There's a lot of interesting traffic around this. Since it makes sense for Obama from simply a numbers standpoint to sidestep the limitations associated with public financing, I have to wonder why, other than shere jealousy, people are making such a big deal about this. Still, I kind of need someone to explain some of the history of this to me, because, as a convenient excuse, I wasn't living here at the time.
Mr. McCain sent a letter to the commission on Feb. 7 saying he had decided to decline the matching money for his primary campaign. His request for public money, in which the government matches campaign contributions, was made last year as the campaign was running out of cash.
After his fortunes began to rise from his victory New Hampshire and campaign gifts increased, however, Mr. McCain decided against taking the public money. Taking it would have limited his spending between now and the Republican convention in September to $40 million.
Late last year, the FEC approved $5.8 million in public funds for John McCain's presidential campaign. That sounds simple enough, but there's a hitch: even though the money was approved in December, it wasn't actually scheduled to be disbursbed until March. Therefore, if McCain wanted to use the money, he need to take out a loan from a bank, using the FEC's approval as collateral. Such loans are standard operating procedure. (John Edwards did exactly this.) McCain, however, wanted to preserve the option of not participating in the public financing system, so on December 20 (that date is important) his spokesman told Politico's Ken Vogel that he hadn't taken out any such loans.
Campaigns have traditionally taken out bank loans against FEC certifications of matching funds like the ones issued Thursday. ... McCain, an Arizona senator, has “not made a decision on matching funds,” said spokeswoman Jill Hazelbaker, who added the campaign hasn’t borrowed against anticipated matching funds.
So to recap so far:
McCain was authorized for $5.8 million in public funds If he wanted access to any of that before March, he needed to take out a loan using the funds as collateral. On December 20, 2007, a McCain spokesman told a journalist that McCain had not taken out any loans using the funds as collateral. Here's where the lie comes in: John McCain did take out a loan using the funds as collateral, and he took it out before December 20, 2007. The Washington Post broke the news in mid-February (h/t: Mark Schmitt):
John McCain's cash-strapped campaign borrowed $1 million from a Bethesda bank two weeks before the New Hampshire primary by pledging to enter the public financing system if his bid for the presidency faltered, newly disclosed records show.
The original loan agreement (h/t: Mark Schmitt) is dated November 24, 2007. On December 17, 2007, another $1 million was added to the loan -- using public funds as collateral. Here's the key part of the agreement:
Borrower will...grant to Lender, as additional collateral for the Loan, a first priority perfected security interest in and to all Borrower's right, title and interest in and to the public matching funds program.
You cannot get any more clear than that. According to the amended agreement, John McCain used public funds as collateral for the loan. The amendment was dated December 17 and was signed by Rick Davis, his campaign manager, on December 18. Yet two days later, the McCain campaign spokeswoman told the media the campaign had entered into no such loan agreement. So now the question is: where is the media's outrage at the McCain campaign's bald-faced lie about public financing.
Olbermann's Special Comment on Hillary's Use of "Assassination"
"Senator Clinton, you actually used the word 'assassination' in a time when there is a fear, unspoken but vivid and terrible, that our again-troubled land and fractured political landscape might target a black man running for president." --Keith Olbermann
Hillary Clinton, you have disgraced yourself and your supporters for the last time. Please go away now, before you help John McCain get elected in November.
Debbie Shank breaks down in tears every time she's told that her 18-year-old son, Jeremy, was killed in Iraq.
The 52-year-old mother of three attended her son's funeral, but she continues to ask how he's doing. When her family reminds her that he's dead, she weeps as if hearing the news for the first time.
Shank suffered severe brain damage after a traffic accident nearly eight years ago that robbed her of much of her short-term memory and left her in a wheelchair and living in a nursing home.
It was the beginning of a series of battles -- both personal and legal -- that loomed for Shank and her family. One of their biggest was with Wal-Mart's health plan.
Eight years ago, Shank was stocking shelves for the retail giant and signed up for Wal-Mart's health and benefits plan.
Two years after the accident, Shank and her husband, Jim, were awarded about $1 million in a lawsuit against the trucking company involved in the crash. After legal fees were paid, $417,000 was placed in a trust to pay for Debbie Shank's long-term care.
Wal-Mart had paid out about $470,000 for Shank's medical expenses and later sued for the same amount. However, the court ruled it can only recoup what is left in the family's trust.
The Shanks didn't notice in the fine print of Wal-Mart's health plan policy that the company has the right to recoup medical expenses if an employee collects damages in a lawsuit.
The family's attorney, Maurice Graham, said he informed Wal-Mart about the settlement and believed the Shanks would be allowed to keep the money.
"We assumed after three years, they [Wal-Mart] had made a decision to let Debbie Shank use this money for what it was intended to," Graham said.
The Shanks lost their suit to Wal-Mart. Last summer, the couple appealed the ruling -- but also lost it. One week later, their son was killed in Iraq.
I should add that I probably wouldn't have heard this despicable story were it not for "Countdown with Keith Olbermann" on MSNBC. Here is what Keith had to say about this story:
"Contrary to general opinion, Wal-Mart is not owned by the devil. Its stockholders are not uniformly horrible people. The stores often do not destroy, and sometimes even improve communities. But you know why people think of "Wal-Mart" and "evil" in the same sentence? Because of the crap you guys do like this.
Instead of letting this one go. And maybe putting out a press release saying, "We take care of our own." Maybe you get $470,000 of good publicity? No. Now you get this.
Wal-Mart's profit last year was over $11 billion dollars, including $470,000 it got back from Mrs. Shank, who is, between the truck that hit her, and what you amoral Wal-Mart trolls did to her, she is so confused that she doesn't really understand that six days after you beat her in court, her 18-year-old son was killed fighting for this country in Iraq.
No, they're not all trending heavily towards Barack Obama.
No, all are beneficiaries of tax cuts in the Senate budget that is "all but certain" to be accepted by the House.
No, seriously, I'm not making this up.
Mind you, I'm fine with cutting taxes for the working poor. Any extra wages they get to keep are more likely to be spent, and stimulate the economy, than tax cuts benefiting wealthy Americans. Tax cuts for married couples and people with children might have similar benefits... but those inheriting large estates?
Here's a little more detail to satisfy your inner wonk:
Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois, pushed through a plan to selectively preserve $340 billion of President Bush's tax cuts through 2013. It would extend the 10 percent tax bracket, the $1,000 per child tax credit, relief from the so-called marriage penalty and various tax cuts for people serving in the military and national guard.
Senate Republicans rallied behind a losing effort to extend an additional $376 billion of Bush's tax cuts by preserving all other current tax rates. Otherwise those rates will rise 3 percentage points at the end of 2010 and the highest rate will rise from 35 percent to 39.6 percent. The GOP plan also would have provided more generous relief on inheritances. Estates worth up to $5 million for individuals and $10 million for couples would have been exempted from the estate tax, with a 35 percent rate above those inheritance levels. That rate is now scheduled to return to 55 percent in 2011.
Ism't it enough to exempt estates worth $5 million for a single person and $10 million for a married couple? Or should we exempt the first $20 million? Or just the first million? How many people are we talking about? Is taxing the amount above $5 or $10 million at the 55% rate too egregious? Is it somehow a disincentive against earning? My millionaire friends all gripe about this... "You know, I would LOVE to have an estate worth $11 million, but I just can't stand the thought of our government taxing that extra million after my wife and I are dead."
Forget about the primaries, even though eight states have yet to vote. Hillary Clinton can’t win now anyway, at least not without subterfuge, coercion or fraud. Despite the fact that the numbers – delegates and dollars – are against her, she refuses to give up.
What the Democratic Party really needs now is an audition. They know who their opponent will be in November, so why continue to go after each other? Having Senators Barack Obama and Clinton attack each other for seven more weeks only helps the other party.
Solution: the Senators spend this time making their case to the American people why they should be elected instead of Sen. McCain. That’s what Democratic voters need to know right now.
"He made a decision to reverse himself on that. That was how, I guess, you got your ticket punched to be the Republican nominee. But he was right then, and he's wrong now."
Here is why Clinton should follow Obama's tack, and it serve two purposes: it bolsters the eventual Democratic nominee by essentially giving double coverage to criticism of McCain. And it will eliminate Democrat-on-Democrat mudslinging, which only helps McCain by hurting the eventual nominee.
"This business of Ralph Nader being a spoiler — you know, in any three-way race, two of the three are going to be spoilers. Come on. Everybody's got a right to do it — you're not spoiling anything."
"If people want to vote for you, let them vote for you, and why shouldn't they?"
"I've just never understood why, just because you're a member of a party, you have special rights. That's not the civics that I learned in junior high school, and if Ralph Nader wants to run, good luck to him." -New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg on Ralph Nader
"I think the job of the Democratic Party is to be so compelling that a few percentage [points] of the vote going to another candidate is not going to make any difference." -Barack Obama on Ralph Nader
In case you hadn't heard, legendary consumer advocate Ralph Nader is running for president. He makes a great case for his candidacy on today's Talk of the Nation, speaking about how our system is rigged and how it was more open to third parties in the 19th century.
Cutting the huge, bloated and wasteful military budget, adopting a single payer Canadian-style national health insurance system, impeaching Bush/Cheney, opposing nuclear power - among many others.
I'm also sick and tired of hearing the same old tired lie about Nader costing Al Gore the 2000 election. Most people know that George Bush won Florida by just 537 votes, and that Nader received over 90,000 votes. What they don't know is that every third party candidate in Florida received much more than 537 votes, much more than Bush's margin of victory over Gore:
Patrick Buchanan (Reform) - 17,484 votes
Harry Browne (Libertarian) - 16,415 votes
John Hagelin (Natural Law) - 2,281 votes
Howard Phillips (Constitution) - 1,378 votes
Of course there were a lot of things that caused Gore to lose in 2000 -- running a tepid campaign without Bill Clinton on the trail, poor debate performances, losing his home state, not contesting rampant voter fraud in Florida, Supreme Court partisanship, etc -- but Nader's candidacy was not among them.
"Time for debate is over. I will not accept any temporary extension. House members have had plenty of time to pass a good bill.
Urging swift adoption of permanent legislation, Bush charged Wednesday that the goal of the militants was "to bring destruction to our shores that will make September 11 pale by comparison.
"To carry out their plans, they must communicate with each other. They must recruit operatives. And they must share information. The lives of countless Americans depend on our ability to monitor these communications.
"It is time for Congress to ensure the flow of vital intelligence is not disrupted. It is time for Congress to pass a law that provides a long-term foundation to protect our country. They must do so immediately."
What Bush doesn't make clear, nor has he ever made clear, is why communications can't be monitored with FISA court approval, ie why we should abandon FISA to allow unregulated wiretapping.
Three of the five remaining presidential candidates (are Huckabee and Paul still running?) are sitting US Senators, and their votes on FISA tell us a lot about their potential presidencies.
Sen. McCain voted to preserve telecom immunity, siding with Bush. Despite his reputation for being a maverick and an independent, McCain is little more than Bush's toady on issues relating to national (in)security.
Sen. Obama voted against telecom immunity, siding with "30 fellow Democrats to allow the telecom companies to face lawsuits, which civil liberties groups consider a crucial chance to unearth information on the administration's programme of wiretapping without a court warrant." (Or did Obama not vote on FISA?! Do you believe a government website or the mainstream media?)
Sen. Clinton didn't bother to vote at all, effectively helping the 49 Republicans and 18 Democrats who supported Bush. What kept her away from Washington for the vote? Hillary is running for President, of course! Psst... Hillary, yesterday's primaries were in Maryland, Virginia and Washington, DC. So please tell me again why you couldn't show up to vote against telecom immunity? My guess is that it has to do with something like this.
I've had several conversations with friends over the last few days about the role of so-called superdelegates in the Democratic Party's nominating process. More than once I've heard that they were created in response to the George McGovern campaign in 1972, to shift control away from party officials and into the hands of primary and caucus voters, but that's not quite right. They were actually created after the 1980 election as a response to the McGovern reforms. Superdelegates were meant to put the power back into the hands of the party elite. And look what the "reforms" gave Democrats, "the blandest, lamest, most uninspiring candidates... Mondale, Dukakis, Gore, Kerry."
Not many people knew much about superdelegates until Super Tuesday, but America is now getting a crash course on just how odd, esoteric and dysfunctional our "democracy" really is.
In the Iowa Democratic caucuses last month, Democrats had no right to cast a secret ballot. In tonight's Super Tuesday primary, Republican Party rules dictate that the state of Georgia will send more delegates (72) than Illinois (70) to the party's presidential nominating convention. Illinois has a larger population than Georgia, but Georgia has more reliable Republican voters. In the Democratic Nevada caucuses, rural votes counted more than urban ones, and while Hillary Clinton got more popular votes in the state than Barack Obama, it appears Obama will capture 13 of Nevada's Democratic delegates compared to Clinton's 12. Orthodox Jews complained that they couldn't vote in the Saturday morning Nevada caucuses. In California tonight, if neither Clinton nor Obama gets more than 62 percent of the vote in a congressional district, the two are likely to split the district-based delegates evenly. On the Republican side in the California primary, Romney and McCain are targeting the few Republican voters in heavily Democratic districts, because some of California's Republican delegates are awarded based on the winner of each congressional district, not the statewide winner. And when the primaries are over, under the Democratic Party rules, "superdelegates" such as big-city mayors—who have not been chosen by voters—could hold the balance of power between Clinton and Obama in a brokered summer convention.
Democrats fall in love, Republicans fall in line. Or so goes the saying. But just six weeks ago, it appeared that the Democrats were the ones falling in line while the Republicans were looking for love in all the wrong places.
Will we know who the nominees are? Not likely. The fact that no candidate will have enough delegates on either side to secure their party's nomination shouldn't keep the mainstream media from nudging the electorate a bit closer to what it has wanted all along: a two-candidate race. But which two candidates?
On the Republican side, don't expect today's results to narrow their gang of four. John McCain is the frontrunner, but his polling leads in California, Georgia, Tennessee and Alabama are all within the margin of error. Mitt Romney is favored in Massachusetts and could pull off a surprise win in California. Mike Huckabee may be viewed as a spoiler by some, but he just won the West Virginia caucus. Ron Paul seems to have more money than he knows how to spend and stands to lose nothing by staying in the race as long as he cares to.
On the Democratic side, things are a bit more clear since John Edwards suspended his campaign. Clinton and Obama are now in a virtual deadheat in national polls. Obama leads in California polls after trailing up until a week ago, while others states are close enough to be considered anyone's to win. Add to this that the Democrats award delegates proportionately and that the states after Super Tuesday seem to favor Obama and one might conclude that Obama has momentum.
Despite the media's relentless drive to eliminate all but a few candidates even after just a small number of delegates had been awarded -- Clinton leads with 241 and needs 2,025 to win; McCain leads with 111 and needs 1,191 to win -- voters are finally making up their own minds and defying expectations. Polls begin to close in the next ten minutes. I'm looking forward to seeing plenty of surprises in the results and how they are reported.
There are some real gems within this piece, but aside from the 'way the world works' time line of the article, there are a few lesser details that I find interesting.
A spokesman for Mr. Clinton said the former president knew that Mr. Giustra had mining interests in Kazakhstan but was unaware of "any particular efforts" and did nothing to help. Mr. Giustra said he was there as an "observer only" and there was "no discussion" of the deal with Mr. Nazarbayev or Mr. Clinton.
But Moukhtar Dzhakishev, president of Kazatomprom, said in an interview that Mr. Giustra did discuss it, directly with the Kazakh president, and that his friendship with Mr. Clinton "of course made an impression." Mr. Dzhakishev added that Kazatomprom chose to form a partnership with Mr. Giustra's company based solely on the merits of its offer.
After The Times told Mr. Giustra that others said he had discussed the deal with Mr. Nazarbayev, Mr. Giustra responded that he "may well have mentioned my general interest in the Kazakhstan mining business to him, but I did not discuss the ongoing" efforts...
Both Mr. Clinton and Mr. Giustra at first denied that any such meeting occurred. Mr. Giustra also denied ever arranging for Kazakh officials to meet with Mr. Clinton. Wednesday, after The Times told them that others said a meeting, in Mr. Clinton's home, had in fact taken place, both men acknowledged it.
So over and above the transparent whoring of his status as a former president, we get the continuation of a pattern of bold faced and easily disproved lies.
Billy Carter brought at least some small amount of shame to his brother and the White House by attempting to market a PBR knock-off under the label of "Billy Beer". Note that it wasn't "Carter Beer", or "Hey, y'all, my bubbas the F'ing president and all Beer". Just "Billy Beer". Poor Billy. So unsophisticated. That's not how to exploit nearness to power. I would give an exhaustive list of the Bush family's rather comprehensive demonstration of how it is done, but after some quick research to flesh out the list I found that several dozen pages would only provide the most rudimentary sketch. (Nazi war profiteer druggie Whitewater smuggler treasonous terrorist loving Iran Contra jail bait scum)
Just think of all the glory that awaits us with yet another opportunist Bill who is related to the president.
To the editors of the New York Times, the quality of leadership seems not to be an "issue." The ability to unite the country is not an "issue." What Obama calls the empathy deficit -- attunement to the experience and needs of real people -- is not an "issue." Honesty is not an "issue." Trust is not an "issue." Moral judgment is not an "issue." Values are not "issues." Adherence to democratic ideals -- rather than political positioning, triangulation, and incrementalism -- are not "issues." Inspiration, a call to a higher purpose, and a transcendence of interest-based politics are not "issues."
It is time to understand what counts as an "issue," to whom, and why.
In Thinking Points, the handbook for progressives that the Rockridge Institute staff and I wrote last year, we began by analyzing Ronald Reagan's strengths as a politician. According to his chief strategist, Richard Wirthlin, Reagan realized that most voters do not vote primarily on the basis of policies, but rather on (1) values, (2) connection, (3) authenticity, (4) trust, and (5) identity. That is, Reagan spoke about his values, and policies for him just exemplified values. He connected viscerally with people. He was perceived as authentic, as really believing what he said. As a result, people trusted him and identified with him. Even if they had different positions on issues, they knew where he stood. Even when his economic policies did not produce a "Morning in America," voters still felt a connection to him because he spoke to what they wanted America to be. That was what allowed Reagan to gain the votes of so many independents and Democrats.
There is a reason that Obama recently spoke of Reagan. Reagan understood that you win elections by drawing support from independents and the opposite side. He understood what unified the country so that he could lead it according to his vision. His vision was a radical conservative one, a vision devastating for the country and contradicted by his economic policies.
Obama understands the importance of values, connection, authenticity, trust, and identity.
But his vision is deeply progressive. He proposes to lead in a very different direction than Reagan. Crucially, he adds to that vision a streetwise pragmatism: his policies have to do more than look good on paper; they have to bring concrete material results to millions of struggling Americans in the lower and middle classes. They have to meet the criteria of a community organizer.
The Clintonian policy wonks don't seem to understand any of this. They have trivialized Reagan's political acumen as an illegitimate triumph of personality over policy. They confuse values with programs. They have underestimated authenticity and trust.
My gut feeling is that Tuesday will soon prove to be a big day in Florida, not so much for specific Democratic candidates because they can't win any delegates, but now we can begin to eliminate some scenarios for the general election. In other words, my intuition is that Florida was a "one small step for the nominations, one giant leap for the general elections" primary.
First, let us all breathe a collective sigh of relief that Giuliani is now out of the picture having finished 3rd in his most crucial state. I'm sure I'm not the only one who genuinely feared his being elected to president. The last thing we need is a "tougher" on "terror" president who also happens to have a vindictive streak. Give me a simpleton or a religious zealot over that any day of the week. Even better than any of these latter possibilities is the guy who is probably going to get the nomination...
Second, of all the evils coming from the Republican side, McCain is by far the least and I think Florida is going to seal the nomination for him. I feel that he is a sincere individual who lives by principle. However, his greatest hamartia, in my opinion, is his desire to escalate in Iraq. While his reasons are logical, the implementation and results of continued action in Iraq are likely to be expensive and sloppy (i.e. more of the same). Barring a well-timed terrorist attack closer to the elections, I have a feeling that his militarism will be his undoing.
Third, Florida has in recent history been a Republican state. But the turnout yesterday was decidedly in favor of the Democrats. Note that Florida was a closed primary for both sides, somewhat discrediting the notion that Democrats have enjoyed a numerical advantage in the primaries because they have remained open to independents.
Lastly, we can probably be confident that the two most centrist candidates will once again get the nominations--but I think I'm going to vote for Obama or Edwards despite the inevitable. I feel like I need to cast a protest vote against the Clinton campaign and firmly against the war right now, just to make myself feel better. I'll vote for Senator Clinton come November.
The "we" that could lose is ostensibly the Democrats. But what's this about putting a progressive in the White House? The media has effectively narrowed down the Democratic field to two candidates, each backed by tens of millions in campaign funds, while the party's nominee for Vice President in 2004 is now merely an afterthought after just three states have cast their votes. Who is the progressive that MoveOn is referring to, Dennis Kucinich?
John McCain and Barack Obama, at least according to the conventional wisdom, are both attracting independent voters. The problem, at least as far as progressives should be concerned, is that both McCain and Obama are courting moderate conservatives, not progressives. As always, progressives are expected to hold their noses and accept what the Democratic Party has given them for the past two decades: a moderate conservative alternative to the other party's moderate conservative candidate. Except the last Republican campaigned as a moderate (compassionate) conservative then turned out to be a died-in-the-wool, free market, shock doctrine neoconservative.
If voters do ultimately get a McCain-Clinton or McCain-Obama race, progressives have already lost this election. But anyone would be better than Bush, right?
There are many types of reports that use the Earth’s population reduced to 100 people, especially in the Internet. Ideas like this should be more often shared, especially nowadays when the world seems to be in need of dialogue and understanding among different cultures, in a way that it has never been before.
The text that originated this webmovie was published on May 29, 1990 with the title “State of the Village Report”, and it was written by Donella Meadows, who passed away in February 2000. Nowadays Sustainability Institute, through Donella’s Foundation, carries on her ideas and projects.
The text used here has been modified. The statistics have been updated based on specialized publications, and mainly reports on the World’s population provided by The UN, PRB and others.
The Miniature Earth website was first published in 2001, since than it has been seen by more than 2 million people around the globe and linked by more than 20,000 websites.
With 90 percent of precincts reporting, Hilary Clinton has won Nevada, getting 51 percent to Barack Obama's 45 percent. John Edwards, who was polling as high as 27 percent at the beginning of the week, received less than 4 percent.
The mainstream media has finally gotten what it always wanted - two celebrity candidates. For the past year now, the MSM has been reporting on the Democratic field as if it were a two-person race, even when there were other more experienced, and some might argue more qualified candidates running, e.g. Governor Bill Richardson, Senator Joe Biden, Senator Chris Dodd and Rep. Dennis Kucinich.
The focus on Clinton and Obama, to the exclusion of the others, didn't change after Edwards finished second in Iowa. In fact, it got even worse. The fact that Biden and Dodd dropped out after a caucus was held in just one small, mostly White state only reinforced the perception that the media was right to ignore their campaigns. After the first primary in New Hampshire, Richardson dropped out. And for the most recent debate in Las Vegas this Tuesday, only three candidates were even invited, even though Kucinich has not dropped out and a judge had initially ruled that he should be included. Incidentally, in a focus group conducted after Las Vegas, most voters felt Edwards won. The media didn't care.
Now that Edwards has been poorly received in Nevada, the media has what it promised all along: a race between a woman and a black man. Certainly the candidacies of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are historic and provide sufficient reason to celebrate, but what about the voters in the other 47 states? Their choices were narrowed down from eight to two before they knew much about the candidates who were running.
There are just three scheduled debates left before Super Tuesday, February 5:
Myrtle Beach, SC next Monday
Boca Rotan, FL on Sun, Jan 27
Hollywood, CA on Thu, Jan 31.
I think its safe to assume that neither Clinton nor Obama will have received a majority of delegates by then, and Edwards will still be running. Is it safe to assume that John Edwards will be invited to these last three debates? If Edwards continues to push the party's agenda forward, as he has for the past year, and "wins" these debates, will voters notice if the media doesn't care?
Billy Carter brought at least some small amount of shame to his brother and the White House by attempting to market a PBR knock-off under the label of "
