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Appaling!!! How is it possible for such things to still take place and be encouraged by the Govenor of Alaska? I mean it is unbelievable!
Here is an interview that Amy Goodman of Democracy Now did today with a woman who has been following Palin's career since she was a Mayor. http://www.democracynow.org/2008/9/4/alaska_gov_sarah_palin_accepts_gop

Thank you Suza for posting this!!!

Right on Sarah !

Now if only Governor Palin had proposed paying a $150 bounty for the left foreleg of each bee farmer!

No, not bee farmers -- just hateful mean-spirited trolls.

September 4, 2008, 4:53 pm
Palin Good for the Democrats, Too
By Michael Luo

Turns out Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s speech did not just electrify the Republican faithful inside the Xcel Energy Center Wednesday night.

Senator Barack Obama’s presidential campaign is reporting that it has taken in $8 million over the Internet since Mrs. Palin’s speech, in which she tore into Mr. Obama.

By Thursday afternoon, more than 130,000 donors had kicked in, and the Obama campaign is on pace to collect $10 million by the time Senator John McCain takes the stage tonight.

Even rednecks don't want a redneck "taking that 3 am call"! Or at least, not this one.

Seriously, I have never seen such a cross-section of people sending so many emails expressing various degrees of shock about this choice. Choosing Palin may just be the final straw for the Republican business base. McCain's unintended consequence here may well be to permanently send businesspeople over to the Democrats, leaving lots of empty space in a GOP tent that has nothing more than a couple of prayer meetings left.

This abominably stupid choice of VP was the death knell for McCain's campaign. He may as well stay home and skip the acceptance speech.

Is it me or does anyone else think that Palin looks like an ad for LensCrafters?

You are right on! Selling glasses would be a great job for her.

She's a dead ringer for Tina Fey!

Totally true!

Alaska Lawmakers to Seek Subpoenas in Palin Inquiry
By PETER S. GOODMAN and MICHAEL MOSS

ANCHORAGE — Senior lawmakers in the Alaska State Legislature said Friday that they would seek subpoenas to compel seven witnesses to answer questions in an ethics inquiry into whether Gov. Sarah Palin, the Republican nominee for vice president, improperly put pressure on state officials to dismiss her former brother-in-law, a state trooper.

The lawmakers overseeing the inquiry said the investigator would deliver a final report by Oct. 10 to allow both sides ample time to respond before the presidential election. Ms. Palin, after pledging for weeks that she would cooperate with the investigation, has in recent days begun to challenge the Legislature’s jurisdiction in the inquiry.

The list of people the investigator is seeking to question — including a top Palin aide, the state personnel director and the cabinet-level commissioner of administration — indicates that the inquiry is focusing on accusations that the governor’s office unlawfully breached the personnel file of the trooper, Mike Wooten. He has had a particularly contentious divorce and custody battle with Ms. Palin’s sister.

Separately, the state troopers’ union lodged an ethics complaint this week against Ms. Palin and members of her administration, alleging that they had unlawfully gained access to Mr. Wooten’s personnel file.

The pursuit of the subpoenas, which are scheduled for a vote before a joint hearing of the Alaska House and Senate Judiciary Committees next Friday, increased tensions in the ethics controversy embroiling Ms. Palin as she seeks to become vice president.

The case seems certain to play out under the glare of the presidential campaign and amid considerable rancor between the governor’s office and the Legislature. Lawmakers said they were forced to seek subpoenas after the seven witnesses abruptly canceled appointments this week to be deposed by the Legislature’s investigator, Stephen Branchflower, a longtime Anchorage prosecutor.

The lawmakers asserted that Ms. Palin’s lawyer, Thomas V. Van Flein, had forbidden members of her administration to have any contact with the investigator.

“That is a misrepresentation of what is going on,” Mr. Van Flein said. “There are several witnesses who have their own lawyers, and they took their own positions.”

He added, “My client is just waiting to tell her side of the story, but we’re not going to do it secretly, in a closed room.”

The ethics controversy stems from Ms. Palin’s dismissal in July of Walt Monegan, the public safety commissioner, in what he has said was retaliation for his refusal to dismiss Mr. Wooten. Ms. Palin has accused Mr. Wooten of threatening her family and drinking while driving his patrol car. The governor denies that Mr. Monegan’s dismissal was related to Mr. Wooten’s case.

The increasingly adversarial relationship between the lawmakers supervising the inquiry and Ms. Palin’s office stands in sharp contrast with the spirit of cooperation she had promised to bring to the inquiry, even as she questioned the need for an outside investigator.

“I’m happy to comply, to cooperate,” Ms. Palin told the Anchorage television station KTUU in late July. “I have absolutely nothing to hide, no problem with an independent investigation.”

In early August she said, “We are very, very open to answering any questions anybody has of me or my administrators.”

But on Aug. 29, the day that Sen. John McCain, the Republican presidential nominee, named Ms. Palin to his ticket, her lawyer, Mr. Van Flein, sent a letter to the state-appointed investigator asserting that, though he would cooperate with the Legislature’s inquiry, the accusations should be investigated by the state personnel board.

According to the letter, obtained by The New York Times, Mr. Van Flein argued that state law made the personnel board “properly vested with primary jurisdiction.”

Ms. Palin took the extraordinary step Tuesday of filing an ethics complaint against herself, making the matter fall within the bailiwick of the personnel board. Mr. Van Flein then asked the Legislature to drop its inquiry.

The three members of the personnel board are appointed by the governor and confirmed by the Legislature. The proceedings of the board are conducted in secret, in contrast with the public deliberations of the Legislature.

“It seems obvious that the governor’s approach to the legislative investigation changed radically after she was chosen to be the Republicans’ vice-presidential nominee,” said Mike Doogan, a Democratic state lawmaker from Anchorage.

In a letter to the chairman of the legislative panel that authorized the investigation, Mr. Coghill focused on comments Mr. French had made in the press suggesting that the inquiry was “likely to be damaging to the administration” and suggesting that it could lead to impeachment.

Mr. French dismissed suggestions that partisanship and the injection of the presidential race were coloring the investigation. He noted that 8 of the 12 members of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees who were to vote on the subpoenas next week were Republicans.

The seven witnesses who would be subpoenaed include some of Ms. Palin’s primary aides. At the top of the list is Frank Bailey, who in February was recorded while telephoning a trooper commander to relay that the governor and her husband, Todd Palin, were unhappy that Mr. Wooten was still on the force.

Ms. Palin subsequently said Mr. Bailey had acted improperly, and she placed him on unpaid leave.

Mr. Bailey’s decision to cancel his deposition helped prompt the pursuit of the subpoenas, Mr. Ramras said.

“We took great offense that Frank Bailey bailed out of the interview at the moment he was scheduled,” Mr. Ramras said. “In elementary school terms, we feel like he started it.” The others on the list to receive subpoenas, Mr. French said, are Dianne Kiesel, the former director of the Division of Personnel and Labor Relations; Nicki Neal, the current director of the division, which oversees the personnel board; Brad Thompson, director of risk management; Annette Kreitzer, the commissioner of the Department of Administration, a cabinet position; Karen Rehfeld, the state budget chief; and Kris Perry, director of Ms. Palin’s Anchorage office.

The lawmakers said they would not send the governor a subpoena, owing to her public pledge to cooperate and to her busy schedule.

Peter S. Goodman reported from Anchorage, and Michael Moss from New York.

Let us hope the truth prevails--sooner, rather than later.

Good editorial/overview from NYT's opinion page.

Palin and McCain’s Shotgun Marriage