|
Banned
|
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by djtestudo
|
djtestudo, I appreciate that you made the effort to read my post and to respond. You were "up front" about your linked articles. They are, as you said "op-eds". I try to avoid posting "op-eds" when I am on the opposite side of an argument with someone who confines their links to news reports.
I want other readers to compare your description of the author of the "op-eds" that you linked to, with this blurb, and the WaPo editorial aimed at Gov. Ehrlich (below). Could the op-eds author be motivated by his develpment interests?
Quote:
http://www.gazette.net/columns/
Blair Lee/My Maryland
Lee is president of the Lee Development Group in Silver Spring and aregular commentator for WAMU-FM. His column on politics appears Fridays in The Weekend Edition.
|
I'll confine myself to offering some things for you to consider if you take the time to compare my argument to the documentation you offered to back your points. In Dec., 2000, candidate Gore lost the office of POTUS by no more than 600 votes in a questionable and recount, halted before it was completed by a verdict of the SCOTUS. The opposing candidate, GW Bush, enjoyed the fact that his brother was the governor of Florida, the state where the outcome of the contested vote would determine who would become POTUS.
To add insult to injury, the ultimate responsibility for fair election oversight in Florida was Fla. Sec. of State, Katherine Harris, who simultaneously held a conflicting interest in her role as the head of the Bush/Cheney Florida 2000 election campaign. Ms. Harris's integrity was suspect in the aftermath of the 2000 election.
This week, our worst fears and strongest negative suspicions about Katherine Harris being too partisan, unethical, and unscrupulous to oversee the Florida 2000 presidential vote in a fair and non-partisan manner (remember the "Felon's List" that kept thousands of voters off the election roles, in error?)
...are beginning to be confirmed, as Harris is tied to the same briber, Mitchell Wade, who Randy Cunningham swore in court, bribed him:
Quote:
http://news.tbo.com/news/metro/MGB10T5WEKE.html
Harris Cancels Election Trips
By JEREMY WALLACE Sarasota Herald-Tribune
Published: Mar 5, 2006
PORT CHARLOTTE - Already trying to avoid the media, U.S. Rep. Katherine Harris, R-Longboat Key, is canceling campaign stops in Southwest Florida as questions swirl about her ties to a Washington defense contractor at the center of a bribery scandal.
Harris, who is running for the U.S. Senate, abruptly canceled a stop in Charlotte County on Saturday, and four other events planned for Lee and Collier counties were removed from her campaign Web site........
...........She Downplays Controversy
She organized a conference call Friday with her most loyal supporters in which she downplayed her connections to MZM Inc., saying, "There is nothing to it except for the press trying to be negative."
The company's owner admitted in federal court that he gave $32,000 in illegal campaign donations to Harris.
In the conference call, Harris described a campaign on a roll and gaining momentum daily. She said prominent politicians, such as U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., hosted a fundraising event for her in Washington last week, proof all is well. "Now there is a buzz in Washington," she said in the call.
Harris' ties to defense contractor MZM Inc. have been under the microscope since Feb. 24, when MZM founder Mitchell Wade admitted to bribing one member of Congress and giving Harris illegal contributions in March 2004.
Over a private dinner in Washington, Wade and Harris talked about "obtaining funding and approval" for a Navy counterintelligence program that Wade wanted to open in Sarasota, Justice Department records show.
After the meeting, Harris put in a $10 million budget request to the Defense Appropriations subcommittee to fund the project. Days later, a staff member in her congressional office went to work for Wade at MZM.
The funding for the project was never approved.
|
<h4>And...Harris "lawyers up" !!</h4>
Quote:
http://www.tbo.com/news/metro/MGB5MTE1CKE.html
Harris Shuns Spending Requests
By KEITH EPSTEIN kepstein@tampatrib.com
Published: Mar 3, 2006
........Among the reasons for her absence was a meeting with top-gun campaign finance lawyer Ben Ginsberg, <b>whom she hired as a "precaution,"</b> Harris spokeswoman Kara Borie said.
On the sixth day after she was identified as a recipient of illegal campaign contributions, the Republican congresswoman from Longboat Key stayed behind closed doors. She issued a statement in which she denied knowing that contributions made to her by defense contractor Mitchell Wade had been illegal...........
|
Note here at campaign donation reporting site, http://www.opensecrets.org/indivs/se...2002=Y&Order=N that fourteen checks of $2000 each, supposedly sent to Harris on the initiative of individual employees of Mitchell Wade's company, were all "donated" on the same day! The only other check came from Wade's wife, two weeks later. Mitchell Wade was the principle "briber" of Rep. Randy Cunningham, who was just sentenced to 100 months in a federal pen., yesterday!
The table here: http://www.opensecrets.org/politicia...882&cycle=2004
makes it clear that Mitchell Wade's MZM Corp., (Wade's employee's checks, illegally remimbursed later by Wade himself, and Wade's family...) was Harris's top 2004 contributor, with $50,000. The next highers was National Beer Wholesalers Assn.'s $20,000 to Harris.
Do even the repub apologists here, believe that Harris could receive 14 checks of $2000 each, on the same day, fronted as independent contributions from Wade's employees, who don't live anywhere near Florida, and then accept Harris saying that she did not know that Wade was not trading to purchase the influence of her elected office for MZM, as he had with Cunningham?
<b></djtestudo, the author of your op-ed columns has the following description. Could he be more than a citizen member of the opposite party who only wants MD Gov Ehrlich to receive a fair "shake"?</b>
Governor Ehrlich does not like the press coverage that he receives from the largest, oldest newspaper in his state. He attempted to censor the reporting of the Baltimore Sun by cutting off the access of it's reporters to MD state government.
That seems all the more foolish when you consider that the "Sun" is owned by the Tribune Corp, owner also of the LA Times. It is also foolish because the editors of the WaPo don't think very highly of Ehrlich and they publish bad things about him, too. He is also mired in the Abramoff slime. The NEWS article below reports that the Governor's $16,000 of Abramoff money came directly from Abramoff and his wife. Other money recipients named in the article received funds from Abramoff clients. The Repub. talking point attempts to persuade that money received from Abramoff's clients is as tainted as money given by Abramoff himself. Labeling an entity's money as "tainted", just because they retained Abramoff's lobbying services before he was indicted, doesn't seem a very Repub. thing to think, does it?
Quote:
http://www.careerbuilder.com/JobSeek...194841029-SE-1
The baltimore Sun
....It can be measured in terms of statistics. The Sun began as a four-page paper whose circulation had grown to 12,000 by the end of its first year of publication. Today, The Sun has a press run of more than 430,000 copies each day. The press run of the Sunday paper produces more than 540,000 copies each week, and the Saturday paper press run produces more than 400,000 copies weekly. At this volume, printing all Sun papers consumes 65,000 tons of newsprint each year, as well as 2.1 million pounds of black ink and 378,000 pounds of color ink.......
..........Because of Baltimore's proximity to Washington, D.C., events in the nation's capital have always been regarded with particular interest; and on June 13, 1837, less than a month after it was founded, The Sun carried its first account by a Washington correspondent writing specifically for Sun readers. Through the years, that coverage was expanded and a formal Washington Bureau was established. ..............
..........Van Lear Black was succeeded by his brother, Harry C. Black. Upon Harry's death in 1956, he in turn was succeeded by his nephew — and Van Lear's son — Gary Black, Sr. Upon his retirement in December, 1984, Gary Black, Sr. was succeeded by William E. McGuirk, Jr., who remained the Chairman of the Board of directors until October, 1986, when the company was acquired by the Times Mirror Company, a nationwide information and media company. In June 2000, Times Mirror merged with Tribune Company, making The Sun a subsidiary of Tribune, a major-market, multimedia leader with operations in television and radio broadcasting, publishing and interactive media.
|
Quote:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp...nguage=printer
washingtonpost.com
<b>Questions for Mr. Ehrlich</b>
Monday, December 6, 2004; Page A20
GOV. ROBERT L. Ehrlich Jr. (R) still maintains plausible deniability -- but only barely -- when it comes to the sordid land deal whose unsavory particulars continue to slither into public view week by week. The governor has said he was unaware of the details of the transaction, which would have put the state in the role of real estate broker for a politically well-connected Baltimore building magnate who stood to make millions in tax breaks from the purchase of 836 acres of Southern Maryland forestland. Yet if Mr. Ehrlich was really in the dark, at least three of his top aides weren't. Chief of Staff Steven L. Kreseski, Communications Director Paul E. Schurick and former deputy chief of staff Edward F. McDonald were all consulted on the proposed transaction. "They basically said: " 'Go ahead. See where it goes,' " Maryland's secretary of general services, Boyd Rutherford, told state lawmakers last week.
Beyond his protestations of ignorance, we still don't know the governor's thinking about the squalid arrangement, now aborted, involving the proposed land sale of the Salem Tract in St. Mary's County to Willard Hackerman, one of the country's biggest builders. Does Mr. Ehrlich think it is wise for the state to purchase pristine, environmentally sensitive land with the intent of selling it immediately -- at a cut-rate price -- to wealthy campaign donors? Does he think his aides were right to green-light the deal? Would politically well-connected heavy hitters also have the inside track to buy 3,000 acres in or near state parks that officials have identified as "surplus" land at the governor's instructions?
While Marylanders await the next revelation, state Attorney General J. Joseph Curran Jr. (D) is examining details of the deal, presumably with an eye to determining whether it warrants a criminal investigation. Some Democratic lawmakers, scrambling to salt Mr. Ehrlich's wounds, are calling for the appointment of a special prosecutor. We won't jump on that bandwagon; the important thing for now is to devise procedures that ensure there will be no repetition of the Salem Tract debacle......
|
Quote:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...010401478.html
Ehrlich, Other Local Officials to Return Abramoff Funds
By Matthew Mosk
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, January 5, 2006; Page B02
Maryland Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. announced yesterday that he will return $16,000 in campaign contributions he received from disgraced Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
"I'm going to give it to the Helping Up Mission in Baltimore," the Republican governor told reporters at a news event early yesterday.
Later in the day, the Ehrlich campaign's political director, Bo Harmon, said the governor learned that under state law he could not legally donate the money to a charity, so the checks "were returned today to Mr. and Mrs. Abramoff in accordance with campaign finance law.".......
........."What's happening on Capitol Hill is affecting him," Miller said. "He was part of that crew. Trained under Newt Gingrich. Brought these same partisans to be part of his administration."
Specifically, Miller referred to a top Ehrlich aide who figures into the scandal and who was said to have been cooperating with federal investigators. Charging documents released Tuesday prominently mention the company chartered by Ehrlich's deputy chief of staff, Edward B. Miller.
For several months in 2003, Edward Miller was the registered agent for GrassRoots Interactive in Silver Spring before turning it over to a lobbying associate of Abramoff's. The documents say Abramoff established the company and then encouraged clients to use its public relations and other services. Abramoff would then cause the company to "charge prices that incorporated huge profit margins for the purpose of generating funds and concealing kickbacks" to Abramoff, the documents show.
Edward Miller's attorney has said previously that his client did nothing illegal. Miller did not return a call to his office yesterday.
Ehrlich backed his aide yesterday, telling the Associated Press: "Ed Miller is a tremendous young man. He is [deputy] chief of staff and will remain chief of staff."
Staff writer Lisa Rein contributed to this report.
|
Quote:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/10/po...pagewanted=all
Lobbyist Sought $9 Million to Set Bush Meeting
By PHILIP SHENON
Published: November 10, 2005
WASHINGTON, Nov. 9 - The lobbyist Jack Abramoff asked for $9 million in 2003 from the president of a West African nation to arrange a meeting with President Bush and directed his fees to a Maryland company now under federal scrutiny, according to newly disclosed documents..........
The documents also show that Mr. Abramoff and his colleagues drew up a draft contract that called for $9 million in fees to be paid to GrassRoots Interactive, the small Maryland lobbying company that his former colleagues say he controlled.
......Documents, including copies of canceled checks, show that millions of dollars flowed through the company's accounts in 2003, the year it was created, including at least $2.3 million to a California consulting firm that used the same address as the law office of Mr. Abramoff's brother, Robert. A separate check for $400,000 was made out to Kay Gold, another Abramoff family company..........
............Other documents obtained by The New York Times show that Mr. Abramoff and his colleagues prepared two draft agreements, both dated Aug. 7, 2003, that outlined the lobbying plan for Gabon.
One called for GrassRoots to receive $9 million in lobbying fees; the other called for Greenberg Traurig to receive $1 million, all of it in 2003.
A spokeswoman for Greenberg Traurig said the firm had no comment. "We don't comment on whom we do or don't represent," said Jill Perry, a spokeswoman for the firm, which forced Mr. Abramoff to resign last year.
Maryland state records show that GrassRoots were established in 2003 by Edward B. Miller, a Republican lawyer who is now deputy chief of staff to Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. of Maryland. Samuel Hook, a former partner of Mr. Abramoff from Greenberg Traurig, took over it in September 2003.
Mr. Ehrlich's office has said that Mr. Miller is cooperating in the Justice Department investigation. Aron Raskas, a lawyer speaking for Mr. Miller, said Mr. Miller had no knowledge of any project involving Gabon.
Mr. Hook's lawyer, Alyza D. Lewin, said that "Mr. Abramoff solely controlled G.R.I.," a reference to GrassRoots Interactive.
|
The above report, by the NY Times, declares that Gov. Ehrlich's Deputy COS Miller. was a go between in the funneling of $2.3 million to an "office" at the same California address as the law office of Robert Abramoff, Jack's brother. Mr. Miller, according to a WaPo NEWS reporter, <b>"For several months in 2003, Edward Miller was the registered agent for GrassRoots Interactive in Silver Spring before turning it over to a lobbying associate of Abramoff's"</b> This was the company that sent the $2.3 million to the Robert Abramoff address. Governor Ehrlich has vouched for Mr. Miller after these news reports were printed.
Question for you folks who take issue with nearly everything that I post? Do you hold any politician that you support to a standard that you can explain. Have all of you met Abramoff, and do all who post unflagging support for republican elected officials, know each other?
Last edited by host; 03-05-2006 at 01:23 AM..
|