madskillz said:
Sqrl said:
madskillz said:
@ Ghost - those rape kits are why that head trooper got fired. According to documents, Palin's staff said she fired Moneghan because he flew to D.C. to lobby for funds to pay for the kits.
She's soooooo going down - but with McCain saying he's suspending his camp and doesn't - what a stunt. All to delay his debate and cancel hers. What a louse.
My bad - Country First. |
No, the rape kit situation was an issue of the state not just Wasilla. There was a statewide investigation into the practice before she became governor and during the hearings Wasilla was never even mentioned once by name. The problem is that when they went in digging for dirt they found a story in Wasilla about Wasilla being one of the towns with the outdated policy and went ahead with the story neglecting to mention that it was far from the only town and was not an issue or position Palin ever supported.
It also has nothing to do with the Monegan issue which you would know if you had even bothered to read some of the numerous .pdf documents that are out there about this sham of a case. One of the reasons monegan was fired was because he refused to hire on new troopers with funding designated for it. The legistlature and the budget appropriated those funds specifically for staffing and he wouldn't cooperate. Of course that was just the first issue.
The issue you've been confused by is that he put a request for travel in with the governor's office and listed it as a meeting with Lisa Murkowski. His real intentions were only made clear shortly before he left and is when he was actually transfered. The real reason for his visit was to try and talk to the legislative delegation about adding earmarks for bolstering their ability to handle sexual assault cases through personnel (which he had funding for already) and materials. The problem is that Palin's staff had told him repeatedly to submit a budget request for this and that it would be considered for that year or the next..he requested it late in the budgetting process so it was actually a bit of an olive branch to offer even an attempt at squeezing it in that year.
In addition to that he was going around her back and putting together budget proposals with Hollis French (the guy leading the legislative investigation btw) and in general ignoring her requests and her staffs request for him to work within the bounds of the normal budgeting procedure before trying to use more radical approaches. He even admits his transfer was his own fault in the email he put out to most of the governor's staff when he left. He talked about how he had failed to work with the governor and that others shouldn't take the path he did. Again actually go do some research before throwing out info that is simply unsubstantiated.
Also I should point out that the legistlature is not authorized by their constituion to investigate the executive branch and in fact is only empowered to investigate for purposes that further legislation. The 3-member panel they are now working with is the only constituionally prescribed method for investigating. Don't take my word...read here.
The Personnel Board, Attorney General’s office, and designated ethics supervisors generally are responsible for applying the Ethics Act. When an ethics complaint is filed against the governor, lieutenant governor or attorney general, the complaint is referred to the Personnel Board, which retains Independent Counsel to perform the duties ordinarily performed by the attorney general
Here is a head start on the research:
On August 29th, 2008, Thomas Van Flein sent a letter to Independent Counsel for Sen. French, Steve Branchwater introducing himself as Palin’s legal counsel. Sen. French was not CC’d on this letter.
On Sept 1st, a letter came in response… not from Branchwater, but from Sen. French, himself. French’s letter was directly to Van Flein, CC’d to no one… not even his own legal counsel, Branchwater.
ethics disclosure
branchflower complaint
suspension details
emails about wooten
Sarahs trooper interview
notes from the interview
Todds trooper interview
Note that there is even more info out there for those who want it. Ignorance is a choice on this issue, it is well documented and extremely clear cut once you have the facts.
PS - If you only read one of these, read this one. It explains the stupidity of this whole thing very well.
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There are other stories, but this is the only one I can find at the moment:
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-trooper20-2008sep20,0,3535582.story
In a July 7 e-mail, John Katz, Palin's special counsel, noted two problems with the trip: The governor hadn't agreed the money should be sought, and the request was "out of sequence with our other appropriations requests and could put a strain on the evolving relationship between the governor and Sen. [Ted] Stevens."
But a travel authorization document signed by Palin Chief of Staff Mike Nizich on June 18 approved Monegan's trip to Washington for the purpose of meeting Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska).
The document's existence was first reported by ABC News on Friday. Monegan told ABC that the travel authorization was explicitly to pursue funding for the anti-sexual-violence program, but the document does not give that as a reason for the trip.
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So wait...whats the theory again? So did she fire him over wooten or was it a disagreement on the budget?
In any case I want to again point out that Palin can fire Monegan for ANY reason. He serves at the pleasure of the governor.
But on the issue you bring up specifically I don't see what your point is. The authorization was given as a matter of routine by Mike Nizich, Rauro has gone on the record about this:
“As a matter of routine, the travel was approved by Mike Nizich … weeks before the actual purpose was made clear by former Commissioner Monegan,” Ruaro wrote.
“When you receive permission to travel, it does not mean that you receive blanket authorization to discuss or do whatever you would like on that trip,” he added.
The bottom line is that he was fired because he was pulling the same stunt again. He had made it clear that he was only concerned with going around Palin's staff and not working within the limits and when his pet project got killed and he was told he wasn't going to be alllowed to go lobby the legistlative delegation he put in this vague travel request. Once it was discovered Palin decided she had had enough and dealt with him.
Here is a blurb from an AP story:
The e-mails made clear that some Palin staffers believed Monegan and the Department of Public Safety worked outside normal channels. One was written in May by Randy Ruaro, then a special assistant to Palin, to the governor’s budget director, and concerned efforts to pay for and build a crime lab.
“I FEEL YOUR PAIN! DPS is constantly going off the reservation,” he wrote.
In February, Monegan signed a public letter of support for a $3.6 million project designed to keep troubled teens off the street in Anchorage — even though the governor had vetoed the project last year and hadn’t included money for it in her budget this year.
“I am stunned and amazed — do you know anything about this?” budget director Karen Rehfeld wrote to two other high-level staffers when she learned of the letter.
“Think about that:one of the governor’s own cabinet members publicly contradicting her veto decision,” Stapleton said.
Monegan acknowledged he shouldn’t have signed the letter, because it put the governor in the awkward position of defending her veto decision. But he said he thought of the letter as simply making another run at getting funding for a worthy project.
All of this fits Palin's assessment of monegan as being insubordinate and having a rogue mentality. He was.
Now lets remember again that this whole thing started because she supposedly tried to get wooten fired but the media has abandoned that angle now and is focusing more on the Monegan angle....I don't see how folks take this seriously particularly since the reason the guy was fired was for working with the state senator who is heading up the unconstitional legislative investigation against her and has publically stated what he intends to find before the investigation even started.
