DNA to merely shrug off the nonsensical attacks on positive, inspiring, and (in my opinion) needed encouragement today.

Dear Mr. Ayer and Mr. Tilden:

Thank you for your tremendous service to Alaskans and so many others over all these years! We love Alaska Airlines. As I tell everyone, it is my favorite.

In my book “Going Rogue” I gave a special shout-out to airline employees because of the extraordinary customer service and good attitudes I witness on flights that my family and I take around this great country. It’s inspiring and impressive to see the sweet spirit of hard working airline employees shine, in spite of sometimes difficult people and circumstances dealt with everyday.

Also inspiring and impressive, and very encouraging, is the special touch Alaska Airlines has blessed fliers with for many years. Your small prayer cards that remind us of the beauty of thankfulness have never ceased to amaze me. In this tumultuous world, finding this little tangible reminder of such an important virtue is always uplifting! Thank you for providing the cards.

It’s come to my attention that the cards may be discontinued due to a few who are offended. I really hope this is just a rumor. Please remain strong and courageous in the face of a cultural trend that wants to wage war on any positive thing that a few may construe as offensive. The Alaska Airlines tradition should be looked upon as an all-American, hopeful, encouraging gesture. Please don’t discontinue the cards.

Thank you again for your service!

Sarah Palin and family

‘Sarah Palin’s Alaska’ may have second season after all

According to a New York Post report, producer Mark Burnett says he is in discussions with TLC to bring “Sarah Palin’s Alaska” back for a second season next fall.

“The plan would be to shoot this in the summer of 2012,” he tells The Post.

New episodes of the outdoorsy reality series — which shows the former vice-presidential candidate fishing, hunting and dog sledding with her family — would not air until after the November presidential election.

“By the time we edit it, the election will be over,” Burnett says. “But I am sure the election would be mentioned [in the show].”

“It makes perfect sense, because that is what’s going on. But it would be again Sarah in Alaska, living with Todd and the family and having adventures juxtaposed with doing her Fox News bits and discussing whatever is going on.”

Burnet denied a Hollywood Reporter story from last week to the effect that TLC and other networks had turned down a new $1 million-per-episode spin-off series featuring Todd Palin husband on the professional snowmobiling circuit. Calling that report “totally inaccurate,” Burnett explained that the snowmobiling idea was proposed as only one episode of ‘Sarah Palin’s Alaska’ rather than a series.

- JP

Judge: No plea bargain for the Christys

Remember Sean Christy, the Pennsylvania lad who had a restraining order slapped on him for stalking Sarah Palin? Christy and his father, who now stand accused of harassing Sarah Palin's Alaska lawyers by phone, are not going to be able to get a plea deal, a federal court judge ruled Wednesday:

U.S. District Court Judge Timothy Burgess rejected a plea deal for Shawn Christy, 20, and his father, Craig Christy, 48, and instead ordered the men to stand trial in early January. The plea agreement would have let the two avoid prison time and six-figure fines.

Burgess said the plea agreements prosecutors had reached with the Christys were not acceptable to him. The judge cited what he described as a disturbing pattern of threats.

"They seem undeterred in their conduct," Burgess said.

The Christys were arrested in Pennsylvania in August and are in custody in Anchorage. Prosecutors said the men were upset about state restraining orders issued on behalf of the former Alaska governor and 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate, along with Palin family members and friends.

[More]

Thankfully, the state restraining orders against the Christys have been extended another six months. These creeps are two seriously messed up walking time bombs.

- JP

'The Undefeated' heads north to Alaska

The Sarah Palin documentary “The Undefeated” has been shown in Alaska, but never on the big screen. That's due to change Monday, as the theater version of the two-hour film will be screened in Palin country, according to a report in the Mat Su Valley Frontiersman:

Sponsored by the Valley Republican Women’s Club, the Alaska screening also includes a meet-and-greet event with the movie’s creator and producer, Stephen Bannon, from 4 to 6 p.m., Sunday at Colony Inn in Palmer. Tickets are $50 each or $75 per couple and include a light meal and a chance to speak one-on-one with Bannon.

“I’m looking forward to coming to Alaska,” he said Thursday by phone from Washington, D.C. He said this trip to Alaska will be a relatively quick since he is planning to spend Thanksgiving at Fort Campbell, Ky., with his daughter, a recent West Point graduate.

Bannon said when the movie was originally released, the theatrically company that distributed the film didn’t have any screens in Alaska.

“We’ve been actually trying to do this since August,” Bannon said.

Past Valley Republican Women’s Club president Julie Gillette said she met Bannon on Facebook before seeing the film. After watching “Undefeated” on pay-per-view at a friends’ house, Gillette said she contacted Bannon again and told him how much she’d enjoyed the movie and that she hoped he’d have a chance to come to Wasilla and show the movie someday.

“It’s fantastic to have the filmmaker here with the film,” Gillette said Friday.

While Bannon’s in Alaska, he said he also plans to record his weekly radio show here, which airs on KABC AM in Los Angeles.

[More]

The movie plays at 6PM Alaska Time Nov. 21 at the Wasilla Alaska Club Theater. Suggested donation is $5 and seating is limited to 150 people.

- JP

‘The Undefeated’ Goes North to Alaska

“We're going to make that announcement here in the next week.”
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In an interview for The Victory Sessions, filmmaker Stephen K. Bannon told Sarah Palin's brother Chuck Heath, Jr. that he's bringing his documentary film to Alaska for a Wasilla screening:


We're reminded of the Steve Allen song, “This could be the start of something big,” which was such a big deal that it replaced the theme music for the “Tonight Show” back in the day when Allen was the host.

The entire Chuck Heath, Jr. interview is well worth a listen, and you'll find it on The Victory Sessions website.

- JP

Jedediah Bila: What pundits should be talking about when it comes to Palin

"Sarah Palin is a woman who has been consistent, tough and principled."
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In a Friday opinion piece for The Daily Caller, Jedediah Bila takes the media to task for its endless, inconsequential speculation about Sarah Palin, while ignoring that which is substantial about the first woman and youngest person to serve as Alaska's governor:

Whether she makes a run for the presidency or not — and I personally believe that she will — let’s take a look at some things the media and the D.C./Manhattan elite haven’t quite gotten around to mentioning.

1. As governor in 2007, Palin was responsible for the largest veto totals in state history, while investing $1 billion in forward-funding education and fulfilling public safety and infrastructure necessities.

2. Palin invested $5 billion in state savings during a time of economic surplus.

3. Palin reduced spending by 9.5% from 2007 to 2010 and slashed earmark requests by over 80% during her time as governor.

4. Under Palin, Alaska’s total liabilities were reduced by 34.6% overall.

[...]

7. Palin tossed out the corruption-ridden, structurally-flawed Petroleum Profits Tax of the Murkowski administration and put forth ACES (Alaska’s Clear and Equitable Share), which incentivized development while seeing to it that Alaskans — resource owners as per the Alaska Constitution — would receive “A CLEAR and EQUITABLE SHARE (ACES) of the value of their commonly-owned oil and gas.” The result? Alaska was left with a $12 billion surplus. Also, as reported at Big Government, “The number of oil companies filing with the Alaska Department of Revenue has doubled, indicating that competition has indeed increased. Alaska has the second most business friendly tax set-up — up two spots since the passage of ACES. Additionally, a report from Governor Parnell’s Department of Revenue indicated that 2009 yielded a record high in oil jobs.”

[More]

h/t: US for Palin

- JP

Gov. Palin Vindicated as Global Warming-Polar Bear Link Melts Down

Sarah Palin knows a thing or two about bears.
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Investigative reporter Audrey Hudson in today's edition of Human Events:

Polar bears drowning in an Alaskan sea because the ice packs are melting—it’s the iconic image of the global warming debate.

But the validity of the science behind the image—presented as an ignoble testament to our environment in peril by Al Gore in his film An Inconvenient Truth—is now part of a federal investigation that has the environmental community on edge.

Special agents from the Interior Department’s inspector general's office are questioning the two government scientists about the paper they wrote on drowned polar bears, suggesting mistakes were made in the math and as to how the bears actually died, and the department is eyeing another study currently underway on bear populations.

Biologist Charles Monnett, the lead scientist on the paper, was placed on administrative leave July 18. Fellow biologist Jeffrey Gleason, who also contributed to the study, is being questioned, but has not been suspended.

The disputed paper was published by the journal Polar Biology in 2006, and suggests that the “drowning-related deaths of polar bears may increase in the future if the observed trend of regression of pack ice and/or longer open-water periods continues.”

It galvanized the environmental movement that led to the bear’s controversial listing in 2008 as threatened, and it is now protected under the Endangered Species Act.

[More]

In a January 5, 2008 New York Times op-ed, Sarah Palin, then governor of Alaska, explained that her state's wildlife scientists had investigated this issue thoroughly and reached conclusions that were the polar opposite of those expressed in the now disputed paper by Monnett and Gleason:

The Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental group, has argued that global warming and the reduction of polar ice severely threatens the bears’ habitat and their existence. In fact, there is insufficient evidence that polar bears are in danger of becoming extinct within the foreseeable future — the trigger for protection under the Endangered Species Act. And there is no evidence that polar bears are being mismanaged through existing international agreements and the federal Marine Mammal Protection Act.

The state takes very seriously its job of protecting polar bears and their habitat and is well aware of the problems caused by climate change. But we know our efforts will take more than protecting what we have — we must also learn what we don’t know. That’s why state biologists are studying the health of polar bear populations and their habitat.

As a result of these efforts, polar bears are more numerous now than they were 40 years ago. The polar bear population in the southern Beaufort Sea off Alaska’s North Slope has been relatively stable for 20 years, according to a federal analysis.

We’re not against protecting plants and animals under the Endangered Species Act. Alaska has supported listings of other species, like the Aleutian Canada goose. The law worked as it should — under its protection the population of the geese rebounded so much that they were taken off the list of endangered and threatened species in 2001.

Listing the goose — then taking it off — was based on science. The possible listing of a healthy species like the polar bear would be based on uncertain modeling of possible effects. This is simply not justified.

[More]

It appears that Gov. Palin, who knows a thing or two about bears, is being vindicated yet again.

- JP

Statement from Gov. Palin’s Attorney on dismissal of frivolous Litman complaint

An illogical and absurd complaint
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Here's the statement from Gov. Palin’s Attorney John J. Tiemessen on the dismissal of a frivolous complaint that had been filed by Malia Litman, a blogger who seems to have nothing better to do in her sad life but attack the governor on left wing websites:

The Alaska Attorney General’s office has dismissed yet another frivolous ethics complaint filed against Governor Palin by a leftwing political blogger. This particular blogger is from Texas (where she volunteered as a precinct captain for Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign), and yet her dismissed complaint against Governor Palin has cost the State of Alaska time and resources because no matter how absurd the complaint is, the state must respond to it. These complaints also cost Governor Palin personally to defend herself. This small band of leftwing bloggers have dedicated their lives to spreading lies, half-truths, and failed legal analysis about allegations of “corruption” against Governor Palin. This dismissed complaint is just the latest example of their destructive strategy to harass a political leader they disagree with.

This particular complaint alleged that Governor Palin violated Alaska’s Executive Branch Ethics Act because the production company that made “Sarah Palin’s Alaska” received a film tax credit from the State of Alaska related to its expenses in making the series. It should be noted that Governor Palin never received any direct money or compensation from this tax credit. The legislation that created this tax credit was crafted and passed by Alaska lawmakers and signed into law by Governor Palin. In dismissing this complaint, the Alaska Attorney General’s office outlines the illogic and absurdity of exempting former governors from complying with statutes they signed into law for two years after they leave office.

You can read the Attorney General’s opinion here.

- John J. Tiemessen, attorney for Sarah Palin

h/t: Ohio 4 Palin

- JP

Attn witch hunters: Alaska releases additional Palin emails

There they go again...
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Just when the lamestream media's leg tingles had subsided, the state of Alaska Wednesday made public an additional 54 pages of emails from Sarah Palin's first month as governor. Linda Perez, administrative director for Governor Sean Parnell office, said the emails were omitted from the first batch of messages documenting then Gov. Palin's first 21 months in office:

News organizations and individuals requested emails from Palin's time as governor in September 2008, shortly after she became the Republican vice presidential nominee. When most of the emails came out last month, only a few were from December 2006, Palin's first month as governor.

The records released Wednesday were heavily redacted and mostly sent to Palin by aides. A relative handful came from Palin herself.

[...]

The state claimed executive or deliberative process in making the redactions. Wednesday's email release was done electronically; Perez said the state is working on a new system. The emails released last month were in paper form and filled six boxes.

Perez said the state is making sure that all emails that should have been released have been. If more are found, she said they'll be released with emails from the final 10 months of Palin's term — a period covering October 2008 through July 2009. Requests for those emails were made subsequent to the initial request in September 2008.

No timetable for the release of the additional emails was given, though Attorney General John J. Burns has said it won't take as long.

[More]

You know they're hoping that "this time" they'll find their unholy grail.

- JP

Glenn Beck on the Palin Emails

A tear in the Space-Time Continuum?
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h/t: ConservativeDiva

- JP

John Hayward says, Let them take the Palin Test

"Now that we’ve established the Palin Test, let’s apply it to every candidate"
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In a Human Events opinion piece, John Hayward argues that the media's fishing expedition in Alaska has established what he calls the Palin Test. Let’s apply that new standard to all presidential candidates, he proposes, and not just those on the Republican side:

The most spectacular embarrassment in recent media history left the New York Times, the Washington Post, their far-left “partner” organizations, and their army of citizen muck-rakers sitting in a pile of crumpled Sarah Palin emails, with absolutely nothing news-worthy to show for their efforts. They could do no better than saying her correspondence shows she had some interest in the vice-presidential spot before McCain selected her, and she doesn’t much care for the “lamestream media.” Gee, I wonder why?

The UK Guardian summed up its findings as follows: “Tens of thousands of pages of Sarah Palin's emails released on Friday offer an intimate portrait of a politician caught in an almost daily battle on issues ranging from oil exploration to an ethics investigation.” Does anyone think the media dove into the Governor’s correspondence looking to prepare an “intimate portrait” of her “daily battles?”

[...]

Not only is the lack of any scandal in the Palin emails remarkable, but it’s almost astonishing how perfectly her private correspondence matches up with her public pronouncements. She even uses a lot of the same colorful language, like “unflippingbelievable.”

[...]

Well, now that we’ve established the Palin Test, let’s apply it to every candidate, including the incumbent President. Release a couple of years’ worth of email, and let’s see what we find. Do you think it would take an army of volunteer readers very long to find something hypocritical, or even horrifying, in Obama’s correspondence?

[More]

We seriously doubt that few, if any, of the candidates or potential candidates for the 2012 presidential race could stand up to the intense scrutiny and come out of it looking as good as Gov. Palin does right now.

- JP

So much for the 'shoots wolves from helicopters' myth

Unintended consequences
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Some left wing bloggers may be starting to realize that the Palin emails they fought relentlessly to have released are not the silver bullets they had hoped for to use to destroy the object of their hatred. Information contained in the documents, in fact, provides contradictory evidence to one of the many myths they have perpetuated about Sarah Palin.

The emails shatter the mythological image of a bloodthirsty Sarah Palin, assault rifle in hand, maniacally pursing Alaskan wolves from the skid of a black helicopter, fiendishly laughing as she slaughters the poor creatures. Lefty bloggers have been pushing that one for years. But, according to the liberal Washington Post, the emails prove otherwise:

The governor told her fish and game commissioner in blunt terms that she opposed using state helicopters to hunt wolves and preferred paying private hunters.

“We have to act quickly on this as predators are acting quickly and rural families face ridiculous situation of being forced to import more beef instead of feeding their families our healthy staple of alaskan game. Nonsense. Unacceptable - and not on my watch,” she said.

Her source of information? “Todd interviewed buddies who live out there... Some confirmation that state intervention isn’t first choice w/the locals,” Palin said.”We need to incentivize here,” including providing money for trappers.

Governor Palin did indeed strongly support predator control, and she clearly favored paying hunters a bounty to keep the wolf population in check, but the image of her personally shooting the predators from aircraft has finally been shot down. The emails also show that her motivation for keeping the wolf population at manageable levels was her concern for the welfare of Alaska's rural families who depend so heavily on caribou and moose, the wolves' prey, for food and warm clothing.

Another email demonstrates Gov. Palin's opposition to hunting bears in the McNeil River Bear Sanctuary:

"I am a hunter. I grew up hunting - some of my best memories growing up are of hunting with my dad to help feel (sic) our freezer. I want Alaskans to have access to wildlife...BUT - he's asking if I support hunting the bears in the sanctuary? No, I don't... I don't know any Alaskans who do support hunting the McNeil bears that frequent the viewing area. Many Alaskan and Outside visitors view these animals on the McNeil river, within the sanctuary, and, as my parents have reported back after their viewing trip, it's a once-in-a-lifetime experience to see such beauty on that river."

Ashley Judd, please pick up the red phone. It's Defenders of Wildlife on the line, and they're in panic mode.

- JP

Andy Barr: Emails show a governor engaged, effective, attentive

Gov. Palin was right when she said all of the rocks have been turned over
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Politico reporter Andy Barr says the Great Alaskan Email Dump "not only shows how effective she is, but how attentive she is as governor." An additional benefit she will derive from media scrutiny of the emails, Barr points out, is that it reinforces the image of Gov. Palin as a very serious executive presented in the forthcoming documentary film "The Undefeated." The emails, he observes, are evidence which back up some of the claims being made about her in the movie:


Right, Andy. It's called "leadership." And Sarah Palin has been an effective leader her entire political career.

- JP

WaPo, NYT Recruit Palinophobes for Oppo Research (Updated)

WaPo hopes to "extract new stories that will lead to further investigation"
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Remember when the Associated press assigned eleven of its crack reporters to "fact check" Sarah Palin's first book Going Rogue? Democrat Party house organ The Washington Post has found a cheaper way to allocate resources in the corrupt media left's endless pursuit of digging for dirt on the first woman to be the vice presidential candidate of the Republican Party. It is recruiting Palin-hatin' Post readers to do it for free.

Ryan Kellett, who holds the title of "Interactivity Producer" at WaPo and has his byline under the bold head "Help investigate the Palin e-mails," makes the pitch:

More than 24,000 e-mail messages sent to and from Sarah Palin during her tenure as Alaska's governor will be released Friday. Join The Post in digging through them. We are looking for 100 organized and diligent readers who will work alongside Post reporters to analyze, contextualize, and research the e-mails. Think of it as spending some time in our newsroom.

Our hope is that working together, we can efficiently find interesting information and extract new stories that will lead to further investigation. We don’t know what we’ll find, but we want you to be ready and open for the challenge.

You will communicate with us virtually and work in small teams to make light work of reviewing the e-mail threads. Notice the patterns. Identify recipients and senders. Connect specific e-mails to larger themes and events. We’ll give you a sense of what to look out for, but the hope is that your team can tackle the challenge together in a collaborative way that our journalists alone cannot. And in fact, we are selecting just 100 people because we want to make real use of your talents and trust you to use teamwork to your advantage.

[More]

How acute is the epidemic of Palin Derangement Syndrome among the Post partisans? We can practically see Kellett's words salivating on our computer monitor, so thrilled is he with the prospect of finding juicy tidbits in the governor's e-mails. We wonder if he also has a thrill running up his leg. Too bad he and his WaPo cohorts could not get as excited about digging into the obscured details of a half-term Senator's college records and the radical characters he chose to associate with back in the day, and then in the years thereafter. If they had bothered, the republic would likely not have traveled so many miles down the road to ruin.

Wouldn't it be interesting if some enterprising Paliniste volunteered to go undercover and submitted applications to play in the Post's pool of Palin plunderers? If you've always wanted to be a double agent, or if you would just like to bring a little bit of fairness and balance to WaPo's witch hunt fishing expedition, just follow the links.

h/t: Kristinn

Update: The NY Times is also recruiting would-be muckrakers who are heck-bent on sliming Sarah. Help 'em out, even if it's not quite with the degree of bloodlust they are looking for .

h/t: Doug Brady

- JP

‘The Undefeated’ Sneak Peek: Palin vs. ExxonMobil

Palin Admin. to Exxon: Drill Point Thompson or lose the lease
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John Nolte comments at Big Hollywood:

The hopelessly corrupt MSM is already starting to seed the narrative around this film with the nonsense that this is something Palin “commissioned,” which simply isn’t true. She reached out to documentary filmmaker Steve Bannon with the idea of producing some short films that would help to set the record straight with respect to her record as Alaska’s Governor. In response, he suggested a feature-length documentary that he would finance himself as long as he held complete editorial control. The Governor agreed, took her hands off the wheel and only helped him gain access when needed.

h/t for video: SarahNet

- JP

Restraining order against stalker extended for Gov. Palin (Updated)

Christy flew to Alaska on Palin's birthday this year
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Sarah Palin has won a round in court against the 19-year-old Pennsylvanian who has admitted that he stalked her, as a restraining order against him has been extended for six months:

However, a court magistrate denied requests for protective orders against Shawn Christy of McAdoo filed by Palin's father, Chuck Heath, and her friend Kristan Cole, saying the two failed to take part in Monday's hearing.

Magistrate Jonathon Lack also denied protective-order requests by Heath and Cole against Christy's parents, Craig and Karen Christy, for the same reason. But he told the Christy family that any further contact with Heath or Cole could lead to a restraining order

Judge Lack also issued a restraining order for Gov. Palin against Craig Christy, who allegedly left a number of harassing telephone messages for Palin's parents and contacted Cole's children on Facebook.

Update: Additional details from Reuters

- JP

Hearing Monday in Palin stalker case

Psychiatrist: Christy's sense of grandiosity "could turn somewhat paranoid."
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A court magistrate will consider a request by Sarah Palin for a six month extension of the restraining order against a 19-year-old who is accused of stalking her:

Palin's father, Chuck Heath, and her friend, Kristan Cole, are also seeking long-term protective orders against Christy's parents, Craig and Karen Christy.

Craig Christy, also of Pennsylvania, is accused of barraging Palin's parents with harassing telephone messages, including 26 in one day, and contacting Cole's children on Facebook. Cole's request for a protective order against Karen Christy was denied last month.

Palin and Cole obtained original restraining orders against Shawn Christy last year, stating in court documents that he threatened them, sent a receipt for a gun purchase and said he was buying a one-way ticket to Alaska. This year, Shawn Christy flew to Alaska on Palin's February birthday, spending just one day in Anchorage - about 40 miles from Palin's hometown of Wasilla - before returning to Pennsylvania. The visit was monitored by authorities.

"When you combine, you know, all the evidence that includes the parents' threats, including threats that they're not going to end this hellish game until we pony up hundreds of thousands of dollars - that's extortion, I believe - you combine all those pieces of evidence and any reasonable person would fear for their safety, for their family's safety," Palin testified at a recent hearing. "Especially when Shawn Christy traveled to Alaska, I believe just to prove that he had the means and the ways to travel to Alaska from the East Coast."

Magistrate Jonathan Lack issued temporary restraining orders against the Christys last month and set Monday's court date to deal with the long-term orders.

[More]

- JP

Just like old times: PDS-afflicted moonbat sues Sarah Palin

"Merely for the purpose of harassment"
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Another deranged Alaskan "environmental activist" has filed a bogus and frivolous lawsuit against Sarah Palin. This character wants at least $100,000 in "damages" and claims that while she was in office, Governor Palin undertook a campaign to "punish, embarrass, discredit and silence" him:

The lawsuit was filed in state court by Chip Thoma and first reported by TMZ.com.

Palin's attorney, John Tiemessen, called the complaint frivolous and said it was filed "merely for the purpose of harassment."

"The governor's actions and statements regarding this matter are a matter of public record and governed by the long standing doctrine of executive immunity from tort claims," he said in an email late Friday. "Like all of the other harassing complaints against the governor, we anticipate that Mr. Thoma's will be quickly and summarily dismissed."

The matter dates to 2009, after Palin returned to Juneau and the governor's office from her failed vice presidential bid.

What seems to have sent Thoma around the bend was tour bus traffic on the streets in the vicinity of the governor's mansion in Juneau. If he sounds suspiciously like the same grinch who went after Gov. Palin's youngest daughter Piper for her unforgivable sin of setting up an evil capitalist lemonade stand two years ago, that's because he is.

Although the Palins and Piper's Gaia-defiling entrepreneurism are long gone from Alaska's capitol city, Thoma apparently just couldn't get over it, and now he's joined a long line of other moonbats who have sued Sarah. Though most of those cases were dismissed and the rest decided in Gov. Palin's favor, Thoma is undeterred. In true Cloward-Piven fashion, he's determined to throw a monkey wrench into the gears of Alaska's judicial system and cost the state's taxpayers some of their hard-earned money.

At one time there were more than twenty such frivolous lawsuits pending in Alaska, tying up precious human and financial resources to the point where more serious problems facing the state had to be put on the back burners. Yet many ignorant fools still don't understand why Gov. Palin resigned her office. Go figure...

- JP

Where are they now? Bill McAllister (Updated)

Says he won't be reporting on Sarah Palin
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Bill McAllister, who served as Gov. Sarah Palin's spokesman, will be a television reporter again. McAllister will leave his current job as communications director for the Alaska Department of Law next week and begin reporting for KTVA in Anchorage, according to a story in the Anchorage Daily News:

McAllister, 55, reported on politics for KTUU, Channel 2, and left the station to work for Palin.

He moved to the Department of Law in 2009 after serving for 11 months as Palin's spokesman.

KTVA's news director, Stacy Feger-Pellessier, said the station was "thrilled" to have McAllister coming on staff. McAllister said he won't be reporting on Palin. "In fact, I'm not going to be doing just politics, whereas at Channel 2 that was like my whole thing," he said.

McAllister will likely replace former reporter-anchor Matt Felling, who quit this week to become Sen. Lisa Murkowski's communications director.

Update: Oh, wait...

- JP

Loesch: Correcting the Right On 'Sarah Palin’s Alaska' Tax Breaks

It was the cheapest PSA that Alaska has ever produced
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Big Journalism Editor-in-Chief Dana Loesch weighs in on the Alaska Tax Credit nontroversy which is being manufactured by by the Vichy right against Gov. Palin:

Jim Geraghty started a brouhaha yesterday by criticizing how the makers of “Sarah Palin’s Alaska” received $1.2 million in tax credits by filming in the state — and that Palin signed the 2008 law which made it possible. Because she’s now apparently omnipotent, able to see into the future and plan for it by signing into law a complex program with numerous in-house checks and balances. Geraghty questioned Palin’s conservative credentials.

… but it looks problematic for a crusader for small government to end up collecting a seven-figure paycheck from an endeavor that received a seven-figure subsidy, all set up by a program she signed into law.

What’s problematic is to define the tax credit in this issue as a “subsidy.”

Tax credits are offered as an incentive to do business in a particular area, city, or state as a way to attract business and commerce into said area. These tax credits are usually offered as a percentage of total money spent and the credits can be sold at a discount to businesses looking to alleviate their tax load. The exchange creates a cashflow that helps offset the costs of doing that particular business in that area; in this case filming in Alaska is very expensive. A net gain of dollars flows into those local communities and the credits establish a way for a particular locality to compete with other cities or states for business; over the long term it can they help establish a broader tax base by increasing the number of professionals drawn to the area.

The optimal situation is to have a tax code is low enough where regulations aren’t so restrictive so as to warrant the need for tax credits. That is the real debate. However, it is within every state and city’s right to make themselves more competitive by offering tax incentives to attract business and create a business community. Aren’t we, as conservatives, supporters of the 10th Amendment? You pay for things by increasing your tax base, not by increasing regulations or taxes.

It’s also important to note that this was a bipartisan piece of legislation she simply signed into law to spur commerce and diversify Alaska’s economy — not something Palin created to help herself as has been subtly suggested on other parts of the web.

[More]

- JP