Mark Halperin reports that Sarah Palin will be on Fox News tomorrow morning. I’m assuming she will discuss her decision to step down from the governorship of Alaska as well as what she’ll be doing with herself in the near future. From what ABC News is reporting the offers are coming in fast and furious.

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This comes from an FBI agency spokesman, so there’s absolutely no doubt about it. The rumors and lies on the left wing blogs that she resigned because she’s the subject of an FBI investigation are just that, rumors and lies:

A day after Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin resigned, a federal official in her home state dismissed one potential explanation for her sudden and unexpected resignation: a rumored FBI investigation into the former Wasilla mayor on public corruption charges.

Despite rumors of a looming controversy after the Republican governor’s surprise announcement Friday that she would leave office this month, some of them published in the blogosphere, the FBI’s Alaska spokesman said the bureau had no investigation into Palin for her activities as governor, as mayor or in any other capacity.

“There is absolutely no truth to those rumors that we’re investigating her or getting ready to indict her,” Special Agent Eric Gonzalez said in a phone interview Saturday. “It’s just not true.” He added that there was “no wiggle room” in his comments for any kind of inquiry.

Well, that settles that. And just in case some mainstream media outlets are still interested in smearing Governor Palin anyway, they’ve been put on notice by her attorney:

Ratcheting up her offensive against the news media, Gov. Sarah Palin’s attorney threatened Saturday to sue mainstream news organizations if they publish “defamatory” stories relating to whether Palin is under federal investigation.

In an extraordinary four-page letter, Alaska-based attorney Thomas Van Flein warns of severe consequences should speculation that until now has largely been confined to blogs about whether Palin embezzled funds in the construction of a Wasilla, Alaska, sports arena find its way into print.

“This is to provide notice to Ms. Moore, and those who re-publish the defamation, such as Huffington Post, MSNBC, the New York Times and The Washington Post, that the Palins will not allow them to propagate defamatory material without answering to this in a court of law,” Van Flein warned, citing Alaska liberal blogger Shannyn Moore.

“Just as power abhors a vacuum, modern journalism apparently abhors any type of due diligence and fact checking before scurrilous allegations are repeated as fact,” the Anchorage attorney wrote.

Neither the Times or the Post made any mention of the embezzlement rumors in their Saturday editions, but sources close to Palin consider the letter a warning shot to stay away from the topic.

In the letter, Van Flein writes: “‘The Alaska Constitution protects the right of free speech, while simultaneously holding those “responsible for the abuse of that right.’… These falsehoods abuse the right to free speech; continuing to publish these falsehoods of criminal activity is reckless, done without any regard for the truth, and is actionable.”

I’m glad she’s standing up for herself. She and her children have been the targets of media campaigns to defame, malign, and besmirch them. The liberals and progressives in the media hate Sarah Palin to their cores so they want to destroy her any way they can, and I think William Jacobson is right that it has always been about Trig:

If Sarah Palin had aborted Trig, the left would have been okay with it. If she hid Trig offstage and out of sight, all would be good. But treat the child as you would any other child, and that cannot be tolerated.

There is something about a Down syndrome child in plain view which has exposed the moral and emotional bankruptcy of the left-wing of the Democratic party. And they hate Sarah Palin because deep down, they hate themselves for being who they are.

Kurt Schlichter at Big Hollywood has an interesting take on the positives on Sarah’s resignation:

Remember when Darth Vader faced off with Obi-Wan Kenobi? “If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine?” She’s now immune from bogus legal claims and her book will not only raise her profile but set up her family financially for life. Now Sarah is unbound, freed from the need to be up in Juneau and able to network, fundraise and even (maybe) campaign without limitation. And the modern media environment will let her do these things without even a nod to the mainstream media (Do you think Katie Couric will ever get to ask Sarah another question? Ha!)

Lefties, if you were responsible for her doing this, you just unleashed your strongest opponent and made her immune from your strongest attacks all at once. Ouch. It must hurt to know a woman you pride yourself on seeing as a drooling Neanderthal nitwit so thoroughly out-maneuvered you. You do see it, right?

Be sure to stop by Kurt’s post and watch the Star Wars clip he’s posted.

I have no idea if Palin had a grand plan in mind when she resigned. I think she was doing what was best for her family and her state. I also think she was doing what was best for her Lieutenant Governor, too, because he will now be able to run as an incumbent. While she helped him, she took all the wind out of Hollis French’s sails. He was prepared to run for governor against Palin and was going to get really nasty and use the same “it’s not business, it’s personal” tactics the MSM has been using. It sucks to be him right now.

Cross-posted at Wizbang

I hope you’re all having a great Fourth of July. Please remember our members of the military who are missing their families serving so far away from home today. We had several members of the military come into our livery today and we gave them a discount as we always do.

Whatever you’re doing with your family today I hope you have a lot of fun.

Sarah Palin’s announcement that she’s not running for reelection for governor in 2010 and will step down and hand the reins to Lieutenant Governor Sean Parnell on July 26th was a shock to everyone.  Of course, everyone is speculating why. The Anchoress wondered if she or someone in her family is sick and she mentioned how thin she has become lately. Others are wondering if she is positioning herself for a 2012 run.  Those who tend to see the world through a bit more cynical colored glasses are speculating that there’s another scandalous shoe to drop. I have to admit, being a Sarah Palin fan, I want to see the positive in her decision.

Being a mom, I have found myself furious after hearing about  all the disgusting accusations Palin’s opponents have made about her family. I just don’t get the hatred that flows in some people’s veins. I would not blame her one iota if she decided to say “screw it” and leave politics in order to protect her kids. But I don’t think that’s it.  She also mentioned in her announcement today that it’s become nearly impossible for her to even do her job as governor with all the frivolous ethical complaints her political opponents in Alaska keep throwing at her. Her brother in a phone call to Fox News said she told him she and her staff spend 80% of their time dealing with them. But I don’t think this is the primary reason, either.

If you take her at her word, and with her I am willing to, I think she sees a greater  opportunity to advance the conservative cause outside the governor’s office.  This will allow her to campaign for conservative candidates and give speeches at conservative events.

A post at the Huffington Post offers an explanation from the head of the Republican Governor’s Association Nick Ayers:

“I don’t think this is buckling to pressure,” said Ayers. “I think this is her coming to the realization that the legislature in Alaska and that some bloggers and activists in Alaska are going to do everything they can to stymie her progress. This is a governor who didn’t run for the office because she wanted a title. She wanted to make significant change in the state. She realized that that was no longer going to be able to happen, because things had become so partisan there.”

She also said as much in her comments. Here’s a portion of her remarks from earlier today:

Let me speak to that for a minute.

Political operatives descended on Alaska last August, digging for dirt. The ethics law I championed became their weapon of choice. Over the past nine months I’ve been accused of all sorts of frivolous ethics violations – such as holding a fish in a photograph, wearing a jacket with a logo on it, and answering reporters’ questions.

Every one – all 15 of the ethics complaints have been dismissed. We’ve won! But it hasn’t been cheap - the State has wasted thousands of hours of your time and shelled out some two million of your dollars to respond to “opposition research” – that’s money not going to fund teachers or troopers – or safer roads. And this political absurdity, the “politics of personal destruction” … Todd and I are looking at more than half a million dollars in legal bills in order to set the record straight. And what about the people who offer up these silly accusations? It doesn’t cost them a dime so they’re not going to stop draining public resources – spending other peoples’ money in their game.

It’s pretty insane – my staff and I spend most of our day dealing with this instead of progressing our state now. I know I promised no more “politics as usual,” but this isn’t what anyone had in mind for Alaska.

If I have learned one thing: life is about choices!

And one chooses how to react to circumstances. You can choose to engage in things that tear down, or build up. I choose to work very hard on a path for fruitfulness and productivity. I choose not to tear down and waste precious time; but to build up this state and our country, and her industrious, generous, patriotic, free people!

Life is too short to compromise time and resources… it may be tempting and more comfortable to just keep your head down, plod along, and appease those who demand: “Sit down and shut up”, but that’s the worthless, easy path; that’s a quitter’s way out. And a problem in our country today is apathy. It would be apathetic to just hunker down and “go with the flow”.

Nah, only dead fish “go with the flow”.

No. Productive, fulfilled people determine where to put their efforts, choosing to wisely utilize precious time… to BUILD UP.

And there is such a need to BUILD up and FIGHT for our state and our country. I choose to FIGHT for it! And I’ll work hard for others who still believe in free enterprise and smaller government; strong national security for our country and support for our troops; energy independence; and for those who will protect freedom and equality and LIFE… I’ll work for and campaign for those PROUD to be American, and those who are INSPIRED by our ideals and won’t deride them.

I WILL support others who seek to serve, in or out of office, for the RIGHT reasons, and I don’t care what party they’re in or no party at all. Inside Alaska – or Outside Alaska.

But I won’t do it from the Governor’s desk.

This sounds like a woman who is not going away.

Thomas Lifson has more at the American Thinker.

Bruce Kessler writing at Maggie’s Farm says today is Sarah Palin’s Independence Day.

If you didn’t get the chance to see the ABC News/Barack Obama health care show at the White House, you will want to watch the Heritage Foundation’s video. It summarizes Obama’s points and offers counterpoints that you will find very interesting (via The Corner):

Earlier this month Iranians took to the streets to protest what they saw as being fraudulent elections perpetrated by the repressive Iranian regime. In response, the regime worked to squash the protests by beating and killing Iranians in the street. America’s president Barack Obama would not stand up and support real democracy in Iran. It took him days to say anything, and when Obama finally said something, it was so milquetoast it was embarrassing. It took him two or three more times to actually show any kind of backbone toward the Mullahs and Ahmadinejad, and even then it was obviously a reluctant gesture as he still didn’t put his full support behind the protesters and their fight for freedom and democracy.

Now there’s a upheaval in Honduras as its former president, Manuel Zelaya, tried to unilaterally - and illegally - change his country’s constitution so he could increase his power. In other words, he wanted to tyrannically force himself onto the Honduran people. As a result, the Honduran Supreme Court stepped in to protect its country’s constitution and ordered that Zelaya be removed from office. The military complied with that court order and now Zelaya is in exile in Costa Rica.

This time Barack Obama was quick to jump in and cry foul at Zelaya’s removal by calling the Supreme Court’s actions “not legal.” He also has put his full support behind the ousted dictator by declaring that he is the only truly democratically elected leader of Honduras. Obama has joined with, of all people, Hugo Chavez, Daniel Ortega, and Fidel Castro in condemning Zelaya’s removal.

So, this is the pattern that is forming with Obama: he refuses to support democracy in Iran by denouncing the fraudulent elections and supporting the protesters. At the same time he supports Zelaya’s Chavez-inspired attempts to illegally change Honduras’ constitution so it helps him maintain power, and denounces the Honduran Supreme Court’s attempts to protect its constitution.

Based upon these two examples alone I have to ask: does President Obama like and respect democracy or is he deep down a latent and wannabe dictator himself?

This is a remarkable new technology. In the UK when you go to get an ultrasound, you can get a lifesize model of your unborn baby:

It’s a defining moment in a parent’s life: Seeing their unborn child’s image on an ultrasound for the first time. Now pregnant women could have the chance to hold a life-size model of their unborn baby.

The startling new medical technology is the result of a Royal College of Art design student’s PhD.

Brazilian student Jorge Lopes has pioneered the conversion of data from ultrasound and MRI scans into life-size plaster models of living embryos using a method called rapid prototyping.

‘It’s amazing to see the faces of the mothers. They can see the full scale of their baby, really understand the size of it,’ said Dr Lopes.

Take a look at this:

Be sure to head over to the link and take a look at the other images. They are amazing.  I would have loved to have had this with each of my three kids. Now, this may very well cause some problems for pro-abortion activists who insist that an unborn baby isn’t really a baby or even a human.

This is unbelievable. The House voted on a bill that is not even a bill yet. It’s still in the development stages.  David Freddoso has the details at The Examiner:

Through a series of parliamentary inquiries, the Republicans learned that the 300-plus page managers’ amendment, added to the bill last night in the House Rules Committee, has not even been been integrated with the official copy of the 1,090-page bill at the House Clerk’s desk, let alone in any other location. The two documents are side-by-side at the desk as the clerk reads through the instructions in the 300 page document for altering the 1,090 page document.

But they cannot be simply combined, because the amendment contains 300 pages of items like this: “Page 15, beginning line 8, strike paragraph (11)…” How many members of Congress do you suppose have gone through it all to see how it changes the bill?

Global Warming is apparently so urgent that we can’t even wait until members of Congress know what they’re voting on.

Was this even technically a legal vote? Is there some kind of technicality or obscure rule that Republicans (not the 8 who voted for the damn thing) could use to void yesterday’s vote since no one voted on a bill but on a nebulous still changing concept?

John at Power Line sums up my feelings perfectly:

The manner in which the Democrats have run the House since taking control in 2007 has been disgraceful.

It won’t apply to unions. Interesting how the collectivists stick together and watch each others’ backs. Link via Ace.

The U.S. Senate proposal to impose taxes for the first time on “gold-plated” health plans may bypass generous employee benefits negotiated by unions.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, the chief congressional advocate of taxing some employer-provided benefits to help pay for an overhaul of the U.S. health system, says any change should exempt perks secured in existing collective- bargaining agreements, which can be in place for as long as five years.

The exception, which could make the proposal more politically palatable to Democrats from heavily unionized states such as Michigan, is adding controversy to an already contentious debate. It would shield the 12.4 percent of American workers who belong to unions from being taxed while exposing some other middle-income workers to the levy.

I’m no constitutional lawyer like our dear President Obama, but I see “violation of the equal protection clause” written all over this. However, considering how this administration has trampled over other constitutional laws such as those that regulate contracts and bankruptcy, I’m sure Obama will not have any problem violating this clause as well.

The UK’s National Health Service is racking up serious negligence claims filed by families of those patients who have suffered and/or died at the hands of its government run health care. Right now, those claims are at £2.2 billion (about $3.6 billion), with half of those claims come from maternity cases alone. With the government announcing that these claims to rise by 80% next year, you’d think they would re-think their government run system and possibly make changes as the Dutch did a few years ago to improve the system’s quality and save lives. Well, the UK isn’t going to do that. Instead, they’re following the Ford Pinto school of cost analysis. Here’s a portion:

Like all countries with government-run health care systems, the UK has a limited amount of resources to fund its National Health Service while trying to meet an infinite demand. The result is low quality care, waiting lists, and rationing. In most areas of health care, that means longer waiting lists for procedures and treatments. The NHS would love to be able to tell pregnant mothers that they will have to wait another three months to deliver, but of course they can’t because nature won’t wait.

Babies are born whether the hospital and its staff are ready for them or not, which means the hospitals must then make do with what they have for these laboring mothers, and that is a frightening prospect. According to a UK report, the maternity care in London was so understaffed that women were pushed into waiting rooms, where they were required to stand for hours while they were in labor because no beds were available. A 23-year-old was turned away by midwives only an hour before she delivered because there weren’t any beds. She said she was reduced to going to the bathroom where she slapped herself to keep her mind off of her labor pain. Another in a labor and delivery room was horrified to see cockroaches in her “eating area.” One woman said she “cried” when she walked into her room to find a filthy shower and paint peeling off the walls. This is in the United Kingdom, not some third-world nation.

Even worse than long waits and filthy labor and delivery rooms is that hospital maternity departments are so woefully understaffed that they must close their doors and send laboring women to other hospitals. These diversion procedures cost time, which increases the risks of tragedies happening. Rachel Canter was pregnant and in the late stages of labor with her third child, a boy she had planned to name Jake, when she was turned away from Barnet Hospital because its maternity department was so full they had to close their admissions. Rachel was told to go to Chase Farm Hospital, 20 minutes away. Unfortunately, baby Jake suffered breathing difficulties and died shortly after he was born. She blames the understaffing of the hospitals for her son’s death. The midwives at Barnet Hospital concede that the facility has serious understaffing issues and report that the maternity department must close its doors three times a week as a result. You would think in 21st century Britain pregnant women would no longer get the very old line: “sorry, there is no more room at the inn.”

Please read the rest, and if you have any thoughts, feel free to a comment either here or at AIP.