JOE McGINNISS

Thanks for the link, Joe. Couldn’t agree more re the Atlantic post, and these emails just sell, sell, sell that narrative except that I found very little policy in these emails. I see her writing high school cheering of her AGIA branding for her political future, but I don’t see any indication that she grasped the complex issues behind drafting policy (as her ethics laws plainly demonstrate), so as this new narrative is passed off as the “new Palin story”, I have to ask why they aren’t looking into her history in Wasilla.

Media blackouts? You betcha. That goes way, way back as I’m sure you are well aware. But most importantly, once again, we have “detractors” (aka: citizens exercising their right to address their government with grievances and free speech) put in the line of fire and that is an abhorrent, unaccpetable abuse of power.

Over 300 emails concerning Matanuska Maid dairy redacted. The coverup continues. Sean Parnell….you are despicable to continue this corruption!. You know about the money laundering that Palin and Kristan Cole carried out to get money into the hands of 4 dairy famer friends. What about the money the state paid for private farmers for milk they had to spill on the ground while Sarah’s new dairy was months past their estimated opening? What about the nearly million $ in loans they don’t make payments on? What about Franci Havemeister, daughter in law of largest dairy farmer, appointing herself to handle all dairy loans and handouts? What about the gag order she has placed on all Division of Agriculture employees to not speak to any members of the press or anyone from the Legilsature? What about the emergency meeting to allow another $300,000 to be given to the new dairy which now wants to move because they can’t afford the rent at their current location? What about this dairy being allowed to rent the old Mat Maid building in Palmer for $1 a month for 5 years? Admit it, this state is still deep into the dairy industry. We are propping up and subsidizing two people who have already defaulted on over $4 million in dairy loans in the past. There is a blatant sense of entitlement just because they have cows. We all owe them a living at the espense of Alaskan taxpayers. Time to stop the bleeding, Sean.

The media do look like fools. Hats off to those who stayed away; you are the true journalists. I heard that Sarah’s lawyer was given the emails for review prior to the release. I guess the Fox is still guarding the chickens.

I hope that Sarah’s minions do not bother those who wrote to Mrs. Palin expressing their point of view. Not redacting the email address of those who disagree with the Queen is a deliberate act. It was also very junior high school – classic Palin.

To be fair, most of the contact info for people who complimented or condemned something was left un redacted. Very little personal info was blackened. Must be fair.

Go ahead and ask that they be made public. But understand that it won’t just be Obama’s emails or the Democrats’, but the GOPers’ too. It would be interesting to see how much the health insurance companies influenced the vote.

You could start a blog of your own and crusade for anything you like.

In the meantime here on this blog, in this post, the topic of discussion is Sarah Palin’s emails, and the uselessness of what was finally released after three years (longer than her aborted half-term) of stalling and stonewalling and review by those directly involved in the emails.

This is about Palin’s lack of transparency.

Now I know it is you Sarah. When I write emails at work, I keep them professional. I use Dear XXX: I then say what I have to say, keeping my personal opinion out of it, and sign off with Sincerely. I always use the newspaper test; would I want this email in the newspaper? If not, I change the email.

I can guarantee you that the emails of Secretary of State Clinton and President Obama have no smoking guns; they are too smart for that. Any emails written by them are sure to pass the newspaper test. But you can file a freedom of information act to obtain any emails you wish, just like any other citizen.

And when you receive the information from your request, you can I assume, challenge any redacted pieces in a court of law. After all, no government can keep something secret just because it would be embarrasing. So Sarah, you can look forward to some media type challenging the redactions in the future. Then, it will be up to an unbiased judge, and not your attorney and the powers that be in Juneau, whether all the redactions stand. My bet would be that some of those redactions will not stand and will be released.

That’s funny because of the emails I read, the contact info of Palin fans was redacted.

Besides, you (deliberately?) miss the point. It is the critics, not the fans who would be targets. The vindictive nature of Palin and crew is well-documented. That was the point to releasing any contact data. If contact data of friends was released, I suspect it was done with prior consent. Were critics afforded the same? I’ll bet not.

Drinking a cup of joe….thinking of beer….thx for the inspiration!

I think you all owe Sarah a bit of respect, she by just her ignorant self,
remarkably keeping thousands of subpar journos employed, some are even
writing books!

In this time of obamanomics that’s got to be worth something, no?

-jdz

Your right and she is getting away with it. You would think lawyers who are looking at all these emails would put their state and country first over the person who was elected. They forget they work for the people who pay their salaries. Sad I am sure democracts do these kinds of things but if this were a democrat governor you would be hearing them crying bloody murder on the right.

The Dairy story is the one I am interested in. Very simple case of transferring public funds to cronies, with no accountability. Govt bailout of private business….not very teabaggy.

Great post. As George Dufus Bush used to try to say, but screwed up every time. “Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me.” How much more ridiculous does the media need to look before they have absolutely no credibility left. My last hope is O’Donnell & even he is marginal. Hoping Keith’s new show will bring relevant news back but I’m not holding my breath. Call me……disgusted & disillusioned.

America is fortunate to have an elegant and brilliant president at the moment. We may descend eventually to the lowest common denominator but not yet, and it is good for those of us with mindful intelligence to be able to see what we would have if someone like Sarah Palin ever was in power nationally. I can think of no greater example of uneducated, incurious or lower based moral example than Sarah Palin……..and everyone knows that is true.

Is that you Todd?

I have read Todd’s emails…..those sentences are not Todd’s!

The two people Palin never mentions…..her mother and Jesus. She knows that Jesus would strike her down and people might remember what he said, so she only speaks of the god she has created in her image. And her mother…..guess didn’t protect her when she was a girl, is my bet.

I read an e mail from the first batch posted on-line, someone ripped her up one side and down another over the dairy mess. He suggested that the Palins and friends are doing something illegal and needed shut down now. He said they were losing $300,000 every month they stay in operation. She had been advised what to do, but they are keeping their friends in the money. It was quite detailed and he seemed to know a lot about the subject. What was really funny he said she had zero executive experience.

I have always found Sally Heath to be a strange character. She seems completely detached from reality & if she speaks her mind or makes one false move (Chuck don’t you think we have enough dead things in our living room already?) he will beat the living crap out of her. Just a thought. Sarah Palin a woman wore cares about other woman…no way. I think she is a cunning survivor of a very sad & strange childhood & we are all suffering the consequences.

Cackling Rad, you are right. I don’t know why Joe is on the “nuthin’ to see” bandwagon.

The mail from April 26, where she instructs Janice Mason to register a bill signing on the 18th (the day she supposedly “gave birth” to Tri-G), assumedly so that she could collect her full pay for that day, is noteworthy. The bill was signed on the 19th as per the legislature’s database. Does no-one care about this sort of fraud? Is is too “small potatoes”?

Isn’t ANYone interested in why the gov. wouldn’t want to take a single day of maternity leave off for the “birth” of her “son”????

Not sure what the point is of Freedom of Information, when the State can sift through them and decide which to show you! It may take a long time, but even on principal, they should sue to get those withheld emails.

And as far as the media, the media looks for a story and a narrative, not facts. Sarah provides that to them in reality show footage, propaganda films, crappy entertainment shows, and now cherry-picked emails. I’m sure if we looked at Hitler’s letters we’d find a loving husband, a veteran loyal to his country, a hard worker, a passionate speaker. It’s just those pesky letters about burning books and annihilating the Jews which might rub some people the wrong way.

My interest in Babygate is not because it is or isn’t illegal, or it will or won’t bring Palin down. I believe that voters and donors to public figures should have the information they need to make their decisions. Many of Palin’s base would not be there if they knew she faked a pregnancy and then continued to milk that lie for all it was worth. People have come to believe that the MSM tells us what we need to know, so Babygate must be untrue. Wrong.

I’d love to see Dairygate, Housegate, Every-gate! exposed and covered by the press, but they are too busy with “more important” things like Weinergate.

Then and Now

An email I wrote to express my displeasure about Todd Palin having access to State administrative functions was posted along with an unverifiable constituent’s email on the.politicususa.com blog on Friday after the Palin email release. The direction of the discussion then went off the tracks.

As an Alaskan citizen, I expected that my entire correspondence was part of public record when I sent email to my government officials. There is evidence that emails from constituents which were not critical of Palin also had personal contact information included in the emails. There are people looking into this. Interestingly, mine was forwarded to the Governor’s Scheduler and the Executive Residence Manager. Other critical emails were forwarded to logical recipients for security and/or verification purposes. I would like to know why my email merited a forward to these recipients.

I have not been threatened, but have received a lot of support. I have been here a very long time and I am friends with, or family to many folks all over the state. I will not hesitate to take action if needed; including forwarding any negative contacts to the local press and blogs.

The threatening email to Palin which appeared in the same post could have been written by any friend or foe. The email was sent through the Governor’s website and the physical address was falsified. I have no doubt that this email was looked into thoroughly at the time by Palin’s security staff, but there is no reason to conjecture any further since it could have been sent by ANYONE. The email is proof of absolutely nothing as it stands.

Some media is reporting that combing through the state correspondence makes Palin appear endearing and engaged, which seems to be a big disappointment to many non Alaskans. It shouldn’t be. These emails reflect the Sarah Palin Alaskans thought they elected. I was actually a bit sad when I read Craig Medred’s article in the Alaska Dispatch which reminded me of (what we thought were) better days gone by:

http://www.alaskadispatch.com/article/palin-emails-show-governor-alaskans-once-knew

“The Palin of 2007 appears, in retrospect, almost the opposite of the 2011 politician who keeps secret from the press something as simple as the itinerary for her “One Nation” bus tour.”

I remember being approached by a visiting Wasillan who began to apologize for foisting their Mayor onto all of Alaska after a brief “Hello, where are you from?” exchange. I was in a hurry and did not have the time to speak with her more, forgetting about it till much later. Alaskan press was mostly translating Palin’s interviews into favorable, readable articles. I am very typical of a non partisan, doing-too-many-things-at once Alaskan. Would I make the time now after this lesson? You betcha.

It is now well known that Palin controls her image very tightly – whatever she wants it to be at the time. I recommend using this perspective to your advantage by releasing some unjustified anger toward faceless Alaskans and redirecting it into positive action. It’s time to move on.

The Next Email Batch

The entire records request has not yet been fulfilled. This batch of email ends somewhere during or at the end of Sept 2008. As an Alaskan, I am the most concerned about the months of emails not yet released which cover her return to Alaska after she lost the election to the time she abruptly self aborted her term.

When Palin returned to Alaska she was a changed person and was found by most to be combative, obstructionist and dishonest many times during the following Legislative session. She must have received thousands of emails during this period. This was the period in which her pro groups mobilized and sent a barrage of emails to the official Governor email address, and we can easily conjecture that she received lots of correspondence from people nationally and worldwide because of her new found notoriety. She most certainly received many times more than the average amount of emails from Alaskans because of everything we were finding out about.

This period is when 1) most or all of the ethics complaints were filed, 2) her attempted appointment of AG Wayne Anthony Ross was denied, 3) she blocked the Senatorial replacement for Juneau out of an obvious vendetta, 4) she lied about a meeting conflict between Legislators and a personal mission in Anchorage, 5) Alaska media and blogs were writing about her daily, along with numerous other dramas. She became hostile, suspicious and secretive. This is the time frame where our Governor and her ethics and reliability were really put to the test.

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2011/0611/Sarah-Palin-emails-Treasure-trove-or-waste-of-paper

“…as Molly Ball at Politico.com describes the woman sketched in nearly 24,000 emails released this week, “Palin comes across as neither an airhead nor a prima donna.”

“She is warm and supportive with her staff, who are loyal to her in turn,” Ball writes. “She frequently misspells in haste or phonetically … but her writing is fluent and grammatical. Nor is she a figurehead. She is active in guiding policy, a self-assured politician who knows where she stands.”

But as Ball also notes, the email archive ends in September 2008, before Palin became so polarizing. “It reflects a period before she gave up governing to become a freelance sharp-tongued partisan…”

Civility

When I heard that one of my emails to Palin was posted on a blog, I was a little concerned at first. I had no idea which of the several emails I’d written was posted. However, I knew that my content was specific, sincere and for the most part polite. No one commenting on the blog post seemed to notice that, especially in comparison with other constituent emails (and comments on the blog post itself). I am proud of myself for not falling down the rabbit hole – it’s not always easy for me but it’s always important to me.

If we are writing anonymously, are we writing from our hearts and doing the best we can to be civil about it? Or are we being jerks a lot of the time, and getting worse by the day because we don’t have to answer for what we say? Are we protecting our identities for good reason, or giving ourselves permission to be less than reasonable, maybe worse?

Speaking of courtesy, authors Jason Easley and Sarah Jones, you had my email address. Maybe you could have contacted me to let you know you were doing a blog post using my personal information? The way I found out was a little disconcerting, even if supportive. A little heads up would have been the right thing to do… especially since you seemed quite concerned about the consequences. I know that one of you does not use your real name in authoring posts, so this should be something on your mind when you write posts about others who do.

Outcome

I’m pretty sure this isn’t what many expected to hear out of this blog post. A valid question was raised in the article, but assumptions and conspiracies followed rapidly with no confirmation from anyone or anywhere that I was able to find. The need to find fault overcame the desire to get solid information.

I’m writing this to remind us all that things are not always what they seem. Don’t make assumptions – it’s counterproductive even if it’s convenient. Check your facts; be honest about the difference between conjecture and outcome. Don’t lose heart or stop working for what you desire the most in society, but don’t lose the ability to have an open mind and to adjust your thinking when needed. When all else fails, find whatever humor you can in the situation and rest up to fight the metaphorical battles another day. This is from the perspective of someone who has had their imagined fate bandied about for a couple of days by complete strangers. Maybe each of us should experience this at some time in our lives to see what we learn from it.