A rule or code that prohibits speaking or divulging information about certain activities, especially the activities of a criminal organization.
GOP Draws Internal Battle Lines Around Sarah PalinSince the very beginning, the lords and ladies of the Pig People at the top of the Money Party pyramid have recognized one and only one cardinal value.
Jason Linkins
October 27, 2008 04:19 PM
With the GOP looking more and more set to fracture as the possibility of electoral defeat looms, the cannibals' knives are out. Consider this quote, via Yglesias:
Jim Nuzzo, a White House aide to the first President Bush, dismissed Mrs Palin's critics as "cocktail party conservatives" who "give aid and comfort to the enemy".
He told The Sunday Telegraph: "There's going to be a bloodbath. A lot of people are going to be excommunicated. David Brooks and David Frum and Peggy Noonan are dead people in the Republican Party. The litmus test will be: where did you stand on Palin?"Hold it now. They're serious about going all in with the Palin loyalty test? Uhm...apparently so! Nuzzo adds:
He said: "Win or lose, there is a ready made conservative candidate waiting in the wings. Sarah Palin is not the new Iain Duncan Smith, she is the new Ronald Reagan."Yowee. So, for the sake of Sarah Palin -- who many conservatives correctly assessed as the candidate-born-yesterday -- a whole slew of Republicans-in-good-standing are going to be thrown under the bus? That's a serious civil war, or rather, a war betwixt the Serious and the Un-Serious. Keep in mind that Palin's critics are not marginal figures in the conservative movement. We're talking the aforementioned Brooks and Noonan and Frum, and we're adding Christopher Buckley, George Will, Kathleen Parker, Colin Powell, Charles Krauthammer, Matthew Dowd, and for the sake of argument, we'll throw in Chuck Hagel, Andrew Sullivan, and Christopher Hitchens, even though I hesitate to pin any of them to any sort of doctrinaire conservative group.
This is, indeed, a "bloodbath," and for what? A distinctly semi-pro Alaskan governor who's more or less made the charisma-free Tim Pawlenty look like What Could Have Been?
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After a second unsuccessful bid for the Senate in 1970, Bush served as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations (1971–72) and in 1972 was named chairman of the Republican National Committee by President Richard M. Nixon. He traveled the country for 20 months defending Nixon and the GOP against the widening Watergate scandal, which brought the president close to impeachment. Staunchly loyal almost to the end, Bush urged Nixon to step down on Aug. 7, 1974.
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Envoy to ChinaThe loyalty litmus test is why GOP Brain Caste has stopped worrying about this election. Instead, they’re making up their “Naughty” and “Nice” lists, sharpening their blades for a Night of the Long Knives, and stacking the deck for the next election. Spinning a tangle of lies around ACORN and building the narrative that 2008 was stolen by dirty Liberals and their scary Negro henchmen.
Gerald Ford, Nixon's successor, appointed Bush to be Chief of the US Liaison Office in the People's Republic of China. Since the United States at the time maintained official relations with the Republic of China on Taiwan and not the People's Republic of China, the Liaison Office did not have the official status of an embassy and Bush did not formally hold the position of "ambassador", though he unofficially acted as one. The time that he spent in China—14 months—were seen as largely beneficial for US-Chinese relations.
Director of Central Intelligence
In 1976, Ford brought Bush back to Washington to become Director of Central Intelligence. He served in this role for 355 days, from January 30, 1976 to January 20, 1977.
With the prospect of a bone-crushing election defeat staring them full in the face, the diehard rump of the conservative movement is already busy fashioning a narrative to explain the dissolution of its world -- the one that Ronald Reagan built and that George W. Bush (with an assist from Wall Street) has thoroughly trashed.
And the emerging story line appears to be, roughly, that ACORN did it.
Given the underlying proclivities of the modern conservative movement (Sarah Palin division) we should have understood that sooner or later it would come to something as absurd as this. Failed authoritarian movements needs scapegoats the way fecal coliform bacteria need a steady supply of raw sewage, and this one has a lot of failures that need explaining.
The remarkable thing, of course, is the right's effort to make the ACORN boogie man do double duty: responsible not only for the looming "theft" of American democracy (per John McCain) but also for bringing the US and global financial system to its knees (per any number of conservative quacks economists and cranks pundits).
You have to admit: That's a damned impressive revolutionary track record for an obscure group of community organizers operating on a shoestring budget. I mean, who needs the Red Army when you've got ACORN and the Community Reinvestment Act?
It would be easy to dismiss this lunacy as a manifestation of what the social scientist Richard Hofstader called the "paranoid style" in American politics. And some liberals have already made the connection. As far as the grassroots hysterics are concerned(i.e. the sort of people who are obsessed with the kerning and font size on Barack Obama's "alleged" birth certificate) this is no doubt true.
But I think by now it's also very clear that the GOP high commmand -- as far back as the Twin Cities white power rally, if not before -- deliberately adopted the demonization of ACORN/community organizers/the poor as a proxy for the hatred that no longer dares to speak its real name (except at the occasional Sarah Palin rally).
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Gingrich Threatens Government Shutdown
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich "indicates his party is seriously considering another shutdown threat to force a vote on offshore oil drilling in September," CNN reports.
"The precise maneuvering of a shutdown threat is complicated, but it revolves around the fact that key government spending bills expire when the fiscal year ends September 30 and Congress must vote next month to keep the government operating."
Said Gingrich: "Are [Democrats] really prepared to close the government in order to stop drilling? Because I think the country will find that to be a suicidal strategy."
White House, Treasury press banks to use aid to lend more
WASHINGTON (AFP) — The White House and Treasury pressed banks Tuesday to use the US government's capital injections to boost lending instead of simply hoarding the cash.
"Banks exist to lend money -- that's how they make money," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said as the Treasury prepared to deliver the first round of infusions of a 250-billion-dollar recapitalization plan.
"So we think that one of the things that we have to do is help recapitalize them so that they have a capital base, so that they are willing to lend money."
Perino said the government cannot force the banks to lend money but pointed out that "the banks are regulated by the Treasury Department ... they have every incentive to move forward and start using this money."
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Top McCain Aides: 'Palin Simply Knew Nothing About National And International Issues'
Nicholas Graham October 28, 2008
The McCain campaign continues to snipe at each other over the handling, and subsequent effect, of Sarah Palin on the campaign trail. According Nicole Wallace, a senior McCain aide who is one of Palin's handlers and helped to orchestrate her initial rollout, there is an 'organized campaign to lay blame' for things at her feet. Robert Draper, however, offers a defense of Wallace, saying she's kept quiet about things that a couple of McCain higher-ups have leaked to him, and that Wallace was in a very unenviable position:I'm sympathetic to Eskew and Wallace, and not just because they're decent people. They've held their tongue from leaking what a couple of McCain higher-ups have told me--namely, that Palin simply knew nothing about national and international issues. Which meant, as one such adviser said to me: "Letting Sarah be Sarah may not be such a good thing." It's a grim binary choice, but apparently it came down to whether to make Palin look like a scripted robot or an unscripted ignoramus.
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Those he commands move only in command,
Nothing in love: now does he feel his title
Hang loose about him, like a giant's robe
Upon a dwarfish thief.--MacBeth, Act V, scene II
When shall we three meet again?Second Witch:
In thunder, lightning, or in rain?
When the hurlyburly's done,Third Witch:
When the battle's lost and won.
That will be ere the set of sun.First Witch:
Fuck you, Joe!Third Witch:
You promised you'd pick me!First Witch:
So you wanna do this right now?Third Witch:
You told me a hundred times. "Joe," you said, "you are my chosen people!"First Witch:
I explained that to you. I needed the Base. They needed a chew-toy with tits. I thought you people understood simple fucking arithmetic.Third Witch:
You take that back!First Witch:
Jesus Christ...Third Witch:
Sure, throw that in my face.Second Witch:
Stopit!Stopit!Stopit! (bursts into tears)Third Witch:
Now see what you did.First Witch:
Me?Third Witch:
I'm never gonna be Secretary of anything.First Witch:
What do you have to bitch about? I'm the one who's gonna be the Republican Max Schmeling until the end of time.
“Real Conservatives”
Bush: 'Our Long National Nightmare Of Peace And Prosperity Is Finally Over'
January 17, 2001 | Issue 37•01
President-elect Bush vows that "together, we can put the triumphs of the recent past behind us."
"My fellow Americans," Bush said, "at long last, we have reached the end of the dark period in American history that will come to be known as the Clinton Era, eight long years characterized by unprecedented economic expansion, a sharp decrease in crime, and sustained peace overseas. The time has come to put all of that behind us."
Bush swore to do "everything in [his] power" to undo the damage wrought by Clinton's two terms in office, including selling off the national parks to developers, going into massive debt to develop expensive and impractical weapons technologies, and passing sweeping budget cuts that drive the mentally ill out of hospitals and onto the street.
During the 40-minute speech, Bush also promised to bring an end to the severe war drought that plagued the nation under Clinton, assuring citizens that the U.S. will engage in at least one Gulf War-level armed conflict in the next four years.
"You better believe we're going to mix it up with somebody at some point during my administration," said Bush, who plans a 250 percent boost in military spending. "Unlike my predecessor, I am fully committed to putting soldiers in battle situations. Otherwise, what is the point of even having a military?"
On the economic side, Bush vowed to bring back economic stagnation by implementing substantial tax cuts, which would lead to a recession, which would necessitate a tax hike, which would lead to a drop in consumer spending, which would lead to layoffs, which would deepen the recession even further.
Wall Street responded strongly to the Bush speech, with the Dow Jones industrial fluctuating wildly before closing at an 18-month low. The NASDAQ composite index, rattled by a gloomy outlook for tech stocks in 2001, also fell sharply, losing 4.4 percent of its total value between 3 p.m. and the closing bell.
Asked for comment about the cooling technology sector, Bush said: "That's hardly my area of expertise."
Turning to the subject of the environment, Bush said he will do whatever it takes to undo the tremendous damage not done by the Clinton Administration to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. He assured citizens that he will follow through on his campaign promise to open the 1.5 million acre refuge's coastal plain to oil drilling. As a sign of his commitment to bringing about a change in the environment, he pointed to his choice of Gale Norton for Secretary of the Interior. Norton, Bush noted, has "extensive experience" fighting environmental causes, working as a lobbyist for lead-paint manufacturers and as an attorney for loggers and miners, in addition to suing the EPA to overturn clean-air standards.
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"Finally, the horrific misrule of the Democrats has been brought to a close," House Majority Leader Dennis Hastert (R-IL) told reporters. "Under Bush, we can all look forward to military aggression, deregulation of dangerous, greedy industries, and the defunding of vital domestic social-service programs upon which millions depend. Mercifully, we can now say goodbye to the awful nightmare that was Clinton's America."
"For years, I tirelessly preached the message that Clinton must be stopped," conservative talk-radio host Rush Limbaugh said. "And yet, in 1996, the American public failed to heed my urgent warnings, re-electing Clinton despite the fact that the nation was prosperous and at peace under his regime. But now, thank God, that's all done with. Once again, we will enjoy mounting debt, jingoism, nuclear paranoia, mass deficit, and a massive military build-up."
An overwhelming 49.9 percent of Americans responded enthusiastically to the Bush speech.
"After eight years of relatively sane fiscal policy under the Democrats, we have reached a point where, just a few weeks ago, President Clinton said that the national debt could be paid off by as early as 2012," Rahway, NJ, machinist and father of three Bud Crandall said. "That's not the kind of world I want my children to grow up in."
"You have no idea what it's like to be black and enfranchised," said Marlon Hastings, one of thousands of Miami-Dade County residents whose votes were not counted in the 2000 presidential election. "George W. Bush understands the pain of enfranchisement, and ever since Election Day, he has fought tirelessly to make sure it never happens to my people again."
Bush concluded his speech on a note of healing and redemption.
"We as a people must stand united, banding together to tear this nation in two," Bush said. "Much work lies ahead of us: The gap between the rich and the poor may be wide, be there's much more widening left to do. We must squander our nation's hard-won budget surplus on tax breaks for the wealthiest 15 percent. And, on the foreign front, we must find an enemy and defeat it."
"The insanity is over," Bush said. "After a long, dark night of peace and stability, the sun is finally rising again over America. We look forward to a bright new dawn not seen since the glory days of my dad."
In the Age of a Dumbass Dauphin and a cowed media, only the court jesters dared to speak the truth.
'B'-grade hoax reveals the GOP's inner race-baiter
By David Neiwert Friday Oct 24, 2008 6:30pm
Fox exec John Moody has it precisely right: the "Obama fan attacked McCain worker" hoax in fact does "forever link" the McCain campaign to race-baiting.
However, it's not just McCain. The entire Republican Party this year has been revealed as the Party of Racial Fear. Nor is it anything new: Republicans for years have tried to make hay off of racially incendiary cases that turn out to tell us more about the motives and worldviews of the torch-bearing mob than anything they might be chanting.
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And what's left of the right has become so shrill, so theologically rigid, so culturally afraid that they have become a shell of what self-confident, future-oriented conservatives should be. The right will recover from Bush. But Rove has succeeded beyond measure in creating a durable majority: for the Democrats."
One day we will have to explain to the children what happened when Thurston Howell III lost his right mind and decided that for the sake of some tax cuts to make him incrementally more comfortable, his very bestest buddies in the whole, wide world were the Ultra Right Wing Gorgons down in Jesusland.
May I suggest the following?The Story of Little Red State Fundy
Little Red State Fundy found a grain of hate.
"Who will help me plant the hate?" she asked.
"Not I," said the Moderate Republicans.
"Not I," said the Undecideds.
"Not I," said the Libertarians.
"Then I will," said Little Red State Fundy.
So she buried the hate in the bloody ground of the Old Confederacy. After a while it grew up paranoid and ignorant and violent.
"The hate is ripe now," said Little Red State Fundy. "Who will do the mass mailings and preach bigotry from the Pulpit?"
"Not I," said the Moderate Republicans.
"Not I," said the Undecideds.
"Not I," said the Libertarians.
"Then I will," said Little Red State Fundy.
So she licked envelopes until her bill was cracked and dry and stood up into the House of God and crowed to her flocks in their millions that God Loved Them for hating and killing creatures who were not like them.
Then she asked, "Who will help me focus this hatred politically?"
"Not I," said the Moderate Republicans.
"Not I," said the Undecideds.
"Not I," said the Libertarians.
"Then I will," said Little Red State Fundy.
So she made databases and phone banks, and walked door-to-door with petitions that talked of Gods Great Hatred of Gays, and Gods Great Hatred of Judges that did not worship the Hate God in exactly the way the Little Red State Fundy told them to.
Then she carried the hate to steps of the Congress and the White House.
"Who will make a mandate from this hate?" she asked.
"Not I," said the Moderate Republicans.
"Not I," said the Undecideds.
"Not I," said the Libertarians.
"Then I will," said Little Red State Fundy.
So she got on the phone with her very good friend Karl Rove and with his help organized carpools to the polls, and get-out-the-vote drives, anti-gay marriage amendments and smear campaigns. For Jesus.
And Little Red State Fundy delivered the margin of victory and was featured in many, many magazines: without Little Red State Fundy, the Republican Party could never, ever, ever win anything.
And now everybody knew it.
Then she said, "Now who shall help me Rule the Earth."
"We will!" said Moderate Republicans, Undecideds, and Libertarians.
"I am quite sure you would," said Little Red State Fundy, "but see, now you are all my bitches."
Then she called Randall Terry and Tom DeLay and Ann Coulter and Jerry Falwell and Rush Limbaugh and James Dobson, and they and the rest of the Shining Path Republicans used what was left of the Constitution as ass-floss.
And judges were terrorized into silence.
And those deemed ungodly were beaten in the streets.
And they invaded whoever the fuck they felt like, for whatever fucking reason they chose.
And the very idea of a Free and Fair press died.
And to people who had been very clear all along that they genuinely believed in a Theocratic Nanny State and thought that precipitating Armageddon and triggering the Second Coming should be the highest calling of any worldly government, were handed over the police, courts, government, treasury and nuclear weapons stockpiles of the United States of America.
And in the end -- just as they had been warned for the past twenty years -- there was nothing whatsoever left at all for Moderate Republicans, Undecideds, and Libertarians.
Obama's Election Night: Grant Park
Posted October 21, 2008 12:26 PM
The Swamp
by John McCormick
Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign will hold what it hopes will be an Election Night celebration in Grant Park in Chicago, a campaign aide confirmed this morning.
The large public space between the Loop and lakeshore also hosted a papal visit in 1979 and a Chicago Bulls NBA championship celebration in 1991. It more routinely host open-air concerts, sporting events and the Taste of Chicago.
The Obama aide said logistical details such as whether attendees will need to register online or obtain a ticket in advance are still being worked out and will be announced in the coming days.
The Obama event is expected to take place on the south end of the park in an area known as Hutchison Field.
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Sunday, October 19, 2008“Until eight years ago…”?
Will the Republican Party Survive--And Does Anybody Care Anymore?
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After hearing Powell, I immediately switched over to Fox News in time to get their reaction which was entirely critical and dismissive of Powell. One "analyst" speculated this was Powell's way of getting even with McCain for not selecting Powell to be his running mate. Another focused on how unfair it is for anyone to criticize McCain or his campaign since McCain is honest and righteous and Obama is so much worse. No one mentioned the merit or accuracy of Powell's statements. Later on MSNBC, Republican Pat Buchanan speculated that Powell picked Obama because he was just anxious to endorse a fellow Black guy.
Meanwhile, the Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, Hugh Hewitt, Michael Medved, Dennis Prager radio crowd has gone non-stop venal and ballistic over the airwaves this month. Their entire programs are filled with lies, distortions, and partial truths about Obama and his positions. He is freely and constantly called anti-American, a traitor, a socialist, a terrorist, a friend of terrorists, a liar, a thief, a criminal, and a "bloodsucker" who wants to take every hard-working citizen's money--all of it--and distribute it to his liberal, radical, good-for-nothing friends.
This is not just about politics or an election. This has become a Holy War with these guys. My longtime friend Dennis Prager told me last year that unless I had learned to loathe the Left, then I had learned nothing from him in the 20 years I have regarded him as a teacher. He recently wrote a column on townhall.com in which he explains the difference between people on the Left and people on the Right. Apparently being a pluralist or an independent--trying to learn from all people--is no longer an option.
This latest descent completes the utter destruction of the Republican party as a force for good in this country. Until eight years ago, Republicans had a deserved reputation for being more socially and fiscally conservative and responsible. When the party culture became infected with the Bush/Rove/Cheney virus, it began to morph into a divisive force that possessed none of those qualities.
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First Atwater came for Reagan's "welfare queens"Sorry Larry, but the 40 million of us who have spent a considerable fraction of our lives trying to warn people like you this day would come will never be the slightest bit interested in your outrage or your regrets until you start beginning every sentence with "I am so fucking sorry that I had my head up my ass for the last 30 years."
- but I was not a welfare queen so I did not speak out.
Then Gingrich came for the Liberals and the Unions,
- but I was taught to call everyone who disagreed with me a traitor, so I did not speak out.
Then Falwell and Robertson came for the gays,
- but gays are icky, so I did not speak out.
Then Limbaugh came for the Feminazis
- but strong, smart women terrify me, so I did not speak out.
And when they came for me, I had the fucking nerve to pretend to be Shocked!Shocked! that my Party was being run by degenerate lunatics.
“I don’t mind a parasite. I object to a cut-rate one.”
It's an interesting question: Why did the knuckle draggers hate Clinton so much? As Drifty points out, he was essentially a moderate Republican who did everything they could have possibly wanted. Whenever they screeched "Jump!" at him, his only response was to ask "How high?" And the hate wasn't faked, either; they truly despised him with a passion that can only be accurately described as psychotic, especially when you consider how demonstrably conservative the man was.
...Why they hated him was that his success did not ONLY benefit the right and those who are on the right's list of primary, mainline beneficiaries.
...over here, which is why you should really drop by and sit a spell when you can.)
America's sin-eating demands national blinders, rationalization skills straight out of Compton, copious quantities of alcohol, mind-boggling special effects, Jedi mind-trick suspension of critical thinking and K's Neuralizer flashy thing.
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THE STRUGGLE WITH NEWT GINGRICH
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[Newt] was very candid with me about his political objectives. And he, in turn, from time to time, would get in trouble with the right wing of his own caucus, because they said I could talk him into too much.
On the other hand, as I told you, when he did things like blaming every bad thing that happened in America on Democrats, the 1960s and all that I thought it was highly destructive.
How did it make you feel personally?
At some point, probably around 1996, I got to the point where I no longer had personal feelings about those things - like the Whitewater investigation and the travel office investigation. Newt was smart. He knew there was nothing in any of that stuff. It was all politics to him; it was about power.
But he really did believe that the object of politics was to destroy your opponent. He ran former Democratic House Speaker Jim Wright out of Congress on account of that. And he had an enormous amount of success. He won the Congress basically by having a take-no-prisoners, be-against-everything approach.
Didn't he tell you once on the phone that he was planning to lead a revolution against you?
He thought he was leading a revolution, and I was in the way. … He thought that he could create, for the rest of my presidency, almost a parliamentary system, where he'd be the prime minister and make the policy, and I'd be in charge of foreign policy, and he'd help me.
How'd you develop your strategy for dealing with Newt - waiting him out, then outflanking him?
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It's easier for the Republicans to be against everything than the Democrats, because people view us as the party of affirmative government. I believed in balancing the budget. I just didn't want to do it the way they wanted to.
What's the bottom line on Newt? If you were a historian, what would you say about Gingrich?
That he was immensely successful in consolidating the power of the Republican Party in its right wing and then winning the Congress, winning the historic struggle for Congress in 1994, by opposing me right down the line.
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REFLECTIONS ON IMPEACHMENT
In the history books, it will say, of course, that you were the second president ever to be impeached. How does that make you feel? Will it cloud your real accomplishments?
The history books will also record, I think, that both impeachments were wrong. And that's why they failed. And I'm just grateful that, unlike Andrew Johnson, I was less embittered by it, and I had more support, from the public and in the Congress, and so I was able to resume my duties and actually get a lot done for the American people in the aftermath.
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What do you think of Ken Starr now?
I think he did what he was hired to do.
You told me you never really met him and had no ill feelings.
I met him once, when he interviewed me. But he was hired to keep the inquiry going past the '96 election and to do whatever damage he could. That's why he was put in, and he did what they asked him to do.
What's your take on Representative Henry Hyde -who was supposed to be Mr. Reasonable, and then went and seemingly defied the will of the people after the '98 elections?
He did what he was hired to do, too. The right wing was in control of the Congress, and they thought they had paid in the 1998 elections when they nearly lost the House. They thought they had a free shot to put a hit on me, and so they did. I don't think it's complicated.
They stayed with their right wing, and they thought they would pay no price in 2000. They thought, whatever happened, it would all be over by then. They thought they could put a black mark on me in history, and that was really important to them. They were really angry they got beat, they were angry.
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Judith Miller Joins Fox News
Fox Says "She Has A Very Impressive Resume"
Huffington Post | October 20, 2008
The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz reports that disgraced New York Times reporter Judith Miller will be joining Fox News, in an announcement expected to be made today:
Fox News is expected to announce today the hiring of a new contributor, a veteran national security correspondent who has shared a Pulitzer Prize.
Miller will be an on-air analyst and will write for Fox's Web site. "She has a very impressive resume," says Senior Vice President John Moody. "We've all had stories that didn't come out exactly as we had hoped. It's certainly something she's going to be associated with for all time, and there's not much anyone can do about that, but we want to make use of the tremendous expertise she brings on a lot of other issues. . . . She has explained herself and she has nothing to apologize for."
“What we’re going to see, in short, is the Gingrich revolution in reverse and on steroids. There will be a big increase in spending and deficits. In normal times, moderates could have restrained the zeal on the left. In an economic crisis, not a chance. The over-reach is coming. The backlash is next.”
Bush dwarfs Democrats in fund raisingAnd this:
Friday, February 20, 2004 Posted: 3:07 PM EST (2007 GMT)
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The re-election campaign of President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney raised $12.8 million in January, far outpacing the amount raised by the top two Democratic presidential candidates, according to numbers released by campaign staffs.
Friday was the deadline for candidates' monthly fund-raising reports to the Federal Election Commission.
The Bush-Cheney '04 election campaign has raised $143.5 million since it began last May, said campaign press secretary Scott Stanzel.
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Final Analysis of Bush-Kerry Fundraising Shows Heavy Reliance on Small Number of People Who Bundle ContributionsWallace: Are you suggesting that there is something illegal or scandalous going on?
Special Interests With Large Stake in Federal Government Raised Enormous Sums for Bush, www.WhiteHouseForSale.org Analysis Shows
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The enormous sums bundled to boost the campaigns of President Bush and Sen. John Kerry accentuate the ability of well-financed special interests to dominate the financing of presidential campaigns and underscore the need for reform, according to an analysis Public Citizen released today.
Bush’s re-election campaign raised $262 million in the primary elections. At least 29 percent of the money Bush raised during the 2004 primaries – $76.5 million – came from only 548 bundlers, according to the analysis, available here. (Public Citizen estimates that this number is closer to 40 percent, based on news reports quoting many bundlers as having far exceeded the minimum they pledged to raise.)
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“Both side are always equally wrong about everything all the time.”Doesn’t matter the who or what. The when or how. Doesn’t matter who was driving the bus towards the cliff and who was waving the red flags, throwing their bodies in front of it, trying to make it stop. Doesn’t matter who was trying to douse the conflagration with hoses shredded by 20 year of Reaganism, and who was lobbing milk cartons full of jellied gasoline onto the bonfire.
