Found this in an e-mail message.  Checked it out on SNOPES and find it’s TRUE!  Interesting message.

 A note to all by Anne Kilkenny
 
Dear friends,
 
So many people have asked me about what I know about Sarah Palin in the
 last 2 days that I decided to write something up . . .
 
Basically, Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton have only 2 things in
 common: their gender and their good looks.
 
You have my permission to forward this to your friends/email contacts
 with my name and email address attached, but please do not post it on
 any websites, as there are too many kooks out there . . .
 
  [ This was already posted on Washington Independent comments area, 
     with a controllable hotmail account, and was obviously meant by the
     author to be read. ]
 
Thanks,
 Anne
 ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
ABOUT SARAH PALIN
 
I am a resident of Wasilla, Alaska. I have known Sarah since 1992.
 Everyone here knows Sarah, so it is nothing special to say we are on a
 first-name basis. Our children have attended the same schools. Her
 father was my child’s favorite substitute teacher. I also am on a
 first name basis with her parents and mother-in-law. I attended more
 City Council meetings during her administration than about 99% of the
 residents of the city.
 
She is enormously popular; in every way she’s like the most popular
 girl in middle school. Even men who think she is a poor choice and
 won’t vote for her can’t quit smiling when talking about her because
 she is a ‘babe’.
 
It is astonishing and almost scary how well she can keep a secret. She
 kept her most recent pregnancy a secret from her children and parents
 for seven months.
 
She is ‘pro-life’. She recently gave birth to a Down’s syndrome baby.
 There is no cover-up involved, here; Trig is her baby.
 
She is energetic and hardworking. She regularly worked out at the gym.
 
She is savvy. She doesn’t take positions; she just ‘puts things out
 there’ and if they prove to be popular, then she takes credit.
 
Her husband works a union job on the North Slope for BP and is a
 champion snowmobile racer. Todd Palin’s kind of job is highly
 sought-after because of the schedule and high pay. He arranges his
 work schedule so he can fish for salmon in Bristol Bay for a month or
 so in summer, but by no stretch of the imagination is fishing their
 major source of income. Nor has her life-style ever been anything
 like that of native Alaskans.
 
Sarah and her whole family are avid hunters.
 
She’s smart.
 
Her experience is as mayor of a city with a population of about 5,000
 (at the time), and less than 2 years as governor of a state with about
 670,000 residents.
 
During her mayoral administration most of the actual work of running
 this small city was turned over to an administrator. She had been
 pushed to hire this administrator by party power-brokers after she had
 gotten herself into some trouble over precipitous firings which had
 given rise to a recall campaign.
 
Sarah campaigned in Wasilla as a ‘fiscal conservative’. During her 6
 years as Mayor, she increased general government expenditures by over
 33%. During those same 6 years the amount of taxes collected by the
 City increased by 38%. This was during a period of low inflation
 (1996-2002). She reduced progressive property taxes and increased a
 regressive sales tax which taxed even food. The tax cuts that she
 promoted benefited large corporate property owners way more than they
 benefited residents.
 
The huge increases in tax revenues during her mayoral administration
 weren’t enough to fund everything on her wish list though, borrowed
 money was needed, too. She inherited a city with zero debt, but left it
 with indebtedness of over $22 million. What did Mayor Palin encourage
 the voters to borrow money for? Was it the infrastructure that she said
 she supported? The sewage treatment plant that the city lacked? or a
 new library? No. $1m for a park. $15m-plus for construction of a
 multi-use sports complex which she rushed through to build on a piece
 of property that the City didn’t even have clear title to, that was
 still in litigation 7 yrs later–to the delight of the lawyers
 involved! The sports complex itself is a nice addition to the
 community but a huge money pit, not the profit-generator she claimed it
 would be. She also supported bonds for $5.5m for road projects that
 could have been done in 5-7 yrs without any borrowing.
 
While Mayor, City Hall was extensively remodeled and her office
 redecorated more than once.
 
These are small numbers, but Wasilla is a very small city.
 
As an oil producer, the high price of oil has created a budget surplus
 in Alaska. Rather than invest this surplus in technology that will
 make us energy independent and increase efficiency, as Governor she
 proposed distribution of this surplus to every individual in the state.
 
In this time of record state revenues and budget surpluses, she
 recommended that the state borrow/bond for road projects, even while
 she proposed distribution of surplus state revenues: spend today’s
 surplus, borrow for needs.
 
She’s not very tolerant of divergent opinions or open to outside ideas
 or compromise. As Mayor, she fought ideas that weren’t generated by
 her or her staff. Ideas weren’t evaluated on their merits, but on the
 basis of who proposed them.
 
While Sarah was Mayor of Wasilla she tried to fire our highly respected
 City Librarian because the Librarian refused to consider removing from
 the library some books that Sarah wanted removed. City residents
 rallied to the defense of the City Librarian and against Palin’s
 attempt at out-and-out censorship, so Palin backed down and withdrew
 her termination letter. People who fought her attempt to oust the
 Librarian are on her enemies list to this day.
 
Sarah complained about the ‘old boy’s club’ when she first ran for
 Mayor, so what did she bring Wasilla? A new set of ‘old boys’. Palin
 fired most of the experienced staff she inherited. At the City and as
 Governor she hired or elevated new, inexperienced, obscure people,
 creating a staff totally dependent on her for their jobs and eternally
 grateful and fiercely loyal–loyal to the point of abusing their power
 to further her personal agenda, as she has acknowledged happened in the
 case of pressuring the State’s top cop (see below).
 
As Mayor, Sarah fired Wasilla’s Police Chief because he ‘intimidated’
 her, she told the press. As Governor, her recent firing of Alaska’s top
 cop has the ring of familiarity about it. He served at her pleasure
 and she had every legal right to fire him, but it’s pretty clear that
 an important factor in her decision to fire him was because he wouldn’t
 fire her sister’s ex-husband, a State Trooper. Under investigation
 for abuse of power, she has had to admit that more than 2 dozen
 contacts were made between her staff and family to the person that she
 later fired, pressuring him to fire her ex-brother-in-law. She tried to
 replace the man she fired with a man who she knew had been reprimanded
 for sexual harassment; when this caused a public furor, she withdrew
 her support.
 
She has bitten the hand of every person who extended theirs to her in
 help. The City Council person who personally escorted her around town
 introducing her to voters when she first ran for Wasilla City Council
 became one of her first targets when she was later elected Mayor. She
 abruptly fired her loyal City Administrator; even people who didn’t
 like the guy were stunned by this ruthlessness.
 
Fear of retribution has kept all of these people from saying anything
 publicly about her.
 
When then-Governor Murkowski was handing out political plums, Sarah got
 the best, Chair of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission: one
 of the few jobs not in Juneau and one of the best paid. She had no
 background in oil & gas issues. Within months of scoring this great
 job which paid $122,400/yr, she was complaining in the press about the
 high salary. I was told that she hated that job: the commute, the
 structured hours, the work. Sarah became aware that a member of this
 Commission (who was also the State Chair of the Republican Party)
 engaged in unethical behavior on the job. In a gutsy move which some
 undoubtedly cautioned her could be political suicide, Sarah solved all
 her problems in one fell swoop: got out of the job she hated and
 garnered gobs of media attention as the patron saint of ethics and as a
 gutsy fighter against the ‘old boys’ club’ when she dramatically quit,
 exposing this man’s ethics violations (for which he was fined).
 
As Mayor, she had her hand stuck out as far as anyone for pork from
 Senator Ted Stevens. Lately, she has castigated his pork-barrel
 politics and publicly humiliated him. She only opposed the ‘bridge to
 nowhere’ after it became clear that it would be unwise not to.
 
As Governor, she gave the Legislature no direction and budget
 guidelines, then made a big grandstand display of line-item vetoing
 projects, calling them pork. Public outcry and further legislative
 action restored most of these projects–which had been vetoed simply
 because she was not aware of their importance–but with the unobservant
 she had gained a reputation as ‘anti-pork’.
 
She is solidly Republican: no political maverick. The State party
 leaders hate her because she has bit them in the back and humiliated
 them. Other members of the party object to her self-description as a
 fiscal conservative.
 
Around Wasilla there are people who went to high school with Sarah.
 They call her ‘Sarah Barracuda’ because of her unbridled ambition and
 predatory ruthlessness. Before she became so powerful, very ugly
 stories circulated around town about shenanigans she pulled to be made
 point guard on the high school basketball team. When Sarah’s
 mother-in-law, a highly respected member of the community and
 experienced manager, ran for Mayor, Sarah refused to endorse her.
 
As Governor, she stepped outside of the box and put together of package
 of legislation known as ‘AGIA’ that forced the oil companies to march
 to the beat of her drum.
 
Like most Alaskans, she favors drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife
 Refuge. She has questioned if the loss of sea ice is linked to
 global warming. She campaigned ‘as a private citizen’ against a state
 initiaitive that would have either a) protected salmon streams from
 pollution from mines, or b) tied up in the courts all mining in the
 state (depending on who you listen to). She has pushed the State’s
 lawsuit against the Dept. of the Interior’s decision to list polar
 bears as threatened species.
 
McCain is the oldest person to ever run for President; Sarah will be a
 heartbeat away from being President.
 
There has to be literally millions of Americans who are more
 knowledgeable and experienced than she.

 However, there’s a lot of people who have underestimated her and are
 regretting it.
 
CLAIM VS FACT
 .’Hockey mom’: true for a few years
 .’PTA mom’: true years ago when her first-born was in elementary
 school, not since
 .’NRA supporter’: absolutely true
 .social conservative: mixed. Opposes gay marriage, BUT vetoed a bill
 that would have denied benefits to employees in same-sex relationships
 (said she did this because it was unconsitutional).
 .pro-creationism: mixed. Supports it, BUT did nothing as Governor to
 promote it.
 .’Pro-life’: mixed. Knowingly gave birth to a Down’s syndrome baby
 BUT declined to call a special legislative session on some pro-life
 legislation
 .’Experienced’: Some high schools have more students than Wasilla has
 residents. Many cities have more residents than the state of Alaska.
 No legislative experience other than City Council. Little hands-on
 supervisory or managerial experience; needed help of a city
 administrator to run town of about 5,000.
 .political maverick: not at all
 .gutsy: absolutely!
 .open & transparent: ??? Good at keeping secrets. Not good at
 explaining actions.
 .has a developed philosophy of public policy: no
 .’a Greenie’: no. Turned Wasilla into a wasteland of big box stores
 and disconnected parking lots. Is pro-drilling off-shore and in ANWR.
 .fiscal conservative: not by my definition!
 .pro-infrastructure: No. Promoted a sports complex and park in a city
 without a sewage treatment plant or storm drainage system. Built
 streets to early 20th century standards.
 .pro-tax relief: Lowered taxes for businesses, increased tax burden on
 residents
 .pro-small government: No. Oversaw greatest expansion of city
 government in Wasilla’s history.
 .pro-labor/pro-union. No. Just because her husband works union
 doesn’t make her pro-labor. I have seen nothing to support any claim that

 she is pro-labor/pro-union.
 
WHY AM I WRITING THIS?
 
First, I have long believed in the importance of being an informed
 voter. I am a voter registrar. For 10 years I put on student voting
 programs in the schools. If you google my name (Anne Kilkenny +
 Alaska), you will find references to my participation in local
 government, education, and PTA/parent organizations.
 
Secondly, I’ve always operated in the belief that ‘Bad things happen
 when good people stay silent’. Few people know as much as I do because
 few have gone to as many City Council meetings.
 
Third, I am just a housewife. I don’t have a job she can bump me out
 of. I don’t belong to any organization that she can hurt. But, I am no
 fool; she is immensely popular here, and it is likely that this will
 cost me somehow in the future: that’s life.
 
Fourth, she has hated me since back in 1996, when I was one of the 100
 or so people who rallied to support the City Librarian against Sarah’s
 attempt at censorship.
 
Fifth, I looked around and realized that everybody else was afraid to
 say anything because they were somehow vulnerable.
 
CAVEATS
 I am not a statistician. I developed the numbers for the increase in
 spending & taxation 2 years ago (when Palin was running for Governor)
 from information supplied to me by the Finance Director of the City of
 Wasilla, and I can’t recall exactly what I adjusted for: did I adjust
 for inflation? for population increases? Right now, it is impossible
 for a private person to get any info out of City Hall–they are
 swamped. So I can’t verify my numbers.
 
You may have noticed that there are various numbers circulating for the
 population of Wasilla, ranging from my ‘about 5,000′, up to 9,000. The
 day Palin’s selection was announced a city official told me that the
 current population is about 7,000. The official 2000 census count was
 5,460. I have used about 5,000 because Palin was Mayor from 1996 to
 2002, and the city was growing rapidly in the mid-90’s.
 
Anne Kilkenny
 annekilkenny@hotmail.com
 August 31, 2008

Categories: Uncategorized
2 Comments »