| Palin Spells Disaster For GOP |
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Palin Spells Disaster For GOP
In naming her as his vice presidential
running mate Friday, Sen. John McCain hailed
Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as "someone who has
fought against corruption." But Palin is
under two ethics investigations springing
from accusations that she abused her office
to pursue a personal grudge.
Palin has said she welcomes the
investigations: "Hold me accountable."
The investigations are reviewing the same
accusation: that she dismissed the state's
top law enforcement official because of his
refusal to fire a state trooper in a dispute
that predated her election in 2006. When she
dismissed Alaska Public Safety Commissioner
Walt Monegan on July 11, Palin said she
wanted to take the commission in a new
direction.
A week later, Monegan told NBC affiliate KTUU
of Anchorage that he thought it was likely
that he had been dismissed because he
resisted pressure from Palin's staff and
husband to fire the trooper, who was involved
in a bitter custody battle with the
governor's sister after their divorce in
2005.
Last month, the state Legislature appointed
an independent investigator to review whether
the governor or her aides abused their power
by pressuring Monegan to fire the trooper, a
probe that the Democratic chairman of the
state Senate Judiciary Committee said could
lead to Palin's impeachment. The outside
investigator, a retired assistant district
attorney in Anchorage, was directed to file
his report by Oct. 31, four days before the
presidential election.
Palin strongly denied the accusations and
ordered her own investigation by the state
Law Department.
In a July 31 interview with CNBC, Palin
defended the dismissal of Monegan, saying,
"It is a governor's prerogative, a right, to
fill that Cabinet with members whom she or he
believes will do best for the people whom we
are serving."
Palin promised her full cooperation, saying
she would answer any questions from
lawmakers, media and the public.
Private dispute goes public
The dispute
goes back to 2005, when Palin was a private
citizen. Palin's sister, Molly McCann, was
involved in a contentious divorce and custody
battle with Michael Wooten, whom Palin had
recommended for the troopers division when
she was mayor of the city of Wasilla five
years previously.
KTUU reported that Wooten's personnel file,
which was released at his request, showed
that Palin and her husband, Todd, filed an
unspecified number of complaints against him
during the custody case. Court documents
included an e-mail that Sarah Palin sent as a
private citizen to the director of the
troopers division in August 2005, accusing
Wooten of drinking in his patrol car,
"illegal hunting techniques," firing a Taser
at his young stepson and threatening to kill
her father. Â
Both Palins were interviewed by state
troopers as part of an internal
investigation, which dismissed many of the
complaints. Wooten was, however, suspended
for 10 days for shooting a moose and using
the Taser on his stepson, a suspension that
Monegan later reduced to five days.
Wooten remains a state trooper, and the
matter never came to wide public attention
until last month, when Monegan accused
Palin's husband and gubernatorial staff of
having leaned on him to fire the trooper.
Husband acknowledges one conversation
In
interviews last month with KTUU, Monegan said
Todd Palin pressured him numerous times to
fire Wooten, but Todd Palin said they had had
only one discussion.
"I met with Commissioner Monegan, showed him
some information about Wooten and left it at
that," Todd Palin said.
Then, on Aug. 13, Sarah Palin called a news
conference to acknowledge that the Law
Department investigation had found that 14
members of her administration made more than
20 calls to Monegan and other public safety
officials regarding Wooten since she became
governor in 2006.
Among the evidence was an audiotape of a
telephone call in February to a state
troopers lieutenant by Frank Bailey, Palin's
director of boards and commissions. In the
tape, Bailey says the Palins are puzzled why
Wooten remained on the job.
"Todd and Sarah are scratching their heads,
why on Earth hasn't — why is this guy still
representing the department?" Bailey said on
the tape.
Palin called the tape a "smoking gun" and
said she recognized that "I do now have to
tell Alaskans that such pressure could have
been perceived to exist." But she said she
never knew of the apparent pressure until
this month as part of the Law Department
inquiry.
"I have only now become aware of it," Palin
said.
Bailey was placed on administrative leave
last week pending the full results of the
investigation.
By Alex Johnson of msnbc.com with Jason Moore
and Leyla Santiago of NBC affiliate KTUU of
Anchorage, Alaska.
Tags : Sarah Palin McCain VP Pick GOP Alaska Mike Wooten Trig |
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Affichage : 12175
Durée : 587 s |
| Tacoma Bridge Disaster |
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Color video of the The Narrows Tacoma Bridge
Disaster of 1940. Before asking questions,
please visit this wiki article, which has a
lot of information on its collapse and why it
happened:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacoma_Bridge#Ga
lloping_Gertie
Tags : tacoma bridge disaster kynephi |
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Affichage : 468421
Durée : 265 s |
| Challenger Disaster Live on CNN |
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January 28th, 1986 at 11:39am EDT - The Space
Shuttle Challenger Explodes on its 10th
flight during mission STS-51-L. The explosion
occurred 73 seconds after liftoff and was
actually the result of rapid deceleration and
not combustion of fuel.
CNN was the only national news station to
broadcast the mission live, so thus what you
are witnessing on this video is the only
coverage of the disaster as it happened when
it did. Approximately 17% of Americans
witnessed the launch live, while 85% of
Americans heard of the news within 1 hour of
the event. According to a study, only 2 other
times in history up to that point had news of
an event disseminated so fast - the first
being the announcement of JFK's assassination
in 1963, the second being news spread among
students at Kent State regarding the news of
FDR's death in 1945. It has been estimated at
the time that nearly 48% of 9-13 year olds
witnessed the event in their classrooms, as
McAuliffe was in the spotlight.
The 25th Space Shuttle mission altered the
history of manned space exploration and
represented the first loss of an American
crew during a space mission (Apollo 1 was
during a training exercise).
Christa McAuliffe was slated to be the first
teacher in space for the Teacher in Space
Program. As her maximum altitude was
~65,000ft (12.31 miles), she never made it to
space. That title was given to Barbara Morgan
of STS-118 aboard the shuttle Endeavour in
August 2007, 22 and a half years after the
Challenger Disaster. Morgan served as
McAuliffe's backup during STS-51-L. As Morgan
is now part of the Educator in Space Program,
she will be credited as the first "educator"
in space, to distinguish her from McAuliffe.
Aboard Challenger during STS-51-L:
Francis "Dick" Scobee (Commander)
Michael Smith (Pilot)
Judith Resnik (Mission Specialist)
Ellison Onizuka (Mission Specialist)
Ronald McNair (Mission Specialist)
Gregory Jarvis (Payload Specialist)
Sharon Christa McAuliffe (Payload Specialist
- Teacher in Space)
Tags : space shuttle challenger mcauliffe sts-51-l nasa cnn disaster explosion regan 1986 liftoff live kennedy |
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Affichage : 326371
Durée : 143 s |
| Sinking Of Japan Disaster Scenes |
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This is a video of disaster scenes from the
2006 movie Sinking Of Japan (Nihon
Chinbotsu). It includes volcanic eruptions,
tsunamis and earthquakes. I edited all the
disaster parts for your pleasure. And to
clear things up, yes this is a DVDrip, it is
in Japanese but there ARE english subtitles.
Here are the subtitles:
00.01 - Daisetsuzan Range, Hokkaido
00.22 - Mts Tokachi & Furano erupt
00.48 - City of Kumamoto
01.05 - Hakodate
01.57 - D1 reports... ..multi-centered
earthquakes in Shizuoka, Nagano and Niigata!
02.04 - Magnitude 7....7.4...still rising!
02.06 - Tokyo, scale 6!
02.11 - It's coming!
(And it's kinda obvious that the earthquake
scene is Tokyo.)
Tags : Sinking Of Japan Nihon Chinbotsu NC06 Sinks Destruction Disasters Earthquakes Tokyo |
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Affichage : 192238
Durée : 190 s |
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