What is a community organizer? ACORN stands for Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now — James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles expose ACORN fraud

Citizen journalists exposed ACORN on camera. Now the Obama/Democrat politicians have to sever their ties with the socialist group famous for ballot stuffing, voter registrations by the tens of thousands and illegal loans by the thousands (helping fuel the financial meltdown).  The two citizen journalists asked for tax advice on opening up a house of prostitution and got some good tips from ACORN staff members. 

 

The interview was taped and now Obama has some explaining to do. Why did he pick 9-11 for the first annual day of service? Now ACORN will forever be tied to a tragic day in American history. ACORN is a brownshirt political activist group hired to rig local elections and beef up poor and illegal numbers for federal aid.  What a shitty organization? My god! 

 

Two employees at the Baltimore, Maryland, branch of the liberal community organizing group ACORN were caught on tape allegedly offering advice to a pair posing as a pimp and prostitute on setting up a prostitution ring and evading the IRS.

The video  was recorded and and posted online Thursday by James O’Keefe, a conservative activist. He was joined on the video by another conservative, Hannah Giles, who posed as the prostitute in the filmmakers’ undercover sting.

Wonder why the New York Times or Washington Post didn’t think of doing this kind of real journalism? I think you know the answer.

The video shows the pair approaching two women working at the ACORN Baltimore office and asking them for advice on how to set up a prostitution ring involving more than a dozen underage girls from El Salvador. One of the ACORN workers suggests that Giles refer to herself as a “performing artist” on tax forms and declare some of the girls as dependents to receive child tax credits.

“Stop saying prostitution,” the woman, identified by the filmmaker as an ACORN tax expert, tells Giles. The other woman tells them, “You want to keep them clean … make sure they go to school.”

Both woman appear enthusiastic to help. The tape is on YOUTUBE. Google it. 

James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles visited one of ACORN’s New York offices in August, where they picked up handy tips on how to lie on housing forms to cover up a prostitution business (”Honesty is not going to get you the house,” one ACORN official advises) and how to hide cash from their illicit business (”When you buy the house with the backyard, you get a tin…and you bury it down in there…cover it…and put the grass over it…”).

Watch the whole thing at Big Government. This is now the third videotaped sting exposing the ACORN racket’s law-undermining, truth-sabotaging counseling sessions.

If the Census Bureau no longer trusts ACORN to collect data as a result of these videotapes, why is Congress still allowing taxpayer money to be funneled to the ACORN Housing Corporation?

AHC has received an estimated $16 million in taxpayer funds between 1997-2007, according to the Employment Policies Institute.

 ACORN is now managing apartments in Bedford-Stuyvesant for the newly completed Atlantic Avenue Apartments.

 

The video footage — which has been edited and goes to black in some areas — was recorded and posted online Thursday by James O’Keefe, a conservative activist. He was joined on the video by another conservative, Hannah Giles, who posed as the prostitute in the filmmakers’ undercover sting.

The video shows the pair approaching two women working at the ACORN Baltimore office and asking them for advice on how to set up a prostitution ring involving more than a dozen underage girls from El Salvador.

One of the ACORN workers suggests that Giles refer to herself as a “performing artist” on tax forms and declare some of the girls as dependents to receive child tax credits.

 

 

 

 

Governor Sarah Palin, in her Wednesday night speech to 40 million Americans said, “I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a ‘community organizer, except that you have actual responsibilities.” Sarah hit a grand slam with that one.

 

But what exactly were Barack Obama’s actions as of community organizer in Chicago?

 

It’s been hidden from the news that Obama was a member of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, ACORN. Google ACORN and you may be surprised to find that it is a liberal/socialist organization involved in voter fraud. Look up the lawsuits ACORN is involved in.

 

 

Obama’s community organizing involved training grievance-mongers from ACORN.

Last week, Milwaukee’s top election official announced plans to seek criminal investigatioins of 37 ACORN employees accused voter registration fraud on a massive level.

 

Obama’s campaign apologized for failing to report $800,000 in campaign payments to ACORN. They were “accidently” filed with the Federal Election Committee as money sent to “get-out-the-vote” and “advance work.”

 

The New York Post has more quotes today from upset community organizers. Joshua Hoyt, executive director of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, says: “I don’t like seeing the really hard work that goes on in really poor communities being demeaned by cheap politicians.”

 

Hard work such as signing up non U.S. citizens as Democrats with voter cards.

 

The Arkansas connection
You know Acorn. You know the grassroots organization, now a national power, got its start here, led by Wade Rathke (pictured), who spent the group’s formative years wheeling and dealing in Little Rock before moving to New Orleans. The local affiliate remains a powerful voice for poor people.

Depending on your point of view, you’ll be saddened or gladdened to learn this shocking news:

The New York Times reports today that founder Rathke’s brother embezzled $1 million from the organization eight years ago and the matter was handled internally.He stayed on the payroll until a month ago, when whistleblowers finally forced him out.

Wade Rathke said the organization had signed a restitution agreement with his brother in which his family agreed to repay the amount embezzled in exchange for confidentiality.

Wade Rathke stepped down as Acorn’s chief organizer on June 2, the same day his brother left, but he remains chief organizer for Acorn International L.L.C.

He said the decision to keep the matter secret was not made to protect his brother but because word of the embezzlement would have put a “weapon” into the hands of enemies of Acorn, a liberal group that is a frequent target of conservatives who object to its often strident advocacy on behalf of low- and moderate-income families and workers.

Wade Rathke said he learned of the problem when an employee of Citizens Consulting alerted him about suspicious credit card transactions. An internal investigation uncovered inappropriate charges on the cards that led back to his brother.

“Clearly, this was an uncomfortable, conflicting and humiliating situation as far as my family and I were concerned,” he said, “and so the real decisions on how to handle it had to be made by others.”

If one of the prosperous businesses or public officials Rathke and Acorn have bedeviled and humiliated over the years had offered this alibi for wrongdoing, they would be in Lompoc right now.

The greatest economic challenge of our lifetimes is not now, it was 25 years ago under Jimmy Carter — Get ready for the Obama Drama Ding Dongs

In his first news conference since Election Day, President-elect Barack Obama said the United States is ”facing the greatest economic challenge of our lifetimes.”

“Obama Drama Ding Dong.” (Let’s see if that phrase catches on). For the next four years we are going to read and hear about crisis after challenge for Obama Drama Ding Dongs. (Inspired by the “Animal House” nightclub scene.)

And the “free press” in America fails to report that Jimmy Carter’s presidency was on an economic disaster with mortgage interest rates of 19 to 21 percent, gas lines, unemployment of over 8.5 percent and the highest tax rates ever seen in the United States since LBJ’s Great Society.

Today’s media is a propaganda machine for the Democratic party. This week the Washington Post in an editorial admitted they had an overwhelming bias to get Obma elected. Woopsie. But the LA Times was even worse. The editors there kept a tape of a toast to a Jew hater named Khalid.

We will see the tape eventually. But will it have been edited? What do you think?

There is no comparative, investigative reporting. Watch America transform into an Eastern European socialist nation with no future and the middle class transformed into a lower-class, mediocre society ruled by the rich, elite class.

Let’s start redistributing the wealth of Barbra Streisand, Michael Moore and Opra

Barack Obama has plans to redistribute the wealth of Joe the Plumber — that’s chump change and the guy has to work with broken pipes and human waste for his money.

How about going after the big fish — liberal Hollywood Democrats like Barbara Streisand, Michael  Moore, Opra Winfrey, Rosie ODonnel, Rob Rhiner, Alec Baldwin, John Travolta and friends?

How about Ted Kennedy, John and Teressa Kerry, even Bill and Hillary Clinton now that they’ve skimmed millions from the system.

What’s so funny about redistributing the wealth? What kind of jokes are they telling in New York and Malibu about McCain and Sarah Palin?

Bill Ayers was out lecturing an adoring crowd of admirers, expressing displeasure that he’s become an issue in the Presidential campaign. The Daily News reports:

The former member of the Weather Underground beamed at the attention paid by the audience of about 60 people, many of whom were decked out in Obama gear. The crowd gave Ayers a warm welcome, guffawed at jokes about “redistributing the wealth” and nodded at his complaints about the “Republican revolution.” After the talk was over, event organizers attempted to sneak Ayers out a back door to avoid the media. Waiting reporters gave chase, but Ayers sputtered, “No comment,” and darted into a cab.

One wonders what that redistributing the wealth joke was — those “property is theft” gags are a hoot, no doubt. Yes, I’m sure with the website and the  new edition of his book coming out, his real hope is to remain far from the limelight.

If you find it odd that sixty people would choose to spend their time with a former terrorist yucking it up about the Reagan Revolution, you might consider how utterly bizarre it would be to enjoy a fulsome political and personal relationship with such a person. It is not something an average voter, I’d suggest, could in his wildest dreams imagine doing.

Once again, you are left to conclude that Obama simply doesn’t hold the same values as ordinary voters. He’s giving a good imitation. But that’s not the same. It really isn’t. –Jennifer Rubin

Who wrote Dreams From My Father? Not Obama but William Ayers?

The evidence of a close kinship between Barack Obama and Bill Ayers is coming out in the open on blogs, talk shows and in magazines. The mainstream media is hoping it will all be “noise” with no consequences. After all, the election is in the bag for Obama with only three weeks left.

Jack Cashill has written a story in American Thinker about the timing and evidence of a ghost writer who may have written Dreams From My Father — the book that put Obama on the national stage.

Time Magazine called Dreams … “the best-written memoir ever produced by an American politician.”

But Obama had not really written anything up until that. So, did he use a ghost writer? The evidence is there, it is very professional and has a wonderful style. So why doesn’t he name the ghost writer? Or why doesn’t the great writer come forward and say “It was all Obama, I just zipped it up a little.”

Greta Van Sustren is said to be about to break this story.

Come on, this is your time to get some credit. Call yourself just an editor. But let us know who you are?

Wait a minute, what if the ghost writer is Bill Ayres? That would show that Obama is a fabricated man, built by the life-long socialist Ayres.

This is the October surprise.

Recent Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac executives on Obama’s payroll — Senator Chris Dodd oversees Freddie and Fannie and has received hundreds of thousands in contributions from them. Barney Frank’s lover was a director on Fannie

UPDATE: Oct. 2, 2008

Unqualified home buyers were not the only ones who benefited from Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank’s efforts to deregulate Fannie Mae throughout the 1990s.

So did Frank’s partner, a Fannie Mae executive at the forefront of the agency’s push to relax lending restrictions.

Enron executives are in prison over much less. In fact far more money was lost to investors after Mr. Frank, trumpeted the great management of Freddie Mack and Fannie May.

We thank Bill O’Reilly for bringing up Barney Frank’s role. Fortunately, we still have a free press in this country. Wait until ’09, if Obama wins he and Nancy Pelosi promise to invoke the “Fairness Doctrine.”

Now that Fannie Mae is at the epicenter of a financial meltdown that threatens the U.S. economy, some are raising new questions about Frank’s relationship with Herb Moses, who was Fannie’s assistant director for product initiatives. Moses worked at the government-sponsored enterprise from 1991 to 1998, while Frank was on the House Banking Committee, which had jurisdiction over Fannie.

Both Frank and Moses assured the Wall Street Journal in 1992 that they took pains to avoid any conflicts of interest. Critics, however, remain skeptical.

“It’s absolutely a conflict,” said Dan Gainor, vice president of the Business & Media Institute. “He was voting on Fannie Mae at a time when he was involved with a Fannie Mae executive. How is that not germane?

“If this had been his ex-wife and he was Republican, I would bet every penny I have – or at least what’s not in the stock market – that this would be considered germane,” added Gainor, a T. Boone Pickens Fellow. “But everybody wants to avoid it because he’s gay. It’s the quintessential double standard.”

Did you read about this in the New York Times, Washington Post or San Francisco Chronicle?

UPDATE: 9/25/08

Countrywide Financial, the biggest U.S. mortgage lender, made large, previously undisclosed home loans to two additional executives of Fannie Mae, the government-chartered firm at the center of the U.S. credit crisis.

This is what Lindsey Graham said on Greta’s show: “And this deal that’s on the table now is not a very good deal. Twenty percent of the money that should go to retire debt that will be created to solve this problem winds up in a housing organization called ACORN that is an absolute ill-run enterprise, and I can’t believe we would take money away from debt retirement to put it in a housing program that doesn’t work.”

Imagine what $140,000,000 can do to for ACORN and the Democrat party?

The FBI is investigating Freddie, Fannie, and AGI.
One of Countrywide’s previously undisclosed customers at Fannie was Jamie Gorelick, an influential Democratic Party figure whose $960,000 mortgage refinancing in 2003 was handled through a program reserved for influential figures and friends of Countrywide’s chief executive at the time, Angelo Mozilo. Ms. Gorelick was Fannie Mae’s vice chairman at the time. [Former Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick, listening to testimony on Capitol Hill in April, got a Countrywide refinancing while at Fannie Mae.] Associated Press

Former Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick, listening to testimony on Capitol Hill in April, got a Countrywide refinancing while at Fannie Mae.

Another Countrywide client was recently ousted Fannie Mae Chief Executive Daniel Mudd, though it isn’t clear whether he received special treatment on two $3 million mortgage refinancings he made when he was the company’s chief operating officer.

In an interview, Ms. Gorelick said she had no knowledge of receiving special treatment. A financial adviser to Mr. Mudd said he received interest rates in line with the prevailing market.

The Fannie loans — including a series of already reported preferential loans to former Fannie chief executives James Johnson and Franklin Raines — underscore the close connections between Countrywide and Fannie Mae and raise potential conflict-of-interest issues.

UPDATE: 9/24/08

Statement by John McCain, May 25, 2006:

Mr. President, this week Fannie Mae’s regulator reported that the company’s quarterly reports of profit growth over the past few years were “illusions deliberately and systematically created” by the company’s senior management, which resulted in a $10.6 billion accounting scandal.

The Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight’s report goes on to say that Fannie Mae employees deliberately and intentionally manipulated financial reports to hit earnings targets in order to trigger bonuses for senior executives. In the case of Franklin Raines, Fannie Mae’s former chief executive officer, OFHEO’s report shows that over half of Mr. Raines’ compensation for the 6 years through 2003 was directly tied to meeting earnings targets. The report of financial misconduct at Fannie Mae echoes the deeply troubling $5 billion profit restatement at Freddie Mac.

The OFHEO report also states that Fannie Mae used its political power to lobby Congress in an effort to interfere with the regulator’s examination of the company’s accounting problems. This report comes some weeks after Freddie Mac paid a record $3.8 million fine in a settlement with the Federal Election Commission and restated lobbying disclosure reports from 2004 to 2005. These are entities that have demonstrated over and over again that they are deeply in need of reform.

For years I have been concerned about the regulatory structure that governs Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac–known as Government-sponsored entities or GSEs–and the sheer magnitude of these companies and the role they play in the housing market. OFHEO’s report this week does nothing to ease these concerns. In fact, the report does quite the contrary. OFHEO’s report solidifies my view that the GSEs need to be reformed without delay.

I join as a cosponsor of the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005, S. 190, to underscore my support for quick passage of GSE regulatory reform legislation. If Congress does not act, American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system, and the economy as a whole.

I urge my colleagues to support swift action on this GSE reform legislation.

Mac and Mae meltdown. Which Democrats benefited from the quasi-government agencies?

UPDATE: 9/24/2008

Opensecrets.com has looked into the public records of direct contributions from the organizations of Freddie and Fannie, not including the donations from top executives. The FBI is opening major investigations into the actions of the organizations.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac Invest in Democrats

Published by Lindsay Renick Mayer on July 16, 2008 5:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (15)

(For an updated chart that includes contributions from Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae’s PACs and employees to ALL lawmakers back to 1989, including to their leadership PACs, go here.) and data The federal government recently announced that it will come to the rescue of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, two embattled mortgage buyers that for years have pursued a lobbying strategy to get lawmakers on their side. Both companies have poured money into lobbying and campaign contributions to federal candidates, parties and committees as a general tactic, but they’ve also directed those contributions strategically. In the 2006 election cycle, Fannie Mae was giving 53 percent of its total $1.3 million in contributions to Republicans, who controlled Congress at that time. This cycle, with Democrats in control, they’ve reversed course, giving the party 56 percent of their total $1.1 million in contributions. Similarly, Freddie Mac has given 53 percent of its $555,700 in contributions to Democrats this cycle, compared to the 44 percent it gave during 2006.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have also strategically given more contributions to lawmakers currently sitting on committees that primarily regulate their industry. Fifteen of the 25 lawmakers who have received the most from the two companies combined since the 1990 election sit on either the House Financial Services Committee; the Senate Banking, Housing & Urban Affairs Committee; or the Senate Finance Committee. The others have seats on the powerful Appropriations or Ways & Means committees, are members of the congressional leadership or have run for president. Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), chairman of the Senate banking committee, has received the most from Fannie and Freddie’s PACs and employees ($133,900 since 1989). Rep. Paul Kanjorski (D-Pa.) has received $65,500. Kanjorski chairs the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Capital Markets, Insurance and Government-Sponsored Enterprises, and Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae are government-sponsored enterprises, or GSEs.
Campaign Contributions, 1989-2008

Top Recipients of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac

Name	Office	Party/State	Total
1. Dodd, Christopher	S	D-CT	$133,900
2. Kerry, John	S	D-MA	$111,000
3. Obama, Barack	S	D-IL	$105,849
4. Clinton, Hillary	S	D-NY	$75,550
5. Kanjorski, Paul E	H	D-PA	$65,500

This is a story that you won’t read about in the mainstream media. The Clinton administration marching orders to open up home loans to people unqualified, (socialization of home ownership). Today, the Democrats have taken over the U.S. Congress and have a 50/50 chance to take over the White House.

Look into the Barney Frank, Chris Dodd and Barack Obama connection — they have recieved millions of dollars from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Chris Dodd also received a sweet deal from Countrywide. These same people in “public service” are not investigating the corruption. For the past two years, the Democrats have held the majority controlling status of the House and Senate. So they will not turn in their own.

“Freddie and Fannie used huge lobbying budgets and political contributions to keep regulators off their backs.

A group called the Center for Responsive Politics keeps track of which politicians get Fannie and Freddie political contributions. The top three U.S. senators getting big Fannie and Freddie political bucks were Democrats and No. 2 on the list is Sen. Barack Obama.

Fannie and Freddie have been creations of the congressional Democrats and the Clinton White House, designed to make mortgages available to more people and, as it turns out, many people who couldn’t afford them… Now remember: Obama’s ads and stump speeches attack McCain and Republican policies for the current financial turmoil. It is demonstrably not Republican policy and worse, it appears the man attacking McCain — Sen. Obama — was at the head of the line when the piggies lined up at the Fannie and Freddie trough for campaign bucks.

Sen. Barack Obama: No. 2 on the Fannie/Freddie list of favored politicians after just two years in the Senate.

Next time you see that ad, you might notice he fails to mention that part of the Fannie and Freddie problem.”

Now let’s look at Franklin Raines, Barack Obama’s campaign manager — previously a Fannie Mae top executive.

This story is serious but it won’t receive any attention from the mainstream media who benefit from a socialist America and Barack Obama as President.

“Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have also strategically given more contributions to lawmakers currently sitting on committees that primarily regulate their industry. Fifteen of the 25 lawmakers who have received the most from the two companies combined since the 1990 election sit on either the House Financial Services Committee; the Senate Banking, Housing & Urban Affairs Committee; or the Senate Finance Committee. The others have seats on the powerful Appropriations or Ways & Means committees, are members of the congressional leadership or have run for president. Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), chairman of the Senate banking committee, has received the most from Fannie and Freddie’s PACs and employees ($133,900 since 1989). Rep. Paul Kanjorski (D-Pa.) has received $65,500. Kanjorski chairs the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Capital Markets, Insurance and Government-Sponsored Enterprises, and Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae are government-sponsored enterprises, or GSEs.”

The names of the top four recipients of Campaign contributions from Fannie and Freddie over the last 10 years is also interesting – Christopher Dodd, John Kerry, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton (all top Democrats for those keeping a scorecard).

About Franklin Raines and James Johnson

James A. Johnson (born December 24, 1943) is a United States Democratic Party political figure. He was the campaign manager for Walter Mondale’s failed 1984 presidential bid and chaired the vice presidential selection committee for the presidential campaign of John Kerry. He was involved in the vice-presidential selection process for the 2008 Democratic presidential nominee Senator Barack Obama.
Johnson began his career as a faculty member at Princeton University, later moving on to the United States Senate as a staff member and to the Dayton-Hudson Corporation (now Target Corp.) as director of public affairs. He was executive assistant to Vice President Walter Mondale during the entire Carter Administration (1977-1981). Later, he founded and headed Public Strategies, a private consulting firm, from 1981 to 1985 before leaving for Lehman Brothers.

From 1991 to 1998, he served as chairman and chief executive officer of the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae), the quasi-public organization that guarantees mortgages for millions of American homeowners. Previously, he was vice chairman of Fannie Mae (1990-1991). An Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight report from September 2004 found that, during Johnson’s tenure as CEO, Fannie Mae had improperly deferred $200 million in expenses. This enabled top executives, including Johnson and his successor, Franklin Raines, to receive substantial bonuses that they would have otherwise not earned.

As of 2006, he is a vice chairman of the private banking firm Perseus LLC, a position he has held since 2001. He is also a board member at Goldman Sachs, Gannett Company, Inc., a media holding group, KB Home, a home construction firm, Target Corporation, Temple-Inland, and UnitedHealth Group.

Johnson has also served as chairman of both the Kennedy Center for the Arts (1996-2004) and the Brookings Institution (1994-2003). He is also a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Friends of Bilderberg, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the Trilateral Commission.

On May 22, Democratic Party officials confidentially divulged that Obama had asked Johnson “to lead the process” for selecting Obama’s running mate.On June 4, 2008, Obama announced the formation of a three person committee to vet vice presidential candidates, including Johnson. However, Johnson soon became a source of controversy when it was reported that he had received loans directly from Angelo Mozilo, the CEO of Countrywide Financial, a company implicated in the U.S. subprime mortgage lending crisis. Although he was not accused of any wrongdoing and was initially defended by Obama on the grounds that he was simply an unpaid volunteer, Johnson announced he would step down from the vice-presidential vetting position on June 11, 2008 in order to avoid being a distraction to Obama’s campaign.

On September 19, the McCain/Palin campaign released an ad showing Obama linked him to Johnson.

What does Don Imus have to say about his old pals? They threw him under the train.

Give us your thoughts, my friends.

Obama — what do you know about ACORN and the garden to nowhere?

Inside the Chicago Democrat machine

Updated: 10/11/08

By Mick Gregory

Watch John McCain roll up his sleeves and bring up ACORN, the Citi Bank intimidation lawsuit, the Annenberg $100 million to nowhere and Tony Rezco.

Jailed political fundraiser Antoin “Tony” Rezko, the Chicago real estate developer who helped launch Barack Obama on his political career, is whispering secrets to federal prosecutors about corruption in Illinois and the political fallout could be explosive.

Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich, whose administration faces multiple federal investigations over how it handed out jobs and money with advice from Rezko, is considered the most vulnerable but second is non other than Barack Obama.

Rezko also was very friendly with Obama – offering him a job when he finished law school, funding his earliest political campaigns and purchasing a lot next to his house.

Rezko showed Obama around to the king makers and linked him up with Bill Ayers. The rest as they say is history.

Here is another story that  appears to be felony fraud, but you didn’t read it in the New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle or Washington Post. The tabloid Chicago Sun-Times reported a $100,000 state grant for a botanic garden in Englewood that then-state Sen. Barack Obama awarded in 2001 to a group headed by a onetime campaign volunteer is now under investigation by the Illinois attorney general amid new questions, prompted by Chicago Sun-Times reports, about whether the money might have been misspent.

The garden was never built. And now state records obtained by the Sun-Times show $65,000 of the grant money went to the wife of Kenny B. Smith, the Obama 2000 congressional campaign volunteer who heads the Chicago Better Housing Association, which was in charge of the project for the blighted South Side neighborhood.

Smith wrote another $20,000 in grant-related checks to K.D. Contractors, a construction company that his wife, Karen D. Smith, created five months after work on the garden was supposed to have begun, records show. K.D. is no longer in business.

Attorney General Lisa Madigan — a Democrat who is supporting Obama’spresidential bid — is investigating “whether this charitable organization properly used its charitable assets, including the state funds it received,” Cara Smith, Madigan’s deputy chief of staff, said Wednesday.

In addition to the 2001 grant that Obama directed to the housing association as a “member initiative,” the not-for-profit group got a separate $20,000 state grant in 2006.

Madigan’s office has notified Obama’s presidential campaign of the probe, which was launched this week. But Obama’sactions in awarding the money are not a focus of the investigation, Smith said.

Questions about the grant, though, come as spending on local pet projects has become an issue in Obama’s campaign against John McCain.

Obama andKenny Smith announced the “Englewood Botanic Garden Project” at a January 2000 news conference at Englewood High School. Obama was in the midst of a failed bid to oust South Side Democratic Rep. Bobby Rush for a seat in Congress. The garden — planned near and under L tracks between 59th Place and 62nd Place — fell outside of Obama’s Illinois Senate district but within the congressional district’s borders.

Obama vowed to “work tirelessly” to raise $1.1 million to help Smith’s organization turn the City of Chicago-owned lot into an oasis of trees and paths. But Obama lost the congressional race, no more money was raised, and today the garden site is a mess of weeds, chunks of concrete and garbage. The only noticeable improvement is a gazebo. The only tree was sawed down and removed.

The “garden to nowhere” ended up in the pockets of Obama’s campaign staff and maybe Obama himself.

In a previous interview, Smith said the state grant money was legitimately spent, mostly on underground site preparation. Underground? You mean out of sight.

But no one ever took out construction permits required for such work, city records show. And a contractor who Smith said did most of the work told a reporter all he did was cut down trees and grade the site with a Bobcat.

Citing the garden’s failure to take root, NeighborSpace — an umbrella group for dozens of community gardens citywide — moved Sept. 9 to return the site to the city. Its action followed a July 11 Sun-Times report on the grant.

Obama spokesman Michael Ortiz said Wednesday the senator’s staff in Washington will monitor the Madigan probe and an additional review under way by Gov. Blagojevich’s administration to make sure “the taxpayer funds allocated for the construction of the garden are recuperated from CBHA if the agencies determine that the funds were not properly spent.” Obama’s goal is to ensure the site “be used in a way that benefits the community and that any taxpayer dollars allocated are spent wisely,” Ortiz said.

The relationship between Smith and Obama dates to at least 1997, when Obama wrote a letter that Smith used to help the housing association win city funding for an affordable-housing development near the garden site. Plans called for more than 50 homes; a dozen ultimately were built.

Smith also has donated $550 to Obama campaign funds.

The Sun-Times learned about Karen Smith’s involvement in the project through an Aug. 12 Freedom of Information Act response from a lawyer for Blagojevich¹s Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity. The department, according to the lawyer, had ³discovered² 52 pages of ³additional documents² omitted from an initial response in May to a Sun-Times¹ Freedom of Information Act request about the grant.

Neither Smith nor his wife has been accused of any wrongdoing. Smith and his lawyer did not return repeated calls seeking comment.

In an interview in July, Smith said he was never able to raise the money needed for the garden. But the state grant awarded by Obamawas spent properly, he said, on the undergroundwork, withmost of the work done by a contractor whose name Smith got wrong.

The Sun-Times tracked down the contractor, Rodolfo Marin, in Austin, Texas, where he now lives.

“What I was hired for was: Clean up the area and cut the trees — that’s all,” Marin said. He said he rented a Bobcat — a sort of small bulldozer — for the project. “If he spent about $3,000 with me, that was too much.”

Visit this link for more details: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/tom-blumer/2008/09/07/barack-obamas-1-1-million-botanical-garden-er-100-000-gazebo

McCain showed true leadership by stopping his campaign and asking Obama, the Jr. Senator from Chicago Illinois, to help organize a financial bailout loan. What did he get for it? He was insulted by the Democrat leadership.

So why did the Democrats earmark millions to ACORN?

This is what Lindsey Graham said on the Greta Van Susteren show: “And this deal that’s on the table now is not a very good deal. Twenty percent of the money that should go to retire debt that will be created to solve this problem winds up in a housing organization called ACORN that is an absolute ill-run enterprise, and I can’t believe we would take money away from debt retirement to put it in a housing program that doesn’t work.”

Note: ACORN is a front group for Democrat/Socialists convicted of massive voter fraud. Google it yourself.

Sarah Palin has executive and energy experience

When the price of oil reached nearly $149 a barrel and the price at the pump broke the $4 barrier, energy became the top issue of this election. The Democrats (or European socialists if you prefer) are slow to understand economic issues and are still chanting Green Party slogans while the rest of the country has discovered that oil drilling in America has been shut down for the past 30 years off the coast of the U.S.

Sen. John McCain picked a super star in Sarah Palin, governor of Alaska. She knows more about the oil industry than Obama, Biden, Pelosi and Harry Reed put together. Pali’s husband has been a North Slope oilfield engineer.

It’s time to realize that Norway and the UK are drilling and producing billions off their coasts in the North Sea and off the western coast of Norway. Russia has revived to a world power again from oil reserves.

Only the United States remains stupefied by environmental screed. Billions of barrels of oil and natural gas remain untouched in ANWR and off the coasts of California, Washington, Oregon, Florida ant the Carolinas.

Cuba, China and Venezuela are about to start producing oil miles off the U.S. coast.

America is about to be treated to a lesson in economics.

McCain picks Sarah Palin! McCain picks Palin! The Energy to Run America!

Published on Aug 29, 2008 

Sen. John McCain has taken center stage the day after Obama’s coronation at the Democrat Convention by announcing his VP at high noon. It’s Sarah Palin she has it all, good looks right out of central casting, intelligent speaker, family values and governor of Alaska. She is an environmentalist and understands drilling for oil is a must for U.S. energy independence.

She has positive energy and wit. She will be able to out debate Biden and show that the Republicans trust a women for high office. She has a  real life, not a life-long  politician like Biden and so many other Big Brother Democrats. 

The mother of five is an avid runner. Here is an article from the WSJ in September:

WSJ. Magazine
Gov. Sarah Palin: Midnight runs and caribou dinners

Coming Saturday Sept. 6 in the debut issue of WSJ. Magazine, a conversation with Gov. Sarah Palin about her unusual workout and fitness routine. Preview excerpt

By JEN MURPHY
August 29, 2008 1:42 p.m.

Brian Adams for WSJ. Magazine

Gov. Sarah Palin has always been a runner. Her parents were marathoners and high school track and cross-country coaches. “Running was a family affair,” she says. “I didn’t have much choice. Thankfully, I’ve never tired of it.”

Gov. Palin, a mother of five kids, says exercise is still very much a “family thing.” She and her husband, Todd, also an athlete, named their first son Track because he was born in that sport’s season. Gov. Palin (above, near Mendenhall Glacier, outside of Juneau) and her family live in Wasilla, about 45 miles north of Anchorage.

Workout

MORE ON GOV. PALIN
 

 

• McCain Taps Gov. Sarah Palin as Presidential Running Mate

• Bio and Photo Gallery

“Conventional running is my sanity,” Gov. Palin says. Having recently given birth to her fifth child, the governor is trying to get back to her old workout routine. She was running 7 to 10 miles almost every day but switched to aerobics classes at her gym when she became pregnant. She has worked her way back up to running three miles every other day.

In the summer, when it’s always light, she’ll sometimes run as late as midnight. In the dead of winter, when it’s dark, she sneaks in an afternoon run, or else grudgingly runs on the treadmill at home or at the gym in the evening. Gov. Palin keeps dumbbells at home, but she says most of her upper body strength comes from snowmobiling with her family. “It’s the best upper body workout you could ever have,” she says. “You’re maneuvering through hundreds of pounds of powder.” (Todd is a four-time champion of the Tesoro Iron Dog, the world’s longest snowmobile race.)

Brian Adams for WSJ. Magazine

Gov. Palin in Juneau, Alaska

Diet pitfall

“My family and I eat a healthy diet heavy in wild Alaskan seafood, moose, caribou and fresh fruit,” she says. “I guess my biggest pitfall is breakfast. I know it’s the most important meal of the day but I still haven’t bought into it. I hate to admit it, but a skinny white-chocolate mocha is my staple in the morning.”

Workout gear

“My ideal fantasy is to be running on a hot dusty road just wearing running shorts and some kind of top that wicks away sweat. But in reality I’m running in 20-below temperatures, so I wear layers of fleece and always a good outdoor waterproof trail shoe. Right now I’ve been running in Nike Air Structure Triax. And I always wear sunglasses. My kids tell me to put them on so I don’t freak people out when they see me with a goofy hairdo and no makeup.”

While I’m working out

“I’m thinking about my next speech. I usually write my best speeches and letters [in my head] while out running. That is my inspired time.”

Postworkout food

“Nothing. I just drink water.”

Workout pitfall

“Being pregnant every few years. If I get lazy and go weeks or months without exercising it’s not because of circumstances but because I’m being less disciplined. Shame on me.”

Visit http://palinforvp.blogspot.com/

Drill here, drill now!

Sarah Palin

Why didn’t Al Gore speak in prime time at the DNC convention?

Funny? I thought Albert Gore was the guru of USA caused global warming? WTF?

Wasn’t that the mandate of the Democrat party when the war in Iraq calmed down? Why hasn’t Gore been on air as much as the Clinton machine? Didn’t liberals state that Al Gore was going to introduce Obama tonight? Oh sure, if you were staying home on “disability,” then you got to see Gore.

Maybe this is why:

Al “Unabomber” Gore Wacko environmental extremist

Al Gore wrote the book Earth in the Balance: Ecology and the Human Spirit, which is the wacko socialist manifesto to regulate everything based on junk science. He parroted the extremist EARTH FIRSTers terrorist party line with a straight face. It is probably the most ignorant book ever written about the environment. In it he wrote the scary totalitarian prescription “we must make the rescue of the environment the central organizing principle for civilization.”

The following are highlights from a 1992 Democratic National Committee (DNC) memo by Jonathan Sallet to the Clinton-Gore campaign that highlighted Gore vulnerabilities from his extremist manifestoEarth in the Balance. The memo was obtained by the Wall Street Journal, which published it in August of 1992. Among the DNC’s findings:

• “Al is a radical environmentalist who wants to change the very fabric of America.”
• “He (Gore) criticizes America for being America — a place where people enjoy the benefits of an advanced standard of living.”
• “He (Gore) has no sense of proportion: He equates the failure to recycle aluminum cans with the Holocaust.”
• “He (Gore) believes that our civilization, itself, is evil (because it is, in his words, ‘addicted to the consumption of the earth.’)”

Recently Gore was asked by Gannett News if his opinions have changed since writing Earth in the Balance. Gore said:

“There is not a single passage in that book that I disagree with or would change.”

(Gannett News Service, 3/23/99)

Gore called the internal combustion engine the greatest enemy of mankind, see –

Al Gore vs. the Automobile

Gore wrote in EARTH IN THE BALANCE pp 325-326, “It ought to be possible to establish a coordinated global program to accomplish the strategic goal of completely eliminating the internal combustion engine (by government fiat) over, say, a 25 year period.” “I wrote in this book Earth in the Balance that we should set as a strategic goal the phasing out of the internal-combustion engine over a 25-year period. I accept now that was a mistake. Twenty-five years is far too long for a goal like that. I think we can do it quicker.” (Ramesh Ponnuru, “The Attack Man,” National Review, February 21, 2000)

GORE ON GAS

PAUL EHRLICH’S BOOK, ON GAS PRICES: “The United States could start by gradually imposing a higher gasoline tax-hiking it by one or two cents per month until gasoline costs $2.50 to $3.00 per gallon, comparable to prices in Europe and Japan.” (Paul R. Ehrlich and Anne H. Ehrlich, The Population Explosion, 1990, pp. 219-220) On the dustcover of the book, Gore said, “The time for action is due, and past due. Ehrlich has written the prescription.” “Higher taxes on fossil fuels. . . is one of the logical first steps in changing our policies in a manner consistent with a more responsible approach to the environment.” (Al Gore, Earth in the Balance, 1993, p. 173)

Al Gore Supported Plans For Even Higher Gas Prices By Endorsing The Kyoto Protocol. At the 1997 Kyoto Conference, Al Gore committed to reducing United States carbon emissions to less than 1990 levels by 2012. Key to discharging Al Gore’s promises at Kyoto is a carbon tax which experts have concluded will raise gas prices by 65 cents a gallon and reduce average household income by nearly $2700 even as the cost of goods and services rise in response to higher taxes. (“Global Warming: The High Cost of the Kyoto Protocol,” WEFA, Inc., 1998, p. 1) Al Gore Cast The Tie-Breaking Vote To Increase The Gas Tax By 4.3 Cents A Gallon. The Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993, a $241 billion tax increase proposed by the Clinton/Gore Administration, passed on August 6, 1993 on the tie-breaking vote cast by Gore. Included in the bill was a 4.3 cent per gallon gas tax increase. Gore was also its leading advocate in the Administration according to author Bob Woodward: “The meeting quickly turned to the gasoline tax. Vice President Gore, a strong environmentalist who advocated energy taxes as a way to reduce pollution, argued that the tax should be retained. President Clinton could be attacked on character if he dropped the gasoline tax now, Gore said emphatically and emotionally.” (Bob Woodward, “The Agenda: Inside the Clinton White House, Part 3 of 4,” The Washington Post, June 7, 1994) Al Gore Was The Chief Advocate Of The Proposed 1993 BTU Tax, Which Would Have Raised Gas Prices By Six Percent. According to George Stephanopoulos, “Gore was the chief advocate of the energy tax, arguing that it was good for both the economy and the environment.” (George Stephanopoulos, All Too Human: A Political Education, 1999, p. 206) Al Gore Has Been A “Driving Force” Behind The Increased Regulation Of Gasoline, Which Has Resulted In An Increase In Gas Prices. Al Gore has been a “driving force” behind the stricter regulation of gasoline, which has “pushed up production prices and created a patchwork of contradictory gasoline formulas in various parts of the country.” (Bill Sammon, “Gore’s Strategy Is To Vilify Oil Firms,” The Washington Times, June 22, 2000) A recent study by the bipartisan Congressional Research Service cited these factors as contributing to the massive increase in gas prices in the Midwest. (Lawrence Kumins, “Midwest Gasoline Price Increases,” Congressional Research Service, June 16, 2000)

Who said it ...
The Unabomber or Algore?

---

The 10 excerpts below are taken from Algore’s extremist book Earth in the Balance, or from the Unabomber’s (FC’s) Manifesto. You get to try your skill at determining who said which quote. Some are easier than others.

---

---

1. “In the speech in which I declared my candidacy, I focused on global warming, ozone depletion and the ailing global environment and declared that these issues – along with nuclear arms control – would be the principal focus of my campaign.”

Unabomber
Algore

2. “No one knows what will happen as a result of ozone depletion, the greenhouse effect and other environmental problems that cannot yet be foreseen. And, as nuclear proliferation has shown, new technology cannot be kept out of the hands of dictators and irresponsible Third World leaders.”

Unabomber
Algore

3. “Artificial needs have been created. … Advertising and marketing techniques have been developed that make many people feel they need things that their grandparents never desired or even dreamed of. … It seems for many people, maybe the majority, these artificial forms … are insufficient. A theme that appears repeatedly in the writings of the social critics of the second half of the 20th century is the sense of purposelessness that afflicts many people in modern society.”

Unabomber
Algore

4. “Whenever any technology is used to mediate our experience of the world, we gain power but we also lose something in the process. The increased productivity of assembly lines in factories, for examples, requires many employees to repeat the identical task over and over until they lose any feeling of connection to the creative process – and with it their sense of purpose.”

Unabomber
Algore

5. “Like the Sorcerer’s Apprentice, who learned how to command inanimate objects to serve his whims, we too have set in motion forces more powerful than we anticipated and that are harder to stop than start.”

Unabomber
Algore

6. “Technological progress marches in only one direction. It can never be reversed. Once a technological innovation has been introduced, people usually become dependent on it, so that they can never again do without it, unless it is replaced by some still more advanced innovation.”

Unabomber
Algore

7. “‘Oh,’ say the technophiles, ‘Science is going to fix all that!’ We will conquer famine, eliminate psychological suffering, make everybody healthy and happy!”

Unabomber
Algore

8. “Some argue that a new ultimate technology, whether nuclear energy or genetic engineering, will solve the problem. … We have also fallen victim to a kind of technological hubris, which tempts us to believe that our new powers may be unlimited. We dare to imagine that we will find technological solutions for every technologically induced problem. … Technological hubris tempts us to lose sight of our place in the natural order and believe that we can achieve whatever we want.”

Unabomber
Algore

9. “Very widespread in modern society is the search for ‘fulfillment.’ … (Yet) for the majority of people whose main goal is fulfillment, (technology) does not bring completely satisfactory fulfillment.”

Unabomber
Algore

10. “Industrial civilization’s great engines of distraction still seduce us with a promise of fulfillment. Our new power to work our will upon the world can bring with it a sudden rush of exhilaration. … But that exhilaration is fleeting. It is not true fulfillment.”

Unabomber
Algore

ANSWERS: Gore said 1,4,5,8, and 10

Source: Geocities.com

Don’t believe it? Google it!

McCain should pick Sarah Palin, governor of Alaska for VP

This post was published on Aug 25, 2008 

There is talk that Sen. John McCain will take more air out of the Democrat Convention by announcing his VP on Thursday. Good plan. Now, make it Sarah Palin and he will get some of Hillary’s disenfranchised voters. Palin has it all, good looks right out of central casting, intelligent speaker, family values and governor of Alaska.

She has positive energy and wit. She will be able to out debate Biden and show that the Republicans trust a women for high office.

Visit http://palinforvp.blogspot.com/

Drill here, drill now!

Sarah Palin

Newspapers send thousands to ‘cover’ the Democrat National Convention

This is called journalism? Thousands of newspaper reporters are in Denver to “cover” the party and coronation of the Obama/Biden ticket.

In fact, 15,000 “journalists” are flocking around the DNC convention. For the Republican convention? Not so much.

Did you know that several of the Democrat delegates are reporters and publishers?

Here is one. I’m not kidding. His name is Thomas Martinet.

It’s all rehearsed, fluffed up press conferences, electronic press releases and speeches read off teleprompters on unity and “toned down” socialism with a mix of religion and race thrown in. And the press laps it up. Of course, more than 90 percent vote exclusively for Democrats. This is amazing considering they have no problem picking up stories from wire services for most of their other news.

Meanwhile, back at the dilapidated newspapers, they continue to cut jobs to try and slow the red ink. How could they afford to send reporters to Denver? I wonder how many of the schmucks are on their own dime. It’s like their visit to Mecca every four years. The reporters are among old friends who still believe they have power.

Is there ever a report of the fall off in the number of reporters at the Republican convention? How about questions on how many houses John Kerry owned? Or a question on Obama’s life in Chicago and Hawaii while his brother lives on a dollar a month in shack in Africa?

This report is one of the best I’ve seen on the state of newspapers. It comes from digitaldeliverance.com.

Ignorance isn’t bliss to the dying. Witness the pathos of American daily newspaper companies. Most have finally begun to realize that the deterioration of their businesses isn’t cyclical but grave. Yet few, if any, understand why. Almost all grasp for the reasons.

Some attribute their grave condition to advertisers suddenly switching huge portions of spending from print to online – an excuse that ignores more than 30 years of declines in those newspapers’ printed editions’ circulations and readerships. Some others attribute their deterioration to not having transplanted their content into online quickly enough -an excuse that ignores not only the dozen years they’ve spent transplanting it but how their online editions are now read even less frequently and less thoroughly than their printed editions.

Most of the print newspaper experts who diagnose these companies’ condition still prescribe stale nostrums such as more consumer focus groups, subscription price incentives, more stylish typography, or shorter stories. Meanwhile, most of the experts who diagnose these companies’ Web sites prescribe balms and accessories such as giving blogs to reporters, adding video, or having the readers themselves report the stories. American daily newspaper companies have long been too financially impatient to submit themselves to anything but ostensibly quick cures and they’ve even longer been too conceptually myopic to perceive the real reasons for their declines.

I’ll declare the real reasons. There are but two and neither has anything to do with multimedia, ‘convergence’, blogs, ‘Web 2.0’, ‘citizen journalism,’ or any ancillary topics you may have heard presented at New Media conferences this millennium.

Nor is either of the real reasons advertisers’ abandonment of printed newspapers. Their abandonment is a symptom, not the reason for the decline. To understand the real reasons why the American daily newspaper industry is dying, first understand why more and more Americans are no longer reading daily papers and how their abandonment of newspapers has been wrought by changes in their own media economics. Also comprehend why the epicenter of the newspaper industry’s problems in post-Industrial countries is America and exactly how grave the situation is there.

The Fate of American Daily Newspapers

More than half of the 1,439 daily newspapers in the United States won’t exist in print, e-paper, or Web site formats by the end of next decade. They will go out of business. The few national dailies — namely USA Today, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal — will have diminished but continuing existences via the Web and e-paper, but not in print. The first dailies to expire will be the regional dailies, which have already begun to implode. Those plus a very many smaller dailies, most of whose circulations are steadily evaporating, will decline to levels at which they will no longer be economically viable to publish daily. Further layoffs of staffs by those newspapers’ companies cannot avoid this fate – not so long as daily circulations and readerships continually and increasingly decline. (Layoffs are becoming little more than the remedy of bleeding that was used in attempts to cure ill patients during the 18th Century and cannot restore the industry’s health.)

‘Hyperlocal’ news startup companies, whose services will be delivered not on newsprint but online, might replace many small dailies, but not most, and certainly not before the printed products’ demise. The deaths of large numbers of daily newspapers in the U.S. won’t cause a new Dark Age but will certainly cause a ‘Gray Age’ for American journalism during the next decade. Much local and regional news won’t see the light of publication. (America alone won’t suffer this calamity. Many other post-Industrial countries’ newspaper industries will suffer or, at best, skirt a version of this disaster.)

Is the Situation Really That Bad? Yes. Look at the numbers.

Last year, the most authoritative newsletter covering the American newspaper industry intentionally went out of business. The Morton-Groves Newspaper Newsletter, in a front page editorial entitled ‘Passing the Inflection Point,’ co-publisher Miles Grove, the former chief economist of the Newspaper Association of America, politely stated:

“The market momentum guiding the future of newspapers is especially brutal in the larger markets. Many have already passed the point of opportunity as it is too late for newspapers that have not successfully adopted marketing practices needed to support the core product and integrate with alternative distribution channels …For those who have not made the transition, technology and market factors may be too strong to enable success.”

Last month, Goldman Sachs equity analyst Peter Appert put it more bluntly in a Reuters in a story about the dwindling number of equity analysts who still covering the deterioration of this $40 billion industry:

“If I covered only the newspaper industry, first of all I would have been fired a long time ago; secondly, I would have had to kill myself.”

Among the largest American newspaper companies, the losses of equity have been titanic. On the August day in when I write this, stock in the Journal Register Companyis trading for less than four pennies per share, down from $3.25 a year ago, a loss of 99 percent. Any of the buildings housing any of its 22 daily newspapers is worth more than the company’s current stock market capitalization (currently $1.4 million). Journal Register reports that it has $77 million in assets, $719 million in liabilities, and lost $102 million last year. Standard & Poor’s, which downgraded its rating of Journal Register’s stock to junk, has now withdrawn any rating of it. Meanwhile, stock in Gatehouse Media, which publishes 97 dailies, is trading at 57 pennies per share, down from $22.00 two years ago, a 97 percent loss. That company faces delisting by the New York Stock Exchange and the equity research firm Morningstar this week declared its stock to be essentially worthless, valuing the fair price as zero.

Meanwhile, stock in the McClatchy Company, which publishers 30 dailies, has dropped from $74.30 three years ago to $3.78, a 95 percent loss. Stock in Lee Enterprises, which publishes 51 dailies, has dropped from $48.57 to $3.83, a 92 percent loss during the past four years. Media General, which publishes 25 dailies, has seen its stock price drop 83 percent in the past four years. Stock of The New York Times Company, which publishes 17 dailies, has dropped 75 percent during the past six years, from $51.50 to $12.98. Stock in Gannett Company, which publishes 85 dailies, has dropped 65 percent, from $90.14 to $17.40, during the past four years. Despite these results, Morningstar still calls newspapers, “the market’s most overvalued stocks,” according to the newspaper industry trade journal, Editor & Publisher.

The American newspaper industry’s losses of advertising revenues have been so well reported elsewhere that I see no need to outline those here. Likewise the industry’s losses of weekday and Sunday circulations, except that the industry maintains the façade that its overall circulation losses during the past three decades have been relatively minor. Weekday overall circulation was 62 million in 1970, dropped to 55.8 million at the turn of the century, and is approximately 53 million today. An overall loss of 9 million or 14.5% isn’t paltry but doesn’t seem that bad in the span of 38 years.

However, those absolute numbers fail to account for population growth during that time. The American population was 203 million in 1970 and 304 million today. Had the American daily newspaper industry at least kept pace with population growth, its weekday circulation should be 93 million today, not 53 million. The industry’s weekday penetration proportionate to population dropped from 30.5 percent 1970s to 17.4 percent to today, a relative decline of 43 percent.

To combat news of these declines, the industry has stretching its yardstick of readership plus begun conflating daily print circulation and monthlyonline usage. Its readership estimates vary from 2.3 people to 2.5 people per printed copy, numbers which, if true, would also mean that the majority of people who read a daily newspaper don’t themselves purchase it. More likely, the industry is stretching readership to mean the number of people who might live in a household where at least one person happened to buy or subscribe to a newspaper. But the other 1.3 to 1.5 people haven’t necessarily read it.

An independent survey released this month by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press reported that 46 percent of Americans a newspaper ‘regularly‘, down from 52 percent two years ago and as high as of 71 percent in 1992. Moreover, only 34 percent say they read a newspaper ‘yesterday‘, down from 40 percent two years ago.

Meanwhile, the industry has begun combining its Web sites’ total number of monthly users and its printed editions’ daily circulation totals – even though the average monthly unique user of the average American daily newspaper Web site use the site on only four to seven days per month. The resulting muddle of daily and monthly vastly overstates the number of people who use a newspaper daily, whether in print or online.

Despite those financial, advertising, circulation, and readership declines, an article of faith among newspaper companies has become that the cure lay online. The most widely prescribed remedies are multimedia (also called ‘convergence’) and interactivity (mainly in forms of ‘Web 2.0’ and ‘citizen journalism’). The companies hope that adding those attributes to what their newspapers have always done will reverse their industry’s fate.

Yet adding multimedia, convergence, interactivity, Web 2.0, and ‘citizen journalism’ to what their newspapers have always done aren’t cures but merely balms and accessories. No matter how well intentioned those New Media prescriptions are, no matter how much more animated or responsive multimedia and interactivity can make daily newspapers, adding those will prove to be little more than analgesics.

The absences of multimedia or interactivity aren’t why the circulations and readerships of American daily newspapers have been declining in relation to both population and households for more than three decades. Half of American newspapers’ declines in weekday circulation and readership relative to population occurred before the Internet opened to the public in late 1991, prior to popular awareness of interactivity or multimedia. Although Americans nowadays expect all media to have multimedia and interactive attributes, the absence of those attributes clearly aren’t the major causes of the deterioration of the newspaper industry nor will adding those reverse those declines.

So, what are the two reasons why the American daily newspaper industry’s is dying?

The major one is simply that American newspaper companies have violated a specific part of the Principle of Supply & Demand when consumers’ supply of news and information radically changed in the past 15 to 30 years. The other and more reasons why American newspapers are dying is because of how far too many of them have deviated from their local roots).

The major reason alone is a mortal wound for the industry, but the minor reason exacerbated it due to a corollary effect of newspapers’ violation of a Principle of Supply & Demand.

The editor-managed newspapers are a prime example of sad bastards.

Obama picks Hillary! Obama picks Hillary! Not!

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Update: It’s Biden. Who said Democrats couldn’t keep a secret?

Obama didn’t want Hillary Clinton and the machine around him for the rest of his life. Can you blame him? Wouldn’t you rather shoot the breeze with Joe Biden? Sure.

By Mick Gregory

With McCain’s lopsided win in the debate held by Rev. Warren in California, the DNC leadership are in a panic. They will try and force Obama to pick Hillary as his running mate.

That’s my prediction. We’ll have to see if Hillary wants to chance it with this stalled campaign. Maybe there is so much worry, that Hillary will get the nomination in Denver. Obama has to nip it in the bud and name Hillary his VP before the revolt takes over the convention and makes Hillary the candidate and Obama has to settle for Veep.

Ralph Nader agrees with me.

“He just has to swallow hard and do what JFK did” in picking rival Lyndon Johnson in 1960, said the liberal activist and maverick presidential candidate.

According to Nader’s logic, Obama may dislike Hillary, but will conclude he has no choice but to get over it if he hopes to leave next week’s convention in Denver with a unified party and a decent shot against John McCain in the fall: “The polls show 25 percent of her supporters have not gotten on board.”

“He’s got to be very concerned by the [neck-and-neck] polls and by what happened at Saddleback,” added Nader, referring to the recent candidates forum hosted by evangelist Rick Warren. “He got beat in Saddleback—big time.”

Nader said his own sources—and, to be blunt, they sound a bit sketchy—lead him to believe that Clinton remains in serious consideration. A friend, he said, recently saw Clinton family intimate Vernon Jordan on Martha’s Vineyard and reported the “usually very effusive” Jordan to be suspiciously “tight-lipped.”

It was only in May that Sen. Barack Obama cockily proclaimed he would debate Sen. John McCain “anywhere, anytime.” But in June, Obama said no to McCain’s challenge to have 10 one-on-one town hall meetings

— ibdeditorials.com.

After what happened at Lake Forest, Calif.’s evangelical Saddleback last Saturday evening, we may have found that debating is Obama’s Achilles’ heel. Whether or not you like the idea of such events being held in religious venues, the plain-and-simple method of questioning used by Saddleback pastor and best-selling author Rick Warren revealed fundamental differences between these two men.

“It’s one of those situations where the devil is in the details,” Obama said at one point. He could have been referring to his own oratorical shortcomings when a teleprompter is unavailable. We learned a lot more about the real Obama at Saddleback than we will next week as he delivers his acceptance speech in Denver before a massive stadium crowd.

The stark differences between the two came through the most on the question of whether there is evil in the world. Obama spoke of evil within America, “in parents who have viciously abused their children.” According to the Democrat, we can’t really erase evil in the world because “that is God’s task.” And we have to “have some humility in how we approach the issue of confronting evil.”

For McCain, with a global war on terror raging, there was no equivocating: We must “defeat” evil. If al-Qaida’s placing of suicide vests on mentally-disabled women and then blowing them up by remote control in a Baghdad market isn’t evil, he asked: “You have to tell me what is.”

Asked to name figures he would rely on for advice, Obama gave the stock answer of family members. McCain pointed to Gen. David Petraeus, Iraq’s scourge of the surge; Democratic Rep. John Lewis, who “had his skull fractured” by white racists while protesting for civil rights in the 60s; plus Internet entrepreneur Meg Whitman, the innovative former CEO of eBay.

When Warren inquired into changes of mind on big issues, Obama fretted about welfare reform; McCain unashamedly said “drilling” — for reasons of national security and economic need.

On taxes, Obama waxed political: “What I’m trying to do is create a sense of balance and fairness in our tax code.” McCain showed an understanding of what drives a free economy: “I don’t want to take any money from the rich. I want everybody to get rich. I don’t believe in class warfare or redistribution of the wealth.”

To any honest observer, the differences between John McCain and Barack Obama have been evident all along. What we saw last weekend was Obama’s shallowness juxtaposed with McCain’s depth, the product of his extraordinary life experience.

It may not have been a debate, but it was one of the most lopsided political contests in memory. — iht.com

I have to agree, this was the most lopsided debate win I’ve seen in my life.

I can’t wait to see a few debates. I know there will be only two or three now. And the Democrats will have to try and put the fix in with the “right” kind of journalists asking the questions.

Hillary Clinton super delegate assassinated, gunman later killed by police. But that’s not all. Now super delegate Stephanie Tubbs Jones is found brain dead.

A gunman walked into the office of the Arkansas Democratic Party yesterday asked for Bill Gwatney, a close friend of Bill and Hillary Clinton and a Clinton super delegate at the upcoming convention in Denver and fatally shot Gwatney.

Timothy Dale Johnson, the gunman, sped off in a pickup and later was shot dead by police following a 30-mile chase.

UPDATE: Democratic Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones of Cleveland, a super delegate and one of Hillary Clinton’s most prominent black supporters, was found in her car unconscious  Tuesday night, Aug. 19.  Today, she is considered brain dead and may be taken off life support this afternoon.

UPDATE 8/21/08: There are conflicting reports out of Cleveland regarding Jones speeding, driving erratically and found dead in her car by police. Other reports state she was not speeding; yet another said she drifted into an open field. Reports differed greatly on her time of death. The cause of death was unanimous, a brain hemorrhage. Jones never regained consciousness to give her account.

 Jones said in a phone interview earlier this year that Hillary Clinton still can do well in the black community in Ohio. “While a large number of black Ohioans might be for Obama, many also think that Clinton is the best Democratic candidate,” Jones said.

Now she will not be able to vote for Hillary.

What are the odds?

Jones was also outspoken on the new electronic Diebold voting machines and possible voter fraud in areas that use  the devices.

Back to Johnson; Little Rock police said they could find no criminal record for Johnson, but the Target, 30 miles north of the city, fired him that morning because he’d scrawled graffiti on a store wall.

Some say it was simply a political statement.

Others have reported that he was angry with the HR department, complaining that Target was run by sorority girls who teamed up against men and him in particular.

Johnson had more than one run-in with the HR department. He complained about a narrow hallway and later wrote on the wall, “This hallway is too *** **** narrow! Other messages believed to be his said “HR is run by sorority ******.

But the Target manager would not confirm.

The victim, Gwatney, a former state senator, was set to travel to the Democratic National Convention in Denver later in a few days as a superdelegate for Sen. Clinton.

One source told The Post he had been “very good” to her during her presidential campaign.

In a statement, the Clintons called Gwatney “not only a strong chairman of Arkansas’ Democratic Party, but he is also a cherished friend and confidant.”

The office where the murder took place was the same one Bill Clinton rented when he made a comeback run for Arkansas governor in 1982.

Johnson walked in and asked to volunteer and wanted to talk to Gwatney.

Don’t drink the Kool Aid. Police reported Wednesday that they found about a pound of cyanide in a Denver hotel room, where the body of a man was discovered. Denver is the location of the Democratic Presidential Convention.

An expert told the Denver Post that the amount of cyanide is enough to kill hundreds of people.

The medical examiner’s office said it is awaiting test results to determine whether cyanide killed 29-year-old Saleman Abdirahman Dirie, a Samali national who recently moved to Canada.

Foul play is not suspected and his death appears to be an isolated incident, according to Denver police.

Foul play? An Islamic Samali national in Denver? So? All is well. Step away. Nothing to see here.

Meanwhile, the chief of staff for Democrat Senator Jim Webb was found shot to death.

Fred Hutchins, Jr., an aide to Sen. Jim Webb — and described as a “rising star” in Virginia Democratic politics — was found shot dead on Tuesday beside a Botetourt County road. A gun was found beneath his body but the medical examiner has not ruled it suicide or murder yet. He was 26 and a longtime political activist.

Sheriff Ronnie Sprinkle said Hutchins’ body was found outside his SUV-type vehicle, on an embankment along U.S. 220 north of the town of Fincastle. He had a single gunshot wound in the head.

GregMitch’s diary

The Edwards coverup helped Obama win nomination, knock out Hillary

It doesn’t take a political insider to figure out that the year-long cover up by the major media of Democrat presidential candidate John Edwards’ duel life cost Hillary Clinton the presidency. The mainstream media ignored the National Enquirer. Blogs caught on and the news of the ego-maniac Edwards couldn’t be shut down.

Can Hillary’s supporters expose who knew about Edwards and Hunter and when? What did Sen. Jim Webb know and when?

 

ABC reports:

Now what will happen  in Denver?

Hillary Clinton would be the Democratic presidential nominee if John Edwards had been caught in his lie about an extramarital affair and forced out of the race last year, insists a top Clinton campaign aide, making a charge that could exacerbate previously existing tensions between the camps of Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama.

(AP Photo)

“I believe we would have won Iowa, and Clinton today would therefore have been the nominee,” former Clinton Communications Director Howard Wolfson told ABCNews.com.

Clinton finished third in the Iowa caucuses barely behind Edwards in second place and Obama in first. The momentum of the insurgent Obama camaign beating two better-known candidates — not to mention an African-American winning in such an overwhelmingly white state — changed the dynamics of the race forever.

Kim Jong-iL is not only mentally ill, but now on his death bed. USA and China prepare for collapse of failed nation

North Korea’s pot-bellied communist leader Kim Jong-il failed to appear at a parade on Tuesday to mark the 60th anniversary of the country’s founding.

UPDATE: Kim Jon Il fired his two-stage rocket on April 5. Look out California. 

Slight of hand. What does President Obama say about it? The U.S. and Russia will work on reducing each others nuclear stockpiles. So? The issue is Kim Jon-iL’s rocket and nuclear weapons program. 

 

North Korean leader Kim Jong Il is more impaired from the stroke he apparently suffered last month than reports from the region suggest, and the United States and China are holding talks about what to do if the government in Pyongyang collapses, FOX News has reported.

A senior Bush administration official says that although Kim may not be close to death, the U.S. does not accept reports from South Korea that he’s on his way to a rapid recovery.

The official told FOX News the United States is naturally engaging the Chinese about what to do if there is ensuing instability in North Korea.

– The Kyodo news agency report from the city of Pyongyang.

Kim Jong-il is ill. What else is new? We knew that. He's an outspoken supporter of the Democrat Party.

Friends of Kim, including pot-bellied Hugo Chavez, hate-filled President Ahmadinejad of Iran, and the Castro brothers are on the phone with North Korea’s embassy, I’m sure.

Now is the time for first George Bush, then John McCain and Sarah Palin to help North Korea become free. Another wall comes down. What does Obama have to say?

Here is my stab at Obama’s quote to come.

“Let me say that I am not going to speculate on the health of a world leader… Yes, in my campaign statements, I said I would meet with President Kim Jong-iL, Hugo Chavez and Ahmadinejad. I’m staying by that promise…”

Mr. Obama, have you no shame? Why did you push to fire Don Imus within days of his street-talk jock joke, but let your family attend the hate monger Rev. Wright’s church for 20 years?

“I understand MSNBC has suspended Mr. Imus,” Barack Obama told ABC News, “but I would also say that there’s nobody on my staff who would still be working for me if they made a comment like that about anybody of any ethnic group. And I would hope that NBC ends up having that same attitude.”

Mr. Obama, what about your America-hating, white-blaming racist pastor? He wasn’t joking about blaming American whites for 9/11 and inventing the HIV/AIDs virus. Why did you continue to attend Rev. Wright’s church for 20 years? Imus is a political satirist who often had you on as a guest to help build your political popularity. Rev. Wright is a hate spewing monster. Why did you let your daughters attend such a place of worship on Sundays for their entire lives?

It took Obama more than a year to speak about his pastor’s racially charged anti-American tirades, but when it came to denouncing Don Imus for his racial street talk joke against the Rutgers girls basketball team, it took Obama only a week to demand the shock jock be fired, reported by FOX News.

So this is why your wife is proud of America for the first time? You grew up in South Side of Chicago world of blame whites for all your ills. Meanwhile, American blacks are killing each other off at the rate of 20,000 a year.

Just when you thought it was safe for Hillary’s machine, Obama wins more delegates in Texas, then Wyoming and Mississippi

Did you see this in your mainstream media? Barack Obama has beat Hillary Rodham Clinton for Texas’ Democratic caucuses on March 4. The official results won’t be available until March 29.
Until then, the last reported results – from 41 percent of the precinct caucuses – show Obama ahead with 56 percent to Clinton’s 44 percent.

Obama won by double digits in very white Wyoming and is about to win Mississippi.

So how can Hillary Rodham Clinton say she won Texas? Where is the real journalism?
Obama has won at least 31 delegates from the caucuses and Clinton has won at least 27, according to The Associated Press count. The remaining nine delegates will be awarded after the official results are announced at the end of the month.

The Texas Democratic Party gave up Monday on its effort to produce a public tally. What is so hard about reporting the vote? Is it because the outcome was not in line with the Democrat machine?

Ironically, only the Democrat allows delegates and super delegates do the voting that counts. Funny how they call themselves the Democratic party. What happened to the one man, one vote concept?