Islamophobia in Texas : Fear-Mongering in Race for Education Board

Republican Bradley: Opponent soft on Islam.
By Lisa Falkenberg

Watch out, parents. Democratic State Board of Education candidate Laura Ewing wants to convert your children to Islam.

At least, that's the implication of a campaign ad from her opponent, Republican David Bradley of Beaumont.

"Do you know what the Democrat for State Board of Education supports?" reads the handout, which was disseminated at a recent gathering of the Golden Triangle Republican Women and trumpeted earlier this year at a Republican senatorial convention.

The handout features a 2004 newsletter article documenting the scandalous details: In 2003, Ewing was one of nearly 20 social studies educators who traveled to Africa and India to study (gasp!) Islamic history and culture, with plans to develop curriculum for Texas schoolchildren in sixth-grade world cultures classes and high school-level world geography and history.

Fair game for fear-mongers

Need more proof? Bradley's ad features a photo of Ewing, former teacher, social studies curriculum specialist and Friendswood city councilwoman, caught red-handed, posing in front of the Taj Mahal!

Ewing admits her guilt: Yes, the educator dared to educate herself about Islamic culture, including everything from architecture to poetry.

Why did she do it? She claims it has nothing to do with converting Texas students to Islam, and everything to do with another radical philosophy: "We've got to understand other people because we're a global economy," she says. "We've got to prepare our students for the 21st century."

Where does she get this stuff?

Apparently, ties to Islam — any ties at all — are fair game for fear-mongers this election season. No exception for this down-ballot, but pivotal race for the Southeast Texas seat on the 11-member state education board.

It's easy to dismiss Bradley's campaign handout as dirty campaigning with an unusually bigoted bent.

And his argument is further undercut by some inconvenient facts: It was Bradley's fellow Republican, Gov. Rick Perry, who worked with the University of Texas and the Aga Khan Foundation, to help arrange the trip for the social studies educators. And, Bradley admits that he voted, in his first term on the state board, for the state curriculum standards that call for students to study other cultures and religions.

The 'A' word

But the campaign piece represents more than politics of fear. It's a poignant example of the kind of logic, or illogic, that Bradley, the board's vice chairman, applies to crucial decisions involving curriculum and textbook selection affecting every public schoolchild in this state.

This is the man who, in my column in April, called critical thinking "gobbledygook." He's one of the board members who scrapped recommendations from educators from 17 literacy organizations representing 13,000 teachers in favor of a new, back-to-basics — many would say backward — reading curriculum for the next decade that eliminates the teaching of comprehension in higher grades.

And, if re-elected, the social conservative who favors teaching the weaknesses of evolution theory will help decide science curriculum standards in Texas for the next decade.

Recently, he nominated a leading promoter of intelligent design as one of six "experts" to review proposed standards. (Two others are scientists with serious doubts about Darwin.)

The board under Bradley and Chairman Don McLeroy, a College Station Republican — neither of whom have a background in education — has veered so far out of control that lawmakers are contemplating the option of converting the elected board back to an appointed one.

"I've heard the rumblings," House Public Education Chairman Rob Eissler, R-The Woodlands, told me recently. "I've heard the 'A' word."

I asked Bradley what bothered him so much about Ewing's trip.

"I think Islamic curriculum is about the furthest thing that we need to be introducing into Texas classrooms," he said, adding a bit later, "I think people are real sensitive about Islamic studies, given recent events in the United States."

Some, like Ewing, believe that sensitivity should be best addressed with more education, not more ignorance.

Back to basics

But Bradley's view of what our schools should offer is limited.

"I think we need to spend a whole lot more of our time and energy on reading, writing and arithmetic," he told me. "And, you know, if there's time to spare, the students might be able to spend a little time on some electives. But we're doing a very poor job on reading, writing and arithmetic to be spending time, money and effort on other curriculums."

And there you have it.

In 2008, the vice president of the board that decides what our children learn and what textbooks will teach it to them believes that science and social studies are unnecessary.

And traveling outside the country to learn about another culture is fodder for a political attack ad.

Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle

Source / Houston Chronicle / Posted Oct. 27, 2008

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McCain's Latest Bogeyman : Respected Scholar Rashid Khalidi

The McCain campaign's latest bogeyman, historian Rashid Khalidi.
'McCain's and Palin's attacks on Khalidi are frankly racist.

'He is a distinguished scholar, and the only objectionable thing about him from a rightwing point of view is that he is a Palestinian.'
By Juan Cole / October 30, 2008

See three related Videos, Below.

Also see 'McCain Gave Money to Khalidi' by Matthew Yglesias, Below

The increasingly sleazy John McCain, who once promised to run a clean campaign, has now attacked my friend Rashid Khalidi and attempted to use him against Barack Obama. Khalidi is an American scholar of Palestinian heritage, born in New York and educated at Yale and Oxford, who now teaches at Columbia University. He directed the Middle East Center at the University of Chicago for some time, and he and his family came to know the Obamas at that time. Knowing someone and agreeing with him on everything are not the same thing.

Scott Horton has a fine, informed and intelligent discussion of the issue. Likewise Barnett Rubin ("My Friend the Neo-Nazi") and Chapati Mystery suddenly alarmed about the Hyde Park crowd.

I know it may seem a novel idea to people like McCain and Palin, but it would be worthwhile actually reading Khalidi's book on the Palestinian struggle for statehood. (I urge bloggers interested in this issue to link to his book, which the American reading public should know).

At the least, read a whole essay Khalidi has written.

Far from being a knee-jerk nationalist, Khalidi has been critical of the decisions of the Palestinian leadership at key junctures in modern history.



McCain's and Palin's attacks on Khalidi are frankly racist. He is a distinguished scholar, and the only objectionable thing about him from a rightwing point of view is that he is a Palestinian. There are about 9 million Palestinians in the world (a million or so are Israeli citizens; 3.7 million are stateless and without rights under Israeli control in the West Bank and Gaza; and 4 million are refugees or exiled in the diaspora; there are about 200,000 Palestinian-Americans, and several million Arab-Americans, many living in swing vote states). Khalidi was not, as the schlock rightwing press charges, a spokesman for the Palestine Liberation Organization. He was an adviser at the Madrid peace talks, but would that not have been, like, a good thing?

Much of the assault on Khalidi comes from the American loony Zionist Right, which quietly supports illegal Zionist colonies in the West Bank and the ethnic cleansing of the remaining Palestinians. They have been tireless advocates of miring the US in wars in Iraq and Iran to ensure that their dreams of ethnic cleansing are unopposed. They are a tiny, cranky but well-funded group that has actively harassed anyone who disagrees with them (at one point, cued by Daniel Pipes, they cyberstalked Khalidi and clogged his email mailbox with spam for weeks at a time). All opinion polling shows that most American Jews are politically liberal, overwhelmingly vote Democrat, and support trading land for peace to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Khalidi is their political ally in any serious peace process, which many have recognized.

Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has repudiated the "Greater Israel" fantasy that drives the Middle East Forum, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Commentary, the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, the Hudson Institute, the American Enterprise Institute and other well-funded sites of far-right thinking on Israel-Palestine that have become, with the rise of the Neoconservatives, highly influential with the US Republican Party. Olmert's current position is much closer to Khalidi's than it is to the American ideologues.

That McCain should take his cues from people to the right of the Neoconservatives shows fatal lack of judgment and signals that if he is elected, he will likely pursue policies that are very bad for Israel, forestalling a genuine peace process (which would involve close relations with Palestinians!)

McCain even compared the gathering for Khalidi that Obama attended to a "neo-Nazi" meeting! I mean, really. This is the lowest McCain has sunk yet.

McCain is bringing up Khalidi in order to scare Jewish voters about Obama's associations, and it is an execrable piece of McCarthyism and in fact much worse than McCarthyism since it is not about ideology but rather has racial overtones. Not allowed to pal around with Arab-Americans, I guess. What other ethnic groups should we not pal around with, from McCain's point of view? Is there a list? Are some worse than others?

Ironically, as the Huffington Post showed, while John McCain was chairing the International Republican Institute, he gave over $400,000 to Rashid Khalidi's Center for Palestine Research and Studies for work in the West Bank.

Here is Lou Dobbs letting McCain have it over this piece of hypocrisy.



The rightwing American way of speaking about these issues is bizarre from a Middle Eastern point of view. Lots of real living Israelis have close ties to actually existing Palestinians. There are 12 Palestinian members of the Israeli Knesset, and they have helped keep the Kadima government in power. Here is PLO leader Mahmoud Abbas with current Israeli Prime Minister Tzipi Livni; Livni has repeatedly negotiated with the PLO as foreign minister of Israel. McCain's entire line of attack assumes that Palestinian equals "bad" and ignores Israel's and the Bush administration's support for the PLO against Hamas.

PLO leader Mahmoud Abbas with current Israeli Prime Minister Tzipi Livni.
As the Young Turks pointed out, before the 'straight talk express' became the 'mealy-mouthed train wreck,' McCain advocated direct negotiations with Hamas when it was in control of the Palestinian Authority after the 2006 elections.



Source / Informed Comment

McCain Gave Money to Khalidi
By Matthew Yglesias / October 29, 2008

One of the many recent rightwing freakouts is about the idea that the media is covering up some kind of close relationship between Barack Obama and Rashid Khalidi and this in turn shows, I guess, that the US is going to adopt a left-wing Arab nationalist perspective toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

But Sam Stein reports:

In regards to Khalidi, however, the guilt-by-association game burns John McCain as well.

During the 1990s, while he served as chairman of the International Republican Institute (IRI), McCain distributed several grants to the Palestinian research center co-founded by Khalidi, including one worth half a million dollars.

A 1998 tax filing for the McCain-led group shows a $448,873 grant to Khalidi’s Center for Palestine Research and Studies for work in the West Bank. (See grant number 5180, “West Bank: CPRS” on page 14 of this PDF.)

The relationship extends back as far as 1993, when John McCain joined IRI as chairman in January. Foreign Affairs noted in September of that year that IRI had helped fund several extensive studies in Palestine run by Khalidi’s group, including over 30 public opinion polls and a study of “sociopolitical attitudes.”

Not that there’s anything wrong with that! But it does expose some pretty massive hypocrisy on the part of the right-wing. Meanwhile, the real truth about Obama’s approach to Israel policy is that though there have been some promising signs, there have also been many moments when Obama’s been disappointingly timid on this issue. It’s an issue that calls for a dramatic substantive departure from the conventional wisdom — the tragedy of the matter, as everyone says, is that everyone more-or-less knows what a final status agreement would look like. But it is an issue that calls for boldness and the taking of some political risks under circumstances where there’s little political upside. I hope Obama’s got what it takes, and some days I even think he does. But anyone who thinks there’s a real risk of Khalidi controlling US policy toward Israel is living on some other planet.

Source / Think Progress

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Progressive Taxation and the Sad Saga of Joe the Plumber

Illustration by Tom Bachtell / New Yorker.
It all started with Adam Smith
by Steve Coll / October 27, 2008

The rise and fall of Joe the Plumber as a symbol of the American self-made man’s resistance to progressive taxation began on October 12th, outside Toledo, Ohio. As Senator Barack Obama campaigned for the Presidency in a neighborhood of modest homes, a man named Samuel J. (Joe) Wurzelbacher approached. He said that he was getting ready to buy a company that earned about a quarter of a million dollars a year, and he asked if his taxes would rise under Obama’s economic plan. The Senator acknowledged that they might. “Nobody likes high taxes,” Obama said. “Of course not.” Still, he explained:

I do believe that for folks like me who’ve worked hard but frankly also been lucky, I don’t mind paying just a little bit more than the waitress who I just met over there. . . . She can barely make the rent. . . . And I think that when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.

The principle that Obama evinced, which most economists would regard as unexceptionable, can be traced to Adam Smith. In “The Wealth of Nations” (1776), his seminal treatise on capitalism, Smith wrote:

The necessaries of life occasion the great expense of the poor. . . . The luxuries and vanities of life occasion the principal expense of the rich, and a magnificent house embellishes and sets off to the best advantage all the other luxuries and vanities which they possess. . . . It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion.

Smith’s notion of reasonableness did not anticipate the Fox News Channel, however. Last Tuesday, Wurzelbacher appeared on that network, where he denounced Obama’s comments as “socialist.” He said that Obama “scared me,” because he “wants to distribute wealth.” Wurzelbacher also granted an interview to the advocacy group Family Security Matters, whose advisory board includes the conservative talk-radio hosts Laura Ingraham and Monica Crowley. By means unknown, Joe’s story of ambition and resentment reached the campaign of Senator John McCain.

Early in last Wednesday’s televised debate, McCain brought up Joe’s supposed worries about Obama’s proposed tax rates for wealthy Americans and set off one of those cascading episodes of goofiness that sometimes overtake people who are tired. During a prolonged colloquy in which “Joe the Plumber” was invoked more than two dozen times, McCain accused Obama of waging “class warfare.” Each office-seeker spoke to Joe, “if you’re out there,” as if he were a lost child. At one point, McCain referred to Wurzelbacher as “my old buddy Joe, Joe the Plumber,” sounding as if he might launch into song.

McCain’s reification of Joe’s working-class-rooted virtue portended Dreiserian revelations, and, sure enough, reporters quickly discovered that Wurzelbacher was not everything he seemed. He lacked a license to perform plumbing or contracting work; a lien had been filed against him for nonpayment of taxes; and he told Katie Couric, of CBS News, that in truth he is not at present expecting to enter the high tax bracket he had mentioned to Obama. Wurzelbacher’s prospects for participating in Sarah Palin’s 2012 Joe Six-Pack tour may also have been dented when, speaking to Couric, he described Obama’s remarks on tax policy as a “tap dance . . . almost as good as Sammy Davis, Jr.”

Of the several morals lurking in this postmodern fable, the least surprising is the reminder that McCain’s campaign believes that it cannot afford to be heavily burdened by facts while constructing attacks against Obama’s candidacy. Also familiar is the example of McCain’s sloppy decision-making. The Ordinary Joe charade was transparently conceived to poke at Obama’s vulnerability with white, independent voters in culturally conservative industrial states. Unfortunately for McCain and his staff, they apparently did not think to vet an important new anecdote that they planned to spring upon a national television audience at a decisive moment of the campaign.

That oversight has rebounded on McCain, of course, but, more important, his phony war on taxes has diminished the last phase of the campaign. In the maw of the worst banking and financial crisis since the Great Depression, McCain has repeatedly dumbed down the debate on economic policy. His focus on pork-barrel spending and the top marginal tax rates of the richest Americans has obscured the seriousness of the crisis, whose causes have nothing to do with either of those issues. Some economists expect the country’s unemployment rate to rise from its current level, of about six per cent, to as high as ten per cent, which would be the highest in a generation; more than a million American families have already had their homes foreclosed upon during the past two years, and in August foreclosure filings reached a record high. McCain, perhaps because he honed his policy instincts during the Reagan era, when marginal tax rates were a big deal, or perhaps because he just doesn’t know what else to talk about, has deflected debate from the difficult, complicated choices that must be made by the next President, such as what sort of economic stimulus plan to enact, and in what stages; which policies might keep the most families in their houses at the least cost; how to restructure market regulation to bring credit-default swaps and other derivatives under government oversight; and how to coördinate global reform of financial and trade imbalances.

McCain is right in detecting signs of growing class resentment; some of the angry are turning up at McCain-Palin rallies, where the mood has been not so much socialist as national-socialist. The cause of this resentment is not difficult to explain, and it has nothing to do with Obama’s modest tax proposals. Income inequality—the gap between the richest and the rest—increased dramatically during the Bush Administration. The main reason was that the rich became very, very rich, while middle- and working-class families saw their incomes stagnate or decline. Long before the Wall Street meltdown, rising gas prices and health-care bills pinched even those American households with incomes that rank squarely in the middle classes.

That is where the great majority of actual plumbers live, of course; they don’t make a quarter of a million dollars a year. In 2007, their average annual income was forty-seven thousand dollars, and that figure was buoyed by the recent housing boom. The Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes an income roll call of other occupations with which McCain, once a modestly paid military officer, has evidently lost touch: kindergarten teachers, $47,750; firefighters, $44,130; roofers, $36,340; dental assistants, $32,280; security guards, $24,480; home health aides, $20,850.

At the very bottom of the income ladder, the inflation-adjusted minimum wage—despite two increases in the past two years—remains essentially the same as it was when George W. Bush took office. That wage amounts to less than fifteen thousand dollars a year, before taxes—and, yes, there are taxes to be paid even at that level. The number of Americans living in poverty has grown by more than five million since 2000. And there’s no way to say that ain’t so.

Source / The New Yorker

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Latest on the McCain Hoax : Campaign Role in Sensationalized News

Graphic by Talking Points Memo.
McCain Communications Director Gave Reporters Incendiary Version Of "Carved B" Story Before Facts Were Known
By Greg Sargent / October 24, 2008

See 'Rick Sanchez Calls Out Media That Fell For "Mutilation" Hoax' by Sam Stein -- and two Videos -- below.

John McCain's Pennsylvania communications director told reporters in the state an incendiary version of the hoax story about the attack on a McCain volunteer well before the facts of the case were known or established -- and even told reporters outright that the "B" carved into the victim's cheek stood for "Barack," according to multiple sources familiar with the discussions.

John Verrilli, the news director for KDKA in Pittsburgh, told TPM Election Central that McCain's Pennsylvania campaign communications director gave one of his reporters a detailed version of the attack that included a claim that the alleged attacker said, "You're with the McCain campaign? I'm going to teach you a lesson."

Verrilli also told TPM that the McCain spokesperson had claimed that the "B" stood for Barack. According to Verrilli, the spokesperson also told KDKA that Sarah Palin had called the victim of the alleged attack, who has since admitted the story was a hoax.

The KDKA reporter had called McCain's campaign office for details after seeing the story -- sans details -- teased on Drudge.

The McCain spokesperson's claims -- which came in the midst of extraordinary and heated conversations late yesterday between the McCain campaign, local TV stations, and the Obama camp, as the early version of the story rocketed around the political world -- is significant because it reveals a McCain official pushing a version of the story that was far more explosive than the available or confirmed facts permitted at the time.

The claims to KDKA from the McCain campaign were included in an early story that ran late yesterday on KDKA's Web site. The paragraphs containing these assertions were quickly removed from the story after the Obama campaign privately complained that KDKA was letting the McCain campaign spin a racially-charged version of the story before the facts had been established, according to two sources familiar with the discussions.

The story with the removed grafs is still right here. We preserved the three missing grafs from yesterday:


A source familiar with what happened yesterday confirmed that the unnamed spokesperson was communications director Peter Feldman. Feldman was also quoted yesterday making virtually identical assertions on the Web site of another local TV station, WPXI. But those quotes, which we also preserved here, are also no longer available on WPXI's site, for reasons that are unclear.

This is problematic because the McCain campaign doesn't want to have been perceived as pushing an incendiary story that not only turned out to be a hoax but which police officials said today risked blowing up into a "national incident" and has local police preparing to file charges against the hoaxster.

There's no evidence that anyone from McCain national headquarters put out a version of events like this.

After the story appeared on KDKA's site and this and other pieces in the local press started flying around the political world, an Obama spokesperson in the state angrily insisted to KDKA that it was irresponsible for the station to air the McCain spokesperson's incendiary version of events before the facts were fully known, according to two sources familiar with the discussions.

After that, KDKA went back to McCain's Pennsylvania spokesperson, Feldman, and asked if he stood by the story as he'd earlier told it, but he started backing off the story, a source familiar with the talks says. That prompted KDKA to remove the grafs.

Feldman couldn't immediately be reached, and a McCain HQ spokesperson declined to comment.

Source / TPM

Ashley's Perp Walk:

Rick Sanchez Calls Out Media That Fell For "Mutilation" Hoax
By Sam Stein / October 24, 2008

The big political story of the day revolves around what turned out to be a non-story. Several media outlets (the vast majority conservative) were left with egg on their faces after they trumpeted up the tale of a McCain volunteer who claimed to have been assaulted by a large black man because of a McCain bumper sticker on her car. On her face was carved a backwards 'B' (meant to represent Obama's name). The Drudge Report called it "mutilation."

It was a hoax. And now, some in the fourth estate are left to explain why they pushed this apparent political ploy. Those in the business who showed some prudence are calling out their competitors for taking the bait.

On CNN today, anchor Rick Sanchez did just that, naming the outlets that not only reported but actively pushed the story of Ashley Todd. In addition to explaining why his station didn't report the story, Sanchez dug the knife in a bit deeper when it came to Hugh Hewitt, the conservative radio talk show host who appeared on CNN Thursday and blamed "that side" (i.e. the Democrats) for engaging in "extraordinarily" disturbing acts.

"Part of the story is the fact that it was reported by the media," said Sanchez. "We would not be telling the story now had it not been carried by so many outlets. As I mentioned before, it was mentioned on, as a matter of fact I have a list and not to mention names, but the initials of the news organizations are Fox News, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and Newsday. And also radio talk show hosts went on their radio stations and talked ad infinitum about the story yesterday, one of them even seemingly being a braggadocio about it when he was on the air with our own Wolf Blitzer yesterday."

Separately, the College Republicans -- a group of which Todd is a member -- sought to distance themselves from the whole affair, telling the Huffington Post: "When Ms. Todd initially contacted us claiming to have been attacked, our first reaction was obviously to be concerned for her safety ... We are as upset as anyone to learn of her deceit. Ashley must take full responsibility for her actions."



Source / The Huffington Post

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The GOP's Blame-ACORN Game

Graphic by Christopher Serra / The Nation.
'Since the 1970s ACORN, which has 400,000 low- and moderate-income "member families," has been warning Congress to protect borrowers from the banking industry's irresponsible, risky and predatory practices.'
By Peter Dreier & John Atlas / October 22, 2008

An increasingly desperate Republican attack machine has recently identified the community organizing group ACORN as Public Enemy Number One. Among ACORN's alleged crimes, perhaps the most serious is that it caused, nearly single-handedly, the world's financial crisis. That's the fantasy. In the reality-based world, it was ACORN that sounded the alarm about the exploitative lending practices that led to the current mortgage meltdown and financial crisis.

Since the 1970s ACORN, which has 400,000 low- and moderate-income "member families" in more than 100 cities in forty states, has been warning Congress to protect borrowers from the banking industry's irresponsible, risky and predatory practices--subprime loans, racial discrimination (called "redlining") and rip-off fees. ACORN has persistently called for stronger regulations on banks, private mortgage companies, mortgage brokers and rating agencies. For years, ACORN has alerted public officials that the industry was hoodwinking many families into taking out risky loans they couldn't afford and whose fine print they couldn't understand.

Now John McCain and his fellow conservatives are accusing ACORN of strong-arming Congress and big Wall Street banks into making subprime loans to poor families who couldn't afford them, thus causing the economic disaster. McCain's campaign is running a one-and-a-half-minute video that claims Barack Obama once worked for ACORN, repeats the accusation that ACORN is responsible for widespread voter registration fraud and accuses ACORN of "bullying banks, intimidation tactics, and disruption of business." The ad claims that ACORN "forced banks to issue risky home loans--the same types of loans that caused the financial crisis we're in today."

For months, the right-wing echo chamber--bloggers, columnists, editorial writers and TV and radio talk-show hosts--has pitched in with a well-orchestrated campaign to blame the mortgage crisis on ACORN and the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), the 1977 anti-redlining law. In a September 27 editorial, the Wall Street Journal wrote that "ACORN has promoted laws like the Community Reinvestment Act, which laid the foundation for the house of cards built out of subprime loans" and then falsely claimed the bailout bill would create a trust fund "pipeline" to fill ACORN's coffers. On October 14 the Journal's lead editorial, Obama and ACORN, described ACORN as a "shady outfit" and accused the group of being "a major contributor to the subprime meltdown by pushing lenders to make home loans on easy terms, conducting 'strikes' against banks so they'd lower credit standards."

Discussing the mortgage crisis on his Fox News show, Your World, Neil Cavuto commented, "Loaning to minorities and risky folks is a disaster."

Over at the Washington Post, columnist Charles Krauthammer complained that the CRA had led banks and other lenders "to extend mortgages to people who were borrowing over their heads." Holding forth on The O'Reilly Factor, Laura Ingraham laid the foreclosure problem on Bill Clinton, who "pushed all these institutions to lend to minority communities." Many of the loans, she said, were "very risky." Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, a putative populist, echoed on the Hannity & Colmes Show: "The truth is that Democrats controlled the ability to fix this [the mortgage crisis]. It was their harsh regulation under the Community Reinvestment Act that started this ball rolling down the hill. "

On September 10 on Fox & Friends, National Review columnist Stanley Kurtz described ACORN as "a group of community organizers [who] specialize in putting pressure, really kind of intimidation tactics, on banks, to get these banks to make high-risk loans to low-credit customers.... They even show up at the homes of bank officials to scare them and their families. They send demonstrators into the lobbies of banks, all to get the banks to make these high-risk loans to people with low credit." McCain's anti-ACORN attack video is almost a word-for-word duplication of Kurtz's comments.

The right-wing case against the CRA is entirely bogus--a diversionary tactic to take the heat off the financial services industry and its allies, like McCain. The CRA applies only to depository institutions, like commercial and savings banks, but thanks to Congress's deregulation mania, there are now many other lenders, including private mortgage companies like CitiMortgage, Household Finance and Countrywide Financial (which was recently bought out by Bank of America). These outfits, which exist in a shadow world without government oversight, account for most of the predatory loans in trouble today.

When Congress enacted the CRA in 1977, the vast majority of all mortgage loans were made by lenders regulated by the law. In 2006 only about 43 percent of home loans were made by companies subject to the CRA. Indeed, the main culprits in the subprime scandal--the nonbank mortgage companies, which successfully grabbed the bulk of the mortgage market away from the CRA-regulated banking industry--were not covered by the CRA.

Wall Street investment firms--including Lehman Brothers, Goldman Sachs, Bear Stearns and Citigroup--set up special units, provided mortgage companies with lines of credit, then purchased the subprime mortgages from the lenders, bundled them into "mortgage-backed securities" and sold them for a fat fee to wealthy investors worldwide, typically without scrutiny. By 2007 the subprime business had become a $1.5 trillion global market for investors seeking high returns. Because lenders didn't have to keep the loans on their books, they didn't worry about the risk of losses.

Congress passed the CRA after many studies, using the banks' lending data, had documented widespread racial discrimination in mortgage lending. The CRA encourages federally chartered banks to examine the credit needs of the communities they serve and to lend based on these needs--for small businesses, homes and other types of loans. It does not require banks to make loans to businesses or people who can't repay them. It does not ask banks to engage in charity. It simply tells banks: don't discriminate against qualified borrowers.

At first, many banks were reluctant to make loans to minority borrowers seeking to fix up their homes, buy new ones or start new businesses in urban neighborhoods. In the late 1970s and early '80s, community organizing groups like ACORN, National People's Action and others pushed banks and federal regulators to remove their racial blinders. Once they did so, banks discovered that many working- and middle-class black and Latino borrowers were excellent customers with good credit histories. These new markets generated good profits on stable loans with little risk.

The explosion of subprime mortgages was touched off in the early twenty-first century, as the number of lenders regulated by the government and covered by the CRA dramatically dwindled. In 2002 subprime loans made up 8 percent of all mortgages; by 2006 they had soared to 20 percent. Since 2004 more than 90 percent of subprime mortgages have come with exploding adjustable rates.

Not surprisingly, the foreclosure rates on subprime, adjustable-rate and other exotic mortgage loans have run four to five times higher than the foreclosure rates on conventional CRA mortgages. Testifying before the House Financial Services Committee in February, University of Michigan law professor Michael Barr reported that only about 20 percent of subprime mortgages were issued by banks regulated by the CRA. The other 80 percent of predatory and high-interest subprime loans were offered by financial institutions not covered by the CRA and not subject to routine examination or supervision. "The worst and most widespread abuses occurred in the institutions with the least federal oversight," Barr told Congress.

In contrast, the CRA actually penalizes banks for reckless, irresponsible or otherwise predatory lending. According to Ellen Seidman, director of the Treasury Department's Office of Thrift Supervision from 1997 to 2001, federal regulators warned CRA-covered institutions that "badly underwritten subprime products that ignored consumer protections were not acceptable." Lenders not subject to CRA did not receive similar warnings.

And unlike the institutions that offer unregulated predatory subprime loans, banks that make CRA loans are required by federal regulation to verify borrowers' incomes to make sure they can afford the mortgages. In 2006 the Federal Reserve reported that just 11.5 percent of mortgages made by CRA-regulated institutions were high-cost loans, compared with 33.5 percent for lenders not covered by the CRA. Janet Yellen, president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, has criticized those who blame CRA lending for the subprime crisis: "Most of the loans made by depository institutions examined under the CRA have not been higher-priced loans, and studies have shown that the CRA has increased the volume of responsible lending to low- and moderate-income households."

While the CRA helped boost the nation's homeownership rate, particularly among black and Latino borrowers, subprime and other exotic mortgages had very little impact on homeownership. Most subprime loans were refinances of existing mortgages. From 1998 through 2005, more than half of all subprime mortgages were for refinancing, while less than 10 percent of subprime loans went to first-time home buyers. Moreover, a significant number of borrowers who took out subprime loans could have qualified for conventional, prime-rate mortgages with much better terms. Even the Wall Street Journal acknowledges that "plenty of people with seemingly good credit are also caught in the subprime trap." Brokers and lenders misled many of these homeowners, replacing safe thirty-year fixed-rate mortgages with deceptive, risky loans.

The CRA gave federal regulators the power to deny approval for lucrative bank mergers or acquisitions if the companies engaged in persistently irresponsible or discriminatory lending. Under Reagan and George W. Bush, regulators failed to enforce the law, so activist groups like ACORN used the CRA to hold banks accountable. They conducted their own studies, uncovered banks with a pattern of irresponsible lending, exposed these practices to the media and demanded that regulators do their job. To avoid costly and harmful confrontations, many lenders forged "community reinvestment agreements" with ACORN and other community groups, pledging to make loans to borrowers who could afford them and whose neighborhood banks had ignored them. According to a study by the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies, the CRA helped catalyze more than $1 trillion in bank lending.

ACORN and its allies, including the Center for Responsible Lending, the Greenlining Institute, the Center for Community Change and the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, carried on the battle against abusive lenders on many fronts to ensure that loans in minority areas did not put borrowers in risky situations. ACORN's homeownership counseling program for prospective borrowers was successful in helping families avoid taking out loans they could not afford. In 2006 the foreclosure rate of loans to borrowers who went through ACORN's homeowner counseling program stood at .032 percent.

ACORN and other consumer groups fought for rules requiring lenders to document that borrowers had the ability to repay. They warned that adjustable-rate mortgages--those that started with a low "teaser" rate, which would adjust to a much higher rate later--were a ticking time bomb and that such loans should be made only to people who were able to afford the regular rates after the teasers had run out. But the lenders and the securitizers (Wall Street firms that packaged loans into mortgage-backed securities and sold them)--and too often the regulators and the lawmakers--didn't heed the warnings. The industry convinced its political cronies that government regulation was too costly and cumbersome.

ACORN and its allies opposed banks whose fees and other charges inflated the cost of loans while padding their profits from transactions and diminishing the long-term safety of these loans. These groups denounced compensation systems that rewarded lenders and brokers for putting borrowers in higher-cost loans regardless of their credit-worthiness. They exposed the outrageous practice called "yield spread premium." This is a kickback from lenders to brokers for selling loans that are more expensive than what borrowers qualify for. It is essentially a bonus for cheating the borrower and upping the risk of default. Earlier this year, after a long battle by the Center for Responsible Lending, the first state--North Carolina--made this practice illegal.

ACORN joined other consumer advocates and lawyers to promote the notion of "assignee liability"--arguing that companies that buy, and profit from, loans bear responsibility for illegal acts committed when those loans were originally made. Without it, the mortgage originators, who typically hold loans briefly before they sell them, can make fraudulent or risky loans without suffering any consequences. Again and again, Wall Street argued that it was too burdensome to scrutinize the loans they were buying or to be held responsible for the original transactions.

Several of ACORN's battles were notably successful. It got some major lenders to reduce the outrageously high interest rates and fees they charged borrowers. For example, in 2001 ACORN persuaded Household Finance Corporation to abolish its practice of selling bogus credit insurance that had been costing a billion dollars a year straight out of homeowners' pockets. ACORN's activism spurred state attorneys general to sue Household Finance in 2002, forcing the firm to distribute a record $484 million to abused borrowers. In a separate suit against Household Finance, ACORN won a $150 million settlement that it put partly into a foreclosure prevention fund.

But ACORN and its counterparts have only been able to stick their fingers in the crumbling dike of American finance. Their warnings were prescient, but their victories were too small, their opponents too strong. So it is richly ironic that John McCain--a longtime ally of the banking industry whose mentor Phil Gramm orchestrated the 1999 Financial Modernization Act, opening the floodgates to irresponsible lending practices--is trying to scapegoat ACORN for the subprime crisis. Powerful business groups and their right-wing allies will continue to attack ACORN because it exposed and battled the real culprits of the financial crisis.

Peter Dreier is professor of politics and director of the Urban & Environmental Policy program at Occidental College. He is co-author of The Next Los Angeles: The Struggle for a Livable City (University of California Press, 2005) and Place Matters: Metropolitics for the 21st Century (2nd edition, University Press of Kansas, 2005) and co-editor of Up Against the Sprawl.

John Atlas, president of the New Jersey-based National Housing Institute--a nonprofit think tank, which publishes Shelterforce magazine--is writing a book, Seeds of Hope, about democracy, community organizing, poverty and the work of ACORN.

Source / The Nation

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McCain Operative Makes ACORN Seem Like Peanuts

Republican operative Nathan Sproul has been investigated for voter suppression.
McCain campaign paid Republican operative accused of voter fraud
By Hannah Strange / October 22, 2008

See Keating law firm donates $50,000 to McCain campaign,' Below.

John McCain paid $175,000 of campaign money to a Republican operative accused of massive voter registration fraud in several states, it has emerged.

As the McCain camp attempts to tie Barack Obama to claims of registration irregularities by the activist group ACORN, campaign finance records detailing the payment to the firm of Nathan Sproul, investigated several times for fraud, threatens to derail that argument

The documents show that a joint committee of the McCain-Palin campaign, the Republican National Committee and the California Republican Party, made the payment to Lincoln Strategy, of which Mr Sproul is the managing partner, for the purposes of “voter registration”.

Mr Sproul has been investigated on numerous occasions for preventing Democrats from voting, destroying registration forms and leading efforts to get Ralph Nader on ballots to leach the Democratic vote.

In October last year, the House Judiciary Committee wrote to the Attorney General requesting answers regarding a number of allegations against Mr Sproul’s firm, then known as Sproul and Associates. It referred to evidence that ahead of the 2004 national elections, the firm trained staff only to register Republican voters and destroyed any other registration cards, citing affidavits from former staff members and investigations by television news programmes.

One former worker testified that “fooling people was key to the job” and that “canvassers were told to act as if they were non-partisan, to hide that they were working for the RNC, especially if approached by the media,” according to the committee’s letter. It also cited reports from public libraries across the country that the firm had asked to set up voter registration tables claiming it was working on behalf of the non-partisan group America Votes, though in fact no such link existed.

Such activities "clearly suppress votes and violate the law”, wrote John Conyers, the Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. The letter suggested that the Judiciary Department had failed to take sufficient action on the allegations because of the politicisation of the department under the then-attorney general, John Ashcroft.

The career of Mr Sproul, a former leader of the Arizona Republican Party, is littered with accusations of foul play. In Minnesota in 2004, his firm was accused of sacking workers who submitted Democratic registration forms, while other canvassers were allegedly paid bonuses for registering Bush voters. There were similar charges in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Oregon and Nevada.

That year, Mr Sproul’s firm was paid $8,359,161 by the Republican Party, according to a 2005 article in the Baltimore Chronicle, which claimed that this was far more than what had been reported to the Federal Elections Commission.

Mr McCain and his running mate Sarah Palin have been linking allegations of registration fraud by ACORN, the community group, to the Obama campaign.

ACORN has been accused of registering non-existent voters during its nationwide drive, with reports of cartoon characters such as Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse being signed up.

The organisation insisted that these are isolated incidents carried out by a handful of workers who have since been dismissed.

However, the Republican nominee insists that the group is involved in fraudulent activities, noting that Mr Obama, before leaving the legal profession to enter politics, was once part of a team which defended the organisation. At last week’s debate, he said that ACORN was “perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history”, a claim which the Obama campaign says represents political smear.

The revelation of Mr Sproul’s involvement with the McCain campaign – he has also donated $30,000 to the ticket and received at least another $37,000 directly from the RNC – could undermine his case.

"It should certainly take away from McCain's argument," Bob Grossfeld, an Arizona political consultant who has watched Mr Sproul's career closely, told the Huffington Post. "Without knowing anything of what is going on with ACORN, there is a clear history with Mr Sproul either going over the line or sure as hell kicking dirt on it, and doing it for profit and usually fairly substantive profit."

In May this year, both ACORN and Mr Sproul were discussed at a hearing of the House subcommittee on commercial and administrative law. One Republican member, Congressman Chris Cannon, concluded: "The difference between ACORN and Sproul is that ACORN doesn't throw away or change registration documents after they have been filled out."

Source / Times Online, U.K.

Law firm founded by convicted racketeer Charles Keating is big McCain donor.
Keating law firm donates $50,000 to McCain campaign.

Those voting for the first time this year may not have even been alive during the Keating Five scandal, the political corruption case that threatened to end John McCain's political career back in 1989. Much to the chagrin of those Democrats gesticulating wildly at the very silent elephant in the room, the Obama campaign has largely refrained from touching upon the issue, perhaps preferring to leave past associations well alone, for understandable reasons.

But sometimes history throws little reminders into our present path, and this is one of those times. Campaign finance records have revealed that the law firm founded by Charles Keating - before he went to jail for fraud, racketeering, and conspiracy for his activities as chairman of Lincoln Savings and Loans - has made donations totalling over $50,000 to McCain's campaign.

The Center for Responsive Politics has done the maths, and says: "In amounts ranging from $200 to $2,300, about 30 partners and employees of the legal firm Keating, Muething and Klekamp, as well as their family members, have contributed $50,200 to McCain's 2008 campaign. All but two of the contributions came in July, and all but three of those July donations were logged on July 31, suggesting they were delivered at the same time. As with any bundle of campaign contributions, it's difficult to determine which donor was the "bundler," the person who solicited the contributions on the campaign's behalf. McCain's online roster of bundlers, which purports to name any individual bundling $50,000 or more for the campaign, does not associate any of McCain's major fundraisers with the Keating firm."

This is not improper in itself, and the only Keating included in the bundle is William J. Keating, Jr., Charles Keating's nephew, who is listed as a partner in the firm and contributed $1,000.

But it reminds us of McCain's role in "The Keating Five," a group of senators who received a total of $1.4 million in campaign contributions connected to Keating and personally intervened with government regulators to allow Lincoln Savings and Loans to make highly risky investments that defrauded thousands of investors and cost taxpayers $3.4 billion.

Keating, now 84, once wrote to McCain that "I'm yours till death do us part". Could he be keeping his promise?

Sarah Strange / Source / Times Online / Oct. 22, 2008

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Republican Smear Ad : License to Drive

The Worst Campaign Ad of the Entire Season?
By Kyle Munzenrieder / October 20, 2008

Wonkette has this ad starring America's (and by that I mean, the America Michelle Bachman and Sarah Palin talk about, the "pro-American America") two most feared terrorists from the National Republican Trust PAC (as in, not directly related to McCain). Ha ha, yes it is hysterically, ridiculously, sad and desperate, and not at all based in any sort of fact. Actually, the version of Mohamed Atta's drivers license they feature is a fake.

For one, the expiration date is 09-11-01. Morbid.

Also it said it was issued in September '99, but Atta didn't get his license until April '01. And wait, who was in charge of Florida then? Jeb Bush and a Republican-controlled Legislature. Not that they're at fault either, but if I had a PAC, I could make a pretty good smear ad out of it, that is if I decided I didn't really need any semblance of dignity.

Oh, look there's a moving image version too. Ugh.

For the record, disgraced formed NY Gov. Elliot "Client 9" Spitzer had this whole "give driver licenses to illegal immigrants" plan, and in the primaries, Obama said he supported it. It was mainly an issue because Hillary changed her stance on it a couple of time. Now it's linked, for absolutely no reason, to terrorism, because people are horrible, horrible racists or deeply partisan twats who aren't above using the worst fear-based tactics to score a win for their guy.

Source / Miami New Times

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Keith Olbermann : Special Comment: Divide and Conquer, Again?

Keith Olbermann offered a "Special Comment" tonight on his show Countdown, criticizing the McCain campaign and other Republicans, like Michele Bachmann, for their use of divisive politics during the campaign. The full text follows.

'A Special Comment tonight about the last five days of the divisive, ugly, paranoid bleatings of this Presidential race.'
By Keith Olbermann / October 20, 2008

I have frequently insisted I would never turn the platform of the Special Comment into a regular feature.

But as these last two weeks of this extraordinary, and extraordinarily disturbing, presidential campaign project out in front of us, I fear I may have to temporarily amend that presumption.

I hope it will be otherwise, but I suspect this will be the first of nightly pieces, most shorter than this... until further notice.

And thus culminating in the sliming of Colin Powell for his endorsement of Senator Obama.

There was once a very prominent sportswriter named Dick Young whose work, with ever-increasing frequency, became peppered with references to "my America."

"I can't believe this is happening in My America"... -- "we do not tolerate these people in My America" -- "this man does not belong in my America".

His America gradually revealed itself.

Insular. Isolationist. Backwards-looking. Mindlessly flag-waving. Racist. No second chances. A million rules, but only for the other guy.

Dick Young died in 1987, but he has been re-born in the presidential campaign as it has unfolded since last Thursday night.

In that time, Governor Sarah Palin, Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann, McCain spokesperson Nancy Pfotenhauer, and Rush Limbaugh, have revealed that there is a measurable portion of this country that is not interested in that which the vast majority view as democracy or equality or opportunity.

They want only... control -- and they want the rest of us, symbolically, perhaps physically... out.

Governor Palin:

"We believe that the best of America is not all in Washington D.C.," you told a fund-raiser in North Carolina last Thursday, to kick off this orgy of condescending elitism.

"We believe that the best of America is in these small towns that we get to visit, and in these wonderful little pockets of what I call the real America, being here with all of you hard working very patriotic, very pro-America areas of this great nation."

Governor, your prejudice is overwhelming.

It is not just "pockets" of this country that are "pro-America" Governor.

America... is "pro-America."

And the "Real America" of yours, Governor, is where people at your rallies shout threats of violence, against other Americans, and you say nothing about them or to them.

What you are seeing is not patriotism, Governor.

What has surrounded you since your nomination, has been the echoing shout of mob rule.

Indeed, that shout has echoed to Minnesota, where the next day an unstable Congresswoman named Michele Bachmann added to the ugly cry.

"I wish the American media would take a great look at the views of the people in Congress and find out, are they pro-America, or anti-America. I think people would love to see an expose' like that."

For nearly two years, Ms. Bachmann, who made her first political bones by keeping the movie "Aladdin" from being shown at a Minnesota Charter School because she thought it promoted paganism and witchcraft, has had a seat in the government of this nation, a seat from which she has spewed the most implausible, hateful, narrow-minded garbage imaginable.

Well, Congresswoman, you have gotten that "expose'" you wanted, have you not?

Though not perhaps in the way you imagined.

Since giving voice to your remarkable delusion that there are members of Congress who are "anti-America," and the extraordinary tap-dance of sleaze and innuendo about Senator Obama which followed...

...the challenger for your house Seat, Elwyn Tinklenberg, has been inundated by donations -- 700 thousand dollars in the three days after you spoke.

Because the America you perceive, Congresswoman -- with its goblins and ghosts and vast unseen hordes of traitors and fellow travelers and Senators who won't ban "Aladdin" -- exists only in your head, and in the heads of the others who must rationalize the failures in their own lives and of their own policies as somebody else's fault -- as a conspiracy to deny them an America of exclusionism and religious orthodoxy and prejudice, about which they must accuse, and murmur, and shout threats, and cleave the nation into pro-America and anti-America."

And back it comes to the McCain campaign.

And Senator McCain's talking head, Ms. Pfotenhauer, who on this very network Saturday, and seemingly without the slightest idea that dismissive prejudice dripped from every word, analyzed the race in Virginia.

"I can tell you that the Democrats have just come in from the District of Columbia and moved into northern Virginia," she said. "But the rest of the state, 'real Virginia,' if you will, I think will be very responsive to Senator McCain's message."

Again, a toxic message...

The parts of the country that agree with Nancy Pfotenhauer... are real -- the others, not.

Ms. Pfotenhauer, why not go the distance on this one?

It was Senator McCain's own brother who called that part of Virginia nearest Washington "communist country."

Cut to the chase, Madam.

No matter the intended comic hyperbole of Joe McCain...

This is the point -- isn't it?

Leave out the real meaning of "Communism," Madam -- Joe McCain reduced it to a buzz-word; it has no more true definition right now than does "Socialism," or the phrase "a man who sees America like you and I see America."

It's about us... and them.

The pro-... and the anti.

Never mind, Madam, that the bi-secting of this country you would happily inspire, means taking a tiny crack in a dam and not repairing it but burrowing into it.

It is not enough that Senator McCain and Senator Obama might differ.

One must be real and the other false.

One must be pro-America and the other anti.

Go back and -- as your boss Rick Davis said today -- "re-think," Mr. McCain's insistence not to drag the sorry bones of Jeremiah Wright into this campaign.

And whatever you do, Ms. Pfotenhauer, allow no one enough time to think... about the widening crack in the dam.

And now all of this comes together to attack Colin Powell.

"Secretary Powell says his endorsement is not about race," writes Rush Limbaugh... the grand wizard of this school of reactionary non-thought.

"OK, fine. I am now researching his past endorsements to see if I can find all the inexperienced, very liberal, white candidates he has endorsed. I'll let you know what I come up with."

It is not conceivable that Powell might reject McCain for the politics of hate and character assassination, or just for policy.

In the closed, sweaty world of the blind allegiances of Limbaugh -- one of "us" who endorses one of "them," must be doing so for some other blind allegiance, like the color of skin.

The answer to this primordial muck, must be addressed to one man only.

Senator McCain -- where are you?

I disagree with you on virtually every major point of policy and practice.

And yet I do not think you "anti-America." I would not hesitate to join you in time of crisis in defense of this country.

Fortunately you did not echo this chorus of base hatred.

But neither have you repudiated it.

What is "pro-America", Senator?

Is it pro-America to call a man a racist because he endorses a different candidate?

Senator, you have based your campaign on many premises, but the foremost (and the most nearly admirable) of all of them, have been the pitches about "reaching across the aisle," and putting, as your ubiquitous banners reed, "country first."

So when Colin Powell endorses your opponent, you say nothing as your supporters and proxies paint him in this "Anti-America" frame and place him in Governor Palin's un-real America.

Senator McCain -- did not General Powell just "reach across the aisle?" Did he not, in his own mind at least, "put country first?"

Is it not your responsibility, Senator, to, if not applaud, then at least quiet those in your half of our fractured political equation?

Is it not your responsibility, Senator, to say "enough" to Republican smears without end?

Is it not your responsibility, Senator, to insist that, win or lose, you will not be party to a campaign that devolves into hatred and prejudice and divisiveness?

And Senator McCain, if it is not your responsibility... whose is it?

Source / MSNBC

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Bathroom Humor

Thanks to Harry Edwards / The Rag Blog

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John McCain's Medical Records : The X Files

Why is McCain stonewalling?
By Larry Ray / October 18, 2008

There are only a couple of weeks before we vote for a new president. Americans deserve to see the current medical records of both candidates before making up their minds. Senator McCain still refuses to provide his current medical records. Senator Obama fully complied just a few months ago, undergoing a complete medical checkup. His publicly available records describe Obama as “in excellent health, lean and muscular with no excess body fat.” Senator Biden released a current update, Monday, Oct. 20th, and appears in good health for a guy his age. Sarah Palin, has released no medical information on herself whatsoever.

In McCain’s U.S. Navy aircraft carrier flying days, passing a flight medical exam was easy for him. But as we get older it can become harder to pass that annual flight physical. I am only a few years younger than Sen. McCain and am a private pilot, so I know all about having a "current medical." I am in decent health but am not "current." McCain is tough. But it is also tough to imagine being shot out of the air by an enemy missile, surviving a bail-out with broken bones, then enduring five and a half years of torture as a POW some 41 years ago and today being in a third remission from melanoma cancer. All that could certainly make getting a clean bill of health tougher, but not impossible. I have several pilot buddies McCain's age who are "current" and still having a dandy time flying. But none are running for president.

Remember why the pilot and co-pilot on commercial airliners eat different in-flight meals off the menu? If one meal is tainted, like bad tuna salad, both pilots don't become incapacitated, leaving one to fly and land the plane safely. But we are not talking about toxic tuna salad here. And we are not talking about United Airlines. We're talking about the United States, with John McCain as our possible president and his VP candidate, Sarah Palin, as our potential co-pilot. Showing us all he has a clean bill of health would clearly help the 72 year old McCain's faltering campaign right now. It's fair enough to ask why he doesn't. Ms. Palin's lungs do seem to be in tip top condition, but that's all we have been permitted to know about her state of physical health.

While McCain invokes his discredited folk hero, “Joe the Plumber” and Palin whips up “the base” with her nasal, hate-tinged talking points, the noise they are making still can not drown out that basic question in voters’ minds, “Is candidate McCain healthy enough to take over an America which has just lost power in its engines and is flying in a fog of uncertainty? And what about his co-pilot?”

Source / The iHandbill

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G. Gordon the Plumber : McCain's Personal Terrorist

Portrait of Special Agent George G. Liddy (now known as G. Gordon Liddy). Item from Record Group 65: Records of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, 1896-1994.
McCain has openly supported Liddy, an 'unrepentent terrorist who plotted the assassination of a journalist and encouraged the murder of federal law enforcement agents.'
By John K. Wilson / October 17, 2008

It's not Joe the Plumber that matters, it's G. Gordon Liddy the "Plumber" of Watergate fame. David Letterman's interview with McCain last night should prove to be absolutely devastating to the McCain campaign, if we don't let the mainstream media ignore McCain's relationship to Liddy while they obsess about Bill Ayers.

John McCain has defended Liddy, an ex-felon who was part of Watergate, one of the worst abuses of executive power in American history.

John McCain has knowingly attended a fundraiser at the home of Liddy, an unrepentent terrorist who plotted the assassination of a journalist and encouraged the murder of federal law enforcement agents. Yet John McCain just a year ago declared that he was "proud" of this man.

Here's a summary of all the crimes of G. Gordon Liddy, the responses of John McCain, and the questions that need to be asked:

Last night on Letterman, here's what McCain said.

DL: But did you not have a relationship with Gordon Liddy?

JM: I met him, you know, I mean...

DL: Didn't you attend a fundraiser at his house? JM: Gordon Liddy's?

"I met him"? "I met him"? And when you're asked about attending a fundraiser at his house, you don't answer? You don't admit that Liddy hosted a fundraiser for you in 1998? You just say, "Gordon Liddy's?" as if you don't know what Letterman's talking about?

After the commercial break, McCain quickly tried to explain himself:

JM: I know Gordon Liddy. He paid his debt. He went to prison, he paid his debt, as people do. I'm not in any way embarrassed to know Gordon Liddy. And his son, who is also a good friend and supporter of mine.

DL: But you understand that the same case could be made of your relationship with him as is being made with William Ayers.

JM: Everything about any relationship that I've had I will make completely open and give a complete accounting of. Senator Obama said that he was a guy who lived in the neighborhood. OK, it was more than that.

Note this: McCain said that Liddy's son is "also a good friend and supporter of mine." That means McCain is saying that Liddy himself is friend of his. Contrast that with Obama, who has never called Ayers his friend (David Axelrod described them as "friendly," which is much different).

Liddy did go to prison for Watergate. Does McCain mean to say that it's okay to pal around with criminals so long as they've served time in prison? (Ayers, by the way, did turn himself him; he was never convicted of a crime due to technicalities. Would McCain claim that it would be okay to hang out with Ayers if he had spent time in prison?)

But Liddy's never served any time in prison for urging the murder of federal law enforcement officials, or for plotting the assassination of a newspaper columnist, or for encouraging the murder of possible burglars, or for illegally using firearms despite being an ex-felon. So by McCain's logic, Liddy has never paid his debt for those actions.

McCain claims, "Senator Obama said that he was a guy who lived in the neighborhood. OK, it was more than that." It was.

As Obama actually said: "This is a guy who lives in my neighborhood, who's a professor of English in Chicago, who I know and who I have not received some official endorsement from. He's not somebody who I exchange ideas with on a regular basis." There's nothing false about that.

According to a McCain TV ad, "Obama's blind ambition. When convenient, he worked with terrorist Bill Ayers. When discovered, he lied. Obama. Blind ambition. Bad judgment." The Washington Post fact checker concluded, "The McCain campaign is distorting the Obama-Ayers relationship, and exaggerating their closeness. There is no evidence that Obama has 'lied' about his dealings with Ayers."

But you could make the same exact argument that when McCain said about Liddy, "I met him," it was definitely "more than that." If somebody hosts a fundraiser for you, do you honestly describe your relationship as "I met him"? McCain, unlike Obama, was lying about his relationship. McCain, unlike Obama, was actually defending an unrepentant terrorist.

Liddy (with mustache) in disguise.
In 2007, McCain went on Liddy's radio show and told him:

I'm proud of you, I'm proud of your family....It's always a pleasure for me to come on your program, Gordon, and congratulations on your continued success and adherence to the principles and philosophies that keep our nation great.

By contrast, Obama has never said that he's "proud" of Bill Ayers

What are Liddy's crimes? Let's go through the details. G. Gordon Liddy is a lunatic who grew up admiring Hitler. But what really matters are his crimes. Watergate alone should be a good enough reason for any presidential candidate to avoid any association with the man whose criminal activities helped to bring down Richard Nixon.

However, Liddy's plotting of crimes went far beyond the Watergate break-in.

At the Committee to Re-Elect the President,

Liddy concocted several plots, some far-fetched, intended to embarrass the Democratic opposition. These included firebombing the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. (where classified documents leaked by Daniel Ellsberg were being stored), kidnapping anti-war protest organizers and transporting them to Mexico during the Republican National Convention (which at the time was planned for San Diego), and luring mid-level Democratic campaign officials to a house boat in Baltimore where they would be secretly photographed in compromising positions with call girls. Most of Liddy's ideas were rejected, but a few were given the go ahead by Nixon Administration officials, including the break-in at Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office.

Liddy has Source revealed that he was prepared to murder someone "if necessary" during the Ellsberg break-in. He also said that he "plotted with a 'gangland figure' to murder Howard Hunt to prevent him from cooperating with investigators."

Does John McCain support murdering people? How about kidnapping protesters? Firebombing liberal think tanks? Why is McCain defending this man?

Liddy also plotted the assassination of a journalist:

"In 1980, Liddy published an autobiography, titled Will, which sold more than a million copies and was made into a television movie. In it he states that he once made plans with Hunt to kill journalist Jack Anderson, based on a literal interpretation of a Nixon White House statement we need to get rid of this Anderson guy."

Liddy has never expressed regret for this. In fact, in 2004, Liddy explicitly embraced the idea of murdering columnists: "If they were traitors as Jack Anderson was, directly helping the enemy, then yes."

So, does John McCain support the murder of journalists?

Liddy also openly violates gun laws. As an ex-felon, he's banned from owning guns. In 1990, I heard him speak at the University of Illinois and brag about how his wife owned a large collection of guns which she conveniently keeps under his side of the bed. Later in the 1990s, "he mentioned labeling targets 'Bill' and 'Hillary' when he practiced shooting." Does McCain think that ex-felons like Liddy should have guns? Does he approve of Liddy naming his shooting targets after the President and First Lady?

And then there's this well-known terrorism advocated by G. Gordon Liddy on his radio show, August 26, 1994:

"Now if the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms comes to disarm you and they are bearing arms, resist them with arms. Go for a head shot; they're going to be wearing bulletproof vests....They've got a big target on there, ATF. Don't shoot at that, because they've got a vest on underneath that. Head shots, head shots.... Kill the sons of bitches."

And September 15, 1994:

"If the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms insists upon a firefight, give them a firefight. Just remember, they're wearing flak jackets and you're better off shooting for the head."

Here's how Liddy later explained himself:

"The law is that if somebody is shooting at you, using deadly force, the mere fact that they are a law enforcement officer, if they are in the wrong, does not mean you are obliged to allow yourself to be killed so your kinfolk can have a wrongful death action. You are legally entitled to defend yourself and I was speaking of exactly those kind of situations. If you're going to do that, you should know that they're wearing body armor so you should use a head shot. Now all I'm doing is stating the law, but all the nuances in there got left out when the story got repeated."

Of course, that's not true (you're not legally entitled to kill law enforcement officers, even if they are in the wrong). But it's also not what Liddy said. Remember: "if the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms comes to disarm you and they are bearing arms, resist them with arms." Liddy was talking about ATF agents "bearing arms," not shooting at people. He was talking about ATF agents trying to "disarm" people, not kill them.

In 1998, Liddy hosted a fundraiser for McCain, and has given his campaigns $5,000, including $1,000 to McCain's current presidential campaign.

By contrast, Ayers never hosted a fundraiser for Obama (it was a meet-and-greet in 1995), and at the time Obama didn't know about Ayers' past. Ayers gave Obama a small donation in 2000, but nothing recently.

John McCain not only knew about Liddy's criminal past, he knew about Liddy's 1994 comments urging listeners to shoot law enforcement agents in the head when he attended that 1998 fundraiser at Liddy's home.

How do we know that McCain knew about Liddy's comments? Because it was mentioned in a Washington Post story on May 18, 1995, which noted that Liddy had been "disinvited from a recent GOP fund-raiser because of his embarrassing exhortations to shoot pesky federal law enforcement officers." That same article discussed McCain joking around at an event with Liddy about his psychotic propensity to burn himself.

Is it really possible that McCain was unaware of the controversy about Liddy? Is it really possible that McCain didn't hear anything about the national outrage over Liddy's remarks? Is it really possible that McCain never heard about his own party banning Liddy from a fundraiser? Is it really possible that McCain didn't read the Washington Post story mentioning his own name that directly addresses Liddy's remarks? No, it's not possible. And if McCain conveniently forgot that his buddy urged the murder of federal agents, what does that say about his judgment?

Let's be clear-cut about this:

If you urge people to shoot federal agents in the head, you are encouraging terrorism.

If you plot the firebombing of a liberal organization, you are plotting terrorism.

If you plan the assassination of a journalist and thirty years later still embrace the idea, you are an unrepentant terrorist.

Do you disagree, John McCain?

You say, "Everything about any relationship that I've had I will make completely open and give a complete accounting of." So let's hear it: do you think this is terrorism? And why are you "proud" of this unrepentant terrorist?

McCain claims, "I think not only a repudiation but an apology for ever having anything to do with an unrepentant terrorist is due the American people." We're waiting for our apology, Senator McCain.

Source / The Huffington Post

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ACORN and 'Voter Fraud' : Bogus Issue Missreported

Top: ACORN voter registrar in New Mexico. Photo by Clayton Kennedy / ACORN. Above: Nevada investigators raid Las Vegas ACORN office looking for evidence of 'voter fraud.' Photo by J.C. Hong / AP.
Media revive pattern of reporting on alleged "voter fraud" concerns, despite lack of evidence
By Eric Boehlert and Jamison Foser / October 16, 2008

See 'Evidence points to ACORN's sloppiness, but not fraud' by Greg Gordon, Below.

In recent weeks, media outlets have revived the cyclical practice of highlighting allegations by conservatives of voter fraud. In this election cycle, the primary target of those allegations appears to be the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), over reports that some people hired by ACORN have submitted false or redundant registration forms. Once again, the media are devoting great attention to these charges, even though in past election cycles, charges of voter fraud have largely proven baseless.

Indeed, according to the Nexis news database, in the period October 6-15, the phrase "voter fraud" has appeared in 221 articles in U.S. newspapers, including five Washington Post articles, two New York Times articles, and one USA Today article. Moreover, "voter fraud" has appeared in 43 CNN news transcripts, 31 Fox News transcripts, and four MSNBC transcripts during that time. For example, The Washington Post reported on October 14 that "Republican officials and advisers to Sen. John McCain" accused ACORN of "fomenting voter fraud." It also reported that "[t]he charges have come repeatedly, in news releases, conference calls to reporters and remarks on the campaign trail. Republican National Committee spokesman Danny Diaz called ACORN a 'quasi-criminal group' last week during one of a series of news conferences, charging that the group was committing fraud during its voter-registration drives. 'We don't do that lightly,' RNC chief counsel Sean Cairncross said."

The media's focus on these charges just before elections is not new. A Media Matters for America search of Nexis indicates that numerous stories about voter fraud appeared in major newspapers and on television news in the weeks leading up to the 2000, 2002, 2004, and 2006 elections. Yet the U.S. Department of Justice crime statistics cast doubt on the existence of widespread voter fraud. On April 12, 2007, The New York Times reported, "Five years after the Bush administration began a crackdown on voter fraud, the Justice Department has turned up virtually no evidence of any organized effort to skew federal elections, according to court records and interviews."

In an April 1 American Prospect article, U.S. News & World Report and Washington Monthly contributing editor Art Levine wrote:

Using various tactics -- including media smears, bogus lawsuits, restrictive new voting laws and policies, and flimsy prosecutions -- Republican operatives, election officials, and the GOP-controlled Justice Department have limited voting access and gone after voter-registration groups such as ACORN. Which should come as no surprise: In building support for initiatives raising the minimum wage and kindred ballot measures, ACORN has registered, in partnership with Project Vote, 1.6 million largely Democratic-leaning voters since 2004. All told, non-profit groups registered over three million new voters in 2004, about the same time that Republican and Justice Department efforts to publicize "voter fraud" and limit voting access became more widespread. And attacking ACORN has been a central element of a systematic GOP disenfranchisement agenda to undermine Democratic prospects before each Election Day.

In fact, while a 2005 Senate Republican Policy Committee paper claimed, "[v]oter fraud continues to plague our nation's federal elections, diluting and canceling out the lawful votes of the vast majority of Americans," Justice Department statistics indicate that few actual instances of voter fraud have been prosecuted in recent years. According to a report by the Justice Department's Criminal Division of prosecutions between October 2002 and September 2005, the Justice Department charged 95 people with "election fraud" and convicted 55. Among those, however, just 17 individuals were convicted for casting fraudulent ballots; cases against three other individuals were pending at the time of the report. In addition, the Justice Department convicted one election official of submitting fraudulent ballots and convicted five individuals of registration fraud, with cases against 12 individuals pending at the time of the report. Thirty-two individuals were convicted of other "election fraud" issues, including people convicted of offenses arising from "a scheme to block the phone lines used by two Manchester [New Hampshire] organizations to arrange drives to the polls during the 2002 general election" -- in other words, these convictions were connected to voter suppression efforts, not voter fraud. Several other people listed in the report were convicted of vote buying.

Additionally, a 2007 report by New York University's Brennan Center for Justice stated:

There have been several documented and widely publicized instances in which registration forms have been fraudulently completed and submitted. But it is extraordinarily difficult to find reported cases in which individuals have submitted registration forms in someone else's name in order to impersonate them at the polls. Furthermore, most reports of registration fraud do not actually claim that the fraud happens so that ineligible people can vote at the polls. Indeed, we are aware of no recent substantiated case in which registration fraud has resulted in fraudulent votes being cast.

Nevertheless, media outlets continue to report on allegations of possible voter fraud in advance of elections. For instance, between October 14, 2004, and the November 2 election that year, two USA Today articles, 49 CNN transcripts, and 37 Fox News transcripts containing the term "voter fraud" appear in Nexis. Media Matters searched Nexis for news reports containing the term "voter fraud" in the weeks leading up to the 2000, 2002, 2004, and 2006 elections in The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal, and USA Today, and in news transcripts from CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, and NBC. (Media Matters did not examine the substantive content of these reports). Results of the search were as followed:

October 14-November 7, 2000

Los Angeles Times: 5

The New York Times: 1

The Washington Post: 1

CNN: 6

Fox News: 2

MSNBC: 1

October 14-November 5, 2002

Los Angeles Times: 8

The Washington Post: 5

USA Today: 1

Fox News: 7

CNN: 6

MSNBC: 1

October 14-November 2, 2004

The Washington Post: 10

Los Angeles Times: 8

The New York Times: 8

USA Today: 2

CNN: 49

Fox News: 37

NBC: 10

MSNBC: 9

ABC: 3

CBS: 3

October 14-November 7, 2006

The New York Times: 6

Los Angeles Times: 2

The Washington Post: 2

USA Today: 2

CNN: 16

Fox News: 9

MSNBC: 4

ABC: 2

CBS: 2

From the April 12, 2007, New York Times article:

Five years after the Bush administration began a crackdown on voter fraud, the Justice Department has turned up virtually no evidence of any organized effort to skew federal elections, according to court records and interviews.

Although Republican activists have repeatedly said fraud is so widespread that it has corrupted the political process and, possibly, cost the party election victories, about 120 people have been charged and 86 convicted as of last year.

Most of those charged have been Democrats, voting records show. Many of those charged by the Justice Department appear to have mistakenly filled out registration forms or misunderstood eligibility rules, a review of court records and interviews with prosecutors and defense lawyers show.

In Miami, an assistant United States attorney said many cases there involved what were apparently mistakes by immigrants, not fraud.

In Wisconsin, where prosecutors have lost almost twice as many cases as they won, charges were brought against voters who filled out more than one registration form and felons seemingly unaware that they were barred from voting.

One ex-convict was so unfamiliar with the rules that he provided his prison-issued identification card, stamped "Offender," when he registered just before voting.

A handful of convictions involved people who voted twice. More than 30 were linked to small vote-buying schemes in which candidates generally in sheriff's or judge's races paid voters for their support.

A federal panel, the Election Assistance Commission, reported last year that the pervasiveness of fraud was debatable. That conclusion played down findings of the consultants who said there was little evidence of it across the country, according to a review of the original report by The New York Times that was reported on Wednesday.

—J.H.

Source / County Fair / Media Matters

Evidence points to ACORN's sloppiness, but not fraud
By Greg Gordon / October 15, 2008

WASHINGTON -- Republicans and their allies in the media and on the Internet are ramping up allegations that the liberal-leaning nonprofit voter registration group ACORN is trying to steal next month's presidential election for Democrat Barack Obama.

Conservative media outlets and Web sites are focusing on ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. According to TVeyes.com, Fox News alone has mentioned ACORN stories 342 times in recent days.

In nearly a dozen states, county registrars have found phony voter registration applications submitted by canvassers for ACORN; criminal investigations are under way in Nevada, Ohio and elsewhere; and a racketeering suit was filed in Ohio this week. The mounting evidence of ACORN's sloppy management and poor supervision, however, so far doesn't support the explosive charges that the group is trying to rig the presidential election.

Larry Lomax, the registrar in Clark County, Nev., said he would estimate that 25,000 of the 90,000 applications submitted by ACORN this year were duplicates or phony.

However, Lomax said in a phone interview with McClatchy Newspapers: "I don't think ACORN consciously sets out to turn in fraudulent forms. I just think the people they hire find it incredibly easy to rip off their bosses and turn in fake forms."

While he criticized ACORN's quality control, Lomax said he doubted that any of the fake filings would result in fraudulent votes.

Election officials say that registrations under names such as Mickey Mouse or Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo suggest that ACORN workers were trying to fill their quota of 20 applications to get paid, not to steal the presidency. They say that county registrars or poll workers would flag such obvious pranks, and that anyone who signed a poll book in another person's name would risk being prosecuted for a felony.

ACORN, which boasts that it has registered 1.3 million mostly poor African-Americans this year, said that it's alerted authorities to many of the suspicious applications. ACORN officials said the group has fired numerous workers who filled in forms with names from the phone book or the Dallas Cowboys starting lineup rather than trekking from door to door.

Moreover, said ACORN spokesman Scott Levenson, state laws in most of the 21 states where the group is active require it to turn all new registrations over to election officials. The group follows that policy even in states where it's not required, but ACORN notifies election officials of suspect registrations in all states. "It is our policy to turn in them all," Levenson said.

Nevertheless, Republicans have seized on the reports to attack Obama, who led a voter registration drive on Chicago's South Side in 1992 for Project Vote, a group that later hired ACORN to register voters. They also pointed to the Obama campaign's hiring of an ACORN affiliate for get-out-the-vote efforts and to his role, while on the board of two Chicago charities, in approving hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants for ACORN.

On Tuesday, the conservative-leaning Buckeye Institute filed a racketeering suit against ACORN in Warren County, Ohio, a Republican stronghold in the southwestern part of the state. The suit, nearly identical to a 2004 suit that was withdrawn after the election, seeks to avoid the dilution of legitimate votes, but doesn't contend "that the election is going to be stolen," said attorney Maurice Thompson, who filed it.

Ohio ACORN spokeswoman Kati Gall called the suit "a political stunt."

Republican Sen. George Voinovich of Ohio followed the suit Wednesday with a letter asking U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey to work with Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner "to investigate swiftly any allegations of fraud in Ohio's voter registration process." Separately, a Republican National Committee lawyer argued that convicted felons who work for ACORN shouldn't be allowed to register voters in Milwaukee.

ACORN has long been a target of Republicans, including the Justice Department under former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. Five days before the 2006 election, interim U.S. Attorney Bradley Schlozman of Kansas City trumpeted the indictments of four ACORN voter registration workers, despite a department policy discouraging politically sensitive prosecutions close to elections. Schlozman is now facing a criminal investigation into the veracity of his congressional testimony about that and other matters.

Wade Henderson, the president of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, said he thinks that the Republican attacks on ACORN "are part of a concerted effort to ... discredit the registration of many new voters who may well determine the outcome of the presidential election."

Source McClatchy / Miami Herald

ACORN, in its own words.

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

To learn more about ACORN, go here.

And see ACORN and Voting Rights Groups Respond to Partisan Attacks / ACORN / Oct. 15, 2008

Also see Who Gets to Vote? / by Amy Goodman / truthdig / Oct. 16, 2008

And Conyers Says Of ACORN: Voter Fraud Allegations 'A Right-Wing Cottage Industry' / AHN / Oct. 17, 2008

And ACORN cracked open: Thieves hit Hub office / by O'Ryan Johnson / Boston Herald / Oct. 17, 2008

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