newsminer.com

As Gov. Palin criticized the Senate majority today for cutting up her capital budget, she heaped praise on the Senate minority and its leader, Sen. Gene Therriault of North Pole.

Palin held a spur-of-the-moment news conference this afternoon that was partly about the new gas pipeline resolutions and partly about the capital budget, which the Senate was debating one floor below. The Senate Finance Committee had stripped out hundreds of millions of dollars worth of projects the governor had requested -- things she and her administration described as common-sense state needs -- and Palin was mad.

"If Alaskans knew what was going on in this building today, they would be outraged," she said.

Palin added that Therriault and the other minority members (there are 5 in all) were acting "heroically" on the floor -- "albeit ineffective, but heroically."

Minority members offered dozens of amendments over the course of multiple hours, with the debate dragging on like a filibuster. Almost all of the amendments were voted down 15-5.