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Story about Wasilla meth labs from Juneau news sm

Posted By: Mike W on 2008-10-19
In Reply to: Please provide details and link regarding the...sm - ms

http://www.juneauempire.com/stories/030805/sta_20050308002.shtml

Troopers dub Mat-Su area the meth capital of Alaska
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASILLA - The Matanuska-Susitna area is the methamphetamine capital of Alaska, according to Alaska State Troopers.
In 2003, authorities uncovered nine meth labs in the area. Last year, the number increased to 42, said Kyle Young, an investigator with the troopers who works with the Mat-Su narcotics team.

Officials with the Office of Children's Services in Wasilla said the problem affects children. The office receives about 40 calls a month from people reporting abuse or neglect involving some aspect of the highly addictive drug.

In late February, the Mat-Su narcotics unit arrested a couple at their Willow home. Michelle Motta said for years she tried to warn authorities that her three young nieces lived in the midst of a methamphetamine operation run by their parents, Phillip Dean and Laura Jackson.

Alaska State Troopers reported finding a "large active meth lab" in a detached garage shop. The house was a frigid mess, with piles of dirty dishes, clothes everywhere and frozen pipes, investigators said.






Through a hatch in the shop floor, the team found an underground room with a meth lab in one corner, as well as old marijuana root balls and lights from a past pot-growing operation.

An investigator said the team didn't find the children at home but saw signs of them there. Motta said the girls - ages 14, 8 and 6 - at times slept in the garage with the lab.

A year ago, the oldest girl detailed the household's rampant drug problems and squalid living conditions in a handwritten letter to a judge.

"My parents grow marijuana and crystal the(y) did the drugs that they bought in front of (my sisters)," the letter begins. "They spent most money on them instead of food or doing laundry. I got left home with nobody there I got left home with drug(g)ies..."

Motta now has custody of her three nieces. The Jacksons are jailed at Mat-Su Pre-Trial Facility in Palmer.

Children sharing homes with meth labs face the risk of contamination, fire, explosion, neglect and hazardous living conditions. Caseworkers report little children complaining of breathing problems from toxic fumes rising off chemicals such as acetone, ammonia and hydrochloric acid.

When authorities surrounded a converted bus housing a meth operation in Big Lake in January, a 13-year-old boy who answered the door bragged that his mom cooked the best meth in the valley, according to the troopers.

During a 2003 bust at a house outside Wasilla, officers discovered five children living inside, all younger than 8 years old.

The calls about meth to children's services in Wasilla accounts for as many as 40 percent of the agency's total monthly child protection calls.

The troopers are aggressively going after meth labs, said Capt. Ed Harrington, the supervisor of the state's drug and alcohol enforcement unit.

"It's just not a simple process," Harrington said. "Just because somebody calls in and says 'So and so's cooking meth' doesn't mean we're going to kick the door in the next night."




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Let's talk about the 42 meth labs in Wasilla or
the Keating Five or how McCain's daughter voted for John Kerry.
The wasilla meth labs were kept quiet too... and sm
for all the rabid repubs talk about the "media"... nobody really bothered Willow or Brillo or Bristol and nobody really publicized the big anti Palin rally by Alaskan women! You gotta wonder! Palin should keep her piehole closed. She got an enormous break and still screwed up.
Gotta be thankful to her though, for giving Obama more votes.

Palin's Wasilla has 42 meth labs and her daughter's new mother in law to be sm
got arrested for drugs.

I suppose the meth labs just sprung up after she was Mayor, eh? (nm)
:p
Wasilla has only 8,000 pop, so even 1 meth lab is a lot and
Yeah... PALIN has lived there since she was 3 and became mayor there so for this place to have 42 meth labs is quite dramatic.
No wonder she rose to the top of her town, the rest were skanky white trash.
Raw Story? Hardly a MSM news source I would say. SM
I will wait for the real story. 
See inside for news story.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-vote-fraud_frioct10,0,2159694.story
How is a news story such as this attacking
the other candidate?
I hate to butt in but one story seen on the news and

really scared me was when Obama was in Germany and a German citizen stated, "He's the new Messiah." This was on the evening news when he was on his around the world blitz. He really had no reason to do all that traveling as if he was already the President. What was he trying to prove??? That he can charm the world? It won't work if he becomes President.


'Nuff said.


 


 


What?! She was reporting a local news story from
nm
Excuse me. All I did was post a link to a CBS news story
the ideas you brought up in your original post trying to imply that O's AG nominee was somehow responsible for the 9/11 attacks. I think that kind of inaccurate accusation deserves some sort of defense. You evidently have a tough time digesting data that in any way contradicts your thinking, so now we have gotten to the place where I am a pouncing, bug-squashing know-it-all who slaughters innocent insects with my windshield? For posting a link to a reputable news article written directly in the aftermath of 9/11 (YEARS before Mr. Holder's nomination). Really? Don't you think you may be over-reacting just a tad?
You didn't read the AP news story on Ogden?
I posted it below in a post yesterday.
In fact, the number of labs increased after Palin became mayor nm
read
crack, meth, gangs, guns
Yea, wanting to be an architect is so Nazi and brain washing compared to the crypts and the bloods, welfare and prisons. Do you know what percentage of black men are in prison? What percentage get shot before they are 40? Give me a break. Needing to prepare for the end is just pure racist and you know it.
You have friends in Wasilla?
nm
I have a cousin in Wasilla
and it appears that there is a large amount of support for here there. News media is notoriously liberal, so the newspaper support of Obama is not a huge surprise, is it?
Cindy McCain did not use meth or crank or cocaine...
she was addicted to prescription drugs. Her crime was getting a doctor to forge prescriptions. She was using regulated narcotics...not illegal narcotics such as meth, crank, crack, or cocaine. And she wasn't dealing.
Here is the link to "WASILLA", Alaska's meth capital but sm
http://tribes.tribe.net/politicaljunkies/thread/0b308226-ffc2-47bc-ad09-e7be906a8188



Wasilla - Meth Capitol Of Alaskatopic posted Mon, September 15, 2008 - 7:57 AM by Joe

Sarah Palin's all American Small Town turns out to be ground zero for meth production in Alaska.


Make one wonder about firing all those Police Officials.


"WASILLA - The Matanuska-Susitna area is the methamphetamine capital of Alaska, according to Alaska State Troopers.


In 2003, authorities uncovered nine meth labs in the area. Last year, the number increased to 42, said Kyle Young, an investigator with the troopers who works with the Mat-Su narcotics team.


Officials with the Office of Children's Services in Wasilla said the problem affects children. The office receives about 40 calls a month from people reporting abuse or neglect involving some aspect of the highly addictive drug."



Wicked Witch of Wasilla
She is being further investigated on yet more incidences of abuse of power.  The fact that she and Todd built their brand new home using the same contractor that just happened to get the contract to build a new 10 million dollar sports complex in Wasilla simultaneously has led some to question the whole deal, and possibly acquiring, shall we say, the means to do so through this contractor.  That's just one of them.  Watch Keith Olberman tonight on MSNBC.  They have her all figured out!  Obviously someone believes this woman is shady enough to warrant this further investigation.
According to my friends in Wasilla...Alaskans
love her and don't have a problem with her family going with her on trips. Maybe you should consult them before you say what the taxpayers hate.

Very few up there have any problem with her, except the buddy system they had in place. Anyone still associated with them of course wouldn't care for her. She kicked their butts!
Gee, I dunno. How much tax revenue could we collect from meth, heroin, coke, etc.?
If we're gonna do this, let's do this right. I want to get my bid in for the vending machine rights.
Wiki. 1984, Miss Wasilla.
nm
On Palin, AKA The Wicked Witch of Wasilla
For someone that we collectively have only known now for 8-9 weeks or so, we sure have discovered a lot of very questionable things about her that blatantly shows her lack of integrity, her intelligence of matters of the country (and the constitution), the many, many lies that she has been caught in lies, her very un-Christian-like behavior that provokes people to such a base mob frenzy (all done with a simpering smirk), her very obvious hunger for power and the spotlight, and now she is even turning against her running mate trying to make him look bad in a very sneaky backhanded way in order to further her own very demigogic agenda.  I, for one, cannot understand that there are still so many people out there that just will not see the truth.  Trust me, there is lots more to come in the next 10 days!!
The Wicked Witch of Wasilla, talk
about goulish!!
Miss Wasilla please chill, a 30-billion pipeline is not God's Will! nm
1
FOX news IS the news. The only 1 that tells BOTH
nm
It's all over the news - and I mean ALL news stations.
not just the ones you don't like.

Here's the story. sm
Tuesday, Aug. 30, 2005 10:51 p.m. EDT

RFK Jr.: Bush, Barbour to Blame for Katrina

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is blaming Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, along with President Bush, for causing Hurricane Katrina.

As Hurricane Katrina dismantles Mississippi’s Gulf Coast, it’s worth recalling the central role that Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour played in derailing the Kyoto Protocol and kiboshing President Bush’s iron-clad campaign promise to regulate CO2, Kennedy blogged Tuesday on HuffingtonPost.com. The influential Democrat's enviro-conspiracy theory had the sinister Gov. Barbour engineering Bush's energy policy on behalf of the president’s major donors from the fossil fuel industry.

Kennedy charges that in March 2001, the former Republican National Committee chairman issued an urgent memo to the White House on CO2 emissions.

With that, the president dropped his pro-environment campaign promise like a hot potato.

Because of Bush and Barbour's CO2 folly, said Kennedy: Now we are all learning what it’s like to reap the whirlwind of fossil fuel dependence which Barbour and his cronies have encouraged.

RFK, Jr., even suggested that Katrina's last minute detour through Mississippi was a bit of Divine payback, declaring:

Perhaps it was Barbour’s memo that caused Katrina, at the last moment, to spare New Orleans and save its worst flailings for the Mississippi coast.


Another take on the story....
Republicans on the Record

What does the record say about Republicans and the battle for civil rights and specifically for the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Public Law 88-352)?

Since Abraham Lincoln, Republicans have been there for blacks when it counted. Nevertheless, Democrats invariably take all the credit for the success of the civil rights movement and invariably fail to give any credit to Republicans.

In fact, the civil rights movement was not about politics. Nor was it about which politicians did what and which political party should take the most credit. When it came to civil rights, America's politicians merely saw the handwriting on the wall and wrote the legislation to make into federal law the historical changes that had already taken place. There was nothing else they could do.

The movement of blacks to the North, as well as their contributions as fighting men in the world wars, plus the hard work of millions of blacks and their families and churches, along with the efforts of many private groups and individuals made the civil rights movement succeed.

Civil rights for blacks found its historical moment after 1945. Bills introduced in Congress regarding employment policy brought the issue of civil rights to the attention of representatives and senators.

In 1945, 1947 and 1949, the House of Representatives voted to abolish the poll tax restricting the right to vote. Although the Senate did not join in this effort, the bills signaled a growing interest in protecting civil rights through federal action.

The executive branch of government, by presidential order, likewise became active by ending discrimination in the nation's military forces and in federal employment and work done under government contract.

Harry Truman ordered the integration of the military. However, his Republican opponent in the election of 1948, Tom Dewey, was just as strong a proponent for that effort as any Democrat.

As a matter of fact, the record shows that since 1933 Republicans had a more positive record on civil rights than the Democrats.

In the 26 major civil rights votes after 1933, a majority of Democrats opposed civil rights legislation in over 80 percent of the votes. By contrast, the Republican majority favored civil rights in over 96 percent of the votes.

[See http://www.congresslink.org/civil/essay.html and http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/1982/3/82.03.04.x.html.]


It has been maintained all the Dixiecrats became Republicans shortly after passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, another big lie. Richard Russell, Mendell Rivers, Clinton's mentor William Fulbright, Robert Byrd, Fritz Hollings and Al Gore Sr. remained Democrats till their dying day.

Most of the Dixiecrats did not become Republicans. They created the Dixiecrats and then, when the civil rights movement succeeded, they returned to the Democratic fold. It was not till much later, with a new, younger breed of Southerner and the thousands of Northerners moving into the South, that Republicans began to make gains.

I know. I was there.

When I moved to Georgia in 1970, the Democratic Party had a total lock on Georgia. Newt Gingrich was one of the first outsiders to break that lock. He did so in a West Georgia area into which many Northerners were moving. He gained the support of rural West Georgians over issues that had absolutely nothing to do with race.



JFK – The Reluctant Civil Rights President

JFK evolved into a true believer in the civil rights movement when it became such an overwhelming historical and moral imperative that he had no choice. As a matter of record, when Kennedy was a senator from Massachusetts, he had an opportunity to vote on the 1957 Civil Rights Act pushed by Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson. Instead, he voted to send it to the conservative Senate Judiciary Committee, where it would have been pigeonholed.

His lukewarm support for theAct included his vote to allow juries to hear contempt cases. Dixiecrats preferred the jury system to trials presided over and decided by judges because all-white juries rarely convicted white civil rights violators.

His record in the 1950s did not mark Kennedy as a civil rights activist. Yet the 1957Act to benefit African-Americans was passed with the help of Republicans. It was a watered- down version of the later 1964 bill, which Kennedy backed.

The record on JFK shows he was a man of his times and a true politician, more given to equivocation and pragmatism than to activism. Kennedy outlined civil rights legislation only after most of the country was behind it and ready for him to act.

For the most part, in the 1960 presidential campaign he avoided the civil rights issue altogether. He did endorse some kind of federal action, but he could not afford to antagonize Southern Democrats, whose support he desperately needed to defeat Richard Nixon. Basically, he could not jeopardize the political support of the Dixiecrats and many politicians in the rest of the country who were concerned about the radical change that was in the offing.

After he was elected president, Kennedy failed to suggest any new civil rights proposals in 1961 or 1962. That failure was for pragmatic political reasons and so that he could get the rest of his agenda passed.

Introducing specific civil rights legislation in the Senate would have meant a filibuster and the obstruction of other business he felt was just as crucial as civil rights legislation. A filibuster would have happened for sure and it would have taken 67 members to support cloture to end such a filibuster. Sixty-seven votes Kennedy believed he did not have.

As it was, Kennedy had other fish to fry, including the growing threat of Russian imperialism, the building of the Berlin Wall, the Bay of Pigs as Cuba went down the communist rat hole, his increase in the numbers of troops and advisers he was sending to Vietnam, and the Cuban Missile Crisis.

In addition, the steel business was in crisis and he needed a major tax rate cut to stimulate a sluggish economy. Kennedy understood his options and he chose to be realistic.

When Kennedy did act in June 1963 to propose a civil rights bill, it was because the climate of opinion and the political situation forced him to act.

The climate of opinion had changed dramatically between World War II and 1964. Various efforts by groups of Protestant and Catholic clergy, along with the Urban League, NAACP, Congress of Racial Equality, black activists, individuals both white and black and, of course, Martin Luther King Jr., as well as other subsets of his movement, are what forced civil rights to be crafted into federal law.

The National Opinion Research Center discovered that by 1963 the number of Americans who approved neighborhood integration had risen 30 percent in 20 years, to 72 percent. Americans supporting school integration had risen even more impressively, to 75 percent.

The efforts of politicians were needed to write all the changes and efforts into law. Politicians did not lead charge on civil rights – again, they just took credit, especially the Democrats.

The 1964 Civil Rights Act

When all the historical forces had come together, Kennedy decided to act. John Kennedy began the process of gaining support for the legislation in a nationally televised address on June 11, 1963.

Gathering business and religious leaders and telling the more violent activists in the black leadership to tone down the confrontational aspects of the movement, Kennedy outlined the Civil Rights Act. In it, the Justice Department was given the responsibility of addressing the worst problems of racial discrimination.

Because of the problem with a possible Senate filibuster, which would be imposed by Southern Democrats, the diverse aspects of theAct were first dealt with in the House of Representatives. The roadblock would be that Southern senators chaired both the Judiciary and the Commerce committees.

Kennedy and LBJ understood that a bipartisan coalition of Republicans and Northern Democrats was the key to the bill's final success.

Remember that the Republicans were the minority party at the time. Nonetheless, H.R.7152 passed the House on Feb. 10, 1964. Of the 420 members who voted, 290 supported the civil rights bill and 130 opposed it.

Republicans favored the bill 138 to 34; Democrats supported it 152-96. Republicans supported it in higher proportions than Democrats. Even though those Democrats were Southern segregationists, without Republicans the bill would have failed. Republicans were the other much-needed leg of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

The Man From Illinois

In the Senate, Hubert Humphrey was the point man for the Civil Rights Act. That is not unusual considering the Democrats held both houses of Congress and the presidency.

Sen. Thomas Kuchel of California led the Republican pro-civil rights forces. But it became clear who among the Republicans was going to get the job done; that man was conservative Senator Everett McKinley Dirksen.

He was the master key to victory for the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Without him and the Republican vote, theAct would have been dead in the water for years to come. LBJ and Humphrey knew that without Dirksen the Civil Rights Act was going nowhere.

Dirksen became a tireless supporter, suffering bouts of ill health because of his efforts in behalf of crafting and passing the Civil Rights Act. Nonetheless, Sen. Dirksen suffered the same fate as many Republicans and conservatives do today.

Even though Dirksen had an exemplary voting record in support of bills furthering the cause of African-Americans, activist groups in Illinois did not support Dirksen for re-election to the Senate in 1962.

Believing that Dirksen could be forced into voting for the Civil Rights Act, they demonstrated and picketed and there were threats by CORE to continue demonstrations and violence against Dirksen's offices in Illinois. James Farmer of CORE stated that people will march en masse to the post offices there to file handwritten letters in protest.

Dirksen blew it off in a statement typical of him: When the day comes that picketing, distress, duress, and coercion can push me from the rock of conviction, that is the day that I shall gather up my togs and walk out of here and say that my usefulness in the Senate has come to an end.

Dirksen began the tactical arrangements for passage of the bill. He organized Republican support by choosing floor captains for each of the bill's seven sections.

The Republican swing votes were from rural states without racial problems and so were uncommitted. The floor captains and Dirksen himself created an imperative for these rural Republicans to vote in favor of cloture on filibuster and then for the Act itself.

As they worked through objections to the bill, Dirksen explained his goal as first, to get a bill; second, to get an acceptable bill; third, to get a workable bill; and, finally, to get an equitable bill.

In any event, there were still 52 days of filibuster and five negotiation sessions. Senators Dirksen and Humphrey, and Attorney General Robert Kennedy agreed to propose a clean bill as a substitute for H. R. 7152. Senators Dirksen, Mansfield, Humphrey and Kuchel would cosponsor the substitute.

This agreement did not mean the end of the filibuster, but it did provide Dirksen with a compromise measure, which was crucial to obtain the support of the swing Republicans.

On June 17, the Senate voted by a 76 to 18 margin to adopt the bipartisan substitute worked out by Dirksen in his office in May and to give the bill its third reading. Two days later, the Senate passed the bill by a 73 to 27 roll call vote. Six Republicans and 21 Democrats held firm and voted against passage.

In all, the 1964 civil rights debate had lasted a total of 83 days, slightly over 730 hours, and had taken up almost 3,000 pages in the Congressional Record.

On May 19, Dirksen called a press conference told the gathering about the moral need for a civil rights bill. On June 10, 1964, with all 100 senators present, Dirksen rose from his seat to address the Senate. By this time he was very ill from the killing work he had put in on getting the bill passed. In a voice reflecting his fatigue, he still spoke from the heart:

There are many reasons why cloture should be invoked and a good civil rights measure enacted. It is said that on the night he died, Victor Hugo wrote in his diary substantially this sentiment, 'Stronger than all the armies is an idea whose time has come.' The time has come for equality of opportunity in sharing of government, in education, and in employment. It must not be stayed or denied.

After the civil rights bill was passed, Dirksen was asked why he had done it. What could possibly be in it for him given the fact that the African-Americans in his own state had not voted for him? Why should he champion a bill that would be in their interest? Why should he offer himself as a crusader in this cause?

Dirksen's reply speaks well for the man, for Republicans and for conservatives like him: I am involved in mankind, and whatever the skin, we are all included in mankind.

The bill was signed into law by President Johnson on July 2, 1964.


This does not tell the whole story either...
See below:
What is SCHIP?

The State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) was created by Congress in 1997 and is funded by both the federal government and the states. The program is designed to help states initiate and expand the provision of child health insurance to uninsured, low-income children.

SCHIP is administered by the states which have three options for providing SCHIP coverage. They can:

create separate SCHIP programs;
expand eligibility for benefits under the state’s Medicaid plan (a Medicaid SCHIP program); or
use both approaches in combination.
Within federal guidelines, states determine their SCHIP program(s):

design,
eligibility rules,
benefits packages,
payment levels, and
administrative and operating procedures.
At the federal level, SCHIP is administered by the Department of Health and Human Services though the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).

There is nothing here about enrolling all the children in private insurance. That is at the discretion of the states. According to this they can expand the Medicaid coverage for SCHIP...government administered. At the federal level, it is administered by Medicare/Medicaid. Goverment administered. So to say it is not government administered is an untruth.

"Dorn says that's not exactly right, either. "This bill would actually put new limits in place to keep states from going to very high-income levels. SCHIP money would no longer be available over 300 percent of the federal poverty level, which is about $60,000 for a family of four."

That is also an untruth. This is from the bill itself:
SEC. 110. LIMITATION ON MATCHING RATE FOR STATES THAT PROPOSE TO COVER CHILDREN WITH EFFECTIVE FAMILY INCOME THAT EXCEEDS 300 PERCENT OF THE POVERTY LINE.

(a) FMAP Applied to Expenditures- Section 2105(c) (42 U.S.C. 1397ee(c)) is amended by adding at the end the following new paragraph:

`(8) LIMITATION ON MATCHING RATE FOR EXPENDITURES FOR CHILD HEALTH ASSISTANCE PROVIDED TO CHILDREN WHOSE EFFECTIVE FAMILY INCOME EXCEEDS 300 PERCENT OF THE POVERTY LINE-

`(A) FMAP APPLIED TO EXPENDITURES- Except as provided in subparagraph (B), for fiscal years beginning with fiscal year 2008, the Federal medical assistance percentage (as determined under section 1905(b) without regard to clause (4) of such section) shall be substituted for the enhanced FMAP under subsection (a)(1) with respect to any expenditures for providing child health assistance or health benefits coverage for a targeted low-income child whose effective family income would exceed 300 percent of the poverty line but for the application of a general exclusion of a block of income that is not determined by type of expense or type of income.

`(B) EXCEPTION- Subparagraph (A) shall not apply to any State that, on the date of enactment of the Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2007, has an approved State plan amendment or waiver to provide, or has enacted a State law to submit a State plan amendment to provide, expenditures described in such subparagraph under the State child health plan.'.

It does NOT exclude coverage for those OVER the 300% marker. It only limits matching funds. And you notice it says EXCEEDS 300% of the poverty line. So anything UP TO 300% of the poverty line would be covered under the proposal sent to Bush, which equals the $82,600. Bush understands the bill better than this guy does. It does leave it open for New York or anywhere else to put people on the program right up to $82,600 per year income. Just like Bush said. I did not make this up. It is copied directly from the bill that is posted on the Library of Congress website.

Just making sure the whole story is told.
here is that story...
Commissioner dismissal controversy
On July 11, 2008, Governor Palin dismissed Walter Monegan as Commissioner of Public Safety and instead offered him a position as executive director of the state Alcoholic Beverage Control Board, which he subsequently turned down.[44][45] Monegan alleged shortly after his dismissal that it may have been partly due to his reluctance to fire an Alaska State Trooper, Mike Wooten, who had been involved in a divorce and child custody battle with Palin's sister, Molly McCann.[46] In 2006, before Palin was governor, Wooten was briefly suspended for ten days for threatening to kill McCann's (and Palin's) father, tasering his 11-year-old stepson (at the stepson's request), and violating game laws. After a union protest, the suspension was reduced to five days.[47]

Governor Palin asserts that her dismissal of Monegan was unrelated to the fact that he had not fired Wooten, and asserts that Monegan was instead dismissed for not adequately filling state trooper vacancies, and because he "did not turn out to be a team player on budgeting issues."[48] Palin acknowledges that a member of her administration, Frank Bailey, did contact the Department of Public Safety regarding Wooten, but both Palin and Bailey say that happened without her knowledge and was unrelated to her dismissal of Monegan.[48] Bailey was put on leave for two months for acting outside the scope of his authority as the Director of Boards and Commissions.

In response to Palin's statement that she had nothing to hide, in August 2008 the Alaska Legislature hired Steve Branchflower to investigate Palin and her staff for possible abuse of power surrounding the dismissal, though lawmakers acknowledge that "Monegan and other commissioners serve at will, meaning they can be fired by Palin at any time."[49] The investigation is being overseen by Democratic State Senator Hollis French, who says that the Palin administration has been cooperating and thus subpoenas are unnecessary.[50] The Palin administration itself was the first to release an audiotape of Bailey making inquiries about the status of the Wooten investigation.[48][51]


I think the story is entirely possible, but unlikely.

I have done a little bit of poking around and read a few other tidbits here and there and formed my opinion.   


Everyone keeps saying that her water broke while she was in Texas, but it did not technically.  She was just leaking fluid, and she was not in labor.  She had had 4 kids and knew she was not yet in labor and discussed that with her doctor, who gave her the go-ahead to fly.  That is not that unusual to me. 


She waited a long time to announce her pregnancy.  Okay, but probably the reason she waited was because she already knew the baby had Down's (she reportedly found out in December) and knew that there was a higher chance that she would miscarry.  Rather than announce her pregnancy, then lose her baby, she chose to keep it private until she was more certain she would indeed carry to term.  I understand that.  I also think that she probably needed the time to process how her family would adapt to a special needs child, and wrap her mind around it, so to speak.  Not to mention the fact that a fifth child is not usually announced with the pomp and circumstance of a first baby.  That is typical.


As far as her not looking pregnant, that happens all the time.  I remember seeing Pamela Anderson on a talk show and she was 7 or 8 months' pregnant.  I was shocked at how tiny she was.  She looked barely pregnant, and her baby wasn't even extra small when it was born.  DIfferent women carry differently and Governor Palin was dressing in jackets and other clothing which would hide a bulge. 


I saw the picture of her daughter and that was completely unconvincing as well.  Girls wear shirts tight across the tummy like that all the time, even if they are chubby in the midsection.  It is very common.  If she was pregnant and trying to it it while posing for a family photo, wouldn't she choose different clothing?


All that being said, even if it were to turn out to be true, I wouldn't hold it against her for claiming the child as her own in order to protect her daughter and the baby.  I don't see anything wrong in hiding a teenage pregnancy if it can be successfully hidden.  No one should be proud of being unwed and pregnant.  It's too bad that so many young girls think absolutely nothing of it, an actually get pregnant on purpose knowing full well that the baby's father will never be a part of its life.  That is part of what is wrong with our society today. 


thanks for your story

We must be nearly the same age because I know several women who were pressured into giving their children away and they are still haunted by that decision to this day. You are correct about the damage Palin is doing to her daughter. 


 


What the..? What was there ONE story about someone
have been SP's doing ?? You make it sound like she handed down firings to several thousand. LOL But hey, if she's that powerful and good at putting her plans into action, then maybe I will vote for McCain/Palin.
Let me tell you a story

Back in the early 70s, I was a single mom, going through a divorce, and no job. My son was only 1-1/2 years old. I needed help and had no one. I went to Welfare to see if they could help me. I got some money for an apartment and food stamps.


After 5 months, I found a job, told welfare I was going off it because I didn't need the help anymore. Well, they absolutely begged me to stay on it for at least another year. Needless to say, it was harder to get OFF it than to get on it. I just couldn't get it through their heads that I didn't want their handouts. I had a standing invitation to come back anytime.


Well, fast forward 8 years. My new husband's job went down the tubes and we went through all our savings, living paycheck to paycheck on mine. Went back to welfare to see if we could at least get food stamps for our 2 kids now. Nope! I earned $11 too much. They told us to sell the cars and the house we were buying and then maybe, just maybe, we would qualify for everything. No way!


Needless to say, we had a friend who owned a bar and served sandwiches and soup. He let my husband work for him doing odd jobs around his property and paid him in leftover soup and sandwiches. Hubby was also able to pick up a few other odd jobs and that's how we survived for 2 years.  We had a woodburner and cut and split our own wood, had seeds given to us and grew our own garden in the summer. We survived, but it wasn't easy. The only thing nice about it was my children learned about survival and my husband and I never gained any weight.The kids ate first, then hubby because his odd jobs were tougher than mine, and I ate last.


To this day, I can't look at a plate of spaghetti, soup, or chili. LOL


I actually got the story from CNN ....
Just sayin ...
And in a related story...

...*Curious George* wants to know who's visiting porn sites.  Hmmmmmm... thought spying was only supposed to be used to catch *terrorists*....



U.S., Google Set to Face Off in Court



By MICHAEL LIEDTKE, AP Business WriterTue Mar 14, 8:16 AM ET



The Bush administration will renew its effort to find out what people have been looking for on Google Inc.'s Internet-leading search engine, continuing a legal showdown over how much of the Web's vast databases should be shared with the government.


Lawyers for the Justice Department and Google are expected to elaborate on their opposing views in a San Jose hearing scheduled Tuesday before U.S. District Court Judge James Ware.


It will mark the first time the Justice Department and Google have sparred in court since the government subpoenaed the Mountain-View, Calif.-based company last summer in an effort to obtain a long list of search requests and Web site addresses.


The government believes the requested information will help bolster its arguments in another case in Pennsylvania, where the Bush administration hopes to revive a law designed to make it more difficult for children to see online pornography.


Google has refused to cooperate, maintaining that the government's demand threatens its users' privacy as well as its own closely guarded trade secrets.


The Justice Department has downplayed Google's concerns, arguing it doesn't want any personal information nor any data that would undermine the company's thriving business.


The case has focused attention on just how much personal information is stored by popular Web sites like Google — and the potential for that data to attract the interest of the government and other parties.


Although the Justice Department says it doesn't want any personal information now, a victory over Google in the case would likely encourage far more invasive requests in the future, said University of Connecticut law professor Paul Schiff Berman, who specializes in Internet law.


The erosion of privacy tends to happen incrementally, Berman said. While no one intrusion may seem that big, over the course of the next decade or two, you might end up in a place as a society where you never thought you would be.


Google seized on the case to underscore its commitment to privacy rights and differentiate itself from the Internet's other major search engines — Yahoo Inc. (Nasdaq:YHOO - news), Microsoft Corp.'s MSN and Time Warner Inc.'s America Online. All three say they complied with the Justice Department's request without revealing their users' personal information.


Cooperating with the government is a slippery slope and it's a path we shouldn't go down, Google co-founder Sergey Brin told industry analysts earlier this month.


Even as it defies the Bush administration, Google recently bowed to the demands of China's Communist government by agreeing to censor its search results in that country so it would have better access to the world's fastest growing Internet market. Google's China capitulation has been harshly criticized by some of the same people cheering the company's resistance to the Justice Department subpoena.


The Justice Department initially demanded a month of search requests from Google, but subsequently decided a week's worth of requests would be enough. In its legal briefs, the Justice Department has indicated it might be willing to narrow its request even further.


Ultimately, the government plans to select a random sample of 1,000 search requests previously made at Google and re-enter them in the search engine, according to a sworn declaration by Philip Stark, a statistics professor at the University of California, Berkeley who is helping the Justice Department in the case.


The government believes the test will show how easily it is to get around the filtering software that's supposed to prevent children from seeing sexually explicit material on the Web.


I only posted one story. sm
And the subject, to me, is Ward Churchill has his deception, not AIM.  I would think as an OP, you would be more in tune to what the OP publications are saying about him. 
Where did you find this story? sm
I can't find anything anywhere on this.   Thank you!
I only found one story on this. sm

From an obscure site called Rogers Cadenhead.  The remainder of the stories, from the LA Times, etc., did not include anything about U.S. Troops protecting the Hezbollah sympathizers. 


Could it be possible there are 2 sides to the story? sm
The US, UK, and Israel also have a long and colorful history of 'creating incidents' to further their own agendas. I would say control of the Middle East is something at the top of the list. Hezbollah is wrong to send rockets into Israel. In fact, they are all wrong, but what do you expect them to do just wait there and be incinerated by Israel?
Here is a follow up to the first story... sm
http://www.lonestaricon.com/absolutenm/anmviewer.asp?a=448&z=56
Real story from the MSM?.....sm
Bush controlled, corporate crony owned media telling the truth - not going to happen. That only happens when you have a democratic republic, not a corporate plutocracy. TV news definitely lies, suppresses, and distorts news.
Actually that's not the complete story...
You did not mention that when Summersby was dying of cancer she stated that it had been a romantic affair after all and wrote about it in her book.  This contradicted what she had earlier stated.  Who knows what really happened, and does it really matter?  I doubt it.  It only proves that we're all flawed humans, even some Republicans!!
I like the semaphore story better....nm

nm


yes, he changed the story

"just a bit" to better prove his point that she was a reformer.  Like his cross in the dirt story as a POW.  When he first told it, it happened to someone else.  It went over better when he changed it to first person. That is dangerous behavior.  We have been through 8 years of information manipulation.  Please no more.


 


This whole story is absurd, more like a
fairytale or wishful thinking, right is running scared is all.
That's not the whole story/reason. (sm)
I, for one, do not want to pick produce from the fields and do many of the jobs that migrant workers do. I'm not lazy, per se, but I have other opportunities to make my income in ways closer to how I want to live.

Many Americans do not want to do those menial jobs. So, we do need migrant workers who are willing to fill those positions.

That isn't the whole story, though. And it doesn't make it acceptable to allow illegals in regardless of the job situation, etc.

Is this a true story? LOL
nm
Here's the rest of the story.
1. No soup for researching the breakdown on appropriations and who came down for and against as they progressed through time. That "congress did" cop-out does not cover for the fact that between 2002 and 2007, Dems were outnumbered by war zealots with glazed-over eyes as they followed a leader of liars and prevailed on the money issues. Answer: The pubs dominated and ARE credited for building up a $400B debt, no matter how fast you spin it.
2. Thank you. Obama voted against. Vision, conviction and courage to place principle over politics. Biden voted for, but has since stated he believes it was a mistake because of the W administration mismanagement of the war. Go here for Biden on the issue of Iraq: Does not appear to be part of the fleeced flock anymore. http://www.ontheissues.org/Joe_Biden.htm.
3. Obama. Ahead of the curve. Petraeus is not running for president.
4. Petraeus is a military man with a military agenda and a reputation to protect, just like McCain. Trouble is, public is war weary and are looking for nonmilitary solutions…or at least somebody who is willing to consider such notions. There has to be a plan for what lies beyond the surge, which is not an everlasting solution. Question is whose plan? Bush and McCain NOW get it that Obama gots it and are going with his flow. According to you, Petraeus is onboard too. By the way, the Iraqi leadership just might be entitled to weigh in on this one. After all, it IS their country. They backed Obama on international television this past summer, lest we forget.
5. Well then, according to you, Petraeus is onboard troop draw-down. No highjack here, but a bit slow on the draw.
6. There has been no political resolution. Iraqis have not taken control of their own nation. Exactly what do you think will happen after troop withdrawal? The Sunni, Shia and Kurds will throw farewell flowers at the troops and each other in gratitude for all the help and Iraq will become the "oasis of democracy" in the Middle East? All the surge has done is prolong the inevitable. We need to step aside NO MATTER WHAT the consequences and hand the Iraqis the keys to the kingdom and let them sort themselves out.

A story I like to tell about the Ivy League...
I earned a BBA (Bachelors of Business Administration) from Temple University. Many years ago, I had a pretty high-powered job. I'll never forget a young lady who came in to interview with me for a job in our department. It seemed as though she couldn't mention often enough that she had earned her BBA from the University of Pennsylvania. So, following her lead, I spent quite a bit of time talking to her about her time at Penn, and it didn't take her very long before she was expressing her opinion that an Ivy League education was better than any other, and so she was the best candidate out there. I admired her spunk, but not her flawed logic.

I told her that the BBA degree was accredited by a single organization, and that the study curriculum at all schools offering the degree was the same. One could argue that faculty in some schools were better or worse than in others, but there was no hard and fast measure of that opinion. The curriculum, however, was the same in every school.

I asked her what her University of Pennsylvania tuition had been. This was in the early 1980s, and she proudly said it was around $30,000 a year. I told her that tuition at Temple University was about $4000 a year. So the cost of my BBA had been roughly $16,000. The cost of hers had been roughly $120,000. I told her that in my opinion, we had purchased the same product, but that there was a significant difference in the cost of that product. I then asked her if as an employee of our company, I might expect her to likewise overpay on budget items in our department.

The kicker was, my degree was hanging on the wall in my office. She couldn't help but see it. It really wasn't the way to warm up to the interviewer. My impression of her was that someone paid a lot of money for her education, but she wasn't too smart.