Palin’s Legal Defense Fund Has a Milk Moustache.
24 04 2009The amazing shape-shifting, now you see it – now you don’t Sarah Palin Legal Defense Fund is coming soon….we think.
Last week some guy from Texas started one because Bill O’Reilly said he’d give money to it. Palin mouthpiece Meghan Stapleton was quick to come out with a statement disavowing it, and saying that they wanted nothing to do with this rogue fund, and that everyone should wait for the “official” fund.
Then, SarahPAC put up a notice saying “Thanks, but no thanks” to donations, and to wait for the Legal Defense Fund.
“At this time, we ask you to please hold your much appreciated donation and keep checking back here for the link to the Alaska Fund Trust, the official legal defense fund that will be announced shortly to help the family and state colleagues pay off legal debts incurred by politically-motivated attacks.”
Then the Wall Street Journal put up an article stating that a Legal Defense Fund (presumably the real one) would be announced on Friday.
Then the story got picked up by Huffington Post and others.
Then the Wall Street Journal article mysteriously vanished from the blogosphere for hours, causing much chin stroking and head scratching in Alaska.
According to the WSJ, the fund is headed up by none other than Kristan Cole. Cole, as you might remember was Palin’s choice for Chair of the Board of Agriculture and Conservation, and the Creamery Corporation in June of 2007. Not surprisingly, she’s a fellow alum from Wasilla High. (Go Warriors!) The mother of five was also Miss Alaska 1982, two years before Palin came in second third. For those wanting an extensive and detailed take on “Dairygate” Andrew Halcro wrote a good piece back in February. Got Fraud?
Cole also worked as a realtor with Franci Havemeister who was appointed by Palin to head up the State Division of Agriculture. Her credentials? She likes cows. (Really. Click the link.)
Donations will be capped at $150, according to materials describing the fund, and no contributions will be accepted from corporations, state contractors, state or federal lobbyists, lobbying firms or foreign nationals.
Palin backers also said all names of donors, dates and contribution amounts will be made public. Supporters say the governor wanted the fund to be more restrictive and transparent than other legal-defense funds.
Before you go thinking that the governor out of the goodness of her heart, and a staunch adherence to the philosophy of open and transparent government, “wanted” the fund to be more restrictive and transparent, remember what spokeswoman Meg Stapleton said about it last week.
“It needs to comply with state and federal laws and there will be incredibly strict guidelines to which donors will have to adhere,” Stapleton said. “We don’t want registered lobbyists contributing. You can’t be a foreign national. We also will have a limit so you don’t get $10,000 donations.”
So she “wanted” it to be that way because she had no choice.
The Wall Street Journal goes on to say:
Such funds have become increasingly common as scrutiny of politicians has intensified. While helping officials to rally supporters, the accounts also have been a source of controversy, in part because they are sometimes lightly regulated relative to campaign funds.
A source of controversy? Stay tuned…
April 24th, 2009 at 12:36 PM
Martha – love your shout out!
Far from Fenway – Well, when you put it that way… yikes.
Philip Munger – “Sarah’s labyrinth is getting exceedingly complex for someone who barely managed to get through school with a communications degree.”
*And for someone who continues to rely on her high school buddies for positions in government.*
April 24th, 2009 at 12:37 PM
@ Andree McLeod (R)
‘…under circumstances in which it could reasonably be inferred that the gift is intended to influence the performance of official duties, actions, or judgment. ”
———————-
This is what the issue would turn on in a real court…
as well as the likely improper motivation of the giftor…
April 24th, 2009 at 12:41 PM
Palin has to create all these funding devices to protect her pure image from the likes of us. After all, as Linda K pointed out, we’re being run out of the Axelrod annex in the White House basement.
Oops!!! — Gotta go…
My George Soros secret decoder ring just started flashing. If I don’t call Axelrod or Rahm Emanuel within 90 seconds, an implant Al Gore put in my brain will explode.
ROFL!!
AKM
April 24th, 2009 at 12:42 PM
@ Phil
Well I’m getting the same signal – we both must be really important to this Axelrod mission right now! Gotta go, too!
April 24th, 2009 at 12:44 PM
Philip Munger Says:
My George Soros secret decoder ring just started flashing. If I don’t call Axelrod or Rahm Emanuel within 90 seconds, an implant Al Gore put in my brain will explode.
******************************
You crack me up. LOL
April 24th, 2009 at 12:45 PM
One more thing… these stupid Obama and Axelrod conspiracy people could easily unstupid themselves if they spent a little time actually READING. Oh wait, the three Rs are just another Obama commie plot, I forgot. Heck, all of eddication is a commie plot!
April 24th, 2009 at 12:46 PM
WOW Mine is ringing also. Must be All hands on deck.
April 24th, 2009 at 12:53 PM
This is Commandant Soros. All Mudflatters, please don your tinfoil helmets and make contact with headquarters forthwith. We are planning a tea socialist (oops, i mean social) this afternoon and attendance is mandatory.
April 24th, 2009 at 12:58 PM
Has she not run out of yearbook buddies yet? Or does she have that many because she failed so many years? She just appears to have an overabundance of yearbook friends to hire.
April 24th, 2009 at 1:06 PM
@ # 149 Problem Child
Many thanks for the clarification! I guess I thought that the trust could be seen in that light, because its stated purpose is one thing, and yet it has that “get the money out free” clause. My thinking was that the inconsistancy would lead to the issue of how to construe.
At any rate, I think we should all be buying stock in popcorn!! This is way better than the movies!
April 24th, 2009 at 1:24 PM
BTW, New Thread Alert!
April 24th, 2009 at 1:31 PM
@Andree McLeod
This legal defense fund is unethical.
AK Executive Branch Ethics Act: Sec. 39.52.130. Improper gifts.
A public officer may not solicit, accept, or receive, directly or indirectly, a gift, whether in the form of money, service, loan, travel, entertainment, hospitality, employment, promise, or in any other form, that is a benefit to the officer’s personal or financial interests, under circumstances in which it could reasonably be inferred that the gift is intended to influence the performance of official duties, actions, or judgment.
————–
If I may ask…what makes THIS unethical action (#infinity) by your gov, any more (or less) incriminating than any of her other long list of violations??? …which one, if any, will be the one to STICK and get some indictments against this crooked politician? For Heaven’s sake, the upstanding citizens of Alaska deserve nothing less!!! Why the fear of this woman?
April 24th, 2009 at 1:32 PM
Lizabeth, probably no one responded because the topic has already been hashed over and was OT for this thread. I don’t think, personally, that the resolution = sucession. It’s just a resolution, so not binding in law.
April 24th, 2009 at 2:23 PM
Someone may have already asked this question, but isn’t this a form of socialism and welfare?
April 24th, 2009 at 2:25 PM
If Jonathan Blattmachr set up the legal structure for AK, and now his brother Blattmachr is setting up this trust, don’t you think the two of them know something about how to skirt the laws but do it legally? They must be admitted to the AK Bar (the legal one, not the drinking ones). This is likely a income/asset shelter, not really a legal defence fund. The fact that money can go around to the kids and other family members is the giveaway, mudflatters. Next thing you know, there is going to be a 501c3 foundation so all the friends and family can work there and get paid by the donations.
See what our Gov did before he ran:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/state/2003-09-24-schwarzenegger-portfolio_x.htm.
“Schwarzenegger has incorporated himself as Oak Productions. For tax reasons, studios paying him for movie roles make out the multimillion-dollar checks to that entity. He has set up separate corporations that own the 1977 documentary film Pumping Iron, publish fitness books, run an annual fitness competition in Columbus and manage his interest in a movie-theater chain. He has smaller interests in a regional sports network, Web sites and an Israeli cell phone-software company.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/24/us/schwarzenegger-the-investor-relies-on-expert-advice.html?sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all
April 24th, 2009 at 2:44 PM
Last comment was awaiting moderation but, moderators, please let AKM know about my post as the next thing to investigate on the grifter.
April 24th, 2009 at 2:57 PM
lynnrockets @ 208–ROFL!!!
Lt. Lisa reporting for duty.
That is, until we Texans get the red light call to report to Austin and deal with Gov. Perry. So our time may be limited…..
April 24th, 2009 at 3:35 PM
97 Philip Munger Says: April 24th, 2009 at 12:32 PM If Palin is going to actually do the Sean Parnell to AG – Schmidt to lite guv switcheroo, it will probably happen at about 4:30 this afternoon, AK time.
Because it’d be that last minute item just before the weekend, after the ADN staff and any ombudsman or legislative personnel will have left the building?
April 24th, 2009 at 4:15 PM
@KaJo–Yeah, it’s called the Friday news dump in the journalism business, esp. since if it were coming out of AK it would occur REALLY past everyone’s ability to get it in the news cycle, and by Monday when most people start tuning back into news it would be old news.
April 24th, 2009 at 4:36 PM
Hey, here’s a thought….perhaps some of the money gathered for the Alaska Legal Defense Fund can go to pay the people at Mat Maid who had to file lawsuits against Trustee Kristan Cole and Palin when they were thrown under the bus for telling the truth?
April 24th, 2009 at 6:26 PM
Went to cfourpee and they have a streamline up w/an Eddie Burke, Mcallister, and Kristian radio interview. It looks like they plucked it off of you tube. Not in the mood to listen to it right now, maybe I will later. Thought maybe someone might want to hear what they have to say about the ATF.
April 24th, 2009 at 6:57 PM
Soo…when the legal defense fund exceeds $500,000, which I have no doubt it will, where does that money go? Kristan Cole’s mother knows how to steal from trust funds……but got caught. She is the sole decider of how to spend the money…isn’t that lovely?
April 27th, 2009 at 6:26 AM
[...] it turns out SarahPAC started a defense fund and then days later dropped the consulting firm that was doing the fund raising reports The [...]