Posts Tagged ‘alaska’
“The Oft-Defeated”: Dishonesty in Palin Propaganda Film Starts with Title
June 25, 2011
The movie about herself that Sarah will travel to Iowa to watch on Tuesday–unless she cancels her trip–is called “The Undefeated.”
How could a serious person, even a serious conservative, use that title for a movie about Sarah?
She was defeated, most famously, in her run for vice president in 2008.
Prior to that, she was defeated in her run for the Republican nomination for lieutenant governor of Alaska in 2002.
Those are two defeats in tries for elective office.
But Sarah’s history of defeat is much more extensive.
She was defeated in the Miss Alaska pageant.
She was defeated in four different attempts to graduate from college before she finally managed it at University of Idaho.
She was defeated in her attempt to get a creationist majority elected to the Wasilla School Board in the early 1990’s.
She was defeated in her attempt to have abortion banned at the Mat-Su Valley hospital.
Before her election as Wasilla mayor, she was defeated when she applied for a position as dispatcher with the Palmer, Alaska, police department and was not hired.
After her election as Wasilla mayor, she was defeated in her attempt to appoint Alaska Independence Party and John Birch Society member Steve Stoll to the city council.
As mayor, she was defeated in her attempt to fire Wasilla librarian Mary Ellen Emmons in 1997, a move that nearly led to her recall.
As mayor, she was also defeated in the courts when she tried to build a new sports arena on land the city did not own—a defeat for which Wasilla is still paying.
She was defeated in her first attempt to hold down an appointed job, when she had to bail from her post on the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission in 2004, due to her inability to grasp the complexities of the commission’s work.
Mike Miller, the ultra-right wing candidate she supported against Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski in the 2004 GOP primary for U.S. Senate, was defeated.
As governor of Alaska, she was defeated in her attempt to have her ex-brother in law Mike Wooten fired from the state police.
Also as governor, she was defeated in her attempt to require teenagers to obtain parental consent for abortions.
Also as governor she was defeated in her attempt to have the state pay the expenses involved in her bringing her children with her on political trips, and her image suffered an even greater defeat when it was disclosed that she’d been billing state taxpayers a per diem charge for the more than three hundred days she spent at her Wasilla home while serving as governor.
Her reputation as an ethical reformer suffered another defeat when a state-appointed investigator found that she’d abused the power of her office in her attempt to have Wooten fired.
In 2009, she was defeated in her attempt to install her former personal attorney, Wayne Anthony Ross, as Alaska attorney general.
Subsequent to her resignation, it’s become clear that her strongest initiative as governor–the Alaska Gasline Inducement Act (AGIA)–has proven a costly failure.
And last summer Sarah was defeated in her attempt to bully me into vacating the premises I’d rented next door to her on Lake Lucille.
Not to mention how many Tea Party candidates she supported last fall were defeated. (Anybody remember Christine O’Donnell? How about Joe Miller, in her own (former) state of Alaska?)
How many defeats is that?
More than enough to make an utter mockery of the title of the hagiographic propaganda film that she hopes–and no doubt prays–will pull her national political career out of its terminal free-fall.
Posted in Breitbart, Joe McGinniss, Mike Wooten, Sarah Palin, Tea Party, The Rogue, Uncategorized, Walt Monegan, Wasilla | 
Tags: abortion, abuse of power, alaska, lies iowa agia, palin movie, the undefeated | 
112 Comments »
Sarah Scrubs Summer Plans because of JURY DUTY???
June 23, 2011
I was called for jury duty in May, 2010. Because I knew I’d be in Alaska, I requested a postponement, which was granted automatically.
I was called again for May, 2011. I arrived at the courthouse at 8 a.m. and sat in a room with other prospective jurors for two and a half hours. Then a judge came in and said she’d just dismissed the case our panel had been scheduled to hear. I was home by 11 a.m. and not subject to being called again for at least three years.
Sarah can’t go to Sudan because she’s been summoned for jury duty?
The lies just get bigger and bigger. She’s living inside a hot air balloon for which she supplies the hot air.
But you know what?
Balloons burst.
I’ll be back in Wasilla in September, Sarah. Maybe I can drop by to say hello and grab a piece of that blueberry pie you promised me via Facebook last summer. If you lock the kids in the basement, they’ll be safe. We can chat about how your jury duty went.
Among other things…
Posted in Joe McGinniss, Sarah Palin, The Rogue, Wasilla | Tags: alaska, blueberry pie, jury duty, pathological liar | 101 Comments »
Sarah Cancels Sudan Trip & Bus Tour
June 22, 2011
As the Washington Post reports, Sarah has cancelled her ill-advised journey to Sudan for the July 9 independence ceremony of South Sudan.
And as was widely reported earlier, she’s also abandoned her U.S. bus tour after just the one leg that ended with her embarrassing blunder about Paul Revere’s ride.
The excuse, such as it is, seems to be that it’s prime fishing season in Alaska.
But that makes no sense. Sarah hates fishing, and only pretends to like it when in front of a television camera.
And it’s not like Alaska’s current nineteen hours of daylight per day is a new phenomenon she just felt she couldn’t pass up.
Something has thrown her badly off course, and it’s not just publication of Bristol’s trashy ghost-written “memoir.”
All guesses as to what it might be are welcome.
Hey, wait a minute, do you suppose she’s p-r-e-g-n-a-n-t?
In any event, at least this summer she doesn’t have to worry about me watching her mow her lawn with Trig on her back.
Instead, I’m planning to attend next week’s Rosanne Cash concert at Bard College.
Posted in 2012, Greta Van Susteren, Joe McGinniss, Sarah Palin, The Rogue | Tags: alaska, bard college, bus tour, fishing, red hook, rosanne cash, south sudan, sudan | 181 Comments »
THE ROGUE’s last chapter almost done–contest winner announced next week
June 1, 2011
My thanks to the many who contributed suggestions for my last chapter in response to my announcement of the contest on May 17.
The blue-ribbon panel of judges (whose identities I’ve kept private to protect them from the temptations of bribery) has finished its work and given me a short list of five finalists.
As I wrap up work on the last chapter this week, I’ll choose the winner of the $250 prize. Autographed copies of The Rogue will go to all five who made the short list.
Can anyone imagine how happy I am to be almost finished with this book?
I’ll be able to post the full jacket here soon–Random House/Crown has done a great job in every way, from copy-editing to legal review to jacket design. I’ll, of course, be keeping you all updated on the process as we move toward Sept. 20 publication. I can’t disclose anything about publicity appearances yet, except to say that I’ll be doing network TV from New York, Washington and Los Angeles, as well as–you betcha!–heading back to Alaska.
Transportation will be by airplane. Sorry, no bus tour. Nor will I bring my grandchildren along as human shields.
Posted in Joe McGinniss, Sarah Palin, The Rogue | Tags: alaska, bus tours, crown publishing, random house, rogue publicity tour, the rogue, the rogue book jacket | 36 Comments »
Honestly now…//UPDATE: New neighbors offer advice via NYTimes
May 27, 2011
…if you had the choice of spending the summer on an air-conditioned bus (or, more likely, on an air-conditioned private plane that could drop you at a private airfield so you could board the bus minutes before your next destination and pretend to have been on it all along) or here:
where summertime temps reach 120 and where you can’t putter in your “little garden,” or mow the lawn with Trig on your back, and where there’s no “children’s play area” (unless you want to turn them into lizards), and where you yourself would fry in five minutes in your “shorts and tank top,” and where there’s no “family swimming hole,” not to mention no place for Todd to land his float plane…well, which would you choose?
Not to mention that your Political Action Committee can hardly ask people to donate for you to stay home.
Sarah tried that once, charging the state of Alaska per-diem for working out of her house on Lake Lucille, claiming that she was entitled because Wasilla wasn’t her “duty station.”
No wonder that this year she’s opting for the bus. Take a good look at that house and property (and, yes, that’s the compound she just bought and is moving into, even erecting a new fence around it): she spends a summer there and by September we’ll be calling her Osarah Bin Laden.
There’ll always be time next year for her new TLC show: Sarah Palin’s Arizona.
UPDATE:
NY Times (and who’s more “lamestream” than them?) offers Sarah advice from her new Scottsdale neighbors.
The one I feel sorry for is Monica Rahman,
who says that even though “the commotion was scaring her horses,” she’s “excited to have a new neighbor.”
The well-intentioned Ms. Rahman says she “plans to bring cookies to the Palins.”
I hope she’s ready to leave them at the outer gate. Having been a Palin neighbor, I’m pretty sure she won’t be welcomed with open arms.
Especially not after having spoken to the New York Times.
Good luck, Monica! Just check in here if you feel you need advice.
Posted in 2012, Joe McGinniss, Palin children, Sarah Palin, The Rogue, Todd Palin, Trig Palin | Tags: 2012 gop candidates, alaska, arizona, bus tours, cookies, extreme heat, GOP, GOP primaries, horses, lake lucille, monica rahman, neighbors, sarah palin 2012 campaign, sarah palin bus tour, sarahPAC, Scottsdale, the learning channel | 78 Comments »
Walt Monegan tells more truth about Sarah Palin
May 19, 2011
In an interview with Alex De Marban of Alaska Newspapers, Inc., which publishes six regional weeklies, Walt Monegan, Alaska’s Director of Public Safety, whom Sarah fired in 2008 because he refused to dismiss her ex-brother-in-law, Mike Wooten, from the Alaska State Troopers, recounts the history of his interactions with her.
His bottom line: “If she would have said, ‘Walt, I don’t like your hair. You’re outta here,’ that would have made more sense.”
Sarah Palin fired Walt Monegan in an act of petulance and vindictiveness because he would not commit a wrong she insisted on.
I write in considerable detail about the Palin family campaign–in which Todd played a leading role–to have Mike Wooten fired from his state trooper job because he and Sarah’s sister, Molly, were in the midst of a bitter divorce.
Sarah’s abuses of power in her extended campaign to have Wooten’s head served to her and Todd on a silver platter created the scandal known as “Troopergate.”
As I write in THE ROGUE,
The Troopergate imbroglio is worth examining in detail because Sarah’s actions, and those of her husband on her behalf, expose so clearly the vengeful, obsessive nature of the person who lurks behind the mask of sexiness and chirpy insouciance.
And I’m not referring to Walt Monegan.
He doesn’t wear masks.
I also write:
Sarah said she’d fired Monegan because he’d displayed a “rogue mentality.” Sarah apparently felt that “going rogue” was acceptable only when she did it herself.
I got to know Walt and his wife, Terry, last summer. There are not two finer people in Alaska.
Over coffee in Eagle River one morning, Walt told me that Sarah “just thought she should be able to do anything she wanted to, and that anybody working for her had an obligation to help…Maybe she hadn’t realized there were limits on her power. Maybe she thought being governor meant she could do anything she wanted to anyone. I loved my job and I’m sorry she took it from me, but I’ve never had a moment’s doubt about what I did.”
Walt Monegan combines intelligence, dedication and integrity to a degree that makes him very special.
Although he grew increasingly disillusioned, he remained loyal to Sarah Palin until she and Todd pressured him to betray his principles: something he would not do.
In her petulance and vengefulness, Sarah deprived the state of Alaska of the services of a remarkable man.
You can read much more about Walt Monegan in THE ROGUE.
Posted in Joe McGinniss, Mike Wooten, Sarah Palin, The Rogue, Todd Palin, Walt Monegan | Tags: abuse of power, alaska, alaska newspapers inc., alaska state troopers, alex de marban, divorce, going rogue, lies, mike wooten, molly heath, molly mccann, molly wooten, rogue, rogue mentality, Sarah Palin, sexiness, the rogue, Todd Palin, troopergate, vendettas, walt monegan | 52 Comments »
Dateline, Wasilla: HS Principal Bans Song Because Gay Man Wrote It//UPDATE: Will they ban the movie in Wasilla, too?///UPDATE 1.1: Which One Is Gay?
May 12, 2011
WASILLA HS STUDENTS REHEARSING “BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY”
The Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman reports today that the principal of Wasilla High School told members of the school’s symphonic jazz choir that they would not be allowed to perform the 1975 Queen song “Bohemian Rhapsody” because Freddy Mercury, who wrote it, was gay.
In the face of student protests, and fearing ACLU involvement, the principal backed down–to a point.
The choir will be allowed to perform the song, but only in a censored version, without lyrics the principal deems objectionable.
Three points about this:
1) Bravo to Wasilla High seniors for fighting back.
2) Wasilla High has a symphonic jazz choir? Humph. They never had that sort of thing in Sarah Palin’s day.
3) In Wasilla, in the Year of Our Lord 2011, there can be controversy about a song simply because the songwriter was gay. Sarah Palin is, in every way, a daughter of Wasilla. If this is what it’s like in 2011, imagine the ethos in the 1970’s and early 1980’s, when she grew up there.
Actually, you won’t have to imagine, because I describe the atmosphere in detail in THE ROGUE.
UPDATE:
Sacha Baron Cohen (“Borat”) will portray Freddy Mercury in a new movie being written by Peter Morgan, who wrote “The Queen” and “The Last King of Scotland.” Robert De Niro’s Tribeca Productions is producing it.
I’m sure my friend Verne Rupright, current mayor of Wasilla, will take no action to prevent its showing in Wasilla theaters, but it might have been a different story back in the days of Sarah Palin’s mayoral regime.
Even so, the question remains: will Wasilla High students be permitted to attend?
Two further notes about Mercury: he was actually bisexual, not homosexual, and (here’s where it gets truly sinister) his real name was Farrokh Bulsara, and he was a Parsi Zoroastrian born in Zanzibar. That alone should be enough to ban his music from Wasilla High playlists forevermore. Can’t those kids sing songs written by Americans? I wonder if Chuck Heath will weigh in on this.
UPDATE 1.1
The estimable Alaskan blogger, composer, musician and music teacher, Phil Munger, posts this photo of Wasilla High School principal Dwight Probasco, who banned Freddie Mercury’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” and another non-hetero British singer and songwriter, Elton John, and poses the question: Separated at Birth?
Phil also writes:
“My feathers are ruffled. If Wasillians are going to be consistent, they’ll need to ban the following composers and their work:
Samuel Barber – No more Adagio for Strings, Dwight
Leonard Bernstein – Don’t you dare play anything from West Side Story, my friend
Aaron Copland – Watch out for those hidden messages in Fanfare for the Common Man
Noël Coward – no more Mad Dogs & Englishmen
Charles Tomlinson Griffes – careful, Dwight, a piece for flute or piano might sneak into a solo and ensemble contest
Elton John – empty the sky, Dwight. Right now!
Dave Koz – he was a hit in Anchorage, but don’t play his version ofWhite Christmas at WHS
k.d. lang – put her in Shadowland forever, Dwight
Gian Carlo Menotti – those little operas have been done at thousands of high schools, but keep away from Dwight
Cole Porter – there go about 500 really good songs, Dwight
Stephen Sondheim – Gypsy, West Side Story, A Little Night Music orCompany. Oh – wait! West Side Story’s already banned because of Lenny
Billy Strayhorn – Can’t Take the A Train if you’re a WHS Warrior
Peter Tchaikovsky – What was the secret message in The Nutcracker, Dwight?”
Oh, and by the way, Principal Probasco, Phil Munger isn’t gay, so maybe you’ll let him attend the graduation performance of the censored version of “Bohemian Rhapsody?”
Posted in Chuck Heath, Joe McGinniss, right wing, Sarah Palin | Tags: "the last king of scotland", "the queen", alaska, bohemian rhapsody, dwight probasco, education in america, freddy mercury, gay, gay composers, gays, graduation, homophobia, parsi, phil munger, progressive alaska, queen, robert de niro, sacha baron cohen, Sarah Palin, verne rupright, wasilla, wasilla high school, zanaibar, zoroastrians | 88 Comments »
