palin stepping down
© Associated PressJuly 3rd Alaska Governor Sarah Palin announces she is stepping down
Independence Day weekend in the US started with fireworks. Political fireworks. Former Republican Vice Presidential candidate, Sarah Palin, was not content to see Michael Jackson's death nor the infidelities of fellow conservative hypocri..er...politicians get all the media attention. On Friday she had to go drop a bombshell about her resignation. Both naysayers and rabid Palin supporters were surprised to hear that she was stepping down as governor of Alaska.

The conservative supporters seem to have been caught unaware, so much so, that they did not have an immediate talking point at hand, to explain it all away. Initial reactions to her announcement ranged from puzzlement to dismay to applause. The Sarah Palin blog lists a few. However, in the space of a few hours, the usual conservative pundits managed to come up with those handy talking points.

The head of the Republican Governor's Association said on Friday that:
"Part of her decision is she wants to spend more time campaigning for candidates," Nick Ayers, the executive director of the RGA, told Fox News.
So that's it then. She wants to help other Republicans get elected even though she couldn't help McLame do the same. Maybe that was the goal. Besides, was that Ayers speaking? No fair! Didn't she accuse Obama of palling around with a terrorist named Ayers? Oh drat... different Ayers...just had a Palin moment. Forgive us.

Suffice it to say, since the new talking point is that she resigned so she could help other authoritarian hypocrites get elected, we have much to think about regarding the so-called resignation that progressives are celebrating. If she manages to help steal an election for her fellow Republicans, when the going gets tough -- and it will get even tougher -- they get going to bigger and better things. The true victims of their psychopathic insanity can only protest.

We can always count on the authoritarian hypocrites for a scandal or two followed by resignation.

republican sex scandal
© blogfordemocracy.comRecent republican sex scandals
Political scandal veterans do not always fade away. They quietly go into the private sector where they can make boatloads more money than they were able to steal from the taxpayers while in office. Keep in mind that the private sector companies these psychopaths tend to be affiliated with also make their money from taxpayers' funded government contracts. Ask Palin; she knows this one quite well and even decided to give Mr Ayers a "heads up":
Ayers said of getting the emails:

"We have known for a couple of days she was considering not running for re-election but it was news today that she had gone ahead and made the decision to fully step down and resign."
Supposedly she did not listen to some advice of her most powerful and knowledgeable supporters when they suggested she go home, run her state well, and read more about national and international issues in order to be a viable candidate for 2012. Unless there are other reasons, and we think there are, they should have known better. She managed to frustrate the very people who were tasked with helping her and McCain win the election.

With that as background, maybe it is unfair to speculate that she resigned at this moment simply for attention. The fact is, however, that narcissists love attention and they rarely give up a position of power unless there is greater power to be gained. They also love to play the victim as can be seen in her resignation speech.
Over the past nine months I've been accused of all sorts of frivolous ethics violations - such as holding a fish in a photograph, wearing a jacket with a logo on it, and answering reporters' questions.


Comment: Poor Sarah.


Todd and I are looking at more than half a million dollars in legal bills in order to set the record straight.


Comment: Poor Sarah needs money to make everyone believe her lies.


Even those debt-ridden stimulus dollars that would force the heavy hand of federal government into our communities with an "all-knowing attitude" - I have taken the slings and arrows with that unpopular move to veto because I know being right is better than being popular.


Comment: Poor Sarah. She has to veto stimulus funds while rural Alaskans choose between food and fuel.

Narcissists are, however, also good at recognizing when they've been found out. Unable to milk a particular cash cow any more, the most successful narcissists "cut their losses" and move on to bigger and better things. A case can be made that Palin has been caught in something unsavory and is cutting her losses. She made her announcement on Friday, the third of July. On Friday afternoon, a good number of media people are preparing for their weekend off. It's the best time to break a story if you want to break it quietly. Moreover, this wasn't just any Friday. Being Independence Day weekend, an even larger portion of media staffers would have had an early start on their holiday weekend and were probably away on Friday, which suggests that maybe she didn't want too much media attention. It would also suggest to the less discerning that it is not so much a move for greater power, as a "cutting losses" kind of thing. Those two ideas, however, are not mutually exclusive. Narcissists are known for jumping the ship they helped to sink when they can see the next opportunity on the horizon. They are also perfect tools of intrigue for more intelligent psychopaths. Ask the last US president - he knows all about that.

In true narcissistic style, Palin made a mess of things but puts the blame on everyone else. She couldn't take responsibility for a single thing that she did unless it made her look like the divine witch doctor anointed person she believes herself to be. She managed to point so many fingers that the very people who were supportive of her are falling all over themselves to blame each other for her failure to bring home McLame's election beacon. In the meantime she gets to run away and leave everyone guessing . But maybe not everyone. In describing Palin's ambitious drive, one writer laid out how she mastered politics to become the Republican Vice Presidential candidate.
One thing all sides agree on is that the valley was in flux. The old libertarian pioneer ethos was giving way to a rising Christian conservatism. By shrewdly invoking issues that mattered to the ascendant majority, she won the mayor's race. While she may have been a new face, says Victoria Naegele, who edited the local Frontiersman newspaper then, Palin also knew how to get the party establishment on her side. "The state party gave her the mechanism to get into that office," says Naegele. "As soon as she was confident enough to brush them off, she did. But she wasn't an outsider to start with. She very much had to kowtow to them."
She certainly tried to put McLame's campaign manager Steve Schmidt in his place but only ended up making him seem honorable. From CBS news:
On the morning of Oct. 15, Palin was aboard her campaign jet and en route to New Hampshire when she happened to catch a disparaging CNN segment that touted the Salon.com story, complete with a provocative graphic at the bottom of the screen reading, "THE PALINS AND THE FRINGE."

While shaking hands after a rally later that afternoon, someone on the rope line shouted a remark at Palin about the AIP.

The comment set her off. She worried that the campaign was not sufficiently mitigating the issue of her alleged connection to the party, which despite a platform that harkens more to the Civil War than the 21st century, continued to play a serious role in Alaska politics.

Palin blasted out an e-mail with the subject line "Todd" to Schmidt, campaign manager Rick Davis and senior adviser Nicolle Wallace, copying her husband on the message (all of the e-mails are reprinted below as written).

"Pls get in front of that ridiculous issue that's cropped up all day today - two reporters, a protester's sign, and many shout-outs all claiming Todd's involvement in an anti-American political party," Palin wrote. "It's bull, and I don't want to have to keep reacting to it ... Pls have statement given on this so it's put to bed."

[...]Schmidt hit "reply to all" less than five minutes after Palin's e-mail was sent. "Ignore it," he wrote. "He was a member of the aip? My understanding is yes. That is part of their platform. Do not engage the protesters. If a reporter asks say it is ridiculous. Todd loves America."

She responded with another e-mail, adding five more names to the "cc" box, all of whom traveled on her campaign plane. They included her senior political adviser Tucker Eskew, senior aide Jason Recher, the lone traveling aide from her Alaska office Kris Perry, press secretary Tracey Schmitt and personal assistant Bexie Nobles.

"That's not part of their platform and he was only a 'member' bc independent Alaskans too often check that 'Alaska Independent' box on voter registrations thinking it just means non partisan," Palin wrote. "He caught his error when changing our address and checked the right box. I still want it fixed."

[...]Schmidt put the matter to rest once and for all with a longer response to everyone in the e-mail chain.

"Secession," he wrote. "It is their entire reason for existence. A cursory examination of the website shows that the party exists for the purpose of seceding from the union. That is the stated goal on the front page of the web site. Our records indicate that todd was a member for seven years. If this is incorrect then we need to understand the discrepancy. The statement you are suggesting be released would be inaccurate.


Comment: It would have been more appropriate to say: "You're asking me to lie, Sarah."



The inaccuracy would bring greater media attention to this matter and be a distraction. According to your staff there have been no media inquiries into this and you received no questions about it during your interviews. If you are asked about it you should smile and say many Alaskans who love their country join the party because it speaks to a tradition of political independence. Todd loves his country.

We will not put out a statement and inflame this and create a situation where John has to address this."
She had no further response on that particular issue. But it shows Palin tried to lie to the very media she often accuses of lying about her -- very much like narcissistic psychopaths who love to accuse others of what they are doing. Schmidt wouldn't let it fly. As he fired off the response to Caribou Barbie, he probably had in front of him the letter David Neiwert sent to McCain campaign staffers, detailing Palin's AIP connections.
To: press@mccain

From: David Neiwert

My name is David Neiwert; I'm a freelance journalist based in Seattle. Max Blumenthal and I spent some time in Alaska the past few weeks going through public records and talking to local residents in Wasilla and elsewhere about Gov. Palin. We've put together a report that will be published shortly at Salon.com.

We wanted to know if the McCain campaign cared to comment on our findings so we could include that in the story. I called your press office at headquarters this morning and they suggested I send an e-mail.

Essentially here's what we found:

That Gov. Palin, when a Wasilla city council member, formed an alliance with some of the more radical far-right citizens in Wasilla and vicinity, particularly members of the secessionist Alaskan Independence Party who were allied with local John Birch Society activists. These activists played an important role in her election as Wasilla mayor in 1996.

Once mayor, one of Mrs. Palin's first acts was to attempt to appoint one of these extremists (a man named Steve Stoll) to her own seat on the city council. This was a man with a history of disrupting city council meetings with intimidating behavior. She was blocked by a single city council member.

Afterward, Mrs. Palin fired the city's museum director at the behest of this faction.

She fomented an ultimately successful effort to derail a piece of local gun-control legislation which would simply have prohibited the open carrying of firearms into schools, liquor stores, libraries, courthouses and the like. The people recruited to shout this ordinance down included these same figures, notably the local AIP representative (who became the AIP's chairman that same year).

She remained associated politically with the local AIP/Birch faction throughout her tenure as mayor on other issues, particularly a successful effort to amend the Alaska Constitution to prohibit local governments from issuing any local gun-control ordinances.

In general, we found that not only did Mrs. Palin have numerous associations with these extremists, she actively sought to empower them locally and to enact their agendas both locally and on a state level.

We'd like to know if you have any comment on these findings. We hope to hear from you soon.

David Neiwert

Seattle
So why did she resign? We don't know. But based on the numerous, "palingates", nutcase seeming comments sent anonymously, and the general gossip on the blogosphere there is, as we mentioned previously, an "iceberg scandal" on the horizon. One blogger had this to say:
Although speculation about possible investigations into aspect of her conduct, both as Alaska Governor, and in her earlier job as Wasilla Mayor, has been rampant, there is no hard data to indicate that any of the rumored investigations into Palin or the Palins will come to a conclusion soon.

Most recently, she has seen a crash in fundraising efforts. Last week, the Palin shrine, Conservatives4Palin, concluded a weeklong effort to raise $500,000 for Palin's legal bils (sic), having reached only 21% of their goal. Wednesday, the state began releasing figures that indicated the majority of expenses borne by the state, involving so-called "ethics complaints' involving Palin, have resulted from a complaint Palin had filed against herself and from complaints that resulted in negotiated settlements adverse to the governor's claim that she is a crusader for ethics reform.

Her legal bills are approaching 2/3 of a million dollars. Much, if not almost all, of her legal bills stem from her own conduct as governor and over issues having to do [with] what her daughter's son's father is strongly suspected of holding over the family.

Yesterday, a new records request was filed by one of Alaska's most activist bloggers, Linda Kellen Biegel

[...]Outside of Alaska, once a week for the past month, she made headlines that couldn't have helped anyone's long-term prospects:

1) She went back and forth with the GOP on whether or not she would speak or even attend the summer's major fundraiser for GOP legislators.

2) She picked a fight with David Letterman. Only far right groups like the Tea Party and her most devoted advocates believe Palin won that fight.

3) The thorough portrait of Palin in Todd Purdam's Vanity Fair article seemed to be ushering in a review of the piles and piles of material that came out regarding Palin last year, during the fall presidential campaign.

Inside Alaska, though, these past two weeks have had the potential of a looming disaster for her.

Resentment against her policies by Alaska Natives has been simmering just below a boil all winter and spring. This past week, the resentment boiled over into open civil disobedience, as villagers along the Yukon not only fished in closed waters to obtain food for winter, they defied Palin's law enforcement agencies openly. In the village of Marshall, police officers joined in the illegal subsistence fishing, not even bothering to hide their involvement.

I've caught her in at least four major lies during the past six or seven days.

What we are seeing here is either a preface to some indictment, or the final chapter in the career of what has been the biggest political joke of the 21st century. She is so obviously a combination of extreme narcissism and even more extremely bad advice by really, really pathetically bad advisers.

Comment: Or the result of the orchestrations of larger psychopaths behind the scenes who know how to control their puppets to their ultimate advantage.


At the same time, folks at bradsblog are saying:
Palin Resignation 'Damage Control' for Coming 'Iceberg Scandal'... More: Embezzlement Indictments Coming?

Updated: Alaskan reporter Shannyn Moore offers The BRAD BLOG hints about reasons for Alaska Gov's resignation

Further Update: Sources say embezzlement scandal, federal indictments may soon break concerning use of Wasilla Sport Complex building materials for Palin's home...
There was a rash of trouble for UK politicians recently on SOTT which has suggested a possible reason for this event.
Apart from the exposure of the corruption that is inherent in the UK political system, the scandal has caused a host of MPs to resign across all parties. What we may be seeing here is 'housekeeping', a useful justification to get rid of a whole lot of personnel who are not quite conspecific in order to create a power vacuum ready to be filled by 'something else' - exactly what, we do not yet know - possibly David Cameron.

As leader of the opposition Conservative party Cameron has pledged to 'devolve' power back to the regions and away from the centralized Parliament as part of his election manifesto. The devolution of power in this way is actually the opposite of what it seems because the power will be moved towards these European Union new 'regions', areas within the UK who's authority bypasses Westminster completely, and who report directly to Brussels, hence speeding up the creation of the EU superstate, and the disintegration of a UK-centered power.

Another move on the chessboard by the 'World Government'.
Although we don't consider those involved in the recent spate of scandals to be paragons of virtue, all these activities could be a reshuffling of Republican politicians via scandals for a similar reason. Meet the old boss, same as the new boss. Whatever the real reason for her resignation, we can see that they are legion. If she is going to help others across the country with their political campaigns, her being finished in politics is not as clear cut as some are hoping.