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SARAH PAC has filed their second quarter disclosures that are required by the FEC. You may find the actual documents here.
In case you don’t have a few extra hours today because you are seeing the Undefeated for a third time, here are some interesting facts:
1. Schedule A is a list of the itemized receipts. This is an accounting of the people who have made donations to the SaraPAC. There are 1565 “Itemized Receipts”.
2. 584 of the “Itemized receipts come from retired people.
3. 209 of the “itemized receipts come from unemployed people
4. Only 4 people from Alaska made a donation
5. The total donations from people in Alaska came to a total of $550.00. One person gave $300.00, so the other three people from Alaska gave a total of $250.00.
6. 58 separate entries were made by “anonymous” with no address listed. All but five of these anonymous donors gave less than $100.00, with some as little as $1.00.
7. Although there were 1565 separate donations listed this should in no way indicate that there were 1565 people donating money to the SaraPAC. With each person listed, the is a date identified when they made the donation, the amount of that specific donation, and their total donations to date. The majority of donors gave more than one time, so we could easily conclude that less than 1000 people gave money to the SarahPAC in the second quarter of this year. By way of example, Quang Do of Arlington Texas is listed 29 separate times, making a total of $1500,00 in donations.
8. Some of the donations appear to be duplications. In my cursory review of the documents, I identified 7 duplications, and I made no attempt to identify all duplications out of the 1565 entries. The donations that I identified that were identical were:
a. John LeBrell 4-2-11 $50.00 total $250.00
b. Solia Tong 4-2-11-$65.00. for a total of $325.00
c. Jimmie More 4-5-11 $50.00 for a total of $275.00
d. Quang Do 4-1-11 $25.00 for a total of $450.00
e. Quang Do 4-7-11 $ $25.00 for a total of $500.00
f. Gary Gordon 4-7-11 $100.00 for a total of $500.00
g. Jimmie Moe 5-5-11 One donation of $50.00, and one donation of $25.00, but both occur on the same day, and both show a total donation of $350.00
One interesting donor identified as Jennifer Robinson lists her employer as “God”. She only donated $50.00, so God must not pay very well.
Schedule B of the filing is a list of the “itemized disbursements.” This is a list of the payments made my the PAC. Just a few worth mentioning include:
1. Bus wrap fee of $13,708.44
2. Chuck & Sally Heath “correspondence and card mailing $3200.00
3. Timothy Crawford makes $15000.00 per month as the Treasurer. I wonder if Sarah thinks he has earned his salary given the errors in the FEC filings referenced herein? I’m not an accountant, and I’m not getting paid to review these documents, and it only took me about 4 hours, so what is Crawford doing to justify his $180,000 per year salary?
4. Clapp, Peterson, Van Flein, Tiemessen are paid a retainer of $5000.00 per month. Now that we know Mr. Tiemessen is the one that got the Anchorage Police Department to issue the press release to the National Enquirer that was contrary to the APD’s own records, I should think he should get a raise! Connections like this are priceless! I do wonder if this was considered PAC business? Maybe Sarah Palin paid Mr. Tiemessen a separate fee from her personal account to cover this expense. I wonder what is the going rate for a police department press release?
5. North Star Strategies were paid a “logistical consulting” fee every month of $5000.00. North Star is located in New Orleans. Do you think they were “consulting” about the “logistics” of dike building in the Gulf?
6. Formost Graphic Company located in Maryland was paid on 3-29-11 $3000.00 for “Thank you postage”. That’s a lot of gratitude.
7. There is a payment to the Chain Bridge Bank in Virginia for “merchant fees “ of $79,359.00. No further explanation is given for the huge expense.
8. There are payments to C Transcontinental LLC in New Jersey for $10,000.00 per month for “chief of staff”. Has Todd moved to New Jersey?
9. Formost Graphic of Maryland was paid another $3000.00 on 6-12 for “thank you letters.” That’s even more gratitude.
10. There is a payment to “republican Presidential Travel for $6999.00. Is the SARAPAC picking up the expense of Airforce One, or was she doing a segment for the “undefeated?”
11. There is a charge for storage in Palmer Alaska of $362.56 . What is the PAC storing? Could it be the thousands of e-mails that were not produced or redacted? Could it be copies of all Todd’s e-mails? Could it be to store the evidence the Anchorage Police Department never reviewed but was in their possession? Are the Palins keeping baby furniture in storage for Track’s baby?
12. There is a payment to Anthony Ranucci in Ohio of $2603.92 for “rental car, tolls, Parking, Gas, and Per Diem. Who is Mr. Ranucci and what was he doing in Ohio?
13. There is a payment of $18700.00 to the Young America’s foundation which is listed as a “contribution to the foundation.” This seems an unusual amount to give to a foundation unless of course the real payment was to cover something they paid to Palin personally when she spoke at an event sponsored by this group.
When Palin was first introduced to the American public she characterized her family as an “average American Middle Class Family.” The image of the “average” American family has been promoted by Palin herself suggesting that she and her family have been targeted by the “elites” and the “blue bloods”. You might think that Sarah Palin would be embarrassed now to criticize the “elites” given her insistence upon flying in private planes, chauffeur driven black limos, and her extravagant second home in Arizona.
Palin defined an “elite” to be a person who thinks they are better than others and the opposite of the hard-working middle class.
When a non-elitist goes on a “family vacation” and they take a RV, we might imagine the rental of something like this:
We don’t think of this:
Here is what we know about the “average” American family vacation.
1. The bus used by the “family” was most likely a Prevost H-3-45.
2. There are only a couple of dealers in customized motor coaches of this type. Rob Russell of the Russell Coach Co. is of the few dealers in the Prevost customized motor coaches. I talked with him yesterday. He provided the following information:
a. Most coaches like the one featured in Sarah Palin’s Alaska and used by Palin on her Bus Tour, are customized buses. The customers specify what type of accommodations might be necessary and the coaches can be finished out to meet a customer’s specifications.
b. The purchase price of such a coach can vary depending on the finish out and would likely range from $450,000.00 to $1,300,000,00. When you see the potential finish out for a Prevost customized motor coach the image of an “average family vacation” would never enter your mind.
c. The cost of the “bus wrap” for Sarah Palin’s bus taken on her recent tour will cost a total of about $35,000.00.
d. It is most likely that Palin leased the motor coach at an estimated cost of $1500.00 to $2000.00 per day. This price includes a driver and does not include the expense of hotels for the driver. Thus lease cost of the bus alone could easily have exceeded $40,000.00 for just 20 days of bus rental which might be a conservative estimate of the time required for the bus rental as there would be time required before and after the trip to wrap the bus, unwrap the bus, and travel to and from the location of the trip.
The FEC filings for the SarahPAC are difficult to understand in part because the “Itemized Disbursements” may provide general descriptions like “logistical consulting” and “merchant fees.” However it is clear that the cost of this “family vacation” far exceeded the cost of an “average” family’s budget for an entire year. This “family vacation” cost at least:
1. $14,000 for the “bus wrap”
2. $10,000 on “logistical trip consulting,”
3. $3,600 to the bus driver
4. $7,000 on lodging.
However many other charges to the PAC were likely related to the family vacation. Thousands of dollars were reflected as “air travel,” even though it is not specified who traveled or the reason for the trip. These charges have dates within 30 days of the bus tour, which began over Memorial Day Weekend. Each individual airfare charge is not sufficiently large to expect that they reflect first class travel for Palin or rental of a private plane. In addition there are likely many bills that came in after the June 30 deadline for filing a statement of disbursements for the quarter.
Nothing about the Palin family is “average”. Nothing about this family vacation is “typical.” The only thing about the event that is “average” or “typical” is that when Sarah Palin is involved there will be an extravagant waste of PAC funds. The only thing predictable about the event is that Palin spends money in such a way that it is clear that she is a member of the elite.
Criticizing the “elite” is common rhetoric for the Empress. Declaring her bus tour to be a “family vacation” was insulting to everyone who heard her or saw the bus. The bus was not adorned not with suitcases tied to the top of a rack on top but with pictures encapsulating the bus including the phrase “One Nation”.
The second quarter SarahPAC filings have been submitted to the FEC that clever Timothy Crawford. He has positioned himself to earn ‘$15,000.00 per month from SarahPAC, for a salary of $180,000.00 per year. No doubt there are other financial rewards to Mr. Crawford that may not be so obvious. he is a whiz with numbers. Over the next few days I will be posting articles regarding the information obtained from the documents filed by Mr. Crawford.
The most obvious and extravagant expense paid by the SaraPAC was payment to “Fast Signs” which was a “bus wrap” fee of $13,708.44.The first and most obvious question is “’Did the Retired and Unemployed Donors expect that 13 Thousand of their hard earned money would be spent on decorating a bus?
The second question is why would this kind of expense be justified for anyone who had not declared their candidacy, or who was not trying to sell books?
Was this the total expense for the bus wrap fee? According to Rob Russell a salesman with the Prerost RV company, he said that he knew this particular wrap job and the total cost was $35,000.00. His company does wrap jobs too, and he explained that this is a very specialized industry. He indicated that the reason for the expense is that there are fees for the art work, the actual wrap and there is a fee for removing the wrap.
The most important question is “How foolish do you have to be to spend over $13,000 decorating a bus with anything that would constitute a trademark infringement?
Not only would the expense of $35,000 be extravagant, but it would be totally wasted if the art work constituted a trademark infringement. That could result in damages beyond the cost of the wrap. Maybe Sarah Palin asked the supporters of her PAC to make a “leap of faith” as she had done while mayor regarding the unlawful building of the hockey center on property the city didn’t own. IF Sarah Palin didn’t know about the trademark violation, she might be considered foolish. However if she knew in advance that the bus wrap constituted a trademark infringement, then spending thousands of dollars to infringe on the existing trademark owned by another person would be unnecessary, and just plain stupid.
In a letter dated August 10, 2010 Sarah Palin was notified:
“Your actions constitute trademark infringement and unfair competition under both state and federal law, including the Lanham Act (15 U.S.C. §§ 1051-1127). Remedies for such infringement can include payment of actual and treble damages, recovery of profits, reimbursement of attorney’s fees, and may also include injunctions against your further use of the Infringing Trademark and the seizure of infringing materials.”
A representative of the holder of the trademark “One Nation” said:
“I view this whole thing as David vs. Goliath,”
“SarahPAC believes they can get away with walking all over other groups, even those in the conservative movement, simply because they can.”
The only logical conclusion is that Palin is not just foolish, but stupid!
Update:
In comments of July 16th I realized that the trademark infringement letter was not sent to Sarah Palin, but that the “One Nation” trademark was allegedly being infringed at that time by persons other than Palin. Here is the letter. We might conclude that Palin is only foolish. Malia
Be sure to watch all three videos. They are all good. Malia
Yesterday I posted an article describing the “NEGATIVE FEEDBACK” that the Sharon K. Pacheco Foundation in Colorado received, which inspired the cancellation of Palin’s appearance.
Bandit brought to my attention an article of the Denver Post reporting on the tragic cancellation of the appearance by Palin at this event. The reporter for the Denver Post contacted Leo Pacheco directly. He learned that within two days of the announcement that Palin was coming, ticket prices were reduced by 50%. Shortly thereafter the event was cancelled. The reporter contacted the SarahPAC in hopes of identifying the specific type of threat against Palin, and no response from SarahPAC was forthcoming. It seems the only real “threat” was that Palin would be embarrassment if no one came to hear her speech.
With the decline in polls, the lack of sales for her book, the end of her TLC show, the Arizona shootings, her offensive remarks including “blood libel”, and the scandal regarding Todd, it seems more likely than ever that Sarah Palin might not actually run for President. Politico reports that the PAC filings give no indication that Palin has started to prepare for a presidential run. She has no new staff assigned to work in Iowa, and her aides are not yet making any hard push to lock up experienced operatives.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/26/sarah-palin-sarahpac-funds-fec_n_814532.html. Based upon Federal Election Commission filings at year end for 2010 the SarahPAC had $1.3 million. The FEC records show that Palin raised $279,000 over a five-week period at the end of the year, which were donations primarily from people who donated in sums of $200 or less. From previous analysis, we know that most of the donors to the SarahPac are retired or unemployed. http://malialitman.wordpress.com/2010/07/14/sarah-palins-numbers-dont-lie/. Certainly they are people who have less money than Sarah Palin. Many of us have assumed she would announce a bid for President, just to remain relevant and continue to stay in the spotlight. She would likely continue to demand large speaking fees if she is a Presidential contender. However the same might not be said of someone who is simply a loser, and a quitter. For a moment, let us pause to consider what happens to the PAC money, given by the unemployed and retired donors, from whom Palin continues to take money.
The reality is that PAC money can, and often is used for personal use. Both Republicans and Democrats use PAC money for fun and games. Ellen Weintraub, the FEC Commissioner explains that “The problem is that sometimes it’s hard to tell the personal from the political.” “If a political committee spends money on food, flowers and tickets to sporting events, it depends on what they’re using them for. Those might be legitimate political expenditures in connection with a fundraising event. Or, if they used them to take their family members out to the ball game and bought flowers for their spouses then that would be personal use. But you can’t tell from looking at the expenditure reports.” By way of example, consider how a few politicians have used their PAC money:
• Democrat, Harry Reid of Nevada used his leadership PAC to entertain at Las Vegas casinos, including $32,985 at the Bellagio and $24,284 at Caesars.
• Democrat, Sen. Charles Schumer of New York paid $32,760 to the New York Yankees and $14,490 to the New York Giants.
• Republican, former Sen. Gordon Smith of Oregon, spent $91,004 at the Bandon Dunes Golf Resort.
• Republican, former Rep. Thomas Reynolds of New York, spent $66,378 at Pebble Beach.
• Republican, Senator Saxby Chambliss, of Georgia, spent $50,394 at the Ritz-Carlton Naples with the explanation of “PAC event/lodging/banquet/golf.”
• Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards used his leadership PAC to pay videographer Rielle Hunter’s firm $114,000 in 2006 and 2007 to make a campaign video. Last year, he admitted he had an extra-marital affair with Hunter during that same period.
• Republican Senator John Ensign of Nevada admitted to having an extra-marital affair with a woman who was on his leadership PAC payroll. Cynthia Hampton received $23,138 from the PAC during the 2008 election cycle.
http://www.thegovmonitor.com/public_features/public_features_4/us-politicians-enjoy-leadership-pac-fund-money-for-personal-use-7037.html.
Given the history of PAC expenditures by both Republicans and Democrats, it appears that Todd, Sarah, and Shailey Tripp are set for the foreseeable future.
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