John Coale, the man behind Palin's Defense Fund, says she only incurred $100,000 from ethics charges. Another Palin lie bites the dust.

One of the main reasons Sarah Palin is stepping down as governor, say associates, is her large, unpaid legal bill. Her successor, Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell, says she is worried about "the cost of all the ethics investigations and the like." But is that really the reason? John Coale, a Washington lawyer who helped Palin set up a legal-defense fund and PAC, tells NEWSWEEK the fund is "well on its way" to paying off $500,000 in legal debt from the campaign and another $100,000 in bills incurred later, leaving questions about how big a part money woes played in her decision to resign.

Well so much for Palin's claim that her legal bills were in excess of $500,000 dollars due to ethics charges. And her ridiculous claim that those costs are the reason for her stepping down are also bullshit because as Coale says her Defense Fund is "well on its way" to paying them off.

So just like Margaret Carlson said on Countdown last week, Sarah Palin has had NO out of pocket expenses due to the ethics charges. NONE!

You know I am beginning to believe that Sarah Palin could not tell the truth if you put a gun to her head.

New Rules from last night's Real Time with Bill Maher.

It starts with a little Sarah Palin joke for those among you who are addicts.

An ironic Palin clip recently discoverd by Dennis Zaki.

Sarah Palin on "hurt feelings" from Dennis Zaki on Vimeo.

Oh yeah! Sarah Palin certainly demonstrated her "thick skin" by taking offense at a joke by David Letterman, calling Levi Johnston a liar, and getting into pissing contests with Alaskan bloggers. Which she then lost.

Good job Dennis!

Walter Cronkite has passed away at the age of 92.

Cronkite is the voice that comes into my head when I think of the milestones that took place during my youth. From the Kennedy assassination to the Moon landing "Uncle" Walt was the man who delivered into our living rooms both the good, as well as the not so good, news.

And no matter how bad the news was he made you feel that competent people were aware of the problem and that everything would be alright.

(I cannot tell you how bizarre it feels to follow a post about that whiny little bitch below with the news of this great man's passing. People like Glenn Beck took what Cronkite made magic and reduced it to a sideshow.)

Who listens to this idiot?

Before summer arrived my gym time was about 12:30 to 1:30 or 2:00. So when I got ready to do my cardio workout I was always confronted with this boy-man on the television who always seemed on the verge of tears.

I learned that his name was Glenn Beck, and that beyond all common sense that he was actually becoming MORE popular.

But even I am surprised by this embarrassing outburst.



Of course in this "era of the internet" somebody has already used Glenn's hysterical breakdown and turned it into a heavy metal music video about, of all things, vampires. You have GOT to love the internet!



You know if THIS is who is speaking for the Right Wing then I guess they are just about done scraping the bottom of that barrel.

Shannyn Moore will be on 750 KFQD today from 2-5 or 6-9 EDT. Tune in and give her a listen!

Shannyn is filling for Alaska's version of the Pillsbury Doughboy, Dan Fagan.

You can listen to it online right here.

And you can participate by calling the show at 907.522.0750.

I think Fagan might be making a fatal mistake. Once his audience gets a listen to the funny, intelligent banter that Shannyn is famous for he may find himself without a time slot on Monday.

I am just saying.

More trouble headed Palin's way before she can make her hasty getaway.

Before Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin walks out of the governor's office, a Knoxville defense attorney wants to walk in - subpoena in hand.

Attorney Wade Davies is seeking on behalf of University of Tennessee student David C. Kernell a host of records and information from Palin and her administration in his bid to defend the 21-year-old son of a longtime Memphis Democratic politico on charges that he improperly accessed the 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee's private e-mail account during last year's campaign.

This turn of events is particularly ironic considering how Palin Twitter-gloated about this case just last month:

TN proceedings begin tomorrow re: democrat lawmaker's son's hacking my & my family's personal, private email then broadcasting them on net.
3:17 PM Jun 29th from TwitterBerry

Is it ok to hack emails? Go thru someone's mail & broadcast what you stole? Nope, not ok to most Americans.TN proceedings tomorrow to decide
3:21 PM Jun 29th from TwitterBerry

So just what kind of records are the Tennessee boy's defense team looking for?

Any that show whether Palin paid attention to privacy policies set by Yahoo for her personal e-mail account.

Any that reveal who Palin may have allowed access to the account, through which she funneled government-related information.

Any that show who in her administration could use private e-mail accounts for official business. (Oh yeah!)

All open records requests about use of those private accounts filed during Palin's tenure as governor and their outcomes. (Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy!)

Any "voluntary disclosure of e-mail addresses of family members, pictures of Gov. Palin's family, cell phone numbers of family members, dates of birth of Gov. Palin and members of her family and/or the address book for the Yahoo! e-mail account" at issue in the case. (Holy crap, please let this subpoena go through!)

Gee I wonder how many thousands of dollars the Palin administration will try to charge Tennessee for THIS extra workload?

I can hardly wait to see what new and amazing things this subpoena might reveal. Secret meetings, IRS information, baby birth dates, etc., etc., etc..

President Barack Obama speaks to the NAACP.

There are a lot of things that I am frustrated about concerning our new President.

Why is "don't ask, don't tell" still the policy of the military?

When is he going to throw out "no child left behind"?

Why is he standing in the way of the Bush administration being brought to justice?

But damn when I hear him speak it just makes me want to vote for him all over again.

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By the time he reaches the end of this speech the hairs on the back of my neck are standing straight up and I can feel my heart beat faster as I hope desperately for the change that he promises. And I know that his plate is overflowing with responsibilities, and that these things take time, but I just find myself fearful that his actions will not match the words.

But I tell myself that I need to have something that I have NEVER had before. I have to have faith.

So I am going to step outside in a few minutes and breathe deeply of the crisp Alaskan air, and allow the heat of the sun to warm my flesh, as I tell myself that every day things are getting better and that someday the damage done by both the Bush and Palin administrations will be nothing but a painful memory.

Someday.

Legislature calls special session to undo even more damage done to our state by exiting quitter and chief.

The Alaska Legislature has called itself into a special session to consider overriding Gov. Sarah Palin's veto of federal stimulus funds for energy-related projects.

Senate President Gary Stevens, R-Kodiak, said the one-day session will be Aug. 10 in Anchorage instead of the Capitol in Juneau.

Only one other special session has been held in Anchorage, in June 2007. The one-day session cost nearly $112,000, according to Pam Varni, executive director of the Legislative Affairs Agency.

Apparently this is yet another example of how Palin's quitting is going to save Alaska money.

I could spend this post railing on how full of shit everything Sarah Palin says turns out to be, but I would rather talk about the booby-trap she is leaving behind in her wake.

And that would be THIS guy.

Lawmakers also will consider approving the designee for lieutenant governor.

Palin has announced she will resign July 26, and Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell will take the oath of office at the Governor's Picnic the same day in Fairbanks.

In her announcement, Palin said Military and Veterans Affairs Commissioner Craig Campbell would become the new lieutenant governor, even though the Legislature had previously named Corrections Commissioner Joe Schmidt as the designee.

After receiving an opinion from the attorney general, Parnell on Monday named Campbell as the lieutenant governor on a temporary basis, saying he would serve in that capacity until he could be confirmed by the Legislature.

Craig Campbell is one of those oily opportunistic politicians that Alaska seems to produce at a break neck pace. He is of the same school as Don Young, Frank Murkowski, Ben Stevens, Tom Anderson, and our new mayor Dan Sullivan. These guys have little integrity and seem instead to view politics as a way to gain power and line their own pockets.

Craig Campbell sold what little integrity he had back when, after first criticizing Sarah Palin for saying she "ran the National Guard in Alaska" during the 2008 campaign, he came out and defended her statements after the McCain people had a little "talk" with him.

First he made this statement to the Boston Globe:

And while the Alaska National Guard operates a launch site for a US anti-missile system at Fort Greely, about 100 miles south of Fairbanks, the Alaskan governor is not in the site’s chain of command and has no authority over its operations, according to Maj. Gen. Craig E. Campbell, the adjutant general of the Alaska National Guard who commands the roughly 3,800 state militia members.

Yet after a trip to the McCain/Palin woodshed he goes on FOX News and tells Greta Van Susteren (yes she was carrying Palin's water even back then) this:

(You can see the full story here.)

After Campbell made these remarks he mysteriously managed to get a promotion from Major General to Lieutenant General which many of his peers believed was wholly undeserved and which he then used to bully them into submission.

Here are just a few comments which express grave concerns about Campbell's abilities and leadership style:

There are valid concerns about possible retribution for speaking out and the prospect that some will not speak out at all about the rogue Genera Campbell. He received an unprecedented and undeserved promotion to three-star ran. Guardsmen think it’s a travesty. The problem is that he forces true leaders out and surrounds himself with people who won’t outshine him. He can’t follow the leadership principles that he likes to hear himself quote. That is why he has a recruiting problem. I know of a Guardsmen who suffered retribution from him after returning from Afghanistan. He is a highly decorated Guardsman and an outstanding leader. Campbell is so self centered that he refused to recognize this soldier and instead had investigation after investigation placed on him. Campbell is a rogue General who should be investigated himself. Where is justice? I know there is a travesty of justice with this rogue General.

And then there is this:

I am one of those Guardsmen who has suffered under the Alaska Guard leadership of General Campbell. He has two sets of rules when applying to promotions. Whoever doesn’t outshine him can get ahead. You need to “kiss up” and play his game. He isn’t a leader but a self proclaimed politician.

THIS is the type of person that Sarah Palin feels should be place in the role of Lt. Governor. She has a history of placing unqualified people in leadership positions and she is certainly not going to changer her modus operandi now.

However I urge the Alaska legislators to kick Craig Campbell to the curb and select somebody who will serve the people of Alaska, and not their own selfish desire for power.

Tina Fey gets Emmy nomination for Sarah Palin impersonation!

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I was going to post about this earlier but then I saw Countdown and realized I could never have done it better. Watch and enjoy.

If the Alaska bloggers were allowed to cast their votes Tina Fey would win this Emmy hands down.

She brought so much joy into the lives of those of us on "Palin watch" that it almost took away the mental anguish we suffered at having to listen to her dizzying "word salad" and the exhaustion from the sleepless nights we endured as we attempted to keep up with the potpourri of lies that were constantly spilling from her mouth.

I said "almost".

Update: It took me awhile but I finally found my favorite Sarah Palin skits featuring Tina Fey and Amy Poehler to embed.





God I love these!

It looks like Sarah helped break the Department of Health and Social Services by forcing a competent person out and replacing them with a Palin-bot!

So I talked to my relative again this morning and asked when he thought things had gotten so difficult for the elderly in state care. He said that it was hard to put a date on it but that it seemed to him that things had really changed in the last year or year and a half.

Now that seems particularly interesting to me because of this little tidbit right here:

(Karleen) Jackson has been with the department since 2003, when she became deputy HSS commissioner in the Murkowski administration. She took over as commissioner in 2005 and was not replaced when Governor Palin took office last year. But Jackson says she recently compared notes with Palin and it was clear they had a difference of opinion. She says she offered her resignation and the governor accepted. Jackson declined to be more specific.

Now this took place on March 9, 2008. And after Jackson had cleaned out her desk, Palin replaced her with this guy:

July 24, 2008, Anchorage, Alaska - Governor Sarah Palin today announced the appointment of Bill Hogan (see above picture) as Commissioner of the Department of Health and Social Services.

“I am pleased to have Bill Hogan join the cabinet,” Governor Palin said. “With his experience and five years working for the department, he can continue promoting and protecting the health and well-being of Alaskans. Bill has already started implementing priorities for the department including battling substance abuse, promoting health and wellness, continuing with health care reform, developing a plan for caring for seniors in Alaska and meeting the needs of vulnerable Alaskans.”

It appears obvious that Bill Hogan failed miserably to accomplish that last part. So much so that the Federal government had to ride in to rescue elderly Alaskans who were being left to die alone and uncared for.

So who is this Bill Hogan guy?

Hogan holds a bachelor of arts degree in sociology from State University of New York and a master of science degree in social work from West Virginia University. Hogan has served as chair of the Alaska Mental Health Board, board member of the Alaska Community Mental Health Services Association and executive director of the New York State chapter of the National Association of Social Workers.

Well it sounds like the guy was very qualified. So how could he have dropped the ball so badly that the Feds had to be called in?

Before joining the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services in 2003, Hogan was Chief Executive Officer of Life Quest, a private, nonprofit community mental health center located in Wasilla, Alaska.

I hate to make the accusation that every single person that comes from Wasilla is somehow unqualified, or a Sarah Palin lapdog, but I will say that if it is a person from Wasilla that she picks for a cabinet position or to head an important agency then it is a solid bet that they will jump through whatever hoop Palin holds up.

And you can find evidence of that here where Mr. Hogan explains the reason that Beverly Wooley had to leave her job as the state public health director: Hogan described Wooley as having difficulty articulating the governor's position on the abortion measure, as well as teen pregnancy prevention.

And WHAT was Wooley's terrible act of insubordination?

She intended to refer to studies from states that already had passed similar legislation, she said. Some of the research shows that, with parental involvement requirements, girls tend to get abortions later in their pregnancy, which is riskier and more expensive, she said. Other research shows fewer girls get abortions, which abortion foes like Palin likely would applaud. Wooley cautioned that the studies are small and not definitive because such laws are still fairly new.

"You let those facts speak for themselves. And truly, people will interpret those facts differently based on their own personal history and experience," said Wooley.

You see THIS is the problem with people that Sarah Palin does not hand pick from Wasilla. They rely on scientific studies to help them to make the appropriate decisions pertaining to the health and well being of the citizens of Alaska.

It is clear that Bill Hogan did not have such constraints and was free to simply do whatever Queen Ester demanded that he do. And because of that blind obedience we see how many of our elderly have suffered from lack of compassionate care.

(By the way I have not confirmed it yet, but I will bet dollars to doughnuts that Hogan was a member in good standing at Sarah's church. This whole thing smacks of the kind of broken Christianity practiced out there in the Valley.)

Numbers genius Nate Silver gives us the skinny on the SarahPAC donations and what they mean for Palin's future.

Sarah Palin's political action committee -- SarahPAC -- raised $733,000 in the first half of the year and is set to push past $1 million in the wake of the recent attention she's gotten herself. On the one hand, this isn't that impressive. Mitt Romney, for instance, has raised twice as much. Kay Bailey Huthcison, Palin's sometime rival who is now running for governor in Texas, raised nine times as much. For somebody with a political celebrity dwarfed only by Barack Obama's, that's just not all that much cashflow.

What is impressive about Palin's fundraising haul, however, is who it came from: the grassroots. Based on her FEC disclosures, I identified 406 donations worth $200 or more, which are worth a combined total of $289,932. That's nothing, really: Home Shopping Club can bring in that much in 15 minutes selling vacuums. That leaves, however, $443,608, or 60 percent of SarahPac's total, which came from small donors. That is a very high percentage -- higher than for any of the '08 presidential candidates but for Ron Paul.

So what this tells us about Sarah Palin is that, while she is very good at convincing the stay-at-home mom or elderly shut-in to send her their money, she is unable to convince the more intelligent corporate big-wigs (who are the most dependable money men behind the GOP) to crack open up their wallets.

Nate goes on to make the point that in a general election those small donors can translate into voters, but the facts seem to point out that Palin will never get past the primary unless she can wink her way into the hearts of the big business guys and that just ain't happening.

So then the question remains, which Republican or Democratic candidate would risk being associated with a train wreck like Sarah Palin just to woo a handful of Christian home schooling mothers to send them their cookie money? I am guessing that only the most desperate, and least likely to win, would take that gamble.

In other words, Sarah Palin=Epic Fail!

Sarah Palin fantasizes she is a mama bear via Twitter. I have never seen a nervous breakdown tweeted before have you?

Great day w/bear management wildlife biologists; much to see in wild territory incl amazing creatures w/mama bears' gutteral raw instinct to16 minutes ago from TwitterBerry

(Wait why did she stop halfway through her thought? "Gutteral raw instinct to....what?" Oh wait it continues again down below.)

protect & provide for her young;She sees danger?She brazenly rises up on strong hind legs, growls Don't Touch My Cubs & the species survives13 minutes ago from TwitterBerry

(You probably did not catch it because it was done with such subtlety, but I do believe that this is Governor Sarah's sly way of comparing her defensiveness about her family to a mama bears aggressive disembowelment of anybody stupid enough to even try to take a picture of her precious cubs. But I digress, why don't we allow the Governor to finally finish tweeting her thoughts.)

& mama bear doesn't look 2 anyone else 2 hand her anything; biologists say she works harder than males, is provider/protector for the future10 minutes ago from TwitterBerry

(Brilliant! Sarah has masterfully made the point that she is completely self reliant like the majestic mother bear that she seems to admire so very, very much. Well except for the hired nanny who took care of little Trig on the campaign trail, you know when one of the girls was not saddled with the responsibility. And besides the per diem she charged the state while she was staying in her own house. And I am not so sure how "mama bear like" it is to constantly blame everybody else for mistakes that YOU made. But hey other than that Sarah Palin is EXACTLY like a mama bear! For example, and I did not want to reveal this earlier, but I have it on good authority that Sarah Palin does indeed shit in the woods.)

I wonder if Palin is planning to tweet her new book? I mean who needs a stupid ghost writer when you have so much practice typing clear and concise messages such as these?

(If you want to have more fun with Palin tweets then go read Maureen Dowds imagining of a twittered conversation between Governor Bat-Shit and John "You know I was tortured in Nam" McCain.)

Rachel Maddow calls Sarah Palin out on her hypocrisy filled Washington Post op-ed. A must see!

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So it appears that Sarah Palin was FOR "cap and trade" before she was AGAINST "cap and trade"? Damn why does that sound sooooo familiar?

You know that Katie Couric interview is going to haunt Sarah Palin FOREVER.

Sarah's resignation comes too late to save 200 lives lost due to negligence by the state of Alaska.

State programs intended to help disabled and elderly Alaskans with daily life -- taking a bath, eating dinner, getting to the bathroom -- are so poorly managed, the state cannot assure the health and well-being of the people they are supposed to serve, a new federal review found.

The situation is so bad the federal government has forbidden the state to sign up new people until the state makes necessary improvements.

No other state in the nation is under such a moratorium, according to a spokeswoman for the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

In the meantime, frail and vulnerable Alaskans who desperately need the help are struggling. One elderly woman is stuck in a nursing home, for lack of care at home. Another woman, suffering from chronic pain and fatigue, said she's so weak, she often can't even pop dinner into the microwave.

A particularly alarming finding concerns deaths of adults in the programs. In one 2 1/2 year stretch, 227 adults already getting services died while waiting for a nurse to reassess their needs. Another 27 died waiting for their initial assessment, to see if they qualified for help.

This kind of negligence by our state government is inexcusable, but understandable when you consider the fact that our Governor tried to run the state via two blackberries while she was focused on becoming VP of our entire country.

(Just let that cold chill finish running through your body before you read on.)

The facts are that Sarah Palin can talk about her compassion and her religion all she wants but we have seen how she treats our indigenous people, how she slashed funding for special needs children before she realized how politically advantageous it was to use Trig as their mascot, and now how she has abandoned some of the our most fragile citizens during the most frightening time of their lives.

Some may want to give Palin a pass on this but they absolutely SHOULD NOT! She is the executive of our state, the fault for this falls directly on her shoulders and she has said and done nothing to protect these poor people. And why not? Because nobody brought it up as a political talking pint that's why!

Running a state requires more than just chasing the television cameras and keeping your name in the papers. It means doing things that may not gain a lot of notice but have a positive impact on the people who elected you to office. But no our Governor cannot be bothered with silly inconsequential things like doing her job.

Instead she spends her time twittering nonsense like this:

Ethics issue would almost be funny if it weren't such an abuse of justice. AKns deserve our public resources be used wisely, not frivolously

For one of the few times I can remember I find myself in total agreement with the Governor. You are absolutely right Sarah, Alaskans DO deserve to have our public resources used wisely and NOT frivolously! And I certainly hope that your successor will finally do just that!

A Palin-bot makes a pilgrimage to Wasilla, the Jerusalem of the north.

On the Fourth of July, a thousand people gathered on the banks of Lake Wasilla for a Tea Party, one of those anti-tax, pro-liberty bits of street theater. ... Adrienne Ross, the media director and New York organizer for the 2012 Draft Sarah Committee, had been in Wasilla for only two days. But she said she had already "witnessed history," had a salmon bake -- using Palin's recipe -- ... and, just that morning, met Palin's parents and joked around with Piper. It was like going to Sarah Palin fantasy camp, and, regardless of Palin's next move, Ross said, "I am exactly where God wants me to be."

This is the Sarah Palin base that will NEVER be educated enough to abandon Queen Ester.

They worship at her feet, and believe every forkful of word salad that falls from her lipstick saturated mouth. They seem unable to recognize the lack of intelligence and the narcissism that the rest of us find so repulsive.

They make excuses for her limitations (if they recognize them at all) and blame her critics for manufacturing falsehoods when they point out her lies or mistakes. To them she is flawless.

Fortunately they are few in number, and though they are intensely vocal (as demonstrated by the small raucous group that protested outside of David Letterman's studio), they seem to be relatively harmless.

They are also of the "faith not logic" group of people who are always so easily seduced by televangelists and the two bit hustlers that find them such an easy mark. These people will always be taken advantage of by SOMEBODY and right now their victimizer is our (soon to be ex-)Governor. Pity is the most that I can offer them.

It looks like at least 67% of Republicans have not lost their minds.

A majority of Americans think Sarah Palin is stepping down as Alaska's governor for political reasons, according to a new national poll, with a majority of Republicans now saying that they do not believe that Palin would be an effective president.

Only 33 percent of Republicans questioned in a CBS News survey released Monday night say that Palin would have the ability to serve effectively as president. Last fall, 71 percent of registered Republicans felt that way.

"It's unclear whether the change in Republicans' view of Palin is the result of her decision to step down as governor, or whether the GOP rank-and-file felt they had to defend their party's vice-presidential nominee during the campaign but don't feel the same tug of party loyalty today," said CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. "Either way, this is bad news for Palin, whose first task in 2012, if she runs for the White House, will be to convince Republican primary voters to support her."

So if only 33% of Republicans support Palin that means that only about 6% of all Americans support Palin. That is not exactly a "base" that is more like the stem of a wineglass.

I assume that Palin can attempt to increase this small group supporters, by having op-eds ghost written for her, appearing at Republican fundraisers in her Naughty Monkey Pumps, and holding baby Trig up for adoration until he grows to big for her spindly arms to support, but personally I think that all she can really do is make the base she has more rabid. I don't think that too many rational thinking Republicans are going to be seduced by her crazy ass winking and the "talking in tongues" she appears to do in every one of her speeches.

No I think that Palin's supporters are as numerous as they are ever going to be.

I wonder how many are still visitng this blog? Let's find out.

Are you a Sarah Palin supporter? Not sure? Well here is how to do a self examination.

• Do you make no long term plans because you believe that the Rapture is just around the corner?
• Are you suspicious of women who use their brains and talent to get ahead but are totally cool with failed ex-beauty queens who take advantage of male fetishist clothing and kinky librarian hair and glasses to "progress" their political careers?
• Do you hear voices in your head telling you to send your money to Queen Esther of the North?
• Do you assume that any criticism of Sarah Palin is an attack on her family?

Well then you are offically a Palin-bot. Congratulations on soon becoming one of the most broken hearted people on the planet.

Here is the third ethics complaint filed against Sarah Palin since her resignation. Hmm who predicted THAT would happen? Updated!

Another ethics complaint has been filed against Gov. Sarah Palin, alleging she abused her office by accepting a salary and used state staff while campaigning as the Republican vice presidential candidate last year.

It's the 18th ethics complaint filed against Palin, and the third since Palin announced her resignation July 3.

In her resignation speech, Palin cited the complaints as taking a personal toll and crippling her ability to govern effectively.

She officially steps down July 26.

The latest complaint was filed Monday and is the fifth by outspoken Palin critic Andree McLeod of Anchorage. Three of McLeod's grievances have been dismissed and another remains active.

You know I am a little confused but I THINK this is actually number 20. But I have to admit I have sort of lost track.

Well regardless of which total number this represents, it IS the third ethics complaint files since Palin resigned which is exactly what Dennis Zaki predicted. Now if THAT turned out to be true then the next thing we should expect would be..........ICEBERG!

Quick! I need some popcorn, some ice cold Pepsi, and a comfortable chair STAT! The show is about to begin. Oooh I can hardly wait!

Update: Here is a list of all of Sarah's ethics complaints up to April 27 of this year. It looks like this one is actually lucky number 21!

No way did Buttercup write this.

Apparently now that Sarah Palin is no longer screwing up Alaska she has decided to become a political pundit.

This article which is purported to have been written by her (Ha! Fat chance!) seems to be an attempt to reinvent her as a thoughtful critic of the Obama administration.

Of course anybody who has had to sit through one of her speeches, or watched her struggle through a television interview, realizes that the words written in this op-ed did not spring forth from the mind of Sarah Palin.

Jon Stewart was on vacation and missed the excitement of the Palin resignation, but now he is back with a vengeance.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
The Craziest Catch
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Joke of the Day

Part Two.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Half Baked Alaska
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Joke of the Day

You know Samantha Bee's joke about Palin stepping down as parent, could be the kindest thing she could do for her family.

Just how much did SarahPAC raise for the Twitter Quitter, before she quittered?

Sarah PAC, the political action committee formed by Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin earlier this year to maintain her national profile, raised $733,000 in the first six months of the year, according to reports filed with the Federal Election Commission today. (So in six months the PAC was only able to raise a little over $100,000 a month? So where is all of this mythical fundraising ability Palin is supposed to posses?)

During that same time period, Palin spent $276,000 --largely on fundraising appeals and consultants -- and ended June with $457,000 in the bank. None of Palin's contributions came from political action committees, an attempt -- seemingly -- to preserve her outsider and reform credentials.

Palin's largest expenditure went to "Edonation.com/Campaign Solutions", the fundraising company run by Becki Donatelli and based in Alexandria, Virginia. Sarah PAC doled out roughly $106,000 to the firm for fundraising during the first six months of the year. Donatelli and Palin parted ways in late April.

Palin also paid several Sarah PAC staffers monthly stipends including former Republican National Committee finance director Timothy Crawford ($6,000/month), personal/political spokesman Meg Stapleton ($4,000/month) and PAC spokeswoman Pam Pryor ($6,000/month). Palin also made a series of $8,000 payments to IzzyLene Consulting, Stapleton's Anchorage-based consulting firm. (Now here is a question that I will just throw out there. First is there a cap on how much the PAC can pay to an employee per month. And second is it possible that the PAC got around this limitation by only giving Meg Stapletongue $4,000 a month in pay while funneling another $8,000 to her through her consulting firm? I mean considering how often Meg was called on to lie for the Governor you would think she would make substantially more than a mere $4,000. Don'tcha think?)

Palin made two campaign contributions during the first six months of 2009. She gave $5,000 each to the re-election races of Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska).(See? Now I know this is the maximum amount the PAC can give to a candidate, I just don't know how much they can give to an individual.)

Update: Palin has collected at least $200,000 more for Sarah PAC since the reporting period closed at the end of last month, according to a source familiar with the numbers. Palin's resignation -- announced on July 3 -- triggered a flood of donations to the PAC, the source added.

Okay so THIS is what we know.

In about a six month period of time SarahPAC was only able to raise $733,000.

Yet $200,000 more has come in since the end of the reporting period.

Now what event happened between the end of the reporting period and the end of June? Well she had a very public fight with David Letterman where she was able to play the victim to a national audience, which seems to have loosened her supporters purse strings to the tune of around $200,000.

Hmmm I think I am beginning to see the kernel of an idea forming in Sarah's head.

Because then she simply quits her post as Governor, once again blaming the media, the Democrats, and...well....me I guess , and again the donations come flooding in. So as long as Sarah Palin can play the victim to the widest audience imaginable she stands to make a shitload of money.

Gee maybe Levi was right.

Pat Buchanan endorses the drowning of Levi Johnston.

I hate to break this to Mr. Buchanan but in order for Todd to get anywhere close to Levi for a drowning he would have to get through Tank Jones.

I have spent some time with Mr. Jones and I can tell you that Todd would piss all over himself if Tank were to get in his face. Levi Johnston is in no danger from any of the Palins that is for damn sure.

And Tank is not the only one watching out for the Johnston family either.

New Sarah Palin cartoon.

Levi Johnston's Today Show interview.

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Nothing new is learned here except that Levi mentions Sarah's book deal being between 7 to 9 million where as my source put the figure at ten million.

It looks to me like Levi needs a shave and some lessons in projecting his voice. Nobody will hire an actor that needs subtitles when he is speaking their native tongue.

The New York Times reports on what kind of pressure Palin was feeling before her resignation.

Though this piece seems a tad too sympathetic for my tastes it does introduce some new information that is very interesting.

Here are a few snippets that I found the most interesting:

Friends worried that she appeared anxious and underweight. Her hair had thinned to the point where she needed emergency help from her hairdresser and close friend, Jessica Steele.

“Honestly, I think all of it just broke her heart,” Ms. Steele said in an interview at her beauty parlor in Wasilla, the Beehive.

Many of us have also made note that the Governor looked underweight to the point of illness.

Late last week, as her sport utility vehicle made its way through the town of McGrath, Ms. Palin said in an interview that the seeds of her resignation had been planted the morning Mr. McCain named her as his vice-presidential choice.

“It began when we started really looking at the conditions that had so drastically changed on Aug. 29,” she said. “The hordes of opposition researchers came up here digging for dirt for political reasons, making crap up.”

I have refuted this before but let me do it once again. There was NO opposition researchers up here that I, or any of my fellow bloggers, are aware of. The things that were "dug up" were done so by local bloggers and out of state reporters. The bloggers were trying to reveal the truth about the Governor and the reporters were simply trying to sell papers or magazines. Which Palin helped them to do quite nicely.

As for "making crap up" that task was adequately performed by the Governor herself, who simply could not keep her stories straight to save her political life. (Andrew Sullivan did a great roundup of those lies right here.)

Feuds begat feuds. Ms. Palin alleged in June that Mr. Letterman’s joke that one of her daughters had been “knocked up” by the Yankees star Alex Rodriguez during a recent trip to New York encouraged “sexual exploitation” of younger women.

Her comments then prompted a Republican lawmaker, State Representative Mike Hawker, to accuse Ms. Palin of underfinancing sexual abuse programs. Ms. Palin, in turn, directed public safety officials to give her fodder for a retort, requesting that they put out a statement saying her policies would reduce sexual assaults on minors.

Even Ms. Palin’s supporters came to believe that she was losing focus amid all the fighting.

So you can imagine what her detractors were thinking.

In mid-spring, as the country grew alarmed over the swine flu, Ms. Palin skipped a briefing for administration officials on the outbreak by her chief medical officer, Dr. Jay C. Butler. A spokeswoman, Sharon Leighow, noted that the teleconference took place about a month before the first case of the flu was reported in Alaska and that at the time the governor was meeting with top staff on the issue of federal stimulus funds. Since then, the state has had 122 confirmed cases of the H1N1 flu.

Dr. Butler said he resigned his post in June in part because the administration asked one of his highly regarded division heads, the state public health director, Beverly Wooley, to resign. “I felt that it was not a good time to be downsizing,” said Dr. Butler, who is now working on a swine flu vaccination at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Dr. Butler said the governor’s office apparently deemed Ms. Wooley insufficiently supportive of the parental consent bill backed by Ms. Palin.

Ms. Leighow would only say, inexplicably, that Ms. Wooley had been terminated by the health department, not the governor.

Woolley was another example of somebody not willing to play ball the way Sarah Palin wants to play ball being thrown under that bus which has ravenously devoured so many other victims of Palin's ego.

John Coale, a Washington trial lawyer and a Democrat who befriended the governor, said that during a political trip to Atlanta in December she expressed concern about her personal finances and complained that whenever she left Alaska “there was tremendous criticism up there.”

To Mr. Coale, the Palins seemed unprepared for the national stage. “I don’t think they got it, that they were in the arena,” he added. Mr. Coale helped Ms. Palin set up a legal defense fund and a political action committee to pay for her political activities. But both caused additional problems.

While the defense fund has raised more than $250,000, according to its trustee, the money cannot be spent pending resolution of an ethics complaint that contends that the contributions could amount to improper gifts.

Well this is interesting news. I wonder how it jives with Margaret Carlson's Thursday report on Countdown that John Coale told her the Defense Fund paid "most" of Sarah" legal bills already?

Does that mean this $250,000 is going to her just for shits and giggles? Or has somebody else paid the bill already and she owes them money from the fund to pay them back? And if this money has not been freed up then WHO has been paying for all of Sarah's air travel to make those public appearance in other states?

Well great now I have more questions then when I started this article!

If anybody has any answers please leave them in the comment section or e-mail them to me. Thanks.

Andrew Sullivan has a theory about Sarah Palin's resignation.

My own bet is that there is another scandal out there that would have forced her resignation if she hadn’t pre-empted it. Yet as plausible is the simple notion uttered by the only person in the melodrama who seems halfway sane: Levi Johnston, the teenage father of Palin’s grandson: “I think the big deal was the book. That was millions of dollars.” With a multi-million-dollar book deal, Palin can now become the darling of the right-wing media in America without the tedious duties of actually, you know, governing something. If the book contains scandals we have not yet learnt about, it could be explosively big in the mainstream; if it’s a hagiography, it could sell well with an adoring religious base.

I agree with Andrew up to a point. I am not too sure that Palin manage to pre-empt the coming scandal. I went so far as to check up on one of the scandals that I believe is about to burst forth and found it had slowed some but was definitely not off the tracks. I have no way of verifying the status of the other possible scandals but I do believe at least one other one is still on the way.

By the way this post is kind of a thank you from me to Andrew Sullivan who linked to me twice last week and sent my hits through the roof. I know my linking to him will not have anywhere near the same affect on HIS hit points but it is the thought that counts.

Isn't it?

Those Auto-Tune guys have fun with Sarah Palin's resignation speech among other topics.

I must give a hat tip to my friend and frequent commenter Bones AK.

Frank Rich's take on Sarah Palin is well worth the read.

No less than 71 percent of Republicans said they would vote for her for president. That overwhelming majority isn’t just the “base” of the Republican Party that liberals and conservatives alike tend to ghettoize as a rump backwater minority. It is the party, or pretty much what remains of it in the Barack Obama era.

That’s why Palin won’t go gently into the good night, much as some Republicans in Washington might wish. She is not just the party’s biggest star and most charismatic television performer; she is its only star and charismatic performer. Most important, she stands for a genuine movement: a dwindling white nonurban America that is aflame with grievances and awash in self-pity as the country hurtles into the 21st century and leaves it behind. Palin gives this movement a major party brand and political plausibility that its open-throated media auxiliary, exemplified by Glenn Beck, cannot. She loves the spotlight, can raise millions of dollars and has no discernible reason to go fishing now except for self-promotional photo ops.

Were Palin actually to secure the 2012 nomination, the result would be a fiasco for the G.O.P. akin to Goldwater 1964, as the most relentless conservative Palin critic, David Frum, has predicted. Or would it? No one thought Richard Nixon — a far less personable commodity than Palin — would come back either after his sour-grapes “last press conference” of 1962. But Democratic divisions and failures gave him his opportunity in 1968. With unemployment approaching 10 percent and a seemingly bottomless war in Afghanistan, you never know, as Palin likes to say, what doors might open.

It’s more likely that she will never get anywhere near the White House, and not just because of her own limitations. The Palinist “real America” is demographically doomed to keep shrinking. But the emotion it represents is disproportionately powerful for its numbers. It’s an anger that Palin enjoyed stoking during her “palling around with terrorists” crusade against Obama on the campaign trail. It’s an anger that’s curdled into self-martyrdom since Inauguration Day.

As a critic of Palin I have received more than a small portion of this anger and I choose to wear it as badge of honor, because it is not about attacking a woman who I disagree with politically, it is about stripping away the facade that Sarah hides behind and allowing the world to see who, and what, she really is.

She is NOT the humble hockey mom that she tries so hard to portray herself as. Instead she is a narcissistic, amoral, psychopath who will do ANYTHING to gain, and cling to, power.

She is dangerous because she attracts the most damaged and marginalized supporters in the country. These are America's version of the Taliban.

They would gladly throw themselves off of a cliff to further the ambitions of their queen, and it only takes the most perfunctory reading of some of the comments posted at a pro-Palin site to quickly convince anyone that my assessment is chillingly accurate.

So as gratifying as it is to see Palin step away from Alaska's helm, I know that she still represents a real danger to the rest of the country. And there is still much work to do.

Sunday is a fine day for some Sarah Palin tweets. Don't you agree?

More precious time, public & private resources wasted today w yet another frivolous false ethics charge, I'll send presser. So sorry, Alaska
8:51 PM Jul 10th from TwitterBerry

If the Governor is going to start apologizing to Alaska I think the ethics charges are the least of it. What about her dismissal of native issues? Or her lack of focus since she got back from the McCain campaign? Or her propensity for placing unqualified people in important government positions? How about those apologies Governor?

Problem w/Professional Politicians:They're more concerned w/holding a title in perpetuity than just accomplishing goals they promised voters
about 23 hours ago from TwitterBerry

The Random House Dictionary says that "perpetuity" is an "endless or indefinitely long duration or existence; eternity." So is dear Sarah dissing her fellow politicians for continuing to seek office long into their old age like John McCain? Or Ted Stevens? Or Alzheimer affected Ronald Reagan? Well I guess that is one thing that Sarah cannot be accused of. She certainly did not stay in politics for anything even remotely resembling "eternity". As soon as she realized she could make bunch of money elsewhere she jumped ship. Such a noble act.

selfish & immoral bc it robs their future opportunities!"If there is trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace"Thomas Paine
about 8 hours ago from TwitterBerry

Okay this is my favorite tweet of the bunch.

I actually applaud Sarah Palin for quoting Thomas Paine. However I am not at all sure that our (Soon to be ex-)Governor realizes just WHO Thomas Paine really was.

Besides being a founding father of our country Paine was also the author of a scandalous book (at least in its time) called The Age of Reason, which served as an indictment of institutionalized religion and challenged the inerrancy of the Bible.

I am fairly convinced that these are not arguments with which Sarah Palin supporters would find themselves in agreement. Don't you just hate it when the "book of Quotes" you are using fails to mention that the author is your complete ideological opposite?

But if you are looking for a great Thomas Paine quote to tweet may I suggest the following?

The opinions I have advanced . . . are the effect of the most clear and long-established conviction that the Bible and the Testament are impositions upon the world, that the fall of man, the account of Jesus Christ being the Son of God, and of his dying to appease the wrath of God, and of salvation, by that strange means, are all fabulous inventions, dishonorable to the wisdom and power of the Almighty.

Can't you just imagine the little Palin-bots heads exploding all over the country after they read this? I imagine the sound that bubble wrap makes when you grab a sheet and start twisting it. (Pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop......Aahh so relaxing.)