Joe Lieberman Misused $387,000, and All We Got Was An Article About John Edwards!

I know, I know...the John Edwards debacle was and is stunning, heart wrenching, and life changing, and now its back in the headlines in all its glory! Edwards announced today that there is a federal investigation going on into his campaign funds (.... to determine if certain funds disbursed to the company of the woman that he had an affair with were legally transferred, or if there was some nefarious plot to shut her up and keep her in grand style ...with their maybe love child...) over the sum of...um...$114,000, give or take.

Look maybe you can keep your baby's mama in a nice trailer park for that amount, but it seems to me that this might perhaps be production money, as she was the videographer on the campaign trail, and anyone who has had to shoot for hours and then spend hours editing down footage for public consumption will know that an amount like that is chump change. Did he pay her to go away? Did he buy her jewels and furs? Who knows and who cares?



His career is ruined for now, and it seems to me that it serves a whole portion of others in the political and business spectrum to have his voice shut down because of what his message was and is. So, yeah, hes an idiot narcissist who imploded, and he's lucky that, from the outside anyway, his family has survived....If you've read my previous posts on this subject, you'll know that it interests me little to hear speculation about the details of this stupidity, and if he misused 100 grand of campaign funds, I'm sure that there have been worse crimes committed...oh, like the Clinton's real estate bamboozle and Bill Clinton's flirtation with the young Monica Lewinsky. I'm sure that never, ever happens in the halls of power....right? What kind of time and money are we willing to waste because of the hint of a sex scandal?

Which brings me to Joe Lieberman, our favorite Jr. Senator here in Connecticut. Today in the local Stamford Advocate, we were treated to a large piece on the news of Edward's probe, and then a page or two back and in a small box, was the news that Joe himself is also under investigation for misuse of campaign funds. This is a story that is not being covered by much of the media, except for snippets in our local papers here in Connecticut, and only by the Connecticut blogs such as My Left Nutmeg, which has been great all through the nightmare that has been Connecticut politics for more years than even Bush was the national nightmare. The New Haven Register had this story about Lieberman, as if his misuse of funds was just a blip that a small fine would take care of; a civil penalty of $50,000.



The Register also had the same article on Edwards that was published in the Advocate, (but which the Advocate hasn't, as of this time, put on line; nor have they put up the Lieberman story.) The Edwards article talks about his buried career and how he is finished, the turmoil of his marriage and any other projections that the writer could come up with because, heaven knows there isn't much in the way of facts there; not the gay in the bathroom stall/affair with a male page sort of deliciousness brought to us by the now defunct republican majority; now THOSE were facts!

Still, the article makes the Edwards situation sound like he took pallets of cash to another country that we had invaded illegally and just lost it with no explanation....oh yeah,that's the former President of the United States, who we can hardly muster the balls to investigate on charges of real war crimes, much less the money misspent, lost, given out with no explanation, and pocketed in conflicts of interest such asHalliburton/Blackwater & it's subsidiaries/Cheney or Donald Rumsfeld/Tamiflu/Aspartame.

Look, I'm not an apologist for Edwards. I'm as disappointed as anyone who was a true believer in his message, and who was mortified to find that he didnt get out of the race, and continued to wield his delegates, knowing that this was likely to come out. But here's the deal, Edwards is not in office, nor has he been nominated to any cabinet post. He is old, tragic news, in a very interesting election cycle, who will likely have his second act as they all do in show business.

Joe Lieberman, on the other hand, is still actively jumping parties out there and holding his chairmanships on some pretty importantcommittees, (Homeland Security and Government Affairs to name but two.) He is a sitting senator and as much as his crony's have forgiven him for his insane campaign to get back into that seat, the people of Connecticut largely have not.

Why this isn't a bigger story isn't much of a mystery to me, because I was there and saw the tactics of the Lieberman campaign first hand. I worked for Ned Lamont during every free moment I had and manned a contentious poll on election day. The Lieberman investigation was about a whopping $387,000 that was given out improperly, and much of it was to stage a ground war here, when he hadn't planned much campaign presence at all because he was so sure that he would win! When faced with a real lack of volunteers, the campaign hired ground teams to disrupt Lamont's events and basically make a nuisance of themselves. They plastered much of downtown Stamford with Joe signage, which was illegal, they ran through the streets of anyplace that Lamont was appearing and jostled in front of TV cameras with signs that they, themselves didn't understand, and they menaced even old folks and parents with babies in carriages with their aggressive actions.

At a Lamont speech in Greenwich I asked some of the kids, (they were all black for that event and it made the white Joe T-shirts pulled over baggy clothes stand out all the more, as if a crowd of black kids on Greenwich Avenue weren't enough in that stogy old-money town!) if they knew what Joe stood for, and they said no, that a guy in a van offered them $60 per day to wear the t-shirt and support Joe. Later when someone I know asked again, the amount had been raised to $100 per day. A kid said that he didn't know who Joe was or what he stood for but that it was just a job and he was following orders. At the time I was down in what is the inner city of Stamford quite a bit for some personal reasons, and on the cul de sac circle of the cluster housing that now replaces part of the old projects, a white Joe van would drive up and kids would go up to the van looking for work.

At the time the army recruiting offices were active in just such neighborhoods because these were the kids likely to go for the bonus money to go to Iraq for an indeterminate amount of time. Was it right for Joe, who supported the war and had no answers on how we were going to handle the military in Iraq or when they came home, to have children working for him against their own interest? Was it right to pay the on the ground volunteers in a political campaign who don't know what they are representing? I told a few of them that he was pro war and they shrugged, like teens do, and said that they didn't care because it was a job. I felt like that white van circling the entryway to the neighborhood that held all the poor in this city separate from the very rich and thr quickly dwindling middle-class, was preying on these kids, and that they should have been as against the law as any predator enticing kids with cash or candy.

Joe was a strong Bush supporter and allowed himself to be used as a representative for the democratic party implying that some of us were pro Bush and pro war. In reality, Joe was in a world of his own and the only pro war people around were those who were afraid of the terra, and who bought the victory line against the facts presented by experts. That was not what the people of Connecticut wanted, and as our representative we let Joe know that in the primary when we chose Ned Lamont to be our candidate. Joe wouldn't take that laying down and he jumped parties to run as an independent, thus getting elected on the Republican vote and the votes of those who had known him for years here and who either weren't paying attention or who thought that he would come to his senses.

Those kids didn't understand that on key issues Joe was not for them and that they were actually working against their own interests. But that was another Rovian tactic that seemed to work well when used in many different cases. Many of them were very young and in no position to represent one candidate over another, but cash talks, and when a small amount wasn't enough the ante was upped.

Well, we would soon come to find that the way the campaign was paying out for these services was incorrect and illegal. But for Joe, who is still seated on his committees and who was welcomed back with open arms and a standing-O by his coworkers in the senate, even after he lied to his supposedconstituents , dumped his party, and let us know in no uncertain terms that he knew better than we did what was best for our state, this was a non-starter. Therules don't apply to guys like Joe; that's the old Bushism that was not only shot down, but smeared into a paste and is now being washed down the same sinkhole that it slithered out of so many years ago; before Reagan, before Nixon...back, back, back to the barons of power who set the stage for the wealthy to maintain their prominence by creating a permanent underclass to fight our wars and tend our lawns, middle-class be damned!

Joe Lieberman has been sheltered by the media of this state and the country for no reason at all. He has been allowed to conduct the business of paying his fine in relative privacy, and in light of other investigations that are getting bold print treatment, he has been favored as always, by a system that protects its own. The end is near for Herr Lieberman and his little Hadassah, so they can return to the country club in Westport where he has been seen airing his furry little body in the pool. He can write his book and take a nice cushy job like Hadassah has. He has certainly represented the interests of big business and war in his years in office enough to deserve something with a corner office and a seven figure salary.

Meanwhile, is it really worth the small civil fine to persue this matter with Edwards? It depends on how serious the powers that be, in whats left of the old guard of the federal government, want him silenced for the long term. However long, it wont be forever, because regardless of bad personal choices, which are just that, personal, the message of the two Americas still rings true, and as much as a watered down Obama will try to address the poverty issue, he is not a bulldog on this issue like Edwards is. So, we will see what happens, and just when you think that hes gone for good, like our friend Elliot Spitzer (who in polling today was overwhelmingly preferred over Patterson as Governor of NY...in fact they want him back!) the second act will arrive.

c/p Brilliant at Breakfast

McCain Boldly Breaks the Law. Are We Just Gonna Let Him? Take Action Here!

John McCain has broken the campaign finance laws by accepting public financing, which comes with a spending limit, and then going over the limit. This is not just unfair advantage, its illegal.
The taxpayer funding was good enough for McCain when he needed it, but recently, when he felt that he could raise more money than the limit, he sent a letter pulling out of the deal. Well, the letter would have to be processed and accepted by the Federal Election Commission and that has not happened yet. So, every bit of money that he goes over the limit, breaks the law.

Considering that this is the most publicized election in a long time, maybe forever, and considering that the entire world is looking at us, including our own country and our children, how can McCain expect to openly break the law without some sort of repercussions. A huge problem that we have in American diplomacy and in American attitude in general, is this feeling that the law doesn't apply equally. We used to have the legal system that other countries would pattern themselves after. We used to be able to be proud of our leadership role in the world. Now we have endless politicians involved in scandals and jails filled to capacity. Worse than that, we are reviled the world over for our lies and deceit. The world is watching this election, and our children will be studying this in school for years to come. What is the answer?

We've been through 7+ years of an administration that shows no respect for the law and makes no bones about their contempt for any institution that might question their pure authority. America is built on laws, and this is one fairness law that has not been thrown out...yet...
We cannot afford another 4 or 8 years of unlawful leadership. We cannot afford to erode our society any further at the hands of another old man who thinks that he knows whats right, and that set of rules seems to apply differently to him than to the rest of us.

Lets let John McCain know that we are not going to consider him to be an extension of the outlaw Bush regime, that he is not above the law, and that he may be able to buy the press with his barbecue and fake swagger, but the American people have had enough.

Daily Kos and FiredogLake have pulled together a group of bloggers and concerned citizens to launch a complaint to the Federal Election Commission, against McCain, and they are collecting signatures here.
If you haven't yet signed the petition, please do and please forward it on to everyone yourl address book...they have had an enormous response in a short amount of time, but they need more. Every voice is important and now is the time to use yours. We cant let one bit of disregard for the American people's laws past us again. It us up to us to take a stand, because its been proven again and again that the system, taken apart as it is, will not work without concerned people powering it.

John McCain is going to have to answer for this flagrant disregard of the law...let's get to it!

Edwards, Obama, Clinton, Lobbyists, and Campaign Reform...Money Talks... But Who is it Speaking For?

Digitotalitarians Unite!!



Here we go again.
Welcome Home!



Lets get one thing straight; No money is clean. I'm sure that the headlines about Edwards and Obama accepting donations from large corporations, and whatever the earth shattering revelations are in this world of overly literal campaigns and an undereducated populace that can only take in information in sound byte form, are interesting, but the fact, until there are actual facts that mean something, seems to be that this is a concocted line of what-ifs and maybes that don't add up to much.

We are frozen. Its as if, in this political atmosphere, no one should deviate from their position of 6 years ago, and no one should grow and change at all. I'm afraid of anyone who has learned nothing during this administration, much less the Bill Clinton Administration! But, besides the Rove instilled fear of the awe inspiring "flip-flop," I don't even see that as the issue here.
What I see happening is some form of desperate extrapolation to comb through every donation to try to connect it to some lobbyist...or the corporations that they represent.

We're all wading in the same pool here, folks, in that we could all be lobbyists, if you're gonna count the individual lawyer donations as a lump and the people who work for drug companies as a lump. Isn't that so many apples and oranges until every lawyer that has given cash to Edwards gets together and hires some guy to hand the money over in the interest of an issue or a set of issues? Then couldn't all individual blogger donations or Mom donations to Obama or Edwards also be called special interest contributions? Don't we all have special interests in whatever our pet issues are? So, where do you draw the line in tracing this stuff and who decides when a lobby is a lobby if its not formal? Its surely a slippery slope and I doubt that any candidate wants to have to pick apart every donation that comes in before there is some meaningful reform of campaign financing and lobbying, but isn't it safe to say that these lobby's are only formal if they are in fact formalized?.
But the wider message seems to me to be that Obama and Edwards don't want to accept donations from the overt lobbying population that has grown into a monster, and that Clinton is, as usual, carefully parsing her words to be sure to be so inclusive as to recognize that every lobby firm and every large corporation employs Americans. Now, that would be meaningful if deregulation had not allowed the top management and CEO culture to raid logical business structure, and suck all the money upwards....I don't believe that a Phillip Morris Lobby represents the guys who run the factory machines, and certainly not the pickers; probably not even the secretaries or administrators. So, when she says that she is supporting all Americans with her take on the lobby issue, she is saying that she supports the top tier of earners, because without corporate regulation back in place, there is no worker lobby of much substance out there....and certainly there is not a Phillip Morris Lobby that includes a Phillip Morris worker's lobby, representing the fact that the little guys will lose their jobs if big tobacco is hurt...This is all about corporations pushing their agendas forward so that the top guys can get really rich, really quick before the rules change again. And its clear to any of us in the real world out here that the agendas of large corporations largely do not represent the working people of America.
See, the bigger idea here doesn't have much to do with some donation that slipped past or some gotcha that Matt Drudge is looking for. its about the big picture and the desire to change things fundamentally. To assume that this stuff might effect you positively, beyond the fact that you may get killed by some drug or law that has been pushed through to your detriment, is fantasy and as likely as winning the lottery and having to deal with the "death tax" or a windfall tax. No, the conversation that Clinton is having that includes all Americans means all rich Americans, because this lobbying stuff is what goes on behind closed doors in the halls of power. To call it out is to open those doors and let some air in...and if that means that someone is out there looking through every contribution record to the Obama and Edwards campaigns, then so be it.

Lets try tying the fortunes of the top tier of corporate America to the fortunes of the bottom tier, and then revisit what the lobby is. How 'bout everyone gets a raise and that the big guys pay windfall taxes out the wazoo into funds set up for those who have lost their jobs due to technological advances that have allowed those windfalls? Don't get me started on outsourcing! How 'bout tying worker happiness and ability to achieve the American dream to how much a CEO can take home?...These guys will still surely get rich, but just not as rich...At some point its all just so much zeros on a statement anyway, isn't it?

Its a pretty bold move for Edwards and Obama to keep hammering this point, because surely it puts up the red flag to all the diggers out there to get to work to find the one bad contribution or person that works on a campaign who used to be a lobbyist...but, its an issue that needs to be addressed and I'm happy that its coming up. I'm also glad that we get a glimpse into the real Clinton, because her non-answers are rather frightening and it almost as if one tiny crack might let a ton of sludge loose that will not only be bad for the party, but dangerous for America.

I'm not perfect..OK, if you must know, I went to Wal-Mart some months ago and I bought some chinos for the kids that were probably made in China. I drive a Jeep that guzzles more gas than it should. I use air conditioning...hell, I love air conditioning! There are reasons for these things but I am not going to make excuses or go on about my carbon offsets. As I go along in life, I can certainly say that I've modified and changed and I am going to continue to do so. I need and want the tools to do that with, like a real hybrid truck that can get up my driveway in the winter. I expect that of anyone who is growing up in this life, and I certainly expect it of our leaders. We need the tools to make real choices and sacrifices, and we need leaders who aren't afraid to offer them. The deregulation thing has not worked out...lets just face it, change it, and move on.
And try really hard to look at who is profiting from these issues and leaving them as they stand. The hardest thing is probably to look at our own lives and to realize that some of the maintenance of the status quo by us is built on the fantasy that we might one day be in the class of the same people who benefit from these things.

Which brings me back to education. If we don't educate our kids, and ourselves, to think critically, make decisions, have ethics and morals, then how can we expect anything to get done?
What ever happened to that line of education? I think its gone in a haze of political correctness and some crazy tie-in between those things and religious upbringing. This idea is not true and doesn't fly. If we are so caught in political correctness that we cant even look to the past and talk about what was wrong or right with the way things went, then we are a country of sheep being groomed to be the rabble, while the elite get whats theirs.
No kid should leave the American school system without some critical real-life skills, decision making, and an idea of how great minds thought throughout history, and how the same is not only possible for them but expected of them!! Without that the American dream is dead and we might as well just prepare for the rapture.(...not!)