Nia Jones's Blog

Obama is Hip-Hop

Nia "Hussein" J. — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 04:23:03 EDT

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/barry-michael-cooper/when-politics-became-the_b_134733.html

The definition of Hip Hop has always been a political one: at the heart of democracy lies the aorta of free speech. Be it George Orwell, V.I. Lenin, Karl Marx, or Donald Oliver Soper shooting the gift (of gab) in London at Speaker's Corner of Hyde Park, or KRS-One and Chuck D voicing their opposition to Reaganomics and a Dickensian New York in the late '80s, or Jay-Z, Puff, and Kanye describing theirBrave Rich World from Gulfstream-V windows 40,000 feet above Monaco in rhythmic iambic pentameter, Hip Hop is the vox of the common man speaking to power.

FDR was Hip Hop: "There is nothing to fear but fear itself."

MLK was Hip Hop: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."

JFK was Hip Hop: "And so my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country."

RWR was Hip Hop: "The past few days when I've been at that window upstairs, I've thought a bit of the "shining city upon a hill"....And how stands the city on this winter night? More prosperous, more secure, and happier than it was eight years ago."

Bill Clinton is Hip Hop, too, but George Walker Bush embodies the flatline of Gangsta Rap: "Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised...Saddam Hussein and his sons must leave Iraq within 48 hours. Their refusal to do so will result in military conflict, commenced at a time of our choosing."

Barack Obama is the greatest MC of all time. The DNC's Master of Ceremony's skills of Moving the Crowd have never been more evident than on the night of August 28th, 2008 in Denver's Invesco Stadium. It was the night Barack Obama fulfilled Martin Luther King's dream, and accepted the Democratic National Party's nomination for President. I wonder what went through his mind before he took the stage that night. Was it Jigga, as Obama mentally scrolled through his list of detractors in the media and politics, who tried to clown him by deifying him?: "I never claimed to have wings on/I get my/by any means on/when there's a drought/get your umbrellas out/that's when I brainstorm."

Maybe it was Rakim in the earbuds of Obama's iPod: "I'm not a regular competitor/ first rhyme editor/ Melody arranger, poet, etcetera/ Extra events, the grand finale like bonus/I am the man they call the microphonist."

Or maybe it was just Barack Obama being Barack Obama on this most historic night, transforming rap into epos: "We cannot turn back. America, we cannot turn back. Not with so much work to be done. Not with so many children to educate. And so many veterans to care for. Not with an economy to fix. And cities to rebuild, and farms to save. Not with so many families to protect, and so many lives to mend. America we cannot turn back. We cannot walk alone...in America, our destiny is inextricably linked."

I don't know if John McCain is Hip Hop. I don't know if he or the Republican Party understands that it is the culture of Hip Hop that has directly -- and indirectly -- fueled the youth movement behind Barack Obama. Many have made this connection between Obama and Hip Hop, including the great New York Times columnist, Maureen Dowd, to a young Baltimore, Md. journalist by the name of Timothy Cooper.

Even Robin Williams said on Letterman a few weeks ago:

Obama running is wonderful. It's-initially it was very interesting with people being kind of afraid of going, 'You know, he's a very eloquent black man'. And some folks in Conneticut going, 'Well, he's a tan Kennedy'. But...what was their fear, though? Are they afraid that this very eloquent man will be elected President, and all of a sudden he takes the oath of office and goes, 'Yo what's up?!! (Williams grabbing his crotch in the b-boy style) Yo-yo-yo! Yo gonna keep it real! I'ma bring it home right now, no more of that Urkel stuff! I wanna introduce some members of my cabinet: this is Lil' Ray-Ray, Skinny G, Colin Powell, because he's bad! Keepin' it real!

The Gen-Y'ers have truly made the connection between Barack Obama and Hip Hop. They are his advance team on Facebook, My Space, and Friendster, an army of Millennials that has assisted the Obama campaign in raising hundreds of millions of dollars online. For this new paradigm--young white kids (and Asian, Latino, African-American, and multi-racial kids, too)--the culture of Hip Hop allowed them to embrace a black man without fear, suspicion, or loathing. These same Gen-Y'ers will go to a Jay-Z concert and know all the words to "Regrets" or "Lost Ones." Michael Phelps motored Beijing's Olympic blue cube -- stoked by the fires of Lil' Wayne lyrics playing in his head -- en route to a record eight gold medals. These same Millennials are also educating their parents around the breakfast and dinner table, letting them know that the Baby Boomer version of the American Dream, the Woodstock, flower power, peace, love, and Haight-Ashbury, has grown up in Eminem's 8 Mile of Detroit, Snoop Dogg's Long Beach, and Common's South Side of Chicago. Their world may not be a ghetto, but the Millennials have broadbanded it into their very own 3-G global 'hood. Which, incidentally, is Obama's hood, too.

So I don't know if John McCain is Hip Hop. Last week, with McCain and Sarah Palin -- the Charli Baltimore of the G.O.P. -- and their operatives flashing the political gang signs to their conservative base ("Terrorist", "Ayers", "Who is the real Barack Obama"?), The Straight Talk Express derailed into lyrics of David Bowie's "Candidate": "I'll make you a deal, like any other candidate/we'll pretend we're walking home 'cause your future's at stake...I'm having so much fun with the poisonous people/ spreading rumours and lies and stories they made up."

John McCain may be more Rock and Roll than Hip Hop, which --along with R&B-- was the Hip Hop of the '60s and '70s. The raison d'etre of John McCain seems to trapped between a pair of Bowie bookends: The Man Who Fell To Earth who joins forces with The Man Who Sold The World. No matter how much distance this heroic fighter pilot and former POW tries to put between George W. Bush -- who is on an unswerving, abominable path towards presiding over the most calamitous administration in American history -- McCain cannot escape the connection nor the facts. Wall Street continues to collapse. The ranks of the unemployed swell to hundreds of thousands every month. The war in Iraq, Afghanistan, and an increasingly unstable Pakistan seem to have no end in sight. Those are the facts, and so is this: life as we know it in this country is slowly rotting away. And that's not Hip Hop. That's the discord of an apocalypse. And -- quite possibly -- as Sen. John S. McCain may find out at the end of the last and final debate with Barack Obama on Wednesday at Hofstra University, his campaign's swan song.

The Book of Phalin...er...Palin

Nia "Hussein" J. — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 04:17:18 EDT

http://www.villagevoice.com/2008-10-08/news/the-book-of-sarah/5

By Wayne Barrettpublished: October 08, 2008

Along with the winks and folksy "doggone" moments early in her debate with Joe Biden last week, Sarah Palin repeated her familiar claim to the title of "maverick," declaring that "as a governor and as a mayor," she's had a "track record of reform" and has now "joined a team of mavericks."

Despite the free fall that her polling numbers went into after her disastrous interviews with Katie Couric, that branding as a "reformer" has been resilient. Introduced skillfully before tens of millions during an intense surge of interest six weeks ago, it's been hammered home with repeated soundbites.

But the label doesn't hold up under close scrutiny. From the controversy that catapulted her to the governorship, to her ties to the indicted patriarch of Alaska's GOP, to the multilayered nexus of lobbyists and Big Oil interests around her, and, finally, to the Wasilla sports complex that capped her mayoral career, the myth of Sarah Palin, reformer, withers under inspection.

PALIN'S CLAIM to fame as an Alaska reformer—that she risked her career to expose the chairman of the state GOP—is revisionist. In fact, Palin supported the methane-drilling project that helped sink GOP boss Randy Ruedrich before she later decided she was against it—a mirror of her flip-flop on the infamous Bridge to Nowhere. And her reversal had more to do with seizing a political opportunity than following her conscience.

In 2003, Ruedrich, an oil executive known for his ability to raise industry contributions for the party, was appointed to the powerful Alaska Oil & Gas Conservation Commission (OGCC) by Governor Frank Murkowski at the same time as Palin, who had finished her second term as Wasilla mayor the year before. Murkowski had given Palin the plum position to compensate for overlooking her when he appointed his own daughter Lisa to the U.S. Senate seat he vacated when he was elected governor in 2002. Palin's near-win in the Republican primary for lieutenant governor earlier that year—losing to the first Alaskan of native ancestry ever elected to state office—had made her a statewide star. She had filmed commercials and stumped for Frank Murkowski that fall, so he owed her. But she rejected other top posts that he offered until she got the one she wanted—a position that allowed her to live at home and commute to Anchorage, rather than relocate to Juneau. She certainly also saw the commission appointment as a stepping-stone, and as late as October 2003, she told reporters that she was considering a race against Lisa Murkowski in the upcoming 2004 special senate election.

When Murkowski made Palin the $122,400 chairwoman of the OGCC, one of her jobs was to oversee commission ethics, meaning she was charged with reporting any possible ethics violations by staff or commission members to the governor's office. By her own account, she first did that in September 2003, reaching out to a top Murkowski staffer about Ruedrich. But what she complained about then, according to a source familiar with these conversations, was Ruedrich's party business on state time. She said nothing about his blatant championing of a methane-drilling project by a company called Evergreen Resources—even though she'd witnessed it herself at a standing-room-only community meeting in August. Palin and Ruedrich went to the meeting because the commission had oversight powers over the drilling, and homeowners in the Wasilla area where she was once mayor were up in arms over the effects they feared it would have on their property and drinking water.

Chris Whittington-Evans, chair of the citizens' group that helped organize the meeting, says that Ruedrich presented a slideshow very similar to one the company itself had presented at any earlier session. Palin remained quiet through most of the meeting, though Evans recalls that she was questioned about a possible conflict of interest she might have. Palin was then chairing the campaign committee of a pro-Evergreen candidate for Borough Mayor of Mat-Su, the county that includes Wasilla. The candidate, Charlie Fannon, her former police chief, had taken $2,500 in donations from three Evergreen executives and a consultant, though community outrage eventually forced him to return some of the money. Ruedrich had given Fannon $500.

The same three executives had also just given $1,747 to Palin's 2002 campaign for lieutenant governor. In fact, with the low campaign-finance limits in Alaska, Evergreen was the second-largest giver to both Palin and Fannon. While still mayor, Palin had backed an Evergreen-designed bill that allowed the state to override local objections to the drilling and permitted an ordinance—introduced by her closest ally on the city council authorizing methane extraction—to become law. But the focus of the question at the community meeting was Fannon. Palin had asked Fannon to run and had filmed an ad for him. He was the only candidate she'd ever contributed to—and her father contributed as well. Evans says he found it odd when she insisted that there was no conflict between backing "a big promoter of methane-drilling" and sitting in judgment on the project.

That's what Tim Anderson, the Borough Mayor who beat Fannon and opposed the drilling, says now as well: "You could say that it was a conflict of interest" for Palin to be on the commission and supporting Fannon. Anderson was also at the August meeting and says that Palin sat up front with Ruedrich and Evergreen. "They were trying to convince the people that drilling underneath their homes wasn't a big problem." Fannon's narrow loss to Anderson, wrote the local newspaper The Frontiersman, confirmed the political potency of the methane issue. In early November, Evans sent Palin an e-mail detailing the case against Ruedrich and demanding that he be fired from the commission. Palin finally acted, forwarding the Evans e-mail to the state's attorney general. Two days later, Ruedrich resigned.

A few days after Ruedrich's resignation, Palin searched his commission e-mail and found damaging evidence of his ties to Evergreen and his party abuse of the commission. For reasons she has never explained, she took a month to send those e-mails to the attorney general. In that intervening time, she talked twice to the attorney general's office, and her own subsequent notes indicated that she expressed "concerns" about whether a continuing investigation was needed, since Ruedrich had already stepped down.

By the time she finally forwarded the e-mails, which were very damaging to Evergreen as well, the company had dumped its top Wasilla-based executive and had begun to withdraw from its Alaska adventure. A couple of weeks later, she surprised everyone and resigned herself, attributing it later to the dilatory response she was getting from state officials. In fact, when she quit, she had given the officials less time to act after getting the e-mails than she'd taken to send them.

Michelle Church, who was the director of the same citizens' group that Evans chaired, believes that Palin was "definitely supportive of the drilling" and "opportunistic" when she switched and went after Evergreen and Ruedrich. "It really strengthened her support in the community," recalls Church, who was elected to the Mat-Su assembly as a result of the methane controversy. "She turned on them because it was to her political advantage to do so." The target was the governorship.

When she resigned from the commission in January 2004, Palin was simply trying to decide which Murkowski she would challenge—Lisa for U.S. Senate, or Frank for the governorship. Lisa Murkowski had a couple million in the bank, while the governor's campaign kitty was strangely barren. Frank Murkowski's nepotism, proposed sales tax, and elimination of a longevity bonus for seniors—all of which happened before Palin took Ruedrich on—had depressed his approval ratings so badly that many thought he wouldn't seek re-election. Palin wrote an op-ed in the Anchorage Daily News in April 2004, reliving her days as basketball point guard "Sarah Barracuda" and lauding the good competition of public life. But a week later, she announced that she would not run against Lisa Murkowski, attributing it to her son Track, who she said opposed it. Then she set her sights on the governorship. When Murkowski, the oldest governor in America at 73, finally did decide in May 2006 to run again, Palin had already been an announced candidate for seven months, perfectly positioned as his reform nemesis. He spent a third of what he did in 2002 and lost badly.

SARAH PALIN'S MAVERICK image flies in the face of her longtime ties to the Republican patriarch of Alaska politics, Senator Ted Stevens, who is on trial in Washington for taking $250,000 in gifts from VECO, an oil-services company that was once Palin's biggest donor. Palin remained nominally neutral in the recent GOP primary, shunning two Republicans who tried to give the already-indicted Stevens a serious challenge. Her chief of staff, Mike Tibbles, left his state post to become Stevens's campaign manager, and she did a press conference with Stevens shortly before the vote. (Tibbles's wife is still a top appointee in Palin's administration.) A Stevens campaign consultant, Art Hackney, says: "She has campaigned with him, and they are enjoying a good relationship." Asked on a visit to New York recently if she was supporting Stevens's re-election, Palin replied that his trial had just started. "We'll see where that goes," said Palin, who forced the resignation of Ruedrich and another top Murkowski aide on ethics charges that never came close to reaching the level of an indictable offense.

Vic Vickers, a wealthy banker who ran against Stevens in the GOP primary and spent $700,000 of his own money, tells the Voice that Palin and Stevens "are very close" and that the two organizations "merged to defeat my candidacy." While Palin has called for the resignation of Stevens's son Ben as national committeeman, Vickers said that "vicious attacks" against him were "coming out of her office" during the primary. "They just torched me in the end," the anti-Bush and anti-war Republican said. Dave Cuddy, a more conventional Republican and former legislator who also challenged Stevens in the primary, said he reached out to Palin: "We did call, and we played telephone tag. I think she was uncomfortable. She didn't support me because she thought that I was not going to win."

Palin's ties to Stevens go back nearly a decade, when she retained Stevens's former chief of staff, Steve Silver, as the Washington lobbyist for Wasilla. He opened doors for her on lobbying trips to Washington for earmarks. Silver's firm was so tied to Stevens that it also included the senator's former counsel and, according to registration forms, his son. It also lobbied for Ketchikan Gateway Borough, the beneficiary of Stevens's pork-barrel favorite, the since-killed Bridge to Nowhere, as well as for the Alaska Knik Arm Bridge and Toll Authority, sponsor of the second Nowhere Bridge that's still alive and runs near Palin's house. Ironically, the firm was also so tight with Frank Murkowski that it was Murkowski's since-convicted top aide, Jim Clark, who once headed its lobbying unit and brought Silver aboard.

But one Stevens law firm wasn't enough for Palin. She hired the firm that included Stevens's brother-in-law, Bill Bittner, as counsel to the city, ultimately steering hundreds of thousands in payments to it, much of it associated with a costly lawsuit sparked by a Palin development decision. Bittner, who has engineered real-estate investments for Stevens, also rented an apartment to the state for Murkowski's use whenever he visited Anchorage. A year after Palin stepped down as mayor, she was one of three incorporators of a nonprofit called the Ted Stevens Excellence in Public Service Committee that he helped establish to support Republican women.

It's unclear why Bill Allen, the VECO president who has pled guilty to bribery charges and is expected to testify against Stevens, became such a large Palin donor in 2002. His contributions and bribes were usually connected to his business interests, and he had none in Wasilla. News accounts in Alaska indicate that in 2001, Palin drove from Wasilla to Allen's home in faraway Cook Inlet. Allen, other VECO executives, and their wives then gave Palin's campaign committee $5,000, contributing $500 apiece over a two-day period in late December.

No one else in Palin's underfinanced bid for lieutenant governor came close to VECO. Virtually the same group of executives repeated the pattern in 2003—giving $1,600 to Charlie Fannon's campaign committee, chaired by Palin. No one seemed to mind that the Alaska Public Offices Commission had collected the largest fine in its history ($28,000) from VECO who were paying employees to make illegal campaign contributions. In the current VECO scandals, which have already led to the convictions of several state legislators, it's clear that VECO continued the practice of reimbursing the campaign donations of its executives. Palin's lieutenant governor, Sean Parnell, who recently did a Fox News Sunday appearance on her behalf, collected $16,000 in VECO contributions as a state legislator.

JOHN McCAIN AND Palin share at least one common bond beyond their self-proclaimed independence: They're both very comfortable with lobbyists. Sean Parnell—who is running Alaska's government while Palin travels and is so trusted that he was one of only three Alaskans named to the national campaign's truth squad for Palin—was a lobbyist in the Anchorage office of the legendary Washington firm, Patton Boggs, before he was elected with Palin. Ironically, one of the charges in the eventual ethics complaint against Ruedrich was that he'd sent numerous e-mails to Evergreen's lobbyist, Kyle Parker, a Patton Boggs partner. Ruedrich admitted that he had even leaked a confidential commission memo on the methane controversy to Parker. Ruedrich was reporting at the time to Kevin Jardell, an assistant commissioner of administration who oversaw the commission. Jardell had lived for months in Ruedrich's home while he worked with Parker representing the state GOP in a reapportionment case, hired by Patton Boggs, which was the party's outside counsel.

This intertwining of interests was exposed when all the details of the Ruedrich scandal hit the headlines in 2004. Parnell was then Murkowski's deputy director of Oil & Gas. Undeterred by Patton's reputation, Parnell left his state job in 2005 to join the firm, where he soon had his own oil clients. Before joining the Murkowski administration, he had been the in-house lobbyist for ConocoPhillips. Parnell's bio makes him an odd choice to lead a truth squad—having moved from the state senate to an oil company, then back to a state oil job, and finally, becoming an outside lobbyist for oil interests while running for lieutenant governor.

Even closer to Palin than Parnell is the Alaskan lobbyist whose firm topped the charts in earnings: Wendy Chamberlain. Palin lists Chamberlain on her personal-disclosure forms because Chamberlain took Palin's daughter Willow and her own daughter on a 2007 summer trip to a basketball camp in Mexico. Palin insisted on the form that she had reimbursed Chamberlain—the legislature had passed a bill that barred executives from taking gifts from lobbyists. A Washington Post story last week revealed that Chamberlain's clients have deluged Palin with gifts, including three, worth $2,650, from the chief executive of a mining company (Parnell used to represent the same firm, Calista). Todd Palin took two trips from other Chamberlain clients, though the lobbyist claims she had no idea her clients were so generous with her friend.

In fact, Chamberlain tried to minimize her relationship with Palin in a Voice interview ("I know her about the same as any other lobbyist"), though news clips describe Palin and Chamberlain together working the sidewalks for Frank Murkowski in the 2002 campaign. Chamberlain was then married to Eldon Mulder, a state legislator who now runs his own lobbying firm. "We first met Governor Palin many years ago," Mulder says, "when our daughters were in basketball camp together. About six to eight years ago."

Chamberlain acknowledged that back then, one of her firm's clients was VECO. Mulder collected $9,000 in VECO contributions from 1999 to 2001, and, according to press reports, he used his position as chair of the House Finance committee to push for a tax-break bill introduced at VECO's request by another legislator eventually convicted of taking payoffs from VECO. Mulder was accused by a third House member—also a Republican—of threatening to cut off state funds if he got in the way of the VECO bill. Chamberlain became a lobbyist two years after her husband was first elected to the House in 1992 and ran into problems three times with the ethics committee—mostly for using state offices and funds for her lobbying business. Once, she was sanctioned for "poor judgment" when her husband weakened a cruise-ship-pollution bill in the interests of a Chamberlain client. Mulder and Chamberlain's lobbying partner, former House Speaker Joe Hayes, contributed $1,500 to Palin in 2006.

One Chamberlain client, the Pebble Partnership, has fared so well with Palin that the governor spoke out against a state initiative that would have erected environmental obstacles to its proposed mining project. A state watchdog group whose members she appoints is now looking at whether Palin's highly unusual public opposition to a ballot issue—with her saying, "Let me take my governor's hat off" for a moment of "personal privilege"—violated state laws. Chamberlain pushed so hard against the initiative that other clients, like the Alaska Association of Realtors, decided to oppose it at an executive meeting she attended. Chamberlain's husband also lobbied for Pebble, and three other lobbyists recently tied to the partnership, one of whom is dating Palin's legislative director, donated $4,150 to her.

In her 2006 race, Palin received $24,000 in contributions from lobbyists, most of them tied to the oil industry.

EVEN PALIN'S most plausible claim—that she's taken on Big Oil—is at best a half-truth. She did hike their taxes and push through a natural-gas pipeline deal that, at least for now, has cut them out. But delegates weren't chanting "Drill, baby, drill" during her convention speech without reason. Shortly after she became governor, she was elected chair of the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission (IOGCC), a pro-industry coalition of 30 producer states. She soon tapped Michael Smith, who was assistant secretary of fossil energy at Bush's Energy Department, as its new executive director. Smith left the Abraham Group, the lobbying and consulting firm of former Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, to join IOGCC. Harper's Magazine said of Smith: "While in government, he pushed to promote oil drilling wherever a drop might be found"—and that was before Bush and McCain began pushing offshore drilling.

Smith isn't the only Palin connection to the most pro-oil administration in American history. One of her 2002 campaign treasurers, Hans Neidig, was named special assistant for Alaska in the Bush interior department. Neidig was selected by Drue Pearce, a former Alaska state senator now in charge of overseeing the federal role in the giant pipeline project. Pearce, a gushing Palin champion in recent news stories, joined in Palin's 2006 victory party.

Palin also selected Larry Hartig as state environmental-conservation commissioner, though Hartig's law firm, Hartig Rhodes, lists a dozen Alaska oil and drilling companies as clients, as well as a few mining companies. One well-known Hartig client, Halliburton Energy Services, has surprisingly extensive investments in the state—and even services the company that acquired Evergreen's Alaska interests. Another, Anadarko Petroleum, is owned by the 30th-largest corporate polluter in the country. Even Randy Ruedrich's onetime employer is a Hartig client, and the man Murkowski selected to replace Palin when she quit the Oil & Gas Commission in ostensible protest was a Hartig partner.

As commissioner, Hartig rushed to the aid last year of Shell when it ran into trouble getting offshore drilling permits from Bush's EPA. The onetime Evergreen lobbyist Kyle Parker actually e-mailed Hartig a draft letter for him to forward to an EPA appeals board, and Hartig obliged—altering the language but requesting an "expedited review" so "drilling can proceed this season." Palin has put Hartig in charge of the climate-change subcabinet she bragged about during the debate as well, suggesting that Carl Pope of the Sierra Club might not be far off when he declared: "No one is closer to the oil industry than Governor Palin."

Marathon Oil, a Wendy Chamberlain client and sponsor of Palin's inaugural, has already benefited from one unnoticed Palin decision—her support of an extension of a license that allows it and ConocoPhillips to continue exporting natural gas to Japan and other Asian countries. Palin championed this license though several gas users in Alaska objected that it would worsen the problem of declining gas reserves, and one, a major fertilizer-maker, shut its plant when the extension was granted, forcing 130 workers out of jobs. As frequently as Palin's lack of foreign-policy experience has been noted in the media, she has never cited her meeting with Japan's consul over gas issues, perhaps because it might appear inconsistent with her claim that Alaska is a bulwark of production for the U.S. itself.

Even Palin's ballyhooed pipeline is more a pipedream than it is the blow to Big Oil that Palin pretends it is. (Murkowski was about to award the deal to the oil giants when she beat him.) Two days after Palin's deal with TransCanada was approved, the company's chief executive, Hal Kvisle, repeated what he'd been saying all along: "Nothing goes ahead until Exxon is happy with it." While he was forced to pull back a bit from that moment of candor, his statement that "the five key players"—including TransCanada, the state, and three main producers—have to still "get together" and "craft something" is indisputably true.

All Palin has done is outsource the negotiations with the producers to TransCanada, who can conduct them very privately. She also offered the company a half-billion-dollar state bonus if it can get a deal going, though Palin's natural-resources commissioner, Tom Irwin, quit the Murkowski administration in part because it gave the producers financial incentives that he said were unnecessary. The only way Palin's pipeline becomes real (she claimed, absurdly, during the debate that the state was already "building" it) is if the producers, who have announced their own project now, are brought back into it—something, like Troopergate and her possible Pebble Mine violation, that won't be resolved until post-election.

THE $12.5 MILLION sports complex and hockey rink that is the lasting monument to Palin's two terms as Wasilla mayor is also a monument to the kind of insider politics that dismays Americans of both parties. Six months before Palin stepped down as mayor in October 2002, the city awarded nearly a half-million-dollar contract to design the biggest project in Wasilla history to Kumin Associates. Blase Burkhart was the Kumin architect on the job—the son of Roy Burkhart, who is frequently described as a "mentor" of Palin and was head of the local Republican Party (his wife, June, who also advised Palin, is the national committeewoman). Asked if the contract was a favor, Roy Burkhart, who contributed to her campaign in the same time frame that his son got the contract, said: "I really don't know." Palin then named Blase Burkhart to a seven-member builder-selection committee that picked Howdie Inc., a mostly residential contractor owned at the time by Howard Nugent. Formally awarded the contract a couple of weeks after Palin left office, Nugent has donated $4,000 to Palin campaigns. Two competitors protested the process that led to Nugent's contract. Burkhart and Nugent had done at least one project together before the complex—and have done several since.

A list of subcontractors on the job, obtained by the Voice, includes many with Palin ties. One was Spenard Builders Supply, the state's leading supplier of wood, floor, roof, and other "pre-engineered components." In addition to being a sponsor of Todd Palin's snow-machine team that has earned tens of thousands for the Palin family, Spenard hired Sarah Palin to do a statewide television commercial in 2004. When the Palins began building a new family home off Lake Lucille in 2002—at the same time that Palin was running for lieutenant governor and in her final months as mayor—Spenard supplied the materials, according to Antoine Bricks, who works in its Wasilla office. Spenard actually filed a notice "of its right to assert a lien" on the deed for the Palin property after contracting for labor and materials for the site. Spenard's name has popped up in the trial of Senator Stevens—it worked on the house that is at the center of the VECO scandal as well.

Todd Palin told Fox News that he built the two-story, 3,450-square-foot, four-bedroom, four-bath, wood house himself, with the help of contractors he described as "buddies." As mayor, Sarah Palin blocked an effort to require the filing of building permits in the wide-open city, and there is no public record of who the "buddies" were. The house was built very near the complex, on a site whose city purchase led to years of unsuccessful litigation and, now, $1.3 million in additional costs, with a law firm that's also donated to Palin collecting costly fees from the city.

Dorwin and Joanne Smith, the principals of complex subcontractor DJ Excavation & Development, have donated $7,100 to Palin and her allied candidate Charlie Fannon (Joanne is a Palin appointee on the state Board of Nursing). Sheldon Ewing, who owns another complex subcontractor, Weld Air, has donated $1,300, and PN&D, an engineering firm on the complex, has contributed $699.

Ewing was one of the few sports-complex contractors, aside from Spenard, willing to address the question of whether he worked on the house as well, but he had little to say: "I doubt that it occurred, but if it did indirectly, how would I know anyhow?" The odd timing of Palin's house construction—it was completed two months before she left City Hall and while she and Todd Palin were campaigning statewide for the first time—raises questions, especially considering its synergy with the complex.

Salon's David Talbot recently visited the complex, which, he said, resembled "a huge airplane hangar" so far away from the city's center that kids can't bike or walk there. It's adorned by a plaque commemorating Palin. Even as a governor, she is still such a champion of the complex—which loses money every year—that she just steered state funding for a new kitchen to it.

Ayers Issue Put to Rest...

Nia "Hussein" J. — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 04:02:39 EDT

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/790/

For most of the election, Sen. John McCain's campaign has been somewhat subtle about trying to tie Sen. Barack Obama to the former '60s radical William Ayers.

No longer. A 90-second Web ad released Oct. 8, 2008, features sinister music, side-by-side photographs of Obama and Ayers, and a series of dubious allegations about their past connections, including this one:

"Ayers and Obama ran a radical education foundation together."

Ayers was a founding member of the militant Vietnam-era anti-war group the Weathermen. He was investigated for his role in a series of domestic bombings, but the charges were dropped in 1974 due to prosecutorial misconduct. He is now an education professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and actively engaged in the city's civic life.

The McCain campaign said the "radical education foundation" to which they were referring is the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, a charity endowed by publishing magnate Walter Annenberg that funded public-school programs in Chicago from 1995 to 2001.

We'll look at whether the foundation was radical. But first we have to grapple with whether Obama and Ayers ran it.

Obama served on the foundation's volunteer board from its inception in 1995 through its dissolution in 2001, and was chair for the first four years. So an argument can be made that he ran it, though an executive director handled day-to-day operations.

Ayers, who received his doctorate in education from Columbia University in 1987 and is now a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, was active in getting the foundation up and running. He and two other activists led the effort to secure the grant from Annenberg, and he worked without pay in the early months of 1995, prior to the board's hiring of an executive director, to help the foundation get incorporated and formulate its bylaws, said Ken Rolling, who was the foundation's only executive director. Ayers went on to become a member of the "collaborative," an advisory group that advised the board of directors and the staff.

However, Ayers "was never on the board of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge," and he "never made a decision programmatically or had a vote," Rolling said.

"He (Ayers) was at board meetings — which, by the way, were open — as a guest," Rolling said. "That is not anything near Bill Ayers and Barack Obama running the Chicago Annenberg Challenge."

Now, was the foundation radical?

The McCain campaign cited several pieces of evidence for that allegation, including a 1995 invitation from the foundation for applications from schools "that want to make radical changes in the way teachers teach and students learn." The campaign appears to have confused two different definitions of the word "radical." Clearly the invitation referred to "a considerable departure from the usual or traditional," rather than "advocating extreme measures to retain or restore a political state of affairs."

The campaign also cited two projects the foundation funded, one having to do with a United Nations-themed Peace School and another that focused on African-American studies.

"That is radical in the eye of this campaign and we imagine in the eyes of most Americans," said Michael Goldfarb, a spokesman for McCain. "It is a subjective thing, and there are going to be people in Berkeley and Chicago who think that is totally legitimate."

Teaching about the United Nations and African-American studies may not be everyone's cup of tea, but it's hardly "radical" in the same way Ayers' Vietnam-era activities were. Moreover, most of the projects the foundation funded (more on that below) were not remotely controversial.

The McCain campaign also cited an opinion piece by conservative commentator Stanley Kurtz in the Sept. 23, 2008, Wall Street Journal as evidence of the foundation's radicalism. Kurtz wrote that Ayers was the "guiding spirit" of the foundation, and it "translated Mr. Ayers's radicalism into practice."

But Ayers' views on education, though certainly reform-oriented and left-of-center, are not considered anywhere near as radical as his Vietnam-era views on war. And even if they were, there was a long list of individuals involved with the Chicago Annenberg Challenge whose positions provided them far more authority over its direction than Ayers' advisory role gave him.

Let's look at a few, starting with the funder. Annenberg was a lifelong Republican and former ambassador to the United Kingdom under President Richard Nixon. His widow, Leonore, has endorsed McCain. Kurtz might just as plausibly have accused Obama and the foundation of "translating Annenberg's conservatism into practice."

Among the other board members who served with Obama were: Stanley Ikenberry, former president of the University of Illinois; Arnold Weber, former president of Northwestern University and assistant secretary of labor in the Nixon administration; Scott Smith, then publisher of the Chicago Tribune; venture capitalist Edward Bottum; John McCarter, president of the Field Museum; Patricia Albjerg Graham, former dean of the Harvard University Graduate School of Education, and a host of other mainstream folks.

"The whole idea of it being radical when it was this tie of blue-chip, white-collar, CEOs and civic leaders is just ridiculous," said the foundation's former development director, Marianne Philbin.

The foundation gave money to groups of public schools – usually three to 10 – who partnered with some sort of outside organization to improve their students' achievement.

In his opinion piece, Kurtz puts a sinister spin on this: "Instead of funding schools directly, it required schools to affiliate with 'external partners,' which actually got the money...CAC disbursed money through various far-left community organizers, such as the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (or ACORN)."

Rollings said the foundation tried to fund the schools directly, but doing so proved to be a "bureaucratic nightmare." But any external group that received money had to have created a program in partnership with a network of public schools.

And though ACORN is considered a liberal organization, the vast majority of the foundation's external partners were not remotely controversial. Here are a few examples: the Chicago Symphony, the University of Chicago, Loyola University, Northwestern University, the Chicago Children's Museum, the Museum of Science and Industry, the Field Museum, the Commercial Club of Chicago, the Garfield Park Conservatory Alliance and the Logan Square Neighborhood Association.

Had Kurtz chosen to accuse Obama of carrying water for the conservative Annenberg, he might have written: "CAC disbursed money to various business-friendly entities, such as the Museum of Science and Industry and the Commercial Club of Chicago."

See how easy it is?

The programs the foundation funded were designed to allow individuals from the "external partners" – whether the musicians in the symphony or the business leaders in the commercial club – to help improve student achievement. They were along the lines of mentoring by artists, literacy instruction, professional development for teachers and administrators, and training for parents in everything from computer skills to helping their children with homework to advocating for their children at school.

This last activity – something suburban parents practice with zeal – is also suspect in Kurtz's view: "CAC records show that board member Arnold Weber was concerned that parents 'organized' by community groups might be viewed by school principals 'as a political threat.'" That is typical of Kurtz's essay – relatively innocuous facts cast in the worst possible light. That's appropriate for an opinion piece, perhaps, but hardly grounds for a purportedly factual political ad accusing the group of radicalism.

We could go on and on with evidence that the Chicago Annenberg Challenge was a rather vanilla charitable group. For example, under the deal with Annenberg every dollar from him had to be matched by two from elsewhere. The co-funders were a host of respected, mainstream institutions, such as the National Science Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and the Chicago Public Schools.

In short, this was a mainstream foundation funded by a mainstream, Republican business leader and led by an overwhelmingly mainstream, civic-minded group of individuals. Ayers' involvement in its inception and on an advisory committee do not make it radical – nor does the funding of programs involving the United Nations and African-American studies.

This attack is false, but it's more than that – it's malicious. It unfairly tars not just Obama, but all the other prominent, well-respected Chicagoans who also volunteered their time to the foundation. They came from all walks of life and all political backgrounds, and there's ample evidence their mission was nothing more than improving ailing public schools in Chicago. Yet in the heat of a political campaign they have been accused of financing radicalism. That's Pants on Fire wrong.

The Source of the Obama Lies

Nia "Hussein" J. — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 01:56:49 EDT

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/13/us/politics/13martin.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&pagewanted=print

October 13, 2008The Man Behind the Whispers About Obama By JIM RUTENBERG

The most persistent falsehood about Senator Barack Obama’s background first hit in 2004 just two weeks after the Democratic convention speech that helped set him on the path to his presidential candidacy: “Obama is a Muslim who has concealed his religion.”

That statement, contained in a press release, spun a complex tale about the ancestry of Mr. Obama, who is Christian.

The press release was picked up by a conservative Web site, FreeRepublic.com, and spread steadily as others elaborated on its claims over the years in e-mail messages, Web sites and books. It continues to drive other false rumors about Mr. Obama’s background.

Just last Friday, a woman told Senator John McCain at a town-hall-style meeting, “I have read about him,” and “he’s an Arab.” Mr. McCain corrected her.

Until this month, the man who is widely credited with starting the cyberwhisper campaign that still dogs Mr. Obama was a secondary character in news reports, with deep explorations of his background largely confined to liberal blogs.

But an appearance in a documentary-style program on the Fox News Channel watched by three million people last week thrust the man, Andy Martin, and his past into the foreground. The program allowed Mr. Martin to assert falsely and without challenge that Mr. Obama had once trained to overthrow the government.

An examination of legal documents and election filings, along with interviews with his acquaintances, revealed Mr. Martin, 62, to be a man with a history of scintillating if not always factual claims. He has left a trail of animosity — some of it provoked by anti-Jewish comments — among political leaders, lawyers and judges in three states over more than 30 years.

He is a law school graduate, but his admission to the Illinois bar was blocked in the 1970s after a psychiatric finding of “moderately severe character defect manifested by well-documented ideation with a paranoid flavor and a grandiose character.”

Though he is not a lawyer, Mr. Martin went on to become a prodigious filer of lawsuits, and he made unsuccessful attempts to win public office for both parties in three states, as well as for president at least twice, in 1988 and 2000. Based in Chicago, he now identifies himself as a writer who focuses on his anti-Obama Web site and press releases.

Mr. Martin, in a series of interviews, did not dispute his influence in Obama rumors.

“Everybody uses my research as a takeoff point,” Mr. Martin said, adding, however, that some take his writings “and exaggerate them to suit their own fantasies.”

As for his background, he said: “I’m a colorful person. There’s always somebody who has a legitimate cause in their mind to be angry with me.”

When questions were raised last week about Mr. Martin’s appearance and claims on “Hannity’s America” on Fox News, the program’s producer said Mr. Martin was clearly expressing his opinion and not necessarily fact.

It was not Mr. Martin’s first turn on national television. The CBS News program “48 Hours” in 1993 devoted an hourlong program to what it called his prolific filing of frivolous lawsuits. He has filed so many lawsuits that a judge barred him from doing so in any federal court without preliminary approval.

He prepared to run as a Democrat for Congress in Connecticut, where paperwork for one of his campaign committees listed as one purpose “to exterminate Jew power.” He ran as a Republican for the Florida State Senate and the United States Senate in Illinois. When running for president in 1999, he aired a television advertisement in New Hampshire that accused George W. Bush of using cocaine.

In the 1990s, Mr. Martin was jailed in a case in Florida involving a physical altercation.

His newfound prominence, and the persistence of his line of political attack — updated regularly on his Web site and through press releases — amazes those from his past.

“Well, that’s just a bookend for me,” said Tom Slade, a former chairman of the Florida Republican Party, whom Mr. Martin sued for refusing to support him. Mr. Slade said Mr. Martin was driven like “a run-over dog, but he’s fearless.”

Given Mr. Obama’s unusual background, which was the focus of his first book, it was perhaps bound to become fodder for some opposed to his candidacy.

Mr. Obama was raised mostly by his white mother, an atheist, and his grandparents, who were Protestant, in Hawaii. He hardly knew his father, a Kenyan from a Muslim family who variously considered himself atheist or agnostic, Mr. Obama wrote. For a few childhood years, Mr. Obama lived in Indonesia with a stepfather he described as loosely following a liberal Islam.

Theories about Mr. Obama’s background have taken on a life of their own. But independent analysts seeking the origins of the cyberspace attacks wind up at Mr. Martin’s first press release, posted on the Free Republic Web site in August 2004.

Its general outlines have turned up in a host of works that have expounded falsely on Mr. Obama’s heritage or supposed attempts to conceal it, including “Obama Nation,” the widely discredited best seller about Mr. Obama by Jerome R. Corsi. Mr. Corsi opens the book with a quote from Mr. Martin.

“What he’s generating gets picked up in other places,” said Danielle Allen, a professor at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton University who has investigated the e-mail campaign’s circulation and origins, “and it’s an example of how the Internet has given power to sources we would have never taken seriously at another point in time.”

Ms. Allen said Mr. Martin’s original work found amplification in 2006, when a man named Ted Sampley wrote an article painting Mr. Obama as a secret practitioner of Islam. Quoting liberally from Mr. Martin, the article circulated on the Internet, and its contents eventually found their way into various e-mail messages, particularly an added claim that Mr. Obama had attended “Jakarta’s Muslim Wahhabi schools. Wahhabism is the radical teaching that created the Muslim terrorists who are now waging jihad on the rest of the world.”

Mr. Obama for two years attended a Catholic school in Indonesia, where he was taught about the Bible, he wrote in “Dreams From My Father,” and for two years went to an Indonesian public school open to all religions, where he was taught about the Koran.

Mr. Sampley, coincidentally, is a Vietnam veteran and longtime opponent of Mr. McCain and Senator John Kerry, both of whom he accused of ignoring his claims that American prisoners were left behind in Vietnam. He previously portrayed Mr. McCain as a “Manchurian candidate.” Speaking of Mr. Martin’s influence on his Obama writings, Mr. Sampley said, “I keyed off of his work.”

Mr. Martin’s depictions of Mr. Obama as a secret Muslim have found resonance among some Jewish voters who have received e-mail messages containing various versions of his initial theory, often by new authors and with new twists.

In his original press release, Mr. Martin wrote that he was personally “a strong supporter of the Muslim community.” But, he wrote of Mr. Obama, “it may well be that his concealment is meant to endanger Israel.” He added, “His Muslim religion would obviously raise serious questions in many Jewish circles.”

Yet in various court papers, Mr. Martin had impugned Jews.

A motion he filed in a 1983 bankruptcy case called the judge “a crooked, slimy Jew who has a history of lying and thieving common to members of his race.”

In another motion, filed in 1983, Mr. Martin wrote, “I am able to understand how the Holocaust took place, and with every passing day feel less and less sorry that it did.”

In an interview, Mr. Martin denied some statements against Jews attributed to him in court papers, blaming malicious judges for inserting them.

But in his “48 Hours” interview in 1993, he affirmed a different anti-Semitic part of the affidavit that included the line about the Holocaust, saying, “The record speaks for itself.”

When asked Friday about an assertion in his court papers that “Jews, historically and in daily living, act through clans and in wolf pack syndrome,” he said, “That one sort of rings a bell.”

He said he was not anti-Semitic. “I was trying to show that everybody in the bankruptcy court was Jewish and I was not Jewish,” he said, “and I was being victimized by religious bias.”

In discussing the denial of his admission to the Illinois bar, Mr. Martin said the psychiatric exam listing him as having a “moderately severe personality defect” was spitefully written by an evaluator he had clashed with.

Mr. Martin, who says he is from a well-off banking and farming family, is clearly pleased with his newfound attention. But, he said, others have added to his work in “scary” ways.

“They Google ‘Islam’ and ‘Obama’ and my stuff comes up and they take that and kind of use that — like a Christmas tree, and they decorate it,” he said. For instance, he said, he did not necessarily ascribe to a widely circulated e-mail message from the Israeli right-wing activist Ruth Matar, which includes the false assertion, “If Obama were elected, he would be the first Arab-American president.”

He said he had at least come to “accept” Mr. Obama’s word that he had found Jesus Christ. His intent, he said, was only to educate.

Kitty Bennett contributed reporting.

Republican Manufactured ACORN Outrage

Nia "Hussein" J. — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 21:09:41 EDT

*I got this information from the listserv*

Looks like the Rethuglicans planted people in ACORN voter registration groups who would do bogus registrations, then turned them in. Then called for an investigation into ACORN. This to dovetail with McCain’s bogus claim that ACORN pressured banks to give home loans to people who were not qualified.

But here’s some bottom lines to this story:
ACORN has themselves identified to voter registration officials any bogus applications to register that they found. They are required to turn ALL of them in (good or not), but they went to the trouble to help registration officials identify bogus registrations. It’s the registration officials who have to accept or reject the registration application.
Ultimately the person who filled out and turned in the bogus registrations has responsibility, not ACORN
Finally, this is not about voting, it’s about voter registrations. Vote fraud occurs when someone actually shows up to vote on an improper registration. For the vast majority, no one is going to show up to vote at all using these registrations, because they don’t even KNOW they have been improperly registered (some of them may be dead).
The Republicans are just messing with ACORN on this to create an issue where none existed. They also are just adding burden to the voter registrars’ jobs. It’s all about trying to tie Obama to vote fraud – while they conduct ACTUAL vote fraud with their other operatives.

Dorchester attorney comes to ACORN’s defense
By Laura Crimaldi
Sunday, October 12, 2008 - Added 22h ago

As election officials in eight states launch probes into possible voter registration fraud, a Dorchester attorney is defending the national advocacy group ACORN, accused of submitting thousands of potentially bogus forms.

“It’s very frustrating to do all this great work and have 99 percent of our employees, sometimes in inclement weather, standing outside of bus stops and in front of stores to help register people in their community and have their work attacked because one percent steal from us,” said Brian W. Mellor, senior counsel for the Washington-based Project Vote.

The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, which partnered with Project Vote in a national voter registration drive, is under fire for voter registration irregularities in Nevada, Indiana, Pennsylvania, New Mexico, Michigan, Wisconsin, North Carolina and Missouri.

Among the phony forms are registrations for the Dallas Cowboys in Nevada, names of the dead and even a fast-food restaurant, Jimmy Johns, handed to elections officials in Lake County, Ind.

The Republican National Committee and Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign accuse ACORN of turning in illegitimate registrations to boost Democratic candidate Sen. Barack Obama.

Mellor, who has worked for Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America in Jamaica Plain, said ACORN fired canvassers who submitted phony forms and separated potentially bogus forms from legitimate ones when they turned them in to election officials.

Harvard L. Lomax, registrar of voters in Clark County, Nev., said in an interview that Mellor warned him there might be irregularities because registration is a “sloppy business.” Nevada authorities raided ACORN offices in Las Vegas last week. “My answer was, ‘It’s only a sloppy business when you guys are around,’ ” said Lomax.

ACORN defenders note that the phony registrations do not mean people are voting illicitly since the people listed on them do not exist. Critics say the phony forms needlessly eat up pre-electoral time.

Mellor said ACORN’s quality control requires that workers confirm the registration forms in follow-up phone calls. But all registration forms - even suspicious ones - are submitted to election officials. ACORN says it registered 1.3 million voters this year.

“Nobody wants new voters. The last thing they want is a lot of low-income people voting because that will shake up their city. That’s why we’re registering,” Mellor said.

And this:

Exclusive: ACORN Responds to Voter Fraud Allegations

Sunday , October 12, 2008

This is a rush transcript from "On the Record ," October 10, 2008. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

JAMIE COLBY, FOX NEWS GUEST HOST: And it's not just your money that's at risk tonight. There is breaking news, more breaking news about another thing that is so important to all of us, your vote. For the past few days, we've been reporting about a group called ACORN. Their members hit the streets to register low-income voters. And we can tell you tonight that the organization is currently under investigation for fraud or registration irregularities in at least 13 states. There are also questions that have surfaced about Senator Obama's possible ties to this group.

Well, joining us "On the Record" exclusively for his first interview, Scott Levenson is the national spokesperson for ACORN. And Scott, thank you very much for choosing us to talk to about this.

First of all, tell me about these investigations into ACORN. Every day, we hear new information about people who can't even remember how many times they were encouraged to actually register by ACORN representatives.

SCOTT LEVENSON, ACORN SPOKESMAN: Let's talk about what the real story here is because it's actually a great story. ACORN, along with Project Vote, registered 1.3 million folks over the last year. We saw record numbers of people interested and excited about this election in ways we never saw before. There are poor people and young people who are participating in this election in ways they never participated before. And that's our mission. Our mission is to enfranchise the disenfranchised and empower the disempowered.
COLBY: Well, if you're going to sign up...
LEVENSON: So we're...
COLBY: Real quick...
LEVENSON: ... Actually proud of the work we do.
COLBY: You have signed up a lot of voters. I'm not sure you can personally answer. But if you can, how many of them are legal voters and have the right to vote? But why just the poor and disenfranchised? Because perhaps that benefits one party or another, one candidate or another. There's lots of wealthy people who are apathetic who might not vote. Why don't you just do a general get-out-the-vote?
LEVENSON: Well, in fact, we are nonpartisan. We don't ask somebody their income level. We don't ask somebody who they're voting for. We don't ask somebody what party they belong to when we register them to vote. And you know, we've entered a bit of the silly season in politics. You know, all these stories that have come out over the last week...
COLBY: About ACORN -- raids on your offices.

LEVENSON: But it's really important to find out what the real story here is because we by law are required to hold onto and turn over every single voter registration form that's filled out.

COLBY: And your position is that the elections commissions and boards should be responsible for checking those out. Your job is just...

LEVENSON: Well, it's actually -- let me go -- it's really important for the public to understand what's gone on here. We spot proactively by ourselves any questionable voter registration form and proactively notify appropriate authorities at the time that we collect it. We have been turning over registration forms to the authorities in these states weekly...

Watch the interview: Go to this site and click on Watch the interview, imbedded in the story.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,436584,00.html

Of course, being Faux News, she doesn’t let him completely tell the story before she starts spinning. But you get the gist of it.

This is all related to this story below. Looks like the Rethuglicans implanted people in ACORN voter registration groups who would do bogus registrations, then turned them in, calling for an investigation into ACORN. This to dovetail with McCain’s bogus claim that ACORN pressured banks to give home loans to people who were not qualified. That’s in this story.

HBOFF] Major UK banks seek $35B funds from government: UK media
ACORN Response to Senator McCain's Smear Ad

Last update: 4:50 p.m. EDT Oct. 12, 2008
WASHINGTON, Oct 12, 2008 /PRNewswire-USNewswire via COMTEX/ -- ACORN President Maude Hurd released the following statement today in response to the McCain campaign's new ad claiming that, among other things, ACORN is responsible for the mortgage crisis:
"For almost a decade, ACORN, a community organization of 400,000 families in neighborhoods across the country, has been fighting against the predatory lending practices that have robbed our members of their homes, destabilized neighborhoods, and roiled the global economy."
"In his newest ad, John McCain's campaign bizarrely claims, "ACORN forced banks to issue risky home loans, the same types of loans that caused the financial crisis we're in today." Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, ACORN has worked successfully to help working class families get good home loans on fair terms from legitimate banks and has fought vigorously against predatory lenders who have ripped off families in our communities. These predatory loans caused the crisis."
"For more than a decade, ACORN members have held protests, released reports, and advocated for regulations to protect homeowners from predatory lenders. ACORN organizers and volunteers have been working day and night to help victims of the GOP economic meltdown to save their homes from foreclosure. In fact, ACORN has brought class action lawsuits against several predatory lenders, and has lobbied the Federal Reserve and Congress in support of regulations against predatory lending. ACORN has even been successful in convincing many lenders to treat homeowners more fairly and help families be able to make their mortgage payments and save their homes."
"Unfortunately, the Bush administration and Congressional Republicans like John McCain have blocked the sensible regulations that ACORN and others proposed that would have averted the mortgage meltdown. If John McCain thinks that community organizers caused the foreclosure crisis, he knows even less about the economy than previously thought."
"John McCain and the Republicans are desperately trying to shift the blame for the economic crisis they caused with a philosophy of deregulation and indifference to homeowners. All the grainy footage and creepy music in the world can't cancel out some simple, basic facts, and the facts about the economy are not on John McCain's side."
SOURCE Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN)

Copyright (C) 2008 PR Newswire. All rights reserved End of Story

Dorchester attorney comes to ACORN’s defense
http://news.bostonherald.com/news/national/politics/2008/view.bg?articleid=1125026&srvc=home&position=active
ACORN Response to Senator McCain's Smear Ad
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/acorn-response-senator-mccains-smear/story.aspx?guid={3359B4E7-C95F-4FB6-AA25-43850C78E4EC}&dist=hppr
Fox News
ACORN Responds to Voter Fraud Allegations
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,436584,00.html

ACORN

Nia "Hussein" J. — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 05:10:05 EDT

There has been alot of info floating around about ACORN etc, so I figured I would gather some information that I hope will help.

www.Snopes.com has dubunked any relation Obama has with ACORN, aside from that here is some more information that I've found:http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/10/10/75639/882/410/626072

ACORN is the nation"s largest grassroots community organization of low- and moderate-income people with over 400,000 member families organized into more than 1,200 neighborhood chapters in 110 cities across the country. Since 1970, ACORN has been building community organizations that are committed to social and economic justice, and won victories on thousands of issues of concern to our members, through direct action, negotiation, legislative advocacy and voter participation. ACORN helps those who have historically been locked out become powerful players in our democratic system.

FYI - ACORN is REQUIRED by law to turn in every registration form they receive. They go through them and if they can't verify the person they flag it and let the election officials know. Also, just because they receive a fraudulent registration form doesn't mean it turns into a fraudulent vote. Voter fraud has been investigated and is extremely low. One report shows only 18 cases. This is a tactic used by the G.O.P. to distract voters while they engage in voter caging and voter suppression.

*This article Kind of puts it in perspective*

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rick-hasen/the-purge-surgewhy-the-go_b_133786.html

What explains the Republicans' fixation on ACORN in recent days? From Sen. McCain's campaign manager to GOP luminaries to the McCain campaign's own new web ad, ACORN appears to be target #1 of the GOP campaign against Senator Obama, surpassing even a focus on William Ayers. The claims are that ACORN is engaging in massive voter fraud through its voter registration activities, and -- according to the new web ad -- that the group forced banks to take on risky loans that have led to the country's financial crisis. Though at first glance it may look like this is about tying Senator Obama to a group that has been under investigation for its voter registration activities, the real point appears to be part of a broader Republican strategy to remove likely Democratic voters from the voter rolls and to lay the groundwork to contest the outcome of the presidential election in the event of an extremely close result in a battleground state.

Let's start with the direct Obama connection. The McCain campaign is trying to associate the campaign with ACORN's questionable activities, in the same kind of guilt-by-association claims made about William Ayers and Obama "palling around with terrorists." It is a nice bonus that ACORN has been involved in housing issues as well, as it is a chance to deflect attention from the Bush Administration's handling of economic issues and placing blame on a convenient scapegoat. (Next we will learn that ACORN invented financial derivatives.)

With the polls showing the McCain campaign consistently lagging, it is raising the ACORN issue among others to see if it sticks.

But we should resist the temptation to chalk up this ACORN obsession to just another guilt-by-association campaign tactic. For the last three elections, Republicans have been ramping up cries of voter fraud as a way of undermining the legitimacy of the election results should they not turn out in their favor and providing a reason for strict voting purges that are likely to remove many Democratic voters from the rolls.

We saw the voter fraud call in 2004, when Republicans virtually guaranteed that they would have challenged the presidential election results if John Kerry won and the results turned on the outcome in New Mexico, which Republicans said was rife with voter fraud. (Don't forget that this unsubstantiated concern drove the U.S. attorneys scandal.) We saw it with the activities of the American Center for Voting Rights, a Republican-aligned group that promoted the unsubstantiated claims of impersonation voter fraud in an often-successful effort to enact voter identification laws. We see it now with the reissuance of John Fund's book, Stealing Elections, full of anecdote but virtually no evidence of systematic voter fraud that can lead to a change in the outcome of elections. (The kind of fraud that leads to changes in election outcomes has been with absentee votes, which have mostly been ignored in these efforts.) And just try doing a Google News search for the term "voter fraud." You will see people who believe that foreign money is flooding the Obama campaign, that Obama is not a natural born citizen, and that the election will be stolen through voter fraud.

This is the reason that the ACORN controversy is a godsend to the Republicans. It fits into their meme that the election of Obama would be illegitimate and procured by fraud.

ACORN has been very active in registering voters, especially in big cities and in battleground states. It hires low income workers to do the registration (part of a way of providing additional employment for these workers), and there have been numerous documented cases of ACORN workers turning in fraudulent registration forms. These problems have led to convictions and new investigations -- including a raid earlier this week in Nevada (which, by the way, has a Democratic Secretary of State).

ACORN has claimed that it is a victim of the fraud, not a perpetrator of it. It argues that it can't help it if a small share of its workers are turning in these forms. I find this kind of argument unpersuasive. With these persistent problems, ACORN needs to find a different business model for registering voters, even if it means that fewer voters will be registered and fewer low income people employed in the voter registration business.

But the important point now is that fraudulent registrations put in by ACORN employees are not going to lead to fraud at the polls, and Governor Danforth recently claimed in a conference call with reporters. Why else would ACORN submit phony registration forms if not to game the outcome of the election, he asked. The answer is simply that these employees want to keep their jobs. And it is worse if employees are pressured to meet quotas to turn in a certain number of forms, something ACORN denies it is doing.

So even if Mickey Mouse is registering, he is not showing up on election day to cast ballots, and so far as I am aware, there have been no cases of phony voter registrations leading to the casting of votes in any election that have been on any large scale -- much less affected the outcome of elections. So we should all agree that those who submit fraudulent voter registration forms should be punished criminally, but that such activity is not going to affect the outcome of the presidential election: Obama is running way ahead in the polls, and if he wins in a landslide it is not because Donald Duck has voted thousands of times in key swing states.

But cries of voter fraud allow for harsh purging of voters from the rolls. Because of decentralization of election authority and a lack of administrative competence or will, the rolls are inaccurate in many states. Careless purging--driven by unsubstantiated fears about voter fraud--can lead to many eligible voters being incorrectly removed from the polls. Despite the fact that eligible voters are being removed from the polls, the GOP is pushing for more purging in Ohio, and they found a sympathetic federal judge, citing ACORN's activities, in requiring the Democratic Secretary of State to allow county elections board to purge of many new Ohio voters who do not have an exact match in inaccurate databases.

And if the election comes down to the counting of provisional ballots cast in a state like Colorado, look out. We can expect to see James Baker back on television, this time demanding that the results be changed in McCain's favor because of massive voter fraud. From little ACORNs can come mighty lawsuits.

What explains the Republicans' fixation on ACORN in recent days? From Sen. McCain's campaign manager to GOP luminaries to the McCain campaign's own new web ad, ACORN appears ... What explains the Republicans' fixation on ACORN in recent days? From Sen. McCain's campaign manager to GOP luminaries to the McCain campaign's own new web ad, ACORN appears ...

Unethical Match Made in Heaven

Nia "Hussein" J. — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 03:42:02 EDT

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/11/mccain-palin-first-ever-t_n_133878.html

A HISTORIC TICKET.... Now that Sarah Palin has been found to have abused her powers, violated state ethics, and lied about it, I did a little digging and found an interesting historical footnote.

The McCain/Palin ticket is the first in American history in which both candidates were found to have violated ethics standards before a national election.

McCain, of course, was admonished by Senate Ethics Committee "for exercising 'poor judgment' for intervening" with federal regulators on behalf of Charles Keating, as part of the infamous Keating Five scandal.

And now McCain's running mate has also been found to have violated state ethics laws and abused the powers of her office, as part of the "Troopergate" scandal.

The nation has had 102 major-party tickets covering 51 presidential elections over more than two centuries. And we've never had a ticket in which both candidates on the same ticket were responsible for ethics violations before a national election. McCain/Palin is the first.

It makes the whole "reform" pitch a little more difficult, doesn't it?

Barack Obama:Stand By Me

Nia "Hussein" J. — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 02:30:26 EDT

I came across this video and it was just the boost I needed, please share with other whom you think might need a boost to:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLV-G8nR7nk&feature=related

McCain-Palin Guilt by Association

Nia "Hussein" J. — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 01:14:58 EDT

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-lux/guilt-by-associations_b_133758.html

As the 2008 campaign enters the final sprint toward the November 4th finish line, both campaigns are framing their final arguments to voters. As McCain's poll numbers in key states across the country continue to erode, we've seen his campaign tactics change. They have gone into 100 percent negative attack mode - literally 100 percent as far as I can tell - as that is currently the percentage of their ads that are negative. They are aimed at tearing down Obama personally and betting on the fact that they can raise doubts in enough swing voters minds' in key states like Pennsylvania, Florida, Ohio, Wisconsin, New Hampshire and Colorado that they can tip the electorate over the next couple weeks. They are doing this through "guilt by association" politics. They don't want this final phase of the campaign to be about the economy or the other issues, that much is clear from their own strategists quotes in the press. They want it to be about Obama's relationships with people like William Ayers and Jeremiah Wright.

First, let me say that this is nothing new in politics. For as long as Presidential campaigns have been waged, both sides of always tried to accused their opponents of "sleeping with the enemy" or having connections to people who are not upstanding folks. As I'm sure many of you remember, we spent a lot of time defending Clinton against these types of attacks during the 1992 race. However, John McCain and Sarah Palin are going far further, and far nastier, with this tactic than any campaign in memory.

Our side should not let the McCain campaign drive this debate without pointing out their hypocrisy, and we should hold the traditional media accountable when they cover McCain's wild accusations without exploring any of the associations in McCain and Palin's careers. So I decided to put together a list of people with frightening beliefs and/or criminal backgrounds that McCain and Palin are tied to. My criterion is that I looked for people that are or were in fact closer to McCain or Palin than Ayers. I think we should all push to make the traditional media really dig into these relationships.

12. Pastor John Hagee. You all remember when the Pastor Hagee scandal broke a couple months ago. Since then, McCain has distanced himself from the Pastor, but it's still important to remember this relationship and to note that while Obama has also distanced himself from Rev. Wright, the McCain campaign, along with GOP operatives continue to tie the two to each other and it's expected that Wright's name will make a return to the debate during next week's debate in New York.

In February of 2008, Hagee endorsed McCain's candidacy, calling him a, "man of principle, [who] does not stand boldly on both sides of any issue." For his part, McCain said that he was "very honored by Pastor John Hagee's endorsement." Unfortunately, Hagee has a litany of statements in the public record that are not only troubling, they are downright offensive and radical. ThinkProgress has more on Hagee's past comments. For starters, Hagee once referred to Catholicism as "The Great Whore," and in talking about U.S. foreign policy he said, "The United States must join Israel in a pre-emptive military strike against Iran to fulfill God's plan for both Israel and the West... a biblically prophesied end-time confrontation with Iran, which will lead to the Rapture, Tribulation, and Second Coming of Christ."

McCain has denounced some of these more radical statements, but the mere fact that he actively sought Hagee's endorsement for a year means that he should be held to account for Hagee's radical views - if Wright remains on the political table, Hagee should be there right next to him.

11. Thomas Muthee. Sarah and Todd Palin have another Pastor problem. His name is Thomas Muthee and he is an evangelist and witchdoctor, who Sarah Palin has credited with helping her to win her governorship in 2006. Hannah Strange from the Times Online has more on the Muthee-Palin relationship.

At a speech at the Wasilla Assembly of God on June 8 this year, Mrs Palin described how Thomas Muthee had laid his hands on her when he visited the church as a guest preacher in late 2005, prior to her successful gubernatorial bid.
In video footage of the speech, she is seen saying: "As I was mayor and Pastor Muthee was here and he was praying over me, and you know how he speaks and he's so bold. And he was praying "Lord make a way, Lord make a way."
"And I'm thinking, this guy's really bold, he doesn't even know what I'm going to do, he doesn't know what my plans are. And he's praying not "oh Lord if it be your will may she become governor," no, he just prayed for it. He said "Lord make a way and let her do this next step. And that's exactly what happened."

Just like the Wright sermons, there are tons of YouTube clips that highlight this guy's sermons. The Palins' association with this guy really brings into question some serious issues - for example -does she believe that Muthee's spiritual hand helped seal her election in Alaska? Had this guy preached in front of Obama or his congregation, can you imagine what the outrage from the Right would be? Moreover, Muthee has made anti Catholic statements. He was once quoted as saying, "Brazil is occupied by Catholics... but people are being saved anyway!"

10. Mustafa Abu Naba'a. A while back, McCain also had another fundraising scandal involving one of his big bundlers from Florida, who also has close ties to Gov. Charlie Crist. This man is Mustafa Abu Naba'a, who is a dual citizen of Jordan and the Dominican Republic. He was tasked with collecting checks for McCain bundler Harry Sargeant III. His contribution to McCain was returned because the donations were solicited by a foreign national and may have been collected in violation of federal election laws. Matthew Mosk of the Washington Post has more on this fundraising scandal and it's implications - needless to say, this bundler wasn't doing things above-board and the fallout should be scrutinized - this is not the kind of person a presidential campaign or a potential President of the United States wants to have hanging around.

9. Ali Jawad. As the McCain campaign and RNC research team comb through the Obama campaigns donation history looking for ties to foreign donors and those presumably with Arab sounding names trying to draw some connection, it's important to remember that John McCain has had some issues in the recent past receiving donations from shady people that he later had to return.

One of those people was Ali Jawad, a member of McCain's Michigan Finance Committee. Jawad is president of Armada Oil & Gas Company and founder of the Lebanese American Heritage Club. According to Jake Tapper at ABC News:

In this 2002 story, Jawad is quoted saying he "rejects talk that Hezbollah is a terrorist organization that should be shunned by the United States and other governments. 'Killing innocent people -- we reject that,' he said. 'Hezbollah does not fit this category. It has protected its people."

The article goes on to say:

In 1997 he pleaded guilty to misdemeanor insurance fraud. Prosecutors accused him of submitting names of non-employees to Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan to receive health insurance benefits and claims. He received two years of probation and he paid approximately $6,000 in fines and restitution.

8. Oliver North, John Singlaub and U.S. Council for World Freedom. A couple days ago, the Associated Press detailed the relationship between John McCain and The U.S. Council for World Freedom. AP:

The U.S. Council for World Freedom aided rebels trying to overthrow the leftist government of Nicaragua. That landed the group in the middle of the Iran-Contra affair and in legal trouble with the Internal Revenue Service, which revoked the charitable organization's tax exemption.
The council created by retired Army Maj. Gen. John Singlaub was the U.S. chapter of the World Anti-Communist League, an international organization linked to former Nazi collaborators and ultra-right-wing death squads in Central America. After setting up the U.S. council, Singlaub served as the international league's chairman.

What's more?

In two interviews with The Associated Press in August and September, Singlaub said McCain became associated with the organization in the early 1980s as McCain launched his political career. McCain was elected to the U.S. House in 1982.

Launched his political career? Sound familiar?

The Council was notorious for its affiliation with white supremacists, etc. Also, remember that Oliver North played a large role during the Iran-Contra and was convicted in 1989 of shredding documents, accepting an illegal gratuity, and aiding and abetting in the obstruction of Congress. On February 12, 2008, the McCain campaign circulated a column that North wrote in the Washington Times touting, "extolling the senator's virtues, under the heading "In Case You Missed It: Oliver North on John McCain."

Sam Stein at the Huffington Post has a great piece about McCain's connections with the U.S. Council for World Freedom. You can read it here.

7. Charles Keating. For many younger voters, the name Charles Keating might not have meant anything until early this week. However, for those of us who have been around for a while and have been deeply involved in politics, the Keating Five Scandal is still very much in our memories. This week, the Obama campaign hit McCain hard on the Keating issue - producing a 13-minute documentary on the scandal and tying McCain's actions back then to the crisis we face today in our economy. They hit him on judgment and they want to re-introduce Charles Keating to the American people, and rightly so. Keating was a close friend of the McCain's. McCain and his family vacationed with Keating, on Keating's buck and the favors that McCain helped to curry for Keating during the 1980's helped to bring about the fall of the Savings and Loan industry, one of the largest economic calamities of the 20th century. Just this past week, ThinkProgress dug up a letter correspondence between McCain and Keating - which punctuates their friendship and loyalty.

The Washington Times reports that in 1986, John McCain wrote a note on House stationery to Charles Keating, chairman of a failed savings and loan association who went to prison in the late 1980s. In the letter, McCain apologized for listing Keating as part of his Senate campaign finance committee. Keating wrote in response: "You can call me anything, write anything or do anything. I'm yours till death do us part."

If public service is about watching who you keep as company, then Charles Keating is still very much on the table. For years since the scandal, McCain has written and talked about how the Keating Five Scandal changed his life and how he would be forever transformed by the incident. However, in a conference call with reporters last week, John Dowd, the lawyer who represented McCain during the Senate Ethics Committee investigation spoke of the investigation as a "classic political smear job" and professed that "John had not done anything wrong." This alone re-opens the entire incident and the press should now be asking John McCain if he too believes the investigation was a "smear job" and that he had "done nothing wrong." Keating is a classic example of the company you keep coming back to haunt you.

6. G. Gordon Liddy. Liddy has been a name in national politics for many years. However, many piece of his biography have been forgotten. If a candidate for President of the United States is presumed guilty for the company that he keeps, then McCain's relationship, both financial and personal, with G. Gordon Liddy is very troublesome. Oliver Willis has more in a recent Media Matters report that lays out this relationship:

As Media Matters for America has noted, Liddy served four and a half years in prison in connection with his conviction for his role in the Watergate break-in and the break-in at the office of the psychiatrist of Daniel Ellsberg, the military analyst who leaked the Pentagon Papers. Liddy has acknowledged preparing to kill someone during the Ellsberg break-in "if necessary"; plotting to murder journalist Jack Anderson; plotting with a "gangland figure" to murder Howard Hunt to stop him from cooperating with investigators; plotting to firebomb the Brookings Institution; and plotting to kidnap "leftist guerillas" at the 1972 Republican National Convention -- a plan he outlined to the Nixon administration using terminology borrowed from the Nazis. (The murder, firebombing, and kidnapping plots were never carried out; the break-ins were.) During the 1990s, Liddy reportedly instructed his radio audience on multiple occasions on how to shoot Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms agents and also reportedly said he had named his shooting targets after Bill and Hillary Clinton.
Liddy has donated $5,000 to McCain's campaigns since 1998, including $1,000 in February 2008. In addition, McCain has appeared on Liddy's radio show during the presidential campaign, including as recently as May. An online video labeled "John McCain On The G. Gordon Liddy Show 11/8/07? includes a discussion between Liddy and McCain, whom Liddy described as an "old friend." During the segment, McCain praised Liddy's "adherence to the principles and philosophies that keep our nation great," said he was "proud" of Liddy, and said that "it's always a pleasure for me to come on your program."

5. Kemper Marley. Kemper Marley was a wealthy liquor distributor and Arizona rancher who had close ties to the Hensley family, namely Cindy McCain's father. He was long suspected of being involved in the bombing and murder of Don Bolles, an investigative reporter for The Arizona Republic who specialized in crime reporting. According to Marley's 1990 obituary in the New York Times, "John Harvey Adamson, the only person whose conviction in the slaying has been upheld, said in court documents that he had been hired by Max Dunlap, a wealthy contractor who had been reared by Mr. Marley, to kill Mr. Bolles for writing articles damaging to Mr. Marley."

A Phoenix-area newspaper did a story during McCain's 2000 Presidential bid about the Hensley family history and their associations with shady characters. According to the Phoenix News Times, "The Hensley saga, meanwhile, swirls with bygone accounts of illicit booze, gambling, horse racing, deceit and crime. James Hensley embarked on his road to riches as a bootlegger."

Kemper's money, along with the Hensley family, helped John McCain get where he is today. It's important that questions are asked about McCain's knowledge of Kemper Marley and what involvement and impact he had on McCain's early political career.

4. Don Diamond. Then, there is Don Diamond. In April, 2008, the New York Times did a detailed story on Diamond's relationship with McCain and the favors that McCain curried for Diamond, who wanted to develop land in California on the site of a closed Army base.. In their lede, they write, "For Mr. McCain, the Arizona Republican who has staked two presidential campaigns on pledges to avoid even the appearance of dispensing an official favor for a donor, Mr. Diamond is the kind of friend who can pose a test."

Here's more from the Times:

Donald R. Diamond, a wealthy Arizona real estate developer, was racing to snap up a stretch of virgin California coast freed by the closing of an Army base a decade ago when he turned to an old friend, Senator John McCain.
When Mr. Diamond wanted to buy land at the base, Fort Ord, Mr. McCain assigned an aide who set up a meeting at the Pentagon and later stepped in again to help speed up the sale, according to people involved and a deposition Mr. Diamond gave for a related lawsuit. When he appealed to a nearby city for the right to develop other property at the former base, Mr. Diamond submitted Mr. McCain's endorsement as "a close personal friend."
Writing to officials in the city, Seaside, Calif., the senator said, "You will find him as honorable and committed as I have."
Courting local officials and potential partners, Mr. Diamond's team promised that he could "help get through some of the red tape in dealing with the Department of the Army" because Mr. Diamond "has been very active with Senator McCain," a partner said in a deposition.
A longtime political patron, Mr. Diamond is one of the elite fund-raisers Mr. McCain's current presidential campaign calls Innovators, having raised more than $250,000 so far. At home, Mr. Diamond is sometimes referred to as "The Donald," Arizona's answer to Donald Trump -- an outsized personality who invites public officials aboard his flotilla of yachts (the Ace, King, Jack and Queen of Diamonds), specializes in deals with the government, and unabashedly solicits support for his business interests from the recipients of his campaign contributions.

3. Marylin Shannon. Over the past couple days you've heard the line about Obama "palling around with terrorists" come out of Sarah Palin's mouth on numerous occasions and with relative ease. Well, it's important to note that John McCain's friend, Marilyn Shannon, a Republican official from Oregon, once praised a woman who was convicted of attempted murder in the shooting of an abortion clinic doctor. According to Raw Story:

McCain and Shannon appeared together at a fundraiser for the Oregon Citizens Alliance in 1993, a gathering of Christian right extremists that even fellow Republicans advised McCain not to attend because the group was so far outside the mainstream.
Speaking before McCain, Shannon offered some kind words for Shelley Shannon, who was accused and later convicted of shooting an abortion doctor: "I'm not related to Shelly Shannon, but I think she's a fine lady," the vice chairwoman of the state Republican Party said. McCain apparently said nothing to contradict that judgment, and less than three months later he voted against a bill that would make abortion clinic bombings a federal crime.
Author and journalist Frederick Clarkson has written extensively about the Army of God, the radical Christian organization that trained Shelley Shannon and others like her to bomb abortion clinics and attack abortion providers. He provides some more details on Shannon. She was eventually convicted of the attempted murder of a Wichita, Kan., doctor and of committing a spree of abortion clinic arsons across the west.

Keep in mind that Shannon was a delegate for McCain to this year's Republican National Convention in Saint Paul. The McCain campaign showed no oversight in allowing her to attend. Moreover, as ThinkProgress points out - when asked by the CBS Early Show to respond to an article where accusations were made that McCain had palled around with someone who held these radical and dangerous views, McCain-Palin campaign spokesperson Nancy Pfotenhauer said, "The article also concluded is that if Senator McCain had hung out with somebody who had bombed abortion clinics, no one would consider [raising the issue] illegitimate.

So, what Pfotenhauer is saying is that this issue is legitimate and that McCain should have to respond. Let's see if he does.

2. Alaska Independence Party - Joe Vogler, Mark Chryson and Steve Stoll. As the GOP continues to parse and amplify the words of Jeremiah Wright, mind you, not his words on peace and spiritual matters, but rather the passages where he was critical of America on racial and foreign policy issues, it's important that we make sure Americans know about Joe Vogler, the founder of AIP. In some cases, his words are nearly identical to Rev. Wright's, and in many cases they are worse. Vogler has been quoted as saying, "the fires of hell are frozen glaciers compared to my hatred for the American government" and "I won't be buried under their damn flag..."I'll be buried in Dawson. And when Alaska is an independent nation they can bring my bones home." Vogler even went so far as to renounce his allegiance to the United States, which is far more extreme than anything that came out of Rev. Wright's mouth. In the course of denouncing Federal regulation over land, he said, "And then you get mad. And you say, the hell with them. And you renounce allegiance, and you pledge your efforts, your effects, your honor, your life to Alaska." TPM has a great piece with all of these quotes, along with audio of Vogler's interview.

There's also Mark Chryson and Steve Stoll, both AIP members and close political associates of Sarah Palin. Here's Salon's write-up on these two and their association with Palin's run for Mayor of Wasilla.

Though Chryson belongs to a fringe political party, one that advocates the secession of Alaska from the Union, and that organizes with other like-minded secessionist movements from Canada to the Deep South, he is not without peculiar influence in state politics, especially the rise of Sarah Palin. An obscure figure outside of Alaska, Chryson has been a political fixture in the hometown of the Republican vice-presidential nominee for over a decade. During the 1990s, when Chryson directed the AIP, he and another radical right-winger, Steve Stoll, played a quiet but pivotal role in electing Palin as mayor of Wasilla and shaping her political agenda afterward. Both Stoll and Chryson not only contributed to Palin's campaign financially, they played major behind-the-scenes roles in the Palin camp before, during and after her victory. Palin backed Chryson as he successfully advanced a host of anti-tax, pro-gun initiatives, including one that altered the state Constitution's language to better facilitate the formation of anti-government militias. She joined in their vendetta against several local officials they disliked, and listened to their advice about hiring.

The Salon piece that I quote from above has some really ripe, detailed information on the AIP, as well as its more shady members. Palin has not renounced these men or to the best of my knowledge, even addressed their associations with them.

1. Todd Palin. The "first dude" has gotten pretty much a free ride from the traditional press over the past six weeks. He's done a couple softball interviews on FOX News and has pretty much sat in the background as his wife has been introduced on the national stage. Not much attention has been paid to the fact that Todd Palin was a member, for eight years, of the Alaska Independence Party, a radical group that advocates for Alaskan secession from the United States of America and is linked with radical secessionist groups, militias, and white supremacists groups from all over the country. We don't know the full extent of Todd Palin's beliefs when it comes to AIP and their radical views, but the problem is - no one is really asking. As Ambinder puts it in a post he did on October 4:

Todd Palin, a former member of the Alaska Independence Party, might well have seen America unlike his wife did -- that is, an America that one can secede from. He was comfortable belonging to and being associated with a political party whose founder seemed to delight in denouncing the principles that hold our union together.

If there is even a remote chance that this guy is going to be living in the Vice President's house or White House for the next 4 or 8 years, we deserve to know the truth about his radical views of America, especially given how much Gov. Palin has clearly relied on him for policy-making help while Governor of Alaska.

Over John McCain's long political career, he has made many "friends." It's evident in the short time that the country has known Sarah and Todd Palin that they also had a bunch of friends - all who should be causing trouble for them in the closing weeks of this campaign. If the McCain-Palin ticket wants to constantly remind voters about Obama's "friends," it's imperative that we do the same.

I offer this list to reporters, bloggers and muckrakers of all kinds. To be fair in this campaign, if we're going to be hearing a lot about Bill Ayers and Jeremiah Wright, we should be hearing about all of these people as well. In fact, all of them are far closer to McCain or Palin than Ayers ever was to Obama. And while Obama has denounced the actions of Ayers and the words or Wright, most of the people on this list have never been denounced by John McCain or Sarah Palin. As McCain and company go more and more negative and trumpet Obama's past associations, it's important that we push these stories and make sure the American people know that this "guilt by associations" politics cuts both ways.

Cross-posted at OpenLeft.com As the 2008 campaign enters the final sprint toward the November 4th finish line, both campaigns are framing their final arguments to voters. As McCain's poll numbers in... Cross-posted at OpenLeft.com As the 2008 campaign enters the final sprint toward the November 4th finish line, both campaigns are framing their final arguments to voters. As McCain's poll numbers in...

Sarah Palin: Palling Around Secessionist

Nia "Hussein" J. — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 05:18:35 EDT

The Video pretty much says it all:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eniG9l_7its

Make this Video go Viral...share fare and wide

Mccain's Time With The USCWF

Nia "Hussein" J. — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 04:43:55 EDT

McCain Sat on Board of Radical

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/06/why-mccains-time-with-cou_n_132470.html

Since Sunday, Democrats have been buzzing about the re-revelation that during the 1980s, Sen. John McCain served on the board of a far-right conservative organization that had supplied arms and funds to paramilitary organizations in Latin America.

Democratic strategist Paul Begala lit the fire when, during an appearance on Meet the Press, he warned that this relatively obscure detail from McCain's past could draw him into a guilt-by-association game he was bound to regret.

"John McCain sat on the board of...the U.S. Council for World Freedom," said Begala, "The Anti-Defamation League, in 1981 when McCain was on the board, said this about this organization. It was affiliated with the World Anti-Communist League - the parent organization - which ADL said 'has increasingly become a gathering place, a forum, a point of contact for extremists, racists and anti-Semites.'"

But McCain's involvement in the U.S. Council for World Freedom, which extended from 1981 through, possibly, 1986 is significant -- not merely because it ties him to unsavory characters but because it firmly associates him with a foreign policy that was, at the time and still, controversial.

"I didn't know that [McCain had] served on the board," said Shannon O'Neil
Douglas Dillon Fellow for Latin American Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. "It is a little bit surprising to me. But all of those organizations did come from the Republican side mostly. Often the people were tied to the military and they saw the world in black and white terms... My impression is [McCain] still sees the world in back and white."

The USCWF was founded in Phoenix, Arizona in November 1981 as an offshoot of the World Anti-Communist League. The group was, from the onset, saddled with the disreputable reputation of its parent group. The WACL had ties to ultra-right figures and Latin American death squads. Roger Pearson, the chairman of the WACL, was expelled from the group in 1980 under allegations that he was a member of a neo-Nazi organization.

The U.S. Council of World Freedom claimed to be cleansed of these elements. The group's director, retired Major General John Singlaub, said he had purged some of the more "kooky" members, including a Mexican chapter that "blamed everything on the Jews," and "even accused Pope John Paul of being a Jew." The Anti-Defamation League, once critical, applauded Singlaub for his efforts. Moreover, the USCWF was granted a sense of political legitimacy when President Ronald Reagan addressed the group in September 1984.

But the group's secret activities were still controversial. It claimed to support "pro-Democratic resistance movements fighting communist totalitarianism." And during the 1980s it became a vehicle for the Reagan administration to prop up some of the more totalitarian, anti-communist efforts in Central America.

According to a March 1989 Washington Post article, the USCWF coordinated funding efforts with sources in Taiwan and South Korea to help contras in Nicaragua purchase some $5 million worth of arms. The group was charged with operating a plane that was shot down while flying supplies to these very same rebels. The council, according to a 1986 New York Times report, "provided $10 million to $25 million in cash and 'in-kind' aid: four to eight small aircraft (''non gun-mounted'') to the contras, boots to rebels fighting Soviet troops in Afghanistan, $20,000 in medicines to Cambodian resistance forces, and help for groups in Mozambique, Ethiopia and other countries." Singlaub and the council also reportedly provided Neo Hom and other factions of the Lao resistance with aid in the form of clothing and medicine - aid that the group subsequently turned into a scheme to raise fund from refugees.

The McCain campaign, in a statement to Politico, defended the efforts of the council. Brian Rogers, a spokesman, said that the Senator "disassociated himself" from the group "when questions were raised about its activities, but that in no way diminishes his leadership role in ensuring that the forces of democracy and freedom prevailed in Central America."

But Singlaub "does not recall any McCain resignation in 1984 or May 1986," the Associated Press reported early Tuesday, "nor does Joyce Downey, who oversaw the group's day-to-day activities."

Moreover, while the goal of confronting communism may be politically defensible, the methods that the group pursued elicited heavy complaint. In January 1987, Sen. Patrick Leahy criticized Singlaub and, by extension, the Reagan administration, for directly circumventing the will of Congress, which had cut off funds to paramilitary organizations like the contras.

'The open courting of General Singlaub and his groups," said Leahy, "I've never seen anything like it. The active fund-raising among wealthy people to back these programs - I think it's unprecedented... There seems to be more and more of a feeling that, 'Gee, we really want to do something to help the contras, but don't tell me what you're doing because I'm not supposed to know.'"

The funders of the U.S World Council of Freedom read like a who's who list of prominent conservative figures. Joe Coors, the Republican Beer baron was reportedly a big donor. Time Magazine wrote that the Christian Broadcasting Network was a backer as well. The Washington Times newspaper, owned by the controversial Reverend Sun Myung Moon, started a fundraising drive of its own. And Moon himself had numerous ties to Singlaub.

Through it all, McCain was a member. As reported by Politico, the council formally approached him during his run for elected office in 1982 and McCain, then a member of the House of Representatives, agreed to join, citing years later the organization's commitment to a freedom agenda. "They've got some good people involved," he said. Aides to his campaign said he resigned from the board of directors in 1984. But in 1985, McCain attended the group's "Freedom Fighter of the Year" award ceremony in Washington. And as late as July 1986, the organization's communications firm sent a letter with McCain's name on it regarding Singlaub's appearance at a conference "of nearly 40 countries... taking part in an annual observance to commemorate efforts on behalf of freedom throughout the world."

By then, the council's activities were becoming well known. In a 60 Minutes segment aired in '86, Singlaub was described as the President's "secret weapon to sidestep a Congress that will not permit him to act in the areas where he believes that our security interests are at stake." He did not contest the description.

There is no reporting to suggest that McCain was directly involved in any of the USCWF's operational decisions. Begala, in his appearance on Meet The Press, actually took time to exonerate the Senator from any charge that he was associated with the organization's early anti-Semitic fringe membership. "Now, that's not John McCain," he said, "I don't think he is that."

But McCain's association with a group that reportedly circumvented law, financed right-wing military institutions, and engaged in sometimes brutal anti-communist tactics, could be telling for some voters. At the very least his time on the board of the U.S. Council of World Freedom provides a window of sorts into the foreign policy vision that he held back in the 1980s and one that he still seemingly holds today.

"Remember this happened during a time when you were either with us or against us," said Council on Foreign Relation's O'Neil. "Somewhat like the mindset," that we have seen with the Bush administration.

Mccain Want's to Cut Medicaid and Medicare

Nia "Hussein" J. — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 21:42:36 EDT

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122315505846605217.html

OCTOBER 6, 2008

McCain Plans Federal Health Cuts Medicare, Medicaid Spending Would Be Reduced to Offset Proposed Tax CreditBy LAURA MECKLER

Article
Comments

Gloves Off!! Fight Truth to Power!!

Nia "Hussein" J. — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 02:55:33 EDT

I've gathered some information that should help us fight back the smears and the lies. I agree that Obama needs to stay above the fray and keep the message on the economy. It's surrogates and supporters like us who have to fight back. We have come to far and worked to hard canvassing, phone calling, registering voters, convincing and informing undecideds, etc. for it to all go the way side like Kerry in 2004. We cannot afford another 4 years of the last eight. time is drawing close and we need this win. Fight back with truth. mccain and palin have allot of political skeletons that need to be forced out of the MSM closet. I've gathered some info, if you have more please share.

CNN truth report On Obama and Ayers:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMRON2GPXUA

Obama gives the go ahead to surrogates, to bring up Keating five and other associations:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/10/5/19317/4480/333/621072

The Obama campaign already has an ad related to it - make it viral

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHW-RO1_WN0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsI_0bV2CZo

Also bring Up Mccains lobbyist:http://www.mccainslobbyist.com

Donald Diamond:

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/04/23/it-goes-well-beyond-the-keating-five/

Richard Quinn:

http://politicalconsultantmisconduct.blogspot.com/2008/01/richard-quinn-associates-employee-of.html

George Gordon Liddy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6F3biK1Mb0&feature=related

Mccain Voted to protect Domestic Terrorist

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/10/06/mccain-abotion-bombers/

Lets also include the GOP's newest talent, Palin

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xmt0rLtgmK0

Mccains connection to G. Gordon Liddy

Nia "Hussein" J. — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 17:11:45 EDT

With all the re talk about a faux deep connrction to Ayers why has Mccains connection been kept under wraps?

Why is the NY Times continuing to ignore McCain's "own Bill Ayers"?

Summary: On October 4, The New York Times published a front-page article about Sen. Barack Obama's association with William Ayers -- at least the 18th Times article this year mentioning that association. But the Times has yet to mention Sen. John McCain's relationship with G. Gordon Liddy. The October 4 article quoted Chicago Tribune columnist Steve Chapman denouncing Obama's association with Ayers but did not note that Chapman has described Liddy as McCain's "own Bill Ayers" and written that "[i]f Obama needs to answer questions about Ayers, McCain has the same obligation regarding Liddy."

On October 4, The New York Times published a 2,140-word front-page article about Sen. Barack Obama's association with former Weather Underground member William Ayers -- at least the 18th Times article this year mentioning that association. But the Times has yet to mention, let alone devote an entire article to, Sen. John McCain's relationship with radio host and convicted Watergate burglar G. Gordon Liddy. Indeed, in its October 4 article, the Times quoted Chicago Tribune columnist Steve Chapman denouncing Obama's association with Ayers but did not note that Chapman has described Liddy as McCain's "own Bill Ayers" and has written that "[i]f Obama needs to answer questions about Ayers, McCain has the same obligation regarding Liddy." The Times, moreover, quoted McCain criticizing Obama for his association with Ayers without noting that Chapman has faulted McCain for what Chapman described as McCain's "howling hypocrisy on the subject."

As Media Matters for America has noted, Liddy served four and a half years in prison in connection with his conviction for his role in the Watergate break-in and the break-in at the office of the psychiatrist of Daniel Ellsberg, the military analyst who leaked the Pentagon Papers. Liddy has acknowledged preparing to kill someone during the Ellsberg break-in "if necessary"; plotting to murder journalist Jack Anderson; plotting with a "gangland figure" to murder Howard Hunt to stop him from cooperating with investigators; plotting to firebomb the Brookings Institution; and plotting to kidnap "leftist guerillas" at the 1972 Republican National Convention -- a plan he outlined to the Nixon administration using terminology borrowed from the Nazis. (The murder, firebombing, and kidnapping plots were never carried out; the break-ins were.) During the 1990s, Liddy reportedly instructed his radio audience on multiple occasions on how to shoot Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms agents and also reportedly said he had named his shooting targets after Bill and Hillary Clinton.

Liddy has donated $5,000 to McCain's campaigns since 1998, including $1,000 in February 2008. In addition, McCain has appeared on Liddy's radio show during the presidential campaign, including as recently as May. An online video labeled "John McCain On The G. Gordon Liddy Show 11/8/07" includes a discussion between Liddy and McCain, whom Liddy described as an "old friend." During the segment, McCain praised Liddy's "adherence to the principles and philosophies that keep our nation great," said he was "proud" of Liddy, and said that "it's always a pleasure for me to come on your program."

Additionally, in 1998, Liddy reportedly held a fundraiser at his home for McCain. Liddy was reportedly scheduled to speak at another fundraiser for McCain in 2000. The Charlotte Observer reported on January 23, 2000, that McCain's campaign vouched for Liddy's "character":

His [McCain's] campaign officials said Liddy's character will appeal to many voters because he was following orders from President Nixon and kept silent afterward.
"His (Liddy's) judgment might be in question, but I don't think his character is," said Ed Walker, the York County chairman of McCain's campaign. "He was following orders just like any good soldier, and he didn't tell on anybody. He felt like he was on a mission and kept his silence."

Liddy's 2000 speech was reportedly canceled due to bad weather.

Media Matters has documented that as of September 19, the Times had published 15 news articles and four opinion pieces referencing Obama's ties to Ayers. Since then, in addition to the October 4 article, the Times has published two more articles mentioning the association.

But despite having apparently judged Chapman's opinions on the candidates' controversial associations as being newsworthy, the Times has ignored entirely McCain's relationship with Liddy, according to a search of the Nexis database from January 1 through October 4*.

In his May 4 Tribune column, Chapman wrote:

What McCain didn't mention is that he has his own Bill Ayers -- in the form of G. Gordon Liddy. Now a conservative radio talk-show host, Liddy spent more than 4 years in prison for his role in the 1972 Watergate burglary. That was just one element of what Liddy did, and proposed to do, in a secret White House effort to subvert the Constitution. Far from repudiating him, McCain has embraced him.
How close are McCain and Liddy? At least as close as Obama and Ayers appear to be. In 1998, Liddy's home was the site of a McCain fundraiser. Over the years, he has made at least four contributions totaling $5,000 to the senator's campaigns -- including $1,000 this year.
Last November, McCain went on his radio show. Liddy greeted him as "an old friend," and McCain sounded like one. "I'm proud of you, I'm proud of your family," he gushed. "It's always a pleasure for me to come on your program, Gordon, and congratulations on your continued success and adherence to the principles and philosophies that keep our nation great."
Which principles would those be? The ones that told Liddy it was fine to break into the office of the Democratic National Committee to plant bugs and photograph documents? The ones that made him propose to kidnap anti-war activists so they couldn't disrupt the 1972 Republican National Convention? The ones that inspired him to plan the murder (never carried out) of an unfriendly newspaper columnist?
Liddy was in the thick of the biggest political scandal in American history -- and one of the greatest threats to the rule of law. He has said he has no regrets about what he did, insisting that he went to jail as "a prisoner of war."
All this may sound like ancient history. But it's from the same era as the bombings Ayers helped carry out as a member of the Weather Underground. And Liddy's penchant for extreme solutions has not abated.
[...]
Given Liddy's record, it's hard to see why McCain would touch him with a 10-foot pole. On the contrary, he should be returning his donations and shunning his show. Yet the senator shows no qualms about associating with Liddy -- or celebrating his service to their common cause.
How does McCain explain his howling hypocrisy on the subject? He doesn't. I made repeated inquiries to his campaign aides, which they refused to acknowledge, much less answer. On this topic, the pilot of the Straight Talk Express would rather stay parked in the garage.
That's an odd policy for someone who is so forthright about his rival's responsibility. McCain thinks Obama should apologize for associating with a criminal extremist. To which Obama might reply: After you.

And in an August 22 blog post about an anti-Obama ad highlighting Obama's association to Ayers, Chapman wrote:

But conservatives may not want to draw attention to the issue of ties to violent radicals -- since John McCain is longtime pals with convicted Watergate burglar Gordon Liddy, who once plotted a journalist's murder (which was never carried out) and has advocated the shooting of federal law enforcement agents.
If Obama needs to answer questions about Ayers, McCain has the same obligation regarding Liddy. How about they both get started?

From The New York Times' October 4 article "Obama and '60s Bomber: A Look Into Crossed Paths":

Their relationship has become a touchstone for opponents of Mr. Obama, the Democratic senator, in his bid for the presidency. Video clips on YouTube, including a new advertisement that was broadcast on Friday, juxtapose Mr. Obama's face with the young Mr. Ayers or grainy shots of the bombings.
In a televised interview last spring, Senator John McCain, Mr. Obama's Republican rival, asked, "How can you countenance someone who was engaged in bombings that could have or did kill innocent people?"
[...]
Since earning a doctorate in education at Columbia in 1987, Mr. Ayers has been a professor of education at the University of Illinois at Chicago, the author or editor of 15 books, and an advocate of school reform.
"He's done a lot of good in this city and nationally," Mayor Richard M. Daley said in an interview this week, explaining that he has long consulted Mr. Ayers on school issues. Mr. Daley, whose father was Chicago's mayor during the street violence accompanying the 1968 Democratic National Convention and the so-called Days of Rage the following year, said he saw the bombings of that time in the context of a polarized and turbulent era.
"This is 2008," Mr. Daley said. "People make mistakes. You judge a person by his whole life."
That attitude is widely shared in Chicago, but it is not universal. Steve Chapman, a columnist for The Chicago Tribune, defended Mr. Obama's relationship with the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., his longtime pastor, whose black liberation theology and "God damn America" sermon became notorious last spring. But he denounced Mr. Obama for associating with Mr. Ayers, whom he said the University of Illinois should never have hired.
"I don't think there's a statute of limitations on terrorist bombings," Mr. Chapman said in an interview, speaking not of the law but of political and moral implications.
"If you're in public life, you ought to say, 'I don't want to be associated with this guy,' " Mr. Chapman said. "If John McCain had a long association with a guy who'd bombed abortion clinics, I don't think people would say, 'That's ancient history.' "

— J.S.

*Media Matters searched the Nexis database for The New York Times for "McCain and Liddy"

Posted to the web on Saturday, October 04, 2008 at 04:23 PM ET

Economist And Obama's Plan

Nia "Hussein" J. — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 16:18:05 EDT

http://www.economist.com/world/unitedstates/PrinterFriendly.cfm?story_id=12342127

AS THE financial crisis pushes the economy back to the top of voters’ concerns, Barack Obama is starting to open up a clear lead over John McCain in the opinion polls. But among those who study economics for a living, Mr Obama’s lead is much more commanding. A survey of academic economists by The Economist finds the majority—at times by overwhelming margins—believe Mr Obama has the superior economic plan, a firmer grasp of economics and will appoint better economic advisers.

Our survey is not, by any means, a scientific poll of all economists. We e-mailed a questionnaire to 683 research associates, all we could track down, of the National Bureau of Economic Research, America’s premier association of applied academic economists, though the NBER itself played no role in the survey. A total of 142 responded, of whom 46% identified themselves as Democrats, 10% as Republicans and 44% as neither. This skewed party breakdown may reflect academia’s Democratic tilt, or possibly Democrats’ greater propensity to respond. Still, even if we exclude respondents with a party identification, Mr Obama retains a strong edge—though the McCain campaign should be buoyed by the fact that 530 economists have signed a statement endorsing his plans.

Does their opinion matter? Economics is just one of the many things the next president will have to worry about; voters still seem to prefer Mr McCain on foreign policy. And even on the economy, economists may not have the same priorities as the population at large. Arguably, what a president says about economics on the campaign trail is less important than how he responds to the unexpected challenges that inevitably arise once he is in office.

Yet economists’ opinions should count for something because irrespective of any party affiliation, most of them approach policy decisions with the same basic tool kit. Their assessment of the candidates’ economic credentials and plans represents an informed judgment on how well they will handle difficult trade-offs between efficiency, equity, growth and consensus-building.

Regardless of party affiliation, our respondents generally agree the economy is in bad shape, that the election is important to the course of economic policy and that the housing and financial crisis is the most critical economic issue facing America.

The detailed responses are bad news for Mr McCain (the full data are available here). Eighty per cent of respondents and no fewer than 71% of those who do not cleave to either main party say Mr Obama has a better grasp of economics. Even among Republicans Mr Obama has the edge: 46% versus 23% say Mr Obama has the better grasp of the subject. “I take McCain’s word on this one,” comments James Harrigan at the University of Virginia, a reference to Mr McCain’s infamous confession that he does not know as much about economics as he should. In fairness, Mr McCain’s lower grade may in part reflect greater candour about his weaknesses. Mr Obama’s more tightly managed image leaves fewer opportunities for such unvarnished introspection.

A candidate’s economic expertise may matter rather less if he surrounds himself with clever advisers. Unfortunately for Mr McCain, 81% of all respondents reckon Mr Obama is more likely to do that; among unaffiliated respondents, 71% say so. That is despite praise across party lines for the excellent Doug Holtz-Eakin, Mr McCain’s most prominent economic adviser and a former head of the Congressional Budget Office. “Although I have tended to vote Republican,” one reply says, “the Democrats have a deep pool of talented, moderate economists.”

There is an apparent contradiction between most economists’ support for free trade, low taxes and less intervention in the market and the low marks many give to Mr McCain, who is generally more supportive of those things than Mr Obama. It probably reflects a perception that the Republican Party under George Bush has subverted many of those ideals for ideology and political gain. Indeed, the majority of respondents rate Mr Bush’s economic record as very bad, and Republican respondents are only slightly less critical.

“John McCain has professed disdain for ‘so-called economists’, and for some the feeling has become mutual,” says Erik Brynjolfsson, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan School of Management. “Obama’s team is mainstream and non-ideological but extremely talented.”

On our one-to-five scale, economists on average give Mr Obama’s economic programme a 3.3 and Mr McCain’s a 2.2. Mr Obama, says Jonathan Parker, a non-aligned professor at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management, “is a pragmatist not an ideologue. I expect Clintonian economic policies.” If, that is, crushing federal debt does not derail his taxing and spending plans.

On his plans to fix the financial crisis, Mr Obama averages 3.1, a point higher than Mr McCain. Still, some said they didn’t quite know what they were rating—reasonably enough, since neither candidate has produced clear plans of his own.

Where the candidates’ positions are more clearly articulated, Mr Obama scores better on nearly every issue: promoting fiscal discipline, energy policy, reducing the number of people without health insurance, controlling health-care costs, reforming financial regulation and boosting long-run economic growth. Twice as many economists think Mr McCain’s plan would be bad or very bad for long-run growth as Mr Obama’s. Given how much focus Mr McCain has put on his plan’s benefits for growth, this last is quite a repudiation.

Mr McCain gets his highest mark, an average of 3.5 and a clear advantage over Mr Obama, for his position on free trade and globalisation. If Mr Obama “would wake up on free trade”, one respondent says, “I could get behind the plans much more.” Perhaps surprisingly, the economists rated trade low in priority compared with the other issues listed. Only 53% say it is important or very important. Neither candidate scored at all well on dealing with the burgeoning cost of entitlements such as Medicare and Social Security.

The economists also prefer Mr Obama’s tax plans. Republicans and respondents who do not identify with either political party see Mr McCain’s tax policies as more efficient but less equitable. But the former prefer Mr McCain’s plans—43% of Republicans say they are good or very good—and the latter Mr Obama’s. Of non-affiliated respondents, 31% say Mr Obama’s are good or very good.

Either way, according to the economists, it would be difficult to do much worse than George Bush. The respondents give Mr Bush a dismal average of 1.7 on our five-point scale for his economic management. Eighty-two per cent thought Mr Bush’s record was bad or very bad; only 1% thought it was very good.

The Democrats were overwhelmingly negative, but nearly every respondent viewed Mr Bush’s record unfavourably. Half of Republican respondents thought Mr Bush deserves only a 2. “The minimum rating of one severely overestimates the quality of Bush’s economic policies,” says one non-aligned economist.

Happy 16th Anniversary Barack and Michelle

Nia "Hussein" J. — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 14:53:17 EDT

Hello everyone. Given that today is the Obama's 16th wedding anniversary today and I adore them as a solid couple, I just thought that I would put together what I could find on them and share. I'm also going to donate $16 (years married) to the campaign and I hope that you would to. Take care and please share as you see fit:Articles:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kathlyn-and-gay-hendricks/the-obama-relationship-a_b_128896.html

And

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/02/obama-reveals-anniversary_n_131305.html

Videos:

**Barack & Michelle: Happy Anniversary**

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QAvfXeISzI

**Barack and Michelle: 16 years**

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9-bCSfH1XU&feature=related

**Barack Loves Michelle

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdFLJXkG0_w&feature=related

**An Obama Love Story

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPYMaF2vAmg&NR=1

** Barack and Michelle

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeuJwNP8zCU&feature=related

**Barack and Michelle Obama

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grwX34qqpLA&feature=related

And of course Who Could Forget This Moment

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAmLwiGkma0&feature=related

Campaign Innovation...

Nia "Hussein" J. — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 17:26:50 EDT

1. The Obama campaign released it’s own Cable channel with The Dish Network, channel 73:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dawn-teo/obama-campaign-buys-chann_b_131105.html 2. Obama iphone and iPod Touch software:http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2008/10/iphone-software.html?cid=133136193#comments * Please share as you see fit

Sarah Palin Doesn't Know Much About Russia Either

Nia "Hussein" J. — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 05:27:09 EDT

CNN did a fact check on palin's Russia claim...turns out, it isn't true...AT ALL...go figure

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/01/cnn-sarah-palin-has-never_n_130752.html#postComment

Bush: "Take that Congress, thanks Mccain"

Nia "Hussein" J. — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 04:56:32 EDT

Sept. 29 (Bloomberg) -- The Federal Reserve will pump an additional $630 billion into the global financial system, flooding banks with cash to alleviate the worst banking crisis since the Great Depression.

The Fed increased its existing currency swaps with foreign central banks by $330 billion to $620 billion to make more dollars available worldwide. The Term Auction Facility, the Fed's emergency loan program, will expand by $300 billion to $450 billion. The European Central Bank, the Bank of England and the Bank of Japan are among the participating authorities.

The Fed's expansion of liquidity, the biggest since credit markets seized up last year, came hours before the U.S. House of Representatives rejected a $700 billion bailout for the financial industry. The crisis is reverberating through the global economy, causing stocks to plunge and forcing European governments to rescue four banks over the past two days alone.

``Today's blast of term liquidity will settle the funding markets down, and allow trust to slowly be restored between borrowers and lenders,'' said Chris Rupkey, chief financial economist at Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ Ltd. in New York. On the other hand, ``the Fed's balance sheet is about to explode.''

The MSCI World Index of stocks in 23 developed markets sank 6 percent, the most since its creation in 1970. Credit markets deteriorated further as authorities tried to save more financial institutions from collapse.

European Rescue

European governments have rescued four banks in two days and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said today it helped Citigroup Inc. buy the banking operations of Wachovia Corp. after its shares collapsed. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index fell 3.8 percent and the cost of borrowing dollars for three months rose to the highest since January. The rate for euros hit a record.

``If people think the authorities may give in to fears, they are wrong,'' Financial Stability Forum Chairman Mario Draghi said today in Amsterdam, where the international group of regulators and finance officials is meeting. ``There is willingness and determination on winning the battle to restore confidence and stability.''

Banks and brokers have slowed lending as they struggle to restore their capital after $586 billion in credit losses and writedowns since the mortgage crisis began a year ago. The bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. also sparked fears among banks they wouldn't be repaid by counterparties, driving up the cost of short-term loans between banks.

Funding Risk

``By committing to provide a very large quantity of term funding, the Federal Reserve actions should reassure financial market participants that financing will be available against good collateral, lessening concerns about funding and rollover risk,'' the central bank said.

The Bank of England and the ECB will each double the size of their dollar swap facilities with the Fed to as much as $80 billion and $240 billion, respectively. The Swiss National Bank and the Bank of Japan will also double their dollar swap lines, while the central banks in Australia, Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Canada tripled theirs.

All the banks extended their facilities until the end of April 2009.

The Fed is also increasing the size of its three 84-day TAF sales to $75 billion apiece, from $25 billion. That means the Fed will make a total of $225 billion available in 84-day loans. The central bank will keep the sales of 28-day credit at $75 billion.

Special Sales

In addition, the Fed will hold two special TAF sales in November totaling $150 billion so banks can have funding available for one or two weeks over year-end. The exact timing and terms will be determined later, the Fed said. The TAF program began in December, totaling $40 billion.

The bank-rescue plan being debated by Congress today would give the Fed more power over short-term interest rates by providing authority as of Oct. 1 to pay interest on reserves held at the central bank by financial institutions. That would make it easier for the Fed to pump funds into the banking system.

Paying interest on reserves puts a ``floor'' under the traded overnight rate, which would allow a central bank ``to provide liquidity during times of stress'' without affecting the rate, New York Fed economists said in a paper last month.

To contact the reporter on this story: Scott Lanman in Washington at slanman@bloomberg

* The story gets more intresting because it appears that McCain incoraged the whole thing*

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/30/mccain-urges-bush-to-spen_n_130729.html#postComment

Jed Lewison

John McCain today urged the Bush Administration -- on more than one occasion -- to immediately and uniliterally spend $1 trillion buying up home mortgages.

I was watching live when he made the proposal this morning, and it seemed like such a staggeringly insane idea that I assumed he couldn't be serious. He couldn't think that Bush should just spend $1 trillion without asking Congress for permission...could he?

But then I saw his economic adviser try to back the idea up, and then I saw McCain make the proposal again during the NBC Nightly newscast. So he's serious. He really thinks that Bush should just spend $1 trillion without talking to Congress, without seeking approval, without building any sort of consensus -- without getting any protections whatsoever for taxpayers.

This is the same John McCain who just a couple of days ago was railing on the $1 trillion price tag of the bailout (when it was actually $700 billion).

But just a few days after railing against the unbridled power of government, McCain now seems to envision the presidency as a dictatorship. He now thinks that Bush should just spend $1 trillion without allowing anyone to ask any questions -- and he supports doing it just one day after the House of Representatives voted down a $700 billion bailout.

This won't suprise anyone on the left. The question I have is this: when are conservatives going to wake up and realize that despite all his bluster about being a conservative, the Republican nominee for president has proposed the single largest expenditure in the history of this nation -- and that he's proposed that it be made without the approval of Congress?

McCain - Keating Five Redux

Nia "Hussein" J. — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 04:32:56 EDT

McCain Repeats Keating Era Mistakes...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/01/mccain-repeating-keating_n_130612.html#postComment

Seath Colter Walls

As the stock market recovers from its biggest single-day drop since the crash of 1987, a former federal regulator who had a front-row view of John McCain's role in the Savings and Loan scandal says he is repeating some of the same mistakes.

William Black -- a deputy director of the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation during the "Keating Five" scandal that nearly ended McCain's political career -- says the Arizona Republican's chief errors at the time were underestimating the importance of regulation and relying too heavily on slanted advice from captains of industry.

"In the S&L crisis, he took his advice from the worst [kind of] criminal. Charles Keating is the person he went to for his policy advice," Black said. "Now, he certainly is getting advice from Phil Gramm, Carly Fiorina, Rick Davis -- the whole group of economic and top political advisers are lobbyist types. He just doesn't seem to get it, ever, that the advice is going to favor their clients. Even if they just stop being lobbyists, you can't just turn that off instantly. It's their mind state that develops. ... The biggest lesson is that, when you deregulate and de-supervise, you create an environment where control fraud emerges. You hyper-inflate bubbles; you get criminalization."

Though McCain's latest TV ads tout the senator's sporadic calls for more government regulation, Black notes with interest that McCain bragged recently that he was "fundamentally a deregulator." Black, who is now an associate professor of law and economics at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, also said that the deregulation that McCain was until recently proud to have championed effectively took corporate cops off the beat. "Nobody calls the Houston police department and says 'I think there a problem at Enron,'" he remarked.

Black, who has long been critical of McCain's role in the Keating affair, also viewed McCain's Tuesday announcement of his support for increased FDIC insurance rates as something of a sham, calling it "just one of his many contradictions" on economic matters.

In 1991, McCain railed against raising the FDIC insurance limit from $40,000 to its current $100,000 level. "The perversity of Federal deposit insurance is exemplified by the taxpayer bailout of the savings and loan industry," McCain said, while omitting his own role in the scandal that actually precipitated the S&L crisis.

"I think it is generally acknowledged that the failure of the savings and loan industry, to a large degree, can be directly attributed to the unwarranted expansion of deposit insurance," McCain continued. "Basic coverage was increased from $40,000 to $100,000. No longer was deposit insurance for the small depositor. It became the safety blanket for large, sophisticated depositors and freewheeling bankers."

Now, as McCain echoes Barack Obama's call to raise the FDIC insurance level from $100,000 to $250,000, Black believes the idea that FDIC insurance rates ever caused the S&L crisis can finally be put to rest as being "complete bunk."

Yet, despite being a withering McCain critic, Black isn't completely sold on Obama, either. While he notes with some satisfaction that the Illinois Democrat "did at least try to do some stuff on the regulation of subprime [mortgages] a couple of years ago, he wasn't on key committees." Overall, on financial regulatory matters, Black says Obama is "really somewhat untested. I'm not sure exactly what he would do." But Black notes that the "experienced" candidate is the one most likely to be tagged with responsibility for the current mess. "McCain purports to be on the committee that dealt with everything. [Meanwhile], he did nothing on subprime mortgages for years."

Mccain - Gramm Wallstreet Connection

Nia "Hussein" J. — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 02:26:32 EDT

The were Several articles I found linking some of our major enonomic disasters having ties to the Gop party , paricularly Phil Gramm.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601070&sid=atiIm5LQRuNs&refer=home

At today's event, Gramm also defended McCain's selection of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin to be his vice presidential running mate. ``We went through a process of vetting all possible candidates,'' narrowing it down to three before choosing Palin, he said. When asked later whether he still has a role in the campaign, Gramm said, ``I'm a supporter.''

http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2008/07/foreclosure-phil.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/01/21/short-on-economic-underst_n_82529.html

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24844889/

http://money.cnn.com/2008/02/18/news/newsmakers/tully_gramm.fortune/index.htm

http://lonesomemongoose.wordpress.com/2008/08/15/phil-gramm-is-back-attends-

mccain-campaign-briefing-on-economics

http://lonesomemongoose.wordpress.com/2008/06/06/mccain-economic-adviser-phil-gramm-back-in-the-news-again/

http://jtaplin.wordpress.com/2008/09/07/mccain-gramm-and-the-fannie-mae-crisis/http://www.newsweek.com/id/145011?tid=relatedcl http://us.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/08/07/mccain.dhl/index.html?iref=24hours

http://www.politicalbase.com/profile/Chris%20Brown/blog/&blogId=3104

http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/ 2008/08/14/phil-gramm-attends-mccain-campaign-briefing/print/

http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1833106,00.html

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/09/10/national/main4436263.shtml http://newsbusters.org/blogs/brent-baker/2008/09/10/couric-uses-sex-scandal-illustrate-bush-admin-close-big-oil

Snake Eyes McCain

Nia "Hussein" J. — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 02:28:33 EDT

September 28, 2008McCain and Team Have Many Ties to Gambling Industry By JO BECKER and DON VAN NATTA Jr.

Senator John McCain was on a roll. In a room reserved for high-stakes gamblers at the Foxwoods Resort Casino in Connecticut, he tossed $100 chips around a hot craps table. When the marathon session ended around 2:30 a.m., the Arizona senator and his entourage emerged with thousands of dollars in winnings.

A lifelong gambler, Mr. McCain takes risks, both on and off the craps table. He was throwing dice that night not long after his failed 2000 presidential bid, in which he was skewered by the Republican Party’s evangelical base, opponents of gambling. Mr. McCain was betting at a casino he oversaw as a member of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, and he was doing so with the lobbyist who represents that casino, according to three associates of Mr. McCain.

The visit had been arranged by the lobbyist, Scott Reed, who works for the Mashantucket Pequot, a tribe that has contributed heavily to Mr. McCain’s campaigns and built Foxwoods into the world’s second-largest casino. Joining them was Rick Davis, Mr. McCain’s current campaign manager. Their night of good fortune epitomized not just Mr. McCain’s affection for gambling, but also the close relationship he has built with the gambling industry and its lobbyists during his 25-year career in Congress.

As a two-time chairman of the Indian Affairs Committee, Mr. McCain has done more than any other member of Congress to shape the laws governing America’s casinos, helping to transform the once-sleepy Indian gambling business into a $26-billion-a-year behemoth with 423 casinos across the country. He has won praise as a champion of economic development and self-governance on reservations.

“One of the founding fathers of Indian gaming” is what Steven Light, a University of North Dakota professor and a leading Indian gambling expert, called Mr. McCain.

As factions of the ferociously competitive gambling industry have vied for an edge, they have found it advantageous to cultivate a relationship with Mr. McCain or hire someone who has one, according to an examination based on more than 70 interviews and thousands of pages of documents.

Mr. McCain portrays himself as a Washington maverick unswayed by special interests, referring recently to lobbyists as “birds of prey.” Yet in his current campaign, more than 40 fund-raisers and top advisers have lobbied or worked for an array of gambling interests — including tribal and Las Vegas casinos, lottery companies and online poker purveyors.

When rules being considered by Congress threatened a California tribe’s planned casino in 2005, Mr. McCain helped spare the tribe. Its lobbyist, who had no prior experience in the gambling industry, had a nearly 20-year friendship with Mr. McCain.

In Connecticut that year, when a tribe was looking to open the state’s third casino, staff members on the Indian Affairs Committee provided guidance to lobbyists representing those fighting the casino, e-mail messages and interviews show. The proposed casino, which would have cut into the Pequots’ market share, was opposed by Mr. McCain’s colleagues in Connecticut.

Mr. McCain declined to be interviewed. In written answers to questions, his campaign staff said he was “justifiably proud” of his record on regulating Indian gambling. “Senator McCain has taken positions on policy issues because he believed they are in the public interest,” the campaign said.

Mr. McCain’s spokesman, Tucker Bounds, would not discuss the senator’s night of gambling at Foxwoods, saying: “Your paper has repeatedly attempted to insinuate impropriety on the part of Senator McCain where none exists — and it reveals that your publication is desperately willing to gamble away what little credibility it still has.”

Over his career, Mr. McCain has taken on special interests, like big tobacco, and angered the capital’s powerbrokers by promoting campaign finance reform and pushing to limit gifts that lobbyists can shower on lawmakers. On occasion, he has crossed the gambling industry on issues like regulating slot machines.

Perhaps no episode burnished Mr. McCain’s image as a reformer more than his stewardship three years ago of the Congressional investigation into Jack Abramoff, the disgraced Republican Indian gambling lobbyist who became a national symbol of the pay-to-play culture in Washington. The senator’s leadership during the scandal set the stage for the most sweeping overhaul of lobbying laws since Watergate.

“I’ve fought lobbyists who stole from Indian tribes,” the senator said in his speech accepting the Republican presidential nomination this month.

But interviews and records show that lobbyists and political operatives in Mr. McCain’s inner circle played a behind-the-scenes role in bringing Mr. Abramoff’s misdeeds to Mr. McCain’s attention — and then cashed in on the resulting investigation. The senator’s longtime chief political strategist, for example, was paid $100,000 over four months as a consultant to one tribe caught up in the inquiry, records show.

Mr. McCain’s campaign said the senator acted solely to protect American Indians, even though the inquiry posed “grave risk to his political interests.”

As public opposition to tribal casinos has grown in recent years, Mr. McCain has distanced himself from Indian gambling, Congressional and American Indian officials said.

But he has rarely wavered in his loyalty to Las Vegas, where he counts casino executives among his close friends and most prolific fund-raisers. “Beyond just his support for gaming, Nevada supports John McCain because he’s one of us, a Westerner at heart,” said Sig Rogich, a Nevada Republican kingmaker who raised nearly $2 million for Mr. McCain at an event at his home in June.

Only six members of Congress have received more money from the gambling industry than Mr. McCain, and five hail from the casino hubs of Nevada and New Jersey, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics dating back to 1989. In the presidential race, Senator Barack Obama has also received money from the industry; Mr. McCain has raised almost twice as much.

In May 2007, as Mr. McCain’s presidential bid was floundering, he spent a weekend at the MGM Grand on the Las Vegas strip. A fund-raiser hosted by J. Terrence Lanni, the casino’s top executive and a longtime friend of the senator, raised $400,000 for his campaign. Afterward, Mr. McCain attended a boxing match and hit the craps tables.

For much of his adult life, Mr. McCain has gambled as often as once a month, friends and associates said, traveling to Las Vegas for weekend betting marathons. Former senior campaign officials said they worried about Mr. McCain’s patronage of casinos, given the power he wields over the industry. The officials, like others interviewed for this article, spoke on condition of anonymity.

“We were always concerned about appearances,” one former official said. “If you go around saying that appearances matter, then they matter.”

The former official said he would tell Mr. McCain: “Do we really have to go to a casino? I don’t think it’s a good idea. The base doesn’t like it. It doesn’t look good. And good things don’t happen in casinos at midnight.”

“You worry too much,” Mr. McCain would respond, the official said.

A Record of Support

In one of their last conversations, Representative Morris K. Udall, Arizona’s powerful Democrat, whose devotion to American Indian causes was legendary, implored his friend Mr. McCain to carry on his legacy.

“Don’t forget the Indians,” Mr. Udall, who died in 1998, told Mr. McCain in a directive that the senator has recounted to others.

More than a decade earlier, Mr. Udall had persuaded Mr. McCain to join the Senate Indian Affairs Committee. Mr. McCain, whose home state has the third-highest Indian population, eloquently decried the “grinding poverty” that gripped many reservations.

The two men helped write the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act of 1988 after the Supreme Court found that states had virtually no right to control wagering on reservations. The legislation provided a framework for the oversight and growth of Indian casinos: In 1988, Indian gambling represented less than 1 percent of the nation’s gambling revenues; today it captures more than one third.

On the Senate floor after the bill’s passage, Mr. McCain said he personally opposed Indian gambling, but when impoverished communities “are faced with only one option for economic development, and that is to set up gambling on their reservations, then I cannot disapprove.”

In 1994, Mr. McCain pushed an amendment that enabled dozens of additional tribes to win federal recognition and open casinos. And in 1998, Mr. McCain fought a Senate effort to rein in the boom.

He also voted twice in the last decade to give casinos tax breaks estimated to cost the government more than $326 million over a dozen years.

The first tax break benefited the industry in Las Vegas, one of a number of ways Mr. McCain has helped nontribal casinos. Mr. Lanni, the MGM Mirage chief executive, said that an unsuccessful bid by the senator to ban wagering on college sports in Nevada was the only time he could recall Mr. McCain opposing Las Vegas. “I can’t think of any other issue,” Mr. Lanni said.

The second tax break helped tribal casinos like Foxwoods and was pushed by Scott Reed, the Pequots’ lobbyist.

Mr. McCain had gotten to know Mr. Reed during Senator Bob Dole’s 1996 presidential campaign, which Mr. Reed managed. Four years later, when Mr. McCain ran for president, Mr. Reed recommended he hire his close friend and protégé, Rick Davis, to manage that campaign.

During his 2000 primary race against George W. Bush, Mr. McCain promoted his record of helping Indian Country, telling reporters on a campaign swing that he had provided critical support to “the Pequot, now the proud owners of the largest casino in the world.”

But Mr. McCain’s record on Indian gambling was fast becoming a difficult issue for him in the primary. Bush supporters like Gov. John Engler of Michigan lambasted Mr. McCain for his “close ties to Indian gambling.”

A decade after Mr. McCain co-authored the Indian gambling act, the political tides had turned. Tribal casinos, which were growing at a blazing pace, had become increasingly unpopular around the country for reasons as varied as morality and traffic.

Then came the biggest lobbying scandal to shake Washington.

Behind an Inquiry

At a September 2004 hearing of the Indian Affairs Committee, Mr. McCain described Jack Abramoff as one of the most brazen in a long line of crooks to cheat American Indians. “It began with the sale of Manhattan, and has continued ever since,” he said. “What sets this tale apart, what makes it truly extraordinary, is the extent and degree of the apparent exploitation and deceit.”

Over the next two years, Mr. McCain helped uncover a breathtaking lobbying scandal — Mr. Abramoff and a partner bilked six tribes of $66 million — that showcased the senator’s willingness to risk the wrath of his own party to expose wrongdoing. But interviews and documents show that Mr. McCain and a circle of allies — lobbyists, lawyers and senior strategists — also seized on the case for its opportunities.

For McCain-connected lobbyists who were rivals of Mr. Abramoff, the scandal presented a chance to crush a competitor. For senior McCain advisers, the inquiry allowed them to collect fees from the very Indians that Mr. Abramoff had ripped off. And the investigation enabled Mr. McCain to confront political enemies who helped defeat him in his 2000 presidential run while polishing his maverick image.

The Abramoff saga started in early 2003 when members of two tribes began questioning Mr. Abramoff’s astronomical fees. Over the next year, they leaked information to local newspapers, but it took the hiring of lobbyists who were competitors of Mr. Abramoff to get the attention of Mr. McCain’s committee.

Bernie Sprague, who led the effort by one of the tribes, the Saginaw Chippewas in Michigan, hired a Democratic lobbyist who recommended that the tribe retain Scott Reed, the Republican lobbyist, to push for an investigation.

Mr. Reed had boasted to other lobbyists of his access to Mr. McCain, three close associates said. Mr. Reed “pretty much had open access to John from 2000 to at least the end of 2006,” one aide said.

Lobbyist disclosure forms show that Mr. Reed went to work for the Saginaw Chippewa on Feb. 15, 2004, charging the tribe $56,000 over a year. Mr. Abramoff had tried to steal the Pequots and another tribal client from Mr. Reed, and taking down Mr. Abramoff would eliminate a competitor.

Mr. Reed became the chief conduit to Mr. McCain’s committee for billing documents and other information Mr. Sprague was digging up on Mr. Abramoff, Mr. Sprague said, who said Mr. Reed “did a great to service to me.”

“He had contacts I did not,” Mr. Sprague said. “Initially, I think that the senator’s office was doing Reed a favor by listening to me.”

A few weeks after hiring Mr. Reed, Mr. Sprague received a letter from the senator. “We have met with Scott Reed, who was very helpful on the issue,” Mr. McCain wrote.

Information about Mr. Abramoff was also flowing to Mr. McCain’s committee from another tribe, the Coushatta of Louisiana. The source was a consultant named Roy Fletcher, who had been Mr. McCain’s deputy campaign manager in 2000, running his war room in South Carolina.

It was in that primary race that two of Mr. Abramoff’s closest associates, Grover Norquist, who runs the nonprofit Americans for Tax Reform, and Ralph Reed, the former director of the Christian Coalition, ran a blistering campaign questioning Mr. McCain’s conservative credentials. The senator and his advisers blamed that attack for Mr. McCain’s loss to Mr. Bush in South Carolina, creating tensions that would resurface in the Abramoff matter.

“I was interested in busting” Mr. Abramoff, said Mr. Fletcher, who was eventually hired to represent the tribe. “That was my job. But I was also filled with righteous indignation, I got to tell you.”

Mr. Fletcher said he began passing information to John Weaver, Mr. McCain’s chief political strategist, and other staff members in late 2003 or January 2004. Mr. Weaver confirmed the timing.

Mr. McCain announced his investigation on Feb. 26, 2004, citing an article on Mr. Abramoff in The Washington Post. He did not mention the action by lobbyists and tribes in the preceding weeks. His campaign said no one in his “innermost circle” brought information to Mr. McCain that prompted the investigation.

The senator declared he would not investigate members of Congress, whom Mr. Abramoff had lavished with tribal donations and golf outings to Scotland. But in the course of the investigation, the committee exposed Mr. Abramoff’s dealings with the two men who had helped defeat Mr. McCain in the 2000 primary.

The investigation showed that Mr. Norquist’s foundation was used by Mr. Abramoff to launder lobbying fees from tribes. Ralph Reed was found to have accepted $4 million to run bogus antigambling campaigns. And the investigation also highlighted Mr. Abramoff’s efforts to curry favor with the House majority leader at the time, Tom DeLay, Republican of Texas, a longtime political foe who had opposed many of Mr. McCain’s legislative priorities.

Mr. McCain’s campaign said the senator did not “single out” Ralph Reed or Mr. Norquist, neither of whom were ever charged, and that both men fell within the “scope of the investigation.” The inquiry, which led to guilty pleas by over a dozen individuals, was motivated by a desire to help aggrieved tribes, the campaign said.

Inside the investigation, the sense of schadenfreude was palpable, according to several people close to the senator. “It was like hitting pay dirt,” said one associate of Mr. McCain’s who had consulted with the senator’s office on the investigation. “And face it — McCain and Weaver were maniacal about Ralph Reed and Norquist. They were sticking little pins in dolls because those guys had cost him South Carolina.”

Down on the Coushattas reservation, bills related to the investigation kept coming. After firing Mr. Abramoff, the tribe hired Kent Hance, a lawyer and former Texas congressman who said he had been friends with Mr. McCain since the 1980s.

David Sickey, the tribe’s vice chairman, said he was “dumbfounded” over the bills submitted by Mr. Hance’s firm, Hance Scarborough, which had been hired by Mr. Sickey’s predecessors.

“The very thing we were fighting seemed to be happening all over again — these absurd amounts of money being paid,” Mr. Sickey said.

Mr. Hance’s firm billed the tribe nearly $1.3 million over 11 months in legal and political consulting fees, records show. But Mr. Sickey said that the billing statements offered only vague explanations for services and that he could not point to any tangible results. Two consultants, for instance, were paid to fight the expansion of gambling in Texas — even though it was unlikely given that the governor there opposed any such prospect, Mr. Sickey said.

Mr. Hance and Jay B. Stewart, the firm’s managing partner, defended their team’s work, saying they successfully steered the tribe through a difficult period. “We did an outstanding job for them,” Mr. Hance said. “When we told them our bill was going to be $100,000 a month, they thought we were cheap. Mr. Abramoff had charged them $1 million a month.”

The firm’s fees covered the services of Mr. Fletcher, who served as the tribe’s spokesman. Records also show that Mr. Hance had Mr. Weaver — who was serving as Mr. McCain’s chief strategist — put on the tribe’s payroll from February to May 2005.

It is not precisely clear what role Mr. Weaver played for his $100,000 fee.

Mr. Stewart said Mr. Weaver was hired because “he had a lot of experience with the Senate, especially the new chairman, John McCain.” The Hance firm told the tribe in a letter that Mr. Weaver was hired to provide “representation for the tribe before the U.S. Senate.”

But Mr. Weaver never registered to lobby on the issue, and he has another explanation for his work.

“The Hance law firm retained me to assist them and their client in developing an aggressive crisis management and communications strategy,” Mr. Weaver said. “At no point was I asked by Kent Hance or anyone associated with him to set up meetings with anyone in or outside of government to discuss this, and if asked I would have summarily declined to do so.”

In June 2005, the tribe informed Mr. Hance that his services were no longer needed.

Change in Tone

After the Abramoff scandal, Mr. McCain stopped taking campaign donations from tribes. Some American Indians were offended, especially since Mr. McCain continued to accept money from the tribes’ lobbyists.

Resentment in Indian Country mounted as Mr. McCain, who was preparing for another White House run, singled out the growth in tribal gambling as one of three national issues that were “out of control.” (The others were federal spending and illegal immigration.)

Franklin Ducheneaux, an aide to Morris Udall who helped draft the 1988 Indian gambling law, said that position ran contrary to Mr. McCain’s record. “What did he think? That Congress intended for the tribes to be only somewhat successful?” Mr. Ducheneaux said.

Mr. McCain began taking a broad look at whether the laws were sufficient to oversee the growing industry. His campaign said that the growth had put “considerable stress” on regulators and Mr. McCain held hearings on whether the federal government needed more oversight power.

An opportunity to restrain the industry came in the spring of 2005, when a small tribe in Connecticut set off a political battle. The group, the Schaghticoke Tribal Nation, had won federal recognition in 2004 after producing voluminous documentation tracing its roots.

The tribe wanted to build Connecticut’s third casino, which would compete with Foxwoods and another, the Mohegan Sun. Facing public opposition on the proposed casino, members of the Connecticut political establishment — many of whom had received large Pequot and Mohegan campaign donations — swung into action.

Connecticut officials claimed that a genealogical review by the Bureau of Indian Affairs was flawed, and that the Schaghticoke was not a tribe.

The tribe’s opponents, led by the Washington lobbying firm Barbour Griffith & Rogers, turned to Mr. McCain’s committee. It was a full-circle moment for the senator, who had helped the Pequots gain tribal recognition in the 1980s despite concerns about their legitimacy.

Now, Mr. McCain was doing a favor for allies in the Connecticut delegation, including Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, a close friend, according to two former Congressional aides. “It was one of those collegial deals,” said one of the aides, who worked for Mr. McCain.

Barbour Griffith & Rogers wanted Mr. McCain to hold a hearing that would show that the Bureau of Indian Affairs was “broken,” said Bradley A. Blakeman, who was a lobbyist for the firm at the time.

“It was our hope that the hearing would shed light on the fact that the bureau had not followed their rules and had improperly granted recognition to the Schaghticoke,” Mr. Blakeman said. “And that the bureau would revisit the issue and follow their rules.”

Mr. McCain’s staff helped that effort by offering strategic advice.

His staff told a lobbyist for the firm that the Indian Affairs Committee “would love to receive a letter” from the Connecticut governor requesting a hearing, according to an e-mail exchange, and offered “guidance on what the most effective tone and approach” would be in the letter.

On May 11, 2005, Mr. McCain held a hearing billed as a general “oversight hearing on federal recognition of Indian tribes.” But nearly all the witnesses were Schaghticoke opponents who portrayed the tribe as imposters.

Mr. McCain set the tone: “The role that gaming and its nontribal backers have played in the recognition process has increased perceptions that it is unfair, if not corrupt.”

Chief Richard F. Velky of the Schaghticokes found himself facing off against the governor and most of the state’s congressional delegation. “The deck was stacked against us,” Mr. Velky said. “They were given lots of time. I was given five minutes.”

He had always believed Mr. McCain “to be an honest and fair man,” Mr. Velky said, “but this didn’t make me feel that good.”

Mr. Velky said he felt worse when the e-mail messages between the tribe’s opponents and Mr. McCain’s staff surfaced in a federal lawsuit. “Is there a letter telling me how to address the senator to give me the best shot?” Mr. Velky asked. “No, there is not.”

After the hearing, Pablo E. Carrillo, who was Mr. McCain’s chief Abramoff investigator at the time, wrote to a Barbour Griffith & Rogers lobbyist, Brant Imperatore. “Your client’s side definitely got a good hearing record,” Mr. Carillo wrote, adding “you probably have a good sense” on where Mr. McCain “is headed on this.”

“Well done!” he added.

Cynthia Shaw, a Republican counsel to the committee from 2005 to 2007, said Mr. McCain made decisions based on merit, not special interests. “Everybody got a meeting who asked for one,” Ms. Shaw said, “whether you were represented by counsel or by a lobbyist — or regardless of which lobbyist.”

Mr. McCain’s campaign defended the senator’s handling of the Schaghticoke case, saying no staff member acted improperly. The campaign said the session was part of normal committee business and the notion that Mr. McCain was intending to help Congressional colleagues defeat the tribe was “absolutely false.”

It added that the senator’s commitment to Indian sovereignty “remains as strong as ever.”

Within months of the May 2005 hearing, the Bureau of Indian Affairs took the rare step of rescinding the Schaghticokes’ recognition. A federal court recently rejected the tribe’s claim that the reversal was politically motivated.

Making an Exception

That spring of 2005, as the Schaghticokes went down to defeat in the East, another tribe in the West squared off against Mr. McCain with its bid to construct a gambling emporium in California. The stakes were similar, but the outcome would be far different.

The tribe’s plan to build a casino on a former Navy base just outside San Francisco represented a trend rippling across the country: American Indians seeking to build casinos near population centers, far from their reservations.

The practice, known as “off-reservation shopping,” stemmed from the 1988 Indian gambling law, which included exceptions allowing some casinos to be built outside tribal lands. When Mr. McCain began his second stint as chairman of the Indian Affairs Committee three years ago, Las Vegas pressed him to revisit the exceptions he had helped create, according to Sig Rogich, the Republican fund-raiser from Nevada.

“We told him this off-reservation shopping had to stop,” Mr. Rogich said. “It was no secret that the gaming industry, as well as many potentially affected communities in other states, voiced opposition to the practice.”

In the spring of 2005, Mr. McCain announced he was planning a sweeping overhaul of Indian gambling laws, including limiting off-reservation casinos. His campaign said Las Vegas had nothing to do with it. In a 2005 interview with The Oregonian, Mr. McCain said that if Congress did not act, “soon every Indian tribe is going to have a casino in downtown, metropolitan areas.”

Prospects for the proposed California project did not look promising. Then the tribe, the Guidiville Band of Pomo Indians, hired a lobbyist based in Phoenix named Wes Gullett.

Mr. Gullett, who had never represented tribes before Congress, had known Mr. McCain since the early 1980s. Mr. Gullett met his wife while they were working in Mr. McCain’s Washington office. He subsequently managed Mr. McCain’s 1992 Senate campaign and served as a top aide to his 2000 presidential campaign. Their friendship went beyond politics. When Mr. McCain’s wife, Cindy, brought two infants in need of medical treatment back to Arizona from Bangladesh, the Gulletts adopted one baby and the McCains the other. The two men also liked to take weekend trips to Las Vegas.

Another of Mr. McCain’s close friends, former Defense Secretary William S. Cohen, was a major investor in the Guidivilles’ proposed casino. Mr. Cohen, who did not return calls, was best man at Mr. McCain’s 1980 wedding.

Scott Crowell, lawyer for the Guidivilles, said Mr. Gullett was hired to ensure that Mr. McCain’s overhaul of the Indian gambling laws did not harm the tribe.

Mr. Gullett said he never talked to Mr. McCain about the legislation. “If you are hired directly to lobby John McCain, you are not going to be effective,” he said. Mr. Gullett said he only helped prepare the testimony of the tribe’s administrator, Walter Gray, who was invited to plead his case before Mr. McCain’s committee in July 2005. Mr. Gullett said he advised Mr. Gray in a series of conference calls.

On disclosure forms filed with the Senate, however, Mr. Gullett stated that he was not hired until November, long after Mr. Gray’s testimony. Mr. Gullett said the late filing might have been “a mistake, but it was inadvertent.” Steve Hart, a former lawyer for the Guidivilles, backed up Mr. Gullett’s contention that he had guided Mr. Gray on his July testimony.

When asked whether Mr. Gullett had helped him, Mr. Gray responded, “I’ve never met the man and couldn’t tell you anything about him.”

On Nov. 18, 2005, when Mr. McCain introduced his promised legislation overhauling the Indian gambling law, he left largely intact a provision that the Guidivilles needed for their casino. Mr. McCain’s campaign declined to answer whether the senator spoke with Mr. Gullett or Mr. Cohen about the project. In the end, Mr. McCain’s bill died, largely because Indian gambling interests fought back. But the Department of Interior picked up where Mr. McCain left off, effectively doing through regulations what he had hoped to accomplish legislatively. Carl Artman, who served as the Interior Department’s assistant secretary of Indian Affairs until May, said Mr. McCain pushed him to rewrite the off-reservation rules. “It became one of my top priorities because Senator McCain made it clear it was one of his top priorities,” he said.

The new guidelines were issued on Jan. 4. As a result, the casino applications of 11 tribes were rejected. The Guidivilles were not among them.

Kitty Bennett and Griff Palmer contributed to reporting.

McCain adviser Paid Two Million....

Nia "Hussein" J. — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 16:40:00 EDT

September 22, 2008Loan Titans Paid McCain Adviser Nearly $2 Million By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK and CHARLES DUHIGG

Senator John McCain’s campaign manager was paid more than $30,000 a month for five years as president of an advocacy group set up by the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to defend them against stricter regulations, current and former officials say.

Mr. McCain, the Republican candidate for president, has recently begun campaigning as a critic of the two companies and the lobbying army that helped them evade greater regulation as they began buying riskier mortgages with implicit federal backing. He and his Democratic rival, Senator Barack Obama, have donors and advisers who are tied to the companies.

But last week the McCain campaign stepped up a running battle of guilt by association when it began broadcasting commercials trying to link Mr. Obama directly to the government bailout of the mortgage giants this month by charging that he takes advice from Fannie Mae’s former chief executive, Franklin Raines, an assertion both Mr. Raines and the Obama campaign dispute.

Incensed by the advertisements, several current and former executives of the companies came forward to discuss the role that Rick Davis, Mr. McCain’s campaign manager and longtime adviser, played in helping Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac beat back regulatory challenges when he served as president of their advocacy group, the Homeownership Alliance, formed in the summer of 2000. Some who came forward were Democrats, but Republicans, speaking on the condition of anonymity, confirmed their descriptions.

“The value that he brought to the relationship was the closeness to Senator McCain and the possibility that Senator McCain was going to run for president again,” said Robert McCarson, a former spokesman for Fannie Mae, who said that while he worked there from 2000 to 2002, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac together paid Mr. Davis’s firm $35,000 a month. Mr. Davis “didn’t really do anything,” Mr. McCarson, a Democrat, said.

Mr. Davis’s role with the group has bubbled up as an issue in the campaign, but the extent of his compensation and the details of his role have not been reported previously.

Mr. McCain was never a leading critic or defender of the mortgage giants, although several former executives of the companies said Mr. Davis did draw Mr. McCain to a 2004 awards banquet that the companies’ Homeownership Alliance held in a Senate office building. The organization printed a photograph of Mr. McCain at the event in its 2004 annual report, bolstering its clout and credibility. The event honored several other elected officials, including at least two Democrats, Gov. Edward G. Rendell of Pennsylvania and Representative Artur Davis of Alabama.

In an interview Sunday night with CNBC and The New York Times, Mr. McCain noted that Mr. Davis was no longer working on behalf of the mortgage giants. He said Mr. Davis “has had nothing to do with it since, and I’ll be glad to have his record examined by anybody who wants to look at it.”

Asked about the reports of Mr. Davis’s role, a spokesman for Mr. McCain said that during the time when Mr. Davis ran the Homeownership Alliance, the senator had backed legislation to increase oversight of the mortgage companies’ accounting and executive compensation. The legislation, however, did not seek to change their anomalous structure as private companies with federal support.

The spokesman, Tucker Bounds, also noted that the Homeownership Alliance included nonprofit organizations like Habitat for Humanity and the Urban League. “It’s not controversial to promote homeownership and minority homeownership,” Mr. Bounds said. More than a half-dozen current and former executives, however, said the Homeownership Alliance was set up mainly to defend Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac by promoting their role in the housing market, and the two companies paid almost the entire cost of the group’s operations.

“They were financed largely, possibly exclusively, by Fannie and Freddie,” said William R. Maloni, a Democrat who is a former head of industry relations for Fannie Mae. “We thought it would be helpful to have someone who was a broadly recognized Republican to be the face of the organization, and that person became Rick Davis.” Mr. Maloni added, “Rick, for that purpose, turned out to be quite good.” (Several executives said Mr. Davis’s compensation was not unusual for the companies’ well-connected consultants.)

The federal bailout of the two mortgage giants has become an emblem of what critics say is the outdated or inadequate regulatory system that allowed the financial system to slide into crisis this summer.

At the time that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac recruited Mr. Davis to run the Homeownership Alliance in 2000, they were under new pressure from private industry rivals and deregulation-minded Republicans who argued that the two companies’ federal sponsorship gave them an unfair advantage and put taxpayers at risk. Critics of the companies had formed their own Washington-based advocacy group, FM Watch. They were pushing for regulations that would deter the companies from expanding into new areas, including riskier and more profitable mortgages.

Mr. Davis had recently returned to his lobbying firm from running Mr. McCain’s unexpectedly strong 2000 Republican primary campaign, which elevated Mr. McCain’s profile as a legislator and Mr. Davis’s as a lobbyist.

“You can say what you want about free-market distortions, but people like the system because it gets them into houses cheap,” Mr. Davis said to Institutional Investor magazine in 2000, adding that he would run the advocacy group out of his Alexandria, Va., lobbying firm.

The organization also hired Public Strategies, a communications firm that included former Bush adviser Mark McKinnon. Mr. Davis wrote letters and gave speeches for the group. In April 2001, he sent out a press release headlined, “It’s Tax Day — Do You Know Where Your Deductions Are? For Most Americans, They’re in Your Home.”

But by the end of 2005, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were recovering from accounting problems and re-examining costs, former executives said. The companies decided the Homeownership Alliance had outlived its usefulness, and it disappeared.

John Harwood contributed reporting.

Principles First, Plans Second...

Nia "Hussein" J. — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 03:12:40 EDT

Principles First, Plans Second by: Texas Gray WolfSun Sep 21, 2008 at 23:48:03 PM EDT

Obama did exactly the right thing in proposing principles for a plan to bail out the financial industry rather than a plan, both politically and Presidentially. Presidents set agendas and principles and have staffs to draw up the nuts and bolts (or: you don't think FDR crafted all that legislation personally, do you?). Obama's not going to take the lead on crafting a plan in the Senate, can't, and shouldn't. That's a job that's going to require the full attention of the people involved. It's also not what you expect a president to do either. Presidents set principles, goals, objectives, criteria, agendas, that sort of thing. Presidents should be overseers, not wonks (a bit of wonkiness, good; too much, bad). Presidents are not Senators. Acting as a Senator now is a necessary but not sufficient part of Obama's campaign for the Presidency; being Presidential is much more valuable.

I don't think that voters want a specific plan from Obama right now. They don't want to (and won't) read through legislation. Voters want leadership. This is step one of leadership (step two is standing by it and using his position to promote his principles and hold Congress, or at minimum Democrats, to them). McCain (and anyone else Obama didn't mention, in laying out the principles) is now in the "follower" position, unless they start from a different set of principles and win the fight over whose principles are better (and even in that case, Obama's still taken the leadership position by switching the debate from plans to principles).

Texas Gray Wolf :: Principles First, Plans Second Had Obama just proposed a concrete, specific, here's-the-nuts-and-bolts plan, voters would tune out or listen to a soundbite analysis of the plan. But they'll look carefully at a set of principles. They want whatever plan is proposed to conform to a set of principles that protects them and works for them. That's what Obama's proposed. Voters want to know what the plan will do for them*. They don't want to know the nuts and bolts of how it will do it for them. They do want to know that there are nuts and bolts and that those nuts and bolts are the right ones (i.e. there needs to be credibility in the resulting plan). This is the framework for deciding if the nuts and bolts are the right ones.

Each principle is concise and easily explained and defended. Together they provide an enormous amount of justification to Democrats (and Republicans too) who want to oppose the current bailout plan, and tools with which to attack those who do not oppose the current plan. I'm just waiting for Obama, for instance, to respond to an attack by saying "so, you're opposed to protecting the American taxpayer?", "so, you want to kick taxpayers out of their homes even after we've spent government money covering their mortgage?", "so, you're still opposed to regulation, even after the lack of regulation has brought us to this point", etc.

These are very hard principles to attack openly. A plan can be attacked; any detailed plan is going to contain one or two things you can attack on. It's inevitable; no one writes perfect laws and there really is no bailout that will be universally accepted. But it's very hard to attack the principles Obama's proposing; they're all intuitively the right thing to do even for conservatives. If you propose plan first and back-fill your principles you look weak. Proposing principles first is a position of strength.

What Obama's proposed lays out a framework: what will the plan do for people? What will it not do? Without that, you wind up with "Obama's Wonky Plan" vs "McCain's Wonky Plan" and voters go to sleep or decide based on soundbite analysis of the plan. There's no context for making a decision. The details of this stuff is way, way over the heads of most voters -- heck, it's way over the heads of most National Merit Scholars. On the other hand, everyone gets "protect the taxpayers". It's obvious. It gives Obama grounds to attack the current plan and any bad McCain plan. It puts McCain in the position where he either has to attack Obama's principles or look like a complete follower.

If you're worried about the "indecisiveness" ploy (which I think is going nowhere fast, despite Palin harping on it), pretty much what Obama needs to do to counter that is to say firmly that YES we need a bailout but YES it must follow these principles. That's not indecisiveness and it's not voting 'present'. It also allows Obama to hit back: do you support the administration plan? If not, what's your plan? Does it meet the Obama principles? If not, why not? Proposing a plan doesn't allow you to criticize their plan directly -- you'd have to go to a wonky point-by-point comparison.

If any of the principles is going to be attacked, my money is on the one about keeping taxpayers in their homes. But I think opposing that is a losing position -- I just can't see the American public as a whole saying "hell yeah, corporations deserve billions but taxpayers should get nothing even though the government has covered their bad debt" in such a transparently obvious manner.

Plus there's an enormous economic plus to letting homeowners stay in their homes. If you take the home and sell it in foreclosure, you drive prices down. That creates a continuing spiral of collapses and (possibly) leads to the everyone-moves-one-house-over effect (where people who were bottom-up on a $500,000 house can now afford to buy the $200,000 house that used to be the same $500,000 house). You can make the counterargument that it lets people with means buy houses at fire-sale prices and clean up, but that's saying it rewards the rich -- it's a non-starter. In fact, if you oppose that principle, that's one of the pivots -- that you're directly hurting people who are already hurting and rewarding the rich.

Principles set the ground rules for discussion. They're extremely powerful. McCain's immediately in a box; he either needs to oppose Obama's principles (each of which is fairly hard to oppose) or he has to look like he's following Obama's leadership on the issue. It's a no-win situation unless he can build traction around one of Obama's principles being wrong.

What he has proposed is infinitely more valuable than a plan. He's used his position -- his leadership -- to frame the debate in a way that will tend to force a good plan or force the other side to be honest about pushing a bad plan. It's hard (not impossible, give the bad guys credit, but really hard) to craft a bad plan that conforms to all of Obama's principles. It's also hard to craft a good plan that violates any of them. And articulating principles first gives Congressional Democrats a very straightforward touchstone to reject the administration plan, even prior to proposing their own, and not look like a bunch of obstructionists.

Politically it's brilliant, and it's also the right thing to do for a President.

McCain and the POW Cover-Up

Nia "Hussein" J. — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 23:51:10 EDT

By Sydney H. Schanberg

This article appeared in the October 6, 2008 edition of The Nation.

John McCain, who has risen to political prominence on his image as a Vietnam POW war hero, has, inexplicably, worked very hard to hide from the public stunning information about American prisoners in Vietnam who, unlike him, didn't return home. Throughout his Senate career, McCain has quietly sponsored and pushed into federal law a set of prohibitions that keep the most revealing information about these men buried as classified documents. Thus the war hero people would logically imagine to be a determined crusader for the interests of POWs and their families became instead the strange champion of hiding the evidence and closing the books.

Almost as striking is the manner in which the mainstream press has shied from reporting the POW story and McCain's role in it, even as McCain has made his military service and POW history the focus of his presidential campaign. Reporters who had covered the Vietnam War have also turned their heads and walked in other directions. McCain doesn't talk about the missing men, and the press never asks him about them.

The sum of the secrets McCain has sought to hide is not small. There exists a telling mass of official documents, radio intercepts, witness depositions, satellite photos of rescue symbols that pilots were trained to use, electronic messages from the ground containing the individual code numbers given to airmen, a rescue mission by a Special Forces unit that was aborted twice by Washington and even sworn testimony by two defense secretaries that "men were left behind." This imposing body of evidence suggests that a large number--probably hundreds--of the US prisoners held in Vietnam were not returned when the peace treaty was signed in January 1973 and Hanoi released 591 men, among them Navy combat pilot John S. McCain.

The Pentagon had been withholding significant information from POW families for years. What's more, the Pentagon's POW/MIA operation had been publicly shamed by internal whistleblowers and POW families for holding back documents as part of a policy of "debunking" POW intelligence even when the information was obviously credible. The pressure from the families and Vietnam veterans finally produced the creation, in late 1991, of a Senate "Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs." The chair was John Kerry, but McCain, as a POW, was its most pivotal member. In the end, the committee became part of the debunking machine.

Included in the evidence that McCain and his government allies suppressed or tried to discredit is a transcript of a senior North Vietnamese general's briefing of the Hanoi Politburo, discovered in Soviet archives by an American scholar in the 1990s. The briefing took place only four months before the 1973 peace accords. The general, Tran Van Quang, told the Politburo members that Hanoi was holding 1,205 American prisoners but would keep many of them at war's end as leverage to ensure getting reparations from Washington.

Throughout the Paris negotiations, the North Vietnamese tied the prisoner issue tightly to the issue of reparations. Finally, in a February 1, 1973, formal letter to Hanoi's premier, Pham Van Dong, Nixon pledged $3.25 billion in "postwar reconstruction" aid. The North Vietnamese, though, remained skeptical about the reparations promise being honored (it never was). Hanoi thus held back prisoners--just as it had done when the French were defeated at Dien Bien Phu in 1954 and withdrew their forces from Vietnam. France later paid ransoms for prisoners and brought them home.

Two defense secretaries who served during the Vietnam War testified to the Senate POW committee in September 1992 that prisoners were not returned. James Schlesinger and Melvin Laird, secretaries of defense under Nixon, said in a public session and under oath that they based their conclusions on strong intelligence data--letters, eyewitness reports, even direct radio contacts. Under questioning, Schlesinger chose his words carefully, understanding clearly the volatility of the issue: "I think that as of now that I can come to no other conclusion...some were left behind."

Furthermore, over the years, the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) received more than 1,600 firsthand reports of sightings of live American prisoners and nearly 14,000 secondhand accounts. Many witnesses interrogated by CIA or Pentagon intelligence agents were deemed "credible" in the agents' reports. Some of the witnesses were given lie-detector tests and passed. Sources provided me with copies of these witness reports. Yet the DIA, after reviewing them all, concluded that they "do not constitute evidence" that men were still alive.

There is also evidence that in the first months of Reagan's presidency, the White House received a ransom proposal for a number of POWs being held by Hanoi. The offer, which was passed to Washington from an official of a third country, was apparently discussed at a meeting in the Roosevelt Room attended by Reagan, Vice President George H.W. Bush, CIA director William Casey and National Security Adviser Richard Allen. Allen confirmed the offer in sworn testimony to the Senate POW committee on June 23, 1992.

Allen was allowed to testify behind closed doors, and no information was released. But a San Diego Union-Tribune reporter, Robert Caldwell, obtained the portion of the testimony relating to the ransom offer and wrote about it. The ransom request was for $4 billion, Allen testified. He said he told Reagan that "it would be worth the president going along and let's have the negotiation." When his testimony appeared in the Union-Tribune, Allen quickly wrote a letter to the panel, this time not under oath, recanting the ransom story, saying his memory had played tricks on him.

But the story didn't end there. A Treasury agent on Secret Service duty in the White House, John Syphrit, came forward to say he had overheard part of the ransom conversation in the Roosevelt Room in 1981. The Senate POW committee voted not to subpoena him to testify.

On November 11, 1992, Dolores Alfond, sister of missing airman Capt. Victor Apodaca and chair of the National Alliance of Families, an organization of relatives of POW/MIAs, testified at one of the Senate committee's public hearings. She asked for information about data the government had gathered from electronic devices used in a classified program known as PAVE SPIKE.

The devices were primarily motion sensors, dropped by air, designed to pick up enemy troop movements. But they also had rescue capabilities. Someone on the ground--a downed airman or a prisoner on a labor gang--could manually enter data into the sensor, which were regularly collected electronically by US planes flying overhead. Alfond stated, without any challenge from the committee, that in 1974, a year after the supposedly complete return of prisoners, the gathered data showed that a person or people had manually entered into the sensors--as US pilots had been trained to do--"no less than 20 authenticator numbers that corresponded exactly to the classified authenticator numbers of 20 US POW/MIAs who were lost in Laos." Alfond added, says the transcript: "This PAVE SPIKE intelligence is seamless, but the committee has not discussed it or released what it knows about PAVE SPIKE."

McCain, whose POW status made him the committee's most powerful member, attended that hearing specifically to confront Alfond because of her criticism of the panel's work. He bellowed and berated her for quite a while. His face turning anger-pink, he accused her of "denigrating" his "patriotism." The bullying had its effect--she began to cry.

After a pause Alfond recovered and tried to respond to his scorching tirade, but McCain simply turned and stormed out of the room. The PAVE SPIKE file has never been declassified. We still don't know anything about those 20 POWs.

The committee's final report, issued in January 1993, began with a forty-three-page executive summary--the only section that drew the mainstream press's attention. It said that only "a small number" of POWs could have been left behind in 1973. But the document's remaining 1,180 pages were quite different. Sprinkled throughout are findings that contradict and disprove the conclusions of the whitewashed summary. This insertion of critical evidence that committee leaders had downplayed and dismissed was the work of a committee staff that had opposed and finally rebelled against the cover-up.

Pages 207-209 of the report, for example, contain major revelations of what were either massive intelligence failures or bad intentions. These pages say that until the committee brought up the subject in 1992, no branch of the intelligence community that dealt with analysis of satellite and lower-altitude photos had ever been informed of the distress signals US forces were trained to use in Vietnam--nor had they ever been tasked to look for such signals from possible prisoners on the ground.

In a personal briefing in 1992, high-level CIA officials told me privately that as it became more and more difficult for either government to admit that it knew from the start about the unacknowledged prisoners, those prisoners became not only useless as bargaining chips but also a risk to Hanoi's desire to be accepted into the international community. The CIA officials said their intelligence indicated strongly that the remaining men--those who had not died from illness or hard labor or torture--were eventually executed. My own research has convinced me that it is not likely that more than a few--if any--are alive in captivity today. (That CIA briefing was conducted "off the record," but because the evidence from my reporting since then has brought me to the same conclusion, I felt there was no longer any point in not writing about the meeting.)

For many reasons, including the absence of a constituency for the missing men other than their families and some veterans' groups, very few Americans are aware of McCain's role not only in keeping the subject out of public view but in denying the existence of abandoned POWs. That is because McCain has hardly been alone in this hide-the-scandal campaign. The Arizona senator has actually been following the lead of every White House since Richard Nixon's and thus of every CIA director, Pentagon chief and National Security Adviser, among many others (including Dick Cheney, who was George H.W. Bush's defense secretary).

An early and critical attempt by McCain to conceal evidence involved 1990 legislation called the Truth bill, which started in the House. A brief and simple document, the bill would have compelled complete transparency about prisoners and missing men. Its core sentence said that the "head of each department or agency which holds or receives any records and information, including reports, which have been correlated or possibly correlated to United States personnel listed as prisoner of war or missing in action from World War II, the Korean conflict and the Vietnam conflict, shall make available to the public all such records held or received by that department or agency."

Bitterly opposed by the Pentagon (and thus by McCain), the bill went nowhere. Reintroduced the following year, it again disappeared. But a few months later a new measure, the McCain bill, suddenly appeared. It created a bureaucratic maze from which only a fraction of the documents could emerge--only the records that revealed no POW secrets. The McCain bill became law in 1991 and remains so today.

McCain was also instrumental in amending the Missing Service Personnel Act, which was strengthened in 1995 by POW advocates to include criminal penalties against "any government official who knowingly and willfully withholds from the file of a missing person any information relating to the disappearance or whereabouts and status of a missing person." A year later, in a closed House-Senate conference on an unrelated military bill, McCain, at the behest of the Pentagon, attached a crippling amendment to the act, stripping out its only enforcement teeth, the criminal penalties, and reducing the obligations of commanders in the field to speedily search for missing men and report the incidents to the Pentagon.

McCain argued that keeping the criminal penalties would have made it impossible for the Pentagon to find staffers willing to work on POW/MIA matters. That's an odd argument to make. Were staffers only "willing to work" if they were allowed to conceal POW records? By eviscerating the law, McCain gave his stamp of approval to the government policy of debunking the existence of live POWs.

McCain has insisted again and again that all the evidence has been woven together by unscrupulous deceivers to create an insidious and unpatriotic myth. He calls it the work of the "bizarre rantings of the MIA hobbyists." He has regularly vilified those who keep trying to pry out classified documents as "hoaxers," "charlatans," "conspiracy theorists" and "dime-store Rambos." Family members who have personally pressed McCain to end the secrecy have been treated to his legendary temper. In 1996 he roughly pushed aside a group of POW family members who had waited outside a hearing room to appeal to him, including a mother in a wheelchair.

The only explanation McCain has ever offered for his leadership on legislation that seals POW information is that he believes the release of such information would only stir up fresh grief for the families of those who were never accounted for in Vietnam. Of the scores of POW families I've met over the years, only a few have said they want the books closed without knowing what happened to their men. All the rest say that not knowing is exactly what grieves them.

It's not clear whether the taped confession McCain gave to his captors to avoid further torture has played a role in his postwar behavior. That confession was played endlessly over the prison loudspeaker system at Hoa Lo--to try to break down other prisoners--and was broadcast over Hanoi's state radio. Reportedly, he confessed to being a war criminal who had bombed a school and other civilian targets. The Pentagon has copies of the confessions but will not release them. Also, no outsider I know of has ever seen a nonredacted copy of McCain's debriefing when he returned from captivity, which is classified but can be made public by McCain.

In his bestselling 1999 autobiography, Faith of My Fathers, McCain says he felt bad throughout his captivity because he knew he was being treated more leniently than his fellow POWs, owing to his propaganda value (his high-ranking father, Rear Adm. John S. McCain II, was then the commander of US forces in the Pacific). Also in this memoir, McCain expresses guilt at having broken under torture and given the confession. "I felt faithless and couldn't control my despair," he writes, revealing that he made two "feeble" attempts at suicide. Tellingly, he says he lived in "dread" that his father would find out about the confession. "I still wince," he writes, "when I recall wondering if my father had heard of my disgrace."

McCain still didn't know the answer when his father died in 1981. He got his answer eighteen years later. In his 1999 memoir, the senator writes, "I only recently learned that the tape...had been broadcast outside the prison and had come to the attention of my father."

Does this hint at explanations for McCain's efforts to bury information about prisoners or other disturbing pieces of the Vietnam War? Does he suppress POW information because its surfacing rekindles his feelings of shame? On this subject, all I have are questions. But even without answers to what may be hidden in the recesses of someone's mind, one thing about the POW story is clear: if American prisoners were dishonored by being written off and left to die, that's something the American public ought to know about.

Truthiness Stages a Comeback

Nia "Hussein" J. — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 05:08:05 EDT

Truthiness Stages a Comeback

By FRANK RICH

Published: September 20, 2008

NOT until 2004 could the 9/11 commission at last reveal the title of the intelligence briefing President Bush ignored on Aug. 6, 2001, in Crawford: “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.” No wonder John McCain called for a new “9/11 commission” to “get to the bottom” of 9/14, when the collapse of Lehman Brothers set off another kind of blood bath in Lower Manhattan. Put a slo-mo Beltway panel in charge, and Election Day will be ancient history before we get to the bottom of just how little he and the president did to defend America against a devastating new threat on their watch.

For better or worse, the candidacy of Barack Obama, a senator-come-lately, must be evaluated on his judgment, ideas and potential to lead. McCain, by contrast, has been chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, where he claims to have overseen “every part of our economy.” He didn’t, thank heavens, but he does have a long and relevant economic record that begins with the Keating Five scandal of 1989 and extends to this campaign, where his fiscal policies bear the fingerprints of Phil Gramm and Carly Fiorina. It’s not the résumé that a presidential candidate wants to advertise as America faces its worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. That’s why the main thrust of the McCain campaign has been to cover up his history of economic malpractice.

McCain has largely pulled it off so far, under the guidance of Steve Schmidt, a Karl Rove protégé. A Rovian political strategy by definition means all slime, all the time. But the more crucial Rove game plan is to envelop the entire presidential race in a thick fog of truthiness. All campaigns, Obama’s included, engage in false attacks. But McCain, Sarah Palin and their surrogates keep repeating the same lies over and over not just to smear their opponents and not just to mask their own record. Their larger aim is to construct a bogus alternative reality so relentless it can overwhelm any haphazard journalistic stabs at puncturing it.

When a McCain spokesman told Politico a week ago that “we’re not too concerned about what the media filter tries to say” about the campaign’s incessant fictions, he was channeling a famous Bush dictum of 2003: “Somehow you just got to go over the heads of the filter.” In Bush’s case, the lies lobbed over the heads of the press were to sell the war in Iraq. That propaganda blitz, devised by a secret White House Iraq Group that included Rove, was a triumph. In mere months, Americans came to believe that Saddam Hussein had aided the 9/11 attacks and even that Iraqis were among the hijackers. A largely cowed press failed to set the record straight.

Just as the Bushies once flogged uranium from Africa, so Palin ceaselessly repeats her discredited claim that she said “no thanks” to the Bridge to Nowhere. Nothing is too small or sacred for the McCain campaign to lie about. It was even caught (by The Christian Science Monitor) peddling an imaginary encounter between Cindy McCain and Mother Teresa when McCain was adopting her daughter in Bangladesh.

If you doubt that the big lies are sticking, look at the latest Washington Post/ABC News poll. Half of voters now believe in the daily McCain refrain that Obama will raise their taxes. In fact, Obama proposes raising taxes only on the 1.9 percent of households that make more than $250,000 a year and cutting them for nearly everyone else.

You know the press is impotent at unmasking this truthiness when the hardest-hitting interrogation McCain has yet faced on television came on “The View.” Barbara Walters and Joy Behar called him on several falsehoods, including his endlessly repeated fantasy that Palin opposed earmarks for Alaska. Behar used the word “lies” to his face. The McCains are so used to deference from “the filter” that Cindy McCain later complained that “The View” picked “our bones clean.” In our news culture, Behar, a stand-up comic by profession, looms as the new Edward R. Murrow.

Network news, with its dwindling handful of investigative reporters, has barely mentioned, let alone advanced, major new print revelations about Cindy McCain’s drug-addiction history (in The Washington Post) and the rampant cronyism and secrecy in Palin’s governance of Alaska (in last Sunday’s New York Times). At least the networks repeatedly fact-check the low-hanging fruit among the countless Palin lies, but John McCain’s past usually remains off limits.

That’s strange since the indisputable historical antecedent for our current crisis is the Lincoln Savings and Loan scandal of the go-go 1980s. When Charles Keating’s bank went belly up because of risky, unregulated investments, it wiped out its depositors’ savings and cost taxpayers more than $3 billion. More than 1,000 other S.&L. institutions capsized nationwide.

It was ugly for the McCains. He had received more than $100,000 in Keating campaign contributions, and both McCains had repeatedly hopped on Keating’s corporate jet. Cindy McCain and her beer-magnate father had invested nearly $360,000 in a Keating shopping center a year before her husband joined four senators in inappropriate meetings with regulators charged with S.&L. oversight.

After Congressional hearings, McCain was reprimanded for “poor judgment.” He had committed no crime and had not intervened to protect Keating from ruin. Yet he, like many deregulators in his party, was guilty of bankrupt policy-making before disaster struck. He was among the sponsors of a House resolution calling for the delay of regulations intended to deter risky investments just like those that brought down Lincoln and its ilk.

Ever since, McCain has publicly thrashed himself for his mistakes back then — and boasted of the lessons he learned. He embraced campaign finance reform to rebrand himself as a “maverick.” But whatever lessons he learned are now forgotten.

For all his fiery calls last week for a Wall Street crackdown, McCain opposed the very regulations that might have helped avert the current catastrophe. In 1999, he supported a law co-authored by Gramm (and ultimately signed by Bill Clinton) that revoked the New Deal reforms intended to prevent commercial banks, insurance companies and investment banks from mingling their businesses. Equally laughable is the McCain-Palin ticket’s born-again outrage over the greed of Wall Street C.E.O.’s. When McCain’s chief financial surrogate, Fiorina, was fired as Hewlett-Packard’s chief executive after a 50 percent drop in shareholders’ value and 20,000 pink slips, she took home a package worth $42 million.

The McCain campaign canceled Fiorina’s television appearances last week after she inadvertently admitted that Palin was unqualified to run a corporation. But that doesn’t mean Fiorina is gone. Gramm, too, was ostentatiously exiled after he blamed the economic meltdown on our “nation of whiners” and “mental recession,” but he remains in the McCain loop.

The corporate jets, lobbyists and sleazes that gravitated around McCain in the Keating era have also reappeared in new incarnations. The Nation’s Web site recently unearthed a photo of the resolutely anticelebrity McCain being greeted by the con man Raffaello Follieri and his then girlfriend, the Hollywood actress Anne Hathaway, as McCain celebrated his 70th birthday on Follieri’s rented yacht in Montenegro in August 2006. It’s the perfect bookend to the old pictures of McCain in a funny hat partying with Keating in the Bahamas.

Whatever blanks are yet to be filled in on Obama, we at least know his economic plans and the known quantities who are shaping them (Lawrence Summers, Robert Rubin, Paul Volcker). McCain has reversed himself on every single economic issue this year, often within a 24-hour period, whether he’s judging the strength of the economy’s fundamentals or the wisdom of the government bailout of A.I.G. He once promised that he’d run every decision past Alan Greenspan — and even have him write a new tax code — but Greenspan has jumped ship rather than support McCain’s biggest flip-flop, his expansion of the Bush tax cuts. McCain’s official chief economic adviser is now Douglas Holtz-Eakin, who last week declared that McCain had “helped create” the BlackBerry.

But Holtz-Eakin’s most telling statement was about McCain’s economic plans — namely, that the details are irrelevant. “I don’t think it’s imperative at this moment to write down what the plan should be,” he said. “The real issue here is a leadership issue.” This, too, is a Rove-Bush replay. We want a tough guy who will “fix” things with his own two hands — let’s take out the S.E.C. chairman! — instead of wimpy Frenchified Democrats who just “talk.” The fine print of policy is superfluous if there’s a quick-draw decider in the White House.

The twin-pronged strategy of truculence and propaganda that sold Bush and his war could yet work for McCain. Even now his campaign has kept the “filter” from learning the very basics about his fitness to serve as president — his finances and his health. The McCain multihousehold’s multimillion-dollar mother lode is buried in Cindy McCain’s still-unreleased complete tax returns. John McCain’s full medical records, our sole index to the odds of an imminent Palin presidency, also remain locked away. The McCain campaign instead invited 20 chosen reporters to speed-read through 1,173 pages of medical history for a mere three hours on the Friday before Memorial Day weekend. No photocopying was permitted.

This is the same tactic of selective document release that the Bush White House used to bamboozle Congress and the press about Saddam’s nonexistent W.M.D. As truthiness repeats itself, so may history, and not as farce.

Rabbis for Obama!!

Nia "Hussein" J. — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 06:06:56 EDT

Rabbis for Obama Considered a First in American Politics
September 18, 2008

Eric Fingerhut
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
WASHINGTON

Saying it is their duty to "fight for the truth and against lashon hara," more than 400 rabbis have joined to back Barack Obama's presidential bid in what is believed to be a first-of-its-kind effort.
Rabbis for Obama, officially unveiled last week, is a grass-roots organization formed when two Chicago-area rabbis came to the Democratic candidate's campaign wanting to help counter the many false rumors that have been spread about him.
"What makes this unique is the lies and smears" were "targeted to the Jewish community," said Rabbi Sam Gordon of Congregation Sukkat Shalom of Wilmette, Ill., citing the e-mails that falsely claimed Obama was a secret Muslim and educated at a madrassa. "Those of us who knew him felt we had to respond."
"These attacks that he's not supportive of Israel are just not true," said Rabbi Steve Bob of Congregation Etz Chaim in Lombard, Ill.
Jonathan Sarna, the Joseph H. & Belle R. Braun Professor of American Jewish History at Brandeis University, said he believes Rabbis for Obama is a first in the Jewish community.
"I certainly can remember many newspaper ads that rabbis would sign" backing a candidate, Sarna said, but "I can't remember another organization with this kind of title."
Partisan Times
Given the increased mix of religion and politics that the United States has seen in the past 20 to 30 years, he added, it is much more likely for such a group to spring up now than it would have been early in the 20th century.
Bob said that he and other members of the organization are interested in publicly speaking -- under the Rabbis for Obama banner -- on behalf of the Democratic candidate across the country and are currently discussing how to become more involved in key swing states.
The letter the rabbis signed states that the group backs Obama because "he will best support the issues important to us in the Jewish community."
In addition to writing that the Democrat is "inspired by Jewish values such as Tikkun Olam and the pursuit of justice," it states that Obama's "longstanding, stalwart support for Israel is a testament to his own principles" and that "attempts by some to use Israel as a wedge issue against him -- unjustifiably -- is dangerous in that it politicizes the pro-Israel position" and has "completely distorted Sen. Obama's record."
"We are fully aware that a smear campaign against Sen. Obama has been waged in the Jewish community, and we feel it is our duty as Jewish leaders to fight for the truth and against lashon hara," reads the missive, using the Hebrew term for evil gossip.
"Sen. Obama has been viciously attacked using innuendoes, rumors and guilt by association, and we urge our fellow American Jews to judge Sen. Obama based on his own record and the clear statements he has made about his personal beliefs and principles."
A Republican Jewish leader found that passage of the letter particularly objectionable.
"It's irresponsible and unprofessional as rabbis to give a hechsher in accusing us of lashon hara," said Matt Brooks, the executive director of the Republican Jewish Coalition.
Brooks said the reference to "guilt by association" seemed to be referring to the RJC's criticism of Obama's links to his longtime pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and some who have been listed as the Democrat's foreign policy advisers -- two topics that Brooks believes are fair game in the debate over Obama's record.
Rabbis for Obama membership includes rabbis from every denomination, although one independent observer said he noticed only a couple of Orthodox rabbis on the list.
More than 300 rabbis were part of the group initially, and Bob said another 125 signed on since it became public last week -- including Michelle Obama's rabbi cousin, Capers Funnye.
A number of rabbis from the Philadelphia have also lent their support.
The Democratic Party and the Obama campaign have made a special effort to reach out to faith groups, but Jewish Democratic operative Matt Dorf said the organization and its missive is better seen as part of another strategy.
The Democratic goal is to reach persuadable Jewish voters through the testimony of people in "positions of influence" in the Jewish community -- rabbis, Jewish members of Congress and other well-known Jewish figures, such as former New York Mayor Ed Koch.
Anti-Defamation League national director Abraham Foxman, who has been critical of mixing religion and politics, said he was okay with the group. Rabbis don't have to give up their rights, he said. As long as they're not endorsing candidates from the pulpit, Foxman said, "I don't have a problem with it."
Not all rabbis feel comfortable with publicly endorsing a candidate.
"I feel my personal political views are personal," said Rabbi Steve Wernick of Adath Israel in Merion Station, Pa., a suburb of Philadelphia.
Wernick said he is happy to discuss his views with congregants privately, because he already has a relationship with them, but he doesn't feel it necessary to broadcast his views to those who don't know him. He stressed, though, that he has no problem with colleagues who signed the letter.
"It's the way our system is supposed to work," he said.
Church-State Conundrum
One Republican was critical of the rabbis for what he believed was a blurring of the church-state barrier.
"By linking their rabbinical position to a political campaign, they risk the charge of politicizing their positions and erasing the boundaries between church and state, which they typically seek to defend," said Noam Neusner, a communications consultant who served as liaison to the Jewish community during part of the Bush administration.
Neusner said the Bush campaign did not encourage such a letter or organization of rabbis "because of the sensitivity of the church-state issue."
Rabbis for Obama may be the first, but not the last, rabbinical effort backing a presidential candidate this election cycle.
Fred Zeidman, co-chair of the Republican Victory Jewish Coalition, said he spoke to some rabbis earlier this month -- and a few days before the unveiling of Rabbis for Obama -- who were interested in putting together a similar effort backing GOP candidate Sen. John McCain.

Liar, Liar Pants on Fire!!

Nia "Hussein" J. — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 05:03:28 EDT

Wednesday, Sep. 17, 2008

John McCain and the Lying Game

By Joe Klein

Politics has always been lousy with blather and chicanery. But there are rules and traditions too. In the early weeks of the general-election campaign, a consensus has grown in the political community a consensus that ranges from practitioners like Karl Rove to commentators like, well, me that John McCain has allowed his campaign to slip the normal bounds of political propriety. The situation has gotten so intense that we in the media have slipped our normal rules as well. Usually when a candidate tells something less than the truth, we mince words. We use euphemisms like mendacity and inaccuracy ... or, as the Associated Press put it, "McCain's claims skirt facts." But increasing numbers of otherwise sober observers, even such august institutions as the New York Times editorial board, are calling John McCain a liar. You might well ask, What has McCain done to deserve this? What unwritten rules did he break? Are his transgressions of degree or of kind?

Almost every politician stretches the truth. We journalists try to point out the exaggerations and criticize them, then let the voters decide. When McCain says, for example, that Barack Obama favors a government-run health-care system, he's not telling the truth�€"Obama wants a market-based system subsidized by the government�€"but McCain's untruth illuminates a general policy direction, which is sketchy but sort of within the bounds. (Obama's plan would increase government regulation of the drug and insurance industries.) Obama has done this sort of thing too. In July, he accused McCain of supporting the foreign buyout of an American company that could lead to the loss of about 8,000 jobs in Wilmington, Ohio. McCain did support the deal, but the job loss comes many years later and was not anticipated at the time. That, however, is where the moral equivalency between these two campaigns ends.

McCain's lies have ranged from the annoying to the sleazy, and the problem is in both degree and kind. His campaign has been a ceaseless assault on his opponent's character and policies, featuring a consistent�€"and witting�€"disdain for the truth. Even after 38 million Americans heard Obama say in his speech at the Democratic National Convention that he was open to offshore oil-drilling and building new nuclear-power plants, McCain flatly said in his acceptance speech that Obama opposed both. Normal political practice would be for McCain to say, "Obama says he's 'open to' offshore drilling, but he's always opposed it. How can we believe him?" This persistence in repeating demonstrably false charges is something new in presidential politics.

Worse than the lies have been the smears. McCain ran a television ad claiming that Obama favored "comprehensive" sex education for kindergartners. (Obama favored a bill that would have warned kindergartners about sexual predators and improper touching.) The accusation that Obama was referring to Sarah Palin when he said McCain's effort to remarket his economic policies was putting "lipstick on a pig" was another clearly misleading attack�€"an obnoxious attempt to divert attention from Palin's lack of fitness for the job and the recklessness with which McCain chose her. McCain's assault on the "�lite media" for spreading rumors about Palin's personal life�€"actually, the culprits were a few bloggers and the tabloid press�€"was more of the same. And that gets us close to the real problem here. The McCain camp has decided that its candidate can't win honorably, on the issues, so it has resorted to transparent and phony diversions.

This new strategy emerged during the first week of Obama's overseas trip in late July. McCain had been intending to contrast his alleged foreign policy expertise and toughness with Obama's inexperience and alleged weakness. McCain wanted to "win" the Iraq war and face down the Iranians. But those issues became moot when the Iraqis said they favored Obama's withdrawal plan and the Bush Administration started talking to the Iranians. At that point, McCain committed his original sin�€"out of pique, I believe�€"questioning Obama's patriotism, saying the Democrat would rather lose a war than lose an election. Ever since, McCain's campaign has been a series of snide and demeaning ads accompanied by the daily gush of untruths that have now been widely documented and exposed. The strategy is an obvious attempt to camouflage the current unpopularity of his Republican brand, the insubstantiality of his vice-presidential choice, and his agreement on most issues especially economic matters with an exceedingly unpopular President.

The good news is that the vile times may be ending. The coming debates will decide this race, and it isn't easy to tell lies when your opponent is standing right next to you. The Wall Street collapse demands a more sober campaign as well. But these dreadful weeks should not be forgotten. John McCain has raised serious questions about whether he has the character to lead the nation. He has defaced his beloved military code of honor. He has run a dirty campaign.

Obama's 94 Tax Increase Votes

Nia "Hussein" J. — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 03:31:42 EDT

Factcheck.org: http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/tax_tally_trickery.html
Tax Tally TrickeryJuly 3, 2008Republicans claim Obama "voted 94 times for higher taxes." But their count is inflated and misleading.SummaryThe McCain campaign and the Republican National Committee both claim that Obama has voted 94 times "for higher taxes." We find that their count is padded.

After looking at every one of the 94 votes that the RNC includes in its tally, we find:

Twenty-three were for measures that would have produced no tax increase at all; they were against proposed tax cuts.
Seven of the votes were in favor of measures that would have lowered taxes for many, while raising them on a relative few, either corporations or affluent individuals.
Eleven votes the GOP is counting would have increased taxes on thosemaking more than $1 million a year - in order to fund programs such as Head Start and school nutrition programs, or veterans' health care.

The GOP sometimes counted two, three and even four votes on the same measure. We found their tally included a total of 17 votes on seven measures, effectively padding their total by 10.
The majority of the 94 votes - 53 of them, including some mentioned above - were on budget measures, not tax bills, and would not have resulted in any tax change. Four other votes were non-binding motions related to conference report negotiations.

It's true that most of the votes the GOP counts would either have increased taxes for some, or set budget targets calling for such increases. But by repeating their inflated 94-vote figure, the McCain campaign and the GOP falsely imply that Obama has pushed indiscriminately to raise taxes for nearly everybody. A closer look reveals that he's voted consistently to restore higher tax rates on upper-income taxpayers but not on middle- or low-income workers. That's consistent with what he's said he'd do as president, which is to raise taxes only on those making more than $250,000 a year.

Let's All Take a Breath....

Nia "Hussein" J. — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 02:23:57 EDT

Roderick Spencer 9/17/08

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/roderick-spencer/everybody-just-calm-down_b_127286.html

I just watched Barack Obama's latest campaign ad. It's him, talking straight to the camera, mainly about the economy, for two minutes. Compelling and reasonable, he says nothing we haven't heard him say before, while looking and sounding, 'presidential'. In a normal year the ad may have been criticized or ignored because of its' lack of pizzazz, but to me it is thrilling, and I suspect that it will work extremely well, especially among that most eagerly sought after group; the undecideds.

There is a consistent story out of the Obama campaign. It goes like this: an attack is launched by one of his opponents. The attack appears to be working. Poll numbers change. A gap widens, or narrows. Dismay starts to surface as the candidate and his closest advisors don't seem to be doing anything. Eventually, there is a meeting, or a conference call. Suggestions of how to respond come in thick and fast. Voices clamor to be heard. Then, through the noise comes this directive, "Okay, let's everybody just calm down. Here's what we're going to do." The conversation quickly goes from clamorous to orderly, from strident to strategic, and the campaign moves forward. Since Iowa, remember Iowa!?, this has been happening. Yet it seems that with each new punch thrown by the opposition, his most avid supporters, especially those on the chattering Left who supposedly know better, seem to forget... that Barack Obama is GOOD AT THIS.

When he finally called the McCain ads examples of "Phony Outrage", even I had begun to worry that his silence was a sign of the old Democratic strategy called 'how to lose a presidential election by being nobly high-minded', which was employed so gosh darn effectively by Kerry and Gore. Instead, what he did was the following: He paused to think about it. Then he paused a little longer to let the electorate think about it. And then he paused a little longer to build some suspense, before giving it a name: Phony Outrage. Wow. Simple, cool, and true. And actually "phony" is a much better word than 'lies' or 'distortions' or 'smears', because it is dismissive, without being contemptuous. It's mature, authoritative, and reasonable. And it made McCain look immature and silly. Not bad for a man young enough to be his grandson.

I don't know how long it took Obama to come up with that phrase. Maybe it was on the tip of his tongue as soon as he heard the attack, (maybe he even knew the attack was coming!) but he understands something that so many people on the Left can't seem to get their heads around; most Americans, Democrats, Republicans, even swing voters, are moderate, reasonable people.
They -- check that -- We, are not poised in front of the TV listening for ideological buzzwords that confirm our ironclad beliefs. We are actually listening for something beyond politics: confidence, reassurance, leadership, in language that we comprehend and appreciate.

Obama knows that the stridency and dismay coming from the Left, is as phony as the outrage and mean-spiritedness coming from the Right. Sarah Palin is a dreadful candidate, chosen for cynical political reasons. But, that doesn't mean that anyone who listened to her speech, and found reasons to like her, had suddenly taken leave of their senses. Can we please admit that, for a fairly long time, Obama himself was (intentionally-ssshhh, don't tell anyone) pretty light on substance, and those people that dared to say so had not been sent to the surface by Beelzebub! They were simply listening, and had not yet been convinced. Let's also try to admit that the women who remain angry at how Hillary Clinton was treated are not crazed harpies with fangs. Nor are Undecided Voters sub-literate morons more interested in choosing America's Next Top Model than the leader of the free world. This is a politically moderate, idealistic, and instinctively non-intellectual country. But as one not-too-shabby president once said, "..You can't fool all the people all the time." A good way to alienate them, however, is to be scornful and impatient.

Obama seems to understand this better than John McCain, and he has demonstrated extraordinary discipline through the many provocations and distractions he has had to answer. That discipline will be put to the ultimate test in the next 49 days, so it might be a good time for everyone who wants him to win, to "Calm the f*** down", and take a long steady look at how this candidate does politics. There are swing voters out there. They are still deciding, and that doesn't mean there's something wrong with them.

Here's my list of best guesses regarding how Obama got where he is. 1. He listens (or at least appears to be listening, which is a very reassuring quality). 2. He finds common ground(or at least uses words that make him seem reasonable and empathetic). 3. He works toward consensus(which means that, heaven forbid, he sometimes makes overtly political decisions, kind of like -- gasp -- his opponents). 4. He chooses moments and words carefully(could McCain have been right about his use of "Lipstick on a Pig"? Was our Barack actually setting a trap!? Hmmm.). 5. He points out differences while emphasizing commonality (and he means it, the man is a Centrist, only in America could Obama be described as a Liberal). And finally, this is just a guess so it doesn't get a number; I strongly suspect that he would prefer his supporters to stop asking exasperated questions that make them sound like snooty limousine liberals, or wild-eyed kooks. It is neither helpful nor fair to question the sanity of anyone who hasn't yet made up their mind.

A case in point: The man that lives next door to me, in the house with the McCain/Palin yard sign, is the only person in our neighborhood with a key to my front door. I trust him. We hang out. We even talk politics. He and his wife watched both conventions, thought about it, and made a decision. I think I can persuade them to reconsider, but either way, I'm not going to ask for my key back. We're neighbors, after all.

Everybody, just calm down.

Barack Obama

Alaskanomics

Nia "Hussein" J. — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 03:44:58 EDT

http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1839724,00.html

Sarah Palin's AlaskonomicsBy Michael Kinsley

Sarah Palin thinks she is a better American than you because she comes from a small town, and a superior human being because she isn't a journalist and has never lived in Washington and likes to watch her kids play hockey. Although Palin praised John McCain in her acceptance speech as a man who puts the good of his country ahead of partisan politics, McCain pretty much proved the opposite with his selection of a running mate whose main asset is her ability to reignite the culture wars. So maybe Governor Palin does represent everything that is good and fine about America, as she herself maintains. But spare us, please, any talk about how she is a tough fiscal conservative.

Palin has continued to repeat the already exposed lie that she said "No, thanks" to the famous "bridge to nowhere" (McCain's favorite example of wasteful federal spending). In fact, she said "Yes, please" until the project became a symbol and political albatross.

Back to reality. Of the 50 states, Alaska ranks No. 1 in taxes per resident and No. 1 in spending per resident. Its tax burden per resident is 2 1/2 times the national average; its spending, more than double. The trick is that Alaska's government spends money on its own citizens and taxes the rest of us to pay for it. Although Palin, like McCain, talks about liberating ourselves from dependence on foreign oil, there is no evidence that being dependent on Alaskan oil would be any more pleasant to the pocketbook.

Alaska is, in essence, an adjunct member of OPEC. It has four different taxes on oil, which produce more than 89% of the state's unrestricted revenue. On average, three-quarters of the value of a barrel of oil is taken by the state government before that oil is permitted to leave the state. Alaska residents each get a yearly check for about $2,000 from oil revenues, plus an additional $1,200 pushed through by Palin last year to take advantage of rising oil prices. Any sympathy the governor of Alaska expresses for folks in the lower 48 who are suffering from high gas prices or can't afford to heat their homes is strictly crocodile tears.

As if it couldn't support itself, Alaska also ranks No. 1, year after year, in money it sucks in from Washington. In 2005 (the most recent figures), according to the Tax Foundation, Alaska ranked 18th in federal taxes paid per resident ($5,434) but first in federal spending received per resident ($13,950). Its ratio of federal spending received to federal taxes paid ranks third among the 50 states, and in the absolute amount it receives from Washington over and above the amount it sends to Washington, Alaska ranks No. 1.

Under the state constitution, the governor of Alaska has unusually strong powers to shape the state budget. At the Republican National Convention, Palin bragged that she had vetoed "nearly $500 million" in state spending during her two years as governor. This amounts to less than 2% of the proposed budget. That's how much this warrior for you (the people) against it (the government) could find in wasteful spending under her control.

One thing Barack Obama and McCain disagree on is an oil windfall–profits tax. McCain is against it, on the theory that it is a tax and therefore bad, and also that it would discourage domestic production. Obama is for it, on the theory that if oil companies can make a nice profit when oil sells for $50 per bbl., they can still make a nice profit when it sells for more than $100, even if the government takes a bit and spreads the money around to those who are hurting from higher oil prices.

Although Palin's words side with McCain in this dispute, her actions side with Obama. Her major legislative accomplishment has been to revamp Alaska's windfall-profits tax in order to increase the state's take. Alaska calls it a "clear and equitable share" tax. The state assumes that extracting oil from the tundra costs about $25 per bbl. and takes as much as 75% of the difference between that and the sale price.

Why is a windfall-profits tax good for Alaska but not for the U.S.? Well, it's obvious, isn't it? People in Alaska are better than people in the rest of the U.S. They're more American. Although there are small towns and farms and high school hockey teams in the lower 48, there are fewer down here, per capita, than in Alaska. And there are many more journalists and pollsters and city dwellers and other undesirables who might benefit if every American had the same right to leech off the government as do the good citizens of Sarah Palin's Alaska.

The Obama - McCain Freddie Mac - Fannie Mea connection

Nia "Hussein" J. — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 03:10:03 EDT

This was emailed to me via a listserve I belong to and to me it looks like everyone is involved in washington one way or the other. One thing is clear however, that Mccains Obama 400MM claim is as we all know a lie.

http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=28F13661-3048-5C12-000140B077704AAA

If you want to know how Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have survived scandal and crisis, consider this: Over the past decade, they have spent nearly $200 million on lobbying and campaign contributions.

But the political tentacles of the mortgage giants extend far beyond their checkbooks.

The two government-chartered companies run a highly sophisticated lobbying operation, with deep-pocketed lobbyists in Washington and scores of local Fannie- and Freddie-sponsored homeowner groups ready to pressure lawmakers back home.

They’ve stacked their payrolls with top Washington power brokers of all political stripes, including Republican John McCain’s presidential campaign manager, Rick Davis; Democrat Barack Obama’s original vice presidential vetter, Jim Johnson; and scores of others now working for the two rivals for the White House.

Fannie and Freddie’s aggressive political maneuvering has helped stave off increased regulation and preserve special benefits such as exemption from state and local income taxes and the ability to borrow at low rates.

When their stock prices took a dive last week, their government allies extended another helping hand with a plan for the Treasury Department, the Federal Reserve and, possibly, Congress to shore up the companies.

The housing crisis is sure to linger into the next administration, when the mortgage companies will inevitably be well-represented �€" no matter who’s in the White House.

Fannie and Freddie’s political contacts exist deep in the two presidential campaigns.

At least 20 McCain fundraisers have lobbied on behalf of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, netting at least $12.3 million in fees over the past nine years.

Political insiders Arthur B. Culvahouse Jr., picked by McCain to vet his vice presidential nominees, and Jim Johnson, picked by Obama to perform the same function, once worked for the mortgage giants.

And for years, Rick Davis served as president of an advocacy group led by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that defended the two companies against increased regulation.

So far this election cycle, Freddie Mac’s political action committee and employees have contributed $555,567 to Senate and House candidates, and Fannie Mae’s PAC and employees have given more than $1.1 million, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

In total, the two companies have spent $170 million on lobbying over the past decade, according to the Center, although they have scaled back in recent years. Last year, they paid $14.1 million in lobbying fees, a significant decrease from a high of more than $26 million in 2004. The connections of both campaigns to the well-entrenched mortgage companies highlight the difficulties the candidates face in selling voters on an outsider message.

McCain’s campaign denied that its political connections have affected his view on the issue.

“I have written every word that has to do with Fannie and Freddie in this campaign, and I don’t know who the people are that are linked to the companies,” said McCain’s economic adviser, Douglas Holtz-Eakin.

“Sen. McCain has favored GSE reform in the past and continues to favor GSE reform,” Holtz-Eakin said. “That’s unchanged.”

McCain has called the government’s weekend intervention in the struggling companies “correct,” saying he hoped that the action would “preserve the ability of Americans to obtain loans in order to buy a home and be able to afford mortgage payments they’re having to make.”

A spokesman for the Obama campaign declined to comment, noting only that former Fannie Mae CEO Jim Johnson stepped down from his campaign post in June. His resignation came in the wake of charges that he collected more then $7 million in home loans at special, below-average rates.

On Sunday, Obama shied away from commenting on the specific proposals, but cautioned regulators to give top priority to the interests of homeowners.

“That should be our No. 1 priority, not just shareholders, investors or CEOs of companies,” he said.

Fannie and Freddie own or guarantee almost half of the country’s $12 trillion in mortgage debt. Over the past few months, their shares of the housing market have grown as private companies curtailed their mortgage lending in the wake of massive subprime-related losses.

Critics have long argued that both Fannie and Freddie operated with too small a capital cushion to adequately offset financial risk. But the mortgage giants have consistently beaten back congressional efforts to increase oversight, even after a major accounting scandal in 2003 resulted in a $400 million fine for Fannie.

Fannie’s government relations operations dramatically expanded in the mid-1990s, when then-CEO Johnson recruited Washington A-listers Robert Zoellick, who served in the Reagan and Bush administrations; Lawrence M. Small, former secretary of the Smithsonian Institution; and William M. Daley, commerce secretary in the Clinton administration.

Johnson spearheaded an aggressive campaign to create a local grass-roots network of company advocates. Under his leadership, Fannie opened more than 50 partnership offices in cities and rural communities. At the same time, the Fannie Mae Foundation, a private nonprofit financed by the mortgage giant, contributed generously to local charities, arts institutions and housing organizations, giving Fannie influence in lawmakers’ home districts.

Both Fannie and Freddie made large and visible commitments to low and moderate-income housing, quieting criticism from advocacy groups. With the companies in trouble, their political ties are under new scrutiny.

Johnson headed Fannie Mae from 1991 to 1998, leaving with a $21 million payout. Even after he left, Fannie continued to pay him an annual fee of at least $300,000 a year for consulting services and a $71,000 monthly pension, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

From 2001 to 2005, Fannie also paid for Johnson’s support staff, communications services and provided him a car and driver.

McCain tapped Culvahouse, the former Reagan administration official, to head his search for a running mate.

Currently a partner at O’Melveny & Myers, Culvahouse lobbied on behalf of Fannie Mae in 1999, 2003 and 2004, according to Senate records.

The campaign connections to the two mortgage companies go far beyond vice presidential vetters.

McCain campaign manager Davis headed the Homeownership Alliance, a lobbying association that included Fannie, Freddie, nonprofit groups, real estate agents, homebuilders and consumer advocates. The group’s stated goal was to increase affordable housing. But it also worked to oppose congressional efforts to tighten controls on Fannie and Freddie.

In July 2003, Davis wrote to the American Banker, taking issue with an opinion piece by Leslie Paige of Citizens Against Government Waste, arguing that Fannie and Freddie should operate with greater transparency.

“Several of Ms. Paige’s assertions bear correction,” Davis wrote, defending Fannie and Freddie on behalf of the group. “The GSEs are subject to an innovative and stringent risk-based capital stress test �€" the toughest in the financial services industry.”

Other McCain aides with ties to the two companies include economic adviser Aquiles Suarez, who worked as Fannie’s director of government and industry relations; congressional liaison John Green, who lobbied for Fannie from 2004 to 2007; and finance co-chairman Frederic V. Malek, a former Freddie board member.

Jamie S. Gorelick, deputy attorney general in the Clinton administration and a chief policy adviser to Hillary Rodham Clinton, is rumored to be a possible attorney general in an Obama administration. She was vice chairman of Fannie Mae an

What you need to know about the Born Alive issue

Nia "Hussein" J. — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 02:34:58 EDT

Executive summary: What you need to know about the `born alive' issue

* this article was emailed to me a few days ago I hope it helps. you cen find it here;

http://blogs.chicagotribune.com/news_columnists_ezorn/2008/08/executive-summa.html

I understand that most of you don't have time to read my 4,000-word exegesis on the "born alive" issue from the other day. So I've boiled its essence into a 279-word summary to give you a basis on which to judge whether this bill has anything to do with "infanticide," as some claim:

Lawmakers who favor abortion rights as outlined in the U.S. Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade were wary of bills introduced earlier this decade on the federal and state level to confer certain rights upon any fetus that showed signs of life after having been expelled or extracted from the womb.

They feared that such laws were simply a back-door way for abortion foes, the main backers of such proposals, to restrict mid-term abortions allowed under Roe by creating complicating legal and practical obstacles to such procedures.

When pro abortion-rights lawmakers were satisfied that the "born alive" bills would not compromise abortion rights guaranteed under Roe, they voted overwhelmingly to approve the idea.

Illinois' liberal lawmakers needed more reassurance than federal lawmakers before agreeing to pass a "born alive" law. In part this was because abortion practice is regulated mainly by state laws, not federal laws, so seemingly benign changes in wording stand to have far-reaching consequences. And in part because the proposals were usually introduced with companion legislation that revealed a stronger intent behind the law by exposing doctors who perform mid-term abortions to additional legal risk.

So "born alive" bills failed repeatedly in Illinois from 2001 to 2004 in both chambers, with and without the involvement of then State Sen. Barack Obama.

In 2005, when additional language was added to a "born alive" bill in Illinois that explicitly spelled out that it would not impact abortion rights in any way, the law passed easily.

Proponents of the original bill, despite their constant reassurances that the proposals had nothing to do with abortion, nevertheless objected to the inclusion of the new language.
*UPDATE*
http://archpundit.com/blog/2008/08/20/the-problem-with-staneks-entire-argument/http://judiciary.house.gov/Legacy/73696.pdf#page=46The complaint of Jill Stanek, which is the crux of the "Born Alive Infant Protection Act" and the driving force behind 100% of the criticism of Barack Obama, is unfounded according to the pro-life former Attorney General of Illinois, Jim Ryan.The problem is with enforcement and rights to privacy.How would you prosecute something like this? And how can the state of Illinois attempt to investigate when it is an invasion of privacy to observe a medical procedure without consent from the patient?Those are questions that the pro-lifers need to answer.

Palin's town use to charge victims for Rape Kits

Nia "Hussein" J. — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 05:37:01 EDT

By Ken Dilanian and Matt Kelley, USA TODAYWASILLA, Alaska — In 2000, Alaska lawmakers learned that rural police agencies had been billing rape victims or their insurance companies $500 to $1,200 for the costs of the forensic medical examinations used to gather evidence. They quickly passed a law prohibiting the practice.

According to the sponsor, Democrat Eric Croft, the law was aimed in part at Wasilla, where now-Gov. Sarah Palin was mayor. When it was signed, Wasilla's police chief expressed displeasure.

"In the past, we've charged the cost of exams to the victims' insurance company when possible," then-chief Charlie Fannon told the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman, the local newspaper. "I just don't want to see any more burden put on the taxpayer."

Now that Palin is the Republican nominee for vice president, Democrats such as former Alaska governor Tony Knowles — who signed the rape-kit bill into law and was defeated by Palin in 2006 — are raising the issue to question Palin's commitment to women's issues and crime victims. Palin appointed Fannon after firing his predecessor shortly after she took office in 1996.

"In retrospect, I would have asked the female working-mother mayor of that town why her police chief was against this," said Croft, the former Anchorage state representative.

Palin spokeswoman Maria Comella said in an e-mail that the governor "does not believe, nor has she ever believed, that rape victims should have to pay for an evidence-gathering test."

"Gov. Palin's position could not be more clear," she said. "To suggest otherwise is a deliberate misrepresentation of her commitment to supporting victims and bringing violent criminals to justice."

Comella would not answer other questions, including when Palin learned of Wasilla's policy or whether she tried to change it. The campaign cited the governor's record on domestic violence, including increasing funding for shelters.

Knowles criticized Palin to USA TODAY, and again Wednesday in a teleconference organized by Democrats. "It seems like one of those pieces of legislation that you can't imagine it would ever have to be written," he said.

Until the 2000 legislation, local law enforcement agencies in Alaska could pass along the cost of the exams, which are needed to obtain an attacker's DNA evidence. Rape victims in several areas of Alaska, including the Matanuska-Susitna Valley where Wasilla is, complained about being charged for the tests, victims' advocate Lauree Hugonin, of the Alaska Network on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault, told state House committees, records show.

In cases when insurance companies are billed, the victims pay a deductible.

Fannon told the Frontiersman that the tests would cost the department up to $14,000 per year. He said he would rather force rapists to pay for the tests, not taxpayers. Fannon, who is no longer police chief, could not be reached for comment Wednesday; his home phone number has been disconnected.

It is not known how many rape victims in Wasilla were required to pay for some or all of the medical exams, but a legislative staffer who worked on the bill for Croft said it happened. "It was more than a couple of cases, and it was standard practice in Wasilla," Peggy Wilcox said, who now works for the Alaska Public Employees Association. "If you were raped in Wasilla, this was going to happen to you."

After calling Wasilla Mayor Dianne Keller for comment Tuesday, USA TODAY was instructed to submit a public records request, under which the city has 10 days to respond. As of Wednesday, the city had not responded to a request for records reflecting Wasilla's prior policy, including when it took effect and the cost to sexual assault victims.

In 2000, there were 497 rapes reported in Alaska, FBI statistics show. That's a rate of 79.3 per 100,000 residents, the highest in the nation.

Nationally, victims' advocates have for years reported scattered instances of rape victims being required to pay for their forensic tests, says Ilse Knecht of the National Center for Victims of Crime in Washington. Those complaints have subsided somewhat after Congress in 2005 passed a law requiring states to provide rape exams free of charge or reimburse victims for the costs, says Knecht, whose group supported the provision.

"The reason we passed the legislation was that we saw it was prevalent enough to be a pretty considerable problem," Knecht says. "There are no other victims of crime that end up being billed for evidence collection."

The Senate version of the legislation that included the rape-exam provision was sponsored by Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware, the Democratic vice presidential nominee. Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama was one of 58 co-sponsors; Republican presidential nominee John McCain was not.

Matt Kelley reported from Washington

*UPDATE*

Here is the evidence that she knew about it.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jacob-alperinsheriff/sarah-palin-instituted-ra_b_125833.html

*UPDATE # 2*

McCain campaign on why Palin fired Monegan: The "last straw," the campaign said, was a trip Monegan planned to Washington in July to seek federal money for investigating and prosecuting sexual assault cases.

Source: Sex Assault Program Cited in Monegan Firing Targeted Child Abusers

By Zachary Roth - September 16, 2008, 4:58PM

So Sarah Palin's latest explanation for why she fired Walt Monegan is that he had gone over her head in seeking federal money for an initiative to combat sexual assault crimes, before she had approved the program.

But it now appears that the program in question is one that most elected officials would be wary of admitting they hadn't strongly backed. According to Peggy Brown, who heads the Alaska Network on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault, Monegan wanted to use the federal money to hire retired troopers and law enforcement officials, and assign them to investigate the most egregious cases of sexual assault -- including those against children.

In other words, if Palin's new story is true, she fired Monegan for being too aggressive in going after child molesters.

ABC News reported yesterday that, although Alaska leads the nation in reported rapes per capita, Palin hasn't made the issue a priority as governor.

Monegan, however, appeared eager to change that. "He seemed to get the issue and really took it seriously," Brown told TPMmuckraker.

According to the Palin camp, too seriously.

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http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/09/source_sex_assault_program_cit.php

McCain's campaign insists the investigation into the firing of Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan has been hijacked by Democrats. The campaign says it can prove Monegan was fired in July because of insubordination on budget issues, and not because he refused to fire a state trooper who went through a nasty divorce from Palin's sister.

To that end, the campaign released a series of e-mails detailing the frustration several Palin administration officials experienced in dealing with Monegan. The "last straw," the campaign said, was a trip Monegan planned to Washington in July to seek federal money for investigating and prosecuting sexual assault cases.

In a July 7 e-mail, John Katz, the governor's special counsel, noted two problems with the trip: the governor hadn't agreed the money should be sought, and the request "is out of sequence with our other appropriations requests and could put a strain on the evolving relationship between the Governor and Sen. Stevens."

Monegan was fired four days later.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/2008/09/palin_wont_meet_with_trooperga.php

Jim Crawford Rethuglicans

Nia "Hussein" J. — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 04:23:33 EDT

‘Jim Crawford’ Republicans

Jonathan AlterNewsweek Web ExclusiveUpdated: 2:37 PM ET Sep 11, 2008

The GOP is working to keep eligible African-Americans from voting in several states. Jonathan Alter Newsweek Web Exclusive Updated: 2:37 PM ET Sep 11, 2008 It was a mainstay of Jim Crow segregation: for 100 years after the Civil War, Southern white Democrats kept eligible blacks from voting with poll taxes, literacy tests and property requirements. Starting in the 1960s, the U.S. Supreme Court declared these assaults on the heart of American democracy unconstitutional. Now, with the help of a 2008 Supreme Court decision, Crawford vs. Marion County (Indiana) Election Board, white Republicans in some areas will keep eligible blacks from voting by requiring driver's licenses. Not only is this new-fangled discrimination constitutional, it's spreading. GOP proponents of the move say they are merely trying to reduce voter fraud. But while occasional efforts to stuff ballot boxes through phony absentee voting still surface, the incidence of individual vote fraud—voting when you aren't eligible—is virtually non-existent, as "The Truth About Vote Fraud," a study by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University, clearly shows. In other words, the problem Republicans claim they want to combat with increased ID requirements doesn't exist. Meanwhile, those ID hurdles facing individuals do nothing to stop the organized insiders who still try to game the system. The motive here is political, not racial. Republicans aren't bigots like the Jim Crow segregationists. But they know that increased turnout in poor, black neighborhoods is good for Democrats. In that sense, the effort to suppress voting still amounts to the practical equivalent of racism. In Crawford, the court upheld an Indiana law essentially requiring a passport or driver's license in order to vote. But more than two thirds of Indiana adults have no passports and nearly 15 percent have no driver's licenses. These eligible voters, disproportionately African-American, will need to take a bus or catch a ride from a friend down to the motor vehicles bureau to make sure they obtain a nondriver photo ID. Otherwise, they cannot vote in Indiana this year. To get an idea of how many African-Americans nationwide lack driver's licenses, recall Hurricane Katrina in 2005, when thousands were stranded without transportation. "Crawford Republicans" could make the old "Jim Crow Democrats" look like pikers when it comes to voter suppression. Consider Wisconsin, a swing state. Republicans officials there are suing to enforce a "no match, no vote" provision in state regulations, where voters must not only show a photo ID, but establish that it matches the name and number in the Department of Motor Vehicles or Social Security Administration database. (Democrats are resisting the suit.) These lists are riddled with errors in every state, as the Brennan Center has proven in its report, "Restoring the Right to Vote." How error prone? Florida wrongly purged tens of thousands of law-abiding, mostly Democratic, voters from the rolls in 2000, claiming they were felons. (This, among other things, cost Al Gore the presidency). Even after the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) and worldwide attention, the Florida software is still flawed. It requires only an 80 percent match to the name of a convicted felon. "So if there's a murderous John Peterson, the software disenfranchises everyone named John Peters," Andrew Hacker writes in a recent New York Review of Books. Voters caught in these snafus can have their rights restored but not if they fail to straighten things out before Election Day. Otherwise they are granted "provisional ballots" that are sometimes counted and sometimes not. Even obtaining a provisional ballot can require an appearance in front of a judge in some states. Faced with the hassle, most voters just give up. The ability of actual felons to get their right to vote back varies by state. It's especially hard for felons to vote in Virginia; a bit easier in Pennsylvania and Michigan. (Other countries are far more generous to ex-convicts, figuring that having paid their debt to society they should be allowed to vote again.) All of this would seem to favor John McCain over Barack Obama this year, but some voting-rights trends are pointing in the opposite direction. In Ohio, where the governor and secretary of state changed in 2006 from Republican to Democrat, a new law allows voters to register to vote and fill out an absentee ballot at the same time between Sept. 30 and Oct. 6. This will mean a week of furious campaigning and early voting in a key state. Advantage Obama. With 470,000 students enrolled in Ohio's public colleges and universities (and nine out of 10 are Ohio residents), expect a bumper crop of young voters. The combination of voter suppression and early voting make turnout predictions perilous. And without knowing turnout, most polling is deeply flawed. So about the only thing we know for sure this year is that with the Crawford decision we are seeing a return to the days when one political party saw a huge advantage in preventing as many poor people as possible from voting. That's understandable politically, but also un-American.

URL: http://www.newsweek.com/id/158392

MI GOP Using Foreclosures to Block African American Voters

Nia "Hussein" J. — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 00:54:19 EDT

MI GOP using foreclosures to block African American voters

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/10/michigan-gop-using-forecl_n_125446.html

or

http://www.michiganmessenger.com/4076/lose-your-house-lose-your-vote

**Please send out as you see fit**

Michigan Republicans plan to foreclose African American voters and I'm sure this tactic will be used else where...
The chairman of the Republican Party in Macomb County Michigan, a key swing county in a key swing state, is planning to use a list of foreclosed homes to block people from voting in the upcoming election as part of the state GOP's effort to challenge some voters on Election Day.
"We will have a list of foreclosed homes and will make sure people aren't voting from those addresses," party chairman James Carabelli told Michigan Messenger in a telephone interview earlier this week. He said the local party wanted to make sure that proper electoral procedures were followed.
State election rules allow parties to assign "election challengers" to polls to monitor the election. In addition to observing the poll workers, these volunteers can challenge the eligibility of any voter provided they "have a good reason to believe" that the person is not eligible to vote. One allowable reason is that the person is not a "true resident of the city or township."
The Michigan Republicans' planned use of foreclosure lists is apparently an attempt to challenge ineligible voters as not being "true residents."
One expert questioned the legality of the tactic.
"You can't challenge people without a factual basis for doing so," said J. Gerald Hebert, a former voting rights litigator for the U.S. Justice Department who now runs the Campaign Legal Center, a Washington D.C.-based public-interest law firm. "I don't think a foreclosure notice is sufficient basis for a challenge, because people often remain in their homes after foreclosure begins and sometimes are able to negotiate and refinance."
As for the practice of challenging the right to vote of foreclosed property owners, Hebert called it, "mean-spirited."
GOP ties to state's largest foreclosure law firm
The Macomb GOP's plans are another indication of how John McCain's campaign stands to benefit from the burgeoning number of foreclosures in the state. McCain's regional headquarters are housed in the office building of foreclosure specialists Trott & Trott. The firm's founder, David A. Trott, has raised between $100,000 and $250,000 for the Republican nominee.
The Macomb County party's plans to challenge voters who have defaulted on their house payments is likely to disproportionately affect African-Americans who are overwhelmingly Democratic voters. More than 60 percent of all sub-prime loans — the most likely kind of loan to go into default — were made to African-Americans in Michigan, according to a report issued last year by the state's Department of Labor and Economic Growth.
Challenges to would-be voters
Statewide, the Republican Party is gearing up for a comprehensive voter challenge campaign, according to Denise Graves, party chair for Republicans in Genessee County, which encompasses Flint. The party is creating a spreadsheet of election challenger volunteers and expects to coordinate a training with the regional McCain campaign, Graves said in an interview with Michigan Messenger.
Whether the Republicans will challenge voters with foreclosed homes elsewhere in the state is not known.
Kelly Harrigan, deputy director of the GOP's voter programs, confirmed that she is coordinating the group's "election integrity" program. Harrigan said the effort includes putting in place a legal team, as well as training election challengers. She said the challenges to voters were procedural rather than personal. She referred inquiries about the vote challenge program to communications director Bill Knowles who promised information but did not return calls.
Party chairman Carabelli said that the Republican Party is training election challengers to "make sure that [voters] are who they say who they are."
When asked for further details on how Republicans are compiling challenge lists, he said, "I would rather not tell you all the things we are doing."
Vote suppression: Not an isolated effort
Carabelli is not the only Republican Party official to suggest the targeting of foreclosed voters. In Ohio, Doug Preisse, director of elections in Franklin County (around the city of Columbus) and the chair of the local GOP, told The Columbus Dispatch that he has not ruled out challenging voters before the election due to foreclosure-related address issues.
Hebert, the voting-rights lawyer, sees a connection between Priesse's remarks and Carabelli's plans.
"At a minimum what you are seeing is a fairly comprehensive effort by the Republican Party, a systematic broad-based effort to put up obstacles for people to vote," he said. "Nobody is contending that these people are not legally registered to vote.
"When you are comprehensively challenging people to vote," Hebert went on, "your goals are two-fold: One is you are trying to knock people out from casting ballots; the other is to create a slowdown that will discourage others," who see a long line and realize they can't afford to stay and wait.
Challenging all voters registered to foreclosed homes could disrupt some polling places, especially in the Detroit metropolitan area. According to the real estate Web site RealtyTrac, one in every 176 households in Wayne County, metropolitan Detroit, received a foreclosure filing during the month of July. In Macomb County, the figure was one household in every 285, meaning that 1,834 homeowners received the bad news in just one month. The Macomb County foreclosure rate puts it in the top three percent of all U.S. counties in the number of distressed homeowners.
Wayne, Oakland, Macomb, Kent and Genessee counties were — in that order — the counties with the most homeowners facing foreclosure, according to RealtyTrac. As of July, there were more than 62,000 foreclosure filings in the entire state.
Joe Rozell, director of elections for Oakland County in suburban Detroit, acknowledged that challenges such as those described by Carabelli are allowed by law but said they have the potential to create long lines and disrupt the voting process. With 890,000 potential voters closely divided between Democratic and Republican, Oakland County is a key swing county of this swing state.
According to voter challenge directives handed down by Republican Secretary of State Terri Lynn Land, voter challenges need only be "based on information obtained through a reliable source or means."
"But poll workers are not allowed to ask the reason" for the challenges, Rozell said. In other words, Republican vote challengers are free to use foreclosure lists as a basis for disqualifying otherwise eligible voters.
David Lagstein, head organizer with the Michigan Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), described the plans of the Macomb GOP as "crazy."
"You would think they would think, 'This is going to look too heartless,'" said Lagstein, whose group has registered 200,000 new voters statewide this year and also runs a foreclosure avoidance program. "The Republican-led state Senate has not moved on the anti-predatory lending bill for over a year and yet [Republicans] have time to prey on those who have fallen victim to foreclosure to suppress the vote."

How to effect the out come of this election....

Nia "Hussein" J. — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 03:01:31 EDT

Three things you can do Personaly, to effect the out come of the election
By Robert Creamer 9/9/08

Over the last couple of days I've received more calls and emails than I can count from people with fear in their voices. They want to know what to make of McCain's post- convention bounce in the polls. They want to know if Obama can still win. Most of all they want to know what they can do to help.
McCain's post-convention bounce resulted from two factors:
First, was three days of the Republican Convention, during which large numbers of viewers watched Republicans and fellow travelers like Joe Lieberman repeatedly deliver a carefully crafted message. They blasted Obama. They postured about change. Their kids looked adorable. Subject anyone to largely one-sided messaging for a week and some will be convinced. Some of that will stick; much will disappear as memories of that experience fades.
Second - and more importantly - McCain's pick of Sarah Palin moved a lot of white women. The Washington Post poll released today showed white women shifting from an eight-point pre-convention lead for Obama to a 12-point McCain advantage.
What does this mean for the outcome of the race?
The race today is about even, with McCain having a slight advantage in the popular vote, and Obama having an advantage in electoral votes. The effect of exposure to the convention itself will likely diminish over the next several weeks. In 2004, Bush moved to a nine-point lead after his convention and most of that gap disappeared within a few weeks.

The long-term effect of the Palin factor is less certain. Much depends on what all of us choose to do now.
There are about ten likely electoral vote scenarios that could develop in this race. In eight of them, Obama is the winner. The underlying desire for change, and the overall disgust with the Bush-Republican administration of the last eight years, is just as real as ever. The website www.Fivethirtyeight.com employs a sophisticated projection model to predict electoral outcomes, and it still gives 61.2% odds that Obama will win in November.
But this week's polling numbers have certainly given a wakeup call to lots of Progressives who might have become complacent in their views that Obama's victory was a lock.
What did we think - that the gang who has run this country for the last eight years would simply roll over and surrender without a fight? These guys are very good at running elections and they will bite and claw and gouge eyes to win.
Luckily, we don't have to just sit by and watch from the sidelines, and hope that someone else makes the right call or runs the right TV spots.
There are three steps that every one of us can take that will actually impact directly the ultimate outcome of this race.
1). Remember that you are Obama's best campaign commercial. Obama made a good deal of progress at his own convention in convincing swing voters he is not just an agent for change, but a "safe" choice. But there are still a lot of voters who worry about Obama. They aren't really too worried if he is "experienced" enough (though they may say so). The movement of white women to Sarah Palin should put an end to any thought that "experience" is the main issue. They are worried if he will "safely be on their side."
The message that is most persuasive at convincing someone that Obama is "safely on their side" is having someone who is like them talk to them about why they support Obama - and why they are against McCain-Palin. "If Mary or Sarah likes Obama I guess he must be OK."
If you want to help win this election, it means you might have to break the "taboo's" about not talking about politics with your neighbor or your co-worker. It means you have to bring up the campaign over the lunch table or the backyard fence. It means you can't just go along when someone says something like "Palin is such a breath of fresh air." No, you must tell them, actually she's never been for "reform" and she embraces all of the economic policies that allow big companies to make tons of money while incomes of people like us fall.

Want to make calls to swing voters like you in swing states? The Obama campaign can hook you up with lists to call and get a report from you on the outcome through their website, www.MyBarackObama.com. And don't feel like the conversations you have are just a drop in the bucket. There will be hundreds of thousands of other volunteers around America who will be doing the same thing. here is a Nieghbor to Neighbor walk through: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Oaj0CN72qA
2). Don't unwittingly contribute to their narrative. Most swing voters aren't excessively focused on "experience." They think the gang with lots of experience has done a pretty crummy job, at least for them. They want someone who is "on their side." One reason that many white women like and identify with Palin - at least at first blush - is because they think she identifies with them.
When Progressives make "elitist" attacks on Palin, they just reinforce the right wing narrative that the "Elitist Eastern Establishment" is the problem. Don't patronize the very people we are trying to convince.
From most people's points of view, the problem with the McCain-Palin ticket isn't so much that Palin is from a small town in rural Alaska and hasn't got the experience to run the country. The arguement that is convincing to normal people is that neither McCain nor Palin are what they claim to be - reformers or agents of change. Their campaign is being run by lobbyists for the biggest corporate interests in America--the same people who ran the Bush campaign. And they are committed to the economic policies that make average people's incomes drop and reward the very rich.
McCain and Palin act as though they identify with the interests of the guys in the NASCAR grandstand and the women at the PTA - but they are doing the bidding of the guys from Wall Street and the women wearing $4,500 outfits like the one Cindy McCain donned for the Republican Convention.
Our assault on McCain and Palin must never be done from an elitist perspective, but from a populist perspective.
3). Take personal responsibility to win this election. More than any election in modern political history, this election will be decided by the work of millions of people who talk to their neighbors, make small donations on the internet and - most importantly - demand that every voter go out to vote.
And I mean demand that every voter go to the polls. To win, we need to change the electorate. In this election, friends don't let friends not vote. There is too much at stake. The damage of another four years of Bush-McCain economic and foreign policy would be catastrophic for the future of our children, and children all over the world.
The key point is this: don't just whine to your friends about what the campaign should do, or the party should do, or the candidate should do. Take personal responsibility to do the two things that will win: persuade swing voters, and mobilize voters who won't vote unless they are motivated to do so.
The Obama campaign has the best field operation in the history of presidential politics. Join it. Take an assignment. Make contributions on the Internet. Hold a fundraiser. Write a letter to the editor. Most important: don't sit on the sidelines.
The recent polls should provide a call to arms to everyone who wants change in America or believes in progressive values.
Don't think what you do is inconsequential or can't affect the outcome. My firm, the Strategic Consulting Group, ran the field operation for a wonderful congressional candidate in south Florida in 2000. We did a great job. We knocked on every door. We pulled out lots of votes. But we lost by 550 votes. It was the same 550 votes that beat Al Gore and gave us George Bush.
If we had just dragged out one more Democrat per precinct in the closing hours of that Election Day, America would have been spared the nightmare of the last eight years. Each of us could decide the outcome of this election, too.
In 2008, Progressives in America are presented with an unprecedented opportunity to fundamentally change the direction of American politics. As I argued in my book, Stand Up Straight: How Progressives Can Win, we could be on the verge of a new progressive era in America. If we win, progressives will be able to take the offensive and reshape the political and economic structures of our society for the first time in four decades. We can come out of our defensive crouch and help shape a democratic society infused with progressive values, with the fundamental principle that "we're all in this together" not "all in this alone."
But to have that opportunity we have to win - and winning requires that we all stand up now and take the future into our own hands. The game is on. Get out of the stands and onto the field, into the arena. The work we do over the next 56 days could be the most important that any of us will do in our lives. Let's not miss this precious opportunity to make history.
Robert Creamer is a long-time political organizer and strategist, and author of the recent book Stand Up Straight: How Progressives Can Win, available on Amazon.com

The Surge as Told by whom...?

Nia "Hussein" J. — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 05:08:14 EDT

Outmaneuvered And Outranked, Military Chiefs Became Outsiders

By Bob Woodward
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, September 8, 2008; A01

At the Joint Chiefs of Staff in late November 2006, Gen. Peter Pace was facing every chairman's nightmare: a potential revolt of the other chiefs. Two months earlier, the JCS had convened a special team of colonels to recommend options for reversing the deteriorating situation in Iraq. Now, it appeared that the chiefs' and colonels' advice was being marginalized, if not ignored, by the White House.

During a JCS meeting with the colonels Nov. 20, Chairman Pace dropped a bomb: The White House was considering a "surge" of additional troops to quell the violence in Iraq. "Would it be a good idea?" Pace asked the group. "If so, what would you do with five more brigades?" That amounted to 20,000 to 30,000 more troops, depending on the number of support personnel.

Pace's question caught the chiefs and colonels off guard. The JCS hadn't recommended a surge, and Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the Iraq commander, was opposed to one of that magnitude. Where had this come from? Was it a serious option? Was it already a done deal?

Pace said he had another White House meeting in two days. "I want to be able to give the president a recommendation on what's doable," he said.

A rift had been growing between the country's military and civilian leadership, and in several JCS meetings that November, the chiefs' frustrations burst into the open. They had all but dismissed the surge option, worried that the armed forces were already stretched to the breaking point. They favored a renewed effort to train and build up the Iraqi security forces so that U.S. troops could begin to leave.

"Why isn't this getting any traction over there, Pete?" Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker, the Army chief, asked at one session inside the "tank," the military's secure conference room for candid and secret debates. Was the president being briefed?

"I can only get part of it before him," Pace said, "and I'm not getting any feedback."

Pace, Schoomaker and Casey found themselves badly out of sync with the White House in the fall of 2006, finally losing control of the war strategy altogether after the midterm elections. Schoomaker was outraged when he saw news coverage that retired Gen. Jack Keane, the former Army vice chief of staff, had briefed the president Dec. 11 about a new Iraq strategy being proposed by the American Enterprise Institute, the conservative think tank.

"When does AEI start trumping the Joint Chiefs of Staff on this stuff?" Schoomaker asked at the next chiefs' meeting.

Pace, normally given to concealing his opinions, let down the veil slightly and gave a little sigh. But he didn't answer. Schoomaker thought Pace was too much of a gentleman to be effective in a business where forcefulness and a willingness to get in people's faces were survival skills. "They weren't listening to what Pete [Pace] was saying," Schoomaker said later in private. "Or Pete wasn't carrying the mail, or he was carrying it incompletely."

In several tank meetings, Adm. Michael Mullen, chief of naval operations, voiced concern that the politicians were going to find a way to place the blame for Iraq on the military. "They're orchestrating this to dump in our laps," Mullen said. He raised the point so many times that Schoomaker thought the Navy leader sounded "almost paranoid."

* * *

The atmosphere in the tank was tense Monday, Nov. 27, 2006, as Pace briefed the chiefs and the colonels on a White House meeting about Iraq the day before. J.D. Crouch, a deputy to national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley, had presented the results of a secret strategy review on how to respond to the escalating violence. "I walked out happy because I got my views on the table," Pace said, making it clear that this was not always the case.

The president, Pace told the group, is "leaning into announcing a new phase in the war that will help us achieve our original end state. . . . By April 1, 2007, we would have five more brigades in Iraq."

Schoomaker was dismayed. Suppose the surge didn't work? "What is our fallback plan?" he asked.

There was no fallback, Pace replied.

"Are people engaged on this," Schoomaker asked almost defiantly of the surge proponents, "or is this politics?"

"They are engaged," Pace replied. But if progress is still lacking "after we surge five brigades," Pace said, "then you are forced to conscription, which no one wants to talk about." To mention a draft was to invite the ghosts of Vietnam into the tank.

"Folks keep talking about the readiness of U.S. forces. Ready to do what?" Schoomaker growled. "We need to look at our strategic depth for handling other threats. How do we get bigger? And how do we make what we have today more ready? This is not just about Iraq!"

Part of the chiefs' job was to figure out how to accelerate the military's overall global readiness and capacity, Schoomaker said. "I sometimes feel like it is hope against hope," he said. "I feel like Nero did when Rome was burning. It just worries the hell out of me."

Several colonels wanted to applaud. It worried them, too. Others disagreed, feeling it was more important to focus on the current war. But they all maintained their poker faces.

"Look, no one is whistling 'Dixie' here," Pace told the group. "The president and the White House understand the resource constraints."

It was not clear that anyone believed what the chairman was saying, or whether even Pace believed it.

"We need to position ourselves properly for the decision likely to come," Pace said. "The sense of urgency is over Iraq, but not over the other issues."

Mullen said the all-volunteer force might break under the strain of extended and repeated deployments. "I am still searching for the grand strategy here," Mullen said. "How does a five-brigade surge over the next few months fit into the larger picture? We have so many other issues and challenges: Afghanistan, Pakistan, North Korea and places we are not even thinking about today."

* * *

In Baghdad, Gen. Casey realized that he had lost a basic, necessary ingredient for a commanding general in wartime. He had lost the confidence of the president, a stunning and devastating realization.

He wasn't alone. The president was not listening to Casey's boss, Gen. John P. Abizaid at Central Command, anymore, either.

"Yeah, I know," the president said to Abizaid at a National Security Council session in December, "you're going to tell me you're against the surge."

Yes, Abizaid replied, and then presented his argument that U.S. forces needed to get out of Iraq in order to win.

"The U.S. presence helps to keep a lid on," Bush responded. There were other benefits. A surge would "also help here at home, since for many the measure of success is reduction in violence," Bush said. "And it'll help [Iraq Prime Minister Nouri al-] Maliki to get control of the situation. A heavier presence will buy time for his government."

The rest of Iraq wasn't as tenuous as Baghdad, Abizaid said. "But it's the capital city that looks chaotic," Bush said. "And when your capital city looks chaotic, it's hard to sustain your position, whether at home or abroad."

* * *

The chiefs' frustration grew so intense that Pace told Bush, "You need to sit down with them, Mr. President, and hear from them directly."

Hadley saw it as an opportunity. He arranged for Bush and Vice President Cheney to visit the JCS in the tank Dec. 13, 2006. The president would come armed with what Hadley called "sweeteners" -- more budget money and a promise to increase the size of the active-duty Army and Marine Corps. It would also be a symbolic visit, important to the chiefs because the president would be on their territory.

"Mr. President," Schoomaker began, "you know that five brigades is really 15."

Schoomaker was in charge of generating the force for the Army. Sending five new brigades to Iraq meant another five would have to take their place in line, and to sustain the surge, another five behind them. This could not be done, Schoomaker said, without either calling up the National Guard and Reserves or extending the 12-month tours in Iraq. The Army had hoped to go in the other direction and cut tours to nine months.

Would a surge transform the situation? Schoomaker asked. If not, why do it? "I don't think that you have the time to surge and generate enough forces for this thing to continue to go," he said.

"Pete, I'm the president," Bush said. "And I've got the time."

"Fine, Mr. President," Schoomaker said. "You're the president."

Several of the chiefs noted that the five brigades were effectively the strategic reserve of the U.S. military, the forces on hand in case of flare-ups elsewhere in the world. Surprise was a way of international life, the chiefs were saying. For years, Bush had been making the point that it was a dangerous world. Did he want to leave the United States in the position of not being able to deal with the next manifestation of that danger?

Bush told the chiefs that they had to win the war at hand. He turned again to Schoomaker. "Pete, you don't agree with me, do you?"

"No," Schoomaker said. "I just don't see it. I just don't. But I know right now that it's going to be 15 brigades. And how we're going to get those 15 brigades, I don't know. This is going to require more than we can generate. You're stressing the force, Mr. President, and these kids just see deployments to Iraq or Afghanistan for the indefinite future."

* * *

"The tank meeting was a very important meeting," Bush told me during a May 2008 interview. "In my own mind, I'm sure I didn't want to walk in with my mind made up and not give these military leaders the benefit of a discussion about a big decision."

The president said that if he were just pretending to be open-minded, "you get sniffed out. . . . I might have been leaning, but my mind was open enough to be able to absorb their advice."

I told him that, based on my reporting, some of the chiefs thought he had already decided, that they had sniffed him out.

"They may have thought I was leaning, and I probably was," Bush said, noting that the chiefs had felt free to express themselves. "But the door wasn't shut."

Still, Bush fully understood the power of his office.

"Generally," he said, "when the commander-in-chief walks in and says, done deal, they say, 'Yes sir, Mr. President.' "

* * *

Just after Christmas, while in the United States, Casey got an e-mail from one of his contacts. "Hey, you need to know that the White House is throwing you under the bus," it read.

A couple of days later, Abizaid phoned Casey with a warning. "Look," Abizaid said, "the surge is coming. Get out of the way." Casey was soon offered a promotion to Army chief of staff, and in February 2007, he left Iraq, replaced by Gen. David H. Petraeus.

The president said later in an interview, "The military, I can remember well, said, 'Okay, fine. More troops. Two brigades.' And I turned to Steve [Hadley] and said, 'Steve, from your analysis, what do you think?' He, being the cautious and thorough man he is, went back, checked, came back to me and said, 'Mr. President, I would recommend that you consider five. Not two.' And I said, 'Why?' He said, 'Because it is the considered judgment of people who I trust and you trust that we need five in order to be able to clear, hold and build.' "

The views of those trusted people came largely through back channels, rather than through the president's established set of military advisers -- Casey's deputy saying that a surge wouldn't work with fewer than five brigades and Jack Keane making the same case to Hadley and Vice President Cheney.

Hadley maintained that the number "comes out of my discussions with Pete Pace."

"Okay, I don't know this," Bush said, interrupting. "I'm not in these meetings, you'll be happy to hear, because I got other things to do."

So the president did not know what his principal military adviser, Gen. Pace, had recommended. Pace, however, had told the chiefs Nov. 20, 2006, that the White House had asked what could be done with five extra brigades.

* * *

The president announced the surge decision Jan. 10, 2007. Five more brigades would go to Baghdad; 4,000 Marines would head to Anbar province.

The next morning, he went to Fort Benning, Ga., to address military personnel and their families. His decision had been opposed by Casey and Abizaid, his military commanders in Iraq. Pace and the Joint Chiefs, his top military advisers, had suggested a smaller increase, if any at all. Schoomaker, the Army chief, had made it clear that the five brigades didn't really exist under the Army's current policy of 12-month rotations. But on this morning, the president delivered his own version of history.

"The commanders on the ground in Iraq, people who I listen to -- by the way, that's what you want your commander-in-chief to do. You don't want decisions being made based upon politics or focus groups or political polls. You want your military decisions being made by military experts. They analyzed the plan, and they said to me and to the Iraqi government: 'This won't work unless we help them. There needs to be a bigger presence.' "

Bush went on, "And so our commanders looked at the plan and said, 'Mr. President, it's not going to work until -- unless we support -- provide more troops.' "

Brady Dennis and Evelyn Duffy contributed to this report.

Palin: Wrong Woman, Wrong Message

Nia "Hussein" J. — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 18:28:45 EDT

Palin: wrong woman, wrong message
Sarah Palin shares nothing but a chromosome with Hillary Clinton. She is Phyllis Schlafly, only younger.
By Gloria Steinem
September 4, 2008

Here's the good news: Women have become so politically powerful that even the anti-feminist right wing -- the folks with a headlock on the Republican Party -- are trying to appease the gender gap with a first-ever female vice president. We owe this to women -- and to many men too -- who have picketed, gone on hunger strikes or confronted violence at the polls so women can vote. We owe it to Shirley Chisholm, who first took the "white-male-only" sign off the White House, and to Hillary Rodham Clinton, who hung in there through ridicule and misogyny to win 18 million votes.

But here is even better news: It won't work. This isn't the first time a boss has picked an unqualified woman just because she agrees with him and opposes everything most other women want and need. Feminism has never been about getting a job for one woman. It's about making life more fair for women everywhere. It's not about a piece of the existing pie; there are too many of us for that. It's about baking a new pie.

Selecting Sarah Palin, who was touted all summer by Rush Limbaugh, is no way to attract most women, including die-hard Clinton supporters. Palin shares nothing but a chromosome with Clinton. Her down-home, divisive and deceptive speech did nothing to cosmeticize a Republican convention that has more than twice as many male delegates as female, a presidential candidate who is owned and operated by the right wing and a platform that opposes pretty much everything Clinton's candidacy stood for -- and that Barack Obama's still does. To vote in protest for McCain/Palin would be like saying, "Somebody stole my shoes, so I'll amputate my legs."

This is not to beat up on Palin. I defend her right to be wrong, even on issues that matter most to me. I regret that people say she can't do the job because she has children in need of care, especially if they wouldn't say the same about a father. I get no pleasure from imagining her in the spotlight on national and foreign policy issues about which she has zero background, with one month to learn to compete with Sen. Joe Biden's 37 years' experience.

Palin has been honest about what she doesn't know. When asked last month about the vice presidency, she said, "I still can't answer that question until someone answers for me: What is it exactly that the VP does every day?" When asked about Iraq, she said, "I haven't really focused much on the war in Iraq."

She was elected governor largely because the incumbent was unpopular, and she's won over Alaskans mostly by using unprecedented oil wealth to give a $1,200 rebate to every resident. Now she is being praised by McCain's campaign as a tax cutter, despite the fact that Alaska has no state income or sales tax. Perhaps McCain has opposed affirmative action for so long that he doesn't know it's about inviting more people to meet standards, not lowering them. Or perhaps McCain is following the Bush administration habit, as in the Justice Department, of putting a job candidate's views on "God, guns and gays" ahead of competence. The difference is that McCain is filling a job one 72-year-old heartbeat away from the presidency.

So let's be clear: The culprit is John McCain. He may have chosen Palin out of change-envy, or a belief that women can't tell the difference between form and content, but the main motive was to please right-wing ideologues; the same ones who nixed anyone who is now or ever has been a supporter of reproductive freedom. If that were not the case, McCain could have chosen a woman who knows what a vice president does and who has thought about Iraq; someone like Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison or Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine. McCain could have taken a baby step away from right-wing patriarchs who determine his actions, right down to opposing the Violence Against Women Act.

Palin's value to those patriarchs is clear: She opposes just about every issue that women support by a majority or plurality. She believes that creationism should be taught in public schools but disbelieves global warming; she opposes gun control but supports government control of women's wombs; she opposes stem cell research but approves "abstinence-only" programs, which increase unwanted births, sexually transmitted diseases and abortions; she tried to use taxpayers' millions for a state program to shoot wolves from the air but didn't spend enough money to fix a state school system with the lowest high-school graduation rate in the nation; she runs with a candidate who opposes the Fair Pay Act but supports $500 million in subsidies for a natural gas pipeline across Alaska; she supports drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve, though even McCain has opted for the lesser evil of offshore drilling. She is Phyllis Schlafly, only younger.

I don't doubt her sincerity. As a lifetime member of the National Rifle Assn., she doesn't just support killing animals from helicopters, she does it herself. She doesn't just talk about increasing the use of fossil fuels but puts a coal-burning power plant in her own small town. She doesn't just echo McCain's pledge to criminalize abortion by overturning Roe vs. Wade, she says that if one of her daughters were impregnated by rape or incest, she should bear the child. She not only opposes reproductive freedom as a human right but implies that it dictates abortion, without saying that it also protects the right to have a child.

So far, the major new McCain supporter that Palin has attracted is James Dobson of Focus on the Family. Of course, for Dobson, "women are merely waiting for their husbands to assume leadership," so he may be voting for Palin's husband.

Being a hope-a-holic, however, I can see two long-term bipartisan gains from this contest.

Republicans may learn they can't appeal to right-wing patriarchs and most women at the same time. A loss in November could cause the centrist majority of Republicans to take back their party, which was the first to support the Equal Rights Amendment and should be the last to want to invite government into the wombs of women.

And American women, who suffer more because of having two full-time jobs than from any other single injustice, finally have support on a national stage from male leaders who know that women can't be equal outside the home until men are equal in it. Barack Obama and Joe Biden are campaigning on their belief that men should be, can be and want to be at home for their children.

This could be huge.

Gloria Steinem is an author, feminist organizer and co-founder of the Women's Media Center. She supported Hillary Clinton and is now supporting Barack Obama.

McCain - Palin Shot Gun Wedding

Nia "Hussein" J. — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 08:32:50 EDT

September 7, 2008Op-Ed ColumnistPalin and McCain’s Shotgun Marriage By FRANK RICH

SARAH PALIN makes John McCain look even older than he is. And he seemed more than willing to play that part on Thursday night. By the time he slogged through his nearly 50-minute acceptance speech — longer even than Barack Obama’s — you half-expected some brazen younger Republican (Mitt Romney, perhaps?) to dash onstage to give him a gold watch and the bum’s rush.

Still, attention must be paid. McCain’s address, though largely a repetitive slew of stump-speech lines and worn G.O.P. orthodoxy, reminded us of what we once liked about the guy: his aspirations to bipartisanship, his heroic service in Vietnam, his twinkle. He took his (often inaccurate) swipes at Obama, but, in winning contrast to Palin and Rudy Giuliani, he wasn’t smug or nasty.

The only problem, of course, is that the entire thing was a sham.

As is nakedly evident, the speech’s central argument, that the 72-year-old McCain will magically morph into a powerful change agent as president, is a non sequitur. In his 26 years in Washington, most of it with a Republican in the White House and roughly half of it with Republicans in charge of Congress, he was better at lecturing his party about reform than leading a reform movement. G.O.P. corruption and governmental dysfunction only grew. So did his cynical flip-flops on the most destructive policies of the president who remained nameless Thursday night. (In the G.O.P., Bush love is now the second most popular love that dare not speak its name.)

Even more fraudulent, if that’s possible, is the contrast between McCain’s platonic presentation of his personal code of honor and the man he has become. He always puts his country first, he told us: “I’ve been called a maverick.” If there was any doubt that that McCain has fled, confirmation arrived with his last-minute embrace of Sarah Palin.

We still don’t know a lot about Palin except that she’s better at delivering a speech than McCain and that she defends her own pregnant daughter’s right to privacy even as she would have the government intrude to police the reproductive choices of all other women. Most of the rest of the biography supplied by her and the McCain camp is fiction.

She didn’t say “no thanks” to the “Bridge to Nowhere” until after Congress had already abandoned it but given Alaska a blank check for $223 million in taxpayers’ money anyway. Far from rejecting federal pork, she hired lobbyists to secure her town a disproportionate share of earmarks ($1,000 per resident in 2002, 20 times the per capita average in other states). Though McCain claimed “she has had national security as one of her primary responsibilities,” she has never issued a single command as head of the Alaska National Guard. As for her “executive experience” as mayor, she told her hometown paper in Wasilla, Alaska, in 1996, the year of her election: “It’s not rocket science. It’s $6 million and 53 employees.” Her much-advertised crusade against officials abusing their office is now compromised by a bipartisan ethics investigation into charges that she did the same.

How long before we learn she never shot a moose?

Given the actuarial odds that could make Palin our 45th president, it would be helpful to know who this mystery woman actually is. Meanwhile, two eternal axioms of our politics remain in place. Americans vote for the top of the ticket, not the bottom. And in judging the top of the ticket, voters look first at the candidates’ maiden executive decision, their selection of running mates. Whatever we do and don’t know about Palin’s character at this point, there is no ambiguity in what her ascent tells us about McCain’s character and potential presidency.

He wanted to choose the pro-abortion-rights Joe Lieberman as his vice president. If he were still a true maverick, he would have done so. But instead he chose partisanship and politics over country. “God only made one John McCain, and he is his own man,” said the shafted Lieberman in his own tedious convention speech last week. What a pathetic dupe. McCain is now the man of James Dobson and Tony Perkins. The “no surrender” warrior surrendered to the agents of intolerance not just by dumping his pal for Palin but by moving so far to the right on abortion that even Cindy McCain seemed unaware of his radical shift when being interviewed by Katie Couric last week.

That ideological sellout, unfortunately, was not the worst leadership trait the last-minute vice presidential pick revealed about McCain. His speed-dating of Palin reaffirmed a more dangerous personality tic that has dogged his entire career. His decision-making process is impetuous and, in its Bush-like preference for gut instinct over facts, potentially reckless.

As The New York Times reported last Tuesday, Palin was sloppily vetted, at best. McCain operatives and some of their press surrogates responded to this revelation by trying to discredit The Times article. After all, The Washington Post had cited McCain aides (including his campaign manager, Rick Davis) last weekend to assure us that Palin had a “full vetting process.” She had been subjected to “an F.B.I. background check,” we were told, and “the McCain camp had reviewed everything it could find on her.”

The Times had it right. The McCain campaign’s claims of a “full vetting process” for Palin were as much a lie as the biographical details they’ve invented for her. There was no F.B.I. background check. The Times found no evidence that a McCain representative spoke to anyone in the State Legislature or business community. Nor did anyone talk to the fired state public safety commissioner at the center of the Palin ethics investigation. No McCain researcher even bothered to consult the relevant back issues of the Wasilla paper. Apparently when McCain said in June that his vice presidential vetting process was basically “a Google,” he wasn’t joking.

This is a roll of the dice beyond even Bill Clinton’s imagination. “Often my haste is a mistake,” McCain conceded in his 2002 memoir, “but I live with the consequences without complaint.” Well, maybe it’s fine if he wants to live with the consequences, but what about his country? Should the unexamined Palin prove unfit to serve at the pinnacle of American power, it will be too late for the rest of us to complain.

We’ve already seen where such visceral decision-making by McCain can lead. In October 2001, he speculated that Saddam Hussein might have been behind the anthrax attacks in America. That same month he out-Cheneyed Cheney in his repeated public insistence that Iraq had a role in 9/11 — even after both American and foreign intelligence services found that unlikely. He was similarly rash in his reading of the supposed evidence of Saddam’s W.M.D. and in his estimate of the number of troops needed to occupy Iraq. (McCain told MSNBC in late 2001 that we could do with fewer than 100,000.) It wasn’t until months after “Mission Accomplished” that he called for more American forces to be tossed into the bloodbath. The whole fiasco might have been prevented had he listened to those like Gen. Eric Shinseki who faulted the Rumsfeld war plan from the start.

In other words, McCain’s hasty vetting of Palin was all too reminiscent of his grave dereliction of due diligence on the war. He has been no less hasty in implying that we might somehow ride to the military rescue of Georgia (“Today, we are all Georgians”) or in reaffirming as late as December 2007 that the crumbling anti-democratic regime of Pervez Musharraf deserved “the benefit of the doubt” even as it was enabling the resurgence of the Taliban and Al Qaeda. McCain’s blanket endorsement of Bush administration policy in Pakistan could have consequences for years to come.

“This election is not about issues” so much as the candidates’ images, said the McCain campaign manager, Davis, in one of the season’s most notable pronouncements. Going into the Republican convention, we thought we knew what he meant: the McCain strategy is about tearing down Obama. But last week made clear that the McCain campaign will be equally ruthless about deflecting attention from its own candidate’s deterioration.

What was most striking about McCain’s acceptance speech is that it had almost nothing in common with the strident right-wing convention that preceded it. We were pointedly given a rerun of McCain 2000 — cobbled together from scraps of the old Straight Talk repertory. The ensuing tedium was in all likelihood intentional. It’s in the campaign’s interest that we nod off and assume McCain is unchanged in 2008.

That’s why the Palin choice was brilliant politics — not because it rallied the G.O.P.’s shrinking religious-right base. America loves nothing more than a new celebrity face, and the talking heads marched in lock step last week to proclaim her a star. Palin is a high-energy distraction from the top of the ticket, even if the provenance of her stardom is in itself a reflection of exactly what’s frightening about the top of the ticket.

By hurling charges of sexism and elitism at any easily cowed journalist who raises a question about Palin, McCain operatives are hoping to ensure that whatever happened in Alaska with Sarah Palin stays in Alaska. Given how little vetting McCain himself has received this year — and that only 58 days remain until Nov. 4 — they just might pull it off.

Remember these numbers...820, 427, 152

Nia "Hussein" J. — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 01:43:37 EDT

Remember these numbers: 820, 427, 152

820 is the number of laws Obama sponsored in the Illinois State Senate. You can see his legislative record here. In fact, he's created something of a backlog: some of the bills he introduced are still being debated in Springfield. Three of them, including S. 3558 ("A bill to provide for enhanced food-borne illness surveillance and food safety capacity") were moved upon just last week.

427 is the current count of the number of bills Obama has co-sponsored in the U.S. Senate.

And the final number, 152, is the most recent tally of the number of bills that Senator Obama has authored.

sources:http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/9/5/04916/71376/372/587456, http://thomas.loc.gov/

Also there's still residual untruths from the primary season regarding Senator Obama voting 'present' in the Illinois State Senate. Here's the truth on that:

Records from Obama's first session, the 90th (1998-1999), cannot be electronically retrieved and were not included in this analysis. They are available to the public in hard copy at the state house in Springfield.

Without the full set of records, we could not verify the 129 figure, though we did count more than 100 "present" votes in the data we had available. The records show "present" votes were a tiny proportion of the more than 4,000 that Obama cast during his tenure in the chamber. Obama's presidential campaign has depicted them as strategic in nature: Either Obama was working with Democratic leaders to thwart Republican legislation when the GOP controlled the Senate, registering opposition to proposals he thought were unconstitutional or ineffective; or he was providing political help to moderates who were under pressure to support some of the bills.

Source: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2008/feb/13/obamas-present-tension/
--

Please make sure to spread the word about the actual laws that have been enacted because of Senator Obama's work. We need to do our part to refute the lies that were spread this week by McCain and Palin.
Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006 signed into law by GWB on 9/26/2006. .http://www.usaspending.gov/

The Lugar-Obama Nonproliferation Legislation Act signed by GWB on 1/11/2007 Lugar is a Republican.source:http://obama.senate.gov/press/070111-lugar-obama_non/
Obama was also the sponsor of the "Democratic Republic of Congo Relief, Security, and Democracy Promotion Act of 2005" (S.2125), signed into law by President Bush on December 22, 2006.

At the state level, Obama was a co-sponsor of a 1998 Illinois ethics lawoutlawing political fundraising on Illinois state property and barring lobbyists from giving gifts to state legislators.

Senator Obama was in the Illinois state senate for 8 years and there are countless laws that have been passed that he sponsored or authored...see for an exhaustive list: http://factcheck.barackobama.com/factcheck/2008/07/01/post_7.php
Good sources:
http://mediamatters.org/items/200809040007
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_bills_sponsored_by_Barack_Obama_in_the_United_States_Senate
-----

Michelle Obama, First Wife and Mother in Chief...

Nia "Hussein" J. — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 03:50:40 EDT

Michelle Obama describes duty as mother-in-chief
Posted: 04 Aug 2008 09:41 PM CDT
By ANN SANNER
WASHINGTON - Forget the pearls. Michelle Obama says her best accessory is her husband.
"Barack and I -- as partners, as friends and as lovers -- we accessorize each other in many ways," said Obama, wife of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama. "The best thing I love having on me is Barack on my arm and vice versa, whether it's having him standing there smiling at me, or watching him mesmerize a crowd or talk to some seniors in a senior center."
Michelle Obama discussed her marriage, fashion sense and how she balances motherhood and work in an interview with Ebony magazine. The issue hits newsstands nationwide on Aug. 12.
Should she become first lady, Michelle Obama says her primary focus will be on their two daughters -- Malia, 10, and Sasha, 7.
"My first job in all honesty is going to continue to be mom-in-chief," she said, "making sure that in this transition, which will be even more of a transition for the girls ... that they are settled and that they know they will continue to be the center of our universe."
Michelle Obama said the challenges women face in balancing their families and jobs should be highlighted in government policies -- whether it's through better health care or more family leave time.
She also expressed her support for military wives and the additional stress they face when their husbands are away and have done multiple tours of duty. "Tack on the fact that there is no sustained mental health support for these families as they are struggling with loved ones who are coming back dealing with emotional issues," she said. "You've got people in pain and we don't hear those voices a lot."
Michelle Obama, 44, has worked as a lawyer and hospital executive. She has been active in her husband's campaign and is scheduled to speak to military spouses on Wednesday in Norfolk, Va.
Like her husband, she exercises regularly -- an activity that was hard to find time for when the girls were younger and Barack Obama was away working in the Illinois Senate, she said.
She said realized she was putting on weight after her oldest daughter was born. She started working out at 4:30 a.m. and would let her husband help with the children if they cried in the early hours.
"I found it wasn't that Barack wasn't interested in helping," she said. "It's just that when the baby cried at 4 a.m., I got up faster than he did because I would hear the baby and I would be up."
Michelle Obama said she tries to teach her daughters the importance of exercising. The family also eats organic as much as possible, she said.
"(Being fit) has become even more important as I've had children, because I'm also thinking about how I'm modeling health to my daughters," she said.

McCain...In His Seventies and Still Immature

Nia "Hussein" J. — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 03:34:59 EDT

'A surprisingly Immature politician'
Posted: 04 Aug 2008 09:37 PM CDT

By: Steve Benen
John McCain has always seemed to revel in the sycophantic adulation he's enjoyed among the media elite, so it's kind of fascinating to see McCain's one-time media fans realize that he's not the man they thought he was.
The first, and probably most notable, was Time's Joe Klein, who conceded last week that he was wrong to believe McCain is an "honorable man." Soon after, writing on the inanity of McCain's attacks against Barack Obama, Klein's headline read, "The Scum Also Rises."
It looks like Newsweek's Jonathan Alter has joined the club, noting with noticeable regret that he "misread McCain."
In the middle of John McCain's dopey Britney & Paris attack ad, the announcer gravely asks of Barack Obama: "Is He Ready to Lead?" An equally good question is whether McCain is ready to lead. For a man who will turn 72 this month, he's a surprisingly immature politician -- erratic, impulsive and subject to peer pressure from the last knucklehead who offers him advice. The youthful insouciance that for many years has helped McCain charm reporters like me is now channeled into an ad that one GOP strategist labeled "juvenile," another termed "childish" and McCain's own mother called "stupid." The Obama campaign's new mantra is that McCain is "an honorable man running a dishonorable campaign." Lame is more like it. And out of sync with the real guy. [...]
McCain is patently insincere when his heart's not in it, like a little boy who eats his peas when his parents tell him to but remains transparently unhappy about the experience. It's not clear how committed McCain himself is to this latest assault on Obama. Does he genuinely believe that Obama is an out-of-control egomaniac who thinks he's Moses? McCain no doubt comforts himself that the ad making that argument -- an argument that is beneath a major-party candidate for president -- was not part of a big media buy but just chum thrown to the media piranhas via the Drudge Report. [...]
On the night of the 2000 South Carolina primary, I was in his hotel suite and watched Cindy weeping over what Rove and his goons did. Her husband was plenty mad, too. Now he's got Rove's protege, Steve Schmidt, running his campaign.
Alter concludes that McCain "mortgaged his precious personal honor." I think that absolutely true, but I still get the sense that even newly-critical McCain detractors are still willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. At least a little.

Alter's piece is a very good one, so I'm reluctant to criticize it, but his column still argues that McCain is being fundamentally led astray by Republican hatchetmen giving him bad advice.
McCain, Alter argues, is waging a negative and dishonest campaign, but this is "out of sync with the real guy." McCain may be on the attack, but his "heart's not in it." He's foolishly taking the advice of "knuckleheads." It's that darn Steven Schmidt who deserves most of the blame.
I even realize why Alter wants to think McCain is only partially responsible for his ugly turn -- if media figures respected and admired McCain, and sang his praises for the last decade, and all the while McCain was really just a shameless Republican hack, playing the media for fools, it's hard to accept. If, however, McCain is really a great guy underneath, but has been corrupted by a dishonorable and pathetic Republican machine, then there's some comfort in knowing that reporters hadn't misjudged his character all along.
But I'm quite certain they did. McCain was playing a role, and the media bought it. Kevin explained quite well the other day why this it's-not-McCain's-fault argument misses the mark.
Apparently he's just a straight talking guy who woke up one morning and found himself mysteriously under the sway of a vile cabal of political hit men and unable to do anything about it.
Enough's enough. McCain hired Steve Schmidt, he approves the strategy, and he signs off on the ads. If his campaign is mired in sleaze, it's not happening despite McCain, it's happening because of McCain. Stop making excuses for him.
Quite right. McCain hired Rove's operation for a reason: he really wants to be president, and doesn't much care how he gets there.
It's nice, I suppose, to examine all of this and think McCain is just the latest good guy to go bad, but I think this is fundamentally flawed. John McCain simply is not a man of strong character.

The Media Should Fact Check...

Nia "Hussein" J. — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 18:30:56 EDT

Target Obama: Why The Press Must Fact-Check Campaign Claims
What is the responsibility of reporters, editors and publishers when a candidate is the target of a campaign of attack and personal destruction employing the systematic use of lies, smears, innuendo and character assassination?

By Brent Budowsky

(August 11, 2008) -- I am a columnist for The Hill newspaper and an early supporter of Barack Obama, but when John McCain's military service was unconscionably attacked during the 2008 South Carolina primary, I rose to his defense, vigorously and publicly, as a matter or honor, even though it was against my political interest.

What is the responsibility of reporters, editors and publishers when a candidate for high office is the target of a campaign of attack and personal destruction employing the systematic use of lies, smears, innuendo and character assassination?

J'accuse: What is happening in the 2008 general election is that Senator McCain has (literally) hired highest level operatives who worked for George Bush and Karl Rove (this is simply a fact) and is employing the carbon copy tactics that Rove used against his political opponents (including McCain himself).

When the Bush campaign, and independent committees whose leaders and fundraisers had long and close ties to Bush and Rove, waged a campaign of personal destruction against the heroism of Senator Kerry in Vietnam, was it proper that these attacks were given by many in the media credibility and visibility?

It is true, Kerry fell short in responding, which Kerry is the first to concede today. It is also true that the many in the media became de facto partners and propagators of the smear by inadequate fact checking, a false understanding of the proper notion of balance, and sporting event style coverage during which the smears were given equal weight with the truth.

This is a fact: Today Barack Obama is subject to what is probably the greatest concentrated attacks of smears, lies and innuendo in the lifetime of anyone who reads these words.

Consider this: John McCain in personal appearances, in his campaign staff presentations and various media and ads, falsely and aggressively accused Barack Obama of neglecting wounded troops.

McCain, widely reported by most media with virtually no fact checking or refutation until days after McCain's attacks, accused Barack Obama of planning to bring political reporters to his visit with wounded troops. As every single reporters from every media organization
covering Obama knew, that charge was either a deliberate lie or a total ignorance of the facts.

McCain charged that Obama wanted to bring cameras to photograph the event. Totally false and every reporter on the Germany trip knew it. McCain charged that Obama chose playing basketball instead of visiting wounded troops. Totally false and every reporter on that trip knew it. McCain charged that Obama wanted to bring political staff people to the wounded troops and that, too, is totally false.

Let's be crystal clear, Obama was accompanied by a giant horde of reporters and every one of them knew these charges were totally untrue, completely, fairly described as slander or smear and arguably constituting direct lies when they were repeated by McCain and his staff, again and again, well after the facts were clear to all.

For McCain to repeat false charge after false charge about Obama's desire to visit wounded troops, when every reporter with Obama knew they were false, and for the major media to take almost a week to timidly and belatedly note that the charges were false, well after the political damage to Obama had been done, with the truth given virtually no prominence compared to the falsehood, is a professional failure of countless reporters, editors and publishers covering the campaign.

It is 100% true that McCain's campaign now includes senior advisors to Karl Rove and George Bush using identical personal attack strategies. It is 100% true that McCain, who based his so-called maverick appeal on a higher standard of politics, has chosen a campaign strategy that is almost exclusively based on personal attacks on Obama.

We live in serious times that demand serious people. Our campaign reporting has far too often degenerated into a flying circus of irrelevant punditry, where even the most dishonest and false charges are given credibliity and prominence, and where serious issues are rarely discussed in serious ways.

In fact Obama, McCain and Hillary Clinton all have proposed major initiatives that have been largely ignored in substance while the quality of our politics degenerated and the quality of our political coverage lagged, and lags, light years behind an American electorate deeply concerned about our nation and their future and yearning for serious discussion that they rarely receive in political media today.

There are ample grounds to fairly challenge and criticize Barack Obama, and all other candidates, on news and opinion pages. Obama should be challenged about whether his experience is sufficient for the presidency. Obama's policies can and should be challenged, dissected, debated, rebutted and criticized.

But Obama is currently facing an underground campaign of racial and religious attacks from sources outside conventional media and outside the campaign management of candidates. He is also subject to a deliberate, orchestrated and sytematic personal attack from his opponent including attacks that have included false charges, included in ads that have been run and rerun on television news shows, at no charge to McCain, without aggressive and simultaneous refutation of false charges as in the wounded troops case.

Whether the target is McCain or Obama, reporting should rise in support of the facts and truth wherever they lead, whomever they help or harm.

In this case the target is Barack Obama, and while it is his job to run his campaign, it is our job, as columnists, reporters, editors and publishers to find and report the truth and whether the charges in campaigns of personal destruction are true or false.

Brith Certificate...

Nia "Hussein" J. — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 17:37:18 EDT

There has been speculation that Obama isn't born of this country...whelp this should help clear things up a bit:

Obama's status as a natural born citizen is undeniable:http://snopes.com/politics/obama/citizen.asp

McCain's status as a natural born citizen is undetermined:http://snopes.com/politics/mccain/citizen.asp

Bush Blockes Veteran Registration

Nia "Hussein" J. — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 04:44:54 EDT

Bush Administrations Bans Voter registration drives at Veteran Facilities

This past May, the Veterans Affairs Department, led by Secretary James Peake, issued a directive prohibiting nonpartisan voter registration drives “at federally financed nursing homes, rehabilitation centers and shelters for homeless veterans.” In today’s New York Times, Connecticut Secretary of State Susan Bysiewicz writes, “What is the secretary of Veterans Affairs thinking?“:

The department has placed an illegitimate obstacle in the way of election officials across the country and, more important, in the way of veterans who want to vote. A group of 21 secretaries of state — Republicans and Democrats throughout the country, led by me and my counterpart in Washington State, Sam Reed — has asked Secretary Peake to lift his department’s ridiculous ban on voter registration drives. […]
But federal legislation shouldn’t be needed for the Department of Veterans Affairs to lift the ban on voter registration drives by state and local election officials and nonpartisan groups.
The federal government should be doing everything it can to support our nation’s veterans who have served us so courageously. There can be no justification for any barrier that impedes the ability of veterans to participate in democracy’s most fundamental act, the vote.

The Keating Five Legacy

Nia "Hussein" J. — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 00:27:21 EDT

I often call McCain "McKeatingFive" Here is the story behind it that was emailed to me today:

The Keating Five Legacy
http://www.ourfuture.org/progressive-opinion/keating-five-legacy

William K. Black is Associate Professor of Law and Economics at the University of Missouri, Kansas City. He was counsel to the Federal Home Loan Bank Board during the savings and loan crisis of the 1980s and was a whistleblower in the Keating Five scandal. His book on the crisis is "The Best Way to Rob a Bank Is to Own One."

Twenty-one years ago today five U.S. senators met with federal savings and loan regulators at the request of Charles Keating, who controlled Lincoln Savings and Loan. They became known as the "Keating Five"�€"Alan Cranston, D-Calif., Dennis DeConcini, D-Ariz., John Glenn, D-Ohio, John McCain, R-Ariz., and Donald Riegle, D-Mich. The Keating Five meeting was the event that transformed the S&L debacle from a story buried in the business section to one of the worst financial and political scandals in U.S. history (though the current financial crises have proven even worse).
The Keating Five, including McCain, were perfectly situated to take action to protect their constituents. They could have held oversight hearings. They could have warned the widows. "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing," an anonymous commenter one said (in a statement generally, but inaccurately, attributed to Edmund Burke). These men did nothing.
Lincoln was (and remains) the most expensive S&L failure of an insured U.S. depository, costing the taxpayers $3.4 billion. Keating recruited the senators because the regulators were about to remove his control over Lincoln. The regulators had discovered that Lincoln had large losses and was engaged in widespread fraud and forgeries designed to hide its violation of the "direct investment" rule. That violation was the largest in history �€" over $600 million. S&Ls that had large amounts of direct investment always failed. Direct investments were fatal not because of their intrinsic risk, but because they were superb aids to accounting fraud, the "weapon of choice" of financial firms.
When Keating launched a jihad against the proposed direct investment rule in 1984, he used politicians as his most important ally. He began in the House of Representatives. Within a few weeks, he was able to get a majority of members to co-sponsor a resolution intended to kill the direct investment rule. The supporters included John McCain (then a congressman), Jim Wright, D-Texas, (soon to be the Speaker of the House), and Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., (soon to be Wright's nemesis and a strong critic of his aid to fraudulent S&L owners). McCain was, and remains, a strident opponent of financial regulation. Federal Home Loan Bank Board chairman Edwin Gray, convinced that direct investments posed a critical threat to the taxpayers, went ahead with the regulation.
Second, Keating tried to get President Reagan to fire Gray. Keating's lobbyist, "Mickey" Gardner, reported that they found significant support within the administration for this effort�€"particularly in the office of Vice President Bush (who chaired the administration's financial deregulation task force). The (Republican!) lobbyist reported in disgust that he couldn't get Gray fired because "like so many before him in this Administration, [Gray] would have to be criminally liable or worse before they would be removed."
Third, Keating followed Gardner's advice to stage a hostile takeover of the regulator in 1986. He had already used large political contributions and the lobbying of Alan Greenspan to recruit the "Keating Five." He now used several of the congressmen, principally McCain (the only Republican among the Keating Five), to help convince the Reagan administration to appoint two of his cronies to the Bank Board (which would have given Keating majority control of the agency).
Keating needed the senators' help to overcome rival candidates and internal opposition to the nominations. Phil Gramm, a more senior Republican senator on the banking committee, pushed the nomination of Durward Curlee, a Texas lobbyist representing the most notorious S&L frauds in Texas and, after Keating, the strongest opponent of S&L regulation. Keating was a major contributor to President Reagan, but he had never held elected office. His ability to convince the Reagan administration to reject Gramm's proposed nominee and agree to appoint both of Keating's proposed nominees was an astonishing demonstration of political power.
Keating also had to overcome serious internal opposition within the Reagan administration. The administration attempt to nominate Keating as U.S. ambassador to the Bahamas in the early 1980s had to be abandoned in embarrassment when it was revealed that Keating had signed a Securities and Exchange Commission consent decree to settle allegations that he had defrauded a financial institution. The White House personnel director, Robert Tuttle, was in charge of vetting Keating's proposed nominees. He called Republican contacts in Arizona (where Keating lived) and learned that Keating's had a reputation "for buying politicians." Tuttle recommended against the Keating appointments.
Keating's flaws were immediately obvious. In addition to his SEC problems, he was arrogant, domineering, rude, nasty, and a virulent bigot. Senator Garn (R. UT) refused to meet with him again after their first meeting. Treasury Undersecretary George Gould, instructed the Treasury guards to bar Keating from entry after their first meeting. Nevertheless, President Reagan rejected Tuttle's recommendation and tried to appoint both of Keating's choices. Had he succeeded, the cost of the debacle would have grown tenfold and the political scandal would have dwarfed Teapot Dome. Fortunately, Senator Dole blocked the nomination of one of Keating's choices.
President Reagan did make Lee Henkel a recess appointment in 1986. Henkel became Keating's "mole" on the Bank Board. His first substantive act was to propose an amendment to the direct investment rule (secretly drafted by Keating's lawyers) that would have immunized Lincoln's massive violation of the rule. (The amendment was cleverly drafted in a manner that did not mention Lincoln, but fit it like a glove.) Unfortunately for Keating and Henkel, I spotted the effort and blew the whistle. Henkel was severely criticized by the media and resigned in a deal with a Justice Department (in return, they dropped their investigation). (Years later, the Bank Board's successor agency "removed and prohibited" Henkel from the industry for his misconduct.) The Keating Five knew that Henkel had sought to amend the rule to immunize Lincoln, and they knew that he had resigned in disgrace. Appropriately, the resignation became public on April Fools' Day �€" the day before four of the senators ( Riegle was a surprise no show) met with Bank Board Chairman Gray at Keating's request to urge Gray not to take any action against Lincoln's violation of the rule.
The Keating Five waged Keating's fourth political campaign against the direct investment rule. The context of the campaign was the Bank Board's effort to "recapitalize" the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation ("FSLIC Recap) in order to secure funds to further its top priority �€" closing the fraudulent S&Ls like Lincoln. The FSLIC Recap bill had a second vital element �€" it would restore the Bank Board's lapsed powers to close many state chartered S&Ls like Lincoln. This meant that Keating had a vital need to block passage of the bill.
Senator Cranston, at Keating's request, blocked passage of the bill in the Senate by placing a secret "hold" on the bill. House Majority Leader Jim Wright, D-Texas, and Representative Pryor openly blocked the bill in the House. Wright extorted Gray, demanding favorable treatment for Texas frauds Pryor, demanded that fewer Arkansas S&Ls be closed and sanctioned. (He would later serve on the Senate ethics committee investigating the Keating Five �€" so they truly had a jury of their peers!) FSLIC Recap was the Bank Board's ultimate priority. The FSLIC fund was down to $500 million �€" to insure an industry of over $1 trillion in liabilities that was insolvent by perhaps $100 billion in 1986. The S&L frauds' political allies had total leverage over Gray and he repeatedly made concessions demanded by Majority Leader (and Speaker of the House in January 1987), Jim Wright. The CEOs of each of the S&Ls that Wright sought favors for were looting "their" S&Ls �€" inclu ding Vernon Savings (after Lincoln, the worst S&L fraud).
Keating knew that adding the Keating Five's political clout in the Senate to Speaker Wright's domination of the House would doom the FSLIC Recap bill (which was reintroduced in 1987) and put irresistible pressure on Gray to back off from taking enforcement action against Lincoln. He made the threat explicit by telling Undersecretary Gould that he could induce five senators to either be a great help or strong opponents of the FSLIC Recap bill. (This is the conversation that caused Gould to bar Keating from the Treasury building.) By April 2, 1987, Speaker Wright's House allies had made a travesty of the FSLIC Recap bill �€" reducing the funding from $15 billion to $5 billion and mandating "forbearance" provisions designed to gut the Bank Board's ability to close failed S&Ls. Our only hope was that the Senate would pass a better version of the bill and that the conference committee would favor the Senate version. Keating had arranged for the Keating Five to pressure Gray at exactly the time they had maximum leverage over him.

Keating Prepares the Senators for the April 2, 1987 Meeting

Keating prepared the Senators carefully for the April 2 meeting. He sent them detailed explanations of how severely a Bank Board enforcement action would limit his ability to control Lincoln. He explained how passage of the FSLIC Recap bill would allow the Bank Board to end that control. He called Gray a "Mad Dog" and a "Nazi." He asked the Senators to convince Gray not to take any enforcement action against Lincoln in return for his promise that Lincoln would begin to make home loans.
Senator DeConcini hosted the April 2 meeting. He carefully set up the meeting for deniability. His staff instructed Gray not to bring any staffers. Each of the Senators came to the meeting without any staff. The chances of that happening without prior agreement were non-existent. The meeting was designed to make sure that if things went badly it would be the word of five senators against that of Gray. The senators thought there was safety in numbers. They were disturbed that Senator Riegle did not attend the April 2 meeting.

McCain's Attendance at the April 2 Meeting

Senator McCain has said that upon reviewing Keating's written materials about what he wanted the Senators to do in their meeting with Gray he decided that Keating's requests were improper because they called for the Senators to negotiate an agreement to escape enforcement action on Keating's behalf. McCain informed Keating that he would not attend the meeting. Keating met with Senator Riegle and told him of McCain's decision �€" and said that McCain was "a wimp." Riegle's aide told McCain what Keating had said. McCain, enraged, summoned Keating to his office. Keating, who dominated virtually every conversation, could not get a word in during McCain's tirade. Keating's insult, of course, was absurd. McCain is the last person in the world that anyone would believe was a "wimp." Keating, however, apparently knew how successful his taunt would be with a man who still felt (against all reason) that he had not always sufficiently resisted his North Vietnamese torturers. McCain, des pite believing that what Keating wanted the Senators to do was improper, decided to join his colleagues at the April 2 meeting.

The April 2 Meeting

Senator DeConcini began the meeting by stating that "we" wanted Gray not to take enforcement action against Lincoln and that in return "our friend" Charles Keating would ensure that Lincoln would begin to make home loans. He was speaking on behalf of the group �€" and no Senator expressed any disagreement or difference with the position he articulated. The Senators also complained that the agency was harassing Lincoln and demanded Gray's explanation for the abuse. Gray told them there were 3000 S&Ls and he did not know the details of Lincoln's regulation, but that he had total confidence in the Bank Board's regulators for Lincoln at the Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco (FHLBSF). He said that if the Senators needed the details they would have to talk to the FHLBSF supervisors. Gray informed several of us at the Bank Board of what had happened at the meeting immediately after the meeting.

The April 9 Meeting

All five of the Senators attended the April 9 meeting with James Cirona (FHLBSF President), Michael Patriarca (chief supervisor), Richard Sanchez (Lincoln's supervisory agent), and me. I took the only notes of the meeting. They are extraordinarily detailed. I circulated them to the other FHLBSF participants to ensure their accuracy and Gray sent Riegle a copy. Each of the Keating Five testified that the notes were accurate and complete. The Senators again excluded their aides from the meeting. Senator DeConcini began the meeting by again using the word "we" and proposing Keating's "quid pro quo" of dropping any enforcement action against Lincoln's violation of the direct investment rule in return for Lincoln making some home loans. No Senator disagreed or distinguished his position.
Senator Cranston accentuated the group nature of the Keating Five.. He was the floor manager for a bill that was very important to him and was coming to a critical vote that night, yet he left the floor and came briefly to Senator DeConcini's office to state that he supported his colleagues' position. Each of the Senators was aware of the group position supporting Keating's efforts to immunize the massive violation of the direct investment rule.
At the meeting, because it was the only way to treat to get the Senators to back off their pressure, we revealed to them that we had decided to make criminal referrals against Lincoln's leaders because of widespread fraud. Mike Patriarca guaranteed that Lincoln would fail if it continued its investment practices.

The Keating Five Prove Lucky in their (Initial) Regulatory "Opponents"

The paradox is that the Keating Five proved so unlucky in their choice of Keating as their ally and so lucky in their initial regulatory "opponents." We were not the Keating Five's opponents, but that is how they perceived us. We were their public servants trying to warn them that they were being manipulated by a fraud that was causing enormous harm to their constituents and exposing the Senators to scandal. Had Gray caved, Lincoln would have been untouchable. Lincoln would have been able to resume its extraordinary growth and expand its direct investments. No line supervisory would have dared to take on Keating. Lincoln's losses would have grown at an even faster rate than its asset growth. By the time it collapsed losses would likely have exceeded $10 billion. The Keating Five's decisive role in producing these catastrophic results would have been undeniable. Gray, however, refused to be intimidated. Keating's timing, which had seemed so perfect, proved too late. Gray had d ecided that Speaker Wright simply increased his demands when Gray gave in to his extortion, and that he could not in good conscience continue to give in to Wright's pressure. The Bank Board moved to close Vernon Savings (the second worst S&L fraud) and publicly criticized Wright's efforts to secure regulatory favors for Vernon.
The Senators also proved lucky in that, while Gray did not cave in to their pressure, he also could not afford to criticize them publicly given the tenuous fate of the FSLIC Recap bill. Gray's term ended on June 30, 1987. (Wright and Treasury Secretary Baker had agreed at a secret meeting that Gray would not be reappointed.) Gray's successor, Danny Wall, was acceptable to Wright. Wall, while a Senate staffer, had encouraged Gray to give in to Wright's extortion. Among his first acts was to issue a gag order forbidding me to speak to the press.

The Keating Five Prove Unlucky in Allying with Keating

Keating proved to be the worst of the S&L looters, and Lincoln the most expensive failure at $3.4 billion. Deposit insurance meant that there were no identifiable individual victims when S&Ls failed. Lincoln's parent company, however, sold uninsured, worthless junk bonds out of Lincoln's branches. Worse, it targeted widows. This created individual victims who lost their life's savings �€" and the face of the victim was your grandmother. Keating then compounded the Senators' problems. The Associated Press recently reported the story as follows:

The banker's attitude was summed up the day a reporter asked whether his political donations to the senators encouraged their intervention..
"I want to say in the most forceful way I can, I certainly hope so," Keating replied.

The AP quotation is correct, and it is obviously the worst possible thing Keating could have said from Senators' perspective. The first sentence of the AP story, however, is wrong, and it shows that the reporter did not grasp the trait that made Keating the worst of the looters �€" audacity. Keating called a press conference, but he did not allow the reporters to ask any questions. He read written answers to questions he had prepared. This was a planned statement, not off the cuff.

Keating adds Speaker Wright's Pressure to that of the Keating Five

Wall, the self-described "child of the Senate", came into office determined to avoid conflicts with powerful politicians. He promptly ordered the FHLB examination and the enforcement investigation of Lincoln halted. Both actions were unprecedented. They followed a meeting between Bank Board staff and Lincoln's leadership. The FHLBSF was not informed that the meeting would occur. It was consulted prior to the order to stop the examination.. Wall then ordered that the agency re-examine the FHLBSF's findings. This was unprecedented. The review disappointed Wall because it supported the FHLBSF's findings and found no basis for Keating's complaints against the FHLBSF. Despite these facts, the Bank Board refused to consider the FHLBSF's recommendations to place Lincoln in conservatorship or take stringent enforcement actions based on the violation of the direct investment rule and fraudulent acts. (FSLIC Recap passed in August 1987, and restored the Bank Board's lapse conservatorshi p powers.)
The Wall Bank Board also refused to be briefed by the FHLBSF on its recommendations. Both refusals were unprecedented. Wall then sought to induce the Federal Home Loan Bank of Seattle (FHLBS) to permit Lincoln to transfer to its jurisdiction. The FHLBS declined, stating that it agreed with the FHLBSF's concerns and that they were disturbed by Keating's response to their question of why he was neither an officer nor board member of Lincoln: "I don't want to go to jail." This action was unprecedented. While the Bank Board Chairman Wall and Board Member Martin declined to be briefed by the FHLBSF, they met several times with Keating. This was unprecedented.
When Bank Board and FHLBSF staff members were to meet with Keating in early 1988, Keating demanded that I be excluded from the meeting, and the Bank Board acceded to his demand. At another meeting with Lincoln's leaders the FHLBSF was allowed to have only one representative present �€" and only on the condition that he would not be permitted to speak. All of these actions were unprecedented.
Remember that by this juncture the Bank Board had confirmed that Lincoln had committed the largest violation of a rule in history, was engaged in widespread forgeries and other forms of deception that had led the agency to file an extensive criminal referral, was investing primarily in assets (direct investments) in quantities that had proved fatal in every S&L, and was growing rapidly. By any logical standard it should have been the agency's top enforcement priority. Instead it got unprecedented favors that destroyed the agency's integrity and exposed the taxpayers to enormous losses. Fear of Keating's political power was the only possible explanation for these actions. James Boland, Wall's chief of staff, emphasized this fear in discussions with the FHLBSF's top supervisor, Michael Patriarca. He said that Keating was so powerful that: "he can get you in ways you'll never know you've been got."
Keating's and Wall's mutual problem, however, was that the FHLBSF refused to back down. Keating's top priority became another unprecedented demand �€" Wall must remove the FHLBSF's jurisdiction over Lincoln. Keating now used the Keating Five to recruit Speaker Wright as an ally and to make Wall aware of that alliance. He used Senator Cranston to set up a late afternoon meeting with Wall for January 28, 1988. He used Senator Glenn to set up a luncheon with Speaker Wright on the same day. At the luncheon meeting Keating experienced the second occasion in which a prominent politician dominated the conversation. Speaker Wright dominated it, denouncing Gray and me. The Speaker then invited Keating to come to his chambers and work with his staff. Wright urged Keating to get me fired and to sue Gray and me. (He soon sued both of us for $400 million �€" suits eventually dismissed by the courts.) When Keating met with Wall he first made clear that he had just come from a meeting with Speaker and Senator Glenn. Keating next told Wall:

That is one man in Congress you would get along with much, much better if you took care of the problem in San Francisco. There is a red-bearded lawyer that's a real problem. If you took care of that problem, you would get along much better with Speaker Wright.

Keating was referring to me. Unfortunately, for Keating (and Wall), Wall could only fire me "for cause" and he had no cause. The only way to take care of the problem was to remove the FHLBSF's jurisdiction over Lincoln Savings. Wall promptly ordered his staff to reach an "amicable resolution" with Keating. The only way to do that was to remove our jurisdiction. In addition to that unprecedented act (which sent shock waves throughout federal regulators), Wall agreed that the FHLBSF's examination findings (which the Bank Board had confirmed to be accurate) could not be used. This too was unprecedented.
The result of Wall's surrender to political intimidation was devastating. Lincoln remains the most expensive insured depository failure in U.S. history. Lincoln's parent defrauded over ten thousand widows. The Bank Board's reputation was destroyed (the 1989 legislation terminated it). Wall, of course, denies that he capitulated to Keating's political power. To admit that he did so would have destroyed Wall's efforts to remain head of new S&L regulatory agency. The facts, however, falsify Wall's denial.. Note that the Wall Bank Board never took any enforcement action against Lincoln's massive violation of the direct investment rule even though it agreed that it was the largest regulatory violation in the agency's history. This immunity is precisely what Keating sought to achieve through his mole's (Lee Henkel's) proposed amendment to the direct investment rule and the Keating Five's effort to induce the Bank Board not to take an enforcement action in return for Lincoln begi nning to make home loans.

McCain's Relationship with Keating

Senator McCain is the only member of the Keating Five still in office. He was unique among the group on several dimensions. He was the only Republican. He had the longest, closest relationship with Keating. The relationship was social �€" Lincoln's airplanes flew Senator and Mrs. McCain, their children, and a nanny to stay at Keating's vacation home in the Bahamas. Senator McCain blames his failure to reimburse the expenses (which he was required to do by law), on his staff. He reimbursed only years later after the scandal broke. No other Senator had a close social relationship with Keating or similar airplane use issues. Keating was a bully and a nasty bigot, whom many politicians refused to deal with once they knew him, but Senator McCain viewed him as a personal friend (and major contributor) for a decade.
Only Senator McCain (and Lee Henkel) had a financial conflict of interest involving the direct investment rule. Senator McCain's wife and father-in-law were engaged in a direct investment with Lincoln. Had the Bank Board taken enforcement action against Lincoln's violation of the direct investment rule Senator McCain's wife and father-in-law's investment would have been placed in substantial risk of loss.
Only Senator McCain was in the House at the time Keating enlisted a majority of the House to co-sponsor his resolution designed to kill the direct investment rule. He was the only member of the Keating Five, therefore who was a co-sponsor. More generally, Senator McCain was the Senator most opposed to financial regulation in general and Gray's "reregulation" of S&Ls in particular. As his March 25, 2008 speech on the ongoing mortgage crisis makes clear, he continues to call for greater deregulation of the kind that is causing our financial crises to become more severe and more common.
Senator McCain's efforts to convince the Reagan administration to give Keating de facto control over the Bank Board by appointing two nominees chosen by Keating to run the agency were not unique among the Keating Five, but he was the most important support for Keating's effort because he was a Republican.
Senator McCain was not unique in not giving direct aid to Keating after the April 9 meeting. It is important to consider how Keating shaped Wall's perspective of the Keating Five's support. He used both Senator Cranston and Senator Glenn's active, continuing support (in February 1988, almost a year after the April 2 and April 9, 1987 meetings) to show Wall that he retained the Keating Five's loyalty and he used Senator Glenn to help recruit Speaker Wright as an ally �€" knowing that Wall had advised Gray to give in to Wright's political pressure. Wall had no way of knowing that Senator McCain and Senator Riegle were no longer taking affirmative actions to help Keating get the Bank Board not to bring an enforcement action against Lincoln.

Omission and Commission

None of the Keating Five members helped protect their constituents by supporting regulatory efforts to end Keating's looting of Lincoln. We told them in fair detail at the April 9, 1987 meeting that it was a fraudulent institution and that it was guaranteed to fail if it continued its policies. The Keating Five were well aware of their political power and Keating's political power. They were aware that the Wall Bank Board was taking unprecedented actions in favor of Keating. We could not act. We were gagged. We were forbidden to examine Lincoln. We were excluded from meetings or ordered to remain silent. The new examiners were forbidden by Wall to speak to us about Lincoln.
I noted that the senators structured the April 2, 1987 meeting to ensure deniability by designing it to be the word of five Senators against one "bureaucrat" should things go wrong. They knew that the meeting was dangerous because they knew agencies are supposed to take stringent enforcement actions against massive, intentional violations of rules �€" particularly when the nature of the violation causes failures. They also knew that Keating's mole, Lee Henkel, had just resigned in disgrace after we had blown the whistle on his attempt to immunize Lincoln's violation of the direct investment rule. This is why they excluded all staff from the April 2 meeting. When the meeting became public, along with Gray's criticism of their effort to pressure him to agree to Keating's quid pro quo deal, each of the Senators lied about the meeting. They lied by claiming that Gray had lied about their support for Keating's deal. (Eventually, it emerged that Senator DeConcini was reading from a staffer's memorandum that expressly stated the quid pro quo.)
The Senate ethics committee ignored the Senator's false statements about the meetings. (It also failed to investigate the impact of the Senator's actions in Keating's behalf.) I believe that structuring a meeting to set up a lie, lying, and defaming another person you know has told the truth (i..e., claiming that Gray's statement about the quid pro quo proposal was false), demonstrate severe character flaws and should be considered unethical in the context of the U.S. Senate.

Obama Leads by 100 Electoral Votes

Nia "Hussein" J. — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 03:52:46 EDT

I by no means posted this for use to start partying because we still have alot of work to do in order to get Obam into the White House and get Obama's message out to folks who want to know but don't or are on the fence due to misinformation. I just want to prove the point that we cannot focus on the media polls. They can be manipulated to give whatever message they want to give for the day. it is my thought process that they [media] are keeping this election close for ratings and relovence. The only numbers that matter are the Electoral Votes.

With all the breathlessness over the minute movements in the irrelevant national polls, the one thing no one seems to be noticing is that the electoral map is still trending very poorly for John McCain (R).

I realize that it cuts against the media narrative right now to focus on anything that doesn't suggest a dead-heat, but it's quite instructive to see how the independent groups (and even right-leaning ones) currently see the state of the race through the only prism that matters -- the Electoral College:

                   Obama McCain    Margin
Real Clear Politics   322    216    Obama +106
Electoral-Vote.com    316    209    Obama +107
FiveThirtyEight.com   303    235    Obama + 68
Pollster.com          284    147    Obama +137
AVERAGE               306    202    Obama +104

If you think about the reporting of the fluctuating state polls lately that show a tight race, all of them involve red states that McCain can't afford to lose: Colorado, Montana, Virginia, Ohio, Florida, North Carolina, Alaska, Georgia, etc.

Despite the media narrative that a number of blue states are competitive, the truth is none of the recent polling shows McCain making any significant inroads in the blue states. Consider:

In Michigan, McCain had not led in any poll since May;
In Pennsylvania, McCain has not led in any poll April, and a Republican poll released last week showed McCain trailing by 9, in line with the current Pollster.com average;
In New Hampshire, McCain has not led in any poll since April;
In Minnesota, while one recent poll showed McCain within the margin of error, no other poll in the past month (including one poll taken more recently) has him within 12 points.

So, while the media breathlessly reports the national tracking polls which shows a close race, the state polling is still showing a pretty significant Obama lead.

P.S. -- Again reminding us how big of a joke CNN's political reporting has become, their current electoral map has it Obama 221, McCain 189. What a farce.

I hope this motivates people to get out there and do all you can...we need all we can get!