Sarah Palin, Mired in Debt, Whines, Begging for Donations
Sarah Palin has over half a million dollars in legal debt, and she’s whining about it. Everyone is out to get her, evidently. Now she’s thinking of starting a legal defense fund, where she will beg people to donate to help her out. Meanwhile she is not accepting stimulus package money that will help Alaskans with their troubles.
Of course Sarah Palin had to defend herself from ethics accusations, many of which came from before she entered into last year’s Presidential race. Evidently her legal fees are well over a half of a million dollars. I’m thinking the solution would have been not to let her husband meddle in the affairs of government and try to get someone fired, but that train left the station. Now Sarah Palin has worlds of whiney excuses for her debts. They all stem from politically motivated accusations, she says. Yes, everyone is out to get Sarah Palin. Victimhood is a familiar place, I’m sure. Maybe she’ll start accusing domestic terrorists if this ploy doesn’t work.
The wonderful part of this story is about how Poor persecuted Sarah is going to get those monstrous debts paid off. She’s going to beg people for money. It is sort of a Republican welfare thing, isn’t it? They’ve all got their legal defense funds, don’t they? Here’s a bit of the story from the Anchorage Daily News:
Legal bills have mounted fighting complaints that she called partisan, false and frivolous, starting with “the politically motivated Troopergate probe,” Palin said in a written response to questions.
She said the legal bills all stem from her actions as governor.
“I must defend against these baseless ethics accusations out of my own pocket as the use of public monies to do so could itself violate state law,” Palin wrote.
The debt, amassed since she was catapulted into the national spotlight during the presidential race, was revealed in her annual financial disclosure filed this week with the Alaska Public Offices Commission.
“On August 29, it seems the political landscape changed in Alaska. Now, it seems in order to do this job as Governor, with the political blood sport some are playing today, only the independently wealthy or those willing to spend their income on legal fees to defend their official actions in office … can serve,” Palin said in the written response to Daily News questions.
The debt is owed to the Alaska law firm Clapp, Peterson, Van Flein, Tiemessen & Thorsness, according to her financial disclosure.
The disclosure said only that she owed “hundreds of thousands of dollars.” On Friday in the written statement, attorney Thomas Van Flein wouldn’t give a precise number but said it was “a substantial debt.” Palin said she didn’t have an exact figure yet but “the debt is over a half a million dollars.”
I’m thinking most people who go on welfare don’t have the nice peachy house Sarah Palin lives in, nor do they have a job that pays over a hundred thousand dollars a year. No, and most people wouldn’t have committed the ethics violations Sarah Palin did, either. Still, she’s entitled, I suppose, to rely on the kindness of strangers, even if she is trying to deny Alaskans with real hardship from getting the services they need in refusing stimulus funds.
Hey, maybe since one of the ethics charges is that she let Todd Palin run rampant and try to control government personnell decisions, then he could sell his snowmobile collection to help pay off the legal debts. Heck, or maybe Sarah Palin could have simply come clean.
I believe she was found innocent of any wrongdoing or does that matter? Why so concerned about Palin? Must be a reason!?
Since Palin is a governor and our current president has some very serious, ethically questionable problems both past and present, I personally am much more concerned with O’bama than Palin and I live in Illinois!
Palin can’t effect me in any way but O’bama can and why are none of you leftie’s asking about his ethics or ANYTHING else for that matter?
I also believe that Alaska does NOT need any of the federal stimulus especially when it’s the Freudian nightmares in D.C., 3,000 miles away, that will be delegating how most of it must be spent.
I have some serious questions for Palin before she gets any closer to D.C. too but any rational, cognitively stable person would not, on resume alone, choose O’bama over Palin. It’s a no brainer.
Palin has things as does everyone else that has any desire for an office in D.C. that she will have to have settled before anyone will move her east.
Let it go! In the present circumstances, Palin should be no more than a childhood nightmare for you leftie’s.
Be concerned about how O’bama and your boys in congress’ noses are allready the envy of their Disney counterpart and how O’bama and Madame Pelosi are racing to be the frequent flier of the century at OUR expense.
How many of your commrades can’t name the vice-president? That should also be a major concern. The man on the street segments that have made the news are pretty clear on one fact! There is a LARGE contingent of democrat voters that know no more about who’s who and what’s what in D.C. than they do molecular biology.
Seemingly from the comments comming from the cognitively challenged on the lawns of the AIG executives, I’d be frightened at adults by the calender crying like infants missing their passy over what someone else has and expecting big brother to take what that someone has as if they are the ones that are going to benefit from government taking something from someone else.
Interesting that with all there is to be concerned and blogging about, you found it important to report on Palin’s debt’s.
Me, I have tried to have a decent exchange of idea’s and comment with dems I know or come in contact with but so many times they have no comprehension of whether or not they have all the facts, whether or not they are being lied to or misled and often they just don’t care.
So many are simply ignorant to reality because of their belief system being based on parent instilled mind set often of the herd mentality variety. Dems are for the working man and the republicans are for the rich blah blah blah.
Not to say that some of those don’t inhabit my side of the fence too but I don’t hear any of them saying ANYTHING about Sara Palin!
There’s a lot there to address, so I’ll just address a few.
1) Just google “Palin found guilty of violations” and any number of blogs, articles and pages detailing how she was found guilty of ethics violations and abuse of power. The only group that found her innocent was her in house Alaskan team.
2) Obama has made some mistakes and he’s broken some promises. He however has not been under investigation for any ethics violations or abuse of power, and more to the point, is not the basis of this article. If you want to complain about Obama, there are other, better places to make your point.
3) Trying to rein in the vitriol as much as possible here, but believe it or not, there are some people who DO care how other people are faring 3000 miles away and how they are dealing with the same hardships. And when a politician who has so consistently shown her ignorance and incompetence in office pulls a stunt like the one described in the article, then it makes us mad. “Lefties” are called ‘bleeding heart liberals’ because they really do care about other people. Maybe too much, but that is another topic for another diatribe.
Overall, your argument is all over the map. Complaining about Obama and Pelosi, accusing Democrats of not knowing who the VP is (Joe Biden, by the way), accusing them of not knowing the facts about things period, the list goes on. Clearly you have some issues you need to communicate to real people, face to face, and not some Dems who don’t have “all the facts”. I don’t know who you’ve been talking to, but the problem may be that you aren’t listening to what they are saying and you are failing to comprehend, not the other way around.
Quite honestly, no intellectually honest person could possibly assert that this train wreck of a woman is a “no brainer” choice over her previous opposition. I have a hard time calling someone a liar, even over the internet, but I have a harder time calling someone ‘unintelligent’, to put it charitably. Given everything you must have seen of this woman you are either ignorant, willfully lying to yourself for the sake of political affiliation, or trolling.
There’s no evidence from the article that Palin is asking or “begging” for donations from anybody.
What I don’t get is why “conservatives” endorse corporate socialists like Bush, Palin, and Cheney. What exactly did Bushco accomplish in the last 8 years that soothes the “conservative” population so? Was it rampant inflation? Was it allowing AIG securities execs to commit rampant fraud, to the extent that it torpedoed the whole economy and put millions of citizens out of work? Was it the laundry list of war crimes of the occupation including but certainly not limited to: use of depleted uranium, use of white phosphorus, use of cluster bombs, collective punishment and deliberate targeting of civilians in Fallujah, inhumane treatment and murder of prisoners, renditioning, data-mined intelligence? If “conservatism” (a fictional entity in itself) actually stood for small government, balanced budgets, prudent foreign and security policy, and a strong and resilient national economy, then Ron Paul should have blasted McCain/Palin and Obama out of the water. The election just proved that the Limbaugh crowd cares just enough about politics and governance to repeat racist and fascist talking points that ultimately lower our quality of life and impairs real reform. Obama’s ascent to the top was put in motion sometime in March 2003, during the obvious and economically catastrophic imperial march to Iraqi subjugation.
“…and I live in Illinois!”
Lol, way to undermine the rest of your manifesto in the first paragraph. No wonder that place is such a poster child with bright ideas like that.
And no, I’m not your enemy/counterpart the lefty. I think they need to stop picking on her too. They’re just as bad as you are.
@ Craig:
O’bama. Really. C’mon. You really think it’s spelt O’bama? God damn.
Not to bash Palin but she should write a few books …something tells me if Obama made millions she would make a killing
She supposedly got a big advance, like $7MM? Surely that is enough to pay her own bills, isn’t it?
Aw, poor destitute Sarah. Take the $125,000 in clothes back to the stores with the receipts. There’s a quarter of your debt right there.
She would need to learn to read and write first
Poor Sarah maybe she should sell that house on the l;ake to pay off the debt! After all did not Todd brag to Faux New’s Gretta Van Sustern how he had his “Contractor Buddies” help him build it. The same contractors who were building the Waissilla Sports Complex that put the city in the red by $20Million as the cost over ran the budget for it and they built on property not owned by the city! After all the senator from there was her mentor and he was found guilty in court for illegal donations by contractors also did he not? That is one crime, gifts of labor and supplies to build the then Mayors house, by the same contractors given lucrative contracts the city could not afford! I wonder how much of the cost overruns were for her house? That has yet to be investigated and if it ever is she will need more dough to defend that too! Maybe she should get that witch doctor exorcist who prayed over her to say a prayer to excise those lawyers bills too! ROTFL
@ Craig:
She was not found innocent of wrongdoing. A legislative board found her guilty of ethics violations. Subsequent to that, she launched her own investigation, which found her not guilty. It was this second investigation that she and the RNC ran with, in an attempt to dismiss the results of the legislature.
Fox News has on numerous occasions attempted to warn its viewers O’bama’s connection with Al Qaeda through rather clever slips to escape the censorship of the liberal media. It’s a shame that most people are simply too biased or too ignorant to get the message.
Craig - ” It’s a shame that most people are simply too biased or too ignorant to get the message.”
Mr. Pot, meet Mr. Kettle…
@ Craig:
Err.. you know it’s just “Obana”, yeah?
Craig wrote:
Oh my word… you are capable of some incredible mental gymnastics if you’re being serious.
The same Fox news which literally fought in a court of law, and won, for their right to INTENTIONALLY LIE in their news broadcasts.
The same Fox news that consistently claimed that because he has dark skin he must be a terrorist. That claimed he was a muslim because his middle name is hussain. That claimed he was educated in a terrorist camp. That repeatedly “accidentally” referred to him as OSAMA instead of OBAMA.
All of these things are demonstrably untrue and of course Fox knew this, but you still take their reports as the literal truth over every other news agency throughout the world which reported the opposite. To say that this is “liberal censorship” is to get completely the wrong end of the stick.
You know, we don’t often have such ignorant trolls around here. I’m thinking it is a nice refreshing pleasure.
Craig, can you give us some more of what the unthinking and shrinking Republican masses are being programmed to think? We’d really like to see. Cults are endlessly fascinating, after all.
@ Craig:
Why do conservatives insist on misspelling the presidents name? His name isn’t O’bama, its not B. Hussein Obama, or any other ridiculous misspelling that you can come up with. Grow up.
Ja, Sarah, put on concerts like Willy Nelson did to pay off his 16 million to the IRS *wink wink*
Nobody dislikes Sarah Palin and all she represents more than I do. She convinced me of her demerits with her speech in Pittsburgh during the campaign where she ridiculed the importance of agricultural research by portraying “fruit fly research” as frivolous spending while other, presumably worthier causes like tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans were going unattended. The Divine Miss P has shockingly limited knowledge of anything substantial in terms of policy, and would be a disaster in a position of power at the national level. That she is governor of Alaska, as state so rich that it can afford to give money to its citizens is the only factor that mitigates the potential damage that this ignorant woman could conceivably cause.
Having said that, we witness here a manifestation of the disturbing trend of incessant lawsuits directed against politicians who are trying to do their jobs. Of the ten or so ethics violations alleged against her majesty, some of them probably have merit. By the same token, some of them are probably baseless as she asserts. The practical fact is that in order to hire high powered lawyers to defend herself, Palin has to devote part of her time to fundraising for that cause. This comes on top of the enormous demands to raise funds for re-election, campaigns having gotten so expensive these days. Don’t even get me started on SarahPAC, clearly targeted for a presidential run in ‘12. Time spent on fundraising is rapidly becoming the majority of a politician’s day, and the net result is bad governance.
Not that we should discourage mechanisms for holding politicians accountable, but we must recognize that sue, sue, sue, and sue some more is not the answer. We need to look for more practical ways of resolving these disputes and keeping elected officials from wandering into questionable ethical territory. The way we do things nowadays resolves little and just puts lawyers into the same income bracket as AIG executives.
Mark M-”Of the ten or so ethics violations alleged…some of them probably have merit…some of them are probably baseless as she asserts…We need to look for more practical ways of resolving these disputes and keeping elected officials from wandering into questionable ethical territory.” A good post, Mark.
The “more practical way” is cooperation. Period. Ethics investigations are not the same things as frivoulous lawsuits and cannot be “baseless”, by definition. They are a very serious moment that comes as a result of unsatisfactoy probing and fact-finding ‘discovery’ process. It results when questionable and conflictual information is evident, instead of truthful explanation. None of these questionable moments would have resulted in ethics investigations if simple cooperation (and honesty) were the operative priority. Each of these moments had a series of long, drawn-out, painful time-intensive fact-finding. Which didn’t reveal the facts. Hence, ethics investigation because the issue had to be resolved and couldn’t just be dropped. Then, with formal inquiry processes underway, lies and conflictual statements. Okay, then. Time to go to ground and get a formal resolution. It IS the check-and-balance.
The questionable moments for Governor Palin:
Trooper Wooten - started long before being seleted by McCain. Lots of wierd stuff. Initial rationale and explanation was that he deserved it, therefore it was righteous and the end justified the means. Followed by outright defiance of supoenas. Very Alaskan and mavericky. Well, no. Not when you’re the governor. Lots of people hold the opinion that he did deserve it, but you can’t have vigilante justice, now, can you? Or we’d all do it, right? And nobody, even a governor, can opt out of a supoena.
Firing administration staff inappropriately and without cause. Did it happen? Or not? Was there cause? Did there NEED to be cause? The result: there were questionable actions. But the act of firing was okay. The employee was at-will, served at the pleasure and discretion of the governor, and could indeed be fired without cause.
Open/transparent government (matters of public record/Freedom of Information Act) required by law. Not discretionary. Required. Use of a Yahoo account for State of Alaska business. When asked for disclosure, that account and others were deleted instead of being made public. Uh oh. Can’t do that. A multitude of issues here - what did the emails contain that couldn’t be made public? Who were they to and from? What pieces of state business is there no longer a record for? And more…
Using public office resources, staff time, website, etc etc for personal partisan business.
Substantial amounts of per diem for staying in her own home, because her home is in a different location than the assigned duty station.
Substantial amounts of state-funded travel for children and husband, customarily only meant for staff on state business. Recreational activities, as well as specific church events.
It’s really simple. It’s the governor’s choice to do these things. Or not.
jaws palin has got to be the smartest pol out there. she’s got the ace up her sleeve though…an’ she’s savin’ it for an emergency.
levi…LEVI!!! git yer scrawney white-trash butt outta the cee-ment pond an’ come feed this baby!!!
YEEE HAWWWW!!!!!!