This is a serious attack that goes back in years against Sarah Palin and the appointment of Rouse to fill Rahm’s position will signal a full out assault in underway against Sarah Palin’s possible run for the nomination. We’re researching the history and the various ties to her, Rouse and others in Alaska.
Senior Advisor Pete Rouse
http://letustalk.files.wordpress.com/2008/11/pete-rouse.jpg
Peter M. Rouse is Senior Advisor to President Barack H. Obama. He was a co-chair of the Obama-Biden Transition Project, a senior adviser to President Obama’s campaign, and chief of staff to then-Senator Barack Obama.
Known as the “101st Senator” for his extensive knowledge of Congress, Rouse served as chief of staff to members of the United States Congress for more than thirty years. Before joining President Obama’s Senate office in 2004, he was chief of staff to former Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle (D-SD) for 19 years. He also served as chief of staff to then-Rep. Dick Durbin of Illinois (1984-85) and Lt. Governor Terry Miller of Alaska (1979-83).
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http://images.morris.com/images/juneau/mdControlled/cms/2009/03/02/400188596.jpg
But these days, Pete Rouse works in the White House, two doors from his close friend, President Barack Obama.
For 25 years as the consummate Democratic insider in the U.S. Senate, Rouse played a quiet role as the backdoor connection for Alaska’s all-Republican delegation to the other side of the aisle in Congress. He was the longtime chief of staff for Sen. Tom Daschle, D-S.D., the one-time Senate majority leader, and starting in 2004 Rouse took on the same job for a promising young freshman senator from Illinois.
Today, as special adviser to Obama, Rouse is in the innermost circle of the West Wing. His office sits between chief of staff Rahm Emanuel and communications director David Axelrod (for fans of “The West Wing” television series, that would be Josh Lyman’s office).
“It’s only been four years here, this trip from freshman senator,” the 62-year-old Rouse said in a telephone interview earlier this month, breaking from his usual low-profile to talk about his Alaska ties. “It has been an interesting ride. I feel pretty invested in it.”
His Alaska roots run deeper than those of almost anyone reading these words. His mother, the daughter of Japanese immigrants, grew up in Anchorage starting in World War I, when it was a railroad construction town. His cousin was the longtime municipal attorney for the City of Palmer.
But Rouse himself was born on the East Coast and had never been west of Denver when he flew to Alaska in late 1978 to visit a friend, Alaska’s newly elected Republican lieutenant governor, Terry Miller.
Rouse ended up working as Miller’s chief of staff for the final four years of Gov. Jay Hammond’s administration. It was a great experience, Rouse said, a time when Juneau was filled with young idealists eager to grapple with the state’s new oil money, infrastructure need and unformed social policies.
“Juneau at the time was 19,000 people, but it was really a town on the move in terms of young, well-educated people excited by these policy issues,” he recalled.
The ambitious young staffer returned to Washington, D.C., in 1983 and worked for Democrats in the Senate ever since. For a while, he imagined returning to Alaska if Miller ever managed to win a race for governor. The dream faded; Miller died of bone cancer in 1989, at age 46. Rouse’s last visit to Juneau was to attend his old friend’s memorial.
Rouse continued to keep many personal ties in Alaska — along with his voter registration. In last November’s presidential race, records show, the man who would co-lead Obama’s transition team voted absentee in Juneau.
Rouse declined to discuss his voter registration.
Legally he appears to be on fairly secure footing. Voters are allowed to maintain registration here if they don’t vote elsewhere and intend to return someday. They are also excused if they are working somewhere in civil service of the United States — a description that pretty much encapsulates Rouse’s career. But he does not show up on Alaska Permanent Fund dividend records.)
ALASKA CONNECTION
The story of Alaska’s connection to Obama’s inner circle begins in 1915 with the arrival of Goro (George) and Mine Mikami in Seward, where construction of the Alaska Railroad was under way. Three years later the immigrants from Japan moved to Anchorage. Their daughter, Mary, entered school speaking only Japanese and went on to become valedictorian at Anchorage High School. In 1934, Mary graduated with honors from the Alaska Agricultural College and School of Mines in Fairbanks (the year before it became the University of Alaska), then moved on to Yale , where she earned a Ph.D. and met her husband, Irving Rouse.
Irving and Mary Rouse raised their son, Pete, in Connecticut. He spent a few years working on Capitol Hill for Sen. James Abourezk, D-S.D., answering constituent mail alongside Daschle, another young aide. But when Daschle decided to run for Congress in 1978, Rouse took time off to get a master’s degree in public administration at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. There he met Miller, who had recently served as Alaska’s youngest-ever Senate president. Miller came home to run for lieutenant governor with Hammond for the governor’s second term.
Miller persuaded Rouse to return to his mother’s home state to work in Alaska politics. Part of the appeal was that Miller would be heir to Hammond’s moderate Republican mantle and had a good shot at becoming governor in four years.
“He was a very intelligent guy and a progressive Republican,” Rouse said of Miller, the only Republican he ever worked for. “On balance I felt he had the right vision for Alaska and the right philosophical approach.”
Rouse’s reach extended well beyond the lieutenant governor’s office. He was involved in all the governor’s major meetings on budgets and appointments, said Jerry Reinwand, who was Hammond’s chief of staff at the time.
As a workaholic senior staffer in the U.S. Senate, Rouse liked to stay quietly in the background. Media sightings of Rouse have been rare. The few stories of past years invariably note two things: his affection for cats (he has Maine coon cats at home, where he lives alone) and his nickname of “The 101st Senator,” owing to his reputation for results-oriented strategy and working across party lines.
“One of the things you will find about Pete, he keeps one of the lowest profiles going,” said McKie Campbell, a former state Fish and Game Commissioner now working for the Senate Energy Committee in Washington, who stayed friends from the Juneau days. “He’s the quiet guy who everybody listens to when he talks.”
http://www.juneauempire.com/stories/030209/sta_400188552.shtml
Palin also suggested that some of the problems she faced at home after the election could be traced back to Rouse.
For Palin, however, these aren’t isolated incidents. She believes they grow from the same root, which is too big and too formidable to ignore. “A lot of this comes from Washington, D.C. [...]
Palin and her Alaska circle find evidence for their suspicions about the White House in the person of Pete Rouse, who lived in Juneau for a time before he became chief of staff to a young U.S. Senator named Barack Obama. Rouse, they note, is a friend of former Alaska state senator Kim Elton, who pushed the first ethics investigation of Palin, examining her controversial firing of the state’s public-safety commissioner. Both Rouse and Elton have joined the Obama Administration.
Read more: http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2009/07/09/a-final-palin-post/#ixzz10ID8SehH
“Pete’s very good at looking around the corners of decisions and playing out the implications of them,” Obama told the Post during the campaign. “He’s been around long enough that he can recognize problems and pitfalls a lot quicker than others can.”
In an interview with PBS in 2008, he talked about his initial impression of Obama: “[Y]ou could tell that this guy was important to the future of the Democratic Party, in part because he’s African American, but the major reason was because he had such intelligence, insights, spark. He had the magic; you can tell he had the magic.”
Rouse was tapped by Obama in 2009 to oversee efforts to close Guantanamo Bay.
“Pete’s very smart, highly skilled, and has always been totally square in our dealings,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) told the Anchorage Daily News. “I expect we will agree on some issues and disagree on others, but having him at that level in the White House has to be good for our state.”
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2010/09/pete-rouse-obamas-next-chief-o.html
Flopping Aces offers evidence that Obama campaign staffers conspired to file phony ethics complaints to help derail Sarah Palin’s candidacy in 2008
Obama adviser Pete Rouse, whose office sits between those of Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod, is an Alaska native.
UPDATED! Alinsky Perfected Pt VIII: The ties that bind..
Alaskan pols, Obama advisors and bloggers relationships revealed
Posted by: MataHarley @ 1:09 am in Sarah Palin, Trials and Tribulations, Troopergate
A serious H/T is needed here to the Naked Emperor News video news site for compiling the various news clips, and tying the gang of ethics complainants together in a tidy little package with a bow.
[Mata Musing: Naked Emperor is one upping themselves here, as they were also responsible for digging up all of Obama’s historic statements on what he *really* wants for America’s health care... a single payer system.]
Naked Emperor posted their “EthicsGate” YouTube link, and the Alaskan Bloggers again ganged up to get it removed from YouTube. This would be the same group that whined when Palin fingered them, and are now circling the wagons around the “divorce rumor” source; outed kindergarten/elementary school assistant teacher with a penchant for vicious gossip, Jesse Griffin… aka Gryphen.
There’s a notice/disclaimer on their site:
Troopergate’s Legislative Investigation, led by Kim Elton, Alaska Dem Senator… close friends with Obama Sr. advisor, Pete Rouse. Plus former Gov. Tony Knowles, forming a neat political triangle.
Linda Kellen Biegel, Deputy Treasurer of Alaskans for Truth
Kim Chatman, “independent concerned Alaskan”…
Valerie Henning (wife of Zane Henning, who filed a complaint)
Sondra Thompkins, “independent concerned Alaskan”…
And the blogger/radio media cheerleaders who gave them face and air time, Shannyn Moore; Jeanne “Mudflats” Devon (big supporter of Andree McLeod); and Camille Conte (aka CC), chairman of the Alaskans for Truth and host of “Demo Memo” radio show where they discussed revenge strategy on air, trumped up stories together about rape stats that did not reflect the truth.
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UPDATE: Aug 3rd, PM
Jeanne “Mudflats” Devon has taken to her own Alinsky brand of ammo for damage control in response to Naked Emperor’s video… by embedding the video herself as bold “proof” the “cabal” fears not it’s public view.
I found it particularly Interesting she uses a player that does not allow that same video to be shared, or allow the user to pick up the embed code. Was that deliberate, in order to keep the video confined to her own adoring following? Or was she unaware that YouTube has a share-friendly version? Who knows… much more important, who cares. But it was a notable observation that belies her “here it is, I’m not afraid!” attempt.
Ms. Mudflats weaves a rather listless and condescending tale – which she calls a parable – of good guy “village scribes” (aka the Alaskan progressive blogging cabal) and “those guys” from the hills.
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SARAH PALIN 26 OBAMA’S ALASKA MAFIA “ZERO”!
Gary P.
Published 04/29/2010 - 5:15 a.m. CST
Remember, two of Obama’s closest advisers, Pete Rouse, and the infamous Anita Dunn are both from Alaska. Both know all about Sarah. Dunn was one of the first ones sounding alarm bells.
Within days of the announcement that Sarah had joined the McCain ticket, Barack Obama personally reached out to the Alaska Troopers Union to discuss the bogus “Troopgate” nonsense that was brewing. Obama then set his Senate Chief-of-Staff, Pete Rouse, who is now a White House adviser, in motion.
Rouse contacted his former colleague Senator Kim Elton. Elton and Hollis French, along with a couple of other far left Marxist-democrats turned a small dispute over the firing of a insubordinate department head into a three ring circus, complete with a kangaroo court.
This went from a story about Walt Monegan, the head of the Dept of Public Safety, to a story about Palin’s deranged brother-in-law who was drunk on the job, got caught poaching (a serious deal in Alaska), tazered his step son, and threatened the lives of Sarah’s sister, her dad, as well as Sarah herself. Oh, and as far as I know, the trooper, Michael Wooten, is still a state trooper to this day.
The witch hunt became so absurd that sane members of the party wanted nothing to do with it, and a serious revolt was brewing in the legislature. Of course, Elton, French, Beth Kerttula, Steven Branchflower, etc., were all promising something so terrible, it would end up with Sarah’s impeachment.
Now bear in mind, Walt Monegan was an “at will” employee. An appointed position. In other words, the Governor could fire him for any reason, or no reason at all. You serveat the pleasure of the Governor. Period.
In the end, just a few days before the presidential election, the “Branchflower Report” was rushed in front of the world wide media. The promised “October surprise.”
The kangaroo court, of course, claimed that Sarah had somehow overstepped her bounds by firing a guy that, by law, she could fire at any time, without cause. One should know, before Monegan was shown the door, even though he was insubordinate, continually trying to do end runs around Palin’s budget slashing measures designed to put Alaska back on solid footing, even with all of that, Sarah offered the guy the opportunity to take another position. He refused.
Within days of the bogus “Branchflower Report” an independent investigator for the Alaska State Personnel Board looked at the findings. Timothy Petamenos, the investigator, found that not only had Obama’s people wrongfully accused and “found” Sarah guilty, Branchflower actually hid evidence that proved Sarah was innocent of the alleged issue: Trying to force Monegan to fire Wooten, a guy who deserved to be in jail, not just fired.
Branchflower suppressed witness testimony, e-mails, and more. As if Branchflower and Co. weren’t big enough jokes, Petamenos also found they had cited the wrong statues to “convict” Sarah in the first place!
The so-called “reprimand” Sarah received was then overturned by the Alaska Personnel Board, clearing Sarah of any wrong doing.
Of course, the dirty deed was done. This had stirred up just enough dust, only days before the election, to hurt McCain/Palin and help Obama. By the way, for those that don’t know, this is was first election that Obama had ever won outright. He used dirty tricks to have his opponent “disqualified” when he ran for the Illinois Senate, and of course his minions caused all sort of problems for Senator Ryan, and his ex-wife, actress Jeri Ryan, forcing him to withdraw, giving Obama what amounted to a bye-run into the U.S. Senate. Typical Chicago thug politics.
As a payoff for a “job well done” just weeks after Obama was sworn in as President, he quietly appointed Kim Elton to a make work job at the U.S. Department of Interior. Chicago pay-for-play at it’s finest.
Of course, this insanity didn’t stop there. The Obama regime, and his thug supporters knew they had awakened a Mama Grizzly. They also knew that Sarah Palin was a huge hit with the American people. I mean think about it, when have you ever seen a group run a TV ad, during the Superbowl, to thank the vice presidential candidate from the losing ticket?
This scared the hell out of the Marxist-democrats. They know Sarah’s proclivity of going after corruption, and Obama is the absolute epitome of the corrupt politician. They also saw the crowds Sarah drew, and the strong favorable emotions America had toward her, despite the best lies their media partners had thrown out there..
Now one of the things Obama’s right hand man, Pete Rouse had done was help set up the “Wasilla Project” with a bunch of radical leftists in Alaska. A small but seriously vile group of losers. Several of them were hate filled bloggers Shannyn Moore and Jeanne Devon. These two were afforded access to the sewage dump known as the Huffington Post, As vile as that place is, it is mainstream for members of the Marxist-democrat party, and Obama’s media partners at ABC, CBS, NBC, and so on, link to the site all of the time.
These two bloggers, and a handful more, including the “Official DNC Blogger For Alaska” Linda Kellen Biegel, used their access to so-called “legitimate” media to spread multiple lies on almost a daily basis, including the incredibly vile and hateful lie that Sarah’s new baby, Trig, was not really hers. They continually attacked Sarah with this nonsense, and had all sorts of sick “fun” photoshopping the kid and saying the vilest of vile things. These were published in HuffPo, and widely distributed. Some of these nimrods turned “Trig Trutherism” into a cottage industry.
Well, That didn’t work either. Sarah was still standing strong. In fact, Sarah had already started going after Obama and his destructive, anti-American ways. It was quite clear Sarah didn’t like the course Obama put the country on, and wasn’t going to just sit back and watch it happen.
Early on Sarah established herself as the leading voice of reason, while the feckless men of the GOP were still admiring the crease of Obama’s pants. As we have seen over the last year or so, Sarah Palin is not someone who just sits back. She is every bit the “Sarahcuda” who helped her team win a championship, playing on a broken ankle.
So, phase two was started. The Alaska Mafia © as I have taken to calling them, started recruiting folks to help file never ending “ethics complaints” Alaska has some really quirky laws. For example, anyone can file a complaint for any reason, with no consequences if it is found to be frivolous. Even crazier, while the law protects legislators, it does not protect the executive! You don’t even have to use a real name to file these things, one of these complaints were filed under the name of a soap oprah character!
MUCH, MUCH MORE HERE...
