Pastor who opposed Schwarzenegger now on governor's payroll

A progressive pastor who once called Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger part of "the national axis of evil" is now a paid consultant with the governor's re-election campaign, upsetting at least one fellow clergyman.

The Rev. Amos Brown, who heads Third Baptist Church, is starring this week in a new radio ad for Schwarzenegger after once dubbing President Bush the governor's "partner in crime" in a San Francisco Chronicle interview.

Brown lauded Schwarzenegger in an official campaign press release this week as a leader on arts, music and physical education in schools and as an advocate for prison reform and small-business development.

In the past two months, the San Francisco pastor was paid more than $16,000 after he was put on the Schwarzenegger campaign payroll as a political consultant, according to documents on file with the California Secretary of State's Office. The Schwarzenegger campaign confirmed that Brown is a paid campaign adviser.

And, of course, the pastor has some pre-approved Rovian lies to tell about why he suddenly is backing a Republican. It couldn't be those massive bribes that the governor is shoving into black churches through his after school program, no.....

Schwarzenegger is like Bush on steriods.

Everything you hate about Bush, the lies, the clownishness, the dirty politics is found big time in the Gropenator.

Original article is at: Mercury News

Morning News 10-12-06

'Values' Decline As Issue In Ohio. Who's values are they talking about? Not supporting genocide for oil is a definite value. So is making sure children, the sick, and the elderly have food and medical care. It might take a little time, but Ohio always figures it out before some parts of the nation do.

Bush's Newest Wiggle Dance: Playing Fashion Police Bush's wiggle dance first came to my attention when in Georgia -- I think -- (the eastern Europe Country not the eastern US state) the president did a little wiggle dance looking half sheepish and half bored as he always does when quoting speeches supposedly full of concern and compassion that political operatives have written for him. After a few days of media and even liberal groups focusing on the "wiggle dance" I realized that the uproar was on purpose, to distract the public and media from the war (which had partially been a device to distract people from what the Bush administration was doing at home. I'm only mentioning this now because I have found the major serious news sources devoting space usually reserved for serious politics featuring articles on this latest "wiggle dance".


LA Times: Panel Questions Republican on Page Board People ask why wasn't even the other Republican on the page board told of Foley's advances?

Hastert Aides Interest Ethics Panel I predicted a few days ago that they will be pinning the problem on the aides. One aide seems especially vulnerable. Kudos to Jonathan Weisman for pointing out the fact that a couple of Hastert's aides live and commute with Hastert, making it nearly impossible for the Speaker not to know what they know. If they don't get beyond the aides we should demand an independent investigation.

Lidle’s Plane Traveled Along Feared Path Really sad, but they need to show us the passport. If they are not lying to us about that they should be able to show it. Demand to see the passport!

Opponent Phil Angelides Demands, Nurses Buy Equal Time on Schwarzenegger's Tonight appearance. Million dollar spot handed to Schwarzenegger with appearance, but no equal time offered to contending candidate Phil Angelides. California nurses bought spots for their campaign finance reform initiative on the show.

RE: Scandal Sidelines Hastert, Reynolds. Interesting article on how the Foley scandal is affecting the Speaker's, and Republican Campaign Chairman's ability to focus on the election. Basically, I don't know what an appearance from the old bully, Hastert, would matter to a campaign. What is the attraction for hard core Republicans to his snear and snarl. And from what I've heard from Reynolds, he seems to be cut from the same cloth. Notice though that neither one will relenquish the least bit of power.

Political `Tracker' Is Looking for Err TimeArticle was surprisingly snide about political aides that track opponents actions with a digital camera and put the results up on YouTube. Then I realized that this was cutting into the domains of the news media. They are supposed to be able to control the news that gets out to the public. Shame Shame on people getting information out cheaply on You Tube! Less wealthy, less big business supported candidates can get information out to the world without the favor of big business controlled mainstream news. Whatever will the news media do? (Angelides campaign, are you listening? Make some digital of your clownlike opponent in action. Ah, he probably has a couple of steroid goons protecting him from recorders.)

David Broder asks if voters will carry through with their new awareness of the failure of the Bush administration and the Republican controlled Congress on election day. Well asked. We know the Republicans can't be trusted with complete power. We've been paying attention, but will we succumb to the massive Republican operative campaign? When that Republican operative calls you on the phone with his or her lies or comes to your door because they've collected information on you and think you are a good bet to be able to be goaded into voting Republican, will you fall for the lies that they dole out one more time. This might be the last time we have a chance to drag this nation away from empire building. Will we stand our ground or buckle our knees to Republican operatives? Also, let me ask the print news media too whether they will keep the bit of backbone they've found in the last months if the vote is shown to be hacked as some newspapers have shown could happen and may have happened in the past? Or will they buckle under to Karl Rove's pressure to cover up another stolen election if it happens and pass on excuses for the Republicans like they did in 2000, 2002, and 2004.

Amish killings school demolished Maybe we should have sent the Amish to rebuild Iraq. (Not really. They are the last that we should send to that horrible mess, but at least they can get things done -- and fast.) Wp reports that heavy machinery did the job before dawn today (they felt they needed it done quickly). Also noted is that classes will resume in another location (earlier reports had said something about homeschooling, but this way the children can support each other rather than being isolated. I guess the Amish don't think they have to control every little thought of their kids like the homeschoolers do.


High Court in Britain Loosens Strict Libel Law This might free the Guardian and Independent to report, but it also would allow the Telegraph and Murdoch's huge news media machine in the UK to get away with slander more easily it seems. Norm Coleman will love this decision.

Join the Bush administration. Get underlings to do your kid's school projects. What a deal. WP report also shows that former ATF head was apparently trying to design his office into something like a luxury suite. It's good to be on the morally deficient, but politically powerful side, I guess.

Religion-Based Tax Breaks: Housing to Paychecks to Books Crying that they are not highly compensated, clergy have gotten tax breaks on their housing needs (usually c. 1/3 of their income) though other poorly paid non profit employees od not get similar deals, and neither do poorly paid teachers and day care workers. There are many more ways that the American taxpayer help to finance religion in this nation through taxbreaks to clergy too. Read article at link above.


North Korea warns of sanctions reprisals Kim is a crazy and belligerent as Bush. This does look like trouble.
Jim Hoagland weighs in on the same subject but is he talking about the North Korea government or the US?:

North Korea's efforts to blame its crossing of the nuclear-testing threshold on U.S. "economic hostility" would be laughable if the regime weren't led by world-class paranoids and fantasists capable of believing their own odious propaganda.

NY Times: Idaho city officially urges residents to arm themselves

George Will Celebrates the fact that Scwarzenegger is against the United States using the popular vote to elect a president. Why is that not a surprise? Governor Phil Angelides would sign it, like he would have signed the state wide health care coverage law that Schwarzenegger vetoed. BTW, did you hear that Bush quietly "ditched" the Border fence law by pocket veto? (The deadline has now passed and the bill is dead.) And he did it with the consent of Congressional Republicans as shown in this post.

Lettuce Fields' Irrigation Water Contaminated?

RE Washington Post article "Calif. Lettuce Recalled Over E. Coli Concerns" (link below under green or salmon print):

One thing the FDA and CA farmers don't want you to realize is that all leaf crops in CA are grown with ground water pumped up and then supplied to the roots for irrigation according to reports on the spinach crisis. (It was reported once and then disappeared which is what happens to most information that would harm big business in this nation at its best).

Because Central Californian soil is reported to be heavy clay in the leaf crop region and the water table low (at least it was in the years and places I lived there), bacteria cannot make it's way down to 'ground water' (the italicized assessment also came from a news report on the spinach crisis).

Cattle do not enter vegetable crop fields for some various obvious reasons available at a moment's thought. Like in many other places they have their own fields. Also, we do not in general see flooding rains in summer in low land California. Though I have not followed the weather up where the fields are this summer.

Therefore, it seems that the bacteria must have come into the system after coming up again for irrigation.

Restrooms for fieldworkers can be up to 1/4 mile away from the fields and the workers are often pushed to get more picked than ever before for their poor pay. (From report about worker conditions in CA fields).

Make your own inferences from that. Are we finding that allowing American business to abuse their employees is now killing us?

Why Foleygate Matters

Excerpt Washington Post article "Foley Consuming GOP As Elections Draw Near":

a frustrated GOP strategist who spoke on the condition of anonymity essentially agreed, saying his party's mishandling of Foley "speaks to our inability to govern and do the right thing. It says everything about who we are as a party."

And it goes beyond what Foley did to the cover-up of a safe GOP seat. That is what is at issue. How far will this party go to protect their power? How can you trust them when they will allow a predator to roam the halls ogling pages and contacting them as soon as they are out of the program to set up future sex dates as an article in the LA Times notes.

From the Times:

the former page's exchanges with Foley offer a glimpse of possible predatory behavior by the congressman as he assessed male teenagers assigned as House errand-runners.

In the messages, Maf54 described how years earlier, he had looked to see whether the former page had an erection in his tight white pants while the then-teenager was working near the congressman. Maf54 also speculated about the sexual attributes of other males in the same page class, including the observation that one young man was "well hung."
...
Foley's flirtations made the young man feel important at a time when he was struggling with his emerging sexuality. "It seemed cool that he was taking an interest," he said. "I knew he was gay, and he was attracted to me."

After leaving the program, the former page began receiving messages from Foley. He is uncertain how Foley knew his college instant-message name, but assumed the congressman had access to a directory listing former pages' whereabouts.

Wow, isn't that gross? A sexual predator being able to pick up personal information on former pages thanks to the House leadership.

The article notes that the relationship abruptly ended after a one night stand.

In "Conflicting Accounts Leave Plot Holes in Foley Saga" the Washington Post tries to fit together the puzzle pieces floating around DC over Foley. The two I find funniest are the mishmashed piece of Hastert's top aide knowing 3 years ago, yet Hastert who lives with his top aide didn't know a thing until September 29, 2006 after Foley resigned. Conflict or plain out lying?

BTW, I would like to state that I did not read Political Animal Post "FOLEY AS METAPHOR..." before I started this post and as you can see I jumped right in and thought about the same thing as PA. So I'm was feeling pretty smug about coming up with the same conclusion as a smart guy like that, but then I followed his link to Mike O'Hare's article at Reality Based Community "Foleygate is not an ironic diversion" and see I missed the even bigger picture. Boy, is my face red! This is stuff we know about, but putting it together and laying it on the line like that is what is needed in this world. I know a few mainstream news writers that can't do that. Well, maybe I'm aware of a lot of them.

From O'Hare's piece:

The core event in the Foley story is not his hitting on pages but the tolerant, lazy, response of the Republican leadership, and that is not an exception or a bizarre misstep or a sad personal weakness but precisely, exactly, the typical, consistent, morality and practice of the whole gang, right up to the president. I'm referring to their bottomless callous, smirking, willingness to sacrifice the weak for a selfish, petty purpose like

- personal greed, including the orgy of fressing at the trough by contractors and unqualified hires in Iraq
- getting reelected with no visible point except to steal more
- showing Dad you're not an ignorant, careless wastrel
- shameless, endless shoveling the wealth of the many to the few.

More insightful analysis precedes and follows that portion.

George Will says:

Having so quickly exhausted the Oprah approach, the Foley story moved on to who knew what, and when. That drove Speaker Dennis Hastert to the un-Oprah broadcasting couch on which Republicans recline when getting in touch with their feelings. To Rush Limbaugh's 20 million receptive listeners, Hastert, referring to Republicans as "we," said:

"We have a story to tell, and the Democrats have -- in my view have -- put this thing forward to try to block us from telling the story. They're trying to put us on defense."

It is difficult to read that as other than an accusation: He seems to be not just confessing a coverup but also complaining that the coverup was undone by bad manners. Were it not for Democrats' unsportsmanlike conduct in putting "this thing" forward, it would not be known and would not be disrupting Republicans' storytelling.

Actually a nice analysis, Mr, Will except that you forgot to deal with the fact that many mainstream news outlets will not deal with the Democratic candidates as even the LA Timnes notes in regards to Phil Angelidesn in our gubenatorial election out here.

Schwarzenegger Using Half Billion Dollar a Year School Program to Bribe Clergy

Excerpt LA Times article "Gov. Courts Black Clergy With Aid From Prop. 49"

Money is available this year for the first time under Proposition 49, in the amount of about $500 million. Schwarzenegger promoted that initiative in 2002, laying the groundwork for his entry into the recall campaign the next year.

In recent months, the governor's staff has been approaching black churches to help them apply for some of the funds. A Schwarzenegger aide even enlisted one appointee to a state board to give advice to black clergymen on how to submit successful applications.

...

"It sounds like it's walking right up to the line of buying endorsements with public money," said Ned Wigglesworth, policy advocate for California Common Cause. "It sounds like Gov. Schwarzenegger is trying to smooth the way for approval.

"When Arnold Schwarzenegger went to the voters in 2002 and asked them to vote for Prop. 49 after-school funds," Wigglesworth said, "voters had no idea these funds might later be used to facilitate Schwarzenegger's reelection candidacy in 2006. What you have is a public figure using the ballot measure process to create a pot of public money that they then use to pursue their own political agenda."

...
At First AME Church in Oakland on Sunday, Mayberry said from the pulpit that the pastor of another church, which he did not identify, told him a representative of the governor had offered day-care money to that church.

"Why didn't he deliver the money before he started to run for reelection?" Mayberry asked the congregation.

In an interview, Mayberry said: "If the governor is that interested in helping people who need day care and the assistance of the government, why not come up with all these bright ideas prior to the election?"
...
Brown said he is co-chairman of a group of 14 Bay Area churches bidding for Proposition 49 money. He said they have gotten assistance from Sandra McBrayer of San Diego, appointed by Schwarzenegger in March to a state advisory committee on before- and after-school programs.

Smith said he has attended two meetings in which McBrayer gave advice on submitting a convincing grant application. When she was still part of Schwarzenegger's state staff, Fortune had urged McBrayer to meet with black religious leaders and talk about the after-school funds, according to Schwarzenegger campaign officials.