Author: Seth Anderson

Just another Gen-Xer still posting on a blog

Free Credit Report

Seth Anderson1 Comment

Free credit report, umm, not so fast. It’s really $14.95 a month. Gotcha!

“It’s called FreeCreditReport.com,” he said. “It’s kind of easy to make that assumption. I didn’t see anything in the process of signing up that said, ‘Hey, if you don’t cancel in 30 days or whatever, you’re going to get charged.’ ”

Consumer groups have long objected to sites like FreeCreditReport.com. Consumers may obtain a free credit report each year from the three major agencies, as mandated by an act that Congress passed in 2003. The only authorized site for that is AnnualCreditReport.com.

The three major credit bureaus, Experian, Equifax and TransUnion, are required to offer reports through the authorized AnnualCreditReport.com, but the bureaus also make money from their own credit reports.

Experian, which owns FreeCreditReport.com, increased both its site visitors and new member sign-ups by 20 percent in 2007.

[From Advertising – The High Cost of a ‘Free Credit Report’ – NYTimes.com]

I should sign up, actually. This post is a public note to myself to see what lies are contained on my consumer DNA file. As long as I don’t sign up in the wrong place:

The FTC has received complaints from consumers who thought they were ordering their free annual credit report online. Some consumers responded to TV ads, email offers, or simply searched online.

The FTC recently settled a lawsuit against Consumerinfo.com – which did business as Experian Consumer Direct – over the “free credit report” promotion it advertised on television, radio and the Internet, including its websites freecreditreport.com and consumerinfo.com.

Dog Meat is Hot

Seth Anderson1 Comment

Dog Food

I’ve never had the urge to sample dog meat, probably for the same reason that I am mostly a vegetarian. I’ve lived on a farm, so I have an inkling of an idea where meat comes from: pig meat, cow meat, even chicken flesh all originates from the body of a friendly critter. In the US anyway, most of our meat comes from factory farms.

THOSE who hope to taste dog meat when they visit Beijing for this summer’s Olympics may be disappointed. The Beijing Catering Trade Association has ordered all 112 designated Olympic restaurants to take dog off the menu, and has strongly advised other establishments to stop serving it until September. Waiters have been urged to “patiently” suggest alternative dishes to customers who ask for dog. It’s all part of a wider campaign to avoid offending foreigners during the Games. (Beijingers have also been told to line up nicely, to stop spitting and even to avoid asking tourists questions about their ages, salaries and love lives.)

The order is not likely to bother many residents. Though dogs have been raised for food in China for thousands of years, you have to hunt around to find the meat on modern menus. Certain regions, like Hunan and Guizhou Provinces, are known for their canine predilections — but even in these places, dog is a relative rarity. And in Beijing itself, you hardly find it except in a few Korean and regional Chinese restaurants.

Dog eating, in any case, tends to be a seasonal pursuit. According to Chinese folk dietetics, which classify every food according to its heating and cooling properties, dog is one of the “hottest” meats around, best eaten in midwinter, when you need warmth and vital energy, not in sultry August.

That eating dog is seen as an issue says more about Western preoccupations than Chinese habits. Since time immemorial, Westerners have had a morbid fascination with the weird fringes of the Chinese diet. Marco Polo noted with distaste that the Chinese liked eating snake and dog; modern Western journalists just love to get their teeth into a juicy story about some revolting delicacy like the assorted animal penises served at the Guolizhuang restaurant in Beijing. And for gung-ho foreign tourists, a skewerful of deep-fried scorpions in the night market in central Beijing has become a rite of passage.

[From In Beijing, It’s Too Hot for Dog on the Menu – Fuchsia Dunlop – NYTimes.com]

Spectators in Ketchikan

Speaking on that topic, there’s a show dedicated to such conspicuous consumption of oddities called Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmer (blog here). We watched several one day, an oddly fascinating travel show.

McCain: The Most Reprehensible Of The Keating Five

Seth Anderson0 comment

John McCain was the subject of this article written by Tom Fitzpatrick, published in 1989 in the Phoenix New Times.

You’re John McCain, a fallen hero who wanted to become president so desperately that you sold yourself to Charlie Keating, the wealthy con man who bears such an incredible resemblance to The Joker.

Obviously, Keating thought you could make it to the White House, too.

…

They say that if you put five lobsters into a pot and give them a chance to escape, none will be able to do so before you light the fire. Each time a lobster tries to climb over the top, his fellow lobsters will pull him back down. It is the way of lobsters and threatened United States senators.

And, of course, that’s the way it is with the Keating Five. You are all battling to save your own hides. So you, McCain, leak to reporters about who did Keating’s bidding in pressuring federal regulators to change the rules for Lincoln Savings and Loan.

When the reporters fail to print your tips quickly enough–as in the case of your tip on Michigan Senator Donald Riegle–you call them back and remind them how important it is to get that information in the newspapers.

The story of “the Keating Five” has become a scandal rivaling Teapot Dome and Watergate. The outcome will be decided, not in a courtroom, but probably on national television.

Those who survive will be the sociopaths who can tell a lie with the most sincere, straight face. You are especially adept at this.

[From McCain: The Most Reprehensible Of The Keating Five, page 1 – News – Phoenix New Times – Phoenix New Times]

No kidding, John McCain hasn’t needed to improve his liar’s face in many years, as it was quite polished already. Unfortunately for him, being a media celebrity for all these years has dulled his edge a bit.

This Was Maxwell Street

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"And This Is Free: The Life and Times of Chicago’s Legendary Maxwell St." (Various)

Very cool, I’m getting a copy.

Chicago’s legendary Maxwell Street open-air market, founded by immigrant Eastern European Jews in the 1870s, attracted bargain-hunters of every ethnic background every weekend for more than a century. The unique, vibrant street bazaar was officially closed in 1994, as urban shopping evolved and the University of Illinois at Chicago campus expanded into the area, just south of downtown. Maxwell Street had long since become best-known as the outdoor home base for many of the city’s world-famous blues musicians.

A coalition of blues aficionados, black and white; historians; and children and grandchildren of Maxwell Street’s Jewish pushcart and storefront merchants tried but failed to preserve elements of the area as the market was being shut down. Direct memories of the street in its mid-20th-century heyday are diminishing, and a sense of the life of the place might easily be lost.

But now “And This Is Free: The Life and Times of Chicago’s Legendary Maxwell Street”” — a new multimedia disc and booklet “MultiPac” that combines historic films and a photo slideshow on DVD, a CD of blues tied to the area, and informative written commentary — has been released by Shanachie Entertainment. The express purpose, says its executive producer, Sherwin Dunner, is bringing the texture of the street alive again.

[From This Was Maxwell Street – WSJ.com]

[non-WSJ subscribers can use this link]

(H/T Chuck Sudo)

My first apartment in Chicago was on 19th and Halsted; to drive to it, you have to pass through Maxwell Street Market (which has since been moved, and sanitized, and the University of Illinois has taken the area over). When we drove to see the apartment prior to signing the lease, we were a bit shocked (both of us recent college graduates from Austin, TX, which has no areas like Maxwell Street). Turned out not to be so bad, and we heard some good electric blues there later on. We also didn’t realize that 5 blocks in Chicago is a large distance, psychologically. The dudes standing around oil barrel fires, selling recently stolen merchandise had no interest in hanging out on my apartment stairs, we needn’t have worried.

Though this was the neighborhood that shaped Benny Goodman, Adm. Hyman Rickover, Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg and CBS Chairman William Paley, the longstanding Jewish experience on Maxwell Street had not been examined on film until Israeli émigré Shuli Eshel began shooting her documentary on that side of the story, “Maxwell Street: A Living Memory,” in 1999. More than half of the spirited, sometimes nostalgic interviewees in that film are already gone, but her film has its own key role in this new release — and Roger Schatz, her co-author on the oral history book “Jewish Maxwell Street Stories”” (Arcadia Publishing), provides the narration for the MultiPac’s informative slideshow.

“The Jews of Maxwell Street really didn’t care if you were black, blue or yellow as long as you bought the merchandise so they could make a living and educate their children,” Ms. Eshel suggested in an interview with this reporter. “But then, the famous Chicken Man (an African-American who performed with a live chicken on his head, shown at work in the MultiPac) was there to make a living, too. Maxwell Street taught you how to understand people well enough to do business. As the famous Chicago Judge Abraham Lincoln Marovitz, from that neighborhood, puts it in my film, ‘Selling on the street was about survival at first, but later on became about the pursuit of the American Dream.'”

That spirit, as much as the remarkable talent of the street performers working the same urban blocks, is alive in this remarkable bit of multimedia history.

Wal-Mart Warns of Democratic Win

Seth Anderson0 comment

Whoa, scary unions! I thought Wal-Mart was going to turn into a warm fuzzy, green company? I guess that was only a marketing strategy, and not anything based in facts.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is mobilizing its store managers and department supervisors around the country to warn that if Democrats win power in November, they’ll likely change federal law to make it easier for workers to unionize companies — including Wal-Mart.

In recent weeks, thousands of Wal-Mart store managers and department heads have been summoned to mandatory meetings at which the retailer stresses the downside for workers if stores were to be unionized.

According to about a dozen Wal-Mart employees who attended such meetings in seven states, Wal-Mart executives claim that employees at unionized stores would have to pay hefty union dues while getting nothing in return, and may have to go on strike without compensation. Also, unionization could mean fewer jobs as labor costs rise.

[From Wal-Mart Warns of Democratic Win – WSJ.com]

[Non-WSJ subscribers use this link]

The irony of course is that Wal-Mart workers could do with a little wage increase, the kind of wage increase that unions often can negotiate for its members. A majority of Wal-Mart workers live below the poverty line.

A Substantial Number of Wal-Mart Associates earn far below the poverty line

  • In 2001, sales associates, the most common job in Wal-Mart, earned on average $8.23 an hour for annual wages of $13,861. The 2001 poverty line for a family of three was $14,630. [“Is Wal-Mart Too Powerful?”, Business Week, 10/6/03, US Dept of Health and Human Services 2001 Poverty Guidelines, 2001]
  • A 2003 wage analysis reported that cashiers, the second most common job, earn approximately $7.92 per hour and work 29 hours a week. This brings in annual wages of only $11,948. [“Statistical Analysis of Gender Patterns in Wal-Mart’s Workforce”, Dr. Richard Drogin 2003]

If there was an actual Justice Department, instead of a puppet, politicized Bush-loving agency, somebody might actually investigate Wal-Mart for violating the law.

Wal-Mart may be walking a fine legal line by holding meetings with its store department heads that link politics with a strong antiunion message. Federal election rules permit companies to advocate for specific political candidates to its executives, stockholders and salaried managers, but not to hourly employees. While store managers are on salary, department supervisors are hourly workers.

and re: Wal-Mart’s warm, fuzzy side, there are nearly as many corporate-loving Democrats as Republicans, right? I doubt the liberal Democrats (all ten of them) are getting much Wal-Mart cash.

Wal-Mart has been trying to burnish its reputation by improving its worker benefits and touting its commitment to the environment. On the political front, it’s hedging its bets, spreading its financial contributions on both sides of the political divide.

Twelve years ago, 98% of Wal-Mart’s political donations went to Republicans. Now, as the Democrats seem poised to gain control in Washington, 48% of its $2.2 million in political contributions go to Democrats and 52% to Republicans, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan organization that tracks political giving.

Some other fun Wal-Mart facts:

Wal-Mart closes down stores and departments that unionize

  • Wal-Mart closed its store in Jonquierre, Quebec in April 2005 after its employees received union certification. The store became the first unionized Wal-Mart in North America when 51 percent of the employees at the store signed union cards. [Washington Post, 4/14/05]
  • In December 2005, the Quebec Labour Board ordered Wal-Mart to compensate former employees of its store in Jonquiere Quebec. The Board ruled that Wal-Mart had improperly closed the store in April 2005 in reprisal against unionized workers. [Personnel Today, 12/19/05]
  • In 2000, when a small meatcutting department successfully organized a union at a Wal-Mart store in Texas, Wal-Mart responded a week later by announcing the phase-out of its in-store meatcutting company-wide. [Pan Demetrakakes, “Is Wal-Mart Wrapped in Union Phobia?” Food & Packaging 76 (August 1, 2003).]

Wal-Mart has issued “A Manager’s Toolbox to Remaining Union Free,”

  • This toolbox provides managers with lists of warning signs that workers might be organizing, including “frequent meetings at associates’ homes” and “associates who are never seen together start talking or associating with each other.” The “Toolbox” gives managers a hotline to call so that company specialists can respond rapidly and head off any attempt by employees to organize. [Wal-Mart, A Manager’s Toolbox to Remaining Union Free at 20-21]

Wal-Mart is committed to an anti-union policy

  • In the last few years, well over 100 unfair labor practice charges have been filed against Wal-Mart throughout the country, with 43 charges filed in 2002 alone.
  • Since 1995, the U.S. government has been forced to issue at least 60 complaints against Wal-Mart at the National Labor Relations Board. [International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU), Internationally Recognised Core Labour Standards in the United States: Report for the WTO General Council Review of the Trade Policies of the United States (Geneva, January 14-16, 2004)]
  • Wal-Mart’s labor law violations range from illegally firing workers who attempt to organize a union to unlawful surveillance, threats, and intimidation of employees who dare to speak out. [“Everyday Low Wages: The Hidden Price We All Pay for Wal-Mart,” A Report by the Democratic Staff of the Committee on Education and the Workforce, 2/16/04]

Bridge to Somewhere, Sometime

Seth Anderson0 comment

Bridges are falling down, or nearly, and nothing is being done about it.

Division Street Bridge
[Division Street Bridge]

A troubling report indicates the state has found little progress on “urgent” repairs for some of the most heavily-traveled bridges in the Chicago area.

As CBS 2’s Joanie Lum reports, Illinois is in better shape than most states. But the Associated Press found that of the 20 busiest bridges in the state, only six have undergone necessary repairs, and funds are short.

The findings come as the one-year anniversary of the tragic Interstate 35W bridge collapse in Minneapolis approaches. Thirteen people died when the bridge caved in and sent cars plunging into the Mississippi River.

In Illinois, Gov. Rod Blagojevich and state engineers have said the Minneapolis bridge collapse should have been a wakeup call, but few bridges have actually been repaired.

Overall, the vast majority of Illinois’ 26,000 bridges have been deemed safe. But a review of records last year by The Associated Press found more than 1,500 Illinois bridges had worse structural ratings than the Minnesota bridge collapse.

[From cbs2chicago.com – Report: Little Progress On ‘Urgent’ Bridge Repairs ]

Federal dollars are being wasted in the sands of Iraq, state dollars being wasted on trifles, city dollars being squandered on baubles: meanwhile the nation’s infrastructure continues to decay. How much longer can it be ignored before a tragedy occurs?

One structural engineer argued Wednesday that while insufficient funds is part of the problem, it also provides an “easy excuse” for inaction.



“The Minnesota collapse doesn’t appear to have been the wake-up call it should have been,” said John Frauenhoffer, head of a Champaign engineering firm and past president of the Illinois Society of Professional Engineers. “If anything ever happened at one of those bridges, it’d be impossible to explain to the public why those repairs hadn’t been made.”

Enchanted Sky Machine
[Enchanted Sky Machine, Evanston]

Of course, if all the bridges suddenly got repaired, I’d lose a favorite photo subject, but I’d rather deal with finding some other metaphor of decay than have another bridge collapse.

Lost Causeways
[Lost Causeways, Ogden Avenue]

Jam buys Uptown for $3.2M

Seth Anderson0 comment

Finally. I truly hope Jerry Mickelson does restore the building, I’ve always had a certain fondness for it.

Uptown Theatre
[Click image for full view]

Without any drama, a venture led by concert promoter Jam Productions Ltd. bought the historic Uptown Theatre on Tuesday for $3.2 million in a court-ordered foreclosure sale.

Jam principal Jerry Mickelson was the high bidder for the long-vacant theater at 4816 N. Broadway. The sale price was essentially a “credit bid” that covers repayment of about $1.8 million owed on a first mortgage and $1.4 million owed on a second mortgage that’s held by Mr. Mickelson’s group.

The only other bid came from the holder of the first mortgage.

Mr. Mickelson, who has said he plans to restore the Uptown, declined comment on the sale.

[From Chicago Business News, Analysis & Articles | Jam buys Uptown for $3.2M | Crain’s ]

I’m not even sure if I’ve ever been inside, I just like vintage theater buildings.

Jam competitors Live Nation Inc. and Madison Square Garden Entertainment both looked into buying the 1925 building, which was originally constructed as a movie palace. Jam in 2006 bought the Riviera Theatre down the street and also owns the Park West in Lincoln Park and the Vic Theatre in Lakeview, all music venues.

Small Business Status For Blackwater

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“Huh? How could that have happened? Oh well” seems to be the only response by the Small Business Administration officials. Just taxpayer money, that’s all.

Private military contractor Blackwater and its affiliates may have wrongly received more than $100 million in contracts that were supposed to be set aside for small businesses, according to an inspector general’s report released today.

At issue was a November 2006 determination by the Small Business Administration that a Blackwater affiliate, Presidential Airways, was a small business with less than 1,500 employees.

Blackwater contended, and the agency agreed, that its more than 1,000 workers providing security for the State Department overseas were not employees, but independent contractors. That made the company appear smaller on paper than it actually is.

[From TPMMuckraker | Talking Points Memo | Small Business Admin. Couldn’t Explain Why It Approved Small Business Status For Blackwater]

Corruption, corruption, and more corruption. Kudos to Henry Waxman for discovering (PDF) and publicizing the erroneously awarded contract.


“Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army [Revised and Updated]” (Jeremy Scahill)

Jeremy Scahill is going to have to update his book again.

McCain and his day job

Seth Anderson0 comment

Sometimes known as being a member of The Senate. John McCain is too busy losing a campaign to bother showing up in Washington to vote or otherwise participate in the nations business. And as was pointed out elsewhere on the internet tubes, McCain has collected $51,345 in salary since last voting.

Any way you measure it, McCain’s performance in the Senate during the last year has been abysmal. He has missed 400 votes, far more than any other Senator (including Tim Johnson, who’s recuperating from a brain hemorrhage). In May Ronald Hansen of the Arizona Republic referred to “his chronic absence in the Senate” as if the problem is well known in McCain’s home state. Earlier this month he was the only Senator to skip the vote on the Medicare bill. At the time, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid publicly criticized McCain for his regular absences.

Here are some numbers:

63% – How many votes in the Senate McCain has skipped during the 110th Congress (since January 2007).
96 – The number of Senate votes McCain has missed since his last recorded vote on April 8.
111 – The number of days since McCain last attended a committee hearing (of the Senate Armed Services Committee, on April 9).
25% – How many full SASC hearings McCain has attended during the 110th Congress.
89% – How many full SASC hearings McCain has skipped since April 2007 (32 out of the last 36 hearings).
2007 – The last year in which McCain attended any Commerce, Science & Transportation Committee hearings or subcommittee hearings.
The League of Conservation Voters noted in February that McCain has skipped every one of the 15 Senate votes on environmental issues that it deemed critical during this Congress.

McCain has so far abandoned his duties in the Senate that when he traveled to Colombia and Mexico 4 weeks ago to discuss trade and commerce, he felt obliged to treat it as a campaign rather than a congressional trip. Did I mention that he serves on the Senate Commerce Committee?

It’s normal for Senators campaigning for president to spend a lot of time away from the Senate, of course. Barack Obama has been on the road too and missed 20 votes in the Senate since July 9 (many related to a single bill, S. 2731). Yet throughout the campaign Obama generally has not been absent from the Senate for any more than a couple weeks at a time.

Quite extraordinarily, however, McCain has all but checked out of his Senate job for all of 2008 and indeed for most of 2007 as well. This comes at a time when the country is facing both domestic and foreign crises that two of McCain’s committees have needed to act on.

[From Daily Kos: State of the Nation]

McCain is following in the footsteps of George Bush a little too closely, methinks. Noted also, McCain isn’t polling so well in his own state, Arizona. Wonder why?

Paul Westerberg – 49:00 redux

Seth Anderson0 comment

Stephen T. Erlewine downloaded Paul Westerberg’s new eccentric album, 49:00, too

Although there are enough full-blown songs to anchor this album, much of the music here wouldn’t make sense on a proper album as it floats in and out of focus, sometimes overlapping with an existing tune, sometimes offering just a tantalizing flash of melody or formative riff. But far from being a frustrating collection of unfinished home demos, 49:00 plays as a complete work, where the raggedness is part of the point — and its coarse four-track surfaces feel defiant in an age of computer recording. There’s undeniably an element of ragged rebellion in the rough-hewn creation of 49:00 but Westerberg has always sounded best when he’s on the fringe — and while this was delivered in a high-tech fashion, the album, with all its unfinished surfaces and frayed fragments, is old-fashioned college rock filled with fragile ballads, rude rock & roll, dead-end detours, and smart-ass jokes, like the classic rock oldies Westerberg flips through at the end of the album. Of all of Westerberg’s solo albums, 49:00 comes closest to recapturing the spirit of the Replacements but it doesn’t do so by doggedly re-creating the ‘Mats’ drunken mess; instead, Westerberg reconnects to the joyous, reckless sense of adventure that fueled his earliest work, and by doing so his scruffiness is once again endearing and hard to resist.

[From The Allmusic Blog » Paul Westerberg – 49:00]

Apparently, Amazon was the only online retailer that let Westerberg set the terms of download (49 minutes without track titles, breaks), and set his own price – 49¢. I got a chance to listen to the album finally, and I like it. You have to be in the right frame of mind to appreciate the oddness of it, especially when two different songs are playing at the same time from different speakers, once you can open your ears to non-standard compositions, the album makes a certain amount of sense.

On the other hand, if you are just playing the album as background, it seems kind of half-assed. Usually only the extended re-release of classic albums contains such material as song sketches, and unfinished bits. A bit disconcerting to listen to song fragments of songs you’ve never heard before. Maybe I should put mine together, and release it on an album? What do you think, would you pay 49¢ to listen to nearly an hour of various bits of music I made?

Liberal Bias Bogus

Seth Anderson0 comment

Of course, we already knew the claim of liberal bias in the media was bogus, but noted nonetheless

The Center for Media and Public Affairs at George Mason University, where researchers have tracked network news content for two decades, found that ABC, NBC and CBS were tougher on Obama than on Republican John McCain during the first six weeks of the general-election campaign.

You read it right: tougher on the Democrat.

During the evening news, the majority of statements from reporters and anchors on all three networks are neutral, the center found. And when network news people ventured opinions in recent weeks, 28% of the statements were positive for Obama and 72% negative.

Network reporting also tilted against McCain, but far less dramatically, with 43% of the statements positive and 57% negative, according to the Washington-based media center.

[From In study, evidence of liberal-bias bias – Los Angeles Times]

Odds are, though, that the claim of liberal bias will continue to be parroted by the McCain supporters in corporate media up until November.

Now, if we are discussing the new media (blogs, web-zines and related), there certainly is a bias. There are very few non-partisan blogs of note. Also, one could even plausibly argue that blogs rebalance the slant of corporate media1 – blogs pick out the small stories that conform to the interest and bias of the site and its readers. For instance, glancing through B12’s archives, there are lots of negative McCain stories. What percentage of the day’s news are these stories? A small percentage, I’m sure, but they are nonetheless a large percentage of B12’s topics.

Footnotes:
  1. at least, to the few brave souls who actually read blogs [↩]

McCain and Oil Industry Lobbyists

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McCain and his oil buddy money gushers join the corrupt party

Campaign contributions from oil industry executives to Sen. John McCain rose dramatically in the last half of June, after the senator from Arizona made a high-profile split with environmentalists and reversed his opposition to the federal ban on offshore drilling.

Oil and gas industry executives and employees donated $1.1 million to McCain last month — three-quarters of which came after his June 16 speech calling for an end to the ban — compared with $116,000 in March, $283,000 in April and $208,000 in May.

[From Industry Gushed Money After Reversal on Drilling – washingtonpost.com]

McCain is willing to flip-flop on any position, just sprinkle a little cash money on his campaign…

Ted Stevens Is Indicted for Corruption

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I’m sure the internet tubes will be buzzing tonight

Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska, the longest-serving Republican senator in United States history and a figure of great influence in Washington as well as in his home state, has been indicted on federal charges of failing to report gifts and income.

Mr. Stevens, 84, was indicted on seven felony counts related to renovations on his home in Alaska. The charges arise from an investigation that has been under way for more than a year, in connection with the senator’s relationship with a businessman who oversaw the home-remodeling project

[From Alaska Senator Is Charged With Failing to Disclose Gifts – NYTimes.com]

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f99PcP0aFNE

and httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cZC67wXUTs

and probably dozens of other YouTube compilations

Chevron and McCain

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Saint McCain and his lobbyist pals, topic de jour. This time, trying to help out poor little Chevron from court ordered obligations to pay for its environmental disasters in Ecuador. Chevron, and friends, wants the Bush Administration to “quash” the case.

In 1993, a class action lawsuit on behalf of an estimated 30,000 Amazon residents was filed against oil giant Chevron, who at the time had recently purchased Texaco. The lawsuit alleged that Chevron was responsible for Texaco intentionally dumping “more than 19 billion gallons of toxic wastewaters” and “16.8 million gallons of crude oil” into Ecuador’s environment.

[snip]

Chevron’s lobbying offensive is being led by former senators Trent Lott and John Breaux, along with Wayne Berman, a top fundraiser for Sen. John McCain (R-AZ):

Chevron is pushing the Bush administration to take the extraordinary step of yanking special trade preferences for Ecuador if the country’s leftist government doesn’t quash the case. A spokesman for U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab confirmed that her office is considering the request. Attorney Steven Donziger, who is coordinating the D.C. opposition to Chevron, says the firm is “trying to get the country to cry uncle.” He adds: “It’s the crudest form of power politics.”

Chevron’s powerhouse team includes former Senate majority leader Trent Lott, former Democratic senator John Breaux and Wayne Berman, a top fund-raiser for John McCain—all with access to Washington’s top decision makers.

So far, Chevron’s power push has resulted in “a senior Chevron exec” meeting with Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte “on the matter.” “One Chevron lobbyist” told Newsweek that the company’s argument to the Bush administration is: “We can’t let little countries screw around with big companies like this—companies that have made big investments around the world.”

[From Think Progress » Top McCain Fundraiser Lobbying Bush Admin To Help ‘Quash’ Toxic-Dumping Case For Chevron ]

Lobbyist Love McCain to the Tune of $181,000, so far

Seth Anderson2 Comments

More to come of course. Much, much more to come.

Loneliness is an ATM

Registered lobbyists have donated large amounts of money to Senator John McCain’s presidential campaign, even as he denounces their profession.

[From Lobbyist Reports Show $181,000 for McCain – NYTimes.com]

Saint McCain loves the lobbyists right back, of course.

So far, Mr. McCain, who has locked up the Republican presidential nomination, has received more than $181,600 from lobbyists and trade groups, while Mr. Obama has received just over $6,000. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, who ended her bid for the presidency in June, got more than $87,000.

The gifts are disclosed in “lobbying contribution reports” filed with Congress under the ethics law, which was adopted last year in response to scandals involving the lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Under the law, lobbyists must itemize their contributions to political candidates and committees, presidential libraries and events honoring members of Congress. Lobbyists face criminal penalties for failure to comply with the disclosure requirements.

Employees at Republican lobbying firms like Fierce, Isakowitz & Blalock have made many contributions to Mr. McCain and other Republican lawmakers, including the Senate and House minority leaders and the top Republican on the Senate Appropriations Committee.

Some lobbyists chafe at being asked for money by the McCain campaign while he disparages lobbyists as agents of “big-moneyed special interests.” But they know that such criticism is a staple of politics.

Implication being, all the fulminations are just for show, and Saint McCain really loves lobbyists underneath it all. A big fat hypocrite, to be blunt.