Arianna Huffington: McCain’s Campaign Funding Hypocrisy: Why Are the Media Looking the Other Way? – Politics on The Huffington Post

Arianna Huffington

(Well to answer Ms. Huffington question, which I’m sure she knows, is that all the major media in this country are owned by a conglomeration of corporations that have one agenda. Blood is money and money is the bottom line. For those of you who don’t know, first read the article then I will point out the facts, dave)

Last month, I wrote about the mainstream media’s ongoing membership in the John McCain Protection Society and its offshoot, the Swift Boat Media for McCain, and of how their highly motivated efforts are affecting the presidential race.

The MSM’s overheated response to Barack Obama’s decision to opt out of the public campaign finance system was a textbook example.

“Obama chose winning over his word” and “tarnished his carefully honed image as a different kind of politician,” said the AP’s Liz Sidoti.

“Your typical politician,” said Lou Dobbs.

“No wonder John McCain smelled a flip-flop,” said Dean Reynolds on the CBS Evening News.

“People in this country like to believe that people play on a level playing field and that a campaign will be about ideas and personality; if you start with that much more money, is it basically fair?” asked Charlie Gibson.

Isn’t it interesting how, after largely ignoring the issue for the last 30 years, during which the GOP consistently outfundraised and outspent Democrats in election after election, the media are suddenly all atwitter about whether the campaign finance system is “basically fair”? How dare Obama inspire 1.5 million donors, giving an average of $197 apiece, to help him raise more money than McCain?

“This is a big deal,” said McCain of Obama’s decision. “It’s a big deal. He has completely reversed himself and gone back not on his word to me, but the commitment that he made to the American people. That’s disturbing.”

What’s actually disturbing is the Swift Boat Media’s complete indifference to McCain’s bald-faced hypocrisy on the same issue. Amidst all the attacks on Obama’s “flip-flop,” how much have you read in the MSM about the fact that McCain has “completely reversed himself” on public financing — and is currently breaking the law on a daily basis, making a mockery out of a campaign finance system he helped create?

In the fall of 2007, McCain opted into the public financing system for the GOP primaries, which meant he’d later receive just over $5 million in public funds in exchange for agreeing to a fundraising limit of around $54 million for the entire primary process, which ends when he accepts the nomination at the Republican National Convention in September.

By late November, his campaign was practically broke, so McCain took out a pair of $1 million loans, using the public funds he would receive as collateral.

Cut to Super Tuesday, when McCain had the Republican nomination all but wrapped up. Suddenly, he didn’t want to be bound by that $54 million limit, so his campaign did a 180 and opted back out of the public financing system.

But as David Mason, the Republican-appointed chair of the FEC, has pointed out, you can’t just unilaterally opt out — especially after securing a loan based on having opted in. The response of the McCain campaign is quite simply to ignore Mason. And because the FEC currently lacks a quorum (thanks to stalling tactics by that human roadblock to reform, Mitch McConnell) that’s where things stand, pending a ruling on a lawsuit filed by the DNC.

Yet few in the Swift Boat Media saw fit to point out this glaring contradiction in McCain’s cries about broken commitments made to the American people. Indeed, as Media Matters points out, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the CBS Evening News, NBC’s Nightly News, Fox News’ Special Report, and CNN all dutifully reported McCain’s “Big deal” claim without mentioning McCain’s campaign finance chicanery.

One notable exception was CNN’s John Roberts. When McCain surrogate Nancy Pfotenhauer tried to contrast Obama opting out of public financing and McCain’s steadfast resolve in the face of torture at the Hanoi Hilton, Roberts, as noted by our Jason Linkins, firmly raised the question of whether McCain cheated the campaign financing system.

But that kind of pushback was rare, even as McCain adviser Sen. Lindsey Graham painted Obama’s decision as a dark day for America: “This is just really sad for the country. For somebody with this much ability, this much talent, to fall this far, this soon… This guy wants to win, he’ll do anything to win.”

Looking back on the journey McCain has taken, from tireless champion of campaign finance reform to presidential nominee abusing every campaign finance loophole possible, Graham’s words are actually a fitting epitaph for the loss of the Old John McCain of 2000. It is “just really sad for the country” that the man who once vowed “to have blood all over the floor of the Senate until we accede to the demands of the people” for meaningful reform has been replace by the John McCain of 2008.

Some advocates of public financing have found Obama’s decision a disappointment. Others side with Francis Wilkinson who, writing in the New York Times, deemed it “probably the most obvious and inevitable decision he’ll make all year — justified both politically and ethically.”

I’m torn. As a longtime supporter of public financing of campaigns, I’d certainly like to see a system where money no longer dominates the political process. But given the imperfections of the current system, including the powerful role independent 527s will likely play in the ’08 race, Obama’s decision is the clearly right one.

What’s more, because of the revolutionary way his campaign has used the Internet, Obama, unlike candidates of the past, no longer needs to spend 2/3 of his time in fundraising dinners with fat cat donors. And wasn’t that the goal of campaign finance reform in the first place?

So while Obama’s decision is a subject open to debate, the mainstream media should not be allowed to get away with their continued refusal to accurately report on the fall of John McCain.

This is the very big deal.

Technorati Tags: mccain, financing, cried wolf, bush third term,

A REAL NEWSPAPER, ST. PETERSBURG TIME!

If only the Citrus County Chronicle were more like a real newspaper, such as the St. Pete Time’s which ran this article about me and the other long shot candidate.

No politics as usual for two

By JOHN FRANK
Published June 25, 2007

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They have little cash and no campaign organization, but the two nonparty candidates making long-shot bids for state House District 43 are full of fight.

Independent David J. Gregory, a 57-year-old from Homosassa, and write-in contender H. David Werder, a 52-year-old from Hudson, aligned with the Democratic Party at one time, but he decided to go it alone for various reasons.

For Gregory, it’s a disdain for politics as usual.

On his Web site www.davidjgregory.com and in campaign information he rails against “career politicians who have forgotten the people who got them there.” He wants to eliminate lobbyists altogether. His slogan: “Give the House back to the people.”

On mainstream issues, he favors legislation promoting the family unit, supports making the homestead exemption portable and thinks insurance companies doing business in the state should be forced to sell homeowners insurance. He also signed a “taxpayers pledge” to never vote for a tax increase.

For the campaign, Gregory took on the nickname of “Taxi Dave” because that’s how most voters probably know him. He drove for Liberty Taxis in Homosassa for 18 years. “Without any money to campaign with, I was hoping somewhere along the line people might remember me,” he said.

Gregory, who has a bone disease that requires him to use a wheelchair, now works at the Citrus County Property Appraiser’s Office in Crystal River. For the past four years, he has been the public service specialist that greets residents as they enter.

As for his chances, he acknowledged it’s a long shot but he said it’s worth trying to influence the discussion.

“If by some miracle I get elected, what better way to show the parties they need to wake up and stop listening to the corporate entities,” he said.

Werder also recognizes the inevitable.

“Lightning has to strike two of them for me (to win),” he said.

But he’s certainly not new to long odds. Werder is the perennial candidate, entering just about any major election in the area.

In November 2006, he finished third in a three-way Democratic primary for the U.S. House seat held by Ginny Brown-Waite, R-Brooksville. It was his fourth attempt, but the first time he generated enough signatures to get on the ballot. Before, he was a write-in.

This time, Werder said he visited the local election office too late to get formally put on the ballot. But he’s sure he could have gotten the support. He said the 5,000 votes he received in November was “really good” and he plans to run again in the future.

Werder is best known for his 439 day stint sitting atop a pole in a Clearwater parking lot, a world record in the 1980s.

If elected to Tallahassee, he wants to focus on the homeowners insurance crisis, which recently hit close to home with his mother’s place. “People are getting priced out of their homes,” he said.

Also he favors a ban on talking on cell phones while driving and wants property tax rates locked in until a home is sold again.

John Frank can be reached at jfrank@sptimes.com or 754-6114.

Lobbyists, Property Taxes, Homestead Exemption, Homeowners Insurance, SMOKE AND MIRRORS

The citizens of Florida and most of the country have been pawns of politicians who represent Corporate America, rather than their constituents. Although it has been a slow and drawn out process, it has been highly effective. After all, Corporate America has a long history of trial and error to draw from, from the early industrial revolution where cheap labor and child labor were brought in to do the tasks of big industry in the cities, to the company mining towns in Virginia and other mining states. In both cases, the industries have used their work forces as necessary means to an end, and the end being their greed and bottom line; PROFIT. In the big industrial cities and the small mining towns, the companies not only owned the work industry but they also owned the banks, built the homes and ran the stores, and just about everything involved in the life of the common man and woman. There was only one thing missing, the ability for wide scale communication and mass media; to subliminal manipulate thoughts of the people. Thought manipulation victims are not aware of it and that’s the point of it. Over time, 40, 50 years, or more, along with society’s natural ¹ethnocentrism brings people to believe their thoughts, are their own!

Today it is worse! ²Just a few corporations own most of the media sources and if they don’t own the rest directly, they own them indirectly as holding companies. They now own, not only the industries of society, but also the means to convey their ideas of a perfect society. Corporate America’s idea of a perfect society is analogous to that of a bee hive. Author 3Tammy Horn points out that we are drawn to bees because bee society is perfectly engineered. There is no waste; honey bees utilize time and space to perform specialized tasks that preserve a highly structured social system. Horn argues that honey bees’ natural behavior reflects American virtues and values, finding them embedded in our cultural symbolism from colonial times to the present. The problem with the perfect society is that it is not a Democracy. The Queen Bee, Corporate America, determines what is best for the hive, society, which does not translate into what is best for the drones, the people!

This accounts for the dramatic changes in the 4mores and beliefs of our people. The breakdown of the family unit, which was the cornerstone on which this Nation was built, continues to crumble because of economic necessity and media manipulation. Economic necessity requires both Mother and Father to work, sometimes multiple jobs, in order to make ends meet. Media manipulation shows what is important in our society, Reebok’s, Nike’s, gangs, basketball, hate, distrust, etc. While the economy is flourishing for the few, it is hardly doing that for the many who must juggle which bills to pay first, the electric, the house payment, or the Doctor’s bill? Without role models in the home the young are left with T.V. and video games in which to learn their values and we have witnessed the disasters that have resulted, Columbine and the Virginia Tech tragedies, are just a few to mention. The hatred present in our society is a direct result of the mass media’s agenda to propagate hatred toward any who would disagree with their views, to vilify them to the point of second class citizenry. Corporate America learned a long time ago that it is much more profitable to promote hatred and warfare, rather than friendship and peace.

The political pundits who have been brought into power by the lobbyists, in the past, had to try to hide their debt payoffs to the lobbyists in the details of legislation that rarely was reviewed by the masses, much less reported by the media. However, over the course of time, and the successful ability of their mass media to manipulate public opinion, they no longer try to hide their payoffs; in fact, they openly profess them as public policy which will benefit everyone. The privatization of former governmental responsibilities to private industry is an open, brazen, payback of debts to lobbyists. The duties that have been taken over by private industry have cost us, the taxpayer, a thousand times more, than when they were performed by the government. We have all heard about the toilet seats that have cost $500 or the hammer for $1000! Let’s not forget the 5Blackwater Corporation in Iraq, the private military machine whose average pay is $215,000 per year. President Bush so eloquently put it, when he said, “6Money trumps peace”.

Florida has had a long history of lobbyists and paybacks and the privatization of government responsibilities has resulted in overwhelming costs when the fraud and corruption that resulted from such privatization is considered, i.e.: 7In July 2004, three top social service officials resigned after acknowledging they took favors from lobbyists. The same month, errors forced the state to scrap a felon voter list a company was paid millions to compile; Two months later, the Jeb Bush Administration canceled $176-million in technology contracts after discovering a former official may have improperly communicated with a vendor, prompting an ongoing criminal investigation; But none of those problems compare to a single contract that threatens to undermine Bush’s six-year legacy of hiring companies to do government work. The rollout of the People First personnel system, run by a Cincinnati company called Convergys that had never had a government contract before, has caused paycheck and benefit problems for thousands of state employees – including legislators who sit in judgment of Bush’s agenda. Now when the issue of Property Taxes and Homestead Exceptions arise in Tallahassee let us not assume that the legislators are reacting to the immediate concerns of the citizens, rather, let us be realistic and acknowledge that their immediate concern is for the lobbyists who represent the building industry of the state. After all, Homestead Exemption has been protecting those who reside in Florida as permanent residents since 1993. These residents have not had to face the dramatic increases in property taxes over the years because of the 3% cap on the assessed value of their property. But because 2005, which was an aberration from the norm, when property sales in the state rose astronomically, and as a result the building industry overextended itself and subsequently could not afford to pay their dramatic increase in their land development property taxes (after sales dropped off in the following years) the lobbyists rush to Tallahassee to ask the state to relieve them of this burden by initiating property tax reform which will ultimately shift the burden of their entrepreneur adventure to that of the people. This is not to say that the homestead exemption should not be adjusted in ways that would alleviate families in certain situations from being penalized if they decide that with old age or smaller families’ requirements they no longer need to stay in their present homes. Making Homesteads portable would afford the opportunity of permanent residents to relocate in the state and not lose their savings from previous homesteads. But do not tear down the system that has proved to be effective over the years for permanent residents of Florida in order to offset loses experienced by the building industry due to their over extension, shifting the burden of their mistakes to the unaware taxpayer. The fact remains if they do adjust the homestead exemption law, they would still have to address the 8Florida Statute which states that even if market trends indicated a lower value, and the Property Appraiser was able to reduce the value assessed accordingly, the taxing authorities are authorized by this law to raise tax rates to get the same revenue they had the prior year without calling it a tax increase! It is the old smoke and mirror game that politicians have been playing forever. Let’s face it, politicians do not react quickly to the people’s concerns, in fact, usually it takes decades to rouse them from their functionary tasks for the lobbyists. It is only when the lobbyists get involved do you ever see a political body show life and then it’s for the wrong reasons.

The homeowner insurance problems are directly related to the lobbyists of big insurance. These insurance companies have been making huge profits over the years from Florida residents and now that they have had setbacks, they want to bail out. 9The year 2005 was the insurance industry greatest ever with more than $40 billion in profit. 2006 was even better, with more than $50 billion in profit. I would tell them that if they want to continue to sell profitable insurance policies in the state, policies such as, annuity, life insurance and car insurance, they must still provide homeowners insurance. These insurance companies are national corporations and they should not sacrifice the people of central Florida when they are just a portion of their bigger national picture. The smaller home owners are being sacrificed by the insurance industry primarily because of the tremendous costs involved in replacing the mansions that are built along the coastlines. ENOUGH.

Unlimited growth is not an end unto itself. Citrus, Levy, and Hernando counties have grown in leaps and bounds over the last 30 years. A certain amount of growth is good when it creates more jobs, a better infrastructure for the welfare of the people, but when it continues unabated all of its benefits are nullified because of the unfair burden it puts on local government in terms of the costs in maintaining that infrastructure. I do not want Citrus, Levy, and Hernando counties to become another, Miami-Dade, Hillsborough, or Broward County. Our tax structure naturally inhibits growth. If we dramatically change that, we can look forward to the peninsula becoming a vast playground for the wealthy while the people who live and work here year round bear the cost of Corporate America’s profiteering.