Democracy 21 Remixes Statement, Now on McCain’s Side

This is shameful:

Okay, I guess it was a punt. Fred Wertheimer and Democracy 21 make themselves completely irrelevant:

Democracy 21 did not say that Senator John McCain cannot withdraw from the presidential primary public financing system until the Federal Election Commission makes a decision in this case.

We said that the shut down of the FEC has “taken center stage” because there is no agency to make a legal determination of whether McCain can or cannot withdraw from the public financing system. That means that their will be no resolution of the legal question involved here until the agency is re-constituted to decide the legal issue, and if such an FEC decision is appealed, the case is decided by the courts.

Democracy 21 had no trouble interpreting Barack Obama’s statement — “If I am the Democratic nominee, I will aggressively pursue an agreement with the Republican nominee to preserve a publicly financed general election” — to mean that he was opting into the public financing system for the general election. They sit around and parse this stuff all day, set themselves up as judge and jury about what the law is and how it should be interpreted. And now they want to shrug their shoulders because it’s their good buddy John McCain and say that because there’s no quorum at the FEC, he can do whatever the hell he wants?

Some people just love power and the trappings of power. And Democracy 21 and il presidente Fred Wertheimer are clearly some of those people. John McCain lights his world.

Fred Wertheimer and his cow0rkers at Democracy 21 are clearly morally bankrupt. They do not care about political campaign finance law, nor do they care about the presidential matching funds system remaining in a healthy state. If they did, they would choose to defend that over their dear friend John McCain.

Keep in mind that Wertheimer and his pals are making a stink about Obama backing out of a conditional statement, while offering no condemnation when John McCain actual backs out of the matching funds system he had already entered! To them, the issue is what Obama might or might not do down in September. Obviously they’re missing the story happening right in front of them.

This may be hard to believe, but few things have made me physically more ill in my time in politics than this disgusting, immoral, apologism for John McCain’s illegal campaigning.

Democracy 21: McCain’s Stuck in Public Financing

Democracy 21 head Fred Wertheimer, a strong McCain ally, says that he is stuck in public financing until the FEC says otherwise:

The shut down of the Federal Election Commission has taken center stage because there is no functioning agency to deal with the issue of whether bank loans taken out by Senator John McCain (R-AZ), and the collateral provided for those bank loans, means that Senator McCain cannot withdraw from the presidential primary public financing system and is bound by its spending limits for the rest of his primary campaign.

Jane Hamsher writes:

That’s not a “punt,” that’s a clear determination. Democracy 21 says McCain has to abide by the spending limits set by the public financing system, which he is has probably already exceeded. Which means by law, it is their opinion that McCain should be dead in the water and unable to spend any more money until the general. (Ambinder missed this the first time around, but to his credit caught it and corrected it.)

All of McCain’s fancy footwork in his loan application that offered up public financing money as collateral without actually offering it up is highly dubious. Wertheimer is saying that unless the FEC can rule on it, McCain is stuck. (For more on this, see Mark Schmidt’s explanation.)

…

Anyway, to recap: John McCain’s staunchest ally on campaign finance reform, Fred Wertheimer, says that it is illegal for him to be doing what he is doing.

So here’s how we have to look at the McCain campaign from here on out: every time he steps on a stage, he is breaking the law. Every time he airs an ad on TV, he is cheating. Every time he travels to California or New York or Michigan or Texas or anywhere else for a fundraiser, he is breaking the law. John McCain is circumventing the campaign finance system. He is a cheater and a law breaker and his actions could mean that he face jail time (up to five years).

These are not the actions of an honorable man or an honest man or an ethical man. These are the actions of a craven, lawless cheater who is desperately hoping that his judgment day never comes.

Update:

Everything in this post about Wertheimer is no longer operable.

McCain’s Racist, War-Mongering, Homophobic Minister

Glenn Greenwald on McCain’s latest endorsement from hate-mongering Christianist John Hagee.

Watching the media’s treatment of Farrakhan and Hagee, is it possible to imagine a more transparent, and grotesque, double standard? In the framework of the Russert-led establishment press, white evangelical Christians are, by definition, entitled to great respect no matter how radical, extreme and hateful their professed views are. These are, after all, religious Christians — People of Faith — and, as such, it is wrong, even bigoted, to suggest that they should be repudiated. There is nothing ever radical, hateful or dangerous about the views of white evangelical Christians like Hagee.

Thus, white evangelical Ministers are free to advocate American wars based on Biblical mandates, rant hatefully against Islam, and argue that natural disasters occur because God hates gay people. They are still fit for good company, an important and cherished part of our mainstream American political system. The entire GOP establishment is permitted actively to lavish them with praise and court their support without the slightest backlash or controversy. Both George Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert sent formal greetings to the 2006 gathering of Hagee’s group.

By contrast, black Muslim ministers like Farrakhan, or even black Christian ministers like Rev. Jeremiah Wright, are held with deep suspicion, even contempt. McCain is free to hug and praise the Rev. Hagees of the world, but Obama is required to prove over and over and over and over that he does not share the more extreme views of black Ministers.

How come Tim Russert — in all the times he sits and chats with Lieberman, McCain and various high Bush officials — never reads all of the inflammatory, disgusting, crazed “Rapture-is-Coming/ All-Jews-will-Burn/ Kill-All-Muslims/ Hurricanes-are-Punishment-against-Gays” pronouncements from John Hagee and James Dobson and Pat Robertson and demand that John McCain and George Bush and Joe Lieberman “denounce” those views and “reject” their support? What’s the difference, exactly?

The answer to that is simple, Glenn: It’s OK If You’re A Republican.

Republicans Crying Over Telecom Money

Shorter Republicans in Congress: Don’t the Big Telecoms know how badly they need us to help them? Don’t they know that we’ll never ask them to follow the law? What gives?

Roll Call reports that Republicans on the Hill are up in arms over the fact that the telecom industry isn’t giving more money to GOP campaign coffers.

With the House Democrats’ refusal to grant retroactive immunity to phone companies — stalling the rewrite of the warrantless wiretapping program — GOP leadership aides are grumbling that their party isn’t getting more political money from the telecommunications industry.

Like most corporate interests with a heavy stake in Congressional action, the major phone companies significantly boosted their contributions to Democrats last year after the party surged back into the majority.

But giving by that sector is getting special attention from Republicans now that the debate over the surveillance program is front and center — and focused on the phone companies’ role in aiding the Bush administration after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

“It’s quite discouraging,” said one GOP leadership aide, referring to the disparity in giving from the telecommunications industry in light of the FISA debate, but also the broader lack of support for Republicans from the business community in general.

“These companies just won’t do anything,” the aide said. “Even when you have the Democrats working against their bottom line.”

It’s pretty pathetic actually. The Republicans are going out of their way to champion an issue that, while the telecoms are happy to benefit from, they’re not demanding in exchange for continued partnership with the US government. The GOP is begging the telecoms to give them the money they need for “air cover” – to continue running attack ads on Democrats in support of the Republican Party’s efforts to destroy the Constitution. Don’t the telecoms get how unpopular what the GOP is doing, don’t they know how badly the Republicans need to Madison Avenue up this issue so people will really get why the Republicans are right?

The National Republican Congressional Committee was $29 million short of its Democratic counterpart in cash on hand as of Jan. 31.

Republicans really are flipping the couch cushions to find revenue streams. They are used to the world of quid pro quo, they just made the mistake of thinking that because they brought fire and brimstone to the FISA fight, that  it was going to result with heaps and heaps of donations from Big Telecom. I don’t know why the telecoms aren’t showing the Republicans the reward they think they deserve, but I find it hilarious to watch them have vapors over it.

NY Times on Bobby Jindal

The New York Times has an interesting profile piece of Louisiana’s Republican Governor Bobby Jindal. Jindal is considered a superstar in the Republican Party – he’s young, the son of Indian immigrants, and primed to be at the front of the next generation of Republican presidential candidates.

The Times piece is on how he’s pushed for ethics reform in the early months of his term, which is all well and good. What I find particularly interesting, though, is how the pursuit of ethics reform serves as cover for how conservative Jindal is. The Times never discusses his broader agenda and so, like John McCain, Jindal is left with the aura of an ethical reformer and nothing else. In fact, Jindal is a conservative movementarian, something that you would never know from the Times piece.

Jew-Baiting in America

During the course of writing a number of times on Tim Russert’s offensive line of questioning of Barack Obama on Louis Farrakhan last night, I did a Google search of the term “jew-baiting.” The second hit on that search was a blog post by my friend Steve Gilliard, titled “Jew Baiting in America” from December, 2005, written in the heat of one of the annual wars on Christmas.

It’s a fascinating historical read, something that Gilliard was known for. I’m copying the introduction below, but recommend you read the whole piece.

The thing about American anti-semitism is that is is a disease, like herpes, which hides, then comes out, but has never really gone away. There has been a desire to pretend it’s in the American past, but the reality is that the various strains of anti-semitic activity in the US has come in waves.

The 1930’s was the highpoint, but the 1960’s saw a race-based revival.

The current wave of anti-semitic activity, couched in code words and hints, hasn’t reached threats and violence, yet, but as familiar themes, like the corruption of the media and the attacks on Christianity reach a fever pitch, that isn’t unlikely.

So how did we get here?

Into the 1960’s, there was a strong black-Jewish political alliance. But as Jews assimilated into the American middle class, their interests with blacks diminished. Also, blacks were lured by the appeal of Islam as a “authentic” black religion, until people reseached and found that Arabs also owned slaves and treated blacks as second class citizens.

Conservatives used their affinity for Israel to gain inroads to Jewish support, while playing up ethnic conflict between blacks and Jews to imply widespread anti-semitism within the black community. Jesse Jackson’s Hymietown comment and Louis Farrakhan’s speeches were given a great deal of attention by the Anti-Defamation League, to the point where people believed that the two communities had divergent interests, and many felt that ADL head Abraham Foxman had an animus towards blacks.

But lurking in the background were people like Pat Buchanan, who’s admiration of fascist ideology and resentment of Israel is widely known. In 1992, he delivered a memorable Republican convention speech which attacked “Hollywood”. Warren Beatty called it anti-semitic, and with good reason, but was laughed at. People didn’t want to believe it.

Move forward to 2005, and Foxman gives a similar speech and Jews are divided on how to respond. Some fear upsetting their “allies”, others think that he’s mistaken. A few get what he was saying.

The irony is that blacks and Jews have always realized that their fates are effectively intertwined. Underneath every racist is an anti-semite and underneath every anti-semite is a racist. While exploiting and heightening their differences, fundamentalists convinced Jews that they supported a Jewish Israel, and played on the deep religiocity of the black community, meaning neither well.

A Salon article on this suggested that Jews were alone in the fight to keep a secular society, which I felt was untrue for this reason. The “Christianity” promoted by the fundies on the right excludes blacks as well as Jews. Brothers in Christ means white brothers in Christ in many cases.

A famous reverend on the West Coast, Fredrick Price, was doing fellowship with a white minister, who told him he would never let his daughter marry a black man. That shook Price deeply. Why? I have no idea. The racism of many fundamentalist Churches lies on the surface, not hidden away.

A few months ago, I ripped into Amy Sullivan for repeating anti-semitic code words, words which she didn’t even realize were anti-semitic. Which is how code words work. So you can get a Joe Lieberman decrying the video game industry, and Ted Stevens attacking Howard Stern for indecency and it seems ok. But then you get ranting about the “War on Christmas” and no one adds it up. At the very least,its using coded language which harks back to the most brutal anti-semitic language of the last century.

Here are some examples of an earlier, openly anti-semitic text from Henry Ford’s The International Jew and some comparisons, all taken from Media Matters.

Again, you can read Gilliard’s whole piece here.

Democracies, Now With Less Democrats

The good news, according to TPM Muckraker, is that Foundation for the Defense of Democracies – which is running the odious wiretapping ad against freshman Democratic incumbents – has been abandoned by all Democratic members of its Board of Advisors. Not surprisingly, the exception to the rule, as always, is Joe Lieberman:

Our call and email to Sen. Lieberman’s spokesman were unreturned.

Someone please remind me when the schedule for the Republican National Convention speeches is announced.