Chinese dairy knew milk fault weeks before recall

Chinese dairy knew milk fault weeks before recall

Does anyone really believe, that the "market economy" and capitalist thinking introduced and pushed by deviant and corrupt Chinese leaders whose perverted world outlook has been shaped by backroom payoffs in the same manner as received by any American politicians from the Wall Street coupon clippers working in league with the likes of capitalist sooth-sayers such as Alan Greenspan in the name of the wonderfully sounding "harmonious development," which is said to be part of "Chinese culture," as the right-wing, reactionary Cato Institute and Heritage Foundation "educate" a "new generation" of Chinese youth in "business administration," rather than, the Communist Party of China doing its job in educating the working people and peasants in Marxism where socialist humanism is elevated to the highest level, can escape these kinds of atrocious, uncaring and anti-human aspects of a "free market economy" as working people are told, for some unstated reason--- and without any basis or substance to back it up--- that working people will have to wait for twenty to one-hundred years to attain their very basic and fundamental human rights?

It is because the "leaders" of China have pushed down, rather than raised up, the working class and peasantry to suit the interests of the profit gouging capitalist corporations of the West, that China now finds itself entangled in the same web of corruption and working class repression as any capitalist country... including the most corrupt and repressive of them all--- the United States of America.

This problem of contaminated milk powder went on for weeks making hundreds of babies sick simply because working people and peasants in China have been removed from the decision making process and no longer feel free to bring forward and report this kind of wrong-doing... no different than the more than two-million casino workers employed here in the United States in the Indian Gaming Industry who--- working without ANY rights--- have even less rights than Chinese workers and peasants; who, too, like Chinese workers, are now too intimidated and bullied to tell law enforcement agencies about prostitution, drug dealing, loan-sharking, and the illegal gambling operations that are now bringing corruption even to the youth in American high schools as these illegal betting rings operating out of the casinos make pay-offs to high school quarterbacks and pitchers to throw the games and manipulate point spreads for these bookies to make profits.

As both socialist Minnesota Governors, Floyd B. Olson and Elmer A. Benson, repeatedly pointed out, it is the epitome of naivete, to think or suggest, that the corruption which permeates every facet of our lives--- from the church to the schoolroom to the corporate boardrooms to the offices of mayors and the Sate Houses and Halls of Congress--- can be eliminated as long as capitalist greed is the dominant force and motivator of any society.

Both Floyd B. Olson and Elmer A. Benson were very clear on this point: For humanity to rise above the corruption and decadence of capitalist society, a new system of cooperative socialism would have to be brought into existence by working people and farmers, united, who were sincere in desiring real change... the Minnesota Farmer Labor Party, like the Chinese Communist Party tried to make the needed change--- both met stiff opposition from the same very powerful capitalist class of Wall Street coupon clippers.

One would think that working class Communists and peasants in China would have come forward already and said the same thing Barack Obama is saying about the situation here regarding eight long years of the Bush-Cheney Administration--- the most corrupt in American history: ENOUGH.

Simply taking these crooked and corrupt culprits in the management of this Chinese dairy enterprise out in a cow pasture and putting a bullet in their heads is not enough... because those who do the bribing and foster the corruption are being placed on a pedestal and elevated to positions of high power and influence.

Chinese workers--- like workers, peasants and farmers everywhere--- need to get rid of capitalism rather than give in to the perversions of "market socialism" and "new thinking," which are nothing more than code-words for allowing capitalism and all forms of exploitation and corruption to thrive.

Again, as Barack Obama has pointed out, "You can put lipstick on a pig. It's still a pig. You can wrap up an old fish in a piece of paper and call it change. It's still going to stink after eight years. We've had enough."

The same thing can be said of "harmonious development" and "market socialism" which is nothing more than putting lipstick on someone like Sarah Palin... call it what you will, capitalism is still capitalism... capitalism is the same corrupt, rotten system no matter what pretty words are used to try to disguise it... no different than a pretty face with lipstick intended to hide what comes out of the mouth as the most backward and reactionary ideas of warmongers and the Wall Street coupon clippers of the military-financial-industrial complex who have built state-monopoly capitalism into a vast web of imperialism now infecting even socialist China with its poisonous corruption.

Certainly, if the American people "have had enough," the Chinese people don't want more of what we want to get rid of.

Alan L. Maki

Chinese dairy knew milk fault weeks before recall


Sep 13, 7:22 AM (ET)

By JOE McDONALD


BEIJING (AP) - A Chinese dairy that sold milk powder linked to kidney stones in infants and one death knew weeks before it ordered a recall that the product contained a banned chemical, the Health Ministry said Saturday.

The official Xinhua News Agency reported Saturday that the dairy, Sanlu Group Col, was ordered to stop production as the number of sick babies rose to 432.

A Health Ministry statement gave no indication why Sanlu Group Co., China's biggest milk powder producer, failed to warn consumers immediately. Employees who answered the phone Saturday at the ministry's news office and at China's product safety agency said they had no more information.

In August, Sanlu's testing revealed melamine in the milk powder, a ministry statement said. Melamine is a toxic chemical used in plastics that contaminated pet food last year.

The ministry did not say when Sanlu alerted authorities about its findings but the dairy ordered a recall Thursday of 700 tons of formula made before Aug. 6.

A New Zealand dairy cooperative that owns part of Sanlu said Friday it believed none of the tainted powder was exported.

Kidney problems in infants were reported as early as mid-July but authorities failed to launch a food safety investigation, Xinhua said in a separate report. Another news report said the dairy received complaints as early as March.

Investigators are questioning 78 people about the contamination, which occurred when dairy farmers added melamine to the milk, possibly to make its protein content appear higher, Xinhua said. Melamine is rich in nitrogen and standard tests for protein in bulk food ingredients measure nitrogen levels.

The incident reflects China's enduring problems with product safety despite a shake up of its regulatory system following a spate of warnings and recalls about tainted toothpaste, faulty tires and other goods.

The biggest group of victims is in China itself, where shoddy or counterfeit products are common. Infants, hospital patients and others have been killed or injured by tainted or fake milk, medicines, liquor and other products.

The number of infants suffering kidney stones after being fed Sanlu formula has risen to 432, Xinhua said. It did not give a breakdown of where in China the cases were.

Xinhua cited a Gansu provincial health department spokesman as saying he received reports on July 16 that 16 infants under a year old, all of whom drank Sanlu milk, were suffering a rare kidney ailment. He said the Health Ministry launched an epidemic survey.

"However, there seemed no food and safety survey had been done. Otherwise, the health, and even lives, of many infants could have been saved," Xinhua said.

A Sanlu manager quoted by the newspaper Beijing News said the dairy received complaints in March and June but could not track down the problem.

Another Sanlu manager quoted Friday on the Web site of a leading Chinese business magazine, Caijing, said it refrained from making an announcement because some grocers refused to return tainted powder. The report did not say why that prevented a warning.

Sanlu buys milk from a nationwide network of suppliers that includes 60,000 family farms, according to the company's Web site.

In Taiwan, officials said they had seized thousands of pounds of milk powder produced by Sanlu after Beijing authorities notified them the product was tainted.

Liu Fang-ming of the Taoyuan county government said the shipment, which arrived in June, contained 55,115 pounds of milk powder, but only 21,660 pounds have been recovered so far.

Officials did not say whether any of the milk powder, which is used in baby milk formula and baked goods, had been consumed in Taiwan.

Taiwan has not reported any illnesses from the powder.

It was China's second high-profile case in four years involving harmful baby formula.

In 2004, more than 200 infants suffered malnutrition and at least 12 died after being fed phony formula that contained no nutrients. Some 40 companies were found to be making phony formula and 47 people were arrested.

---

Associated Press researcher Bonnie Cao in Beijing contributed to this report.

Rosenberg transcripts raise possibility of perjury

In politics being with someone fifty-percent of the time over this or that issue might be appropriate to say, "Ok, I can support a dumb donkey like Al Franken or even a phony, fake and a fraud like Barack Obama"... but, in a system of justice where the electric chair is the consequence, being right fifty-percent of the time is not acceptable... nor is it excusable... even if, contrary to the opinions of a few jingoistic bigots, the one in the electric chair, Ethel Rosenberg, happens to be a member of the Communist Party USA. Apparently this is something too complex for the "journalists" and editors of the New York Times to comprehend.

This on-going "story" about Julius and Ethel Rosenberg demonstrates the way the American people get sucked into believing a bunch of lies.

The New York Times was (and still is) the "flag ship" of anti-communism in defense of this rotten capitalist system--- and, the primary peddler of lies for state-monopoly capitalism.

There is no lie too big and no lie too small that the New York Times will not peddle if it serves the interest and aims of protecting capitalism--- the Rosenberg Case is a primary example of what these capitalist sooth-sayers are capable of.

The story in today's New York Times--- which I republish following this Associated Press story which is based on the New York Times story--- is a case in point.

I know for a fact that the New York Times lies and creates stories--- fabricates entirely false stories intended to mislead and disorient--- to suit the purposes of the Wall Street coupon clippers--- because this dirty yellow rag passing itself off as a journalistic endeavor, has fabricated stories about me claiming its reporters "interviewed me" when the only thing I told them was to "get fucked." The first such story they did about me was when the New York Times tried to implicate me as part of some kind of "communist conspiracy to kill George Wallace" on the day this fascist bastard was shot simply because I organized several demonstrations in protest against this racist slime-ball who was an advocate of segregation and Jim Crow laws as he criss-crossed the country in defense of "states rights"--- code words George Wallace used to advocate racism and fascism.

The "story" about me was later proven false and an intentional fabrication, many years later when Michigan's Ingham County Circuit Court Judge Thomas Brown ordered my "red squad file" released, the "news story" demonstrated to have been a concoction between FBI agents and the Michigan State Police "Red Squad" and the staff of the New York Times with the stated and intended aim of slandering me in order to try to destroy my credibility. J. Edgar Hoover, personally, used the term, "neutralize" in reference to this false and concocted story published in the New York Times.

I wouldn't believe a single word the New York Times publishes about any members of the Communist Party USA or anything it publishes about the Soviet Union or any socialist country. In fact, it usually has to create lies to make this country appear to be the world's "great bastion of democracy" since nothing could be further from the truth as the Rosenberg Case amply demonstrates.

Since the New York Times was the primary newspaper calling for the execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, at the time and has repeatedly defended the Truman and Eisenhower Administrations in this case and was the "flag ship" newspaper leading the charge to destroy the Communist Party USA from 1948 on, including turning the prosecutions of the leading members of the Communist Party USA during the Foley Square Trial into the witch hunt it became against the left in this country with the stated intent to destroy the left-wing leadership of organized labor--- the same "leftists" George Bush told the Republican National Convention during his staged televised appearance because Republicans were afraid his presence in St. Paul would create a stinking mess for McCain.

It is quite apparent, from these articles now appearing about the Rosenberg case to the attacks on Barack Obama's childhood mentor, Frank Marshall Davis, that the decision has been made to take the phony, and now exposed for what it is--- a cheap political gimmick to hoodwink the gullible American public--- the "case against terrorism" to the next level of "anti-communism;" hence George Bush moving from being the foremost opponent of international terrorism to being the great defender of the capitalist staus quo against the "leftists," even though he didn't dare come to St. Paul. As we all know, had George Bush had the courage to come to St. Paul, possibly the largest demonstration in American history would have taken place against him and the big-business policies of the Republican Party.

The New York Times is now doing with Morton Sobell and the Rosenbergs what Cliff Kincaid and the fascist band of ruling-class remnants of Hitler lovers financing his lies concocted under the guise that anti-communism is tantamount to American patriotism in what they have attempted to do to Frank Marshall Davis.

It is very interesting that the New York Times would continue on its anti-communist crusade using "spies for the Soviet Union" as a pretext for prepping the American people for what will be the most nasty and dirty Presidential campaign in American history.

It is no coincidence that Cliff Kincaid and his fascist backers have gone so far as to say that Barack Obama is not entitled to National Security briefings because his childhood mentor was Frank Marshall Davis, a long-time proud member of the Communist Party USA... and this New York Times story adds fuel--- based upon more lies--- to fuel the anti-Obama drive to come which is more than anything an attack on those working for peace and social & economic justice; just as the McCarthyite witch hunt of the fifties was an attack on this same movement for peace and social & economic justice--- again, Morton Sobell, Julius & Ethel Rosenberg and Frank Marshall Davis are being used, right along with George Bush trying to smear all of his opponents as "leftists."

In fact, there is probably no way to "check the facts" involved in the Rosenberg frame-up because who would believe that the United States Department of Justice and the FBI... the very agencies who are responsible for framing the Rosenbergs through intimidating and scaring "witnesses" to lie and perjure themselves initially, have not tampered with the Grand Jury testimonies which has been kept from public view and inspection for over fifty-years has not been tampered with in order to continue the lies.

The United States Department of Justice and the FBI have to continue with fabrications and distortions of the facts surrounding the Rosenbergs in order to protect themselves and cover up their own hideous deeds... among one such hideous and dirty deed of the worst order is the cold-blooded murder of Ethel Rosenberg.

Why isn't this one living prosecutor being brought to justice for framing what even he admits in this New York Times article was his role in the cold-blooded murder of Ethel Rosenberg? The New York Times does not ask this most fundamental of all questions pertaining to the Rosenberg case.

Shamefully, the New York Times, the United States Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation now want us to believe that since they had half the case right (the case against Julius Rosenberg) they should be forgiven for executing the innocent victim in the other half of their case. This is atrocious reasoning and logic which runs counter to everything taught about "justice" to the American people from childhood on up.

In fact, neither Julius or Ethel Rosenberg were involved in any kind of "atomic espionage ring;" and even if they were, which we now know for a fact from the very mouths of those who orchestrated this vicious anti-Semitic, anti-communist frame-up--- Ethel Rosenberg was completely innocent, intentionally framed by a bunch of bigots employed by the United States government to work this country into an anti-communist frenzy because it served the purposes of U.S. imperialism and state-monopoly capitalism bent on ruling the world--- their politics, membership in the Communist Party USA--- was in no way related to the "espionage."

In fact, very real espionage agents who provided very real security information to the Soviets, who are in fact FBI agents and those employed by Military Intelligence, are presently sitting in prison and they are "card-carrying members" of the Republican Party! Not a single person, let alone any reporter for the New York Times has taken to drumming up a campaign against Republicans.

Another espionage trial is taking place right now in our country involving spies--- high level U.S. government officials who turned over state secrets to Israel--- again, card-carrying members of the Republican Party brought into "working for" the United States government by none other than George Bush and Karl Rove! Traitorous spies putting our country at the greatest risk, hired because they are loyal Republicans--- who, like all Republicans will sell their country out for a PROFIT.

What we have here are examples of more lies being used to further confuse and disorient the American public.

If Morton Sobell now really believes what the New York Times is claiming: “Now, I know it was an illusion,” Mr. Sobell said. “I was taken in.” This is his problem.

More likely than not, though, this statement is an outright fraud concocted by the New York Times with the same motivation which has motivated the New York Times for for so many years: anti-communism when it is politically expedient to serve its corporate masters and Wall Street coupon clippers. The rest of the big-business media has always been quick to join the vicious anti-communist crusades initiated by the New York Times so we shouldn't be surprised such a story would be spread without any reporters seeking to do their own research and inquiry to the real facts.

A "possibility" of perjury?

Give us all a break... this entire case against the Rosenbergs is based upon nothing other than perjury... in politics agreeing with someone fifty-percent of the time might work when it comes to supporting a bunch of Dumb Donkeys like Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, Al Franken, Jennifer Granholm, Debbie Stabenow, Carl Levin and Amy Klobuchar--- or even a bunch of Dumb Clucks like Norm Coleman, John McCain and Sarah Palin...

But, when it comes to a system of JUSTICE, it is not good enough that justice is "blind" only fifty-percent of the time--- especially when an innocent mother of two little boys ends up being murdered in cold blood in the electric chair.

I hope people think long and hard about what they are reading... and being subjected to this time around by the New York Times.

I wonder when, or if, the New York Times will ever get around to telling the American people what political party is responsible for them having unemployment compensation insurance, the right to organize unions, welfare and Social Security along with laws against racial discrimination?

Probably when they get around to telling us that the worst spies in U.S. history have been Republicans and when they get around to telling us that Henry Ford, the Mellons and the DuPonts along with Charles Lindberg were collaborating with Hitler, Mussoulini, Franco and Tojo at a time our country was supposed to be one of the leaders in the great fight to stamp out fascism--- talk about your traitors and passing on "state and industrial secrets," let's examine why it took so long--- and so many lives--- to defeat a fascist beast like Adolph Hitler... Henry Ford was not only arming the bastard... he was passing on important industrial secrets which enabled Hilter to march across Europe into Russia where the Red Army stopped him at Stalingrad while United States Steel was supplying Tojo with the scrap iron we "got back" at Pearl Harbor--- if Morton Sobell provided the Red Army with anything in the way of useful information which helped the Soviets destroy this fascist beast he should be awarded this nation's most prestigious medal of honor for having the courage to do what is right even if Henry Ford, the CEO's of United States Steel and Harry Trueman thought it wrong, not derided on the pages of a yellow rag like the New York Times.

And as far as any information Morton Sobell provided that enabled the Soviets to shoot Francis Gary Powers out of the sky over Soviet Russia--- I say "good," because the President of the United States lied, in denying to the American people and the world, that such activity was taking place... once Powers was shot from the sky this proved the U.S. ruling class as the liars and provocateurs of war that they really are... the Soviet Union is no more, but the massive U.S. military machine continues to be built up and both McCain and Obama have "pledged," about their one and only pledge during this campaign which we can trust them to keep and make good on, that they will increase military spending... reason enough for me not to give my vote away to Obama.

And, as for anything Morton Sobell provided to the Soviets which they in turn provided to the heroic Vietnamese people fighting to defend their homeland from U.S. imperialist aggression which United States Senators George McGovern and Wayne Morse described as "an illegal, unconstitutional, immoral war against a sovereign people and nation"--- again, I say "Good for Morton Sobell for doing the right thing."

At the time Morton Sobell provided this information to the Soviets it was used so that one less American soldier would have to die at the hands of the Nazi butchers and there would be one less Lidice... although, unfortunately, there followed the mass murder of Communists in Korea, a My Lai Massacre along with the "Shock and Awe" of Iraq--- now turned "quagmire." And, let us not forget the war in Afghanistan, which both John McCain/Sarah Palin and Barack Obama/Joseph Biden want to piss away more money on as the flag-draped coffins come home while even the right-wing government of Stephen Harper in Canada says, "Enough" in order to try to get re-elected.

The New York Times continues its tradition of lies, lies, lies and more lies. No wonder why the American people are stupid when it comes to war.

Morton Sobell's courageous acts are in league with the heroic young Americans who took up arms against the fascist Franco in Spain... as Minnesota Governor Elmer Benson said, in honoring the courageous Communist Congressman from Minnesota's Iron Range--- John Bernard, who put his political career on the line in voting in the United States Congress to send arms to the Abraham Lincoln Brigade and the other anti-fascists brigades in Spain--- had all America stood with John Bernard at the time there would have been a good possibility that Hitler would have been shot or hung by his own people, thus averting the bloodiest and most expensive war in world history.

Alan L. Maki




Rosenberg transcripts raise possibility of perjury


Sep 12, 8:23 AM (ET)

By PETE YOST

(AP) In this 1951 file photo, Ethel and Julius Rosenberg are shown during their trial for espionage in...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Newly released grand jury transcripts add strong evidence to the argument that the conviction and execution of Ethel Rosenberg in the Cold War's biggest espionage case were based on perjured testimony.

In recent years, one of the two key witnesses against Rosenberg recanted his testimony. It now appears that the other witness made up her testimony. too. The witnesses were Ethel's brother and sister-in-law, David and Ruth Greenglass.

Thanks to the work of a team of lawyers and historians, the government released the grand jury testimony that formed the basis for the charges against Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.

At the Rosenbergs' trial, the Greenglasses testified that Ethel Rosenberg had typed stolen atomic secrets from notes provided by David Greenglass. The testimony provided the direct involvement the jury needed to convict Ethel Rosenberg and that the judge in the case needed to sentence her to death.

On Thursday, after spending several hours poring over the transcripts, the lawyers and historians spotted a major omission in Ruth Greenglass' testimony to the grand jury. Nowhere does Ruth Greenglass tell the story about seeing Ethel Rosenberg type up the secrets.

In fact, in her grand jury testimony, Ruth Greenglass says she herself wrote out the secrets in longhand. That testimony is consistent with subsequently decrypted Soviet cables from the time in which the Soviets describe material received from the Rosenbergs as being in longhand.

Also Thursday, a man who was convicted with the Rosenbergs on espionage charges in 1951 admitted for the first time that he spied for the Soviet Union.

Morton Sobell, 91, told The New York Times that he turned over military secrets to the Soviets during World War II, when the country was allied with Washington fighting the Nazis. Asked if he was spying, he said: "Yeah, yeah, yeah, call it that. I never thought of it as that in those terms."

Sobell, who lives in New York, was released from prison in 1969 and had maintained his innocence.

In the interview for the Times' Friday editions, Sobell, an electrical engineer, said the equipment he stole for the Russians were radar and artillery devices, not atomic secrets.

Sobell said he believes Ethel Rosenberg was aware of espionage by her husband but didn't actively participate. "What was she guilty of? Of being Julius's wife," he said.

The grand jury testimony from Ruth Greenglass confirms that the trial testimony about Ethel Rosenberg typing secrets is a fabrication, said Georgetown University law professor David Vladeck, part of the team that succeeded in gaining public release of the transcripts.

"The Rosenberg case illustrates the excesses that can occur when we're afraid," said Meredith Fuchs, general counsel to the National Security Archive, one of the private groups that fought in court to get the testimony released.

"In the 1950s, we were afraid of communism; today, we're afraid of terrorism. We don't want to make the same mistakes we made 50 years ago," Fuchs said.

The material reveals that nearly four dozen witnesses testified to the grand jury. Only four of them testified at the Rosenbergs' trial. Among those who did not testify at the trial but did testify to the grand jury were a man and wife who the FBI believed were Soviet agents.

But they never were charged and the transcripts show that prosecutors made no effort to question any of the grand jury witnesses about a series of stolen U.S. non-nuclear defense secrets that the government felt many of the witnesses knew about. The stolen secrets included proximity fuses used by the Soviets to shoot down the U-2 spy plane of Francis Gary Powers.

The government also had evidence that the Rosenberg ring gave the Soviets secrets about airborne radar, land-based radar, analog computers used for guiding anti-aircraft weapons and information for the first designs of U.S. jet engines, said Steve Usdin, an author who helped win release of the grand jury material.

Why didn't the grand jury delve into the theft of non-nuclear secrets?

"I think that discussion of all of these other secrets that they gave the Soviets probably would have caused a great deal of alarm among the public and would have raised questions about the competence of American counterintelligence," said Usdin.



New York Times article:

Figure in Rosenberg Case Admits to Soviet Spying

Through it all, he maintained his innocence.

But on Thursday, Mr. Sobell, 91, dramatically reversed himself, shedding new light on a case that still fans smoldering political passions. In an interview, he admitted for the first time that he had been a Soviet spy.

And he implicated his fellow defendant Julius Rosenberg, in a conspiracy that delivered to the Soviets classified military and industrial information and what the American government described as the secret to the atomic bomb.

In the interview with The New York Times, Mr. Sobell, who lives in the Riverdale neighborhood of the Bronx, was asked whether, as an electrical engineer, he turned over military secrets to the Soviets during World War II when they were considered allies of the United States and were bearing the brunt of Nazi brutality. Was he, in fact, a spy?

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, call it that,” he replied. “I never thought of it as that in those terms.”

Mr. Sobell also concurred in what has become a consensus among historians: that Ethel Rosenberg, who was executed with her husband, was aware of Julius’s espionage, but did not actively participate. “She knew what he was doing,” he said, “but what was she guilty of? Of being Julius’s wife.”

Mr. Sobell made his revelations on Thursday as the National Archives, in response to a lawsuit from the nonprofit National Security Archive, historians and journalists, released most of the grand jury testimony in the espionage conspiracy case against him and the Rosenbergs.

Coupled with some of that grand jury testimony, Mr. Sobell’s admission bolsters what has become a widely held view among scholars: that Mr. Rosenberg was, indeed, guilty of spying, but that his wife was at most a bit player in the conspiracy and may have been framed by complicit prosecutors.

The revelations on Thursday “teach us what people will do to get a conviction,” said Bruce Craig, a historian and the former director of the National Coalition for History, a nonprofit educational organization. “They took somebody who they basically felt was guilty and by hook or crook they were going to get a jury to find him guilty.”

The Rosenbergs’ younger son, Robert Meeropol, described Mr. Sobell’s confession Thursday as “powerful,” but said he wanted to hear it firsthand. “I’ve always said that was a possibility,” Mr. Meeropol said, referring to the question of his father’s guilt. “This is certainly evidence that would corroborate that possibility as a reality.”

In the interview, Mr. Sobell drew a distinction between atomic espionage and the details of radar and artillery devices that he said he stole for the Russians. “What I did was simply defensive, an aircraft gun,” he said. “This was defensive. You cannot plead that what you did was only defensive stuff, but there’s a big difference between giving that and stuff that could be used to attack our country.”

(One device mentioned specifically by Mr. Sobell, however, the SCR 584 radar, is believed by military experts to have been used against American aircraft in Korea and Vietnam.)

Echoing a consensus among scientists, Mr. Sobell also maintained that the sketches and other atomic bomb details that the government said were passed along to Julius Rosenberg by Ethel’s brother, David Greenglass, were of little value to the Soviets, except to corroborate what they had already gleaned from other moles. Mr. Greenglass was an Army machinist at Los Alamos, N.M., where the weapon was being built.

“What he gave them was junk,” Mr. Sobell said of Julius Rosenberg, his classmate at City College of New York in the 1930s.

The charge was conspiracy, though, which meant that the government had to prove only that the Rosenbergs were intent on delivering military secrets to a foreign power. “His intentions might have been to be a spy,” Mr. Sobell added.

After David Greenglass was arrested, Mr. Sobell fled to Mexico and lived under false names until he was captured — kidnapped, he maintained — and returned to the United States in August 1950. He said he was innocent, but his lawyer advised him not to testify at his trial. He was sentenced to 30 years imprisonment and was released in 1969. The Rosenbergs were executed in the electric chair at Sing Sing in 1953 after President Dwight D. Eisenhower turned down an appeal for clemency.

In an interview for a 2001 book by this reporter, “The Brother,” Mr. Greenglass acknowledged that he had lied when he testified that his sister had typed his notes about the bomb — the single most incriminating evidence against her. His allegation emerged months after Mr. Greenglass and his wife testified before the grand jury and only weeks before the 1951 trial.

Government prosecutors later acknowledged that they had hoped that a conviction and the possibility of a death sentence against Ethel Rosenberg would persuade her husband to confess and implicate others, including some agents known to investigators through secretly intercepted Soviet cables.

That strategy failed, said William P. Rogers, who was the deputy attorney general at the time. “She called our bluff,” he said in “The Brother.”

The grand jury testimony released on Thursday by the National Archives appeared to poke even more holes in the case against Ethel Rosenberg, who was 34 and the mother of two young sons when she appeared before the grand jury and was arrested on the courthouse steps after her testimony.

Bowing to David Greenglass’s objections, a federal judge declined to release his testimony. But the transcripts released on Thursday reveal that his wife, Ruth, in her grand jury appearance, never mentioned typing by Ethel Rosenberg, said she transcribed Mr. Greenglass’s notes in longhand on at least one occasion herself and placed Ethel Rosenberg out of earshot during several important conversations.

“It means the grand jury testimony by Ruth Greenglass directly contradicts the charge against Ethel Rosenberg that put her in the electric chair,” said Thomas S. Blanton, director of the National Security Archive, a nonprofit group based at George Washington University that challenges government secrecy.

Ronald Radosh, a scholar of the case and a plaintiff in the suit to release the grand jury minutes, said the testimony “confirms what we always suspected, that they manufactured the typing story at the last minute.”

Still, the grand jury transcripts indicate that Mrs. Rosenberg was aware of the conspiracy. Spying was broached the first time by her husband in 1944 at the Rosenbergs’ Knickerbocker Village apartment in Lower Manhattan, Mrs. Greenglass testified. “I was horrified,” she said, but added that Mrs. Rosenberg “urged me to talk to David. She felt that even if I was against it, I should at least discuss it with him and hear what he had to say.”

Mrs. Greenglass, who died earlier this year, said her sister-in-law also was in the kitchen when Julius bisected the side of a Jell-O box that a courier would use as a signal to retrieve atomic secrets from David Greenglass.

But David C. Vladeck, the lawyer who argued for the grand jury transcripts to be released, said they had inconsistencies with the trial testimony that might have been used to undermine prosecution witnesses.

“Imagine if the Rosenbergs had a good lawyer,” he said.

Among other things, Harry Gold, a confessed courier for the spy ring, told the grand jury that “everything I have done for the past 15 years, practically all of my adult life, was based on lies and deceptions.” He said he had met Julius Rosenberg, which contradicted his other accounts. And he does not invoke before the grand jury the damning password, “I come from Julius,” that he mentioned during the trial.

The nearly 1,000 pages of grand jury transcripts are peppered with aggressive, sometimes belligerent jousting by prosecutors with witnesses, insights into how they defended themselves, and factoids that aficionados of the case are likely to parse for years.

James Kilsheimer, the only surviving prosecutor of the Rosenberg-Sobell case, said on Thursday, “We always thought Sobell was guilty, and we knew that Julius was.” He said that the trial testimony about Ethel’s typing was not inconsistent with what Ruth Greenglass told the grand jury but was developed by him “during the pretrial process.”

Mr. Sobell, who was never implicated in atomic espionage, has been ailing, but says his long-term memory is sound. He was interviewed a number of times over the summer by Walter and Miriam Schneir, who wrote a damning indictment of the Rosenberg prosecution years ago, but who, on the basis of decoded Soviet cables and other information, have since reconsidered their verdict that Julius was completely innocent. In those interviews, Mr. Sobell has implicated himself in espionage.

“Do I believe Morty? Yes,” Mr. Schneir, who is writing a magazine article about Mr. Sobell, said on Thursday. “The details that he’s given us so far we’ve been able to check the peripheral parts, and they check out.”

Most of the protagonists in the case, Mr. Sobell included, were committed Communists at the time they spied for the Soviets. “Now, I know it was an illusion,” Mr. Sobell said. “I was taken in.”

Robert Meeropol, the Rosenbergs’ son, said that even if he were to accept Mr. Sobell’s verdict, “It’s not the end of what happened to my mother and it’s not the end of understanding what happened to due process.”

Oil brokers sex scandal may affect drilling debate

After reading articles on the sex for oil scandal like this one below which are saturating the Internet, television, radio and newspapers in this country and across the world, we would do well to remember that Jack Abramoff, one of this country's leading lobbyists, has just been sent off to prison--- although he expects to be pardoned by Bush before he leaves office.

Abramoff, if you will recall, was bribing elected public officials and bureaucrats left and right with funds "skimmed" from casinos in the Indian Gaming Industry.

The Fertitta family's "Station Casinos" were run out of Missouri after attempting to bribe high-level elected public officials and bureaucrats, but not before being assessed huge fines--- once again, Frank Fertitta was allowed to escape a good, well-deserved, stiff prison sentence.

What is noteworthy, and our mainstream media seems to have forgotten, is that Gale Norton, a partner in Brownstein/Hyatt/Farber/Schreck who was appointed by Bush to head up the Department of Interior (surprise, surprise... the same Department of Interior now embroiled in this sex for oil scandal) is responsible for approving the "Compacts" creating the Indian Gaming Industry--- and it was controversial bribes and payoffs made by Abramoff who shuffled between casinos filling brown paper shopping bags with cash from the casino managements to pay-off the politicians and high-level bureaucrats.

One has to wonder how far these corrupt, dirty deals extend into the political life of this country, especially seeing how so many elected and public officials from both political parties so easily turn their backs in indifference to the plight of this Nation's more than two-million casino workers employed at the more than 400 smoke-filled casinos strung out across this country comprising the Indian Gaming Industry where prostitution and drugs are an integral part of these casino operations.

For instance, why would Democrats, claiming to have the backing of organized labor in Minnesota and Michigan, continue approving new "Compacts" allowing more casinos to come into existence while they are fully aware of the atrocious conditions workers are placed in at the hands of these vicious, violent and sadistic mobsters operating and managing these casinos who First Nation Communities are "fronting" for?

Governor Jennifer Granholm of Michigan recently approving the Gun Lake Casino venture is a case in point.

With all the talk of "human rights" and "worker's rights" being mouthed by the so-called "leaders" organized labor along with the politicians like Governor Granholm who they back, one would think there would be greater sensitivity with less inclination by politicians to approve these casino ventures until worker's rights are protected through inclusion in these negotiated "Compacts."

What is really unusual is the lack of reported campaign contributions going to the state politicians supporting these casino ventures when campaign finances of Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John Edwards and Dennis Kucinich show huge contributions being made by the likes of the Fertitta's and other clients of Brownstein/Hyatt/Farber/Schreck which would lead anyone to suspect that drugs and sex might be replacing campaign contributions when it comes to the Indian Gaming Industry... yet, there are no investigations of this industry on a level of what is taking place relating to the oil industry as far as the United States Department of Interior is concerned; again, any thinking person would have to believe the corruption in the Indian Gaming Industry goes well beyond Jack Abramoff and pay-offs and bribery of elected public officials and bureaucrats in Missouri... and most likely far beyond the sex for oil scandal now unfolding in the oil industry.

One has to wonder if there isn't similar corruption involved in the peat mining for casino deal in Northern Minnesota's Big Bog. We know that politicians were wined and dined by Red Lake Nation politicians and their gaming board, and partying even took place in the Minnesota Attorney General's own office with Mike Hatch present!

Capitalism has spun the most pernicious web of graft, greed and corruption in business and politics to the point where every facet of life in America has now been tainted--- ironically--- by politicians claiming to own the "family values" issues.

The Democratic Party at its National Convention shunned former President Jimmy Carter while John Edwards was in hiding and Bill Clinton was brought out as a champion and star of the Democratic Party--- a man, who used and abused the highest political office in the land to gain sexual favors from a White House intern... but, apparently it is better to have a pathetic scum-ball like Bill Clinton speaking for Democrats than a former President who feels the Palestinian people are darn near close to being considered as human beings. And what do we hear from the delegates and State Chairs of the Democratic Party as Bill Clinton is elevated to sainthood as Jimmy Carter is relegated to the position of an "unwelcome person" and persona non-grata as Dennis Kucinich agrees to having his speech censored by these same corrupt bigots now in complete and total control of the Democratic Party which some party hacks, including those like Sirota, Borosage, Davidson, Webb, Wendland and Hayden proclaim to be the "democratization" of the Democratic Party?

Senator Debbie Stabenow can defend her husband who hires a barely legal age prostitute to give him blow-jobs at a sleazy motel, but, Stabenow can't stand up for the rights of casino workers employed at poverty wages in smoke-filled casinos without any rights as she remains just as silent while Jimmy Carter is shunned by the top-dogs in the Democratic Party for saying that the Palestinian people are human beings.

The entire political process has become corrupt beyond the comprehension of most people and working people are the big losers... this entire process is what really stinks like dead fish kept in old newspapers for eight years... and Sarah Palin, lipstick and all... is part of the entire stinking mess... right along with George Bush, Dick Cheney, Bill Clinton, Gale Norton and Brownstein/Hyatt/Farber/Schreck and Jack Abramoff who awaits his Presidential Pardon.

In fact, in light of all of this corruption, what could be any worse? Having a warmonger and war-criminal sitting in the White House being portrayed to the world as a hero because he was shot out of the sky while dropping napalm and cluster bombs on innocent Vietnamese people tending to their rice paddies.

Anyways, read the article below... it will give your family something to think about while eating dinner around the kitchen table... if your stomach can handle the discussion.

Alan L. Maki
Director of Organizing,
Midwest Casino Workers Organizing Council

Oil brokers sex scandal may affect drilling debate

By H. JOSEF HEBERT, Associated Press Writer

Thursday September 11, 2008

Link: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080911/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/interior_oil_scandal


WASHINGTON - A scandal involving sex, drugs and — uh, offshore oil drilling. It's a strange mix, and it couldn't have come at a worse time for those in Congress pressing to expand oil and gas development off America's beaches while trying to stave off an election-year rush by Democrats to impose new taxes and royalties on the oil industry.

An Interior Department investigation describing a "culture of substance abuse and promiscuity" by workers at the agency that issues offshore drilling leases and collects royalties hit lawmakers Wednesday just as they prepared for votes next week on expanding offshore drilling.

"On the eve of Congress starting this big debate you've got a horror story of mismanagement and misconduct in programs that are going to be a key part of the discussion," Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said in an interview, adding that it can't help but influence the debate.

The two-year, $5.3 million investigation by Interior's inspector general found workers at the Minerals Management Service's royalty collection office in Denver partying, having sex, using drugs and accepting gifts and ski trips and golf outings from energy company representatives with whom they did government business.

The investigations exposed "a culture of ethical failure" and an agency rife with conflicts of interest, Inspector General Earl E. Devaney said.

Between 2002 and 2006, 19 oil marketers — nearly a third of the Denver office staff — received gifts and gratuities from oil and gas companies, including Chevron Corp., Shell, Hess Corp. and Denver-based Gary-Williams Energy Corp., the investigators found.

"Employees frequently consumed alcohol at industry functions, had used cocaine and marijuana, and had sexual relationships with oil and natural gas company representatives" who referred to some of the government workers as the "MMS Chicks."

The director of the royalty program had a consulting job on the side for a company that paid him $30,000 for marketing its services to various oil and gas companies, the report said.

MMS Director Randall Luthi said in an interview the agency was taking the report "extremely seriously" and would weigh taking appropriate action in coming months.

But the impact in Congress, where lawmakers are debating an expansion of the offshore oil and gas leasing program by allowing drilling in areas long off limits, was immediate.

"This is why we must not allow Big Oil's agenda to be jammed through Congress," said Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., who strongly opposes any expansion of offshore drilling, especially closer to Florida. He said the report "shows the oil industry holds shocking sway over the administration and even key federal employees."

"This IG report has it all — sex, drugs and the Bush administration officials once again in cahoots with Big Oil," said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., whose Joint Economic Committee released a report last year claiming the Minerals Management Service has failed to collect millions of dollars in oil royalties.

Republicans and Democrats promised further scrutiny of the Interior Department agency which last year handled $4.3 billion in royalty-in-kind payments from energy companies drilling on federal lands. Under the program oil companies give the government oil in lieu of cash and the MMS office in turn sells the oil on the open market.

Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said the IG report "raises very serious questions" about the royalty collection process, something especially troublesome "given the potential for expanded domestic drilling." He said some basic reforms in the royalty-in-kind program should be included in drilling legislation.

Wyden said the program should be suspended to "clean house" at the federal agency and "bring back the process of rigorous audits and accountability."

Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, planned a hearing on the investigation next week. Two of the committee's key Republicans — Reps. Tom Davis of Virginia and Darrell Issa of California — criticized Waxman for not pursuing an investigation into the royalty program earlier.

But Republicans rejected suggestions that the scandal makes the need for more offshore oil and gas any less urgent.

House Democrats on Wednesday offered a broader drilling proposal than they had floated previously. It would lift all moratoria on drilling 100 miles from shore and allow energy development beyond 50 miles from the coast if a state agrees. Waters closer than 50 miles would continue to be protected.

The drilling measure is part of a broader energy package that also would roll back tax breaks for the largest oil companies and require them to pay additional royalties, with the money to be used to spur renewable energy programs and conservation.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., called it "a strong bill that will increase responsible drilling and invest in renewable energy" and said those criticizing it would "rather have a political issue."

But House Republican leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, accused the Democrats of "trying to pull a hoax on the American people." He said the plan would result "in little or no new American energy production" because states would share no royalties and have little financial incentives to allow drilling.

The Senate, meanwhile, is expected next week to take up several drilling proposals, including one that would open waters off the Atlantic from Virginia to Georgia and the eastern Gulf off Florida to drilling but keep the bans in place elsewhere. That plan also would allow for a 50-mile coastal buffer.

___

Associated Press writer Dina Cappiello contributed to this report.

More on Police and the Republican National Convention

A number of people from a variety of walks of life and political persuasions are decrying the the abuse of power by the police during the Republican National Convention.

There is no doubt that there has been a massive, massive denial of basic constitutional rights as protected by the Bill of Rights and this repression has taken place "under color of law." Every Minnesotan concerned about our Constitutional Rights protected by the United States Bill of Rights should become a Plaintiff in a lawsuit against the police and the politicians and their bureaucrats who did intentionally, and with malice, set out to maliciously and violently trample upon the rights we have which are protected by the United States Constitution and Bill of Rights.

I think it is good that people are questioning what went on during the Republican National Convention... attacks on democracy should always be challenged; democracy must be fought for at every opportunity lest we lose our democratic rights--- limited as they are under this very repressive system of state-monopoly capitalism in the era of imperialism.

However, I find the concerns of many of these people to be very hypocritical since they only speak out when they feel "safe" as part of the "herd." They seldom speak out when the rights of working people are under attack--- daily, as in the case of casino workers.

The three commentaries below are excellent. All three of these very prominent individuals have joined in condemning the police violence and systematic suppression of democratic rights during the RNC. Their voices in defense of democracy are most welcome.

However, neither John Kolstad, who ran as the Green Party candidate for Attorney General, Peter Rachleff, the distinguished professor of history, nor Charley Underwood, a member of the Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party State Central Committee and peace activist and publisher of the "Peace Calendar," have ever demonstrated one iota of concern for the plight of casino workers whose daily lives are marked by this same kind of brutal suppression of their very basic human and constitutional rights by casino managements working in league with United States Information Services (USIS which is made up of former and retired FBI and CIA agents now working as union busters in private industry supplanting the notorious Pinkerton Detective Agency) the FBI and the Minnesota Department of Public Safety.

None-the-less, I find their commentaries very noteworthy and important even though their "concern" for democracy is very "selective" in excluding the rights of Minnesota's thirty-thousand casino workers... many of whom have been violently beaten, including in their own homes!, by the union-busting thugs (including the thugs of Blackwater) hired by the Indian Gaming Industry; many hundreds more have been subjected to the worst kind of intimidation by the likes of those like USIS "Special Agent" George Armstrong who has called and "visited" friends, neighbors and relatives of casino workers--- including making threats to small children as young as four years old!

In fact, the police misconduct is part of a longstanding "tradition" in Minnesota in denying working people their voices and views--- from the hanging of thirty-eight Native Americans in Mankato to the bloody battles on the Iron Range to organize the United Steel Workers of America to the company thugs hired by the forestry industry to the brutal and bestial methods of the trucking bosses to suppress unionization to the police and "red squads" trampling on the rights of Ford workers as the Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party to the full-fledged McCarthyite drive to destroy the best organizations of working people, including the Minnesota Communist Party to the repression of the "left" in the trade union movement was being destroyed as a voice for all those who toil; more importantly, this is part of the intentional, long-standing process of corporate bosses denying working people the right to participate in the political process here in Minnesota--- and make no mistake, taking to the streets to vent anger at the Republicans for their part in driving down the standards of living of working people while sending their sons and daughters off to war, it is the right of working people to come together in protest and demonstration every bit as much as it is the right of Republicans to gather to organize in convention to further these attacks on the lives of working people. Somehow, for some reason, this aspect of the March Against the Republican National Convention has not been adequately conveyed. Perhaps because of media bias; perhaps because of the way the demonstration organizers have failed to convey this. Probably a combination of the two. It didn't help that most of "organized labor," the Democratic Party and the Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party and the Obama Campaign (as distinct from Obama supporters) refused to participate in demonstrating against the Republican National Convention which convened in the Twin Cities for the sole purpose of attacking the working class and carrying out the aims of U.S. imperialism.

Charley Underwood, John Kolstad and Peter Rachleff are well aware of the systematic deprivation of human, civil and constitutional rights of Minnesota's thirty-thousand casino workers, but again, selectively choose to remain silent. Now that this same undemocratic, violent and brutal behavior has been extended--- and it is popular to voice opposition and support for democracy, they throw their voices into the mix.

So, to Charley Underwood, Peter Rachleff and John Kolstad, I say "Thanks for speaking up... even if you do so only when it is personally and politically convenient for you.

I would note, that Peter Rachleff has participated in a campaign to silence working people in restricting access to the list serve of the Working Class Studies Association; Charley Underwood refuses to stand up and voice his concerns to the MN DFL State Central Committee (and it was the Democratic Party and the Minnesota DFL which are primarily responsible for the violent, brutal and repressive behavior by the various local, state and federal police agencies during the Republican National Convention as both Mayors of the Twin Cities are prominent Democrats and the Prosecuting Attorney for most of the cases--- who gave her "seal of approval," or more properly, her "stamp" of approval to these most horrendous and undemocratic police actions--- is a leading Democrat, Susan Gertner, who is going to be running for Minnesota Governor on the MN DFL ticket, and no doubt Charley Underwood will give his support to her if she is the MN DFL endorsed candidate; and, John Kolstadt, even while running as the Green Party candidate for Minnesota Attorney General, refused to condemn the dirty campaign being waged against me by the casino industry--- a malicious and vicious campaign of lies and slander not seen in the State of Minnesota since the slanderous campaign aimed at destroying the political career of Minnesota's most popular ever governor, socialist Elmer Benson.

Like I say, be all this as it is, the views of Charley Underwood, Peter Rachleff and John Kolstad are most welcome... even if they don't care that my phone lines are tapped, my e-mail is tampered with, and the FBI, Homeland Security and the RCMP can come busting into my home whenever they want as they remain silent.

Charley Underwood:

Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2008 07:42:09 +1200 (NZST)
From: Charley Underwood
Subject: Re: [SPIF] after assessment

Dean Sheldon,

You are concerned that the police had a very difficult time distinguishing
between peaceful protesters and those who intended some sort of harm. You
even say "It's not like they some different sort of hats." In reality,
there were a number of people with clearly distinguishable hats and so on,
like medics, legal observers and members of the Minnesota Peace Team.
Each of these groups had at least some members arrested and/or pepper
sprayed. But here's an even easier way to go: How about the police arrest
people doing something illegal and police leave people alone when they are
simply marching or exercising their simple free speech! And how about
police arrest people who are doing something illegal instead of torturing
them with tasers or pepper spray or other chemical weapons! That way the
judge can do the judging and the police can do the enforcing. Sort of a
simple division of labor, in my opinion.

As for the concern about people hiding their identities, I think you are a
bit confused. There were very few people against the Republican National
Convention who wore disguises by covering their faces with bandanas and so
on. There were, on the other hand, literally thousands of storm troopers
who displayed neither personal identification nor unit identification.
Last week, it was near impossible to figure out who was police (and from
what city or even state), who was state troopers, who was ICE or Secret
Service or Homeland Security or private contractors. They all wore black
storm trooper outfits. I couldn't even usually identify what gender these
folks were. Those where the ones, in my opinion, who escaped
responsibility and accountability by hiding their identity behind
paramilitary uniforms.


Peter Rachleff:

Date: Tue, Sep 9, 2008 at 2:52 PM
From: Peter Rachleff
Subject: Police State during RNC

To: Melvin.Carter@ci.stpaul.mn.us, Russ.Stark@ci.stpaul.mn.us

Dear [StPaul council members] Melvin [Carter] and Russ [Stark]:

I am sure I am not alone in having thought of both of you as
"progressives." And I am sure I am not alone in no longer thinking of you
as "progressives." Your email responses to the many emails I am sure you
received easily adopt the "we" of the authorities.

This positions you with the likes of Bob Fletcher and Homeland Security.
For shame!

And your emails conveniently ignore the police incursions into the
convergence space on Smith Avenue, private homes including Mike Whalen's
on Iglehart, private offices such as the one rented by I-Witness Video on
Selby, the targeting of journalists and videographers for arrest and
harassment, the intimidation of peaceful protestors, the harassment and
illegal detention of the 70 demonstrators riding the light rail to the
Mall of America on Sunday, August 31, the cutting off of the electricity
on Rage Against the Machine's performance at the state capitol on Tuesday,
September 2, contributing to the confrontation later at Mears Park, the
surrounding of Bedlam Theater in Minneapolis on Wednesday evening,
September 3, and more...

I know some of these events were in Minneapolis, but the police/thugs
appeared to be under a single command (Homeland Security? FBI? Fletcher?)
and not wearing distinguishing name or uniform insignia so, if you want to
stand with the authorities, you've got to take ownership of the
Minneapolis infringements on free speech and assembly, too. These events,
all expression of unbridled, unaccountable repressive power by the police,
set a context for every confrontation that unfolded during the overt
protests. 818 arrests. Were they all window-breaking "anarchists"? Last
week St. Paul sank to China's level, and I was - am - ashamed to live
here. As someone who has worked for 27 years for peace, justice, and
fairness in this community, I am heartsick at your response.

Sincerely, Peter Rachleff Professor of History Macalester College



John Kolstad:

Date: Tue, 09 Sep 2008 18:16:43 -0500
From: John Kolstad
To: Andy Driscoll
Cc: Russ Stark ,
Truth To Tell This Week
Subject: Re: responding to RNC inquiries

My wife and I have followed most of what went on from home on the
internet, since the main stream media is just about worthless, although I
was at the Permitted Anti war Parade on Labor Day. The video taped cases
of police abuse and criminal assault are many, many, many. Many of them
up on YouTube for the world to see what Mayor Coleman and Chief Harrington
have done to St Paul. The vicious arrest of Amy Goodman by Minneapolis
Police (but in St Paul) has gotten more hits than anything on Youtube.

Ch 9 video taped the two masked guys in black that broke Macy's window,
with a pipe and metal rack that just happened to be in front of the
windows, and even though there were cops everywhere it appears that these
vandals got a way. Hmmm! Is this police incompetence or were these
police contolled provocateurs? When I was there Monday for the parade, I
could not step on the sidewalk to greet a friend without the police
telling me I'd get arrested if I did not stay with the parade.

I have read reports of a Indy media person who said he had documentation
of the burning dumpster being pushed into the squad and the squad windows
being broke. In both cases he said that the police arrested the wrong
person for this vandalism and the vandal got away.

Again, is this incompetence or police provocateurs? Yet these are the
incidents that the media play over and over to give the impresssion that
there was much criminal activity by the protesters. This looks and smells
like a set up to me and the media were embedded. Hmmmmmmmm.

The police all along the parade route had video and still cameras. If any
of the things Mr Stark asserts are true, then certainly the police have
extensive documentation of it. However, if there is evidence and
documentation that the police arrested the wrong people and let the
vandals go (or were inept to catch them), then this is a gravely serious
situation of criminal corruption by the police. Although reports are as
yet incomplete, the only vandal caught that I am aware of was caught by
the protestors. The vandal slashed bus tires and the police did not catch
him, the public did. This case needs to be carefully looked at to make
sure that the captured vandal is the one the police prosecute and see if
he may be a provocateur.

There were many hundreds of indymedia, legal observers, and street Medics.
Not one single report from any of them has verified what Mr Stark asserts.
Even if some of these assertions are true, why did the authorities not
arrest the perpetrators? We know from past events that the police and
government hire provocateurs to do violence then the police and media
blame the legal, peaceful protesters, giving them the excuse to savage
citizens exercising their First Amendment right to Free Speech and
Peaceable Asssembly for redress of grievances.

I think Mr Stark should withdraw his assertion and apologize unless and
until he can clearly document all charges and assertions. Also, he should
reveal who he has been getting his information from. With St Paul facing
unprecedented humiliation for the conduct of the police and City Official,
plus multi million dollar lawsuits, it would not be surprising for
officials to do some spinning. Unfortunately the pay out from these
lawsuits come out of the public pocket. So first the cops abuse citizens,
and then when the cops lose in court, the public has to pay for it. This
is a double Whammy. May I humbly suggest that pay outs for lawsuits
involving police abuse come from the Police Retirement Fund. This would
give incentive to members of the force to stop or prevent actionable abuse
by collegues. Clearly police management has been a failure to accomplish
this.

So Mr Stark, where's the beef or where's the apology and investigation?

Sincerely,
John R Kolstad/Mpls

As I say, I find these comments from these three individuals very appropriate to the issues surrounding the Republican National Convention... I just wish their concerns were more universal towards the plight of working people and I hope that one day, they will sit down at their desks, pen in hand, and write about the plight of casino workers here in Minnesota who work, daily, without any rights under state or federal labor laws--- and without any rights under the United States Constitution and Bill of Rights--- while at work... and, as Charley Underwood, John Kolstad and Peter Rachleff are fully aware... when workers have no rights at work, they have no rights in the communities or the state where they reside.

More than two-million casino workers are now employed in smoke-filled casinos across the United States at the more than 400 casinos comprising the Indian Gaming Industry. These two-million casino workers all receive poverty wages... all work without any rights under state, federal or tribal labor laws--- without any protections under the United States Constitution or Bill of Rights.

The Indian gaming Industry was created with the connivance of the Democratic Party.

I want to be very clear here because, for these more than two-million casino workers, the deprivation of their very basic and fundamental human rights is not limited to one occurrence during a Republican National Convention--- this brutal deprivation of their very basic and fundamental human and constitutional rights takes place at the hands of those who are funding the Democratic Party, the Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party and the Universities: the owners and managements of this Indian Gaming Industry casino empire which includes Mystic Lake and Red Lake casinos and the casino empire managed by the big Democratic Party backers who own and operate the huge Grand Casino empire, the Fon Du Lac and Fortune Bay casino empires, etc.

Charley Underwood was so depressed after his candidate, Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer, lost out in the rigged DFL endorsing process--- but, Charlie Underwood does not understand how depressing it is for casino workers to have to live their complete lives in fear because the MN DFL, to which Charley Underwood is so dedicated to the point of failing to recognize that there is a pattern to war and political repression of which the Democratic Party is a part of the powerful apparatus designed to repress the entire working class.

Charlie Underwood, Peter Rachleff and John Kolstad have no clue to the real state of democracy in this country... they don't even understand, that for any casino worker to write letters as they have written and freely circulate concerning police repression around the RNC, for a casino worker to pen such letters would mean the immediate termination from employment.

If Charlie Underwood, Peter Rachleff or John Kolstad--- or anyone else for that matter--- doubt the truthfulness of my statement, they don't have a clue to what goes on in this country... recently I represented a casino worker fired from his job at Mystic Lake Casino simply for making a posting to his blog... concerning a discussion he had with Michael Cavlan who had been seeking the Green Party nomination for United States Senate but because of his support for working people and their struggles was denied the nomination--- the Minnesota Green Party shamefully chose to run no candidate for United States Senate rather than choose to endorse a champion of working class issues... and, Mike Cavlan was in the front lines at the RNC... treating those who were getting beaten and gassed by the police.

I share the concerns of John Kolstad, Peter Rachleff and Charley Underwood concerning what the police did during the RNC... I especially think John Kolstad raises a very important point regarding the possibility of the police using paid provocateurs in order to justify the wholesale abuse and deprivation of human, civil and constitutional rights.

I also notice that Charley Underwood, Peter Rachleff and John Kolstad also intentionally choose not to discuss the massive presence of riot police who turned out at the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant on September 3 in order to prevent a peaceful picket advocating public ownership of the Ford Plant as a solution to two-thousand workers being thrown out into the streets as the plant closes and the hydro dam powering the operation since its existence turned over to a private corporation. Again, Underwood, Rachleff and Kolstad chose to intentionally ignore something in their writings on this issue even though it is directly related to the very same issue they pretend to be so concerned about--- police misconduct during the RNC.

I have sent my concerns to liberal St. Paul Council member, Mr. Thune, and received no response.

I will be publishing the hundreds of photos I took during the Labor Day March on the RNC along with the concerns of many of those who marched--- and those who were afraid to march because they feared the police, fears which were, as we now know, well founded, and was no doubt responsible for drastically limiting (along with the heat and short-sightedness of the organizers [another issue I will be addressing in future blogs]) the numbers of marchers.

December 10, 2008 will mark the 60th Anniversary of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights... we need to focus the police misconduct in the context of the U.N Declaration of Human Rights because this police misconduct is part and parcel of denying working people the right to participate fully in the decision-making processes which the U.N Declaration of Human Rights is all about.

We must never forget that it was actions like what we have witnessed which tried to destroy the Communist Party here in Minnesota and destroyed the Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party while trying to destroy organized labor which has left the working class without voices in the political process. When capital could not beat radical ideas from the working class, the bosses bought off a significant segment of working class leaders like AFL-CIO President, Ray Waldron, who has remained shamefully silent regarding the police misconduct during the Republican National Convention... no doubt, when "at-will hiring, at-will firing" won't succeed in thwarting organizing drives under "card check" legislation, these same police thugs in riot gear will be out in force confronting workers on picket lines demanding better lives. I wonder if Charley Underwood, Peter Rachleff and John Kolstad will speak out then? If their lack of concern for the plight of casino workers is any indication, I doubt we will be hearing from them.

For a country, governed by a bunch of politicians from the corporate dominated Democratic and Republican parties boasting that the United States is the world's great bastion of democracy, the presence of riot squads in the Twin Cities organized more like rogue bands of the KKK or the pogromists of old Tsarist Russia leaves us all with something to contemplate and ponder as we sit around our dinner tables.

Alan L. Maki
Director of Organizing,
Midwest Casino Workers Organizing Council

The St. Paul and Minneapolis Police Departments together with Sheriff Fletcher and the FBI conspired to to strangle democracy during the RNC

One thing being overlooked concerning the undemocratic, violent actions of the St. Paul and Minneapolis police departments during the Republican National Convention is that, once again, these dirty deeds could not have been carried out without the full complicity and involvement of the Democratic Party and the Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party.

The Democratic Party Mayor of St. Paul, Chris Coleman, has now assigned the task of "investigating" (read covering up) of police violence and suppression of democratic rights to a Republican Party hack who is closely aligned with the mobsters in the Indian Gaming Industry and organized crime, who himself has been involved in all kinds of "red squad" activity for many years.

Anyone with an once of common sense can watch this video and clearly see the bias of the police:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cbKhaBeQFU&eurl=http://mnblue.com/ed+matthews+commits+petty+theft

What all this proves is the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer Labor Party has returned to its corrupt roots... we need an independent labor party created on the foundation of the real Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party.

Save the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant and save jobs on the Iron Range

PICKET LINE


TO SAVE THE FORD PLANT, HYDRO-DAM AND 2,000 UNION JOBS


FOR GREEN MANUFACTURING IN A SUSTAINABLE ECONOMY THROUGH PUBLIC OWNERSHIP



WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 3:00-6:00 PM


St. Paul FORD TWIN CITIES ASSEMBLY PLANT



FORD PARKWAY



ST. PAUL



GREEN JOBS NOW!


This action also takes place during the RNC. The picket line is

sponsored by the Coalition for Public Ownership of the Ford Plant and

is supported by the Climate Crisis Coalition of the Twin Cities. With

Ford’s TCAP having been given a reprieve with the postponement of the

plant closing to the end of 2011, there is still time to pressure

local authorities to make the right decision. With all of the

government handouts and tax breaks the auto industry has been given

over the years, in addition to the hydro-electric dam it was

graciously given at the behest of the Army Corps of Engineers, it’s

safe to assume that we each own a piece of it by now anyway. So why

not public ownership? If Ford’s board of directors and shareholders

can’t run it properly and keep it open as a vital part of the local

economy, then the manufacturing facility and hydro-dam should be taken

over in the public interest. The assembly line can be retooled and

converted for either the production of wind harvesters or clean

electric train engines and carriages and the dam can provide clean

power for the community. So spread the word and bring your friends to

this important action.




****************************************


THE NEXT 3CTC ENVIRONMENTAL FORUM



PROPOSALS TO SAVE THE FORD PLANT



HEAR WHAT MEMBERS OF THE WORKERS MOVEMENT HAVE TO SAY



MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 7:00 PM



MAYDAY BOOKS



301 CEDAR AVENUE SOUTH



WEST BANK, MINNEAPOLIS




SPEAKERS:



Alan Maki — Organizer, Casino Hotel & Restaurant Employees Union Organizing Committee



David Riehle — Local Chairman, United Transportation Union 650



Michael Wood — Coalition for Public Ownership of the Ford Plant & Gus Hall Action Club



Christine Frank — Volunteer Coordinator, Climate Crisis Coalition of the Twin Cities

Racism and the 2008 Election

"There are people who are not going to vote for him because he's black," James Hoffa, president of the Teamsters union, said. "And we've got to hope that we can educate people to put aside their racism and to put their own interests No. 1."

There is a certain irony in Hoffa's statement as it reflects the problems in the labor movement for many years.

Hoffa, John Sweeney, Richard Trumka and Andy Stern have been "setting aside" the struggle against racism for so long it has now come to haunt them in the 2008 Election.

For some twenty years, James Hoffa, John Sweeney and Andy Stern along with the likes of Lane Kirkland have tried to conceal their own racism as they became part of establishing the Indian Gaming Industry... these "union leaders" worked out backroom deals with Democratic Party politicians and mobsters that traded off the rights of casino workers in return for huge payoffs in pension fund monies and dues being invested in building the Indian Gaming Industry... first the Teamster pension funds, then, when this wasn't enough, the teacher union pension funds were brought into play.

The racism of the building trades unions has been most apparent as these unions, from the get-go, colluding with the Teamster's Union, set out to work out "sweetheart contracts" with the mobsters for whom the Native American bands are fronting... the likes of the Frank Fertitta Family and the Kansas City mob to which these unions' pension fund managers have been working in cahoots for years.

How can James Hoffa possibly call on his membership to "set aside racism" when, for many of these members, being engaged in a racist campaign against workers of color is responsible for them having jobs hauling materials onto the construction sites and delivering the materials required to keep the profits of the Indian Gaming Industry rolling in as more than two-million casino workers, mostly workers of color--- the majority young women of child-bearing age, are employed in these smoke-filled casinos at poverty wages and without any rights which protect all other workers under state, federal or tribal labor laws?

For casino workers employed in the Indian Gaming Industry, the 2008 Election is about "class" and "race."

Even the much ballyhooed "Employee Free Choice Act" (Card Check)will not apply to those employed in the Indian Gaming Industry.

For years, the AFL-CIO, and now Change to Win, leaders have supported a minimum wage that is a poverty wage--- the most disgraceful racist action of all. James Hoffa, John Sweeney, Richard Trumka and Andy Stern are fully aware that a minimum wage that is anything but a real living wage makes sure that workers of color remain impoverished... no where is this more evident than on the Indian Reservations where upwards of 60% of the population is relegated to a life of poverty as a result of organized labor failing to fight for a minimum wage that is a real living wage. For over 100 years, the top leadership of organized labor has been willing to look the other way, pretending that the plague of poverty destroying the Indian Nations has not existed... sheer racism.

In fact, James Hoffa, John Sweeney, Richard Trumka and Andy Stern have done as much as any corporate executive to help racism thrive as they have tried to stymie and thwart rank and file movements aimed at fighting for black, white, brown, yellow and red unity of the working class movement.

Not a peep or a whimper of protest has come from James Hoffa, John Sweeney, Richard Trumka and Andy Stern concerning "at-will hiring, at-will firing," the primary impediment to union organizing. "At-will hiring, at-will firing" has held back rank-and-file initiatives of working people to organize when these high-paid union bureaucrats have sat back and watch the most poverty-paid workers (many workers of color like those in the Indian Gaming Industry--- many of whom are women, as in the Indian Gaming Industry) being used as clubs over the heads of all workers to drive the standard of living of the entire working class down.

In twenty-eight states, including Michigan and Minnesota, "at-will hiring, at-will firing" is the law. "Card Check" will never break this barrier.

Right now, even as James Hoffa, John Sweeney, Richard Trumka and Andy Stern hypocritically call on workers to "set aside their racism for this Election," these phony union "leaders" are conspiring with leaders of the Democratic Party to derail the single-payer universal health care movement--- an overt act of the most atrocious racism because everyone knows that the for-profit health care system of the health insurance industry is responsible for working people of color being the largest segment of the population suffering from lack of access to health care because people of color are also the largest segment of poverty paid workers who can not afford health care.

First James Hoffa, John Sweeney, Richard Trumka and Andy Stern go along with the business Democrats in holding down the minimum wage; and now, James Hoffa, John Sweeney, Richard Trumka and Andy Stern are colluding with these same Democrats and the insurance industry to derail the movement for single-payer universal health care... a double racist whammy from these "labor leaders" who arrogantly call on working people to "set aside their racism for the 2008 Election to elect Barack Obama."

And, the worst part of all of this calling on working people to "set aside their racism" is that racism isn't even the issue--- the issue is one of class.

The so-called "labor leaders" are afraid of the working class. They can't even get "working class" to roll off the tip of their tongues because their tongues are so twisted in lies. Instead, James Hoffa, John Sweeney, Richard Trumka and Andy Stern talk about representing the "middle class." Well, there we have it... they are so far removed from the class struggle they don't even know what class they are collecting dues from.

The real racism is emanating from these mis-leaders of organized labor who have refused to bring forward working class issues into this campaign and then turn around and call their own members racist after these union "leaders" are, themselves, responsible for not only tolerating racism, but encouraging--- certainly there has been no ongoing educational campaign against racism in the labor movement for the last 60 years--- decades of racism in the union movement and in the Democratic Party which has become, once again, as corrupt and racist as the pre-Civil War Democratic Party.

Where were James Hoffa, John Sweeney, Richard Trumka and Andy Stern as Bill and Hillary Clinton were spreading racism all along the campaign trail? They were silent.

If James Hoffa, John Sweeney, Richard Trumka and Andy Stern were the least little bit sincere in their calls for an end to racism they would insist that Barack Obama:

1. Support a minimum wage that is a real living wage based upon the scientifically derived figures and calculations of the United States Department of Labor and its Bureau of Labor Statistics for all cost of living factors with the minimum wage constantly being updated on a weekly basis right along with the calculations from the Bureau of Labor Statistics--- and employer would simply follow the postings like they follow the stock market in the Wall Street Journal daily;

2. Single-payer universal health care as a step towards socialized health care is what America's workers need, nothing less;

3. Federal legislation as part of the "Employee Free Choice Act" which would make state legislation mandating "at-will hiring, at-will firing" illegal.

Most importantly, if James Hoffa, John Sweeney, Richard Trumka and Andy Stern are to be taken seriously as opponents of racism in the United States, they will have to come out swinging vigorously in opposition to the most Draconian conditions since the days of chattel slavery which places some two-million American workers in smoke-filled casinos receiving poverty wages while being left at the mercy of the most viciously racist and violent mobsters in this country in the Indian Gaming Industry.

In fact, the pernicious forms of class collaborationist trade unionism promoted by James Hoffa, John Sweeney, Richard Trumka and Andy Stern is itself a cesspool fomenting racism. These union "leaders" hypocritically talk about how workers need their unions to "have a voice at work" when any member of any of these unions will tell you straight out to your face they don't even have a voice in their own unions. How workers can have "a voice at work" when they can't even have a voice in their own unions needs to be explained by James Hoffa, John Sweeney, Richard Trumka and Andy Stern. It is a good day when most union locals in the United States can even gather a quorum to conduct a union meeting. Often, even the gimmick of a raffle for a color television can not turn out a quorum for union meetings in many locals because workers know what they will be subjected to for voicing their opinions and concerns.

James Hoffa, John Sweeney, Richard Trumka and Andy Stern talk about creating a "Green Economy and rebuilding America." Go out on any construction job in this country and you will see that hiring has reverted to the racist hiring practices of the past.

James Hoffa, John Sweeney, Richard Trumka and Andy Stern refuse to call for public ownership of closing plants as a means to defend the gains of affirmative action... instead, "at-will hiring, at-will firing" has allowed workers of color to once again be last hired, first fired with working class women of color and youth of color suffering the worst affects of racism in hiring practices.

In Michigan, at the corruption plagued Gun Lake Casino venture, we see how the AFL-CIO and Change to Win unions have made a vicious appeal to racism in supporting the construction of this casino which will be managed by Frank Fertitta's Station Casino empire which has been built on the racist abuse of working people. Shameful. Disgusting. Uncaring. Insensitive. Anti-labor. Anti-union. And yes, racist.

It is no wonder that James Hoffa, John Sweeney, Richard Trumka and Andy Stern would have the unmitigated gall to call on people to set aside their racism just to vote for Barack Obama because these labor "leaders" have built a very nice little corrupt little racket for themselves which could not exist without racism. It is they, and the corporate managements they serve, along with the do-nothing Democratic Party politicians, who should look in the mirror if in fact they are sincere in wanting to put an end to racism in this country; because, just as capitalism--- which breeds racism--- could not continue to exist in this country if it were to be challenged by James Hoffa, John Sweeney, Richard Trumka and Andy Stern.

It is ironic we now have "progressives" who have lined up in support of Barack Obama along with James Hoffa, John Sweeney, Richard Trumka and Andy Stern now, too, claiming that "racist white workers" are the major impediment to an Obama victory.

Workers trying to organize in the Indian Gaming Industry are offended by these phony union leaders like James Hoffa, John Sweeney, Richard Trumka and Andy Stern who have dragged out a bunch of middle class intellectuals pontificating about "racism" as an excuse to cover up the shameful silence concerning the racism of these egg-heads and muddle-headed professors and "union leaders" who can't distinguish the "working class" from the "middle class" and have left the "capitalist ruling class" completely off the hook as being the main instigators of racism.

Casino workers trying to organize the Indian Gaming Industry have a message for James Hoffa, John Sweeney, Richard Trumka and Andy Stern: We are willing to work ten times harder to elect Barack Obama than what he and your unions have helped us... let your egg-heads and muddle-headed professors do the calculation... ten times zero is what?

To James Hoffa, John Sweeney, Richard Trumka and Andy Stern I say:

Do not misinterpret this to be that we want to see Obama lose this election because like all working class people we do not want to see another four or eight or more years of Republican rule in the country and we sure as heck don't want to see a war monger and war criminal like John McCain sitting in the White House--- we can't even stand to see him sitting in the Senate; but don't come around with your holier than now pronouncements about "racism" being the impediment to an Obama victory when the problem is one of class.

Failing to understand this basic truth will lead to a Republican victory and you can blame yourselves should this happen because you have promoted the myth that the members you represent are part of the "middle class;" rather than, part of the working class.

The "middle class" is fertile ground for racism and other reactionary ideas to take root, it always has been... no doubt, you have left the working class for this middle class life long ago... now you pout and point your finger of blame at others when you should be pointing your fingers at yourselves.

Mr. Hoffa, start showing some respect for OUR interests by refusing to engage in racist sweetheart contracts promoting, encouraging and fostering racism in the Indian Gaming Industry.

Mr. Hoffa, I challenge you to bring forward any facts and figures to substantiate your ridiculous and highly offensive and alienating claim that there are any significant numbers of working people who are refusing to vote for Barack Obama because he is black; this is an outright lie being used to conceal the real reason working people are thinking about staying home on Election Day. In fact, the reason working people might not turn out to vote for Barack Obama and choose to stay home on Election Day is because they know they won't get anything in return for their votes. This has nothing to do with race, and everything to do with class... a concept you do not understand, nor appreciate.

In fact, Mr. Hoffa, to insinuate the problem is one of racism as you intentionally ignore class is an overt act of racism on your own part because you are attempting to set up a strawman to knock down to blame in case of an Obama defeat when Obama should be well on his way to a landslide victory given, alone, the overall anti-Republican sentiment which is just about universal among the working class.

Mr. Hoffa, your concern should be with the plight of working class people who are considering staying home on Election Day instead of a few backwards thinking workers who have picked up their racism from you.

Mr. Hoffa, you are the president of the powerful Teamster's Union yet you have never driven a truck, worked on a dock, in a laundry, or in a factory--- you have been a lawyer from the middle class and know absolutely nothing about the conditions under which working people in this country are forced to labor. You came by your office through a most disgusting campaign of racism and bigotry. You have put the mobsters back in control of the Teamster's Union. You are no one to talk about racism. Actually, Mr. Hoffa, there are probably more workers not going to vote for Obama because you are supporting him then there are racists.

Alan L. Maki
Director of Organizing,
Midwest Casino Workers Organizing Council

Brownstein/Hyatt/Farber/Schreck

"The Nation" magazine finally acknowledged the existence of Brownstein/Hyatt/Farber/Schreck but has left much of the story untold.

Here is what "The Nation" printed:

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/campaignmatters/348331/the_most_powerful_man_in_denver_you_ve_never_heard_of

Steve Farber is arguably the most important man in Denver you've probably never heard of. Farber is the chief fundraiser for the Democratic Convention here and a partner with one of the fastest-growing lobbying firms in Washington and most-connected out West: Brownstein, Hyatt, Farber, Schreck. A number of his clients happen to be sponsors of the convention, including UnitedHealth Group, Comcast and AT&T, the latter the ubiquitous "official wireless sponsor" of the Democratic convention.

The Obama campaign spurns money from federally registered lobbyists and political action committees, but these same entities are welcomed with open arms at the convention in Denver. In a reflection of the enduring power of big money and lobbying, Farber's firm will sponsor a ton of invite-only events this week for major Democratic donors, lawmakers, and movers and shakers. The Rocky Mountain News jested that Farber will attend 378 parties during convention week.

In fact, Farber's firm hosted the opening kickoff party for the Democratic National Committee Sunday night at the swanky Denver Art Museum. VIPs included Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and Senator Chuck Schumer, among many others. Farber introduced Colorado Governor Bill Ritter, who's also enjoying a moment in the sun. The place was thick with lobbyists and corporate honchos, a number of whom, I was later told, are supporting McCain.

For now, Obama has accepted the money-driven status quo at the conventions while expressing his desire to one day change it. He told the Rocky Mountain News: "our primary lasted so long...that most of the plans for the convention were already in place by the time I was the nominee...there were bills to pay and commitments made. Should I be fortunate enough to be the nominee for years from now...I would like to see that some of the principles that we put in place, for example, not excepting lobbyist money, PAC money...I'd like to see those instituted as part of the convention process as well."

Here is more of the untold story:

Some people are making the claim that Barack Obama’s campaign reflects the basis for building the anti-monopoly coalition. As has been, correctly, pointed out, Obama’s supporters are from a variety of cross-sections of the population. However, those listed below are the major backers of the Democratic Party National Convention.

Ironically, these same corporations are among the backers of the Republican Party National Convention.

Note here, the inclusion of Brownstein, Hyatt, Farber, Schreck; this group of lawyers/lobbyists represents most of these corporations.
This outfit, which is dominated by George Soros, the Democracy Alliance:

http://www.democracyalliance.org/ is now undermining the campaign around single-payer universal health care from a “progressive” position, while Brownstein, Hyatt, Farber, Schreck represents these corporate interests in the attempt to derail single-payer universal health care, too.

I would also call to your attention of Aflac on this list.
This is a very powerful financial grouping which Barack Obama will be committed to, first and foremost.

What is also very interesting is that Brownstein, Hyatt, Farber, Schreck has organized support for both the Democratic and Republican conventions in the same manner they have helped politicians organize government and plan health care “reforms.”

• Forest City
• SEIU
• Vail Resorts
• United Health Group
• Level 3
• Travelers Insurance
• AstraZeneca
• Prudential
• Dale Carnegie Training
• Hensel Phelps Construction
• America’s Road Home
• ConocoPhillips
• Best Buy
• Visa
• Chesapeake Energy
• Merck
• Lennox
• 3M
• Allstate
• Ball
• United
• Comcast
• Amgen
• Pepsi
• CoBank
• Target
• National Association of Home Builders
• Lilly
• TeleTech
• BNSF Railway
• Medtronic
• US Bank
• Xerox
• UBS
• Novartis
• Hogan & Hartson
• Peabody
• ProLogis
• Staples
• The Denver Post
• Rocky Mountain News
• Camco
• Aflac
• Archer Daniels Midland
• Lockheed Martin
• Ford
• Anheuser-Busch
• Astellas
• FedEx
• Agvar Chemicals
• J.B. Pritzker
• Motorola
• Western Union
• Coca-Cola
• PCL Construction Enterprises
• American Wind Energy Association
• Lehman Brothers
• State Farm Insurance
• SEIA
• United Launch Alliance
• Kroger
• Waste Management
• PNM Resources
• Morgan Stanley
• Starz
• Pitney Bowes
• Liberty Media
• Anadarko
• Safeway
• EDS
• Bohemian Companies
• Kraft
• 1st Bank
• ATK
• PCI
• Telecom
• MWH
• Jared Polis
• IHS
• Brownstein, Hyatt, Farber, Schreck
• Anthem
• Southern Company
• AECOM
• SpaceX
• Cherry Creek Shopping Center
• Tri-State
• Howard H. Torgrove
• Key Bank
• Patrick H. Hamill
• Value Options
• Nanco Global
• Ellen and Steve Susman
• Continuum
• EcoLab
• Richmond American Homes Foundation
• RBC Capital Markets
• Yarmony Energy
• Callahan Capital Partners
• Robert and Jane Toll
• Newmont Mining Company $260,000
• Qwest $6 million
• Vail Resorts $500,000
• Union Pacific $1 million
• Xcel Energy $1 million
• Molson Coors $250,000
• TeleTech $250,000
• Chase $100,000
• Wells Fargo $62,500
• CH2M Hill $50,000

Obama’s bundlers:

Raising from $50,000 to $100,000:
Wendy Abrams (Highland Park, IL)
Charles Adams (Geneva, Switzerland)
Lishan Aklog (Phoenix, AZ)
Karim Alibhai (Key Biscayne, FL)
Pinney Allen (Atlanta, GA)
Michael Alter (Winnetka, IL)
Nola Anderson (Manchester, MA)
Rodney Armstead (Phoenix, AZ)
John Arnold (Houston, TX)
Ricky Arriola (Miami, FL)
Gayle Perkins Atkins (New York, NY)
Jean-Philippe Austin (Miami, FL)
Hannah Banks (Boston, MA)
Jim Bartimus (Kansas City, MO)
Sheldon Baskin (Chicago, IL)
Mike Bauer (Chicago, IL)
Jatinder Bedi (Chicago, IL)
Severin Beliveau (Hallowell, ME)
Alison & Barry Berke (New York, NY)
Allan & Jennie Berliant (Cincinnati, OH)
Richard Binder (Bethesda, MD)
Lea Black (Miami, FL)
Steven Bloch (Omaha, NE)
Les Bond (Chicago, IL)
Frank Borges (Farmington, CT)
Steve Bough (Kansas City, NE)
Elise Boyan (San Antonio, TX)
Russell Budd (Dallas, TX)
David Burd (Washington, DC)
David Burman (Seattle, WA)
Matthew Carlson (New York, NY)
Eric Casher (Berkeley, CA)
Marty Castro (Chicago, IL)
Michael Cavanagh (New York, NY)
Gracie & Bob Cavnar (Houston, TX)
Marisa Chun (San Francisco, CA)
Diana Shaw Clark (London, UK)
Bob Clifford (Chicago, IL)
Bonnie Cohen (Washington, DC)
Tom Cole (Kenilworth, IL)
Michael Coles (Atlanta, GA)
Wilbur Colom (Columbus, MS)
Kevin Conway (Chicago, IL)
Joe Cotchett (Hillsborough, CA)
Mark Cozzi (Chicago, IL)
Barbara Crown Manilow (Chicago, IL)
John Crumpler (Durham, NC)
John Cumming (Park City, UT)
Mike Dardzinski (Beijing, China)
Judy Davenport (Pittsburg, PA)
Lisa Davis (South Orange, NJ)
Stephen Davis (San Francisco, CA)
Jamie Denenberg (Los Angeles, CA)
James Dinan (New York, NY)
Greg Dingens (Chicago, IL)
John Doggett (Chatham, MA)
Justin Douglas (Chicago, IL)
Eugene Duffy (Atlanta, GA)
Rob Dugger (Alexandria, VA)
Carolyn Dwyer (Montpelier, VT)
Kelley Ellsworth (Washington, DC)
Mark Erwin (Chicago, IL)
Jodie Evans (Los Angeles, CA)
Nancy Farese (Kentfield, CA)
Mark Feierstien (Annandale, VA)
Joe Fernandez (Providence, RI)
Nadja Fidelia (New York, NY)
Peter Fisher (Los Angeles, CA)
Brian Frank (New York, NY)
Rob Friedman (Los Angeles, CA)
Ann Fudge (Chestnut Hill, MA)
Carol Fulp (Newton, MA)
Laurie Fulton (Alexandria, VA)
Jay Furman (New York, NY)
Pete Garcia (Palo Alto, CA)
Roland Garcia (Houston, TX)
Barbara Garrett (Coral Gables, FL)
Judy & Mickey Gaynor (Chicago, IL)
Tom Gearen (Chicago, IL)
Peter Gilhuly (Los Angeles, CA)
Jon Glickman (Los Angeles, CA)
Mark Goodman (Cambridge, MA)
Linda Gottlieb (New York, NY)
Howard Gottlieb (Evanston, IL)
Nancy Grant (Winnetka, IL)
Ken Griffin (Chicago, IL)
Doug Haloftis (Dallas, TX)
Cathy Hampton (Atlanta, GA)
Karen Heidelberg (Detroit, MI)
Ann & Peter Herbst (New York, NY)
Doug Hickey (San Francisco, CA)
Philip Hilder (Houston, TX)
Janet Hill (Washington, DC)
David Hinson (New York, NY)
Gary Hirshberg (Concord, NH)
Max Holtzman (Miami Beach, FL)
Jeff Horwitz (New York, NY)
Reed Hundt (Chevy Chase, MD)
Brandy Isaac (Chicago, IL)
Maxine Issacs (Washington, DC)
David Jacobson (Glencoe, IL)
Preble Jacques (Cambridge, MA)
Donna & Larry James (Columbus, OH)
Wanda James (Denver, CO)
Mark Johnson (Washington, DC)
Raye and Jerry Johnson (Bryn Mawr, PA)
Patricia Jones Blessman (Chicago, IL)
Wayne Jordan (Piedmont, CA)
George Kaiser (Tulsa, OK)
Eddie Kaplan (Bethesda, MD)
Marianne Karmel (Newton, MA)
Hrishi Karthikeyan (New York, NY)
Marilyn Katz (Chicago, IL)
David Kenney (Denver, CO)
Alan King (Chicago, IL)
Charlie Kireker (Weybridge, VT)
Ron Kirk (Dallas, TX)
Ted Kurland (Newton, MA)
Bill Lake (Washington, DC)
Rocco Landesman (New York, NY)
James Lassiter (Los Angeles, CA)
Chad Leat (New York, NY)
Debra Lee (Washington, DC)
Tom Lesser (Northampton, MA)
Jack Levin (Winnetka, IL)
Bill Levin (Moss Beach, CA)
Larry Levy (Chicago, IL)
Walter T. Lomax (Chalfront, PA)
Ken Lore (Washington, DC)
Patricia Lorsch (Cambridge, MA)
James Mangold (Los Angeles, CA)
Lewis Manilow (Chicago, IL)
Neal Manne (Houston, TX)
Aris Mardirossian (Potomac, MD)
Jerry Martin (Nashville, TN)
Alyssa Martina (Detroit, MI)
Edward Bilich and Teresa Martinez (Arlington, VA)
Linda Mason (Belmont, MA)
William Matsikoudis (Jersey City, NJ)
Scott Matthews (Wellesley, MA)
Ken Maxey (Los Angeles, CA)
Cappy McGarr (Dallas, TX)
Tom McInerney (San Anselmo, CA)
Frank McPhillips (Birmingham, AL)
Rhonda Medina (Trenton, NJ)
Alex Mehran (San Francsico, CA)
Patrick Miles, Jr. (Grand Rapids, MI)
Charles Miller (Atlanta, GA)
Herb Miller (Washington, DC)
Jon Miller (New York, NY)
Laurie Miller (Washington, DC)
Alan Mills (Indianapolis, IN)
Eric Mindich (New York, NY)
Judd Miner (Chicago, IL)
Richard Mithoff (Houston, TX)
Robert Nelsen (Bainbridge Island, WA)
Marty Nesbitt (Chicago, IL)
Wendy & John Neu (Newark, NJ)
Lora O'Connor (Los Angeles, CA)
Scott Oki (Bellevue, WA)
Bill Orrick (San Francisco, CA)
Lynn Overmann (Miami, FL)
Jeff Padwa (Providence, RI)
Max Palevsky (Los Angeles, CA)
Johnnie Patton (Jackson, MS)
Federico Pena (Denver, CO)
Giles Perkins (Birmingham, AL)
Chris Pohlad (Minneapolis, MN)
Barry Porter (Los Angeles, CA)
Quintin Primo (Lake Forest, IL)
Sunil Puri (Rockford, IL)
Josh Rales (Potomac, MD)
Mike Ramos (Avon, CO)
Michael Rawlings (Dallas, TX)
Antonio Reid (New York, NY)
Alan Reid (San Francisco, CA)
Arthur Reimers (Greenwich, CT)
Lauren Reiss-Frank (New York, NY)
Lisa Renstrom (Charlotte, NC)
Joyce Rey (Los Angeles, CA)
Doris Rhea (Detroit, MI)
Susan Rice (Washington, DC)
David Rivkin (New York, NY)
PJ & Suhail Rizvi (Greenwich, CT)
Rich Rogel (Avon, CO)
Joe Roth (Los Angeles, CA)
Paul Roth (New York, NY)
Tom Rothman (Los Angeles, CA)
Karen Russell (Seattle, WA)
Michael Sachs (Winnetka, IL)
Amelia Salzman (Bethesda, MD)
Miriam Sapiro (Washington, DC)
Sima Sarrafan (Bellevue, WA)
John Schmidt (Chicago, IL)
John Scully (Sausalito, CA)
Robert Sherman (Needham, MA)
Keith Short (Edwardsville, IL)
Tariq Siddiqui (Chicago, IL)
Craig Sieben (Chicago, IL)
Martin Siegel (Houston, TX)
Boon Sim (New York, NY)
Balvinder Singh (Chicago, IL)
Amy Singh (Chicago, IL)
Christopher Smart (Boston, MA)
Gerald Smith (Houston, TX)
Leo Smith (Chicago, IL)
Mark Smith (Washington, DC)
LaRence Snowden (Houston, TX)
David Solow (Chicago, IL)
Josh Steiner (New York, NY)
Joe Steinfield (Boston, MA)
Jon Streeter (Berkeley, CA)
Paul Taubman (New York, NY)
Bill Taylor (Washington, DC)
Dorothy Terrell (Boston, MA)
Rob Tessler (New York, NY)
Sandi Thompson (Woodside, CA)
Kathryn Thomson (Arlington, VA)
Tim Toben (Chapel Hill, NC)
Kyriakos Tsakapolous (Sacramento, CA)
Alicia Urban (Milwaukee, WI)
Kevin Vincent (Arlington, VA)
Eric Vincent (New York, NY)
David Voelker (New Orleans, LA)
Barbara Vogelstein (New York, NY)
Ayelet Waldman (Berkeley, CA)
Jordan Walker-Pearlman (Los Angeles, CA)
Francie Walton-Karlen (Chestnut Hill, MA)
Todd Weaver (St. Louis, MO)
Paula Weinstein (Los Angeles, CA)
Steve Weisbrod (Washington, DC)
Robert Weissbourd (Chicago, IL)
Jim Wiatt (Beverly Hills, CA)
Anita Wien (New York, NY)
Abigail & Todd Williams (Dallas, TX)
Margot Wilson (Washington, DC)
Harvey Wineberg (Chicago, IL)
Hope & Grant Winthrop (New York, NY)
Dan Wofford (Malvern, PA)
Kevin Joe Wolf (Arlington, VA)
Elaine Wynn (Las Vegas, NV)
Matt Yale (Chicago, IL)
Steve Zager (Houston, TX)
Michael Zeldin (Washington, DC)


Raising between $100,000 and $200,000:

Jerry Acker (Southfield, MI)
David Adelman (Atlanta, GA)
Kenneth Alleyne (Hartford, CT)
Jeremy Alters (Miami, FL)
Eddy Arriola (Miami Beach, FL)
Preeta Bansal (New York, NY)
Rob Barber (Cambridge, MA)
Doni Belau (Bedford, NY)
Lawrence Bender (Los Angeles, CA)
Dan Berger (Philadelphia, PA)
Mitchell Berger (Fort Lauderdale, FL)
Judy Byrd & Ron Blaylock (New York, NY)
Leonore Blitz (New York, NY)
Peter Bynoe (Chicago, IL)
Joe Calabrese (Los Angeles, CA)
Michael Caplin (McLean, VA)
Tom Carnahan (Chicago, IL)
Hasan Chandoo (Armonk, NY)
Cleveland Christophe (Stamford, CT)
John Connors (Brookline, MA)
James Crowe (Englewood, CO)
Virginia Davies (New York, NY)
Gordon Davis (New York, NY)
FK Day (Chicago, IL)
Vincent Dimmock (Atlanta, GA)
Becky Draper (San Francisco, CA)
Blair Effron (New York, NY)
Cheryl Effron (New York, NY)
Norm Eisen (Washington, DC)
John Emerson (Los Angeles, CA)
David and Marianna Fisher (Los Angeles, CA)
Rick Fizdale and Suzanne Faber (Chicago, IL)
Clark French (Vero Beach, FL)
Lou Frillman (Minneapolis, MN)
David Gail (Dallas, TX)
Alexi Giannoulias (Chicago, IL)
Jill Goldman (Los Angeles, CA)
Fred Goldring (Los Angeles, CA)
Barry Goodman (Southfield, MI)
Barbara Gould (Cincinnati, OH)
David Grain (Sarasota, FL)
De & Paul Gray (Chicago, IL)
Joe Gutman (Highland Park, IL)
Wahid Hamid (New York, NY)
Jennifer Haro (St. Louis, MO)
William Harvey (Hampton, VA)
Greg Helmer (Los Angeles, CA)
Victor Herlinsky (Hackensack, NJ)
Crystal Nix Hines (Los Angeles, CA)
Donald Hinkle (Tallahassee, FL)
Mellody Hobson (Chicago, IL)
Sharon Hoffman (Kansas City, MO)
Helen Howell (Seattle, WA)
Dan Hynes (Chicago, IL)
Ted Janulis (New York, NY)
Valerie Jarrett (Chicago, IL)
Kevin Jennings (New York, NY)
Derek Johnson (New York, NY)
Paul Tudor Jones (Greenwich, CT)
David Kasparian (Paramus, NJ)
Michael Kasparian (Paramus, NJ)
Jay Kreigel (New York, NY)
Ann & Edward Lamont (Greenwich, CT)
Eddie Lazarus (Los Angeles, CA)
Arthur Leopold (New York, NY)
Kenneth Lerer (New York, NY)
Cliff Levine (PIttsburgh, PA)
Brad Lippitz (Chicago, IL)
Caren Lobo (Sarasota, FL)
Daniel Loeb (New York, NY)
Andres Lopez (San Juan, PR)
Kerman Maddox (Los Angeles, CA)
Sue & Steve Mandel (Greenwich, CT)
William Mann (Weston, CT)
Nancy McCullough (Los Angeles, CA)
Irena and Mike Medavoy (Los Angeles, CA)
Kelly Meyer (Malibu, CA)
Howard Milstein (New York, NY)
Ron Moelis (Larchmont, NY)
Jonathan Molot (Washington, DC)
Robert Monks (Cape Elizabeth, ME)
Sarah Morgenthau (Montclair, NJ)
Marie Helene Morrow (San Juan, Puerto Rico)
Dan Nova (Cambridge, MA)
Adebayo Ogunlesi (New York, NY)
Chuck Ortner (New York, NY)
Sebastiano Paiewonsky (St. Thomas, USVI)
Eric Paquette (Los Angeles, CA)
Deven Parekh (New York, NY)
Michael Parham (Seattle, WA)
Bill Perkins (Houston, TX)
Robert Perkowitz (Charlotte, NC)
Susan Pisor (Chicago, IL)
Jonathan Pizer (Chicago, IL)
John Rhea (New York, NY)
Zeb Rice (Los Angeles, CA)
Andrew Rice (Oklahoma City, OK)
Nelson Rising (Los Angeles, CA)
Wendy Riva (Los Angeles, CA)
Robert Roche (Chicago, IL)
Desiree Rogers (Chicago, IL)
Ben Rosen (New York, NY)
Lee Rosenberg (Chicago, IL)
James Rubin (New York, NY)
BettyLu Saltzman (Chicago, IL)
Ben Schwartz (Wendell, MA)
Eric Schwartz (New York, NY)
Willie Shepherd (Denver, CO)
Mary Lang Sollinger (Madison, WI)
Ken Solomon (Los Angeles, CA)
Peter Solomon (New York, NY)
Alan Solow (Chicago, IL)
Helen Spalding (San Francisco, CA)
Bobby Stein (Jacksonville, FL)
Andre Leon Talley (New York, NY)
Willard Taylor (New York, NY)
Fabio and Molley Terlevich (Philadelphia, PA)
Vinai Thummalapally (Colorado Springs, CO)
Stan Toy (Los Angeles, CA)
Tom Unterman (Los Angeles, CA)
Jon and Ellen Vein (Los Angeles, CA)
Mikal Watts (San Antonio, TX)
Ann Marie Wilkins (Cambridge, MA)
Percy Wilson (Washington, DC)
Anna Wintour (New York, NY)
Judy Wise (Chicago, IL)
Sheldon Zenner (Evanston, IL)


Raising over $200,000:

Naomi Aberly (Dallas, TX)
Mark Alderman (Bryn Mawr, PA)
Paul Bardacke (Santa Fe, NM)
Denise Bauer (Belvedere, CA)
Josh Berger (London, UK)
Andi & Tom Bernstein (New York, NY)
Jeff Bleich (Piedmont, CA)
Neil Bluhm (Chicago, IL)
Tim Broas (Chevy Chase, MD)
Frank Brosens (Bedford, NY)
Owen Byrd (Palo Alto, CA)
Brad Carson (Oklahoma City, OK)
Tony Chase (Houston, TX)
Frank Clark (Flossmoor, IL)
Charles Clarkson (Jacksonville, FL)
Lou Cohen (Washington, DC)
Dick Cohen (Minneapolis, MN)
Les Coney (Chicago, IL)
Greg Craig (Washington, DC)
Ted Dintersmith (Boston, MA)
Kirk Dornbush (Atlanta, GA)
Ari Emanuel (Los Angeles, CA)
Daveen & Alan Fox (Studio City, CA)
Michael Froman (New York, NY)
Mark Gallogly (New York, NY)
Katherine Gehl (Chicago, IL)
Mark Gilbert (Boca Raton, FL)
Steven Gluckstern (New York, NY)
John Gorman (Austin, TX)
Daniel Halpern (Atlanta, GA)
Pam Hamamoto (Tiburon, CA)
Hill Harper (Los Angeles, CA)
Jane Hartley (New York, NY)
David Heller (New York, NY)
Vicki & Bruce Heyman (Chicago, IL)
Rick Horowitz (Wynnewood, PA)
Ted Hosp (Birmingham, AL)
Jim Hudson (Washington, DC)
Mark Iola (Dallas, TX)
Jeh Johnson (Montclair, NJ)
Jim Johnson (Washington, DC)
Orlan Johnson (Bowie, MD)
David Jones (Greenwich, CT)
Sylvia & Sam Kaplan (Minneapolis, MN)
Allan Katz (Tallahassee, FL)
Eric Kearney (Cincinnati, OH)
Lena Kennedy (Pasadena, CA)
Steve Koch (Chicago, IL)
Dan Kohl (River Hills, WI)
Nancy Koppelman (Santa Barbara, CA)
Anthony Lake (Washington, DC)
Nicole Lamb-Hale (Detroit, MI)
Jonathan Lavine (Lexington, MA)
Mattie & Michael Lawson (Los Angeles, CA)
Steve Lerner (Chapel Hill, NC)
John Levi (Chicago, IL)
Chris Lewis (Berwyn, PA)
Chuck Lewis (Evanston, IL)
Margo Lion (New York, NY)
Frank Loy (Washington, DC)
Michael and Jamie Lynton (Los Angeles, CA)
Bob Mandell (Orlando, FL)
Brian Mathis (New York, NY)
Steve McKeever (Chicago, IL)
Jon Merksamer (Sacramento, CA)
Alicia & Tim Mullen (Chicago, IL)
Spencer Overton (Chevey Chase, MD)
Jason Paez (New York, NY)
Steve Pajcic (Jacksonville, FL)
Yolonda Parker (Los Angeles, CA)
Don Peebles (Coral Gables, FL)
Jonathan Perdue (Mill Valley, CA)
John Phillips (Washington, DC)
Penny Pritzker (Chicago, IL)
Wade Randlett (San Francisco, CA)
Ron and Deborah Ratner (Cleveland, OH)
Doug Rediker (Washington, DC)
Tom Reed (Centreville, VA)
Jim Reynolds (Chicago, IL)
Cindy Moelis & Bob Rivkin (Chicago, IL)
Skip Rosenbloom (Sacramento, CA)
Kirk Rudy (Austin, TX)
Frank Sanchez (Tampa, FL)
Andrew Schapiro (Chicago, IL)
Michael Schell (New York, NY)
Tod Sedgwick (Washington, DC)
Jeff Shell (Philadelphia, PA)
Jane Stetson (Norwich, CT)
Cynthia Stroum (Seattle, WA)
Lou Susman (Chicago, IL)
Bob Sussman (Washington, DC)
Tina Tchen (Chicago, IL)
Grace Tsao-Wu (Chicago, IL)
Jim Tyree (Chicago, IL)
Kirk Wagar (Miami, FL)
Anne Wedner (Winnetka, IL)
Daniel Weiss (Los Angeles, CA)
Beatrice Welters (McLean, VA)
Alexa Wesner (Austin, TX)
Tom Wheeler (Washington, DC)
Barry White (Newton Centre, MA)
Kneeland Youngblood (Dallas, TX)


Raising over $500,000:

Nicole Avant (Los Angeles, CA)
Sandy & Stewart Bainum (Chevy Chase, MD)
Matthew Barzun (Louisville, KY)
Megan & Don Beyer (Alexandria, VA)
Peter Buttenweiser (Philadelphia, PA)
Rebecca Riley & David Carden (Bronxville, NY)
Bob Clark (St. Louis, MO)
Paula & Jim Crown (Chicago, IL)
Richard Danzig (Washington, DC)
Eileen Chamberlain Donahoe (Portola Valley, CA)
Bill Eacho (Bethesda, MD)
Christine Forester (San Diego, CA)
David Friedman (Boulder, CO)
David Geffen (Malibu, CA)
Julius Genachowski (Washington, DC)
Don Gips (Boulder, CO)
Doug Goldman (San Francisco, CA)
Wendy Wanderman & Mark Gorenberg (San Francisco, CA)
Howard Gutman (Washington, DC)
Scott Harris (Washington, DC)
Jeffrey Katzenberg (Los Angeles, CA)
Bill Kennard (Washington, DC)
Orin Kramer (New York, NY)
Karol Mason (Atlanta, GA)
Bruce Oreck (Boulder, CO)
Tom Perrelli (Arlington, VA)
Charlie Rivkin (Los Angeles, CA)
John Rogers (Chicago, IL)
John Roos (Hillsborough, CA)
Alan Solomont (Boston, MA)
Steve Spinner (Menlo Park, CA)
Jim Torrey (New York, NY)
Tony West (Oakland, CA)
Steve Westly (Atherton, CA)
Frank White (Silver Spring, MD)
Robert Wolf (New York, NY)

Names of these “bundlers” don’t mean too much; however, check out this website and see what corporations these bundlers are with:

http://www.whitehouseforsale.org/candidate.cfm?CandidateID=C0009&SortOrder=Last%5FName%2C%20First%5FName%2C%20Middle%5FName%2C%20Suffix%2C%20campaignsource%20DESC&StartRow=1