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Wednesday, October 29, 2008.  8pm.  Tom McClintock addresses a group of potential voters at the McBean Park Pavilion in Lincoln, CA

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Over four hundred people stood in line outside at a fundraiser put on by the Lincoln Police Auxiliary and Lions Club, to donate canned goods to enter this Halloween Haunted House, also at the Lincoln McBean Park Pavilion last night, Oct 29, 2008, adjacent to the building McClintock was in.

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“Vell- come to my House of Economic Horrors” .  That’s McClintock campaign spokesperson Bill George guarding the door making sure the Democrats and other Subversives, like Independents and other people with notepads, don’t get in.  It worked, George.  There were 18 people.  At least 5 of them were campaign staff.  

Note the Igor force field effect.  He’s not in the viewfinder but within a few yards so the picture blurred again.

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Another view of the Secret Republican Political Meet Tom McClintock in Lincoln event. Peering thru the camelia bushes outside the building

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This is Team McClintock’s sentry standing in front of the local Lincoln Massage Parlor 2.5 hours before the Lincoln McClintock event that evening. It is across the street from the McBean Pavilion.  He whipped out that cell phone when I pulled into the parking lot.  I think it’s time to mention that the former Lincoln Planning and Zoning commissioner during the time Lincoln was approving every single proposed commercial development (during the early 2000’s, when Kevin Ring, Doolittle’s ex legislative aide,  was a lobbyist for the city )  was eventually  busted on prostitution charges and owned another massage parlor in town.   While we’re at it,  McClintock voted against regulating massage parlors while in the State Senate.  

It just writes itself, sometimes.   I can’t make this stuff up.   More pics to come.

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Roseville,  Maidu Community Center, 6:30 pm, Wednesday Oct 29 2008.  McClintock addressing potential Republican voters at his first event that evening. View from outside the room, looking  through the window.  McClintock is to the far left, light grey hair, suit, standing facing audience.  Doesn’t look too crowded in there, does it ?  Note door sentries.

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Roseville, Maidu Community Center, Wednesday Oct 29, 2008.  It is 7:10 pm.  They just had about 35 people total dribble out of the room, including the staff and others working as Republicans. The yoga class next door had more people.   McClintock is supposed to be in downtown Lincoln at 7:30 pm.   Is this going to happen ?  Not unless he teleports.  

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This is the fun part.  Meanwhile, back in Lincoln, at the main road into town from the south, there’s some serious Brown support going on !   A demonstration with at least 50 to 60 people is showing their public support for the local candidate.

McClintock is going to have to drive past this to get to his next event in Lincoln.  ( I was there very early and as it ended, but left to see what was going on in Roseville, so these are not my pictures )  

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Charlie Brown supporters waiting along the highway, Lincoln, evening of Oct 29,2008, during commuting hours, ready to give Travelin’ Tom McClintock that Big Lincoln Hospitality Welcome he deserves !

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This is one of the first people that was out there that evening. Veterans for Brown.  

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Young people for Brown.  

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Older people (“seasoned and sage” )  for Brown.

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Working people for Brown  

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Ladies and Gentlemen of Lincoln for Brown

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Jumpin’ for Joy for Brown !

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And once McClintock and his crew got past that, they still had to go thru this .

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The families waiting in line to donate food to the Lions Club, and visit the Haunted Castle House in Lincoln, next to the McBean Pavilion building, Oct 29, 2008.  

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Happy Halloween from Lincoln, CA.  The Great Pumpkin has Arrived, Charlie Brown.  

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McClintock’s bloggers are making bizarre claims about having 3 thousand donors making over $300,000 in donations over the last 10 days-  this is bloviating nonsense, his campaign is still in debt, but  getting big money from outside the district via independent expenditures.  And you should see where some of the dough is coming from, you’d be shocked.  Well, maybe not, after all, it’s McClintock, running the Doolittle playbook.  Remember one of those Indian tribes involved in the Abramoff scandal ?  Remember some companies that Doolittle did earmarks for, then they contributed to his legal defense fund?   Remember how McClintock makes this stupid dig all the time, about how we can’t send somebody to Congress who would implement the same policies as Herbert Hoover ? So what does he do?  He takes a big donation off of a old Reaganite who works for the Herbert Hoover Institute.   Link to McClintock’s FEC filings, the F6 ‘s are the larger last minute filings which have to be reported within 48 hours,  and the F3 ‘s are the quarterly, primary or general filings (covers a longer period of time)   http://query.nictusa.com/cgi-b…

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For just one example, on the latest McClintock F6 filing,

http://query.nictusa.com/cgi-b…    there is a 10/27/2008 donation to McClintock of $2000 from the HERGER PAC, which is Congressperson Wally Herger’s (R, CA- 02) slush fund.  A look at the latest filing of the HERGER PAC show that they just received money from the Credit Suisse Securities PAC,  a  Swiss Investment Bank. From Opensecrets:    http://www.opensecrets.org/pac…

Here’s a list of the individual large donors for Credit Suisse Securities. Note all the New York addresses.  http://www.opensecrets.org/pac…

and from Wellpoint WELLPAC in Indiana.  (Wellpoint was based in THOUSAND OAKS CA, which McClintock uses as his current legal residence for collecting per diems from the state of CA-  what a coincidence )

This is an HMO health insurance PAC. From Opensecrets:   http://www.opensecrets.org/pac…

Now they’re in Indiana. Same business. http://www.opensecrets.org/pac…

Check the donors to this PAC, they’re the executives of this HMO administrator.

http://www.opensecrets.org/pac…

Foreign investment banks based in NYC and HMO’s are giving money to McClintock via Bush enabling Republican Wally Herger.  You’ll never hear McClintock bragging on this while he’s busy playing the “family values” card. He attempts to go to DC not to change anything but to preserve the Republican status quo of NO regulations and more tax cuts.   And this is one of the more pedestrian donations.   Don’t forget Jeff Morris is running against Herger in CA- 02.  

So much for all of McClintock’s alleged “local support.”  Here’s the pictures. Here’s the FEC filings.  Undeniable.  The polls are the 3rd key.  Charlie Brown has the support of the voters.  McClintock just has a PR consultant.

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Now let’s not let all the outside the district forces like ex- Congressman Richard Pombo, sworn enemy of the Endangered Species Act,  and his PAC/West Communications, a lobbyist group dedicated to the Drill Baby Drill mantra in the Artic National Refuge, buy out our congressional district.   Let’s keep Charlie Brown on the airwaves for the last 5 days.  

Charlie Brown for Congress  site  http://www.charliebrownforcong…

Actblue donation link

http://www.actblue.com/page/or…

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This year,  We are holding Charlie’s Football

Gentle Readers, volunteers, and fans of one of the most beautiful districts in the nation, CA- 04, this one’s for you.  You walked, you talked, you called, you organized, you typed, you wrote, you attended, you spoke, you applauded,  you got up in the morning and you did it all again. And again.

You saw what was wrong, you wanted to make it right, and that meant you had to pick it up.  You couldn’t let the the Charlie Brown down. And that meant volunteering.  It makes a difference.  (more over the fold)

He doesn’t look too happy, does he ?  McClintock’s 3rd Quarter fling from Oct 15 shows his campaign is broke and in debt.    Charlie Brown (D) and Tom McClintock(R, seated)  in Oroville on Oct 2, 2008.  

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Our District:

In 2006, the White House threw a life preserver to the last Republican in Congress who could have implicated George Bush in the Jack Abramoff scandal.  

In 2008, they tried to run a Fox Faux News and White House and Move America Forward guy in the Republican Primary, and the Republicans said no.

They tried to run an old retread from another district, who helped impeach Clinton, and the Republicans said no.  They tried running an ex state senator with enough baggage to fill a 18 wheeler, and the Republicans said no.  They tried running a Libertarian Ron Paulian Republican named Terbolizard, and the Republicans said no. Then they brought in the Republican Icon from a district 400 miles away in Southern California, who was terming out of state office.  And the Republicans said…..  yes.  We’ll take that one.  

Fox News and MAF,  Literally Looking Over His Shoulder, March 2008, Auburn

Because these fools don’t deserve any better.    

And a few of you worried, but you don’t win by worrying. You just get up, and you get ready, and you go out there, and you do it again, because all of you know somebody who is in a world of hurt right now, and these people are depending on us.  People who are hungry. And can’t afford to buy food. People who were downsized. People who lost their jobs. People who lost their houses. Or their rental place.  People who are sick.  People who can’t afford medicine. People who served their country overseas, but they got hurt.  People who are wondering what happens next.

So you looked that Republican Icon in the eye, and you said NOT THIS TIME. NOT HERE. NOT NOW.  ENOUGH.  We need a local Representative. We have to do this.  We can’t rely on the pundits or the experts.  We have a huge task ahead of us.

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Volunteers for Charlie Brown, April 26 Day of Action

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And now we’re in that home stretch.  Today is October 16.   We have 19 days to get this done.

And we cannot get complacent.   You saw the title.  Tom McClintock, the Republican Icon, is broke. He has more debt than cash on hand.    http://query.nictusa.com/cgi-b…  

By my rough estimate, only about 5% of his itemized individual donations come from inside the district on this latest FEC filing.  Schedule of upcoming events on his webpage today. None.    http://www.tommcclintock.com/e…

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 Will work for per Diem.

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Charlie Brown, the Democratic candidate for CA- 04,  is not broke.  And he’s busy meeting and talking to people.  http://www.charliebrownforcong…    Considering the district demographics, and the tough economic times, and the fact that he’s supported by so many individual donors instead of Big Money Interest PACs, it’s a miracle.

This does not mean it’s over.   Those out of state corporate interests are going to throw the kitchen sink AND the garbage disposal at us.  This is a BIG district geographically, and it’s so important because the mountains on the west side catch the winter snows and then that snow feeds us in the summer, literally. Water flows down to the areas of population and commerce to the State Capitol and to the Bay area and her port cities.  Where the water goes affects all of us.  And it effects all living things, plants and animals.  We cannot kill the delta without killing both the city and the fish and wildlife and farmland that depend on it having an inflow of fresh water.

When Charlie Brown first started running for Congress, he was running as a reformer against the corruption of the Republican Party.  He led by example and by hard work.  There wasn’t a lot of fancy rhetoric. You don’t get stuff done in the military by pointing fingers, bringing up wedge issues to try to divide people and make them mad at each other,  and hiring lobbyists to tell you you’re wonderful.  You define the problem, pick a solution, improvise if necessary, and just do it.  Charlie Brown wanted accountability in government, so he decided to run for office.  Just by the act of running, he forced the current Congressman to come out of Washington DC and interact with the district he was supposed to be representing.  Just by running, he helped other Democrats get elected, because the 50- state strategy works.  We stood there in the Opera House in Roseville in November 2006 and screamed ourselves silly every time an election return came back showing another Democrat had taken the lead, even if they were from out of state. I remember telling another kossack that Pombo was going down. She didn’t believe me at first.  I remember coming up the stairs at one point, taking one glance at the screen, and seeing the total number of House seats hit the magic number to guarantee a Democratic majority.  I knew right then we had changed things, no matter what the final count was for us.

This is what Dr Bill Durston     http://www.durstonforcongress….     (CA- 03, Lungren ,R) and Jeff Morris   http://www.jeffmorrisforcongre…  (CA-02, Herger, R) are doing for us now, by taking on these other Republican incumbents. And they actually do have a chance of winning. That’s what is so incredible.

In our district, the incumbent decided not to run against him again, after he won by only 3 percentage points.  They brought in the ringer. If you have read my past series of diaries, you can see that the ghost of Doolittle is still haunting Tom McClintock.  They may not have appeared together on stage anywhere, but McClintock took John Doolittle’s old playbook of hate politics, the one with the yellow highlights drawn over the talking points of creating fear and loathing, and tucked it under his pillow at night.  But even worse, he took his campaign financial technique of deficit spending, and he thought the lobbyists would come through for him, just like they kept coming through for John Doolittle.  And it seemed to work, at first. He forgot one thing.

Even John Doolittle has better people skills than Tom McClintock.   I hate saying that, but it seems to be true.  Look at him, he’s not in jail yet. That took some serious talent on his part.  

But Charlie Brown is still going to need our help to finish this task he started, of changing how we interact with government.  

As I said, the entrenched Republican establishment is going to throw the kitchen sink AND garbage disposal at us. They are using organizations with non profit tax status to push these horrible wedge issue propositions at the voters as hard as they can.  There has been a lot of ugly subtext going on under the surface.  

We need grace.  We need patience.  We need grit.  Because we can’t let up now.  And we need to run ads.  And these propositions have extraordinary amounts of lobbyist money supporting them.  They give it to the state assembly and state assembly accounts, and the state candidates go crazy paying for all these alleged non profits affiliated with politicians and consultants to run advertisements and slate mailers and the radio and the television and the blogger letters to the editor comment sections. That’s why I wrote about McClintock’s account yesterday.  http://www.dailykos.com/story/…  “Dear Treasurer” (McClintock’s)        People don’t see that.  They don’t see they’re being used.   They’re sincere, but this election is not about those issues.    And McClintock’s other campaigns have had a history of getting very large last minute donations.  Don’t take anything for granted.

It’s about the economy.  And the economy went into the drainpipe because George W. Bush didn’t learn a damn thing at college because he was too busy partying, and all of his life, when he screwed up, somebody related to the family bailed him out.  He thought our nation should be run like any other business.  But he has no business sense.  Screw up? Oh well ! Start a war, borrow some cash, take another mortgage, sow the seeds of fear and divisiveness. Terror alert.  Drown a city, blow away another.  Problems? Go shopping. No money? Too bad. You should have been a Republican.

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Summer 2008 in Lincoln. Get your free list of foreclosures here.

Enough.

Enough.

Enough.

This district is NOT going to send another Southern CA carpetbagger to Washington DC who is just using us as a mailing address with snowmelt.  We are going to send somebody who cares about the district because this is his home and these are his neighbors. And that person is Charlie Brown.

Now you know what we need to do.  Stay on the real issues. Volunteer.  http://www.charliebrownforcong…   Donate. https://www.charliebrownforcon…   http://www.actblue.com/entity/…     Talk. Walk.  Write.  Whatever.  Don’t give in to the temptation to be dragged into the muck.  The Republicans are frantic at this point.  They can’t see the future.  We can.  It’s going to be okay. A little rough, but okay.  Hang in there. Now let’s get out there and bring this one home.

( Didn’t really want to write this, but since the comment to the story about  McClintock’s KKK endorsement kept expanding, it gets its own diary.   I noticed some skepticism towards this topic at dailykos, and since I had a lot of background material already available,  it is relevant. )

This “endorsement”  would explain why one of McClintock’s supporters keeps on using

…..This.

This was in the local paper 9/21/08.  It’s from a McClintock supporter who posts blogs or comments on a daily basis.  Most of his stuff I won’t repeat because it’s too inflammatory. I just try to tell people that these wedge issues are being used to do internet fundraising targeting senior citizens based on a fear of minorities, and that provoking these fears is wrong.  

Regarding the above screenshot of a blog post in my local paper, I know who this is,  and I know he’s a long time financial supporter of both the Republican incumbent and the imported Southern California Republican challenger. (and I found a write up about him on a Christian website, which was not… complimentary. He has a long history of this sort of activity, which other people do not think is charitable towards others )  I’ve posted this image on dailykos before, when he first put it up. It’s following a theme they started when McClintock and Dan Logue decided to do that “Minutemen” “Secure the Borders”  tour this spring up in the northern part of the district, during the Republican Primary.

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March 4, 2008.  left to right, Dan Logue, Eric Egland, Tom McClintock, Sue Horn, as McClintock announces he’s running for Congress.

Dan Logue, state assembly candidate, appeared with McClintock on the “Secure the Borders” tour with the Minutemen group in May,  and his state Cal- access campaign money records for this cycle shows he paid the group that did the tour, “Secured Borders Consulting, Inc” and Jim Gilchrist.

http://cal-access.sos.ca.gov/C…

Eric Egland is a former CA- 04 candidate, a Fox News spokesperson, has served as President Bush’s spokesperson on mideast trips, has donated thousands of dollars to McClintock’s campaign, and has worked with MAF, which created the swiftboating ads currently being used against Democratic candidate Charlie Brown.   Sue Horn is former state assembly candidate whose husband works in the building/real estate developer business.

 Jim Gilchrist, the founder of the Minutemen Project, endorsed McClintock.  The other Minuteman Civil Defense Corps (the founders split into 2 groups) which uses a cleaned up Chris Simcox as its spokesperson and consultant, appeared in Nevada City with McClintock on May 7th. Simcox also endorsed McClintock.  This is what bothered me so much when I saw the flags and other war (Minutemen and the US- Mexican 1847 ) insignia on the parade float the Republicans used during the 4th of July Parade in Lincoln this year.

Links about Jim Gilchrist:

 Jim Gilchrist, the founder of the Minutemen Project, endorsed McClintock:

 http://www.redcounty.com/place…

Gilchrist’s Minuteman homepage:

http://www.minutemanproject.com/

Gilchrist’s myspace page                           http://profile.myspace.com/ind…

Links, Chris Simcox, other Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, tours with Logue and McClintock  http://www.redcounty.com/place…

Simcox’s MCDC page:   http://www.minutemanhq.com/hq/

Simcox has troubled past:  http://www.splcenter.org/news/…

Simcox and various political financial scandals:  Minuteman money mystery, 2006 article by Bill Berkowitz of Media Transparency  (very good Simcox link below)

http://www.mediatransparency.o…

Both Minutemen groups are associated with white supremist groups, such as the Council of Concerned Citizens, altho both deny it.  The CCC has changed its name to the CCIR.   http://www.ccir.net/

Basic information on the CCIR: http://www.splcenter.org/intel…

Some older backstory on the CCC link:  http://www.adl.org/MWD/ccc.asp

The CCC is so secretive they will not publish a membership list and require referrals before they will send you information on their organization.

These racist organizations are NOT dead, they are alive. They peaked in popularity during the first term of the Bush administration, waned, and now with the uncertain economic fallout, they are regaining some steam.  Barbara Coe, a member of the CCC, has been heavily involved recently in Minutemen border events in Southern California this summer, making appearances with  politicians running for office. Coe is also a member of the CCIR, the CA Coalition for Immigration Reform.

The Orcinus blog did a very good write up of the history of the Minutemen groups and their split, and how they front for political consultants, on June 28, 2006.  http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2…

The Rift in the Minutemen

The Subway Canaries blog (now thepinkflamingo.org)  did a write up of this relationship between the KKK and Immigration and the Minutemen groups in October, 2006, with a lot of links:

http://www.thepinkflamingo.org…

The Southern Poverty Law Center said in 2002, that most of the anti immigration “movement” is the result of work by John H Tanton, who founded, served on the boards, and funded many of them.  http://www.splcenter.org/intel…

If you are going to read just one link in my post, read this one from the Southern Poverty Law Center, from summer 2002  Note the remarks from Brian Bilbray, who was to run again in 2006 in the San Diego area and narrowly win election to the current Congress.   The article says that this network of anti immigration groups is not so much grassroots as astroturfing being done by John Tanton and Numbers USA.   Richard Mellon Scaife family foundations has been funding these groups, along with the McConnell Foundation, the Shea Foundation, the Weeden, Salisbury, Smith Richardson, Blair, and Sikes foundations.

4 page story

http://www.splcenter.org/intel…

http://www.splcenter.org/intel…

http://www.splcenter.org/intel…

http://www.splcenter.org/intel…

“The Puppeteer

The organized anti-immigration ‘movement,’ increasingly in bed with racist hate groups, is dominated by one man, John Tanton.”

The meeting with Tancredo and Bilbray  – and the entire lobbying operation in mid-February – was masterminded by NumbersUSA, an anti-immigration group that had recently opened a “government relations office” in a three-story, red-brick Victorian near the Capitol.

NumbersUSA hosted an afternoon open house at its plush new digs, where the lobbyists relaxed, nibbled on catered food, and conversed with the leaders and other officials of key anti-immigration organizations.

Patrick McHugh of the Washington-based Center for Immigration Studies, which purports to be a squeaky clean think tank that rejects racism, was there pressing the flesh along with Barbara Coe, head of the California Coalition for Immigration Reform, who repeatedly referred to Mexicans – as she has for years – as “savages.”

The Citizens Informer, a white supremacist tabloid put out by the Council of Conservative Citizens ( CCC ) hate group, was available.  

Here is another overview with links of the Minutemen, from an Australian site:

http://www.nationmaster.com/en…

The interesting thing about THIS site is that it mentions Minuteman Bryan Barton and the 2005 T- shirt incident.

T-shirt incident

On April 6, 2005, three Minuteman Project volunteers convinced a 25-year-old illegal immigrant to hold a T-shirt and pose for a photograph and a video with one of the volunteers. The T-shirt, which was also worn by volunteer Bryan Barton, read “Bryan Barton caught me crossing the border and all I got was this lousy T-shirt”.

Bryan Barton (link to one of his spoof sites   http://www.votebarton.com/abou…   ) claims to have a journalism certificate from the same school that graduated White House pool “Reporter”  Jeff Gannon, the right wing “Leadership Institute. ”   Bryan Barton has a large body of past work available for viewing on the internet, some of which has content not suitable for family viewing, containing images that are disturbing in content, meant to defame individuals based on their race, sex, or religious creeds, or depicting scenes of past activities of the Bush administration which were inflammatory or disgusting from a human rights content. He claims it’s humor.  It’s not.  It’s porn.

Tom McClintock, last month,  used the same Bryan Barton as a spokesperson for the follow up Swiftboat “hanging effigy”  advertisement they recorded in front of Charlie Brown’s Campaign office building, whereby Byran Barton asked supposed passerby to look at pictures taken in 2005 at that anti war rally counterdemonstration,  and asked them if a blurry picture of a man wearing a camo jacket over a tee shirt and jeans was the same as a man standing there in full military uniform. It was called “Charlie Brown Uniform Shuffle.”  Link from McClintock’s campaign site:

http://www.tommcclintock.com/m…

So I’m looking at this advertisement posted on McClintock’s front page of his campaign website for several days, knowing that “Bryan Barton of the Minutemen” is this paid Republican operative now working for McClintock, and I am waiting for somebody else to make the connection. Oh well.  Here goes.  One of McClintock’s largest local donators, Fred Sacher, is involved with this Republican “journalism” school that has now given us both Jeff Gannon (of the Valerie Plame – Scooter Libby outing coverup ruse)  and Bryan Barton.   link to page which has clickable pdfs of the Leadership Institute’s financial 990’s that can be studied  http://www.leadershipinstitute…

I guess we’ve just hit the Big Time here in Northern California. Back to the KKK ~~~    

Here’s a link page from a KKK member which is very interesting if you study his site  http://kelticklankirk.com/amer…

Note the Minute Men symbolism used at the top of the page, see the various link names to these extremist groups with it or derivatives of it. The Minute Men symbol is also used by a lot of these white supremist organizations.

Warning. The home page on that KKK site manages to offend every thing. I found the co – opting and perversion of “Celtic” belief particularly vile and wish to state that Irish, Christian, Celt and Pagan ? does not equal Klan, and the use of these Celtic art symbols in this context, which have their own meanings, is really bizarre.  http://kelticklankirk.com/

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McClintock’s float, the 4th of July parade in Lincoln, CA.  Flags, Republican GOP, CA state Bear Flag, American Flag, “Christian” Flag.  

The Christian Flag, the white one on the right hand side seen above, with the blue corner and red cross, is also used by the KKK in some parts of the country. Click here and scroll down to near the bottom to see an example:    http://www.kelticklankirk.com/…                   Another flag similiar to it, a pure white flag with a small confederate canton and cross in the corner is also used.  Click here for an example  http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/roadsh…            Notice how the Christian flag is flying same level with the other flags on this float.   The CA Bear Flag is also used by Save Our State, another white supremist group.  http://saveourstate.org/index.php     That combined with the heavy symbolism of the Mexican – US War of 1846- 47 and Minutemen symbolism on the parade float (most people did not know what they were looking at, but the few who did, it provoked quite a visceral response  )  really gave me a completely different outlook on the McClintock candidacy.   Whoever put this together wanted it to be provocative and stir up certain feelings of pitting one group against another, based on race and ancestral nationality.

The City of Lincoln, before it underwent the explosive population growth in the past decade with the population nearly quadrupling,  when the Del Webb retirement subdivisions went in, was more racially diverse and more laid – back and had a larger number of Latino Americans by percentage.

The Mexican American War ended up disenfranchising hundreds of Mexican citizens and Native Americans which were living in the southwestern  territory that the United States ended up with, because they did not get legal citizenship as was originally implied by the preliminary treaty, which the Senate then modified afterwards.   There was a lot of LDS symbolism on that float, such as the Wagon Wheel,  that also commemorated the Mormon Battalion, which marched across country from the midwest all the way to the California Coast during the same war.  The territorial gain by the United States was seen as another example of the righteousness of the theory of Manifest Destiny. The distinctive officer’s uniform on one of the soldier figurines on the float was very similar to what would have been worn by General Winfield Scott, a famous general in that war.  General Scott has another role in history, when in 1838 he also moved the Cherokee from their original homeland in Georgia to Oklahoma along the Trail of Tears. Before the move started, 4 thousand Cherokee would die in confinement.    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W…

Scott arrived at New Echota, Cherokee Nation on April 6, 1838, and immediately divided the Nation into three military districts. Within two weeks he had every Cherokee in North Georgia, Tennessee, and Alabama who could not escape to be captured or killed. The Cherokee were rounded up and held in rat-infested stockades with little food. Private John G. Burnett later wrote, “Future generations will read and condemn the act and I do hope posterity will remember that private soldiers like myself, and like the four Cherokees who were forced by General Scott to shoot an Indian Chief and his children, had to execute the orders of our superiors. We had no choice in the matter.”[3][4]  

So …. that was a very complex parade float.  

Here’s another detail from that 4th of July parade float:

Detail, McClintock’s 4th of July parade float, Lincoln CA.  Minutemen plaque behind L M’s shoulder.

Here’s the whole float from a distance, I posted this pic before in another diary:



July 4 McClintock parade float

And if the casual viewer couldn’t “get” the point that day in Lincoln, they had another person on a lawn tractor towing a big fiberglass trio of Minute Men figurines behind the parade float carrying the McClintocks.  

I have also seen blatantly racist material at another Republican booth at a district public event,  and in the window display of a district Republican headquarters building with both McClintock and John McCain signs in it.  Once, it could be an anomaly.  Repeatedly seeing it over and over again, it becomes a theme.   The question became, for me personally, should I address this issue and let it distract from the real campaign issues, or should I just follow the money trails and see where the McClintock supporters are going with this, and will it bring them national level support?

Then, when Republican John McCain picked Alaskan Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate, and I started seeing a lot of graphics of Palin with her high powered rifle, peering thru the scope, juxtaposed with pictures of our candidate Barack Obama, with the caption “She’s a Better Shot than Cheney,” I knew where the Republicans were going to take their campaign.  

Damn, I’m old enough to remember the 1960’s.  Why are they deliberately doing this?  Why is one of McClintock’s local supporters repeatedly using a hanging effigy theme?

Just like in the July parade, Tom McClintock wanted to be provocative when he stood there on the State Capitol steps early last month (Sept 2) during the “Minutemen” rally and called for the Federal government to cut off funding for San Francisco. And for the Federal government to deport millions of people.  There was a giant sign parked down on the road which says “Build the Wall, Deport them All,” the loudspeakers are playing some sort of dreadful screed about how people of Native American Indigenous ancestry have to perform a blood sacrifice when they reach adulthood, and are secretly plotting to turn California and the American southwest back into the Aztec state, “Aztlan” (this is the same stuff I’ve seen on the Council of Concerned Citizens site )  and then the group of teenaged kids in white dress shirts and dress pants and some sort of red satin sashes show up with the big “Save Traditonal Marriage” Sign on the sidewalk.  They hopped in a van and drove off when they realized they were being recorded for posterity.  

It was pretty surrealistic.

Just another day at the California State Capitol, campaign 2008, McClintock version.

Here are 2 images from the Republican Booth at the Gold Country Fair in Auburn the first week in September on Saturday the 7th.

The first one shows the Christian flag flying over the booth just to the left of McClintock’s name.  The second is the closeup of one of the bumper stickers they had for sale, to the left of the man in the striped shirt. “Liberalism, the imaginary distance between church and state.”

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My ancestors are doing so many flips in their graves that this is what passes for political fodder in 2008 California,  I half expect an earthquake.  

I see there is some skepticism about the link between McClintock and these extremist groups concerning a “guilt by association” of an old endorsement by the KKK.  Some people do not think this is relevant, others think it a distraction.   So I’m posting my observations on this relationship, reluctantly, because I don’t want to give Karl Rove the satisfaction of driving the dialogue here . But this subtext of forced removals of the “others,” based on their supposed cultural inferiority,  as being justified by a Higher Power, and therefore the Republican candidate is the “Right One”  has been running all thru McClintock’s campaign for CA- 04.  

Mercifully,  I see a lot of people in this district are finally starting to reject the use of these wedge issues.   I would hope the national level Republican campaign, based on what I’m seeing at McCain’s events, could come to grips with the fear issues and stop trying to scare people into voting for them.

But I also want to emphasize that we here in the district not imagining things when we say we see a relationship between the creed of the KKK and the campaign theme being used by McClintock.   This side of the aisle is rejecting the use of fear to divide us and ostracize us from each other.  

Greetings, Fans of one of the most beautiful Congressional Districts in the country, still accursed by one of the most scandal- encrusted Congressman, who is trying to retire out before he gets indicted. Local  Democratic candidate Charlie Brown is running for this seat against imported Southern Californian carpetbagger and Republican “I Con”   (icon™, yes, that is what the Republicans call him)  Tom McClintock.

This is just a quick reminder that we here in CA- 04 are having a debate tomorrow night Thursday, Oct 2 between Charlie Brown and Tom McClintock in Oroville.   It’s a candidate forum sponsored by the League of Women Voters of Butte County.  It is at the Southside Community Center at 2959 Lower Wyandotte Rd, Oroville, 95966, at 8 pm. IMPORTANT TIME EDIT UPDATE: This forum begins at 7pm. Come early. Local candidates speak first, then Brown and McClintock start at 8 pm.  Questions are submitted beforehand, seating may be first come/first serve, REPEAT, FORUM BEGINS AT 7 PM

If you’re local, you can alway Tivo the other event and come see real live democracy in action.  

Democrat: Charlie Brown of Roseville is running for Congress to represent the district.  I do not know if everyone in the district has met Charlie Brown yet, but it won’t be for lack of trying on his part.

3 years ago Charlie Brown decided to run against John Doolittle, (R, “Chevron” not quite indicted) and nearly beat him in a shockingly close race in a district with a Republican registration advantage.  Charlie Brown took this on because he didn’t like seeing what was happening to the government as it treated the people of the district.

Ladies and gentlemen, children and pets, I am here tonight to tell you that PLACER COUNTY, THE MOST POPULOUS COUNTY IN DISTRICT, NO LONGER HAS REPUBLICAN MAJORITY REGISTRATION.  

They’re down to 49 percent and change.  Did you feel the earth move when I said that ? Probably not, but the Republicans sure did !  The reaction was hilarious.  It was “this doesn’t signify a trend.”   Yeah, sure.  And snow doesn’t fall on Mars !

From the Sunday Sacramento Bee, on 9/28/08

New Voter Registrations in Sacramento Region Tilt Towards Democrats, by Phillip Reese

http://www.sacbee.com/capoliti…

And no longer are most Placer County voters registered Republicans.

The party’s share dropped from 52.2 percent before the 2004 election to 49.7 percent today.

During the past four years, the Placer County Democratic Party has grown by roughly three registered voters for every two who have joined county Republicans, state figures show.

The SacBee has pie chart graphics under the story. Since they are a registration site, I’ll give you the percentages here.  Placer, 49.7% Republican.  El Dorado, 45.6% Republican,  Sacramento (a small part of CA- 04 includes Sacramento County ) only 32.7 %.    While Democrats are still smaller in number than Republicans, the INDEPENDENT, or decline to states, are growing.   A lot of those Independents used to be Republicans but don’t feel comfortable enough to go all the way and switch parties, but are very open to voting for Democrats if they like what the candidate offers.  Some of the Indies are more Libertarian trending, and that isn’t necessarily a bad thing because the Libertarians don’t care for George Bush’s pro war foreign policy.  But this is a huge sea change for the area. For years the Placer County Republicans have insisted the county is overwhelmingly Republican. No more.

Republican: Tom McClintock of (mailing address is Thousand Oaks, actual domicile is in yet another district), a lifelong career politician in the CA state legislature,   is running to keep fattening his wallet.  Oh, and those SoCal lobbyists for the Casino industry and the Real Estate speculators who buy “distressed” and foreclosed properties, and the various Big Oil and Big Pharmaceutical/Health Insurance donors,  have been giving him money via his state accounts all these years.  Tom McClintock can’t get out of the district fast enough, because he’s left the state budget in such a mess.  Tom McClintock is slightly more idealogically to the right of Attila the Hun.  As in invade, attack, destroy, savor the spoils, return the victor and leave the peasants in ruins.  We don’t need more of this in Congress.

Please, keep us in mind tomorrow night, and if you can’t come, wish us luck and watch for updates. Thanks!

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crossposted at dailykos and progressive blue

edited with time start 7pm update, see above

 Greetings from Oroville !

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680_2  Charlie Brown , Mayor Jernigan, Mrs Jernigan

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Saturday, September 20, 2008, at the Veterans Hall in Oroville, CA.  Left to right, Mrs. Jernigan, Mayor Steve Jernigan of Oroville, Charlie Brown, candidate for Congress in CA’s 4th district, and a volunteer for the Town Hall and BBQ  event.  

There’s lots more pictures and news of upcoming Charlie Brown events, if you’ll continue with me over the fold:

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650  Serving BBQ Lunch,



Volunteers from Oroville and Charlie Brown serve Lunch at the Town Hall on Sept 20, 2008

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658_2   Mayor Jernigan of Oroville



Mayor Steve Jernigan of Oroville Speaks to the Town Hall, and Introduces Charlie Brown  

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669_2  Charlie Brown talks to Oroville



Charlie Brown talks to citizens at the Oroville Town Hall on Sept 20  

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668  Crowd listens and asks



Some of the attendees listening to questions being asked

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667  Man asking Q



Asking about Presidential signing statements  

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0684  Friends & Vets



Friends and Vets, Oroville, Sept 20  

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686_2  The Volunteer Cooks, @ Oroville, & Charlie Brown



The Volunteer Cooks & Charlie Brown  

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This was a fun event, and I am looking forward to more of them and hoping to see more CA- 04 people at them!   There was a BBQ lunch, grilled  tri – tip,  potato salad, beans,  made and served by the great people in the last photo, and then Mayor Jernigan, “the most popular person in Oroville,” as one person called him, spoke for a bit and introduced congressional candidate Charlie Brown.   Charlie spoke and then took questions from the crowd.

 Oroville is a lakeside community about an hour and a half north of Sacramento, in Butte County, with a city population of about 14,000, and a combined city/suburban/summer area population of about 55,000.  There are a lot of retirees because it’s an easier pace than The Big City.  The most distinguishing feature of Oroville, besides the big Dam & Reservoir,  is the big Table Mountain Ridge which flanks the northern part of town and lets you know that you’re in foothills Gold Country, for Oroville was founded during the Gold Rush.  Oroville also does what has to be the the most spectacular Northern CA 4 of July fireworks show over the Lake every year that draws such a huge crowd, that they run shuttle buses from town to the lake, and it’s a big lake .  So Oroville, which also has Feather Falls Casino, depends on tourism for a lot of its revenues, and when the economy has a downturn, and people don’t travel as much, they are sensitive to that aspect of it.   The people attending the Town Hall  were also talking and asking a wide range of questions about the future course of our country and how do we encourage local jobs growth for the younger generation.  They can tell, that the things that happened in Washington DC over the course of the last 7+ years, and that the course the current administration had set the country on,  had not taken into account the long term effects upon their neighbors and friends’ everyday lives.

One of the questions I didn’t expect but was really glad to hear was “How do we stop the other guy (McClintock)  from Swiftboating you?”

You see how that works?  Open Democracy is Empowering.  It was “how do we” do something,  not  “which consultant do we send a check to  ?”

There was such a contrast to the other candidate running for congress in the same district it was mind boggling.

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NEXT UP:  41 DAYS TO CHANGE

•Charlie Brown will be holding another Family BBQ and Town Hall Meeting in South Lake Tahoe next Saturday, September 27 th.

WHO: Congressional candidate Charlie Brown

WHAT: BBQ and Town Hall meeting

WHERE: Bijou Park, 1099 Al Tahoe Blvd, South Lake Tahoe, CA 96150

WHEN: Saturday, September 27, 2008, time:   12pm-3pm  

http://www.charliebrownforcong…

•PLUS, NEXT SATURDAY IS ANOTHER DISTRICT WIDE, CA- 04   DAY OF ACTION !  

DISTRICT WIDE DAY OF ACTION SATURDAY 9/27 08

Time:    10 am to 2 pm    Place: Roseville , Grass Valley, Quincy, Placerville,  Truckee,  Auburn,   South Lake Tahoe,  all have district offices and will be doing canvassing and phone banking

•EARLY OCTOBER,  MARK YOUR CALENDERS AND GET READY TO RUMBLE !  DEBATE !

  THE FIRST CA- 04 DEBATE:    CHARLIE BROWN DEBATES TOM MCCLINTOCK IN OROVILLE  THURSDAY OCT  2 , 2008 , 8:00pm   to 9:00pm  

Charlie Brown Debates Tom McClintock in Oroville

Thursday October 2, 2008 | 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM

The League of Women Voters of Butte County, along with the Chico Enterprise-Record and the Oroville Mercury-Register, are co-sponsoring a televised voters forum at the Southside Community Center in Oroville. For more details, please visit ChicoER.com or OrovilleMR.com.

I was hoping the League of Women Voters of Butte County would have this event listed on their calender page, but I would keep checking back until they update it:  

 http://www.lwvbuttecounty.org/      League of Women Voters of Butte County     1 530  895  VOTE

NOTE TO PEOPLE USING MAPQUEST and GOOGLE TO FIND THINGS:  THERE ARE 2 COMMUNITY CENTERS LISTED FOR OROVILLE, and they’re NOT the same thing. One’s in the north part of town and the other is in the south part of town.   Please confirm location before attempting navigation.  (Don’t ask me how I know this, but the people at the south one are super about giving directions …..)    The Chico Enterprise Record does not have this listed on their events calender yet.

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and on a final note:

It’s SEPTEMBER 24 !  Less than  one week to the Sept 30  FEC  3rd Quarter donation deadline ,    41 DAYS TO CHANGE , where we can  SEND  MC DOLITTLE DUCK – the real  – issues back to Ventura County !    

Ya wanna see what he did recently?  click on my name and read those previous 2  diaries, he doesn’t rate any exposure here.  No Show Tom, Fake Schedule, Swiftboating, & Keystone Kops

http://www.dailykos.com/story/…

McClintock, Ron Rogers, Kevin Ring, and THAT swiftboat ad     http://www.dailykos.com/story/…

Ya wanna see what it looked like the last time I saw a Republican congressional candidate in Oroville, during the pre- Primary?  Click here, scroll down to the middle, and enjoy the “bonus humor photos” of Doug Ose’s crew riding around on oil barrels in front of a moving van (Ose’s family is in the mini storage busines, so home foreclosures and people moving works out very well for them )

http://www.dailykos.com/story/…

By the way, Republican Doug Ose formally endorsed Tom McClintock.  thank you.  Doug Ose, on the night he lost the Republican Primary,  on teevee “well, I guess I’ll just go back to earning more money.”  You said it, Mr. Multimillionaire Self Funding Carpetbagger Candidate Developer who took Abramoff Money.

Why does the 3rd Quarter FEC deadline matter? Because the candidates then have to file the reports online, and it’s possible to see the true financial support levels of each candidate.  And that influences financial supporters in the last quarter. They want to see the candidate can win.  Charlie Brown has thousands of supporters, and is getting individual donations from inside the district.    McClintock on the last filing had just around 800 individual donations.  Yes. ONLY 819 people, and many of these were duplicates from the same business entity using multiple names of family members, or from other Republican candidates that had already dropped out.   And the majority of them were from out of district. A great deal of them were from Southern CA.   I went thru the entire list  and I counted it.  McClintock has no money, going down the home stretch (shockingly little, around a hundred thousand)  unless he sells his soul at this point to some nefarious Bush administration supporter trying to curry future favors.  

Charlie Brown lives, raised a family, and worked in the district, and wants to represent the people living here now in 4.   To McClintock, who resides in Lungren’s district 3 but represented yet another in the state senate legislature so as to collect the tax free per diem,  it’s just another mailing address.

Charlie Brown’s contributions page link:       https://www.charliebrownforcon…

Actblue link:    http://www.actblue.com/entity/…

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photos by diary author.  grateful for assistance provided by diary spouse that day

cross post at dailykos and progressive blue  

On Tues, Sept 16, the Tom McClintock (R) carpetbagging campaign for CA- 04 up here in Northern California, running against Democrat Charlie Brown, sank to a new depth akin to the stock market crash of 2008.

Sacramento News Channel 10, ( ABC ) ran a story about a swiftboat ad release by the McClintock campaign, and did not tell who the people were in the video nor who was involved in the making of it. (edit: added link  http://www.news10.net/news/sto…        )        They did not note that the “uniform” was just a jacket over a tee shirt and jeans.  They edited video in such a way as to disguise an incident of potential assault by a McClintock campaign advisor.  They did not say that the event was written up as a press conference by other sources, to imply open access, when the McClintock campaign decided to call security to prevent access by observers, and was not letting them see the event.  I witnessed the event (or rather, the closed doors, mostly except when they opened ) from the hallway but was prevented from recording it and was threatened with removal from the building by someone who would not identify themselves or their job title.

Regarding the video on the News 10 site, now that I have seen it:

The dark haired man in the suit facing the camera is John Ruiz, a “campaign consultant” or “advisor” for the McClintock campaign, previously associated with John Doolittle and Richard Pombo,  who also is financially involved with Southern California Casinos being financed by the Malik family of Detroit.  http://www.theverifiabletruth….        This Malik family has given thousands of dollars to campaigns of Tom McClintock.  He (Ruiz) had just previously committed what is known legally as “assault” upon another person in the photo, which has been edited out of the News 10 video, by grabbing the person’s arm and threatening them under his breath. He then made another comment out loud trying to provoke a fight.  Only the person’s reaction, saying “do not touch me again,”  is shown in the video.

The person in the print shirt with his back to the camera is a real veteran and did not assault anybody. The person standing behind Ruiz is a real veteran and did not assault anybody.  

Politico said it was a press conference.  ABC is claiming it was a private meeting so they had the right to restrict access.

(edit, to add) My previous story on that entire day is here: CA- 04, No Show Tom, Fake Schedule, Swiftboating and the Keystone Kops     http://www.dailykos.com/story/…

So where’s Tom McClintock? He knows and won’t admit it.    

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McClintock at the Auburn Gold Country Fair in flyer form touting his “virtues.”  Nope, not photoshopped.  photos by author.

The McClintock employee lied about McClintock’s whereabouts that day deliberately.  McClintock did not go to Lincoln that morning, where he was expected at the Chamber of Commerce, and where they already had the campaign handouts stapled to the day’s agenda.  The employee who said he didn’t know where McClintock was going to be that day was there at the “press conference” guarding the door to it and refusing entrance.   McClintock posted a phony schedule, claimed a budget victory when there wasn’t one, didn’t show up at places, including this “press conference,”  and ran off to the Elks lodge in Auburn (again, restricted access) to eat lunch with a bunch of mostly older while males while his surrogates were down at the Hyatt doing his dirty work.

The woman speaking in the ad they released was Debra (or Deborah)  Johns.  She is a member of Move America Forward.  http://www.moveamericaforward….                                         She is their “director of military relations” per their website.  She is a paid professional Public Relations person, not just a private citizen. MAF puts solicitations up on the internet made by “military moms” with pleas for money to “support the troops”  by funding an advertisement.   This money is then used to make hit pieces against certain Democratic candidates. Where the money goes is all to the same po box in Sacramento.   They pull the solicitations down after they get the money, but the ads remain online on You Tube.  Think of her as a media hit person, not as a “military mom,” her online persona.  

Move America Forward, aka MAF,  is the alleged non profit wing of “Russo Marsh and Rogers” Public Relations firm, which does media PR and swiftboating for Republican Candidates. Move America Forward a front group which claims non profit status based on issues advocacy.  I don’t see how they can claim to be non partisan, they’ve never, ever supported anything but right wing extremist Republicans and they do sleaze swiftboating.  They ask for money online to pay for campaign ads.  This is not non partisan.   The notorious right wing radio talk show host Melanie Morgan, who is shown wearing a camoflage pattern tee shirt under her suit jacket on her own website, is “chairman” of this MAF group.  Melanie Morgan   http://www.moveamericaforward….    

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M…          has an online store  http://www.melaniemorgan.com/               that sells tee shirts and mugs with religious and racially offensive slogans that extremist right wingers might find appealing or might intrepret as being an affirmation that advocating violence against an AA candidate is okay.  

It is not “okay.”  It is provocative and IMO, evil.

The “Rogers” in RMR  is  Ron Rogers, a former staff member of Rep. John Doolittle’s who was subpoenaed last September 2007 in the DOJ/FBI investigation of John Doolittle.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/…

Rogers bio on the RMR webpage is missing that aspect.  He’s a PR guy who has dissapeared the fact that he used to be Doolittle’s Chief of Staff.  

http://www.rmrwest.com/index.p…

As an ex COS of Doolittle, he has certainly been heavily involved in the ongoing coverup of Doolittle’s corruption investigation and alleged crimes,  for Doolittle has been fighting the subpoenas of his staff for a very long time.

Now, what happened recently?   KEVIN RING WAS ARRESTED AND INDICTED in the Abramoff scandal investigation.  Ring is another ex staffer, the former legislative director of John Doolittle,  who went on to become a lobbyist and work with Jack Abramoff and who had many, many interactions with John Doolittle, esp. concerning having Julie Doolittle go to work for an Abramoff sub- company being funded by laundered money from Indian Tribes and foreign governments.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/…

Ring, married with a young family, is being heavily pressured to flip and tell on his ex boss.  Surely he doesn’t want to go to jail.

Now, in ALL THIS FLAPDOODLE about the “effigy”  what else happened this week?  The AP reports that the Federal Prosecutors  are about to turn over “millions of pages” of documents” of evidence for KEVIN RING’s DEFENSE ATTORNEY TO USE.    This includes correspondence with former DOJ officials Clements and Ayres,  who used to work for former US ATTY GENERAL JOHN ASHCROFT.  Hey, guess what?  RING used to work for Ashcroft, too.   So did another convicted DOJ  employee, Robert Coughlin.

http://ap.google.com/article/A…

The charges against Ring include an episode in which he allegedly  

lobbied Justice Department officials for money to build a jail on a  

reservation for a tribal client. One of the officials involved –  

Robert Coughlin, former deputy chief of staff of the Justice  

Department’s criminal division – already has pleaded guilty to  

criminal conflict of interest in the case.  

So it’s time for a big DIVERSION.   No kidding.  People are sitting in jail cells because of this Doolittle coverup, and the roof is about to blow off.  

Channel 10 is an ABC affiliate which is owned by Disney.  Disney owns the radio station in SF where Melanie Morgan of MAF had her right wing talk show.  Disney/ABC ran the horrible “Path to 9/11 ” documentary full of lies, blaming the Clinton administration for the disaster.  

ABC is now allied with Fox News as part of the coverup party of the corruption of the Dept. of Justice under the Bush administration.

One of Doolittle’s and McClintock’s biggest local financial supporters is posting pictures from ABC Channel 10 on the Auburn Journal blog, making bogus claims about what happened Sept 16, 2008 at the Hyatt in Sacramento.  Great diversion.  Not.

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edited 8:20 pm 9/19  to add links, and photos by author  

Tuesday September 16 2008

No Show Tom, Fake Schedule, Swiftboating, & the Keystone Kops

Or how Termed- Out State Senator Tom McClintock (R, Anywhere for a per Diem), who is running against Charlie Brown (D, Roseville ) posts a fake schedule on his official campaign website while his campaign workers set up an assault on Brown’s field director  and the “press”  acts like the White House press corps.  

This was my day today.

1.  8 am Lincoln Area Chamber of Commerce  Government Affairs Committee , Holiday Express Inn, Ferrari Ranch Rd, Lincoln  

Tom McClintock, the guest speaker, is a NO SHOW.  Instead, an aide, Mark Spannagel, says that Tom can’t be there because they passed the budget last night (??)  After Spannagel’s spiel, and after the rest of the meeting, he comes up to me and says very sarcastically, “say hello to Todd.”   I ask him if Tom McClintock is going to be at any other scheduled events that were shown on his website, since he skipped this one.  He says he doesn’t know.  I ask him again (politely, in front of Jennifer Perreira )  if Tom McClintock was going to be at anything as shown on his site schedule. He says that they’re “going to roll with it” but that he didn’t know.

2.  The Surprise Super Secret “Managed” Press Conference.  In Roseville, I call Todd.  Does he know where Tom McClintock is going to be today?  Yes.  Supposedly there is a press conference downtown in Sacramento, at the Hyatt Regency at 12th and L street to announce that the budget has been passed, to start the campaign. They’re also announcing “something.”   When is this?  In a half hour.  Do you want a camera there? Okay. On my way.   I know what the Hyatt looks like.  That’s where Dick Cheney comes to do photo opps.  It’s across from the state Capitol building where Crazy Tom had his big ” BUILD THE WALL, DEPORT THEM ALL”  sign up when he was calling for Federal funding to be cut off to San Franciso and Los Angeles during the budget impasse during the Minuteman “Get Your Hate on for Latinos” rally.    

about 40 minutes later……

I ask at the entry where the McClintock press conference is, and they tell me upstairs. Then they don’t let me in the room.  The room is being guarded by Mark Spannagel, (fancy that! he doesn’t look too thrilled to see me) and an unnamed male person I will have to call “SpannaCompanion”.   Spannegel whips out a camera and takes my picture “for the file.”  (“File?” They keep “files?” )  So I oblige and take his again for my notes.   Nick P , Brown’s field director,  is waiting outside the room.  He’s been thrown out.  Several other veterans have been thrown out. Where is Todd?  He’s in the room.  Can I go in the room?  No.  But I am supposed to be in there. No. Can I give my camera to somebody in the room who requested it. No. Who the hell IS in there?  Todd and the press.  Who else ?  McClintock’s people. Is McClintock in there? Nobody knows.  

What the heck.  Take video camera out and start interviewing Nick P.  What happened? McClintock’s campaign John Ruiz grabbed his arm suddenly and told him to leave? That he asked him to let go of his arm, and instead Ruiz started yelling at him, “Do you want to beat me up?”  Nick said this, incredulously, in the way that someone does who just witnessed bat-chit crazy, and then added that he does not hit people.  (Nick is a very mild mannered person. This is beyond ridiculous)  How does he feel about being kicked out of the room? He wishes Democracy was a more open process.  Pan around with the camera.  Ask the door pugs Spannagel and SpannaCompanion what their names are, who do they work for, why are they doing this, and they both say NOTHING, get a “deer in the headlights look” and freeze up.  After a while, the door opens and a few people go out and in.  I start towards the door again and more people place themselves directly in front of me and block the open door.  Holy crap.  What the hell are they doing in there?  I try to hold the camera up and TALLER PEOPLE come and put themselves in the doorway.  I am only of average height.  This one blonde woman must be at least 6 inches taller than I am.

Another Taller Male Person in a dark suit comes and puts his hand over the camera lens and tells me I am not allowed to film anything. I tell him I was asked by a person who is in the room to come. He tells me (hand still over my camera) that I am not allowed to film anything as this is private property, a private meeting, and that if I do not stop, I will be escorted out of the building. He also makes me identify myself but will not tell me who he is or who he works for. I ask him several times to please identify himself. He won’t. I take this to mean he must be private security or imitating it, and I’m not going anywhere with him if I can help it.  This is creepy.   What if I want to enter the room without filming? Are not other people in there taking notes?  I can’t do that unless I go down to the office and ask permission. I am not on the list.  I have to turn off the camera now.  He is emphatic. I must turn off the camera now or leave.  I press my thumb on the button and put my hand down.

I return to the opposite side of the hall with Nick and the veterans and wait for the room to open up.  Eventually the room does open up, and Todd and the reporters come out.  They interview Todd in the hall.  I can tell by the issues and topics that Todd is speaking on, that whatever went on in the room must be complete ****ing bullshit.    The one reporter for the SacBee also talks to one of the veterans and to Todd.  We go downstairs and I then tell Nick P that one of the original door guards was Mark Spannagel, and that he was at Lincoln subbing for McClintock and refused to say where McClintock was going to be today.  

3.  The Auburn Rotary  at the Elks Lodge, Pine Street, Auburn.  When I had left the house that morning, I had no idea that I was going to be doing anything other than running an errand down to Lincoln and back, and then maybe sending an email of my notes and writing something.  But now I’m all the way downtown, and it’s easier to get on the freeway and go straight up north to Auburn than to try to go home.  So I head back to the parking garage, call my spouse, ask him to check McClintock’s website schedule to see if the next event is still listed, ask him to look at a map and tell me which exit, and head out of downtown Sac, back north towards the mountains.  This is going to be a bit of a push, as I have about a half hour to try to get there by noon.

Once I find the Elks Lodge, I take a picture of the parking lot full of cars, and then walk uphill, and there’s Spannagel again, probably on lookout point. I take his picture in the doorway quickly as he’s trying to duck back out of the viewfinder.   I enter the foyer.   A person asks if he can help me, and I say I’m looking for Tom McClintock and ask if he’s going to be here today….. and the man says he thinks he might be here.  Aha !  I peek in the doorway, and there’s Tom McClintock in the front of the room chock full of male Elks eating salads.  The entire building smells like cooking lunch.  I’m almost queasy after my previous encounter with “Friends” of Tom McClintock.  The man asks if I wish to come in and sit down.  Mindful of what happened the last time,  I tell him I am following McClintock as a volunteer for the Brown campaign today, based on McClintock’s published schedule,  tell him that McClintock was a no- show in Lincoln, and wouldn’t let me into a press conference in Sacramento,  and ask if there is somebody to ask for permission.   He goes and asks another person sitting in the room, who he identifies as an Elks official, and comes back and says very politely that perhaps it would be a good idea if I didn’t come in today, but I should come back next month when Charlie Brown is speaking, as today is “McClintock’s day.”  This person was wearing a name tag and trying to be very diplomatic. I told him I was thinking of maybe waiting out on the sidewalk on public property a bit, IF that was okay with him, and he said it was.   I did stay for the pledge of allegiance and the prayer, and I went ahead and snapped a photo from the doorway of McClintock sitting there in front of the roomful of Elks, having lunch, just after his campaign officials had used the Move America Forward people who specialize in Swiftboating pull up one of Rep. John Doolittle’s (R, not indicted yet)  old fabricated dirty work and try to rumormonger a bunch of paid reporters in Sacramento.  And had his flunkies refusing to say where he was going to appear.  At least I had the damned camera there if they had tried to mug a veteran.

Hey, it’s a living for some people, right ?  McClintock votes against veterans interests,  and then pays people to stop bloggers who figured out who’s paying for their smear tactics against his opponent the veteran.

I then go to the Auburn office of Brown for Congress and update them on who’s in town and the other stuff his campaign has been doing today.

I go and eat some late lunch.  I call my spouse, and tell him what’s up. He check McClintock’s site again.

4.  And then I get back on the road and head up to the last stop, the alleged 4pm Lions Club meeting in Foresthill.  That’s going to be about another half hour of mountain driving.  At least it’s a beautiful drive and I know where I’m going, thanks to the Auburn office.   I go to the Veterans Memorial Hall, a lovely big log lodge type building next to a park, where the Lions club meets, and there’s almost nobody there.  Once in a while a vehicle comes in, but leaves soon.  I take some pictures of the empty parking lot and park, and get back in the car.  It’s time to go home.  I stop at Wharton’s on the way back out, and other people stop as I rest,  and admire the view of the Canyon.  And then I drive the hour and 15 minutes home.  My car had nearly 200 miles on it today.

People, my experience today is going to be just like a McClintock term in Congress.  He’s beyond Doolittlesque.

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cross posted at dailykos in a version I can’t edit right now.  crossposted at progressive blue.  photos by author.

this will start the photos, I will re arrange and add later

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Mark Spannagel (McClintock aide) at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in downtown Sacramento Tuesday 9/16    Look how he thinks it’s funny that they’ve locked veterans out of the room and Brown campaign staff and volunteers , and he’s lied about the whereabouts of his boss

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Tom McClintock in Auburn at the Elks Lodge eating lunch.  That is one of the Holmes brothers next to him.  (Auburn local government)  His staff had just held a private press conference at the downtown Hyatt hotel, and thrown Brown campaign staff and volunteers and veterans out of the room.  He also had hotel security prevent me from filming or assisting campaign staff while he had a known Swiftboating group passing out smears about Brown to the press.  

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This person bears a very close resemblance to the other McClintock aide who was there, and he was guarding the door with him.  This was taken July 4 in Lincoln.  On the float, Mr and Mrs McClintock, somebody else’s children, 4 flags, US, Christian, CA State Flag and GOP.  

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Locked Out.  Afterwards, a SacBee reporter talks to some veterans and Todd Stenhouse of the Brown campaign

 

September 14, 2008.  Nevada City, Northern CA.  

  Southern Californian career politician Tom McClintock, fresh from a 2 month gridlock in the CA State Senate, where he has led the Republican effort to bankrupt the state during the fiscal crisis by refusing to sign  any budget (entire career ) , and still advocating Republican style tax cuts for the wealthiest during a 17 Billion dollar shortfall,   was spotted at the Constitution Day Parade in the California Sierra this Sunday.    McClintock, who is terming out of the CA State legislative offices,  and is in between runs for Lt Gov and Gov,  is searching for another job in the public sector he has made a career out of disparaging.  Lucky us. The consultants picked our district.

Meanwhile, thousands of state workers and vendors cannot pay their bills because of layoffs and the state stiffing them.  (edited update from this morning’s original post)  Now Mr. “family values” has gone back to “work” to try to throw nearly a quarter of a million children off the Medi- cal rolls.

(more below the fold)

McClintock was last seen on the steps of the State Capitol in Sacramento, with a group of ersatz border vigilantes who run email scams, calling for the resignation of the mayor of one of California’s largest cities and saying the Federal Government should cut funding off to San Francisco and Los Angeles.    Way to balance that budget, Tom.

On to the parade appearance.  Shame how campaigning gets in the way of collecting funds for his next run for office.

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September 14, 2008. Nevada City,CA. The Constitution Parade.     Waiting for Godot.  Can you find the Republican Candidate in this photogragh?                  Yes, Tom McClintock.  This is a parade about the Constitution, with much historical content re the Civil War,  so we’re going to remind you that the Constitution  of the United States applies to all peoples of all races, all creeds, all beliefs, and all colors, and that Congress shall establish no religious test for office.   You don’t get to pick and choose.

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       Somewhere in Ventura, a village is missing its Umbrella.  We found it.  

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What, no Swiftboat?  No effigies?  Where’s Steven?  Where’s John?       Note.  That’s my caption, not a quote.  And that’s Charlie Brown (D, Roseville)  on the left side of the photo, watching the McClintock (R, Anywhere I Get a Per Diem ) entry come down the street .  Tom’s clutching the straw hat instead of the straw man here.  

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Walk on by.  

Surrounded by at least 6 supporters, Southern Californian Republican Tom McClintock is safely escorted past Democratic Candidate for Congress Charlie Brown, (USAF Lt. Col, retired,) at the Nevada City Constitution Parade on September 14, 2008.  Duty, Honor, Country.  Real Person vs. demogogue trying to scare people.  

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Peek- A – Boo !  I won’t debate You !

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Can we load him back into the moving van yet ?  

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What about the cut – out doll ? Will that fit in the bus ?

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Return to Sender. Address Unknown.  No Such Number.  No Such Home.

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And that’s what happened.  And now you know.   When I checked the Republican blog last night, the blogger was still insisting that people in Florida could see Chinese oil drilling rigs off the coast stealing all of our oil.  Along with the hanging effigy garbage.  You know who’s running for President.  You know what that implies.  Does this not make you sick ?  You know from my last diary who’s paying for Tom McClintock to try to take over our district.   Please help us send McClintock back to wherever it is he exists in his alternate reality universe.  Get the word out.  We need the truth.  

http://www.charliebrownforcong…

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photos by diary author.  

Gentle Readers and Fans of Northern CA: Today, Monday, September 8, 2008, 2 things happened in CA- 04.  Charlie Brown, the Democrat running to replace Republican John Doolittle, the Abramoff- scandal encrusted retiring incumbent, released recent polling data that showed he has a lead over the SoCal Republican imported to the district to replace him. This is great news. http://www.charliebrownforcong…

And a former staffer of John Doolittle, as you may have heard by now, was arrested at his home and indicted, and pled not guilty to many different aspects of bribing and corrupting Congressional Representative Number 5.

This is just really interesting, so we’ll do a little background refresher.

August 4, 2006. Doolittle exits Coco’s Restaurant after an Auburn Dam Council meeting, to find a sea of protestors and media questioning him about the Abramoff scandal.   photo by author

This was a long time coming. Kevin Ring, who has made silence a lifestyle choice when looking at a subpoena,  the one who pleaded the 5th against self incrimination in testimony before the Senate, has now run out the clock.

http://deepbackground.msnbc.ms…

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/hom…

Our New Abramoff Indictee Factsheet:

Who:  Kevin Ring, Rep. John Doolittle’s former legislative director, and former lobbyist

What:   Ring arrested today Mon 9/8/08 at his home in Maryland

          indicted + charged with  10 counts of bribery, obstruction of justice, and conspiracy in federal court in DC.

Reaction Now:  Ring pled not guilty.  

Possible Chain Reaction Later:  If he doesn’t want to go to jail, he may implicate others involved and plea bargain. Given the number of people Ring worked with who are already convicted in the Abramoff scandal, the case against Ring is very serious.  John Doolittle is Ring’s former boss and a known beneficiary of his lobbyist talents. John Doolittle has always claimed in public that Jack Abramoff was a friend, and that he didn’t have to give the money back.  If Doolittle were to be indicted before Bush left office, Bush would pardon him to prevent him from testifying against others.

Where:  Federal Court in DC

When:   3 days after lobbyist Jack Abramoff was sentenced to 4 more years in prison on Sept 5 for bribing government officials.  http://www.washingtonpost.com/…       Because of his cooperation with the Federal government, he received a reduced sentence in exchange for helping to convict 13 other people so far.  Abramoff pled guilty in January of 2006 to fraud and conspiracy charges in regards to his buying SunCruz floating casino ships, and was serving time in jail since then while working with federal prosecutors in the other conspiracy case against him of bribing government officials, in his job as a lobbyist for Greenberg Traurig.

Why  this matters:    Rep. John Doolittle (R, “Chevron”)  is the current  Republican Congressperson in CA- 04.  Doolittle decided not to run for re election in 2008 against Charlie Brown (D, Roseville)  after his polling numbers, campaign donations and influence abruptly nosedived after the FBI raided his Oakton, VA house April 13, 2007, as he was on his way to an Indian Casino in Oroville, CA, to give a speech to the local Oroville Chamber of Commerce.  On that same April 13, his former chief of staff, Kevin Ring, suddenly resigned without warning from the lobbying firm he was employed with.   Kevin Ring helped Julie Doolittle get a job with Jack Abramoff.

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpoi…     That “job”  paid her $67,000 over 2 years.

What is wrong with having worked for Jack Abramoff? From Think Progress, Abramoff , the House That Jack Built     http://thinkprogress.org/abram…

CAPITAL ATHLETIC FOUNDATION – (JULIE)  DOOLITTLE RAISED FUNDS FOR ABRAMOFF’S BOGUS ORGANIZATION: “You get tired of dinners and receptions. This time we wanted to do a gala event to raise awareness for the Capital Athletic Foundation, and back that awareness up with funds,” said Doolittle in 2003. But, the Capital Athletic Foundation didn’t raise money for children, as it was advertised to do. “[T]ax and spending records of the Capital Athletic Foundation obtained by The Washington Post show that less than 1 percent of its revenue has been spent on sports-related programs for youths. Instead, the documents show that Jack Abramoff…has repeatedly channeled money from corporate clients into the foundation and spent the overwhelming portion of its money on pet projects having little to do with the advertised sportsmanship programs.” [Hollywood Reporter, 3/5/03; (Use the WAPO Link) Washington Post, 9/28/04]

From the Sept 28 2004 WAPO    Foundation’s Funds Diverted From Mission

http://www.washingtonpost.com/…

{{{ The Capital Athletic Foundation’s Web site portrays youths at play: shaking hands over a tennis net, learning how to hold a bat, straining for a jump ball. Its text solicits donations for what it describes as “needy and deserving” sportsmanship programs.

In its first four years of operation, the charity has collected nearly $6 million.    But tax and spending records of the Capital Athletic Foundation obtained by The Washington Post show that less than 1 percent of its revenue has been spent on sports-related programs for youths.

Internal records state, for example, that Abramoff and his wife, Pam — who are listed as the foundation’s sole directors — spent more than 70 percent of its revenue from 2001 to 2003, or $4.03 million, on a Jewish school that Abramoff founded in Columbia. The Eshkol Academy operated for two years and schooled two of his sons before closing this spring with unpaid bills, faculty members said.  }}}

Jack Abramoff also became a lobbyist for 3 Indian Tribes, the Saginaw Chippewa, the Mississippi Choctaw, and the Coushatta of Louisiana.  They donated more than 2 million to the same Capitol Athletic Foundation that Julie Doolittle was fundraising for.  The reason they did that was that the lobbyists and the politicians were playing them off against each other implying the other tribe(s) would get better Casino deals.  But there was something else going on, the politicians were doing money laundering of foreign funds thru these casinos.  There was also a lobbyist named Michael Scanlon doing money laundering thru these donations.

Remember this, and ask, will John Doolittle let Julie take the fall for him?

Julie Doolittle worked for Jack Abramoff.  Abramoff’s in jail.  Kevin Ring helped get her that job. Kevin Ring just got indicted.  All this time, she’s avoided the consequences. So did Ring.  Until Now.

Julie Doolittle also has a “business” called Sierra Dominion Financial Services.  She started it in 2001. That firm did fundraising for John Doolittle’s Superior CA LeadershipPAC.  She took a percentage. Another client was Greenberg Traurig, Jack Abramoff’s company.  Another client of SierraDominion was Abramoff’s restaurant, Signatures.  And the last client was an alleged non profit called the Korea- US Exchange Council. This was run by Tom Delay’s ex chief of staff, Ed Buckham.  (Tom Delay’s wife, Christine, also “worked” for it. ) The Korea- US Exchange was part of Alexander Strategy Group.  Brent Wilkes was a client of Alexander Strategy.  That means he hired and paid them to lobby for his business and bring him government contracts.   These are all the clients Julie Doolittle had.  Her husband. Jack Abramoff. Tom Delay’s ex COS, Buckham.

If you are writing a job resume, this would not look good.  Delay and Doolittle and Abramoff.  It’s like the Bermuda Triangle Trifecta of Tragic Lobbying Associations.  

During the fall 2006 election cycle, when Republican Doolittle, who was being challenged by Democrat Charlie Brown, had to rely on multiple visits from VP Dick Cheney, George, and even Laura Bush to prop up his sagging campaign, Doolittle repeatedly denied being under federal DOJ investigation since 2004, until it was revealed that he was paying legal defense firms thousands of dollars monthly by using his campaign contributions.  Doolittle did this in 2 ways, one, by paying his wife fees as a “fundraiser” and two, by claiming that since he needed legal counsel to give him advice on the campaign trail about answering questions about the investigation, he was entitled to use campaign funds and treat it as a campaign activity. (the advice was, of course, not to answer any questions. This is how law firms prosper).

Local Angle:  Kevin Ring was still a lobbyist for the city of Lincoln, CA, in the summer of 2006, because John Doolittle had recommended him for the job,   http://solongjohn.blogspot.com…                    and was instrumental in obtaining earmarks from John Doolittle for the fastest growing city in the state during the early years of Bush’s “War On Terror.”  (should have been called the War on Your Pocketbook )  John Doolittle gained notoriety during this time for not only telling local CA- 04 towns to “hire a lobbyist” if they wanted to talk to him, and expecting those “talks” to bear donations,  but for having his wife Julie Doolittle collect a  15%   percentage of every campaign donation as a “fundraiser’s fee”  including many from local Real Estate speculators and developers.  Many of these developers are involved in land use mitigation where they try to swap property they want to develop that contains endangered habitat or species for property to be set aside elsewhere, so properties end up being sold several times to different developers trying to get zoning and EIR approval. Zoning…  may be influenced by campaign contributions, as many cities in the district now hire lobbyists to work in the state capitol of Sacramento, as well as in Washington, DC.     Julie runs her “fund- grazing”   under the name of Sierra Dominion Financial Services.   John Doolittle, who said he was going to stop paying Julie   ” 15%”  percent of each donation after the 2006 election, instead continued to do so, according to his FEC financial filings from January 2007 onwards.  This is because he was using that portion of the family “income” to pay a team of white collar criminal defense lawyers for himself and his wife to fight his staff records being subpoenaed by the Dept of Justice.  One of those law firms was Wiley Rein & Fielding.  One of the names in that title is George W Bush’s White House Legal Counsel, Fred Fielding, who replaced Harriet Miers in January 2007. (Fielding left WR&F during this time)   Another of John Doolittle’s defense attornies, David G Barger, specializes in getting settlements between the IRS and clients in tax trouble whereby the client avoids jail time.  Barger worked for Ken Starr in the Whitewater Investigation against the Clintons.  Julie Doolittle has her own attorney, William Stauffer.  John Doolittle also established a Legal Defense Fund for his ongoing legal expenses, as he is heavily in debt.

More Local Angle: A local Defense Contractor in CA- 04 contributed money to that legal defense fund.   So did  Congressman Wally Herger(R) in neighboring district CA- 02, donating $5000 in Dec of 2007 as a ….. “neighborly gesture.”  So did Orrin Hatch’s (R, Senate, Utah) Orrin PAC, which cheerfully doubled the amount, to $10,000. OrrinPAC is heavily funded by Health Insurance lobbyists.  This is your health insurance premiums at work, folks.  Did I mention that the highest category of donation source to Doolittle’s would be Republican replacement, McClintock, is from the health insurance industry, per opensecrets?

Still More Local Angle: Do some of Doolittle’s former and current financial and political backers now support Republican Tom McClintock, who is trying to replace him after terming out of his southern California district ? You betcha.  

Gonzogate of CA:   http://solongjohn.blogspot.com…    http://www.dailykos.com/story/…    The Attorney General Firing Scandal, where 6 career prosecutors with the DOJ suddenly found themselves political targets being told to resign in , was sculpted in part by the need to keep DOJ  Southern CA district Atty General Carol Lam from filing bribery charges against Brent Wilkes, the federal Defense contractor who was bribing convicted Congressman Duke Cunningham (R), who is now in jail. Lam obtained a conviction against Cunningham in March 2006.   Atty Gen Carol Lam also did manage to indict Brent Wilkes and Dusty Foggo, ex CIA operative, on 2/13 before her forced resignation by former US Atty Gen Alberto Gonzales on Feb 15, 2007.  Gonzales would resign later over this scandal, after his underlings, such as Monica Goodling, testified before Congress.  Wilkes eventually went to trial in October of 2007 in San Diego, the trial was delayed by Southern CA wildfires, finally went to jury on Halloween, and  Wilkes was convicted on Nov 5, 2007, and sentenced in February 2008 of bribing Cunningham for a total of $46 million. http://www.signonsandiego.com/…    Other sources say the amount was closer to $80 million in government contracts in return for about $600,000 in bribes.    http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpoi…                                        SEE LINK HERE for Trick or Treat, Doolittle’s still not off the Hookergate Wilkes Trial:   http://www.dailykos.com/story/…

John Doolittle also earmarked $37 million dolllars in money for Brent Wilkes “Perfect Wave”. ( He also tried to earmark for Wilke’s “Mailsafe” technology after the anthrax contamination mail scare, but it didn’t fly.)  In return the Doolittles got donations from Wilke’s company, ADCS, totaling at least $118,000.   The San Diego Union Tribune estimated this meant $14,000 went into Julie Doolittle’s “fund grazing” business.   http://www.signonsandiego.com/…     Brent  Wilkes flew Tom DeLay, (ex Texas Congressman, used to be the Republican Majority Leader) to a Las Vegas Casino fundraiser for Doolittle at the Venetian Hotel in May 2004.   {{{{{{  see above “trick or treat” link, see also sign on sandiego link  }}}}.   John Doolittle also was subpoenaed to appear in the Brent Wilkes trial, but he had his lawyers tell them he didn’t need to show up.  http://www.dailykos.com/story/…      Mark Geragos, Wilke’s celebrity attorney, was going to try to use a defense that would claim that the defense contractors were getting abused by the Republican Congressional delegation that was shaking them down for earmarks and gifts.

Remember. Brent Wilkes hired Alexander Strategy Group as his lobbyist, which was Ed Buckhams’s company.  Buckham=Tom Delay’s ex COS.

Julie Doolittle, John’s wife, “worked” for Alexander Strategy, doing “fundraising” and “bookeeping.”

Christine Delay, Tom’s wife, also “worked” for Alexander Strategy.  Same deal. She’s a “consultant.”  1998 to 2002.

So, there is the wife of somebody on the House Appropriations Committee, a very powerful position, and the wife of the House Majority Leader, getting large monthly retainers for about 2 years for Julie, and 4 years for Christine, for “event planning” to raise money for Alexander Strategy, the Capitol Athletic Foundation, the US- Korea Exchange.  And it’s wasn’t hard work. It was barely work at all. Just show up at the lobbyist’s office and schedule opportunities to collect money from very willing donors.  And it was very lucrative.  One problem.  Not everyone in the world is allowed to give you money, when you work for the US government.

The government of Malaysia, using unsourced funny money, hires a lobbying/consulting firm called Bell Haven Consultants.

Bell Haven hires Alexander Strategy.   On September 27, 2001, only sixteen days after America’s 9/11 terror attack on the World Trade Center in NYC, this Alexander Strategy Group starts working for Belle Haven Consultants, seeking to “provide a better image of Malaysia to the USA.”  Malaysia is a predominantly Muslim country.

Belle Haven, Jack Abramoff, and Alexander Strategy share the same office in Hong Kong.

Ed Buckham of Alexander Strategy also formed another non profit called the US- Malaysia Exchange.

John Doolittle will take a trip to Langkawi, Malaysia in February of 2005.  The trip cost $29,400, and was paid by front groups paid by…. Alexander Strategy Group. (long comment I left in another diary with sources)  http://www.dailykos.com/commen…

John Doolittle hid the fact that he had stock in Chevron Oil until he revised his yearly financial statements after the FBI raid.

Malaysia has a government owned national oil company named Petronas, a huge company with projects in 31 companies, some with Chevron.  (which might have been involved in funding Belle Haven Consultants )

http://au.answers.yahoo.com/qu…

Alexander Strategy will eventually go out of business in January of 2006. http://www.washingtonpost.com/…

We may never find out completely what John Doolittle was up to.  Nor what Jack Abramoff did.   But in the aftermath of September 11th, 2001, a national tragedy…. there was something really suspicious going on.  Would that war not be seen as just another business opportunity.

Remember, when all this started to unravel, the Bush administration insisted there were weapons of mass destruction, that we were going to fight the Terrorist evildoers, that Al Queda was funded by Saddam Hussein and Iraq.  And one of Bush’s most loyal supporters and rubber stampers of policy and legislation has been Rep. John T. Doolittle.

Because so much has been written so much more eloquently about the Marianas Islands (CNMI) and John Doolittle’s involvement in blocking immigration and wage reform in these Pacific Ocean United States commonwealth territories, I will recomend Dengre’s 2006 and 2007 diaries for that storyline. http://dengre.dailykos.com/

A recent story, “Abramoff gets 4 years. McCain should not. ”    has great info on how Jack Abramoff was hired by the CNMI to lobby specifically against human rights advocate Wendy Doromal and her efforts to change the system of labor abuse  which John Doolittle was protecting in return for campaign donations from people running sweatshops… and worse:    http://www.dailykos.com/story/…

And dailykos poster leveymg has written a very good piece in June, on the relationship between Sen John McCain and Abramoff & the GOP Foreign Money Machine

http://www.dailykos.com/story/…

In that commentary, I left a very long comment concerning John Doolittle’s  2005 trip to Malaysia, which was paid for by 2 alleged “non- profits” funded by South Korea and Malaysian lobbyists(think Oil money) using Alexander Strategy Group as the front.  

http://www.dailykos.com/commen…

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Tuesday morning update:  When I checked the online version and dead tree version of the Sacramento Bee this morning, it was edited so heavily and dumbed down enough to make it sound as if Doolittle was just taking restaurant meals and concert tickets from Ring and Abramoff in return for a few favors.  The lack of detail as to how sitting Congressmen were being bribed by lobbyists using foreign funds and defense contractors during wartime is appalling.  I am more convinced than ever that the Bush Administration (and the new management at SacBee) is handling Doolittle extremely carefully because if he testified against anyone, it would show that even the Dept. of Justice was compromised during this time period.

Links were also added.  

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Humor Angle:  According to the AP, Abramoff has written a book in prison titled “The Perfect Villain: John McCain and the Demonization of Lobbyist Jack Abramoff, ” which blames the current Republican Presidential nominee and the WAPO for his current incarceration.  Jack, Jack, Jack…. you still don’t get it.  But thanks. Every little bit helps.

Other Humor Angle:  I just lost my electricity Monday while writing this at 4:07 pm.  Typical.  Electricity back up at 6:10 pm.  

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editing update: more links added. cross posting at http://www.eenrblog.com and http://www.dailykos.com/story/…