Iran hardliner says election protests must cease | Reuters
TEHRAN (Reuters) - A senior hardline Iranian cleric Tuesday demanded an end to protests over the re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president after Iran's top legislative body slammed shut the last door for a legal challenge.
As expected, the Guardian Council Monday dismissed complaints of irregularities in the June 12 vote raised by two defeated candidates, Mirhossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karoubi.
A statement on Mousavi's website Tuesday did not comment directly on the 12-man body's ruling, but referred to the former prime minister's letter to the Guardian Council Saturday in which he repeated his demand for the election to be annulled.
The presidential poll sparked Iran's most vigorous internal unrest since the 1979 Islamic revolution.
The next formal step is for Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to confirm Ahmadinejad as president. Parliament will swear him in a few weeks later.
It is not clear whether Mousavi will pursue his demand for the vote to be canceled -- and risk arrest -- or accept defeat at the hands of Ahmadinejad, who is backed by Khamenei, the elite Revolutionary Guard and his own well-placed loyalists.
"The Guardian Council is the only legal reference in the election and therefore it seems the issue of protests against the presidential election is over," said Ahmad Khatami, a cleric who called Friday for leading "rioters" to be executed.
"All who believe in the Islamic system and are committed to its laws and regulations must accept the Guardian Council's opinion," he said, the semi-official Fars news agency reported.
"If some people still oppose the Guardian Council's decision it means opposing the law and it shows that these people do not want to move forward within legal channels and they would like to achieve their aims by force," Khatami said.
Hundreds of thousands of Iranians joined street protests after Ahmadinejad's victory was first declared, but riot police and religious militia have crushed protests since June 20.
State media say 20 people died in the violence, which the government and opposition blamed on each other.
The Guardian Council, which vets presidential candidates and oversees the election process, declared that a partial recount of 10 percent of the vote had uncovered no irregularities and said in its final verdict that the dossier had been closed.
FEW OPTIONS FOR OPPOSITION
The turbulent aftermath of the poll exposed splits in Iran's political and religious elite, but for now few options seem open for Ahmadinejad's reformist and conservative foes, who include powerful men such as former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.
Hamid Najafi, editor-in-chief of the conservative Kayhan International daily, said Mousavi, a moderate ex-premier with solid revolutionary credentials, could take no further action.
Hundreds of thousands of Iranians joined street protests after Ahmadinejad's victory was first declared, but riot police and religious militia have crushed protests since June 20.
State media say 20 people died in the violence, which the government and opposition blamed on each other. Many hundreds of people were detained during the unrest, but it is not clear how many are still held. Dozens of senior reformist politicians and activists hauled in shortly after the vote remain in custody.
The turbulent aftermath of the poll exposed splits in Iran's political and religious elite, but for now few options seem open for Ahmadinejad's reformist and conservative foes, who include powerful men such as former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.
Hamid Najafi, editor-in-chief of the conservative Kayhan International daily, said Mousavi, a moderate ex-premier with solid revolutionary credentials, could take no further action.
"As far as the constitution is concerned ... I don't think he can do anything," Najafi told Reuters. "It is over, finished."
Parliament's national security and foreign policy commission has been trying to heal rifts, holding meetings in the past week with Rafsanjani, Mousavi and Karoubi, as well as senior clerics and officials. It is also expected to meet Ahmadinejad.
"We are seeking to strengthen national unity and solidarity," Hassan Ebrahimi, a member of the commission, was quoted as saying by the official IRNA news agency.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Iran's rulers faced a "huge credibility gap" with their own people after the election and were still likely to face internal opposition.
Asked if Washington would recognize Ahmadinejad as president of Iran, she said: "We're going to take this a day at a time."
Tehran, locked in a row with the West over its nuclear program, has blamed the post-vote trouble on foreign powers.
Four Iranian staff of the British embassy remain in custody, accused of stirring the unrest. Britain rejects the charge.
British Foreign Minister David Miliband said Tuesday that Britain and Iran agreed that a quick resolution of the dispute was in both countries' interests.
Najafi said he foresaw no change in Iran's attitude to the West during Ahmadinejad's second term. "I don't think there is going to be any change unless the other side takes some other steps. Currently they have turned more hostile toward Iran."
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
More Scrutiny for Murtha as Investigative Noose Tightens | National Legal and Policy Center
More Scrutiny for Murtha as Investigative Noose Tightens | National Legal and Policy Center
PAC Suing democrats because it did not get it's promised kickbacks .... amazing.
Over the course of the past decade, Rep. John P. Murtha has earmarked millions of dollars for the Electro-Optics Center at Penn State University — money that has, in turn, gone to clients of the PMA Group, the Murtha-linked lobbying shop that was raided in November as part of a federal criminal probe.
PMA may soon be Murtha’s undoing. The firm was founded by his top operative Paul Magliocchetti, who is now reportedly under investigation for making campaign donations in the names of other people. Campaign finance violations are not treated seriously by prosecutors, except for this one. The result can be prison time and big fines. If faced with the prospect of jail, would Magliocchetti turn on Murtha?
PMA has collapsed as most of it’s lobbyists have quit. It’s quite a fall from last year when it ranked as the 10th-biggest Washington lobbying firm by earnings.
Murtha escaped prosecution in the 1980 Abscam scandal by testifying against Reps. Frank Thompson (D-NJ) and John Murphy (D-NY). This near-death experience made him exceedingly careful in the intervening years during which he’s built an empire on earmarked funds. In return for their trust and loyalty, a small circle of friends and relatives have been handsomely rewarded. That circle has now been broken as the feds may have leverage on his closest associate.
On March 12, Jonathan Allen and Alex Knott report in CQ Today that Magliocchetti and his family…
...made $1.5 million in political contributions from 2000 through 2008 as the lobbyist’s now-embattled firm helped clients win billions of dollars in federal contracts. A sizable chunk of those campaign dollars went to the House members who control Pentagon spending.
…Magliocchetti…and nine of his relatives — two children, his daughter-in-law, his current wife, his ex-wife and his ex-wife’s parents, sister and brother-in-law — poured contributions into the coffers of candidates, political action committees and national and state party committees, according to a CQ review of public documents.
Magliocchetti’s possible contributions in the name of others was first reported in the Washington Post on February 14, 2009. According to the story by Carol Leonnig:
Marvin Hoffman is listed in campaign finance records as one of the many lobbyists with the powerful PMA Group donating money to lawmakers. But Hoffman is a soon-to-retire information technology manager in Marina del Rey, Calif., who has never heard of the Arlington lobbying firm or the Indiana congressman to whom he supposedly gave $2,000.
"It's alarming that someone is stealing my identity somewhere," Hoffman, 75, said in an interview. "I've never heard of this company."
Another contributor listed as a PMA lobbyist is, in fact, a sales manager for an inflatable boat manufacturer in New Jersey. John Hendricksen said he did make campaign donations but never worked at PMA and does not know how he ended up listed in records that way.
And in the spirit of Jack Abramoff, who pressed his lifeguard into service, the Post also reported:
Two men listed in campaign finance reports as together giving $30,000 to lawmakers and being part of the PMA Group team are not Washington lobbyists at all. They live and work in the Florida resort community of Amelia Island, where PMA founder Magliocchetti has a beachfront condominium. Both are listed as directors of PMA.
John Pugliese had been a sommelier at the posh Ritz-Carlton Hotel on the island, his family said. Jon C. Walker is in charge of golf marketing at the neighboring Amelia Island Golf Club, according to club personnel and its Web site. They each donated identical amounts to the same lawmakers, in 12 installments each, almost always on the same date.
The federal investigation into Murtha’s empire was first reported by the Wall Street Journal on October 30, 2007. The front-page story by John Wilke was titled, “How Lawmaker Rebuilt Hometown on Earmarks; Johnstown Gets Billions With Power Broker's Aid; FBI Questions a Contract.” It detailed how Murtha has steered as much as $2 billion to his district. According to Wilke:
Johnstown's good fortune has come at the expense of taxpayers everywhere else. Defense contractors have found that if they open an office here and hire the right lobbyist, they can get lucrative, no-bid contracts.
…ProLogic, a closely held software and technical-services firm based in Fairmont, W.Va., opened a facility in Mr. Murtha's district two years ago, though its headquarters are less than a half-hour away. The ribbon-cutting by Mr. Murtha and other politicians promised more local jobs, and the congressman's office put out a news release taking credit for recruiting the company; more earmarks were soon steered to ProLogic.
Funding for the new facility also helped the chief executive. Local real-estate records show that the building is part-owned by the CEO's family; ProLogic pays a monthly rent higher than prevailing local rates. A ProLogic official said the rent was justified because the building had to have the special wiring and shielding required for classified Pentagon contracts.
Ken Boehm, of the conservative nonprofit National Legal and Policy Center in Virginia, says that county records reveal that ProLogic had similar rental arrangements in other facilities where it carried out defense contracts. He noted that four of its six locations are in the districts of members of the House appropriations committee.
ProLogic was subpoenaed last year as part of a broader Federal Bureau of Investigation probe of earmarks granted by Rep. Alan Mollohan, a West Virginia Democrat, whose district includes ProLogic's headquarters. Both the congressman and company have denied wrongdoing. More recently, FBI and Defense Criminal Investigative Service agents have begun looking into the alleged illegal diversion of earmarked funds to a commercial ground-radar software project, people close to this inquiry say.
The Mollohan investigation was prompted by a 500-page Complaint filed by NLPC with the U.S. Attorney in D.C. on February 28, 2006, following NLPC’s own nine-month investigation.
PAC Suing democrats because it did not get it's promised kickbacks .... amazing.
Over the course of the past decade, Rep. John P. Murtha has earmarked millions of dollars for the Electro-Optics Center at Penn State University — money that has, in turn, gone to clients of the PMA Group, the Murtha-linked lobbying shop that was raided in November as part of a federal criminal probe.
PMA may soon be Murtha’s undoing. The firm was founded by his top operative Paul Magliocchetti, who is now reportedly under investigation for making campaign donations in the names of other people. Campaign finance violations are not treated seriously by prosecutors, except for this one. The result can be prison time and big fines. If faced with the prospect of jail, would Magliocchetti turn on Murtha?
PMA has collapsed as most of it’s lobbyists have quit. It’s quite a fall from last year when it ranked as the 10th-biggest Washington lobbying firm by earnings.
Murtha escaped prosecution in the 1980 Abscam scandal by testifying against Reps. Frank Thompson (D-NJ) and John Murphy (D-NY). This near-death experience made him exceedingly careful in the intervening years during which he’s built an empire on earmarked funds. In return for their trust and loyalty, a small circle of friends and relatives have been handsomely rewarded. That circle has now been broken as the feds may have leverage on his closest associate.
On March 12, Jonathan Allen and Alex Knott report in CQ Today that Magliocchetti and his family…
...made $1.5 million in political contributions from 2000 through 2008 as the lobbyist’s now-embattled firm helped clients win billions of dollars in federal contracts. A sizable chunk of those campaign dollars went to the House members who control Pentagon spending.
…Magliocchetti…and nine of his relatives — two children, his daughter-in-law, his current wife, his ex-wife and his ex-wife’s parents, sister and brother-in-law — poured contributions into the coffers of candidates, political action committees and national and state party committees, according to a CQ review of public documents.
Magliocchetti’s possible contributions in the name of others was first reported in the Washington Post on February 14, 2009. According to the story by Carol Leonnig:
Marvin Hoffman is listed in campaign finance records as one of the many lobbyists with the powerful PMA Group donating money to lawmakers. But Hoffman is a soon-to-retire information technology manager in Marina del Rey, Calif., who has never heard of the Arlington lobbying firm or the Indiana congressman to whom he supposedly gave $2,000.
"It's alarming that someone is stealing my identity somewhere," Hoffman, 75, said in an interview. "I've never heard of this company."
Another contributor listed as a PMA lobbyist is, in fact, a sales manager for an inflatable boat manufacturer in New Jersey. John Hendricksen said he did make campaign donations but never worked at PMA and does not know how he ended up listed in records that way.
And in the spirit of Jack Abramoff, who pressed his lifeguard into service, the Post also reported:
Two men listed in campaign finance reports as together giving $30,000 to lawmakers and being part of the PMA Group team are not Washington lobbyists at all. They live and work in the Florida resort community of Amelia Island, where PMA founder Magliocchetti has a beachfront condominium. Both are listed as directors of PMA.
John Pugliese had been a sommelier at the posh Ritz-Carlton Hotel on the island, his family said. Jon C. Walker is in charge of golf marketing at the neighboring Amelia Island Golf Club, according to club personnel and its Web site. They each donated identical amounts to the same lawmakers, in 12 installments each, almost always on the same date.
The federal investigation into Murtha’s empire was first reported by the Wall Street Journal on October 30, 2007. The front-page story by John Wilke was titled, “How Lawmaker Rebuilt Hometown on Earmarks; Johnstown Gets Billions With Power Broker's Aid; FBI Questions a Contract.” It detailed how Murtha has steered as much as $2 billion to his district. According to Wilke:
Johnstown's good fortune has come at the expense of taxpayers everywhere else. Defense contractors have found that if they open an office here and hire the right lobbyist, they can get lucrative, no-bid contracts.
…ProLogic, a closely held software and technical-services firm based in Fairmont, W.Va., opened a facility in Mr. Murtha's district two years ago, though its headquarters are less than a half-hour away. The ribbon-cutting by Mr. Murtha and other politicians promised more local jobs, and the congressman's office put out a news release taking credit for recruiting the company; more earmarks were soon steered to ProLogic.
Funding for the new facility also helped the chief executive. Local real-estate records show that the building is part-owned by the CEO's family; ProLogic pays a monthly rent higher than prevailing local rates. A ProLogic official said the rent was justified because the building had to have the special wiring and shielding required for classified Pentagon contracts.
Ken Boehm, of the conservative nonprofit National Legal and Policy Center in Virginia, says that county records reveal that ProLogic had similar rental arrangements in other facilities where it carried out defense contracts. He noted that four of its six locations are in the districts of members of the House appropriations committee.
ProLogic was subpoenaed last year as part of a broader Federal Bureau of Investigation probe of earmarks granted by Rep. Alan Mollohan, a West Virginia Democrat, whose district includes ProLogic's headquarters. Both the congressman and company have denied wrongdoing. More recently, FBI and Defense Criminal Investigative Service agents have begun looking into the alleged illegal diversion of earmarked funds to a commercial ground-radar software project, people close to this inquiry say.
The Mollohan investigation was prompted by a 500-page Complaint filed by NLPC with the U.S. Attorney in D.C. on February 28, 2006, following NLPC’s own nine-month investigation.
Comrade Krugman Accuses GOP of "Treason Against the Planet"
Comrade Krugman Accuses GOP of "Treason Against the Planet"
Columnist Paul Krugman's left-wing mindset takes a totalitarian turn: "And as I watched the deniers make their arguments, I couldn't help thinking that I was watching a form of treason -- treason against the planet. To fully appreciate the irresponsibility and immorality of climate-change denial, you need to know about the grim turn taken by the latest climate research."
Economist turned left-wing columnist Paul Krugman took a Stalinist turn Monday in "Betraying the Planet," calling out a group of global warming skeptics -- the congressmen, mostly Republican, who dared vote against the costly cap-and-trade bill designed to limit the greenhouse gases that allegedly cause global warming -- as having committed "treason against the planet."
So the House passed the Waxman-Markey climate-change bill. In political terms, it was a remarkable achievement.
But 212 representatives voted no. A handful of these no votes came from representatives who considered the bill too weak, but most rejected the bill because they rejected the whole notion that we have to do something about greenhouse gases.
And as I watched the deniers make their arguments, I couldn’t help thinking that I was watching a form of treason -- treason against the planet.
To fully appreciate the irresponsibility and immorality of climate-change denial, you need to know about the grim turn taken by the latest climate research.
Krugman concluded by calling "climate change" (no more "global warming," since the thermometer is not cooperating) a threat worse than terrorism. That's not surprising from someone who wrote in 2002 that the Enron scandal, not the 9-11 attacks, would be seen by future generations as "the greater turning point in U.S. society."
Still, is it fair to call climate denial a form of treason? Isn’t it politics as usual?
Yes, it is -- and that’s why it’s unforgivable.
Do you remember the days when Bush administration officials claimed that terrorism posed an “existential threat” to America, a threat in whose face normal rules no longer applied? That was hyperbole -- but the existential threat from climate change is all too real.
Yet the deniers are choosing, willfully, to ignore that threat, placing future generations of Americans in grave danger, simply because it’s in their political interest to pretend that there’s nothing to worry about. If that’s not betrayal, I don’t know what is.
Columnist Paul Krugman's left-wing mindset takes a totalitarian turn: "And as I watched the deniers make their arguments, I couldn't help thinking that I was watching a form of treason -- treason against the planet. To fully appreciate the irresponsibility and immorality of climate-change denial, you need to know about the grim turn taken by the latest climate research."
Economist turned left-wing columnist Paul Krugman took a Stalinist turn Monday in "Betraying the Planet," calling out a group of global warming skeptics -- the congressmen, mostly Republican, who dared vote against the costly cap-and-trade bill designed to limit the greenhouse gases that allegedly cause global warming -- as having committed "treason against the planet."
So the House passed the Waxman-Markey climate-change bill. In political terms, it was a remarkable achievement.
But 212 representatives voted no. A handful of these no votes came from representatives who considered the bill too weak, but most rejected the bill because they rejected the whole notion that we have to do something about greenhouse gases.
And as I watched the deniers make their arguments, I couldn’t help thinking that I was watching a form of treason -- treason against the planet.
To fully appreciate the irresponsibility and immorality of climate-change denial, you need to know about the grim turn taken by the latest climate research.
Krugman concluded by calling "climate change" (no more "global warming," since the thermometer is not cooperating) a threat worse than terrorism. That's not surprising from someone who wrote in 2002 that the Enron scandal, not the 9-11 attacks, would be seen by future generations as "the greater turning point in U.S. society."
Still, is it fair to call climate denial a form of treason? Isn’t it politics as usual?
Yes, it is -- and that’s why it’s unforgivable.
Do you remember the days when Bush administration officials claimed that terrorism posed an “existential threat” to America, a threat in whose face normal rules no longer applied? That was hyperbole -- but the existential threat from climate change is all too real.
Yet the deniers are choosing, willfully, to ignore that threat, placing future generations of Americans in grave danger, simply because it’s in their political interest to pretend that there’s nothing to worry about. If that’s not betrayal, I don’t know what is.
Media Mock Own Softballs to Obama; Anchors Awed by Flyswatter-in-Chief
Media Mock Own Softballs to Obama; Anchors Awed by Flyswatter-in-Chief
Notable Quotes from the Media research Center this week.
Is the MSM really in love with Obama or is it all just hype?
Read the full text and figure it our for yourself. It doesn't take a brain surgeon and even a journalist from the NY Times or MSNBC can figure it out.
Media Mock Own Softballs to Obama; Anchors Awed by Flyswatter-in-Chief
CBS’s Harry Smith: "People in the mainstream media have been accused of being afraid to speak truth to power, and I’ve got — I’ve got some truth to power for you right now."
President Barack Obama: "Okay, go ahead."
Smith: "I’ve been observing, your dog looks like he’s out of control."
— Interview shown on CBS’s The Early Show, June 23. [Audio/video (0:18): Windows Media | MP3 audio]
ABC’s Dr. Tim Johnson: "It was a very tender moment. I have to say, George, the vast majority of physicians I know, and have worked with over the years, would much rather be healers than bean counters, or as he put it, ‘paper pushers.’ And so I think he struck a raw nerve with those words and he got an extended ovation during those words, and I think he was right on target at reaching out to the heart of most physicians."
Fill-in anchor George Stephanopoulos: "We’ll see if it brings them around."
— Discussing President Obama’s speech before the American Medical Association, most of whom oppose a government takeover of health care, on World News with Charles Gibson, June 15. [Audio/video (0:21): Windows Media | MP3 audio]
"Germany, Switzerland and France all have a mixture of public and private plans. None of those countries are trying to roll back on a public plan. In Britain we have a purely public plan and even the Conservative Party calls it one of our great national treasures. So the countries that have some sort of a public plan actually, you know what, they seem to like it. It seems to actually work pretty well and no one wants to get rid of it. So, this idea of demonizing this as some sort of step toward socialism — it just seems to me so out of touch with reality."
— BBC Washington correspondent Katty Kay on HBO’s Real Time, June 19.
"He was a courtly State Department intelligence analyst from a prominent family who loved to sail and peruse the London Review of Books. Occasionally, he would voice frustration with U.S. policies, but to his liberal neighbors in Northwest D.C. it was nothing out of the ordinary. ‘We were all appalled by the Bush years,’ one said. What Walter Kendall Myers kept hidden, according to documents unsealed in court Friday, was a deep and long-standing anger toward his country, an anger that allegedly made him willing to spy for Cuba for three de-cades....Larry MacDonald, who lives at the marina in Anne Arundel County where the Myerses docked their 38-foot sloop, said the couple were admired for their intelligence and graciousness: ‘When I heard they were arrested, I felt like they had arrested Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny.’"
— June 7 Washington Post front-page profile of Walter and Gwendolyn Myers, charged with spying against the United States on behalf of Castro’s Cuban dictatorship.
"She was twice divorced and fresh out of South Dakota when she fell for his worldly sophistication. He came from one of this city’s most privileged families, and admired her work helping ordinary people. Together, Gwendolyn and Kendall Myers set out to give the second half of their lives new meaning....The authorities said that other than being reimbursed for equipment, the couple were not paid for spying. On the contrary, according to the statements cited in the complaint, which one federal magistrate said made the case against the couple ‘insuperable,’ the couple felt disdain for America’s foreign policy — Mr. Myers’s diary described watching the television news as a ‘radicalizing experience’ — and a romanticized view of Cuba’s Communist government...."
— Correspondent Ginger Thompson in her June 19 New York Times front-page profile of the couple.
Correspondent John Harwood: "He had this fly that was persistently buzzing around him....He swatted his hand and he said, ‘I got the sucker.’ He threw it onto the ground. It was a, you know, Dirty Harry ‘make my day’ moment."...
MSNBC anchor David Shuster: "Amazing...An amazing interview....It never fails — great weather, rainbows, incredible speeches, and three-point basket. A fly and he nails it. Unbelievable. Unbelievable."
— Exchange on MSNBC shortly after Harwood’s CNBC interview with President Obama concluded, June 16. [Audio/video (1:17): Windows Media | MP3 audio]
Co-anchor Meredith Vieira: "Some may question his policies but no one can question President Obama’s precision....Don’t mess with him. Jeez! Look how neat he is though, the President. Takes his fly and left.
Fill-in co-anchor David Gregory: "They left it there for the balance of the interview. Just as, it’s like a scene from Goodfellas! You know? It’s like ‘You’re not so tough now, are you little fly?...’"
Vieira: "It’s like a subtle, subtle warning to the Republicans."
Gregory: "It would have taken me four days to kill that fly, you know? I mean, it’s, that’s not easy."
— NBC’s Today, June 17. [Audio/video montage of all three morning shows (3:39): Windows Media | MP3 audio]
"He’s looking. He raises his hand....He stares at the fly. How many times have each of us tried to do this? Look at the hand coming up. The poise. The cupping. And the quick slap....He’s very quick....The President has cat-like quickness."
— ABC’s Chris Cuomo on the June 17 Good Morning America, using a Telestrator to show how Obama swatted the fly.
"We’ve also just confirmed the President is a Ninja."
— CBS news anchor Chris Wragge on The Early Show, June 17.
"Appearing on Hardball with Chris Matthews on June 5, I compared President Obama with God. Or at least that’s how it seemed to some bloggers and talk-show hosts, who made me a poster child for the argument that the liberal press is hopelessly in love with Obama....What I said was: ‘In a way, Obama’s standing above the country, above—above the world, a sort of god.’ I was not being literal."
— Newsweek’s Evan Thomas in "The Perils of Punditry," June 22 issue.
Daytime anchor Contessa Brewer: "We’re talking about these personalities and who can be the leader of the Republican Party. What about their policies? Until they change policies — I mean, that’s what it took for conservatives in Great Britain to win — is a real change in focus away from morals and values into things that affect people’s daily lives."
New York Times/CNBC correspondent John Harwood: "Well, bingo, Contessa, that’s exactly right."
— Exchange on MSNBC Live, June 15.
"Where Obama exudes the new Washington equanimity, [former House Speaker Newt] Gingrich exalts in the old-school insult. He is ruthless in caricaturing anyone who gets in his way as a ‘pagan’ or ‘statist’ or ‘socialist’ or ‘racist’ — all words Newt has hurled in recent days....It is hard to shake the feeling that Gingrich’s new prominence is more a sign of the GOP’s desperation than faith in its future...."
— Newsweek’s Howard Fineman writing in the magazine’s June 22 edition.
"There’s become this new ‘idiot button’ on the right, where you have to punch this button in order to be considered a real conservative now: ‘Obama is a socialist on health care. He’s a socialist. All his fiscal programs are insanely socialistic.’ You have to punch that button....If you don’t talk in that, that right-wing, idiot talk you’re not considered a conservative any more."
— MSNBC’s Chris Matthews on Hardball, June 16.
"Was there a tone in this country that was actually started with the election of our first black president that is bringing the crazies out of the woodwork, and are they being motivated to move by right-wing pronouncements, like he’s dangerous, he’s a socialist, he’s a Muslim, and he isn’t even a U.S. citizen? This is what we hear on some TV and radio outlets, which, by the way, according to our Constitution, they are entitled to what they believe and even propagate."
— CNN Newsroom anchor Rick Sanchez setting up a segment suggesting "hateful talk" can be blamed for the Holocaust museum shooting, June 11.
"There are only three countries in the world, according to many study groups, that have [government-mandated paid maternity leave] policies equal to the United States: Swaziland, Liberia and Papua New Guinea. Even in Iraq, women get one year of leave, six months at full pay, and six months of half pay. And so many other countries, particularly industrialized nations, offer similarly generous benefits for women who are taking maternity leave. But ‘the new normal’ in America finds some American women afraid of taking any leave at all."
— ABC’s Diane Sawyer on Good Morning America, June 16.
"Don’t confuse attention with love. I mean, here is a new President who has promulgated one, huge, ambitious program after another. So, of course, he gets a lot of big, page-one headlines. But I don’t think, at least up until now, it’s been unskeptical or uncritical. Read our business columnists on his approach to the deficit, his quasi-nationalization of the auto industry. He’s getting examined pretty microscopically."
— New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller on ABC’s This Week, June 21.
"Barack Obama is not a socialist. He’s not even a liberal. That’s the point I’m trying to make, is that this country needs a left wing. It doesn’t have it, and part of the reason is the media. Part of the reason is because Newt Gingrich — I have to look at his fat face on television every day — he represents, I don’t know what, that far-right of kooky-town. And yet, where’s the left wing? You know, Ralph Nader, Dennis Kucinich — these are left-wing people, although their ideas are not really that radical. But they’re presented as radical in the media. They’re seen as buffoons."
— HBO Real Time host Bill Maher on CNN’s The Situation Room, June 16.
"These waters guard a secret: some of the finest coral reefs on Earth....These waters are home to something else unique: The most infamous military base in the world. These are the waters of Guantanamo Bay....The heat here, this month, will reach a hundred degrees. The glare of world criticism is even hotter. Gitmo is notorious for the detention camps put here after 9/11....In Gitmo’s core are several hundred men accused of being some of the most violently anti-American on Earth, put here by the Bush administration on the notion that this place is not America after all and thus not under the purview of U.S. law. The result: Hostile detainees on the inside and international anger from without."
— Former CBS, ABC and NBC correspondent Jon Frankel in a story ostensibly on a therapeutic program for wounded soldiers that lets them go diving, June 23 Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel on HBO.
Notable Quotes from the Media research Center this week.
Is the MSM really in love with Obama or is it all just hype?
Read the full text and figure it our for yourself. It doesn't take a brain surgeon and even a journalist from the NY Times or MSNBC can figure it out.
Media Mock Own Softballs to Obama; Anchors Awed by Flyswatter-in-Chief
Vol. 22, No. 14
June 29, 2009 08:55 ET
Ha, Ha, We Only Joke About Being Tough on Obama
President Barack Obama: "Okay, go ahead."
Smith: "I’ve been observing, your dog looks like he’s out of control."
— Interview shown on CBS’s The Early Show, June 23. [Audio/video (0:18): Windows Media | MP3 audio]
Obama’s "Tender Moment" with the AMA
Fill-in anchor George Stephanopoulos: "We’ll see if it brings them around."
— Discussing President Obama’s speech before the American Medical Association, most of whom oppose a government takeover of health care, on World News with Charles Gibson, June 15. [Audio/video (0:21): Windows Media | MP3 audio]
"Demonizing" Gov’t Health Care "Out of Touch with Reality"
— BBC Washington correspondent Katty Kay on HBO’s Real Time, June 19.
Papers Paint Spies for Cuba as Endearing Elderly Couple
"He was a courtly State Department intelligence analyst from a prominent family who loved to sail and peruse the London Review of Books. Occasionally, he would voice frustration with U.S. policies, but to his liberal neighbors in Northwest D.C. it was nothing out of the ordinary. ‘We were all appalled by the Bush years,’ one said. What Walter Kendall Myers kept hidden, according to documents unsealed in court Friday, was a deep and long-standing anger toward his country, an anger that allegedly made him willing to spy for Cuba for three de-cades....Larry MacDonald, who lives at the marina in Anne Arundel County where the Myerses docked their 38-foot sloop, said the couple were admired for their intelligence and graciousness: ‘When I heard they were arrested, I felt like they had arrested Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny.’"
— June 7 Washington Post front-page profile of Walter and Gwendolyn Myers, charged with spying against the United States on behalf of Castro’s Cuban dictatorship.
"She was twice divorced and fresh out of South Dakota when she fell for his worldly sophistication. He came from one of this city’s most privileged families, and admired her work helping ordinary people. Together, Gwendolyn and Kendall Myers set out to give the second half of their lives new meaning....The authorities said that other than being reimbursed for equipment, the couple were not paid for spying. On the contrary, according to the statements cited in the complaint, which one federal magistrate said made the case against the couple ‘insuperable,’ the couple felt disdain for America’s foreign policy — Mr. Myers’s diary described watching the television news as a ‘radicalizing experience’ — and a romanticized view of Cuba’s Communist government...."
— Correspondent Ginger Thompson in her June 19 New York Times front-page profile of the couple.
TV Anchors Awed that Obama Can Swat a Fly
MSNBC anchor David Shuster: "Amazing...An amazing interview....It never fails — great weather, rainbows, incredible speeches, and three-point basket. A fly and he nails it. Unbelievable. Unbelievable."
— Exchange on MSNBC shortly after Harwood’s CNBC interview with President Obama concluded, June 16. [Audio/video (1:17): Windows Media | MP3 audio]
Fill-in co-anchor David Gregory: "They left it there for the balance of the interview. Just as, it’s like a scene from Goodfellas! You know? It’s like ‘You’re not so tough now, are you little fly?...’"
Vieira: "It’s like a subtle, subtle warning to the Republicans."
Gregory: "It would have taken me four days to kill that fly, you know? I mean, it’s, that’s not easy."
— NBC’s Today, June 17. [Audio/video montage of all three morning shows (3:39): Windows Media | MP3 audio]
"He’s looking. He raises his hand....He stares at the fly. How many times have each of us tried to do this? Look at the hand coming up. The poise. The cupping. And the quick slap....He’s very quick....The President has cat-like quickness."
— ABC’s Chris Cuomo on the June 17 Good Morning America, using a Telestrator to show how Obama swatted the fly.
"We’ve also just confirmed the President is a Ninja."
— CBS news anchor Chris Wragge on The Early Show, June 17.
Clarification: "I Was Not Being Literal" When I Said Obama Was "Like God"
"Appearing on Hardball with Chris Matthews on June 5, I compared President Obama with God. Or at least that’s how it seemed to some bloggers and talk-show hosts, who made me a poster child for the argument that the liberal press is hopelessly in love with Obama....What I said was: ‘In a way, Obama’s standing above the country, above—above the world, a sort of god.’ I was not being literal."
— Newsweek’s Evan Thomas in "The Perils of Punditry," June 22 issue.
MSNBC’s Advice to GOP: Time to Dump "Morals and Values"
New York Times/CNBC correspondent John Harwood: "Well, bingo, Contessa, that’s exactly right."
— Exchange on MSNBC Live, June 15.
Calling Obama a "Socialist" = "Right-Wing Idiot Talk," "Old-School Insult"
"Where Obama exudes the new Washington equanimity, [former House Speaker Newt] Gingrich exalts in the old-school insult. He is ruthless in caricaturing anyone who gets in his way as a ‘pagan’ or ‘statist’ or ‘socialist’ or ‘racist’ — all words Newt has hurled in recent days....It is hard to shake the feeling that Gingrich’s new prominence is more a sign of the GOP’s desperation than faith in its future...."
— Newsweek’s Howard Fineman writing in the magazine’s June 22 edition.
"There’s become this new ‘idiot button’ on the right, where you have to punch this button in order to be considered a real conservative now: ‘Obama is a socialist on health care. He’s a socialist. All his fiscal programs are insanely socialistic.’ You have to punch that button....If you don’t talk in that, that right-wing, idiot talk you’re not considered a conservative any more."
— MSNBC’s Chris Matthews on Hardball, June 16.
Blaming Museum Murder on Radio Criticism of Obama?
— CNN Newsroom anchor Rick Sanchez setting up a segment suggesting "hateful talk" can be blamed for the Holocaust museum shooting, June 11.
Regressive America Lets Free Market Determine Benefits
"There are only three countries in the world, according to many study groups, that have [government-mandated paid maternity leave] policies equal to the United States: Swaziland, Liberia and Papua New Guinea. Even in Iraq, women get one year of leave, six months at full pay, and six months of half pay. And so many other countries, particularly industrialized nations, offer similarly generous benefits for women who are taking maternity leave. But ‘the new normal’ in America finds some American women afraid of taking any leave at all."
— ABC’s Diane Sawyer on Good Morning America, June 16.
NYT Editor Insists: We’ve Been Tough on Obama
— New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller on ABC’s This Week, June 21.
Hostile Media Impede Progress By Painting Real Liberals as "Buffoons"
"Barack Obama is not a socialist. He’s not even a liberal. That’s the point I’m trying to make, is that this country needs a left wing. It doesn’t have it, and part of the reason is the media. Part of the reason is because Newt Gingrich — I have to look at his fat face on television every day — he represents, I don’t know what, that far-right of kooky-town. And yet, where’s the left wing? You know, Ralph Nader, Dennis Kucinich — these are left-wing people, although their ideas are not really that radical. But they’re presented as radical in the media. They’re seen as buffoons."
— HBO Real Time host Bill Maher on CNN’s The Situation Room, June 16.
Can’t Resist Lefty Cliches in Piece on Diving Rehab
— Former CBS, ABC and NBC correspondent Jon Frankel in a story ostensibly on a therapeutic program for wounded soldiers that lets them go diving, June 23 Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel on HBO.
Aide's tale of John Edwards sex tape
Aide's tale of John Edwards sex tape
I find it amazing that Democrats talk about Republicans for extramarital affairs. This will probably not make most MSM.
Former presidential candidate John Edwards is out of luck if he hoped that the extramarital affairs of Gov. Mark Sanford and Sen. John Ensign would take people’s minds off his own cheating scandal.
Former Edwards aide Andrew Young says the ex-senator and his former mistress, Rielle Hunter, once made a sex tape, according to someone who has seen Young’s book proposal.
St. Martin’s Press just inked a deal with Young, who also says in his proposal that, contrary to his public statement last year, he is not the father of Hunter’s infant daughter — Edwards is. Edwards has denied that.
Young says that his belief in Edwards ran so deep that he agreed to take the fall for the candidate, inviting the pregnant Hunter to live with him, his wife, Cheri, and their three children. Later, after Hunter delivered the baby, Young and his family moved to a different home in California.
While he was unpacking, Young discovered a videocassette, according to the book pitch. Hunter had been hired by the Edwards campaign to videotape the candidate’s movements, but this one is said to have shown him taking positions that weren’t on his official platform.
The purported sex tape confirmed to Hunter that Edwards was even more reckless than he thought.
According to our source, Hunter confided to Young that she and Edwards talked about getting married should the candidate’s cancer-stricken wife, Elizabeth, pass away, even discussing what music they’d play at their wedding.
Elizabeth Edwards is said to hold Young partly to blame for her husband’s affair, since Young knew it was going on and sometimes used his cell phone to conference the senator and his girlfriend. Young has told friends that, in revenge, Elizabeth arranged for the media to learn about a youthful misdeameanor in which Young was arrested for stealing a sign from a biker bar.
Elizabeth also suspects Young stole the baseball card collection of her late son, Wade, according to a source who says that she told Young in an e-mail that other former staff members “have passed lie detector tests.”
Young’s proposal, which one editor said “was impossible to put down,” also contends that Sen. Edwards frequently clashed with running mate John Kerry during their 2004 race for the White House. And before Edwards owned up to his affair with Hunter, Young says he told him that Barack Obama had promised he’d make him attorney general if he didn’t pick him as his 2008 running mate.
Elizabeth Edwards and Young’s agent had no comment. An e-mail to John Edwards’ assistant wasn’t returned. Hunter couldn’t be reached.
I find it amazing that Democrats talk about Republicans for extramarital affairs. This will probably not make most MSM.
Former presidential candidate John Edwards is out of luck if he hoped that the extramarital affairs of Gov. Mark Sanford and Sen. John Ensign would take people’s minds off his own cheating scandal.
Former Edwards aide Andrew Young says the ex-senator and his former mistress, Rielle Hunter, once made a sex tape, according to someone who has seen Young’s book proposal.
St. Martin’s Press just inked a deal with Young, who also says in his proposal that, contrary to his public statement last year, he is not the father of Hunter’s infant daughter — Edwards is. Edwards has denied that.
Young says that his belief in Edwards ran so deep that he agreed to take the fall for the candidate, inviting the pregnant Hunter to live with him, his wife, Cheri, and their three children. Later, after Hunter delivered the baby, Young and his family moved to a different home in California.
While he was unpacking, Young discovered a videocassette, according to the book pitch. Hunter had been hired by the Edwards campaign to videotape the candidate’s movements, but this one is said to have shown him taking positions that weren’t on his official platform.
The purported sex tape confirmed to Hunter that Edwards was even more reckless than he thought.
According to our source, Hunter confided to Young that she and Edwards talked about getting married should the candidate’s cancer-stricken wife, Elizabeth, pass away, even discussing what music they’d play at their wedding.
Elizabeth Edwards is said to hold Young partly to blame for her husband’s affair, since Young knew it was going on and sometimes used his cell phone to conference the senator and his girlfriend. Young has told friends that, in revenge, Elizabeth arranged for the media to learn about a youthful misdeameanor in which Young was arrested for stealing a sign from a biker bar.
Elizabeth also suspects Young stole the baseball card collection of her late son, Wade, according to a source who says that she told Young in an e-mail that other former staff members “have passed lie detector tests.”
Young’s proposal, which one editor said “was impossible to put down,” also contends that Sen. Edwards frequently clashed with running mate John Kerry during their 2004 race for the White House. And before Edwards owned up to his affair with Hunter, Young says he told him that Barack Obama had promised he’d make him attorney general if he didn’t pick him as his 2008 running mate.
Elizabeth Edwards and Young’s agent had no comment. An e-mail to John Edwards’ assistant wasn’t returned. Hunter couldn’t be reached.
Monday, June 29, 2009
Obama Calls for Order as Honduran Military Arrests President - Political News - FOXNews.com
Obama Calls for Order as Honduran Military Arrests President - Political News - FOXNews.com
President Manuel Zelaya had tried to hold a vote to change the constitution to let him run again, a move deemed illegal by the Supreme Court, Congress and the country's military.
President Obama on Sunday called on all actors in Honduras to respect the rule of law after military leaders there arrested President Manuel Zelaya to head off Zelaya's attempt to hold a vote on constitutional changes deemed illegal by the country's Supreme Court and Congress.
Zelaya, in a move similar to his ally, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, had wanted to overturn the law that prohibited him from seeking another term in office. He called the arrest a "coup" and a "kidnapping."
"I am deeply concerned by reports coming out of Honduras regarding the detention and expulsion of President Mel Zelaya," Obama said in a written statement.
"I call on all political and social actors in Honduras to respect democratic norms, the rule of law and the tenets of the Inter-American Democratic Charter. Any existing tensions and disputes must be resolved peacefully through dialogue free from any outside interference," Obama said.
The White House also rejected any suggestion that the U.S. was involved in the coup, as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that the action taken by Zelaya "should be condemned by all."
"We call on all parties in Honduras to respect the constitutional order and the rule of law, to reaffirm their democratic vocation, and to commit themselves to resolve political disputes peacefully and through dialogue," Clinton said in a statement.
White House officials said Obama and National Security Adviser James Jones met Sunday morning to discuss the situation in the Central American nation. Aides from several agencies are monitoring the situation and providing updates to Obama and Jones.
The European Union also criticized the overthrow, which followed Zelaya's firing of the chief of the armed services.
Zelaya told a Venezuelan television station that he had been moved to Costa Rica, and was sitting in the airport in the capital of San Jose. He said he was arrested while wearing his pajamas, following a stand-off between his security force and the military.
"There is no way to justify an interruption of democracy, a coup d'etat," he said in a telephone call to Telesur television network. "This kidnapping is an extortion of the Honduran democratic system."
Zelaya is the third president to be overthrown by the Honduran military since 1963. The military coup in 1972 lasted until 1981, when the U.S. pressured the military leaders to turn over the government to civilians.
Zelaya was elected to office in January 2006. He said Sunday he will not recognize any government instituted by the military, and will serve out his term, which ends in January 2009.
BREAKING FROM AP
Obama says Honduras coup was "illegal" and Zelaya remains the president.
Apparently Obama supports people who suppress voters, break constitutions and instill themselves as dictators now.
President Manuel Zelaya had tried to hold a vote to change the constitution to let him run again, a move deemed illegal by the Supreme Court, Congress and the country's military.
President Obama on Sunday called on all actors in Honduras to respect the rule of law after military leaders there arrested President Manuel Zelaya to head off Zelaya's attempt to hold a vote on constitutional changes deemed illegal by the country's Supreme Court and Congress.
Zelaya, in a move similar to his ally, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, had wanted to overturn the law that prohibited him from seeking another term in office. He called the arrest a "coup" and a "kidnapping."
"I am deeply concerned by reports coming out of Honduras regarding the detention and expulsion of President Mel Zelaya," Obama said in a written statement.
"I call on all political and social actors in Honduras to respect democratic norms, the rule of law and the tenets of the Inter-American Democratic Charter. Any existing tensions and disputes must be resolved peacefully through dialogue free from any outside interference," Obama said.
The White House also rejected any suggestion that the U.S. was involved in the coup, as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that the action taken by Zelaya "should be condemned by all."
"We call on all parties in Honduras to respect the constitutional order and the rule of law, to reaffirm their democratic vocation, and to commit themselves to resolve political disputes peacefully and through dialogue," Clinton said in a statement.
White House officials said Obama and National Security Adviser James Jones met Sunday morning to discuss the situation in the Central American nation. Aides from several agencies are monitoring the situation and providing updates to Obama and Jones.
The European Union also criticized the overthrow, which followed Zelaya's firing of the chief of the armed services.
Zelaya told a Venezuelan television station that he had been moved to Costa Rica, and was sitting in the airport in the capital of San Jose. He said he was arrested while wearing his pajamas, following a stand-off between his security force and the military.
"There is no way to justify an interruption of democracy, a coup d'etat," he said in a telephone call to Telesur television network. "This kidnapping is an extortion of the Honduran democratic system."
Zelaya is the third president to be overthrown by the Honduran military since 1963. The military coup in 1972 lasted until 1981, when the U.S. pressured the military leaders to turn over the government to civilians.
Zelaya was elected to office in January 2006. He said Sunday he will not recognize any government instituted by the military, and will serve out his term, which ends in January 2009.
BREAKING FROM AP
Obama says Honduras coup was "illegal" and Zelaya remains the president.
Apparently Obama supports people who suppress voters, break constitutions and instill themselves as dictators now.
WSJ Update: Obama Worked To Prevent Ouster of Honduras President
WSJ Update: Obama Worked To Prevent Ouster of Honduras President
The Obama administration worked in recent days to prevent President Manuel Zelaya's ouster, said a senior U.S. official. The State Department, in particular, communicated to Honduran officials on the ground that President Barack Obama wouldn't support any nondemocratic transfer of power in the Central American country.
"We had some indication that a move against Mr. Zelaya was afoot," said a U.S. official briefed on the diplomacy. "We made it clear it was something we didn't support."
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton joined Obama Sunday in criticizing the Honduran coup and calling for the restoration of the democratic process.
"We call on all parties in Honduras to respect the constitutional order and the rule of law, to reaffirm their democratic vocation, and to commit themselves to resolve political disputes peacefully and through dialogue," Clinton said in a statement.
The Obama administration worked in recent days to prevent President Manuel Zelaya's ouster, said a senior U.S. official. The State Department, in particular, communicated to Honduran officials on the ground that President Barack Obama wouldn't support any nondemocratic transfer of power in the Central American country.
"We had some indication that a move against Mr. Zelaya was afoot," said a U.S. official briefed on the diplomacy. "We made it clear it was something we didn't support."
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton joined Obama Sunday in criticizing the Honduran coup and calling for the restoration of the democratic process.
"We call on all parties in Honduras to respect the constitutional order and the rule of law, to reaffirm their democratic vocation, and to commit themselves to resolve political disputes peacefully and through dialogue," Clinton said in a statement.
Why Did Justice Drop New Black Panthers’ Case? - HUMAN EVENTS
Why Did Justice Drop New Black Panthers’ Case? - HUMAN EVENTS
Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.) is waiting for an answer to his June 8 letter to Attorney General Holder. And he may wait a good while longer because the Justice Department doesn’t want to explain its decision to dismiss its civil case -- the worst case of voter intimidation in many years -- and not pursue a criminal indictment.
Wolf’s letter -- a copy of which appears below (click on the image for a larger version) -- asks why the Justice Department dismissed a default judgment and dropped the case against the New Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, which Wolf’s letter describes as “a militant supremacist organization and hate group and its two members who threatened voters as part of a national voter intimidation effort on Election Day last November.”
According to Wolf’s letter, in an incident in Philadelphia (which many of us saw on Fox News on Election Day) one NBPP member pointed a weapon at individuals, menacingly tapped it on his other hand and such, all within eight to fifteen feet of a polling station. “One of the witnesses, an experienced civil rights attorney who worked with Charles Evers in Mississippi, has publicly called this ‘the most blatant form of voter intimidation’ he has ever seen.”
The Justice Department had obtained a default judgment against the New Black Panthers, apparently because the defendants did not want to subject themselves or their organization to discovery. Under the civil discovery process, both parties can obtain the documents and other evidence in the other party’s possession before trial, and can investigate the assets in pursuit of a judgment later.
The Justice Department dismissed the case, according to new reports, over the strong objection of career lawyers working in the Civil Rights Division.
House Judiciary Committee Republicans are considering their own query to Justice but it has been delayed for weeks apparently because of disagreement among the staff. While Judiciary’s internal debate continues, there are other issues to be pursued.
Sources have informed HUMAN EVENTS that there was correspondence -- e-mails, phone calls and the like -- between Justice Department political employees and outside interest groups on whether and how the New Black Panthers case should be pursued or dismissed.
HUMAN EVENTS has submitted a request under the Freedom of Information Act for all documents comprising those communications. We have been informed that the Justice Department is delaying its response. We wait, as does Mr. Wolf.
Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.) is waiting for an answer to his June 8 letter to Attorney General Holder. And he may wait a good while longer because the Justice Department doesn’t want to explain its decision to dismiss its civil case -- the worst case of voter intimidation in many years -- and not pursue a criminal indictment.
Wolf’s letter -- a copy of which appears below (click on the image for a larger version) -- asks why the Justice Department dismissed a default judgment and dropped the case against the New Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, which Wolf’s letter describes as “a militant supremacist organization and hate group and its two members who threatened voters as part of a national voter intimidation effort on Election Day last November.”
According to Wolf’s letter, in an incident in Philadelphia (which many of us saw on Fox News on Election Day) one NBPP member pointed a weapon at individuals, menacingly tapped it on his other hand and such, all within eight to fifteen feet of a polling station. “One of the witnesses, an experienced civil rights attorney who worked with Charles Evers in Mississippi, has publicly called this ‘the most blatant form of voter intimidation’ he has ever seen.”
The Justice Department had obtained a default judgment against the New Black Panthers, apparently because the defendants did not want to subject themselves or their organization to discovery. Under the civil discovery process, both parties can obtain the documents and other evidence in the other party’s possession before trial, and can investigate the assets in pursuit of a judgment later.
The Justice Department dismissed the case, according to new reports, over the strong objection of career lawyers working in the Civil Rights Division.
House Judiciary Committee Republicans are considering their own query to Justice but it has been delayed for weeks apparently because of disagreement among the staff. While Judiciary’s internal debate continues, there are other issues to be pursued.
Sources have informed HUMAN EVENTS that there was correspondence -- e-mails, phone calls and the like -- between Justice Department political employees and outside interest groups on whether and how the New Black Panthers case should be pursued or dismissed.
HUMAN EVENTS has submitted a request under the Freedom of Information Act for all documents comprising those communications. We have been informed that the Justice Department is delaying its response. We wait, as does Mr. Wolf.
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The New Culture of Corruption | NBC Philadelphia
The New Culture of Corruption | NBC Philadelphia
New joke going around Washington: "Republicans hike the Appalachian Trail; Democrats hike your taxes. Either way, someone's getting screwed." As, the old saying goes -- some of the truest things are said in jest.
New joke going around Washington: "Republicans hike the Appalachian Trail; Democrats hike your taxes. Either way, someone's getting screwed." As, the old saying goes -- some of the truest things are said in jest.
Washington Republicans -- more in the minority than they have been in decades -- are somewhat haplessly hoping that the Democrats mess up their own policies, rather than figure out how to stop them themselves. So, in the meantime, they keep themselves busy by getting busy -- usually with women not their own wives.
So, that means the Democrats are hard at work doing the business of governing, right? Alas, only partly right. They have actually taken fully the "responsibilities" that Republicans had when they were in the majority for twelve years that ended in 2006. Yes, that means the Democrats are now the ones in charge of the "culture of corruption."
The poster child for the new world order? House Ways & Means Chairman Charlie Rangel. He's been under investigation by the House Ethics Committee for close to a year now on a whole passel of charges. This week, the committee announced a new line of inquiry, involving trips down to the Caribbean, which may have been corporately-funded. Especially embarrassing is that it also involve four other Democrats with significant seniority and influence:
In addition to Rangel, other lawmakers who participated in the Caribbean trips include Reps. Carolyn Kirkpatrick (D-Mich.), Donald Payne (D-N.J.), Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) and Delegate Donna Christian-Christensen (D-V.I.).
All five Democrats are members of the Congressional Black Caucus, and two — Rangel and Thompson — wield full committee gavels at Ways and Means and Homeland Security, respectively.
A conservative nonprofit group, the National Legal and Policy Center, has charged that the trip may have broken House rules on corporate-sponsored travel.
Hmmm...nice ethics probe there: Five for the price of one!
Meanwhile, proving that the Democratic corruption meme is spreading to the local level, Monica Conyers, the president pro tem of the Detroit City Council just plead guilty to conspiracy to commit bribery. Now, normally such a local bit of corruption wouldn't create much of a ripple on the national level except for two things: First, Detroit is a city falling apart because of corruption -- by Democrats, as this is a one-party town.
It's former mayor, Kwame Kilpatrick is currently in jail because of a wide ranging sex, perjury & conspiracy scandal. Secondly and much more significantly, Monica Conyers happens to be married to John Conyers, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. Yes, that a wife turns out to be a crook on the local level doesn't mean that he's one too. But the fact that two Democratic chairman are being investigated by the House Ethics Committee and a third has a wife who's just plead guilty to bribery?
Well, let's just say that it doesn't look too good.
In much the same way that the Democrats vow to "clean House" after what the GOP did hasn't reaped much results over the last couple of years.
Collins Report It’s good to be the king’s friend! Obama cuts union watchdog budget 9% the thugs love it!
Collins Report
Union thug Andy Stern brags about his access to the White House. Why not? It’s good to be the king’s friend.
Stern’s friendship with the king is really paying off. Obama has made few cuts in his 2010 budget, but took an axe to the funding for the agency charged with enforcing laws broken by union thugs.
The Department of Labor’s Office of Labor Management Standards’ (OLMS) budget was cut 9%. At a time when all of us are tightening our belts and bracing for more budget cuts, the United States government is the only large employer still hiring.
The OLMS is the office of the Department of Labor that investigates union corruption allegations and puts Andy’s pals in federal prison.
Federal budgets are large and growing save for OLMS’s, so why aren’t we being bombarded with the “good news” of a government budget cut?
The lap dog media won’t report this cut because it doesn’t want us to realize this is one budget that shouldn’t be reduced.
The OLMS is a victim of its own success on our behalf. Over the last 8 years it has convicted more than 900 union thugs for a variety of crimes including embezzlement.
The work of the OLMS has also returned over 91 million stolen dollars to rank and file union members. Now these cuts have put a serious drag on the agency’s ability to fight for clean unions, but of course this is exactly the reason for the cuts.
No other sub-budget of the Department of Labor was touched. In fact at least one other subdivision of Labor received an 18% increase: the Wage and Hour Division which enforces the ridiculous 12 week leave for workers.
If this was a movie about how gangsters took over America how would things be different?
Obama’s plan is to take control of the means of production without his fingerprints being on the move. He knows outright government control will cause a backlash he won’t survive. To solve his problem he wants to hand America’s industrial production over to his surrogates the thugs in union leadership. This won’t work if they are in prison.
This is why we have to savagely fight against the Card Check scheme. If they win that fight our country is lost.
Get the facts. Get involved. America needs all of us standing shoulder to shoulder. Our nation needs us now.
Comments on this or any other Collins Report essay can be sent to kcoachc “at” gmail.com
Union thug Andy Stern brags about his access to the White House. Why not? It’s good to be the king’s friend.
Stern’s friendship with the king is really paying off. Obama has made few cuts in his 2010 budget, but took an axe to the funding for the agency charged with enforcing laws broken by union thugs.
The Department of Labor’s Office of Labor Management Standards’ (OLMS) budget was cut 9%. At a time when all of us are tightening our belts and bracing for more budget cuts, the United States government is the only large employer still hiring.
The OLMS is the office of the Department of Labor that investigates union corruption allegations and puts Andy’s pals in federal prison.
Federal budgets are large and growing save for OLMS’s, so why aren’t we being bombarded with the “good news” of a government budget cut?
The lap dog media won’t report this cut because it doesn’t want us to realize this is one budget that shouldn’t be reduced.
The OLMS is a victim of its own success on our behalf. Over the last 8 years it has convicted more than 900 union thugs for a variety of crimes including embezzlement.
The work of the OLMS has also returned over 91 million stolen dollars to rank and file union members. Now these cuts have put a serious drag on the agency’s ability to fight for clean unions, but of course this is exactly the reason for the cuts.
No other sub-budget of the Department of Labor was touched. In fact at least one other subdivision of Labor received an 18% increase: the Wage and Hour Division which enforces the ridiculous 12 week leave for workers.
If this was a movie about how gangsters took over America how would things be different?
Obama’s plan is to take control of the means of production without his fingerprints being on the move. He knows outright government control will cause a backlash he won’t survive. To solve his problem he wants to hand America’s industrial production over to his surrogates the thugs in union leadership. This won’t work if they are in prison.
This is why we have to savagely fight against the Card Check scheme. If they win that fight our country is lost.
Get the facts. Get involved. America needs all of us standing shoulder to shoulder. Our nation needs us now.
Comments on this or any other Collins Report essay can be sent to kcoachc “at” gmail.com
Campaign survey: Dems exploit new individual donor advantage and superior voter mobilization | Science Codex
Campaign survey: Dems exploit new individual donor advantage and superior voter mobilization | Science Codex
Candidates, political party committees and interest groups all raised and spent more money in 2007-08 than in any previous election cycle, according to a major new report from the Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy (CSED) at Brigham Young University. The report, The Change Election: Money, Mobilization, and Persuasion in the 2008 Federal Elections, is the complete summary of a CSED research project involving twenty academics and scores of other observers on the ground in five key presidential battleground states that also had competitive Senate or House races.
"Due to charismatic candidates, motivated donors, and creative uses of the Internet, Democrats have erased the Republican advantage among individual donors and clearly surpassed them in raising money in both large and small amounts," said David B. Magleby, editor of the CSED study and principal investigator on the project. Overall, Barack Obama spent $730 million while John McCain's fundraising in 2008 reached $346 million, only slightly behind Bush's total fundraising in 2004 of $367 million. In 2008 the Democratic campaign committees for the Senate and House together outraised the Republican congressional campaign committees by over $125 million, and nearly four million people contributed money to the Obama campaign—more than twice as many as had donated to any candidate in the past. The increased use of the Internet for fundraising ironically is often identified with John McCain's 2000 campaign, in which he was applauded for raising $5 million online. Interest groups like MoveOn.org and the Howard Dean presidential campaign in 2004 expanded the use of the Internet. Congressman Ron Paul's presidential campaign in 2008 also had notable success using new technology. But as the CSED study documents, the Obama campaign far exceeded any other campaign in the use of the Internet. As Joe Trippi, who was closely identified with Howard Dean's 2004 expanded use of the Internet, explained to the CSED researchers: "the technology…everything was better…it's like the Dean campaign were the Wright brothers, the Obama campaign was Apollo 11 and we've skipped Mercury, Gemini and everything in between."
Presidential candidates of the future will be studying the Obama campaign and one lesson learned will be to try to build a wide base of donors at all levels so the candidate can bypass public financing with its associated spending limits. Observers interviewed for the CSED study were all of the view that Obama's money advantage helped him achieve a much more extensive voter mobilization and "field" operation while still outspending McCain and the RNC on television and radio. The Obama money advantage also allowed him to compete in states that based on recent elections should have been predictably Republican, like Indiana and North Carolina.
"For Democrats to be able to substantially outspend Republicans in a race for the White House or overall in congressional contests has hardly been the norm," noted Magleby. For the second cycle in a row the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) raised and spent more money than the Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee (NRSC). Raising money from individuals was again key to the Democrats' success. In 2008 the DSCC received $26 million from large donors and $24.7 million from small donors, while the NRSC received $12 million from large donors and $29.2 million from small donors.
The DSCC targeted its spending of this money to competitive races. For example, in the Colorado Senate race between Democrat Mark Udall and Republican Bob Schaffer the DSCC spent over $4.6 million in independent expenditures as well as contributing to the state party's coordinated campaign. Other targeted races include New Mexico, Minnesota, and New Hampshire.
The NRSC also targeted its money to competitive races but faced difficult choices in where to deploy its resources. For the most part the NRSC was playing defense in 2008, with only one or two Democratic incumbents seriously challenged. The NRSC also faced the reality that the Democrats had the more expansive voter mobilization program and that the Republican Party could not deploy field operatives to as many races as needed to counter this Democratic advantage.
Another substantial change in 2008 was the substantial drop in fundraising by the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) at the same time the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee was catching the general Democratic wave of increased individual contributions. The DCCC advantage over the NRCC was about $58 million, and made a difference in races like the Ohio Sixteenth District, where the DCCC spent $1.5 million in independent expenditures in behalf of John Boccieri and in the Colorado Fourth District race, where the DCCC spent more than $1.1 million in independent expenditures as well as $225,000 in the coordinated campaign in Colorado to support Betsy Markey against her opponent Marilyn Musgrave.
The Democratic money advantage in 2008 meant they could outspend the GOP on television, radio and on the ground. The CSED study documents the difference this made in key battleground states. But the Obama campaign had the a far more expansive ground game using volunteers, paid field staff and technology to identify likely supporters and involve them in the campaign. The CSED study demonstrates that Obama's ground game helped other Democrats running in competitive Senate and House races in 2008.
Far more Americans in 2008 cast their ballots early or through the mail rather than in person on Election Day. The CSED study examines the surge in early and absentee voting in many states. Obama's better organized and much larger voter mobilization efforts helped him get what campaign professionals call "lower propensity voters" to the polls early or to cast their ballots through the mail. Obama won the early vote by a substantial margin in states like North Carolina where early voting as a whole was up from 31% to 61%.
American federal elections, the CSED study demonstrates, are best understood as a team effort involving the candidates, allied political party committees and interest groups. While McCain did not come close to matching Obama's fundraising, when the spending by the Republican National Party on his behalf is added to his spending he comes much closer to Obama and the DNC. Party committees were especially important in competitive congressional races, the CSED study finds, and there was less activity by Section 527 groups compared to 2004, when groups like Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, Progress for America, the Media Fund and America Coming Together were active. Both Obama and McCain urged people not to give to 527s, and fines levied on some of the groups after 2004 may have discouraged the activity. More liberal groups also recognized that Obama had ample resources with which to communicate his message and mobilize the vote. While Section 527 activity was down in 2008, Section 501(c) and PAC spending in federal elections was up. Overall interest groups spent more in 2008 than in 2004.
When campaign finance reform took effect following the 2002 election cycle, some observers wrote that banning the unlimited individual and interest group contributions to political parties was a "suicide bill" for the Democrats. Democrats had come to rely on party soft money contributions more than Republicans had, and they had not developed nearly the Republicans' network of small individual donors. Cultivating a set of committed individual donors is expensive and takes time, especially when the primary mode of raising money is by telephone or through the mail. The Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, or BCRA, gave candidates and party committees incentives to focus their fundraising on individuals by doubling individual contribution limits to candidates and by increasing nearly fourfold the overall contribution amount a single donor could make to federal candidates and committees. BCRA also provided for these limits to be adjusted for inflation, bringing the 2007�� aggregate contribution limit to $108,200. But for individuals who want to "max out" their donations in an election cycle, only part of that total ($42,700 for 2008) can go to candidates, meaning party committees have an incentive to raise money from individuals, who may divide the remaining $65,500 among party committees and political action committees (PACs).
Candidates, political party committees and interest groups all raised and spent more money in 2007-08 than in any previous election cycle, according to a major new report from the Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy (CSED) at Brigham Young University. The report, The Change Election: Money, Mobilization, and Persuasion in the 2008 Federal Elections, is the complete summary of a CSED research project involving twenty academics and scores of other observers on the ground in five key presidential battleground states that also had competitive Senate or House races.
"Due to charismatic candidates, motivated donors, and creative uses of the Internet, Democrats have erased the Republican advantage among individual donors and clearly surpassed them in raising money in both large and small amounts," said David B. Magleby, editor of the CSED study and principal investigator on the project. Overall, Barack Obama spent $730 million while John McCain's fundraising in 2008 reached $346 million, only slightly behind Bush's total fundraising in 2004 of $367 million. In 2008 the Democratic campaign committees for the Senate and House together outraised the Republican congressional campaign committees by over $125 million, and nearly four million people contributed money to the Obama campaign—more than twice as many as had donated to any candidate in the past. The increased use of the Internet for fundraising ironically is often identified with John McCain's 2000 campaign, in which he was applauded for raising $5 million online. Interest groups like MoveOn.org and the Howard Dean presidential campaign in 2004 expanded the use of the Internet. Congressman Ron Paul's presidential campaign in 2008 also had notable success using new technology. But as the CSED study documents, the Obama campaign far exceeded any other campaign in the use of the Internet. As Joe Trippi, who was closely identified with Howard Dean's 2004 expanded use of the Internet, explained to the CSED researchers: "the technology…everything was better…it's like the Dean campaign were the Wright brothers, the Obama campaign was Apollo 11 and we've skipped Mercury, Gemini and everything in between."
Presidential candidates of the future will be studying the Obama campaign and one lesson learned will be to try to build a wide base of donors at all levels so the candidate can bypass public financing with its associated spending limits. Observers interviewed for the CSED study were all of the view that Obama's money advantage helped him achieve a much more extensive voter mobilization and "field" operation while still outspending McCain and the RNC on television and radio. The Obama money advantage also allowed him to compete in states that based on recent elections should have been predictably Republican, like Indiana and North Carolina.
"For Democrats to be able to substantially outspend Republicans in a race for the White House or overall in congressional contests has hardly been the norm," noted Magleby. For the second cycle in a row the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) raised and spent more money than the Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee (NRSC). Raising money from individuals was again key to the Democrats' success. In 2008 the DSCC received $26 million from large donors and $24.7 million from small donors, while the NRSC received $12 million from large donors and $29.2 million from small donors.
The DSCC targeted its spending of this money to competitive races. For example, in the Colorado Senate race between Democrat Mark Udall and Republican Bob Schaffer the DSCC spent over $4.6 million in independent expenditures as well as contributing to the state party's coordinated campaign. Other targeted races include New Mexico, Minnesota, and New Hampshire.
The NRSC also targeted its money to competitive races but faced difficult choices in where to deploy its resources. For the most part the NRSC was playing defense in 2008, with only one or two Democratic incumbents seriously challenged. The NRSC also faced the reality that the Democrats had the more expansive voter mobilization program and that the Republican Party could not deploy field operatives to as many races as needed to counter this Democratic advantage.
Another substantial change in 2008 was the substantial drop in fundraising by the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) at the same time the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee was catching the general Democratic wave of increased individual contributions. The DCCC advantage over the NRCC was about $58 million, and made a difference in races like the Ohio Sixteenth District, where the DCCC spent $1.5 million in independent expenditures in behalf of John Boccieri and in the Colorado Fourth District race, where the DCCC spent more than $1.1 million in independent expenditures as well as $225,000 in the coordinated campaign in Colorado to support Betsy Markey against her opponent Marilyn Musgrave.
The Democratic money advantage in 2008 meant they could outspend the GOP on television, radio and on the ground. The CSED study documents the difference this made in key battleground states. But the Obama campaign had the a far more expansive ground game using volunteers, paid field staff and technology to identify likely supporters and involve them in the campaign. The CSED study demonstrates that Obama's ground game helped other Democrats running in competitive Senate and House races in 2008.
Far more Americans in 2008 cast their ballots early or through the mail rather than in person on Election Day. The CSED study examines the surge in early and absentee voting in many states. Obama's better organized and much larger voter mobilization efforts helped him get what campaign professionals call "lower propensity voters" to the polls early or to cast their ballots through the mail. Obama won the early vote by a substantial margin in states like North Carolina where early voting as a whole was up from 31% to 61%.
American federal elections, the CSED study demonstrates, are best understood as a team effort involving the candidates, allied political party committees and interest groups. While McCain did not come close to matching Obama's fundraising, when the spending by the Republican National Party on his behalf is added to his spending he comes much closer to Obama and the DNC. Party committees were especially important in competitive congressional races, the CSED study finds, and there was less activity by Section 527 groups compared to 2004, when groups like Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, Progress for America, the Media Fund and America Coming Together were active. Both Obama and McCain urged people not to give to 527s, and fines levied on some of the groups after 2004 may have discouraged the activity. More liberal groups also recognized that Obama had ample resources with which to communicate his message and mobilize the vote. While Section 527 activity was down in 2008, Section 501(c) and PAC spending in federal elections was up. Overall interest groups spent more in 2008 than in 2004.
When campaign finance reform took effect following the 2002 election cycle, some observers wrote that banning the unlimited individual and interest group contributions to political parties was a "suicide bill" for the Democrats. Democrats had come to rely on party soft money contributions more than Republicans had, and they had not developed nearly the Republicans' network of small individual donors. Cultivating a set of committed individual donors is expensive and takes time, especially when the primary mode of raising money is by telephone or through the mail. The Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, or BCRA, gave candidates and party committees incentives to focus their fundraising on individuals by doubling individual contribution limits to candidates and by increasing nearly fourfold the overall contribution amount a single donor could make to federal candidates and committees. BCRA also provided for these limits to be adjusted for inflation, bringing the 2007�� aggregate contribution limit to $108,200. But for individuals who want to "max out" their donations in an election cycle, only part of that total ($42,700 for 2008) can go to candidates, meaning party committees have an incentive to raise money from individuals, who may divide the remaining $65,500 among party committees and political action committees (PACs).
Campaign donors survey: Women and young people behind Obama's small donor success | Science Codex
Campaign donors survey: Women and young people behind Obama's small donor success | Science Codex: "ederal Election Commission (FEC)."
More individuals gave more money to candidates for federal office, national and state party committees, and political action committees or other interest groups in 2007�� than in any previous election. The surge in numbers of individuals contributing rose substantially from 2004 to 2008. Researchers define small donors as individuals who contributed less than $200 to a candidate or party committee during 2007 and 2008. Large donors were also more active in 2008 than previously. Who are these donors and why did they contribute in 2008? Of special interest is the large group of donors giving under $200. The Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy (CSED) at Brigham Young University is conducting a groundbreaking survey of donors to federal candidates, national party committees, and political action committees during the 2008 election cycle. This report is a preliminary examination of data from that survey.
Who Gives?
Obama had over 3.7 million donors compared to slightly fewer than 827,000 for McCain. Those donors in turn contributed just under $700 million to Obama and $316 million to McCain. But the gap was widest among small donors. Donations from individuals giving $200 or less represented nearly a quarter ($178 million) of Obama's fundraising total but only 7% ($35 million) of McCain's.
Much has been made in press reports of the Obama advantage among small donors—and it was substantial—but Obama also did very well among other groups of donors, raising more money than McCain at every level of donation. Among donors who gave between $200 and $500, Obama raised another $90 million, compared to $25 million by McCain. Obama also outraised McCain among large donors, even though McCain relied more on large donors. Obama raised nearly $135 million from individuals giving at or near the legal limit of $4,600, compared to McCain, who raised just under $110 million from this group.
Thanks to unprecedented cooperation from the Barack Obama and John McCain presidential campaigns, researchers at CSED were able to collect information from a random sample of small donors provided by the two campaigns as well as data on larger donors available from the Federal Election Commission (FEC). Combining these sources paints a more comprehensive picture of the fundraising story in 2008, and investigators found some surprising patterns. Obama small donors were disproportionately female (56%) while McCain small donors were 61% male. Past studies of donors have found that men are more likely than women to give to candidates. Men made up more than 60% of McCain's small donors and over 70% of his donors giving more than $200. Individuals giving to Obama in total amounts ranging between $200 and $2,500 were about equally divided between women and men. Obama's donors giving over $2,500 were three-fifths male.
Like women, non-whites have long been underrepresented as donors. Most donors to both Obama and McCain were white, but 27% of Obama's small donors were non-white compared to 7% of McCain's. Compared with McCain's donors, Obama's were less affluent and generally more educated. Obama's donors, both those who gave under $200 and those who gave in larger amounts, were more likely to have graduate or professional degrees than McCain's donors.
Another key difference between Obama and McCain donors was their age. More than half of McCain small donors (53%) were over 65 years of age compared to 16% of Obama small donors. Proportionally, Obama had three times as many donors who were under the age of 30 as McCain.
Small (under $200) Donors by Age Group
Obama
McCain
18-29
15%
5%
30-39
16%
7%
40-49
20%
10%
50-64
33%
25%
65+
16%
53%
Note: Cell entries are column percentages. Columns may not total to 100 due to rounding.
There were also major differences in how donors to the two nominees gave their contributions. About two thirds of Obama's small donors made contributions online; this compares to only about one third of McCain's small donors. The Internet allows campaigns to cheaply—and repeatedly—ask for donations, and Obama used this to his benefit. About 40% of Obama's small online donors gave multiple times. Less than one quarter of McCain's small Internet donors made multiple donations.
Obama's small-donor profile looks very similar to that of his voters, who were also more likely to be women, less affluent, younger, and better educated. This is most likely a testament to the way the Obama campaign made a concerted effort to engage new groups of individuals.
Donors to both nominees at all levels viewed the candidate they gave to as well qualified, although Obama donors were more likely to hold this opinion than were McCain donors. McCain donors were substantially more likely to see Obama as unacceptable than Obama donors were to see McCain as unacceptable. Higher proportions of Obama donors thought Obama represented their views than McCain donors thought McCain represented their views. These findings suggest that Obama was more closely connected in positive ways to his donors than McCain was to his donors and that McCain donors were more often motivated by opposition to Obama than Obama donors were by opposition to McCain. McCain donors at all levels saw Obama as an extreme liberal while Obama donors at all levels saw McCain as less extremely ideological. Generally speaking Obama small donors were more likely to describe themselves as moderate in than McCain small donors.
Methodology
The preliminary results presented here make innovative use of publicly available records from the FEC as well as from organizations and companies who assemble voter files. With cooperation from the two major campaigns, the study also includes random samples of individuals whose contributions did not reach the $200 reporting threshold. This group has been of special interest in 2008 because of the greater number of such donors and the important role they played in financing the Obama campaign. Making use of recent technical innovations by computer scientists at BYU, the study draws on a more comprehensive sample of donors and has already produced several intriguing findings about who gave to the Obama and McCain campaigns in 2008. Individuals are continuing to complete questionnaires, so the results reported here are not all complete. A future release will report full results from the survey.
The sample of donors is drawn in part from FEC records, a historically difficult source to accurately sample from. FEC records list individuals who give $200 or more to a single candidate or party committee, but multiple donations from a single donor are listed separately and may be labeled differently, making it difficult to know exactly how many people have contributed. Political and computer scientists at BYU recently succeeded in merging FEC contribution data, allowing them to describe in a much more comprehensive way than previously possible the activity of donors in 2007�� and to sample individual donors rather than contributions.
The BYU study has also benefitted from the cooperation of Catalist, a corporation that assembled a large national database for use in political campaigns and for other purposes, which has provided some key variables on the samples of disclosed donors to the FEC and the samples provided by the Obama and McCain campaigns. Catalist also provided a random sample of individuals, which allows the BYU study to compare donors and non-donors.
More individuals gave more money to candidates for federal office, national and state party committees, and political action committees or other interest groups in 2007�� than in any previous election. The surge in numbers of individuals contributing rose substantially from 2004 to 2008. Researchers define small donors as individuals who contributed less than $200 to a candidate or party committee during 2007 and 2008. Large donors were also more active in 2008 than previously. Who are these donors and why did they contribute in 2008? Of special interest is the large group of donors giving under $200. The Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy (CSED) at Brigham Young University is conducting a groundbreaking survey of donors to federal candidates, national party committees, and political action committees during the 2008 election cycle. This report is a preliminary examination of data from that survey.
Who Gives?
Obama had over 3.7 million donors compared to slightly fewer than 827,000 for McCain. Those donors in turn contributed just under $700 million to Obama and $316 million to McCain. But the gap was widest among small donors. Donations from individuals giving $200 or less represented nearly a quarter ($178 million) of Obama's fundraising total but only 7% ($35 million) of McCain's.
Much has been made in press reports of the Obama advantage among small donors—and it was substantial—but Obama also did very well among other groups of donors, raising more money than McCain at every level of donation. Among donors who gave between $200 and $500, Obama raised another $90 million, compared to $25 million by McCain. Obama also outraised McCain among large donors, even though McCain relied more on large donors. Obama raised nearly $135 million from individuals giving at or near the legal limit of $4,600, compared to McCain, who raised just under $110 million from this group.
Thanks to unprecedented cooperation from the Barack Obama and John McCain presidential campaigns, researchers at CSED were able to collect information from a random sample of small donors provided by the two campaigns as well as data on larger donors available from the Federal Election Commission (FEC). Combining these sources paints a more comprehensive picture of the fundraising story in 2008, and investigators found some surprising patterns. Obama small donors were disproportionately female (56%) while McCain small donors were 61% male. Past studies of donors have found that men are more likely than women to give to candidates. Men made up more than 60% of McCain's small donors and over 70% of his donors giving more than $200. Individuals giving to Obama in total amounts ranging between $200 and $2,500 were about equally divided between women and men. Obama's donors giving over $2,500 were three-fifths male.
Like women, non-whites have long been underrepresented as donors. Most donors to both Obama and McCain were white, but 27% of Obama's small donors were non-white compared to 7% of McCain's. Compared with McCain's donors, Obama's were less affluent and generally more educated. Obama's donors, both those who gave under $200 and those who gave in larger amounts, were more likely to have graduate or professional degrees than McCain's donors.
Another key difference between Obama and McCain donors was their age. More than half of McCain small donors (53%) were over 65 years of age compared to 16% of Obama small donors. Proportionally, Obama had three times as many donors who were under the age of 30 as McCain.
Small (under $200) Donors by Age Group
Obama
McCain
18-29
15%
5%
30-39
16%
7%
40-49
20%
10%
50-64
33%
25%
65+
16%
53%
Note: Cell entries are column percentages. Columns may not total to 100 due to rounding.
There were also major differences in how donors to the two nominees gave their contributions. About two thirds of Obama's small donors made contributions online; this compares to only about one third of McCain's small donors. The Internet allows campaigns to cheaply—and repeatedly—ask for donations, and Obama used this to his benefit. About 40% of Obama's small online donors gave multiple times. Less than one quarter of McCain's small Internet donors made multiple donations.
Obama's small-donor profile looks very similar to that of his voters, who were also more likely to be women, less affluent, younger, and better educated. This is most likely a testament to the way the Obama campaign made a concerted effort to engage new groups of individuals.
Donors to both nominees at all levels viewed the candidate they gave to as well qualified, although Obama donors were more likely to hold this opinion than were McCain donors. McCain donors were substantially more likely to see Obama as unacceptable than Obama donors were to see McCain as unacceptable. Higher proportions of Obama donors thought Obama represented their views than McCain donors thought McCain represented their views. These findings suggest that Obama was more closely connected in positive ways to his donors than McCain was to his donors and that McCain donors were more often motivated by opposition to Obama than Obama donors were by opposition to McCain. McCain donors at all levels saw Obama as an extreme liberal while Obama donors at all levels saw McCain as less extremely ideological. Generally speaking Obama small donors were more likely to describe themselves as moderate in than McCain small donors.
Methodology
The preliminary results presented here make innovative use of publicly available records from the FEC as well as from organizations and companies who assemble voter files. With cooperation from the two major campaigns, the study also includes random samples of individuals whose contributions did not reach the $200 reporting threshold. This group has been of special interest in 2008 because of the greater number of such donors and the important role they played in financing the Obama campaign. Making use of recent technical innovations by computer scientists at BYU, the study draws on a more comprehensive sample of donors and has already produced several intriguing findings about who gave to the Obama and McCain campaigns in 2008. Individuals are continuing to complete questionnaires, so the results reported here are not all complete. A future release will report full results from the survey.
The sample of donors is drawn in part from FEC records, a historically difficult source to accurately sample from. FEC records list individuals who give $200 or more to a single candidate or party committee, but multiple donations from a single donor are listed separately and may be labeled differently, making it difficult to know exactly how many people have contributed. Political and computer scientists at BYU recently succeeded in merging FEC contribution data, allowing them to describe in a much more comprehensive way than previously possible the activity of donors in 2007�� and to sample individual donors rather than contributions.
The BYU study has also benefitted from the cooperation of Catalist, a corporation that assembled a large national database for use in political campaigns and for other purposes, which has provided some key variables on the samples of disclosed donors to the FEC and the samples provided by the Obama and McCain campaigns. Catalist also provided a random sample of individuals, which allows the BYU study to compare donors and non-donors.
Islam In Action: Jihadist Urges Muslims to Cannibalize US Soldiers
Islam In Action: Jihadist Urges Muslims to Cannibalize US Soldiers
The US government is closing down Gitmo and sending the prisoners from there to island resorts. One of the reasons for doing this is that it will hopefully save our soldiers from being tortured. Apparently this well known jihadist is not willing to reciprocate.
Jihadist urges Muslim soldiers to cannibalism
BY STEVEN EDWARDS, CANWEST NEWS SERVICEJUNE 27, 2009
Muslim fighters are being told they may be justified in cannibalizing U.S. soldiers, it emerged Friday.
The chilling message is contained in a recent jihadist Internet entry that quotes from the work of a prominent jihadist ideologue, Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi.
In one section of his work, Maqdisi discusses the idea of having to do something that is otherwise forbidden, including eating food "sacrificed for an idol," according to the Washington-based SITE Intelligence Group, which translates jihadist "chat" sites. Maqdisi adds some scholars believe this has evolved to mean that Muslims, faced with hunger, are allowed to kill an enemy and "cannibalize him."
In a bid to instil fear into U.S. soldiers, the entry says Americans should be told that Muslim fighters "smack their lips to eat the flesh of . . . the eaters of hamburgers and Pepsi."
But some jihadist respondents made light of the entry, which appeared on the al-Fallujah forum June 12. "If we are forced to eat Americans, we will make them (into) kabsa," said one posting, referring to a family of rice dishes served mainly in Saudi Arabia. This contributor said the kabsa would have "the taste of gunpowder," and added that the "limbs of apostates" could be turned into appetizers.
Another jihadist said the "slaughter" of Americans must be carried out in accordance with Shariah law, and posted a picture of the beheading of Nick Berg, an American businessman murdered in Iraq in 2004 after he went there to seek telecommunications work.
The US government is closing down Gitmo and sending the prisoners from there to island resorts. One of the reasons for doing this is that it will hopefully save our soldiers from being tortured. Apparently this well known jihadist is not willing to reciprocate.
Jihadist urges Muslim soldiers to cannibalism
BY STEVEN EDWARDS, CANWEST NEWS SERVICEJUNE 27, 2009
Muslim fighters are being told they may be justified in cannibalizing U.S. soldiers, it emerged Friday.
The chilling message is contained in a recent jihadist Internet entry that quotes from the work of a prominent jihadist ideologue, Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi.
In one section of his work, Maqdisi discusses the idea of having to do something that is otherwise forbidden, including eating food "sacrificed for an idol," according to the Washington-based SITE Intelligence Group, which translates jihadist "chat" sites. Maqdisi adds some scholars believe this has evolved to mean that Muslims, faced with hunger, are allowed to kill an enemy and "cannibalize him."
In a bid to instil fear into U.S. soldiers, the entry says Americans should be told that Muslim fighters "smack their lips to eat the flesh of . . . the eaters of hamburgers and Pepsi."
But some jihadist respondents made light of the entry, which appeared on the al-Fallujah forum June 12. "If we are forced to eat Americans, we will make them (into) kabsa," said one posting, referring to a family of rice dishes served mainly in Saudi Arabia. This contributor said the kabsa would have "the taste of gunpowder," and added that the "limbs of apostates" could be turned into appetizers.
Another jihadist said the "slaughter" of Americans must be carried out in accordance with Shariah law, and posted a picture of the beheading of Nick Berg, an American businessman murdered in Iraq in 2004 after he went there to seek telecommunications work.
Michelle Malkin » Tea Party Watch: Protesting the cap-and-tax cramdown
Michelle Malkin » Tea Party Watch: Protesting the cap-and-tax cramdown
Photoshop: Leo Alberti
It’s not just what’s in the bill. It’s the way they rammed it through the House.
Just like the porkulus: Under-handed, transparency-defying, and stuffed with earmark payoffs and bribes concocted in middle-of-the night, backroom deals.
Taxpayers are mad again. And they’re not going to sit still.
Impromptu flash protests are taking place today at state capitols and federal buildings across the country.
In Chicago:
If you are anywhere near Chicago’s Federal Plaza this afternoon, where the Tax Day Tea Party took place, then be there at 1:00pm for a cap-and-trade protest. Federal Plaza is at 230 S. Dearborn.
In Orlando. And in Canton, Ohio.
In Upland, Calif.: noon at the corner of Foothill/Euclid.
In Atlanta via Barracuda Babes:
Saturday, June 27, 200912:00 noon
State CapitolBring signs in Opposition to Cap and Tax
Ideas include: Cap and Tax, Cap and Traitors, Cap and tr8tors, No Taxation without Reading the Bill, Tea Party Patriots VoteIf you are not in metro Atlanta, protest at the Federal Building in your county.
Arizona protest info at Arizona Tea Party.
San Diego: Noon, 880 Front St # 4236
Temecula, CA: Noon, Ynez & Rancho California Road @ Duck Pond (This is Cap-and-Trade 8 member Mary Bono Mack’s district.)
More at Tea Party Patriots.
Don’t forget to let the GOP Cap-and-Tax 8 hear from you.
Posted in: Enviro-nitwits, Tea Party
See what others have said
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- Tea Party Day: July 4th, 2009 «
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- Tea Party Action On Cap And Tax « Justbkuz
- Don’t let Congress turn 2009 into 1984 – Stop the Global Warming Massive Energy Tax « Jim Blazsik
- Republican Betrayal « NEOAVATARA
- Saturday, June 27, 2009: Daily Handpicked Headlines :: Daily Uprising
- Obama Birth Certificate – Ahmadinejad Is Upset – Israel Can’t Count on America – John Bolton Article – Atlas Shrugs – Tea Parties – Michelle Malkin – The BOPAC Report « “The BOPAC Report” &
- The Cap and Trade... - InterNACHI Message Board
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- Cap-and-Trade’s Narrow Passage and Faltering Evidence for Climate Change Have Supporters Ratcheting Up Attacks « Quick Daily Hits — Politics and Such
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Hot Air » Blog Archive » Video: Ready for a sub-prime carbon market?
Hot Air » Blog Archive » Video: Ready for a sub-prime carbon market?
Friends of the Earth, a non-profit think tank on environmental policy, asks a good question in a report and video today. Given what we’ve seen in the mortgage market, where heavy-handed government intervention created distortions that crashed the economy, why would we want to emulate that same model in carbon emissions? Think of cap-and-trade as the ultimate derivative market, based literally on vapor:
Friends of the Earth, a non-profit think tank on environmental policy, asks a good question in a report and video today. Given what we’ve seen in the mortgage market, where heavy-handed government intervention created distortions that crashed the economy, why would we want to emulate that same model in carbon emissions? Think of cap-and-trade as the ultimate derivative market, based literally on vapor:
Most proposed climate bills rely on cap-and-trade systems to achieve greenhouse gas reductions, and the Obama administration also prefers this approach. But these bills do not seek to regulate carbon trading as a massive new derivatives market, which is, in fact, what it is.
This new report finds that existing financial regulations, as well as those in major cap-and-trade bills, are inadequate to govern carbon trading, creating a potentially huge regulatory gap.
It also outlines how lessons from the current financial crisis apply to carbon markets. In particular, it raises concerns about “subprime carbon,” risky carbon credits based on uncompleted offset projects (projects designed to sequester or reduce greenhouse gases).
Subprime carbon credits may ultimately fail to reduce greenhouse gases and, like subprime mortgages, could collapse in value, yet they are already being securitized and resold in secondary markets. The report recommends that lawmakers include carbon trading in current debates about financial reform, and warns against hastily creating carbon markets without proper oversight.
If that sounds familiar, it should. It’s the exact same mechanism Congress mandated on subprime mortgages in the late 1990s in order to incentivize lenders to make loans to customers who normally wouldn’t have qualified. It resulted in a major bubble in the housing markets, both in lending and in construction, with irrational expansion of home values that wound up getting highly leveraged. When prices leveled off, it set off a domino effect as the leveraging collapsed, and along with it all of the securities and derivatives attached to the subprime loans.
Waxman-Markey and other cap-and-trade bills propose the exact same system, but instead of having real estate at the center of the derivatives — which has some value at all times, no matter how unclear the actual value may be — this system gets built on carbon dioxide. It’s vaporware in the most literal sense. In fact, it’s not even based on CO2, but on the absence of CO2. When it collapses, the derivatives will have absolutely no actual value at all, which would make a resultant economic collapse even worse than what we’re experiencing at the moment.
Hot Air » Blog Archive » Video: Democrats insist “nothing wrong” at Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac in 2004
Hot Air » Blog Archive » Video: Democrats insist “nothing wrong” at Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac in 2004
By 2004, all of the elements of the current financial collapse had been in place for several years. The aggressive approach to enforcing the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) started under Bill Clinton in 1998, and the seemingly endless appetite for paper by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had turned massive amounts of bad loans into mortgage-backed securities to spread their cancer throughout the system. In 2004, a year after the Bush administration tried to tighten regulation and oversight on Fannie and Freddie, Congress was told yet again that disaster loomed.
The Democratic response is instructive to seeing who really sat back and allowed this collapse to occur (via Power Line):
By 2004, all of the elements of the current financial collapse had been in place for several years. The aggressive approach to enforcing the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) started under Bill Clinton in 1998, and the seemingly endless appetite for paper by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had turned massive amounts of bad loans into mortgage-backed securities to spread their cancer throughout the system. In 2004, a year after the Bush administration tried to tighten regulation and oversight on Fannie and Freddie, Congress was told yet again that disaster loomed.
The Democratic response is instructive to seeing who really sat back and allowed this collapse to occur (via Power Line):
Highlights of this eight-minute video:
Maxine Waters: Through nearly a dozen hearings, we were frankly trying to fix something that wasn’t broke. Mr. Chairman, we do not have a crisis at Freddie Mac, and particularly at Fannie Mae, under the outstanding leadership of Franklin Raines. [Raines would barely avoid prosecution for fraud.]
Gregory Meeks: … I’m just pissed off at OFHEO [the regulators trying to warn Congress of insolvency at the GSEs], because if it wasn’t for you, I don’t think we’d be here in the first place. … There’s been nothing that indicated that’s wrong with Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac has come up on its own … The question that then comes up is the competence that your agency has with reference to deciding and regulating these GSEs.
Lacy Clay: This hearing is about the political lynching of Franklin Raines.
Barney Frank: I don’t see anything in this report that raises safety and soundness problems.
Take a good look through this video in 2004, and ask yourself who on this panel wanted more regulatory oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and which members spent their time attacking the regulators. When Barack Obama talks at debates about how the past eight years of regulatory laissez-faire created the problem, he may want to review the transcripts of these hearings and note that Democrats repeatedly undermined regulators and called them everything from incompetent to bigoted in their rush to keep the status quo at Fannie and Freddie.
In 2005, Fortune published a lengthy anaylsis of the impending crash of Fannie Mae, and included this altercation between OFHEO and Congress:
Two weeks later Falcon and Raines faced off against each other in a hearing before the House subcommittee on capital markets, which was chaired by Baker. Consider the circumstances. Falcon was Fannie’s regulator and had leveled serious charges, amounting to fraud, against Fannie Mae. Most CEOs would have seen the wisdom of humility at this point, but Raines showed little. “These accounting standards are highly complex and require determinations on which experts often disagree,” he said, adding that “there were no facts” that supported OFHEO’s charge that Fannie executives had deferred an expense in 1998 to earn bonuses.
And most of the Democrats present agreed with him. “This hearing is about the political lynching of Franklin Raines,” said Congressman William Lacy Clay of Missouri. Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank said, “I see nothing in here that suggests that safety and soundness are an issue.” Other Democrats complained that the mere fact of releasing the report could increase the cost of home-ownership.
“Is it possible that by casting all of these aspersions … you potentially are weakening this institution in the market, that you are potentially weakening the housing market in this country?” Congressman Artur Davis of Alabama demanded. When Falcon tried to answer, Davis acted like a prosecutor grilling a hostile witness. He wanted a one-word answer: yes or no. “Is that possible?” he asked again.
“I have never seen anyone treated as disrespectfully as Armando Falcon was by the Democrats and by Franklin Raines,” recalls one congressional aide. Adds Andrew Cuomo: “I credit him for not folding and not caving and not running, because he took a tremendous beating.”
Unfortunately for the Democrats at this hearing, Raines then doubled down and demanded that the SEC give a second opinion on his business practices. After an investigation, the SEC agreed with Falcon and demanded that Fannie Mae restate its earnings all the way back to 2001 — at which point Raines’ fraud got uncovered. OFHEO had been correct, and the Democrats in this committee meeting had done their level best to interfere with the regulator to cover up for Raines’ fraud.
The Democrats attacking the regulator here didn’t do so out of some deep conviction against government regulation. They wanted to keep the gravy train rolling on questionable mortgages in order to endear themselves to the working class, and didn’t mind smearing the OFHEO regulator as a racist in order to succeed. The Republicans who wanted more oversight didn’t demand it as socialists looking for a government takeover of the financial sector, either, but because they saw the impending disaster looming for Fannie Mae.
Democrats distorted the market through the CRA and through Fannie and Freddie’s massive securitizing of bad debt, and then blocked regulators from doing their jobs. That’s the real story of this collapse.
Michelle Malkin » The Pelosi Republicans
Michelle Malkin » The Pelosi Republicans
I rolled my eyes a few weeks ago when GOP Whip Eric Cantor whined that Nancy Pelosi wouldn’t meet with Republicans.
Instead of wasting breath looking desperate, the GOP leadership should have been making sure each and every member fully understood the devastating impact of cap-and-tax and had properly girded their loins against being bought off.
Pelosi had no qualms meeting with turncoat Republicans before Friday’s vote. Happy now, Rep. Cantor? Via The Hill:
Pelosi does not usually meet with Republicans, but she met with at least seven GOP centrists. Five of them (Reps. Michael Castle (Del.), Mark Kirk (Ill.), Leonard Lance (N.J.), Frank LoBiondo (N.J.) and Dave Reichert (Wash.)) subsequently backed the bill. Three other Republicans – Reps. Mary Bono Mack (Calif.), John McHugh (N.Y.) and Chris Smith (N.J.) – voted yes. Bono Mack had backed the bill in the Energy and Commerce Committee. McHugh, if confirmed by the Senate, will be Obama’s secretary of the Army.
Maybe Rep. Cantor can tell us what Pelosi and her cap-and-tax Republicans discussed in their meetings besides the weather.
Show us your earmarks and payoffs.
The Hill looks at how fence-sitting Democrats crumbled:
Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas). Doggett had called the legislation crafted by Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) “weak” on the House floor, adding he could not support it. He later changed his mind in a huge blow to GOP hopes of taking down the bill.
Alan Grayson (D-Fla.). Grayson may be a freshman, but he knows how to horse-trade like a veteran legislator. For his “yes” vote, Grayson secured a $50 million hurricane research center in his district.
Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio). The Ohio lawmaker is not shy about blasting House Democratic leaders on various issues and bucking them on the floor. Like Doggett, she went to the House floor to complain about the climate bill, but subsequently voted for it.
Frank Kratovil (D-Md.). The freshman lawmaker was seen on the House floor on Thursday shaking his head no as Pelosi buttonholed him. Kratovil, one of the most vulnerable Democrats, voted yes on Friday. He likely was leaned on by fellow Maryland Democrats, Reps. Steny Hoyer and Chris Van Hollen, who are Pelosi’s deputies in leadership.
David Scott (D-Ga.). Scott, an Agriculture Committee member, was on the fence earlier this week, but was persuaded to support the measure.
Heath Shuler (D-N.C.). The former Redskins quarterback seems to enjoy being a maverick, publicly ripping Democrats on immigration reform and other matters. Shuler fell in line on this vote.
Michelle Malkin » Hey, Janeane G.: Come on down!
Michelle Malkin » Hey, Janeane G.: Come on down!
Video 2:10
Earlier this month, Texas Tea Party activist Katrina Pierson invited Hollyweird Tea Party-basher Janeane Garofalo to the July 4 Independence Day Tea Party in Dallas.
Katrina and friends (yours truly included) have issued one more invite to the shindig in the spirit of outreach and education. Come on down, Janeane. What are you afraid of?
Video 2:10
Klein: Syrian group threatens ‘force’ against Israel. Warns it may move to capture strategic Golan Heights « RBO
Klein: Syrian group threatens ‘force’ against Israel. Warns it may move to capture strategic Golan Heights « RBO
Aaron Klein, Jerusalem bureau chief for World Net Daily, reports:
A Syrian militant group threatened over the weekend to seize the strategic Golan Heights by force if a peace agreement involving the strategic plateau is not reached with Israel.
Israel’s Army Radio reported a group calling itself the Syrian Committee for the Liberation of the Golan on Saturday said it would move to capture the Golan, adding Israel has not shown willingness to achieve peace or to return what they called “Syrian land.”
WND first broke the story in September 2006 of the formation of the Committee for the Liberation of the Golan, quoting Syrian officials stating the group was formed to launch “resistance” against Israeli troop positions and Jewish communities in the Golan Heights.
WND also conducted an in-person interview with a top leader of the Committee.
One month later, a man identified as the leader of the Committee gave an interview to state-run Iranian television.
Amos Yadlin, head of the Israel Defense Forces’ intelligence branch, told the Knesset in October 2006 that Syria was indeed forming a Hezbollah-like group.
The latest threats from the Committee were made in comments over the weekend at the inauguration ceremony attended by Syrian President Bashar Assad for a new communications center in the town of Quneitra, which runs alongside the Syrian border with Israel.
In July 2007, Syria for the first time in 30 years opened a strategic border road at Quneitra to civilian traffic in a move some Israeli security officials worry could help facilitate guerrilla attacks against Golani Jewish communities. The road is visible from the Israeli side of the border.
Israel has not been standing idle at recent Syrian rhetoric and military moves.
A WND trip to the Israeli-Syrian border three weeks ago found Israeli tanks stationed alongside the Syrian border as well as a series of massive trenches dug in recent months on the Israeli side of the Syrian border.
Also, according to information obtained by WND, Israeli security forces previously arrested two Syrian nationals living in the Golan under suspicion they worked for the Committee for the Liberation of the Golan. Those nationals were sentences in a closed military court several months ago to 3 years in prison. The complete details of the case — fully known to WND — are being held back by Israel’s military censor.
The Jewish Golan
News media accounts routinely billed the Golan as “undisputed Syrian territory” until Israel “captured the region” in 1967. In actuality, the Golan has been out of Damascus’ control for far longer than the 19 years it was within its rule, from 1948 to 1967.
Even when Syria shortly held the Golan, some of it was stolen from Jews. Tens of thousands of acres of farmland on the Golan were purchased by Jews as far back as the late 19th century. The Turks of the Ottoman Empire kicked out some Jews around the turn of the century.
But some of the Golan was still farmed by Jews until 1947 when Syria first became an independent state. Just before that, the territory was transferred back and forth between France, Great Britain and even Turkey, before it became a part of the French Mandate of Syria.
When the French Mandate ended in 1944, the Golan Heights became part of the newly independent state of Syria, which quickly seized land that was being worked by the Palestine Colonization Association and the Jewish Colonization Association. A year later, in 1948, Syria, along with other Arab countries, used the Golan to attack Israel in a war to destroy the newly formed Jewish state.
The Golan, steeped in Jewish history, is connected to the Torah and to the periods of the First and Second Jewish Temples. The Golan Heights was referred to in the Torah as “Bashan”; the word “Golan” apparently derived from the biblical city of “Golan in Bashan.” The book of Joshua relates how the Golan was assigned to the tribe of Menasheh. Later, during the time of the First Temple, King Solomon appointed three ministers in the region, and the area became contested between the northern Jewish kingdom of Israel and the Aramean kingdom based in Damascus.
The book of Kings relates how King Ahab of Israel defeated Ben-Hadad I of Damascus near the present-day site of Kibbutz Afik in the southern Golan, and the prophet Elisha foretold that King Jehoash of Israel would defeat Ben-Hadad III of Damascus, also near Kibbutz Afik. The online Jewish Virtual Library has an account of how in the late 6th and 5th centuries B.C., the Golan was settled by Jewish exiles returning from Babylonia, modern day Iraq. In the mid-2nd century B.C., Judah Maccabee’s grandnephew, the Hasmonean King Alexander Jannai, added the Golan Heights to his kingdom.
The Golan hosted some of the most important houses of Torah study in the years following the Second Temple’s destruction and subsequent Jewish exile; some of Judaism’s most revered ancient rabbis are buried in the territory. The remains of some 25 synagogues from the period between the Jewish revolt and the Islamic conquest in 636 have been excavated. The Golan is dotted with ancient Jewish villages.
Aaron Klein, Jerusalem bureau chief for World Net Daily, reports:
A Syrian militant group threatened over the weekend to seize the strategic Golan Heights by force if a peace agreement involving the strategic plateau is not reached with Israel.
Israel’s Army Radio reported a group calling itself the Syrian Committee for the Liberation of the Golan on Saturday said it would move to capture the Golan, adding Israel has not shown willingness to achieve peace or to return what they called “Syrian land.”
WND first broke the story in September 2006 of the formation of the Committee for the Liberation of the Golan, quoting Syrian officials stating the group was formed to launch “resistance” against Israeli troop positions and Jewish communities in the Golan Heights.
WND also conducted an in-person interview with a top leader of the Committee.
One month later, a man identified as the leader of the Committee gave an interview to state-run Iranian television.
Amos Yadlin, head of the Israel Defense Forces’ intelligence branch, told the Knesset in October 2006 that Syria was indeed forming a Hezbollah-like group.
The latest threats from the Committee were made in comments over the weekend at the inauguration ceremony attended by Syrian President Bashar Assad for a new communications center in the town of Quneitra, which runs alongside the Syrian border with Israel.
In July 2007, Syria for the first time in 30 years opened a strategic border road at Quneitra to civilian traffic in a move some Israeli security officials worry could help facilitate guerrilla attacks against Golani Jewish communities. The road is visible from the Israeli side of the border.
Israel has not been standing idle at recent Syrian rhetoric and military moves.
A WND trip to the Israeli-Syrian border three weeks ago found Israeli tanks stationed alongside the Syrian border as well as a series of massive trenches dug in recent months on the Israeli side of the Syrian border.
Also, according to information obtained by WND, Israeli security forces previously arrested two Syrian nationals living in the Golan under suspicion they worked for the Committee for the Liberation of the Golan. Those nationals were sentences in a closed military court several months ago to 3 years in prison. The complete details of the case — fully known to WND — are being held back by Israel’s military censor.
The Jewish Golan
News media accounts routinely billed the Golan as “undisputed Syrian territory” until Israel “captured the region” in 1967. In actuality, the Golan has been out of Damascus’ control for far longer than the 19 years it was within its rule, from 1948 to 1967.
Even when Syria shortly held the Golan, some of it was stolen from Jews. Tens of thousands of acres of farmland on the Golan were purchased by Jews as far back as the late 19th century. The Turks of the Ottoman Empire kicked out some Jews around the turn of the century.
But some of the Golan was still farmed by Jews until 1947 when Syria first became an independent state. Just before that, the territory was transferred back and forth between France, Great Britain and even Turkey, before it became a part of the French Mandate of Syria.
When the French Mandate ended in 1944, the Golan Heights became part of the newly independent state of Syria, which quickly seized land that was being worked by the Palestine Colonization Association and the Jewish Colonization Association. A year later, in 1948, Syria, along with other Arab countries, used the Golan to attack Israel in a war to destroy the newly formed Jewish state.
The Golan, steeped in Jewish history, is connected to the Torah and to the periods of the First and Second Jewish Temples. The Golan Heights was referred to in the Torah as “Bashan”; the word “Golan” apparently derived from the biblical city of “Golan in Bashan.” The book of Joshua relates how the Golan was assigned to the tribe of Menasheh. Later, during the time of the First Temple, King Solomon appointed three ministers in the region, and the area became contested between the northern Jewish kingdom of Israel and the Aramean kingdom based in Damascus.
The book of Kings relates how King Ahab of Israel defeated Ben-Hadad I of Damascus near the present-day site of Kibbutz Afik in the southern Golan, and the prophet Elisha foretold that King Jehoash of Israel would defeat Ben-Hadad III of Damascus, also near Kibbutz Afik. The online Jewish Virtual Library has an account of how in the late 6th and 5th centuries B.C., the Golan was settled by Jewish exiles returning from Babylonia, modern day Iraq. In the mid-2nd century B.C., Judah Maccabee’s grandnephew, the Hasmonean King Alexander Jannai, added the Golan Heights to his kingdom.
The Golan hosted some of the most important houses of Torah study in the years following the Second Temple’s destruction and subsequent Jewish exile; some of Judaism’s most revered ancient rabbis are buried in the territory. The remains of some 25 synagogues from the period between the Jewish revolt and the Islamic conquest in 636 have been excavated. The Golan is dotted with ancient Jewish villages.
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