Rogue Fact: Palin misleads on aerial hunting
In her memoir, Sarah Palin falsely suggests that Alaskans do not engage in the aerial hunting of wolves. In fact, such hunting takes place in Alaska under a program that Palin herself has supported.
Palin: Radio host "suggested we get together and hunt from helicopters, which Alaska hunters don't do"
On Page 327 of Going Rogue: An American Life, in discussing her phone call with a radio host who was impersonating French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Palin writes:
Then Sarkozy started talking about hunting and suggested we get together and hunt from helicopters, which Alaska hunters don't do (despite circulated Photoshopped images of me drawing a bead on a wolf from the air).
Fact: Aerial hunting of wolves takes place in Alaska under program supported by Palin
Under Alaska law, "the Board of Game may authorize a predator control program as part of a game management plan that involves airborne or same day airborne shooting." On May 19, 2008, the Anchorage Daily News reported that "[p]ilot-gunner teams" had "taken 124 wolves," according to the Alaska Division of Wildlife Conservation, as part of "a winter program to kill wolves from aircraft," which the Daily News contrasted with "the 97 wolves gunners took last year." In 2007, Palin introduced a bill to "simplify and clarify Alaska's intensive management law for big game and the state's 'same day airborne hunting' law," which she stated would "give the Board of Game and state wildlife managers the tools they need to actively manage important game herds and help thousands of Alaskan families put food on their tables." According to an August 26, 2007, Daily News article (retrieved from the Nexis database), Palin supported "a $400,000 appropriation to educate Alaskans about the aerial shooting of wolves and efforts to reduce bears in some areas."
Why in the world would she lie about this? She had to know she would get caught. Watch, she'll blame it on the ghostwriter.
My prediction is that she's going to cancel the Walters interview early next week, because of all the bad publicity that's been coming out about all the lies in the book. Walters won't let her get away with it.
-- Fact: Aerial hunting of wolves takes place in Alaska under program supported by Palin and Federal statutes -- Slate.com
Alaskans are not allowed to just "get together and hunt from helicopters"...it is only allowed when the state issues special permits for state employees or licensed individuals to reduce the predatory wolf population to aid in the protection of moose and caribou herds. Simple silliness by mmfa to misleadingly claim Alaskans "hunt from helicopters".
But even funnier is when mmfa accidentally swerves into the contrast in leadership skills between Palin and the Obama administration/democrat congress.
When Palin announced her support for the $400k legislation she said, "I understand that the legislature doesn't have time to give this bill a committee hearing before the end of this session. I want Alaskans to look at this new language over the summer and fall, debate the issues and urge their legislators to pass the bill into law early next year."
That in contrast to the cram-job being proposed by the current administration on legislation involving trillions of dollars in govt. spending on complicated healthcare reform...allowing only days and sometimes hours to digest 2000 page documents.
You betcha, Gov.Palin...I like your style!
Do Alaskans sometimes "hunt from helicopters?" Why, yes, they do, and that's all that MMFA stated, also providing the links to show under what conditions this was allowed. So MMFA didn't "misleadingly claim" anything, wes baby, they just disproved Palin's statement that aerial hunting is something that "Alaskans don't do."
And, oh yeah, right, healthcare reform has been a "cram-job". It's only the most scrutinized and discussed piece of legislation that I can remember, and if repubs, who btw weren't going to vote for it no matter what it said, couldn't digest its contents in the allotted time, then they should take their own taxpayer-funded healthcare and try to find a cure for the craniorectal syndrome that they all seem to be afflicted with.
Sarah Palin told the Legislature that since they hadn't had a committee meeting, they shouldn't vote on a bill. And supposedly that derails what the Dems have done in Congress this year... but Congress had multiple committee meetings. And Sarah Palin told the Legislature that they should have a committee meeting next year, and should then quickly vote on the bill "early next year." So, it would seem that the Congress is doing EXACTLY what Sarah Palin urged the Alaskan Legislature to do - have committee meetings, craft a bill, then quickly vote on it.
Wesley doesn't even know that he defeated his own argument with his own argument!
OK, so who is?
Meaning the licensed individuals come from out of state?
Meaning state employees are not considered Alaskan?
Meaning these hunting flights are made individually by hunters with permits, but never as a group that "gets together"?
I wandered over to the Alaska Fish & Game site and noted that licenses are just as available to non-residents as residents (do they have to show their birth certificates?).
http://www.wc.adfg.state.ak.us/gis/index.cfm?GIS=Hunts.GHunts&speccode=W