Fri, Oct 05 2007
I HAVE NO FUCKING IDEA WHAT THE SITE'S BACKGROUND PICTURE SAYS
...so stop asking.
(If you can read kanji, drop me a line. It would be awesome if it said something cool like "die, imperialist runningdogs", but it probably says something lame like "drink pepsi".)Fri, Oct 05 2007
THE PLOT TO BURY PROGRESS
In this Karl Rove meets Harry Potter political parody, featuring Jason Alexander, we expose the all-too-real neoconservative plot to obstruct progress in the US Senate.
A little heavy-handed, but fun.Fri, Oct 05 2007
RICHEST JACKASS WINS
Back in the day, someone asked gazillionaire presidential hopeful Ross Perot since when did he think he could buy the presidency. Said Ross in a classic comeback, "son, since when has the presidency not been for sale?"
Sumbitch - I voted for Ross that year. Too bad he didn't win, we coulda used a decent CEO for a change.
Romney is his own biggest campaign donor
WASHINGTON, Associated Press - Mitt Romney once said financing his own campaign would be a "nightmare." Writing checks, he said this week, is "painful." It doesn't seem to be stopping him. Romney is his presidential campaign's most generous supporter, lending $17.5 million from his personal fortune so far. His Republican rivals are bracing themselves for him to do it again. And again.
Romney is hardly the first presidential candidate to cut himself a check Steve Forbes and Ross Perot spent far more than he has. But the businessman-turned-politician, who can raise money AND open his wallet, may have the best chance to win the presidency.
The former Massachusetts governor has two more shots at testing what his money can do to supplement his campaign's finances and help him win the GOP nomination. The first is during the 90 days left before the early presidential contests of Iowa and New Hampshire. If he survives those, he can spend again in the last weeks of January before the make-or-break primaries in Florida, New York, California, New Jersey.
"The Romney strategy is very clear win Iowa, get a bounce to New Hampshire, win New Hampshire and write yourself a check for the Feb. 5 states and start advertising," said Tony Fabrizio, a Republican strategist who has worked on presidential campaigns but is unaffiliated this election.
If Romney writes himself a sizable check in January, his spending might be evident, but the size of his contribution would not be a public record until mid-February, well after the nomination is likely to be sewn up. That could protect Romney from voters who would object to a candidate "buying" the nomination.
But Jennifer A. Steen, a political scientist at Boston College who has written extensively on self-financed candidates, believes the public doesn't care if a wealthy candidate writes his campaign checks.
"What I've noticed is that it has been terribly frustrating for opponents of self-financers that their own outrage at self-financing is not shared by the voters," Steen said
Compared to candidates like Forbes and Perot, Romney is a piker. Perot pumped $63 million into his failed 1992 presidential contest. Forbes contributed about $38 million in each of his unsuccessful White House bids, in 1996 and 2000.
Unlike those millionaires, Romney entered the presidential race with a political pedigree.
He had run for the Senate against Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., and had been elected governor of Massachusetts in 2002.
Overall, Romney has receipts of about $62 million, with $45 million raised from about 100,000 donors this year. That means he has dipped into his pocket for 28 percent of his total. In his 2002 gubernatorial campaign he had $9.4 million in receipts, of which $6.3 million came from him.
This year, Romney's personal contributions have been increasing as his fundraising has been declining. In the first quarter, he lent his campaign $2 million. In the next three months, he put in $6.85 million. This summer, he contributed $8.5 million. Meanwhile, his donations dropped from $21 million in the first three months to $10 million this past quarter.
Advisers say he is prepared to give to his campaign as long as it seems reasonable he can win.
Romney faces no great personal risk in supporting his candidacy. His assets are estimated at between $190 million and $250 million or, as he has described it, "a bloomin' fortune."
Last week, while campaigning in California, Romney said supporting his own candidacy keeps him free of special interest influences.
"My family, that's the only one I'm really beholden to," he said wryly. "They're the ones who let their inheritance slip away, dollar by dollar."
In an interview with The Associated Press last month, he said he had placed a limit on how much he would be willing to spend, but he wouldn't disclose it. "My wife isn't telling!" he joked.
After nine months of campaigning, Romney's campaign reported this week that he had $9 million cash on hand. That's less than his rival Rudy Giuliani, who has $12 million in the bank for the primary contests. But it is more than other GOP contenders.
Strategists and advisers for various campaigns say they are watching Romney's money closely and trying to divine if and when he plans to spend more.
"All of his money reaches a point of diminishing returns at some point if everyone has enough money to run a good campaign in the last two or three weeks" before the January contests," said Charlie Black, an adviser to Republican John McCain. "His money advantage happened early in the year and now. He can be out there advertising in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina before other people could afford to."
Indeed, Romney has spent nearly $10 million in radio and television advertising since early in the year, building up his name recognition both nationally and in those early states. In national polls, he still lags behind other leading Republicans. But he went from being an unknown to leading the polls in Iowa. In New Hampshire, where he is far more familiar as the governor of a neighboring state, he is in a close contest with Giuliani.
"Romney has had to spend and do more to get to where he is now," said GOP strategist Greg Mueller, who advised Forbes' 2000 campaign. "One of the challenges for Romney is how do they keep it fresh. Money can help you do that."
As the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary draw nearer, television markets in the two states will become saturated. Candidates will be competing against Christmas ads, and advertising time will get booked up.
"It's not easy to get access to the airwaves, even if you seem to have the ability to drop a significant chunk of resources at one time," said Eric Ueland, a former top aide to Senate Republican Leader Bill Frist and now a supporter of Fred Thompson's presidential campaign.
Ueland, stressing that he was not speaking for Thompson's campaign, said candidates facing a self-financed opponent like Romney need to be prepared to respond.
"If you know that a hurricane could bear down on you, then you make sure your structure is as strong as possible," he said.
___Fri, Oct 05 2007
LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON
Low-life crooks. Call both of their lying asses home, lord.
Serves the flock right - you idiots willingly let yourselves be fleeced by these flim-flam artists and their phony direct line to Jeebus & Co. Doesn't matter how many times these self-righteous snakeoil salesmen get unmasked, you fools just keep bending over and handing them the vaseline jar...
"Gimme!" sez Richie Rich
Scandal brewing at Oral Roberts U.
TULSA, Okla., Associated Press - Twenty years ago, televangelist Oral Roberts said he was reading a spy novel when God appeared to him and told him to raise $8 million for Roberts' university, or else he would be "called home."
Now, his son, Oral Roberts University President Richard Roberts, says God is speaking again, telling him to deny lurid allegations in a lawsuit that threatens to engulf this 44-year-old Bible Belt college in scandal.
Richard Roberts is accused of illegal involvement in a local political campaign and lavish spending at donors' expense, including numerous home remodeling projects, use of the university jet for his daughter's senior trip to the Bahamas, and a red Mercedes convertible and a Lexus SUV for his wife, Lindsay.
She is accused of dropping tens of thousands of dollars on clothes, awarding nonacademic scholarships to friends of her children and sending scores of text messages on university-issued cell phones to people described in the lawsuit as "underage males."
At a chapel service this week on the 5,300-student campus known for its 60-foot-tall bronze sculpture of praying hands, Roberts said God told him: "We live in a litigious society. Anyone can get mad and file a lawsuit against another person whether they have a legitimate case or not. This lawsuit ... is about intimidation, blackmail and extortion."
San Antonio televangelist John Hagee, a member of the ORU board of regents, said the university's executive board "is conducting a full and thorough investigation."
Colleagues fear for the reputation of the university and the future of the Roberts' ministry, which grew from Southern tent revivals to one of the most successful evangelical empires in the country, hauling in tens of millions of dollars in contributions a year. The university reported nearly $76 million in revenue in 2005, according to the IRS.
Oral Roberts is 89 and lives in California. He holds the title of chancellor, but the university describes him as semi-retired, and his son presides over day-to-day operations on the campus, which had a modern, space-age design when it was built in the early 1960s but now looks dated, like Disney's Tomorrowland.
Cornell Cross II, a senior from Burlington, Vt., said he is looking to transfer to another school because the scandal has "severely devalued and hurt the reputation of my degree."
"We have asked and asked and asked to see the finances of our school and what they're doing with our money, and we've been told no," said, Cross who is majoring in government. "Now we know why. As a student, I'm not going to stand for it any longer."
The allegations are contained in a lawsuit filed Tuesday by three former professors. They sued ORU and Roberts, alleging they were wrongfully dismissed after reporting the school's involvement in a local political race.
Richard Roberts, according to the suit, asked a professor in 2005 to use his students and university resources to aid a county commissioner's bid for Tulsa mayor. Such involvement would violate state and federal law because of the university's nonprofit status. Up to 50 students are alleged to have worked on the campaign.
The professors also said their dismissals came after they turned over to the board of regents a copy of a report documenting moral and ethical lapses on the part of Roberts and his family. The internal document was prepared by Stephanie Cantese, Richard Roberts' sister-in-law, according to the lawsuit.
An ORU student repairing Cantese's laptop discovered the document and later provided a copy to one of the professors.
It details dozens of alleged instances of misconduct. Among them:
A longtime maintenance employee was fired so that an underage male friend of Mrs. Roberts could have his position.
Mrs. Roberts who is a member of the board of regents and is referred to as ORU's "first lady" on the university's Web site frequently had cell-phone bills of more than $800 per month, with hundreds of text messages sent between 1 a.m. to 3 a.m. to "underage males who had been provided phones at university expense."
The university jet was used to take one daughter and several friends on a senior trip to Orlando, Fla., and the Bahamas. The $29,411 trip was billed to the ministry as an "evangelistic function of the president."
Mrs. Roberts spent more than $39,000 at one Chico's clothing store alone in less than a year, and had other accounts in Texas and California. She also repeatedly said, "As long as I wear it once on TV, we can charge it off." The document cites inconsistencies in clothing purchases and actual usage on TV.
Mrs. Roberts was given a white Lexus SUV and a red Mercedes convertible by ministry donors.
University and ministry employees are regularly summoned to the Roberts' home to do the daughters' homework.
The university and ministry maintain a stable of horses for exclusive use by the Roberts' children.
The Roberts' home has been remodeled 11 times in the past 14 years.
Tim Brooker, one of the professors who sued, said he fears for the university's survival if certain changes aren't made.
"All over that campus, there are signs up that say, `And God said, build me a university, build it on my authority, and build it on the Holy Spirit,'" Brooker said. "Unfortunately, ownership has shifted."All news articles and images provided under the Fair Use Notice.