THE NON-STORY AND WHAT IT TELLS US...
Saturday, October 11, 2008 at 11:02AM 
The MSM are delirious about a non-story and in denial over a real story.
Hence we get the shock horror news that a partisan inquiry stocked with Dem's and Palin-haters have found the Alaskan Governor guilty of a breach of an amorphous abuse of "ethics" whilst quietly accepting that she has broken no law and committed no offence. It's a big nothing and it is the sort of smearing that the Democrats excel it and which the MSM greedily swallows. In fact anyone who has taken the time to study the details of this will see that Palin deserves to be congratulated for removing the unfit for office Walt Monegan. Taking on vested interest means you make enemies and Palin has plenty of enemies in Alaska, seething at our success.
Meanwhile, when it come to "The Other One" and his documented connections with self-proclaimed terrorists and his recent outreach into Radical Islam - not a wold from the MSM. Just tumbleweed. Nothing to see, move on.
You see if you get you news through the MSM, all you will get is bias. They have a narrative and the narrative is simple. Time for chang - time for Obama. The rest is detail.
Thankfully we have the increased power of the blogosphere and we know that more and more people turn away from the MSM. The enthusiasm with which the lapdog MSM runs this story whilst distaining even the pretence of any interest in Obama's terrorist associations, his links to what is now being seen as the ACORN con, tells us plenty.
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Reader Comments (24)
David - I've stood up for Palin on this Troopergate thing. Her former brother-in-law was apparently a cad, and by any objective account should have been removed as a police officer.
However, this was no witchhunt and she was fully cooperating with the probe (before she was running). She would have been smarter to if she had cited a conflict of interest and allowed another branch of the government to deal with it.
Yeah, funny how the MSM have noticed Palin again.
The BBC was in full quelle horreur! mode last night, with 5 Live devoting an hour it. They wouldn't devote an unbroken hour to an alien invasion, but this is the most important story of the race to them. It wouldn't be quite so suspect if BBC coverage of her was virtually non-existent.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_iDX5DWW9dM
Cue Angry White Man - Although he is going to be even more angry when Obama is elected.
Choosing Pallin looked like an inspired choice at first, but now looks like finishing off McCain.
Wonder what take ATW would have had if it had been Barack Obama that was found guilty of an abuse of power?
At least the BBC doesn't employ Faisal Islam as their main political frontman, as Channel 4 does. Strewth!?
I feel certain that the main UK/TV networks' downer on Sarah Palin is the ever creeping presence of these misogynistic Asians.
It makes you wonder about McCain's judgement in chosing a relatively unknown in the first place, when they already knew she had this hanging over her. How does she go on with the line now to clean up Washington?
She was a token candidate from the start imv, the token woman meant the female vote. Never. She's an insult to women, she was picked because of her sex and no other reason, now she's a liability.
Obama and Biden are in.
Here's the "Irish Times" take on this storm in a teacup. Typical Liberal sensationalism at work in a typical Liberal, anti-Conservative country!
HEADLINE: Alaska ethics inquiry finds Palin abused power</b?
An Alaska ethics inquiry has found that Governor Sarah Palin, the US Republican vice presidential candidate, abused her authority by pressuring subordinates to fire a state trooper involved in a feud with her family.
The finding, announced yesterday, cast a cloud over John McCain's controversial choice of running mate for the November 4th election.
The Alaska inquiry centred on whether Ms Palin's dismissal of the state's public safety commissioner, Walt Monegan, was linked to her personal feud with a state trooper who was involved in a contentious divorce with the governor's sister.
The inquiry found that while it was within the governor's authority to dismiss Monegan, she violated the public trust by pressuring those who worked for her in a way that advanced her personal wishes.
"Governor Palin knowingly permitted a situation to continue where impermissible pressure was placed on several subordinates in order to advance a personal agenda, to wit: to get Trooper Michael Wooten fired," the report said.
The investigation was commissioned in July by Alaska's Legislative Council composed of 10 Republican lawmakers and four Democrats.
The McCain-Palin campaign dismissed the report, saying it was a "partisan-led inquiry run by Obama supporters," and that Ms Palin and her family had been justified to be concerned about the behaviour of the trooper.
Ms Palin "acted within her proper and lawful authority in the reassignment of Walt Monegan," a campaign statement said.
Her communications director Bill McAllister said in a statement that the report "vindicated" the governor on the firing of Mr Monegan.
Mr McAllister questioned the finding that Ms Palin abused her power, saying, "That finding required speculation and assumptions'' by investigator Stephen Branchflower.
The investigator wrote that Ms Palin abused her power by violating a statute of the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act, which bars any official action to benefit a personal interest.
Violation of the ethics act could result in sanctions, including up to $5,000 in civil fines by a state ethics board, according to the law.
The scandal gained national attention after Ms Palin (44) who was little known outside of Alaska and has virtually no national or international experience, was selected to be McCain's running mate in August.
The ethics finding comes as Mr McCain reined in an aggressive strategy against Barack Obama that had failed to cut into his Democratic rival's lead.
After a week in which he and Ms Palin fiercely attacked Mr Obama and inflamed supporters by urging them to question his fitness to be president, the Arizona senator switched to a milder tone, calling on frustrated loyalists to respect the Illinois senator.
Supporters appeared surprised by his conciliatory approach, booing at a Minneapolis rally when he told a sceptical backer that Mr Obama was a "decent person and a person that you do not have to be scared (of) as president of the United States."
On Monday, Ms Palin had told a joint rally with Mr McCain in Florida: "I am just so fearful that (Obama) is not a man who sees America the way you and I see America."
Critics say that line was especially pointed because of its potential subtext: Mr Obama (47) would be the first black president and his background, including part of a childhood spent in Indonesia, is different from that of most Americans.
A Newsweek poll published yesterday gave Mr Obama an 11-point lead over his rival at 52-41 per cent. A month ago this poll had the two candidates tied at 46 per cent. Other polls in the most contested states have also shown a swing toward Mr Obama.
The election campaign has been overshadowed by the escalating international financial crisis, partly driven by the collapse of the US housing market. Stock markets around the world plummeted again yesterday.
A majority of Americans tell pollsters they trust Mr Obama more than Mr McCain to handle economic issues.
Campaigning in battleground states key to the election, both candidates offered proposals to try to ease the strain on Americans from the market meltdown that has cost investment portfolios billions of dollars.
If Obama ever abused a position, how would we know?
Well, of course he's guilty of abuses of power. We know he's filled his boots with cash because he's a senator. We know he's porked out bills to keep his client base happy.
Someone here the other day raised the question of how the media would react if McCain was associated with KKK members or abortion clinic bombers. Well, we know that Obama used his position to channel funds to the Black United Front - a black liberationist and seperatist movement (page 5):
http://www.judicialwatch.org/documents/2008/DCEO_1.pdf
The media attention alone gives the impression that Palin's actions are the WORST SCANDAL EVAH!! Of course they're not. Next to her opponnents, what she did was trifling.
..and now, here are the facts behind the faux story but please don't allow it to get in the way of a nice smear...
"The Branchflower Report is a series of guess and insupportable conclusions drawn by exactly one guy, and it hasn't been approved or adopted or endorsed by so much as a single sub-committee of the Alaska Legislature, much less any kind of commission, court, jury, or other proper adjudicatory body. It contains no new bombshells in terms of factual revelations. Rather, it's just Steve Branchflower's opinion after being hired and directed by one of Gov. Palin's most vocal opponents and one of Alaska's staunchest Obama supporters that he thinks Gov. Palin had, at worst, mixed motives for an action that even Branchflower admits she unquestionably had both (a) the complete right to perform and (b) other very good reasons to perform.
And here is the second shock finding...from the report and I quote..
Governor Palin's firing of Commissioner Monegan was a proper and lawful exercise of her constitutional and statutory authority to hire and fire executive branch department heads.
Got that? October surprise? I think not but evidence of MSM crass reporting? Yes.
Sorry Gosh, old bean....but Obama called for "change we can believe in" and McCain clearly thought that was a good idea and promptly hired Sarah Palin.
McCain/Palin will get in, but by a whisker.
Bernard, Palin isn't change, she's more of the same..stupid, like Bush. She fits right in there, with ease.
I think its something to do with American democracy, they elect people on personalities rather than if they can do the job.
Reagan. Won two elections. Stupid
Bush. Won two elections. Stupid.
Palin. Stupid.
See the pattern?
Did I mention Regan?
Since Bush has taken over the Republican partys fortunes have sunk worse than labours in Britain. It's a hide away for religious fundamentalists like Palin, it has nothing to offer America or the world. And while Obama may not be perfect, McCain is an old man showing his age, in ill health who chose a woman with an ideology most sane people would run away from.
McCain has already admitted he knows nothing about economics, and it's going to be the economy stupid that will win this election.
>>a partisan inquiry stocked with Dem's and Palin-haters have found the Alaskan Governor guilty of a breach of an amorphous abuse of "ethics"<<
How do you know the inquiry was thus composed? AFAIK Repubican legislators in Alsaka initiated and supported this inquiry right from the start.
Which more or less destroys your whole argument.
'The investigation was commissioned in July by Alaska's Legislative Council composed of 10 Republican lawmakers and four Democrats.'- The Irish Times.
'a partisan inquiry stocked with Dem's and Palin-haters have found the Alaskan Governor guilty of a breach of an amorphous abuse of "ethics"' David Vance
"How do you know the inquiry was thus composed? "
The investigator was appointed by a state Democrat by the name of Hollis French.
The report is a pretty feeble hatchet job, it accepts that Sarah Palin had the legal right and legitimate reasons to fire the Police chief but then concludes that she did so because of her taser happy brother in law. It resembles the Hutton Inquiry in this country where all the evidence gathered in the report is discarded in the conclusion in favour of a politically convenient result.
Palin has been caught on video lying about her reasons for firing the police chief.
Heck, who'da thought it!
Lying, Peter? And "caught" on video? Mmm..I hear she has just fessed up to causing the banking crisis and being a close pal of the Weathergirls (Obama has the Weathermem covered)
Oh, and I heard last night on a radio show that she keeps wearing white,as in the above picture, as code for the KKK robe and white power! Good god, I hope she didn't drink milk also!
I have a question for all you Palin supporters/admirers.
When you watch her pre-VP videos, dealing with her issues in Alaska, and there are quite a few going around, do you ever wonder why she doesn't wink, speak of Joe Six Pack, and say doggone and all those other silly things she has been using to mainland US voters?
I mean, don't you feel hmmmmmmmmmm is she trying to make fools out of us? Is she manipulating a certain section of our society that many feel are not very well informed on issues ( see David Brook's article from NYT yesterday), Isn't it a little condescending of her to assume we can be fooled by winks and doggone its?
That's how I would feel, if I were a 'middle american voter.'
>>When you watch her pre-VP videos, dealing with her issues in Alaska, and there are quite a few going around, do you ever wonder why she doesn't wink, speak of Joe Six Pack, and say doggone and all those other silly things she has been using to mainland US voters?<<
LOL, Pinky.
>>I mean, don't you feel hmmmmmmmmmm is she trying to make fools out of us? <<
Out of THEM, you mean. But she isn't; most of them are fools already.
Sorry, I meant to add:
You support her because her doggone its and joe six packs make her so 'authentic' but a run through her pre-VP videos makes it very clear that her authenticity is not authentic at all, but a manipulative act, that really does make very little of US voters. The predicate for the doggone it act, is that you are stupid!
Does that qualify as a paradox?
Pinky
Your 351 comment is spot on. I had a conversation on that with my liberal commie buddy Seth yesterday.
This is akin to when Hillary put on a fake black accent when speaking to black audiences. I did not like it when Hillary did it, and I don't like it when Palin does it. You betcha.
'This is akin to when Hillary put on a fake black accent when speaking to black audiences. I did not like it when Hillary did it, and I don't like it when Palin does it. You betcha.''
Agreed, Phantom. But let's not introduce some whataboutery to this. Clinton is not running for VP, Palin is, so let's stick with that for now.
I am geuinely interested in what a Palin supporter, A US Voter, hato say about this glaringly obvious factor!