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Local News & Opinion
Ref. : Local Newsbriefs Travel
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Ref. : Letters to the editor Open Letters:
06.24 Mr. Holder, You Must Hold Torturers Accountable Health & Environment
06.29 Thinking about Climate 06.26 False Health-Scare Ad on CNN 06.25 Louella Learns the Limits of Medicare 06.23 The Simple Answer to America’s Health Care Crisis: Medicare for All 06.23 Tell ABC: Include Single-Payer in Healthcare Debate 06.23 Serving the Medical-Industrial Complex 06.22 Thinking about Recoveries 06.20 Obama's Health Care Waterloo 06.15 Obama, Like Clinton Before Him, is Blowing the Chance for Real Health Care Reform 06.11 Two Key Health-Care Numbers 06.10 Big Breakthroughs for Single Payer Health Care 06.10 Readying Americans for Dangerous, Mandatory Vaccinations Media Watching
06.29 WP's Connolly Back, on Health Reform 06.17 Hypocrisy and Hope: Western Coverage, Iranian Courage 06.15 Excusing Outrages of the Right 06.11 Tying Obama to Bush's Budget Mess US Politics, Policy & Culture
06.30 Obama's Torture Hypocrisy 06.30 Court Circular: Annals of Imperial Continuity 06.29 Obama, They Want You to Fail 06.26 Who to Trust on a Truth Commission? 06.26 Tarnished Shields: The Morally Bankrupt 'Family Values' Republican Leadership 06.25 America's "Bases of Empire" 06.24 Twelve Angry White People: Jury Nullification in a Pennsylvania Coal Town 06.24 Touring Empire's Ruins 06.23 Employers are Undermining the Economic Stimulus Program 06.19 Criminalizing Dissent: Obama Pot Calls Iranian Kettle Black 06.17 Afghanistan's Operation Phoenix 06.16 Are You Ready for War with a Demonized Iran? 06.13 Where's the Anger as the Wheels Come Off Obama's and the Democrats' Recovery Program? 06.10 Waiving the Rules for Old Glory 06.10 Obama's Era of Openness Is Closed High Crimes?
07.03 Reviewing Marjorie Cohn and Kathleen Gilberd's "Rules of Disengagement" 07.01 Iraq: A Bitter Strategic Failure 06.25 It's All Good, Again: 'Uptick' in the American-Made Tides of Violence in Iraq 06.22 Obama Opposes Plame-gate Release 06.21 Dexter's Legions: The "Good" Killers of the "Good" War 06.18 Extending the Tradition: Proudly Taking American Torture Into the Future 06.15 New UN Report Denounces America's Human Rights Record 06.14 Fear Rules Economics & Business Non/Mis/Malfeasance
07.01 Michael Hudson's "Super Imperialism:" The Economic Strategy of Imperial America 06.23 Obama's Financial Reform Proposal - A Stealth Scheme for Global Monetary Control 06.10 Cyberscares About Cyberwars Equal Cybermoney International
07.01 Pirates of the Mediterranean 06.29 Color Revolutions, Old and New 06.25 Iran Divided & the 'October Suprise' 06.23 Astringent Corrective: AbuKhalil on Iran's Turmoil 06.20 Are the Iranian Protests Another US Orchestrated “Color Revolution?” 06.20 Through a Glass Darkly: Sifting Myth and Fact on Iran 06.19 Iran's Election and US - Iranian Elections 06.16 The Ir-Af-Pak War: Obama Looses the Manhunters 06.12 Israeli War Crimes Against Children During Operation Cast Lead We are a non-profit Internet-only newspaper publication founded in 1973. Your donation is essential to our survival.
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COMMENTARY:Alaska GOP's Last-Ditch Palin DefenseOctober 5-6, 2008
Only days before the scheduled release of an investigative report on whether Sarah Palin abused her power as Alaska’s governor in the “Troopergate” case, six pro-Palin lawmakers have lodged an emergency appeal asking the state Supreme Court to shut down the inquiry.The Alaska Supreme Court agreed to hear oral arguments in the appeal on Wednesday and rule by Thursday, the day before the report is set to be released. The appeal followed an Oct. 2 ruling by a Superior Court judge rejecting the Republican effort to block the report’s release. The six GOP lawmakers claim that the legislative inquiry into Palin’s firing of state Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan in July – after he refused to fire her estranged ex-brother-in-law, a state trooper – has become tainted by partisan politics. In their Oct. 3 appeal to the state’s Supreme Court, the pro-Palin lawmakers argued that Alaska citizens “will suffer irreparable harm if the investigation at issue continues and if the resulting investigative report issues as planned on Oct. 10, 2008." The appeal seeks to reverse a ruling by Superior Court Judge Peter Michalski, who allowed the inquiry to continue. In an 11-page opinion, Michalski said, "it is legitimately within the scope of the legislature's investigatory power to inquire into the circumstances surrounding the termination (of) a public officer the legislature had previously confirmed." The probe centers on whether Palin, her husband Todd, and several of her senior aides pressured Public Safety Commissioner Monegan to fire Mike Wooten, a state trooper who was engaged in an ugly divorce and child custody dispute with Gov. Palin's sister. In July, Monegan claimed that he was fired because he refused to fire Wooten. Palin cited other reasons, such as a budgetary dispute, and the governor initially welcomed the legislative inquiry, which was approved unanimously by the Republican-dominated Legislative Council. However, after Palin was tapped as the Republican vice presidential nominee in late August, she and her allies reversed themselves and began resisting the inquiry, including a refusal by Todd Palin and several senior Palin aides to testify under legislative subpoena. Emergency Appeal
In the emergency appeal to stop the Oct. 10 report, Republican legislators Wes Keller, Mike Kelly, Bob Lynn, Carl Gatto, Fred Dyson and Tom Wagoner called the inquiry “an unconstitutional and unlawful legislative investigation.” The six lawmakers labeled the anticipated report by independent investigator Steven Branchflower an “October Surprise” intended to influence the outcome of the presidential election. In opposing the appeal, Peter Maassen, the attorney representing Alaska’s Legislative Council, said the investigation is nearly complete and that the six GOP lawmakers would not “shut down the investigation” but rather would only “suppress” the findings. He wrote: “The prospect that this Court would suppress a report, the contents of which at this point are wholly unknown, solely on the unsupported assertions of the plaintiff legislators that it might possibly say something hurtful about somebody — the most likely ‘somebody’ ... being the Governor, who presumably can fight her own legal battles — is utterly far-fetched.” In an earlier court filing, Maassen said Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign tried to derail the inquiry because its findings could “cause serious damage to the Republican ticket.” The “McCain campaign and its supporters, having apparently convinced themselves that the facts would cause serious damage to the Republican ticket if publicly known before the national election, are now moving on many fronts — including this one — to slow and stop Mr. Branchflower’s fact-finding inquiry and to prevent his issuance of the report authorized by the Legislative Council,” said Maassen’s court filing. Judge Michalski also threw out a lawsuit filed by Palin’s Attorney General Talis Colberg seeking to invalidate more than a dozen subpoenas seeking testimony from senior Palin aides. Michalski rejected Colberg’s argument that Alaska’s Senate Judiciary Committee does not have subpoena authority. On Sunday, Colberg said he won’t challenge the judge’s ruling. In a statement, he said seven state employees who were subpoenaed by Branchflower will make arrangements to testify before the independent counsel is scheduled to release his report to the legislature on Friday. "Despite my initial concerns about the subpoenas, we respect the court's decision to defer to the Legislature," Colberg said. Jason Leopold has launched a new Web site, The Public Record, at www.pubrecord.org.
This article is republished in the Baltimore Chronicle with permission of the author. Copyright © 2008 The Baltimore News Network. All rights reserved.
Republication or redistribution of Baltimore Chronicle content is expressly prohibited without their prior written consent. Baltimore News Network, Inc., sponsor of this web site, is a nonprofit organization and does not make political endorsements. The opinions expressed in stories posted on this web site are the authors' own. This story was published on October 7, 2008. |
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