Well, here's an interesting little email (PDF) in the newly-released Sarah Palin collection.

In late June, 2008 around the time oil prices skyrocketed due to what we now understand to be rampant speculation, Koch Industries reached out to Lisa Murkowski and used her to reach out to Sarah Palin. Here's the text of Murkowski's letter to Palin:

While I know it may seem paradoxical for an oil refinery to be facing significant losses at this time of record crude oil and gasoline/diesel prices, I am writing to ask you and your administration to immediately undertake a new review of the equity of the state's current royalty oil contract with Flint Hills Resources , which runs the state's largest oil refinery at North Pole.

As you well know the Flint Hills refinery, owned by Koch Industries, is vital to Alaska's economy for a host of reasons. Not only does the refinery employ 155 residents in the Fairbanks area , one of the largest manufacturing employers left in the state, the refinery also produces significant amounts of aviation fuel, which is one of the key reasons why the state's air cargo transshipment industry has boomed in the past decade at both the Anchorage and Fairbanks International Airports. Those shipments also constitute a vital revenue source for the state-owned Alaska Railroad. If the refinery were to close due to its losses, or simply convert into a fuel distributor of imported product, it would deny Alaskans of about 60 percent of their locally produced fuel, potentially requiring the state to purchase more expensive fuel from refineries in the Lower 48 States, further hiking prices for gasoline and other fuels - something that simply should not be allowed to happen at this time of record energy prices throughout the State.

I understand fully that there have been issues with the willingness of the refinery's parent company to fully "open their books" so that the state can confirm the actual level of losses that the refinery is facing. I would hope that a confidentiality agreement could be reached quickly should new negotiations open concerning revisions to the 2004 contract so that the State can fully inspect the financial health of the refinery. Given the fundamental importance of the refinery to the state's economy, I encourage the state to consider contract revision talks that could benefit the State overall and the Fairbanks economy in particular.

I know how busy you must be this summer and I thank you for your consideration of this important matter at this time of record fuel prices nationwide. Best wishes.

Now, June, 2008 also happened to be when the murmuring for Palin to be nominated as John McCain's running mate was growing louder and stronger. Interesting timing, that.

John Katz, Palin's federal/state liason and special counsel, wrote this back in response:

The bottom line for us is that Tom Irwin and his staff are ready and willing to talk with Koch at any time, the gas pipeline notwithstanding. Recently, Tom stated this publically and, I believe, to Flint Hills directly. However, it is critical that Koch be willing to open its books, and they have been reluctant thus far.

At the moment, the State receives a $1 per barrel premium on royalty oil sold to Flint Hills. It is my understanding that the premium has crept up over the years and will likely be reviewed soon.

There were also some forwards of a staff conversation mentioned, but not attached. However, there was this comment at the end of Katz' forward of the entire email exchange to the Alaska Department of Natural Resources:

p.s. I don't normally forward exchanges with staff level people in the delegation, but I wanted you to get a flavor of the impact that Koch has had.

That's certainly an understatement.

Other things happened, but you'd never know it to watch the majority of prime-time cable shows this week. So I thought a quick review might be in order.

Things that make me want to stomp my feet in frustration

• White House contemplates payroll tax holiday for employers. Why does this set off my inner 2-year old? Because it increases the deficit by yet again giving tax cuts to companies who are actually holding this recovery hostage while they hold their breath and turn blue to bankrupt this country and drive us into a hole we might never recover from at all. Someone please explain to me how this works to create jobs? And what part of the trillions these companies are sitting on can't be used to create them now?
• Rick Perry still thinking about running for the 2012 GOP nomination. The idea of a guy who actively spoke in favor of secession generating "excitement" for the GOP nomination? Ugh. Stomp, stomp, stomp.

Things that make me want to cheer

• Blue Shield caps profits, distributes $180 million in rebates to customers. Gosh, that seems to fly in the face of the dire predictions that the Affordable Care Act will lead to terrible premium inflation, doesn't it?
• The vote to delay debit card fee caps failed in the Senate. Big banks are sad; retailers are happy, and Democrats are divided. The divided Dems are no surprise, but I love it when big banks don't get their way.
• Michele Bachmann's campaign manager slams Sarah Palin, then backtracks wildly. Beyond the obvious catfight aspects, it highlights the power struggles taking place within the GOP. Rollins was absolutely 100% right when he said Palin is unserious. But after being "taken to the woodshed by the big boys" he's contrite. What an interesting dynamic we have there. I want to know which 'big boys' came after him and where Palin fits in the GOP plan for 2012. But of course, that would require the Beltway boys to take their eyes off someone's weiner.

What we should not ignore

The debt ceiling is still a very real problem. Fitch Ratings warned this week on concerns that it might not be raised. Someone needs to tell these Republicans not to play around anymore and get this done before there really is a collapse in the markets. Also, I'd appreciate it if, at all possible, some folks in the mainstream could possibly frame this issue as an issue concerning our ability to pay debts. Anyone who votes against raising the debt ceiling is saying, in effect, that the United States does not have the ability to make payments on the obligations it has. Do Republicans really want that? Where is their "American exceptionalism" cry?

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Dear Sarah Palin,

You are an ass. A moose's ass. You just opened the lid on Pandora's Box -- a lid you can't slam shut easily, and now I'm gonna call you on it.

Now that you've been completely hosed and defeated over the Birther issue that you so happily trump-eted, I see that you have fallen in lockstep with the newest Donald Trump stupidity; that is, the assertion that the president got into Harvard without having the academic credentials to belong there. All code for affirmative action, which I think you probably have even said aloud more than once.

But this little rant of yours really cannot go unchallenged:

Well, I think the media is loving this because they want to make Birthers as they call people who are just curious about the President of the United States and his background and his associations and his consistency with what he says today versus what he said in both the memoirs that he wrote -- or Bill Ayers or whomever wrote -- the media is loving the fact that some curious Americans are actually asking the questions and they're trying to make those curious Americans sound kinda crazy, so the media is loving this issue and they're perpetuating the issue trying to make sound really worse than it is.

What the heck is wrong with asking the President of the United States to disclose what his college thesis was, what some of the um, uh, Harvard Law Review papers were that he wrote? I don't care about his grades. I don't care if he was a C student, more power to the C student. (You wish, Sarah, you just wish)

What I care about is what goes into his thinking today, what is his foundation? From his background, a lot of that could be reflected in the writings he produced as a college and a grad student.

Here's my simple challenge, Sarah. You attended four universities in six years, before finally managing to eke out a degree from the University of Idaho in journalism. Over that fine university career, did you write anything? If so, would you be kind enough to produce it?

And let's say you can't really produce any documents you wrote when you were in college. Let's talk about the tens of thousands you've spent on 'advisors' to assist you with your knowledge of foreign affairs, your messaging, and your strategies. Let's see.

There's the right-wing journalist Joshua Livestro, who you pay $4,000/month. What does he add to your thinking, your views? Is his background your background?

How about Orion Strategies, who you pay $10,000 per month for "issue consulting"? What, exactly, does Randy Scheunemann contribute to your thinking for that 120K per year salary?

Then there's the matter of the $10,000 per month retainer your PAC pays North Star Strategies to ghostwrite your Facebook posts? Certainly you wouldn't have a Bill Ayers of your own would you?

You know, for the $59,500 per month you shell out to consultants like those I've named, you must be getting a hell of an education. That's pricier than Harvard, and you didn't even have to avail yourself of affirmative action to get in on the action. Plus, it's all paid for by taxpayers!!! Wow, Sarah, that's a real deal.

So what the heck is the matter with me asking you, Sarah Palin, to satisfy my ordinary-person curiosity about what you're learning from all these highly-compensated consultants? How do these people shape your views?

Also, what the heck is wrong with asking a few questions about your husband and his secessionist ways? After all, you can't really live with a man for over 20 years and not pick up a few of his attitudes, right? Kind of what you think about Reverend Wright and Bill Ayers? And if, by osmosis, you've picked up a few of your hubby's radical right-wing anti-American secessionist thought patterns, don't I, as an ordinary curious citizen, have a right to know?

Anxiously awaiting your reply,

Karoli

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Like Survivor, the alliances are beginning to form in advance of the first round of primary purges. And like leeches on a willing host, Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann are aligning around front-runner Donald Trump.

It really is pathetic. Donald Trump, the unserious candidate of the century, needs his Big Buddy Hannity to save him from that mean ole George Stephanopoulis, after a particularly awkward interview on ABC's Good Morning America yesterday morning.

In classic horror movie fashion, Sarah Palin is the zombie rising yet again from the dark and murky corners. Her host this time? The Donald, of course.

I clipped this short excerpt about Trump, but in the full segment she goes on about how fortunate we all are that we have fair and balanced media so that candidates can be sure to control their message, and how glad she is for Facebook and social media to get her message out. Oh, happy day.

As usual, Palin and Hannity never really come out and say a certificate of live birth is a lesser document. They run this from two tangents. First, Palin claims that the Donald really wants to talk about serious issues like oil but GSteph keeps pushing the conversation back to his birtherism. Second, and offered in an almost offhand way as if to downplay it (but not really), Palin repeats the assertion that the president just hasn't answered this question directly. Because evidently producing this certificate of live birth which was acceptable for both of my children's passports, Social Security cards and drivers licenses, post-Patriot Act is simply inadequate in some ephemeral, undefined universe. Translation: We know it's really stupid but it's effective so we're going to keep flogging it.

They're all glomming onto the Iowa poll Rachel Maddow mentioned on her show tonight showing that 74% of Iowa Republicans think Barack Obama was not born in the United States, or they're not sure if he was. Take this poll for what it's worth. It was an automated poll, and the questions seem almost guaranteed to trigger responses that fit an expected outcome. Nevertheless, it encourages people like Donald Trump to keep...trumpeting, with Sarah Palin floating along on his purse strings coattails.

Later in the show, Michele Bachmann jumps on the bandwagon too. Why the heck not? It seems like the economy and international scene can be damned to these incredibly banal and worthless candidates in favor of a blowhard with a bad toupee' who wants to invade Middle Eastern countries and take their oil as bounty.

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The headlines screamed: Barack Obama Discovers Cure for Cancer.

While throngs in capitals across the globe spontaneously massed to cheer the president’s astounding stamp on the history of humankind, the GOP stampeded to Twitter to spit their disgust at ObamaCure:

WTHuckabee: If you examine the anti-colonial views of the Mau Mau shamans in Kenya, you will discover that they too sought out cures for cancer. #witchdoctor

DonaldChump: I know his mother left him with this animus toward cancer, which is admirable and all. But what she didn’t leave him with was an actual birth certificate. #WatchMyShow!

SpeakerOfTheLobbyists: The American people sent us here to repeal this job-killing ObamaCure. Did I mention we’re broke? And the American people want us to cut Planned Parenthood more than cancer. #SoBeIt

Palinoscopy: ObamaCure is an outrageous blood libel, a Death Panel on the inalienable rights of our Real American PharmaCorps. to sell common sense conservative drugs. #MuslimBrotherhoodHatesCancerToo

RandAppall: The Constitution does not permit the president to Declare War on cancer without the debate & consent of Congress. #OrAquaBuddha

TheRyanBludgeonIt: We do not have a cancer problem. We have a spending on cancer problem. Cut taxes on small businesses like Koch & the free market will generate millions of new cancer cures. #AndMillionsOfNewCancerCustomers #FromPollution

aBeckalypseNow: Of course Barack Obama doesn’t want people to die from cancer. That will enable the higher birth rates in the Muslim world to sweep across this Earth like a Sendai tsunami. #BuyGold.

LieOfNewt: I loved my country so much that I had to take a new wife when my other wife got cancer. This ObamaCure is yet another secular socialist assault on my dating life.

GWB43: Hey! Reagan’s astrologer once told me that I’m a Cancer! That rascal 44 found a cure for me? #BringEmOn

Who paid for that trip? India, paid speaking engagement, natch. Israel, we're assuming SarahPAC, because "dithering" over running for President means free overseas travel for the whole fam. Open thread below....

As far as I can tell, the reaction to Palin's video statement and President Obama's speech has been pretty disparate, and interesting. One theme shines through: Both were commenting on the same event, but the focus was very, very different. The video is The Nation's John Nichols commenting on the differences and similarities. His conclusion: If Democrats claim the mantle of civic involvement and responsibility, that's not such a bad thing.

Tristero over at Digby's blog thinks this speech transcended his race speech. I do, too. I think this speech was even more personal for him than the race speech was, because it touched on so many of his core values: civil involvement, setting an example for children, and family. But more than that, it highlighted something that's fairly easy to intuit but harder to pinpoint:

Proper analyses of this great speech are surely forthcoming from people far more qualified than this blogger. Garry Wills, who examined Obama's famous race speech by comparing it with Lincoln's Cooper Union address, will, I hope, weigh in. What I'd like to focus on is something about the speech that probably wont get remarked. I also noticed these things during the campaign, and until I understood what was going on, it drove me (not to mention many other people) almost crazy with despair. But I think it ultimately played a central, if usually unheralded, role in Obama's spectacular victory. I’m talking about Obama's uncanny skill at setting traps for his political opponents, traps in which they themselves - ie, not Obama - act foolishly or so otherwise poorly that they disqualify themselves as serious opponents, who emerges from these fiascos looking not only like the only rational choice but, more emotionally, as the only conceivable choice.

Alan Colmes highlights the differences between Bill Clinton and Barack Obama in these situations, and than heavens someone did before my head exploded over the constant media drumbeat on this being Obama's "Clinton moment".

Conversely, President Obama used the moment to summon us to our higher angels. Disagree all you want about his politics, his religion, or even his birthplace. It is no accident that Barack Obama achieved the highest perch in American politics partly because of his ability to inspire. Bill Clinton felt our pain. Barack Obama speaks to it.

He, along with many others, also gives Palin low marks for her tearing-down of others at a time where lifting up is needed.

Sadly, for Governor Palin, she took what could have been a teachable moment and used it to continue her practice of being defensive, divisive, and accusatory. And whoever injected the phrase “blood libel” in her missed opportunity was either ignorant of its true meaning or was playing the basest form of politics.

Nate Silver thinks this was probably an easy speech for the President to give, because there was a big gap in the room where adults should be, which the President filled well. I would only add this to his analysis: The other contender for the 2012 election did NOT fill that role.

The cynic in me wants to say that, in this context, this was a relatively easy speech for Mr. Obama to deliver (in a political sense rather than an emotional one). Nobody seemed to be playing the role of the adult in the room or moving us toward closure, which provided Mr. Obama with an opportunity to do so. Mr. Obama played that role very well tonight, although I suspect that almost all of his predecessors would have done the same.

By contrast, the right-wing voices are somewhat predictable. It began with Michelle Malkin's apoplexy over the t-shirts, which were not an invention or thought of the White House, but which were part of the University of Arizona's plan for the service. Of course, it was certainly easier to focus on those than it was the substance of his speech.

Rush Limbaugh, who is never one to waste an opportunity to remind everyone who is really in charge, slammed the entire service as a "pep rally" and had some harsh words for the Fox News panel that complimented the speech.

Glenn Beck? He couldn't quite go where Rush did, so he complimented the speech but slammed it for being "late." Who knew there was a time limit on grief?

And wingnut WorldNetDaily went there, calling it Obama's "Reichstag Moment", while calling for outrage on the right for Sarah Palin's "blood libel."

Other than the crazies at WND, though, there wasn't much good said about Palin's statement/speech. That won't stop her from trying in 2012, though. I expect the announcement any day now.

Judson Phillips at the Tea Party Nation has decided Sarah Palin should run for head of the Republican National Committee. Here's the text of the letter they sent asking her to run:

Dear Governor Palin,

John Kennedy once said, “ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.”

Right now, your country needs you as the Chairman of the Republican National Committee.

We are in a fight for the survival of our country. The Democrats have walked off the socialist cliff and are driving the country headlong into the abyss. Unfortunately, there are many on the Republican side who do not seem to get it. They are the embodiment of the old political joke that says, with the Democrats you get more of the same and with Republicans you get less of the same.

We need you as Chairman of the RNC. You have shown in the past no hesitation to take on the establishment. You did it in Alaska. If we end up with establishment control of the GOP and their support for an establishment candidate in 2012, Obama and the socialists will have won. An establishment candidate will not work to repeal Obamacare and the other programs Obama, Pelosi and Reid have put in place. We need someone who will put conservatives in control of the party apparatus, not RINOs.

Michael Steele has spent Republican money with the gusto of a liberal. You showed in Alaska, you know how to put the brakes on unnecessary spending.

Finally, you are a superstar. You have an unbelievable ability to light up a crowd and to raise money. Both of which the Republican Party needs. Something is really wrong with the GOP when the RNC cannot fund a get out the vote campaign for mid-term elections. The GOP needs a conservative who can raise money and energize the troops. You are the only one out there with these unique talents.

We, the undersigned, are asking you to ask yourself what you can do for your country and to step up and become a candidate for Chairman of the RNC.

Thank you for your consideration and for what you continue to do for this great country.

Judson Phillips, Founder - Tea Party Nation

There's just so much wrong with this, I'm not sure where to start, but it may all be moot anyway. I cannot imagine Sarah Palin giving up her celebrity status as a reality TV star and snark queen to do something as mundane as run the RNC. And how would that all work out in terms of her deal with Fox News?

On the other hand, can you imagine the ridiculousness of the Sunday shows with Palin making the rounds? She'd make Michael Steele look like a genius.

Sometimes the pictures tell the story. Sarah Palin's latest Twitter favorite comes to us via Ann Coulter's tweets:

What is Ann's new church that Sarah thought was so cool she saved it as a favorite (one of only three, by the way)?

If you're having trouble reading that marquis, here's what it says:

The blood of Jesus against Obama
History Made 4 Nov 2008 A Taliban
Muslim illegally elected
President USA Hussein

And just to top it all off, pretend-President Palin dares to suggest that Obama is using the Pentagon for opposition research.

What a --- (you fill in the blank).

Carly Fiorina, in grand political tradition, now says Sarah Palin is qualified for the Presidency after declaring her unqualified for national office when she was John McCain's campaign advisor.

Evidently a couple of years and Palin quitting in the middle of her term is all it takes for Fiorina to pronounce her "qualified".

On CNN's The Situation Room Monday:

BLITZER: You're neck and neck in this most recent Reuters/IPSOS poll. Barbara Boxer, 49 percent; Carly Fiorina, 45 percent, but 4.5 percent sampling error.

Sarah Palin is coming to California to do this big event there, but you and Meg Whitman, who is running for governor, you're going to stay away from that event. How come?

FIORINA: Well, because I'm doing a whole series of other events including an event with veterans with John McCain. As you, of course, can appreciate, your campaign schedule gets set quite far out in advance in terms of commitments. Sarah Palin is here to endorse her book, I believe, and to raise money, and I am here running for office. So we're all busy. And it's important that I continue to meet with as many voters as possible, because this is a very important election. And I believe the voters of California agree with me that the direction of our state and our nation is at stake here.

BLITZER: I remember during the campaign the McCain campaign, you said at the time -- you got into trouble for saying it -- you didn't think Sarah Palin was qualified to run a major corporation like Hewlett-Packard, but she's endorsed you now. Do you think she's qualified to be president of the United States?

FIORINA: I certainly think she's qualified to be president of the United States. You may remember, Wolf, I also said that Barack Obama, John McCain and Joe Biden weren't qualified to run a major corporation.

Look, you need technical skills to run a company. I couldn't fly a jet airplane tomorrow either. But ours was intended to be a citizen government. That is what "of, by, and for the people" means. And somehow we've grown accustomed to career politicians like Barbara Boxer, who has done nothing else in her professional life, virtually, other than be a politician. It isn't what our Founding Fathers intended.

And I think a lot of people in California want someone who hasn't been in Washington forever, who isn't a bitter partisan who has accomplished nothing virtually. That's why her own hometown paper wouldn't endorse her. They called her ineffective and bitterly partisan.

A citizen government as defined by Carly Fiorina is nothing short of a corporate government. Seeing her use the terms "government" and "corporation" interchangeably gives me the willies. Maybe it's the way she wrecked so many people's lives while she was running Lucent and then HP, but I just don't see her as qualified to opine on others' qualifications.