Politicalgates

Geoffrey Dunn: Five Undisputed Facts About Sarah Palin's Behavior During the 2008 Campaign

2012-03-02T14:45:00.000+01:00

By Kathleen

Home! I literally walked through the front door, plopped my belongs around the apartment and powered up my laptop. First port of call was my personal email where I came across an alert regarding a new article written by Geoffrey Dunn. It's good to be back!

As readers know I have high regard for Geoffrey's work and I have always thought that he is amongst those most responsible for holding Palin's feet to the fire. His book, The Lies of Sarah Palin:The Untold Story Behind her Relentless Quest for Power, casts a critical eye on Palin and I think more than any other book written about her reveals the truth behind her rise to power. It is a book that I have read more than once and is an invaluable source when it comes to research. I think that it will prove to be the single most important book about Palin. But that's just my view.

Geoffrey's new article at Huffington Post does not disappoint either. He opens by examining the reactions by both Palin and her associates to the upcoming release of the film Game Change. As we have ourselves mentioned here at Politicalgates Geoffrey believes that the lady doth protest too much and that the "pushback" by her "seven associates", all paid via SarahPac, comes "with a fee attached." He then goes on to describe "five uncontested documented events from the 2008 campaign which leave Palin and her minions little squirm room."

Read the rest of the article to recall how "Palin botched, lied, betrayed and lied some more."

Palin and her motley well paid crew can spin her achievements as much as they want (and it is telling that SarahPalinAK does not seem to want to know your thoughts about her view on history because the video has disabled comment discussion of her claims). As Geoffrey Dunn has assessed the facts reveal another story altogether.

UPDATE: Our email researcher extraordinaire, older_wiser, has found this titbit in the comments at C4P. According to the following email dated 26th May 2008 Palin betrayed McCain who had her in his sights for VP and voted twice for Huckabee in the primaries. No surprise there then! Click on screenshot to read.

Grover Norquist: The Right’s Political Extortionist

2012-03-01T09:28:00.000+01:00

By Sunnyjane

America has been punked.   Democrats, Independents, Libertarians, moderate Republicans, and even the far-leaning right-wingers of questionable intellect, have been watching the wacky spectacle that is commonly referred to as the GOP Nomination Process for Election 2012. We have suffered through far too many debates, witnessed the unpredictable and sometimes astonishing outcome of votes in nine primaries, and read millions of words on the potential candidates’ shortcomings, gaffes, anti-American policy proposals, hypocrisies, and their primeval viewpoints on everything from religion to women’s rights to global warming.

All of this we have endured just to witness who will finally emerge as the leader of the Teabagger-hijacked Republican Party. Well, dear readers, the truth has been revealed: the GOP has absolutely no intention of electing some freakin’ leader.

The Gospel According to Grover

All we have to do is replace Obama. We are not auditioning for fearless leader, Norquist told attendees at the recent Conservative Political Action Conference. We don’t need a president to tell us in what direction to go. We know what direction to go. We want the Ryan budget. We just need a president to sign this stuff. We don’t need someone to think it up or design it. The leadership now for the modern conservative movement for the next 20 years will be coming out of the House and the Senate.

And in the same speech, he pretty well shrugged off concern about who the GOP’s presidential candidate would be in November, saying: Pick a Republican with enough working digits to handle a pen to become president of the United States.

The Kochs, the American Legislative Exchange Council (fondly referred to as ALEC) and Norquist are bonded by an anti-middle American zealotry. ALEC's  far right on-demand legislative proposals have all the uniqueness of fast-food menus across the nation: they are stamped out on a conveyor belt with the same uniformity, precision, and toxicity as the beef patties on your Double Whopper.

Translation: The Kochs and Grover Norquist tell ALEC to craft a protect-the-rich bill they want introduced in the House; ALEC happily complies and hands it off to House Majority Leader Eric Cantor; Cantor brings the bill up for vote and the Tea Party Congress and (they anticipate for 2013) Senate pass said bill with little or no opposition and a puppet president with enough working fingers signs it. Viola!

The Ascent of a Bespectacled Little Bully

The nation has Ronald Reagan to thank for Grover Norquist’s meteoric climb up Washington’s power ladder to become the maharishi of the anti-tax cult.

Norquist cut his far-right conservative teeth as an economist and speechwriter at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce – that powerful organization that only supports committed conservatives and spends more money on lobbying than any other organization in the U.S. – before being selected by President Ronald Reagan to set up Americans for Tax Reform in 1985 to lobby in favor of overhauling the tax code. That Reaganomics cut some taxes and ultimately raised taxes eleven times led Norquist to initiate the current Taxpayer Protection Pledge to ensure that such a thing would never happen again.

But “never happen again” did, indeed, happen again. In 1988, Reagan’s vice president, George Herbert Walker Bush, campaigned for president on a promise of Read My Lips – No New Taxes.  In 1990, Bush raised existing taxes as a way to reduce the deficit, which Norquist unwaveringly believes is why Bush lost a second term in 1992 to a “nobody from Arkansas,” William Jefferson Clinton, during whose presidency Norquist helped Newt Gingrich craft the Contract With America.

During George W. Bush’s ~~reign of authoritarian rule~~ two terms in office, Norquist was instrumental in crafting the notorious "tax cuts for the One Percent" and, at the same time, tightening the screws on his tax pledge. He was going to make sure that no elected official ever dared to raise taxes again, including a president.

And of course, there’s the debt-ceiling issue during President Barack Obama’s first term. Many economists and politicians alike blame Eric Cantor’s so-called “leadership” in the House by enforcing Norquist’s anti-tax pledge as being directly responsible for the 2011 debt-ceiling fiasco that ruined America’s credit rating by leading the nation to the brink of default. Paul O'Neill, George W. Bush's former Treasury secretary had this to say on Norquist's anti-tax stand: Congress was willing to cause severe economic damage to the entire population, simply because they were slaves to an idiot's idea of how the world works.

The Shake Down

With the single-minded resolve of a heat-seeking missile, Norquist zooms in on a conservative candidate running for local, state or federal office as soon as the name pops up on his far-right radar screen. And the message he delivers is not subtle: Sign the Tax Pledge or face primary challenges from candidates I endorse who will sign it. Currently, 238 House members and 41 Senators have taken the pledge, as well as 13 state governors and 1,249 state legislators. These are the cold and timid souls who have sworn fealty to Grover Norquist rather than to their constituents and the United States of America, and are seemingly unencumbered by their prescribed Oaths of Office.

Washington is broken

Lest there be any question about whether John Boehner, Speaker of the House, is chanting out of the same Sacred Tax Tome as Norquist, it can be put to rest. Oh sure, there was some speculation during the debt-ceiling battle that Boehner might cave and actually work with the President on a “grand bargain” to raise the limit. But in July 2011, Chuck Todd of MSNBC asked Norquist if he was worried about such a scenario and Norquist responded, No. Speaker Boehner has taken the pledge and always kept it. As a congressman, he leads a caucus in the House of Representatives where all but six Republicans have made the commitment in writing to never raise taxes. He knows he leads a Republican Party that’s not going to raise taxes, and that he personally is committed to that as well.

So it was rather, shall we say, disingenuous on the Speaker’s part when, in November 2011, he pretended not to know anything about Grover Norquist and his anti-tax pressures on the Congress, saying, It’s not often I’m asked about some random person in America.

END NOTE

We should all remember this is Norquist's vision of a perfect American:

My ideal citizen is the self-employed, home-schooling,Individual Retirement Account-owning guy with a concealed-carry permit. Because that person doesn’t need the goddamngovernment for anything.

Weekly Roundup, February 21-26, 2012

2012-02-27T20:13:00.004+01:00

By Blueberry T

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Sunnyjane Names Names: Obstructionists in Congress

Sunnyjane got us started this week with her post on Congress’ “obstreperous obstructionists.” Try to say THAT 3 times, fast! Her post includes some delicious snark as well as solid information about the Tea Party’s obstructionist agenda and some of its primary practitioners. These include Representative Webster, the “right-wing social engineer” who unseated one of Congress’ most progressive members, Alan Grayson. Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin is another TP darling and recipient of the Koch Brothers’ largess; he is the architect of the fiscally unconservative budget plan that would actually result in higher deficits and less governmental services. This is the first in a series that will name names and put facts and faces together to more accurately portray what these Teabaggers are really doing. The quote from John Adams (1776) is worth repeating: “I have come to the conclusion that one useless man is called a disgrace; that two are called a law firm; and that three or more become a Congress! And by God, I have had it with this Congress!” Sunnyjane ended with a quote from one of my all-time favorite songs. (This video includes some excellent photos/footage, too – enjoy!)

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Frank Bailey Resurfaces: Fined for Use of Palin’s Emails

Little did we know that this post on Frank Bailey’s unauthorized use of Sarah Palin’s emails would be just the beginning of another big email-themed week. Bailey was fined for his unauthorized use of emails that he received as a State of Alaska official. The tireless and fearless Andrée McLeod challenged the State’s handling of the information as privileged, since Bailey had broken confidentiality. My take: regardless of Bailey’s motivation, his book helped to shine some light on the dark secrets of Palin’s reign as one of the most incompetent, mean-spirited and mentally unstable politicians in the country. The post includes some of the juicy ;-) nuggets regarding Track’s parentage and Palin’s public spat with Newt.

Thursday, February 23, 2012

Game Change

Sarah Palin says she will not watch “Game Change” next week…hahahahaha! This post puts together trailers from the movie, along with some interesting interviews. My particular favorite is the one where Steve Schmidt corroborates key facts revealed in Game Change: she was a last minute, virtually unvetted candidate, chronic liar, knew nothing of the world, was unprepared and unable to cope with the pressure, and had two personalities (or more), including “the Other Sarah.” I guess this interview was his way of absolving himself from responsibility for having pushed for Palin as VP candidate. (Too little, too late.)

There was a big blogging party here, following the release of more of Palin’s emails (including some from Patrick!!). Major H/T to KatieAnnieOakley, HopeforAmerica. Older_Wiser, juicyfruityy, Silver_Desert, HonestyinGov, ProChoiceGrandma and many others who continue to do a great job cyber-sleuthing!

Saturday, February 25, 2012

Lisa Demer’s Investigation into Babygate, Palin Staff’s Attack Against Her Revealed

Who knew that Babygate would reappear this weekend? The new trove of Palin emails contains some new information about the investigation by the Anchorage Daily News to determine whether Palin in fact gave birth to Trig. The emails include one from reporter Lisa Demer, who asked some very straightforward questions; I am going to reprint part of it here so everyone can see that these are not really so “flippin’ unbelievable.”

Regarding the questions about Trig, it is within the governor’s power to put this to rest for most people. Maybe not all but certainly most reasonable people would accept a definitive statement from her doctor. If Cathy Baldwin-Johnson were given written consent to talk to me one more time about the birth, the questions that I keep hearing could be answered. The questions for the doctor: Did you deliver Trig? If not, who did? Who is Trig Palin’s biological mom and how do you know that?

Here’s one more request that might help. Would the governor make available a copy of Trig’s birth certificate? We could mention in our story what the birth certificate says.
We’re also looking for explanation about the earlier medical history statement. That statement wasn’t direct enough for some people. There also is a side issue related to it. A simple explanation of how it came together, who wrote it, and why it was released so late on Election Eve would be helpful. Dr. Baldwin-Johnson could help on some of that. But that’s less important than the issue of Trig.

Does this sound like something that would elicit responses like “your inquiries about this are hereby permanently rejected” and “…we’re not going to let this evil stand”?

If everything were truly on the up-and-up, these inquiries could have simply been answered with little ado, and that would have been the end of the story. But no. Instead, attack-dog McAllister insulted Demer, threatened ADN and stonewalled the investigation. This is not the way someone acts when they have nothing to hide. This post includes some of the backstory, the Michael Carey interview affirming that the ADN newroom was well aware of the rumors that Trig was Bristol’s son, not Sarah’s. There are many links to a lot of the background information, going all the way back to the Palin’s Deceptions days, and the last update includes some of the key photos, proving that she was not “as big as a house” – that was just another Palin lie.

Sunday, February 26, 2012

More on Palin and her Staff’s Attempts to Stifle the ADN Babygate Investigation

The new emails provide more interesting revelations about the reaction to Lisa Demer’s investigation into Trig’s birth. Palin and her staff went into crisis mode – which to them means attack mode – when Demer made inquiries about Bristol’s attendance at school. Staff immediately recognized that Demer was trying to put together a timeline of pregnancies, and was approaching Providence Hospital to obtain additional information regarding Trig’s birth. They chose to launch a pre-emptive strike – McAllister’s words. Why would anyone need to launch a pre-emptive strike, if they had nothing to hide? That is the key question. The answer is that they did have something to hide. The Babygate Saga continues… as it will do, until the truth is finally acknowledged.

In which photo does Palin look "big as a house"?

Dates: Left 3/14/08. Center: 3/26/08. Trig's Reported Birthdate 4/18/08.

Photo on Right: Palin late in first pregnancy, with her son Track in 1989.

Sunday, February 26, 2012

No Birth Certificate for Trig?

The plot thickens. Thanks to Older_Wiser, we can now see that the Palins did not have a birth certificate for Trig, five weeks after the day his birth was announced. The State of Alaska requested documentation of his birth for his health insurance coverage to kick in, and from the emails, it is clear that 5 weeks after his reported birth, the Palins did not have a birth certificate for him. (Or, more likely, they didn't have one that named them as his parents.)

Some comments and links:

Indy_girl: ".......Sarah Palin's reaction to the rumours in the emails quoted above is very telling. If one of her secrets is brought up (and there are many of them), then she screams and rages until hopefully the whole affair will calm down again....."
This is a very typical reaction for someone with characteristics of NPD, especially a pathological liar. They cannot STAND to be questioned, or to believe that ANYONE has the audacity to question THEIR version of events, even if they cannot provide any proof. Instead of rationally giving facts to support their side of the story, they erupt in rage, both in an attempt to intimidate the questioner(s) and in order to distract from the issue at hand.

SLQ: I can just imagine that conversation:
Sarah: "DO something!!"
Colberg: "Absolutely, we will take care of it right away. I just need to get a few facts, because we can prove they have made untrue statements about Trig's birth, and we can sue, because lying about a child's birth is probably malicious."
Sarah: "Why do you need to know anything? He's my son. I said so."
Colberg: "Well, we need evidence. A birth certificate? A photo of you in the hospital holding Trig? Or . . ."
Sarah: "Never mind."

Enigmaplanner: Hell, JCos, Todd Palin owns a Maverick. It's a broken down piece of shit with dim headlights, a wrinkled rear end and no power! He calls it, Sarah.

Older_Wiser: Good grief, she wants to charge SOA to take Piper to the Iron Dog? http://www.documentcloud.org/d... This woman has NO ethical boundaries whatsoever.

Amy1: John McCain and his senior staff are the ones who would be the most damaged if the hoax were exposed and the electorate cared. They are the enablers (because surely they will not implicate the GOP folks above them who were also enablers, like Murdoch with his $7M cash transfer in the form of the book advance). Does anyone think for one moment that Steve Schmidt doesn't know everything we do, plus more? …

BanditBasheert: If you have never ever seen a pathological paranoid narcissist before, you've seen one now. When you read these emails, you can see everyone hiding under a desk, covering up anything and everything they knew she'd FREAK out about… they KNEW she was insane, inept, not dependable, and paranoid.

Mellybel said what many feel: Standing proud, Patrick. So glad I've been on board with you and your intrepid work.

Molly_WI: I noticed also, too, that SP is texting while she's driving, by her own admission. Fool.

Palinoia, who is very knowledgeable about health insurance, had some very interesting (long) comments on the question of coverage for Trig. Look at the Sunday comments to learn more.

Alwaysthink recommended this article by Bob Sloan on ALEC.

Sunnyjane pointed out this great comment by Martin Bashir: The Liar, the Hypocrite and the Adulterer and cheered us with this photo comparison of Rom[o]ney event vs. Obama events four years ago.

HonestyinGov linked to WaPo on fact checking the GOP debate.

Patrick found this great clip of the In the Know panel of pundits reacting to President Obama, courtesy of the Onion.

Bell Peppery found this email, which proves that in December 2008, ADN was asking all the right questions; this certainly belies later statements by Julia O’Malley and others. (Later highlighted by Patrick in the Saturday post.)

Newly released email suggests that five weeks after Trig's official birth, Sarah Palin didn't have a birth certificate for Trig - UPDATE: Palin's spokesperson wants to "cut the ADN off" if they continue to ask questions about Trig's birth - UPDATE 2: ADN-editor Pat Dougherty to Bill McAllister: "The judgment of your office to go after the Daily News on this Trig stuff would constitute malpractice"

2012-02-26T21:58:00.001+01:00

By Patrick

We are very busy this weekend. In two detailed posts which were "packed" with newly discovered material (read them HERE and HERE), we reported about the fact that Sarah Palin and her team did everything in their power to stop Lisa Demer's investigation into the rumours that Sarah Palin might have faked her pregnancy. Palin's staff couldn't present evidence in order to prove that Sarah Palin is the biological mother of Trig, but resorted to insults, obstruction and stonewalling in order to shut Lisa Demer up - a goal which they eventually achieved. It is almost a sensation that the emails include evidence that point directly to Bristol Palin being the real biological mother of Trig.

But there is much more. Again thanks to our reader Older_Wiser, we found a piece of information which could very well be one of the biggest breakthroughs ever in the "Babygate" investigation:

On 22 May 2008, about five weeks after the official birth of Trig, an email by the Alaskan Division of Retirement and Benefits suggests that the Palins did not have a birth certificate for Trig, but needed to request it.

This new piece of evidence is not immediately visible from the newly released emails. It now pays off that we are on the case together with our team and our readers for a very, very long time.

Because in 2010, as many of you will remember, a batch of emails was released to msnbc.com - the "Todd emails", which dealt with the involvement of Todd Palin in Alaskan state affairs ("Palin e-mails reveal a powerful ‘first dude’").

There was one email back then which immediately caught our eye - and was also reported by Andrew Sullivan on the Daily Dish on 28 April, 2011.

Andrew Sullivan quoted a reader:

More than a month after the announced April birth, the state's Benefits division emailed Gov Palin reminding her "we have not received the dependent verification documents for your new child" and "please submit a copy of the child's Birth Certificate to us within 60 days of the date of birth." Her staff was sufficiently concerned to forward this as an urgent email to her husband's personal account. Her husband's email reply does not confirm that he has sent the certificate; he merely responds, "I called, thanks."

For some reason, verification of his birth even for insurance purposes required special handling.

Yes, the verification of Trig's birth indeed required "special handling" - here is the complete email:

Division of Retirement and Benefits on May 22, 2008:

"Please submit a copy of the child's Birth Certificate"

Todd on May 23, 2008:

"I called, thanks"

This was all we knew about this issue - up until now. We would have given a lot to know what exactly Todd discussed on the phone with the benefits section! As the reader which was quoted by Andrew Sullivan also wondered: "Her husband's email reply does not confirm that he has sent the certificate."

Did he send the birth certificate? From a email which was included in the newest batch of the Palin-emails we now know: Most likely not. I am careful and only say "most likely", because in my view the wording of the email still leaves a little bit of room for interpretation. However, somebody with more intimate knowledge of these procedures within the State of Alaska might provide us with a definite conclusion.

The email I am talking about is the response which the Division of Retirement and Benefits sent to Todd apparently immediately after "Todd called them" - 2 1/2 hours after Todd received the email by Janice Mason on May 22, 2008.

This is what the Division of Retirement and Benefits sent to Todd Palin:

The department wrote:

"To obtain ordering information for the Birth Certificate, you may call the State of Alaska, Division of Vital Statistics at (907) 465-3391 or you may visit them on their website at:..."

Is this (final) proof that the Palins actually didn't possess a birth certificate for Trig? Why would this be included in the response if Todd didn't ask for this information? Or is this just "general information" that will be sent to everybody, even if they don't ask for it?

As I said, I am careful. However, one thing is clear: There is more than enough evidence already in the published emails to establish without any doubt, under any journalistic standard, that Sarah Palin and her team were involved in a massive-cover up to protect the inconvenient secrets surrounding the pregnancy with Trig (as we reported this weekend HERE and HERE). The exposure of these secrets would have certainly caused the destruction of Sarah Palin's political career - and this can still happen.

Many might think that Palin's political career is already over, but I beg to differ. It is more than obvious that Palin is "game to run for office", as she said herself, and hopes for a brokered GOP convention, which in her view would mean "an exciting time for all." However, we ourselves are still "game" for exposing Sarah Palin's greatest lie, and we are getting closer and closer.

+++

UPDATE:

More outrage amongst Palin's staff on December 16, 2008 - Sharon Leighow let her colleagues know:

"The ADN wanted to know for the 96th time whether the governor was Trig’s mom."

Palin's spokesperson Bill McAllister now has a new suggestion - threaten the ADN to "cut them off" in a "high-level complaint":

"I think this warrants a high-level complaint. It has become an insufferable outrage. Mike, I recommend we ask for thepublisher to meet with you. If this continues, I think we have to cut the ADN off and tell the world why."

And:

"They’re not going to staff the session but they’ve got time and resources for this sleaze. We need to call them out for thepredators they are. I’d say they call this off once and for all, or no access at all ever again, and we make sure everyoneknows why. In my 30-year journalism career, I never pursued a story like this."

This is a pattern which is now all-to-familiar for everybody who followed Sarah Palin's career. If you question Sarah Palin, you are "sick" or a "predator."

This is the full email - many thanks to Irishgirl for finding it:

This is most likely exactly what happened: The ADN backed down because Palin's staff threatened to cut them off - but in my opinion not with a direct, public threat, but with a subtle threat behind the scenes. I discussed the obvious reason for this decision in a post at Palingates in September 2009 - the ADN receives huge sums for advertising and printing from the State of Alaska each year (around $ 600,000).

The ADN simply couldn't afford to annoy such an important customer, especially one with such a sensitive "boss" like Sarah Palin, who also unashamedly hinted to the ongoing financial troubles of the ADN in the email exchange with Pat Dougherty.

+++

UPDATE 2:

The post is just up for a few minutes, but we already received local knowledge!

Our reader and friend Phil Munger, who works as a professor at the University of Anchorage, lives in Wasilla and has his own blog "Progressive Alaska", has given us valuable first-hand information. He is exactly the right the person to ask, because his two children were delivered at Valley Hospital in Palmer, where Trig Palin also was supposedly born.

Phil says in our comments:

"My wife says ours, for kids born at Valley Hospital in Palmer in 1986 and 1989, were automatically mailed to us. Dr. CBJ was in on both those births, as the kids' doctor, subsequent to the delivery.Looking at some of the paperwork, the costs of recording the birth with the authorities, processing it and getting it to us was included in the package we signed up for with the hospital through my wife's physician."

So it appears that the hospital would have been in charge of all the formalities regarding Trig Palin's birth certificate. But from the above email exchange with the Alaskan department, we can clearly see that it didn't happen like that when it came to Trig Palin, although his official mother was the Governor, the most important person in Alaska. What went wrong, Sarah...?

+++

UPDATE 3:

At this memorable weekend, the bubble finally burst. Conversations which have been "top secret" for years finally come to light, and the participants will not be happy about that.

From several emails which we have already discussed we have seen how "gung ho" Palin's spokesperson Bill McAllister was about the investigations of the ADN into the Trig pregnancy. Now we made another huge find: An extensive email exchange between ADN-editor Pat Dougherty and Bill McAllister.

In this email-conversation, Pat Dougherty says to Bill McAllister:

"I would appreciate it if this was just between you and me."

But this is not meant to be, which is a very good thing in my opinion. The transparency we have been looking for, finally, here it is, with one big blow.

Pat Dougherty reveals in this email exchange "off-the-record" his true thoughts about the Trig-issue:

If there were such a thing, I think the judgment of your office to go after the Daily News onthis Trig stuff would constitute malpractice. At a minimum, it was a big missed opportunityfor you. I would have liked nothing better than to drive a stake through the heart of thisstupid conspiracy. The proponents have been writing me obnoxious and insulting emailsfor four or five months. I’m fed up.

But I wash my hands of the matter. Apparently we’re all doomed to listen to this nonsensefor months, maybe years to come.

I can understand why you would be upset with the paper now, But someone in yourposition has to have the long view. Sometimes we’re your best friend, sometimes we’reyour worst nightmare. Your job is to get the most of the former and the least of the latter.Right now, from where I sit, you’re taking the Murkowski approach -- minimize the former,don’t affect the latter. That’s not the winning formula.

"I think the judgment of your office to go after the Daily News

on this Trig stuff would constitute malpractice."

Then a sentence which became so true that Pat Dougherty should be appointed the official Alaskan fortune-teller:

"Apparently we’re all doomed to listen to this nonsense for months, maybe years to come."

Yes, Pat, but only because the ADN dropped the matter - a decision which heavily impacted the lives of many people, including ours. I don't want to sound harsh, but I have no sympathy with Pat Dougherty whatsoever. His decision to drop the matter enabled Sarah Palin to start a national political career after the last presidential election, in which she bitterly divided the USA like virtually no other US politician in living history.

It's now Pat Dougherty's turn to correct this mistake.

Full exchange:

More discoveries in Sarah Palin's released emails: Palin's team wanted to launch "pre-emptive strike" against ADN-story about Palin's pregnancy, was shocked that Lisa Demer tried to put together a "timeline" of Bristol's pregnancies and contacted schools and hospitals

2012-02-26T18:04:00.001+01:00

By Patrick

As we reported in detail yesterday, the newly released Palin-emails include several stunning discoveries: For the first time, we have seen hard evidence of how the Palin-team frantically tried to suppress the ADN-investigation into the rumours that Sarah Palin might not be the biological mother of Trig. Sarah Palin's spokesperson Bill McAllister even insulted ADN-journalist Lisa Demer in a shocking email message after Demer dared to ask straightforward questions about Sarah Palin's pregnancy and asked for example for Trig's birth certificate. Answers to these questions were never given. Instead, Bill McAllister announced to Lisa Demer on December 16, 2008: The inquiries about the pregnancy "are hereby permanently rejected."

+++

For more stunning revelations, see also our follow-up post: Sarah Palin's spokesperson Bill McAllister wants to "cut the ADN off" if they continue to ask questions about Trig's birth, and ADN-editor Pat Dougherty's harsh reply to Bill McAllister: "The judgment of your office to go after the Daily News on this Trig stuff would constitute malpractice." Also: An Email exchange suggests that the Palins didn't have a birth certificate for Trig five weeks after Trig's birth.

+++

ADN-journalist Lisa Demer was more than a nuisance, she was a threat to Sarah Palin.

Today, our reader Older_Wiser found another highly incriminating email exchange relating to Lisa Demer's investigation into the pregnancy. It turns out that Lisa Demer didn't just ask the AK government to provide information, but also proactively contacted Bristol's school in Anchorage and even hospitals apparently in order to find out whether Bristol was the real biological mother of Trig. This rumour already was in existence in Alaska in March 2008, as Sarah Palin herself confirms in the emails leaked by Frank Bailey and was also acknowledged by ADN-journalist Michael Carey in a stunning TV-interview on September 2, 2008.

ADN-journalist Lisa Demer:

Tried to find the truth about Sarah Palin's pregnancy

The newly discovered email-exchange shows that the Palin-camp was virtually in shock about Lisa Demer's investigation into Bristol Palin's dealings - and it also shows that Palin's staff knew very well what is was all about, despite Sarah Palin herself "playing dumb":

"It sounds like they are putting together a timeline of pregnancies."

gasped Palin-aide Sharon Leighow, and she was talking about Bristol here, not Sarah!

The ever belligerent Bill McAllister (who now works again as a reporter for KTVA, so they expect any reporting from this side), who insulted Lisa Demer in an email message just three days earlier, suggested to go on the war path again and asked:

"Perhaps the sarcastic Anastasia press release to call attention to the Daily News shenanigans and to launch a preemptive strike on the story?"

Again there is extensive evidence that Sarah Palin and her camp feared nothing more than an investigation into the "pregnancy rumours", that Palin couldn't provide evidence that she birthed Trig and that instead her team tried to do everything possible to suppress and stop the investigation.

If this story continues to be ignored by the Alaska media, if the ADN, Alaska Dispatch, KTVA, KTUU etc. still refuse to touch it, than this would be shameful for journalism in Alaska.

The newly discovered email exchange in full:

What is striking from this email exchange is that Sharon Leighow especially knew exactly how damaging Lisa Demer's investigation could be. Not only did she realise that Lisa Demer was putting together a timeline of Bristol Palin's "pregnancies" (PLURAL!), but she also said straight away: "I am sure a very unpleasant article is in the works." Well, what would there to worry about if everything is just fine with Bristol?

For those readers who are not familiar with all the complex details of the investigation into Sarah Palin's pregnancy, the established facts about Bristol's school attendance are still rather sketchy, but highly suspicious.

Bristol Palin lived in Juneau, Alaska's capital, until about June 2007. From June 2007 onwards she worked at the Nordstrom's Coffee Shop in Anchorage, as we know from Bristol's old myspace comments. These myspace-comments also gave us fascinating insights into the "real" Palin family life like "tracks little bitch ass decided to tell my parents im a stoner" (April 18, 2007) and "haha, my mom was asking me who i was on the phone with last night, and she said she heard everything i was saying...now she thinks i am pregnant" (May 14, 2007).

She then apparently moved back to Wasilla and attended the High School there in autumn 2007, but rumours persisted that she was not attending classes and was out of school for months. In January or February 2008, she "appeared" at Anchorage West High, and she didn't look pregnant at this point in early 2008.

Then we have information which was posted on the reddit website on April 8, 2008 by the user "jibegod" - ten days before Trig's official birth. This post together with all the replies is still online.

"Jibegod", as we found out later when we checked this information, belongs to a politically connected family in Anchorage, and he appears to be a very intelligent person who wouldn't just make stuff up. On April 8, 2008, he posted the following on "reddit":

Cover-up? Alaska Gov. Palin (R) announced she was pregnant. Local rumors suggest she is covering up for her 16 y/o daughter.

On March 5th, 2008 Alaska's Republican Governor, Sarah Palin, announced to the media that she was 7 months pregnant with her 5th child. She is currently 44.

The controversy arises from two sources: First, Palin does not appear preganant in any recent photographs. The announcement came as quite a shock to people who had worked closely with her, and have been quoted as saying that she did not appear pregnant whatsoever during the prior 7 months. While this is debatable, you can judge for yourself here: http://gov.state.ak.us/photos.php

Second, Palin's daughter Bristol is 16 and attends an Anchorage high school. Students who have attended class with her report that she has been out of school for months, claiming a prolonged case of mono.

Apparently, this rumor has made the rounds in the upper echelon of the Alaska legislature, and is a closely guarded secret. As far as I know, this rumor has not been discussed by any media outlets, in Alaska or otherwise.

The points here are based mostly upon hearsay, and I'm not trying to destroy an innocent family. However, a Republican politician hiding a pregnant teenage daughter seems rather newsworthy.

The post by "jibegod" confirms that there were persistent rumours that Bristol was out of school for months, and that Bristol was pregnant, but it also adds to the confusion, because when it was posted in April 2008, Bristol was already "back" and attending classes. However, "jibegod" apparently didn't attend Anchorage West High together with Bristol, so it is understandable that his information is not 100% precise. In his defense, nobody has been able to establish a clear record of Bristol's school attendance from summer 2007 to spring 2008 up until today. This is exactly the record that Lisa Demer tried to research - and her inquiries immediately made her a target for hate for the Palin-camp. If there was no reason to be worried, there is also no reason to "launch a pre-emptive strike." It's that simple.

From our own inside information we know that some of Bristol's former friends in Juneau were aware that she was pregnant in 2007 - and that it was virtually impossible to contact her after summer 2007 any more (Bristol's myspace messages which the Palindeception team uncovered also end in June 2007). We also know that a leading Republican politician in early January 2008 confirmed in a confidential conversation that Bristol is pregnant.

There are still many open questions. Lisa Demer also knew this in 2008. She certainly still knows it today - but she also has a job, and her boss Pat Dougherty now declares the controversy on a par with the "Obama birthers" - because it's a big nuisance for him, for the ADN, and for Alaska.

Is there anyone left in Alaska who actually has still possesses journalistic integrity and will report about this?

Apart from this, anyone else in the USA media?

Sarah Palin and her team knew that it would be the end of Palin's career if a hard-hitting and well researched story about the fake pregnancy rumours would be published in the ADN. They reacted with threats, propaganda and obstruction. This strategy has never changed. It's now finally the time to end this charade once and for all.

+++

"Babygate" has been covered in more detail in previous posts. You can find all this information here:

Read all posts at Politicalgates about Sarah Palin's faked pregnancy with Trig - CLICK HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE AND HERE.

Download the research paper regarding Sarah Palin's faked pregnancy and the role of the media, written by Brad Scharlott, Associate Professor for Journalism at Northern Kentucky University - CLICK HERE.

Brad Scharlott's revised version of the paper has also been published by "Business Insider."

Read the old post at Palingates about the faked pregnancy with the pictures still intact in hardcopy HERE.

Read the old posts at Palingates online HERE (useful also for watching the video clips which were published with the posts).

In addition, please don't hesitate to watch the excellent video-documentaries about "babygate" which our reader Lidia17 created - HERE, HERE and HERE.

We break the "Spiral of Silence" - Read the details about the "biggest hoax in American political history!"

+++

UPDATE:

Thanks to our friend Irishgirl we now have some additional curious information to add. According to the following email sent to Sharon Leighow by Carol Comeau, the Anchorage School District Superintendent, Bristol Palin enrolled at West High on January 7th 2008 and withdrew on May 7th 2008. Comeau refused to answer a further enquiry by Lisa Demer who wanted to know the exact date that Bristol left the school. Reading between the lines we can assume that Bristol actually stopped attending West High before her official leaving date and that is why Comeau has refused to co-operate with a very frustrated Demer.

Palin: "And lisa doesn't need to know any of this, of course, but I think we have the right to know what the heck she's trying to piece together on her fishing expedition"

Palin's response which has been highly redacted is even more curious. What exactly is it that Palin does not want Demer or indeed the public to know about Bristol's attendance at West High? And why was this information redacted? Enquiring minds want to know.

Revelations in Sarah Palin's emails: The ADN asked all the right questions about Sarah Palin's pregnancy, but was met by stonewalling and insults from Palin's staff - PLUS: Emails by Patrick in the collection / BONUS: Myth debunked that Palin had to "bankrupt" herself

2012-02-25T22:19:00.000+01:00

By Patrick

+++Read the follow-up: Sarah Palin's team wants to "launch a pre-emptive strike" against Lisa Demer's investigations+++

+++Second follow-up: Bill McAllister wants to "cut the ADN off" because of Trig investigation, Pat Dougherty accuses McAllister of "malpractice" in return+++

We have a surprise: The latest batch of emails from Sarah Palin's administration which were released on Thursday proved to be far more interesting than expected. After the last large batch which was published in June last year, and which received huge media attention, some sort of "consensus" was reached in public that Palin's time as the Governor of Alaska now has been sufficiently examined, and that no more ink should be wasted. However, such a notion would seem to be premature, as this is an exciting new development.

The first surprise is the much higher number of emails which have been published now in comparison to the last batch: In June 2011, 24,199 pages have been released by the State of Alaska. This time, 34,820 pages have been released.

Note: The newly released emails are easily searchable on "documentcloud.org." Just type in the searchword in the searchbar after it says "Group: adn."

The second surprise: It turns out on close inspection that much fewer emails have been censored this time. On the website of msnbc.com, the privilege logs from the June 2011 batch can be found. For each batch, two lists exists: One with the "withheld" emails, one with the "redacted" emails. As we can see from the file made available by msnbc.com, in June 2011 we had 79 pages with "withheld" emails and 189 pages with "redacted" emails. With the newly released batch, similar lists with 80 pages containing the headers of the "withheld" emails and 165 pages with the headers of the "redacted" emails are being provided. Given the much higher number of released emails this time, it is apparent that the State of Alaska became more "relaxed" when it comes to censoring Sarah Palin emails.

This new approach, as I would call it, pays off for anyone who is interested in the truth about Sarah Palin. In addition, we have the emails which were published by Frank Bailey in "Blind Allegiance to Sarah Palin", and they sometimes tie in nicely with the emails published by State of Alaska.

I can only cover some of the most important emails in this post. There is simply too much material, and we will have more time to report about the emails in the future. First of all, let's get one piece of disinformation out of the way, which is now being repeated again as a "mantra" by the Palinbots - and also uncritically being reported by large parts of the media:

It it simply untrue that Sarah Palin was forced to pay the costs for her legal defense against the ethics complaints herself, was forced to "bankrupt her family" and was subsequently driven out of office, as Palin herself claims in an email from January 2, 2009. This often repeated myth can easily be debunked with hard evidence.

When Sarah Palin's first legal defense fund, the "Alaska Fund Trust", was declared unethical by the state-assigned investigator Tim Petumenos in June 2010 after an ethics complaint by Kim Chatman, Petumenos published an extensive report, and for the first time the following was revealed in public: The State of Alaska offered to pay for the defense against the ethics complaints, and even entered into a contract for legal services with Palin's lawyers, for an amount "up to $ 100,000 at public expense." This would have given Sarah Palin enough resources to mount a solid defense, but as investigator Petumenos notes: "No invoices were submitted."

The reasons for this untypical behaviour by Sarah Palin are completely unclear. The lawyers claim that it would have been "too difficult to separate the functions of representing Governor Palin in her official capacity in the pending state-related matters, and representing her in other related campaign or partisan matters beyond the scope of the state contract." This explanation is nonsensical, as every lawyer knows who has ever invoiced billable hours.

Screenshot from the Petumenos report:

Sarah Palin instead choose to set up her unethical "Alaska Fund Trust."

The meme that Sarah Palin was forced to bankrupt herself is therefore pure propaganda. Furthermore, bloggers have in the past diligently examined the numbers which were thrown around by Palin's camp for the costs of the ethics complaints. The Henkimaa blog conducted an detailed analysis about the true costs of the ethics complaints for the State of Alaska and concluded that the true cost came close to $ 300,000 - and not $ 2 million as claimed previously by Sarah Palin (see also this related post at the Firedoglake blog). Nearly $ 190,000 of this amount were the costs of the Troopergate ethics investigation - with three complaints "lumped together", including the ethics complaint that Sarah Palin filed against herself for tactical reasons after being condemned for "abuse of power" in the bipartisan "Branchflower Report" by the Alaska legislature.

Let's now take a closer look at emails related to Sarah Palin's pregnancy with Trig - an issue which should now receive new attention in the media again, because the newly published emails prove again, more than ever, that Sarah Palin was unable to offer any proof for her pregnancy with Trig and that she and her camp resorted to stubborn stonewalling and even insults in order to suppress the investigation by ADN-journalist Lisa Demer in late 2008.

It should actually come as a surprise to the readers of the Anchorage Daily News that Lisa Demer was trying to do a thorough job when it came to investigating the fake pregnancy rumours in late 2008 - because the readers of the ADN were never told about this in any detail.

As it now turns out, Lisa Demer was asking the right questions, and addressed them to the right people - and received a furious response from the Palin camp.

In December 16, 2008, Lisa Demer wrote a surprisingly straighforward email to the Governor's office and said:

From: Demer, Lisa
To: Leighow, Sharon W (GOV)
Cc: McAIlister, William D (GOV)
Sent: Tue Dec 16 19:13:46 2008
Subject: RE: Governor Palin

Hi Sharon,

Thanks for getting back with me so quickly.

Could you ask the governor if the family will send an announcement to the Daily News when Bristol’s baby is born? That would be helpful. There has been worldwide attention on this pregnancy, which Gov. Palin herself announced. This is the next chapter in the story. There’s a spot on the governor’s official Web site about Trig. Is this that different? Regarding the questions about Trig, it is within the governor’s power to put this to rest for most people. Maybe not all but certainly most reasonable people would accept a definitive statement from her doctor. If Cathy Baldwin-Johnson were given written consent to talk to me one more time about the birth, the questions that I keep hearing could be answered. The questions for the doctor: Did you deliver Trig? If not, who did? Who is Trig Palin’s biological mom and how do you know that?

Here’s one more request that might help. Would the governor make available a copy of Trig’s birth certificate? We could mention in our story what the birth certificate says.

We’re also looking for explanation about the earlier medical history statement. That statement wasn’t direct enough for some people. There also is a side issue related to it. A simple explanation of how it came together, who wrote it, and why it was released so late on Election Eve would be helpful. Dr. Baldwin-Johnson could help on some of that. But that’s less important than the issue of Trig.

Thanks for whatever you can do.

Regards, Lisa

Exactly, Lisa! Did Cathy-Baldwin Johnson deliver Trig? If not, who did? Who is Trig Palin's biological mother? What does his birth certificate say? Why was Cathy-Baldwin Johnson's statement released so late on Election Eve? Can we have a definitive statement from Palin's doctor, please?

Aren't these simple, easy questions? The matter could be settled within a day, and we could all forget about it!

We "Trig Truthers" have never asked for anything else - and have never ever received an answer!

Lisa Demer, as it turns out, never received an answer either.

Instead, Sarah Palin's spokesman Bill McAllister replies to Lisa and starts to insult her - in an apparent attempt to fob her off and shut her up, and ends with saying that he expects a "sweeping apology" from her as the only possible reply:

From: McAllister, William D (GOV)
Sent: Tuesday, December 16, 2008 7:35 PM
To: ’LDemer@adn.com’; Leighow, Sharon W (GOV); ’dhulen@adn.com’; Nizich, Michael A (GOV)
Subject: Re: Governor Palin

Lisa,
Allow me to intervene in a completely off-the-record way: I never anticipated the depths of sleaze that your paper would come to countenance. That the governor would have to prove maternity to you is perhaps the most despicable idea ever peddled by an organization that once had Pulitzer Prize status (and that now won’t even staff the legislative session). This is a disgrace, an outrage and a damnable injustice. Stop forcing us to spend state time to respond to this trash. We will not participate in your continued self-debasement as a news professional. Your inquiries about this are hereby permanently rejected, and your arrogance will have us discussing if we want to have anything to do with the ADN at all. Do not reply, unless it’s to offer a sweeping apology.

Off the record,
Bill

The inquiries "are hereby permanently rejected" - problem solved!

Sarah Palin also wonders what to do now - after all, the birth certificate couldn't be presented, as it wouldn't show what it's supposed to show, and medical records or other hard evidence are also not available, so what else is there left to do to suppress the inquiry by the ADN?

Sarah Palin writes on December 17, 2008 to her staff:

..... Original Message .....
From: Palin, Sarah (GOV sponsored)
To: McAllister, William D (GOV); Leighow, Sharon W (GOV)
Cc: Nizich, Michael A (GOV); Perry, Kristina Y (GOV)
Sent: WedDec 17 19:05:21 2008
Subject: Baby

Flippin ridiculous. My doctor (CBJ, she delivered Trig and served on our Health Care Council and was named America’s Top Family Physician a few yrs ago) called Todd to give me a message requesting that I call her tomorrow - to discuss "a phone call she received from Lisa Demer at the ADN"! Sheeeesh, this is one busy doctor and she has to continually be bugged by media about this ridiculous issue?

Maybe we can be clever about this and use the opportunity to point out how wacko some media outlets have become. If you can think of anything clever, let me know.., we’ll do it. I’ll even do a press avail on it, if need be.

Short of producing the photos that Bristol took of me having Trig (and it’ll be over my dead body that they’re released without major photoshopping done first), I don’t know how else to prove I gave birth to Trig. CBJ has testified, she’s released my health records summary.., what else does it take.

Bristol "took photos of me having Trig"...? We never heard this before - or afterwards. This is an obvious lie, a desperate claim by Sarah Palin in order to convince also her inner circle that there is nothing suspicious about her pregnancy with Trig. Interestingly, Sarah Palin made a similar desperate false claim in December 2009 when she suddenly claimed on a radio show in December 2009 that has "provided Trig's birth certificate" - despite the fact that nobody can be found who has seen it. Lisa Demer certainly hasn't seen it!

In the same email exchange, Bill McAllister (who later also attacked journalism professor Brad Scharlott due to his claims that Trig is not Sarah's biological child) went off the rails again and wrote:

..... Original Message .....
From: McAllister, William D (GOV)
To: Palin, Sarah (GOV sponsored); Leighow, Sharon W (GOV)
Cc: Nizich, Michael A (GOV); Perry, Kristina Y (GOV)
Sent: WedDec 17 19:23:28 2008
Subject: Re: Baby

How about I call a press availability tomorrow and on your behalf say we won’t dignify these questions and call out by name the reporters pursuing them? We can talk about the doctor being harassed, AP trying to implicate you re: racist e-mails by a few state employees, and much other garbage. And we could announce the new website critiquing the media. Will this make them back off? No, at least not entirely. But right now we’re in an ax fight without an ax. Let’s at least demonstrate publicly our pride and honor that we’re not going to let this evil stand.

Now, we could go sarcastic, with a presser in which we acknowledge that Bigfoot is a member of your Cabinet who has counseled predator control and that you are really the descendant of Anastasia, who survived the execution of the czar, s family, proving that not only can you see Russia but that you’re actually from there, and that you’ve got all of Imelda Marcos’ shoes plus Michael Jackson’s white glove. And then we can ask the ADN reporter why they’re not covering session.

There are a number of ways we can handle this. But let’s go.get ’em.

"We are not going to let this evil stand."

Well, yes, Bill, you have to let this evil stand, because you cannot present any proof that Sarah Palin is Trig's biological mother - so the only way out would be smears, attacks, threats and propaganda, as it seems, and that's exactly the route that the Palin camp chose.

Unfortunately, the propaganda worked, because even distinguished liberal websites like "Salon" swallowed the propaganda and "debunked" the fake pregnancy rumours in one of their most shameful moments ever in an article by Justin Elliott, who relied on "tainted" witnesses, as I explained in detail in a previous post .

The published emails also contain the complete exchange between Sarah Palin and ADN-editor Pat Dougherty, which he had published on his Editors Blog at the ADN in January 2009. This exchange is always worth to be revisited. Despite that fact that none of Lisa Demer's question were answered, the Anchorage Daily News dropped the matter. I discussed the obvious reason for this decision in a post at Palingates in September 2009 - the ADN receives huge sums for advertising and printing from the State of Alaska each year. The ADN simply couldn't afford to annoy such an important customer, especially one with such a sensitive "boss" like Sarah Palin, who also unashamedly hinted to the ongoing financial troubles of the ADN in the email exchange with Pat Dougherty.

These days, Pat Dougherty is keen to claim that "the story of persistent rumors does not interest him any more than President Obama’s birth certificate conspiracy." However, with the decision to let Sarah Palin off the hook despite not having answered the questions by Lisa Demer, Pat Dougherty put the reputation of his newspaper at risk, and it's safe to say that this reputation remains permanently damaged. We have seen too many emails by Sarah Palin and her staff stonewalling all questions about Sarah Palin's pregnancy, also in the book "Blind Allegiance to Sarah Palin" by Frank Bailey (even more in the leaked manuscript of the book), when even immediately before and after the official birth on April 18, 2008, Sarah Palin freaked out about the faked pregnancy allegations and the allegations that Trig is Bristol's child, but could provide no proof to the contrary.

When it comes to the ADN, one also shouldn't forget the memorable interview that ADN-columnist and former editor Michael Carey gave on September 2, 2008 - explaining that the faked pregnancy issue was intensively discussed within the ADN and that he has a friend, a "smart lawyer", who told him that the rumour about Palin's faked pregnancy was "the absolute truth":

There will be more to add to this in the future, but right now I would like conclude this post with a very surprising "personal" discovery, because in the published emails, a few of my very own emails are included as well. This brings memories back from a time "long gone", when Kathleen and I were members of the Palindeception research team. A lot has happened since that time, and I had pretty much forgotten about these emails, but the "reactions" I caused and didn't know about until yesterday are still very relevant.

So how did my emails end up in this batch? Well, the funny things is that I didn't even directly write to the State of Alaska - but to "factcheck.org" in the first place. I complained to them about an article by factcheck.org which is still online, called "Muting the Mommy Melodrama." In this article, factcheck.org tries to debunk the fake pregnancy rumours with a piece of evidence which mysteriously appeared on August 31, 2008, right at the start of Palin's VP campaign: A picture uploaded by an anonymous user called "erik99559" to flickr. This picture was apparently taken on April 13, 2008, just five days before the "official birth", and shows a pregnant looking Sarah Palin.

This photo - click on it for high resolution:

There was much speculation about this picture in our research team as well as on the Palindeception Blog.

Audrey from the Palindeception Blog, who ran this website which has been dormant since summer 2009 and started the public investigation into Sarah Palin's pregnancy with Trig, instructed a photo forensics expert to make an examination of the so-called "Gusty picture", which had mysteriously appeared on flickr on August 31, 2008 (and was online for about one year, before it was deleted from flickr).

This forensic report can also be found in full in the published emails, as I attached it to my email.

This picture was hugely important for us, because it turned out not just factcheck.org, but also for example the Huffington Post regarded this picture as "final evidence" for the fact that Sarah Palin was in fact pregnant with Trig (the article in Huffington Post was written by Lee Stranahan, who now works for Andrew Breitbart).

This was my original email to factcheck, as it can be found in the emails published by the State of Alaska:

By the way, I never received a response from factcheck.org. They don't seem to bother much about facts at all, and the thought that a person who fakes a pregnancy HAS to look pregnant AT SOME POINT obviously never occurred to them.

This report found it's way into Sarah Palin's email imbox, because I copied Andrea Gusty's station in (11 News KTVA), who actually received the email and then later replied to tell me that KTVA will broadcast a TV-report about these pictures. This report:

KTVA even published the full original broadcast of the programme in which this footage from April 13, 2008 was used - which has been preserved HERE.

For the record: I don't believe any more that the photo from April 13, 2008 is "fake", and that the report from the forensics expert is accurate. The report was severely impeded by the fact that the original digital picture was not available. The photo was bad quality. Digital photo forensics are a very tricky business, and for years already I have been convinced that the picture was indeed taken on April 13, 2008.

The only thing what really matters in the great scheme of things is the fact that this picture was conveniently uploaded on August 31, 2008 to flickr by the photographer Daniel Erik Carpenter from Bethel ("erik99559", with 99559 being Bethel's post code) - who even identified himself in one of the pictures. It was the public "proof" for the pregnancy that Sarah Palin desperately needed - and it served its purpose. No further proof was needed, certainly not a birth certificate - because suddenly, there was the pregnant looking Governor, right in front of our eyes...

As you can see in the email exchange, I then answered Andrea Gusty again, and I was cheeky, because I also copied in Bill McAllister in. I guess I wanted to annoy him a bit. Little did I know that I also managed to annoy the Queen herself!

Not just one, but two responses by Sarah Palin have been recorded, after she received the email exchange from Bill McAllister:

First response:

"OK, my new attitude on this is "I love it"!!! This proves the nuts are still at it!

Gotta' embrace it at this point."

Second response:

"Just fyi, I guess. Our press office has to deal w this again today? Geez."

This "new" attitude, "gotta' embrace it", is actually exactly the approach Sarah Palin displayed later in several speeches when she mocked the "Trig Truthers" (after we still didn't shut up), for example a speech in Waco, Texas on September 14, 2010 (a speech in which she suddenly discovered that she "had the baby in Anchorage"):

She had no proof, but that didn't stop her from joking about the issue, because she knew she was safe - after all, the liberal media had long decided that that issue of Palin's pregnancy couldn't be touched, for purely political reasons.

But there is another important point to make about this email exchange. As you can see from the headers depicted above, Sarah Palin also forward this email to Talis Colberg, who was the Alaskan Attorney General at the time.

I wrote in my email from January 13, 2009, which ended up on Sarah Palin's desk:

"It is true, however, that we claim that it is not Sarah Palin

who is the biological mother of Trig."

That is a strong claim - and Sarah Palin saw it, the Alaskan Attorney General saw it, Bill McAllister and all the others saw it - already in January 2009. Despite this fact no lawyer EVER contacted the "Trig Truthers" and asked for a retractions of this serious claim. We repeated this claim many times in our posts, and there was just a big, long silence.

But we know the reason for this, we know it already for a long time. Sarah Palin has no evidence to prove that she is Trig's biological mother - because she isn't. From excellent inside information coming from the "upper echelons of society" in Alaska as well as a mountain of evidence we know that Sarah Palin is not the mother. We knew this already in January 2009, and that's why I felt perfectly safe to make this claim in my email. I am a lawyer myself and have worked as a trial lawyer in Germany in the past, I do know that it would be a bad idea to carelessly libel a public figure. But we never libelled anyone. We just write the plain truth, and in return, the liberal media loves to call us "conspiracy theorists."

But we are not conspiracy theorists. We know that Sarah Palin is not the biological mother of Trig, and that she has no proof for her pregnancy. She is a liar, and a very successful one, who has the benefit of being surrounded by a team of people whose main purpose apparently is to spread propaganda and cover up her lies.

How long do we citizen bloggers have to spend our precious time writing blog posts like these, because the media refuses to do their jobs and cannot separate between fact and fiction?

+++

Special thanks to our readers Older_Wiser, KAO, Hope in America and all the other readers who searched through the emails!

+++

I tweeted a lot, please re-tweet:

https://twitter.com/#%21/politicalgates

+++

UPDATE:

Our reader silver_desert discovered a highly, highly suspicious email, which proves that Sarah Palin made stuff up again about the pregnancy.

On March 4, 2008, her close aide Sharon Leighow just heard the news about Sarah Palin's pregnancy (one day before the official public announcement). Sharon Leighow has an appropriate response to the news and writes to Sarah:

"And kudos on being a master of disguise!"

However, Sarah Palin is not happy at all about this remark, and writes back, providing the most ridiculous statement ever about her pregnancy (just next to her statements "Bristol took pictures while I delivered" and "I provided Trig's birth certificate"):

"Thanks! And "master of disguise"?! Ugh- I’m big as a house. But glad about it!"

So let's take a closer look at Sarah Palin, the "house." But first let's look a the pictures from the day when Trig was officially born - the April 18, 2008. KTUU presented their readers and viewers exclusive pictures of Trig, taken on April 18, 2008:

KTUU - Original story about Trig Palin's birth, published on April 18, 2008

Now let's take a look at Sarah Palin's "pregnancy progression":

February 5, 2008 ("Super-Tuesday"), a bit more than two months away from giving birth:

Sarah Palin at the National Governor's Association meeting on 25 February, 2008 - exactly 8 days before she wrote the email to Sharon Leighow! Click HERE for the complete high-resolution picture.

Close-up of Sarah Palin:

Look what Sarah could do on March 1, 2008 - the birth just 1 1/2 month away (the photographer took a few similar pictures):

March 14, 2008 - 10 days after Sarah Palin wrote the above email to Sharon Leighow! Click here for news report and for larger picture:

Now we move on to our "favourite" day - March 26, 2008, not even four weeks before Trig was officially born.

More documentation about the pictures from March 26, 2008 can be found in this post.

This picture which was taken on March 26, 2008 was already discovered at the end of 2008 (large size HERE):

This and some other pictures were discovered only recently:

Wow, they have rather small houses in Alaska these days!

+++

"Babygate" has been covered in more detail in previous posts. You can find all this information here:

Read all posts at Politicalgates about Sarah Palin's faked pregnancy with Trig - CLICK HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE AND HERE.

Download the research paper regarding Sarah Palin's faked pregnancy and the role of the media, written by Brad Scharlott, Associate Professor for Journalism at Northern Kentucky University - CLICK HERE.

Brad Scharlott's revised version of the paper has also been published by "Business Insider."

Read the old post at Palingates about the faked pregnancy with the pictures still intact in hardcopy HERE.

Read the old posts at Palingates online HERE (useful also for watching the video clips which were published with the posts).

In addition, please don't hesitate to watch the excellent video-documentaries about "babygate" which our reader Lidia17 created - HERE, HERE and HERE.

We break the "Spiral of Silence" - Read the details about the "biggest hoax in American political history!"

Annoy a Palin - watch "Game Change!" The full "preview package": Behind the scenes, conversations with the actors, trailers - GET ANGRY, SARAH!

2012-02-23T23:23:00.000+01:00

By Patrick

"It'a all accurate" - Mark Halperin, co-author of "Game Change",

about the depiction of Sarah Palin in his book

The "war of realities" has begun - Sarah Palin's reality against the reality of the other 99%, so to speak. The AP reported today the outrage of Sarah Palin's "aides" - the people who are on the payroll of SarahPAC. As was to be expected, Sarah Palin's servants dutifully people rallied around the "Governor" and loudly denounced the upcoming HBO movie "Game Change", with good old trusty Megan "Alaska big mouth" Stapleton even calling the movie "sick":

Interestingly, Frank Bailey described in his book "Blind Allegiance to Sarah Palin" exactly that: The close circle around Sarah Palin was expected to defend Palin under all costs against accusations which quite frequently were directed at Palin. The Governor fumed, raged, screamed, and her subordinates had to defend her honour. Therefore it's like a "deja vu" - and of course it didn't matter that Sarah's busy staffers haven't even seen the movie yet. Sarah has to be defended, period!

It's exactly like the conservative Alaska pundit and former radio-talk show host Dan Fagan wrote in November 2009 in his immortal essay titled "Sarah Palin: A Dark Soul":

She is a grudge carrier. Settling scores drive her and she is hell bent on revenge, payback, getting even. (...)

She has no self-control when it comes to letting things go. She must settle the score. She must. She Will!

So now it's time to settle the score the makers of the "Game Change" movie and the authors of the book. It's that simple. Because everyone lies - apart from Sarah Palin. It has never been any different.

This might come as a surprise to the authors Mark Halperin and John Heilemann. One has just only to watch for example their interview from 15th March 2010 to realise that they probably didn't expect such harsh attacks.

In the following clip from about 46:00, they start to talk about Sarah Palin in detail. Mark Halperin says that the depiction of Sarah Palin is actually "empathetic towards her" and also provides "a very balanced view." But above all, Mark Halperin stresses: "It's all accurate!" - and Halperin even mentions that in contrast other things which have been written about Sarah Palin elsewhere sometimes "have not been accurate."

It's almost amusing to observe that Mark Halperin was apparently under the impression that Sarah Palin is a sane, rational human being. I do hope that he has seen the light now!

Watch:

So let's "annoy a Palin" - here is the "full HBO preview package" for "Game Change" - enjoy!

"Behind the Scenes Featurette":

Behind the Scenes

"Conversations with the Actors":

Conversations with the Actors

"Trailer 1":

"Trailer 2":

"Preview 1":

"Preview 2":

Will Sarah Palin watch "Game Change?" She denies it. But we don't believe her. She will watch it. She must. She Will!

+++

UPDATE:

The interview with Steve Schmidt on "60 Minutes" with Anderson Cooper is also worth revisiting:

(Many thanks for the suggestion, HIG!)

Frank Bailey, Sarah Palin's former top aide has to pay $11,900 fine for publishing "confidential" emails in his book "Blind Allegiance to Sarah Palin" - UPDATES!

2012-02-22T03:46:00.001+01:00

By Kathleen

The press release cited below was sent to me directly from our friend Andree McLeod.

As also reported by the ADN, Frank Bailey sent a copy of the manuscript for his book, Blind Allegiance to Sarah Palin, to the Attorney General who asked for certain confidential information to be removed. Bailey did not remove all of the information identified as confidential, and for this and other reasons the following fines were imposed:

$3,600 for using confidential information in drafting his book; $7,200 for disclosing confidential information to his two co-authors; and $1,100 for publishing confidential information after he was advised it was secret.

Screenshot from the settlement:

*******

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Anchorage, Alaska: Sarah Palin’s top aide Frank Bailey has agreed to pay civil penalties totaling $11,900 to resolve an ethics complaint. The complaint was filed on September, 2010 by Andrée McLeod when she learned that Bailey misused confidential documents and emails he had acquired while he worked for Palin.

“Justice has yet to be served. I have called on the Attorney General to reveal all the public’s documents and emails that Bailey confiscated and shared with others when he left state employment.”

McLeod and members of the media have requested all of Palin’s email communications for the time she was Alaska’s governor. Although some have been revealed, many couldn’t be located because of Palin’s rampant use of private email accounts for official business, and thousands more remain undisclosed asAlaska’s governor’s office cites executive privileges and other delay tactics.

“Every one of those confidential and still undisclosed public documents that were in Bailey’s possession must be made public, immediately, as Bailey broke the chain of custody when he illegally shared them with his co-authors Jeanne Devon and Ken Morris,” McLeod said.

“This is the second time that Sarah’s go-to guy has been found to have crossed the line. The first was back in November of 2008 when I filed another complaint against Sarah and her staff, including Bailey,” McLeod said.

McLeod continues, “This agreement proves, yet again, that Sarah Palin’s account of her role in reforming Alaska’s government while governor is truly the only real ‘false narrative’ being bandied about.”

# # #

FOR DOWNLOAD:

The settlement agreement from the AK Department of Law.

The initial September, 2010 McLeod complaint.

We say that all the emails should be published now - without exception.

You never know what nuggets one could find!

+++

Note by Patrick:

In order to avoid a misunderstanding, let me just say the following: We are very grateful that Frank Bailey and his co-authors published "Blind Allegiance", as the book provides unique insights into the "real" Sarah Palin. The book didn't get the attention it really deserved - however, the dreadful controversy with Joe McGinness also significantly contributed to the fact that the book was partially ignored.

If Frank Bailey had just handed all the emails over to the State of Alaska, then the Alaskan government would have probably redacted (=censored) a huge number of them. This can still happen, of course. The leaked manuscript and the published book provided us with invaluable information, for example about the fact the Sarah Palin couldn't even prove that she was pregnant while she was supposedly pregnant with Trig - and was also desperate at the same time to find ways to fight the rumours.

Pretty, pretty strange if you supposedly carry a huge baby in your belly, or supposedly gave birth just a few days ago...But the media just ignored all of this, and rather presented the former AP-reporter Steve Quinn as a "crown witness" for the fact that Sarah Palin was indeed pregnant - when in reality Steve Quinn himself was labelled as a "cheerleader" for the Palin administration by Palin's closest staff in the published emails, just to give one example, and also had a love affair with Sarah Palin's top aide Ivy Frye! Needless to say that these facts were ignored by the media as well, which makes Justin Elliott's "definite debunker" in "Salon" the biggest embarrassment ever of this distinguished liberal website. When it comes to Sarah Palin, even liberal journalists are willing without hesitation to ignore facts and reason.

So I can see that Frank Bailey was between a rock and a hard place. It was a difficult choice. My hope is that we will now see all the emails, with only very small redactions, and they should prove very interesting indeed, as Sarah Palin has more secrets than the CIA (almost).

+++

Update by Patrick:

In the comments, I had the following exchange with Phil Munger from Progressive Alaska:

Philip Munger Today 09:35 AM

I beg to differ with my good friend Patrick on both the quality of Blind Allegiance and to the reasons - he seems to place a degree of blame on the McGinniss controversy - the book failed. It was hastily and poorly written by a team that never had any chemistry that could make the product into a resonant statement. Additionally, as Geoffrey Dunn so clearly wrote soon after BA came out, it is the third Troopergate coverup.

I applaud comments here and at the post at IM that reach out to Bailey to release all he stole. Maybe he could turn it over to wikileaks for free.

I doubt he will, but we should try to encourage him.

Andree, as always, is one of the few true heroes we have here in Alaska.

My reply was:

Patrick - Politicalgates Today 12:54 PM in reply to Philip Munger

Phil, it's of course true that the book had flaws, as our friend Geoffrey Dunn also pointed out, but it still had a lot to offer, as it contained damning information, especially emails, which could be found nowhere else. It certainly still served as an eye-opener for many people. In this tiresome, endless fight against the lies and manipulations of Sarah Palin it allowed a rare view on the workings of her very own "spin machine." The authors "blew it" and for example got into an amateurish confrontation with Joe McGinniss and others. My hope now is that some positive result will follow, and that we will see many more emails.

+++

This is a very controversial issue, and it seems difficult to come to a consensus. We have seen a clash of personalities and opinions in the past as far as Frank Bailey's book was concerned, and the controversies still linger on. Maybe there will never be a resolution. I my view it's important to look forward and to try to use this "crack" in the wall which has been caused by Bailey's book - the "crack" in the "wall of secrecy" which the State of Alaska has built around Sarah Palin, declaring everything "private" or "confidential" which might expose Sarah Palin's numerous secrets. After all, even if Sarah Palin is gone, her influence can still be seen, also due to the fact that Sean Parnell took over a considerable number of Palin's closest staff members. These people have of course no interest in seeing their former boss disgraced.

+++

Update 2 (by Patrick):

I looked into "Blind Allegiance to Sarah Palin" again, and these are two of my "most favourite" emails by Sarah Palin:

From: Sarah
To: Scott Heyworth
Cc: Todd Palin
Sent: Friday, January 06, 2006 10:19 AM
Subject: Todd's son
Scott:
Todd just told me you had spoken with him awhile back and reported that some law enforcement friends of yours claimed some dumbass lie about Track not being Todd's son? This really, really disgusts me and ticks me off.
I want to know right now who said it, who would ever lie about such a thing... this is the type of bullshit lie about family that WILL keep me from running for Governor. I hate this kind of crap. I thought it was bad enough that my kids have been lied about recently regarding illegal activities that they had NO part in whatsoever. But a stupid claim like one of our kids isn't fathered by Todd?
I want to know NOW what this latest b.s. is all about because I want to get to the bottom of this garbage rumor mill. People who lie like this may know me well enough to KNOW THAT I WILL ALWAYS PUT FAMILY FIRST, AND IF UGLY LIES LIKE THIS ARE BELIEVED BY ANYONE AND ADVERSELY AFFECT MY HUSBAND AND KIDS... I WILL PULL OUT OF THE RACE BECAUSE IT'S NOT WORTH IT - AT ALL - TO LET MY FAMILY BE VICTIMS OF DARK, UGLY POLITICS LIKE THIS.

She addressed this "lie" also in a follow-up email to "a large list of supports", as Frank Bailey reports:

This reminds me of the allegation that was ― "anonymously" leaked to the media that falsely accused me of having a felony on my record by attaching a false court document to the lie that was sent to the press. It‘s also reminiscent of the false allegations that my children aren‘t really mine and my husband‘s. Oh, and of course, the ol‘ ― "I saw her on a train headed to Seward with a guy she‘s having an affair with" lie that also got back to me. Oh please. This aspect of politics stink, this is why good folks sometimes don‘t offer themselves up to serve in public office. But back to the real subject here. If this is all they got on me, it‘s pretty pathetic. I‘ve been warned that party operatives would dig as deep as they could to try to destroy my reputation. It‘s almost funny that this is all they‘ve got. Let me help them out a bit and make their search for ―"dirt" a little easier. I got a ―"D" in a micro-econ course once in college, 20 years ago, Todd and I eloped – we didn‘t have a real wedding, um, I‘m not perfect, I make mistakes everyday. Heck, today I hollered at the wrong child when I accused one of not taking out the trash on their day to do so. I was wrong. I apologize. That‘s about it. All the skeletons are out of the closet.

Frank Bailey himself offers some interesting, although in my view also slightly "bizarre" thoughts about these two telling emails and writes in "Blind Allegiance":

Defensive emails like this did more to breathe life into speculation than end it. That Sarah raised sordid issues to a previously unaware audience generated new questions. Personally, I never made the connection nor did I read the blogs that did so. Neither did I follow up and wonder who Track‘s father was if not Todd? Or what guy on what train? But thousands (eventually millions) of others did.

The rumours about Track parentage are true. As I already revealed at "Palingates" in 2010 and early 2011, Todd is not the biological father of Track. His real father is Curtis Menard Jr., who was officially Track's Godfather and died in a mysterious plane crash in 2001. We can only speculate which other dark family secrets are connected with this story. It is no surprise at all that Sarah Palin freaked out in these emails!

Just as with the allegation that Sarah Palin faked her pregnancy with Trig (which is also a true fact), we never ever heard anything from Sarah Palin's lawyers. No retractions was ever demanded. There was just big, long silence. This is not surprising at all, as our sources regarding the pregnancy as well as Track's parentage were excellent.

So Sarah Palin's reaction to the rumous in the emails quoted above is very telling. If one of her secrets is brought up (and there are many of them), then she screams and rages until hopefully the whole affair will calm down again, but in fact, there is nothing she can really do, no court action etc. - because the claims are true. That's a pattern we have seen over and over again. It's Sarah Palin's very own way of "proactive defense." And with the US media fast asleep as far as Sarah Palin's private scandals are concerned, this strategy works very well.

+++

Update 3 (by Patrick):

There is another extremely interesting email exchange in "Blind Allegiance", one which also has been largely overlooked, like so many other exchanges, although it's more relevant than ever. This exchange doesn't concern her private scandals, usually my favourite subject, but a man that Sarah Palin cuddled up to during recent weeks - Newt Gingrich.

In June 2009, as Frank Bailey explains in the book, Newt Gingrich "landed on Sarah's enemy list." Sarah was supposed to be the keynote speaker at an annual congressional fund-raising dinner on June 8, 2009 in Washington DC.

Two days before, on June 6, 2009, Geoffrey Dunn published an article in Huffington Post and showed that Sarah Palin, well, recycled (=plagiarized) an older article by Newt Gingrich and used parts of it for one of her speeches. If this article by Geoffrey Dunn in Huffington Post or her "hesitation" to accept the invitation, as Bailey mentions, was to blame, is not known. But fact is that Sarah was kicked out on short notice and was replaced with Newt Gingrich. Naturally, the famous Governor was furious and wrote in an email on June 7:

From: gsph
Subject: Fw: Newt

I don't know why we have to protect the elites who do things like this so we don't "ruffle feathers- by keeping it to ourselves. Newt "uninvited" me yesterday to speak at tomorrow's NSRC [NRSC, the National Republican Senatorial Committee]. I was the surprise guest . . . I know Meg [Stapleton] leaked it to Politico, then would get up to do a surprise speech and introduction of Newt. So I went from being the invited keynote speaker back in February, to just the surprise introducer of the speaker this month, to the hack-of-the-bus'er ("sit down and shut up") the day before the event. One of the organizers told Meg last night that Newt pulled the plug. said he didn't want me to "steal the show". . . . maybe there's something others see in Newt. . . . Keep this confidential until we figure out how I'm supposed to explain flying all the flippin' way across the country—leaving my baby at home—to be at this dinner, then we get accused of dodging the substantive events like the NSRC, when in reality they kicked us to the curb. I hate politics.

Later that day, another message from Sarah followed:

Yes, (Newt/GOP) are egotistical, narrow minded machine goons . . . but all the more reason God protected me from getting up on stage in front of 5000 political and media "elites" to praise him, then it be shown across the nation. At some point Newt would have shown his true colors anyway and we would have been devastated having known we'd earlier prostituted ourselves up in front of the country introducing him and acting like that good ol' rich white guy is the savior of the party.

Does Newt Gingrich actually know that Sarah Palin called him an "egotistical, narrow minded machine goon" - and expected he would "show his true colors?"

Sarah, what are Newt Gingrich's "true colors?"

Sarah, if you "hate politics", maybe you should just quit.

Annoy a Palin, quote her emails.

+++

Please re-tweet:

https://twitter.com/#!/politicalgates/status/172425473857568768

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Election 2012: Ousting the Obstreperous Obstructionists

2012-02-21T14:26:00.000+01:00

by Sunnyjane

Listen closely and you can hear it. It’s that roar coming from the House Chamber, where the shouts of NO reverberate so violently and with such consistency that the ghosts of Congresses past cover their ears and hang their heads in sorrow and shame.

It is the sound of legislators with the wisdom and experience of a grape seed, and hearts and souls that are blacker than a witch’s liver. It is the members of the Tea Party, that Koch-funded grassroots gang of so-called "real Americans" who are raucously encouraged by such pea brains as Ron Paul (the"intellectual godfather" of the Tea Bagger movement), his head-stomp-sanctioning son Rand Paul, Sarah Palin, Dick Armey, Eric Cantor, and Michele Bachmann.

This particular Congress is not ready, notwilling, and not able to perform the jobs they were elected to do asrepresentatives of the people. On the contrary, for thirteen months they have supported the driveto push the

United States of America

into a state of disaster. It’s time to send them back to their home districts where they can resume their wretched little lives in the ignoble obscurity they so richly deserve.

The Failure of the 112th Congress

Thirteen percent of American adults believe that the current Congress is doing a dandy job. I don’t know for certain, but they may well be the ones who are signing up for Newt’s moon colony because he has promised to take along some poor kids to clean the toilets in the honeymoon suites.

Three percent of the voting population either don't know or are undecided about the issue. Theseare the same people who have to consult with their Rite Aid pharmacist about how touse a rectal thermometer.

The remaining eighty-four percent of us know very well that these so-called Representatives have accomplished little more than to name some Post Office buildings. That is hardly what they were sent to Washington for, and we are ticked off to the max. As John Adams, thoroughly irritated with the Continental Congress's unwillingness to vote on the question of independence, so aptly stated in 1776:

I have come to the conclusion that one useless man is called a disgrace; that two are called a law firm; and that three or more become a Congress! And by God, I have had it with this Congress!

There is but one recourse for the Eighty-Four Percent. Andrew Sullivan fairly well nailed it when he wrote in Vanity Fair recently, The only way out of that deadlock is an electoral rout of the GOP, since the language of victory and defeat seems to be the only thing it understands.

The Objective: Recall and Replace

As I wrote in a previous post, it is imperative that we cleanthe House and Senate of the obstructionist Tea Party members who are only therebecause in 2010 the Republican Party thought it was a brilliant means ofthwarting the pro-middle-American agenda of President Barack Obama. In this post I will talk about two of these people who need to be replaced with representatives who are, at the least, willing to work with the president. This post will briefly summarize the political histories and current agendas of these so-called legislators in the House of Representatives who are currently accepting very nice tax-paid salaries and very affordable tax-payer subsidized healthcare plans to crush the lives and liberties of ninety-nine percent of Americans.

Profiling the Poseurs of the Far-Right 112^thCongress

Daniel A. "Dan" Webster served for twenty-eight years in the Floridalegislature and won handily against Democrat Alan Grayson in 2010, proving thatmost of the voters in the 8^th District may well be as anal on social issues asWebster himself.

A pro-life “right-wing social engineer” of the worst kind, Webster wants to ensure thatthe government has the power to decide when we’re born, how we marry, and underwhat circumstances we die. It is pure hypocrisy that the party of smaller government should attempt with such passion to enact legislation that actually allows government to sets rules on how Americans should live their lives.

On Birth: Asanti-abortion as any religious extremist drawing breath today, Webster proposed a bill in 2008 forcing all women planning to undergo an abortion receive anultrasound, but giving them a choice of whether to see the live images of thefetus. Sadly, this bill eventuallypassed.

On Marriage: Back in 1990, Webster proposed a bill in the Floridalegislature on covenant marriage, which could only be dissolved on grounds ofadultery. The proposal stated, in part,that the husband-and wife-to-be would have to have their parents' permissionand attend premarital counseling by a member of the clergy or a marriagecounselor before proceeding. As part of their marriage license, the husband andwife would then have to sign notarized documents declaring: I, (insert name), do hereby declare myintent to enter in Covenant Marriage. I do so with the full understanding thata Covenant Marriage may not be dissolved except by reason of adultery. I haveattended premarital counseling in good faith and understand my responsibilitiesto the marriage. I promise to seek counsel in times of trouble. I believe thatI have chosen my life-mate wisely and have disclosed to him or her all factsthat may adversely affect his or her decision to enter in this covenant withme. Astute readers will notice that there is no mention of physical or mental abuse in this bill. As his opponent, Alan Grayson, said during the 2010 campaign, DanWebster’s bill reduces the institution of marriage to a roach motel: You cancheck in, but you can’t check out. Fortunately, this particular piece of regressive legislation was not enacted.

On Death: Websterinserted his self-righteous notions into the Terri Schiavo case, which involved anugly legal battle between Schiavo’s parents and her husband on whether toremove the feeding tube of the unconscious woman, who had been in a persistent vegetative state (PVS) for fifteen years. When the feeding tube was removed by court order in March 2005, Webster introduced a bill that would have prohibited such patients from being denied food and water if family members disagreed on the patient's wishes and if the patient had not expressed his wishes in writing when competent. The bill failed to pass the Senate by three votes. The subsequent autopsy backed Schiavo's husband and doctors in their contention that she was in apersistent vegetative state, finding that she had massive and irreversiblebrain damage and was blind.

After successfully campaigning on a platform of smaller,streamlined government, spending cuts, budget roll backs, tax cuts andincreasing the protection of personal rights (does everyone see theirony here?) against Grayson in 2010, Webster flew into Washington via theencouraging wings of the Tea Party, took his rightful place with all the other entry-level life forms, and has faithfully marched to Eric Cantor's Koch drum ever since.

In his first year as a U.S. Congressman, Webster has done little except support the Ryan Budget Plan. It is encouraging to know that he has made neither the conservatives nor other voters in Orlando happy. The once-supportive Tea Party jumped all over him for notpushing hard enough to cut the federal budget, while angry attendees at one of his town hall meetings lashed out at him for his support of the budget plan. As Think Progress reported in April 2011, the attendees' criticism was so fierce that Webster didn't just avoid the questions byresorting to talking points... On numerousoccasions, [he] simply declined to give an answer to contentious questions altogether,moving on to take a new question instead.

Alan Grayson announced in July 2011 that he will run in November to regain this seat. Let's assume that the voters of that district have sufficiently recovered from their little 2010 fit of rebellion and that they will vote to end Webster's reign as their too-far-right representative.

Wisconsin Representative Paul Ryan has been takingup valuable space in the House since 1999.   One of his more dubious jobs before becoming akowtowing-to-the-far-right congressman was legislative director for then-SenatorSam Brownback of Kansas. Surelyyou remember now-Governor Brownback, who got his shorts in a swivet when a high school senior had the temerity to tweet something rather benignly negativeabout him back in November 2011. The thin-skinned governor did a third-gradetattletale routine on her to the school board, demanding an apology. She refused. (Chuckle, snort, snicker.)

Aftera grueling eight years of doing little but voting Yes on everything thatGeorge W. Bush expected from his various congresses, Ryan was finally taskedwith something for which he could use his less-than-evident skills.

The Young Guns: Ryan and cohorts Eric Cantor of Virginiaand Kevin McCarthy of Californiafounded this group, a recruitment and campaign strategic plan by HouseRepublicans to protect their senate and congressional seats and help elect newGOP candidates across the nation in the 2007 and 2008 election cycles.   New “members” in this little society couldbe assured that the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) would helpfund their campaigns.   They were sosuccessful in the mid-term 2010 elections that the House captured the majority. And the program is alive and well for2012, this time being managed by Pete Sessions of Texas,Greg Walden of Oregon, and Steve Scalise of Louisiana.  As Sessionstold Politico in November 2011, We are committed to staying onoffense, and the goals for every level of Young Guns demand aggressive actionand innovative strategies for candidates to build winning campaigns. Some names to look for (and vote against) are Randy Altschuler of New York, Andy Barr of Kentucky, Jackie Walorski of Indiana, Brendan Doherty of Rhode Island, and Steve Dainesof Montana.

The Man with the Plan: It probably would have servedthe country well if Ryan’s mother had let him be come the ski bum she feared hemight turn out to be.   But no, she couldn’tleave well enough alone, andin early 2011 her son introduced the GOP’s proposed budget plan for 2012 andbeyond, quaintly titled The Path to Prosperity. Thisanti-middle-America “road map” turned out to be a trip down easy street for therich and A Faster Road to Disparity for the remainingninety-nine percent of American citizens. A few ~~lowlights~~ highlights ofthis plan that was no doubt scripted by ALEC at the direction of his buddies theKoch Brothers, at whose super secret “annual retreats” Ryan is a regularattendee:

Medicare: The Centerfor Economic and Policy Research published a study, based largely on CongressionalBudget Office calculations, advising that the Ryan Plan would add trillions ofdollars to the cost of Medicare due to the lower efficiency of privateinsurance as compared to the current Government program.

Changes to Tax Laws: Whileproposing the elimination of tax loopholes and deductions, the GOP budget failsto name exactly which of these would be abolished. TheAtlantic disparaged the plan’s proposal by writing, Aplan that proposes to eliminate tax loopholes and deductions, butdoesn't say what any of those are, is neither brave nor serious. It is, insteadcanny—or cynical, take your pick. Thisis a chicken-hearted move for the GOP, because they know Americans would notaccept some of the more popular deductions.  For instance, would they dare to say aloud that a deduction likehome-mortgage interest payments should be cut?  I don’t think so.

Defense Spending:   Ryan's proposal would increase the budget for nationaldefense by $22 billion to a total of $583 billion in fiscal 2012, and wouldprovide defense increases each year, leading to a $642 billion defense budgetin 2016. (It is hardly breaking news that theGOP loves the Defense Department, but hates middle-and lower-income Americans.)

In a recent interviewwith Ed Schultz of MSNBC, Rep. Bernie Sanders of Vermont had somerather harsh words for Mr. Ryan’s little plan, at one point saying, I think clearly what Ryan is about is continuing theRepublican effort to engage in class warfare. Who in their right mind couldsupport a proposal which says more tax breaks for the wealthiest people andyet we’ll cut Medicare and Medicaid in drastic form.

Fortunately (andsomewhat amusingly, I might add), all has not gone well for The Path toProsperity. Representatives acrossthe country faced angry constituents at town hall meetings in 2011 and found it almostimpossible to defend the proposed budget. In an effort to avoid the indignity of such an audience, Ryan decidedto charge a $15 fee for his own town hall meeting last September and ended uphaving twenty fee-paying constituents thrown out and three arrested. How'd that pay-per-view thingy work out for ya, Congressman Ryan? Andof course, there’s the hilarious statement by Newt Gingrich in May 2011, in which he called Ryan’s budget plan right-wing social engineering. To which Ryan replied on Laura Ingraham’sshow, Withallies like that, who needs the left?

PaulRyan needs to go back to Wisconsin and resume one of his former jobs: driving aWienermobile for Oscar Mayer.

End Note

In subsequent posts, I will continue to profile the obstructionists. The Republicans intend to do everything possible to maintain their House majority and take control of the Senate by propping up their current herd of regressive sycophants and rounding up more of the same. Progressives must be just as focused in order to take back the House and protect or increase the majority in the Senate. Not only is it important for President Obama's second-term pro-America agenda, but it's imperative that we keep the bozos out of our bedrooms!

A warning to Republicans, courtesy of Bob Dylan:

Come senators, congressmen, please heed the call
Don't stand in the doorway, don't block up the hall.
For he that gets hurt will be he who has stalled,
There's a battle outside and it’s ragin'.

It'll soon shake your windows and rattle your walls,

For the times they are a-changin'.

WeeklyX2 Roundup, February 6-19, 2012

2012-02-20T16:13:00.000+01:00

By BlueberryT

Sorry to be missing in action lately – I’ve missed you! I have been working around the clock on a big project, and am not finished yet, so I will be in and out for a while. Hopefully I’ll catch up someday….

Tuesday, February 8, 2012

Dr. Carter G. Woodson and Black History Month

Sunnyjane introduced us to Carter Godwin Woodson, the son of former slaves who became a distinguished scholar, teacher and pioneer in education and black history. Woodson earned undergraduate and graduate degrees from the University of Chicago in 1908 and a PhD in History from Harvard University in 1912 (only the second awarded by Harvard to an African American). Woodson’s research and writing chronicled the rich history and contributions of African Americans, as well as the obstacles they faced in gaining an education and exercising their citizenship. He organized the first Negro History Week in 1926, coinciding with the birthdays of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln; this evolved into the official designation of February as Black History Month. Thanks to Sunnyjane for teaching us about this man, whose life work brought recognition and respect for the huge contributions of African Americans to our society.

Wednesday, February 9, 2012

Santorum Sweeps Romney on UnSuper Tuesday

Kathleen reported on Santorum’s wins in 3 states, which upset Rom[o]ney’s clear path to the nomination and his standing as front-runner in the GOP primaries. The “Santorum surge” (oh, dear!) is inviting more scrutiny of Santorum’s record and more great videos; Kathleen included some for your entertainment – so have a good laugh at Rick’s expense! Although Santorum’s latest statements on the GOP’s extreme position on contraception and the overall hysteria taking place about birth control happened after this post, I figured the cartoon would help tie these themes together…

February 9^th, 10^th and 13^th, 2012

The Sudden Death of the Living Wage

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

Nomad has written another excellent series, this one on the death of the living wage. Rom[o]ney’s recent gaffes about not worrying about the poor, then asserting his support for indexed increases in the minimum wage, brought attention to the issue of the living wage. Nomad clearly distinguishes between the “living wage” – how much a person needs to meet the essential costs of living – and the minimum wage that employers must pay for labor. This link will lead you to a calculator for each area of the country – it is eye-opening to see what it costs to live for an individual, let alone a family. The discrepancy between the minimum wage and the living wage (actual cost of living) makes clear why the “working poor” is probably the fastest growing class in

America

In Part 2, Nomad tackled the GOP myths about the

U.S.

being a meritocracy where free market principles should reign supreme. Right-wing think tanks like the Manhattan Institute, which is funded by the Koch Brothers, among others, provide talking points linking opposition to the living wage, privatization, unions and regulation. They claim all these things kill jobs, but facts prove otherwise. Nomad then explores the roots of the Living Wage movement. None other than Roman Catholic Pope Leo XIII issued a letter that admonished employers to pay sufficient wages so that workers could meet their families’ needs, live without hardship and improve their lot over time. He also encouraged workers to stand up for their rights. (Newt, Rick, are you paying attention – this is the Pope’s word, which to you is infallible and absolute, right?) The Pope’s letter influenced one of the founders of the living wage movement, Monsignor Ryan, who wrote A Living Wage and advocated for economic justice. One of the most surprising proponents of this movement was Henry Ford, who doubled his employees’ wages as a matter of mutual benefit, as contented workers stayed in their jobs, cut training costs, and became customers for Ford automobiles.

In Part 3, Nomad looked at ACORN, an organization serving the poor that worked very effectively for years to promote the living wage and other key tenets of economic justice. At the root of this work is the principle that no one who is working full-time should have to live in poverty. ACORN developed a tremendous network of community-level organizers who provided essential services to those who have been disempowered and disadvantaged in

America

. It was very successful in promoting a living wage in many cities. At its core, ACORN was reputable, but it suffered from some mismanagement and corruption (although nothing in comparison to the well-documented corruption of entities like Dyncorp and Halliburton, whose corruption has been rewarded with ever more government contracts). ACORN’s success attracted the attention of the right-wing, who began systematically attacking ACORN on several fronts, including the unscrupulous, deceptive sting campaign by James O’Keefe III that brought him notoriety. These attacks were in effect the “character assassination” of an effective, progressive organization. Unfortunately, they were successful, resulting in the defunding of ACORN by the government and NGO funders and causing its demise.

BBT: Seeing the crises over “austerity” in Europe, including reductions in the minimum wage and other worker protections, makes clear that this attack on the living wage is a global strategy to roll back wages and progressive economic policies in countries where they have been the norm. Expect to see more of this, here and abroad. Fortunately, some counterbalance is also occurring, such as the effective negative publicity about slave wages at Nike and Apple factories and the recent announcement of a 25% increase in wages at Foxconn factories in China that manufacture products for Apple, Microsoft, Dell and HP. It is beyond unfortunate that conditions have to get so bad that workers are driven to suicide before anything changes, however.

Saturday, February 11, 2012

Sarah Palin at CPAC

After several years of flipping CPAC off, Sarah Palin finally deigned to speak at the annual conservative hate-fest. Even to some who previously worshipped Palin, this was a bald-faced ploy to reinsert herself into the political discourse and proclaim her own relevance. It’s also now apparent (from comments a few days later) that she is waiting in the wings for her anointment as the Republican nominee in the event of a brokered convention; H/T to all of you who have been saying this was her strategy for months now. The post includes Wonkette’s inimitable “deconstructing” of the speech – more lies and misinformation about the economy, dismissive and condescending criticisms of the President – the standard Palin swill.

Sunday, February 12, 2012

Game Change (Game On, Sarah!)

Kathleen and Patrick highlight the upcoming release of the movie “Game Change,” starring Julianne Moore as Sarah Palin. The trailer makes clear that it will show her experiencing a mental breakdown. Of course, Palin is now trying to discredit and deflect attention from the movie, which she claims is a “false narrative” that she will not watch (right!). She conveniently omits mention of the fact that she declined the opportunity to help ensure the accuracy of the film while it was in production. This post includes a number of must-see videos, including very damaging comments by senior McCain-Palin campaign staffers Nicole Wallace and Steve Schmidt. They both make clear that Palin was not only difficult; not only uninformed; not only uncooperative; but that she was mean-sprited, vindictive, cynical and mentally unstable.

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

“Inside Job” and Sub-Prime Mortgages

KatieAnnieOakley attended a MoveOn screening of the Academy Award-winning documentary, Inside Job. (Highly recommended; here is a quote from producer Charles Ferguson’s the acceptance speech: "Forgive me, I must start by pointing out that three years after our horrific financial crisis caused by massive fraud, not a single financial executive has gone to jail, and that's wrong.") The screening forms the backdrop for KAO’s post about her personal experience in the mortgage industry a decade ago, closing loans at a frantic pace, including many sub-prime loans that she knew the buyers could never manage to pay back. She describes what essentially became a racket—charging “usuriously high fees” and “churning” as many loans as possible because the fees were the profit center. These companies did not actually hold the mortgages, so they had no “skin in the game” – others were taking the risk, which after the housing industry collapse and bailout, meant that we taxpayers actually were the ones who paid the price, along with those who lost their homes. KAO was surprised to see how many of those attending the MoveOn screening had actually taken part in OWS actions near her home – wow, that’s encouraging! Not much media coverage of those events, though…which leads us to the next post…

Ratings and the Yellow Journalism of Fox News (Parts 1 and 2)

In Part 1, Nomad shows the business model of Fox News and how Rupert Murdoch has used his influence to manipulate politicians, businesspeople and, of course, the public. Murdoch’s modus operandi includes compulsive lying, cover-ups, hush money, bribery, and invasion of privacy. Let’s not forget inciting violence, and did I mention raising lying to an art form? No wonder regular Fox News viewers actually know less about current events than those who watch no news programs at all. Until recently, Murdoch’s many connections to politicians and police have allowed him to avoid any consequences for his illegal activities. At the end of this post and in Part 2, Nomad explores the incestuous relationship between Rupert Murdoch and the TV ratings apparatus. It appears that there is a mechanism which automatically sets cable TVs to start up with Fox News – wow, that is ultra-slimy! Also, apparently the boxes that are the basis of the Nielsen TV rating system are made by a company with – wait for it – close ties to Murdoch. If Fox News has been inflating its ratings, then this is nothing short of corporate fraud. (Of course, Murdoch has gotten away with that before, due to his close ties and likely bribes of politicians.) Nomad also explores the roots of lying and sensationalism to manipulate public opinion into support of wars and to portray progressives and socialists in a negative light. Well done as always, Nomad! This video seems to go with your post.

BBT adds: While it will never be enough, I hope that Milly Dowler’s family will find some solace in the fact that the scandal over News of the World’s actions after Milly’s murder was the catalyst leading to an investigation of the Murdoch empire’s disgustingly corrupt, so-called “journalism.”

Just a few comments and links (sorry, I rarely miss reading the comments but couldn’t keep up lately):

Quiet1: LOL, I read your headline, and my brain immediately supplied: Go Froth, and conjure! : )

BfromC: I have a dream. . .

That, come November, the U.S. voting public will have completely awakened, realize that things are improving, that Obama has their best interests at heart, that today's Tea-Party Tainted Republicans are total wackjobs that don't even deserve the votes of lifetime Republicans, that the thousands of nasty ads against Obama (paid for by the Koch brothers and friends) are a bunch of crap, that many billionaires will have wasted quite a sum of money in their anit-Obama efforts, and that Barack Obama will win re-election by a sizable margin.
I have a dream . . . that seems like it just might come true. Share the dream. I'm in. Are You?

I have to give Nomad a standing O for this on Rom[o]ney: “You could almost hear the gasp of a million CEOs and the moan and groan of a thousand Republican Party elites. In that one sentence he confirmed the Right Wing’s darkest suspicions about this candidate. Namely, he is not committed to their agenda after all. Good God, he might even be a moderate, which is next door to a liberal, which is just around the corner from a socialist which is on the same street as a Communist!”

HonestyinGov found this on Wonkette (where else?): Failed Republican Windbag Karen Handel Self-Aborts from Komen.

Alwaysthink linked to another n excellent post at margaretandhelen.

Excellent commentary by Chris Hayes on Clint Eastwood’s “It’s Half-time in America” ad.

Cheeriogirl gave us this to cheer about on the contraceptive controversy.

Mmboucher pointed out these Santorum quotes.

Sunnyjane linked to this excellent video of Ellen DeGeneris saying what she stands for. Watch to the end.

Ratings and The Yellow Journalism of Fox News 2/2

2012-02-19T05:38:00.001+01:00

by Nomad

In the first part of this two-part series, we examined the intricate and intimidating Murdoch connections and how watching Fox News apparently makes you more ignorant than watching no news at all.

Roger Ailes, President of Fox News

Big-Time Cheating

In spite of the near continual boasting at Fox News, some (real) reporters have dared to question the Fox News ratings. Their suspicions were aroused by the simple fact that the numbers made little sense. Was it actually plausible?

How is it, they wonder, that Fox News can be so consistently in the lead despite their obvious niche programming focus on a narrow segment of the viewing audience. The decidedly right-of-center bias of Fox News corresponds to a rather small portion of the national electorate. Republican favorability has been hovering in the mid-twenties for years. So how does this negligible slice of the market translate into such a disproportionate ratings advantage?

It’s a very good question. Perhaps the answer can be found in the complex (downright incestuous) business relationship between Nielsen Media Research, which collects the ratings information and Murdoch.

It has recently been discovered that the Wegener Corporation, the manufacturer of the set-top devices that Nielsen uses, has a long association with Rupert Murdoch and the News Corporation, the parent of Fox News. Wegener was founded by the former management of Scientific-Atlanta, a producer of set-top boxes for cable access and other purposes.

One of the other products in Scientific-Atlanta’s line was a device used by Gemstar to provide television program listings to cable operators and their subscribers. Gemstar was an affiliate of TV Guide, which in turn was owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. So the executives who were responsible for developing and manufacturing Murdoch’s equipment for Gemstar became the principles of the company providing Nielsen with their ratings collection devices. And around that same time Fox News dropped their objections to the new People Meter service.

Incidentally, Scientific-Atlanta and Newt Gingrich, a former Fox News employee, had a colorful history together. Both Senator Sam Nunn and Representative Newt Gingrich nurtured partnerships between Atlanta's research universities, military concerns, political ties, and business outlets. Gingrich described Scientific Atlanta as "a model of the spirit of invention and discovery" in a series of university lectures he gave and which eventually got him in hot water with The House Ethics Committee.

(That interesting story will have to be saved for a different post, however.)

The bottom line is.. well.. Bill O’Reilly said it quite clearly when discussing alleged ratings inaccuracies that benefited MSNBC

“The bottom line on this is there may be some big-time cheating going on in the ratings system, and we hope the feds will investigate. Any fraud in the television rating system affects all Americans.”

We share his heart-felt desire that the Feds investigate this problem. We hope they investigate all the news channels, but let's just start with Fox.

On the other hand, so what? So what if Murdoch, News Corporation and Fox News want to play games with the numbers. It allows them to boast but then that’s what bullies do. It’s all unethical, yes. It’s a pack of lies, yes, that’s true. But, outside of defaulting on its claim of being a trusted news source, is it a crime?

Well, perhaps.

The ratings are not only used to determine what to charge advertisers, they are also used in annual shareholder reports. False claims would be giving an unrealistic, deceptive picture of the company, amounting to fraud. According to News Corp’s 2011 annual report:

At FOX News, for example, Roger Ailes and his team have built television’s undisputed news leader – not just in cable network news, but in all television news. Later this calendar year, FOX News will celebrate its fifteenth anniversary, and I couldn’t be more pleased with its success. Over at the FOX Business Network our ratings are improving – and at certain times of the day we’re head to head with CNBC, and sometimes beating them.

When back in July 2002 then-president George W. Bush signed the Corporate Corruption Bill- which was supposed to make inflated claims to shareholders illegal- he told reporters:

This law says to every dishonest corporate leader: you will be exposed and punished; the era of low standards and false profits is over; no boardroom in America is above or beyond the law.

This law says to shareholders that the financial information you receive from a company will be true and reliable, for those who deliberately sign their names to deception will be punished

Still, given all we have seen from that pair, you can’t help wondering if Rupert Murdoch was standing over his shoulder when Bush was signing the bill.

Sinclair and the Monopoly of Self-Expression

Actually, there’s nothing all that new about the decline of the news media. Its the scale involved and the damage that this kind of yellow journalism causes that puts Murdoch in a league of his own.
The phrase “yellow journalism” was once attached to the media mogul William Randolph Hearst, a man that Rupert Murdoch in many ways resembles. For example, Hearst used his media power to promote the Spanish-American war, following the mysterious sinking of the battleship Maine. Murdoch banged the drums for the invasion of Iraq following the mysterious 9-11 attacks. And Murdoch with a vast media empire banged those war drums so incessantly that they managed to drown out the more prudent voices of restraint.

A year-long study by the University of Maryland's Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) reported that Americans who relied on the Fox News Channel for their coverage of the Iraq war were the most likely to believe misinformation about the war, whatever their political affiliation may be. Those mistaken facts, the study found, increased viewers' support for the war.

According to Congressional Research Service, the approximate cost of the Spanish- American War in adjusted figures : $9,034 million and that lasted one year. Iraq invasion and occupation? $784 billion and eight years.

As a term, “Yellow journalism” was coined during the epic battle between newspapermen, Joseph Pulitzer and Hearst. It was generally used to describe the kind of sensational - possibly imagined- story that was designed to attract readers regardless of the ethical questions. Today it is more widely used to refer to unprofessional or unethical reporting. One of Hearst harshest critiques came from the same author who had previously described the horrific conditions in the meat packing industry at that time.

Upton Sinclair

Back in 1919, author Upton Sinclair wrote “The Brass Check: A Study of American Journalism,” an expose which revealed the dangers of media monopolies. He criticized ultra-conservative papers, especially the Hearst and AP, which he claimed, conspired against the working class for the sake of their narrow political or business interests.

He charged employees of Hearst newspapers with being “willing by deliberate and shameful lies, made out of whole cloth, to stir nations to enmity and drive them to murderous war." For newspaper writers, the word “socialism” was forbidden or, if mentioned, could never be portrayed in a positive light.

Sinclair’s words sound hauntingly true today.He wrote:

Every day the chasm between the classes in America grows wider; every day the class struggle grows more intense. Both sides become more conscious, more determined--and so the dishonesty of American Journalism becomes more deliberate, more systematic. And what is to be done? It must be evident to any sensible man that the conditions portrayed in this book are intolerable. Mankind will not consent to be lied to indefinitely.

Today the problem is much the same.
Aggressive and uncalled-for brutality by police goes largely unreported (at least, until the journalists themselves become victims) for the sake of trivial and largely manufactured news about celebrities. The reporting on the Occupy movement was nothing short of an indictment of the mainstream media which did all in their power to ignore or to minimize its legitimacy. As far as Fox News, their slanders about the president or his family are practically a daily ritual. All without any regard for accuracy.

We see so-called journalists like James O’Keefe or Andy Breitbart making sensational and false claims without the slightest twinge of conscience. And when their claims are proven incorrect or highly exaggerated, they have already moved on to the next commotion. Hysterical Lies about rapist protesters (totally fabricated). The lies on Fox News are too numerous to list and there is apparently no means of holding any of them to account. They are free to slander and libel at will.

The difference is that today the world's resources are in the hands of a class, and this class has a monopoly of self-expression.

Sinclair also gave this warning if the trends continue and it is a warning that applies as much today.

I personally am not calling for violent revolution; I still hope for the survival of the American system of government. But I point out to the owners and managers of our great capitalist news-organs the peril in which they place themselves, by their system of organized lying about the radical movement. It is not only the fury of resentment they awaken in the hearts of class-conscious workingmen and women; it is the condition of unstable equilibrium which they set up in society, by the mass of truth they suppress.

If newspapers are in now decline and journalists on both sides of the political spectrum are held in low-esteem by so many, then they have only themselves to blame. They have chosen profit over all else.

As soon as journalism became a commodity to trade, then truth itself was up for sale and ratings became simply the measure of what anyone would have to pay to own it .

___________________

PostScript:

Media Matters has lately become a Fox News target, And I've been wondering what exactly it's all been about. Today I found it. MM has a book coming out which promises to be close scrutiny of the goings-on over at Murdoch's news channel.

From tracing the career of Fox News founder Roger Ailes as he learned to manipulate racial politics while working on the presidential campaigns of Richard Nixon and George H.W. Bush, to visiting a cruise ship in the middle of the Mediterranean where a senior Fox News executive admitted to telling Fox News viewers that Barack Obama was a socialist even though he did not believe the charge to be true, The Fox Effect dismantles once and for all the notion that there’s any genuine meaning behind the network’s “fair & balanced” slogan.

Ratings and The Yellow Journalism of Fox News 1/2

2012-02-17T09:07:00.000+01:00

by Nomad

At the turn of the century, writers searching for the soul of America looked at the country through the new lenses and found much to criticize. While the nation had become a world power with a great navy and mounting wealth, the journalists sought to prove that much of the wealth was gained through cheap labor that kept the laboring class subservient, poor and unhealthy.

Millionaires... had developed a powerful economy enjoyed by the few. What rights should workers have? What education should be afforded child laborers? What quality and safety were afforded the working class in their homes, their food? Through the lens of these news ideologies, early twentieth century journalists re-examined the relationships among politicians, business tycoons, and laborers.
The Public Press, 1900-1945: The History of American Journalism, by Leonard Ray Teel

That quote refers to a time over a hundred years ago - fondly called the Progressive Era- and yet what has changed since that golden age of journalism? In some ways, America as a nation is stuck in the right-turn lane.
A full century has passed and the battle between the wealthy- now super-wealthy- and the middle laboring class- now called the 99%- has re-commenced. Or has it ever really ended?
One essential difference is, of course, the state of American journalism- the once disinterested crusader for the people’s interests. The press- along with the promise of reform it once represented- has been absorbed into the system and what's left when the capitalists got through with it is, well, Fox News and CNN. Journalism's last remaining refuge is the Internet and even that has lately become the target of corporate control and legislative suppression.

It’s to be expected. As soon diversified multi-national corporations took over the business of news reporting, that fundamental impartiality- key to unbiased coverage- dissolved. Truth has not just taken a backseat. It had been forced to ride on the roof.

After all, how can journalists be allowed to examine the complicated relationships of politicians, tycoons when the tycoons and political players are the bosses. Fox News president Roger Ailes, for example, was once a media strategist for Nixon, Reagan, and Bush Sr. presidential campaigns. Speaking about the job, he announced:

We’d like to restore objectivity where we find it lacking and certainly there could be that interpretation because of my background but I left politics a number of years ago and have running this organization for the last two years. So we just expect to do fine, balanced journalism.

Well, we have seen where that went. Even then, it goes far deeper than that.

The Voice Rarely Heard

News Corporation’s owner Rupert Murdoch’s relationship with Tony Blair was summed up by Lance Price, a Blair’s media adviser to from 1998 and 2001, Rupert Murdoch, he writes, "seemed like the 24th member of the cabinet. His voice was rarely heard ... but his presence was always felt."

Much has been said about Murdoch’s influence in politics, not much has been favorable. Lesser known is Murdoch’s business relationship with Dick Cheney and the Rothschilds. Media Matters reports:

Murdoch joined the "strategic advisory board" of Genie Energy and purchased an equity stake in Genie Oil and Gas, which consists of Genie Energy's interests in oil shale initiatives on federal land in Western Colorado and in Israel's Elah Valley.
Genie Energy -- which is a division of IDT Corporation, a global telecommunications company -- has attracted several other high-profile advisers and investors, including former Vice President Dick Cheney, Lord Jacob Rothschild, and Michael Steinhardt, a prominent hedge fund investor and philanthropist.

(Only a man like Murdoch could connect the Rothschilds- whose family foundation actually gave the Knesset and the Supreme Court buildings to Israel -with News Corporation’s second largest shareholder, Prince Al-Waleed bin Talat. That, in itself, a remarkable bit of maneuvering. After all, The Prince gave a reported $27 million in cash to help the families of Palestinian "martyrs"- meaning suicide bombers.)

Frank Rich’s brilliant article in New York Magazine sums up the philosophy behind the Murdoch empire thus:

This ethos would never be tolerated for long at most public companies, but News Corp. is a faux-public company thanks to the Murdochs’ special tier of controlling shares. What’s being illuminated daily by the News of the World revelations in London are the broad parameters, still sketchily filled in, of News Corp.’s definition of business-as-usual: the compulsive lying (James Murdoch’s testimony before Parliament is of a piece with that interview Rupert gave to the Times in 1976); the wholesale buying of police and politicians; the thuggery employed to invade the privacy of cheesy celebrities and the 13-year-old murder victim Milly Dowler alike to pump newspaper sales; and the dizzying array of cover-ups, from the sham News Corp. “investigations” and “independent committees” to the hush money that rains down on victims, discarded employees, and cops.

That’s just the British investigation. Imagine what the picture looks like on the other side of the pond. (Of course, considering all his influence and all of the weaknesses of Washington, that kind of investigation seems unlikely in our lifetimes.)

As Rich points out, Murdoch has many tools at his disposal in order to get his way or to prevent others from blocking his plans.

One classic example occurred in 1995, after the Federal Communications Commission questioned whether Murdoch had misled it in 1985, when News Corp., then based in Australia, secured Fox broadcast licenses despite a federal law limiting foreign ownership of local stations to 25 percent. The matter died soon after the News Corp. book division HarperCollins offered the then–Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich, a $4.5 million advance. True to form, Murdoch claimed to have no idea that the book deal was ever in the works—even though he conceded having met with Gingrich just a few weeks earlier to discuss the FCC inquiry.

And there’s no question that all these convoluted relationships have their effect. Murdoch’s penchant for interference in news reporting at Fox News is well-known and barely hidden. As one anonymous Fox News employee explained Robert Greenwald film, Outfoxed:

I think that if you don’t go along with the mindset of the hierarchy in New York, if you challenge them on their attitudes about things, you’re history.

And another unnamed source says:

You’re either one of us or one of them, and in leaving Fox News, for example, there were a number of people at the organization, at the head of the organization, tried to ruin my career simply because I was leaving, because I didn’t leave on their terms, because I refused to sign a confidentiality agreement, that was another reason for them to try to keep me from getting my next job.

That sort of vindictiveness should surprise nobody. It’s only a mild form of what they generally do to people or organizations that they target.

It doesn’t stop there. Inciting violence is also fairly common and Fox News’ brand of vigilantism has been implicated in at least one murder and various death threats aimed at their targets. When a then-employee of Fox News, Glenn Beck often crossed that line. O’Reilly has been implicated in inciting the murder of a doctor who performed abortions. Fox Nation, the online face of Fox News, allows discussions of murder in its comment section and, as one source points out, hosted the open discussion murdering the Occupy protesters and finding it "funny" when an Occupy Oakland protester got hit by a car.

The line between journalism- such as it is at Fox News- and politics has been turned upside down. Even conservatives pundits would agree that the results are becoming a major headache.

As former speechwriter to President George W. Bush, David Frum indiscreetly revealed,

“Republicans originally thought that Fox worked for us, and now we’re discovering we work for Fox. And this balance here has been completely reversed. The thing that sustains a strong Fox network is the thing that undermines a strong Republican party."

A very interesting remark, indeed, and perhaps it puts the hopeless Republican battle for the nomination in this year’s election in a different light. Is unhealthy influence of Fox News and Murdoch empire in general in the American political process destroying the Republican party? At one time, Palin, Huckabee, Gingrich, Santorum, were all on Fox News payroll. That line-up, the kind of politician that appeals to Murdoch and Roger Ailes, the mentality they have demonstrated, is precisely the problem the Republican party now must face up to.

Rants for Ratings

If you watch Fox News for any length of time, you will become accustomed to the false equation between ratings and legitimacy. That idea perhaps provides us with an insight to the real problem at Fox and all of the major media outlets. Despite the often-heard boast that high ratings mean high quality or being “the most respected,” the logic behind this claim is never precisely explained. What do high ratings actually mean?

High ratings show only that, for one reason or another, somebody is enjoying or approves of the content that is being broadcast. Questions about accuracy or respect do not really come into. Audiences may, for example, enjoy watching circus clowns but that doesn’t necessarily mean you have any particular respect - or even wish to have one marry your daughter. Think of the highly-rated show, Jackass, for example. Watching deranged young men doing all manner of embarrassingly silly and often dangerous stunts can be entertaining but nobody could possibly claim - O”Reilly regularly brags of Fox News- that any of them are respected.

As the great advocate of modern journalism W.T. Stead said back in 1886, in his essay, The Future of Journalism:

Circulation is all very well, and the larger circulation any newspaper has the better for its proprietor; but influence depends not half so much upon quantity as upon the quality of its subscribers. Newspapers with only ten or fifteen thousand circulation have often ten times as much influence as papers with 200,000, the difference being in the character of the readers of the paper. Hence, if the object is to influence the politics of a town, it is better to be read regularly by ten men of the right sort than to circulate a thousand a day among the ordinary news-paper buyers.

Of the right sort? Hmmm..
According to one poll, when asked general questions about current events, such as a few very basic questions about the Arab Spring, respondents who watched Fox News actually did worse than people who watched no news at all. Dan Cassino, a professor of political science at Fairleigh Dickinson and an analyst for the PublicMind Poll had ths say about the results:.

The results show us that there is something about watching Fox News that leads people to do worse on these questions than those who don’t watch any news at all.

Data from Nielsen Media Research gives us more information about the average Fox News watcher. A mere 1.38% of Fox News' audience is black with an average age of 65 years old. That’s an average, too. it’s viewers are even older than viewers of Hallmark Channel, Military Channel and Golf Channel. So basically, the average viewer is old, white and uninformed.

And the future isn’t exactly bright. In spite of its high ratings, of the three main cable news networks, Fox News is the only one that went down compared to their ratings in 2010. And a double-digit decline at that.

Could it be that the viewers are simply dying of old age?

Mirage of the Fox

Fox News loves to hype its ratings advantage but it's helpful to take a closer look at the "hows" and the "whys." In the article, The Ratings Mirage, Steve Rendall, writing for Fair and Accuracy in Reporting, points out:

With few exceptions, stories about the media business report a single number for ratings (often expressed two different ways--as "points" or "share"). This number is often presented as if it were the result of a popularity contest or a democratic vote. But it is actually the average number of viewers watching a station or a show in a typical minute, based on Nielsen Media Research's monitoring of thousands of households.

The average is arrived at by counting viewers every minute. Heavy viewers--those who tune in to a station and linger there--have a greater impact, as they can be counted multiple times as they watch throughout the day.

When an outlet reports that CNN is trailing Fox , they are almost invariably using this average tally, which Fox has been winning for the past two years. For the year 2003, Nielsen's average daily ratings show Fox beating CNN1.02 million viewers to 665,000.

But there is another important number collected by Nielsen (though only made available to the firm's clients) that tells another story. This is the "cume," the cumulative total number of viewers who watch a channel for at least six minutes during a given day. Unlike the average ratings number the media usually report, this number gives the same weight to the light viewer, who tunes in for a brief time, as it does to the heavy viewer.

According to this information, a heavy viewer is a television in any public area, a waiting room, for instance.

Here's another point.Another blogger uncovered this bit of intrigue:

Last week I was staying at a friends house out on Long Island, and to my dismay, every time we turned on a television set in any room in his huge house with huge flat screen TVs , FOX news came on, it was in fact the de-facto, default start up channel on each and every set!

I was disgusted and made a few calls to the cable operator, Cable Vision, iO, or Optimum, all the same company according to the technician who I eventually got on the line after calling 1-866-541-0548.

SO what I found out was that this cable company remotely rebooted all my friends TV's from their headquarters earlier in the year, and at that same time all customers got a new pre-set start up channel: ... racist, xenophobic, America hating, Obama Bashing piece of sh+t, FOX NEWS!

If the blogger's discovery is true, then every time a viewer turns on the television (while it is monitored by Nielsen), it would add to the overall "cume." Even if they changed the channel immediately. It could go unnoticed, too, since the ratings are not based on ALL televisions, but just the ones in households Nielsen has chosen to monitor. The rest of us wouldn't notice anything.

It's a interesting theory, and it would explain a lot.

_________________

In the second part of this post, we will take a closer look at the Fox News rating hype/hoax and we will return to yesteryear with a look at a writer who exposed the dangers of media monopolies back in... 1919.

Postscript:

Here's an interesting clip about the rise of the Ultra- Conservative Media and how it has been allowed to hijack the public forum. (H/T to Media Matters.)

Retweets:
https://twitter.com/ANomadicView/statuses/170441845292277760
https://twitter.com/#!/ANomadicView/status/170442672719396864

Watching the Movie “Inside Job” with Members of an Illinois Chapter of MoveOn: Reliving the US mortgage bloodbath Plus -- Sarah Palin States to Eric Bolling That She Would Do What She Could If Tapped At A Brokered Convention

2012-02-15T20:56:00.001+01:00

Guest post byKatieAnnieOakley

Ireceived an email early last week by the progressive group MoveOn regarding ascreening of the movie “Inside Job” near my home. I hadn’t seen it yet, andhaving worked in the mortgage industry in various capacities, I knew I HAD tosee it.

This Academy Award-winning movie (Best Documentary, 2010) describes the meteoricrise and fall of the Wall Street banks that created The Great Recession.

FromIMDB.com: “'Inside Job' provides a comprehensive analysis of the globalfinancial crisis of 2008, which at a cost over $20 trillion, caused millions ofpeople to lose their jobs and homes in the worst recession since the GreatDepression, and nearly resulted in a global financial collapse. Throughexhaustive research and extensive interviews with key financial insiders,politicians, journalists, and academics, the film traces the rise of a rogueindustry which has corrupted politics, regulation, and academia.”

If you have not seen it, I highly recommend it.

Prior tothe beginning of the meeting I introduced myself to the homeowner. I told her Iwas interested in the organization, and that I also wanted to write a post forour blog; I’d use no names and / or other identifying information. She saidshe’d check with the out-going MoveOn representative and co-host for theafternoon, Nadia BlancDaley.

After weall mingled and imbibed in the pot-luck goodies for a bit we settled ourselvesinto our seats, and the meeting began. We were introduced to the out-going Move On representative and localDemocratic Kane County Board candidate running unopposed for the 14^thDistrict from South Elgin, Nadia BlancDaley.She is a charming, knowledgeable and persuasive speaker. She thanked us all for coming, then spokebriefly about the movie. She asked the group if it was okay with them if I wereto blog about my experience. I spoke up and said that I would not use names(other than Nadia’s, as she was an official Democratic candidate and MoveOnrep) or any other identifying information. Everyone in attendance agreed.

Nadiaspoke for a few minutes about how sad it was, and what a commentary on societytoday that some of us felt a sense of fear when coming together at meeting likethis, that some might fear exposure or infiltrators (if you read my last blogpost, it’s a real concern in this day and age – but then again, InMyLife andI were the crashers!). We allagreed the tactics of the far-right have frightened many into silence. We can’tallow that to continue!

We hadbrief self-introductions of those in attendance: 28 people came together toview the movie and to discuss a shared sense of purpose and concern. A fewmentioned politicians having once attained power, seeming to forget who theywere representing (that was Joe Walsh’s quote, almost word-for-word). Many expressed concerns for the environmentand education. Some were there because of concerns regarding Social Security(“not an entitlement - we paid for it!”) but most shared deep concern forsocial justice and income inequality and the Citizens United decision.Information distortion and suppression from the far right seemed to be thebiggest concerns.

I was mostinterested in seeing how progressive reality sat against right-wing myth. Wewere all, for the most part over 40 years old; there were a couple of30-somethings, and a couple of 20-somethings. In attendance were four to fiveretirees, two real estate investing couples, and quite a few small-businessowners. There were three present or former teachers / education administratorsand there was even a Baptist pastor! Somuch for the “every liberal is an atheist” stereotype! Full Disclosure: There was ONE atheist inattendance. And there was one African American and one person of Latinodescent. Bottom-line: we were not a bunch of lazy, unemployed people lookingfor handouts, or a bunch of young rebellious-types; and none of us were waitingfor checks from George Soros. It was a balanced cross-section of middle classsociety. Everyone was well groomed and well behaved.

Therewas discussion about the Occupy Movement. I asked the group: “Show of hands:how many of you have not just talked the talk, but walked the walk? I mean,actually have gone to an OWS site and picketed, carried signs?” 14 hands shot up. I learned there are TWOOccupy sites nearby, one in Aurora and one in Elgin… but we all agreed,you wouldn’t read about it in our local, right-leaning newspapers. I suddenlyfelt my cheeks burn: these people were doing what I was only paying lip-serviceto: they were fighting the good fight, with civility and dignity. I needed toget involved…

The moviebegan. I’m not going to go into a deep discussion about the movie; it WASoutstanding, it WAS everything I thought it would be. What I will talk about was how it affectedme. At certain points in the movie, my stomach became upset: this was personalfor me. I lived it, breathed it every day. It brought back so many memories,because I worked in the mortgage industry then.

We peonsin the mortgage industry were raising alarms back in 2003; this cannot sustainitself. A new type of buyer was finding themselves seated at my desk: the kindthat was being exploited for profit. I used to be at work from 10 to 12 hoursmany days, closing loans I *knew* didn’t have a prayer of being paidback.

Wecouldn’t close them fast enough. I burned through three assistants in less than2 years time. It. Was. Insanity. I would speak to Mortgage Funders andUnderwriters who were as exhausted, exasperated and frustrated as me; they toowere looking for other jobs. And like me, they also had many sleepless nights…and a deep sense of guilt for being a part of the impending debacle.

There wasabsolutely no motivation for the lenders / mortgage brokers to stop: theydidn’t hold the Note, so they had no “skin in the game.” It’s always workedthis way, but now it was all about “Churning.” Their profits came from lending fees: the more loans written, the moremoney was made. When they wrote the worst loans, commonly known as “sub-prime”(those with the highest chances of Default), they’d charge usuriously highfees, knowing they could roll those fees into the loan and STILL not berequired to hold the Note in-house. These “Liar Loans” were sold in bundledsecurities by the lender to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to free their lendingcapital to create new loans and begin the cycle anew. If you want to see justhow many different types of fees can be charged, see this very simplistic list of fees collected by each and everyentity having anything to do with your mortgage loan. Whether you buy OR sell a home, they all geta cut. Many lenders charged fees I had never heard of previously. Bear in mind,not all named fees are collected on all loans. The list is not all-inclusive,and each and every loan and entity is unique in its own way. Bottom line: Itwas a mortgage blood bath.

Themovie concluded; about six people left right after the movie ended. The reststayed for the freshly brewed coffee and lively discussion. We talked aboutusage of the term “Progressive” vs other terms (I feel it’s a positive term,since liberal is a word used by the right to demonize us); a local film-maker /Precinct Chairperson was there; the discussion was upbeat and friendly. Therewere some differences in opinion on HOW change should take place, but allagreed the status quo can’t continue.

Mycheeks are still blushing from the realization that I need to get involved. Infact, we ALL need to get involved, in whatever way we can!

FromMoveOn: “Last weekend, thousands ofindividuals came together to learn about Wall Street’s abuse of power. ‘InsideJob’ is a powerful reminder that we need to take ACTION for the 99% to matchWall Street’s power. Want to get more involved with other MoveOn membersin your community? MoveOn Councils are local teams of committed members whoorganize in their community and build leadership among MoveOn members. Click here to locate or join a council near you!”

*********

Note from Kathleen:

Thank you for the very informative post, KAO.

In addition I have included the trailer for the film and would encourage Politicalgates readers to watch not just the trailer but also the entire film so you can educate yourself further about the issues surrounding the financial meltdown of 2008.

+++

Please re-tweet:

https://twitter.com/#!/politicalgates/status/169876121591087104

+++++++

UPDATE

What is the quickest, cheapest and easiest way for Sarah Palin to become the GOP nominee for President? It's simple --- accept the nomination from a brokered convention. How unconventional of her!

Here is the conversation between Palin and Eric Bolling:

BOLLING: Governor, a lot of people are saying it can't happen. I don't necessarily agree with them. If one of the nominees, one of the GOPers, doesn't get enough delegates, it could go the a brokered convention.
If it does get to that and someone said, Governor, would you be interested, would you be interested?

PALIN: Well, for one, I think that it could get to that. And I -- you know, if it had to -- if it had to be kind of closed up today, the whole nominating process, then we would be looking at a brokered convention.
I mean nobody is quite there yet. So I think that months from now, if that's the case, then, you know, all bets are off as to who it will be willing to offer themselves up in the name of service to their country. I would -- I would do whatever I could to help.

BOLLING: That's -- that's fantastic.

It's the nightmare scenario. And it could happen. But we should be cautious -- Palin may just mean that she would help and stand behind whoever was nominated. However earlier, Bolling did tweet the following which implies that Palin may well re-consider:

ALERT! Palin breaking big news... the 15 minutes with Gov Sarah that may change everything.. stay tuned 10p FBN
— ericbolling (@ericbolling) February 15, 2012

Bolling's interview with Sarah takes place in just over an hour at 10pm eastern time on Fox Business News so we will soon know whether or not this is all just another Palin tease in a bid to gain more contributions to SarahPac.

The Sudden Death of the Living Wage: ACORN 3/3

2012-02-13T17:45:00.000+01:00

by Nomad

In the previous posts, we have looked into the meaning and importance of the living wage movement. We have also examined both the Conservative argument against and the history of the movement. In the final part of this three part series, we will examine at the more recent attempts at establishing a living wage and the organization that was destined to achieve some impressive results.

The Rebirth of the Movement

One organization took up the cause of campaigning for a living wage and throughout the 1990s, won unprecedented successes. It was called “the nation's largest community organization of low- and moderate-income families, working together for social justice and stronger communities" with the name the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, better known as ACORN.

Ilyse Hogue, writing for The Nation, gives this summary about the important role that ACORN played.

ACORN was unique as an organization that served our nation’s poor people. Wrangling with life’s common challenges like mortgages and housing forms, ACORN employees built trust by offering help person to person, neighborhood by neighborhood. They then leveraged that trust to lobby for federal legislation to address the root causes of the crises facing these people—predatory lending, lack of community investment and stagnant wages.

As mentioned earlier, critics of the living wage movement would like to propagate the easily-refutable notion that the living wage movement is a relatively recent political phenomenon. That much is true only as it pertained to ACORN's involvement. As John Atlas, president of the National Housing Institute and author of Seeds of Change, puts it:

Acorn spearheaded campaigns to adopt living-wage laws in dozens of cities and increase state minimum wages, resulting in millions of Americans getting raises. Its free tax counseling has helped make the federal earned-income tax credit an effective antipoverty program.

ACORN took up the cause of the living wage after witnessing the achievements of another, smaller organization in Baltimore which successfully campaigned for a living wage. Baltimoreans United in Leadership Development (BUILD), an alliance between a labor union and religious leaders in Baltimore, launched a successful campaign, convincing Baltimore city officials to enact a living wage requirement for employees of contracted businesses working with the city.

According to the book, Fight for a Living Wage, by Stephanie Luce, Associate Professor at the Murphy Institute, City University of New York:

Workers in some of Baltimore's homeless shelters and soup kitchens had noticed something new and troubling about many of the visitors coming in for meals and shelter: they happened to have full-time jobs. In response, local religious leaders successfully persuaded the City Council to raise the base pay for city contract workers to $6.10 an hour from $4.25, the federal minimum at the time. The Baltimore campaign was ostensibly about money.

But to those who thought about it more deeply, it was about the force of particular moral propositions: first, that work should be rewarded, and second, that no one who works full time should have to live in poverty.

ACORN developed similar city ordinance campaigns across the country, fifty cities, such as Boston, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and St. Louis, over twenty colleges and universities, twenty statewide campaigns. At least 140 living wage ordinances in cities throughout the nation were enacted by 2007.

Success like that is certainly an effective way of getting the attention of the Conservative Right Wing.

Blood in the Water

In some ways, ACORN might have been a little too successful and too quickly.

For example, back in 1996, it found itself being hoisted by its own petards when ironically, its California offices actually filed suit to exempt the organization from the state's minimum wage laws - at the time, just $4.25 per hour. After years of battling with businesses and non-profits contractors to pay higher wages, ACORN suddenly found itself using the same excuses for paying its own worker less than minimum wage.

Interestingly, its lawyers argued that, by paying minimum wages to its staff, it would be limiting its First Amendment right of free speech, since it would have to hire fewer workers and thus, making it harder to get its message out. While conservatives chuckled privately while erupting publicly, others could point out that justice often cuts both ways and there’s no shame in that. If ACORN felt the pressure, that's fine too.

Admittedly, there were some serious management problems at ACORN. With an annual budget of around $25 million- 10% of that coming from federal sources, a smaller figure from state sources, and the rest coming from supporters and membership, greater oversight and accountability were essential. But, unfortunately, that's not what occurred.

Dale Rathke, brother of ACORN founder Wade Rathke, embezzled nearly $1 million. The lost money was recovered and Rathke was removed from the ACORN board but only after the matter became public several years later. (Wade stepped down that same day as ACORN's chief organizer.)

As one defender puts it:

But the misjudgment of a few employees is hardly grounds for withdrawing federal or foundation funds.

As damaging as such revelations are, it’s important to put that in the proper perspective. When military contractor Dyncorp reportedly lost millions of dollars and overcharged the government in Afghanistan, this corporation was rewarded with further lucrative military contracts. When Halliburton lost track of more than $18 million worth of equipment in Iraq, where was the orchestrated outcry? Where was the collective action by Congress to punish the wrong-doers? Instead there was only that all-too- familiar, "a few bad apples" excuse. With failures involving taxpayer’s money in the war-effort, the last Republican administration hardly maintained the standards it demanded of ACORN.

Nevertheless, the self-inflicted damage to ACORN's reputation had been done. Worse than that, there was blood in the water.

Coup de Grâce

That ACORN should become a target is hardly a surprise. Given its successes in defending the rights of the low-income, in such matters as predatory bank mortgage practices, voter registration and the campaign to establish a living wage, it was really only a matter of time.

With its superficial connections to candidate Barack Obama, ACORN was bound to become a political football in the 2008 election.

In October 2008, the campaign for Republican presidential candidate John McCain released a Web-based advertisement claiming ACORN was responsible for "massive voter fraud," a point that Sen. McCain repeated in the final presidential debate. Factcheck.org called this claim "breathtakingly inaccurate," but acknowledged that ACORN had problems with phony registrations.

With the insistent noise from Fox News and the plethora of conservative organizations, attempting to point out that “voter registration fraud” is not the same as “voter fraud” was pretty much a waste of breath.

Regardless of their lack of validity, the claims had their effects on public opinion. A subsequent national survey revealed shocking public misperception about ACORN: More than half of Americans have an unfavorable opinion of the organization, and 52 percent of Republicans, 18 percent of Independents, and 9 percent of Democrats think ACORN actually stole the election for Obama.

James O’Keefe III

With all that disinformation, the clocks were ticking down. The coup de grâce was delivered by activist James O’Keefe III and sidekick, Hannah Giles, posing as a prostitute and a Superfly pimp. In the summer of 2009, videos surfaced which appeared to show low-level ACORN staff members in six cities providing advice on the best ways to get away with tax evasion, human smuggling and child prostitution.
In its defense, ACORN reported that it fired the employees who offered the advice and noted that the conservative activists, who secretly filmed the encounters, were turned away by other ACORN workers.

As far as the explosive charges that caused so much outrage, there was a lot more to the story. Later it was revealed that O'Keefe had intentionally created a false impression. As MediaMatter.org reports, the unedited versions showed that O'Keefe often appeared at ACORN offices dressed rather conservatively -- slacks and dress shirt -- when he talked to ACORN staffers, and he often presented himself as a law school student and an aspiring politician trying to rescue his prostitute girlfriend from her abusive pimp.

Incidentally, O'Keefe was also behind the 2008 scandal with Planned Parenthood where he posed as a caller trying to donate money to specifically fund abortions for African Americans. As unlikely as it sounds, according to O'Keefe, part of his motivation for placing the call was to fight the racism he perceives in Planned Parenthood.

Pulling the Plug
On 17 September 2009, The House of Representatives in a 345-75 vote approved a GOP amendment to a student loan bill that would defund ACORN. The move followed the Census Bureau Director Robert Groves' decision to sever ties with ACORN.

“Recent events concerning several local offices of ACORN have added to the worsening negative perceptions of ACORN and its affiliation with our partnership efforts,” Groves wrote in the letter sent to ACORN President Maude Hurd on Sept. 11.

The House vote was by no means an unanimous decision. Seventy-five House lawmakers, all Democrat voted to keep giving ACORN federal taxpayer dollars, despite the Groves' decision.

New York Democratic Rep. Gregory Meeks opposed defunding the controversial group because he needed more evidence that the incidents captured by undercover journalists was, in fact, systemic.

“To me it’s a matter of principle; I don’t know that it’s systemic and I’ve seen what they’ve done to help poor people in the New York area,” Meeks said.

The then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi condemned the organization but felt the defunding was an extreme reaction.

“Well, let me say this: any group that receives any funds from the federal government needs to have tough scrutiny applied to it,” Pelosi said at her weekly press conference. “I think it's up to the Appropriations Committee to scrutinize ACORN or any other group that receives money from the federal government that has such an allegation against it.”

Allegations, a sensational but largely made-up sting operation, non-stop hysteria by Fox News followed by over-reactions in Congress. That was all it took to end all hopes of a living wage for working Americans.

Consequently, the death of the living wage movement in the US- as sponsored by ACORN- was not a natural one. It was a carefully calculated assassination.

Some foundations also pulled the plug. The Catholic Campaign for Human Development, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops' anti-poverty charity, praised Acorn for its work "preventing home foreclosures, creating job opportunities, raising wages, addressing crime, and improving education." But under pressure from conservatives, it, too, cut off Acorn's money.

With the Catholic Church’s record of standing for the poor, especially in terms of its historical commitment to a living wage, that decision was inexcusable and cowardly. It went against every thing it had once stood for.

Conservative groups also put pressure on other sources of ACORN funding. For example, the co-founder of The National Legal and Policy Center, Peter Flaherty, wrote to JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon demanding an end to any funding of ACORN. According to the 2007 tax return for the JPMorgan Chase Foundation, ACORN Housing, Inc. was the recipient of a million dollar grant in 2007. Another grant of $25,000 was made to the ACORN Institute. Flaherty's veiled threat is interesting:

Continued identification with ACORN harms the company’s brand name and reputation, and carries special risks for this company, a recipient of taxpayer TARP funds. The New York Times has identified you as President Obama’s “favorite banker.”

Coincidentally, from 1984 to 1988, Mr. Flaherty served as Chairman of the lobbying group Citizens for Reagan. NLPC describes itself as a "conservative watch dog organization". Targets have included Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and Charles Rangel and other liberal politicians. (See any pattern?)

At its peak, before its disastrous collapse, ACORN over 400,000 members and more than 1,200 neighborhood chapters in over 100 cities across the United States, as well as in Argentina, Canada, Mexico, and Peru.

And yet, sadly, if you wish to learn more about ACORN’s role in the living wage movement, the Internet has been pretty thoroughly scrubbed of most of the references. It is as if ACORN never existed. It is as if the living wage movement was nothing more than a dream. Just a lot of dead links.

All of the work by so many for the sake of poor and low-income families, has simply melted away.

_________________________

What Sarah Palin Does Not want You To Watch or Know -- Game Change

2012-02-12T22:59:00.000+01:00

By Kathleen and Patrick

In an interview with Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday Sarah Palin announced that she would not be watching the HBO film Game Change because it is "based on a false narrative" and that she was "never in a funk" that the film portrays her being in. What Palin neglects to say is that she was approached by the director executive producer for the film, Jay Roach, who invited her to talk with them and that through her attorney she declined to participate. That inconvenient fact in itself leaves little room for complaint in my opinion.

In the interview with Wallace, Palin also takes credit for "employing more people imitating Sarah Palin than the President has put Americans to work." Talk about delusional. This isn't snark it is another Palin distortion of facts which in her mind sets her in a good light. Palin as governor was good at providing jobs......jobs for her crony friends that is.

However, the main issue for Palin is that she does not want anyone to view the film and she therefore "encourages others to find something more productive to do." There is a reason that Palin does not want "others" to watch the film -- she wants to keep the lid on the fact that she is extremely unstable and has no place in politics. We have all read the books about Palin's unpredictable "funks" written by Geoffrey Dunn, Joe McGinniss, Frank Bailey, Mark Halperin and John Heilmann all of which describe episodes of her behaviour in different situations. None of them describe a person who can perform under pressure. Just the opposite in fact. That Palin is depicted as someone prone to tantrums and who believes that she can operate under a different set of standards from the norm. Just don't ask her to explain herself....

In the following video Chris Wallace mentions the look on her face when he brings up the film and predictably Palin responds with a "must we" when invited to view the trailer by him. As I stated in an earlier post Palin does not convince me when she states that she "will not watch the film" at least several times.

The discussion about the upcoming movie "Game Change" is also a good opportunity to take a look at what some of the participants of the 2008 Republican campaign had to say about Sarah Palin. In a very interesting clip from 2010, former Senior McCain-aide Nicolle Wallace didn't hold back - and it sounded like a warning to Sarah Palin. Nicolle Wallace says that people would start to talk about Sarah Palin's "more troubling deficiencies" if she was to become the Republican nominee, "her incredible cynicism, her bitterness, her aggressive attempts to claw anyone that points out an area for her to work on." According to Wallace, "a whole lot of people would stand up and say a whole lot of things."

Watch:

Then there is of course Steve Schmidt's famous interview on 60 minutes:

Last but not least, there is the wonderful clip from Keith Olbermann's Countdown, broadcast in 2009 - the prospect of a Palin-presidency would be a "catastrophic apocalypse", according to an insider:

It's just a big shame that the American media has never bothered to tell the American people what these "more troubling deficiencies" actually are, and why exactly a Palin-presidency would be a "catastrophic apocalypse." Instead of telling the truth, the media is still eager to use Sarah Palin to boost ratings and sales. Just recently, the reviled "lamestream" media outlets Newsweek, CNN and New York Times were keen to profit from Sarah Palin, when they really should have done their job long ago and explained to the American public bluntly who we are dealing with: A woman with a severe mental disorder whose calling in life is revenge and the destruction of her enemies - and who lies about virtually anything. Then, they should have just left her alone.

The conservative Alaskan journalist Dan Fagan, who supported Palin's 2006 run for Governor in Alaska, brilliantly summed it up in article which he published on his (former) website "The Alaska Standard" on November 18, 2009:

I will not buy Sarah Palin’s new book because I believe the governor who quit to be a fundamentally dishonest person. Why support the work of someone you can’t trust? I have read some excerpts from the book and it is clearly a work of vengeance, revenge, and pure meanness. Palin comes across as the rotten on the inside, faultfinding, petty teenage girl we all hated in high school. If you’ve seen the movie “Heathers” or “Mean Girls” you know what I am talking about.

Palin, when writing Rogue, set herself on a course of smallness, triviality, quibbling, sophistry nothingness, and worthlessness. From the excerpts I’ve read, it is hard to draw any other conclusion than Sarah Palin is small in stature, character, and integrity.

Yes I do believe Sarah Palin has a dark soul. A soul obsessed with her image. A soul focused on hurting others. Sarah Palin’s book reveals her as someone unwilling, unable, incapable of living a life of forgiveness. She is a grudge carrier. Settling scores drive her and she is hell bent on revenge, payback, getting even.

Revenge has become the work and calling of her life. Maybe it always has been. It’s clearly what drives her now. Her cutthroat attacks on others will be her downfall. Her inability to control her desire to hurt those who hurt her will end up in the end discrediting her as a leader, as a person. It’s never too late to change. But time is running out on Palin’s political career. Her poll ratings drop every time she opens her spiteful mouth. Her book will not help.

Unfortunately, Dan Fagan deleted this brutally honest article one day later. For a very short moment only, the public got an honest, uncompromising glimpse on the real Sarah Palin, from somebody who knew her and her dealings in Alaska very well. But the truth about Sarah Palin seems to be too explosive, too outrageous, too inconvenient for the media. Sarah Palin is still an object of desire for them, they still like to pal around with her, in a pact with the devil. Good luck to them - the infamous "Palin curse" gets virtually everybody in the end. Damaged careers and destroyed reputations have been the inevitable result for most people who chose to ally themselves with Sarah Palin. "It came from Wasilla", Todd S. Purdum observed in Vanity Fair in August 2009, and several years later, the creature is still out of the bottle.

Sarah Palin CPAC 2012 Speech - Live Video - PLUS: Breitbart Accuses OWS of behaving like "freaks and animals, murderers and rapists"

2012-02-11T22:29:00.001+01:00

By Kathleen

After several years of turned down invitations Sarah Palin will close as the final keynote speaker at the CPAC 2012 convention. The event started on Thursday 9th February with the usual ho hum speeches and saber rattling in any direction. Predictably boring fare. Until last night that is. Andrew Breitbart, well known for his somewhat unconventional attacks, went several steps further than usual when he attacked the Occupy protesters who were merely exercising their First Amendment rights outside the hotel where many convention attendees were staying. Breitbart admonished the protesters to "behave themselves" and then went on to accuse them of being "freaks and animals, murderers and rapists". Such was Breitbart's fury that he had to be pulled away by security staff. If you haven't seen the video then be sure to watch it.

I'm definitely sure that Sarah Palin, who is due to speak at 4.30pm Eastern time, will not be as entertaining as Andy Breitbart but we here at Politicalgates have decided that we will run the live video so you can join us in a real time discussion on the blog. I'm hoping for references to the new flavour of the right, Ricky Santorum.

+++

UPDATE:

Sarah Palin's big screech at CPAC is over, and has been posted on youtube:

Good observations by "Wonkette" about Sarah's "marvelously bad speech":

From 4:42 p.m. until about 5:19 p.m., if you can imagine surviving that long, Palin speechified in the Marriott Ballroom at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel Wonderland Amusement Park [& Conference Centre -- Ed.] about all sorts of truth-defying, lie-inducing, reality-denying, delusion-inspiring wonders of unreality. Thus the only way to accurately, objectively–yes, objectively–report on this delusion is call it Deconstructing Sarah Palin.Palin, as if running for something other than Reality Show President of the World and Conservative Conference Speaker of the Year, tore into everything Obamaesque and tore it up with easy catchphrases about everything near and dear to her dwindling, equally delusional fan base–the extreme far-righters whose credo incredibly remains, in 2012, a political world continually centered around scarifying old reliables such as abortion, guns, religion, the military and big government. It is most interesting to note that 99 percent of what Palin said is completely, wholly, utterly untrue and a lie.

Palin said that the Obama administration created “a sinking ship” of financial problems, has created “trillions in debt” due to incompetence, and has “no plan to stop it…no plan.” Wrong. Of course, the Obama administration has not created any sinking ship of financial problems–his administration inherited it from the administration of George W. Bush, which increased the size of the federal government in all sorts of fun, crazy ways. And of course the Obama administration has several plans to decrease the federal deficit, decrease the size of the federal government, and work towards an actual budget surplus, not a deficit. The Obama administration has a deficit-reduction commission, and has commissioned another panel, or two, to literally decrease the size of the federal government.

Palin said Obama “barely mentioned” unemployment in his recent State of the Union address. Wrong. In fact, the core and central point of the address was jobs, employment, manufacturing and getting people back to work. Of course the administration is focused on, and working on, employment and decreasing unemployment.

Then, of course, another "iconic" photo of Palin, thanks to CPAC. It just was inevitable. Many thanks to Madam Deal for finding it!

Also, with Sarah Palin as a "friend", the Republican candidates don't need enemies any more. Palin gave an interview to CNN and said:

She said Romney and his two main rivals – Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich – should be given time to explain the flaws in their record until the Republican National Convention in August, when she said the nomination fight could ultimately be decided.

Go, Sarah, go! ;-)

UPDATE 2:

Alexa O'Brien who covered Bradley Manning's first hearings on Twitter a few weeks ago needs some help with expenses to attend his upcoming trial. The following is a note from Alexa.

I need your help in order to cover Bradley Manning's upcoming trial. I am only asking for donations to defer my out of pocket expenses. All my work this year covering WikiLeaks and Bradley Manning stories has been done as a volunteer. I will provide itemized receipts for every purchase.

The time and location of the trial is yet to be determined, but it will reside in the Military District of Washington, which is four hours from New York. I will update this page with more information, when that becomes available.

If you can spare a few dollars to get Alexa a seat at the trial please donate at the following link. Thank you.

https://www.wepay.com/donations/help-me-cover-bradley-mannings-trial

The Sudden Death of the Living Wage: Republican Class Warfare 2/3

2012-02-10T15:41:00.000+01:00

by Nomad

Conservative View: A Threat to Health

The Republican party has had a long-held opposition toward any talk of a living wage. This latest crop has their own ideas about how to deal with the poor. Rick Santorum, for example, seems to think that marriage is the solution to poverty.

What two things, that if you do, will guarantee that you will not be in poverty in America?” he asked the crowd.
“Number one, graduate from high school. Number two, get married. Before you have children,” he said. “If you do those two things, you will be successful economically.

Michele Bachmann, who recently claimed she had been the “perfect’ candidate for president, had announced her intention to do away with any sort of minimum wage limit in order to stimulate the economy. Newt Gingrich called child labor laws “stupid” and Herman Cain told unemployed OWS protesters that

“ If you don't have a job and you're not rich, blame yourself ... It is not a person's fault if they succeeded, it is a person's fault if they failed."

This attitude is fairly common with Fox-News-watching public. Reagan played that mish-mash of religion, patriotism and the much-touted work ethic very convincingly. The logical runs like this:

America is the land of opportunity.

We, as a nation, are blessed by God.

Wealth and success is a sign of God's blessing.

Every man's success and failure depends on the his individual attributes.

Therefore, government has no responsibility in the matter.

It is linked with the delusion that that the United States of America is a meritocracy where everyone is treated fairly and anyone can pull himself up by his bootstraps if he or she just works hard enough, pays their dues and keeps their nose to the grindstone.

The only problem is that for millions of Americans, it just not true.
The living wage, the Republicans generally say, is a denial of one of the fundamentals of the American economy, namely, the free market principle approach to labor, hiring and wages. This view is expressed by Steven Malanga, a Manhattan Institute senior fellow.

The living wage poses a big threat to their economic health, because the costs and restrictions it imposes on the private sector will destroy jobs—especially low-wage jobs—and send businesses fleeing to other locales. Worse still, the living-wage movement’s agenda doesn’t end with forcing private employers to increase wages. It includes opposing privatization schemes, strong-arming companies into unionizing, and other economic policies equally harmful to urban health.

Incidentally, The Manhattan Institute, founded in 1978 by William J. Casey, who later became President Ronald Reagan's CIA director, is by no means the impartial think-tank it pretends to be. Wikipedia has this to say:

The Manhattan Institute received $19,470,416 in grants from 1985–2005, from foundations such as the Koch Family Foundations, the John M. Olin Foundation, Inc., the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, the Scaife Foundations, and the Smith Richardson Foundation. The Manhattan Institute does not disclose its corporate funding, but the Capital Research Center listed its contributors as Bristol-Myers Squibb, Exxon Mobil, Chase Manhattan, CIGNA, Sprint, Reliant Energy, Lincoln Financial Group Foundation, and Merrill Lynch.

So much for its understanding about poverty and the needs of low-income Americans. And Sourcewatch adds some icing to the cake with this:

"The Manhattan Institute concerns itself with such things as 'welfare reform' (dismantling social programs), 'faith-based initiatives' (blurring the distinction between church and state), and 'education reform' (destroying public education)," Kurt Nimmo wrote October 10, 2002, in CounterPunch.

According to Malanga, the free market principles in which the wages are set by the employer and not by any kind of government regulation is the only solution.

(I)f living-wage advocates truly understood the free market, they’d know that it ultimately is far more moral than the centrally controlled economic system they endorse. If there is one thing that the last 50 years tell us, it is that the free market provides far greater economic opportunity and a decent standard of living for far more people than government-controlled markets.

And yet, that’s not what has actually happened at all. The free market approach to wages has encouraged a race to the bottom in living standards, pitting non-unionized dirt-cheap labor in developing nations against a highly productive but wage-protected labor in the US and Europe.
In fact, if this graph is anything to go by, the poverty levels in America didn’t begin to climb until after the conservative Republicans began their much-celebrated exercise in free market principles.

Starting from the 1980s and continuing through to the last Republican administration, the poverty rates have climbed and remained high. The free-market solution was no solution at all, as far as the poor were concerned.

According to Richard Caputo, writing in the Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare, the Reagan years resulted in a higher percentage of both individual and family poverty. Forty percent of the nation’s personal net worth was possessed by 2.4 million people out of a population of 240 million. And look how that trend has been allowed to continue.

And yet according to the Malanga , the opposite is true.

What was remarkable about the American economy during the 1990s, when about 13 million low-skilled, low-wage immigrants arrived, is that poverty rates didn’t soar, and actually declined slightly—showing the muscularity of our economy in lifting even many of these newcomers out of poverty.

This kind of spurious arguing shouldn’t surprise anybody. As we have seen in earlier reports, misrepresenting the Reagan years (and the years since) is practically an art with the conservatives. Like the “trickle-down” theory, the real life experiment failed to live up to promise. No matter, the conservatives said, we will repeat the miracle story over and over until it becomes accepted as fact. To paraphrase Reagan, the trouble with our conservative friends is not that they're ignorant; it's just that they know so much that isn't true.

In a typical effort to misrepresent the living wage movement, Malanga resorts to the usual disinformation campaign found in most ALEC-friendly right wing organizations.

Providing the intellectual muscle (such as it is) for the living-wage movement is a small group of Marxoid economists, led by University of Massachusetts–Amherst professor Robert Pollin, a longtime board member of the Union of Radical Political Economists, founded in the 1960s to bring Marxist economics to American universities.

As a matter of fact, the Far Right is now engaging in the same methods of academic deception that it accuses the opposition of. Utilizing a myriad of university studies financed by powerful corporate interests or dubious polls from organizations created solely for the purpose of muddying the debate, conservatives have continued to repeat the same dogma year after year. Whether true or not, in the long or in the short term, for most members of the Far Right, minimum wage limits have a negative effect on the economy. End of discussion.

However, some dared to question that line.

The tenor of this debate began to change in the mid-1990's following some work done by two Princeton economists, David Card (now at the University of California, Berkeley) and Alan B. Krueger. In 1992, New Jersey increased the state minimum wage to $5.05 an hour (applicable to both the public and the private sectors), which gave the two young professors an opportunity to study the comparative effects of that raise on fast-food restaurants and low-wage employment in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, where the minimum wage remained at the federal level of $4.25 an hour. Card and Krueger agreed that the hypothesis that a rise in wages would destroy jobs was "one of the clearest and most widely appreciated in the field of economics."

Both told me they believed, at the start, that their work would reinforce that hypothesis. But in 1995, and again in 2000, the two academics effectively shredded the conventional wisdom. Their data demonstrated that a modest increase in wages did not appear to cause any significant harm to employment; in some cases, a rise in the minimum wage even resulted in a slight increase in employment.

The staunchest Conservatives, like the people of the Manhattan Institute, would like to portray the living wage movement as some kind of New Left socialist / anarchist /Marxist concept that spilled out of the turmoil of civil rights movement. According to Far Right sources, the movement began in 1994, as some kind of attempt to corrupt the "miracle" of Reaganomics, plotted by liberal professors and un-American leftists, those dreaded hangovers from the civil rights era.

In fact, its philosophical roots go back much further. Nearly a hundred years before, to be precise and is not a new thing at all.

Of New and Not So New Things

One of the seminal works on the subject of fair wages came not from the civil right movements of the mid- 20th century but from much earlier. On May 15, 1891, Pope Leo XIII issued an open letter, passed to all his bishops, that addressed the conditions of the working classes and of the poor. It was called Rerum Novarum (Latin for Of New Things).

It is, in fact, a remarkable document, and which elevated the Church from the promotion of a single faith to an ethical code for the advocacy of world social justice. This original papal document would be the source for a series of other social teachings by later popes, all of which related to the morality of fair treatment for the poor.

In the declaration, poverty in itself, Pope Leo explained, is no disgrace. It was unavoidable and part of the human condition. In an effort to maintain social harmony between the classes, he advised workers of the world that damaging or stealing of property of their employers was unacceptable. Had he stopped there, his message would have been nothing more than a carte blanche for exploitation. As one source explains:

But there was something else that concerned him very much: the material well-being of the working poor. He told them in no uncertain terms that they should receive what will enable them to be housed, clothed, secure, and to live without hardship. He made it clear that they were not to accept unjust treatment as though it were inevitable, and that they were to stand up for their rights at the same time that they helped to preserve good order in society. Protect your own interests, but refrain from violence and never riot ; your demands should be reasonable ; press your claims with reason ; form unions but do not strike. The message about preserving good order is clear and unmistakable, but so is the message about standing up for rights.

Leo XIII wanted the working poor to protect their interests, to make demands, to press their claims, and the principal means for doing this was the formation of unions. In their efforts to claim their rights, the working poor should find in the government an ally, and Leo made it clear that the working poor should be given special consideration by the government.

He also spoke directly to employers.

For Leo, employers have clear moral obligations: workers are not to be treated as slaves; the dignity of your workers' human personality must be respected; do not use people as things for gain; do not oppress the needy and wretched for your own profit. The approach to employers is on a high moral plane, but it is also very practical: you need your poor worker, so work with him harmoniously. It is immoral to treat workers unjustly, and it is also not in the best interest of ownership and management.

It was not a call for communism nor socialist but for an ethical re-examination of a capitalist system. According to the Pope, it was a government’s obligation to take a role in protecting workers’ rights and in keeping the peace. Fair wages are defined in Rerum Novarum as at least a living wage, but Leo recommended paying more than that: enough to support the worker, his wife and family, with a little savings left over so that the worker can improve his condition over time.

To a Right Wing conservative, that statement (for Newt and Rick it's an infallible source, by the way) is tantamount to heresy. It's hard to reconcile the statements made by the candidates- who have professed to be Catholic when it comes to abortion and homosexuality- with the official position of the Church on the poor. Why, you can ask, would the GOP be waging a war on religion?

In any case, the Pope’s letter would later have a profound effect on a leading moral theologian, priest, professor, author, and social justice advocate, Monsignor John Augustine Ryan. In 1906, published the book, A Living Wage.

While at St. Paul Seminary in 1894, Ryan read Pope Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum and it was to form the basis for Ryan’s socio-economic views. As he saw it, the separation of economic thought from religious and ethical rules were the cause of social injustice brought about by the industrial revolution. The failure of employers to pay a sufficient wage would, in his eyes, inevitably damage the fabric of all society.

The living wage movement was not confined to the religious sphere. Around the turn of the last century, the fascinating English husband and wife reformers, Martha Beatrice Webb and Sidney James Webb wrote a good deal about the necessity of social and economic reform. They advocated the idea that the State should enforce a national minimum of wages which would provide the laborer with "the food, clothing and shelter physiologically necessary, according to national habit and custom, to prevent bodily deterioration."

They considered the industries that took more than they gave back to be little better than parasites on the community. The Modern Conservative has declared it is the poor who are the parasites. And, apparently their only solution to poverty is blame the victims, to remove their government safety nets and to force them to have more babies they cannot afford. All in the name of their professed morality .

In 1919 The Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America drafted a program of social reconstruction back which included in its demands “a Living Wage enforced by the State,” and “declared that “this Living Wage should be made the first charge upon industry, before dividends are considered."

Finally, perhaps a more unexpected proponent of the Living Wage concept, was none of than the arch-capitalist Henry Ford. On Jan. 5, 1914, Henry Ford, head of the Ford Motor Company, introduced a minimum wage scale of $5 per day, more than doubling the wages for most employees.

James Couzens, the Ford treasurer, said: “It is our belief that social justice begins at home. We want those who have helped us to produce this great institution and are helping to maintain it to share our prosperity. We want them to have present profits and future prospects. … Believing as we do, that a division of our earnings between capital and labor is unequal, we have sought a plan of relief suitable for our business.”

The Wall Street Journal accused him of injecting "Biblical or spiritual principles into a field where they do not belong." The New York Times correspondent who traveled to Detroit to interview him that week asked him if he was a socialist but also added that his decision as “one of the most remarkable business moves of his entire remarkable career.”

Despite his what was claimed, his main reason for the unprecedented wage increase was more likely to be economic rather than humanitarian. With its high turnover, the motor company faced a constant retraining of new workers. By the keeping and rewarding the best workers, the wage increase was offset by increased production and smaller training programs. Additionally, the wage increase provided Ford employees with enough money to purchase Ford automobiles, which further increased the company’s sales. In the end, through his ostensively labor-friendly policy, Ford’s business goals were realized and his wage increase had its intended effect: turnover declined sharply, and profits doubled to $60 million from $30 million from 1914 to 1916.

One further example of the long pedigree of the living wage movement: in 1917, The Interdenominational Conference of Social Service Unions, comprising ten religious bodies, including Catholics (like Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum), spent more than a year formulating a statement of social reconstruction. They issued this statement:

"In an industrial system such as ours, the right to life practically resolves itself into the right to a Living Wage, by which we mean not a mere subsistence wage but a wage sufficient to maintain a reasonable standard of life."

Despite what the conservatives would like everybody to believe, the history of the living wage movement is extensive and historical and it should be a source of pride for any progressive.

The twentieth century was, in fact, one long struggle between the capitalist on one hand who felt that labor was a resource to exploit and progressive social reformers who demanded a fair living wage of labor.

______________

In the final installment, I will take a look at the last great attempt to address the problem of the living wage, the remarkable success of this movement and its catastrophic downfall.

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=======UPDATE======

Listen to this incredible emotional speech by Maureen Walsh. A Republican. Miracles never cease, I suppose. By the way, I was also a little worried when she started talking about sex.

The Sudden Death of the Living Wage : Mitt Romney Flip-Flop 1/3

2012-02-09T14:52:00.000+01:00

by Nomad

Romney’s Double Back Flip

Last week Republican front-runner, Mitt Romney somehow managed to flip-flop from the frying pan into the political fire when he told reporters that he didn't fret about the poor because of the social safety net. He explained to a CNN reporter:

“I'm not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there. If it needs repair, I'll fix it.”

President as handy-man?
Naturally, like every politician who finds himself in a pickle, he blamed the media for taking his statement out of context. Like his “corporations are people too” remark, Romney once again seemed unable to hear how out of touch he actually sounds. Until everybody else notices. Coming from one of the richest candidates in American history, it gave the (probably accurate) impression that he has no real understanding or sensitivity for the poor. After all, how much more 1% can Mitt Romney be? How can a person like that really represent all of the people?

But then, in order to rectify the gaffe, Romney immediately followed that up with a new problematic statement which had his corporate backers falling out of their cushy chairs. By Wednesday he underlined his commitment to address the problems of the poor by mentioning his support for automatic increases in the federal minimum wage to keep pace with inflation.

"I haven't changed my thoughts on that," the former Massachusetts governor told reporters aboard his chartered campaign plane, referring to a stand he has held for a decade.

You could almost hear the gasp of a million CEOs and the moan and groan of a thousand Republican Party elites. In that one sentence he confirmed the Right Wing’s darkest suspicions about this candidate. Namely, he is not committed to their agenda after all. Good God, he might even be a moderate, which is next door to a liberal, which is just around the corner from a socialist which is on the same street as a Communist!

Romney’s gaffe has underlined one of the problems facing the Republican party, namely, its inability to deal with poverty except through finger-wagging and starvation. In order to win support, Romney has had to appeal to pro-business groups like the National Federation of Independent Business and the US Chamber of Commerce, both of which reject the idea of any sort of raise in the minimum wage. They have long argued that increased wages are detrimental to economic growth. Both sides of the debate can point to numerous studies to support their respective claims. and economists disagree about the effects of a higher minimum wage on growth and job creation.

A Wage for Living

The birth of the minimum wage law- a landmark of its day- was an agonizing one for President Franklin Roosevelt and it very nearly didn’t occur at all.. After a protracted battle the Supreme court, the president finally succeeded in getting a watered version of his proposal on his desk.. As one source tells us:

In its final form, the act applied to industries whose combined employment represented only about one-fifth of the labor force. In these industries, it banned oppressive child labor and set the minimum hourly wage at 25 cents, and the maximum workweek at 44 hours.

He told the public that America should be able to give "all our able-bodied working men and women a fair day's pay for a fair day's work."

It was hardly what one would call a success story for the president. In order to gain approval in both houses of Congress, numerous compromises, amendments, exemptions and narrowed coverage limits had been added to the original draft. The result was that, in its final form, the act wasn't much of an improvement in the conditions of the working man.

Congress passed the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) in 1938 and has voted for raises since, but has never linked it to inflation. Over the years Congress revised the FLSA several times, broadening the coverage to include retail establishments in 1961, hospitals, nursing homes, schools and colleges and laundries in 1966 as well as domestic, state and local government workers in 1974.

The value of the minimum wage and the types of workers it covered have always been widely debated. Despite unwavering public support for regular increases to the federal minimum wage, employer lobbyists, particularly from low-wage industries like restaurants and hotels, have been loud and unyielding opponents. Although the real value of the minimum wage (the value adjusted for inflation) rose consistently from 1938 to 1968, the trend has been reversed ever since. By the end of the 1980s, under a more conservative political climate, the real value had been in decline until 2007.

One thing that many politicians seem unwilling to admit is that minimum wage is actually below the minimum for most people. In many areas of the country, the cost of living (which includes housing, utilities, food, health costs and the bare necessities) exceeds the minimum wage limits and these wage standards only represent the needs of an individual, not those of a family. A minimum wage is merely the amount a money need to survive with the essential items. Often a minimum wage is set so low that it requires some kind of borrowing, like purchases on credit. It may require that the head of the household take on multiple forms of employment or that both parents work.

A minimum wage is not, therefore, a living wage.

To understand the difference, it’s important to remember that a minimum wage is the lowest wage that employers may legally pay to workers and conversely, it’s the lowest rate that a worker can sell his labor. The entire law is designed to represent the employer's interests and not the worker's. (Ideally for the employers, of course, would be a minimum wage set at zero but the Emancipation Proclamation has poo-pooed that idea.) Whether or not a worker (and his dependents) can actually survive on the specified minimum wage is another matter.

For a closer look at a comparison between the living wage and the minimum wage, and to find out what is required to make a living wage in your community, I invite you to visit the Living Wage Calculator.

If we take a random area, Beaufort County, North Carolina. Since the latest increase in the minimum wage, the figures actually look good for a single adult. The minimum wage is $7.25 and that's well above the poverty level at $5.04 and the living wage is $7.14. All very good except when you add a child to equation, the living wage requirement suddenly jumps to $13.98!

Another example, Indianapolis: again, minimum wage is $7.25 and the poverty level is $5.04. However, the living wage is $8.06 an hour and with one child, that increases to $15.53.

Finally, a major metropolitan area, Boston. There, the situation is intolerable even without a child. Minimum wage is higher than the federal limit at $8.00 an hour and the poverty level is a mere $5.04. That’s a fairly promising start but then look at the living wage. $12.17. That’s how much you must make an hour in order to live with even the barest essentials. With a child in your lap and you suddenly find you’ll need $20.75 an hour, just to make ends meet. It’s no surprise, then, that people are making use of their credit cards and working two and sometime three jobs. If that becomes impossible, then the only recourse is to become a dependent on the government.

That’s the safety net that Mitt Romney regales. It's important to remember all this the next time you hear a conservative politician complaining about "class warfare." There may be class warfare in the America, but it's not the poor who are waging it.

Living wage

Presentation by Trudi Renwick, Senior Economist, Fiscal Policy Institute

The Invisible Poor

To learn the truth behind American poverty, The Working Poor: Invisible in America, by a former New York Times reporter and a Pulitzer Prize winner, David Shipler, is a “must read.” He examines the problem, not of the unemployed, the so-called welfare queens, the parasites of the free-market economy, but of the gainfully employed labor force who are simply unable to survive on their wages. Moreover, these low-wage jobs that he discusses often don’t provide health insurance coverage, and past medical bills (due to the lack of insurance) often mean low-income families have a substantial debt burden. For the working poor, it's not about saving for a rainy day. Every day is rainy. It's more about just keeping your head above water.
Shipler explains:

Business executives have the skill but certainly not the will to compress salary differentials by raising the bottom and making sacrifices at the top. Revised tax structures could induce such policy. Government has the skill to legislate a big boost in the minimum wage, but it lacks the political will, largely because most low-income Americans don’t vote their interests or don’t vote at all, and can’t compete with private industry’s sophisticated lobbying and campaign contributions. Furthermore, the minimum wage is a blunt instrument, and the skill to use it is not perfected.

One idea for making the tool more refined is to set different minimums for different parts of the country based on regional costs of living. Another approach is the “living wage” law…. We have learned other ways to address the discrepancy between what people can earn in the market and what they need for comfortable living.

As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, discontent is the want of self-reliance. How can one be genuinely self-reliant without being able to afford the bare essentials of subsistence? How can a citizen be fairly represented in government when Congress is (or appears to be) beholden special interests and the demands of the 1%? Above all, it is important that everybody understands that the right to a fair and sustaining wage is a problem of values.

Not merely because it revolves around the quality of existence or the standard of living but because a fair wage is the key to dignity. And when you rob a person of their dignity, the denial of a life-sustaining wage becomes more than an ethical or even an economic problem, but a hazard for all of society because a population without dignity, reduced to form of discontented slavery, is an invitation to revolution and to catastrophe.

________________

In the next post in this series, we will be taking a brief look at that history of the idea of the living wage and what its opponents say about it.

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Santorum's Win in Minnesota, Missouri, Colorado. Spread Santorum All Over Town

2012-02-08T06:25:00.001+01:00

By Kathleen

Picture from Daily Kos. Hat-tip to BfromC

It seems that Rick Santorum will pull a hat-trick tonight and win all three of that polls that took place earlier. Huffington Post has declared that Rick is on fire -- I presume they mean literally and not metaphorically. Only Joking! Still one can dream.

As in previous states the numbers of voters in these caucus and primary polls is extremely low. I would say that Santorum's win tonight merely adds up to a hill of beans.

Here is the best comment at Huffington Post on the subject:

3 states have gone S_A_N_I_T_A_R_I_U_M!
Indeed!

Fortunately for you, I have been saving the following videos for a night like this. Enjoy. hat-tip to spreadingsantorum.com