The rest of the article is HERE. (There’s a lot of it)
Now, before anyone attacks me, I see no problem with her taking her family along, as long as she checks with the organizers in advance, so they can make the necessary arrangements, and understands if they decline permission. HOWEVER, to charge the expense to the state, and claim it’s a BUSINESS expense? Especially when we’re talking “their own room for five nights at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel for $215.46 a night”, in some cases.
But she amends expense reports to state they have “official duties”, when they do not.
Fine, you want them to come along as a learning experience, to keep you company? Great, wonderful! But for godsakes lady, don’t expect us to pay for it, then bitch about socialism, you selfish cunt!
Please do not call Governor Palin a cunt. Cunts are useful, peasing, and frequently beautiful, and and as a group they have requested to no longer associated with her.
She’s clearly padding the expense account. If a sales person at a company you owned did this, you’d fire their ass. Cut down on the lipstick and pay for your own kids airfare, Palin.
I don’t understand what kind of official duty she could even claim her kids have. Are they advising her on energy policies something? What could they do in an “official” capacity? There’s no doubt I would be fired for something like this, but I guess I am not as important as her.
I never like it when stories like this break this close to an election. I have a propensity not to believe it. What I find interesting is that the AP has had quite an right wing bent these days. So it is odd that it came from them. But I still am leery of it.
“The Governor did nothing wrong, as she is perfectly within her rights to determine what constitutes state business and what does not. Please cite for me the specific statute that Palin broke.”
How’s that for a Bricker impersonation? I’m practicing for Halloween. (scary stuff kids)
Pretty good. I would ignore it because I have given up trying to reason with that water carrying shit monkey spin meister but if someone less disingenuous asked I would quote TPM thusly:
To be perfectly clear I don’t really have a problem with this I figure it is between her and her constituents and personally I don’t have a problem with a governor taking her kids. What I hate is she lies about being all mavericky and focused on cutting government spending when it is clear that she is only interested in cutting spending for people she does not like or can’t vote for her. That and her attempt to justify it by lying.
What about this angle: If she had not sold the governor’s jet, then any time she attended an event, she could bring along the kids for no extra cost. But since she did sell the jet…(and I’m too lazy to google, but I assume she made a profit)…then a small portion of the profits of that sale could be justifiably used to pay for any extras that the private jet allowed her (like bringing the kids along, first class service, etc). The majority of the profits of the jet sale helped the Alaska tax payers, so in the long run they came out ahead.
ETA: just read that she sold it at a** loss**. (I KNEW I shouldn’t have had that last glass of wine)…but still, selling it raised X dollars for the state and she had to spend Y to replace the functions, which apparently included air fare for her kids, so can I assume that X is a lot more than Y?
Me too. Not kids so much, but plenty of spouses probably tag along when they’re going someplace fun.
It’s not just spouses that are unnecessary on these trips, but the trips in general are problematic.
There was something on Inside Edition last week about a Washington State congressman – or maybe it was the governor – taking a bunch of officials to the Galapagos Islands to study the environment or the effects of climate change (something they could have learned about at home). One official even took her sister along.
I might be wrong, but I don’t think you can. My impression is that it was not the governor’s jet, but the state’s jet, and was used for more than just shuttling the governor around. If so, that would spread the cost around.
On a side note: she does seem to take her kids everywhere, doesn’t she? Why aren’t they in school?