Spinning the Course

washingtonpost.com
Spinning the Course
By Dan Froomkin

The latest rounds of spin from the Bush administration are really straining the credulity of the press corps and the public.

First, over the weekend, we were asked to believe that the president's strategy in Iraq has never been to "stay the course." This in spite of all the times in the past that Bush himself has used the phrase, which happens to accurately define his approach.

And now, as of this morning, we're being asked to believe that staying the course (or whatever you want to call it) is working, and that Iraqi security forces could be largely self-sufficient within 12 to 18 months.

Again, despite all the evidence to the contrary.

Ibon Villelabeitia writes for Reuters: "Two weeks ahead of congressional elections in which Bush's Republicans are on the defensive over Iraq, the U.S. ambassador and its military commander in Baghdad told a rare joint news conference that success in Iraq was still possible -- and on a 'realistic timetable' that would let U.S. troops start leaving.

"Envoy Zalmay Khalilzad said he expected Iraqi leaders to make 'significant progress in the coming 12 months' -- with support from U.S. troops and officials -- in meeting 'benchmarks' for resolving disputes and curbing sectarian killing.

"He gave no indication of what if any action Washington would take if Iraq's fractious national unity government failed to meet those expectations."

Agence France Presse reports: "The United States' ambassador to Iraq has assured US voters that victory was still possible in this war torn country so long as Iraqi leaders live up to their promises.

"At a news conference Tuesday that was briefly plunged into darkness by one Baghdad's incessant power cuts, Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad described the battle to save Iraq from extremists as 'the defining challenge of our era'.

"And, in a direct appeal to the American people two weeks before key midterm congressional elections, he said that it was not too late to pull the country back from the brink."

It's nice talk, but is it even vaguely based in reality?

As Christopher Bodeen writes for the Associated Press: "With violence in Iraq at staggering levels, the United States is battling on both the military and political fronts to tame growing chaos in regions where Sunni insurgent violence now is compounded by sectarian killing."

Not to mention the fact that the central government has yet to prove itself to be remotely effective and that the presence of American troops seems to incite rather than quell violence.

Chuck Schumer , chair of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, today issued this statement: "This is the ninth time we've been told of a new plan on Iraqization so why should the American people believe, two weeks before an election, that this latest vague plan is going to lead to any change at all. We've been hearing White House promises to turn things over to the Iraqi forces for years -- in 2006, in 2005, in 2004, in 2003 -- but nothing ever seems to change."

He lists the nine new plans, dating back to July 2003.
Stay the Course?

Peter Baker writes in The Washington Post: "President Bush and his aides are annoyed that people keep misinterpreting his Iraq policy as 'stay the course.' A complete distortion, they say. 'That is not a stay-the-course policy,' White House press secretary Tony Snow declared yesterday.

"Where would anyone have gotten that idea? Well, maybe from Bush."

Baker then offers several examples of the president using the phrase. (See yesterday's column .)

Baker continues: "But the White House is cutting and running from 'stay the course.' A phrase meant to connote steely resolve instead has become a symbol for being out of touch and rigid in the face of a war that seems to grow worse by the week, Republican strategists say. . . .

"[W]ith midterm elections two weeks away, the Bush team is searching for a formula to address public opposition to the war, struggling to appear consistent and flexible at the same time."

Jim Rutenberg and David S. Cloud write in the New York Times: "Mr. Bush used the slogan in a stump speech on Aug. 31, but has not repeated it for some time. Still, [the backpedaling] was a stark example of the complicated line the White House is walking this election year in trying to tag Democrats as wanting to 'cut and run' from Iraq, without itself appearing wedded to unsuccessful tactics there."
Snow Job Watch

Here's the transcript of yesterday's briefing.

"Q Tony, it seems what you have is not 'stay the course.' Has anybody told the President he should stop calling it 'stay the course' then?

"MR. SNOW: I don't think he's used that term in a while.

"Q Oh, yes, he has, repeatedly.

"MR. SNOW: When?

"Q Well, in August, because I wrote a story saying he didn't use it and I was quite sternly corrected.

"MR. SNOW: No, he stopped using it.

"Q Why would he stop using it?

"MR. SNOW: Because it left the wrong impression about what was going on. And it allowed critics to say, well, here's an administration that's just embarked upon a policy and not looking at what the situation is, when, in fact, it's just the opposite. The President is determined not to leave Iraq short of victory, but he also understands that it's important to capture the dynamism of the efforts that have been ongoing to try to make Iraq more secure, and therefore, enhance the clarification -- or the greater precision.

"Q Is the President responsible for the fact people think it's stay the course since he's, in fact, described it that way himself?

"MR. SNOW: No."
Opinion Watch: The War

The New York Times editorial board writes: "For all the talk of timetables for Iraq, there has been little discussion of the timetable that must be handed to George W. Bush. The president cannot leave office with American troops still dying in an Iraq that staggers along just short of civil war, on behalf of no concrete objective other than 'get the job done,' which is now Mr. Bush's rhetorical substitute for 'stay the course.'

Richard Holbrooke writes an open letter to Bush on The Washington Post op-ed page: "In your radio address last week, you said that 'our goal in Iraq is clear and unchanging: . . . victory.' You added that the only thing changing 'are the tactics. . . . Commanders on the ground are constantly adjusting their approach to stay ahead of the enemy, particularly in Baghdad.' One can only hope that you do not mean those words literally -- or believe them. 'Stay the course' is not a strategy; it is a slogan, useful in domestic politics but meaningless in the field."

Holbrooke's advice: "Change your goals, disengage from the civil war already underway, focus maximum effort on seeking a political power-sharing agreement, and try to limit further damage in the region and the world."

Eugene Robinson writes in his Washington Post opinion column: "Okay, now they're just making stuff up. George W. Bush went on television Sunday and claimed that on Iraq war policy, 'We've never been 'stay the course' ' -- as if no record survived of all the times he has used those very words. Maybe he was trying to outdo Dick Cheney, who went on the radio last week and proclaimed that the beleaguered Iraqi government is doing 'remarkably well.' . . .

"If Bush and Cheney were being sincere, then they're lying to themselves; if not, they're lying to the rest of us. My money is on the latter."
Poll Watch

The mid-term elections are looking more and more like that "accountability moment" Bush thought he'd survived in 2004.

Dan Balz and Jon Cohen write in The Washington Post: "Two weeks before the midterm elections, Republicans are losing the battle for independent voters, who now strongly favor Democrats on Iraq and other major issues facing the country and overwhelmingly prefer to see them take over the House in November, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll. . . .

"President Bush's approval rating among all Americans stood at 37 percent. Two weeks ago he was at 39 percent, and in September he was at 42 percent."

Here are the complete poll results .

Susan Page and Jill Lawrence write in USA Today: "Two weeks before Election Day, voters are more focused on national issues than in any previous congressional election, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds, and they express unprecedented pessimism on the war in Iraq and downbeat attitudes about the economy. . . .

"Bush, whose job approval rating remained at 37%, could be a liability for candidates. By 41%-27%, those surveyed say they are more likely to vote for a candidate who opposes the president than one who supports him."
Optimist in Chief

Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Jim Rutenberg wrote in Monday's the New York Times: "President Bush and his political strategists may be the most outwardly optimistic Republicans in Washington these days, and perhaps the only ones. They are doing their best to fend off the sense of impending doom within their party that they fear will become a self-fulfilling prophecy on Nov. 7. . . .

"The president's professed certainty, shared with outside friends and advisers, is a source of fascination among even his staunchest allies. In lobbying shops and strategy firms around town, the latest Republican parlor game is divining whether the White House optimism is staged, or whether Mr. Bush and his political team really believe what they are saying."
Rove Watch

Kenneth T. Walsh, Paul Bedard and Linda Robinson write for U.S. News: "A big topic among White House insiders as the midterm elections approach is the fate of top political aide Karl Rove if the Republicans lose control of the House or Senate. The consensus is that Rove's image will suffer, big time. 'He will be taken a lot less seriously,' a senior Republican strategist and informal White House adviser says. Indeed, some insiders believe that Rove will leave after the first of the year."

Michael Abramowitz and Zachary A. Goldfarb wrote in Saturday's Washington Post: "Appearing in support of embattled GOP Rep. Thomas M. Reynolds (R-N.Y.), Karl Rove offered biting jibes against House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.), took a shot at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and asserted that Democratic policies would leave the country weaker."

Rove "needled congressional Democrats for voting against a GOP plan to try terrorist suspects at the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba. Many Democrats said the plan violated basic rights, but Rove rejected that. 'You need to have the ability to try these people without worrying about the ACLU showing up saying, "Wait a minute, did you Mirandize them when you found them on the battlefield," ' he said. 'With all due respect, I don't happen to remember that in World War II, that when we captured Nazis and Japanese and took them to camps, that the first thing we did was provide them legal aid.'"

David Lightman wrote in Saturday's Hartford Courant that, thanks to Rove, Senator Joe Lieberman has gotten significant financial help from the White House donor network.
Latinos and Blacks

Peter Wallsten writes in the Los Angeles Times: "A major effort to draw Latinos and blacks into the Republican Party, a central element of the GOP plan to build a long-lasting majority, is in danger of collapse amid anger over the immigration debate and claims that Republican leaders have not delivered on promises to direct more money to church-based social services.

"President Bush, strategist Karl Rove and other top Republicans have wooed Latino and black leaders, many of them evangelical clergy who lead large congregations, in hopes of peeling away the traditional Democratic base. But now some of the leaders who helped Bush win in 2004 are revisiting their loyalty to the Republican Party and, in some cases, abandoning it. . . .

"Complaints among black pastors who had been courted by the White House -- while less pronounced than those of Latino leaders -- have been fueled by a tell-all book by former White House aide David Kuo. The new book says that Bush, referring to pastors from one major African American denomination, once griped: 'Money. All these guys care about is money. They want money.'"
Off the Fence

Wallsten also writes: "The White House now faces a symbolic choice on the border-fence legislation: Does Bush rally the GOP base with a large, pre-election signing ceremony, or does he reject such fanfare in hopes of avoiding long-term damage among Latinos?"

Stephen Dinan and Charles Hurt report in the Washington Times that the decision has been made: Bush will sign it in a ceremony Thursday morning in the Roosevelt Room.

They write: "The decision to have a public ceremony is a reversal for the Bush administration. . . . Although Mr. Bush had committed to signing the bill, aides had said consistently over the past few weeks there would not be a signing ceremony.

"But Republicans in Congress had demanded a public signing, with leaders saying the bill is a major accomplishment that will help their re-election prospects."
Opinion Watch: About That Election

E. J. Dionne Jr. writes in his Washington Post opinion column: "President Bush's six-year effort to create an enduring Republican majority based on a right-leaning coalition is on the verge of collapse. The way he tried to create it could have the unintended consequence of opening the way for an alternative majority. . . .

"The strategy pursued by Bush and Karl Rove has frightened most of the political center into the arms of Democrats. Bush and Rove sought victory by building large turnouts among conservatives and cajoling just enough moderates the Republicans' way. But this approach created what may prove to be a fatal political disconnect: Adventurous policies designed to create enthusiasm on the right turned off a large number of less ideological voters.

"The Democrats' lead in the polls can be thus explained by two factors: the energy of a passionate phalanx of voters desperate to use this election to rebuke Bush, and the disenchantment of moderates fed up with the failures of Bush's governing style and ideology, notably in Iraq."

What's particularly fascinating about Dionne's piece is that it posits the Democrats as a moderate -- not equally extreme -- option to radical Bushism.

That's a far cry from, say, fellow Washington Post columnist David S. Broder 's attempt to exalt what he calls the middle: Senators like John McCain and Joe Lieberman, who actually embrace many of the most critical tenets of radical Bushism.
Torture Watch

Bill Dedman writes for MSNBC: "Speaking publicly for the first time, senior U.S. law enforcement investigators say they waged a long but futile battle inside the Pentagon to stop coercive and degrading treatment of detainees by intelligence interrogators at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba."

In an accompanying piece , Dedman writes that a high-level delegation from Washington flew into Guantanamo even as the debate was ongoing. They included: Alberto R. Gonzales, then the White House counsel and now attorney general; David S. Addington, legal counsel to Vice President Dick Cheney, now his chief of staff; and Timothy E. Flanigan, the deputy White House counsel.
Example to the World

Nick Wadhams writes for the Associated Press: "Several governments around the world have tried to rebut criticism of how they handle detainees by claiming they are only following the U.S. example in fighting terrorism, the U.N. special rapporteur on torture said Monday.

"Manfred Nowak said that when he criticizes governments for their questionable treatment of detainees, they respond by telling him that if the United States does something, it must be all right."
Vice Watch

In today's Washington Post, Chris Suellentrop reviews "VICE: Dick Cheney and the Hijacking of the American Presidency," by Lou Dubose and Jake Bernstein.

"With Molly Ivins, Dubose wrote 'Shrub: The Short but Happy Political Life of George W. Bush,' which was published during Bush's 2000 presidential campaign. 'Vice' is clearly intended as a sequel, but it also comes off as a sort of apology for picking the wrong subject last time.

"As their subtitle indicates, Dubose and Bernstein (the executive editor of the Texas Observer) argue that Cheney is more than merely the Most Powerful Veep Ever. They regard him as the power behind the throne, the regent for Bush's boy president. . . .

"The book's thesis can't be overstated: Dubose and Bernstein think Cheney is a threat to the republic on a scale unseen since the Civil War. (No, really.) They don't quite make the sale for that, partly because to build the case for Cheney's world-historical menace they embrace two contradictory propositions. The first is that his entire political career, dating back to the Ford administration, has involved the single-minded pursuit of one ambition: expanding the institutional power of the executive branch, which Cheney believes was unduly weakened by post-Watergate reforms. . . .

"But Dubose and Bernstein suggest at the same time that 9/11 radicalized Cheney, who was transformed from a sober and moderate conservative into a 'strategic hysteric.' Or perhaps it wasn't 9/11: In one of the book's more distasteful passages, the authors speculate that Cheney's health problems have caused a physiological change in personality. 'It is unknown if Cheney suffered any brain damage from his numerous heart attacks,' they write. They provide no evidence for the supposition."
(Not) Speaking of Cheney

Olivier Knox writes for AFP: "Bush, who used to boast to applause during the 2004 White House race that he had 'picked a fine vice president,' has not mentioned him in a campaign speech in months."
Bush, the 'Money Honey' and 'the Google'

Bush spent some time yesterday afternoon with CNBC's Maria Bartiromo.

Mary Lu Carnevale writes for the Wall Street Journal: "President Bush said he sometimes uses Google's satellite mapping program to transport him back to his ranch in Crawford, Texas.

"In a CNBC interview with Maria Bartiromo, Bush was asked a question on many of our minds: 'I'm curious, have you ever Googled anybody? Do you use Google?'

"According to CNBC's unofficial transcript, he replied: 'Occasionally. One of the things I've used on the Google is to pull up maps. It's very interesting to see that. I forgot the name of the program, but you get the satellite and you can -- like, I kind of like to look at the ranch on Google, reminds me of where I want to be sometimes. Yeah, I do it some.' He added: 'I tend not to email or -- not only tend not to email, I don't email, because of the different record requests that can happen to a president. I don't want to receive emails because, you know, there's no telling what somebody's email may -- it would show up as, you know, a part of some kind of a story, and I wouldn't be able to say, `Well, I didn't read the email.' `But I sent it to your address, how can you say you didn't?' So, in other words, I'm very cautious about emailing.'"

So Bush goes on " the Internets " to use "the Google."

Here , by the way, is the Google Maps satellite view of his place in Crawford.

The Bartiromo interview video is in three parts: one , two and three .

Demian McLean writes for Bloomberg News: "President Bush said he is 'astounded' by the size of some executive pay packages and urged companies to tie salaries to performance, while stopping short of advocating government action."

Said Bush: "I get astounded by the size of the pay packages. Consider me floored, when I see a guy making a billion dollars as the CEO of a company."

And, as Reuters reports, Bush "put Social Security reform on his list of 'big items' to deal with in the final two years of his presidency, possibly including indexing benefits for wealthier Americans."
Towel-Snapping the Press

In his pool report from Bush's visit to the Urban Trust Bank yesterday, Ron Hutcheson of McClatchy Newspapers described Bush standing alongside bank owner Robert L. Johnson.

"'Most of these people here make more money than you and me combined,' Bush told his host. 'They're well paid. . . . The cameramen, they're very well paid.' He singled out NBC's Kelly O'Donnell as a particularly well-paid reporter."

Bush pulls down $400,000 a year; Johnson is a billionaire, and the 374th richest person in America , according to Forbes.
Snow and the Press

Greg Sargent blogs for the American Prospect: "White House press secretary Tony Snow has endorsed this view -- he has now accused CNN of being 'manipulated' by terrorists."

Sargent caught Snow's comments in a podcast conducted by right-wing Powerline blogger John Hinderaker.

And here are a few other exchanges from that interview:

Hinderaker: "How are you holding up after six months of battering by the White House press corps?"

Snow: "It doesn't feel like battering. I'm having a great time. . . . If this is battering, bring me more."

Here's Snow observing what keeps the press corps happy: "[I]f can give them something new that they can report, especially the TV and radio people, they're going to get on air. They're going to be rewarded in that way."

And here's Snow astutely noting the dramatic difference between NBC News reporter David Gregory's tough questions in the briefing room and his on-air reports:

"Part of my job is to communicate as effectively as I can what the policies are . . . so that people at least get it. So that they can do an effective job of laying out our point of view. And this may surprise you, but one of the guys who's actually best on air about doing that is David Gregory. David sometimes can make the press briefings kind of interesting, but on the other hand, he actually does work pretty hard to try to get it right."
53 and Falling

The United States has slipped further down the scale in a global press freedom index compiled by Reporters Without Borders.

Nora Boustany writes for The Washington Post: "Although it ranked 17th on the first list, published in 2002, the United States now stands at 53, having fallen nine places since last year.

"'Relations between the media and the Bush administration sharply deteriorated after the president used the pretext of "national security" to regard as suspicious any journalist who questioned his "war on terrorism," ' the group said.
Late Night Humor

On YouTube , via Wonkette: "Bush" on "Fox News."

Read More...

Summary only...

Congressman From Arizona Is the Focus of an Inquiry

The New York Times
Congressman From Arizona Is the Focus of an Inquiry
By DAVID JOHNSTON

WASHINGTON, Oct. 24 — Federal authorities in Arizona have opened an inquiry into whether Representative Rick Renzi introduced legislation that benefited a military contractor that employs his father, law enforcement officials said Tuesday.

The officials said the inquiry was at an early stage and that no search warrants had been issued, suggesting that investigators had yet to determine whether there was a basis to open a formal investigation or empanel a grand jury.

Mr. Renzi, 48, a Republican who represents the First Congressional District, is a former insurance executive and real estate investor who was first elected in 2002. Almost from the start, he has been a target of citizen watchdog groups who have accused him of ethical laxity in office.

Law enforcement officials said that the most serious accusation involved Mr. Renzi’s sponsorship of legislation in 2003 that appeared to indirectly benefit the ManTech International Corporation, a communications company based in Virginia that employs Mr. Renzi’s father, Eugene, a retired Army general, as executive vice president.

Representative Renzi’s office did not return a reporter’s telephone calls on Tuesday to discuss the inquiry. In the past, Mr. Renzi has dismissed questions about whether his efforts aided ManTech, saying it did not need any assistance from him.

Mr. Renzi’s legislation, which was signed into law in November 2003, exempted the Fort Huachuca Army base in Arizona from maintaining water levels in the nearby San Pedro River, as base officials had agreed in a 2002 deal with the United States Fish and Wildlife Service. Environmentalists criticized Mr. Renzi’s measure, saying it threatened water levels in one of the last undammed rivers in the West and would benefit private contractors like ManTech that operated at the base and relied on its continued operation.

ManTech has more than $450 million in military contracts at the base, which include classified military work, as well as options for more than $1.1 billion in additional contracts, according to news reports about Mr. Renzi’s legislation. Employees of the company were the largest contributors to Mr. Renzi’s campaign in 2002 and the second-largest in 2004.

Groups like Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington have raised additional questions about Mr. Renzi, like his employment of a top staff member in December 2005 who continued to operate a fund-raising consulting business while she worked for Mr. Renzi. House ethics rules limit outside earned income to less than $25,000 a year.

Read More...

Summary only...

Stubborn sellers could harm housing sector

Reuters
Stubborn sellers could harm housing sector
By Patrick Rucker

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - At a recent meeting with her Las Vegas real estate firm's 200 agents, Joanne Levy told them they needed to deliver a stark message to clients.

They would tell them that unsold homes are at a record level and sellers need to lower their prices.

In other words: the boom is over.

"They want the 2004, 2005 market," Levy said of today's clients. "We don't have that."

With stubborn sellers refusing to relent on asking prices, many prospective buyers have kept their hands in their pockets.

Some industry observers fear that bull-headed home sellers could worsen a downturn by driving up the inventory of homes for sale and running off would-be buyers.

The phenomenon is likely to touch "the bubble markets where you have a bigger investor share and big appreciation," said Ethan Harris, chief U.S. economist for Lehman Brothers.

"For the serious buyer and seller, there is a convergence over time," he said. But once-hot housing markets in states like Nevada, California and Florida have more homeowners who just do not want to yield on their asking prices.

Some are investors who bought at the height of the market with a small down payment and big hopes for gains. Others are homeowners who saw their neighbors cash out with a handsome return and will not accept anything below their asking price.

"Sellers have not caught up with the reality of the marketplace despite the proliferation of 'For Sale' signs," said Howard Glaser, a mortgage industry analyst with the Glaser Group in Washington, D.C.

"There is a lag period between sellers' expectations and the reality of the marketplace," he said, and shaking them out of their high-price fantasy "is more psychology than science."

But cold facts are staring some homeowners in the face.

Las Vegas had 20,800 single-family homes on the market in September -- a 57 percent jump from a year earlier. A year ago, more than half of the homes sold in under 30 days and now less than a third sell in that time.

It's the same story in once-booming regions like California, where home prices in eight major markets declined in September compared with a year earlier.

Despite these truths, real estate agents say, many sellers continue to overreach on their asking prices.

"I try not to list those properties," California Association of Realtors President Vince Malta said of the overpriced homes.

"You could do that last year and someone would still come in and make an offer," he said. "Back then, we were all marketing geniuses."

But those once-hot markets have changed -- even if the mentalities of some would-be sellers have not.

A homeowner's blind faith in the price of his or her home could be costly if it flies in the face of reality and prices continue to drop, said Stephanie Madon, a psychology professor at Iowa State University.

"If the homeowner believes the house is worth a lot and refuses to budge, it could become a self-defeating prophesy," she said.

In the end, stubborn sellers could lose more home value the longer they delay.

But Madon says they will accept reality eventually and yield to market pressures.

In the meantime, many agents say they are in a difficult state of flux.

The soft market is frustrating, Malta said, because prospective buyers have good reasons to make a deal now, with interest rates at relative lows and many sellers offering incentives to move their homes.

"They have a lot of properties to choose from now," Malta said of buyers. "But they're afraid prices will go down further and are just saying 'Let's wait and see.'"

Read More...

Summary only...

Bin Laden Is The GOP Spokesman Because President Bush Sucks Too Much

Huffington Post
Bob Cesca
Bin Laden Is The GOP Spokesman Because President Bush Sucks Too Much

We've all seen the ad. Bin Laden, Zawahiri, a ticking time bomb, explosions, a heartbeat and the ominous phrase: "These are the stakes." And it's probably the best ad of this midterm election cycle... for the Democratic Party. Strangely enough, it was an ad paid for and created by... the Republican Party.

Were I Ken Mehlman, Karl Rove or George W. Bush, I don't think I'd spend millions of dollars thrusting Bin Laden up the collective poop-chutes of the nation. Sure, their goal was noble. That is, if you define "noble" as "using al-Qaeda propaganda with the deliberate goal of terrorizing American voters."

But what this advertisement says to me, and hopefully many others, is that the Republican government has utterly failed to capture these murderers and thus the King of All Jihadists remains a threat to America five-plus years after 9/11. This ad tells me that Bin Laden and his chief deputy are still at large due to the incompetent Bush administration and the congressional Republicans who have allowed them to get away with this colossal failure.

What are the stakes? The Republicans have failed to capture the demons featured in the commercial, so... what? Oh right. Of course. We're supposed to re-elect the Republicans who let them go. As the Toronto Star reported Monday, "The Republicans still can't find Osama bin Laden, but they know how to showcase him." Five years simply hasn't been enough time for these tough-talking cowboys -- the shock and awesome messiahs -- the resolute, crisp, lapel flag commandos -- to capture a 6'5" man who's on kidney dialysis and probably hiding within the borders of a so-called allied nation.

The Democrats, meanwhile, have stated across the board that they intend to continue the fight against terrorists by such "weakling" means as implementing the 9/11 Commission recommendations within their first 100 hours. Not days -- and certainly not within five years -- 100 hours after they take their oaths in January. They want to increase funding for first responders and stop the White House from cutting $1.1 billion in funding for state and local law enforcement. They want to increase Special Forces numbers to track and kill terrorists and involve the world community in an all-out global manhunt.

And all of that (and the many other programs proposed by the Democrats) make them somehow less capable than the incompetent Bush Republicans who have allowed Bin Laden, their leading spokesman, to run free all this time? The Republicans who, via their misguided Iraq War, have actually increased the threat of terrorism worldwide. The Republicans who would rather shatter the Geneva Conventions, leaving our fighting men and women increasingly vulnerable to being tortured at the hands of our enemies, than unite the world around a common goal -- a goal even the Iranians would've supported after 9/11.

Or maybe, all things being equal the simplest answer is the right one. Bin Laden is a better spokesman for the GOP than is President Bush. Casting Bin Laden in a national GOP commercial is ultimately more effective and LESS damaging for the Republicans than casting the president. In fact, have you seen a single NRCC, NRSC or RNC commercial featuring George W. Bush? Maybe it's not because he's electoral poison right now. Perhaps he's too busy stumping for racists and guys who (allegedly) strangle their mistresses. Or maybe he's too busy betraying his followers by suddenly flip-flopping on his "stay the course in Iraq" pledge. Or maybe George W. Bush has been quoted too often saying he doesn't spend too much time on Bin Laden and hence has let him go. The president not spending time on the Bin Laden issue is a pretty damn big stake, if you ask me or anyone else with an intact brain stem.

And yet the Republicans think their voters are idiots.

They believe their voters are naive special needs children who will see Bin Laden with a spooky tick-tock sound and, rather than questioning why he hasn't been captured under the Bush Republicans, will kneejerk into saying, "YNUCK! Mmm-doy -- hey that tick-tock is scaring me and that Bin Laden! IEEEE! The Democrats won't capture him [even though George W. Bush will still be the president after November 7] and we'll all die down dead! These ARE them there stakes! Doy!"

But even though I don't share many of the values of the president's supporters, I don't think they're as stupid as Karl Rove thinks they are. With this commercial, the RNC and the White House are counting on the stupidity of the electorate. They're counting wrong.

Read More...

Summary only...

U.S. troop deaths in Iraq reach 87 for October

McClatchy Newspapers
U.S. troop deaths in Iraq reach 87 for October
By Jay Price and Huda Ahmed

BAGHDAD, Iraq - The U.S. military on Monday announced the deaths of two more American soldiers and a Marine on Saturday and Sunday, bringing the total of U.S. troops killed over the weekend to 12.

It also announced the death of a civilian contractor who had been training Iraqi police.

The deaths raised the toll of American military dead in Iraq so far this month to 87, according to icasualties.org, a Web site that tracks coalition casualties in Iraq. All but four were killed in action, making October the worst month for U.S. combat deaths since November 2004.

U.S. military leaders in Baghdad have said the high toll is partly due to an expected uptick in violence linked to the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which is just ending. Traditionally, attacks have risen about 20 percent during Ramadan, the top American military spokesman in Iraq, Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV, said earlier this month.

Also, many of the troops were killed in Baghdad, where a major neighborhood-by-neighborhood operation aimed at reducing sectarian killing has exposed more service members to attack. The military appears to be reconsidering that offensive. Last week Caldwell said it hadn't been as effective as American officials had hoped.

One soldier was killed about 5 p.m. Sunday in western Baghdad when a homemade bomb detonated near his vehicle, according to a Department of Defense news release. His name and those of others killed over the weekend haven't been released.

Another soldier was killed southwest of Baghdad when his patrol came under small-arms fire. The Marine was killed Saturday during combat operations in Anbar province, west of the capital.

The police liaison officer was killed and four American soldiers were wounded just before noon Sunday when an improvised bomb struck their vehicle on the eastern side of the city.

Virginia-based Dyncorp, which is under U.S. contracts to provide police training in Iraq and Afghanistan, had lost four trainers earlier this year to attacks in Iraq and another in Afghanistan, according to its Web site.

In Baghdad, the violence against civilians and Iraqi security forces continued Monday. Seven Iraqi police officers and two civilians were killed in three homemade-bomb attacks across the city, police said. At least 12 officers and two civilians were injured.

A hairdresser was killed when gunmen stormed into her shop in the Zayonah district around 10 a.m. Hairdressers long have been a target of Muslim extremists in Iraq.

A Ministry of Defense spokesman announced a curfew Monday morning in the southern city of Amarah after the beheaded body of a leader of the powerful Mahdi Army militia was discovered.

The man had been abducted Thursday, apparently in retaliation for the killing of a police intelligence official.

A resident of the city, though, said a local council had canceled the curfew and people were moving around on the streets. Still, two police officers were killed in the city Monday and security forces there were tense, Amarah resident Faeq Abu Forat said.

A police spokesman in Diyala said that 10 people, including seven police officers in civilian clothes, were assassinated in a grove of trees close to Balad Ruz, northeast of Baghdad.

The spokesman also said a policeman was killed in west Baqouba as terrorist groups burned down 10 stores before the dawn prayer.

The U.S. military reported killing five insurgents Monday morning south of the troubled town of Balad, north of the capital, one of them as American troops approached a suspected terrorist hideout and four more when a bomb destroyed the building.

Read More...

Summary only...

Electronic Voting Machines Could Skew Elections

[Editor's Note: This is probably why Rove and Cheney and Bush are so confident that the Republicans won't lose control of Congress.]

ABC News
Electronic Voting Machines Could Skew Elections
Researchers, Candidates Have Little Confidence in Machines Designed to Make Elections Easier to Call
By JAKE TAPPER, REBECCA ABRAHAMS and EDUARDO SUNOL

Oct. 22, 2006 — - Cheryl Kagan, a former Maryland Democratic legislator, was shocked when she opened her mail Wednesday morning.

Inside, she discovered three computer discs. With them was an anonymous letter saying the discs contained the secret source code for vote-counting that could be used to alter the votes cast through Maryland's new electronic voting machines.

"My understanding is that with these disks a malicious person could skew the outcome of an election," Kagan said.

Diebold, the company that makes the voting machines, told ABC News, "These discs do not alter the security of the Diebold touch-screen system in any way," because election workers can set their own passwords.

But ABC News has obtained an independent report commissioned by the state of Maryland and conducted by Science Applications International Corporation revealing that the original Diebold factory passwords are still being used on many voting machines.

The SAIC study also shows myriad other security flaws, including administrative over-ride passwords that cannot be changed by local officials but can be used by hackers or those who have seen the discs.

The report further states that one of the high risks to the system comes if operating code discs are lost, stolen or seen by unauthorized parties -- precisely what seems to have occurred with the discs sent to Kagan, who worries that the incident indicates the secret source code is not that difficult to obtain.

"Certainly, just tweaking a few votes in a couple of states could radically change the outcome of our policies for the coming year," she said.

Worry That Elections Could Be Hacked

Computer experts and government officials have voiced serious concerns that if these machines malfunction, no paper record will exist for a recount. Even worse is the fear that an election could be hacked.

Princeton University researchers using an Accuvote TS -- a touch screen version of the Diebold machine -- showed how easy it would be to deploy a virus that would, in seconds, flip the vote of any election.

"We're taking the vote-counting process and we're handing it over to these companies -- and we don't know what happens inside these machines," said Edward Felten, a professor and a researcher at Princeton's Center for Information Technology Policy, which ran the study.

Diebold called the Princeton study "unrealistic and inaccurate."

But many computer scientists, including cyber-security expert Stephen Spoonamore, disagree, pointing out that the Accuvote TS was used in the 2004 presidential election and is still used in at least four states -- including all machines in Georgia and Maryland. Spoonamore said the hack attacked the operating system layer of software and would affect any touch screen machine built by Diebold.

Diebold argues that the software from the 2004 elections has been updated to fix any possible security problems. But Spoonamore is not convinced, saying Diebold's "system is utterly unsecured. The entire cyber-security community is begging them to come back to reality and secure our nation's voting."

There is also the matter of computer glitches. In primary elections and test runs this year, there were glitches with electronic voting machines from Diebold and other companies.

Machines malfunctioned in Texas, where 100,000 votes were added.

In California, directions for voters with vision problems came out in Vietnamese.

And in Maryland, screens froze and memory cards went missing.

Gov. Robert Ehrlich, a Republican running for reelection, advised residents to vote by absentee ballot because he had no confidence in the machines.

"I don't care if we paid half a billion dollars or $1 billion," Ehrlich said. "If it's going to put the election at risk, there's no price tag for a phony election or a fraudulent election."

Many are concerned about how the confusing technical issues will be handled by poll workers, who tend to be senior citizens and who are not necessarily tech-savvy.

Electronic voting machines were supposed to be the solution to the paper ballot problems from the 2000 presidential election. But to many critics, America's voting system has gone out of the frying pan and into the fire.

Read More...

Summary only...

Disposable Heroes: The GOP's Contempt for Wounded Soldiers

Huffington Post
RJ Eskow
Disposable Heroes: The GOP's Contempt for Wounded Soldiers

Any American who honors our military heroes - and I hope that's all Americans - should be outraged at the GOP's mistreatment of them. The practice of forcing psychologically scarred soldiers back into battle is yet another example of Republicans treating our fighting men and women like used parts. Oh, and one other thing - it's a lousy way to run a war, too.

Let's make one thing clear from the start: There's a word for soldiers who return from battle with post-traumatic stress disorder or other psychological problems. That word is - hero.

The stigma associated with mental disorders should become a thing of the past. Even the strongest body may react to intense stress and shock by changing biochemically, and the bravest personality may react to trauma in unexpected ways.

These soldiers, just like those who have suffered physical injury, have made a sacrifice on behalf of their country. They should be honored and respected, not denigrated. They deserve all the medical care they require, and should receive a hero's welcome when they come home.

Here's what happens instead when soldiers like Bryce Syverson fall victim to PTSD.

"It ended up they just took his weapon away from him and said he was non-deployable and couldn't have a weapon," says his father, Larry Syverson. "He was on suicide watch in a lockdown."

The CBS report continues:

That was last August. This August, he was deployed to Ramadi, in the heart of the Sunni triangle -- and he had a weapon.

Under pressure to maintain troop levels, military doctors tell CBS News it's become a "common practice" to recycle soldiers with mental disorders back into combat. The military's actions were first reported by the Hartford Courant newspaper.

"It's flat-out not a good idea," says Dr. John Wilson, an expert in combat trauma.

Dr. Wilson is undoubtedly a good man to have in your corner if you're experiencing a wave of panic, given his gift for understatement.

These soldiers risk being scarred for life by this re-exposure to the trauma that wounded them in the first place. They're also a danger to their fellow soldiers, and to innocent civilians.

They're only there because the Republicans failed to plan adequately for this war. Rather than admit their failure, the Administration recycles these casualties to conceal their own mistakes.

Here's an email Sgt. Syverson sent his family after his redeployment:

"Head about to explode from the blood swelling inside, the lightning storm that happened inside my head."

The Sergeant is being destroyed slowly in pursuit of a foolish policy.

There's no question we're putting other lives at risk with this strategy, too. Drug or alcohol abuse is a common symptom of PTSD. Another is the sensation that the world around you is "strange and unreal," to quote the Defense Department's own website. Numbness, strange physical sensations, and a sense of disconnectedness from people and places around you are also part of the package.

Here are some other potential PTSD symptoms, taken from the DSM manual used for diagnosing mental illness:

1. difficulty falling or staying asleep
2. irritability or outbursts of anger
3. difficulty concentrating
4. hyper-vigilance
5. exaggerated startle response

The overall profile isn't what you'd want to find in the person riding point or covering your back, if you're a soldier ... or doing a door-to-door search of your neighborhood if you're a civilian. In fact, the only person who benefits from having troops on the ground with this disorder is the insurgent. He's facing an enemy who's exhausted, jumpy, and unfocused.

Oh, there's one other party who benefits: the Republican. He's the guy who doesn't want you to know that his party started a war on false pretenses and failed to plan adequately. He doesn't want you to know that his party has broken down the combat readiness of our military, to the point that we're incapable of adequately securing Afghanistan or confronting threats in other parts of the world. He benefits, too, just like the insurgent.

It should come as no surprise that the Administration that kept hiding our fallen heroes' flag-draped coffins is sending already-wounded soldiers out to suffer, creating extra risk to their lives and others in the bargain.

And for those who object to my characterizing this abuse as "GOP contempt," and not just "Rumsfeld" or "Bush" mismanagement, an observation: John McCain and Chuck Hagel worked hard to re-elect this Administration. They bear responsibility. As for Lindsay Graham, he's taken to pretending that he doesn't know who's in charge (hint: it's where "the buck stops," and with the people who put that guy there).

When it comes to protecting our troops, these men have been AWOL. Why? Because politics and Republican partisanship are more important to them than fair treatment for our fighting men and women. Shame on them. Shame on all of them. Shame on their entire political party.

And to those who will argue that I'm "politicizing" the suffering and sacrifice of these heroes, my answer is: Damn right I am. That's what we do in America. When a political party is so cynical and corrupt that it will even mistreat soldiers in harm's way to pursue its selfish interest, you do your best to make sure they get voted out of power. That's what you do in this country. You do it out of a sense of justice. You do it to right a wrong.

You do it for the heroes.

Read More...

Summary only...

Officials wanted more searching at WTC

Yahoo! News
Officials wanted more searching at WTC
By SARA KUGLER, Associated Press Writer

As the city agency overseeing the removal of the World Trade Center rubble was wrapping up its work in 2002, several officials handling the painstaking recovery of human remains warned that things were moving too fast.

They believed that more pieces of the 2,749 dead could be found, and that the city shouldn't be rushing such an important task. But they were overruled, two of those officials told The Associated Press this week.

Over the past few days, dozens of bones have been discovered in underground passages at ground zero, more than five years after the tragedy.

"I knew that this was going to happen — they really just wanted us out of there," said retired Lt. John McArdle, the Police Department's ground zero commander. "There was not a good exit strategy for some of these places, and if there was, it was poorly done."

A utility crew stumbled upon body parts last week in an abandoned manhole along the edge of the site, and forensic experts have since dug down and found more than 100 bones and fragments from skulls, ribs, arms, legs, feet and hands.

The discoveries have angered and saddened relatives of the Sept. 11 victims. Of the 2,749 people who were killed that day, the remains of some 1,150 have not been found. That means that families of 40 percent of the victims have nothing — not a sliver of a bone — left of their loved ones.

The notion that rescue workers were rebuffed by a city eager to finish the job could help shed light on why the remains are being discovered only now. The area where bones are being found is one where officials had raised objections.

The officials said they repeatedly aired their concerns to the agency in charge, the Department of Design and Construction, which was later praised for its speedy, under-budget cleanup of 1.5 million tons of trade center debris.

"The desire was driven by one thing, and that was, 'Get it done,'" said another official who protested, speaking to the AP on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to discuss the work publicly. "Many a time the issue was raised about how fast it was going and things were being missed."

Deputy Mayor Ed Skyler, who is overseeing the renewed search, said a review of such issues would be premature, but noted that the Fire Department was designated as the lead agency for finding remains, and that the design department proceeded with its work only when the FDNY gave the go-ahead.

According to the two officials, FDNY rescue workers were among those who resisted the Department of Design and Construction. However, Fire Department spokesman Frank Gribbon said Monday that reports of objections were exaggerated. Chief of Department Sal Cassano said in a statement that the FDNY "had final sign-off on areas where the recovery effort was deemed complete, and at no time was pressured to say otherwise."

Memos obtained by the AP show that the design department acknowledged at least some of the objections in the spring of 2002, but was concerned about "delaying the sign-off."

After the twin 110-story towers collapsed, police and fire officials led the backbreaking search for bodies while the Department of Design and Construction was assigned to excavate the debris, which stood 10 stories high at the start. The agency, staffed by engineers, architects and construction professionals, specializes in engineering and construction projects, including emergency debris removal.

Each day, the design department convened planning meetings with all the parties involved, including engineers, emergency responders and a range of other city agencies.

The project finished months ahead of city officials' yearlong prediction, and cost about $750 million — just a fraction of the initial multibillion-dollar estimate. But the design department was sometimes at odds with the rescue workers, who frequently needed to shut down or pause the operation as they recovered bodies.

"It went from a rescue to a recovery to a construction project," McArdle said. "There came a point in time when they said, `We gotta try to wrap this up,' and they tried to expedite it as much as possible, and they jumped the gun, and now you have all of these families hurt and they're finding all these body parts."

Kurt Horning, who lost his son Matthew in the attack, said Monday he was glad to hear others saying what families believed for years.

"The foot soldiers did everything they could, we know that — we have always felt this was a rush job by the administration and the suits," he said.

Particular disagreements arose as the design department was preparing to turn over the site — which belongs to the bistate agency known as the Port Authority. According to people involved in the process, the design department had created a grid map and asked those leading the remains recovery to walk through each area, and sign off, square by square.

Some refused to OK the sign-off, and at least one official recommended a widespread powerwashing on parts of the seven-story pit, so that the water could wash down into the nooks and crannies, catching the smallest pieces of remains. Workers would then spread out the sludge, let it dry, and comb for bone and tissue fragments.

According to a memo from Design and Construction Department official Bruce Rottner, extra requests "would hamper the work of the ... transition team, potentially delaying the sign-off by two weeks."

Matthew Monahan, department spokesman, said the intent of that correspondence did not deal with human remains specifically, but rather the agency's overall effort to clean up the site and eliminate safety hazards in preparation for turning it over the Port Authority.

A powerwashing would not necessarily have reached the 12 subterranean cavities now being opened and picked through this week by teams of forensic anthropologists. But Skyler said there may be many more underground areas to examine.

All involved agencies have also been asked to go back and recall how and when they inspected the buildings on the site's outskirts. Hundreds of bone fragments were recently found on the roof of a skyscraper that had been closed since the attack.

None of the newly unearthed bones has been identified, but the medical examiner's office has DNA profiles of the victims on file and is working to match the remains. Thousands of the 20,000 pieces recovered during the main excavation still have not yielded matches.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Monday that the cleanup was "a heroic job ... by people who really dedicated themselves — firefighters who had lost sons and brothers, construction workers who worked in difficult conditions where they had lots of heavy machinery and there was a lot of pressure to do things quickly."

He added: "And I think, on balance, they did a magnificent job."

Read More...

Summary only...

Halloween Scoop: Lieberman Tries on Jack Murtha Mask in Effort to Trick Voters

Huffington Post
Arianna Huffington
Halloween Scoop: Lieberman Tries on Jack Murtha Mask in Effort to Trick Voters

Have you decided what you are going to be for Halloween? Joe Lieberman has: he's going to dress up as Jack Murtha.

Lieberman has been trying out his costume on the campaign trail in Connecticut, desperately trying to trick voters into thinking that he's against the war in Iraq so he can treat himself to their support.

"No one wants to end the war in Iraq more than I do," said Lieberman last week. "I have been very critical of a lot of the mistakes the Bush administration has made in Iraq."

Lieberman clearly hopes that by paying lip service to being against the war he can confuse voters into forgetting that he was a lead sponsor of the resolution authorizing the war, has been a bellicose backer of the president's failed policy ever since -- repeatedly voting against efforts to change course in Iraq -- and continues to attack Ned Lamont for working to end the war.

And here's the really scary part: Lieberman's masquerade is working. After losing the Democratic primary, he dumped his war hawk outfit in the trash, slipped on his Murtha mask, and began to steadily increase his lead in the polls.

Of course, Joe Lieberman isn't the first politician to disguise himself with "I want to help end the war" rhetoric while continuing to subvert all genuine efforts to bring the war to an end.

Back in 1969, Richard Nixon attempted the same charade, talking like a man committed to bringing our troops home from Vietnam while aggressively working to expand the war. Indeed, the rhetorical parallels between Nixon in '69 and Lieberman in '06 are striking.

Here are a few examples. The Nixon quotes are all from a speech he gave on November 3, 1969 -- 3 years and 9,000 dead American soldiers before U.S. involvement in Vietnam actually ended. Lieberman's words are from this year's Senate campaign.

"I want to end the war." - Richard Nixon, 11/3/69
"I want to help end the war in Iraq." - Joe Lieberman, 8/11/06

"Many others -- I among them -- have been strongly critical of the way the war has been conducted." -- Richard Nixon, 11/3/69
"I have been very critical of a lot of the mistakes the Bush administration has made in Iraq." -- Joe Lieberman, 10/18/06

"It is a plan that will end the war and serve the cause of peace." -- Richard Nixon, 11/3/69
"I recently, again, issued a 10-point plan to get the job done [in Iraq]." -- Joe Lieberman, 10/18/06

"I want peace as much as you do." -- Richard Nixon, 11/3/69
"No one wants to end the war in Iraq more than I do." -- Joe Lieberman, 10/18/06

The Lamont campaign is planning to release a video tomorrow that will juxtapose clips of Nixon and Lieberman making these claims. The effect is spooky and unsettling. The ghosts of Nixon and his want-to-end-the-war lies (as well as of those 9,000 dead U.S. soldiers) should haunt the final two weeks of the Lieberman-Lamont race.

Don't let the masquerade fool you. A vote for Ned Lamont is a vote to end the war in Iraq; a vote for Joe Lieberman is a vote to stay the course.

Read More...

Summary only...

CT Senate Debate Gets Wild: Hecklers, Candidates Attack Lieberman...

Yahoo! News
Lieberman blasted on all sides at debate
By ANDREW MIGA, Associated Press Writer

Sen. Joe Lieberman sat between his Democratic and Republican rivals in Monday's final Connecticut Senate debate — and got it from both sides as well as from hecklers.

The three-term senator, who has a 17-point lead in the latest statewide poll, struck back at Democratic challenger Ned Lamont, who has assailed him as a career politician desperate to hang onto his seat and one beholden to powerful Washington special interests.

"You constantly distort and, frankly, just tell lies," Lieberman, who ran as an independent after losing the Democratic primary to Lamont, said at the Garde Arts Center New London. "No matter how many millions of his own family's money Ned Lamont spends, the polls show the people of Connecticut are not buying it. They can't be bought."

Lamont, a wealthy cable TV executive who has poured $12.7 million of his own fortune into his campaign, bristled.

"Senator Lieberman just called me a liar and he made a lot of outrageous accusations," Lamont replied. "Senator, everything we're talking about is your record, and you can't run from your record."

Hecklers interrupted the debate at times, and some chanted "Lieberman Protects Cheney." They were escorted from the theater.

An exasperated Lieberman, a particular target for outbursts from the audience, scolded the hecklers. "C'mon," he said, "let's let the candidates talk."

Lieberman's support for the war in Iraq drew criticism from Lamont and Republican candidate Alan Schlesinger.

"Joe Lieberman and George Bush's stay-the-course strategy, that's the recipe for failure," Lamont said.

Lieberman warned that Lamont's support for a deadline for U.S. troop withdrawals would be disastrous.

"Your answer is to give up on Iraq," Lieberman said. "Your plan is a recipe for retreat and disaster."

Lamont's primary upset of Lieberman last August was fueled primarily by his strong anti-war views. Lieberman reiterated Monday night that if re-elected he would still caucus with the Democrats.

"Not only am I a man of my word, it's what I want to do," Lieberman said.

Schlesinger has tried to use the debates to climb out of the single digits in the polls. Lieberman and Schlesinger are vying for Republican support, so any Schlesinger gains could come at Lieberman's expense.

Schlesinger accused Lieberman of trying to mask his liberal record to win GOP votes.

"In the spirit of Halloween, we have a U.S. senator here who's masquerading as a Republican," said Schlesinger, the former mayor of Derby.

Schlesinger also chided Lieberman on health care, accusing him of avoiding the truth about how the massive generation of baby boomers needing health care in coming years will overwhelm the nation's medical system.

"For 18 years, our senator has not been straight with you," Schlesinger said.

_____

Associated Press writer Stephen Singer in New London contributed to this story.

Read More...

Summary only...

U.S. Republicans losing crucial swing voters: poll

Reuters
U.S. Republicans losing crucial swing voters: poll

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Independent voters overwhelmingly favor Democrats to take over the U.S. House of Representatives in the November 7 election and back them on major issues, a new Washington Post-ABC News poll said on Monday.

The independents surveyed said they plan to support Democratic congressional candidates over Republicans by a roughly 2-to-1 margin -- 59 percent to 31 percent -- the largest gap in the poll this year, The Washington Post said.

Forty-five percent said it would be good if Democrats recaptured the House majority, 10 percent said it would not and the rest said it would not matter, the newspaper reported.

With Republicans fighting to retain control of the U.S. Congress, the choice of independents may be pivotal because most Democratic and Republican voters said they plan to support their party's candidates, the newspaper said.

The growing independent support for Democratic House candidates found in the poll is a significant shift since the 2004 election, when the Democrats held only a narrow advantage, the Post said.

Twenty-seven percent of those polled said the single most important issue in their vote for Congress this year is the war in Iraq, compared to 14 percent who said terrorism ranked first.

Independents said they strongly trust Democrats on most major issues by margins ranging from 14 percentage points on terrorism to 23 percentage points on Iraq and North Korea, the Post said.

The Post said independent voters favoring Democrats appeared to be motivated by dissatisfaction with Republicans rather than enthusiasm for the other party.

About half of the independents who said they plan to vote Democratic in their district said they are doing so primarily to vote against the Republican candidate rather than to affirmatively support the Democratic candidate, the Post said.

Democrats must pick up 15 seats in the House and six seats in the Senate to regain control of Congress.

The telephone poll of 1,200 adults was conducted October 19-22 and has an error margin of plus-or-minus 3 percentage points.

Read More...

Summary only...

State Worker As Chauffeur Violated Law

ABC News
State Worker As Chauffeur Violated Law
Ethics Panel Says N.Y. Comptroller Violated Law by Using State Worker As Wife's Chauffeur
By MARK JOHNSON
The Associated Press

ALBANY, N.Y. - New York's comptroller violated state law by failing to pay nearly $83,000 for using a state employee as a chauffeur for his ailing wife, the state Ethics Commission ruled Monday.

The commission said there was reasonable cause to believe Comptroller Alan Hevesi used his position "to secure unwarranted privileges for himself and his wife, and in doing so, pursued a course of conduct that raises suspicion among the public that he likely engaged in acts that violated the public trust."

Hevesi, a Democrat seeking a second four-year term as the state's chief financial officer, acknowledged last month that he had not paid the state back for having his wife driven around by a state employee since 2003.

He apologized and repaid the state $82,688 for the worker's service, after his Republican challenger, J. Christopher Callaghan, went public with the issue. The commission, however, said the $82,688 was too little and faulted the comptroller's office for failing to keep any accounting of how the driver spent his time.

The ruling could mean a fine for Hevesi, suspension or even removal from office for breaking the public officer's law.

Commission spokesman Walter Ayres said the Legislature, where Hevesi served for 22 years as an Assemblyman, will determine the penalty. He also faces a criminal probe by the district attorney. Republican Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno and Democratic Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver had no immediate comment.

Hevesi, who also faces a criminal probe by Albany County District Attorney David Soares, had no immediate comment Monday. He told the commission in 2003 that his wife had had open heart surgery, three back surgeries and had had chronic pain for years.

"There is no question that Mrs. Hevesi suffers from debilitating illnesses ... but state employees may not use public resources to care for their loved ones. Surely, the state's comptroller may not do so," the Ethics Commission ruling said.

A WNBC/Marist College poll released Friday showed Hevesi leading Callaghan 62 percent to 22 percent among likely voters. The margin of error was plus or minus 4.5 percentage points. Of those surveyed, 51 percent said Hevesi acted unethically in failing to pay the state for the driver's service.

Read More...

Summary only...

GOP senator say Iraq is near chaos

Yahoo! News
GOP senator say Iraq is near chaos
By DEB RIECHMANN, Associated Press Writer

Under election-year pressure to change course in Iraq, the Bush administration said Monday there are no plans for dramatic shifts in policy or for ultimatums to Baghdad to force progress.

Just two weeks before the Nov. 7 elections that will determine whether Republicans retain control of Congress, the White House tried to calm political anxieties about deteriorating security in Iraq. Both Democratic and Republican lawmakers are calling on President Bush to change his war plan.

"We're on the verge of chaos, and the current plan is not working," Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said in an Associated Press interview. U.S. and Iraqi officials should be held accountable for the lack of progress, said Graham, a Republican who is a frequent critic of the administration's policies.

Asked who in particular should be held accountable — Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, perhaps, or the generals leading the war — Graham said: "All of them. It's their job to come up with a game plan" to end the violence.

Rumsfeld, in remarks at the Pentagon, said U.S. government and military officials were working with Iraq to set broad time frames for when Iraqis can take over 16 provinces that are still under the control of U.S. troops. He said officials were not talking about penalizing the Iraqis if they don't hit certain benchmarks.

The Iraqis have taken control of two southern provinces but have been slow to take the lead in others, particularly those around Baghdad and in the volatile regions north and west of the capital city. Rumsfeld said specific target dates probably will not be set. Instead, he said there might be a broader time frame — such as a one- to three-month window — for the Iraqis to take control of certain provinces.

Rumsfeld visited the White House early Monday with Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Rumsfeld said the United States was looking at when the Iraqis would move close to setting up a reconciliation process to help quell worsening sectarian violence between Sunnis and Shiites.

Frustration with the war is eroding support in Republican as well as Democratic camps.

Joseph Biden, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said two Republicans have told him they will demand a new policy in Iraq after the election. Biden declined to name the GOP lawmakers. He said Republicans have been told not to make waves before the election because it could cost the party seats. Yet some prominent GOP lawmakers have expressed doubts about Bush's policy.

White House press secretary Tony Snow said the United States was continually adjusting its strategy in Iraq.

"In that sense there are new things going on. But are there dramatic shifts in policy? The answer is no," Snow said.

"There is still a very large to-do list before Iraq is in a position to sustain, govern and defend itself," he said.

"Are we issuing ultimatums? No."

He acknowledged, however, that Bush no longer is saying that the United States will "stay the course" in Iraq.

"He stopped using it," Snow said of that phrase, adding that it left the impression that the administration was not adjusting its strategy to realities in Baghdad.

Showing progress in Iraq is critical with the approaching elections, which are widely viewed as a referendum on public support of the war. In Baghdad on Tuesday, Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, and Gen. George Casey, the top U.S. commander there, are scheduled to hold a rare joint news conference.

Facing growing impatience with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's failure to stem the carnage, Deputy Prime Minister Barham Saleh said international forces must not abandon Iraq while the situation there remains volatile.

"I do believe there is no option for the international community to cut and run," he told reporters after meeting Prime Minister Tony Blair in London. He said Iraqis and the international community need to be realistic, "but not defeatist."

"We need to understand that there is a need of utmost urgency to deal with many of the problems of Iraq but we must not give in to panic," he said.

___

Associated Press writer Anne Flaherty contributed to this report.

Read More...

Summary only...

The Mother Of All Heists: The Disappearance Of More Than $500 Million To Equip Iraqi Army

The Mother Of All Heists

60 Minutes' Steve Kroft Reports On Disappearance Of More Than $500 Million To Equip Iraqi Army

(CBS) More than half a billion dollars earmarked to fight the insurgency in Iraq was stolen by people the U.S. had entrusted to run the country's Ministry of Defense before the 2005 elections, according to Iraqi investigators.

Iraq's former minister of finance says coalition members like the U.S. and Britain are doing little to help recover the money or catch suspects, most of whom fled the country. The 60 Minutes investigation also turned up audio recordings of a suspect who seems to be discussing the transfer of $45 million to the account of a top political adviser to the interim defense minister.

Correspondent Steve Kroft reports on this mother of all heists.

"We have not been given any serious, official support from either the United States or the U.K. or any of the surrounding Arab countries,”" says Ali Allawi, who was confronted with the missing funds when he took over as Iraq’s finance minister last year.

He thinks he knows why Iraqi investigators have gotten little help. "The only explanation I can come up with is that too many people in positions of power and authority in the new Iraq have been, in one way or another, found with their hands inside the cookie jar," says Allawi, who left his post when a new Iraqi government was formed earlier this year. "And if they are brought to trial, it will cast a very disparaging light on those people who had supported them and brought them to this position of power and authority," he tells Kroft.

One of the people praised in former U.S. Ambassador L. Paul Bremer's memoirs is a major suspect in the case. Ziad Cattan was in charge of military procurement at a time when the ministry of defense went on a $1.2 billion buying spree. Allawi estimates that $750 to $800 million of that money was stolen. Judge Radhi al-Radhi, head of Iraq's Commission on Public Integrity, which investigates official corruption, tells Kroft that a lot of the money that wasn't stolen was spent on outdated, useless equipment.

"It isn't true," says Cattan, whom 60 Minutes found in Paris and who was recently convicted in absentia in Iraq for squandering public funds. He showed Kroft documents and pictures of equipment that he says is now in Iraq. An official from Jane's, one of the world’s foremost experts in military hardware, says the documents Cattan provided were too vague to prove anything.

Audio recordings obtained by 60 Minutes reveal Cattan talking to an associate in Amman, Jordan, in 2004 about the distribution of Iraqi funds. According to two independent translations, he is discussing payoffs to Iraqi officials.

One possible payoff the recordings allude to is the transfer of $45 million to the account of a top political adviser to the defense minister, a man who is also identified on the recordings as a representative of the president and the prime minister of the interim government. Cattan acknowledged his own voice was on the recordings. Three translators say he specifically mentions "45 million dollars," but he disputes the translation. "I don't say dollars," he tells Kroft. "I don't remember what the matter was."

Cattan maintains that U.S. and coalition advisors at the Iraqi Ministry of Defense approved everything he did and says the recordings have been doctored. Audio experts consulted by 60 Minutes could not find any evidence of that. Judge Radhi also has a copy of the recordings and says a former employee of the ministry of defense confessed after hearing them.

60 Minutes has learned that Cattan is building himself a villa in Poland. Another suspect, Naer Jumaili, principal in a middle-man company that handled much of the $1.2 billion in Iraqi military contracts, is said to be buying real estate in Amman, Jordan, and building himself a large villa, even though he is wanted by Interpol. Judge Rahdi believes the fugitive suspects are bribing their way to freedom and says countries like Jordan and Poland have been "no help at all" in apprehending the suspects or recovering the money.

The case is one of 2,000 Iraqi government corruption cases the judge’s commission is handling that, all told, involve $7.5 billion.

No one in the U.S. government would speak on camera about the case. But U.S. officials say this was Iraqi money spent by a sovereign Iraqi government and therefore is the Iraqis' business.

Read More...

Summary only...

At White House Meeting, No Big Changes on Iraq

washingtonpost.com
At White House Meeting, No Big Changes on Iraq
By Michael A. Fletcher
Washington Post Staff Writer

President Bush met with his top advisers and military commanders on Iraq yesterday in a White House session that, senior officials said, weighed options for forging a way forward amid the surging violence but did not contemplate any major shifts in strategy.

The participants in the 90-minute video conference -- who included Vice President Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad and Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the military commander in Iraq -- talked about tactical changes that could overcome the severe challenges posed by the war, officials said.

"The participants focused on the nature of the enemy, the challenges in Iraq, how to better pursue our strategy, and the stakes of succeeding for the region and the security of the American people," said White House spokeswoman Nicole Guillemard.

The meeting, which the White House called the third in a series Bush has held with this group to consult on the war, did not consider any significant policy changes, a senior official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss private meetings. And in his Saturday radio address, Bush offered no indications on any major shift, even as he acknowledged the increasing violence in Iraq.

"Our goal is clear and unchanging: Our goal is victory," he said. "What is changing are the tactics we use to achieve that goal. Our commanders on the ground are constantly adjusting their approach to stay ahead of the enemy, particularly in Baghdad."

The high-level meeting came amid growing U.S. frustration with the deteriorating state of affairs in Iraq, where both civilian and U.S. military casualties have sharply increased in recent weeks. The surge in violence, coupled with the growing antipathy among the American public toward the war, is feeding a sense that the Bush administration will be forced to retreat from its open-ended support of the war.

In a news conference Friday, Rumsfeld emphasized that U.S. officials are pressing the Iraqi government to offer projections about when it will be able to take over a greater share of the responsibility for securing the country and making economic and political progress.

"The biggest mistake would be not to pass things over to the Iraqis," Rumsfeld said. "It's their country. They're going to have to govern it. They're going to have to provide security for it. And they're going to have to do it sooner rather than later."

White House officials denied a New York Times report, posted yesterday afternoon on the newspaper's Web site, that said the administration is drafting a timetable for the Iraqi government to take on that greater role in securing the country.

If the Iraqis fail to meet the timetable, the Times quoted an unnamed senior Pentagon official as saying, the Bush administration would consider an abrupt shift in policy short of troop withdrawals. It would mark the first time that the administration has used deadline threats to pressure the Iraqi government to more aggressively pursue progress.

"The story is not accurate," said Frederick L. Jones II, a spokesman for the National Security Council.

White House officials said the matter was not discussed at yesterday's meeting. Still, administration officials acknowledge that they have been pressing for months for the Iraqis to take greater responsibility for disarming warring militias and to take other steps to stabilize their country.

Benchmarks have been part of the U.S. policy in Iraq for months, said Dan Bartlett, a top aide to Bush.

"Implicit in that is that if they are not achieving the benchmarks, we are going to have to make changes accordingly," Bartlett said, adding that troop withdrawals or other dramatic changes in U.S. policy are not being contemplated.

Casey has been working on a series of benchmarks for handing over to the Iraqi government control of both military bases and entire areas of the country. At a recent news conference, Casey said he expects six or seven more provinces in Iraq to come under full control of the government by the end of the year, although Rumsfeld said Friday that "there's no doubt" some of Casey's projections will not be met.

Currently, the Iraqi government has control of two of the country's 18 provinces, meaning that local police can keep order without routine help from the U.S.-led military coalition.

"We are constantly developing new tactics to achieve our goal," Jones said. "We've been coordinating with the Iraqis for months on a series of measures they can take to assume more control of their country."

Diane Farrell, a Democratic candidate for Congress, gave her party's national radio response to Bush, saying: "To be blunt, the president and the Republican Congress have been wrong on Iraq and wrong to keep their failed strategy. . . . An arbitrary departure date could be dangerous, but real goals for the new Iraqi government and its army are necessary."

Farrell, who is running against Rep. Christopher Shays in Connecticut, said Democrats will hold Bush accountable for the war in Iraq if they gain control of either the Senate or House in midterm elections next month.

Yesterday's meeting took place amid a significant increase in violence around Iraq. At least 78 U.S. troops have been killed so far in Iraq this month -- the highest daily rate since January 2005. Attacks in Baghdad have surged 43 percent since midsummer, despite the presence of thousands of U.S. troops, while nationally more than 100 Iraqis a day are being killed, according to the United Nations.

U.S. commanders are trying to decide whether to send more troops to Iraq.

Bush said in his radio address that the increase in violence is attributable in part to a more aggressive posture being taken by U.S. troops. Still, he said, Americans have faced tough battles before.

"In World War II and the Cold War, earlier generations of Americans sacrificed so that we can live in freedom," he said. "This generation will do its duty as well."

Staff writer Ann Scott Tyson contributed to this report.

Read More...

Summary only...

Rove Road-Tests Tougher Attack on Democrats

washingtonpost.com
Rove Road-Tests Tougher Attack on Democrats
By Michael Abramowitz and Zachary A. Goldfarb

BUFFALO, Oct. 21 -- Republicans have been promising they would ratchet up the rhetoric against Democrats in the final two weeks of the fall campaign, and the man President Bush called "The Architect" of his political campaigns offered a preview of what they have in mind on Friday night.

Appearing in support of embattled GOP Rep. Thomas M. Reynolds (R-N.Y.), Karl Rove offered biting jibes against House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.), took a shot at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and asserted that Democratic policies would leave the country weaker.

"You can't say I want to win the war but not be willing to fight the war," said Rove, Bush's top political adviser. "And if leading Democrats have their way, our nation will be weaker and the enemies of our nation will be stronger. And that's a stark fact, and it's the reason that this fall election will turn very heavily on national security."

Officially, Rove was speaking at the annual dinner for the Erie County Republican Party, but in many ways, the appearance was a show of support for Reynolds, the chairman of the National Republican Campaign Committee, who is in danger this fall after questions about his role in responding to the Mark Foley page scandal.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) was supposed to be the speaker at the dinner and rally, but he canceled, pleading a scheduling conflict, the Buffalo News said. McCain did speak to the rally by telephone, praising Reynolds as "one of my heroes."

Rove stepped in at dinner and used his speech to road-test new lines of attack on the Democrats. The basic themes -- that voters face a stark choice between the parties on taxes and terrorism -- have been a Bush standard. But Rove, who once claimed liberals preferred "therapy" to war against terrorists, delivered them with an acerbity not seen from his boss.

For instance, he needled congressional Democrats for voting against a GOP plan to try terrorist suspects at the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba. Many Democrats said the plan violated basic rights, but Rove rejected that. "You need to have the ability to try these people without worrying about the ACLU showing up saying, 'Wait a minute, did you Mirandize them when you found them on the battlefield,' " he said. "With all due respect, I don't happen to remember that in World War II, that when we captured Nazis and Japanese and took them to camps, that the first thing we did was provide them legal aid."

He also went after the would-be House speaker for voting against renewing the USA Patriot Act, the warrantless wiretapping program and the war in Iraq. "With a record like that, you can see why Nancy Pelosi wouldn't want this election to be about national security," Rove said.

Pelosi spokesman Brendan Daly responded, "Clearly, the White House is getting desperate to keep their rubber-stamp Republican Congress."
A Wrench in Nevada's Governor's Race

In Sin City, politics may be reaching a new low.

Less than three weeks before voters choose between Rep. Jim Gibbons (R) and state Sen. Dina Titus (D), the Nevada governor's race has been rocked by allegations that Gibbons assaulted a woman outside a Las Vegas restaurant.

Chrissy Mazzeo made three 911 calls about the incident. At a news conference Thursday, Gibbons denied wrongdoing, insisting he was helping Mazzeo regain her balance.

"I categorically deny that I ever engaged in any inappropriate behavior," said Gibbons, arguing he acted like "a gentleman."

Regardless, the story is not likely to disappear before Election Day. Gibbons and Mazzeo have hired lawyers, and the public relations fight is on in earnest.

Before the incident, Gibbons, who has held the 2nd District since 1996, appeared to be a shoo-in to replace outgoing Gov. Kenny C. Guinn (R). Gibbons labeled his Democratic rival as a Las Vegas liberal, calling her "Dina Taxes."

Although Nevada is competitive on the presidential level -- President Bush carried it 50 percent to 48 percent in 2004 -- Republicans enter most statewide races with an advantage.

It is unclear how large an impact the incident will have on Gibbons's chances. Several Republican gubernatorial candidates in such places as Iowa and Colorado have watched their numbers sink in the wake of the Foley page scandal. Gibbons has not seen the same erosion, but if this scandal continues, he may find himself in a far more competitive race than he expected.

Read More...

Summary only...

Ex-aide alleges Porter made illegal fundraising calls

Las Vegas SUN
Ex-aide alleges Porter made illegal fundraising calls
By Tony Cook

Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., made dozens of campaign fundraising phone calls last spring from his district and Washington, D.C., offices, according to a former Porter staffer and e-mails obtained by the Sun.

The former staffer, Jim Shepard, a 10-year veteran of Capitol Hill who worked briefly for Porter this year, said he witnessed Porter making the calls on at least five different dates last spring. Such calls would violate federal election laws and House ethics rules.

Porter's top congressional aide strongly denied that the congressman made such calls.

"The accusations being printed by your paper are completely false and baseless," Mike Hesse, Porter's chief of staff, said Friday in an e-mail to the Sun. "They rely solely on the claims of one former, disgruntled staffer who is lying. I believe that unbiased observers will question the legitimacy of the story and its sole source."

An e-mail obtained by the Sun shows that Shepard warned Porter's top staffers that the alleged political calls could become a major problem.

"We can NOT let him do this anymore," Shepard wrote in a June 18 e-mail to Hesse.

On another occasion, Shepard said Hesse responded to his concerns by chastising him for putting them in writing.

Hesse said he has no recollection of that e-mail. He also refused to discuss Shepard's allegations in detail unless the Sun provided him with copies of the e-mails. The Sun declined to do so, though a reporter did tell Hesse what the e-mails said.

Federal law makes it "unlawful for an individual who is an officer or employee of the federal government, including the President, Vice President, and Members of Congress, to solicit or receive a donation of money or other thing of value in connection with a Federal, State, or local election, while in any room or building occupied in the discharge of official duties by an officer or employee of the United States, from any person."

The law carries a penalty of up to three years in prison and a fine of up to $5,000.

U.S. House of Representatives ethics rules specifically ban soliciting campaign contributions in or from any House office, room or building.

"A telephone solicitation from a House office or building would not be permissible merely because the call is billed to a credit card of a political organization or to an outside telephone number, or because it is made using a cell phone in the hallway," the House Campaign Booklet says.

Lawmakers have been especially careful to avoid making phone calls from congressional offices since Vice President Al Gore became embroiled in a 1997 controversy surrounding dozens of calls that he made from his office in the White House.

Although a controversial decision by then-Attorney General Janet Reno cleared Gore, the ethical questions surrounding his fundraising calls continued to dog his unsuccessful presidential bid. The furor surrounding his money-raising practices - and those of President Bill Clinton and the Democratic National Committee - set in motion campaign finance reforms that helped strengthen the ban on soliciting political contributions from federal offices.

On each of the five dates in question, Porter made five to 15 fundraising calls, said Shepard, who was the congressman's executive assistant and scheduler from March to the end of June.

"He made fundraising calls both from his D.C. congressional office and his district office in Henderson," Shepard said. "While I worked for him, he did it at least five times. I was personally there."

Shepard said he witnessed Porter make fundraising calls with a campaign cell phone from his Henderson office on April 17, 18 and 21 in anticipation of President Bush's fundraising visit to Las Vegas for the two-term Republican congressman April 24. On two days in mid-June, Porter, again using a campaign phone, made fundraising calls from his Washington office, Shepard said.

During some of those calls, Shepard said he took notes while sitting directly across from Porter at his desk in his Henderson and Washington offices. Porter used call sheets provided by his campaign, Shepard said. The call sheets included specific "asks" - amounts of money that Porter would request the potential donor to contribute, Shepard said. While the calls were being made, Shepard would sometimes e-mail Porter's campaign staff to inform them of specific amounts of money donors had committed to give.

"I was shocked and appalled at Porter's blatant disregard of the law," said Shepard, who before working for Porter served on the staffs of Sen. Jon Ensign, R-Nev., and Sen. David Durenberger, R-Minn.

Now a consultant living in Virginia, he said he is not working on any Nevada campaigns this fall.

Porter has refused to speak to the Sun about this story.

Even though they were made with campaign cell phones, the alleged calls would violate federal election law and House ethics rules, according to political and legal experts. The critical fact, they say, is not which phones were used, but the locations where the calls originated.

Because campaign laws and ethics rules prohibit lawmakers from making calls from their offices, political parties have set up phone banks at party headquarters near congressional offices.

Porter's House office is in a prime position, just across the street from his party's Washington headquarters.

In a Sept. 19 story, Lisa Mascaro, the Sun's Washington correspondent, wrote about Porter making weekly fundraising calls from the phones at GOP headquarters.

Any campaign fundraising calls made from Porter's official government offices would violate the law, legal and campaign experts said.

"If he did it knowingly and willfully, then it would be a violation," said Jan Baran, former general counsel to the Republican National Committee.

Richard Morgan, dean of UNLV's Boyd School of Law, said that, in general, a campaign fundraising call placed from a district or Washington congressional office violates federal law.

"It doesn't say it matters what phone you are using," he said.

Paul Herrnson, director of the Center for American Politics and Citizenship at the University of Maryland, said Porter clearly broke the law if Shepard's accusations are true.

"Anyone who ... even makes fundraising phone calls from a federal office is violating the law," he said. "Members of Congress are well aware that it is illegal."

Hesse made a blanket denial of Shepard's allegations.

"In regard to that charge, we follow all rules and regulations as they pertain to federal elections to the letter," he said in an interview. "There have never been any calls from the district office or the Washington office."

But Shepard said he raised concerns about the calls on several occasions, including in the e-mail that drew a rebuke from Hesse over creating an electronic "paper" trail.

"I don't recall him doing that," Hesse said. "I am not saying he didn't, but I would have remembered something like that."

In an April 17 e-mail from Shepard to Porter's deputy chief of staff, Brook Allmon, Shepard asked her to change the congressman's schedule for the next day to clear time for Porter to make fundraising calls from his Henderson office because Porter did not want to make the 20-mile drive to the Summerlin office of November Inc., the company he used for campaign consulting.

"Would you please update the schedule to reflect call time from the office? They don't want to go to Nov Inc.," Shepard wrote.

Porter was under pressure from his campaign to squeeze in as many calls as possible before Bush's visit, Shepard said.

On June 18, Shepard expressed his concerns about the campaign fundraising calls from Porter's Washington office.

"We can NOT let him do this anymore... The U.S. Criminal Codes makes it unlawful to solicit or to receive any political contribution in any building where Federal employees work (18 U.S. Code 607)," Shepard wrote to Hesse.

Shepard said he resigned June 29 because of concerns about the phone calls and other issues.

"I could not continue to work for a legislator that I did not respect and who did not follow the law," Shepard said.

He said he knows and respects Porter's opponent, Democrat Tessa Hafen, but is not working on her campaign.

He said November Inc. employee Mary Mai also was present when Porter made some of the fundraising calls from his government office.

"I would prefer not to make a comment," she told the Sun. "I no longer work for the campaign."

Hesse concluded his e-mail to the Sun by writing: "It is important to remember that your newspaper has contributed $22,600 to Congressman Porter's opponent and has recently endorsed her."

The Sun does not make political contributions. The editor of the Sun, Brian Greenspun, and his wife, Myra, have personally contributed a total of $6,400 to Hafen. Other members of the Greenspun family, none of whom has any management authority over the Sun, have contributed an additional $14,900 to Hafen's campaign. Another family member has contributed $1,000 to Porter. The Sun has endorsed Hafen.

Read More...

Summary only...

Joe Lieberman's Slush Fund Problem

Huffington Post
Matt Stoller
Joe Lieberman's Slush Fund Problem

The practice of vote-buying is not new or surprising in American history, but sometimes the case is particularly brazen. The FEC as a regulatory agency was created to stop these illegal practices in elections, and the key to stopping these practices, or at least limiting them, is disclosure. When someone's not disclosing, they are often not engaging in honest electioneering.

And when someone's not disclosing where $387,000 in campaign cash went in the final days before a primary, well, that's sort of a big red flag.

Speaking of which, Joe Lieberman just reported on his FEC form $387,000 in petty cash disbursements for the last eight days of the primary campaign against Ned Lamont. That's 8% of the total amount he spent, and an incredibly high number. It's also illegal; petty cash disbursements are not supposed to go above $100 apiece, for the simple reason that vote-buying, money-laundering and other illegal and unsavory tactics are easily accomplished when you can just hand out cash, as the Lieberman campaign apparently did.

I almost can't believe the sloppiness here, and the poor handling of the issue from Joe's campaign. It just doesn't seem reasonable for such an experienced politician. And yet, the campaign is now saying that they used the money to pay volunteers (leave the irony alone for a second on that), and went on the attack against Ned Lamont. Lieberman spoksewoman Tammy Sun is simply denying that the Lieberman campaign did anything wrong.

"This is just another reckless charge from a desperate campaign that is obsessed with reliving the primary," said Lieberman spokeswoman Tammy Sun. "The fact is, our attorney has assured us that the petty cash expenditures and the rest of our FEC report is in full compliance with the law's disclosure requirements just as every campaign Joe Lieberman has run for the last 18 years has been."

Who's the lawyer for Lieberman, because I don't believe that any competent lawyer would say anything of the sort. The law looks clear to me.

A political committee may maintain a petty cash fund out of which it may make expenditures not in excess of $100 to any person per purchase or transaction. If a petty cash fund is maintained, it shall be the duty of the treasurer of the political committee to keep and maintain a written journal of all disbursements. This written journal shall include the name and address of every person to whom any disbursement is made, as well as the date, amount, and purpose of such disbursement. In addition, if any disbursement is made for a candidate, the journal shall include the name of that candidate and the office (including State and Congressional district) sought by such candidate.

Let's get beyond the partisan foodfights for a second here and recognize a basic fact. This is $387,000, in cold hard untraceable cash that Lieberman collected and disbursed. We're not talking going out and getting donuts for some volunteers.

This could be a serious legal situation for Lieberman, and he needs to explain it and not just go on the attack. Vote-buying is illegal.

And if this were some sort of clerical error, why couldn't Tammy Sun just admit that and have the story go away?

All in all, it's very confusing. There are much better ways to hide payoffs than reporting illegal disbursements on your publicly accessible FEC report, but then again, the Lieberman staff at the time probably knew that they were all being fired after the primary and were totally exhausted. Attention to detail tends to lapse at times like that. Or maybe there's an innocent explanation, the Lieberman just illegal paid $387,000 in cash to canvassers in the last few days and forgot to catalogue it like the law demands.

I'm only certain of one thing. The Lieberman campaign is hiding something. Whether it's embarrassment at their incompetence or criminal activity I don't know. But they didn't admit a simple mistake and come clean, and that's very strange.

Read More...

Summary only...

Foley singled out "hot" boys: report

Reuters
Foley singled out "hot" boys: report

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Florida Republican Rep. Mark Foley made friends with a wide circle of teenaged House of Representatives pages, then singled out "hot" boys to write to, The Washington Post reported on Sunday.

The newspaper said it had identified four more former pages who said they were sexually solicited by Foley, who has resigned since the scandal broke last month.

One former page, who was not identified, said Foley sent him e-mails when he was 16 asking about "my roommates, if I ever saw them naked." Later, the former page said Foley hinted about a job opportunity "because I was a hot boy," the newspaper quoted him as saying.

Two years later, the page, now 22, said, he wrote Foley to ask about hotels in Washington. "You could always stay at my place. I'm always here, I'm always lonely, and I'm always up for oral sex," he quoted the disgraced former member of Congress as saying.

Another former page said he felt he had to flirt with Foley, who has said he is homosexual and an alcoholic and that he was abused by a priest as a child.

"I didn't want to piss off a member of an institution that I really revered," the former Republican page said.

"I figured maybe someday I will want to be involved in Congress," the newspaper quoted him as saying. "I didn't want to make an enemy."

Republican leaders have said they did not know about the explicit e-mails sent by Foley before media reports, but a former top aide to Foley has said he told senior aides to House Speaker Dennis Hastert about Foley's behavior three years ago.

The scandal has added to a growing list of threats to Republican domination of the House in next month's elections.

Read More...

Summary only...