[Vision2020] Politico RNC shells out $150K for Palin fashion

[No Weatherman]

Mr. Marcy:

Let's all try to be a little bit honest here.

First, neither side is pure and both sides are corrupt. Anyone who
cannot concede this point needs professional help.

Second, the article you linked to stated, "It was always the intent
that the clothing go to a charitable purpose after the campaign."

Me, I don't really buy this but I understand that's the way the game is played.

It's sort of like Obama's campaign getting caught funneling $800,000
to ACORN and reporting it as expenses for "staging, sound, lighting"
and other advance work.

That's the way the game is played.

Third, the thing that should have ALL Americans the most upset is that
the RNC thought Gov Palin needed a do over. This is incredible!

The woman's appeal to Main Street USA is her down-home country-girl
look — all those pictures of her next to a Harley or aiming an M-16 or
holding a two foot salmon or bagging a moose wearing camouflage
fatigues.

She didn't need a do over. She needed a little more of the same!

That's why I for one am relieved it was all for charity.

October 11, 2008
Check Point
On Obama, Acorn and Voter Registration
By STEPHANIE STROM

Senator John McCain's presidential campaign on Friday stepped up its
efforts to tie Senator Barack Obama to a community organizing group
that has been accused of involvement in problematic voter
registrations in several hotly contested states, including Colorado,
Indiana, Nevada and North Carolina.

The group, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now,
or Acorn, has long been a favorite target of conservatives. It made
news this year when it was revealed that a brother of Acorn's founder
had embezzled almost $1 million from the organization but that Acorn
had failed to disclose the theft for eight years.

"Barack Obama has made very inconsistent remarks about what his
relationship with this organization is," Rick Davis, Mr. McCain's
campaign manager, said in a conference call.

Mr. Davis said Mr. Obama had worked as Acorn's lawyer and conducted
training events for its leaders. He also noted a payment the Obama
campaign made in February to an Acorn affiliate, Citizens Services
Inc.

While Mr. Obama did represent Acorn in a lawsuit in 1995, Acorn was on
the same side as the Justice Department. The training events involved
two hours of work. And the payment to the Acorn affiliate was reported
in campaign filings, although they had to be revised because of an
error.

The Obama campaign described the accusations as a spurious effort to
tie Mr. Obama to potentially fraudulent voter registrations.

"Barack Obama strongly condemns voter registration fraud or any other
breach of election law by any party or group," Ben LaBolt, a campaign
spokesman, said in a statement.

Acorn, whose political action committee has endorsed Mr. Obama, has
said that the investigations into its voter registration work are
politically motivated.

"Rumors of Acorn's voter fraud have been greatly exaggerated and to a
large extent manufactured," Bertha Lewis, the organization's interim
chief organizer, or chief executive, said Monday in a conference call
to announce that the organization had registered 1.3 million people to
vote.

Ms. Lewis said it was Acorn itself that informed state officials about
some questionable registrations collected by its employees that are
now under investigation. Acorn said it had terminated the workers
involved.

In 1995, Mr. Obama was on a team of lawyers that represented Acorn in
a lawsuit to compel Illinois to comply with federal laws intended to
enhance access to the polls. The team also represented Equip for
Equality, a group that promotes the rights of the disabled, and four
individuals.

Mr. Davis said that as their lawyer, Mr. Obama had "an intimate
relationship" with Acorn "against the State of Illinois and the
federal government."

In fact, the Justice Department was on the same side as Acorn in the
lawsuit, as were other organizations, including the League of Women
Voters. Those plaintiffs won the case.

Mr. Davis urged reporters to question Mr. Obama about training
sessions he had done for Acorn. "What were you teaching them?" Mr.
Davis asked. "Were you teaching them how to evade the law?"

Lewis Goldberg, a spokesman for Acorn, said Mr. Obama conducted two
leadership training sessions of roughly an hour each for Acorn's
Chicago affiliate over a three-year period in the late 1990s. He was
not paid for that work, Mr. Goldberg said.

Even before Friday's conference call, Republicans had made much of an
$832,598 payment made in February by the Obama campaign to Citizens
Services Inc., a consulting firm affiliated with Acorn.

"This organization is not just related to but deeply ingrained in the
Acorn organization, a front group for Acorn," Mr. Davis said.

The Obama campaign initially reported that the payment was for
"staging, sound, lighting" and other advance work when it reported its
expenditures with the Federal Election Commission. It filed amended
reports in August and September to reflect that those payments were
for get-out-the-vote efforts.

Mr. Davis contended that the original filing was an effort to "hide
the fact" that money was paid to Acorn. But F.E.C. officials have said
such amended filings are common.

Citizens Services typically contracts with Acorn and its affiliates
for work like that done for the Obama campaign. Mr. Goldberg, the
Acorn spokesman, said that less than $80,000 of the Obama campaign's
payment to Citizens Services went to Acorn. Jeff Robinson, executive
vice president of Citizens Services, did not return a call inquiring
how the rest of the money was spent.

In 1992, Mr. Obama was personally involved in voter registration
efforts when he served as director of Project Vote in Chicago, helping
to register 150,000 voters on the South Side. His success was widely
written about at the time and credited with helping to elect Senator
Carol Moseley Braun, the first African-American woman in the Senate.

Mr. LaBolt emphasized that Project Vote and Acorn were not as
intertwined at that time as they are today, when a significant part of
Project Vote's revenues flow to Acorn and various of its affiliates as
payment for services.

But according to Sam Graham-Felsen, who blogs on the Obama campaign's
Web site, Mr. Obama himself linked his 1992 work to Acorn in a meeting
with Acorn's leaders in November.

"Even before I was an elected official, when I ran Project Vote voter
registration drives in Illinois, Acorn was smack dab in the middle of
it, and we appreciate your work," Mr. Obama said, according to a post
Mr. Graham-Felsen made in February.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/11/us/politics/11acorn.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&oref=slogin


On Thu, Oct 23, 2008 at 2:47 PM, Kenneth Marcy <kmmos1 at verizon.net> wrote:
> On Wednesday 22 October 2008 05:39:43 Kenneth Marcy wrote:
>> Jeanne Cummings  –  Tue Oct 21, 8:47 pm ET
>>
>> The Republican National Committee has spent more than $150,000 to clothe
>> and accessorize vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin and her family
>> since her surprise pick by John McCain in late August.
>
> The notion that has pegged my irony meter's Vu gauges on their right posts is
> that Palin's fashion finery is a clear, specific, literal, itemized violation
> of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, also known as the
> McCain-Feingold Act. Title III -- Miscellaneous, Section 313, Use of
> Contributed Amounts for Certain Purposes (2 USC 439a), (b) Prohibited Use. --
> (1) In General. -- A contribution or donation described in subsection (a)
> shall not be converted by any person to personal use.
> (2) Conversion. -- For the purposes of paragraph (1), a contribution or
> donation shall be considered to be converted to personal use if the
> contribution or amount is used to fulfill any commitment, obligation or
> expense of a person that would exist irrespective of the candidate's election
> campaign or individual's duties as a holder of Federal office, including --
> "(A) a home mortgage, rent or utility payment;
> "(B) a clothing purchase;
> and items (C) through (I) follow here.
>
> Given the multiple trillions of dollars of damage done to the federal treasury
> via this administration's military actions and regulatory inactions, the
> legalities of which are here undiscussed, it is tempting to dismiss Palin's
> campaign couture as immaterial chump change. Yet McCain's name remains on the
> legislation. Will he have the decency and the honor to respect the law he
> fought to enact? Will he recognize his own campaign's actions under it?
>
>
> Ken
>
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