To John K. Waltz
Director of State/Federal Relations
and Special Counsel to the Governor

Also, as an FYI, Commissioner Monegan may be traveling to DC at the end og the month. He is pursuing his statewide plan to add 30 retired troopers to take over sexual assault investigations from existing troopers. We met with Karen Rehfeld last week. He does not have a green light on this initiative as we want to vet it with other agencies involved, and review whether putting the funding into troopers would get the best results as oppossed to DHSS and new treatment and education progams.

The abc news document is too pathetic for what they want it to be, but it was another valuable resource to my puzzle.

This is because Senator Murkowsky had already approved what Mongean wanted on behalf of the PSEA in a bill that passed on July 16, 2008.

That bill which was supposed to be for Global Aids Assistance, had a ear mark that provided for the following:

“Another $30 million would be set aside for Department of Justice grants to tribes and Alaska Native organizations to support tribal courts, domestic violence prosecution and community violence prevention activities. Ten million dollars would be allocated for partnerships between Native organizations and state and local law enforcement agencies, such as Alaska’s Village Public Safety Officer program. These funds could also help support state and municipal law enforcement activities on Alaska Native lands.”

It gets better!!

Senator Joe Biden, a Delaware Democrat and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, led the debate in support of the bill. A frequent critic of President Bush, Biden says he has no dispute with the president over this program.

“I am often critical of the president’s foreign policy and his aid programs,” said Senator Biden. “But the President of the United States, George W. Bush, deserves great credit. If the president did nothing else in his administration, this is justification enough for his legacy to be looked back on favorably because of the phenomenal and dramatic impact this initiative has and will have on the rest of the world.”

It gets even deeper if you read the Senate transcript!!

TOM LANTOS AND HENRY J. HYDE UNITED STATES GLOBAL LEADERSHIP AGAINST HIV/AIDS, TUBERCULOSIS, AND MALARIA REAUTHORIZATION ACT OF 2008 — (Senate – July 16, 2008)

[Page: S6809]

The only thing this amendment does is provide an extra set of eyes to make sure every dollar is spent, as Congress intended, on a humanitarian purpose. This is especially important under this particular program because the Congressional Budget Office says that even though this bill authorizes $50 billion for this purpose, only about $35 billion could actually be spent during the 5-year period covered by this bill. What is going to happen to the additional $15 billion? One might ask, are we going to try to jam $15 billion more into the program than can actually be spent effectively and efficiently to accomplish congressional purpose?

These people think they can just get away with anything. There should be congressional investigations into this amendment to the Global Aids Bill!!

SBD

Did She or Didn’t She? Did Sarah Palin fire Moneghan so she could shut down the schools and teach creationism as science, barring non-Christians from having children in Alaska so that the oil reserves could be used up quicker and…

DPS Weekly Update

September 15, 2008

Let me give a little background as to how this may have happened. During an interview with CNN, John Cyr was asked if we had been in contact with the Obama Campaign. John replied that we have not but that the Obama Campaign telephoned our office a number of months earlier asking if we normally endorse presidential candidates and if so, whether we had decided on an endorsement. John informed them that we do not, that we have no federal PAC, and would not be endorsing either candidate. The phone call ended and no contact or attempted contact has been made between our offices. John also emphasized that we have not ever discussed the Governor and the allegations surrounding her with anyone from Obama’s team. While televising the interview CNN capped the broadcast with a statement that PSEA had been in contact with the Obama Campaign. This was a gross mischaracterization of the facts. I have confirmed through another media source that the CNN broadcast is the source relied upon for making the connection during the press conference.

So, the PSEA has no Federal PAC, therefore they could not endorse Obama. FALSE

PAC 2004 BATTING AVERAGE: .909!!
A Publication for PSEA Members

This election, PSEA’s PAC took probably its biggest step into the political arena, financially supporting and endorsing not only state candidates at a record level, but also entering a federal race for the first time through the endorsement of Lisa Murkowski for the United States Senate.

Those carefully reviewing this report will observe that the PAC has thrown its support in favor of candidates regardless of party affiliation. This reflects an important factor in the PAC Committee’s decision-making: when candidates approach us for support, the PAC Committee evaluates their record not only as it pertains to law enforcement issues, but also support for PSEA members as public employees. A critical question posed to each individual was: where do you stand on the issue of funding PSEA’s collective bargaining agreement, whether created through bargaining, or imposed by an arbitrator? The answer to that question was a significant determining factor in deciding who to support.

Those carefully reviewing this report will observe that the PAC has thrown its support in favor of candidates regardless of party affiliation.

I definitely observed all right and you would be amazed what that observation found when you know how to observe correctly!!

For instance, lets take a look at “so called” Republican Nancy Dahlstrom who is quoted in this September 5, 2008 Bloomberg article as saying:

“We also discussed and agreed amongst ourselves that no subpoena will be issued for the governor,” said Republican Representative Nancy Dahlstrom. “She has told the public that she intends to cooperate with the investigation, indeed, she has told the public that she welcomes the investigation, and I have every faith that she means it.”

So “Republican” Nancy Dahlstrom, should we have every faith that you meant what you said above??

The answer to that question is a resounding NO!! Why you ask?? I just happened to find the PSEA PAC Questionnaire filled out by “Republican” Nancy Dahlstrom. She answered every question basically agreeing ahead of time to either sponsor or vote for specific legislation in favor of PSEA.

One question asks how much money she wants and she says $50,000 – $60,000 is reasonable!!

One question asks if the PSEA endorses her, how does she envision their help? Her answer was “Your name is worth a million dollars to me.”

She ends with a personal note that says “I will always (underlined) be supportive.” It is dated and personally signed on 08-05-06, which was apparently late according to her final note. She was concerned by that fact, so she wrote her personal cell phone number on it and asked for a call upon receipt.

I do not want to provide a link to their website to the document or explain how easy it was to find. It was not password protected and was wide open to download for anyone who could find it.

I will send it to AJ by email along with several other Questionnaires that I found. It will be up tp him to post them on his site.

SBD

So, put it all together, and in the past week Obama has stayed steady or lost support in every party identification group, yet Gallup says his overall support went up four points. And McCain stayed steady or went up in every party identification group, yet we are supposed to accept the claim that his overall support went down by four points? Anyone have an answer for how that is even possible?

Well, actually I do. There is one, and only one, possible way that such a thing can happen mathematically. And that way, is that Gallup made major changes to the political affiliation weighting from the last week to now. Gallup has significantly increased the proportional weight of Democrat response and reduced the weight of Republican response. Bear in mind that this assumes that people change the foundation of their political opinion like a showgirl changes costumes, which has no scientific basis or historical support whatsoever. As I said earlier, the Gallup Organization is very much a professional polling agency, who tries their level best to gauge the national mood. That, after all, is why I chose to use their poll for my examination. I could do the same thing with any other of the major published polls, and I can tell you straight-up that I would find the same practice going on everywhere. But just because something is popular, does not validate it as a scientific method. Rather than report the rising and falling levels of support for Obama and McCain with constant party identification weighting, the Gallup and other polls are shifting the party weights over time, which pretty explains how the ‘bounce’ happens for each convention. When the Democrats held their convention, the polls increased the weight of Democrats and lowered the Republican response, and when the Republicans had their convention, the polls gave the Republicans more weight. That’s why Palin made such an immediate difference in the polls; the Liberals were not all that impressed with her, but the Republicans were happy and with a bigger share of the weight their response was magnified. I can’t prove it, since the Gallup people do not invite me into their strategy meetings, but I think somewhere they are weighting the party ID by the mood as they see it. The problem there, is that such weighting is still very subjective, and what’s more it fails to consider that someone may consider themselves a member of one party with respect to the House and Senate races, but something else entirely when it comes to voting for the President. The state of Oklahoma, for example, is a very Democratic place, but it’s pretty solid for McCain, just as it was for Bush. So weighting a presidential poll for party identification on the basis of how they think someone will vote for Congress, is going to miss the mark.

Anyway, going back to my earlier piece on party weighting, if we go back and look at the historical track record for the last ten years in terms of self-identified party affiliation from actual exit polls, we see a clear standard of weights; 38.4% Democrat, 35.8% Republican, 26.0% Independent. If we then work them out to fill the liberal/moderate/conservative slots used by Gallup, the following weights have historical validity and may be used as a constant for poll responses:

Liberal Democrat 9%
Moderate Democrat 16%
Conservative Democrat 13%
Independent 26%
Liberal/Moderate Republican 23%
Conservative Republican 13%

If we apply those weights to the poll response, here is what happens to the Gallup polling responses:

August 21: Obama 39.94%, McCain 43.43%, Undecided 16.63%
August 28: Obama 40.04%, McCain 43.60%, Undecided 16.36%
September 4: Obama 41.06%, McCain 41.77%, Undecided 17.17%
September 11: Obama 42.04%, McCain 42.45%, Undecided 15.51%
September 18: Obama 39.62%, McCain 45.71%, Undecided 14.67%