(post slightly edited, with changes to ordering)
Update by Juan Melli. Kathy has provided some clarification:
I used a figure of speech that might be confusing for readers and I want to clarify: By December 18 I got all of my donations back.I happily donated $2,000. They had my VISA card on file. Unauthorized donations were made.In addition, I was actually double charged for an event that I did attend.Smoking gun: $5,800 is $1,200 over the legal limit.I would say this in a court of law. I am an honest person...the following statement is true down to the letter:Matt McQuenney who works in the compliance department at HRC headquarters told me verbatim -"What happened to you with credit card errors is happening to others,. You are not alone. Kathy, I'm trying hard to find out where and who it's coming from. What's going on!"
I happily donated $2,000. They had my VISA card on file. Unauthorized donations were made.
In addition, I was actually double charged for an event that I did attend.
Smoking gun: $5,800 is $1,200 over the legal limit.
I would say this in a court of law. I am an honest person...the following statement is true down to the letter:
Matt McQuenney who works in the compliance department at HRC headquarters told me verbatim -"What happened to you with credit card errors is happening to others,. You are not alone. Kathy, I'm trying hard to find out where and who it's coming from. What's going on!"
I voluntarily left the Hillary Finance Committee after I discovered more than $3,000 in unauthorized charges from HRC campaign on my own VISA card! And that set off a wave of overdrafts and $400 in bank charges that I was stuck with. And the compliance officer Allison Wright at Hillary VA headquarters refused to reimburse me for the charges. And the senior finance reps who I notified about more than $3,000 in unauthorized Visa Charges never once aplogized or empathized with my plight, much less sent me a "sorry for all the trouble" note and a check!
Unbelievably, it took me more than a month of pleading and begging via email to get the money back. I was told verbatim:
"Kathy Callahan, you are going to be with us all the way to the White House...So let's leave the money where it is and we'll save time on inevitable future donations and transactions!"
I went into a state of abject shock, disbelief and later anger! Heartbroken. I didn't want to report this entirely correctable problem to anyone outside the Hillary campaign! One long month later, and at the behest of a bank executive who said to me a few days before Christmas Eve, "You are way way way over the legal donor limit, Kathy! What are they thinking? Are they thinking at all?"
So I followed his direction and filed a police report in Ridgefield. I then notified Allison Wright and Cc'ed senior finance reps (who I met many times) via email again about the police report and said, "Enough is Enough, already! Christmas is coming!"
It was then and only then and within a matter of seconds that I got a cell phone call and email from Allison Wright imploring me, "Kathy, please don't do anything, formally! I will send you whatever you want back, immediately!" I told her, "You can send all of my money back!"
Finally, $5,300 large came back to me but not the $400 in overdraft charges. And to think that the legal limit during the primary is $2,300 and I had already generously and enthusiastically donated $2,000 to Hillary legitimately! I don't know why so much chaos and stalling ensued when $5, 800 on their books is a huge red flag...and certainly not my fault!
The Hillary Finance Director knew how much I earned as I was fully VETTED. And I talked to her every other day about the sacrifices that I was making for a year and a once in a lifetime opportunity providing counseling and life saving Psychological-CPR self care strategies to HIV Positive kids, teens, parents and adults at a Catholic Healthcare Institution! My motto is: Yes You Can Access Your Own Hidden Abilities! And they did!
I had no other choice but to walk away from the Hillary campaign! And I am so glad that I did. Every cloud has a green, gold and silver lining. And in my case it's Barack Obama. When one door closes (or slams shut) another door opens!
-Kathy Callahan, MSW, NJ LCSW, MASS LICSW
[linda wrote about writting in Obamas name if HRC wins nomination]
So don't play their game, PLAY OURS -- it has brought us this far and will take us home to the goal!
The Democratic presidential primary campaign began around Christmas 2006, and it may end Tuesday night. But of all the days between then and now, the most important was Nov. 10, 2007.
David Brooks
On that day, the Democratic Party of Iowa held its Jefferson-Jackson dinner and invited the candidates to speak. There were thousands of Democrats sitting around tables on the floor of the Veterans Memorial Auditorium in Des Moines, and rowdy thousands more up in the stands.
Hillary Clinton gave a rousing partisan speech. Standing on a stage in the middle of the arena with her arms spread and her voice rising, she welcomed the next president and declared: “We are here tonight to make sure that next president is a Democrat!”
She described how change was going to come about in this country: through fighting. She used the word “fight” or “fought” 15 times in one passage of the speech, fighting for health care, fighting for education and women’s rights. Then she vowed to “turn up the heat” on Republicans. “They deserve all the heat we can give them!” she roared.
Finally, she described the presidency. It’s a demanding job, she suggested, that requires fortitude, experience and mettle. The next president will bear enormous burdens, she continued. The president’s job is to fight for people who feel invisible and can’t help themselves.
Clinton rode the passion of the crowd and delivered an energetic battle cry. And in many elections that sort of speech, delivered around the country, would clinch the nomination.
But this is a country in the midst of a crisis of authority, a country that has become disillusioned not only with one president, but with a whole system of politics. It’s a country that has lost faith not only with one institution, but with the entire set of leadership institutions. The cultural context, in other words, allowed for a much broader critique, a much more audacious vocabulary.
And Barack Obama leapt right in.
He spoke after 11 p.m. The crowd had been sitting for four hours. In the previous months, Obama had been criticized for being bland on the stump. But this night, he unleashed a zealous part of himself that has propelled his candidacy ever since.
His first big subject was belief itself. Instead of waging a partisan campaign as Clinton had just done, he vowed to address “not just Democrats, but Republicans and independents who’ve lost trust in their government but want to believe again.”
Then he made a broader attack on the political class, and without mentioning her, threw Clinton in with the decrepit old order. “The same old Washington textbook campaigns just won’t do,” he said, in a now familiar line. He said it was time to “finally tackle problems that George Bush made far worse but that had festered long before George Bush ever took office — the problems that we’ve talked about year after year after year.”
Obama sketched out a different theory of social change than the one Clinton had implied earlier in the evening. Instead of relying on a president who fights for those who feel invisible, Obama, in the climactic passage of his speech, described how change bubbles from the bottom-up: “And because that somebody stood up, a few more stood up. And then a few thousand stood up. And then a few million stood up. And standing up, with courage and clear purpose, they somehow managed to change the world!”
For people raised on Jane Jacobs, who emphasized how a spontaneous dynamic order could emerge from thousands of individual decisions, this is a persuasive way of seeing the world. For young people who have grown up on Facebook, YouTube, open-source software and an array of decentralized networks, this is a compelling theory of how change happens.
Clinton had sounded like a traditional executive, as someone who gathers the experts, forges a policy, fights the opposition, bears the burdens of power, negotiates the deal and, in crisis, makes the decision at 3 o’clock in the morning.
But Obama sounded like a cross between a social activist and a flannel-shirted software C.E.O. — as a nonhierarchical, collaborative leader who can inspire autonomous individuals to cooperate for the sake of common concerns.
Clinton had sounded like Old Politics, but Obama created a vision of New Politics. And the past several months have revolved around the choice he framed there that night. Some people are enthralled by the New Politics, and we see their vapors every day. Others think it is a mirage and a delusion. There’s only one politics, and, tragically, it’s the old kind, filled with conflict and bad choices.
Hillary Clinton has fought on with amazing resilience since then, and Tuesday night may well bring another surprise, but she’s always been the moon to his sun. That night in November, he defined the campaign.
the memo cnsnews.com
The memo was written by Joseph DeMora, who attended a meeting with Austan Goolsbee at the Canadian consulate in Chicago.
DeMora, summarizing the conversation with Goolsbee, wrote: "Noting anxiety among many U.S. domestic audiences about the U.S. economic outlook, Goolsbee candidly acknowledged the protectionist sentiment that has emerged, particularly in the Midwest, during the primary campaign. He cautioned that this messaging should not be taken out of context and should be viewed as more about political positioning than a clear articulation of policy plans."
Later in the memo, DeMora wrote: "As Obama continues to court the economic populist vote, particularly in upcoming contests like Ohio, we are likely to see a continuation of some of the messaging that hasn't played in Canada's favour, but this should continue to be viewed in the context in which it is delivered."
CTV, the Canadian television network, reported last week that Obama was playing both sides on NAFTA -- saying one thing publicly to please union voters in Ohio (yes, we'll renegotiate NAFTA), and something else privately (it's just campaign rhetoric) to ease Canadian concerns.
In a conversation with the Associated Press on Sunday, Goolsbee disputed DeMora's memo. He said that DeMora was not quoting him and had mischaracterized the conversation. Goolsbee specifically told the A.P. he did not use the phrase "it's more about political positioning than a clear articulation of policy plans."
However, Goolsbee admitted he did tell Canadian officials that Obama is not a protectionist. Goolsbee told the Associated Press he was trying to convey that Obama wants to strike a balance between free trade -- and labor and environmental protections.
==============================================
AP asked Goolsbee for clarification:
The memo [written by Canadian DeMora] obtained by the AP was widely distributed within the Canadian government. It is more than 1,300 words and covers many topics that DeMora said were discussed in the Feb. 8 "introductory meeting."
[It claimed]
Goolsbee "was frank in saying that the primary campaign has been necessarily domestically focused, particularly in the Midwest, and that much of the rhetoric that may be perceived to be protectionist is more reflective of political maneuvering than policy," the memo's introduction said.
[It characterized]
"On NAFTA, Goolsbee suggested that Obama is less about fundamentally changing the agreement and more in favour of strengthening/clarifying language on labour mobility and environment and trying to establish these as more `core' principles of the agreement."
[In rebuttal]
Goolsbee said that sentence is true and consistent with Obama's position. But he said other portions of the memo were inaccurate.
In a statement, the Canadian Embassy expressed regret on how the discussions have been interpreted.
The statement said "there was no intention to convey, in any way, that Senator Obama and his campaign team were taking a different position in public from views expressed in private, including about NAFTA."
Goolsbee said the visit lasted about 40 minutes, and perhaps two to three minutes were spent discussing NAFTA. He said the Canadians asked about Obama's position, and he replied about his interest in improving labor and environmental standards, and they raised some concerns that Obama sounds like a protectionist.
Goolsbee said he responded that Obama is not a protectionist, but that the Illinois senator tries to strike a balance between the economic struggles of working Americans and recognizing that free trade is good for the economy.
"That's a pretty ham-handed description of what I answered," Goolsbee said of the memo's description of "political positioning." "A: In no possible way was that a reference to NAFTA. And B: In no possible way was I inferring that he was going to introduce any policies that you should ignore and he had no intention of enacting. Those are both completely crazy."
AN APOLOGY
-----------------
News from the Embassy of Canada
Statement by the Canadian Embassy
Washington, D.C., March 3, 2008 — The Canadian Embassy and our Consulates General regularly contact those involved in all of the Presidential campaigns and, periodically, report on these contacts to interested officials. In the recent report produced by the Consulate General in Chicago, there was no intention to convey, in any way, that Senator Obama and his campaign team were taking a different position in public from views expressed in private, including about NAFTA. We deeply regret any inference that may have been drawn to that effect.
The people of the United States are in the process of choosing a new President and are fortunate to have strong and impressive candidates from both political parties. Canada will not interfere in this electoral process. We look forward, however, to working with the choice of the American people in further building an unparalleled relationship with a close friend and partner.
its the 2ed one down.
http://thinkonthesethings.wordpress.com/2008/03/01/video-hillary-clintons-jack-nicholson-ad/
