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Topic: Palin Resigning As Alaska Governor
Bestinshow's photo
Sat 07/04/09 01:54 PM
THE battle between Levi Johnston (above) and Sarah Palin isn't over yet. Johnston -- best known for impregnating the former vice-presidential candidate's daughter, Bristol -- "is shopping a book," his bodyguard/publicist, Tank, tells New York magazine. And it seems the book will focus on the Wasilla, Alaska, political family. "There are still many untold stories about the Palins," he said. Until the tell-all is released, though, Johnston is considering "a leading role" in a movie and a possible upcoming TV "docu-drama."

http://www.nypost.com/seven/07042009/gossip/pagesix/levi_vs__sarah_palin_battle_continues_177489.htm

Makes one wonder..................

no photo
Sat 07/04/09 05:02 PM




she's pretty fuggin' hot...


My Dad doesn't think so.


Winx,

Does your dad watch Spongebob?




noway noway

Why do you ask?




Thought maybe he thinks she looks like Squidward, too.



KimberUC2's photo
Sat 07/04/09 05:33 PM
I think it is sad that Sarah Palin has decided to resign. Granted she is not the sharpest tool in the shed. Keep in mind she was able to hold her own through the face off with Joe Biden who had almost 25 years political experience.

Now how many politicians do you know that have had a customized AR-15 dedicated and presented to them. Sarah Palin did. How many politician do you know of that increased your state income tax check by 1000 dollars per year on your return. Sarah Did.

Personally, I do not care what the person looks like. I care about what the person would do for me when in office. I have to say based on Joe Biden's track record I think we got the short end of the stick. Remember Joe Biden was the one that wrote the "assault weapons ban for Clinton". He made sure that assault weapon included most of the long range rifles, several of the common hunting rifles, almost any weapon with a magazine including pistols.

Now we have him and Obama in the white house. It appears Obama has set his staff up with the most anti gun people he can. It is my opinion the reason he won the election was largely due to the fact he is an educated man. I believe his success at the polls was also due to his skin color as well.

I pray our current administration does not permanently negatively effect our nation or world for generations to come. Gun control does not effect crime either way it just takes the ability of the innocent to protect themselves away.

If guns were responsible for killing people then pencils are responsible for spelling errors.

no photo
Sat 07/04/09 07:26 PM


While I don't think she could be taken seriously in the first place, after this there's no way to take her seriously. She walks away in the middle of her term? Lovely.


In all fairness, a lot of people DID take her seriously. It could be that she is resigning for the good of her State.


The only people that took her seriously are folks of the same mindset. Not that that is wrong, but she was the voice of the christian right and others who aren't at all happy that they lost control.

no photo
Sat 07/04/09 07:29 PM
There's something fishy about this resignation.

no photo
Sat 07/04/09 07:38 PM

For someone who is supposed to be a flake (according to some) she sure gets people riled up.


Oh she's no flake... Calculating and typically radical rightish, and not all that sharp, but no flake.

no photo
Sat 07/04/09 07:55 PM

To me it just seems funny. Obama is in office and one of his campain slogans was about uniting our country. But all it seems dems do is put people down. Sara Palin for one and the tea parties. The way dems go around calling people names and trying to make them out to be something they are not, doesnt seem to me to be a way of uniting our country. JMO


Sarah Palin spent the whole campaign, talking about the REAL Americans, as if only those that think like her are real Americans, the Dem's hit back, responding to her ignorance.

Obama ultimately can not unite a country that is so divided on social and other issues as we are. He can unite reasonable people on both sides but can't unite the whole country. We will never be united and frankly I don't think we ever were.

no photo
Sat 07/04/09 08:52 PM
Edited by singmesweet on Sat 07/04/09 08:54 PM

Winx's photo
Sat 07/04/09 09:11 PM
Edited by Winx on Sat 07/04/09 09:32 PM

I think it is sad that Sarah Palin has decided to resign. Granted she is not the sharpest tool in the shed. Keep in mind she was able to hold her own through the face off with Joe Biden who had almost 25 years political experience.

Now how many politicians do you know that have had a customized AR-15 dedicated and presented to them. Sarah Palin did. How many politician do you know of that increased your state income tax check by 1000 dollars per year on your return. Sarah Did.

Personally, I do not care what the person looks like. I care about what the person would do for me when in office. I have to say based on Joe Biden's track record I think we got the short end of the stick. Remember Joe Biden was the one that wrote the "assault weapons ban for Clinton". He made sure that assault weapon included most of the long range rifles, several of the common hunting rifles, almost any weapon with a magazine including pistols.

Now we have him and Obama in the white house. It appears Obama has set his staff up with the most anti gun people he can. It is my opinion the reason he won the election was largely due to the fact he is an educated man. I believe his success at the polls was also due to his skin color as well.

I pray our current administration does not permanently negatively effect our nation or world for generations to come. Gun control does not effect crime either way it just takes the ability of the innocent to protect themselves away.

If guns were responsible for killing people then pencils are responsible for spelling errors.


Yep, you gotta love Palin's "Bridge to Nowhere". slaphead

I love the way that she charged rape victims for the rape tests too.:angry:

The thought of her going to the library and asking about how to ban books in downright scary.

Obama said that he wasn't touching the guns. SCOTUS wouldn't let him even if he wanted to touch them.

In fact, on May 22, 2009, President Obama signed a law (HR 627) that will prohibit the Secretary of the Interior from enacting or enforcing any regulations that restrict possession of firearms in National Parks or Wildlife Refuges, as long as the person complies with laws of the state in which the unit is found.








Atlantis75's photo
Sat 07/04/09 09:21 PM

Think there is more to this then is currently known. No doubt there is going to be a lot of speculation. Which is going to make it hard to tell fact from fiction.


I agree.

Winx's photo
Sat 07/04/09 09:24 PM





she's pretty fuggin' hot...


My Dad doesn't think so.


Winx,

Does your dad watch Spongebob?




noway noway

Why do you ask?




Thought maybe he thinks she looks like Squidward, too.





I don't see the resemblance.laugh

no photo
Sat 07/04/09 09:29 PM
If there are politically damaging facts, they will eventually come out. She kept saying, "You're going to have to trust me." And, "It's not politics as usual".

This lame duck argument holds no water. No one resigns just because they aren't going to seek re-election.

We shall wait and see. I suspect some kind of scandal will break. But that's just a hunch.

Bestinshow's photo
Sat 07/04/09 09:32 PM
Sarah’s Straight Talk
by Gail Collins

Truly, Sarah Palin has come a long way. When she ran for vice president, she frequently became disjointed and garbled when she departed from her prepared remarks. Now the prepared remarks are incoherent, too.

"And a problem in our country today is apathy," she said on Friday as she announced that she would resign as governor of Alaska at the end of the month. "It would be apathetic to just hunker down and ‘go with the flow.' Nah, only dead fish ‘go with the flow.' No. Productive, fulfilled people determine where to put their efforts, choosing to wisely utilize precious time ... to BUILD UP."

Basically, the point was that Palin is quitting as governor because she's not a quitter. Or a deceased salmon.

Sarah Barracuda made her big announcement Friday afternoon on the lawn of her home to an audience that appeared to include only Todd, the kids and the next-door neighbors. Smiling manically, she looked like a parody of the woman who knocked the Republicans dead at their convention. She babbled about her parents' refrigerator magnet, which apparently had a lot of wise advice. And she recalled her visit with the troops in Kosovo, whose dedication and determination inspired her to ... resign.

"Life is about choices!" declared the nation's most anti-choice politician.

People, what is going on with governors in this country? Are we doomed to see them go bonkers one by one, state by state?

The timing of Palin's announcement was extremely peculiar. Not only did she interrupt the plans of TV newscasters to spend the entire weekend pointing out that Michael Jackson is still dead, she delivered her big news just as the nation was settling into Fourth of July celebrations. You'd have thought she didn't want us to notice.

"I choose to work very hard on a path for fruitfulness and productivity," she said in a fairly typical moment. "I choose not to tear down and waste precious time, but to build up this state and our country, and her industrious, generous, patriotic free people!"

Palin has a year and a half left to go in her term of office. The political world had been wondering whether she'd run for re-election. The answer is no. And furthermore, it turns out that Palin believes that the only way her administration can "continue without interruption" is for her to end it.

Anyhow, no point in wasting precious time.

One underlying theme in Palin's remarks was that many ethics complaints have been filed against her on issues ranging from her alleged attempts to get her former brother-in-law fired from the state troopers to charging Alaska for her children's travel expenses.

According to the about-to-be-ex governor, fighting all this negativity has cost the state "thousands of hours of your time" and $2 million "to respond to ‘opposition research.' " But now this is all water under the bridge. Every single unfair charge has been dismissed. ("We've won!") And now that the battle is over and the time/money has been wasted, Palin is going to leave her job in the name of "efficiencies and effectiveness."

"I cannot stand here as your governor and allow millions upon millions of our dollars go to waste just so I can hold the title of governor," she said.

Perhaps there is some new and interesting scandal that Palin has yet to let us in on. (If so, I hope it involves a soul mate.) Otherwise, it would appear that this is all about her desire to start raising money and setting up operations for a presidential run in 2012. Her fans immediately interpreted the resignation as a canny move to get her back down to the lower 48, with as much time on her hands as Mitt Romney. (Mary Matalin called it "brilliant.")

Palin was the subject of a devastating article in this month's Vanity Fair by Todd Purdum, who wrote that McCain campaign aides found it almost impossible to get Palin to prepare for her disastrous interview with Katie Couric. And there is no sign, Purdum reported, that Palin has made any attempt to bone up on the issues so that next time around, she could run as a candidate who actually had some grasp of the intricacies of foreign and domestic policy.

So if she's starting to run, it will be as the same reporter-avoiding, generalization-spouting underachiever that she was last time around.

Now we know she not only doesn't have the concentration to read a policy paper, she can't focus long enough to finish the job she was hired to do.

On Friday, Palin said that finishing out her term would be just too easy. "Many just accept that lame-duck status, hit the road, draw the paycheck and ‘milk it.' I'm not putting Alaska through that," she said.

Apparently, she's going to put the rest of us through it instead.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/07/04-1

laugh rofl

Winx's photo
Sat 07/04/09 09:36 PM

*shrugs*

Don't really see why anyone should care?!

She is a quitter, quitters never win!


I find it interesting because it's not every day that you hear about somebody resigning from their Governor's position.

hellkitten54's photo
Sat 07/04/09 09:47 PM


*shrugs*

Don't really see why anyone should care?!

She is a quitter, quitters never win!


I find it interesting because it's not every day that you hear about somebody resigning from their Governor's position.


No, but me personally don't care about that woman, have nothing for or against her. Just don't care what she does with her life. It doesn't affect me at all, doesn't change my life. ?yawn

Bestinshow's photo
Sat 07/04/09 10:03 PM
Edited by Bestinshow on Sat 07/04/09 10:05 PM
Top 10 reasons Palin is resigning
10. Joining the Alaska National Guard just in case Putin rears his head again.

9. Needs the extra time to buy up and shred every copy of this month’s Vanity Fair.

8. RNC accidently emailed her the speech meant for Mark Sanford.

7. Plotting revenge against Letterman is a full time job.

6. Wanted to knock all the Michael Jackson coverage off of cable news.

5. Premiering this fall: “Regis & Sarah”.

4. Finally decided to study up for the Katie Couric interview

3. Heard Biden had left the country and is hoping to be considered for the VP job again

2. Is moving to Minnesota to head up the recount for Norm Coleman

1. Joining cast of Saturday Night Live as a Tina Fey impersonator.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x8509335

Winx's photo
Sat 07/04/09 10:37 PM
laugh

Winx's photo
Sat 07/04/09 11:52 PM
Interesting.

JUNEAU, Alaska – Outgoing Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin on Saturday laid the groundwork to take on a larger, national role after leaving state government, citing a "higher calling" with the aim of uniting the country along conservative lines.

A day after surprising even her closest friends by announcing she would step down as Alaska governor more than a year before her term was up, the controversial hockey mom was still keeping details of her future plans under wrap. But in a statement posted on Palin's Facebook account, she suggested that she had bigger plans and a national agenda she planned to push after she resigns at the end of the month.

"I am now looking ahead and how we can advance this country together with our values of less government intervention, greater energy independence, stronger national security, and much-needed fiscal restraint," she said.

Palin also cast herself as a victim and blasted the media, calling the response to her announcement "predictable" and out of touch.

"How sad that Washington and the media will never understand; it's about country," the statement said. "And though it's honorable for countless others to leave their positions for a higher calling and without finishing a term, of course we know by now, for some reason a different standard applies for the decisions I make."

Palin's personal spokeswoman, Meghan Stapleton, confirmed to The Associated Press that the Facebook posting was written by the governor.

The abruptness of her announcement and the mystery surrounding her plans has fed widespread speculation. But Palin attorney Thomas Van Flein on Saturday warned legal action may be taken against bloggers and publications that reprint what he calls fraudulent claims.

"To the extent several websites, most notably liberal Alaska blogger Shannyn Moore, are now claiming as 'fact' that Governor Palin resigned because she is 'under federal investigation' for embezzlement or other criminal wrongdoing, we will be exploring legal options this week to address such defamation," Van Flein said in a statement. "This is to provide notice to Ms. Moore, and those who re-publish the defamation, such as Huffington Post, MSNBC, the New York Times and The Washington Post, that the Palins will not allow them to propagate defamatory material without answering to this in a court of law."

He also told the Anchorage Daily News that Palin wasn't in any criminal legal jeopardy.

"I can say definitively I am aware of no criminal investigation whatsoever involving Sarah Palin. Zero," he said.

Palin has kept a low profile since her abrupt announcement Friday at a hastily called news conference at her home in suburban Wasilla, outside Anchorage. All of her public communication since then has been on the social networking sites Facebook and Twitter, or through statements released by her office.

At the same time, Palin informed her spokesman David Murrow early Saturday that someone using the name "exgovsarahpalin" on Twitter was spreading a false rumor that there was to be a party at her suburban home in Wasilla, outside Anchorage. Palin was afraid her home would be mobbed, and security was dispatched, Murrow said.

With only a few weeks before she steps down on July 26, and Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell takes her place, the governor spent the Fourth of July weekend in the state capital, Juneau, but was only spotted briefly on the sidelines of the city's parade.

She had been invited to ride in a convertible, as she did last year, but never told organizers whether she would attend.

Juneau parade director Jean Sztuk said officials drew up banners in case Palin showed and was willing to take part.

As the last of the parade's clowns and marching bands headed past her, Sztuk gave up on Palin. "What governor wants to be at the end of the parade?" she asked.

Her low-profile and vague Internet messages left mounting questions about her plans for the future shrouded in mystery. Will she lay the groundwork for a 2012 presidential bid? Will she find a high-profile place in the private sector, maybe on the speech circuit? Will she drop out of the limelight and focus on her five children?

Her constituents, for one, wanted to know, especially in Juneau, where she has struggled to win over residents.

"I think she owes it to Alaskans to tell us why," said state Sen. Dennis Egan, D-Juneau, the son of Alaska's first governor, Bill Egan.

Egan, hosting a 50th anniversary statehood ceremony, said he was disappointed Palin decided not to finish out her term, which was scheduled to end in 2010.

"It's sad she abandoned us at this critical time," said Egan, who was appointed by Palin to an open seat on the last day of the legislative session in April, after a protracted battle with Senate Democrats.

Palin's departure can't come soon enough for Laurel Carlton, a waitress at the Capital Cafe in the Baranof Hotel, where the city's political movers and shakers meet every morning before walking a few blocks to the Capitol.

"I think she has a game plan that's not Alaska, and hasn't been for awhile," Carlton said.

She noted Palin has a book deal, and seems headed for the national stage.

"If you're really not going to stay and do your job every day, you should leave anyway, and so the sooner the better so somebody can step in and actually do the job," Carlton said.

And as far as Carlton is concerned, Palin doesn't need to explain why she's leaving.

"We don't care. We just want her gone," she said.

Palin, whose popularity in Alaska has waned amid ongoing ethics investigations, gave many reasons for stepping down: She didn't want to be a lame-duck governor; she was tired of the tasteless jokes aimed at her five children, including her son Trig, who has Down syndrome; she felt she could do more in another, still-to-be-defined role.

Sen. John McCain didn't rule out a return to politics for his former running mate, saying Saturday he believes "she will continue to play an important leadership role in the Republican Party and our nation." He gave no other details.

Even Parnell, who plans to run for re-election after finishing out Palin's term, said he was shocked at first when he learned of his boss' decision.

"But then as she began to articulate her reasons, I began to understand better," he said. "And nobody — unless they've been in her position and understood what she has gone through and dealt with and who she is as a person — really understands."

no photo
Sun 07/05/09 07:24 AM

Interesting.

JUNEAU, Alaska – Outgoing Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin on Saturday laid the groundwork to take on a larger, national role after leaving state government, citing a "higher calling" with the aim of uniting the country along conservative lines.

A day after surprising even her closest friends by announcing she would step down as Alaska governor more than a year before her term was up, the controversial hockey mom was still keeping details of her future plans under wrap. But in a statement posted on Palin's Facebook account, she suggested that she had bigger plans and a national agenda she planned to push after she resigns at the end of the month.

"I am now looking ahead and how we can advance this country together with our values of less government intervention, greater energy independence, stronger national security, and much-needed fiscal restraint," she said.

Palin also cast herself as a victim and blasted the media, calling the response to her announcement "predictable" and out of touch.

"How sad that Washington and the media will never understand; it's about country," the statement said. "And though it's honorable for countless others to leave their positions for a higher calling and without finishing a term, of course we know by now, for some reason a different standard applies for the decisions I make."

Palin's personal spokeswoman, Meghan Stapleton, confirmed to The Associated Press that the Facebook posting was written by the governor.

The abruptness of her announcement and the mystery surrounding her plans has fed widespread speculation. But Palin attorney Thomas Van Flein on Saturday warned legal action may be taken against bloggers and publications that reprint what he calls fraudulent claims.

"To the extent several websites, most notably liberal Alaska blogger Shannyn Moore, are now claiming as 'fact' that Governor Palin resigned because she is 'under federal investigation' for embezzlement or other criminal wrongdoing, we will be exploring legal options this week to address such defamation," Van Flein said in a statement. "This is to provide notice to Ms. Moore, and those who re-publish the defamation, such as Huffington Post, MSNBC, the New York Times and The Washington Post, that the Palins will not allow them to propagate defamatory material without answering to this in a court of law."

He also told the Anchorage Daily News that Palin wasn't in any criminal legal jeopardy.

"I can say definitively I am aware of no criminal investigation whatsoever involving Sarah Palin. Zero," he said.

Palin has kept a low profile since her abrupt announcement Friday at a hastily called news conference at her home in suburban Wasilla, outside Anchorage. All of her public communication since then has been on the social networking sites Facebook and Twitter, or through statements released by her office.

At the same time, Palin informed her spokesman David Murrow early Saturday that someone using the name "exgovsarahpalin" on Twitter was spreading a false rumor that there was to be a party at her suburban home in Wasilla, outside Anchorage. Palin was afraid her home would be mobbed, and security was dispatched, Murrow said.

With only a few weeks before she steps down on July 26, and Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell takes her place, the governor spent the Fourth of July weekend in the state capital, Juneau, but was only spotted briefly on the sidelines of the city's parade.

She had been invited to ride in a convertible, as she did last year, but never told organizers whether she would attend.

Juneau parade director Jean Sztuk said officials drew up banners in case Palin showed and was willing to take part.

As the last of the parade's clowns and marching bands headed past her, Sztuk gave up on Palin. "What governor wants to be at the end of the parade?" she asked.

Her low-profile and vague Internet messages left mounting questions about her plans for the future shrouded in mystery. Will she lay the groundwork for a 2012 presidential bid? Will she find a high-profile place in the private sector, maybe on the speech circuit? Will she drop out of the limelight and focus on her five children?

Her constituents, for one, wanted to know, especially in Juneau, where she has struggled to win over residents.

"I think she owes it to Alaskans to tell us why," said state Sen. Dennis Egan, D-Juneau, the son of Alaska's first governor, Bill Egan.

Egan, hosting a 50th anniversary statehood ceremony, said he was disappointed Palin decided not to finish out her term, which was scheduled to end in 2010.

"It's sad she abandoned us at this critical time," said Egan, who was appointed by Palin to an open seat on the last day of the legislative session in April, after a protracted battle with Senate Democrats.

Palin's departure can't come soon enough for Laurel Carlton, a waitress at the Capital Cafe in the Baranof Hotel, where the city's political movers and shakers meet every morning before walking a few blocks to the Capitol.

"I think she has a game plan that's not Alaska, and hasn't been for awhile," Carlton said.

She noted Palin has a book deal, and seems headed for the national stage.

"If you're really not going to stay and do your job every day, you should leave anyway, and so the sooner the better so somebody can step in and actually do the job," Carlton said.

And as far as Carlton is concerned, Palin doesn't need to explain why she's leaving.

"We don't care. We just want her gone," she said.

Palin, whose popularity in Alaska has waned amid ongoing ethics investigations, gave many reasons for stepping down: She didn't want to be a lame-duck governor; she was tired of the tasteless jokes aimed at her five children, including her son Trig, who has Down syndrome; she felt she could do more in another, still-to-be-defined role.

Sen. John McCain didn't rule out a return to politics for his former running mate, saying Saturday he believes "she will continue to play an important leadership role in the Republican Party and our nation." He gave no other details.

Even Parnell, who plans to run for re-election after finishing out Palin's term, said he was shocked at first when he learned of his boss' decision.

"But then as she began to articulate her reasons, I began to understand better," he said. "And nobody — unless they've been in her position and understood what she has gone through and dealt with and who she is as a person — really understands."



Uniting the country along conservative lines. She didn't learn much from the campaign now did she. Folks like Palin think they live in a universe all by themselves. Do us all a favor, Palin. Run for the presidency. Unless we have forgotten the laugh a minute BS of the Bush junior campaign by then, she doesn't have a snow ball's chance in hell.


ThomasJB's photo
Sun 07/05/09 08:17 AM
Some info and speculation from those evil liberal bloggers:


By Brad Friedman on 7/3/2009 1:53PM

EXCLUSIVE: PALIN RESIGNATION 'DAMAGE CONTROL' FOR COMING 'ICEBERG SCANDAL' ... MORE: EMBEZZLEMENT INDICTMENTS COMING?

UPDATED: Alaskan reporter Shannyn Moore offers The BRAD BLOG hints about reasons for Alaska Gov's resignation
FURTHER UPDATE: Sources say embezzlement scandal, federal indictments may soon break concerning use of Wasilla Sport Complex building materials for Palin's home...

[See update below for exclusive source details from Alaska...FURTHER UPDATE now added below: AK sources say 'embezzlement' scandal related to Palin's house, federal indictments may be in offing. MUCH MORE now added below...

UPDATE 7/4: Palin issues rebuttals, legal threats...]

Palin resigns. She was to have been in office until 2010. Something else is going on here above and beyond what she's saying, though I don't know what yet. Josh Marshall seems to agree, noting in his "first signs of what happened" coverage:
[T]his clearly happened so quickly that Palin hasn't even had a chance to come up with a coherent cover story for her resignation. ... Remember that based on the public record, Palin is a wildly unethical public official, guilty at a minimum of numerous instances of abusing her authority as governor. And a lot of very damaging information has come out about her in the last few days --- though mainly embarrassing information about her character rather than new evidence of bad acts. I would not be surprised if this latest round of revelations shook something else loose that we haven't heard about yet."

I'd expect another shoe to drop very soon here...Looking into it...More shortly...

UPDATE: Alaskan Sarah Palin authority (and occasional BRAD BLOG guest blogger) Shannyn Moore, who broke the news at HuffPo today, tells me she believes, with good reason, that there is an "iceberg scandal that's about to break. She's doing damage control."

She says Palin is "resigning as part of damage control" due to a scandal that is "not of a family nature." ...

"The governor would not be able to continue her job when it comes out," she told me on the phone just now, before adding: "Why would Mark Sanford not resign, but Sarah Palin did? Her family didn't even know about the resignation until they were standing with her by the lake" when she made her announcement.

Yes. It seems another shoe, apparently a big one, may indeed be ready to drop, perhaps within the next week or so. Perhaps earlier now that everyone will be poking around up there, according to the folks I'm hearing from in AK.

FURTHER UPDATE: Okay, I've now been able to get independent information from multiple sources that all of this precedes what are said to be possible federal indictments against Palin, concerning an embezzlement scandal related to the building of Palin's house and the Wasilla Sports Complex, built during her tenure as Mayor. Both structures, it is said, feature the "same windows, same wood, same products." Federal investigators have been looking into this for some time, and indictments could be imminent, according to the Alaska sources.

The BRAD BLOG has not been able to receive confirm from any federal sources on this. Our information comes from local Alaskans who follow Palin, and who have been keeping an eye on this for some time, while keeping it quiet at the request of federal investigators.

* * *

LATE UPDATE: It appears that the questions about Palin's house and the sports complex made their way through the media and blogosphere during the campaign last October. "Glic" over at DailyKos has collected some of the notable coverage from back then, including these details from the Village Voice on 10/8/08...

THE $12.5 MILLION sports complex and hockey rink that is the lasting monument to Palin's two terms as Wasilla mayor is also a monument to the kind of insider politics that dismays Americans of both parties. Six months before Palin stepped down as mayor in October 2002, the city awarded nearly a half-million-dollar contract to design the biggest project in Wasilla history to Kumin Associates. Blase Burkhart was the Kumin architect on the job-the son of Roy Burkhart, who is frequently described as a "mentor" of Palin and was head of the local Republican Party (his wife, June, who also advised Palin, is the national committeewoman). Asked if the contract was a favor, Roy Burkhart, who contributed to her campaign in the same time frame that his son got the contract, said: "I really don't know." Palin then named Blase Burkhart to a seven-member builder-selection committee that picked Howdie Inc., a mostly residential contractor owned at the time by Howard Nugent. Formally awarded the contract a couple of weeks after Palin left office, Nugent has donated $4,000 to Palin campaigns. Two competitors protested the process that led to Nugent's contract.

...

A list of subcontractors on the job, obtained by the Voice, includes many with Palin ties. One was Spenard Builders Supply, the state's leading supplier of wood, floor, roof, and other "pre-engineered components." In addition to being a sponsor of Todd Palin's snow-machine team that has earned tens of thousands for the Palin family, Spenard hired Sarah Palin to do a statewide television commercial in 2004. When the Palins began building a new family home off Lake Lucille in 2002—at the same time that Palin was running for lieutenant governor and in her final months as mayor—Spenard supplied the materials, according to Antoine Bricks, who works in its Wasilla office.

...

Todd Palin told Fox News that he built the two-story, 3,450-square-foot, four-bedroom, four-bath, wood house himself, with the help of contractors he described as "buddies." As mayor, Sarah Palin blocked an effort to require the filing of building permits in the wide-open city, and there is no public record of who the "buddies" were.

Also...Max Blumenthal at Daily Beast asks "Did a Scandal Sink the U.S.S. Palin?":
One logical place to start looking is the affair that has Alaska political circles buzzing: an alleged scandal centered around a building contractor, Spenard Building Supplies, with close ties to Palin and her husband, Todd.

Many political observers in Alaska are fixated on rumors that federal investigators have been seizing paperwork from SBS in recent months, searching for evidence that Palin and her husband Todd steered lucrative contracts to the well-connected company in exchange for gifts like the construction of their home on pristine Lake Lucille in 2002.

Blumenthal goes on to report that "Prior to her sudden announcement, Palin gave every indication that she intended to complete her tenure as governor," before detailing her recent activity suggesting exactly that.

Anderson Cooper on CNN just had Palin's top spokesperson, Meghan Stapleton, on by phone. She was in New York tonight, while Palin was resigning in Alaska. We report, you decide...




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