regarding trooper wooten. sorry, but

if you don't think that a trooper accused of domestic abuse is highly likely to get a pass when investigated, you do not know any cops. not to say that they are all willing to look the other way. but really.

and that is the issue, thus the abuse of power charge.

if the guy did what everyone says he did, while he was a trooper then yes, he should have been fired. but without proof, it would be pretty unfair to fire him.

just feeling like this whole feeding frenzy is getting nuts.

Lots of concern repeatedly posted by a handful of posters for the possible harm to McCain and Palin..... Duly noted... As is your concern for her repeated pattern of abuse of power resulting in retaliatory firings--both as Mayor of a town of 8000 and in her 20 months as governor.

don't lump me in with the concern trolls. i don't deserve it. maybe you don't know me, but, perhaps that should give you pause.

--perhaps for reasons that are unclear, but nonetheless... Clarify your points in a way that does not sound like some who have appeared here to repeatedly post their (McCain-Palin) defenses. I gladly stand corrected and extend you my regrets. It appears that others here have likewise gotten an alternate impression than what you intended. Perhaps we are all on hair-trigger, given some of the posts here this weekend...

at all.
i admit that the whole bad mommy thing is making me nuts, but there doesn't seem to be any way to stop that. this whole feeding frenzy seems unstoppable.
but, honestly, it's not that i like sarah palin. i just think that we should stick to the facts, and this is a "fact" that i think is complicated. i am just trying to point out something that i think people do not see. and it is something that i have a little personal experience with. and i just think that if the shoe was on the other foot, it would look different to people.

just trying to keep it honest. if there are others here posting crap, well, they are posting crap. i honestly od'ed on it, and stopped reading most of the baby shit after about half a day. i just felt i should point it out after all the bad cop/tazer threads we have had.

It seems clear that they were looking for reasons to harass this guy.


How many times has a guy been accused of been abusive in a custody battle and then it turns out its a ploy to get a favorable rating?


In any case she didn't fire the trooper who apparently is still employed by the state and was investigated and suspended for 5 days for a minor offense but she fired the head of the department who did nothing wrong except refuse to follow an unlawful order that would have opened the state to massive litigation.


It appears that troopergate is the most substantive charge against her and could result in disciplinary action by the state that has authorized an independent investigator.

.

have cops gotten away with abusing and even murdering their wives? many, many. got a cop here in suburban chicago who is finally getting some scrutiny after the probable murder of his third wife. and yet he is still a free man.

i get it. but i also would like to see this discussion remain on the plane of reality. how many du'ers would be jumping up and down to get this guy at any price if there weren't a political payoff? many.

I mean, look at the fact that 30% of the country still likes W. In the last 2 days I've seen a lot of them approving of Palin for (apparently) overstepping her authority - it means she's the sort of person who cuts through red tape to them. Surely you have noticed by now that a popular theme in movies and TV shows is the cop who 'has to' go outside the law to fight evil.

Authoritarian psychology glorifies powerful individuals. Right now the GOP types are getting sexually aroused by the idea that she likes machine guns and cuts through bureaucratic red tape to protect her sister. It is an asset for her with the conservative base.

hard for us to imagine. most of us, anyway. but i think you are right on.

there is due process in this country.

come on.

The end result is that she was found to mentally unstable to have unsupervised visitation and my brother has full custody.

He may actually be innocent. The sister may actually be lying, and Sarah Palin may just be trying to punish him unethically.

Neither one of us knows the facts of the case, but we both believe in the assumption of innocence.

EDIT: Nevertheless, what Palin did was likely illegal, and in the very way that I hate cops for.

too often true.

the cops have been allowed to build an industry on the creation of criminals and their housing
we used to have police who protected and served
now we have a bunch of bonus chasers after a payoff
they and the lawyers have created a system to criminalize behaviours
they profit from this industry
it allows more hires more equipment more cars
they use the cars to write tickets
tickets which here in florida are kicked back partly to the cities
every ticket is more funding
each arrest is more funding
so they ticket more and arrest more

they cop on the street didnt build this system but he lives off of it

it has always been this way.
you are talking to someone in chicago, and the brothers take very good care of each other here.
and i am an old lady, and had a few run ins with my small town cops a long time ago. and saw this exact thing happen to a friend of mine, also pretty long ago.
and as i mentioned in another post here, we have a local story of a cop who is suspected of killing 3 wives, but remains a free man. even though the last one has been the local "missing blond" for quite a while.

there are some good ones out there, but....

Actually, he has had 4 wives. Two are still alive. His fourth wife, Stacy is missing. His third wife's death was ruled a suicide but now looks like murder.

It's about the fact that a perfectly good administrator with a good record who DID get fired simply because he refused to bow to political pressure. There's a quote where he actually advised the aide calling him that their doing this actually is counterproductive because if Wooten does anything he would need to get fired for, he would have a defense for it. So yeah, this time, it's not really about cops protecting their own.

I hate that this story got told wrong to begin with. It's about the administrator that got fired, not Wooten.

Excellent summary.

Redstone

And the most important thing is SHE FIRED THE COMMISSIONER

he is likely guilty of much of what is accused. not trying to paper over the rest of the story. just sayin'.

sorry but you are posting a new thread totally UNIFORMED of any relevant facts

i posited that people might want to look at something without the wishful thinking.

that should have gotten him fired.

And if he had TASERED one of my kids (one of the charges upheld), I'd shoved the thing up his ass and wired it to a 240v 50 amp breaker!

It seems clear that they were looking for reasons to harass this guy.


How many times has a guy been accused of been abusive in a custody battle and then it turns out its a ploy to get a favorable rating?


In any case she didn't fire the trooper who apparently is still employed by the state and was investigated and suspended for 5 days for a minor offense but she fired the head of the department who did nothing wrong except refuse to follow an unlawful order that would have opened the state to massive litigation.


It appears that troopergate is the most substantive charge against her and could result in disciplinary action by the state that has authorized an independent investigator.

and talk through their ass.

i do not deserve your insults.

and it shows in the response you got.

i thought it was an interesting angle, something we should look at. that is all. nowhere on this thread do i insult people who disagree with me. nowhere do i stick up for sarah palin.

Among the GOPers I talk to, they already view her as the administrative equivalent of Dirty Harry...'when the law won't help...she will!'. It could become a problem for her with swing voters (and if she gets impeached by AK, it'll be a disaster for the McCain campaign), but for the conservatives, she could have gone around to the guy's house and shot him with one of her deer rifles and they'd approve.

got fired it was Monegan who is a popular former Police Chief in Anchorage. This isn't about Wooten it's about palin's arrogant abuse of power.

<snip>

"When Palin became governor they went for another bite at the apple. Palin, her husband and several members of her staff began pressuring Public Safety Commissioner, Walt Monegan -- a respected former Chief of the Anchorage police department -- to can Wooten. Monegan resisted, arguing that the official process regarding Wooten was closed. And there was nothing more that could be done. In fact, during one of the conversations in which Palin's husband Todd was putting on the squeeze, Monegan told Todd Palin, "You can't head hunt like this. What you need to do is back off, because if the trooper does make a mistake, and it is a terminable offense, it can look like political interference."

Eventually, Palin got fed up and fired Monegan from his job. (Palin claims, not credibly, that she fired Monegan over general differences in law enforcement priorities.) This is an important point. Wooten never got fired. To the best of my knowledge, he's is still on the job. The central bad act was firing the state's top police official because he refused to bend to political pressure from the governor and her family to fire a public employee against whom the governor was pursuing a vendetta -- whether the vendetta was justified or not.

Soon after this, questions were raised in the state about Monegan's firing and he eventually came forward and said he believed he'd been fired for not giving in to pressure to fire Wooten.

After Monegan made his accusations, Palin insisted there was no truth whatsoever to his claims. Nonetheless, a bipartisan committee of the state legislature approved an investigation. In response, Palin asked the Attorney General to start his own investigation which many in the state interpreted as an effort to either keep tabs on or tamper with the legislature's investigation. Again, very questionable judgment in someone who aspires to be first in line to the presidency.

The Attorney General's investigation quickly turned up evidence that Palin's initial denials were false. Multiple members of her staff had raised Wooten's employment with Monegan. Indeed, the state police had a recording of one of her deputies pushing Monegan to fire Wooten. That evidence forced Palin to change her story. Palin said that this was the first she'd heard of it and insisted the deputy wasn't acting at her behest, even though the trascript of the recorded call clearly suggested that he was. (Hear the audio here.)"

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/211769.php

i read it all in the 10,000 other threads. i am just pointing out a little tiny reality check.

i don't know. i admit that i don't know. i do know how cops can be, tho.

The current proceedings are another matter though.

but isn't interesting, after all the threads about the misuse of tasers that we have seen here, everyone wants to believe the cop in this story. which is all i am trying to point out.

the only evidence is the word of one abusive cop.

The answer to it is there is a LOT more evidence than just that. You might wanna take a look at it.

It was the Commander who was fired in retaliation because he would not arbitrarily fire the cop= ex-brother in law to the Governor. Wooten had already been disciplined after an investigation of the claims. The firing of Monegan marks the second police officer in charge that Palin fired, first as mayor and then as Governor. Both without clear performance issues, it appears. That to me, screams abuse of power and apparently the legislature agrees, given their independent investigation that is ongoing.

at the Anchorage Daily news:

http://media.adn.com/smedia/2008/07/21/16/Wooten_suspend_letter.source.prod_affiliate.7.pdf

set on "test" -- because he wanted to see what it felt like.

or Mother Theresa.

The core point is, are we a democracy?

If so, we exist under the rule of law.

If not, vendetta is acceptable closure for certain crimes and certain classes.

The issue here should not be the stained dress, but the abuse of power.

The abuse is alleged, the investigation by the Govt of Alaska is actual.

If proven, it is the end of the Republican party, for all intents and purposes.

really, if the shoe were on the other foot, i know that there would be a fiery debate here about the righteousness of punishing the bastard no matter what.

how would people view this if, in fact, wooten was guilty, and monegan was covering up for him?

look, i am not sticking up for palin. i am sticking up for the truth. which we do not know. but which experience tells me is not what it seems. cops get away with lots and lots of domestic violence. lots. i nearly lost a friend this way. and in a small town, well, lets just say that i moved to the big city in part to get away from the small town cops.

But that is the difference between a debate forum and executive action.

I believe that the core of the issue is what is found in the investigation. If it proves to be abuse of power, McSame will have his Eagleton moment.

The threshold stands at lying about a blowjob. Precedence demands at least fifty million worth of investigation before we can allow closure of the issue.

Do you understand that even if the trooper was guilty of everything he was accused of, and a hundred times more, the point is she is being accused of abusing her power as an elected official to go after him. Doesn't matter if he deserved it or not.

I have no sympathy for some S.O.B. that let his temper get out of control on his wife or ANY other member of his family. But I equally have no sympathy for someone that utilizes their political position to unleash wrath upon people they have or had personal problems with. Allowing that sort of thing goes against all the purest foundatons that American government should stand for (at least in theory).

Her actions in firing the guy that wouldn't fire her ex brother in law (regardless of whe he may or may not have done) reflect her willingness to partake in government secrecy and promoting government anti-transparency, with no consequences and her own personal agendas taking the front seat. Thats one of many of the things that seriously need to CHANGE in order to give myself any kind of comfort regarding their (the Republican party's) intentions. But I'm not getting those kind of shady signals from the Obama/Biden ticket, even with all the ignorant, false rumor spreading emails. I can't think of a better set of 4 individual hands for America to be in.

There is also the sexual harassing creep that Palin appointed to replace the ousted commissioner, that she had to REMOVE two weeks later because of his hideous incompetence.

She fires Monegan and replaces him with her friend, Kopp. The guy's on the job all of two weeks before reports come back that he was investigated for sexual harassment in 2005. Not only does Palin waffle on firing Kopp, she gives him a 5 figure severance package (keep in mind, Monegan received no such payment). She's no different from Murkowski or Stevens when it comes to the good ol' boy system.

And about the Wooten issues, people are saying that the accusations are half-truths. He may have shot that moose without the permit but Palin and her father were said to have been there when he did it. The abuse case hasn't been substantiated as the taser 'victim' still lives with his father. We have to be careful with Sneaky Sarah and her tall tales.

for telling Palin that he wasn't going to illegally fire a trooper because of a three year old family feud.

Trooper Wooten still has his job. Maybe he shouldn't. Maybe he's a dirtbag.

But MONEGAN was a well-respected man, an innocent by-stander trying to do the right thing. HE doesn't have a job anymore.

Oh, and the icing on the cake? Kopp, the man Palin replaced Monegan with, had a previous sexual harassment charge and had to quit two weeks later.

That is what the ethics investigation is about. Monegan. NOT Wooten.

MONEGAN.

How do we get them to understand the importance of the law?

i give up.

office for a personal vendetta. If the guy did what they said he did, he is a jerk and I'm glad that he got fired. But it shouldn't be because he was married to the Governor's sister.