Zachary Roth | | Washington | September 21

TPM Muckraker - Federal prosecutors have accused a major Democratic fundraiser with ties to Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton of orchestrating a Ponzi scheme that involved swindling several major banks out of hundreds of millions of dollars, and using some of the proceeds to fund political candidates and PACs.

According to a Justice Department press release, Hassan Nemazee was indicted this afternoon by a grand jury, charged with using fake documents and signatures to bilk Citibank, Bank of America, and HSBC out of over $290 million, in an alleged scheme that dates back to 1998. Nemazee alleged used the Citibank money to repay the B of A loan, and vice versa. And even after being questioned by FBI agents about the Citibank loan last month, Nemazee allegedly went to HSBC to fraudulently draw down a line of credit, which he tried to access funds to pay back Citibank.

Robert Barnes | Washington | September 4

WaPo - More than 100 years of restrictions on corporate support of political candidates will be at stake next week when the Supreme Court considers whether a quirky case about a film denouncing Hillary Rodham Clinton should lead to a rewrite of the way federal elections are financed.

In an unusual hearing in the midst of their summer recess, the justices will decide whether to move beyond the particulars of "Hillary: The Movie" to more profound questions about the First Amendment's guarantee of free speech and how that squares with political spending.

The justices will consider casting aside previous rulings that uphold laws restricting corporate support of political candidates.

Today, Sarah Palin's resignation came into effect. Here is some musical commentary:

St. Paul, MN | June 30

CNN - Minnesota's Supreme Court has dismissed former Sen. Norm Coleman's challenge to the state's November election results and declared Democratic challenger Al Franken the winner.

The court's unanimous, unsigned opinion declared that Franken "received the highest number of votes legally cast" and is entitled "to receive the certificate of election as United States senator from the state of Minnesota."

If the ruling brings an end to seven months of challenges by Coleman, Franken would become the 60th member of the Senate Democratic caucus, a move that gives the party a filibuster-proof majority in the chamber, at least on paper.

Bill Dedman | Washington, DC | June 16

MSNBC - Taking Bush's position, administration denies msnbc.com request for logs

The Obama administration is fighting to block access to names of visitors to the White House, taking up the Bush administration argument that a president doesn't have to reveal who comes calling to influence policy decisions.

Despite President Barack Obama's pledge to introduce a new era of transparency to Washington, and despite two rulings by a federal judge that the records are public, the Secret Service has denied msnbc.com's request for the names of all White House visitors from Jan. 20 to the present. It also denied a narrower request by the nonpartisan watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which sought logs of visits by executives of coal companies.

Unreported '08 Election Stats

INTERESTING FACTS --- Some unreported stats about the 2008 election

Professor Joseph Olson of Hamline University School of Law, St. Paul,
Minnesota, points out some interesting facts concerning the 2008 Presidential
election:

-Number of States won by: Democrats: 20; Republicans: 30

-Square miles of land won by: Democrats: 580,000; Republicans: 2,427,000

-Population of counties won by: Democrats: 127 million; Republicans: 143
million

-Murder rate per 100,000 residents in counties won by: Democrats: 13.2;
Republicans: 2.1

Professor Olson adds: "In aggregate, the map of the territory Republican won

Seating Franken and Burris

Al Franken (D-MN) left and Roland Burris (D-IL) right
Image cc Image cc

Memo to the U.S. Senate:
Try Following the Rules

Michael Collins

Yes, yes, I know you are all going to say, "at least let the guy govern for a while." I don't care. Were it not for some decent environmental appointees I'd be giving Obama an F just as George suggests. His analysis is spot on too. It's all unity-porn. Yes, yes, "we'll see." But still, you have to admit, his appointments don't augur well. More Republican-lite Clintonesque triangulation for the next few years. Guaranteed.

This is great news. Al Franken has pulled ahead of Norm Coleman. Nice!

[Originally posted @work.] A little while after noon today, the State Canvassing Board began evaluating the challenged U.S. Senate race ballots. Some cookies and coffee are making the rounds; they just joked the cookies made everyone more amicable.

On the ballot where someone marked "Mickey Mouse" for president, and made a small dot on Al Franken's oval, Supreme Court Chief Justice Eric Magnuson is getting a little snarky: "This isn't a voter who cared a lot... or maybe cared too much, I don't know." The small dot was ruled, with a dissenting vote, to not constitute a vote for Franken.

For the most part, things are moving along fairly smoothly, and generally everyone seems to be in good spirits. Franken's lawyer, Marc Elias, has gotten razzed for being blustery at press conferences (most memorably in a great MinnPost article by Jay Weiner), but he seems cool and collected today, as does U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman's team. Evidently, these lawyers know that ticking off judges is a bad move.

Several outlets are streaming live: WCCO, the Star Tribune, and The Uptake are all putting up video feeds. The Uptake also has a nifty live chat widget going, as does Bob Collins' News Cut.

Several heavily disputed ballots have been set aside to evaluate later: it's probably a wise move to drill through the easier challenges first. The Franken campaign touted a report by one of the AP's Capitol writers, Brian Bakst, which suggested that their camp might finally have the edge because of around 200 easily determined ballots in his favor. Of course, the Coleman camp doesn't buy it.

Sam Stein | December 12

Huffington Post - The Minnesota Senate recount campaign has firmly entered its legal stages, with Al Franken's chief counsel sending a lengthy and sharply argued memorandum to the Secretary of State's office on Thursday making the case for counting a group of contested absentee ballots.

The newsworthy thrust of David Lillehaug's 39-page brief for Secretary of State Mark Ritchie was the direct highlighting of 62 individual cases where voters were either "erroneously rejected by election officials for not being registered," or their absentee ballots were wrongfully rejected.

I've been following the news pretty closely in the Franken vs. Coleman race. Coleman's strategy is basically the same as Bush's was in Florida: challenge everything but make sure your votes are the ones that stay in the public eye. That shouldn't be allowed to work this time around. I'm not saying Franken has won, either. What I do think, however, is that there be a run-off. And there is ample precedent for such a thing. It's basically a statistical tie at this point. So, let's have a run-off.

Crossposted from Left Toon Lane, Bilerico Project & My Left Wing


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Crossposted from Left Toon Lane, Bilerico Project & My Left Wing


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Carrie Johnson | Washington | November 19

WaPo - Eric H. Holder Jr., a former Justice Department official who was President-elect Barack Obama's campaign co-chairman, is the leading candidate to serve as the next U.S. attorney general, according to Democratic sources familiar with the choice.

Holder, 57, was offered the job late last week and tentatively accepted it, sources said. The Obama team intends to make the nomination official if he receives at least moderate support from Republican lawmakers and completes the vetting process, the sources said. Intermediaries began to reach out to Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee last week, and the vetting pace accelerated yesterday.

She just doesn't have the demographics to win, and never will. Sarah Palin had 59% unfavorables as the election closed. Those are terrible numbers, and that was after 65 days of campaigning, not after months and months of primaries. Should she run for president in 2012 she won't make it through the primaries. At best she would be like Mike Huckabee, showing a respectable second. Except she won't be like Mike Huckabee; she'll be competing with Mike Huckabee for the same limited demographic, thereby further diluting her chances.

Jane Lampman | Boston | Nov 15

CSM - They rejected the “culture wars,” with its narrow agendas and liberal-conservative divisiveness, in favor of politics that build bridges on a range of contentious issues. The readiness to work together is revealed in a national poll on voters’ priorities and values taken on Nov. 5-7 in the immediate aftermath of the election.

Nearly three-quarters of voters (and of religious voters) said people of faith should promote the common good, not protect their own views. Even groups most active in the religious right said a broader faith agenda would best reflect their values.

Only 1 in 5 white Evangelicals and 1 in 8 Catholics said an agenda focused on abortion and same-sex marriage best expressed their values. A majority of both Evangelicals (55 percent) and Catholics (51 percent) opted for a broad agenda that also includes poverty, the environment, and the war in Iraq. The survey involved a nationally representative sample of 1,277 voters and had a margin of error of 3 percent.

Is one part of our long nightmare over?

Crossposted from Left Toon Lane, Bilerico Project & My Left Wing


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Set aside any Obama euphoria you feel. The other important news is that third-party presidential candidates had a miserable showing this year, totaling just over one percent of the grand total with 1.5 million votes nationwide, compared to some 123 million votes for Barack Obama and John McCain.

It couldn’t be clearer that Americans are not willing to voice their political discontent by voting for third-party presidential candidates. The two-party duopoly and plutocracy is completely dominant. The US lacks the political competition that exists in other western democracies. Without real political competition there is insufficient political choice.

“In record numbers, Americans voted on Tuesday for a skillful presidential nominee promising change, but "change" should not be confused with a license to raise taxes, drive up wasteful government spending, weaken our security, or give more power to Washington, Big Labor bosses and the trial bar. Americans did not vote for higher taxes to fund a redistribution of wealth; drastic cuts in funding for our troops; the end of secret ballots for workers participating in union elections; more costly obstacles to American energy production; or the imposition of government-run health care on employers and working families.” – John Boehner Washington Post

Schadenfreude - it's what's for breakfast - Rick

Deroy Murdock | New York | November 6

Scripps Howard - Congratulations to Barack Obama, the incoming 44th President of the United States. He soon will fill America's highest office after a nearly flawless, first-time White House bid. He demonstrates that education, eloquence, and elegance trump lingering racial bias. His staunchly left-liberal ideas aside, he inspires in many ways. May he govern justly and make every American proud.

Now, what about those who Obama and his supporters vanquished? What the Republican Party badly needs is a Night of the Long Knives.

The GOP has been laid low, thanks to politicians who swapped their principles for power and lost both. As the chief electoral vehicle for conservative and free-market ideas, the Republican Party cannot regain America's confidence, nor should it, until the guilty have been catapulted into the nearest volcano.

Comrade George W. Bush has spearheaded the most aggressive federal expansion since Franklin Delano Roosevelt. As a delivery system for socialism, he has been the most effective Trojan Horse since that pine steed rolled into Troy.

more at the link...

The Election That Changed the World…,

no, no, no…, not the election of Barack Obama. Though I sincerely hope that I will someday write that about it.

Once upon a time we had a President who was truly elected by the people…, and he worked tirelessly for the people of America then…, and continues to work for the betterment of all mankind long after his term in office. He was elected mainly because he promised never to lie to the American people. And he never did. While in office he said things like,

“Tonight I want to have an unpleasant talk with you about a problem unprecedented in our history. With the exception of preventing war, this is the greatest challenge our country will face during our lifetimes. The energy crisis has not yet overwhelmed us, but it will if we do not act quickly.”

Newsweek is running a seven-part series - presently on Chapter 6 - from a team given extensive access to both campaigns with the agreement that none of the material would be published until after the election. A must-read for political junkies. I highly recommend you download the pages and read them at your leisure.

Secrets of the 2008 Campaign

It is now officially over. The name calling, the fear mongering, the divisive tactics, the shopping sprees and most importantly Joe the plumber’s fifteen minutes of fame. If McCain had won could you imagine the exposure this guy would have received? He would have been credited with McCain’s victory and maybe would have been offered a cabinet level position. He would have written a book about nothing, he would have made a record about nothing. Let’s face it the guy himself was fond of saying that he knew nothing. America has spoken and the winner is…That One! And the loser is the politics of the past still fighting the cultural wars of that past.

Kate Snow | November 6

ABC News - Strains Between McCain and Palin Aides Go Public

Report: Palin's Wardrobe Is to Be Audited by GOP

Now that the defeated team of Sen. John McCain and Gov. Sarah Palin have gone their separate ways, the knives are out and Palin is the one who is getting filleted.

Revelations from anonymous critics from within the McCain-Palin campaign suggest a number of complaints about the Alaskan governor:

* Fox News reports that Palin didn't know Africa was a continent and did not know the member nations of the North American Free Trade Agreement -- the United States, Mexico and Canada -- when she was picked for vice president.