Sarah Palin, secret Socialist?

A few weeks from today every socialist in resident of Alaska will receive $878 from the state's Permanent Fund.

The Associated Press reported,

State officials on Tuesday announced the amount of Alaska Permanent Fund dividends to be distributed Oct. 4 to all men, women and children who have lived in the state for at least a year. This time around, that's nearly 647,000 people.

Jeanne Devon wished Alaskans a "Happy Socialist Money Grab Day" on the Mudflats blog. She explains,

Established in 1976, after oil was discovered on Alaska’s North Slope, the permanent fund dividend gives every Alaskan cash back from oil wealth. Alaska is unique in that the residents, not private land owners or the government, own the oil. Hence, every year investments made pay residents back.

So it sounds as if every single Alaskan belongs to that 47 percent that upset Mitt Romney so much. And that includes former Gov. Sarah Palin, who presided over the biggest Permanent Fund distribution ever. Writes Devon:

We really had a banner year when ex-half-term super-dooper socialist governor Sarah Pain was in office. We got the biggest pfd check ever, at $2069 – PLUS another $1200 check from the gov to subsidize the high cost of energy... 

It’s called the “owner state” concept, which means the resources of the state are owned by the commons, and the Constitution of Alaska requires that they be developed in the best interest of the people.

What a concept.

Nobody coming to this Tea Party

A Tea Party convention scheduled for September in Kansas City has been canceled due to lack of interest. Roll Call has the story:

Organizers of the Freedom Jamboree announced Wednesday that they have canceled the tea party convention planned for this fall, citing low registration.

They had hoped the event would serve as a stage for Republican presidential candidates to court the conservative movement, and two — Koch whore Rep. Michele Bachmann (Minn.) and former Sen. Rick Santorum (Pa.) — had already confirmed they would attend.

The weekend of reflection and strategizing was scheduled for Sept. 28 to Oct. 2 in Kansas City, Kan., and included a straw poll. Twenty-one local tea party groups started it with the intent to reclaim the movement from national umbrella groups and offer an alternative to the annual fall tea party rally on the National Mall.

"National umbrella groups" is code for the Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity and the corporate-funded FreedomWorks.

It's too bad, really. We can sympathize with some of the real Tea Partiers' agenda. Their opposition to job-killing trade deals is a case in point. The Kochs and the corporations sure can't get behind that.

And here's a related question: What if they made a movie about Sarah Palin and no one came to see it? An Atlantic Monthly writer went to the premier in Orange County, Calif.:

It isn't strictly accurate to say that I sat through the whole movie alone. Just as the previews started, two young women walked in giggling together and took seats three rows behind me.

ALEC: The puppeteer controlling Bachmann & Palin

It's called the American Legislative Exchange Council, but we prefer to think of it as Aristocrats Lambasting Employed Citizens.

It's a secret organization that aims to let corporations loot the government and turn working families into serfs. ALEC hosts secret meetings in which corporate executives and lawmakers cook up model legislation that is then inflicted on the public. In These Times calls it

...a legislative roach motel controlled by corporations, special interest groups and right-wing think tanks.

Earlier this year, one of those roaches crawled out of ALEC and became Scott Walker's bill destroying collective bargainnig rights for government workers.

News articles are starting to appear about ALEC since a new website, http://www.alecexposed.com/ has posted something like 800 leaked documents.

According to In These Times

An exhaustive analysis of thousands of pages of documents obtained through public records requests from six states, as well as tax filings, lobby reports, legislative drafts and court records, reveal that these suddenly popular anti-public employee bills, while taking different forms from state to state, were indeed disseminated as "model legislation" by ALEC.

Not coincidentally, bills similar to those in Florida and Wisconsin have been introduced in Arizona, California, Illinois, Iowa, Indiana, Kansas, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, North Carolina, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, Ohio, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, Utah and Vermont.

Here's a great piece at Crooks & Liars, which reports,

They approved legislation for tort reform, block grant funding for Medicaid, and selling insurance across state lines. You recognize these policies as the current conservative platform, I'm sure. However, what's new about this is that the platform was dictated, agreed to, drafted and disseminated by a small group of corporations, right-wing supporting think tanks and their conservative legislative partners and we can finally prove it....

This is why, by the way, idiots like Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann can actually run for office and get serious support. They're just the marionettes behind the real policymakers, just like Governor Bighair in Texas and Governor Gollum in Florida.

People for the American Way lists some of ALEC's major donors. The list won't surprise you one little bit:

Exxon Mobil, the Scaife family (Allegheny Foundation and the Scaife Family Foundation), the Coors family (Castle Rock Foundation), Charles Koch (Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation and the Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation), the Bradley family (The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation) and the Olin family (John M. Olin Foundation). These organizations consistently finance right-wing think tanks and political groups.

Palin booed in Madison (VIDEO)

"...there she was on Saturday afternoon, a throng of Tea Party supporters cheering her on and a throng of union supporters trying to shout them (and her) down."

That's the way Monica Davey of the New York Times described Sarah Palin's appearance at a Tea Party rally in Madison last weekend. Watch the video and judge for yourself whether the union supporters "tried" to shout them down.

This is the same New York Times reporter who wrote about "a union guy in a union town" who supported Koch whore Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's plan to strip government workers of their collective bargaining rights. Only problem was the guy didn't belong to a union. Davey and her co-reporter, A. G. Sulzberger, couldn't even spell his name right.

(We'd like to know, btw, what kind of a staffing decision is it to put the son of the owner of a unionized newspaper on a story about unions.)

Here's a longer version, which includes provocateur Andrew Breitbart explaining how unions have no right to lecture the Tea Party on civility and then screams "Go to Hell."

http://www.rawstory.com/rawreplay/2011/04/palin-breitbart-booed-at-tea-party-event/

Today's Teamster News 04.17.11

UNION BLUES: Organized labor’s influence slipping away as tough economy erodes power  The Middletown Press   ...Dave Molster, who has worked eight years as a delivery driver for Dichello Distributors Inc. in Orange and is a member of Teamsters Local 443, said public, private and international labor groups have shown an outpouring of support since nearly 100 union members were locked out...
Sarah Palin Bombs In Wisconsin As Only 6,500 Attend Tea Party Rally  PoliticusUSA   ...Sarah Palin rolled into Madison, Wisconsin today using a Tea Party rally as an excuse to attack union members, but the wheels promptly fell off of her bandwagon as only 6,500 people showed up for the rally, and reports on the scene say that many of those in attendance were there to protest Palin...
Turnout is key to SB 5 vote  Youngstown Vindicator   ...unless the public employee unions and the Ohio Democratic Party are able to trigger much more interest in this election than there was last November, SB 5 will be upheld...
Rick Snyder’s Democracy-Busting Army on The March in Michigan  Death And Taxes   ...Benton Harbor...faced perhaps the most draconian crackdown this week, when their manager, Joseph Harris, stripped the local government of its power with an edict reading, “No City Board, Commission or Authority has authority or power to act on behalf of the City...”
Gov. Scott's decisions a disaster (opinion)  floridatoday.com   ...Never in my nearly 50 years of calling Florida home have I witnessed a governor as focused in tearing down the state as Rick Scott...
Governor's spokesman resigning from post  Maine Sunday Telegram   ...Dan Demeritt, Gov. Paul LePage's director of communications and legislative affairs, resigned Saturday following revelations that five properties he owns in the Augusta area are in foreclosure...

Rallies, recalls and Sarah Palin in WI

Never a dull moment in Wisconsin politics these days. One senator is challenging petitions for recall, SLOBS are rallying to recall another, and Sarah Palin is making up shit in Madison in front of the Koch brothers' little army.

Sen. Dan Hanky-Kapanke, the first of the eight Republican senators in Wisconsin to face recall, has challenged the petitions. Hanky-Kapanke inspired the fastest recall filing for a senator in Wisconsin history.

Hanky-Kapanke's lawyers are claiming a required registration form wasn't filed with the paperwork and challenged more than 900 signatures. There are 22,975 voters who signed the recall petition on Hanky-Kapanke, out of the only 15,588 signatures required to trigger a recall.  The LaCrosse Tribune reports:

Graeme Zielinski, spokesman for the Wisconsin Democratic Party, called the challenge "perfunctory and desperate."

 "There's nothing here. There's no merit to the challenge," he said. "For all the money that this guy has, you'd think he could get better lawyers."

You'll recall Dan Kapanke is nicknamed "Hanky-Kapanke" because, well, he's sleazy. Last year he admitted he funneled money from a nonprofit foundation to pay for lights for the minor league baseball team he owns. Hanky-Kapanke was identified as the Republican most vulnerable to recall. Signature gatherers completed the petitions ahead of schedule -- and with more than enough votes to trigger a recall election.

Hanky-Kapanke's lawyers are claiming Pat Scheller, a recall organizer and LaCrosse banker, never filed the required form. Scheller's response:

"Dan should simply stand for election and not hide behind legal maneuvering. Let his constituents decide if they support him."

Recall organizers have five days to file a rebuttal, after which Kapanke will have two days to respond. Election officials will have 14 days to approve or reject the petition.

Already, Sen. randy Randy Hopper has had recall petitions against him filed. More recall filings are expected soon for several of the remaining six senators who voted to end collective bargaining rights for workers. Find out how to recall your Wisconsin senator here.

And don't forget, there are 260 days until Koch whore Gov. Scott Walker is eligible for recall. (We can't wait.)

Meanwhile, today a SLOBs (Supporting Labor Over Billionaires) rally was held in Saukville, Wis., in support of efforts to recall Sen. Glenn Grothman.

Sen. Chris Larson (of the "Fab 14") tweets:

At Recall for Glenn Grothman. Great crowd of non-slobs!!!

Sen. Grothman infamously referred to the nurses, teachers, fire fighters and other workers rallying at the Statehouse in Madison this way:

"We can no longer continue to have all these slobs in the building." 

Finally, a rally is taking place in Madison today. It's sponsored by the Koch brothers-funded Americans for Prosperity (aka, the Tea Party). Tea Party mama, Sarah Palin, is there in all her shrillness, telling followers Koch whore Gov. Walker "isn't trying to hurt union members."

Say what? He's not just hurting union members, he's destroying Wisconsin's middle class. He's proposing budget cuts that kill 20,000 government jobs; another 9,900 private sector jobs will be lost due to the reduced economic activity. He pulled the plug on a high-speed rail project that took 15,000 jobs along with it. And he's proposing restrictions on wind energy that already deep-sixed a wind farm in Green Bay.

But back to Palin. For some reason, Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the U.S.A." is blaring in the background.

Frequently mistaken as a patriotic tune, the song is actually about a war veteran who comes home....

.....and can't find a job.

Today's news 09/09/10

Fed Report Finds Signs That Growth Is Slowing New York Times ...The United States economy showed “widespread signs” of slowing, the Federal Reserve said on Wednesday...

Vote on Bid From Hertz for Rival Is Cleared New York Times ...A Delaware judge has denied an injunction sought by ... Dollar Thrifty ... investors hoping to block a ... shareholder vote on the company’s pending ... merger with Hertz.


Union Members to Palin: Where Do You Stand? Huffington Post ...If Gov. Palin expects to get union members to support her endorsed candidates ... we need to see the details.

U.S. Steelworkers to Demand Probe Into China's Green-Tech Aid Wall Street Journal ... The U.S. Steelworkers union plans to file a petition Thursday demanding a government investigation into China's policies to support its fast-growing green-technology sector.

Electrical company owner charged with stealing union workers' benefits pay The Times-Tribune ...The former president of one of the largest electrical contracting companies in Scranton was arrested Wednesday on charges he stole more than $100,000 from union workers' paychecks that they thought was funding their benefits package.

Links 08/27/10

For Workers Who Find Jobs, Lower Wages Wall Street Journal ... 55% of those who did find work were earning less than before.

A Thriving Industry Built on Low-Compensated Temp Workers New York Times ...thousands of workers in the Chicago area’s massive warehouse complexes ... are laid off and rehired every few months by temporary-staffing agencies.

Sarah Palin Will "Go Down in History like McCarthy," Says Labor Leader CBS News ...Trumka complains about Palin railing against "union thugs" despite the fact that her husband is in a union.

States Press Workers on Health Care Wall Street Journal ...Kentucky, Connecticut and Texas... join a growing number of governments that have cut health benefits in recent years without major challenges.

American Will Fight Record FAA Fine Wall Street Journal ...American Airlines vowed to fight a proposed $24.2 million federal penalty alleging intentional maintenance violations on some 280 jetliners.

Tea Party Rocks Primaries Rolling Stone ...this summer’s media hate-fest is different than anything we’ve seen before.