The corrupt Ohio Republicans are starting to give him the Swift Boat treatment.
What they think of Vets:
You can help out here.
Monday, July 25, 2005
On the Radio
Paul Hackett will be on the Majority Report at about 7:50 tonight.
The corrupt Ohio Republicans are starting to give him the Swift Boat treatment.
What they think of Vets:
You can help out here.
The corrupt Ohio Republicans are starting to give him the Swift Boat treatment.
What they think of Vets:
You can help out here.
Housing
Dean Baker discusses the potential housing bubble, and provides on clean fact I'd been wondering about (along with others):
It seems that price increases are slowing if not stopping in a lot of places, and that's without any uptick in mortgage rates.
Over 2 million housing units are being built annually, while the number of households is only growing by 1.4 million a year.
It seems that price increases are slowing if not stopping in a lot of places, and that's without any uptick in mortgage rates.
OH-02
Chris Bowers has a good update about the Hackett race. Short version - his opponent is almost broke while Hackett's got cash to spare.
This is an uphill battle - it is a Republican district - but clearly we're making them nervous. It's more proof of concept that the grassroots on the ground and the netroots can accomplish a lot. The sudden surprise injection of $150K or so in cash into a race like this is a big thing.
Something to keep in mind...
This is an uphill battle - it is a Republican district - but clearly we're making them nervous. It's more proof of concept that the grassroots on the ground and the netroots can accomplish a lot. The sudden surprise injection of $150K or so in cash into a race like this is a big thing.
Something to keep in mind...
Coingate
The neverending story.
Law firms reaped bounty in Noe case
$12,000 paid out from coin funds
By JOSHUA BOAK
BLADE STAFF WRITER
COLUMBUS - Law firms reaped thousands of dollars in fees from the state's $50 million rare coin investment with Tom Noe, raising questions about how the coin funds were managed and whether they served as Mr. Noe's personal account.
Facing criminal and civil action by state and federal authorities, Mr. Noe used money from the state coin funds he managed to pay more than $12,000 to law firms during 2004 and 2005, according to records released by the attorney general's office last week.
Attorney General Jim Petro said last week that Mr. Noe transferred nearly $4 million from the coin funds to private accounts, alleging that the money was spent on luxury vacation homes, automobiles, and boats.
As the state inspector general began to investigate the Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation's coin funds in April, Mr. Noe hired the same lawyer responsible for vetting the bureau's investments and paid him from the state coin fund's checking account.
"They used the injured workers' dollars to defend the state and Tom Noe," said state Rep. Chris Redfern (D., Catawba Island), the House minority leader. "And he probably filed briefs from houses bought with BWC money."
Hackett
8 days until the special election. TAP has some info:
[let me just add here that I don't think it's really appropriate to credit Dean either way for what the DCCC does. The DNC, DSCC, and DCCC are independent organizations.]
8 more days...
Now Hackett’s opponent, former state Representative Jean Schmidt, has been snared in a scandal of her own. On July 8, The Columbus Dispatch reported that Schmidt improperly failed to disclose that a biotech lobbyist treated her last fall to a lavish dinner and skybox seats at a Cincinnati Bengals game.
“We’ve got a real opportunity here,” Burke says. “Even if we lose, you at least are getting a great candidate out there talking the Democratic Party position on things like Iraq and Social Security and health care.”
The DCCC’s failure to support Hackett until late in the race raises questions about party Chairman Howard Dean’s promise to start competing in Republican strongholds. Will the Democrats start taking chances in red-state redoubts like the 2nd? Or will they remain a risk-averse party that falls ever further into minority status?
[let me just add here that I don't think it's really appropriate to credit Dean either way for what the DCCC does. The DNC, DSCC, and DCCC are independent organizations.]
“This race is a long shot,” admits Brewster Rhoads, a Cincinnati-based political consultant. “But the payoff is potentially huge. If Hackett does well, it shows that the Bush bandwagon is losing its wheels even on Republican turf.”
...
On economic issues, Hackett is solidly progressive. The corporate-friendly bankruptcy bill, which passed the House with a fair number of Democratic votes, Hackett calls “garbage.” And he’s appalled that Democrats have let the GOP define the debate on the “death tax.” “We should call it the ‘anti-aristocracy tax,’” he insists.
On questions of values, Hackett’s libertarian tendencies take over. “When I elect someone to go to Washington, D.C.,” he says, “I don’t elect a spiritual leader. I get that from my minister on Sundays when I go to church. Congress isn’t invited into my personal life; they’re not invited into the decisions my wife makes with her doctor any more than they’re invited in to check out what guns I’ve got in my gun cabinet.”
...
Ultimately, the best case for taking a risk on Hackett may come from Dean himself. In a recent Washington Post profile, Dean said of long-shot races, “If you lose, so what? It’s worth the investment if we can have somebody there who gives the message, who’s articulate and … respectful of the voters, because they’ll get a better impression of Democrats than they would otherwise.”
8 more days...
Rick Kaplan, Genius
Genius if his goal is to lose all his viewers:
Tucker Carlson? Appeal to 18-30 year old men?
Propeller-necked pundit Tucker Carlson may have found a platform for his towel-snapping brand of conservatism on MSNBC’s The Situation, but industry insiders are predicting a dim future for the critically-lambasted show. Positioned dead last in prime-time cable news ratings, the political rant-fest has been a disappointment from day one, sources say—a sentiment echoed by New York Times’ TV critic Alessandra Stanley, who last month suggested MSNBC pull the plug on the crapulent show and “end the misery.”
According to a network source, the 36-year-old motormouth landed the job after promising MSNBC he could deliver raucous debates with high-profile guests like Jon Stewart—who famously called Carlson a “dick” on Crossfire and accused him of “hurting America”—but that the debates have yet to materialize.
“The incident with Jon Stewart made Tucker a household name, and MSNBC thought they could parlay that into a show that would appeal to 18-30 year old men,” says our source. “The problem is, most 18-30 year old men are watching baseball or Sports Center at 9 p.m., and Tucker has yet to have one interesting person on his show.” (Instead, he’s been reduced to relying on fellow MSNBC commentators like Monica Crowley and Dan Abrams to fill the gaps in his guest list, the source notes.)
But Carlson, who snagged a high six-figure salary and stock options from MSNBC after being booted from CNN, is still sitting pretty. “For some reason the higher-ups keep kissing his ass, even though the show was DOA the week it premiered,” the source gripes. A spokesman for Carlson’s show did not return calls for comment by press time.
Tucker Carlson? Appeal to 18-30 year old men?
I Wonder Who This Was?
And did he wear plaid pants?
Amid the political hullabaloo surrounding white-bread Supreme Court nominee John Roberts, gay activist Michelangelo Signorile remembers a much more colorful candidate.
"There was a contender for the federal judiciary in the George W. Bush administration who I began receiving information ... about him making sexual advances on men in gyms in Washington and other cities," Signorile told us Friday. Immediately after sex, "he would ... go into a religious tirade and then tell them how morally wrong all this was. His record was really conservative."
Signorile, whose collection of essays, "Hitting Hard," is out next month from Carroll & Graf, outed Malcolm Forbes not long after the billionaire died in 1990. He now writes for www.signorile.com and has a show on Sirius Satellite Radio.
Having heard the stories about the would-be federal judge, the writer made a few calls to the White House.
"They said they'd have someone call me back, and they didn't," Signorile laughed.
"The upshot of it was, this person was just quietly no longer a contender!"
The Sgt. Schultz Party
Roberts is a made man whether or not he ever was part of the Federalist Society. Now we know he was an active member once but he just can't remember.
When they feel the need to lie about the little things (besides, wouldn't "Yeah, I was with them briefly but I didn't really fit in" been more effective?) we know they have no problem lying about the big ones...
When they feel the need to lie about the little things (besides, wouldn't "Yeah, I was with them briefly but I didn't really fit in" been more effective?) we know they have no problem lying about the big ones...
Sunday, July 24, 2005
Groundhog Day
The people in charge need to learn Bill Murray's lesson. Changing how you seem to be accomplishes nothing, changing what you are might.
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