Wednesday, 25 June 2008
We're not counting the North Koreans' BOMBS? Why not?
Mood:
incredulous
Topic: HOW LAME IS THIS?
When I look at arms control and things related to arms control, I think I've seen everything that could shock and amaze me; and then I find out I'm wrong.
From the Associated Press:
"North Korea nuclear accounting won't include bombs
By BURT HERMAN, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 18 minutes ago
SEOUL, South Korea - North Korea is expected this week to turn over its long-delayed accounting of its nuclear weapons activities, part of a chain of events leading to a unique photo opportunity: the destruction of the cooling tower at Pyongyang's main reactor.
One item that won't make the declaration, which the White House says is due Thursday, will be North Korea's nuclear bombs. The omission means the world will have to wait for an answer to the question at the heart of the nearly six-year-old standoff: Is the North ready to give up its nuclear weapons?
North Korea has invited foreign TV stations to broadcast the toppling of the cooling tower to demonstrate its plan to give up its nuclear ambitions. Sung Kim, the top State Department expert on Korea, will travel to North Korea for the planned destruction of the cooling tower at its Yongbyon nuclear reactor, an official at South Korea's Foreign Ministry said. He spoke on condition of anonymity, citing ministry policy.
U.S. officials who earlier insisted North Korea's declaration should be "complete and correct" have repeatedly scaled back expectations for the document in the wake of resistance from Pyongyang, which failed to meet a deadline for submitting the list at the end of last year.
Already, the declaration that the White House says is due Thursday is not expected to include details of the North's alleged attempts to enrich uranium — the dispute that sparked the nuclear standoff in late 2002. The list also will not describe how the North allegedly helped Syria build a nuclear plant.
Instead, those thorny issues will simply be "acknowledged" by Pyongyang, with the U.S. hoping that it can get more information in later discussions with the North, given that it has few other ways to dig for intelligence from the world's most closed country.
The main U.S. envoy to nuclear talks with North Korea affirmed this week that the communist nation's bombs also will not make the cut for the declaration. Instead, details on the bombs will be left to the next stage of the talks, when Pyongyang is supposed to abandon and dismantle its nuclear weapons program.
"The North Koreans have acknowledged that we have to deal with the weapons," Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill said in Beijing. "We're going to deal with it as soon as we sit down again to begin to map out the remaining piece of this negotiation."
The White House said Wednesday it will move quickly to lift sanctions and remove North Korea from the U.S. blacklist of state sponsors of terrorism in exchange for handing over the declaration.
The North is expected in the declaration to say how much plutonium it has produced at its main reactor facility. The next step in the disarmament talks will be to verify that claim, through procedures that Hill said would be set up within 45 days.
That verification will not mean the U.S. or any other country will yet actually see the weapons-grade plutonium, or that nuclear inspectors will roam the countryside peeking into the North's vast network of secret underground tunnels to track down traces of radioactive material.
Instead, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said this month that verification at first will simply mean reviewing documents and inspecting the reactor to infer how much plutonium was produced, to be compared with the amount that the North claims in the declaration.
"Once we have a clearer view of how much plutonium has actually been made, I think we'll also have a clearer view of what might have happened to it," Rice told an audience at the Heritage Foundation in Washington.
In a report earlier this year, the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security estimated the North has between 61 and 110 pounds of plutonium, which could be enough to build from six to 10 bombs. The North proved it could build a working nuclear bomb when it carried out an underground nuclear test blast in October 2006.
The fireworks at the reactor will be a mostly symbolic move signaling that North Korea does not intend to make more plutonium for bombs. The reactor was shut down last year and already largely disabled so that it cannot easily be restarted.
What happens next with the bombs and fissile material the North already has stockpiled will be the real test of Pyongyang's commitment to disarm."
___
Burt Herman is chief of bureau in Korea for The Associated Press.
Posted by V.P. Frickey
at 6:25 PM MDT
Tuesday, 24 June 2008
Barack Obama Fronted for the Most Vicious Predators on Wall Street
Mood:
incredulous
Topic: Press Gets Reality Check
http://www.counterpunch.org/martens05052008.html
A CounterPunch Special Investigation THANKS TO HEIDI
How Barack Obama Fronted for the Most Vicious Predators on Wall Street
Obama's Money Cartel
By PAM MARTENS
Wall Street, known variously as a barren wasteland for diversity or the last plantation in America, has defied courts and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) for decades in its failure to hire blacks as stockbrokers. Now it's marshalling its money machine to elect a black man to the highest office in the land. Why isn't the press curious about this?
Walk into any of the largest Wall Street brokerage firms today and you'll see a self-portrait of upper management racism and sexism: women sitting at secretarial desks outside fancy offices occupied by predominantly white males. According to the EEOC as well as the recent racial discrimination class actions filed against UBS and Merrill Lynch, blacks make up between 1 per cent to 3.5 per cent of stockbrokers -- this after 30 years of litigation, settlements and empty promises to do better by the largest Wall Street firms.
The first clue to an entrenched white male bastion seeking a black male occupant in the oval office (having placed only five blacks in the U.S. Senate in the last two centuries) appeared in February on a chart at the Center for Responsive Politics website. It was a list of the 20 top contributors to the Barack Obama campaign, and it looked like one of those comprehension tests where you match up things that go together and eliminate those that don't. Of the 20 top contributors, I eliminated six that didn't compute. I was now looking at a sight only slightly less frightening to democracy than a Diebold voting machine. It was a Wall Street cartel of financial firms, their registered lobbyists, and go-to law firms that have a death grip on our federal government.
Why is the "yes, we can" candidate in bed with this cartel? How can "we", the people, make change if Obama's money backers block our ability to be heard?
Seven of the Obama campaign's top 14 donors consisted of officers and employees of the same Wall Street firms charged time and again with looting the public and newly implicated in originating and/or bundling fraudulently made mortgages. These latest frauds have left thousands of children in some of our largest minority communities coming home from school to see eviction notices and foreclosure signs nailed to their front doors. Those scars will last a lifetime.
These seven Wall Street firms are (in order of money given): Goldman Sachs, UBS AG, Lehman Brothers, JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse. There is also a large hedge fund, Citadel Investment Group, which is a major source of fee income to Wall Street.
There are five large corporate law firms that are also registered lobbyists; and one is a corporate law firm that is no longer a registered lobbyist but does legal work for Wall Street. The cumulative total of these 14 contributors through February 1, 2008, was $2,872,128, and we're still in the primary season.
But hasn't Senator Obama repeatedly told us in ads and speeches and debates that he wasn't taking money from registered lobbyists? Hasn't the press given him a free pass on this statement?
Barack Obama, speaking in Greenville, South Carolina on January 22, 2008:
"Washington lobbyists haven't funded my campaign, they won't run my White House, and they will not drown out the voices of working Americans when I am president".
Barack Obama, in an email to supporters on June 25, 2007, as reported by the Boston Globe:
"Candidates typically spend a week like this - right before the critical June 30th financial reporting deadline - on the phone, day and night, begging Washington lobbyists and special interest PACs to write huge checks. Not me. Our campaign has rejected the money-for-influence game and refused to accept funds from registered federal lobbyists and political action committees".
The Center for Responsive Politics website allows one to pull up the filings made by lobbyists, registering under the Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995 with the clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives and secretary of the U.S. Senate. These top five contributors to the Obama campaign have filed as registered lobbyists: Sidley Austin LLP; Skadden, Arps, et al; Jenner & Block; Kirkland & Ellis; Wilmerhale, aka Wilmer Cutler Pickering.
Is it possible that Senator Obama does not know that corporate law firms are also frequently registered lobbyists? Or is he making a distinction that because these funds are coming from the employees of these firms, he's not really taking money directly from registered lobbyists? That thesis seems disingenuous when many of these individual donors own these law firms as equity partners or shareholders and share in the profits generated from lobbying.
Far from keeping his distance from lobbyists, Senator Obama and his campaign seems to be brainstorming with them. The political publication, The Hill, reported on December 20, 2007, that three salaried aides on the Obama campaign were registered lobbyists for dozens of corporations. (The Obama campaign said they had stopped lobbying since joining the campaign.) Bob Bauer, counsel to the Obama campaign, is an attorney with Perkins Coie. That law firm is also a registered lobbyist.
What might account for this persistent (but non-reality based) theme of distancing the Obama campaign from lobbyists? Odds are it traces back to one of the largest corporate lobbyist spending sprees in the history of Washington whose details would cast an unwholesome pall on the Obama campaign, unless our cognitive abilities are regularly bombarded with abstract vacuities of hope and change and sentimental homages to Dr. King and President Kennedy.
On February 10, 2005, Senator Obama voted in favor of the passage of the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005. Senators Biden, Boxer, Byrd, Clinton, Corzine, Durbin, Feingold, Kerry, Leahy, Reid and 16 other Democrats voted against it. It passed the Senate 72-26 and was signed into law on February 18, 2005.
Here is an excerpt of remarks Senator Obama made on the Senate floor on February 14, 2005, concerning the passage of this legislation:
"Every American deserves their day in court. This bill, while not perfect, gives people that day while still providing the reasonable reformsnecessary to safeguard against the most blatant abuses of the system. I also hope that the federal judiciary takes seriously their expanded role in class action litigation, and upholds their responsibility to fairly certify class actions so that they may protect our civil and consumer rights... "
Three days before Senator Obama expressed that fateful yea vote, 14 state attorneys general, including Lisa Madigan of Senator Obama's home state of Illinois, filed a letter with the Senate and House, pleading to stop the passage of this corporate giveaway: The AGs wrote: "State attorneys general frequently investigate and bring actions against defendants who have caused harm to our citizens... In some instances, such actions have been brought with the attorney general acting as the class representative for the consumers of the state. We are concerned that certain provisions of S.5 might be misinterpreted to impede the ability of the attorneys general to bring such actions..."
The Senate also received a desperate plea from more than 40 civil rights and labor organizations, including the NAACP, Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, Human Rights Campaign, American Civil Liberties Union, Center for Justice and Democracy, Legal Momentum (formerly NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund), and Alliance for Justice. They wrote as follows:
"Under the [Class Action Fairness Act of 2005], citizens are denied the right to use their own state courts to bring class actions against corporations that violate these state wage and hour and state civil rights laws, even where that corporation has hundreds of employees in that state.
Moving these state law cases into federal court will delay and likely deny justice for working men and women and victims of discrimination. The
federal courts are already overburdened. Additionally, federal courts are less likely to certify classes or provide relief for violations of state law".
This legislation, which dramatically impaired labor rights, consumer rights and civil rights, involved five years of pressure from 100 corporations, 475 lobbyists, tens of millions of corporate dollars buying influence in our government, and the active participation of the Wall Street firms now funding the Obama campaign. "The Civil Justice Reform Group, a business alliance comprising general counsels from Fortune 100 firms, was instrumental in drafting the class-action bill", says Public Citizen.
One of the hardest working registered lobbyists to push this corporate giveaway was the law firm Mayer-Brown, hired by the leading business lobby group, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, the Chamber of Commerce spent $16 million in just 2003, lobbying the government on various business issues, including class action reform.
According to a 2003 report from Public Citizen, Mayer-Brown's class action lobbyists included "Mark Gitenstein, former chief counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee and a leading architect of the Senate strategy in support of class-action legislation; John Schmitz, who was deputy counsel to President George H.W. Bush; David McIntosh, former Republican congressman from Indiana; and Jeffrey Lewis, who was on the staffs of both Sen. John Breaux (D-La) and Rep. Billy Tauzin (R-La)."
While not on the Center for Responsive Politics list of the top 20 contributors to the Obama presidential campaign, Mayer-Brown's partners and employees are in rarefied company, giving a total of $92,817 through December 31, 2007, to the Obama campaign. (The firm is also defending Merrill Lynch in court against charges of racial discrimination.)
Senator Obama graduated Harvard Law magna cum laude and was the first black president of the Harvard Law Review. Given those credentials, one assumes that he understood the ramifications to the poor and middle class in this country as he helped gut one of the few weapons left to seek justice against giant corporations and their legions of giant law firms. The class-action vehicle confers upon each citizen one of the most powerful rights in our society: the ability to function as a private attorney general and seek redress for wrongs inflicted on ourselves as well as for those similarly injured that might not otherwise have a voice.
Those rights should have been strengthened, not restricted, at this dangerous time in our nation's history. According to a comprehensive report from the nonprofit group, United for a Fair Economy, over the past eight years the total loss of wealth for people of color is between $164 billion and $213 billion for subprime loans which is the greatest loss of wealth for people of color in modern history:
"According to federal data, people of color are more than three times more likely to have subprime loans: high-cost loans account for 55 per cent of loans to blacks, but only 17 per cent of loans to whites"
If there had been equitable distribution of subprime loans, losses for white people would be 44.5 per cent higher and losses for people of color would be about 24 per cent lower. "This is evidence of systemic prejudice and institutional racism."
Before the current crisis, based on improvements in median household net worth, it would take 594 more years for blacks to achieve parity with
whites. The current crisis is likely to stretch this even further.
So, how should we react when we learn that the top contributors to the Obama campaign are the very Wall Street firms whose shady mortgage lenders buried the elderly and the poor and minority under predatory loans? How should we react when we learn that on the big donor list is
Citigroup, whose former employee at CitiFinancial testified to the Federal Trade Commission that it was standard practice to target people based on race and educational level, with the sales force winning bonuses called "Rocopoly Money" (like a sick board game), after "blitz" nights of soliciting loans by phone? How should we react when we learn that these very same firms, arm in arm with their corporate lawyers and registered lobbyists, have weakened our ability to fight back with the class-action vehicle?
Should there be any doubt left as to who owns our government? The very same cast of characters making the Obama hit parade of campaign loot are the clever creators of the industry solutions to the wave of foreclosures gripping this nation's poor and middle class, effectively putting the solution in the hands of the robbers. The names of these programs (that have failed to make a dent in the problem) have the same vacuous ring: Hope Now; Project Lifeline.
Senator Obama has become the inspiration and role model to millions of children and young people in this country. He has only two paths now:
to be a dream maker or a dream killer. But be assured of one thing: this country will not countenance any more grand illusions.
Pam Martens worked on Wall Street for 21 years; she has no securities position, long or short, in any company mentioned in this article. She writes on public interest issues from New Hampshire. She can be reached at pamk741@aol.com <mailto:pamk741@aol.com> .
Posted by V.P. Frickey
at 12:54 PM MDT
Updated: Friday, 4 July 2008 10:27 PM MDT
Monday, 9 June 2008
Hey, do you want to pay reparations? Just vote for Obama.
Mood:
incredulous
Topic: HOW LAME IS THIS?
According to an article on The Hill.com, Democratic Senator John Conyers plans to bring a bill before Congress during what many people see as an upcoming Obama presidency to require Congress to study paying African-Americans reparations for slavery.
Patient Conyers hopes to move slavery bill during an Obama administration
| By Bob Cusack |
| Posted: 03/12/07 07:39 PM [ET] |
After waiting nearly two decades, Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) is well positioned to move legislation that could lead the federal government to apologize for slavery and pay reparations.
But the Judiciary Committee chairman is willing to wait two more years, when he hopes Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) will be in the White House." |
Posted by V.P. Frickey
at 1:11 AM MDT
Sunday, 8 June 2008
Who's owned by Big Business?
You hear a lot - from Barack Obama. in particular - about the way he will protect us from "special interests."
But campaigns are paid for by those special interests - which include many traditional big contributors to the Democratic Party such as
- trial lawyers (who raised more money for John Edwards' campaign than all of the surviving candidates COMBINED, and which were among both Obama and Clinton's top ten contributors (according to opensources.org, who also provided the figures below)
- investment banks (six of the top contributors, including the top five, to both the Obama and Clinton campaigns were investment banks who spend a lot of effort making the way smooth for big companies in the Persian Gulf and China, really in many countries where influence could buy a lot of slack on trade and human rights issues, not to mention the studied indifference of both parties to the financiers of global terrorism)
- unions (it's difficult to see why people in unions continue to support the Democratic Party, as committed as Democratic Members of Congress have been to opening the borders and admitting a surge of cheap illegal labor into the country - making life more difficult for working people.
Maybe if more unions were less corrupt, this would change, but Obama has shown that he can be gotten to - he has publicly promised that he would "deliver" to the Teamsters, whose national organization is chafing under a consent order which places their operations under intense judicial scrutiny.
So Joe Sixpack is paying a percentage of his wages to organizations who support politicians committed to crapping up his life - bringing competition for his job in, contrary to Federal law. Why?)
- abortionists (Obama is out to the left of NARAL, the abortionists' biggest lobby, on abortion law. As a state senator, Obama voted against a law that would require Illinois doctors to not kill babies who survived abortions - a law NARAL told the Illinois State Senate they could live with.
Just knock'em in the head, huh, BO?)
It adds up pretty quickly, and we have a great indicator of who's the most bought-off by these special interests: dollars.
The figures are (from opensecrets.com):
| Candidate |
|
|
| Total Raised | Total Spent | Cash on Hand | Debts |
|---|
| Obama, Barack | | | | $265,439,277
 | $218,884,220
| $46,555,057
| $2,037,801
|
| Clinton, Hillary | | | | $214,883,437
| $185,216,984
| $29,666,453
| $19,480,893
|
The issue of campaign debts is important because if the campaign has no cash on hand at the end of the campaign, those debts sometimes are forgiven, becoming contributions. One more set of people for the candidate to keep happy if or when he is elected.
On the charge of being beholden to "special interests," neither Hillary Clinton nor Barack Obama has any reason to criticize John McCain. They, at this early stage of the campaign, have managed to out-fundraise, out-promise and out-sell themselves to people - including many special interests - four to five times as much taken together, than John McCain.
The numbers show that Barack Obama is by far the most efficient fund-raiser of the three candidates. As I've shown in other posts, this happens partly because Barack Obama doesn't seem able to turn down contributions, no matter how shady the contributor.
Then again, his major contributor and fundraiser (before the man came under Federal indictment for soliciting kickbacks from a variety of sources - some of which went to Barack Obama, apparently) was his former client - arguably one of the worst slumlords of Chicago, the shadowy Mr. Rezko.
Mr. Rezko and his wife also bought a parcel of land next to Obama's new home for some $600,000 and sold it to the Obamas for much less than that. The price of land in the neighborhood probably didn't drop by half between the time the Rezkos bought it and the time they sold it to the Obamas, so the difference in the price is a gift. A gift that could run into multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars, and hasn't, like the campaign contributions from people found out by the press to be crooks, been "donated to a charity" (no news about whether the "charity" was run by someone like the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the foul-mouthed America-hater whose obscenity-laced sermons Obama sat through for twenty years on Sunday mornings).
Rezko also arranged a loan of several million dollars to Barack and Michelle Obama for their mansion on the South Side of Chicago from one of the wealthiest men in Britain, an Iraqi expatriate. Sounds as though Halliburton's not the only people getting money from Iraq. Not on record is what Obama had to do or promise to do for that impressive loan, but it probably wouldn't hurt the Iraqi's other investments. Taking that kind of money out of regular investments and putting it into a short-term loan to Barack Obama and his wife couldn't have been a wise financial move... unless....
Posted by V.P. Frickey
at 8:28 PM MDT
Updated: Friday, 4 July 2008 10:08 PM MDT
Obama and Hillary's Top Ten Contributors
Topic: Hypocrites In The NEWS!!!
Numbers collected by opensecrets.org
Quoted from "ObamaExposed," Human Events magazine (with my notes in parentheses)
1. GOLDMAN SACHS — TOTAL CONTRIBUTED: $834,124
Hillary Clinton: $413,361
Barack Obama: $421,763
(investment bankers, http://www2.goldmansachs.com/
click on that URL, by the way, and you'll see that these people are heavily invested in what they refer to as BRICs - businesses in Brazil, Russia, India and China.
Two of those countries have ICBMs pointed at us, while another - Brazil - just elected a hardline leftist as president who is helping finance narcoterrorism in the Tri-Border area of South America.
India is the only country they're in that doesn't pose a national security threat to us.)
2. CITIGROUP, INC. — TOTAL CONTRIBUTED: $572,473
Hillary Clinton: $350,895
Barack Obama: $221,578
(bank/investment house, http://www.citigroup.com
they are heavily invested in Japan - just merged with Nikko bank)
3. MORGAN STANLEY —
TOTAL CONTRIBUTED: $517,896
Hillary Clinton: $362,700
Barack Obama: $155,196
(investment bankers, http://www.morganstanley.com/
According to the Web site located at the URL above, Morgan Stanley is heavily invested in China and "EMEA" - Europe, Middle East and Africa.
These regions probably appreciate the Clintons' ineffectual military policies, and probably look to Obama to reinstate them. In general, the Democratic party's been pretty good to "EMEA" and China.
We already know the windfall of political influence China's contributions to the Democratic Party and the Clinton campaign reaped. When were the Clintons ever going to get around to protecting America? They had a chance to kill Osama bin Laden, but Bill couldn't be bothered to walk down from the VIP pavilion at a golf tournament to authorize the hit.
As crooked as Osama already appears to be, we can't seriously expect better from him than from the Clintons.)
4. LEHMAN BROTHERS —
TOTAL CONTRIBUTED: $492,500
Hillary Clinton: $241,870
Barack Obama: $250,630
(investment bankers, http://www.lehman.com/)
5. JP MORGAN CHASE & CO. —
TOTAL CONTRIBUTED: $458,728
Hillary Clinton: $214,880
Barack Obama: $243,848
(investment bankers, have brokered deals for China Aluminum to buy 12% of Rio Tinto, the global mining conglomerate; the sale of GE Plastics to Saudi Basic Industries Corp, have provided consulting services to major bank mergers in the Persian Gulf Emirates and huge Chinese industrial firms.
See the pattern here? It would be much, much easier for these guys to do business if they could demonstrate to the Arabs and the Chinese that they got someone in the White House who wouldn't hold their feet to the fire on financing of global terrorism, proliferation of nuclear weapons, aiding and abetting Al-Qaeda, and predatory business practices that hurt Americans.)
6. NATIONAL AMUSEMENTS, INC. —
TOTAL CONTRIBUTED: $455,853
Hillary Clinton: $210,010
Barack Obama: $245,843
(national chain of theaters. http://www.nationalamusements.com/)
7. SKADDEN, ARPS ET AL —
TOTAL CONTRIBUTED: $364,216
Hillary Clinton: $167,796
Barack Obama: $196,420
(New York's largest law firm - 2,000 attorneys, http://www.skadden.com/)
8. KIRKLAND & ELLIS — TOTAL CONTRIBUTED: $314,414
Hillary Clinton: $179,676
Barack Obama: $134,738
(another huge law firm, http://www.kirkland.com/)
9. TIME WARNER — TOTAL CONTRIBUTED: $300,360
Hillary Clinton: $144,977
Barack Obama: $155,383
(media conglomerate, http://www.timewarner.com/
Time, CNN, Turner, Big Cable - I'm surprised these guys aren't CHARGING Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama for public relations work, really.)
10. MERRILL LYNCH — TOTAL CONTRIBUTED: $269,442
Hillary Clinton: $165,042
Barack Obama: $104,400
(another big, big investment house. http://www.ml.com)
You know, it's amazing how these Democratic candidates like to hammer and hammer on the Republicans about "special interests" when they're in the pockets of Big Law, Big Banks, and Big Investors to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
They're hypocrites, plain and simple.
Next time you pull up to the gas pump and shell out four bucks a gallon, thank the investment bankers who own the Democratic Party for helping make it happen - by greasing the wheels for OPEC countries to own more and more of America. The Clintons had eight years to do something about our dependence on oil, so they and George W. Bush deserve equal blame on this one.
Next time your co-pays go up at the pharmacy and the hospital - or you have to pay the whole bill because you can't afford health insurance - thank big law firms like Skadden, Arps and Kirkland, Ellis, and the trial lawyers of America in general, who contribute to the Democrats over ten to one compared to their contributions to other political parties.
Big Law's often frivolous lawsuits against the health and pharmaceutical industries are the single largest factor in the rising cost of health care - and if the Democrats do push through socialized medical care, you can bet it'll be a bonanza for bureaucrats and Big Law and a disaster for everyone else.
Posted by V.P. Frickey
at 7:20 PM MDT
Updated: Tuesday, 10 June 2008 9:27 PM MDT
Saturday, 7 June 2008
Who HASN'T given Barack Obama money?
Mood:
incredulous
Topic: ...Those Who Will Not See
I didn't think there would be much to the allegations that Barack Obama has taken a LOT of money and/or expensive favors in shady circumstances.
I'm man enough to admit when I'm wrong, though.
This is a link to a London Times online story about Obama accepting assistance from one of Britain's richest men, an Iraqi expatriate, to purchase a mansion and help with his fundraiser...
Quoting from the article, which also gets into the deal with Mr. and Mrs. Rezko for financing for the Obamas' South Side Chicago mansion (of course, there's no obligation to do favors for millions of dollars of campaign money, is there? Just ask Hillary Clinton... )
"A British-Iraqi billionaire lent millions of dollars to Barack Obama's fundraiser just weeks before an imprudent land deal that has returned to haunt the presidential contender, an investigation by The Times discloses.
The money transfer raises the question of whether funds from Nadhmi Auchi, one of Britain’s wealthiest men, helped Mr Obama buy his mock Georgian mansion in Chicago.
A company related to Mr Auchi, who has a conviction for corruption in France, registered the loan to Mr Obama's bagman Antoin "Tony" Rezko on May 23 2005. Mr Auchi says the loan, through the Panamanian company Fintrade Services SA, was for $3.5 million.
Three weeks later, Mr Obama bought a house on the city's South Side while Mr Rezko's wife bought the garden plot next door from the same seller on the same day, June 15.
Mr Obama says he never used Mrs Rezko's still-empty lot, which could only be accessed through his property. But he admits he paid his gardener to mow the lawn.
Mrs Rezko, whose husband was widely known to be under investigation at the time, went on to sell a 10-foot strip of her property to Mr Obama seven months later so he could enjoy a bigger garden.
Mr Obama now admits his involvement in this land deal was a “boneheaded mistake”.
Mrs Rezko’s purchase and sale of the land to Mr Obama raises many unanswered questions.
It is unclear how Mrs Rezko could have afforded the downpayment of $125,000 and a $500,000 mortgage for the original $625,000 purchase of the garden plot at 5050 South Greenwood Ave.
In a sworn statement a year later, Mrs Rezko said she got by on a salary of $37,000 and had $35,000 assets. Mr Rezko told a court he had "no income, negative cash flow, no liquid assets, no unencumbered assets [and] is significantly in arrears on many of his obligations."
Mrs Rezko, whose husband goes on trial on unrelated corruption charges in Chicago on March 3, refused to answer questions about the case when she spoke by telephone to The Times."
_____
This is better than the Korean millionaire Tongsun Park giving Mrs. Edwin Edwards (his ex-wife, now) $50,000 for a living room table in the Louisiana governor's mansion - some deal or other having to do with rice exports.
But what's the quid pro quo for an underpaid office worker (married to a man under indictment for corruption) to buy a $625,000 piece of land to sell to the Obamas , or an Iraqi businessman to float these people a $3.5 million dollar home loan - through an offshore company, no less?
What, exactly, would a guy under indictment for corruption and a foreigner already convicted of corruption want a US Senator - or God forbid, a President - to do for him?
The mind boggles.
_____
If you don't trust the British press, how about the Chicago Sun-Times?
"Obama surfaces in Rekzo's federal corruption case
Source confirmed Obama is the unnamed "political candidate" referred to in document which outlines case against Rezko"
(blogger note - Did Katie Couric share this with you yet? Chris Matthews sling a hardball about it on his Sunday morning show? I thought not.)
For the first time, Democratic White House hopeful Barack Obama has surfaced in the federal corrupton case against his longtime campaign fund-raiser, Tony Rezko, the Chicago Sun-Times has learned.
The Illinois senator isn’t accused of any wrongdoing. And there’s no evidence Obama knew contributions to his 2004 U.S. Senate campaign came from schemes Rezko is accused of orchestrating."
"The allegations against Rezko that involve Obama are contained in one paragraph of a 78-page document filed last month in which prosecutors outline their corruption and fraud case against Rezko, who was also a key money man for Gov. Blagojevich and other politicians.
Rezko is set to go to trial Feb. 25. The revelation that Obama’s name could come up in court is a political headache he doesn’t need as he heads into a round of primaries that are likely to determine his party’s nomination for president."
(Blogger note: this is old news. Why on Earth haven't the national news media picked up on it? The British know about it. They seem to know more than even the Sun-Times does about the foreign campaign contributions to the Obama campaign.
What was that about "no special interests?" Obama, you lying sack of.... )
"Obama is not named in the Dec. 21 court document. But a source familiar with the case confirmed that Obama is the unnamed “political candidate” referred to in a section of the document that accuses Rezko of orchestrating a scheme in which a firm hired to handle state teacher pension investments first had to pay $250,000 in “sham” finder’s fees. From that money, $10,000 was donated to Obama’s successful run for the Senate in the name of a Rezko business associate, according to the court filing and the source.
Rezko, who was part of Obama’s senatorial finance committee, also is accused of directing “at least one other individual” to donate money to Obama and then reimbursing that individual — in possible violation of federal election law."
(Blogger note: This sort of thing has gotten people in deep trouble - like entrepreneur Michael Zinn, whose story was told in the documentary "Mad Dog Prosecutors" - he was accused of this very infraction and spent a lot of time undergoing administrative abuse in the Federal prison system - all because some of his business rivals said he MIGHT have reimbursed some of his employees for making donations to a Congressman whose campaign he supported. They proved NOTHING, but Zinn remained in jail.)
"A spokesman for U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald declined to comment.
Obama — a state senator when he got the contributions in 2004 — has moved to distance himself from Rezko since his longtime friend and supporter was indicted in October 2006. After news reports that Obama had engaged in a real estate transaction with Rezko’s wife at a time Tony Rezko was known to be under investigation, the senator called the episode “boneheaded” and “a mistake.”
(blogger note: In other words, under the bus you go, Mr. Rezko. Maybe.)
"Obama campaign aides said Friday he was unaware Rezko was behind the contributions cited in last month’s court filing or that the document referred to the senator.
“We have no way of knowing he is the politician named here,” spokesman Bill Burton said, “but we returned this money months ago for other reasons.”
(Right. Sure.)
"Rezko is one of Obama’s earliest political patrons. Long known as a prolific fund-raiser, the Syrian-born businessman helped raise money for Obama’s political campaigns beginning in 1995, when Obama was running for the Illinois Senate.
In 13 years in politics, Obama has gotten at least $168,000 in campaign donations from Rezko, his family and business associates. The Sun-Times reported that figure last June. Obama’s “best estimate” seven months earlier had been that Rezko had raised no more than $60,000 for him.
When Obama ran for the U.S. Senate, Rezko held a June 27, 2003, cocktail party in Rezko’s Wilmette mansion, picking up the tab for the lavish event. Obama’s campaign staff has said it has no records to show who attended that party, or how much it cost.
Obama’s relationship with Rezko dates to 1990, when Obama, then a Harvard law student, interviewed for a job with Rezko’s development company, Rezmar Corp. Obama turned down the job, instead going to work for a small Chicago law firm — Davis Miner Barnhill. That firm did work on more than a dozen low-income housing projects Rezmar rehabbed with government funds.
Eleven Rezmar buildings were in the state Senate district Obama represented between 1996 and 2004. Many of the buildings ended up in foreclosure, with tenants living in squalid conditions, the Sun-Times reported last year. In one instance, Rezko’s company left tenants without heat for five weeks. Obama said he was unaware of problems with the buildings and minimized the legal work he’d done.
Obama’s relationship with Rezko grew closer in June 2005, when Obama and Rezko’s wife bought adjoining real estate parcels from a doctor in the South Side Kenwood neighborhood. Obama paid $1.65 million for the doctor’s mansion, while Rezko’s wife paid $625,000 for the vacant lot next door. Obama’s purchase price was $300,000 below the asking price; Rezko’s wife paid full price."
(Blogger note: This confirms the London Times's account of that particular activity.)
"Six months later, Obama paid Rita Rezko $104,500 for one-sixth of the vacant lot, which he bought to expand his yard. In November 2006, he expressed regret about the transaction.
“It was a mistake to have been engaged with him at all in this or any other personal business dealing that would allow him, or anyone else,” Obama said, “to believe that he had done me a favor.”"
(Blogger note: why does the press just sit there and nod when Obama's flacks hand out crap like this? After all the flak the White House took over Scooter Libby POSSIBLY not being accurate about something he said under oath?
Inconsistency here, folks... no, let's call it what it is - partisan media bias.)
It would be better, in my opinion, if Obama's campaign had simply returned the money to the donors - or declined it in the first place. That way, there's NO question of a quid pro quo.
It also would be a lot closer to what Obama pledges he WILL do. All we can really evaluate is what he HAS done.
Obama's campaign has historically allowed donors to believe that they have some influence with the Senator instead of rebuffing them outright. It seems as though the Obama campaign lacks the courage to live up to their rhetoric on campaign finance. No audacity with the donors, eh?
Historically, the Democrats have been loud in demanding campaign reform only to ignore the resulting laws when it is convenient (and local party officials here in Denver have said outright that they're still scrambling to come up with the money for this year's Democratic National Convention in Denver, so I think even money that smells like ten-day old fish entrails will be welcome right around now to finance the big party).
______
It's also interesting to note that a Vice Chairman at Perseus, LLC (which also employs Bush administration critic Richard Holbrooke), James A. Johnson, is active in the Obama campaign and in charge of selection of the vice-presidential candidate.
Going over to the Perseus LLC Web site, we find that it is an investment fund, and that George Soros is an investment partner of theirs. Perseus Soros Partners LLC invests heavily in pharmaceutical companies.
http://www.secform4.com/insider-trading/1250191.htm
George Soros pumped incredible amounts of soft money into the coffers of the Democratic Party during the 2004 elections. Now he's trying to buy himself another Democratic President. And that's the only name you can give to the transaction.
Wealthy foreigner dumps tons of money into a political campaign... why? Based on what the Chinese got from the Clintons for their generous support - neutron bomb plans, most favored nation trading status, lots of slack on their human rights record, the answer is obviously political influence, and plenty of it.
And Barack Obama just doesn't seem able to say "no" to contributors. If he were a Republican, the hue and cry for his impeachment from the Senate would be in progress now.
By the standards the "mainstream" press and critics of the Republican Party apply to conservative politicians, Obama would be regarded as a moral leper. He takes money from Chicago slum lords, just plain crooks and people whose business practices don't bear too close an examination.
In fact, by the standards applied to a recent House majority whip (the guy who used to spray for bugs for a living in Dallas - as opposed to the guy in Obama's campaign team who lets slum apartments swarm with cockroaches), Obama should be writing his resignation speech from the US Senate right now.
How can reasonably intelligent people idolize a man who lets a slum lord run his political campaigns and has had a lifelong relationship with this guy? (The obvious answer is that they may not be as swift as the press is telling them they are.... )
Some of the same people who probably voted for Obama into office went without heat in a Chicago winter (worse than Denver, I can testify) while the guy who owned their apartments threw lavish parties to raise campaign funds for the guy they voted for - why wasn't Obama in this guy's face about people freezing in their apartments? How compassionate IS he, when it comes down to real decisions? (Another canape, Senator?)
Obama has worked hand in glove with someone who oppresses the poor of Chicago for years while prosing around about his celestial vision and "the audacity of hope."
All that you see once you peel away the crap is the audacity of Obama.
Posted by V.P. Frickey
at 11:27 PM MDT
Updated: Monday, 16 June 2008 2:14 PM MDT
Barack Obama - the best President George Soros ever owned?
Mood:
incredulous
Topic: Hypocrites In The NEWS!!!
Barack Obama, the man who pledges to shield us from all those special interests, has delegated the task of helping pick his vice-presidential nominee to James A. Johnson, Vice Chairman, Perseus, LLC.”
Going over to the Perseus LLC Web site, we find that it is an investment fund, and that George Soros is an investment partner of theirs. Perseus Soros Partners LLC invests heavily in pharmaceutical companies.
http://www.secform4.com/insider-trading/1250191.htm
For the short of memory, George Soros pumped incredible amounts of soft money into the Kerry campaign in 2004.
Now he's trying to buy himself another Democratic President. And that's the only name you can give to the transaction.
Wealthy foreigner dumps several personal fortunes into a Presidential campaign... why? Altruism? Personal quirk? (time clock is ticking... )
BUZZZZZ..... The answer is (based on what the Chinese got from the Clintons for their generous support - neutron bomb plans, most favored nation trading status, lots of slack on their human rights record.... )
POLITICAL INFLUENCE!
Let's all look and see what sort of help George Soros is giving Barack Obama!
Posted by V.P. Frickey
at 5:57 PM MDT
Updated: Saturday, 7 June 2008 7:48 PM MDT
Tuesday, 20 May 2008
Something to think about 'till November 2008
"Their threats are terrible enough, but we could bear
All that; it is their promises that bring despair."
"Lines During a General Election." C.S. Lewis
_____
Something to think about when fumble-fingered dolts all compete to promise us salvation in our time; universal medical care without a bill; prosperity without work; security without armed force to guarantee the peace.
Liars, most of them.
There is something about politics that pollutes the soul and hates honesty.
The most wretched people on earth are those so completely given over to the political impulse that every breath is a political transaction, every word a promise destined never to be kept, every word to or about a loved one a betrayal.
And yet these are precisely the people who crave constant and universal adulation. To these people, no family gathering can be anything but a protracted tribute to worthless, manipulative sociopaths whose consciences constantly nag at them about a life of slander, back-stabbing and duplicity.
Even the wartime deaths of grandchildren who they slandered and harassed endlessly by telephone during life are nothing but opportunities for people like this to bathe in undeserved sympathy (AFTER they scream obscenities at the wife and parents of the bereaved over the telephone for three days before the funeral services to demand publicity for "memorials" intended mainly as more tributes to these same folks, one of whom was screaming and cursing a man who had just lost his son for not doing their publicity for them).
Annunziata Catholic Church, I'd appreciate it if you took your plaque off of my son's memorial. When he was alive, he wasn't really a part of your parish life, from what he told me.
There's a perfectly good memorial to him in Noblesville, Indiana, where people knew and loved him. The sort of memorial that counts. I don't blame you - you were used to turn a dignified memorial service to a brave man into a circus, one more chance for two of your parishioners to bask in what they imagine is admiration; one day they'll recognize that it was only forbearance and pity.
"Better a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith." - Proverbs 15:17
Posted by V.P. Frickey
at 9:07 AM MDT
Updated: Thursday, 29 May 2008 10:43 PM MDT
Friday, 16 May 2008
Romanian and Turkish scientists turn circuit boards into oil
Topic: Good News for Once
For those of us who are really, really PO'd at having to put Bedouin peasants through medical school on Mars every time we fill our gas tanks, some good, good news (maybe - I'll believe it when I see the "recycled computer gas" pump at my local convenience store):
Quoted from the Register Hardware UK Web site
http://tinyurl.com/6zyamf
"13th May 2008 19:59 GMT
Whether through a force of expanding environmental activism or just compliance with government edicts, the IT sector is in a pinch over how to safely recycle defunct computers and equipment...
(to give you some perspective on exactly how much pain in the wallet this can involve, here in Denver recycling an office computer can run you a cool $20 unless you can convince Goodwill, DAV or some other thrift store charity to pick it up. A 20" CRT monitor or an old traditional color TV will cost you about up to $40 to drop off at the Denver city dump.)
...But a team of scientists from Romania and Turkey say they've found a simple and effective method to turn printed circuit boards from discarded IT kit into material suitable as fuel or for industrial use.
The researchers note that the plastic portion of waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) is particularly tricky to recycle because it contains additives, heavy metals, and extremely toxic flame retardants. (You don't want too much polybrominated diphenyl ethers in your diet if you cherish your liver and brain.)
In their paper "Feedstock Recycling from the Printed Circuit Boards of Used Computers," the scientists describe using a process of heat and chemical decomposition to destroy or remove almost all of the hazardous toxic compounds. A copy of the paper can be found here. (PDF warning.)
(In other words, downloading this paper might tie your Internet connection up longer than you or the people you live with might like; it's also apt to fill up your hard drive, because PDF files are BIG - typically over a megabyte. Just giving you a heads-up.)
The process isn't exactly light reading — but when it's done, what's left of the printed circuit board is pyrolysis oil (or bio-oil), which can be refined in a similar fashion as crude petroleum for fuel or can be used by industries to make other useful chemicals.
Indeed now more than ever, is there anything adding more RAM can't do?"
Yes, there is - the process doesn't pay for itself, smart-ass.
The downside here is the same problem we have now - we give Waste Management Inc (or whoever) free labor in separating paper from cardboard from plastic from aluminum from steel cans; some places, we pay extra for the privilege; and THEY get to burn the burnables and generate power or process steam to help run their plant.
And as the community of people who are running their diesel-powered cars on other folks' rancid fryer fat are finding out, this smelly crap is now called "waste vegetable oil" and runs about a buck a gallon, IF you can find a connection.
There's already a Nigerian Email scam out there offering suck, er, recyclers every sort of used liquid carbohydrate at really good prices. All you have to do is send them lots of money in advance (plus shipping, handling and customs duties) and sit around waiting for the truck full of 55-gallon drums of flammable gunk to arrive at your house.
So I'm not holding my breath for this to come to a filling station near you or me any time soon. But word of anything that has a remote chance of spoiling any of the Middle East's whole days deserves to be shared.
Posted by V.P. Frickey
at 2:20 PM MDT
Updated: Friday, 16 May 2008 4:20 PM MDT
Monday, 12 May 2008
the Pakistan nuclear program - a pictorial guide
Topic: No Truce with Terror!
Posted by V.P. Frickey
at 9:45 AM MDT
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