Todd Palin thumbs his nose at the law

FASCIST pigs?

Call (202) 456-1414
Ask for "Temporary"

someone stands up to one of these left wing witch hunts. Tell them to got to hell Todd. Fascist pigs.

Gov. Sarah Palin's chief of staff authorized ex-Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan to travel to Washington, although the governor has cited that trip as a primary example of the insubordination that led to Monegan's firing.
Monegan is the central figure in the investigation into whether Palin abused her power when she fired him. Monegan alleges he was fired because he…
A legislative committee voted July 24 to investigate the dispute, and Palin initially welcomed it. But after she was picked as Sen. John McCain's running mate on the GOP presidential ticket, she reversed herself.

I believe at this moment I would trade a news story of one more silver-haired Republican legislator getting caught doing something awful with a household pet for a video clip of Sarah Palin uttering the words, "executive privilege."

Please, dear Lord, grant me this one request, and I'll stop stealing paper clips from work.

Call (202) 456-1414
Ask for "Temporary"

It is a disgrace that they thumb their noses at this inquiry. Either way, whether they co-operate or not, the truth will be clear - guilty as charged.

Clearly, Palin decided to be judge and jury and take the law into her own hands where her brother in law was concerned. Like in the wild wild west.

This is Bushonian, or Cheneyesque I suppose. Who needs rights and freedoms if you have power. In fact, their purpose with power is to grow it and to limit others'. And so it goes with Palin. Definitely cut from the same cloth.

Palin's character and morals. Her instincts and judgment are becoming clear. I don't see how this is VP material, never mind a likely P.

You all see this yet?

But the governor's staff authorized the trip, according to an internal travel document from the Department of Public Safety, released Friday in response to an open records request.

The document, a state travel authorization form, shows that Palin's chief of staff, Mike Nizich, approved Monegan's trip to Washington D.C. "to attend meeting with Senator Murkowski." The date next to Nizich's signature reads June 18.

http://www.abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=5844710&page=1

This is truly the strangest presidential campaign I have ever witnessed. The candidates break new ground on a daily basis. They claim that "up" is "down" and "down" is "up" with regularity. Furthermore, they do it with a straight face and even get testy when anybody expresses doubt about their claims. Most candidates running for public office at least pretend that they, and their families, are purer than the driven snow - good, law abiding, citizens. The Palins, on the other hand, are almost refreshing in their candor. They have chosen to ignore a legal document as though Alaska state law was a mere inconvenience. They are in the big time now and under the aegis of Senator McCain. ("Subpoena? We don' heed no stinkin' subpoena") I can hardly wait for the next chapter.

Oh, boy, change we can believe in ,,, corrupt officials unwilling to obey the law, elected officials who refuse to testify, government employees not allowed to testify, now spouses not willing to testify or honor supeonas.

Great, we gaining ground now.

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's husband has refused to testify in the investigation of his wife's alleged abuse of power, effectively sidetracking the probe until after Election Day.

Ignoring a legislative subpoena is punishable by a fine up to $500 and up to six months in jail under Alaska law. But courts are reluctant to intervene and the Legislature is not scheduled to convene until January.

It is illegal in the State of Alaska to fail to comply with legislative subpoenas. But Todd Palin has announced he will do exactly that which the law prohibits for one simple reason -- because nothing can be done about it until after the election, and even then, it's unlikely much will be done to punish him for breaking the law. Sarah Palin has similarly ordered all of her aides to refuse to comply with these subpoenas even though doing so is illegal, because she, too, doubts there will be consequences for this illegal behavior.

There is no doubt that the Legislature has the right to investigate and that these Subpoenaas are lawfully issued. Before Palin was selected as McCain's running mate, virtually everyone in Alaska agreed that the Legislature could and should investigate these allegations.

From The Anchorage Daily News, July 29, 2008:

"The governor has said all along that she will fully cooperate with an investigation and her staff will cooperate as well," [Palin spokeswoman Sharon] Leighow said. . . .
Supporters as well as detractors of the Republican governor generally agreed the legislative investigation is needed into the circumstances leading up to Monegan's dismissal.

Sen. Gene Therriault of North Pole, leader of the small Republican Senate minority that generally has backed Palin's policies, said he expects the governor will cooperate, and if she's cleared, the investigation could strengthen her. . . . Senate President Lyda Green, a Wasilla Republican and member of the Legislative Council, said the investigation is "absolutely" needed.

In August, Palin even praised herself for only suspending, rather than firing, one of her top aides who demanded -- in a recorded telephone call -- that the Police Commissioner fire her ex-brother-in-law by making this argument: "'While he is a state employee the governor can direct him to cooperate with [the Legislature's investigator], fulfilling her pledge that the administration will cooperate fully with the investigation,' [Palin spokesman] McAllister said."

But now, Gov. Palin has embraced core GOP "principles" -- political officials can unilaterally exempt themselves from the rule of law and the people, who are powerless to learn what their political leaders have done. That, of course, has been the guiding principle of the Bush administration -- as one Bush official after the next has simply refused to comply with Congressional subpoenas as part of investigations into serious allegations of lawbreaking and other wrongdoing -- and the McCain campaign and the Palins are leaving no doubt that they are full-fledged believers in these corrupt and lawless prerogatives.

This sort of lawless arrogance doesn't merely insulate political officials from any accountability, though it does do that. It also destroys the crux of representative democracy. The ability of a legislature to investigate what the Executive Branch is doing isn't some ancillary Congressional function, but is as important -- arguably more so -- than the legislative power to enact laws. It's how the people ensure that Executive Branch officials are accountable and are required to adhere to the law.

The informing function of Congress should be preferred even to its legislative function.

That compliance by political officials with legislative subpoenas is a linchpin of how our government was designed to function was explained quite clearly long ago by the Supreme Court in its 1927 decision in McGrain v. Daugherty:

We are of opinion that the power of inquiry -- with process to enforce it -- is an essential and appropriate auxiliary to the legislative function. It was so regarded and employed in American Legislatures before the Constitution was framed and ratified. All this was true before and when the Constitution was framed and adopted. In that period the power of inquiry, with enforcing process, was regarded and employed as a necessary and appropriate attribute of the power to legislate-indeed, was treated as inhering in it.

These are the vital safeguards, the core democratic functions, which the Bush administration and now the McCain/Palin campaign are flagrantly subverting.

Palin fired Monegan in July. It later emerged that Palin, her husband and several high-level staffers had contacted Monegan about state trooper Mike Wooten. Palin maintains she fired Monegan over budget disagreements.

Wooten had gone through a nasty divorce from Palin's sister before Palin became governor. Monegan has said no one from the administration ever told him directly to fire Wooten, but he said their repeated contacts made it clear they wanted Wooten gone.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080919/ap_on_el_pr/palin_troopergate

Well, since with fired Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan is claiming in part that Todd Palin tried to pressure him to fire a state trooper, it would seem that his testimony gets right to the heart of the matter.

and try this on for size:

http://community.adn.com/node/127769

It's not uncommon for Gov. Sarah Palin's husband, Todd, to be included on governor's office e-mails, a fact raising questions about how much influence the "First Dude" has in state government.

Palin critics recently put in a public records request for the state e-mails that Palin special assistant Ivy Frye and Frank Bailey, the governor's director of boards and commissions, sent this spring. They were trying to find proof the staffers had worked on state time to try and get Randy Ruedrich replaced as chair of the state Republican Party. They hadn't found any, last I spoke to them, but were still going through the boxes of e-mails.

Much of the Frye/Bailey e-mail traffic, though, was either blacked out or denied altogether by the state on the basis of "deliberative process" or "privacy/personnel." (UPDATE: Andrew Halcro, on his blog, has posted the whole spreadsheet listing the e-mails that were denied, with subject lines, recipients and dates.)

That includes many e-mails Todd Palin exchanged with members of the governor's staff - e-mails with subject lines like "re: PSEA (Public Safety Employees of Alaska) Ads", "re: PR campaign" and "re: Parental consent abortion bill." It's impossible to know what they are about, since the state refuses to say.

Those who made the requests plan to appeal the denial, arguing among other things that e-mails can't be kept from the public because of executive "deliberative process" if Todd Palin, who is not a state employee, is being copied on them.