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