Palin and Sudan
When I heard Sarah Palin say at the VP debate that she’d had the Alaska Permanent Fund divest from Sudan to protest the Sudanese government’s actions in Darfur, I assumed that she had, in fact, had the Alaska Permanent Fund divest from Sudan. On the one hand, it was a totally plausible story — a lot of publicly controlled funds have divested. And on the other hand, it would be bizarre to tell such a straightforward lie. And yet lie she did:
“The [Palin] administration killed our bill,” said Alaska state representative Les Gara, D-Anchorage. Gara and state Rep. Bob Lynn, R-Anchorage, co-sponsored a resolution early this year to force the Alaska Permanent Fund – a $40 billion investment fund, a portion of whose dividends are distributed annually to state residents – to divest millions of dollars in holdings tied to the Sudanese government.
In an e-mail later, Gara clarified that he believed opposition from the Palin administration helped kill his bill, but was not solely responsible for its death.
Bizarre.
94 Responses to “Palin and Sudan”
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October 5th, 2008 at 5:23 pm
as andrew sullivan would say…
October 5th, 2008 at 5:27 pm
Maybe she doesn’t know what she did. I’d hate to thinkit, but with her it’s a distinct possibility. Yikes!
October 5th, 2008 at 5:31 pm
Then again, I bet she does know that it’s perfectly safe to lie since she won’t have to explain the lie to a real journalist. Unless, of course, some major media outlet decides to keep a running journal of “the lies of Sarah Palin.”
October 5th, 2008 at 5:36 pm
There ya go again, Matt, with your gotcha journalism and factual references. You can’t see but I’m winking as I submit this comment.
October 5th, 2008 at 5:51 pm
We’ve reached (some would say gone beyond) the point where, if Gov. Palin says she did something, you can assume she did the exact opposite until proven otherwise.
October 5th, 2008 at 5:58 pm
I’d like to know more about the community that Mr. Barack ‘Community Organizer’ Obama had supposedly organized before moving on to bigger things. The last time I drove through there the only thing organized about the place was the drug trade, or as some may call it, organized crime. I need to see results, not rhetoric. What has Obama accomplished for others? We already know what he has accomplished for himself, with his Harvard degree and all. If Obama gets the presidency, then that is another great thing he can put down on his resume. But I need to know what do I get out of it. Selfish me, huh?
October 5th, 2008 at 5:59 pm
You mean she doesn’t actually think Alaska or American has any state or national interest in a big chunk of damn-all in the middle of nowhere battled over by tribes that we can’t even sort out?
Jeez, Matt, stop trying to make me vote Republican!
October 5th, 2008 at 6:04 pm
Good God Matt. Now look what you’ve done. You’ve vaguely touched on a topic that’s drawn Steve Sailer out of the woodwork.
Please be more careful in the future. Thanks.
October 5th, 2008 at 6:26 pm
” Selfish me, huh?”
Nah. Just stupid you.
October 5th, 2008 at 6:31 pm
And Sailer cracks us all up again. I’m definitely a Powell Doctrine kind of guy when it comes to foreign interventions. But financially isolating ourselves from the Sudanese warlords doesn’t exactly put us waist-deep in the Big Muddy, now does it?
October 5th, 2008 at 6:36 pm
Sailer, you should probably realize you drew the exact opposite conclusion as the facts represent. She *killed* the bill that was trying to get Alaska out of investing funds in Sudan. She left the funds there, and then lied about it.
And by the way, as I understand it was an investment fund for Alaska’s massive oil profits that had a very small percentage somehow involved with Sudan. That’s hardly foreign aid.
So in other words, you’re completely wrong about everything in your post.
October 5th, 2008 at 6:49 pm
I suspect her handlers had her mention this to give the impression she’s shown some leadership as an executive. As it is, it seemed fairly misplaced in the course of the debate. It certainly wasn’t in direct response to a question.
I’ve stopped assuming the truth matters to these folks. Only the optics matter.
October 5th, 2008 at 6:50 pm
She can say any damn thing she wants. She answers to no one but John McCain and he’s in the back alley shooting craps with Tom Brokaw.
Do you think a journalist is going to call her down on this shit. Do you think one of Washington’s inside McCain’s belt loop buddies is going to ask John why he picked an idiot and a liar for a running mate? Fat friggin’ chance.
October 5th, 2008 at 7:11 pm
Adam,
Sailor didn;t misread anything. Sick racists like him think it is perfectly fine to invest money in genocidal regimes if they are simply killing other blacks. The only criteria should be is the fund making money.
October 5th, 2008 at 7:13 pm
There’s nothing more disgusting than to use a lie about trying to protect the victims of genocide for your own political gain.
Unbelievable.
Just. Criminal.
October 5th, 2008 at 7:16 pm
eric k,
Sick racists like him think it is perfectly fine to invest money in genocidal regimes if they are simply killing other blacks.
it’s not blacks killing other blacks. it’s arab africans killing black africans.
not that black africans killing black africans is excusable… just have to clear the record.
October 5th, 2008 at 8:01 pm
it’s not blacks killing other blacks. it’s arab africans killing black africans.
ummm…
What you said was very technically correct. Do you know though, that there is no way of looking at these people and knowing which one considers themselves Arab?
This is a subject that the media just absolutely sucks about, but the people will mostly look the same, they may or may not have the same religion, it’s about nomads vs. farmers. It’s about water and agricultural land vs. grazing land.
October 5th, 2008 at 8:09 pm
Maybe I danced around there too much.
Do you know that Arab Africans are black?
October 5th, 2008 at 8:12 pm
I’ll bet it’s even more bizarre than a simple, straightforward lie. Bible Spice is clueless enough that she probably dimly remembers that such a bill was voted on in the legislature and just assumes it was passed. She likely has no frackin’ idea what her own state government is doing.
October 5th, 2008 at 8:50 pm
There’s a special circle in hell reserved for liars. I wonder how religious people justify all the lies she’s been telling.
October 5th, 2008 at 9:06 pm
It’s not bizarre; it’s preemptive.
October 5th, 2008 at 9:13 pm
“Bible Spice” – I gotta remember that one.
“MILF From Hell” would be another one, but Sarah Connor has that one sewed up.
October 5th, 2008 at 9:23 pm
This is, actually, very disturbing. There is no justification for continuing to invest in Sudan, and there’s certainly no justification for Palin lying about it.
My opinion of Sarah Palin just fell by a lot.
Sailer, we may not be able to solve the genocide but we don’t bloody need to finance it.
October 5th, 2008 at 9:41 pm
Adam says,
Does this even need to be pointed out? It’s the normal state of affairs.
October 5th, 2008 at 10:01 pm
How did FactCheck.com miss this one? Oh, that’s right. The Annenberg Center has devoted itself this campaign to false equivalencies and providing ammunition for Republiscum by expressing their “concern” about Dem oppo research items while pretty much ignoring Palin’s outright lies and corruption. Those aren’t “facts” to be “checked” apparently. Founder and patron Walter Annenberg was a loyal Republican who moved increasingly right in his old age. He knew what he was doing when he set up this anti-Dem propaganda outfit on a university campus and funded it in perpetuity.
October 5th, 2008 at 10:03 pm
Bizarre
Really? Knowing what we know to this point, wouldn’t this be SOP for Governor Palin?
October 5th, 2008 at 10:06 pm
Palin’s willingness to outright lie about something so easily de-verified demonstrates a total disregard, even contempt for the truth. She has the makings of a sociopath, just like W.
Is it possible that Palin really believes that she did divest the Alaska fund from Sudan? And then one of her associates somehow un-did it behind her back? And Palin never even knew? That would explain the comment without making Palin sound crazy.
October 5th, 2008 at 10:26 pm
Actually, the liar here is Matt Yglesias. Click here for the truth. And, you’ll never guess who ABC’s quote source is a “validator” for. Go on, guess.
BTW: Sully lied about this a couple days ago.
And, this joins MattY’s growing list of false or misleading posts that he doesn’t correct. You cannot trust what MattY tells you.
October 5th, 2008 at 10:38 pm
So 24ADC – did Alaska divest from Sudan or not? After all, McCain “signals support” for a lot of stuff that he doesn’t actually ever, you know, work or VOTE for. Might be a theme building…
Someone in the Palin administration signalled support for something stalled in the Alaska house. Cool – what exactly did the Governor DO to unstall the action? Citing calls to legislators, mail to legislators (Oops – from her two private accounts?)
October 5th, 2008 at 11:32 pm
Butch: good job weaving in disparate themes, I see you’re just 200 points from an inflatable David Axelrod doll. Keep going.
1. The Palin quote was that she’d “called” for divestiture, which MattY – due to what I’m going to have to call an attempt to deceive – has transmogrified into “[her claiming] she’d had [them do it]“. She never said she’d had them do it, only that she’d called for it.
2. Butch is bringing up a different point: whether she’d moved heaven and earth to do it. She came out for it, but no one expects her to go on a hunger strike. Butch is trying to deflect attention from the lies by MattY/CNN/BHO.
3. If you don’t recognize the sales job that ABC’s quote source is trying, do not ever buy a used car.
October 6th, 2008 at 12:17 am
Guess what? Oh yeah, ChrisBlogwhoreKelly is full of shit:
‘That legislation hasn’t passed yet.’ Uh-huh. And she’s the one saying people should do ‘all we can’. So, Palin’s a liar by Kelly’s subterranean standards.
As Daniel Davies says, ‘the difference between “making a definite single false claim with provable intent to deceive” and “creating a very false impression and allowing it to remain without correcting it” is not one that you should rely upon to keep you out of jail.’
October 6th, 2008 at 12:23 am
24,
She claims she called for divestment (though I haven’t seen any evidence) but regardless, she sent her people to testify against it in hearings.
This was just before she introduced the “Having our cake and eating it too.” bill.
October 6th, 2008 at 12:58 am
Njorl: a representative of her administration – i.e, someone representing her – came out in support of it in April, 2008. See the link I handily provided above for a link to a local paper’s contemporaneous notation of that fact. Now, she didn’t lead a hunger strike and threaten to shut down the pipeline, but no reasonable person expects her to: having a rep support the plan is enough to indicate her support.
I swear, the BHO sockpuppets of 2008 are using the same techniques as the Bush sockpuppets of 2004. They might even be the same hacks.
October 6th, 2008 at 1:42 am
what I remember from the debate, is that Palin said they *tried* to divest from companies doing business in Sudan, but were unsuccessful in actually doing so.
Which was very very weak tea, why even bring it up at the debate? But not exactly the same as sayin that the Palin administration *did* divest.
Anyone else agree or disagree with that recollection???
October 6th, 2008 at 1:59 am
Ringo—try a search engine.
After four years in New York City, Obama moved to Chicago to work as a community organizer for three years from June 1985 to May 1988 as director of the Developing Communities Project (DCP), a church-based community organization originally comprising eight Catholic parishes in Greater Roseland (Roseland, West Pullman, and Riverdale) on Chicago’s far South Side.[13][15] During his three years as the DCP’s director, its staff grew from one to thirteen and its annual budget grew from $70,000 to $400,000, with accomplishments including helping set up a job training program, a college preparatory tutoring program, and a tenants’ rights organization in Altgeld Gardens.
I guess a person could call this a “faith-based initiative” unless that person has some perverse need to spit it out the side of their smirking mouth as if Obama’s community organizing amounted to being a Junior League High Whiner having raffles to raise money for young Republican entrepeneurs.
October 6th, 2008 at 2:02 am
What are the odds that she isn’t lying? Fear, smears, and lies.
October 6th, 2008 at 3:30 am
Killing a bill you don’t like by opposing it all through the legislative session, running out the clock so that there’s no time to pass it, and then putting out a statement “supporting” it when there’s no time for it to be passed so that your fingerprints aren’t on the blade, is a pretty standard procedural tactic, isn’t it?
October 6th, 2008 at 4:04 am
The Palin quote was that she’d “called” for divestiture That’s slicing the baloney awful thin, brownshirt. Howzabout you scurry along and see what other bullshit Mr. Rove wants you to spread around…
October 6th, 2008 at 6:09 am
24ADC -
If you bothered to read any of the links on your page, you’d see that, amazingly enough, you’re full of shit.
There seems to be the teensiest bit of difference between “pushing” for a bill, and not actively trying to kill the second revision of that bill (but doing so the first time around).
We breathlessly await your “proof” that Saddam was behind the 9/11 attacks. (Because, after all, he didn’t condemn them, did he?)
[Yeah, I know it's a non-sequitur, but I figure logic is not 24ADC's strong suit]
October 6th, 2008 at 8:16 am
Comforting to know that Palin is a typical neocon Republican.
She lies whenever her lips move.
October 6th, 2008 at 9:04 am
Wow, wait until the msm gets a hold of this story…not. You guys are preaching to the choir with uncovering non-headlinable “lies” like this.
October 6th, 2008 at 11:00 am
One point that is being missed is that Palin didn’t need a bill to divest. A simple executive order could have done it. And yes, she did send a representative of her administration to argue against it.
And a side-note. Keep your eyes on Les Gara. I’ve been reading Alaskan blogs recently, and this guy is good! Expect him to run for Palin’s job either in 2010 or when the Branchflower Report gets her kicked out.
October 6th, 2008 at 11:21 am
Better link:
http://www.ownthesidewalk.com/2008/10/palin-on-darfur.html
October 6th, 2008 at 1:05 pm
Two months later, at the end of the legislative session, the administration softened its position. Appearing before a Senate committee which was considering a companion measure to Gara’s bill, Palin’s Revenue commissioner, Patrick Galvin, stated the administration supported such a measure, though it hoped to amend the bill to allow for investments held indirectly, for example in index funds.
October 6th, 2008 at 1:08 pm
She said that it was proposed and that it she is hopeful that it would pass. Read the transcript from the debate. you’re a bunch of morons.
October 6th, 2008 at 2:31 pm
fleur: I don’t know if I’d call them “morons”. After all, there are plenty of smart Scientologists, and I’m sure Heaven’s Gate had some bright adherents. Likewise with the Obama followers. What you see in the post and many of the comments is them simply ‘Lying for the Leader’. They know they’re lying, but they’re either paid to do it or they’re volunteers doing it for their greater good.
I also note, of course, that MattY still has not posted a correction to his lie in the post. That’s part of a trend.
Just recently, I pointed out how MattY helped someone else smear two people… based on data that was a decade out of date. MattY has still not issued a correction. The original smearer has posted a correction of a sort: by deleting those pointing out his error and locking the thread.
See also my comment here:
yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2008/09/
life_begins_at_conception_and_ends_at_death.php
Even ThinkProgress has printed the odd correction, but MattY prefers to see what little credibility he had go into the toilet.
October 6th, 2008 at 2:53 pm
I’m also going to keep harping on this one pathetic string, because it looks as if baiting Hispanics is going to cost me my Cheetos budget. Obviously, the MexicanGovernment is to blame.
October 7th, 2008 at 9:41 am
She said that it was proposed and that it she is hopeful that it would pass. Read the transcript from the debate. you’re a bunch of morons.
fleur, you incompetent SFB –
From the debate transcript:
“When I and others in the legislature found out we had some millions of dollars in Sudan, we called for divestment through legislation of those dollars to make sure we weren’t doing anything that would be seen as condoning the activities there in Darfur.”
Unfortunately for you and 24AC/DC, the facts belie what your Messiah (i.e. Bible Spice) claimed.
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