Peter Schweizer, Peter J Boyer, and Stephen K Bannon Expose Obama’s Illegal Foreign Campaign Donations

By Gary P Jackson

Peter Schweizer and the Government Accountability Institute are all over the latest criminal activity from the Obama regime. Though it was suspected that the Obama campaign was getting millions in illegal foreign donations in 2008, the actions of the regime this campaign season leave no doubt. The Obama campaign is actually soliciting donation from foreigners, this is incredibly illegal.

Of course, as the report below says, the FEC generally looks the other way, rather than do it’s job. Even if it does investigate, the FEC rarely takes action.

Unscrupulous actors like Barack Obama are able to push the rules well past the breaking point, because they know nothing will happen to them. Nothing at all.

Peter and Stephen K Bannon appeared on The Sean Hannity Show Monday night to talk about this:

Video courtesy SarahNet.

Schweizer and Peter J Boyer wrote an extensive piece for Newsweek:[emphasis mine]

The Illegal-Donor Loophole

There has been no shortage of media attention paid to the role of money in the current presidential contest. Super PACs, bundlers, 527s, and mega-donors have attracted abundant notice. But there has been surprisingly little focus on perhaps the most secretive and influential financial force in politics today: the wide-open coffers of the Internet.

With millions of online campaign donations ricocheting through cyberspace, one might think the Federal Election Commission would have erected serious walls to guard federal elections from foreign or fraudulent Internet contributions. But that’s far from true. In fact, campaigns are largely expected to police these matters themselves.

There’s certainly ample historical reason to worry about foreign donations: in the 1990s, for instance, there were allegations that Chinese officials had funneled money into U.S. campaigns.

The solicitation of campaign donations from foreign nationals is prohibited by the Federal Election Campaign Act. But that law, passed in the 1970s, did not anticipate the Internet, or the creative uses that can be made of such social media as Facebook.

Campaigns that aggressively raise money online are soliciting donations from people around the world—whether they intend to or not. People repost campaign solicitations on blogs that send them sprawling around the globe like digital kudzu. For example, an Obama campaign official posting ended up on Arabic Facebook, complete with a hyperlink to a donation page. In another instance, someone posted videos on Latin American websites featuring Sen. Marco Rubio, and included embedded advertisements asking for campaign donations.

In addition, people around the world are being asked for donations by the campaigns themselves, simply because they signed up for information on campaign websites. The problem: candidate webpages don’t ask visitors from foreign IP addresses to enter a military ID or passport number. Instead, the websites use auto-responder email systems that simply gather up email addresses and automatically spit out solicitations.

The FEC, meanwhile, has taken the position that this sort of passive internet solicitation is not illegal, because the campaigns, presumably, are not intentionally targeting foreign nationals with their online money pleas.

Further complicating the issue are websites like Obama.com—which is owned not by the Obama campaign but by Robert Roche, an American businessman and Obama fundraiser who lives in Shanghai. Roche’s China-based media company, Acorn International, runs infomercials on Chinese state television. Obama.com redirects to a specific donation page on BarackObama.com, the official campaign website. Unlike BarackObama.com, Obama.com’s traffic is 68 percent foreign, according to markosweb.com, a traffic-analysis website. According to France-based web analytics site Mustat.com, Obama.com receives over 2,000 visitors every day.

The name Robert W. Roche appears 11 times in the White House visitors log during the Obama administration. Roche also sits on the Obama administration’s Advisory Committee for Trade Policy and Negotiations, and is a co-chair of Technology for Obama, a fundraising effort. (In an email exchange, Roche declined to discuss his website, or his support for the Obama reelection effort, referring the inquiries to the Obama campaign team. The Obama campaign, in turn, says it has no control over Roche’s website; it also says only 2 percent of the donations associated with Obama.com come from overseas.)

But it isn’t just foreign donations that are a concern. So are fraudulent donations. In the age of digital contributions, fraudsters can deploy so-called robo-donations, computer programs that use false names to spew hundreds of donations a day in small increments, in order to evade reporting requirements. According to an October 2008 Washington Post article, Mary Biskup of Missouri appeared to give more than $170,000 in small donations to the 2008 Obama campaign. Yet Biskup said she never gave any money to the campaign. Some other contributor gave the donations using her name, without her knowledge. (The Obama campaign explained to the Post that it caught the donations and returned them.)

This makes it all the more surprising that the Obama campaign does not use a standard security tool, the card verification value (CVV) system—the three- or four-digit number often imprinted on the back of a credit card, whose purpose is to verify that the person executing the purchase (or, in this case, donation) physically possesses the card. The Romney campaign, by contrast, does use the CVV—as has almost every other candidate who has run for president in recent years, from Hillary Clinton in 2008 to Ron Paul this year. (The Obama campaign says it doesn’t use the CVV because it can be an inhibiting factor for some small donors.) Interestingly, the Obama campaign’s online store requires the CVV to purchase items like hats or hoodies (the campaign points out that its merchandise vendor requires the tool).

We also focused on the Obama campaign because it is far more successful than Romney when it comes to small donors—which the Internet greatly helps to facilitate. In September the Obama campaign brought in its biggest fundraising haul—$181 million. Nearly all of that amount (98 percent) came from small donations, through 1.8 million transactions.

The Obama campaign says that it is rigorous in its self-regulation effort. “We take great care to make sure that every one of our more than three million donors are eligible to donate and that our fundraising efforts fully comply with all U.S. laws and regulations,” says campaign spokesman Adam Fetcher. Campaign officials say they use multiple security tools to screen all online credit-card contributions, and then review, by hand, those donations that are flagged by their automated system. Potentially improper donations, such as those originating from foreign Internet addresses, are returned to any donors who cannot provide a copy of their current U.S. passport photo pages, the campaign says.

But the weakness of the current system isn’t particular to any campaign. It’s a broad reliance on self-policing combined with a lack of transparency. Foreign or fraudulent donations might be less of a concern if it were possible for outsiders—the press, the public, good government watchdog groups, or the Federal Election Commission—to independently determine whether they were taking place. But it isn’t. Candidates need only publicly report campaign contributions over $200. For donations between $50 and $200 (the average donation in Obama’s huge September haul was $53), candidates are simply required to make an effort to obtain accurate identifying information—information they aren’t required to report. And for donations under $50, regulations don’t even require campaigns to keep a record of identifying information.

The FEC, to be sure, does occasionally conduct investigations into foreign or fraudulent donations. But the majority of these investigations only result in civil fines or closure without action. There is much more that could be done to remedy this situation. First, campaigns should be required to disclose identifying information on all their donors, not just those who give over $200. Second, campaigns should be required to ask for the CVV number when accepting donations. Finally, campaigns should be required to ask people signing up for campaign information whether they are able to legally donate. There is simply no reason non-Americans should be solicited for donations via email.

Until such measures are enacted, however, the integrity of our campaign-donation system will remain mostly in the hands of political consultants and campaign managers. Is that wise?

For more on the subject, see this new report from Peter Schweizer’s Government Accountability Institute.

Here’s even more from CBS Market Watch:

Many of us remember how “Doodad Pro” and “O.J. Simpson” gave money to Obama during his first presidential campaign. And how this was no accident. From 2008:

The Obama campaign has turned a blind eye to the possibility of donor fraud. Reportedly, during the heated primary battle with Hillary Clinton, the Obama campaign “turned off” many of the security features on its online donor page, allowing any person with a valid credit card number to donate using any name or address.

Typically, card merchants require a cardholder’s name to match critical personal details, such as an address or, at the least, a ZIP code.

And of course some of the money came from the credit cards of real people. It’s just that they didn’t authorize the donations.

Well, in the wake of news that Obama is headed towards raising $1 billion as a candidate this time around, there has been word of a new scandal regarding foreign contributions, which Katie Pavlich says could break as early as tonight.

By the way, Obama’s incredible $181 million take in September was especially notable because only 2% of it was reportable:

The campaign said that just over 1.8 million people made donations to the campaign last month. According to the campaign, over 500k of these were brand-new donors, having neither given in 2008 nor 2012. 98% of contributions were under the reporting threshold of $250. Of these, the average contribution was $53.

That means up to 98% of the September take could be from illegal sources. I’m not saying it is — in fact, it’s virtually certain that any illegal amount is nowhere near that much. But it still could be a lot.

If money is coming from foreign sources, it might be interesting to see how much is coming from Russia. Remember: In March, Obama told Russia he could be more . . . flexible with Russia after the election:

President Barack Obama was caught on camera on Monday assuring outgoing Russian President Dmitry Medvedev that he will have “more flexibility” to deal with contentious issues like missile defense after the U.S. presidential election.

Obama, during talks in Seoul, urged Moscow to give him “space” until after the November ballot, and Medvedev said he would relay the message to incoming Russian president Vladimir Putin.

More foreign money could lead to more flexibility. It’s amazing how flexible politicians can become when there is enough cash to loosen things up.

We’ll stay on top of this story.

UPDATE: Commenter John Cunningham says:

There can be no doubt that the Obama web site is wide open for foreign money and fraud. I was over at a buddy’s house a month ago, I watched him log onto the Obama site, use his Visa card to donate $5, with no request for security code. he was moved to a page that asked for his personal info.

He entered Josef Stalin, Apt. 2, the Kremlin, Red Square, Moscow. Job–General Secretary. Employer: Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

It took the donation. his account was charged a couple of days later.

I just tried this, up the point where they wanted me to hit the donate button. I entered this information:

Then I entered my credit card number and expiration date, and I got this page, asking for my employer and occupation, which I duly filled in:

More here.

While it’s obvious the Obama campaign is breaking the law, just as it did in 2008, it’s just as obvious those in charge of stopping these illegal activities are asleep at the wheel, and that’s the real scandal.

Corruption in politics have hit critical mass. We need to send real reformers to Washington and create laws with real teeth that will see corrupt politicians pay for their crimes. Right now there is so much corruption because there is no real penalties if anyone gets caught.

This is a dangerous situation. With all of the money buying so much influence, the very existence of our Republic is threatened. Again, this is nothing new, but we are a point now that it can no longer be tolerated. Politicians are able to get away with illegal activities that would sens an ordinary citizen to prison for a long, long time.

Things MUST change and they must change now.

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Essential Listening: Peter Schweizer on The Victory Sessions: Exposing Crony Capitalism

Peter Schweizer, President and co-founder of  the Government Accountability Institute returns to The Victory Sessions with host Stephen K. Bannon to discuss GAI’s mission to detect and expose crony capitalism. FULL INTERVIEW!

By Gary P Jackson

Stephen K Bannon has an amazing interview with Peter Schweizer. Stephen and Peter have created the Government Accountability Institute. Peter, of course is well know for exposing corruption and cronyism. He’s written numerous best sellers including Throw Them All Out and Architects of Ruin.

Above is a link to the full interview, and I’m telling you, it’s essential listening. Peter talks about the way politicians have gotten rich using their positions of power, and how, once retiring from politics, end up with high paying gigs at large corporations.

Peter lays it all out, and pulls no punches. This is a bi-partisan issue. There is massive corruption in both parties. Leadership in both parties is as corrupt as the day is long. It’s mind-blowing.

Peter also notes Sarah Palin, who has a storied career as a corruption buster, was on top of this from the start, and very supportive of his efforts.

Again, click on the link above and listen to the full interview. It’s essential for everyone to understand what is going on, and what must be done to save our nation. It’s worth every second of your time.

Corruption is rampant in government, and it’s in BOTH parties. It’s really time to drain the swamp.

Here’s a little taste of what Peter and Stephen talk about: “How Nancy Pelosi and family rips off the “99%’” courtesy SarahNet:

Here’s more from Peter via Victory Sessions:

President Barack Obama has admitted to being obsessed with seeking a solution to the nation’s economic woes. “You should know,” the president recently told UPS workers, “that keeping the economy growing and making sure jobs are available is the first thing I think about when I wake up every morning. It’s the last thing I think about when I go to bed each night.”

You can’t measure how much time a president spends “thinking” about the economy. But how much time has Obama spent working on rebuilding America’s crumbling economy? Researchers at the Government Accountability Institute looked into this for a new report into Obama’s official public schedule from his Inauguration until June 30, 2012. They uncovered startling facts that reveal just how little time Obama has actually spent on economic matters.

Here are a few findings for the first 1,257 days of Obama’s presidency, based on the president’s official schedule as posted on the White House website and POLITICO:

• He has spent less than 4 percent of his total time in economic meetings or briefings of any kind (assuming a six day, 10-hour workweek).

• Obama spent 412 hours (or 41 10-hour workdays) in economic meetings or briefings of any kind.

• There were 773 days (72 percent), excluding Sundays, in which he had no economic meetings.

• So far this year, Obama has spent 24 total hours in economic meetings of any kind.

• Throughout his presidency, Obama has spent an average of 138 minutes a week in economic meetings. For comparison, consider that dog owners spend an average of 130 minutes a week walking their dogs.

The researchers used a broad definition of what counted as economic meetings. For example, “Obama meets with Cabinet secretaries” counted as an economic meeting. So did “Obama meets with Democratic members of the House Ways and Means Committee” and “Obama meets with Consumer Product Safety Commission Chairwoman Inez Tenenbaum.”

On the days where an economic meeting listed no ending time, the researchers spotted Obama a full two hours — though most presidential meetings run much shorter. Still, the totals for time spent on the worst economy since the Great Depression came in shockingly low.

via Opinion: Hard facts vs. mind over fiscal matters – Peter Schweizer – POLITICO.com.

Read Throw Them All Out, Architects of Ruin and get active demanding this corruption is cleaned up, or else.

Victory Sessions Podcast: Stephen K Bannon Talks with Stacy Drake About The GOP Establishment’s Bashing of Sarah Palin

By Gary P Jackson

Stephen K Bannon talks with Breitbart contributor Stacy Drake about the organized effort to marginalize and attack Sarah Palin by the Republican Establishment.

Click here to listen.

Stephen K Bannon: Breitbart’s Obama/Harvard Tapes to be Released in a Week to Ten Days

By Gary P Jackson

At this year’s CPAC Andrew Breitbart said he has tapes of Barack Obama during his time at Harvard University that would end his bid for re-election. The news of Andrew’s death stirred a lot of concern among Conservatives over these tapes. If you’ve spent any time online since Thursday morning you know what I mean.

Appearing on the Sean Hannity Show Thursday night, Stephen K Bannon told Sean the tapes were being reviewed and would be released in a week to ten days.

Bannon also gave more details about Andrew’s heart condition:

BANNON: A year ago, you know, Larry Solov [Breitbart’s attorney], Andrew had heart issues. He went to UCLA, he was in the hospital for a number of days. Since we’re a private company, things did not have to be announced. Susie [Breitbart’s wife] and Larry were there. We had a number of doctors.

HANNITY: Five days?

BANNON: He came out with a very specific program. He was on medication. As you guys know, he dropped weight. He went on a diet. He had a personal trainer. He was there really to get into fighting shape. And you’re going to see that this was a massive heart attack. All the rumors are just nonsense.

More of the interview here.

Sarah Palin Named The Most Influential Conservative Woman in America

By Gary P Jackson

The Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute and Human Events [Ronald Reagan’s favorite paper] have teamed up to name the 10 Most Influential Conservative Women in America.

Alyssa Cordova, lecture director of the Institute, writes:

In America today, our culture places a lot of value on promoting women. However, it is very rare that the mainstream media gives any positive attention to the contributions conservative women have had on our society.

At the Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute, we promote mentors and women leaders from all walks of life who are committed to the constitutional principles of individual freedom, economic liberty, limited government, personal responsibility, and traditional values, and we wanted to honor some of the great women who have been champions of these ideals.

We have teamed up with some of our favorite conservative men at HUMAN EVENTS to bring you the Most Influential Conservative Women in America, highlighting the lives and achievements of the top ladies of the Conservative movement. Click on each name to read the profile. Glenn Beck writes about Michele Bachmann; Rep. Steve King on the great Phyllis Schlafly; Film director Steve Bannon on Sarah Palin; Jason Mattera on Michelle Malkin, and a whole lot more.

The women on this list have made a tremendous impact for the better on this great country—and even abroad—and we are thrilled with the opportunity to give them the attention they deserve.

Check out the entire list, and the profiles on all of the women honored here.

On Sarah Palin:

I repeatedly get asked: “Why would you make a movie about Sarah Palin–what could we possibly not already know about her?”

The answer is quite simply, “everything that’s important.”

Sarah Palin is what I describe as a “McLuhanesque” figure—one of the most media-saturated people in the world, relentlessly covered by the 24/7 news cycle, yet her real story is there hiding in plain sight, never having been told.

And what story exactly is that? The rise of a woman from complete obscurity to national prominence through her own force of will and sense of justice.

When The Undefeated starts in the late 80s, Sarah Palin is working on a small commercial fishing vessel she co-owns with her husband Todd, who is a blue-collar union member, working on the North Slope. The daughter of a school teacher, she is not part of the social, political, or cultural elite in the remote Mat-Su Valley, 40 miles northeast of Anchorage. In fact, Alaska at that time, was still a wilderness with the rough-hewen culture of a frontier state.

She is essentially out of the loop in a state that is out of the loop.

Sarah Palin is the little guy in “Walmart Nation:” just as obscure, just as powerless, just as insignificant. And that is precisely why she is a role model for young men and women. She didn’t have a rich daddy, she didn’t marry a wealthy or connected husband, she doesn’t have an Ivy League union card. What she did have was the grit, tenacity and fortitude to accomplish great things against almost insurmountable odds.
It is those attributes that are the underpinnings of the American frontier and our success as a country: the “can do” spirit, and a doggedness that just won’t quit. That’s The Undefeated.

I came to appreciate what Gov. Palin stood for as I made the Tea Party Trilogy: ‘Generation Zero’, ‘Fire From the Heartland’, and ‘Battle for America’; a series of three films about the financial collapse of our country and the rise of the Tea Party.

I had never met Gov. Palin, but had filmed her innumerable times at big rallies and Tea Party events—from the dustbowl of Searchlight, Nevada, to the Nashville Tea Party convention, and everything in between.

From a distance, I saw not merely a charismatic leader, but someone who had a very plainspoken way of connecting with the working men and women of our country. Sarah Palin didn’t simply electrify crowds, she moved them.

You can read more of what media mogul Steven K Bannon has to say about Sarah Palin here.

The Undefeated Number 3 On Amazon’s Best Seller List

The Undefeated director Stephen K Bannon’s epic documentary of Sarah Palin’s career has hit number three on Amazon’s best sellers list of documentaries. Ken Burns’ Prohibition is number 2. Buck, a documentary about training horses is number one.

The Undefeated has been on sale at both Amazon and Walmart [online] for a month. The DVD went on sale in Walmart stores on Tuesday. It can also be seen on pay-per-view.

This is a must see movie. Steven K Bannon does a masterful job of setting the record straight on Sarah Palin. Throughout the movie, Bannon uses the people who were there, and helped change Alaska, to tell the story. Even if you think you know Sarah’s real record, and all she has accomplished, you’ll know more once this movie is over.

Long at two hours, the movie is so compelling, and moves so fast, you’ll not notice.

Get your copy now, and start sharing it with your friends. You won’t be disappointed.

Stephen K Bannon: Todd Palin A Modern Day Gary Cooper and a Man’s Man

When you move forward and want to make change you’re gonna piss people off, you know, but Sarah doesn’t care.

~ Todd Palin on how Governor Palin created a coalition and got things done for the Alaskan people.

By Gary P Jackson

Stephen K Bannon interviews Alaska’s former First Dude, Todd Palin. This is the essential interview. Todd and Stephen talk extensively about Sarah Palin’s career as Mayor and Governor.

Todd goes into the details of the situation that lead up to Sarah’s resignation as Governor and reminds listeners the role Barack Obama and his associates played in it all.

Todd is also a world champion snow machine racer, winning the grueling Iron Dog, a 2274 mile endurance race though Alaska’s roughest terrain, and the championship, four times. This is the longest snow machine race in the world. Todd is a real racer and you can hear the passion for it in his voice.

Todd is a man of few words, but really opens up here.

The Undefeated DVD goes on sale Tuesday at WalMart and can also be seen on pay-per-view.

Audio courtesy SarahNet.

Stephen K. Bannon The Victory Sessions With Chuck Heath, Jr. [Sarah Palin’s Brother]

By Gary P Jackson

A great interview with Sarah Palin’s brother from last week. Chuck Heath, Jr and Stephen K Bannon spend a lot of time talking about what it was like to grow up in the Heath family, and what a young Sarah Palin was like. Most definitely worth a listen.

Click here for the audio

Sarah Palin “The Undefeated” Coming To The Big Screen Near You

By Gary P Jackson

Well, this should end any speculation about a 2012 run. One of the big efforts that has been going for the past couple of years is to combat the corrupt media and the lies they love to tell about Sarah Palin, her family, and anyone connected to her. Independent sites have done a good job, and the newly re-vamped SarahPAC website has an entire “setting the record straight” section.

Sarah’s two best selling books, Going Rogue and America By Heart were heavy in both policy statements as well as record setting, as was Stephen Mansfield’s The Faith and Values of Sarah Palin. Conservatives bought these books in record numbers, and millions learned about the real Sarah Palin. The one supporters have known for years.

Now we have breaking news that a major effort to re-introduce Sarah Palin to the nation, and the world will be hitting Iowa, South Carolina, and then theators nationwide starting in June.

Scott Conroy of Real Clear Politics has written a lengthy report on the project, how it came to be, and what it’s all about. This combined with Sarah Palin’s ability to connect one on one with the American people, as she has been doing since 2008, should have the GOP establishment hacks and Team Obama losing a lot of sleep between now and November 2012.

Palin’s Secret Weapon: New Film to Premiere in June

Shortly after Republicans swept last November to a historic victory in which Sarah Palin was credited with playing a central role, the former Alaska governor pulled aside her close aide, Rebecca Mansour, to discuss a hush-hush assignment: Reach out to conservative filmmaker Stephen K. Bannon with a request. Ask him if he would make a series of videos extolling Palin’s governorship and laying to rest lingering questions about her controversial decision to resign from office with a year-and-a-half left in her first term. It was this abdication, Palin knew, that had made her damaged goods in the eyes of some Republicans who once were eager to get behind her potential 2012 presidential campaign.

The response was more positive than Palin could have hoped for. He’d make a feature-length movie, Bannon told Mansour, and he insisted upon taking complete control and financing it himself — to the tune of $1 million

The fruits of that initial conversation are now complete. The result is a two-hour-long, sweeping epic, a rough cut of which Bannon screened privately for Sarah and Todd Palin last Wednesday in Arizona, where Alaska’s most famous couple has been rumored to have purchased a new home. When it premieres in Iowa next month, the film is poised to serve as a galvanizing prelude to Palin’s prospective presidential campaign — an unconventional reintroduction to the nation that she and her political team have spent months eagerly anticipating, even as Beltway Republicans have largely concluded that she won’t run.

Bannon, a former naval officer and ex-Goldman Sachs banker, sees his documentary as the first step in Palin’s effort to rebuild her image in the eyes of voters who may have soured on her, yet might reconsider if old caricatures begin to fade. The film will also appeal to staunch Palin supporters who have long celebrated her biting rhetoric and conservative populism yet know little about her record in Alaska and have perhaps written her off as presidential material.

“This film is a call to action for a campaign like 1976: Reagan vs. the establishment,” Bannon told RealClearPolitics. “Let’s have a good old-fashioned brouhaha.”

RealClearPolitics was recently given an exclusive screening of a rough cut of the now finished film, which Bannon designed, in part, to help catapult Palin from the presidential afterthought she has become in the eyes of many pundits directly to the front lines of the 2012 GOP conversation.

Palin initially learned about Bannon’s work after she saw one of his previous films about the origins of the tea party movement, “Generation Zero,” which premiered last year in Nashville and was later aired in prime time on the Fox News Channel. Impressed, Palin promoted “Generation Zero” via Twitter before later reaching out to Bannon about creating something to highlight her record in Alaska, where her performance in office was overshadowed by her resignation eight months after the 2008 presidential election.

Though she did not have any editorial role in the project, Palin facilitated access for Bannon and his film crew to key Alaskan defenders who were involved with the major achievements of her administration, and the filmmaker spent several weeks in the 49th state gathering archival film and conducting research and interviews for the project. He and his team took extraordinary measures to keep their endeavor secret.

When they requested from Alaska’s TV news stations footage that was shot during Palin’s political rise, they asked for additional tapes containing subject matters that were irrelevant to their project, in order not to raise suspicions. And rather than staying at the well-appointed Hotel Captain Cook in Anchorage, they instead took up temporary residence in low-key motels.

“We shot on the weekends, and we shot in locations that weren’t being used during those weekends,” Bannon said. “I did it with a handpicked crew of people I know and trust, and we were able to stay under the radar. The planning for the secrecy of this took many, many weeks.”

Bannon originally titled his film “Take a Stand,” which was the campaign slogan for Palin’s 2006 gubernatorial run when she defeated incumbent Republican Frank Murkowski in the primary before cruising in the general election to become Alaska’s youngest — and first female — chief executive. But in order to give it a more triumphant punch, the filmmaker changed the title to “The Undefeated.”

Bannon acquired the audio rights to Palin’s 2009 bestseller, “Going Rogue,” and the former vice-presidential nominee’s voice guides the film through the various stages of her career in Alaska.

Although Palin is not interviewed directly, the film features on-camera interviews and commentaries from 10 Alaskans who played different roles in her political rise, as well as six Lower 48 denizens who defend her in more visceral terms, including prominent conservative firebrands Mark Levin, Andrew Breitbart and Tammy Bruce.

Divided into three acts, the film makes the case that despite the now cliched label, Palin was indeed a maverick who confronted the powerful forces lined up against her to achieve wide-ranging success in a short period of time. The second part of the film’s message is just as clear, if more subjective: that Sarah Palin is the only conservative leader who can both build on the legacy of the Reagan Revolution and bring the ideals of the tea party movement to the Oval Office.

Rife with religious metaphor and unmistakable allusions to Palin as a Joan of Arc-like figure, “The Undefeated” echoes Palin’s “Going Rogue” in its tidy division of the world between the heroes who are on her side and the villains who seek to thwart her at every turn.

To convey Bannon’s view of the pathology behind Palin-hatred, the film begins with a fast-paced sequence of clips showing some of the prominent celebrities who have used sexist, derogatory and generally vicious language to describe her.

Rosie O’Donnell, Matt Damon, Bill Maher, David Letterman, and Howard Stern all have brief cameos before comedian Louis C.K. goes off on a particularly ugly anti-Palin riff.

“I hate her more than anybody,” C.K. says at the end of his tirade, the rest of which is unfit to print here.

Bannon intends to release two versions of the film. An unrated edition will contain some obscene anti-Palin language and imagery, while the other is targeted to a general audience and will seek a PG-13 rating from the Motion Picture Association of America.

The Making of a Politician

After a brief interlude featuring some old Palin family home video footage, Act 1 begins with Sarah as narrator, recalling the Exxon Valdez spill in 1989, when she was a young pregnant wife married to a blue-collar husband working on the North Slope.

“I hadn’t yet envisioned running for elected office,” Palin says in the audio taken from “Going Rogue,” as images of the environmental disaster unfold on the screen. “But looking back, I could see that tragedy planted a seed in me. If I ever had a chance to serve my fellow citizens, I would do so.”

Over the next hour, the crux of the narrative is taken over by Palin’s Alaska backers, with former spokesperson Meg Stapleton and attorney Tom Van Flein leading the charge. Other more unfamiliar faces who uphold Palin’s Alaska legacy include former Wasilla Deputy Mayor Judy Patrick, former gas pipeline adviser Marty Rutherford, longtime confidantes Kristan Cole and Judy Patrick, and former state Sen. Gene Therriault — one of the few Alaska legislators who has remained vocal and consistent in his praise of Palin.

The recounting of Palin’s earliest years in public office relies on a treasure trove of rare and never-before-seen video obtained by Bannon, including shots of Palin breaking ground on a construction project with her fellow Wasilla City Councilors, waving signs for her mayoral reelection campaign, and reacting acidly to a comment made by John Stein — her predecessor in the mayor’s office and one of the film’s villains, who compared her to a “Spice Girl.”

As the documentary transitions to Palin’s ascent to statewide office, it dramatizes the culture of corruption that permeated Alaska, with images of fat men smoking cigars in dark rooms and the infamous Suite 604 at the Baranof Hotel in Juneau, where the FBI secretly videotaped executives of the oil services company VECO in a corruption scandal that would shake the foundations of Alaska government just as Palin was making a name for herself as an ethics crusader.

“The Undefeated” conveys the dramatic extent to which Palin’s world has changed in just a few years, as it shows her announcing her gubernatorial campaign not at a massive rally but at a sparsely attended press conference in her kitchen. Those unfamiliar with Palin’s political background will be surprised to learn that the woman who has become one of the nation’s most boisterous press critics was once such a media darling that two of the Alaska TV news correspondents whose highly favorable reports are shown in the film ended up leaving their jobs to join the Palin administration.

Palin’s charisma has in recent years often been overshadowed by the more unforgiving side of her personality, but one scene from the film illustrates how she has long used her personal charm to disarm and discombobulate her competitors.

“Oh, this will be fun,” Palin says to her soon-to-be vanquished Democratic gubernatorial opponent, Tony Knowles, during a brief encounter in Anchorage on primary night in 2006. Knowles remains speechless, while Palin smiles and adds an “Oh, golly” for good measure.

Mining the ‘Maverick‘ Label

Palin’s stint as a hard-charging reformer in Juneau won her approval ratings that consistently topped 80 percent and made her the most popular governor in America, catching the eye of the McCain campaign. It was the “maverick” label that piqued McCain’s interest in 2008 — far more than Palin’s supposed purity on social issues — just as it does the filmmaker’s.

The movie focuses on Palin’s triumphs on fiscal and energy matters, while ignoring hot-button topics like abortion. Indeed, although she was always identified as a staunch social conservative, Palin often worked more closely with Democrats than Republicans in Juneau and largely avoided ideological fights during her first two years in office.

Yet Palin the Fighter is an ever-present theme in the documentary; one of its most memorable moments occurs when Meg Stapleton recalls an encounter at the Fairbanks airport when Palin literally stared down an oil executive who told her, “You don’t know who you’re messing with.”

There a lot more to the story, read it here.