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Suffolk, N.Y. Legislator Proposes Exclusive Parking For Hybrid Cars (AHN)

(AHN) - To give the environment a push, a Suffolk legislator proposed that 2 percent of parking spaces in 792 county buildings be exclusively reserved for hybrid vehicles. - Fri, 22 Aug 2008 08:27:27 GMT

Suffolk, N.Y. Proposes To Reward Hybrid Motorists With Exclusive Parking Zones (AHN)

(AHN) - To give the environment a push, a Suffolk legislator proposed that 2 percent of parking spaces in 792 county buildings be exclusively reserved for hybrid vehicles. - Fri, 22 Aug 2008 08:51:45 GMT

LA Times missed its own reporting, didn't note McCain's absence from Congress

Two August 5 Los Angeles Times articles quoted Sen. John McCain criticizing Congress for going into recess without voting on energy legislation, but in neither did the Times mention that McCain has not cast a vote in the Senate since April 8, according to the Times' own reporting. After describing Sen. Barack Obama's purported "shifts" in energy proposals, staff writers Peter Nicholas and Janet Hook wrote that "Republicans have been staging a protest on the House floor to spotlight Democratic leaders' decision to put off a vote on energy legislation until lawmakers return in September." They then quoted McCain saying, "Congress should come back into session. ... I am willing to come back off the campaign trail." In another article, staff writer Bob Drogin wrote that during a campaign stop in South Dakota, McCain "repeat[ed] his call, first made earlier in the day, for Congress to return from vacation to help solve the energy crisis," saying, "When I'm president, I'm not going to let them take vacation." Neither article mentioned reporting from the Times' own Top of the Ticket blog that despite McCain's criticism, "he cast his last vote on the Senate floor on April 8." In an August 4 blog post, Don Frederick mentioned that a "break from the road to concentrate on their obligations as lawmakers would be even more unusual for McCain than Obama. As Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid of Nevada recently was only too happy to note, McCain has become an absentee legislator -- he cast his last vote on the Senate floor on April 8" [link provided in original]. Indeed, according to washingtonpost.com's U.S. Congress Votes Database, McCain last cast a vote on April 8, to end debate on an amendment. Further, while describing the McCain campaign's reaction to a recent Obama ad that points to energy-industry donations to the McCain campaign, Nicholas and Hook's article went on to quote a McCain spokesperson "accus[ing] Obama of hypocrisy" because the ad does not mention "$400,000 from big-oil contributors that Barack Obama has already pocketed in this election." But the article did not mention that according to the Center for Responsive Politics, McCain has received more than $1.3 million from oil and gas interests. From Nicholas and Hook's August 5 article: The political scramble over energy policy has also been evident on Capitol Hill. Even though Congress is in recess for a month, Republicans have been staging a protest on the House floor to spotlight Democratic leaders' decision to put off a vote on energy legislation until lawmakers return in September. McCain chimed in Monday, calling for Democrats to suspend the vacation until Congress addresses the energy crisis. "Congress should come back into session," he said during a campaign stop in Lafayette Hill, Pa., a Philadelphia suburb. "I am willing to come back off the campaign trail." [...] Even as he adjusts his position to account for fast-moving economic and political realities, Obama is taking the offensive. He released a campaign ad Monday criticizing McCain for accepting contributions from oil executives while supporting policies favorable to the industry. The McCain campaign accused Obama of hypocrisy. "Not mentioned" in the ad, a McCain spokesman said in reply, is the "$400,000 from big-oil contributors that Barack Obama has already pocketed in this election." The Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan government watchdog group, said Obama's campaign had received about $400,000 in donations from oil and gas company executives and employees and their family members. From Drogin's August 5 article: The political theme, to the degree McCain had one, was thanking military veterans in the crowd. But he quickly veered off to complain about $4-a-gallon gasoline and to repeat his call, first made earlier in the day, for Congress to return from vacation to help solve the energy crisis. "When I'm president, I'm not going to let them take vacation," he vowed, a promise that undoubtedly would surprise many of his Senate colleagues. From Frederick's August 4 blog post: But if it were to happen, the break from the road to concentrate on their obligations as lawmakers would be even more unusual for McCain than Obama. As Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid of Nevada recently was only too happy to note, McCain has become an absentee legislator -- he cast his last vote on the Senate floor on April 8. Obama also has been otherwise occupied and during the current session of Congress missed far more roll calls than he's made. He did, however, make a point of casting a couple of Senate votes last month -- including one in favor of a compromise bill on domestic wiretapping. What he earned for his troubles was a nasty note from progressives, for whom the measure was anathema.

Citations in Freddoso's anti-Obama book rife with misinformation

The jacket cover for conservative author David Freddoso's The Case Against Barack Obama (Regnery) describes the book as "[s]ober, fair, and thoroughly researched -- and all the more powerful and provocative because of it." As Media Matters for America documented, however, just the first few pages of Freddoso's book are marked by false and misleading assertions about Sen. Barack Obama, accompanied by dubious citations. A review of the endnotes in The Case Against Barack Obama reveals that the rest of the book is little different from these first few pages, as throughout the book, Freddoso misrepresents or distorts his sources and even makes assertions that are actually refuted by sources he cites. 1. On pages 30-31 of his book, Freddoso cites page 124 of Chicago journalist David Mendell's book Obama: From Promise to Power (Amistad, August 2007) in characterizing a piece of ethics legislation Obama passed in 1998 as "relatively harmless," and claiming that the bill merely made Obama "look like a reformer." In fact, Mendell wrote something very different from what Freddoso claims. He did not in any way characterize the bill as "harmless," but instead noted that pushing the bill through the state Senate "was a tough assignment for a new lawmaker, since he was essentially sponsoring legislation that would strip away long-held privileges and perks from his colleagues," and that Obama received opposition from his colleagues regarding the ethics legislation. Mendell further wrote that Obama "worked the issue deliberately and delicately," and that upon its passage, the bill "essentially lifted Illinois, a state with a deep history of illicit, pay-to-play politics, into the modern world when it came to ethics restrictions." Freddoso writes: As [Illinois state Sen. Emil] Jones's political godson, and even long before the conversation about the United States Senate, Obama had the privilege of stealing important bills. Other senators had a name for this practice: "bill-jacking." 17 Mendell records that as early as 1998, Jones had already done such favors at the prompting of Obama's liberal friends. Abner Mikva, a former congressman and federal judge, had recommended to Jones that he give Obama a popular piece of legislation barring political fundraising on state property and barring lobbyists and contractors from giving gifts to legislators. The bill had enough loopholes to be relatively harmless, but it was a step in the direction of reform. Jones gave it to Obama. Obama proposed it. It passed, 52-4.18 The "Friends and Family" man, the old ward-heeler, was even capable of making Obama look like a reformer. From pages 123-124 of Obama: Legislatively, Obama managed to pass a decent number of laws for a first-term lawmaker in the minority party. His first major legislative accomplishment was shepherding a piece of campaign finance reform in May 1998. The measure prohibited lawmakers from soliciting campaign funds while on state property and from accepting gifts from state contractors, lobbyists or other interests. The senate's Democratic leader, Emil Jones Jr., a veteran African-American legislator from the South Side, offered Obama the opportunity to push through the bill because it seemed like a good fit for the do-good persona projected by Obama. Obama was also recommended to Jones by two esteemed Chicago liberals who had taken a liking to him: former U.S. senator Paul Simon and former congressman and federal judge Abner Mikva. Working on the bill was an eye-opening experience for the freshman senator. It was a tough assignment for a new lawmaker, since he was essentially sponsoring legislation that would strip away long-held privileges and perks from his colleagues. In one private session, a close colleague angrily denounced the bill, saying that it impinged on lawmakers' inherent rights. But Obama worked the issue deliberately and delicately, and the measure passed the senate by an overwhelming 52-4 vote. "This sets the standard for us, and communicates to a public that is increasingly cynical about Springfield and the General Assembly that we in fact are willing to do the right thing," Obama told reporters immediately after the bill's passage. The bill was not a watershed event anywhere but Illinois. It essentially lifted Illinois, a state with a deep history of illicit, pay-to-play politics, into the modern world when it came to ethics restrictions. The bill gave Obama a legislative success, but his public criticism of Springfield's old-school politics did not sit well with some of his colleagues, who already considered the Ivy League lawyer overly pious. Indeed, Freddoso goes on to undermine his dismissive treatment of the legislation, describing it as a "real accomplishment" later in the book. From pages 93-94 of The Case Against Barack Obama: Obama's reform record is not a complete wash. His most notable accomplishment in Washington was the bill he co-sponsored with Republican senator Tom Coburn, the conservative junior senator from Oklahoma. The Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006 -- also known as "Google for Government" -- helped expose to the sunlight the congressional practice of "earmarking," in which members of Congress direct federal spending to parochial projects -- swimming pools, bridges to nowhere -- that often have no national importance or congressional authorization.63 Coburn and Obama's bill, approved over the objection of some of Capitol Hill's worst porkers, really was a small victory for open government and bipartisanship. This was a real accomplishment for Obama in the name of reform -- the second such accomplishment of his career after the Illinois ethics law. 2. On page 61, Freddoso claims that "[o]nlookers faint at his [Obama's] speeches with alarming frequency compared to other campaigns," citing a February 18 item called "The Monday Morning Presidential Briefing," by Boston Herald police bureau chief Jessica Van Sack. But while Van Sack did address fainting at Obama rallies, she made no comparison to other campaigns, as Freddoso claims. Freddoso writes: There is undoubtedly a religious component to "Obamania." The Reverend Jesse Jackson, himself a former presidential candidate, commented that Obama is running a "theological campaign" -- that "[a]t some point, he took off his arms and grew wings." At the University of Texas, crowds sang "Obama-leluja" at his approach.4 Onlookers faint at his speeches with alarming frequency compared to other campaigns. From Van Sack's item, which included this graph under the subhead, "Hot Video of the Week": Attending a Barack Obama rally anytime soon? Don't forget the smelling salts. Obama's enthusiastic young followers are dropping like worshippers at a televangelist mega-sermon, as the video of a string of recent crowd-fainting incidents shows. 3. Freddoso writes on page 83 that Obama "takes all the teeth" out his idea of a "merit-pay program" for teachers by "promising" that "the measure of 'merit' " will be determined "by some yet undiscovered measure to be chosen by teachers' unions." Freddoso's source for this claim is a July 5, 2007, Philadelphia Inquirer article on Obama's speech that day to the National Education Association. The article, however, does not say that Obama's merit pay measure will be "chosen by teachers' unions." Rather, the article reported what Obama said in his speech -- that he will work with teachers unions to develop a system. From page 83 of The Case Against Barack Obama: Obama has acquired an undeserved reputation for reform in education because he offers mild rhetoric about a merit-pay program for teachers. But he takes all of the teeth out of the idea by promising his allies that the measure of "merit" will not be determined by student achievement -- "arbitrary tests" -- but by some yet undiscovered measure to be chosen by teachers' unions.15 Obama's merit pay also comes only in exchange for six-figure teacher salaries. From the July 5, 2007, Philadelphia Inquirer article: Illinois Sen. Barack Obama today endorsed the idea of merit pay for teachers before an audience hostile to the idea, the giant National Education Association, but he softened the blow by telling the union's national assembly that he would not use "arbitrary tests" to link pay to performance. "I think there should be ways for us to work with the NEA, with teachers' unions, to figure out a way to measure success," Obama told a crowd of about 9,000 at the Pennsylvania Convention Center. "I want to work with teachers. I'm not going to do it too you, I'm going to do it with you." 4. On page 88, Freddoso writes that "Obama explained that if he took public financing, it might be hard to compete with the outside '527 groups' who will mercilessly smear him," and quotes a June 20 Washington Post article asserting: "No conservative 527 groups have materialized." As Media Matters noted at the time, the Post article ignored the actions of conservative groups, such as the Vets for Freedom political action committee, which had already launched two Internet ads attacking Obama over the Iraq war. Other outside groups such as Freedom's Watch and the National Campaign Fund PAC had also released ads attacking Obama. From page 88 of The Case Against Barack Obama: Obama explained that if he took public financing, it might be hard to compete with the outside "527 groups" who will mercilessly smear him. Of [Sen. John] McCain, he said: "[W]e've already seen that he's not going to stop the smears and attacks from his allies running so-called 527 groups, who will spend millions and millions of dollars in unlimited donations." "No conservative 527 groups have materialized," the Washington Post noted.35 But what if they do? And the groups more favorable to Obama -- MoveOn.org and the labor unions, for example -- might lack the resources to compete with those conservative groups, should they materialize. It should be noted that in 2004, the pro-Democrat 527s outspent the pro-Republican 527s $282 million to $111 million, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.36 As of mid-year 2008, the Democratic 527s had slightly outraised their GOP counterparts, but then when you throw in the labor unions and pro-choice groups, Obama's 527 army is already better funded than McCain's. 5. On page 116, Freddoso addresses Obama's "present" votes in the Illinois state Senate, citing a December 20, 2007, New York Times article in claiming that "other Illinois senators say" Obama's 130 "present" votes was an "unusually high" number. In fact, the Times article does not quote any Illinois state senators commenting on the frequency of Obama's "present" votes, nor does it report that other Illinois senators considered the frequency of Obama's "present" votes to be "unusually high." Indeed, while neither the Times nor Freddoso provided substantiation for his claim that Obama had an "unusually high" number of "present" votes, PolitiFact.com quoted Christopher Mooney, a political scientist at the University of Illinois-Springfield, saying of Obama's "present" votes: "Everyone I've spoken to who's familiar with this, including lobbyists and people who are engaged in opposition research, say the number of times he voted present on a proportional basis was probably a little less than average." Freddoso writes: If Obama cast many controversial votes in Springfield, he also avoided many controversial votes. An interesting aspect of his career in the state Senate was his habit of voting "present" on controversial legislation instead of voting "yea" or "nay." He did this about 130 times over his eight-year career there, which other Illinois senators say is unusually high.56 As Nathan Gonzales of the Rothenberg Political Report noted, "We aren't talking about a 'present' vote on whether to name a state office building after a deceased state official, but rather about votes that reflect an officeholder's core values." 6. On pages 174-175, Freddoso claims that Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE) was one of the Democrats who was "against Obama on this point" -- a reference to the debate over whether a U.S. president should be willing to meet with leaders of North Korea, Iran, and other countries without preconditions. As evidence, Freddoso quotes from Biden's May 18, 2008, appearance on ABC's This Week: "This is a fellow who I think shorthanded an answer that in fact was the wrong answer." However, the full context of Biden's quote shows that he actually said that he and Obama agreed, saying that Obama's recent statements on the issue "mirrored the statements the rest of us have been talking about." Freddoso writes: For Clinton, there had to be some preconditions -- how else could such a meeting be in the interest of the United States? There had to [sic] an upside. You don't have to take as hard a line as President Bush, she was arguing, but you can't just have a beer with Kim Jong II after he launched seven missiles in provocation during the summer of 2006.12 He must first show some cooperation -- some substantial sign of good faith -- as a precondition. That is how diplomacy works in the real world. In the months that followed, Democrats ranging from moderate to liberal generally sided with Clinton and against Obama on this point. Former congressman Harold Ford of Tennessee, another young, black superstar in the Democratic Party and chairman of the Democratic Leadership Council, was one of the moderates. "I'll concede you cannot meet with foreign leaders -- with terrorists rather -- without some conditions. 13 "This is a fellow who I think shorthanded an answer that in fact was the wrong answer," said Senator Joseph Biden of Delaware, the liberal chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. From the May 18 broadcast of ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulos: GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS (host): So, he's developed that -- BIDEN: I think he has. STEPHANOPOULOS: -- what he needs to know in the nine months on the campaign trail. BIDEN: I think he's focused on -- what we're talking about here is that he has repeatedly, since then, said he would not negotiate unconditionally -- meaning him sitting down alone, right off the bat, with these leaders. He's talked about his secretary of state, his secretary of defense. As a matter of fact, the statements he's using have mirrored the statements the rest of us have been talking about. This is a fellow who I think shorthanded an answer that, in fact, was the wrong answer, in my view, saying I would, within the first year. It implied he'd personally sit down with anybody who wanted to sit down with him. That's not what he meant. That's not what he has said since then for the last year, or thereabouts. And so, I think that he's fully capable of understanding what's going -- and put this in context, the policy that Bush has pursued and McCain will continue, has been an abject failure. We are weaker in the Middle East. We are weaker around the world. Terrorism is stronger than it ever was. Iran is closer to a bomb. Just by any measure -- any measure -- what has their policy wrought? A disaster. It's been an absolute disaster. 7. On page 215, Freddoso cites a June 13, 2007 (wrongly identified in the endnotes as a June 13, 2008, article), Chicago Sun-Times article in claiming that a spokesman for Obama and a lawyer for convicted Chicago businessman Antoin Rezko "say it is simply a coincidence" that Obama wrote letters in support of Cottage View Terrace, one of Rezko's housing projects. In fact, the Sun-Times quoted Obama spokesman Bill Burton stating that Obama supported Cottage View Terrace "because it was going to help people in his district," and Rezko's attorney saying simply that "Mr. Rezko never spoke with, nor sought a letter from, Senator Obama in connection with that project." Freddoso writes: In June, Chicago Sun-Times reporter Tim Novak reported that Obama "wrote letters to city and state officials supporting his political patron Tony Rezko's successful bid to get more than $14 million from taxpayers to build apartments for senior citizens."10 The project, Cottage View Terrace, includes ninety-seven apartments. It is a few blocks outside of Obama's state Senate district. The deal for which Obama helped Rezko get this money also included Obama's old law-firm boss, Allison Davis. He is also a major Obama fundraiser and a developer who has built or renovated 1,500 apartment units in Chicago.11 From the $14.6 million in state funds that Obama requested, the two men would already be expected to profit through their housing business. But Davis and Rezko were also to collect $855,000 of it in "development fees." Obama's spokesman and Rezko's lawyer say it is simply a coincidence that the senator wrote these letters to help two longtime friends, Davis and Rezko, get millions of dollars. From the June 13, 2007, Chicago Sun-Times article: On Tuesday, Bill Burton, press secretary for Obama's presidential campaign, said the letters Obama wrote in support of the development weren't intended as a favor to Rezko or Davis. "This wasn't done as a favor for anyone," Burton said in a written statement. "It was done in the interests of the people in the community who have benefited from the project. "I don't know that anyone specifically asked him to write this letter nine years ago," the statement said. "There was a consensus in the community about the positive impact the project would make and Obama supported it because it was going to help people in his district. ... They had a wellness clinic and adult day-care services, as well as a series of social services for residents. It's a successful project. It's meant a lot to the community, and he's proud to have supported it.'' The development, called the Cottage View Terrace apartments, opened five years ago at 4801 S. Cottage Grove, providing 97 apartments for low-income senior citizens. Asked about the Obama letters, Rezko's attorney, Joseph Duffy, said Tuesday, "Mr. Rezko never spoke with, nor sought a letter from, Senator Obama in connection with that project." 8. In addition, as Media Matters documented, in the introduction to The Case Against Barack Obama, Freddoso writes that, in challenging the eligibility of signatures his opponents collected to get their names on the ballot of the 1996 Illinois state Senate Democratic primary for the 13th district, Obama threw "all of his opponents off the ballot on a technicality." On page 2, however, Freddoso undermines his own claim by quoting a 1996 Chicago Weekend report that some of incumbent Sen. Alice Palmer's signatures were disqualified because the voters who signed lived outside the 13th district -- something more than a mere "technicality." On page 3, Freddoso reproduces a portion of an April 3, 2007, Chicago Tribune article in which one of Obama's opponents in 1996, Gha-Is Askia, referring to Obama's challenge of the signatures, is quoted as saying: "He talks about honor and democracy, but what honor is there in getting rid of every other candidate so you can run scot-free? Why not let the people decide?" That same article, however, also reported that Askia "now suspects" some of the signatures his campaign collected were forged -- a fact Freddoso did not mention, which undermines his "technicality" allegation. On page 5 of The Case Against Barack Obama, Freddoso cites page 109 of Mendell's Obama, in writing that Palmer "was considered the early favorite in this contest," and "collected nearly 1,600 petition signatures in just ten days and submitted them ahead of the December 18 deadline." However, Mendell also wrote on pages 109-110 that "Palmer realized that Obama had called her hand, and she acknowledged that she had not properly acquired the necessary number of signatures" -- another fact Freddoso omitted. From page 3 of The Case Against Barack Obama: One of them was Gha-is Askia. He never had much of a chance of winning anyway, but he had gathered 1,899 signatures, and Team Obama took the time to challenge them as well.6 Askia spoke to the Chicago Tribune in 2007 about it: "Why say you're for a new tomorrow, then do old-style Chicago politics to remove legitimate candidates?" Askia said. "He talks about honor and democracy, but what honor is there in getting rid of every other candidate so you can run scot-free? Why not let the people decide?" From the April 3 Tribune article: Leafing through scrapbooks in his South Shore apartment, Askia, a perennially unsuccessful candidate, acknowledges that he paid Democratic Party precinct workers $5 a sheet for some of the petitions, and now suspects they used a classic Chicago ruse of passing the papers among themselves to forge the signatures. "They round-tabled me," Askia said. From page 5 of The Case Against Barack Obama (Mendell citations in bold): As an incumbent with the backing of the new congressman, Jesse Jackson Jr., Palmer was considered the early favorite in this contest.14 She went out and collected nearly 1,600 petition signatures in just ten days and submitted them ahead of the December 18 deadline.15 She would still need to defeat Obama and two other Democratic challengers, but as an incumbent with the backing of the popular new congressman, Palmer was the early favorite. Until Obama kept her from running, that is. From page 109-110 of Mendell's Obama: So a volunteer for Obama challenged the legality of her petitions, as well as the legality of petitions from several other candidates in the race. As an elections board hearing on the petitions neared, Palmer realized that Obama had called her hand, and she acknowledged that she had not properly acquired the necessary number of signatures. Many of the voters had printed their names, rather than signing them as the law required. 9. On page xii of the introduction to The Case Against Barack Obama, Freddoso claims that Obama's "liberal supporters ... support military strikes within the territory of an American ally without that nation's permission" because "Obama apparently made a slip of the tongue in August of last year and advocated such incursions into Pakistan." Freddoso's source for this was an August 1, 2007, Reuters article on Obama's speech that day at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, D.C., in which Obama said: OBAMA: I understand that [Pakistani] President [Pervez] Musharraf has his own challenges. But let me make this clear. There are terrorists holed up in those mountains who murdered 3,000 Americans. They are plotting to strike again. It was a terrible mistake to fail to act when we had a chance to take out an al Qaeda leadership meeting in 2005. If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won't act, we will. As Media Matters noted, however, Obama's comments were not a "slip of the tongue"; they were included in his prepared remarks and were among excerpts the Obama campaign emailed to reporters prior to the actual speech. The Reuters article Freddoso cites does not characterize Obama's remarks as a "slip of the tongue," nor does it suggest that they were in any way inadvertent.

EU accidentally orders ISPs to become copyright police

Legislator: 'No we never' Part of the EU Telecommunications Package, agreed by MEPs on Monday, could be interpreted to endorse cutting off P2P users after a written warning or two, even though the author claims that was not the intention.?

Sandra Day O'Connor: Game Designer

The first female Supreme Court justice in the United States is lending her penchant for civic life to a new videogame project in which players "step into the shoes of a judge, a legislator, an executive."

CNN report accusing Obama of "getting a little dirty" in challenging political opponents ignored facts undermining allegations

During the May 31 edition of CNN Newsroom, anchor Don Lemon teased reporter Drew Griffin's "Special Investigations Unit" report about Sen. Barack Obama's 1996 run for the Illinois state Senate by asserting, "[I]f his very first political campaign is any indication, the Illinois senator isn't opposed to getting a little dirty." As Lemon spoke, on-screen text read: "Obama Gets Dirty." The report -- which also aired on the May 29 edition of CNN's Anderson Cooper 360 -- and a related CNN.com article stated that Obama ran unopposed in the Democratic primary race for the state Senate seat representing Chicago's 13th District because he successfully challenged his potential Democratic opponents' petitions to appear on the ballot. Griffin cited the case of potential Democratic candidate Gha-Is Askia, who when interviewed by Griffin, said his signatures were dismissed because of "technicalities." But Griffin did not mention that an April 4, 2007, Chicago Tribune article, cited in both Griffin's report and the CNN.com article, reported that Askia "now suspects" some of his signatures were forged. According to the Tribune: Askia filed 1,899 signatures, but the Obama team sustained objections to 1,211, leaving him 69 short, records show. Leafing through scrapbooks in his South Shore apartment, Askia, a perennially unsuccessful candidate, acknowledges that he paid Democratic Party precinct workers $5 a sheet for some of the petitions, and now suspects they used a classic Chicago ruse of passing the papers among themselves to forge the signatures. "They round-tabled me," Askia said. In listing reasons for which Askia's signatures were allegedly invalidated, Griffin reported: "If names were printed instead of written in cursive, they were kicked off, campaign workers told CNN. If signatures were good but the person collecting the petitions wasn't properly registered, all of those signatures were kicked off." Griffin's report and the related CNN.com article also noted that Obama challenged the signatures on the petition of then-incumbent Illinois state Sen. Alice Palmer. Palmer had lost a special election for a U.S. congressional seat and subsequently launched a re-election bid for her 13th District's state Senate seat, despite her own reported admission that she told Obama she wouldn't run. Griffin reported: "After losing a bid for Congress, Alice Palmer decided to try to keep her Senate seat. She would have been tough competition for a newcomer, but Obama planned to beat her before she ever got on the ballot." Yet neither Griffin's report nor the CNN.com article explained that some of Palmer's signatures were reportedly invalidated because the signers allegedly lived outside the Senate district. By contrast, a January 21, 1996, Chicago Weekend article reported that there were several problems with the signatures, including that "registered voters signed the petitions but don't live in the 13th district": Jackie Saul, election specialist with the state board of elections, said each candidate must submit a minimum of 757 signatures and Palmer went over the number with 81 pages filed. Palmer said they obtained 1,580 signatures for her re-election, but some of those names were deleted because of several problems with the signatures that don't go along city guidelines. Some of the problems include printing registered voters name instead of writing, a female voter got married after she registered to vote and signed her maiden name, registered voters signed the petitions but don't live in the 13th district. Saul said the most common problem with petitions is people sign petitions but they're not registered or they may be registered but don't live within the boundaries of where the election is being held. In addition, discussing the complaints filed against the Obama's 1996 opponents, the Associated Press reported in an April 24 article that Ron Davis, "a South Side political activist who helped Obama in the 1996 contest" and who "formally filed the complaints, said the problems included signatures from people living outside the district or who weren't registered to vote. Some petitions were circulated by ineligible campaign aides, making every signature invalid." Further, the CNN.com article uncritically reported that supporters of Palmer "said that she never anointed Obama as her successor," despite reports from the time that Palmer supported Obama's candidacy for the 13th District seat before she lost the special election primary for Congress. From the CNN.com article: Obama supporters claim that Palmer has only herself to blame because she indicated she would not run for the 1996 state Senate and instead aimed for Congress. After losing in that bid, she returned to running for the state Senate seat, a move Obama supporters claim amounted to reneging on a promise not to run. But Palmer supporters, who did not want to be identified, said that she never anointed Obama as her successor and that the retelling of the story by Obama supporters is designed to distract from the fact he muscled his way into office. The Tribune article cited in both Griffin's report and in the CNN.com article quoted Palmer saying that she gave Obama an "informal nod" and that "I certainly did say that I wasn't going to run" for re-election (although she disputed formally endorsing Obama): In recent interviews, Obama and Palmer agreed that he asked her whether she wanted to keep her options open and file to run for her state Senate seat as a fallback in case her congressional bid failed. Obama says he told her: "We haven't started the campaign yet." "I hadn't publicly announced," he said. "But what I said was that once I announce, and I have started to raise money, and gather supporters, hire staff and opened up an office, signed a lease, then it's going to be very difficult for me to step down. And she gave me repeated assurances that she was in [the congressional race] to stay." Obama "did say that to me," Palmer says now. "And I certainly did say that I wasn't going to run. There's no question about that." But beyond that, the private discussions they held in 1995 are shrouded today in disputed and hazy memories. Obama said Palmer gave him her formal endorsement. "I'm absolutely certain she ... publicly spoke and sort of designated me," he recalled. Palmer disputes that. "I don't know that I like the word 'endorsement,' " she said. "An endorsement to me, having been in legislative politics ... that's a very formal kind of thing. I don't think that describes this. An 'informal nod' is how to characterize it." Newspaper reports at the time stated that Palmer had endorsed Obama. Chicago Weekend reported on December 25, 1995: Palmer had originally endorsed Attorney Barack Obama to fill her seat, but changed her mind, she said, because of the tremendous support and draft by constituents. "I had said I would help some-one else and that is one of the reasons I was reluctant but the draft was so big," Palmer stated. The Chicago Tribune reported on December 19, 1995: Palmer had set the stage for her conflict last summer when she launched her congressional campaign and declared that she would forgo re-election for a second term in the state Senate; she endorsed Obama for the seat Sept. 19. The legislator said she backed Obama at a time when she expected to be running against former Rep. Mel Reynolds in the March primary. But Reynolds was convicted and imprisoned for sexual assault and obstruction of justice. [Jesse] Jackson [Jr.] then defeated Palmer and three others in the primary before winning the general election to fill the seat. Palmer said that she was backing Jackson, who filed Monday for the March primary, for re-election and that an outpouring of encouragement from her South Side legislative district led her to run for re-election. "I am disappointed that she's decided to go back on her word to me," Obama said. He argued that Palmer's action was "indicative of a political culture, where self-preservation comes in rather than service." From the May 31 edition of CNN Newsroom: LEMON: Is Barack Obama seasoned enough to fight in the hostile environment of a general election campaign? Well, if his very first political campaign is any indication, the Illinois senator isn't opposed to getting a little dirty. A CNN special investigation is next. [...] LEMON: Well, you may be surprised to hear about Barack Obama's early days of campaigning for state Senate in Illinois. Drew Griffin from CNN's Special Investigations Unit uncovers a tough-fighting candidate out to get rid of the competition. [begin video clip] GRIFFIN: He's running on change. No more politics as usual. OBAMA: But we know in our hearts we are ready for change. GRIFFIN: But here on Chicago's South Side, in his first race for office, Barack Obama relied on old, bare-knuckle political tactics to eliminate a popular incumbent and launch his political career in the Illinois state Senate. Chicago Tribune columnist John Kass says it may not sound like the Obama way, but it is the Chicago way, and back in 1996, Obama used it to full advantage. KASS: To use lawyers to knock out the -- you know, this is not the message of Barack Obama: Let everyone join in democracy and our ideas -- the better ideas shall triumph, right? No, that was Chicago politics. Knock out your opposition, challenge their petitions, destroy your enemy, right? GRIFFIN: Obama had been a grassroots organizer in this gritty neighborhood, registering thousands to vote before going off to Harvard Law School. He came back to Chicago to work as a lawyer and saw a chance to run for state Senate. But in his first race for office, he made sure Democratic voters had just one choice: him. ASKIA: He wasn't honorable. Right? That's what I'm saying. I wouldn't have done it. LEMON: Gha-Is Askia is no longer in politics. The race against Obama was his last. He and two other Democrats were kicked off that ballot before a single vote was cast. How? Obama sent a team of lawyers and volunteers to the Chicago Board of Elections and challenged the petitions of his opponents. You needed 757 signatures of registered voters to become a candidate. Askia said he gathered 1,899. But when the Obama team was through challenging his signatures, addresses, and voter registrations, Askia came up 69 signatures short. ASKIA: I fought for every single -- what -- they was going on technicalities. GRIFFIN: If names were printed instead of written in cursive, they were kicked off, campaign workers told CNN. If signatures were good but the person collecting the petitions wasn't properly registered, all of those signatures were kicked off. ASKIA: Yeah. So, it was -- it was technicalities. GRIFFIN: Jay Stewart with Chicago's Better Government Association says there is nothing illegal about what Obama did. In fact, it's the way politics are played in Chicago. STEWART: He came from Chicago politics. "Politics ain't beanbag," as they say in Chicago. You play with your elbows up and you're pretty tough and ruthless when you have to be. Senator Obama felt that's what was necessary at the time; that's what he did. You know, does it fit in with the rhetoric now? Perhaps not. GRIFFIN: But Askia wasn't the incumbent. When we come back, how Barack Obama also wiped out the rest of the competition. [end video clip] [...] LEMON: All right. Call it politics as usual or the Chicago way. But in part two of CNN's special investigation, Drew Griffin uncovers how Barack Obama's campaign team took down the incumbent in his first race for a state Senate, a seat in Illinois. It is not pretty. [begin video clip] GRIFFIN: Barack Obama was a relative unknown in 1996 when he first ran for office. To win, he had to get around the five-year incumbent, Alice Palmer. After losing a bid for Congress, Alice Palmer decided to try to keep her Senate seat. She would have been tough competition for a newcomer, but Obama planned to beat her before she ever got on the ballot. Will Burns was one of the volunteers assigned to challenge Alice Palmer's signatures. BURNS: One of the first things you do whenever you're in the middle of a primary race -- or any race, especially in primaries in Chicago -- you look at the signatures. 'Cause if you don't have the signatures to get on the ballot, you save yourself a lot of time and effort from having to raise money and have a full-blown campaign effort against. GRIFFIN: And you guys successfully kept her from running. You also did your job on everybody else on that ballot. BURNS: There are rules. I mean, if you don't have -- GRIFFIN: But I know there are rules. BURNS: Right. GRIFFIN: But let me be real cynical. The guy that registered 150,000 voters, the all-inclusive candidate, let everybody have their vote -- make sure he's the only guy on the ballot in 1996. BURNS: The rules are there for a reason. GRIFFIN: We have had multiple conversations with the Obama campaign about this story. In one of them, the campaign called this a rehash. In another, a hit job. We were denied an interview with the campaign and instead, the campaign directed us to a quote the senator gave the Chicago Tribune last year. "To my mind, we were just abiding by the rules that had been set up," Obama told the Tribune. "My conclusion was that if you couldn't run a successful petition drive, then that raised questions in terms of how effective a representative you were going to be." But in that same Tribune article, Obama had this appraisal of that incumbent, Alice Palmer: "I thought she was a good public servant." Alice Palmer, who is now campaigning for Hillary Clinton, told CNN she doesn't want to talk about her elimination from the ballot by Obama. BURNS: I don't think he enjoyed it. It was not something that he particularly relished. It was not something that I thought he was happy about doing. GRIFFIN: But the Tribune's John Kass says Obama did it anyway. And in 1996, Alice Palmer, who, along with her husband, Buzz -- two legendary South Side activists -- learned you didn't have to be a Chicago native to play like one. KASS: Here comes Barack Obama out of Harvard, using political tactics of the machine to get rid of the Palmers and then calling himself progressive. And I guess -- listen, if you want to believe that, believe that, you know? Just remember this: Richard M. Daley is the boss of Chicago machine. His spokesman was David Axelrod. Their candidate is Barack Obama. Who speaks for Barack Obama? David Axelrod. There's no such thing as coincidences. Chicago politics doesn't have coincidences. And it wasn't a coincidence to get rid of Alice Palmer that way. GRIFFIN: Alice Palmer never ran for public office again. Drew Griffin, CNN, Chicago.

LA Times ignored McCain's alleged role in Keating Five scandal

In a May 30 Los Angeles Times article about Sen. John McCain's early political career, staff writer Richard A. Serrano wrote that "[a]nother influential friend [of McCain] was financier Charles H. Keating Jr. The Phoenix resident raised more than $100,000 for McCain. (Keating went to prison in the 1990s for his role in the failure of Lincoln Savings & Loan.)" Yet while noting Keating's role in the Lincoln Savings & Loan scandal, the Times ignored McCain's own alleged involvement; a Senate Ethics Committee investigated allegations that McCain -- along with four Democratic senators, together called the Keating Five -- had exerted improper influence when he met with federal bank regulators on behalf of Keating. The committee found that while McCain didn't break any rules, he "exercised poor judgment in intervening with the regulators." Moreover, contrary to the Times' suggestion, Keating was not simply a fundraiser for McCain. As The New York Times noted, Keating "gave Mr. McCain free rides on his private jet, a violation of Congressional ethics rules (he later said it was an oversight and paid for the trips). They vacationed together in the Bahamas. And in 1986, the year Mr. McCain was elected to the Senate, his wife joined Mr. Keating in investing in an Arizona shopping mall." In a November 15, 1990, article (accessed via the Nexis database), the Los Angeles Times itself noted Keating's close relationship with McCain, stating that McCain took "nine trips to the Bahamas on Keating's plane before he was elected to the Senate in 1986. He and his wife stayed at Keating's vacation home during three of the trips and his wife invested money in a Keating venture." Similarly, in a March 1, 2007, article about the Keating Five, The Arizona Republic reported that while during the investigation of the Keating affair, McCain "had adopted the blanket defense that Keating was a constituent. ... Keating was no ordinary constituent to McCain." From the March 2007 article: He had adopted the blanket defense that Keating was a constituent and that he had every right to ask his senators for help. In attending the meetings, McCain said, he simply wanted to make sure that Keating was treated like any other constituent. Keating was no ordinary constituent to McCain. On Oct. 8, 1989, The Arizona Republic revealed that McCain's wife and her father had invested $359,100 in a Keating shopping center in April 1986, a year before McCain met with the regulators. The paper also reported that the McCains, sometimes accompanied by their daughter and baby-sitter, had made at least nine trips at Keating's expense, sometimes aboard the American Continental jet. Three of the trips were made during vacations to Keating's opulent Bahamas retreat at Cat Cay. McCain also did not pay Keating for some of the trips until years after they were taken, after he learned that Keating was in trouble over Lincoln. Total cost: $13,433. When the story broke, McCain did nothing to help himself. "You're a liar," McCain said when a Republic reporter asked him about the business relationship between his wife and Keating. "That's the spouse's involvement, you idiot," McCain said later in the same conversation. "You do understand English, don't you?" He also belittled reporters when they asked about his wife's ties to Keating. "It's up to you to find that out, kids." The paper ran the story. The Republic further reported that McCain admitted in 2002 to having exhibited "ridiculously immature behavior" during the 1989 interview with the Republic, and that shortly after the Republic interview, McCain acknowledged that he "said he should have reimbursed Keating immediately, not waited several years." Additionally, in the May 30 Los Angeles Times article, Serrano wrote that during McCain's 1982 race for a U.S. House of Representatives seat, McCain's father-in-law, James Hensley, "put him on the payroll as a public relations man for the statewide beer distributorship, giving him the opportunity to meet business executives and gain access to fundraiser lists -- crucial for a political novice." However, Serrano didn't note that Hensley and his business associates reportedly did more than simply give McCain a job with access. The Associated Press reported on April 4: Within a few years of marrying Cindy Hensley, the daughter of a multimillionaire Anheuser-Busch distributor, John McCain won his first election. He was new to Arizona politics and fundraising in the 1982 race for the House of Representatives, and his campaign quickly fell into debt. Personal money -- tens of thousands of dollars in loans to his campaign from McCain bank accounts -- helped him survive. Anheuser-Busch's political action committee was among McCain's earliest donors. Cindy McCain's father, James Hensley, and other Hensley & Co. executives gave so much money that the Federal Election Commission ordered McCain to give some of it back. His campaign used Hensley office equipment such as computers and copiers, and Cindy McCain personally paid some of the campaign's bills. The AP article added, "The [McCain] campaign gradually reimbursed Hensley for use of its equipment and Cindy McCain for her expenses." From the May 30 Los Angeles Times article: Colleagues recall how he [McCain] ignored the searing desert heat -- and the risk of skin cancer -- as he campaigned, refusing to wear a hat or tote an umbrella to ward off the sun. His knuckles rapped on 15,000 or so doors that summer. "Let's go hit the bricks!" he liked to say. It was by no means a solo effort. His father-in-law put him on the payroll as a public relations man for the statewide beer distributorship, giving him the opportunity to meet business executives and gain access to fundraiser lists -- crucial for a political novice. McCain also leaned on his Washington connections, old friends such as Sens. William S. Cohen (R-Maine), Gary Hart (D-Colo.) and John G. Tower (R-Texas), his political mentor. All were important in securing endorsements for McCain. Most fortuitous of all was the fact that the veteran Republican officeholder in the Phoenix area, Rep. John J. Rhodes, had decided to retire -- leaving the 1st Congressional District wide open. [...] The candidate also was aided by his friendship with Arizona Republic Publisher Darrow "Duke" Tully, who touted himself as a war hero and was eager to spread McCain's story across his pages. The two were so close that Tully was named godfather to John and Cindy McCain's first child. (Tully resigned from the paper after it was learned that he had fabricated his war achievements; it turned out he had never served in the military.) Another influential friend was financier Charles H. Keating Jr. The Phoenix resident raised more than $100,000 for McCain. (Keating went to prison in the 1990s for his role in the failure of Lincoln Savings & Loan.) "John McCain had some pretty powerful friends at that time," said Donna Carlson, a state legislator and one of the three Republicans who squared off against him in the 1982 primary. Carlson had moved to the Phoenix area about 15 years before McCain and worked to build her Arizona resume. She was a county committeewoman and a state representative. Before that she headed a local GOP women's group. When Rhodes stepped down, she figured it was her turn to move up. Two other candidates jumped in, which threatened to split the important Mormon vote.

Bahrain names Jewish US envoy

The king of Bahrain appoints a Jewish female legislator as the country's new envoy to the United States.