Palin appoints former Planned Parenthood board member to Alaska Supreme Court

[sufrommich]

In a move that should give social conservatives great pause, Governor Sarah Palin has appointed a former board member of Planned Parenthood to the Alaska State Supreme Court.

Palin appointed Anchorage Superior Court Judge Morgan Christen to the state’s highest court on Wednesday. Along with Christen’s former board member status with Planned Parenthood.

There is no disputing Palin’s appointment of Christen will cause the Alaska Supreme to lean left and will ensure a more activist court when it comes to gay marriage, and abortion. The Christen appointment is key because she replaces justice Warren Mathews, one of the dissenting votes striking down the parental consent


http://thealaskastandard.com/?q=node/559


Wow.........:wow:

[tekisui]

1. 2012.

She is trying to remake her appearance.

[sufrommich]

2. Then she is acknowledging that the GOP needs to turn left?

That alone is weird.

[tekisui]

4. I think she is 'going rogue'.

She was managed by the RNC and mcLames' camp and then thrown under the bus as soon as they lost.

She is going alone and making decisions outside the gopper leadership. I can't wait for their primary. It is going to be a lot of fun.

Edit to fix dumbass spelling error.

[PBS Poll-435]

9. ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rouge_(cosmetics)


You probably meant rogue. :-)

[tekisui]

10. D'oh!

:blush:

I always mess up the rogue, tongue, fugue.....

[mentalsolstice]

12. Rouge for rogue

...is a common freeper misspelling. The use of 'rouge' was likely intentional in above post.

on edit: well maybe it wasn't intentional after all.

[tekisui]

25. I wish I had known it was the freeper spelling,

I could have played it off.:rofl:

[mentalsolstice]

32. Yep, you admitted too quickly!

Typical Democratic response! :rofl:

[Froward69]

31. I think she slipped and hit her head

on a rock!!!

[Renew Deal]

23. It's bad strategy

She is worrying about the GE when the primary is a little tougher.

[tekisui]

26. It's the Palin way.

[PBS Poll-435]

3. Now That's a Maverik!

(sic)

[sufrommich]

11. Definitely some mavericky shit going on there. nt

[ddeclue]

5. A sign that the religious right movement is dead and discredited...

She's taking a page from Schwarzenegger and Charlie Crist who are in turn doing a reverse Bill Clinton triangulation move. The Guvernator and Christ (sic) are trying to appear moderate and trying to create a lot of daylight between themselves and their own party so that they can win the middle third hopefully without losing the right-wing third of the voters. (Clinton went for the middle third and tried to hold on to the left wing third.)

Doug D.

[sufrommich]

8. I hope you're right, It would be nice to have a republican

party that isn't totally insane, I'm going to hold off any wishful thinking until I see more proof though.

[FLyellowdog]

6. But what was she wearing when she did this?

Missing RNC wardrobe? :shrug:

[TlalocW]

7. Various reasons for this...

Thinking about this, the only explanations I can come up with are having a teenaged pregnant daughter caused her to do some self-reflection on whether her positions on abstinence-only sex education, access to birth control, and choice were reasonable and/or moral.

That's highly unlikely, but that leaves an equally unlikely situation that she just doesn't care about politics anymore, and I doubt that's true either.

So more than likely, she just wrote the wrong name down in the necessary forms.

TlalocW

[WeDidIt]

15. Nope, see my post below

She had the choice between two candidates. She picked what she considered the lesser of two evils.

[PlanetBev]

13. Palin has been described as very cunning

This is a big time Trojan Horse, to make herself appear less of a wing-nut. I can guarantee you, if she somehow got into the position of POTUS, she's pack the US Supreme Court with Scalia and Alito clones, and they would nullify anything pro-choice decisions that would come out of the Alaska Supreme Court.

Very clever, Moose Douche.

[WeDidIt]

14. Nothing AT ALL "Mavericky" about this pick due to Alaska LAw

Alaska has what's called a Judicial Council which considers 6 potential candidates. Teh Judicial Council narrows that down to two which are submitted to the governor who must choose from those two.

The other candidate is a very noted environmentalist.

In 2010, Alaskan voters will keep or dump this pick.

[Blue_In_AK]

20. Our judicial council is a wonderful thing.

It assures that judges are not political picks.

[sufrommich]

22. She went against the wishes of the Alaska Family Council,

a conservative Christian group according to this article:

http://www.adn.com/news/government/story/711378.html

[WeDidIt]

24. It was that or go against the wishes of the oil companies

Who do you think she'd bow and scrape before more willingly?

[sufrommich]

27. I hope that is a pertinent question for the right wing fundies

in the future. It seems like every day, the republicans shed a little more veneer from their true agenda.That's what happens when you wave the flag of religion as if you speak for God,sooner or later you prove it or reveal the game.

[cap]

16. cept... Obama will take her out...

he just appointed her enemy (I forget his name) to the comission that controls the federal money that is being sent to Alaska. Alaska is very heavily dependent on federal money.

I think she is trying to tilt to the middle... that's why this happened and she was AWOL on CPAC.

[Blue_In_AK]

21. Kim Elton, you mean.

You must have read her snotty press release in response to his appointment. It was low, even for her.

[discopants]

17. Christian vs. Christen

The story I heard was that the local Christian groups endorsed the pro-life judge (Smith?) and Palin may have just goofed and picked the Christen judge (confusing Christen pro-life) .... too funny if true!

[yorkie]

18. what could have happened

I read on some of the Alaska websites Christen had left her PP board membership off her resume. In addition the other judge is much more anti-oil than Christen-so Sarah's pro-oil stance won.

[Blue_In_AK]

19. She was only given two choices by our Judicial Council

which is responsible for putting forward candidates for judicial positions. The other candidate who was recommended has a long history as a conservationist. In this case being pro-abortion trumped being anti-development.

But Morgan Christen was a well-respected lawyer and Superior Court judge and I think will do a fine job on our Supreme Court, which now has two female justices on the five-judge panel.

[biopowertoday]

28. Perhaps what happened to

Bristol has made her re-think a few things. I realize I am speculating. but I would like to think it factored into her decision.



......... "Alaska's Supreme Court bears the awesome responsibility of ensuring that our court system administers justice in firm accordance with the principles laid down in our state Constitution," Palin said in a written statement. "I have every confidence that Judge Christen has the experience, intellect, wisdom and character to be an outstanding Supreme Court justice."

Under the state Constitution, Palin had to select from among the nominees sent to her by the seven-member Alaska Judicial Council, made up of lawyers, public members appointed by governors and the Supreme Court chief justice, currently Dana Fabe.

Last week, without explaining why, Palin took the unusual step of asking the Judicial Council to send her all information it had on the two finalists, Christen and Palmer Superior Court Judge Eric Smith.

The council nominated them from a slate of six applicants. It takes four council votes for a candidate to be sent to the governor. None of the other candidates received any votes.

The head of the Alaska Family Council -- a Christian pro-family, anti-abortion group -- on Wednesday sent an e-mail to thousands of people asking them to urge Palin to pick Smith, not Christen.

The governor's office received about 100 letters, e-mails and faxes from the public about the Supreme Court appointment, including some from the family council, Palin's spokeswoman, Sharon Leighow, said in an e-mail. That was not an unusual number, Leighow said................

http://www.adn.com/news/government/story/711378.html

[Blue_In_AK]

29. You may be right.

In any event, I am not at all unhappy with this selection. I really like our Supreme Court, and from what I know of her, I think Judge Christen will be a good addition. The court has made some great decisions down through the years despite the fact that the prevailing political climate up here tends toward the conservative. I've known Dana, the chief justice, since about 1977 when I used to be secretary to her husband. At the time she was an assistant public defender, then she was the chief public defender, then a Superior Court judge, then the first woman on the Supreme Court, and then ultimately chief justice. I'm sure she'll be pleased to have another woman on the bench there beside her.

[biopowertoday]

30. Thanks for the background. Much appreciated and best to your courts.

[marshall]

33. Sometimes being "maverick-y" is a good thing

Good for her!