Even though Lieberman mouthpiece Tammy Sun claimed that today the campaign would produce the ledger it is required by federal election law to keep detailing petty cash expenditures that would account for the questionable $387,000, she just announced that they wouldn't be doing so — so one can presume that either a) they couldn't find it, b) it doesn't exist or c) it contains information that could prove damaging to Joe.
Over at the saddest excuse for a blog in existence, the incurious NYT once again accepts the Lieberman obfuscation that there is nothing fishy going on with a full one-eighth of all the Lieberman campaign's expenditures unaccounted for. In cash. Meanwhile, with slightly more integrity NYT public editor Byron Calame admists that their editorial content at the NYT is indeed influenced by the mau-mauing they get from right wingers. No shit, Byron.
Arianna looks at the call to arms that Republicans have made on behalf of No-Show Joe, and Matt Stoller demonstrates that Joe Lieberman is to Iraq what Richard Nixon was to Viet Nam.
Feel free to play connect the dots.
(photo Lindsey Beyerstein)
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Lamont
FDL and petty cash accountability!
Really shows what sort of world these guys are living in. 10 to 15 years wages for the common man is considered “petty cash”.
HotFlash @ 2
When I can call $387,000 “petty cash” with no questions asked, I’ll let Joe do it too.
Wow, that is quite the bombshell that Tammy Sun said they won’t be releasing the petty cash report. Did she said that they won’t release it today, or ever?
Regardless, I look forward to a spirited debate tonight. The state of Connecticut deserves a straight answer from Lieberman on this emerging scandal.
i’ll bet joe lieberman $387,000 that not one of those guys in the photo is a Democrat, that all of them are “Young Republicans”…….
Where’d my dojo go?
:-)
If that’s “petty” I’d love to see what the REAL cash looks like.
By the way, is it just me or do those Lieberman “volunteers” look like they’re one small step away from skinheads???
And now a word from Osama Bin Laden.
I’m GSD and I approve this message.
-GSD
*xyz @
5
Wouldn’t it be fun if Ned puts Joe on the spot about this tonight.
A campaign finance expert outside both campaigns tells us that while it is rather curious Mr. Lieberman has so much money listed in petty cash, it is probably not illegal.
Oh do tell! “A campaign finance expert” Name please? Money squabbles indeed! Kossack anyone?
Dr. Bong @
7
It’s right hiiiiiYAH!
Ah… multiple choice! A,B, or C? I’ll go with ‘C’. I always loved multi-choice, ’cause the answer is right there staring you in the face. I just really like tests, especially when I’m prepared and I know the answers.
Remember: Lieberman is “not a crook”. But unfortunately, we will have Joe, “to kick around”.
Who’s your daddy, LieberLads?
I’m sure Joe is busy planning the regime change in Iran.
*xyz @ 1
Senator Lamont.
On the multiple-guess, I choose b) it doesn’t exist. They really thought they didn’t have to keep track. What a poor excuse for a campaign.
Oklahoma kiddo @ 13
time to prepare a helicopter on the South Lawn
Bush:
OK we’ve been lyin to you stupid sheeple fodder units all along. Now tell me what the phuque you’re gonna do about it?
Read my lips, EVERYTHING those whacky liberals, bloggers and Deaniacs have said about me and my party are dead on. They had me pegged from the get go.
But I’m the Unitary Executive now and
I’m gonna protect you from now on. So y’all just shut the phuque up and no one will get hurt… unless I know about it.
Now go put food on your family.
Yikes! That is one scary photo!
I hope that Lamont doesn’t pick on this tonight- let him be the positive, shinning, hopeful voice that he is at heart.
The complaint is filed. Allow the system to go forward.
Don’t let it drop mind you. But let Ned be Ned. That is how he will win.
“A campaign finance expert outside both campaigns”
This doesn’t meet the NYTimes standards for granting anonymity to sources. I asked Ms. Medina on her “blog” if his initials were KR and if he was granted anonymity when speaking about White House election strategy.
We’ll see if my comment gets approved.
Sorry excuse for a “blog” indeed.
fahrender @ 6
Yeah & they look like the kind of guys in college that spend too much time “letting off steam,” going to the taning parlor and what have you (activities depend on culture of the school), that they’re always pissing the professor off. And they take classes like “rocks for jocks” and always get “A’s” because they have fraternity
cheat sheets and they offer one to you, but you don’t want to get that that friendly with them.
Those are Armani t-shirts.
Oklahoma kiddo @ 16
Agreed. Senator Lamont.
Those sign-holders in the picture look like they should be out volunteering for the military, nice healthy twenty-somethings that they apparently are.
I wonder what the guys from Duke’s Men’s LaCrosse team charged Lieberman4Lieberman.
Armani accepts petty cash?
MayDaze @ 17
Yeah, remember that (signature-gathering or not) RGJoe and Hadassah really expected to win the primary. So who’d be challenging this FEC report when it was revealed in October, Schlesinger?
Yet another reason for Alan to take the lead on the questioning tonight — RGJoe expected Alan’s campaign to be so weak that no media would pay attention to the
slush fundpetty cash entries.here’s hoping dirtbag joe looks like hedda nussbaum after tonight’s debate. slimy little prick.
…all depends on how one defines “friendly”
Oklahoma Kiddo – I saw your reply comment about MN 6th and my post about Kos’ front pager on Bachmann’s church believing that Catholics worship the devil, and if I may, reply now.
You asked will Bachmann Lose? she is behind right now after Patty came out swining right after the Foley mess. But the republicans have ploughed alot of money into MN6th and Patty is getting pounded pretty hard. She is responding though, not letting the negatives ads build up without any response. Good for her. I think Patty just might pull this off, but nothing is certain in this area. But this latest will certainly not be helping Bachmann, if people hear about it.
Colleen Rawley running in a second MN district I believe is now being helped by fundraising by C&L I think. Colleen is behind by about 5 points. Again, the republicans really want to keep those 2 House seats and are pouring money in. If Patty gets way ahead, they will shift over to further pounding Colleen.
Here’s hoping. I have switching my donations over to Colleen.
Wow, the Times isn’t even pretending it gives a fuck anymore, isn’t it?
Where’d the dough go Joe?
No accountablity? Missing cash?
What more proof do you want that Joe is a . . . Republican?
(Coming out of the closet soon!)
GSD @ 9
That photo cracked me up…
If Skillings got 24, Cheney gets 48, and
Joe gets 6 months, and a one way ticket to the Repugs for a pol to be named later, way later…
Jack
My understanding is that Lieberman’s son is helping to protect America. He’s gone to Israel to study. I think I saw that here, sometime back. Or did I dream it?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…..#038;eurl=
Swan / Jepsen Press Conference on $387,000
“I don’t know if Schlesinger would even raise this amount of money in the general election”
A must watch if you haven’t already!!! Swan is great. Never seen a pix of him w/o the baseball hat!
“Rush Limbaugh attacks Michael J. Fox: ” …he was either off the medication or he was acting. He is an actor, after all.”
http://www.crooksandliars.com/
Tony Snow anounced today that W is no longer going to use “Stay the course” as they don’t believe that it reflects the dynamism of what they are doing in Iraq.
jinny @ 37
jinny (38), don’t you remember? W sez he has never used “Stay the course.” Course we know better.
Wow, ValleyGirl, thanks for the Swan presser link. He hit all the important points. Great job, Tom!
jinny @ 2:00pm (#37)
Yes, and as we all know, actors never say anything they actually believe unless they’re on their medication.
jinny @ 38
I believe you can use “clusterfuck” as a verb now.
jinny @ 38
Losing one’s way has a tendency to do that.
jinny @ 38
I’m so relieved. I’m hoping they’ll use “drive the bus into the ditch.” That’s dynamic, isn’t it? Can we have a contest?
Mad Dogs @ 44
The policy is now “advance to the rear”. Fully approved by closeted Republicans.
Michael J. Fox is an actor and Rush Limbaugh is a perverted drug addict with an inoperative weiner.
-GSD
Yes, well to the subject of this thread – $387k over 12 days, that’s $32.25k per day, according to my computer’s calculator thingy. That’s a lot of pizzas and cokes.
UPDATE: In fact, that’s 1,612 pizzas and drinks per day, assuming a pizza and four large sodas is about $20.
Thanks for the link, Jane!
*xyz @ 24
Now, if only the voters in Connecticut agree, we are all set!
Cujo359 @ 42
And Rush has a lot of experience with meds, he knows whereof he speaks…
Some have criticized Nancy Pelosi for ruling out impeachment. I think if the Democrats mount effective investigations into Republicans lies, corruption, and criminality this view may change. On this topic, I found this in Froomkin today:
As Froomkin notes via Talent Blog, the poll does not say what Mabry seems to think it means. 28 plus 23 or 51% (a majority) of those polled agree that impeachment should be some kind of a priority for Democrats.
I don’t think the journal exists either, although I suspect incompetence in Joe’s financial department. Joe really had to scramble to put together a campaign staff, as evidenced by his pathetic attempt at setting up a proper web site. Most people don’t know the first thing about proper accounting/bookkeeping procedures, so if whoever was keeping the books was told, “Just account for it as Petty Cash,” unless that person was a trained bookkeeper or accountant, s/he wouldn’t understand the fallacy of that type of entry. I hate to say it, but having dealt with quite a few different types of accountants over the years, I’m convinced that a clever accountant knows how to hide questionable transactions and would never account for huge cash payments the way Joe’s staff did. That’s why I don’t see a journal ever making an appearance either.
scarecrow @ 45
I thought it was more like “Look at that shiny thing…oh oh, jump, that’s a bus coming!”.
Libert, Illegalit, Fraternit (paying the boys at the Deke house to hold signs)!
such diversity in the frat boy pic
grayslady @ 54
Sounds about right… a real accountant knows how to do everything nice and tidy.
So, how’s Lieberman doing in the polls?
jinny @ 38
Chaos and confusion can both be quite dynamic processes but what you still have when all is said and done is chaos and confusion.
Cujo359 @ 48
Thanks Cujo. We may never find out where the $32,250/per day ultimately ended up, but I am confident Joe knows exactly who on his campaign staff last had control of those funds. That’s a lot of cash to dole out in increments of $100 or $150. That requires a lot of people.
OT, just left a comment for Jennifer Medina at the NYT’s blog. I wanted to know who her anonymous source was on campaign finance. Betcha that comment never gets published.
If Senator Lamont is in trouble, in the main, I might blame some Democrat heavy hitters.
FYI only:
Arianna says:
So the good news in the Connecticut Senate race is that the party is finally stepping up to the plate. Unfortunately, the news is good for Joe Lieberman, because the party that’s rising to the occasion is the GOP.
The question is: why aren’t the Democrats doing the same thing for Ned Lamont?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…..32249.html
OT, speaking of some nuclear powered stupid, the Pa. race just got weirder.
Republicans blaming a Democrat for starting the Iraq War? Quoi?
It’s like someone’s shaking the tree and all the stupid nuts are falling out. It’s fun watching the Republican party (and that includes Joe Embezzleman) short-circuit.
So, how’s Lieberman doing in the polls?
Down 17 points.
Off thread:
I’ve been making calls for the MyDD/MoveOn project, Use It or Lose, calling Democratic Senators and Representatives in safe districts, asking them to turn over 30% of campaign warchests to Democrats in highly-contested races, where the money can make a difference between a bare majority and a sizeable majority in the 110th Congress.
I was able to reach the campaigns of my own rep, Frank Pallone in NJ-06, and Rush Holt in NJ-12. Holt has actually done a fair bit [not 30%, more like 20%], and even brought in Murtha to campaign with Linda Stender, the progressive Dem running in NJ-07. My own rep is hoarding cash. He had hoped to be picked for Senate, but lost out to Menendez when the seat opened up, and now is holding onto the cash to make a run in 2008 when Lautenberg retires (again). Oh well, I’ll keep trying.
MayDaze @ 2:12 pm (#52)
This may explain Rush’s up is down, black is white view of the universe, but I wonder what excuse his listeners have. I used to have to listen to this guy when I worked in an office full of right-wingers. The illogic and outright falsehood that comes out of this guy’s mouth has to be heard to be believed. You’d have to be dumb as a sack of rocks to not catch him at it at least occasionally, and yet these people, most of whom were professionals, just lapped it up.
Jane — It’s good that the “slush fund” is a growing issue. I also hope that Joe’s corporate/lobbyist campaign contributions — which swamp the size of the slush fund — that are linked to the “bipartisan” approach Joe displayed on his votes (or no-shows) on the Energy bill, Bankruptcy bill, Drug bill/health insurance bill (and donut hole and without govt bargaining for lower prices) and war-profiteering companies could become an even greater scandal and campaign issue. It goes right to Joe’s integrity (like a slush fund) but also attacks his “experience” and claims about the virtues of “bipartisanship.”
Ned might not want to raise the slush fund issue himself tonight; but others will, and Joe will use it to criticize Ned for throwing mud without proof. This other issue is just as potent, IMO, and perhaps harder for Joe to defend.
Okay, I’ll grant the incompetent accountant argument. That means RGJoe can’t hire a competent accountant, can’t hire a competent spokesperson, can’t hire a winning primary campaign manager, can’t hire a competent campaign attorney, can’t hire a competent campaign treasurer, and can’t hire a competent webmaster.
It’s time for Nutmeggers to show this incompetent Senator the door labeled “UNEMPLOYMENT.”
All this “surrounding myself with incompetence” sure explains RGJoe’s love for BushCo, don’t it?
jinny @ 37
Someone on this blog is a seer..or Rush reads this blog, because the day the ad was released, one of the commenters put those very words out there and said that Rush would probably say them.
The last one is my favorite.
JC:
Betcha we never find out, John, although I asked as well. Karl won’t let the Times divulge him as a source. He’s learned the lesson Judy and Scooter taught him well.
TeddySanFran @ 2:21 pm (#67)
I’m not an account (IANAA?), but I’m pretty good at mathematics. To me, losing that much money in so short a time for legitimate reasons is inconceivable considering what the rules are. I think it’s fair to say that either Joe’s accounting staff consisted entirely of blind, deaf, and rabid idiots or there’s some explanation that doesn’t involve accounting incompetence.
Nothing against the blind, the deaf, or the rabid. But RGJoe’s got a history hiring the idiots.
Great NJ Senate Ad!
At tmp cafe
http://electioncentral.tpmcafe…..o_vote_dem
John Casper @ 69
Well, as Roman Hruska, former Senator of Neb? once said [paraphrasing]: “Don’t
mediocreincompetent people deserve representatiton, too?”$402,144.56!!!
http://www.actblue.com/page/blueamerica
Cozumel @ 75
so that’s where all the petty cash went
Cozumel @ 75
Petty cash.
I wonder how Rush’s listeners who have Parkinson’s or have family members with it feel.
Rush is contemptible filth.
Michael J. Fox is a very good man who has worked tirelessly and suffers greatly.
I am still shaking with anger.
TeddySanFran @ 67
Joe approved the hiring of Michael Brown in minutes, iirc.
punaise @ 76
D’oh!
Tha”saddest excuse for a blog” was a pretty sad excuse for a newspaper in the run up to the war three years ago.Ray Mc Govern shared how his grandfather,who had only a 3rd grade education, proudly boasted how he used to read the NYT from front page to the end daily.He also shared that “I wrap the garbage in it,”now.
A sign of the times?(no pun intended)
Mods: You can delete my 67.
GrandmaJ @ 30
Thanks for the update, Grandma J. Colleen was one of my earliest Act Blue contributions, and I hadn’t heard a thing about the campaign for a long time (except for a negative mainstream media story).
Do I understand correctly? Is it quid pro quo now with Tammy Sun? No journal because Ned didn’t release his income tax filing? He didn’t have to. There’s no journal. Not releasing it will only add fuel to the fire. And the Empirezone and Medina suck. How can accountant say it is probably legal if he doesn’t know whether or not a journal exists? Moron.
As per usual, TM misses the obvious. Lieberman4Lieberman admits they were PAYING volunteers. If you’re paying them, they aren’t
fuckingvolunteers. In addition to the election laws that Joe broke, they probably broke employment law too.From another commenter:
It may be even worse than that. If these “volunteers” were actually
employees, due to the level of control over their activities by the Lieberman campaign, then it would NOT be 1099 reporting. It would be FICA taxes, quarterly reporting and year-end W-2 forms, not to mention any state payroll taxes and workman’s comp requirements.
Jennifer Medina – super sleuth:
“A campaign finance expert outside both campaigns tells us that while it is rather curious Mr. Lieberman has so much money listed in petty cash, it is probably not illegal.”
Who is this campaign finance expert – Karl Rove? Jack Abramoff maybe? What part of this is unclear…
A political committee may maintain a petty cash fund out of which it may make expenditures not in excess of $100 to any person per purchase or transaction. If a petty cash fund is maintained, it shall be the duty of the treasurer of the political committee to keep and maintain a written journal of all disbursements. This written journal shall include the name and address of every person to whom any disbursement is made, as well as the date, amount, and purpose of such disbursement. In addition, if any disbursement is made for a candidate, the journal shall include the name of that candidate and the office (including State and Congressional district) sought by such candidate.
11 CFR 102.11.
TeddySanFran @ 72
I’ll betcha a $10 contribution at ActBlue that if there are any accountants here, they will agree that the chances of 1/12 of a program’s budget going missing during the last couple weeks of said program without the assistance of management are basically zero.
Two memes I have seen recently and I expect to see more of are these:
The Democrats are expected to win big so if they don’t (even if they take back the House), they will really have lost. Or to give the obverse, even if the Republicans lose, they win.
This is a takeoff on the standard Republican meme that no matter what happens it’s good for Republicans, and bad for Democrats.
It leads me to wonder what would qualify as a bona fide disaster for the Republicans. If they lost 30 seats in the House, would that be enough? Or would they need to lose both the House and the Senate? Somehow I foresee that unless all Republicans are swept away by a cloud of locusts there will be many pundits and political reporters/shills out there who will try to salvage something out of the elections for the Republicans.
The second meme is the talk of a return to bipartisanship if the Democrats take over one or both Houses. What gets me about this one is why no one has bothered to raise it anytime in the last 12 years while the Republicans were in control of the Congress. Apparently, it’s OK for Republicans to be completely and often mindlessly partisan but Democrats shouldn’t behave that way even if it is to stem Republican excesses. It’s also another way for Republicans to maintain relatively more power despite any losses in the elections.
It should be interesting to see how these two themes play out, the first leading up to the elections and the second in their immediate aftermath.
Sorry.Previous comment was to go to another blog blog.
It`s sad what has become of Joe L..Sort of like what has happened to the NYT.
rush is just rush,as blather is just blather.
fahrender @
6
That pic reminds me of the 2000 Brooks Brothers riot in Palm Beach County, FL. Bunch of Delay and other R staffers sent in (and paid, I’m sure) to disrupt the recount effort.
punaise @ 76
We wish!
18 years as a Senator and he surrounds himself with amateurs.
Bravo, Joe.
Patrick 4/4 @ 77
Well, petty cash plus 757.23 pizzas with soda.
When Ned and his wife release their tax returns, apparently. Which the Times reported as if it wasn’t a ridiculous false equivalency. Next JoeCamp tactic: storm an elementary school and refuse to release the hostages until Ned releases his tax returns. Because, y’know, they’re just as bad as each other.
angie @
78
*rim shot*
About all this “stay the course” kerfuffle -
You firedoggies just don’t get it.
Stay the course never meant “stay the course.” It merely meant we will stay the course. As in “stay the course,” not “staying the course.” You see, we are always changing the course so we can stay the course. This has always been our strategy, we change the course so we can stay the course. But we have never changed the course, we have always stayed the course, even though we have changed the course, which, of course, we never have, although we always are.
Is that clear now? I don’t see what is so hard to understand.
Hugh @ 88
You’re right. No matter if the Dems win 50 House seats, the reply will be, “We kept the Senate, so they didn’t do as well as they thought.”
Hugh –
Hugh, Krugman has a very good op-ed today on exactly this topic:
Krugman op ed: Don’t Make Nice
If you can’t get behind the wall, I lifted a bunch of quotes and parked them here:
Diary on Krugman op ed
Cujo359 @
93
And one hell of a Lieber-tip.
-GSD
Now that we have ruled like Vikings and Huns to get our way, we would like to change the rules to honor decency and tradition once again so that we can still steer the agenda.
-GSD
Step on their throats, metaphorically.
Morris Sheppard @ 96
Gee, I didn’t know you worked for the White House staff.
Morris Sheppard @ 96
gerundipity
John Casper @
64
Try reading it left to right. You have it exactly backwords.
Point is, though, that Lamont is going to lose this race and lose big–thus repudiating the far left wing of the Democratic Party–unless you come up with something big to change it. Frankly, and I certainly don’t support Lieberman, I don’t think this petty cash story will do it. People are pretty accustomed to charges of ethics infractions before an election, and won’t pay much attention to it unless there’s some lurid details to get it all over the news. Also, why the hell isn’t New England a single state? You shouldn’t be able to walk across a state in a single day.
My response from the CT Attorney General’s office follows:
I tried both links and come up with no connection, but I’ll keep trying. Just thought CT residents might like the advice. Let’s keep pounding this travesty.
anyone have an online link for the debate?
GrandmaJ @
30
I just did two hours of phone work for Patty. Seemed like a good share of Patty Supporters. The Bachmann supporters tended toward being surly rude f**ckers.
Matthews on Hardball, a few minutes ago, calls Lieberman “the biggest hawk on the planet”. Perhaps I am naive, but to me if I were in CT., based on just his support for the Iraq war, the choice would be clear. Lamont in a nano-sec. I just don’t get it.
Hey — our comments got posted on the MedinaBlog!
http://empirezone.blogs.nytime…..nnecticut/
Wlliam Cohen just said the RNC is coming very close to using racist ads against Harold Ford.
Morris Sheppard @
96
Thanks for clearing that up, Mr. Rumsfeld.
Just received email from Francine Busby, which starts:
“Many people have reported delays in receiving their absentee ballots. The Registrar of Voters suggests that if you have not received your ballot by Monday, Oct. 23rd (TODAY), you should call the Registrar’s office to request a duplicate ballot.”
Tony Snow responding to allegations of race-baiting by introducing the term “counter-race-baiting”.
Snow:
“The fact is, if there’s a Democratic — if Democrats hold the House of Representatives, Charlie Rangel will be the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee and John Conyers will be the chairman of the Judiciary committee,” Snow said. “I believe also Republicans have talked about other people who are going to be chairmen of other committees. So — Henry Waxman for instance.”
Shorter Snow, we aren’t only scared of blacks, we also don’t like Jews too.
-GSD
Whoring for Chimpy 24/7.
chairman me @ 103
Chairman me, you’re the one who asked.
BTW, Q Poll is always wrong.
WRT to the “far left,” yeah, we’re against waterboarding and in support of habeas corpus, and the Powell Doctrine for the use of military force, Choice, fiscal responsibility, and honest government.
Why don’t you ask some of the families who lost loved ones in Iraq about why New England isn’t a single state?
Morris Sheppard #96,
Bush’s saying he never said stay the course is similar to Cheney’s denying that he ever said there was a connection between al Qaeda and Iraq (I think the last time he did say there was one was about a week ago.).
In the past, this was an effective strategy: Get the lie out there and more people will hear and believe it then will hear the subsequent debunking. Repeat as necessary. The problem is that they have repeated the same lies so many times that it has begun to backfire on them. Now it is: there they go lying again. The only ones that it has no effect on is the MFM vote but that group never needed facts or lies to believe.
chairman me @ 95
What a disgusting excuse for a human being you are.
I spotlighted this one to the LA Times, since it has pretensions to being a major newspaper. (Sorry, they just redesigned the front page, and it’s really ugly now. The story in the top right corner, the one that’s supposed to sell the paper, now has a headline in Something Caps Compressed that makes it three or four lines of too-hard-to-read.)
I’d really like to know who Joe gave this money to. I think it may take either indictments or the IRS to get that information. Let’s hope it takes less than that.
Democratic congressman Jim Cooper called Sunday for U.S. Senate candidate Bob Corker to force his party’s national committee to pull a television ad against his opponent.
“The ad we’re seeing is a new low in Tennessee politics,” Cooper said of the ad from the Republican National Committee attacking Democrat Harold Ford Jr.
The ad features presumed actors asking questions such as, “Harold Ford looks nice; isn’t that enough?” and making statements implying that Ford supports terrorists and stricter gun control.
Cooper’s statements to the press came after the Corker campaign came out publicly against the ad on Friday. As of press time Sunday, the ad had not been pulled.
“Why is the ad still on TV if the Corker campaign says it doesn’t want the ad?” Cooper said. “Bob Corker needs to … make the RNC take the ad off the air.”
A release from Corker’s campaign Friday said it could not legally tell the RNC to take the ad off the air.
“We believe the ad is over the top and is not reflective of the kind of campaign we are running,” Corker spokesman Todd Womack said Sunday. “That’s why Bob publicly renounced it after we saw it on Friday. By federal law, we don’t and cannot coordinate on independent expenditures related to advertising.”
The ad also references a Feb. 8, 2005, article on Washington blog “Roll Call” in which Ford was reportedly seen at a Playboy Super Bowl party in Jacksonville, Fla. When asked about the ad Sunday, a Ford spokesman said he had “no idea” about the origin of the claim.
GSD @ 111
Don’t forget the scary gay (Barney Frank) and Grandma (Nancy Pelosi) !!
Hugh,
The same way Bush/Rove have worked so hard to tie Iraq to the fight against radical terrorists.
Now he can’t divorce the two and sound credible, try though he may.
-GSD
A better question would be why Wyoming gets two senators, while inhabited by fewer residents than Washington, D.C.
Grandmas and Negros and Gays, oh my.
-GSD
What I expect the day after the election is lawsuits – everywhere. Every district that a dem won by 3 points or less will be contested by the Rs, and, I hope, every district won by a R by 1 0r 2 points will be contested by a dem.
And every accusation we make against their vote denying, will be countered by an outright lie of denial of R’s vote. I don’t like this game, but we must be on the field to win. Even the day after.
EvilDrPuma @ 114
Well said EvilDrPuma.
TeddySanFran @ 107
That’s a pleasant surprise; but you got no response, which was not a surprise.
btw, MedinaBlog has updated its anonymous quote:
http://empirezone.blogs.nytime…..nnecticut/
Carol Moseley Braun on Tucker just said she “loved” Hillary and “hopes Joe Lieberman” would win. Oh well.
GSD @ 99
Did someone here order a pizza?
(cue wokka-chicka music)
No, but we’re accepting donations. How big a donation do you want to make…
I believe they tried the all-of-New-England-as-a-unit once. That was back about 1680-something. Lasted maybe three years. The various pieces didn’t work so well together. I think that the Glorious Revolution ended it. (My people (or part of them) were from Rhode Island. That made them almost not part of New England, since they were all wild-eyed radicals there.)
Stay the course—-kapow!
Another lie brought to you in living color by Youtube.
-GSD
Shays it ain’t so!
More bad news for GOP Rep. Chris Shays: The Green Party candidate has pulled out of the race and thrown the Greens’ support to Dem challenger Diane Farrell.
Thanks scarecrow #98 for the link and the excellent diary.
Yeah, let’s merge the Dakotas and the Carolinas, and break California up into Wyoming-populated morsels. By my math, California would be worth about 100 Wyoming-sized states.
cue singing Gregorian monks:
“all we’re asking is give pizza chants”
TeddySanFran @
124
Curiously, as the minutes tick by, there’s more and more strikeout in the anonymously-sourced paragraph, which is now only a few words, not even a sentence. Some editor is spanking Jennifer, and her source is backing away, I bet.
punaise @ 132
You’re going to hell for that one. :-P
punaise @ 132
EEwwww! (ROFLMAO)
TeddySanFran @ 124
OK, now I really am surprised!
The question is: why aren’t the Democrats doing the same thing for Ned Lamont?
That’s easy – because Lamont is going to lose and the Dems will have to work with Lieberman after he wins.
So they are selling out for political expediency?
TJ @ 137
ruffian @
20
I wouldn’t want him to go on and on about it, but a few pointed quotes along the lines of “anyone who thinks hundreds of thousands of dollars is petty cash has spent too long in Washington” would not come amiss.
I hear they pay good money for a Lieberjob in Connecticut.
-GSD
Sweet.
Republican operative consulting fees and salaries. Maybe some young republicans to bring their computer savy and as Chris Matthews would say “ability to put the spoons in order in the drawer”, and “divide up their paycheck”.
And Matthews followed that with that Dems are angry voters and why do people want to vote.
So this guy steals and hides money, and somehow the story of the day is putting spoons in a drawer, and that Bush has some vague notion of reality thinking he is going to work on privatization, and social security (along with terror)…umm he could not get those stinky policy grabs with his own party in control of the government. Oh, wait its been 6 years and people are going to suddenly think of him as a uniter.
==
Obama/Edwards 2008
Will there be live blogging during the debate for those of us who can’t watch it on TV (I’m in Mass)?
Even if I could I don’t think I would watch it live – I’m just too nervous about it.
And, what’s the deal with Jennifer Medina? I met the woman and saw her at various Lamont events. I thought she seemed like a pretty good reporter. When did she go over to the dark side?
Hey, where can we watch the debate?
So they are selling out for political expediency?
It’s called living in the reality-based community.
What do you know, Joe?
GOP senator says Iraq is near chaos
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/200…..wh/us_iraq
I posted this comment several months ago but it seems appropriate here in the discussion of Wyoming.
One of the myths about our country is that it is a democracy and that we have a representative form of government. There are several reasons to think that this is not the case.
The first of these is the electoral college. This is a generally recognized anachronism yet even after the debacle of the 2000 Presidential election where the result was determined not by the voters but despite them by the electoral college and ultimately by the Supreme Court no attempt serious or otherwise has been made to eliminate it.
A second reason is the makeup of the states that form these United States. Some are huge like California and New York. Some are geographically tiny like Rhode Island or empty like Wyoming. Regardless, they each have 2 and only 2 Senators. You might ask why Rhode Island and not the Boston suburbs receives this distinction. It is an accident of history but should such accidents be allowed to have such a disproportionate voice in our government? Well at least Rhode Island has more people than Wyoming but what about Wyoming? Why should Wyoming with a population of 493,782 as of the 2000 census have the same number of Senators as California with a population of 33,871,648? That’s a ratio of more than 68 to 1. Is this really representative government or a throwback to the “rotten bouroughs” of the English Parliament?
A third reason is gerrymandering. This can’t be done with Senatorial seats but is a prime reason for the job security that accompanies incumbency in the House of Representatives. Partisan drawing of districts produces partisan and undemocratic districts. Gerrymandering allows the charade of one man one vote without actually having to abide by the results of such a system.
A fourth reason is the machinery of the voting process itself. This is entrusted to local and state jurisdiction with no effective oversight. It is a disorganized, nonsecure, partisan piecemeal system. Yes, we do all vote on the same day but it’s a Tuesday, a weekday which depresses turnout. Who gets registered, how difficult the registration process is, how long you stay registered, information about where and when to vote, the difficulty of the voting itself, wait time, challenges, “provisional voting”, security and dependability of the voting machine, a paper trail, the vote counting itself, all these things are subject to interference, misuse, and abuse and consequently are interfered with, misused, and abused.
The fifth reason is the preeminent place and power of money in American politics. Politicians incidentally represent their constituents. They truly represent the people and corporations that pay for their campaigns and keep them in office. We are a government of the money, by the money, for the money.
The sixth reason is the two party system. It creates a duopoly. Other interests and groups need not apply. Getting on a state ballot as a “third” party is difficult and expensive. Getting on a national ballot is prohibitively so. There is little possibility of “growing” a party. Rather a party must burst on the scene fully formed. This last usually happens around a specific issue or person and lasts in any meaningful way for about one election cycle. By the second, it is either already gone or on its way to oblivion or irrelevance. The result is a debasement and trivialization of issues. Parties do have stands on many things. They just seldom have any intention of acting on any of them or informing the electorate in advance of what they intend to do. Even when they do, voters seldom believe them.
The seventh is the news media which reports campaigns as horse races with only accidental coverage of issues, records, or positions. Little fact checking is done and none of it timely. No accountability is demanded of candidates who lie, distort, dissemble, or otherwise run vacuous campaigns. It usually works like this. The media covers the horse race. After the election, they do a brief mea culpa. Some intern is sent to the archives where he/she finds that by golly someone did mention candidate X’s position on whatever. This is followed by a retraction of the mea culpa and some self congratulatory back slapping.
The eighth is the American voter who feels no duty or responsibility to learn about anything, not the issues, the candidates, and not the political climate or the possible repercussions of their decisions. By contrast, Russian roulette is less risky.
I am sure there are other reasons that you can come up with as well. The point is we are not the shining city on the hill and we are not even trying to be. Bush may want to spread democracy throughout the world but we really need to start at home. We have an ad hoc not a representative government. We can change to have our government reflect our principles or we can stick with its historical oddities and our own shortcomings. For what it’s worth, I bet the Romans thought their Republic for all its contradictions was the niftiest thing going –even as it was collapsing. Are we really any different?
Oh yeah, that’s were Hilary lives huh?
TJ @ 144
punaise @ 132
Owwww, it burns…!
Oklahoma kiddo @ 145
His map-reading skills have improved.
Oh yeah, that’s were Hilary lives huh?
This sentence doesn’t even make sense.
Is it just me, or is there a slight odor of bridge timbers and goats in here?
EvilDrPuma @ 150
Online at Starbucks again?
So, if I spelled her name right and said she won’t make a stand on the war would that make sense to you?
TJ @
149
So,I spelled her name right and said she won;t make a stand on the war would that make sense to you?
Re-write that in English, then get back to me.
Jane’s got Swanny’s presser in a new thread upstairs….
punaise @ 102
That was a z-inger, pun!!
EvilDrPuma @ 150
And a pretty rank one, at that.
Does anyone know anything about a Connecticut firm called S&G Roofing Solutions?–the link goes to a picture I shot at the same Lieberman event that the “Young Republicans” were at.
If anyone knows anything about them, please email me. I think this outfit might have some ideas about where Joe’s dough went.
So far, I know: 1) The guys in the matching blue S&G t-shirts were providing some pretty creepy unofficial security at a Lieberman event; and, 2) that S&G is located at 128 Long Island View Rd
Mitford CT 06460; and, 3)the phone number visible on the guy’s shirt works.
Nice looking bunch of lads… Joementum’s seen the Soccer Mom vote slip thru his grasp so he’s settling for the Soccer Hooligan vote, apparently…
Looks like the one guy took off his driving gloves for the sign-holdin thing. Matter of fact, all of them have pretty pasty looking hands.
I can’t imagine any business or non-profit sinking 12% of their costs into “petty cash” with no documentation and not getting delivered to the IRS’s own virtual Gitmo…
Why should Lieberman get away with this, then?
First of all, they are required to record what the payments are for. Second of all, at a cap of $100 per payoff, I mean purchase, that’s nearly 4,000 payments unaccounted for. And in the space of 2 weeks? With staff so green they don’t document anything?
You don’t have to be an accountant or campaign finance expert to call bullshit on this.
Hugh @
90
the plague of frogs was always my favorite punishment for Pharoah. Could we get that one instead? Or even better, how about casting out into the darkeness, with the weeping and gnashing of teeth?
here’s a fist, boy @
163
Nah, it’s not gloves. He just stopped shaving the back of his hands when he got to the wrist.
Caption:
Team Foley go back to work for their next most favorite Republican.
Jeez, am I the only one who thinks these clowns look the jock fraternity in Animal House? Maybe a little uglier.
more than anything, this absence of cash proves ol’ joe is truly a republican.
Meanwhile, with slightly more integrity NYT public editor Byron Calame admists that their editorial content at the NYT is indeed influenced by the mau-mauing they get from right wingers. No shit, Byron.
Uh, I think you may have misinterpreted Mr. Calame. Here’s the paragraph to which you are referring:
So, speaking strictly for himself in his capacity as the “public editor”. A position from which he is not involved with the editorial process except as it pertains to addressing reader concerns and acting as an independent check on the regular editorial staff. Byron Calame acknowledges that he allowed right-wing criticism to influence him to side with the NYT against its critics ie right wing “mau-mauers”.
That is a far cry from acknowledging that right wing criticism affects editorial content at the NYT. Well, at least as far as letting the right wing criticism force NYT editorial content to the right as Calame has ackowledged that he allowed right wing criticism to force his editorializing to the left (in that he should have indicated that running the SWIFT story was a mistake but did not in response to harsh right wing criticism).
As I said before though, Mr. Calame is the “public editor” and as such does not involve himself with preparing the editorial content at the NYT.
At least that’s what I got out of it. That’s not so say that right wing “mau-mauing” doesn’t have an effect on NYT reportage, although I’d hate to see how left wing they’d be without right wing criticism, if it indeed affects them at all.
The comment “Joe Lieberman is to Iraq what Richard Nixon was to Viet Nam,” reminded me that reporters once asked LBJ what he thought of Nixon. LBJ responded, “Richard Nixon has done for the presidency what pantyhose did for finger-fucking.”