Thursday, September 11, 2008

Fact Check

Upon her arrival yesterday in Fairbanks, Governor Sarah Palin greeted a crowd of 2,000 people with a short speech. We've gone through the remarks and offer up some checks on facts and reality.

Comment:

Palin said she took on politics as usual in Alaska, and made the claim that the "old oil monopoly, undue influence there that had control of our state, it's broken."

Facts:

The only thing Palin did was raise oil taxes to one of the highest marginal tax rates in the world. She didn't break any monopoly as the only way you could possibly do that is by revoking their leases and gutting the ownership terms of the Trans Alaska Pipeline. Both of those actions would be illegal. She did nothing more than raise taxes.



Comment:

"And the ethical standards that had led to closed doors and closed door dealings, self-interest, it's gone."

Fact:

The ethics bill she passed had actually been proposed by Democrats in the legislature before she was even elected but didn't pass until the FBI raided several lawmakers office. Then and only then, did lawmakers who refused to take action under former governor Murkowski, agree to move the bill forward when Palin got elected and ethics had become too big of an issue to ignore.

In addition, her administration has hid behind a questionable claim of executive privilege and refused to release 78 pages of emails, totalling 1,100 communications even though many of these were copied to her husband who is not a member of the executive branch. And today, her administration has gone from telling Alaskans that they'd participate openly in the Monegan investigation to stalling and suddenly calling the investigation unconstitutional.

Comment:

Palin said people around the nation are saying "thank you, thank you Alaska," when they hear about the natural gas pipeline from the North Slope.

Fact:

The governor has completely over sold the pipeline plan she passed through the legislature. What the governor's gas pipeline plan does is grant $500 million to a Canadian firm to file paperwork without having the means to actually build the pipeline. Not only is there no guarantee it will be constructed by the Canadian firm, but their CEO has said repeatedly that they cannot order one piece of steel pipe until the major oil companies agree to pay the cost of the project.

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2 Comments:

At September 15, 2008 at 9:56 AM , Blogger Cany said...

it is clear that she and her staff have been using private e-mail accounts to hide behind secrecy. those accounts are VERY difficult to get public information from. she knows that. that's why she does it.

 
At September 15, 2008 at 3:55 PM , Blogger Syrin said...

Thanks Cany for your input

...You're spot on....

 

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