California Democrats Say They Will Demand Accountability
Posted Wednesday, October 8, 2003 by symbolman

A day after a bitter defeat for Gov. Gray Davis of California and the Democratic Party, the California Democratic leadership vowed to birddog Governor-elect Arnold Schwarzenegger throughout his term, and predicted that the novice politician would suffer for his campaign promises.

"Schwarzenegger made a lot of promises that we know are lies," Bob Mulholland, the campaign adviser to the California Democratic Party, said today. "And now he's going to find out that being in the governor's office is not a movie script. We'll be holding his feet to the fire."

The Democratic official noted that among the promises that the Democratic leadership will closely monitor are Mr. Schwarzenegger's vow to repeal the car tax as soon as he took office — thus taking about $4.2 billion in revenue from the already cash-strapped state — and others involving spending cuts.>> More

VOTE NO ON RECALL - YES FOR BUSTAMANTE
Posted Monday, October 6, 2003 by symbolman

Defeating the California Republic(an) Coup
Posted Monday, October 6, 2003 by mediababe

By Eric Johnson, Coast News

Anybody voting in tomorrow's California Recall vote should read this article. Ten Recall Do's and Don'ts. Ten points summing up the recall election in a nutshell and explains what you should be looking out for in this recall vote. Also included is Five Reasons to let Gray Davis Keep His Job.>>More

Arnold Calls His Acts of Sexual Harassment a Joke
Posted Monday, October 6, 2003 by symbolman

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS

In a "Dateline NBC" interview aired Sunday evening, Schwarzenegger said of the allegations, "a lot of it is made-up stories. I've never grabbed anyone and pulled up the shirt and grabbed the breast and stuff like that."

But when asked if he denied all the stories about grabbing, he said, "No, not all. But I'm just saying this is not me. What I am is someone that sometimes makes outrageous jokes, someone that is out and says sometimes crazy things that may be offensive because there is a certain atmosphere.">> More

Does this sentence even make SENSE? Of course he's claiming that he's some sort of Liberal who 'partied', I guess - a REAL Liberal promotes TOLERANCE that is DECENT - not like some Porno King. This is a Disgusting excuse for a Human Being. As Liberal I DON'T have to Tolerate THAT. Vote NO on Recall and YES for Bustamante. Take Back our State from the Con-servative Artists! And visit BUZZFLASH daily for real News!

Total amnesia - By Jason Leopold
Posted Monday, October 6, 2003 by symbolman

Arnold can’t seem to recall anything about his secret meeting with Enron’s Ken Lay. Perhaps this will refresh his memory.

Arnold Schwarzenegger and Ken Lay leave Gray Davis and California ratepayers in the dark.

Arnold Schwarzenegger isn't talking. The Hollywood action-film star and GOP gubernatorial candidate in the state’s recall election has been unusually silent about his plans for running the Golden State. He hasn’t yet offered a solution for the state’s budget deficit, an issue that largely got more than 1 million people to sign a petition to recall Governor Gray Davis.

More importantly, however, Schwarzenegger still won’t respond to questions about why he was at the Peninsula Hotel in Beverly Hills two years ago where he, former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan and junk-bond king Michael Milken met secretly with former Enron Chairman Kenneth Lay, who was touting a plan for solving the state’s energy crisis. Other luminaries who were invited but didn’t attend the May 24, 2001, meeting included former Los Angeles Laker Earvin “Magic” Johnson and supermarket magnate Ron Burkle.

While Schwarzenegger, Riordan and Milken listened to Lay’s pitch, Davis pleaded with President George W. Bush to enact much-needed price controls on electricity sold in the state, which skyrocketed to more than $200 per megawatt-hour (four to five times the price it was a year earlier).

Davis said that Texas-based energy companies were manipulating California’s power market, charging obscene prices for power and holding consumers hostage. Bush agreed to meet with Davis at the Century Plaza Hotel in West Los Angeles on May 29 of that year--five days after Lay met with Schwarzenegger--to discuss the California power crisis.>> More

Time to Recall E-Vote Machines?
Posted Monday, October 6, 2003 by mediababe

By Kim Zetter, Wired News

As Californians head to the polls on Tuesday, voters in at least one county will cast their ballots electronically on machines that have been shown to be flawed.

Alameda County uses 4,000 touch-screen voting machines manufactured by Diebold Election Systems. But last month, officials in Maryland released a report saying that the Diebold machines were "at high risk of compromise" due to security flaws in the software. Despite this, officials in Alameda County said their policies and procedures for using the machines will secure them against voting fraud.

However, information obtained by Wired News at a training session for Alameda County poll workers indicates that security lapses in the use of the equipment and poor worker training could expose the election to serious tampering. >>More

GIVE HIM ENOUGH GROPE, MAYBE HE’LL HANG HIMSELF
Posted Saturday, October 4, 2003 by symbolman

October 5, 2003 -- Arnold Schwarzenegger took time out from his busy schedule of trying to get a "Total Recall" of California Gov. Gray Davis last week to apologize for groping women, but denied that he'd made pro- Hitler comments. His handlers called it all a political smear campaign.

By whom? The gropees? The neo-Nazis?

On the sexual-harassment charges, the beige-haired 56-year-old actor - whose face looks oddly tighter than Cher's - said he was just being rowdy on movie sets, adding, "I have done things that were not right, which I thought then was playful."

Playful? Right. A woman loves it when a stranger or co-worker the size of Macy's tries to strip her bathing suit off in an elevator, reaches under her skirt, or grabs her breast while she's interviewing him.

And about the Hitler mess? Even though Ah-nold said on Thursday that he hates everything Hitler stood for, the fact remains that he was still a big supporter of Kurt Waldheim even after his Nazi past was revealed.

According to "Arnold: An Unauthorized Biography," by Wendy Leigh, Schwarzenegger stood up at his own wedding and said, "My friends don't want me to mention Kurt's name, because of all the recent Nazi stuff ... but I love him and Maria does, too, and so thank you, Kurt."

>> More

The Media's Obligation in Debunking Myths
Posted Saturday, October 4, 2003 by symbolman

More on Bush and the 9/11-Saddam Link - By Seth Porges

In my article "Bush 9/11 Admission Gets Little Play" (E&P Online, Sept. 19), I explored the results of my study of how the 12 largest daily newspapers by circulation handled what seemed like an important event: President Bush admitting two days earlier that Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with 9/11, contrary to popular belief (an oft-cited August poll conducted by The Washington Post revealed that 69% of Americans believe that Hussein was personally involved in the attacks).

As it turned out, only three of the 12 biggest papers put the Bush admission on their front page, and two (The Wall Street Journal and New York Post) didn't mention it at all.

Many of the notes [emails sent to author] were fiery with emotion. "This is about the most incredible thing I have ever read," John Zaragoza wrote. "Here the press doesn't cover one of the major reasons this country went to war and thousands of people have been killed... all based on lies. And this is not heralded across all media banners?"

My article, however, did not claim that Bush had ever explicitly linked Hussein to 9/11 -- only that he implied it. Given the number of times he had mentioned Saddam and 9/11 in the same breath, this seemed to be a safe observation. In fact, Bush was forced to admit the link was hogwash only after his vice president, three days earlier, once again insinuated a connection between Saddam and 9/11.

Bush's admission should have made a bigger splash because almost seven out of 10 Americans believed an apparent untruth. Polls have shown that this belief was one of the key reasons the public was so willing to back the invasion of Iraq. The fact that Bush evidently knew that Saddam was not involved in the 9/11 attack, yet did not debunk this myth, suggests a dangerous manipulation of the truth to garner public support for the war.

The press, too, can be faulted for letting the myth survive for so long. This comes on top of what now appears to be another media-aided fantasy: that Iraq was an imminent threat due to possession of huge stockpiles of WMD.>> More

Schwartzenegger's televised groping spree
Posted Saturday, October 4, 2003 by symbolman

Schwarzenegger: Total Amnesia?
Posted Saturday, October 4, 2003 by symbolman

Internal Enron e-mails confirm that Arnold Schwarzenegger was among a small group of executives who met with Lay at the posh Peninsula Beverly Hills hotel in May of 2001, in the midst of California's energy crisis.

The Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights, which obtained the e-mails, is calling on Schwarzenegger to acknowledge the meetings and disclose the information that was presented and discussed. The meeting with Enron occurred ten days after rolling blackouts darkened California for two consecutive days; Schwarzenegger has previously said that he does not remember such a meeting.

"You don't meet with America's most well-known corporate crook in the middle of California's biggest financial disaster and not remember," said FTCR's senior consumer advocate Douglas Heller. "Mr. Schwarzenegger should come clean about what happened at that meeting and if he shares Ken Lay's views on energy regulation."

The documents provide a list of invitees to the hastily arranged meeting and a list of those who actually attended. Only eleven of the 45 invitees attended, including Schwarzenegger. The meeting was meant to be an opportunity to gain business community support for Enron's "comprehensive solution" to the energy crisis.

In one e-mail, Enron's VP of Public Relations wrote: "We'd like to position this meeting as an insider's conversation of what's going on with the energy situation. This meeting should be for principals only." (emphasis in original)

FTCR contends that Enron policies were responsible for the severe energy crisis California faced in 2000 and 2001. The group noted that the crisis had dramatic implications on the state economy and state budget and will continue to impact consumers for years to come. FTCR has called for a repeal of the deregulation and supported SB 888 (Dunn) to re-regulate the state's electricity system.

FTCR has been critical of Enron's involvement in the California energy crisis, in which the company developed schemes for manipulating the power market that forced massive price spikes in the state.

"Since it was apparently important enough for Schwarzenegger to attend despite the last minute notice, Schwarzenegger should now explain what happened at his meeting with Enron's Ken Lay and whether or not he supports electricity re-regulation," said Heller.>> More

When in the hell is SOMEBODY going to PRISON for BILKING ALL AMERICANS? These guys ARE CROOKS who have been CAUGHT BEFORE. Get them behind bars and start asking some questions. A guy who would hold up a clerk in a convenience store would get 10 YEARS for stealing $50. These guys should be in CAMP X-RAY for the rest of their lives. WHERE are the MEDIA? BOUGHT AND SOLD? They've all SOLD US down the river. Go to this site to View the e-mails. And don't forget to VOTE!

Davis: Schwarzenegger allegations 'disturbing'
Posted Saturday, October 4, 2003 by symbolman

Days away from the fateful recall election, California Gov. Gray Davis said he was disturbed by allegations about Arnold Schwarzenegger's sexual misconduct and outraged by reports he once expressed admiration for Adolf Hitler.

Schwarzenegger, the front-runner in the recall race, spent Thursday disputing and apologizing for sexual misconduct allegations, and denying the Hitler reports.

He also said that the timing of the allegations was politically motivated -- though he stopped short of accusing rival campaigns of engineering the story.

The sexual harassment accusations were reported in the Los Angeles Times on Thursday, in which six women alleged that Schwarzenegger touched them in a sexual manner without their consent. The alleged acts date back to the 1970s and the latest accusation referred to an incident in 2000. The newspaper contacted the women; none of them approached the newspaper, the L.A. Times said.>> More

I wonder if Prescott Bush and The Gropenator's father were old buddies - since they both had dealings with the Nazis. Get these people OUT of our GOVT, NOW. VOTE NO ON RECALL.

He's the Poster Boy of Trash Politics
Posted Saturday, October 4, 2003 by symbolman

By K.B. Forbes, K.B. Forbes, a GOP strategist, was communications director for Bill Simon's most recent gubernatorial campaign.

Arnold Schwarzenegger has become the poster child for the newest form of trash politics: a political system so corrupt and undemocratic that a compulsive sexual deviant was anointed the de facto nominee by California GOP bosses in a smoke-free backroom.

How much did Schwarzenegger's campaign team know about his egregious sexual behavior? Did they intentionally attempt to conceal this pattern of sexual harassment from voters? Did leaders of the California Republican Party look the other way in their desperation to win back the governorship?

What Schwarzenegger's boosters in the GOP establishment fail to understand is that this is not about an old extramarital affair or someone's sex life from years past. This is worse. This is the story of a guy who rode the elevator, groping a woman on the way up, and who is now about to get off on the top floor: the governor's office.

Simply put, Schwarzenegger is unfit to be governor.

GOP leaders playing trash politics attempted to fool the voters — including many conservatives in their own party — by hiding the candidate's three-decade sickness and now by obscuring the line between his personal sex life and his nonconsensual sexual groping of women.

But he's been exposed. The victims of Schwarzenegger's harassing, if not criminal behavior, had the courage to expose his actions and possibly help save the GOP from making the wrong choice.

For the victims' sake, California voters must now unite and, next Tuesday, vote for anyone but Schwarzenegger.>> More

This took a lot of guts to write. This man has some values, not like many of the people running this Animal for office. Hopefully, how a sex maniac was annointed will be a matter for future historians to consider.

Quote from yesterday's edition of the 700 Club on CBN.
Posted Saturday, October 4, 2003 by symbolman

From People for the American Way:

Quote from yesterday's edition of the 700 Club on CBN.

Pat Robertson: "The truth is that people of minority groups, whether they're African American, Hispanics, Asians or whoever, have been denied opportunity in the past in the United States. And there is, without question, an incredible effort on the part of the media and Hollywood screenwriters etc., to elevate these minorities into positions of prominence, at least if nothing else in fictional stories. You look at Morgan Freeman who is a tremendous actor. He started off playing a chauffer in Driving Miss Daisy and then they elevated him to head of the CIA and then they elevated him to President and in his last role they made him God. I just wonder, isn't Rush Limbaugh right to question the fact, is he that good an actor or not? And was there a preference given? The same thing with the quarterback, did they give him a break? And are the media giving him a break or not?"

Statement by Ralph G. Neas, President of People for the American Way: "Words fail me."

I'm with Ralph here.