Palin: a vindictive and undemocratic despot

[amborin]

Anchorage Daily News (Alaska)

January 31, 1997, Friday, FINAL EDITION

WASILLA MAYOR FIRES POLICE, LIBRARY CHIEFS

BYLINE: Stephanie Komarnitsky; Daily News Mat-Su Bureau

SECTION: METRO, Pg. 1B

LENGTH: 489 words

DATELINE: Palmer

Wasilla Mayor Sarah Palin fired the city's police chief and the library director without warning Thursday, accusing them of not fully supporting her efforts to govern. Irl Stambaugh and Mary Ellen Emmons said letters signed by Palin were dropped on their desks Thursday afternoon telling them their jobs were over as of Feb. 13 and that they no longer needed to report to work.
Emmons has been the city's library director for seven years. Stambaugh has headed the police department since it was created in 1993. Before that, he served 22 years with the Anchorage Police Department rising to the rank of captain before retiring.



While both struggled with Palin when she was first elected in October, they said the letters caught them off guard.
Both had publicly supported Palin's opponent, long-time mayor John Stein, during the campaign last fall. When she was elected, Palin questioned their loyalty and even initially asked for their resignations. But both said Thursday that they thought things had been worked out.

''After the initial roller coaster, we were ready to work for Mayor Palin,'' Emmons said. ''Unfortunately I think we were both fired for politics.''

Stambaugh said he considers it a slap in the face.

''I've been in law enforcement for 26 years and I take pride in what I've gained,'' he said. ''I would never do anything to undermine the city or the police department.''

Reached at her home, Palin denied the firings were politically motivated, but said she couldn't discuss the matter because it involved personnel.

''I'm going to get myself in trouble if I keep talking about it,'' she said.

Palin said she planned to meet with Stambaugh and Emmons this afternoon. She also disputed whether they had actually been fired. ''There's been no meeting, no actual terminations,'' she said.

Stambaugh's response was to read part of the letter given to him.

''Although I appreciate your service as police chief, I've decided it's time for a change. I do not feel I have your full support in my efforts to govern the city of Wasilla. Therefore I intend to terminate your employment. . . . ''

''If that's not a letter of termination, I don't know what is,'' he said.

Stambaugh said he plans to talk to an attorney.

Both Stambaugh and Emmons serve at the mayor's pleasure, but Stambaugh said he has a contract that prohibits firing without cause.

The two said relations with the mayor have been strained in the past couple weeks and they had heard rumors that Palin was unhappy with their work.

But they met with Palin on Wednesday, and there was no indication they were about to be fired, they said.

By Thursday night, several people had gathered at Stambaugh's house, including fellow officers, friends and Stein.

Stein, who originally hired Stambaugh, said he was equally mystified by what had happened. ''It's just a huge loss for the community,'' he said.

[Bobbie Jo]

1. Quite the maverick isn't she?

:eyes:

[Fridays Child]

2. Hide the children! She's the GOP's wet dream come to life!

[mwb970]

4. She really is the "perfect Republican", isn't she?

She's got it all! Every single boneheaded right-wing cliche finds full expression in this one little bundle of total wrong-headedness.

As another poster pointed out, the wingnuts are ecstatic because she is such a wonderful choice and we here are ecstatic because she is such a terrible choice. Ah, togetherness!

[LooseWilly]

3. Wow.

This tidbit seems to mesh nicely with the information about her getting rid of the guy who wouldn't fire Woten when the idea was "suggested" to him.

Maybe, if McCain wins, they can get Alberto Gonzales to come back as AG. It sounds more and more like Palin would get along with him just grandly...

[RoyGBiv]

5. Hopefully, people will pay attention to this ...

I tried to highlight this earlier, but it seems the non-story of her children is the meme of the day, and my threads have dropped like a rock.

This person is a vindictive power broker. She started her rise into the halls of power through the very same people she later lashed out against during her run for governor. Laughing her off is not a wise move.

[amborin]

6. ballot fraud also?

Anchorage Daily News (Alaska)

August 24, 2006 Thursday
FINAL EDITION

Knowles, Palin start to make their pitch;
GOVERNOR: Candidates have mandates; Democrats see improper ballot pushing.

BYLINE: By KYLE HOPKINS Anchorage Daily News

SECTION: MAIN; Pg. A1

LENGTH: 751 words


Running on about three hours' sleep after a sweeping victory in the Republican primary, governor candidate Sarah Palin
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said Wednesday that voters have echoed her call for a change in her party's leadership, and she previewed her campaign message.

"Are Alaskans ready to look forward to new leadership, or do they feel they need to look backward?" Palin said at her downtown headquarters, amid a string of radio, television and newspaper interviews after her wide win over incumbent Gov. Frank Murkowski.

It was a reference to Palin's opponent, former Democratic Gov. Tony Knowles, who has held the top job twice before.

Knowles, along with running mate Ethan Berkowitz, also offered voters a sneak peek of what they'll hear in the weeks to come, saying stakes are high for the state and they have the experience to deliver.

"I can get things done," Knowles said.

Palin won the Republican primary race for governor with 51 percent of the vote, compared with 30 percent for Fairbanks businessman John Binkley and 19 percent for Murkowski, with 382 of 439 districts reporting Wednesday night.

Among Democratic candidates, Knowles won 74 percent of the vote, compared with 25 percent for Rep. Eric Croft of Anchorage. Bruce Lemke received the remaining 1 percent.

In the Nov. 7 general election, Knowles and Palin will likely face independent Andrew Halcro, a former Anchorage state legislator who turned in petitions this week to win a spot on the ballot, along with Don Wright from the Alaskan Independence Party, David Massie from the Green Party and Libertarian William Toien.

Lt. Gov. Loren Leman, who oversees the Division of Elections, said voter participation was up this year, with a turnout that will likely end up topping 30 percent -- or about 2 percent higher than in 2004.

Leman said that by late Wednesday night, the state expected to have almost all the remaining votes in hand.

The Alaska Democratic Party kept an eye on polling places around Anchorage on Tuesday and didn't like everything it saw.

Spokeswoman Kay Brown said some Division of Election volunteers improperly emphasized the Republican ballot to undeclared and nonpartisan voters who were trying to decide which to choose.

Leman said that some volunteers might indeed have pointed out the Republican ballot to voters, but only for clarification because some asked for the combined ballot thinking it included every candidate.

"We had a number of voters who came back and said, 'That's not what I want; I want the ballot with Republicans on it," he said.

Volunteers are trained not to push one ballot or the other, he said.

Brown also criticized a sticky-note campaign ad that Palin put on the front of the Daily News Tuesday, saying it mislead voters. The note included a picture of Palin and said: "Thank you for taking a stand and for your vote today! If you are undeclared or non-partisan, you must ask for the Republican ballot."

Some voters thought that meant they had no choice but to choose the Republican ballot when really they could have selected either, said Democrats, who called the ad misleading.

Kris Perry, a key volunteer for the Palin campaign, said the ad was meant to remind Palin supporters to vote and to make sure they asked for the right ballot.

"I thought it was pretty straightforward, that for those folks who intend to vote for Sarah and (were) undeclared or nonpartisan, please request the Republican ballot," she said.

On election night, Palin had suggested that Republican Party of Alaska chairman Randy Ruedrich, who paid an ethics fine after Palin told the state that he was mixing his political duties with his former state job, should resign as head of the party.

On Wednesday, Palin said her lopsided victory in the Republican primary was a sign that voters want the same thing.

"Last night, those numbers that poured in were a mandate for positive change, not just in state government but in the party also," she said.

But Ruedrich, who says he intends to serve the rest of the four-year term to which he was elected in April, said he and Palin can still work it out.

"I have been to some of her events and plan to go to others, and I'm sure this can be constructively resolved," he said.


Daily News reporter Kyle Hopkins can be reached at [e-mail]. Read more at adn.com/thetrail.

WANT TO TALK about the campaign ahead? Hit our election blog at

adn.com/thetrail


INSIDE

RETURNS: Statewide and Southcentral election results.

Back Page

GLITCHES: Touchscreen machines slowed vote tabulation in several precincts.

Page B-1

[amborin]

7. and her more recent, similar actions:

The Washington Post

August 30, 2008 Saturday
Suburban Edition

Palin Focus of Probe In Police Chief's Firing;
Her Family Wanted a Trooper Dismissed, He Says

BYLINE: James V. Grimaldi and Kimberly Kindy; Washington Post Staff Writers

SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A11

LENGTH: 1141 words


Republican presidential candidate John McCain
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's running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, Enhanced Coverage LinkingSarah Palin, -Search using:
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is an ethics reformer under an ethics investigation that is plowing through private domestic matters.

Palin is under investigation to determine whether she pressured and then fired the state police chief in July because he refused to dismiss her former brother-in-law. At the time, the governor's younger sister was involved in a bitter divorce and child custody dispute with the man, a state trooper. A bipartisan committee of the state legislature voted
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unanimously to hire a retired prosecutor to investigate. His report is due in October.

The firing of state Public Safety Commissioner Walter Monegan has unearthed a stream of private details about the governor, her husband and her family. The state probe is also focusing on a half-dozen top state officials accused of trying to drive trooper Mike Wooten from the force.

Critics say the episode -- dubbed Troopergate in Alaska -- cuts against Palin's reputation as an ethics crusader who holds even her own party accountable.

"It undercuts one of the points they are making that she is an ethical reformer," said state Sen. Hollis French, a Democrat
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who is managing the $100,000 investigation.

The McCain campaign
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supported Palin, saying: "Governor Palin Enhanced Coverage LinkingGovernor Palin -Search using:
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has been fully cooperative in this situation and has nothing to hide. She has been a leader and proven reformer, demanding accountability and transparency from Alaska's government which resulted in landmark ethics legislation."

The domestic dispute entered the public arena when the governor's sister filed for divorce from Wooten on April 11, 2005.

The same day, the governor's father, Chuck Heath, contacted state police with several allegations against Wooten: using a Taser on his 10-year-old stepson; shooting a moose without a permit; and drinking beer while driving a patrol car.

Eighteen months later, Sarah Palin
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became Alaska's first female governor.

Gov. Palin
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's husband, Todd Palin, met with Monegan in January 2007, a month after his wife took office, to say that the trooper was unfit for the force. Monegan also said the governor sent him e-mails, but Monegan declined to disclose them, saying he planned to give them to the independent prosecutor.

Palin initially denied that she or anyone in her administration had ever pressured Monegan to fire Wooten. She said she had raised the matter with Monegan just once, relaying the allegation that Wooten made a death threat against her father.

But this summer, Palin acknowledged that a half-dozen members of her administration had made more than two dozen calls on the matter to various state officials.

Monegan, 57, a former chief of the Anchorage Police Department, said in an interview Friday that during his 19 months on the job the governor repeatedly mentioned Wooten but "never directly asked me to fire him."

Monegan said Todd Palin told him that Wooten "shouldn't be a trooper."

"I've tried to explain to him," Monegan said, " 'You can't head-hunt like this. What you need to do is back off, because if the trooper does make a mistake, and it is a terminable offense, it can look like political interference.'

"I think he's emotionally committed in trying to see that his former brother-in-law is punished."

Monegan said he was also contacted by three other Palin-appointed officials, including the attorney general, regarding the trooper. Each time, he said, he told the administration officials that he would keep an eye on the trooper, but that unless he violated a rule, nothing could be done.

In a TV interview in July, Todd Palin confirmed that he had talked with Monegan but said he was just "informing," not pressuring.

At a news conference Aug. 13, the governor said, "I do now have to tell Alaskans that such pressure could have been perceived to exist, although I have only now become aware of it."

That day, Palin's office released a recording of a call made in February by Palin's chief of commissions, Frank Bailey, to a police lieutenant. Bailey complained about Monegan's lack of action against Wooten. Bailey said Palin "really likes Walt a lot, but on this issue . . . she doesn't know why there is absolutely no action for a year on this issue. It's very, very troubling to her and the family."

John Cyr, chief of the troopers' union, said he was "shocked and disappointed" at McCain's selection of Palin. "It goes well beyond the fact that she is under a cloud of ethics investigations. She's fired the only commissioner who dared to stand up and say we need to do more to make Alaska safe."

Palin's chief of staff fired Monegan on July 11, telling him Palin wanted "to go in another direction," Monegan said.

"I am not, and don't want to come across as, a disgruntled employee," Monegan said. "I was trying to protect her. When I was let go, I was a little surprised. There was not a warning shot or anything."

Monegan said complaints about Wooten first came to him on Jan. 4, 2007, a month after he started on the job. Todd Palin, a commercial fisherman, laid out a dossier he and a private investigator had collected.

"He asked me to look into it, so I told them I would," Monegan said. "I had it compared with the internal investigations file. There was no new evidence, no new complaints."

Monegan called Todd Palin back and said there was nothing he could do. A few days later, Gov. Palin
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called Monegan on his cellphone. "I explained to her there was no new evidence, the issue was closed," Monegan said. "She also was unhappy with that."

Wooten, reached at a trooper's office in Palmer, Alaska, declined to comment. Cyr said Wooten has "a spotless record" and no allegations in his file other than those filed by the governor's family.

Monegan and Cyr said that Wooten's wife had obtained a permit to hunt moose but balked when she saw the prey. She handed the gun to her husband, who killed it, Monegan and Cyr said, adding that the couple then took the moose to her parents' home, butchered it and ate some of it.

Wooten said he used the Taser on his 10-year-old stepson when the boy asked him to try it on him, Monegan and Cyr said.

The investigation into Wooten sustained the allegations regarding the moose hunt and the Taser. The drinking charge was unsustained in an initial investigation, but a police commander reversed the decision. Documents say Wooten was reprimanded and suspended. "Wooten was not a model trooper," Monegan said.

The governor raised the issue again in February 2007 during the legislative session in Juneau. "As we were walking down the stairs in the capitol building," Monegan said, "she wanted to talk to me about her former brother-in-law. I said, 'Ma'am, I need to keep you at arm's length with this. I can't deal about him with you. If need be, I can talk to Todd."

[johnnydrama]

8. this article is a keeper

Read some of the comments. Apparantly she isn't so loved in Alaska as we are lead to believe.

Especially after she hired a sexual harraser to replace the trooper she fired.

And like has been mentioned a lot of places, her husband thinks he's co-governor, or THE governor. He's mentioned a lot in the comments.

http://www.adn.com/news/politics/story/475539.html

[Lochloosa]

9. This person is totally unfit to be the VP.

[IDemo]

10. She sounds more like Attorney General material than VP, to me