Alaska

Wasilla Councilman Recalled After He Drunkenly Trashed Hotel Room

Jillian Rayfield | February 8, 2012, 12:14PM

Members of an Alaska Tea Party group successfully pushed for a recall of Wasilla City Councilman Steve Menard, after he admitted to drunkenly trashing a hotel room he was staying in during a trip on city business.

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Sarah Palin

Palin: Sandusky Should 'Hang From The Highest Tree'

Josh Petri | November 16, 2011, 11:25AM

Promoting lynching as a form of punishment is a sure way to get attention. And Sarah Palin is certainly craving attention these days.

In an interview aired Tuesday night with Greta Van Susteren on Fox News, Palin weighed in the pedophilia scandal engulfing former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky.

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Steve Menard

Wasilla City Councilman Won't Resign After Drunkenly Trashing Hotel Room

Jillian Rayfield | August 24, 2011, 3:58PM

Steve Menard, a City Councilman in Wasilla, Alaska, is being forced to repay the city for damages to a Sitka hotel room that was found trashed after his stay there.

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Sarah Palin

FBI: Father And Son Harassed Sarah Palin's Attorney With Hundreds Of Calls, Vile Voicemails

Ryan J. Reilly | August 19, 2011, 1:33PM

Sarah Palin

A father and son arrested by FBI agents on Thursday for allegedly harassing Sarah Palin's attorney called his office over 500 times earlier this month and left vile voicemail messages threatening the attorney, according to federal court documents unsealed Friday morning.

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Sarah Palin

Sarah Palin Emails To Be Finally Released

Eric Lach | June 10, 2011, 6:45AM

Sarah Palin

Friday is the day the state of Alaska is finally releasing the emails it has been holding onto from Sarah Palin's time as governor. Media outlets first requested the documents more than two years ago, when Palin was running for vice president.

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Sarah Palin

Sarah Palin: Gas Prices Are So High We Might Not Finish Our PAC-Funded Vacation (VIDEO)

Ryan J. Reilly | June 1, 2011, 11:25AM

Plenty of Americans are worried about whether they'll be able to pay for their family vacations this summer due to the high price of gas. Sarah Palin is worried that her PAC won't be able to afford it.

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Alaska

Alaska Finally Ready To Release Palin's Old Emails

Eric Lach | June 1, 2011, 9:36AM

Sarah Palin

The state of Alaska will soon release more than 24,000 pages of Sarah Palin's emails from her time as governor, documents that media outlets first requested more than two years ago, when Palin was running for vice president.

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Sarah Palin

Sarah Palin Cites Ludicrious Claim That Obama Spent $2 Million In Birth Certificate Fight

Ryan J. Reilly | April 11, 2011, 12:10PM

Former Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK) and Donald Trump

Sarah Palin says she isn't a birther. But she swallows hook, line and sinker the ludicrous claims birthers have made about how much money President Barack Obama spent "hiding" his birth certificate.

In an interview on Fox News, Palin backed Donald Trump's purported investigation into Obama's birth certificate, but claimed she wasn't herself a birther. Nonetheless, she cited the discredited claim that Obama spent $2 million to keep his birth certificate from the public.

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Sarah Palin

Palin Tells Anti-Gay Group Obama 'Flip-Flopped' On DOMA

Ryan J. Reilly | March 1, 2011, 5:00PM

A week after the Obama administration announced it believed part of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) was unconstitutional and said it would no longer defend the law in court, former half-term Gov. Sarah Palin is out with a statement that slams (surprise!) President Barack Obama for the decision.

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Sarah Palin

Palin Knocks Obama For Promoting Breastfeeding, But Declared Awareness Month As Gov

Ryan J. Reilly | February 18, 2011, 12:50PM

Former half-term Gov. Sarah Palin joined Rep. Michele Bachmann in taking shots at First Lady Michelle Obama for promoting breastfeeding, joking that it could be a way for mothers to save money since the price of milk has gotten so high.

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Westboro Baptist Church

Westboro Baptists Not Big On Obama's Call To Dial Down The Rhetoric

Ryan J. Reilly | January 14, 2011, 2:30PM

Shirley Phelps-Roper

There's a least one group not taking kindly to President Barack Obama's call for civility this week in the wake of the attempted assassination of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ): the Westboro Baptist Church.

Not surprisingly, a spokesperson from the infamous congregation (best known for protesting the funerals of soldiers killed in action with anti-gay signs) blew off Obama's plea to bring it down a notch in a phone interview with TPM on Friday.

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Washington Times

Wash Times: Criticism Of Palin's 'Blood Libel' Part Of 'Ongoing Pogrom' Against Conservatives

Jillian Rayfield | January 14, 2011, 1:11PM

Former Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK)

A Washington Times editorial defends Sarah Palin's use of the phrase "blood libel" in the wake of the Tucson shootings, by calling media criticism of Palin "the latest round of an ongoing pogrom against conservative thinkers."

Palin had been criticized for using the term "blood libel" to characterize media attacks against her, because of associations between "blood libel" and persecution of Jews in Europe. The term has its roots in the false charge that Jews would murder children and use their blood in religious rituals.

The choice by the Times to describe media attacks as "pogroms" is even more unfortunate since the term usually refers to destructive riots that targeted Jews during the time of the Russian Empire, and often resulted in massacres.

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Pat Buchanan

Pat Buchanan: Sarah Palin's Use Of Blood Libel Was 'Excellent' (VIDEO)

Ryan J. Reilly | January 12, 2011, 2:38PM

Pat Buchanan

Pat Buchanan said Wednesday that Sarah Palin has been a victim of the media in the wake of the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ), and she was right to use the phrase "blood libel" in defending herself from charges that her language had anything to do with the mass shooting.

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Sarah Palin

Palin's Use Of 'Blood Libel' Mirrors That In Right-Wing Media

Ryan J. Reilly | January 12, 2011, 1:03PM

Before Sarah Palin posted her Facebook provocation this morning accusing the media of committing "blood libel" for connecting some of her statements to the attempted assassination of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ), that phrase was being batted around by the conservative media.

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Joe Arpaio

Joe Arpaio Defends Sarah Palin, Says Sheriff Dupnik Too Political (VIDEO)

Ryan J. Reilly | January 11, 2011, 10:02PM

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, not exactly known for his bipartisanship, thinks that fellow Arizona Sheriff Clarence Dupnik of Pima County is getting too political in his rhetoric in the wake of the mass shooting over the weekend that killed six people and gravely injured Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ).

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Sarah Palin

Arizona Lawmaker In Palin's 'Crosshairs' Says Blame Game Is Not Helpful (VIDEO)

Ryan J. Reilly | January 11, 2011, 3:40PM

Former Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick (D-AZ)

Arizona Democrat Ann Kirkpatrick, who like Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) was targeted by former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, said in an interview Tuesday that "the blame game is not helpful right now."

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2010 Elections

Before Shooting, A Campaign Season Rife With Gun Rhetoric

Rachel Slajda | January 11, 2011, 8:30AM

Sarah Palin's controversial map.

The person who shot Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ), a federal judge and 18 other people Saturday may or may not have had a coherent political philosophy or a rational motive. But his actions still come after a campaign season rife with gun imagery and borderline violent rhetoric.

There is, of course, Sarah Palin's map in which targeted districts were marked by crosshairs (spun as "surveyor's symbols" by Palin aides), but there was much, much more over the 2010 campaign:

Target Practice
Robert Lowry, a Republican challenger to Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schulz (D-FL), stopped by a local Republican event in October. The event was at a gun range, and Lowry shot at a human-shaped target that had Wasserman Schulz's initials written next to it. He later said it was a "mistake."

Wasserman Schulz, who defeated Lowry, remembered that incident on Hardball Monday evening.

"Those kinds of actions, words and statements can lead people who are unbalanced to potentially engage and carry out that violence," she said. "It's out of line and we've got to dial it back."

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Alaska

The Palin-Loving World Of Alaska Dentistry And The 112th Congress

Rachel Slajda | January 3, 2011, 3:12PM

Rep.-elect Paul Gosar (R-AZ)

As TPM noted earlier, a new Republican congressman from Arizona has hired two Palin-tied Alaskans to run his office in D.C.

The hirings have everything to do with the close-knit, pro-Palin world of Alaskan dentistry.

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Trooper-Gate

AZ Rep-Elect Hires Palin-Connected Dentist As COS

Rachel Slajda | January 3, 2011, 11:10AM

Rep.-elect Paul Gosar (R-AZ)

A congressman-elect from Arizona has hired a retired Wasilla dentist closely tied to former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his chief of staff.

Rep.-elect Paul Gosar (R-AZ), himself a dentist, hired Rob Robinson as his top aide, Roll Call reports today. Palin endorsed Gosar after Robinson, a political friend of hers, introduced them.

Both Gosar and Robinson are members of the American Dental Association and served together on the organization's governmental affairs council. Robinson moved to Arizona last year to work as Gosar's campaign manager.

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Randy Scheunemann

Sarah Palin's Foreign Policy Adviser Randy Scheunemann Consults For George Soros

Megan Carpentier | November 12, 2010, 10:07AM

Sarah Palin and Randy Scheunemann

Since Sarah Palin took the national stage in 2008, neocon Randy Scheunemann has been at her side as an apparent confidant and foreign policy adviser, getting $30,000 in fees from her as recently as June 30, 2010.

But at the same time, Justin Elliott reports at Salon, Scheunemann's firm Orion Strategies was taking money to lobby the U.S. government from conservative boogeyman George Soros' Open Society Policy Center.

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Sarah Palin

Alaska Producers Fired Over Jokes About Joe Miller Story

Ryan J. Reilly | November 2, 2010, 9:24PM

Republican candidate for US Senate in Alaska Joe Miller

Two producers for the Alaska television station KTVA are no longer with the CBS affiliate after an internal assessment found that they made comments that were were not in line with the station's standards, the channel said in a press release late Tuesday.

In a recording posted on the conservative website Big Government, individuals could be heard discussing a supposed plan to make up a sensational story on Miller -- in reality, joking that they would find a child molester who was voting Republican to tie him to Miller.

But the station found that contrary to the claims of the Miller campaign, neither the news director, an assignment editor or reporters for the station were involved in the recorded conversation, the station said.

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Guns

'Gun Ban Obama?' Not So Much, Say Gun Control Advocates

Ryan J. Reilly | October 12, 2010, 9:18AM

President Barack Obama and ATF agents

To hear some gun rights activists tell it, President Barack Obama wants to take away your guns and, any minute now, jack-booted federal agents could knock on your front door to collect them.

Such predictions started during the 2008 campaign. "Obama would be the most anti-gun President in American history," screamed a banner at the National Rifle Association's GunBanObama.com. It got so bad that Obama even had to reassure voters he wouldn't take away their guns. Even after the election, gun sales boomed.

You'd expect a President so opposed by many gun rights groups to get high praise from gun control advocates since he took office. But advocates like those from the Brady Campaign To Prevent Gun Violence are far from satisfied with the progress on gun control being made in this administration.

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Christine O'Donnell

O'Donnell Cited Palin-Backed 'Bridge To Nowhere' As 'Pork Barrel Spending'

Ryan J. Reilly | September 20, 2010, 11:04AM

Sarah Palin and Christine O'Donnell

When Christine O'Donnell wanted to show voters in the 2008 election what type of "pork barrel" spending she would never vote for, she cited the example of the controversial so-called "bridge to nowhere" in Alaska -- a project backed by now-supporter Sarah Palin.

Palin's endorsement of O'Donnell gave her candidacy a big boost just before the primary.

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'Ground Zero Mosque'

Palin Finally Repudiates Koran Burning: It's As Bad As Building A Mosque At Ground Zero

Rachel Slajda | September 8, 2010, 6:23PM

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, one of the ostensibly mainstream politicians who has come out vocally against building an Islamic community center in downtown Manhattan, today spoke out against a Florida church's plan to burn Korans on Sept. 11.

"People have a constitutional right to burn a Koran if they want to, but doing so is insensitive and an unnecessary provocation -- much like building a mosque at Ground Zero," Palin wrote in a press release. "Book burning is antithetical to American ideals."

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2012 elections

Sarah Palin Profile Reveals Her Facebook Ghostwriter And Spendthrift Ways

Christina Bellantoni | September 1, 2010, 11:23AM

Former candidate for Vice President Sarah Palin

She's earned $13 million since the 2008 presidential race that shoved her onto the national stage, but Sarah Palin apparently is a crappy tipper. A new Vanity Fair profile of the former Alaska governor paints a picture of a woman who has skyrocketed to success -- stepping on staff, friends and family along the way -- but who is so deeply concerned about controlling her public persona that she hired a friendly blogger to write her much-ballyhooed Facebook posts.

The wide-ranging profile documents hotels where Palin stiffed bellhops; her demands during the presidential campaign and on her busy speaking circuit; tensions with residents in her home town; and Palin's fashion preferences (and includes a sidebar with more details on the RNC clothing flap) -- up to and including mentioning her use of Spanx and push-up bras. But after the more salacious details, Vanity Fair writer Michael Joseph Gross also drops strong suggestions there's something fishy with some of the political action committees paying Palin to boost candidates across the country -- but he doesn't quite nail it down.

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Sarah Palin

Sarah Palin's Speaking Contract: $75K And Bendy Straws

Rachel Slajda | August 27, 2010, 11:24AM

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin

A speaking contract for Sarah Palin, released by California State University Stanislaus, shows that Palin was paid a $75,000 speaking fee, plus travel expenses, and required bottled water with bendy straws at the podium.

The school's charitable foundation was ordered by a judge to release the contract after the school was sued by a watchdog group for refusing to release it. CSU is a state school and, therefore, a public institution. The judge ruled that the school had violated open records laws.

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American Family Association

Top Social Conservative: 'No More Mosques, Period'

Jillian Rayfield | August 11, 2010, 1:02PM

Bryan Fischer

Bryan Fischer, the "Director of Issues Analysis" for the American Family Association, wrote a blog post yesterday on the AFA's site arguing that the United States should have "no more mosques, period."

"This is for one simple reason," he writes. "Each Islamic mosque is dedicated to the overthrow of the American government."

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Sarah Palin

Who's Afraid Of The Big Bad Mosque? TPM Rounds Up The Latest In Right-Wing Fear-Mongering

Jillian Rayfield | July 29, 2010, 8:30AM

Clockwise from top left: Former Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin, former Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA), Rep. Peter King (R-NY), and NY Gov. candidate Carl Paladino (R). Center: A mosque.

The right-wing controversy du jour? Construction of several mosques throughout the U.S. -- perhaps most notably, a Muslim community center near Ground Zero in New York City. In many cases, the right-wing fear-mongering has fed a shrill campaign warning against Muslims inevitably using their places of worship to conspire to implant sharia law in the lives of unsuspecting Americans.

So which right-wingers are most afraid of the big bad mosques? TPM rounds up the worst offenders.

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Muslims

Mosque Ado About Fear-Mongering: Right Wing Takes On Muslim Worship Anywhere And Everywhere

Evan McMorris-Santoro | July 20, 2010, 8:58AM

Protesters against the proposed Cordoba House, a community center and mosque near ground zero (Islamic Center of America inset).

Long story short: It's starting to become clear that some conservative groups think that if Muslims are able to worship on American soil, the terrorists have won.

In big cities and small rural communities, from New York to Tennessee to California, the right-wing fear machine is spinning up to take on the construction of mosques and Muslim community centers. In each case, the argument is essentially the same, when the hedging is peeled away: you don't necessarily have to exercise your freedom of religion in the privacy of your own home, but hey, you can't do it in public here either.

July is proving to be the month where the tea party movement is finally coming to grips with -- and rebuking -- some of its more racist elements, a move that many observers would say is a long time coming. But at the same time, plans to build an Islamic community center near the Ground Zero site in New York City has brought to the surface a different kind of bigotry among some conservatives -- namely, the idea that if Muslims are allowed to worship where they want, terrorist violence will spread across the country.

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Campaign Finance

Sarah Palin Spends Like A Politician: Consultants And Pals Make Up Bulk Of PAC Payments

Christina Bellantoni and Rachel Slajda | July 14, 2010, 11:16AM

Former Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin (R)

To hear Sarah Palin tell it, she and her mama grizzlies are people-powered, grassroots examples of how Americans can get involved in politics. But a close look at SarahPAC's campaign finance report shows she spends her donations on the same old, standard consultants as every other politician. And like many others, she still finds ways to keep her inner circle in the money.

She pulled in just shy of $866,000 in donations from people hailing from Kissimmee, Florida to Rancho Palos Verdes, California. But Marylander Laurie Beitman's $35 and the bulk of Palin's small-dollar donations is going to more than Republican candidates the former Alaska governor wants to see win this fall. By our count, Palin spent nearly $400,000 on consultants, lobbying firms and the standard direct mail and fundraising firms politicians frequently use. (The AP had a stricter consulting tally, $210,000.) Just about the only maverick-style item she purchased was $4,000 worth of sausage.

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Sarah Palin

Palin Spent Almost $4K On Supporters' Sausages

Rachel Slajda | July 13, 2010, 10:05AM

Former GOP Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin.

How do we get on this list?

Sarah Palin's political action committee spent some $3,800 in the past quarter on "gift bag items" from an Alaskan company called Indian Valley Meats, according to SarahPAC's latest FEC reports.

Indian Valley, according to its (drool-worthy) web site, sells gift boxes full of Alaskan meats: smoked salmon, caribou sausage, musk ox jerky, reindeer hot dogs, trail sticks, honey mustard sauce and more.

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Sarah Palin

State Investigator: Palin's Legal Defense Fund Was Illegal

Ben Frumin | June 24, 2010, 6:10PM

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin

The legal defense fund set up for Sarah Palin when she was governor of Alaska was illegal, an investigator for the state's personnel board announced today.

Investigator Timothy Petumenos found that Palin acted in good faith in setting up the legal defense fund -- but that the fund's website improperly used the word "official," implying the then-governor's endorsement. Petumenos' report comes in response to an ethics complaint filed when Palin was governor.

Palin's lawyer said she'll return the money.

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Health Care Reform

Justice Department Offers First Response To Health-Care Reform Challenge

Zachary Roth | May 13, 2010, 8:46AM

Attorney General Eric Holder

The Justice Department has offered its first response to one of the lawsuits filed recently challenging the constitutionality of health-care reform. And it offers a strong indication of what the government's legal strategy will be as it seeks to defend against the spate of similar lawsuits.

In a filing in U.S. District Court in Michigan today, reports Main Justice, DOJ lawyers wrote that the Thomas More Law Center, a conservative legal group in that state, lacked standing to challenge the law, because the individual mandate -- the provision at issue -- won't go into effect until 2014. "They bring this suit four years before the provision they challenge takes effect, demonstrate no current injury, and merely speculate whether the law will harm them once it is in force," wrote the government's attorneys.

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Jenny Beth Martin

Tea Party Patriots Leader Named To Time's Top 100

Zachary Roth | April 30, 2010, 10:21AM

Jenny Beth Martin

Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck have gotten more coverage for it, but another conservative member of Time's 100 most influential people is a more interesting inclusion...

That's Jenny Beth Martin, the Georgia-based co-leader of the Tea Party Patriots -- perhaps the Tea Party faction with the strongest claim to grassroots authenticity.

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Sarah Palin

Report: Palin Pulled Down $12 Million Over Past Year

Justin Elliott | April 26, 2010, 9:12AM

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin

Sarah Palin has spent the last year banking $12 million from book sales, speaking fees, a reality show contract, and the lucrative deal that made the former Alaska governor an official Fox News contributor, according to a report in New York.

The lengthy story locates Palin's drive to cash in partly in the hefty legal bills she racked up during investigations into the Troopergate abuse of power scandal that dogged her during the 2008 campaign.

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Sarah Palin

Only Dead Fish: In Handling Finances, Palin Appears To Be Looking Out For Number One

Zachary Roth | April 15, 2010, 5:56PM

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin

It looks like the guiding principle behind Sarah Palin's handling of her finances is: Look out for number one.

The former TV sportscaster has been raking in the bucks since stepping down as the Alaska governor. At the same time, her political action committee hasn't exactly been spreading the wealth.

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Tea Party Natoinal Federation

New Tea Party Federation Aims To Unite Movement -- But One Key Group Stays Away

Zachary Roth | April 9, 2010, 1:11PM

A crowd gathers at a tea party

An organizer of February's National Tea Party Convention has launched a new effort to unite the fractious Tea Party movement. But one major Tea Party faction isn't on board.

A coalition of Tea Party groups yesterday announced the formation of the National Tea Party Federation (NTFP), saying it will aim to act as a "clearinghouse" for Tea Party groups, and promote the goals of fiscal responsibility, constitutionally limited government, and free markets."

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Don Blankenship

Judge Who Vacationed With Massey CEO Now Running For Congress

Zachary Roth | April 9, 2010, 10:43AM

Former West Virginia Supreme Court Justice Elliott Maynard and Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship

These aren't the best of days for Don Blankenship, whose systematic downplaying of safety concerns as the CEO of Massey Energy helped lead to last week's deadly mining disaster, and got him named the "seventh scariest person in America." But by next January, things may be looking up for the hard-charging coal boss: He could have a very close friend in Congress.

Elliot "Spike" Maynard is running in the Republican primary to take on Rep. Nick Rahall (D-W.V.), whose district encompasses the heart of West Virginia coal country. Maynard, a former State Supreme Court judge, has said that his campaign "is about protecting the coal industry, including all the jobs associated with it," and has charged that Washington Democrats have "declared war on the coal industry."

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Right-wing extremism

Going To Extremes: The Obama Era's Top Ten Anti-Government Flare-Ups

Zachary Roth | April 1, 2010, 6:35PM

Clockwise from top left: David Stone, Sr., John Patrick Bedell, Joseph Stack and James von Brunn

The charges filed this week against nine members of the Hutaree Christian militia group have re-focused attention on the resurgence over the last year or so of the broader militia movement.

That resurgence has been driven in part, say experts, by the election of President Obama. But during the Obama era, threats of anti-government violence -- and even the real thing -- have become more widespread. In fact, with disaffected Americans from Massachusetts to California freaking out against the Feds en masse, it sometimes seems that going postal has become all the rage. Of course, in some cases, that anti-government animus long predates the election of our current president. But there seems to be something about the current climate that's contributing to the rash of incidents.

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Tea Party Nation

Tea Party Convention Backer Sues Organizer

Zachary Roth | March 31, 2010, 9:54AM

At a tea party in Philadelphia

In the latest sign of Tea Party rancor, the key backer of last month's national convention at which Sarah Palin spoke is suing the event's organizer, charging that he reneged on a deal to continue working together on Tea Party business.

Bill Hemrick, the founder of the Upper Deck baseball card company, loaned Tea Party Nation $50,000, which went towards the $100,000 speaking fee given to Palin. He says the money was loaned on the condition that he could remain involved with the conservative political action committee that TPN founder and convention organizer Judson Phillips said he was putting together. Hemrick says that Phillips backed out of the deal, and even barred Hemrick from attending Palin's speech. He also claims that Phillips defamed him by writing an email to supporters saying he was not "reputable" or "trustworthy."

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