Palin has been dipping in Alaska's Funds
 

Report: Palin tapped travel allowance at home

http://news.yahoo.com/story/ap/20080...fyHtc2uuvafZzp h24cA


WASHINGTON – Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has charged her state a daily allowance, normally used for official travel, for more than 300 nights spent at her home, The Washington Post reported Tuesday.

An analysis of travel statements filed by the governor, now John McCain's Republican running mate, shows she claimed the per diem allowance on 312 occasions when she was home in Wasilla and that she billed taxpayers $43,490 for travel by her husband and children.

Per diem payments are meant for meals and incidental expenses while traveling on state business. State officials told The Post her claims — nearly $17,000 over 19 months — were permitted because her "duty station" is Juneau, the capital, and she was in Wasilla 600 miles away. The governor moved to Juneau last year but often stays in Wasilla and works 45 miles away, in a state office in Anchorage.

Palin's spending and record in office are coming under intense scrutiny as she is presented to the nation as a champion of ethics reform and frugal use of tax dollars — a leader who put the state jet on sale on eBay and drives herself to work..........................................

I am already sick of the liberal mudslinging towards Governor Palin.
That article fails to mention that her predecessor billed over $500,000 to that same account every year, I WOULD call that reform. She doesn't pay maids, chefs, personal assistants, etc. She is a normal person with a NORMAL family. The fact of the matter is that the expenses that she billed were necessary for her to be able to hold the office of Governor, that is the purpose of that account. This is another pathetic attempt to cast her in a negative light, and it will fail just like the rest of the left's propaganda.
First was that her teenage daughter was pregnant. She was a terrible mother for allowing this to happen. That attack showed just how out of touch the democrats are with average Americans, teenage pregnancy happens sometimes even in the presence of great parenting. It was reminiscient of the attacks on Jenna Bush for drinking underage. Maybe we should focus on Joe Biden's son who is going to trial for FRAUD and EMBEZZLEMENT and there are allegations that Biden's brother will soon face similar charges.
Another weak attack was that Palin was from a small state, Obama even made a demeaning comment about her being a mayor. Maybe the liberals should have compared the population of Delaware (Senator Biden's constituency) to Alaska before they opened their mouths.
The bottom line is this: Sarah Palin is an amazing person, a great speaker, and is able to claim a moral highground on just about everyone in the political arena. She didn't sacrifice any of her values to get to where she is today and the Democrats are scared shitless. I won't say that I'm angry about the liberal attacks, they are DESTROYING themselves with this crap. The "unthinkable" has happened because of this: McCain is leading Obama and will win this November.

yeah it's allllll the media's fault that they are reporting on stuff that they think we should know :rolleyes: It's all the media's fault.. they are just pickin on her b/c she's a woman !!1!!:mad:



:p

I've been reading an interesting article discussing how all of a sudden republicans are falling all over themselves to say how all this other stuff doesn't matter she's such a good speaker and her experience is enough, meanwhile democrats are harping on experience and prying to family life.

Gee, why does that seem familiar.

To be fair, there are legitimate political arguments to be made against Palin, just like there are against Obama. Family isn't one of them, the quality of her governance is. But people who've been complaining about Obama's minister for months should not be shocked by the turnabout. And people complaining about people complaining about Obama's minister should shut their mouths and take the high road.

(Besides Alaska's small population, big size, Arizona's not exactly jam packed full of people, Delaware's tiny and Illinois has Chica.. oh wait.) IMO Palin's lack of national experience of any sort, and a disconnected-ness with the rest of the country are negatives. Of course, others may see these as positives.

Absolutely - I'm glad someone else said it on the board. If you were previously complaining about the media's treatment of Obama's personal life earlier in the campaign, then you really shouldn't be saying anything about Palin or McCain's personal lives. One thing I can't stand is hypocrisy.

Here's an idea. Stop reading the threads & stop watching the news! :rolleyes:
There are plenty of us here who don't care for Palin so we'll damn well give our opinions on her & her policies. As for the media, get over it. Stick to Bill O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh.

Yeah, me neither. :mad:

Back to the op - I need more information. Even if she were at home that night, she might have been traveling during the day. I also seem to recall that she did not move her family to the capital - that might explain the family travel expenses. I'm sure the story will develop, and then we'll see. I'm not quite ready to call her a thief.

As an aside, I think it is far more of a theft of taxpayer's money when sitting, oh, I don't know, SENATORS, are off on the campaign trail and not working - yet still collect their pay. It's one reason I think the campaign season should be streamlined.

It does work both ways though.

... which is what he said.

If the context is truly that she reduced her "expenses" to less than 10% of what the previous Governor was using, and that the size of the state is the reason behind this being available to her (which appears to be the response), then it seems like an interesting but ultimately relatively tame tidbit of information that I would have difficulty determining how to use when deciding how to vote.

Thanks for the reinforcement - that's exactly what I just said.

I can't bring myself to watch the Daily Show link.

Has Palin herself made any statements expecting deference because she's a woman?

I know that we're been treating anything that anyone says about the candidates as a topic generally on GC, but I'm interested in knowing if Palin herself is guilty of that particular hypocrisy.

Actually, it's other members of the GOP on the Daily Show link. It's quite funny b/c at one point, one member of the GOP is knocking a Democrat for holding the office at a tiny city with slightly over 100,000 people in it yet he then praises Palin for running the 2nd largest city in Alaska with slightly over 9,000 peole. It's not about her hypocrisy. It's about the hypocrisy of members of the GOP.

The second largest city in Alaska has about 30,000, including the service members and their families at Ft. Wainwright. The Fairbanks North Star Borough has about 85,000.

Not sure where you're getting 9,000 as the second largest city :confused: Anchorage is the largest city with over 300,000 in the municipality. Even Juneau has a bigger population than 9,000.

Gee is that what he just said?

I'm emphasizing the point because it seems like now it makes complete and total sense to bash "omg liberal left" when "omg radical right" backs everything they've said about Obama/Biden. Bit of a stones in glass houses thing.

I misquoted as I was just remembering off the top of my head. Watch the link to get the information then you can argue it.

How very fair and balanced of you.
It was Karl Rove and the city in question (Richmond) has pop. of about 200K, not 100K.

I have an obligation to watch the Daily Show?

The Daily Show is political entertainment. I don't find it entertaining so why would I watch it?

It's just kind of "Oooh, Republicans, burn" kind of humor. Perhaps if Obama wins, I will find new enjoyment, who knows?

(It's not like I'm Rush, Fox, O'Reilly-ing it up either.)

ETA: Only because you threw out Fair and Balanced, do you really imagine that a comparable clip couldn't be put together with Democrats, maybe on the topic of the value of experience or women in positions of authority?

I'm not arguing it, I was trying to figure out which city you were talking about as even Wasilla doens't have a population of 9,000. If that link is wrong that's sad, but if you made a typing error that's okay, it happens.

I didn't say you have to watch the Daily Show, but if you're going to weigh in on every single post that comes across, maybe you'd make some effort to expose yourself to more opinions, influences, sources. Yes, I think that link exposes some critical HYPOCRISY (which you and the KSigs have made big points about this evening) on the GOP side which might explain why many of us who are not pro-Palin have good reason to pshaw at all the spin and grin coming from the McCain camp. Saying you "just can't bring yourself" to watch it is dismissively rigid. Maybe you'd actually learn something if not from then maybe about another point of view? The fact that you think it's all "ooh, Republicans, burn" humor speaks to your lack of familiarity and understanding.

Really? I did?

As I said, if I had enjoyed the Daily Show when I watched it, I would be a regular viewer. I didn't, so I'm not. I don't need to see a string of Republicans contradicting themselves. It's not at all surprising, educational, or entertaining that they would do so. It's just the way stuff goes in a two party, highly partisan system.

What I wanted to point out was that Palin herself hadn't yet played that game.

I don't know what game you're referring to, but really, I don't care at this point. You are obviously a huge Palin fan and that's super, I can't fathom your viewpoint and I'm sure you can't fathom mine, so let's just KIM.

The game of expecting kid gloves or claiming sexism.

She personally didn't have to because the entire McCain campaign team did it for her (along with all the right-wing talking heads) while keeping her carefully scripted and away from the media when the firestorm first hit.

ETA: And wait, when did I make an issue out of saying Palin was playing "a game" like that? You have me confused with another poster.

No, I think I introduced into this thread calling this particular hypocrisy a game.

All I ask it that it be a good for the goose kind of thing. We can attribute everything that happens for Palin as a result of her team as long as we hold Obama/Biden to the same standard.

No, it's the lack of context.

Did the story mention that she billed about 450K less than her predecessor? That might be kind of important.

I would love it if the campaign season was streamlined. However, the trend still seems to be going the other way. I can't think of a candidate, other than Ross Perot, who wasn't a current politician and placed in this position. It stinks though.

How would you do it, especially with the sort of mind-boggling amounts of money they have to raise to even be competitive in the primaries?

It sounds like a great idea, but how?

Well, I have problems with how much money is spent on these things too. How many hungry people could be fed with that money instead? There was a time when the candidate was actually determined AT the convention... what a concept, eh?

Ditto. Not to mention that her official home as Governor of Alaska is the governors mansion in Juneau, so when she works out of the Anchorage office but commutes to her other home in Wasilla she is actually saving the state a whole lot of money on hotel and food expenses. It takes about 45 minutes to travel from Anch. to Wasilla without traffic, during rush hour obviously much more time. I'd say the per diem is fairly hers and I think that if there was a problem then Alaskans would be the first to speak up about it. Again, someone making a mountain out of a molehill. Also, kudos to the poster who got their geography right; Wasilla is NOT the 2nd largest city in Alaska, not even close. Perhaps the MatSu borough is the second largest borough in the state but I cannot swear to that, I am only guessing at how this 'fact' was arrived at.

Come on dude, you're better than this.

First, I love the Daily Show, and think the link is hilarious.

Second, I agree completely with both of you, and will take it a step further and state that I feel both sides have been irresponsible and hypocritical with regard to Sarah Palin.

This is a wonderful microcosm of why I haven't voted for either party in the last 3 election cycles (that, and I can't stand either Bush or Kerry), and instead have donated my time and money to a completely worthless third party.

I'm disappointed in the lack of context, which is what I pointed out in this thread and many others.

Speaking of sexism, Sean Hannity was whining about this and the fact that Sarah is being treated differently. I think its pretty hypocritcal that they are calling democrats sexists, when there were "soccer moms" with pins of Palin's face and the words 'Vote for the Sexiest VP' at the RNC. Come on!

This reminds me of Obama in the primaries. You couldn't say anything negative without people being called racists!

Did I say that? No. I don't bitch about the media leaning one way or the other, there are multiple news outlets for people with any political belief.

Erroneous, read what I posted and try again.

I thought about this more while laying in bed trying to fall asleep. This is what I would do:

Primary candidates announce their intentions to run in May of the election year, a set number of debates are held by each party.

Primaries are a one day event in August, the whole country, same day. Then the Conventions are held with the same timing as this year.

10 televised/radio broadcast debates of varying formats between mid-September and November with no personal appearances, no bus tours of the country, no flying all over the place. There can still be grass roots level things like mailings, door to door, lawn signs, etc, but NO pre-recorded telephone calls! NO PRE-RECORDED TELEPHONE CALLS! (they are making me crazy, honestly, and I think the No Call List should include political propaganda)

That gives us a 6 month election process rather than two years. It really was two full years this time and that's just nuts.

I think there's been hypocrisy on both sides throughout the entire process. I have said, consistently, that I think both sides are responsible, and neither side can take any kind of high ground on this. The whole thing, on both ends, has gotten pretty ridiculous. This election is the closest I've ever come to voting third party.

Agreed. I do not listen to media talking heads that lean in either direction because they all spout 'facts' that haven't been checked, and speak rhetoric for the sake of ratings. The thing that is different for me in this election is that it is getting harder and harder to decipher the truth from the lies from both parties. I would love to make an educated decision here, but it is becoming a daunting task trying to verify what I hear. Official political ads can be blatantly false (Obama's sex ed in kindergarten) and emails from 'Alaskans' land in my mail box daily(most are obviously written by someone who has never been the state...but some are legit...check out snopes) Bill O'Reilly shouts statistics (70,000 Alaskan gov. employees...really?) and CNN pundits do the same(how many caribou did Palin shoot in one day?). When did it become OK to spout off supposed facts without double checking them? Maybe I was unaware during the last election, but it just seems like it is worse this election.

Mainly playing devil's advocate here: so you are willing to place limits on people's first amendment rights (of speech and assembly) to shorten the process?

I don't answer or listen to the calls so it's a pretty quick fix to hit delete.

If the parties both just agree to the terms because members of the public will hate them if they don't, it's not really a constitutional issue. But if there are actually legal restrictions, you get into some funny areas pretty quickly. Isn't this the biggest objection to the campaign finance reforms that almost all of us want? To make them, you actually interfere with other people's political expression?

Well, I read what you posted again and again and I stand by what I said. Keep on rocking your belief that Palin is an amazing person that is being mistreated by the media and us mean people here on GC and I'll keep on rocking my belief that she's full of shit. End of story. Agree to disagree.

Here's where I got my facts on population. http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/02000.html

MatSu is not the second largest borough even, Anchorage is first, then Fairbanks North Star. The boroughs have changed from the 2000 census (I'm pretty sure they added a lot more), but that doesn't change the fact that Wasilla is a small town compared to others. I will give them props for having a Target built this summer, they got one roughly the same time as Anchorage.

I'm not even remotely interested in voting for Sarah Palin either, even though we're alumnae of the same University. I guess I'm just annoyed by poor fact checking and reporting considering Alaska is the focus of my graduate studies. I'm an Anthropologist, I can't vote for someone who discards the fossil record in a state where my work has contributed to said record.