Wow... I didn't know this...
saveuplife
Posts: 1,173
This isn't good...
Palin routes campaign cash to family, their firms
Discloses $2 million in business arrangements
Jim McElhatton (Contact)
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Republican vice-presidential candidate Gov. Sarah Palin has paid more than $2 million in campaign cash to her family members, their businesses and employers over the years, a practice that watchdogs criticize as rife with potential conflicts of interest.
Developing...
Palin routes campaign cash to family, their firms
Discloses $2 million in business arrangements
Jim McElhatton (Contact)
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Republican vice-presidential candidate Gov. Sarah Palin has paid more than $2 million in campaign cash to her family members, their businesses and employers over the years, a practice that watchdogs criticize as rife with potential conflicts of interest.
Developing...
Post edited by Unknown User on
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Comments
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/oct/15/biden-routes-campaign-cash-to-family-their-firms/
Biden routes campaign cash to family, their firms
Discloses $2 million in business arrangements
Jim McElhatton (Contact)
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Democratic vice-presidential candidate Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. has paid more than $2 million in campaign cash to his family members, their businesses and employers over the years, a practice that watchdogs criticize as rife with potential conflicts of interest.
The money largely flowed from the coffers of Mr. Biden's failed presidential campaign during the past two years to a company that employs his sister and longtime campaign manager, Valerie Biden Owens, according to campaign disclosure filings.
The senator from Delaware also directed campaign legal work to a Washington lobbying and law firm founded by his son R. Hunter Biden, the disclosures show.
Putting family members and their companies on the political payroll is legal if the work is legitimate and charged at market rates, according to the Federal Election Commission. Still, public watchdog groups have long criticized such arrangements.
"Even though legal within restraints, it's not something I view as completely ethical," said Craig Holman, legislative director for Public Citizen, a campaign finance watchdog organization. "Any candidate ought to shy away from that."
Aides to Mr. Biden said all of the payments he has made to family members or their employers were aboveboard.
- 8/28/98
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- 9/28/04, 9/29/04, 10/1/04, 10/2/04
- 9/11/05, 9/12/05, 9/13/05, 9/30/05, 10/1/05, 10/3/05
- 5/12/06, 5/13/06, 5/27/06, 5/28/06, 5/30/06, 6/1/06, 6/3/06, 6/23/06, 7/22/06, 7/23/06, 12/2/06, 12/9/06
- 8/2/07, 8/5/07
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- 8/23/09, 8/24/09, 9/21/09, 9/22/09, 10/27/09, 10/28/09, 10/30/09, 10/31/09
- 5/15/10, 5/17/10, 5/18/10, 5/20/10, 5/21/10, 10/23/10, 10/24/10
- 9/11/11, 9/12/11
- 10/18/13, 10/21/13, 10/22/13, 11/30/13, 12/4/13
Thinking folks would rail on Palin, then s/he could play the old switch-a-roo...
ha ha...I knew it...
I'd be willing to bet if this story came from a source other than the RNC, it may be front page news...
as for you implication that sarah gets too much negative press, it seems that her ethics violations are not getting much play in the "liberal" media right now...
That being said, yes, that's pretty ridiculous, if true. We'll see if a source besides the Washington Times picks it up.
Campaign money doesn't really bother me that much... people are giving this money, not being forced to. If it was tax money, then that is a bigger problem.
The bold part is the most important in my opinion. If the campaign has to pay a legal firm for services, it doesn't bother me that he uses his son's if they are paying normal rates, etc. I try to support friends' & families' businesses when I can... BUT, it doesn't look good at all for a candidate/politician to do.
was like a picture
of a sunny day
“We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses.”
― Abraham Lincoln
That doesn't make sense. According to what you are saying, the media is the entire population... or the media completely controls the populations' opinions.
I think there is a clear bias in the news... it's been quoted that roughly 90% of journalists vote Democrat. If you don't think that seeps into their stories, you are crazy. That said, I don't think the bias affects political outcomes too much. In some cases, it actually energizes the opposition.
That doesn't make it right though... it's about ethics. I have a deep respect for liberals/conservatives who can write the real story.
"If" another source picks it up.... that's the point of the thread.
:rolleyes:
It was released today.
There article is even longer and can be found at: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/oct/15/biden-routes-campaign-cash-to-family-their-firms/
This hardly seems like some big huge scandal and to paint it as such, at the moment, when no one has accused Senator Biden of wrong doing, is just dishonest.
c'mon - peeps need to rationalize the fact they are voting for mccain (i.e. a continuation of bush policies) ... they are prepared to do whatever it takes to make themselves feel good ...
Well, that's the thing. I'm a liberal who thinks it would be foolish to say a paper like the New York Times doesn't have a liberal slant, somewhat in its' reporting and more overtly in its' editorials. The problem with this statement is that it assumes that papers like the New York Times have a 'liberal' slant whereas a paper like Washington Times "tells it like it is." Please...the Washington Times is as conservative as the NY Times is liberal, but conservatives don't see that because it appeals to their worldview. There's no bias, it's just the truth (and before you jump on my point, it's the same with many liberals; the NY Times is gospel while the D.C. Times is garbage). When it comes to bias, as with most other things in life, the splinter in the opposition's eye is much easier to see than the one in your own. So, when I said we'll see if a source besides the Washington Times confirms it, I'm acknowledging that the D.C. Times has skin in the game; it has a bias, a worldview that would lead them to harp on this and shuffle other things under the rug. There's no such thing is strict objectivity. Unless, of course, you feel that the Washington Times is unbiased whereas the NY Times are flaming liberal, in which case I think you'd need to remove the splinter from your own eye.
I think the Big Bad Liberal Media Conspiracy, although though true in aspects, has become a crutch for conservative base, something to rally about without ever addressing it adequately. And if there was this overriding conspiracy to help liberals win elections, why wouldn't it have an impact? According to most conservatives, including your original post, facts are being buried, stories are being manipulated. With such an overriding liberal media conspiracy, how would voters ever receive the facts they need to make an informed decision? By this token, the cards would be permanently stacked against the conservatives ever holding office. Considering the talk of the Liberal Media Bias seems to come up every four years (coincidentially, every time a presidential election comes around), I was simply noting that despite it being such a pervasive issue, it obviously hasn't hurt the conservatives at the voting booth. Makes me wonder if it's a real issue or a campaign slogan.
My problem with the mainstream media has less to do with bias, and more to do with gutlessness. Too many media types refuse to call a spade a spade and a lie a lie. Case in point; Obama's Spanish-language ad tying Limbaugh to McCain. I watched them have a McCain and Obama surrogate on, and they let each spin their crap, and then they pretty much left it at that without acknowledging that the facts were that the ad was bullshit. It goes both ways; they'll have a McCain/Obama surrogate argument about how Obama wants to raise middle-class taxes without the acknowledgement that McCain's side is wrong, and that Obama has proposed middle-class tax cuts. The job of reporters is to report the facts, not the two campaigns' versions of the facts. To do so is not a version of objectivity; that's hiding one's head in the sand to common sense, and it's denying voters the facts that they need. If the facts of the matter clearly illustrate that any given advertisement is a blatant lie, all viewpoints should be considered, but the media should be willing to take a stand, and they take no stands these days for fear of offending any candidate or being accused of bias of any stripe. So I'm probably the only one calling for more "bias" in the media, but this current half-assed, gutless method of journalism needs an overhaul.
To be fair, though, the democratization of the media through the use of the Internet has changed everything. I'm the first to admit that it's hard to prove anything anymore. For each article and statistic that accurately prove Obama's wrong, they'll be another article or statistic proving Obama wrong on the same subject somewhere on the World Wide Web; how do you find the truth with such a vast amount of information? So I don't envy the job reporters have, but they still should be doing a better job than they are.
Accrording to the article,...
****McCain campaign spokesman Brian Rogers said the payment reimbursed Mrs. McCain for catering expenses she had covered in connection with an election night party.
As to your point,...
Settle. There's a reason for the post. And I never claimed it was a "big hudge scandle" and I didn't "paint it as such. I think it's most likely a dumb @ss move by Biden. Moreover, it does have potential to be a scandal.
But, the POINT of this thread is that this would be all over every news network if it was Palin. It's not, so it gets buried and only reported by right-leaning press. That's the point.... and it's accurate. The point is journalists are not reporting stuff like this and that's bad for everyone.
If there's more facts to be had on this... great. If this is BS... fine. Their job as journalists are to dig up the facts and report. They should be doing their job. This should be on cnn.com, but it's on drudgereport.com. It's not surprising drudge gets more viewers.
No, I know there are papers and other outlets that lean right. The point is the majority lean left. Regardless, of your affiliation as a journalist, cover the damn story. If you lean left, dig up why the story is BS, but present facts. If you lean right, tell us more about it, presenting facts. Bottom line... do your f'ing job as a journalist. Don't just ignore it.
There's a very large negative bias in the aggregate news towards Palin (even relative to someone like McCain) and anyone who is honest and objective would admit this would be on most news networks tonight if she was involved. Instead, it will be brushed under the rug.
Do you really think they wouldnt cover this story? You've been drinking too much Palin koolaid.
I wasn't really trying to highlight the McCain part of it, 15k is not quite 2mil, anyway.
And I suppose you're right. You weren't trying to paint it as a big huge scandal, rather it was implicit in the article's title. So I did misappropriate that to you.
But by posting it the way you did, it seems to imply --and correct me if I'm wrong, this is just my inference--that everyone would have just blindly attacked Sarah Palin without reading the whole story. My question: do you feel Sarah Palin is getting too much coverage in the press--or rather, that the stories running about her are overstated?
While the media does suck and should be doing a better job of reporting in a more "fair and balanced" manner, I can understand why they are running with a lot of these Sarah Palin stories. One, they are pertinent to the election. Two, McCain and Biden's records speak pretty squarely for themselves--we already know them. As for Obama, as much as Palin keeps asking "who is Barack Obama," it doesn't change the fact that most people already know. He's been campaigning for nearly two years. Three, the Republican party really is thrusting Palin into the spotlight. If she's getting too much attention for their liking, maybe they should look at their strategy. In fact, in my opinion, the reason she was selected as McCain's running mate is because she is provactive--she'll garner lots of attention.
I don't think so. If she had already run for President, or like Joe Biden had been in the Senate since before the bicentennial, she wouldn't be receiving the same level of scrutiny as she has been these last few weeks. We'd already know more than six weeks worth of information about her before the Presidential election and wouldn't be digging for any story to tell us more.
Just out of curiosity, and on a semi-unrelated note, we've been talking quite a bit about how shitty the American media is. What news sources do you frequent?
In fairness, I haven't found any coverage from either of those sources on it. Then again, I couldn't find it on Fox News' website either.
The majority lean left? Show me this irrefutable evidence. I took a look at the top 100 newspapers in circulation. Barring strictly local papers, which tend to illustrate the views of the people in the areas where they are produced, I'd like to see this sweeping stranglehold that the liberals have on print media. In the top 10 papers, mostly papers designed for a general and national audience I see liberal papers (NY Times, LA Times, D.C. Post) and I see conservative papers (Wall Street Journal, Chicago Tribune, NY Post)...so, I'm wondering where this resolute power liberals have over print media is. And I must say, I find it hard to say that we live in a society where the media is run by and constantly perpetuates liberal stories and values when the number one news channel on television is Fox News, the man who owns by far more print and television media than any man is Rupert Murdoch, and I'm failing to see the monopoly you speak of, and if it was such an important problem to our country's journalistic integrity, why does it only seem to come up every four years when candidates are running for President? And let's not even brother mentioning talk radio, since that sure doesn't fit into the "media liberal bias" storyline at all.
I agree with your statement above; reporters should get to the heart of the story no matter what side they land on. However, such proclamations go both ways, and I don't really see such condemnation coming from the right or the left regarding the 'splinters in their own eyes.' To conservatives, stories like the one in the original post are real stories that the "Mainstream Media" fails to report, but they don't say a word when the same conservative-leaning media channels and papers sweep stories contradicting their worldview under the table. I watch Fox News more than any other news station, and I've seen an awful lot about ACORN and Bill Ayers and surprisingly little about Palin's abuse of power problems she's been having over the past few days. Where's your condemnation of such practices, since you find it so abhorrent that the New York Times would "bury" stories? Even if one were to take your hypothesis that the media world is 99% unabashedly liberal (which I think I proved otherwise above), shoddy journalistic practices knows no ideology. When I can go on the D.C. Times or FoxNews' websites and see plenty about ACORN and Ayers and precious little about Sarah Palin's faults, it makes it difficult to listen to a lecture about the failures of the "liberal mainstream media." Nevertheless, I agree with your point in principle. I think it needs to be aimed at everyone.
I think Palin is getting too much coverage in the press AND the stories running about her are overstated, and typically negative.
To address these points...
1. She is pertinent to the election. That said, so is Biden. This story attached should be getting coverage in most press outlets.
2. Obama is running for President. She is running for VP. There is and always will be a difference. If you are going to scrutinize her record (which is pretty good btw atleast according to Newsweek--a liberal mag--in late-07, before her selection) then they should be scrutinizing Obama's more so. Biden, McCain, Obama and Palin should all have their records scrutinized. When something that comes up, and it's newsworthy, it should receive press. This, the attached, is an example that this is just not happening. But, you know it would be if it was Palin.
3. You are right McCain took one our state's governors and "thrust" her into the spotlight. See, I agree that she was relatively unknown to the general public. However, I don't agree that she didn't already have a prominent role in politics... arguably even more prominent than the role of Senator. But, that's not the point. I think going over her record is one thing, but to say she's unqualified is just naive. She was a f'ing Governor of a state and a mayor. Come on. It's not like she's been picked out of no where. That's the type of BS, that IMHO shows me the "leftist journalists" were out to hit her. The arguement is slanted at best. Obama was elected into office in late 2004. And I do not see an equal questioning of his "qualifications" to lead a country. The executive branch is not equal to the legislative branch. And I'm not saying a Senator can't or shouldn't be President... I'm simply saying a guy who's held a politcal seat for less than 4 years and is running for PRESIDENT should be receiving atleast as much scrutinizing over his record as a woman whos's held a poltically elected seat for over 10 years (yes, mayor is kinda weak, but it's true) and a govenorship for 2 years and who is running for VP is receiving ONE MONTH BEFORE AN ELECTION. It's really ridiculous.
The bottom line is Obama has no record. But, the media should be highlighting this.... they just are not.