The Nightmare Before Next Christmas!
Posted on 02/11/2008 8:01:48 PM PST by Tigen
Candidate's Reform Institute also accepted funds from Teresa Kerry
As Sen. John McCain assumes the GOP front-runner mantle, his long-standing, but little-noticed association with left-wing donors such as George Soros and Teresa Heinz Kerry is receiving new attention among his Republican critics.
In 2001, McCain founded the Alexandria, Va.-based Reform Institute as a vehicle to receive funding from George Soros' Open Society Institute and Teresa Heinz Kerry's Tides Foundation and several other prominent non-profit organizations.
McCain used the institute to promote his political agenda and provide compensation to key campaign operatives between elections.
In 2006, the Arizona senator was forced to sever his formal ties with the Reform Institute after a controversial $200,000 contribution from Cablevision came to light. McCain solicited the donation for the Reform Institute using his membership on the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. In a letter to the Federal Communications Commission, he supported Cablevision's push to introduce the more profitable al la carte pricing, rather than packages of TV programming.
(Excerpt) Read more at worldnetdaily.com ...
I have come to the conclusion that it is the politicians corrupting the businesses not the other way around.
Since politicians feel the need to "micromanage" , "create policy" , or enact reams and reams of regulations at every level of government for the business world, the business world naturally has to bribe the politicians in self defense.
The politicians are extortionists, that is the problem.
The really unfortunate part is that we've created most of it by electing people in both parties who have caused it over the last 40 yrs. I agree with Paul that we shouldn't be there, but I don't agree with his remedy of folding up and leaving and bringing our armed forces home from everywhere. That's a recipe for disaster. If we were to have a policy of using our own sources which would take years to develop along with a gradual pull-back of the military beginning with places like Germany and Korea, that would make sense. Of course the minute the Saudis started flooding the market with cheap oil, people here would be demanding to buy it again at a lower price and wanting to abandon drilling and exploring here for the same thing that would cost more.
No president can make any kind of long term plan for anything because the next administration can abandon it in 2 - 4 yrs., so I can't see how we'll ever solve anything.
He does not blame America. He blames a flawed foreign policy. He blames policy makers. Not America. Unless of course, you are one of those policy makers, then you are to blame, not as an American, but as a policy maker.
Obviously you were sucked in by the propagandists. What he offered was taken from the 911 commission reports and CIA reports. Whether or not you accept those reports is up to you. You may not like the messenger (RP), but his message comes from the govt reports.
If one is to argue that RP blames America for sharing in the debates what these reports offered, then one must also argue that the 911 Commission and CIA reports blamed America as well.
A flawed foreign policy is to blame. That is/was/always will be RP's point. Get informed, learn to read past the propaganda, and quit spreading propaganda.
You should follow pissant’s suggestion, above.
I read the topic post and thought, where have I heard this before? Ah, yes, the torrent of accusations that Ron Paul’s money was somehow coming from George Soros. It didn’t ring true in that case, and I wondered how it could be true in McCain’s case.
Well, I’m still not too sure exactly how Soros himself is connected, but this Reform Institute looks very much like a political shakedown machine to me. Taking large donations from people who have important business in front of the Commerce Committee McCain chaired certainly has the appearance of impropriety, employing his campaign staff between elections seems darn convenient, and there are other disturbing aspects to the organization. Calcowgirl and Tigerseye have presented lots of facts for consideration.
khnyny--I think we have the wrong Cecilia Martinez. Am I missing something?
I wanted to verify it because The Reform Institute was weighing in on the mortgage crisis back in October 2007 and it struck me as very odd that the comments were coming from Cecilia Martinez. I kept wondering how one person could masquerade as an expert in Election Reform, Environmental Justice, the Indian Movement and now an expert in the mortgage market, too!
From google books.
Cecilia Martinez is a professor of ethnic studies at the Metropolitan State University (Minnesota) and a research associate of the American Research and Policy Institute.From Metropolitan State University
Cecilia Martinez is Chair of the Ethnic Studies Department at Metropolitan State University. She has conducted national evaluations on community development programs in collaboration with the Rockefeller Institute of Government and local community organizations. She is Research Director for the American Indian Policy Center and has worked with community agencies in a variety of areas including: community-based planning, eliminating health disparities, anti-racism assessment, and welfare planning. She is also a Senior Fellow at the Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research, University of Delaware.From The Reform Institute Website:
Cecilia I. MartinezExecutive Director, Reform Institute
e-mail: cmartinez@reforminstitu...Cecilia Martinez is the Executive Director of the Reform Institute, a nonprofit educational organization based in Alexandria, Virginia that represents an unique, independent voice working to strengthen the foundations of our democracy. The Institute champions the national interest by formulating and advocating meaningful reform in vital areas of public policy, including campaign finance and election reform, climate stewardship, homeland security and immigration reform. Ms. Martinez has served as the Institute's executive director since January 2003, after returning to Washington from Arizona.
Ms. Martinez is the former Executive Director of the Clean Elections Institute (CEI) in Phoenix, Arizona. As Executive Director, Ms. Martinez advocated for the proper implementation of Arizona's unique Clean Elections law passed by initiative in 1998, which created an optional public funding system for statewide and legislative political campaigns.
Ms. Martinez coordinated the Southwest Policy Leaders Forum at the Center for Policy Alternatives in Washington, D.C. She also served on the staff for the Colorado General Assembly, while achieving a Master of Art in political science from Colorado State University. Cecilia also holds a Graduate Certificate in women's studies from Colorado State University.
Ms. Martinez has appeared on national television news programs including MSNBC’s Tucker Carlson Show, NOW with Bill Moyers, and the News Hour with Jim Lehrer. She has been quoted in national news outlets including TIME magazine, National Public Radio, and the Associated Press.
Ms. Martinez is an alumnus of the American Council of Young Political Leaders where she traveled to Hungary and Poland. She is an active Trustee of the Committee for Economic Development and serves on the American Bar Association’s Coalition for Justice. She is also a graduate of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF) Leadership Development Program.
In her spare time, Ms. Martinez competes in triathlons and enjoys cycling, hiking, swimming, skiing, and snowshoeing.
Ms. Martinez is a first-generation American raised in Ohio. She is married to Fort Guerin and currently lives in the Washington, D.C. area. She holds a Bachelor of Arts and a Master of Arts in Political Science from Colorado State University.
If she's commuting between Minnesota and Virginia to hold down all those jobs and chair positions and has time for those spare time activities she's got to be some kind of superhuman. lol Must be two different women.
If my surname were Martinez I would name or rename all my daughters Cecelia though. ;^)
I think she has to stay on the move to get away from the freaky art of her husband! LOL
“...She is married to Fort Guerin ...”
http://www.barbaraarcher.com/artists/guerin/index.html
Or get away from him. He seems to have a thing for cutting women’s bodies into pieces. Yikes!
But he has an R next to his name. I have to vote for him.
The guy on the phone from the RNC said if I don’t than Hillary will be President. I have to vote for the liberal with the R next his name or the liberal with the D next to her/his name will win.
"The revolution is not an apple that falls when it is ripe. You have to make it fall."
"We can rattle our sabers all we want but, realistically, we don't have troops for an invasion [Iran] and surgical strikes aren't going to work."
Troublesome Résumés
By Edward T. Pound
Posted 5/20/07It isn't just the candidate whose reputation has been challenged in some quarters. Ethical questions have arisen about three of Sen. John McCain's most senior campaign aides—John Weaver, Richard Davis, and Terry Nelson. Weaver and Davis, often at odds over strategy, worked for McCain's presidential effort in 2000; Nelson was brought aboard for the current campaign.
Weaver, a seasoned political operative, ran into an ethical storm while employed by the 1996 presidential campaign of then Sen. Phil Gramm...
(snip)
The questions surrounding Davis concern his part ownership of a company, 3eDC, and its ties to the McCain campaign. Like Weaver and Nelson, Davis, the campaign CEO, is paid $20,000 a month. Additionally, however, Davis's 3eDC has a lucrative contract with the campaign. U.S. News could find no public record showing Davis's ownership interest in 3EDC, but in an interview he acknowledged that he was one of its two owners. McCain's spokesman, Brian Jones, confirmed that Davis "did not disclose his interest in 3eDC to Senator McCain.'"
3eDC helped build the campaign's website and maintains its infrastructure. Davis declined to disclose the company's contractual arrangement with McCain's operation, but campaign records filed recently show that the company is owed $175,000 for just three months' work. Davis identified the other 3edc owner as Paul Manafort, his partner in a lobbying firm, Davis Manafort. Manafort is a controversial figure in Washington. He has represented notorious dictators and once described himself as an "influence peddler" in testimony before a House committee examining how he and other Republican operatives profited from a housing program for the poor.
Questions about Terry Nelson, the campaign manager, have emerged previously. Nelson figured in the Texas campaign scandal that led to the indictment of former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. The indictment alleges that Nelson, as an official at the Republican National Committee, acted as a conduit when $190,000 in corporate funds was laundered through the RNC to Republican candidates in Texas five years ago. ...
(snip)
When Mr. McCain's first campaign manager, Terry Nelson, left this summer, he was followed out by John Weaver, the longtime chief strategist who had originally helped persuade the senator to run for president. Out of loyalty to those two men, other top aides resigned.
Taking over, Mr. Davis was painted by his rivals as an opportunist who had managed to wrest control of the organization in part by winning influence with Mr. McCain's wife, Cindy.
Some of those rivals also accused him of self-dealing, since 3eDC, a company he partly owns, had been retained by the campaign to provide Web services. Aides questioned whether Mr. Davis's role in the company had been fully disclosed and said Mr. Weaver, having learned of the arrangement, had tried to end it.
All told, 3eDC billed the campaign more than $1 million for Web services during the first half of the year. (The amount still owed the company accounts for about a third of the campaign's debt.) News reports also noted that Davis Manafort, the business development and consulting practice from which Mr. Davis is on leave, had been giving campaign advice to the Ukrainian prime minister, Viktor F. Yanukovich, a favorite of the Kremlin, whose power Mr. McCain often warns against.
Mr. Davis said in the interview that the 3eDC contract had been thoroughly vetted, with his role fully disclosed, and called any accusation that he had been trying to enrich himself ''typical smear stuff.'' He said he did not fight back against the accusation when it surfaced over the summer because he did not want the back-and-forth to distract from the campaign.
You outlined in your post a gradual draw-down. That is one way.
But in order to even start changing direction, we have got to stop maintaining the same power structure that is now in power.
We start that by electing whoever we can that has a clear understanding of how we got to where we are today, and a desire to do the opposite.
Only one man is currently qualified to lead the change in direction: Ron Paul.
All the others are of the same old mindset that has gotten us into this mess.
Right! And let's remind everyone that some of those policy makers are not, in fact, Americans!
Lotsa worms here. With McCain as the biggest one.
Doesn’t a million for Web services seem a bit high for 6 months?
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