Showing posts with label Jeanne Devon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jeanne Devon. Show all posts

Sunday, June 5, 2011

Shannyn Moore is hosting the FDL Book Salon with Blind Allegiance co-author Jeanne Devon right now! Update!

Just click here, head on over and join the party!

You can still order your copy of Blind Allegiance by clicking here.

Update: Okay everybody hold off on condemning Frank over this supposed "donation to fight for parental consent, even for  incest victims."

Phil called me before he went over to FDL and said he thought it was mentioned in the back of Bailey's book, though HE had not yet seen it.  If it is I have not been able to find it so far.

He also said Frank mentioned it while being interviewed by Dana Loesch.  I just listened to the interview and (unless I missed it) there was absolutely no mention of this. (You can listen for yourself here.)

I also just received an e-mail from Jeanne Devin and she has never heard anything about this.

So before we all go off half cocked, let's make sure this information is accurate.  Right now Phil is the SOLE source of this information. I know that Frank is a supporter of parental consent, but I have NO concrete evidence that he is donating the proceeds of this book to that cause.

Update 2: I just heard back from Jeanne again.

Bailey has NO plans to donate any money to Pro-Life programs of any kind.

I have no idea why Phil made this accusation, but it has NO validity, and was NOT found in the two places that he identified such a statement could be found.

To repeat, this is a FALSE statement, and should not keep anyone from purchasing this book.

Saturday, May 28, 2011

Have you ever wondered WHY Sarah Palin relies so heavily on ghostwriters? Well the answer is in Frank Bailey's book.

In Bailey's book he reveals an attempt that Palin made to write a 675 word op-ed to the Anchorage Daily News entitled "Nonsensical Gas Agreement."

As it turned out "nonsensical" was the key word here.

The ADN editor, Larry Persily, must have thought that Palin had one of her daughters write it for her.

Larry Persily’s reply, after reading her draft, was blunt in its dismissal, despite Sarah’s insistence that she was good at writing in plain English:

Sarah,

Thanks for the op-ed column, but it will need some changes before we can publish it. As I have told all the candidates, we are not going to let anyone (incumbents or challengers) get by with easy political speeches on the page, especially on oil and gas issues.

The public deserves specifics, not just promises. So -- and nothing personal in any of this -- I've added my comments where appropriate to give you an idea of what would need to be added or explained before we could publish the piece...

Picking up with Persily's comments in an emasl exchange on Sarah's fourth point we read:

Sarah wrote: Fourth, the contract doesn’t ensure gas for in-state use.

Persily commented: (How do you propose to ensure in-state gas? Everyone is quick to promise in-state gas, and to attack the draft contract for being deficient in this area, but I'm not going to allow anyone to get by with more of the same promises. If you're going to raise the pledge of in-state gas, you will need to explain how you plan to fulfill that pledge.).

Further down, Sarah then wrote: As Cook Inlet supplies diminish, the concept of importing natural gas while ours goes to Canada is abhorrent.

Persily replied: (through Canada, not to Canada).

Sarah: Fifth, under this contract, if gas prices dropped to certain levels, we’d actually pay oil companies for the privilege of producing our gas while they reaped profits.

Persily: (Please explain. Yes, the state would have to pay the processing costs for its share of the gas, and the cost of removing and disposing of impurities, but we're talking around 50 cents per mcf. Do you expect gas prices to drop that low? And if gas prices were that low, and we lost money, how would the companies "reap profits"?)

Sarah: We assume more cost and risk than the oil companies do, including contributing our land and 7/8 of our gas to make the project happen. All told, our concessions could nearly equal the cost of the entire project, yet we’d only own 20% of it.

Persily: (How is any of this true? We would take 20% of the cost risk under the contract vs. 80% for the companies. How does that translate into the state taking on more cost and risk than the companies? And we didn't "contribute" our land, we leased it to the companies for a substantial upfront payment and royalty terms. And, if the project is $20 billion, what state "concessions" would nearly equal $20 billion?)

Sarah: Seventh, Administrators refuse to disclose details of negotiations with viable alternatives like TransCanada , MidAmerican, and the Alaska Gasline Port Authority.

Persily: (Not entirely true. The state eventually released most of the negotiation documents from its talks with MidAmerican. And there were no negotiations under the Stranded Gas Development Act with the Alaska Gasline Port Authority, just informal talks outside the Stranded Gas Act. This could easily be fixed by changing the allegation to a statement about the state has been less than fully honest about our projects, or something like that.)

Sarah: Eighth, the deal was the Administration was forced to propose sweeping legislation to amend the Stranded Gas Act to retroactively legalize their deal.

Persily: (Not quite "retroactively legalize their deal," since the Legislature has not approved the deal. It would be more accurate to say "to allow the deal to proceed under the law," or "to make the law match the deal.")

Sarah: Ironically, other viable alternatives projects were hypocritically rejected as ‘illegal under the Act.’

Persily: (What alternatives were called "illegal?" I'm not aware of any. The state did determine that the Alaska Gasline Port Authority does not qualify under the Stranded Gas Development Act, but not qualifying for a negotiated fiscal contract is not the same as "illegal.")

Sarah: Like other Alaskans, I crave a profitable gas line agreement. But it must pass Constitutional muster and be derived through a competitive process where all viable proposals are fairly and openly considered. My preferred alternative will first provide gas for energizing Alaska’s homes and businesses, employing Alaskans, and reducing rural energy costs.

Persily: (Again, how do you propose to ensure gas for Alaskans and how do you propose to guarantee Alaska hire? Local-hire requirements are unconstitutional, so if you're going to imply you have a way around that, you need to say how. And, as for ensuring gas for Alaskans, do you propose reserving a portion of the state's royalty gas and selling it to Alaskans at below-market prices? Whatever the answer is, you need to say what you have in mind.)

Sarah did not take rejection well. That her editorial didn’t accurately address the issues, misstated facts, and was devoid of proposals, was unimportant. The blame went to Persily and the Anchorage Daily News. She wrote back:

To: Persily, Larry

See?! Your piddly little 675-word limit forced me to lower my own standards.

OK - back to the drawing board. Thanks for the challenge Larry.

Sarah

This basically marked the beginning and end of Sarah’s extensive writing career.


And THAT my friends is why Palin might be very, very reluctant to dump RAM despite her embarrassing tweets.

And that is only ONE of the amazing, and highly embarrassing revelations to be found in Frank Bailey's book.

Monday, May 23, 2011

The Associated Press interviews Frank Bailey.



From the AP:

A former member of Sarah Palin's inner circle has written a scathing tell-all, saying Palin was ready to quit as governor months before she actually resigned and was eager to leave office when more lucrative opportunities came around.

"In 2009 I had the sense if she made it to the White House and I had stayed silent, I could never forgive myself," Frank Bailey told The Associated Press.

Palin's attorney did not respond to multiple requests for comment for this story.

"Blind Allegiance to Sarah Palin: A Memoir of Our Tumultuous Years" is due out Tuesday and based on tens of thousands of emails that Bailey said he kept during his time with Palin. It began with working on her 2006 gubernatorial campaign and continued through her failed run for vice president in 2008 and her brief stint as governor.

The Alaska attorney general's office has said it's investigating Bailey's use of the emails. Executive ethics laws bar former public officials from using information acquired during their work for personal gain if the information hasn't been publicly disseminated.

The state has yet to release thousands of emails that Palin sent and received during her 2 ½ years as governor. Bailey's attorney has said Bailey took "great care" to ensure his writings were consistent with legal requirements.

Billed as the first Palin book by a former aide, "Blind Allegiance" bolsters the perception of Palin as self-serving, while casting Bailey as her enforcer — willing to do the dirty work, no questions asked.

The interesting thing about this book is that Bailey does NOT attempt to sugarcoat his blind obedience to Sarah Palin, nor his often unethical behavior on her behalf.  In fact Bailey uses his very real, and personal religious convictions to guide him through some very painful confessions, and seems more concerned with receiving forgiveness from his God then worrying about how Sarah Palin or the public judge him based on the information that he reveals.

I can certainly attest that Frank earned his nickname "The Enforcer" as I had my own run in with him back in 2009.  However since that time, from everything that I have heard, Frank has been trying to turn his life around and make amends for the part he played in further the Grizzled Mama's political career.

Which is why I have "Blind Allegiance to Sarah Palin" pre-ordered on my Nook, and set to arrive tomorrow. And when it does I am going to dive right in and devour every morsel of what I know to be a fascinating story of what happens behind the scenes in the world of Sarah Palin, as told from a self identified "Palin-bot."

How could this NOT be good?

(And of course since I have already read the leaked manuscript, I am more than a little confident that this book is worth the purchase price.)