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CORRUPTION UPDATES 59 Late May 2007: Draft Posting: Stay Tuned for More! The CORRUPTION UPDATES posts corruption news stories from California, the Nation and the World, and gives you the straight story. |
CORRUPTION UPDATES 59
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1) THE ABSTRACT PRINTED BELOW WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE:
Ex-Gonzales aide says she may have 'crossed the line'
Monica Goodling's House testimony confirms politics were a factor in Justice Dept. personnel decisions, but extent remains unclear.
By Richard B. Schmitt
Times Staff Writer
May 24, 2007
WASHINGTON — After three months of congressional hearings into the firing of U.S. attorneys, one thing became clear Wednesday: Partisan politics did play a role in Justice Department personnel decisions.
But lawmakers, who have heard from an array of young political functionaries to the U.S. attorney general himself, still do not know the extent of it.
The parade of Justice Department officials wrapped up Wednesday with the testimony of Monica M. Goodling, 33, a graduate of an evangelical Christian law school whose meteoric rise to the top of the Bush Justice Department crashed and burned this spring when she resigned and hired a lawyer.
She was senior counsel to Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales and was his liaison to the White House.
Goodling — testifying under a grant of immunity from prosecution — acknowledged that she had taken into account the political leanings of applicants for jobs at the Justice Department, including career prosecutors and immigration judges. That may have violated federal civil service laws, and Goodling conceded she may have "crossed the line."
While portraying herself as a department loyalist who considered her colleagues part of an extended family, Goodling also lobbed new and explosive charges against Gonzales and Paul J. McNulty, the outgoing deputy attorney general.
Goodling recounted one conversation she had with Gonzales during her final days at the department that suggested the attorney general may have attempted to coordinate with her his version of the events leading up to the firing of the eight prosecutors.
Goodling said Gonzales reviewed the story of the firings with her in March at a meeting she requested in his office to discuss her future.
She said she was "paralyzed" and "distraught" by the swirling controversy and asked Gonzales for a transfer. The attorney general said he would consider the request.
"He then proceeded to say, 'Let me tell you what I can remember,' and he laid out for me his general recollection … of some of the process regarding the replacement of the U.S. attorneys," Goodling said. "He laid out a little bit of it, and then he asked me … if I had any reaction to his iteration."
"It made me a little uncomfortable," Goodling continued.
Democrats seized on the exchange, questioning whether Gonzales was attempting to coordinate stories with his former aide and possibly even to obstruct justice.
Gonzales has told lawmakers that he had not discussed the dismissals with others involved at the department for fear that it might compromise the integrity of the investigation.
Senate Democrats offered a harsher assessment. "At the very least, the attorney general may have misled the Senate Judiciary Committee," Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), a leading Gonzales critic, said in a statement issued after the House hearing. "At worst, he may have tried to influence Ms. Goodling's testimony."
Goodling also alleged that McNulty, who has testified that he was largely in the dark about the events leading up to the firings, was "not fully candid" with lawmakers and gave testimony to Congress that was "incomplete or inaccurate."
McNulty told a Senate panel Feb. 6 that the decision to fire the U.S. attorneys in December was made solely by the Justice Department when, in fact, the White House had also weighed in.
McNulty has said Goodling and other aides failed to sufficiently brief him on the firings in advance of his testimony. Goodling said the allegation was false.
Goodling also acknowledged that the Justice Department last fall interviewed U.S. attorney candidates for Los Angeles who had not yet gone through the state's bipartisan selection process.
Goodling said the department considered a state commission that has screened candidates since 2001 "rather slow" and believed it did not include all candidates that were deserving.
Concerns were raised that officials were trying to install a politically connected successor to outgoing U.S. Atty. Debra Wong Yang.
Earlier Wednesday, Goodling — who did opposition research for the Republican National Committee before joining the Justice Department — acknowledged that she had gone overboard in considering the political backgrounds of candidates for jobs as career prosecutors. She also said she occasionally scanned Federal Election Commission websites to check out applicants' political contributions.
"You crossed the line on civil service laws, is that right?" asked Rep. Robert C. Scott (D-Va.).
"I believe I crossed the line," Goodling replied. "But I didn't mean to."
She said she could not recall the number of cases in which she allowed politics to affect her judgment.
She downplayed her involvement in the firing of the eight U.S. attorneys, saying that she acted more as a traffic cop, forwarding assessments and other information to higher-ups at the Justice Department and White House.
"It's imperative that we begin to obtain more cooperation from the White House," House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) said after the hearing. "We've learned today that trust has been violated, that false statements have been made under oath — not Monica Goodling — and that there was a possible obstruction of justice as well as perjury.
"This is known as the bread crumb theory of investigation," he added. "We keep getting closer and closer to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave."
THE COMMITTEE SAYS:
Dems Playing Dumb: Emails and Previous Testimony Proving Political Misconduct in Career and US Attorneys ignored
Also See:
Corruption Updates 54, 1st article on the page, "The US Attorney Scandal: A Root and Branch Survey "
Search the Corruption Database under
US Attorney
Goodling
Gonzales
2) THE ABSTRACT PRINTED BELOW WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE :
At Wal-Mart, Clinton didn't upset any carts
As a board member, she touted women and the environment but didn't fight anti-union efforts.
By Stephen Braun
Times Staff Writer
May 19, 2007
From 1986 to 1992, Clinton was a member of its board of directors, carefully navigating through a spate of internal policy concerns that now weigh on Wal-Mart's corporate image.
Former Wal-Mart Stores Inc. board members and executives recall Clinton as a politically nimble insider who cautiously tried to nudge the company toward hiring more female executives and environmentally friendly practices, to limited effect, while remaining silent as Wal-Mart pursued anti-union strategies.Wal-Mart critics say her presence brought little lasting change to the firm. And former executives say she was not a voice for bold reform.
"She was not a dissenter," said Donald G. Soderquist, Wal-Mart's former chief operating officer and the board's vice chairman during Clinton's tenure. "She was a part of those decisions."
Corporate directors are obligated to "protect shareholder value, pure and simple," said Charles Elson, director of the University of Delaware's John L. Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance. If Clinton was brought on to the Wal-Mart board as a "change agent," Elson said, "she shouldn't have been put on there in the first place."
Labor leaders said Clinton was questioned about Wal-Mart in January when she met with top officials of the United Food and Commercial Workers, the union at the forefront of national efforts to organize Wal-Mart workers. A UFCW official said "she made a presentation and was asked about Wal-Mart," but would not give details on the session.
Clinton often touted Wal-Mart without reservation. But as the labor-backed campaign against Wal-Mart intensified in recent years, she has tempered her public enthusiasm, even giving back a $5,000 political donation from Wal-Mart's political action committee in 2005.
Clinton amassed nearly $100,000 worth of Wal-Mart stock as a director, much of which she and her husband placed in 1993 into a blind trust that they still maintain.
She is not the only Democratic candidate with Wal-Mart ties. During his Senate term, John Edwards disclosed owning between $1,000 and $100,000 in company stock. Illinois Sen. Barack Obama's wife, Michelle, serves on the board of a Wal-Mart supplier. And Sen. Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut accepted $5,000 from Wal-Mart's PAC in 2004.
. Since 1970, Sam Walton had worked closely with Omaha lawyer John E. Tate to ward off unionization using an aggressive campaign of rewards and tough talk.
Although the details of Wal-Mart's anti-union efforts were rarely broached during board meetings, Tate said recently, Clinton "clearly knew the company's reputation." Tate said that when he "made presentations on what we were doing" during board meetings, Clinton did not raise objections.
Soderquist agreed, saying there was "no sign that she had any criticism."
Nor did she object, Tate said, when he was brought in by Walton in 1988 as an executive vice president and a director, a step that required board approval.
Tate and Soderquist, like other Wal-Mart executives from that era, are loyal Republicans who donated more than $20,000 apiece to the party and its candidates in the 1990s and 2000s. But both praise Clinton's performance as a board member. Soderquist recalls her as a "very positive member of Wal-Mart's board," while Tate said she was a "well-respected" attorney who showed a "broad understanding" of the law.
Several labor officials said recently that the fact Clinton was on the board when Wal-Mart was mounting union-busting tactics could pose a predicament as they mull presidential endorsements.
THE COMMITTEE SAYS:
Clintons Served Corporate America Then and Now
What's the difference between a Clinton and a Republican?
Also See:
Corruption Updates 19, 1st article on page, TOP RECIPEINTS OF LOBBYISTS BRIBES ARE LEADERSHIP OF BOTH PARTIES
Corruption Updates 19, 3rd article on page, “PARTIES AND THEIR BRIBERS WORK TO CIRCUMNAVIGATE CAMPAIGN FINANCE RESTRICTION”
Corruption Updates 62, 6th article on page, "Clintons Soak up Corporate Privilege and Wealth, And they Pay them Back with our Money and Power"
Also See Right Web for an interesting profile of the DLC and its backers
Read Articles describing how the
Democrats represent Corporations
Search the Corruption Database under
Democrats
Big Money Politics
3) THE ABSTRACT PRINTED BELOW WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE :
F.D.A. to Test Toothpaste Sent to U.S. From China
May 24, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/24/business/24
toothpaste.html?ref=business&pagewanted=print
The Food and Drug Administration will begin testing samples of all toothpaste imported into this country from China, a spokesman for the agency said yesterday.
The order by the F.D.A. comes after the discovery that some Chinese manufacturers had used small amounts of diethylene glycol, a poisonous ingredient used in antifreeze, in certain brands of toothpaste sold to stores in Panama, the Dominican Republic and Australia. One of the brands, Mr. Cool Junior, marketed for children, came in five flavors, including bubble gum and strawberry, Dominican Republic health authorities said.
There is no evidence that the tainted toothpaste, also sold under the names of Exceland Mr. Cool, is in the United States, or that anyone has been harmed by it. Even so, the F.D.A. decided to issue the order out of caution, Doug Arbesfeld, a spokesman for the agency, said.
The Panamanian government last year inadvertently mixed the industrial solvent into 260,000 bottles of cold medicine, killing at least 100 people, prosecutors there said.
Mr. Arbesfeld said that according to the Commerce Department, China in dollar terms is the sixth-largest exporter of toothpaste into the United States and accounts for several million dollars in sales. The F.D.A. measures imports differently, and its figures show China to be the second-largest exporter of toothpaste to this country, Mr. Arbesfeld said.
Records show that a Chinese factory not certified to make pharmaceutical ingredients sold 46 barrels of toxic syrup, labeled as 99.5 percent pure glycerin, that eventually ended up in Panama, where it was used in the deadly cold medicine.
THE COMMITTEE SAYS:
American Profits in China trade Based on Irresponsible Labor, Pollution, and Safety practices in a country that makes Iraq under Saddam look Free
FDA inspectors are not allowed into China to inspect food or drug production facilities. American "products" containing Chinese ingredients are not labeled. So how do Americans protect themselves, when their government has intentionally failed to protect them?
Demand voter only political contributions. Without the bribe money, the politicians will be forced to represent the safety of the voters, rather than the profits of the China traitors, I mean traders.
Also See:
Corruption Updates 33, 5th article on the Page, "U.S. firms ensnared in China bribe case"
Corruption Updates 36, 6th article on the Page, "China about to pass U.S. as world's top generator of greenhouse gases"
Corruption Updates 55, 7th article on the Page, "China Tells Little About Illness That Kills Pigs, Officials Say"
Corruption Updates 60 , 8th article on the Page, "China: Recall Is Issued for Frozen Fish"
Corruption Updates 61 , 4th article on the Page, "US fears grow over China military"
Search the Corruption Database under
China
4) THE ABSTRACT PRINTED BELOW WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE :
Leading Russian Official Dismisses U.S. Treaty and Missile Shield
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/24/world/europe/24russia.html?pagewanted=print
MOSCOW, May 23 (AP) — The man considered to be a leading contender to succeed President Vladimir V. Putin criticized a landmark Soviet-United States arms treaty on Wednesday as a “relic of the cold war” and promised that Russia would have a “sword” capable of piercing an American missile shield.
The official, Sergei B. Ivanov, Russia’s first deputy prime minister, made the statements at a two-hour news conference ranging from global security to children’s sports in what sounded like a presentation of his campaign platform.
Mr. Putin has not expressed support for any potential contender for the March 2008 election, and Mr. Ivanov has not declared his candidacy. However, he and another first deputy prime minister, Dmitri A. Medvedev, are widely seen as leading candidates being groomed by the Kremlin.
Mr. Ivanov, a K.G.B. veteran like Mr. Putin, harshly criticized United States plans to install a small missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic, saying Russia did not trust Washington’s assurances that it was intended to fend off threats from Iran.
“It can’t be accepted on serious expert level,” he said. “A radar the U.S. is planning to deploy in the Czech Republic will be capable of scanning air space up to the Ural Mountains.”
Mr. Putin and other Russian officials have said that Russia already has missiles capable of piercing any potential missile defense system and that it will develop even more powerful weapons.
Mr. Ivanov also criticized the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, signed in 1987 by the Soviet leader, Mikhail S. Gorbachev, and President Ronald Reagan. It eliminated an entire class of medium-range missiles that were based in Europe at the time.
Dismissing the treaty as a cold war relic, Mr. Ivanov said that dozens of nations had developed intermediate-range missiles since the pact was signed, and that many were located close to Russia’s borders. However, he did not say Russia would opt out of the pact.
Mr. Ivanov, a former defense minister, was a colleague of Mr. Putin in the Soviet-era K.G.B. in the mid-1970s in St. Petersburg, then rose through the ranks to become the deputy head of the Federal Security Service, the main successor agency, in 1998.
Mr. Medvedev, widely considered the more liberal of the two, had been the sole first deputy prime minister before February, when Mr. Putin elevated Mr. Ivanov to the same position — an indication that both men were being groomed for potential presidential runs. Both have received lavish coverage in the Russian news media in recent months.
During his news conference, Mr. Ivanov also defended Mr. Putin’s move to suspend Russia’s observance of another cold war-era agreement — the 1990 Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty — which limits the number of military aircraft, tanks and other heavy weapons around Europe.
THE COMMITTEE SAYS:
Bush Fuels Arms Race Around the World: Now it's Russia's Turn
Also See:
Corruption Updates 36, 1st article on the Page, "Russia prepares to revise military doctrine in response to USA's missile defense plans"
Search the Corruption Database under
Russia
5) THE ABSTRACT PRINTED BELOW WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE :
Graft Mars the Recruitment of Mexican Guest Workers
May 24, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/24/world/americas/24unions.html?pagewanted=print
TAMPAMOLÓN CORONA, Mexico — Cástulo Benavides, a union organizer, came to this forgotten mountain town to tell its men how to get legal jobs in the tobacco fields of North Carolina.
...change in a longstanding practice: the men will not have to pay anyone to get those jobs.
The response, if that is what it is, has been brutal. In April, Mr. Benavides’s co-worker Santiago Rafael Cruz was bound and beaten to death at the union’s office in Monterrey, in northern Mexico.
The Ohio-based union, the Farm Labor Organizing Committee, says the killing was a political attack after the union cleaned up corrupt practices of recruiting workers, like charging them a fee to be hired.
THE COMMITTEE SAYS:
American Union Organizers recruit in Mexico? Unions Totally Worthless
Unions that bring in Foreign Workers are enemies to American Labor
Americans better learn to pay the American Costs of All Labor in the United States. No more screwing foreigners for higher profits, while dumping the cost of millions of children onto our schools, while dumping millions of poor foreigners into our Emergency Rooms, and while filling our prisons with foreign criminals.
The great irony of this report is that Unions are recruiting in Mexico, to import Mexican Poverty into American Labor.
The union opened its office in Monterrey two years ago to help the 6,000 Mexican guest workers it represents in a collective bargaining agreement with the North Carolina Growers Association, a group of 650 farmers.
The association includes most of the growers in the state who employ legal guest workers, said Stan Eury, its executive director. Even so, a majority of farmers in North Carolina, as in the rest of the United States, hire undocumented immigrants.
Mike Bell, president of the recruiting agency, Manpower of the Americas, said his company kept a tight rein on its local recruiters.
“I was already doing a good job policing before the union ever showed up,” said Mr. Bell, a North Carolina native who said his company sent about 12,000 Mexican workers — including the 6,000 in North Carolina — to jobs all over the United States.
Florencio Hernández Angelina spent the past three harvests there. This year he wanted help in changing employers. The grower splits her work force between legal guest workers and illegal migrants. “She gives us fewer hours,” Mr. Hernández said.
She prefers the illegals, he said, because she pays them less.
Also See:
Corruption Updates 36, 7th article on page, “CORPORATE-DEMOCRAT IMMIGRATION POLICY SUCCESSFUL: Poverty”
Corruption Updates 36, 9 th article on page, “HONEST STATISTICAL ANALYSIS ONLY SHOWS MONETARY COST OF IMMIGRATION: EDUCATION, MEDICINE, DEMOCRACY, AND JUSTICE ARE HIDDEN “COSTS” OF CHEAP FOREIGN LABOR ON AMERICAN MIDDLE CLASS”
Search the Corruption Database under
Crimigrants
Immigration
Economic
6) THE Article PRINTED BELOW WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE :
Greenspan Remarks Deflate Market Mood
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
May 24, 2007
Stocks & Bonds
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/24/business/24stox.html?pagewanted=print
Stocks wilted yesterday as comments from Alan Greenspan, the former Federal Reserve chairman, and worries about coming economic data deflated a rally fed by takeover activity.
The Dow Jones industrial average briefly rose above 13,600 for the first time, after fresh deal-related developments that included a possible bidding battle for the aluminum producer Alcan. But the excitement waned after Mr. Greenspan expressed concern about an eventual sharp decline in China’s stock market, which has recently been hitting record highs.
THE COMMITTEE SAYS:
1929 in 2007? No, our situation will make 1929 look like a Picnic
Search the Corruption Database under
China
7) THE ABSTRACT PRINTED BELOW WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE :
Chinese Police Arrest 28 in Riots Against Family Planning Laws
By JOSEPH KAHN
May 24, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/24/world/asia/24china.html?pagewanted=print
Seven towns in a rural part of the Guangxi autonomous region erupted in violence over heavy fines and other measures to impose tighter family planning controls in the area, the official Xinhua news agency said in its first report about the unrest that began late last week.
As many as 3,000 people stormed government offices, overturned vehicles, burned documents and confronted officials, the news agency reported. It did not mention whether there had been deaths or injuries.
Residents said in earlier telephone conversations that tens of thousands of people had participated in riots and that as many as five people had died, including several officials involved in family planning work.
The unrest stemmed from an unusually intensive two-month campaign to collect steep fines and prevent births over quota in Guangxi, a part of the country that had loosely enforced population control measures in the past, the news agency said. According to accounts posted on the Internet by villagers and witnesses, officials were requiring health checks for women and forcing pregnant women who lacked approval to give birth to undergo abortions.
THE COMMITTEE SAYS:
Our Chinese "Friends" are Autocratic Dictators who we are Empowering With Trillions of Dollars of Irresponsible Manufacturing and Trade Profits
The Chinese are using these profits to build missiles, fleets, armies, and build competitive relations
with global resource holders.
China's Evil Government is not a problem to our leaders. Why? Because The China Trade, in combination with illegal immigration, has impoverished Workers Here, pushing all the money, and political power, to the American Corporate Aristocracy.
Our Corporate Aristocracy has more in common with Chinese Commie leaders, cheap dictators, and their corporate sponsors than the American people. Well, what's left of them.
To all you Christians dealing with China: China Forces Women to have Abortions. Get your mind around that one, then keep cheering for the China Trade.
The Christian Zealots who want to prohibit Abortions here have no problem making money in a country that not only imposes Abortions on unwilling women, but has centralized political and economic power in the hands of one unelected party. In brief, China is one of the most unfree countries on Earth.
To all you hippies, who want to hold hands with the world: China took Tibet, raped it, and calls it "China."
Why did Bush Attack Iraq, when China makes Iraq look like Disneyland?
Because Bush, and the Christians, the hippies, and the Environmentalists are hypocrites who use religion, love, and nature as cover for greed and pursuing the same type of power enjoyed by China's tyrants.
They share a common love of wealth and power, just different ways of justifying their greed.
Why? Because our people now have more in Common with China's tyrants than with American freedom.
Also See:
Corruption Updates 38, 4th article on page, “WILL PROMISES OF “FUTURE WEALTH” KEEP PEASANTS FROM REVOLTING?”
Corruption Updates 40, 3rd article on page, “China passes new law on property”
Search the Corruption Database under
China
8) THE ABSTRACT PRINTED BELOW WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE :
Muttontown: 2 Indicted on Slave Charge
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
May 24, 2007
Metro Briefing | New York
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/24/nyregion/24mbrfs-slavery.html?pagewanted=print
A millionaire couple accused of keeping two Indonesian women as slaves in their Long Island home have been indicted on federal charges of forced labor and harboring illegal residents, prosecutors said yesterday. The couple, Varsha Mahender Sabhnani, and her husband, Mahender Murlidhar Sabhnani, who operate a perfume business from their home, were arrested last week after one servant was found wandering outside a doughnut shop. They were indicted on Tuesday and are to be arraigned today. Prosecutors said the two servants were beaten, had scalding water thrown on them and were held against their will.
THE COMMITTEE SAYS:
NY has Foreigners Just like Berkeley's Reddy Realty Family: Slavery immigrated to America
I'll never forget Reddy's lawyer when he defended slavery as "It's part of their Culture"
After reddy bought the building I live in, I was able to experience to joys of "multi-Culturalism" first hand. Did you know that "God" made some people to serve and toil for other, "better" people? All men are Created Equal? Reddy and whole classes of immigrants beg to differ, and now that YOU let them in, they are practicing their RACISM and BRUTALITY without check. And after decades of immigration abuse by Our Corporate Aristocracy, and their Foreign Allies, I am now an advocate of ZERO immigration.
We had a Civil War to Address Slavery, yet SCUM like Reddy are able to prosper in America with ruthless business practices, only one of which is slavery. If they are as successful here as they were in India, you will have to pay your endless debt to these modern sharecroppers with your daughters, as in India. And since Multi-Culturalism is now so powerful, and these foreigners are now "citizens," (more accurately "consumers") how dare you deprive them of their right to enslave our working class. Or at least participate in our Corporate creation of a permanent foreign laboring class.
If Reddy would have been smart enough to assimilate, he would have seen that the American Practice of Exploiting Foreign Labor offers all the benefits of Slavery, but none of the drawbacks.
Instead of paying for the food, housing, and medical costs of slaves, you hire on the street, and dump all the upkeep costs for poor Mexican labor onto Society and the Taxpayer, while pocketing all the profits.
Reddy probably saw that potential, but his desire to be treated "like a God" required him to have slaves, just like his family in India is by their slaves.
Also See:
(also see: newsday article)
Reddy of Berkeley is a Slave exploiting Scum, Busted , 1-20-2000
Reddy imported Indian Slavery to Berkeley: Berkeley Landlord Depicted As Overlord of India Village
Daily Planet Breakdown of Reddy Empire of Filth
Corruption Updates 62, 4th article on page, “Low caste Indians set to convert"
Search the Corruption Database under
Reddy
Slavery
9) THE ABSTRACT PRINTED BELOW WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE :
Democrats scramble to prevent Florida primary election fiasco
An early contest could shift delegates to less-popular presidential candidates -- or discount their votes for the party's 2008 nominee altogether.
By Peter Wallsten
Times Staff Writer
May 20, 2007
WASHINGTON — For front-runners Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, Florida looked to be a major battleground in the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination. With its big, sprawling population, the state was a natural for high-profile candidates who could afford costly campaigns, and the prize was a whopping 210 delegates.
But now, because of an unexpected glitch, those delegates could go to a candidate most Americans don't even know is running: a crusty former senator from Alaska named Mike Gravel. Or maybe to Ohio Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich, the quixoticpeace candidate who barely registers in the polls.
The trouble sprang from a decision by Florida lawmakers to jump to an earlier spot on the primary election calendar,...
Florida opted to leap ahead to Jan. 29 — a week earlier than allowed under Democratic Party rules. And that has triggered mayhem.
National Democratic officials have vowed to enforce party rules that strip delegates from any state that moves too early in the calendar, and also from candidates who campaign in those states. The penalties were meant to stop states from continually leapfrogging each other in a race to be among the first to vote.
As things stand now, Clinton, Obama and other prominent contenders may not be eligible to win any Florida delegates, though the state offers a comparatively large share of the total needed to win the Democratic nomination. Under one scenario, it could turn out that no Democratic candidate gets any Florida delegates.
if the Florida crisis is not resolved quickly, it could prompt other states to change their voting dates again — with some ballots possibly cast as early as 2007. New Hampshire, which plans to vote Jan. 22, has said it will do whatever is necessary to protect its status as the first presidential primary state.
Dean and other party leaders established a nationwide schedule for primaries and caucuses, starting in January 2008. They designated Iowa as the first caucus state, along with newcomer Nevada. New Hampshire and South Carolina were approved for primaries soon afterward.
The DNC, trying to keep the selection process from being too front-loaded and thus stacked against candidates with smaller war chests, also adopted a rule saying no other state could hold a primary before Feb. 5.
But Republicans in the Florida Legislature — supported by many Democrats — pushed through a measure setting Jan. 29 as the date for their state's presidential primary. Gov. Charlie Crist, a Republican, is expected to sign the bill.
If that date holds for picking Florida's Democratic delegates, penalties for violating the party's rules would cut Florida's delegation by more than half, to 92 votes. But most important, the rules would also take away any delegates won by candidates who campaigned or raised funds in the state.
One possible solution gaining steam is to forget the primary and schedule statewide Iowa-style caucuses for February 2008.
A state nominating convention is another possibility. It would be less expensive, but some strategists worry that it could create the perception that party bosses were picking the nominee.
THE COMMITTEE SAYS:
Party Control of Elections Revealed: States, Voters, and Constitution irrelevant in face of Monopoly of Politics by Parties
States set the time and place of elections, and Florida's move just exposed how the parties have co-oped the people's right to fair and free elections with rules that put their party above the law.
The party has no right to influence each state's right to set election times through party rules. Each state has the right to set its own elections, and the parties have no power to alter the state's decision. Let's end this confusion: The State does not serve the party, the party obeys the Constitutional decisions of the States.
Clear?
This is a good opportunity for a lawsuit challenging any party rules which put themselves above the election laws created by a state.
If the Dems want to pay for their own Caucuses of Nominating Convention, they can do what they want. If they want a primary election, they must obey the laws and times established by the state legislature. Period.
Search the Corruption Database under
Elections
Candidates
Democrats
10) THE ABSTRACT PRINTED BELOW WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE :
Report accuses GSA chief of illegal politicking for GOP
Investigators focus on a meeting in which Lurita Doan allegedly asked: 'What can we do to help our candidates?'
By Tom Hamburger, Times Staff Writer
May 24, 2007
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-gsa24may24,1,49456.story?coll=la-headlines-politics
WASHINGTON — Federal investigators have written a sharply worded critique of the beleaguered chief of the General Services Administration, Lurita Alexis Doan, accusing her of violating the law by improperly attempting to use her agency to help Republican political candidates.
"The GSA administrator displayed no reservations in her willingness to commit GSA resources, including its human capital, to the Republican Party," the report says. "Her actions constitute an obvious misuse of her official authority and were made for the purpose of affecting the result of an election."
The report was prepared by the Office of Special Counsel, the government investigative body charged with monitoring the Hatch Act and other restrictions on federal employees' political activities. The report, a copy of which was obtained by The Times, is not expected to be released until next month.
The report uses harsh language and may foreshadow the approach the little-known office will take in upcoming investigations of other agencies and other possible Hatch Act violations.
Describing Doan's activities, it said: "One can imagine no greater violation of the Hatch Act than to invoke the machinery of an agency, with all its contracts and buildings, in the service of a partisan campaign to retake the Congress."
Doan has until June 1 to respond. After that, the report and Doan's response will be forwarded to President Bush.
The Los Angeles Times has reported that similar PowerPoint presentations were made by Rove and other White House officials at nearly every other Cabinet agency, except the Defense and Justice departments. During such presentations, employees said they got a not-so-subtle message about helping endangered Republicans. In the past, the White House has said that such informational briefings for political appointees do not breach the Hatch Act.
Doan's inability to remember the presentation by her White House guest at the January meeting is contrasted in the report with her vivid recall of other specifics that day. The report concludes that she violated the Hatch Act, which generally prohibits the use of federal resources for campaign purposes.
"Administrator Doan's violation is further aggravated by her failure to take responsibility for her actions and her lack of remorse in violating the Hatch Act," the report says.
THE COMMITTEE SAYS:
GSA: Doan Misused Office for Political Purposes
It's Getting harder to be a Bushie
Search the Corruption Database under
Doan (5 Abstracts)
General Services Administration
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