Streams of Consciousness, Dec. 17

South Florida voters can't blame DWT for not warning them before the election-- over and over-- about what a crook, an exceptional crook, David M. Rivera was, is and has always been. In the end FL-25 voters gave the open seat to Rivera over Democrat Joe Garcia 74,386 (53%) to 60,123 (42%). One has to wonder if they're starting to feel some buyers remorse now that it's come out that the Miami-Dade state attorney's office is investigating more than $500,000 in secret payments from the owners of the Flagler Dog Track to a company tied to Rivera and his mother.

Most of the money was paid in early 2008, weeks after Rivera-- then a member of the Florida House of Representatives-- helped run a political campaign backed by the dog track to win voter approval for Las Vegas-style slot machines at parimutuel venues in Miami-Dade County.

The dog track-- now called the Magic City Casino-- made three payments totaling $510,000 to Millennium Marketing, a company currently co-managed by Rivera's 70-year-old mother. Investigators are still trying to determine if Rivera himself received any of the money, or if anything about the transaction was illegal, according to sources close to the inquiry.

Rivera basically managed the pro-slots campaign and is widely rumored to have been paying off other Florida Republicans-- including teabagger Marco Rubio-- to support it. Rivera refuses to discuss the investigation with the media but his damage control p.r. firm issued a blanket statement, as they always do, denying everything.

In the statement, Rivera said he was "designated by Millennium'' to work on the slots campaign after the firm was hired by Flagler, and added he has not been contacted by investigators. At the time the contract was signed, Millennium's sole corporate officer was Rivera's godmother, Ileana Medina.

But Roberto Martinez, an attorney for the dog track, said it was Rivera who first approached the track owners in 2006 asking to manage the slots campaign, and it was Rivera who suggested that the contract go through Millennium, rather than to Rivera directly. Flagler's contract with Millennium was signed by both Rivera and Medina.

Flagler's owners "wanted to make sure they retained David's personal services,'' Martinez said. Flagler's owners never dealt with Medina or Rivera's mother, Daisy Magarino, who was named a corporate officer of Millennium days after the Flagler contract expired.

In a later statement to the Herald, Rivera confirmed that he suggested the contract with Millennium after Flagler's owners "expressed interest'' in pursuing the referendum.

In October, while campaigning for Congress, Rivera told the Herald he only "helped'' with the slots vote, and denied having a management role in the parimutuel campaign or receiving any payment.

But under the October 2006 agreement with Flagler, Rivera was described as the "strategic director'' of the pro-slots campaign, and its "Top Leader of Chain of Command of All Campaign Consultants and Campaign Activities,'' according to the contract, which was reviewed by the Miami Herald.

Martinez said Flagler did nothing wrong, and the company's owners are cooperating with the investigation.

Rivera "was very good at what he did, at directing the political campaign. He worked very hard,'' Martinez said. "Our clients haven't done anything wrong. They have nothing to hide.''

But in an interview with the Herald earlier this year, a Flagler official denied any contract with Rivera. Flagler's vice president, Isadore Havenick, told the newspaper: "He gave us advice, but he was never hired by us.''

...Martinez said Havenick's statement is not inconsistent, because the payments from the company went to Millennium, not to Rivera directly. "We don't know where the money went,'' Martinez said.

The payments from the track to Millennium were never publicly disclosed. Millennium was paid directly by Flagler, not through a political action committee Flagler established with two other Miami-Dade parimutuels to finance the campaign. The committee's expenses, which totaled more than $6.7 million, were disclosed under campaign finance laws.

...According to records reviewed by the Herald, the track also agreed to pay Millennium another $500,000 in monthly installments of $20,000-- the remainder of a "success fee'' owed to Millennium after the referendum passed in the Jan. 29, 2008, vote. But neither Rivera nor Millennium ever collected on it.

Rivera did not report receiving any income from Flagler Dog Track or Millennium Marketing between 2006 and 2008 in financial disclosure forms filed with the state Ethics Commission.

In the forms, Rivera first reported that he worked during those years as a consultant for the U.S. Agency for International Development. the Herald reported in October that USAID had no record that Rivera worked for the agency; Rivera then amended his disclosure forms, omitting any reference to USAID-- but without listing any other source of income except his $30,000 annual salary as a state lawmaker.

Rivera did report working as a consultant through Millennium for other clients from 2002 to 2005. At the time, however, Millennium was not an active company, state records show.

Magarino, Rivera's mother, first founded a company called Millennium Marketing Strategies in 2000, but it was dissolved a year later. In 2006, a new Millennium was founded by Medina, a longtime business partner of Magarino's, records show.

Magarino reappeared as a Millennium officer in April 2008, four days after the final payment from Flagler. Rivera himself has never been an officer of the company.

Medina and Margarino could not be reached for comment.

With the election of Rivera and Rubio, Miami is now officially a Banana Republic.

Has Rahm Emanuel Ruined Chicago Yet?

Well, no; he hasn't been elected mayor yet. Voting is slated for February 22. In fact, it isn't even certain that he will be allowed on the ballot, since he's a non-resident and the Board of Elections hearings have dragged on for almost a week already. Chicago law says candidates for mayor must have lived in the city for 12 months before the election. Emanuel and his family live in DC and have no home in Chicago.

There are about 20 candidates trying to get onto the ballot besides Emanuel but the latest poll shows him the best known and, obviously the fave to win, beating out "undecided 32-30%. To win, one needs to get over 50%, so it's likely Emanuel will face a runoff. The other top-performing candidates so far are former Chicago Public Schools chief Gery Chico and U.S. Rep. Danny Davis each had 9%, state Sen. James Meeks at 7% and former Senator Carol Moseley Braun at 6%. According to the poll, Emanuel "is out front on the strength of his support from lakefront wards, white voters and the wealthy."

Obama Mania Has Died Down In Africa... Just Like In America

Right after Obama was elected, I was traveling around Mali. You could barely go to a tiny village in the middle of nowhere accessible only by sturdy 4-WD vehicle where you wouldn't find Obama pictures, campaign stickers and America flags. Mali was awash with them. All of Africa was. Everyone was in love with Obama and with America. That's over. Yesterday in the market here in Marrakech where some guy was selling a train set (made in China, of course) with Bush chasing bin-Laden endlessly around the track. I asked him if he had one with Obama and he said to just paint the Bush figure black because it's the only difference between the two.

I first ran into Sam Graham-Felsen when he was blogging up a storm for Obama during the 2008 campaign. I didn't know many professional bloggers back then. Today Sam is a blogging/new media consultant and earlier today the Washington Post published an OpEd by him asking Why is Obama leaving the grass roots on the sidelines?

In the wake of President Obama's deal to extend the Bush tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans, pundits have focused on how Obama has alienated the left. But the issue isn't the left - it's the list.

Obama entered the White House with more than a landslide victory over Sen. John McCain. He brought with him a vast network of supporters, instantly reachable through an unprecedented e-mail list of 13 million people. These supporters were not just left-wing activists but a broad coalition that included the young, African Americans, independents and even Republicans-- and they were ready to be mobilized.

I worked as Obama's chief blogger during his presidential campaign, and my primary focus was telling the stories of these supporters, many of whom had never been engaged in politics or were reengaging after years of disillusionment. There was a common thread in my conversations with the hundreds of people who gave time, sweat and small donations-- that amounted to $500 million-- to Obama's campaign.

They were inspired by Obama's promise to upend Washington by governing from the bottom up. "The change we need doesn't come from Washington," Obama told them. "It comes to Washington."

Yet at seemingly every turn, Obama has chosen to play an inside game. Instead of actively engaging supporters in major legislative battles, Obama has told them to sit tight as he makes compromises behind closed doors.

During the battle over tax cuts, Obama's grass-roots network, Organizing for America, was silent. An OFA spokesman said that the network would engage supporters when the time is "ripe." But many people feel the time is ripe now-- that tax cuts for millionaires in the midst of cuts in basic services and a spiraling deficit are unacceptable-- and they don't understand why Obama won't let them fight.

And when OfA has been given marching orders, more often than not, it's marching orders against the progressive ideals and values that helped sweep the little known 2 year Illinois senator into office out of the blue. People wanted "not Bush" and they could read into "hope and change" anything they wanted. Too few people looked at Obama's conservative voting record. He was consistently down at the very bottom of the Democratic barrel, worse than Lieberman, better than Ben Nelson... sort of the same as Max Baucus, Blanche Lincoln and Mary Landrieu. That's what we nominated instead of Hillary Clinton, who wasn't quite as identifiable with CHANGE.

If the White House wants to keep its grass-roots supporters at bay during major legislative fights, that's its choice. But there's a larger problem looming.

Obama needs this list in 2012-- and he needs its members to dig much deeper than in the last election. The Citizens United ruling has allowed campaigns to become an unprecedented corporate cash free-for-all - and Obama will likely need to raise far more than $500 million from the grass roots to be competitive.

While Obama's political team intensely focuses on independents, the grass-roots list seems like an afterthought. Every time Obama chooses to compromise behind closed doors, and keeps OFA quiet, he might win over a few independents. But he's also conveying a message that the grass roots doesn't really matter, that the bottom-up ethos of his candidacy doesn't apply to his presidency.

Personally I think the horse has left the barn. Most Democrats still don't realize that Obama's Conservative Consensus is all he was ever about... but they will. At that point, even Palin may be able to beat him as Democrats and left-leaning independents stay home on election day, just like they did last month.

Congresswoman Yvette Clarke is an African-American freshman representing Brownsville, Flatbush, Crown Heights, Park Slope in Brooklyn. It's one of the most heavily Democratic districts in America. Thursday she voted against the Obama-McConnell job-skilling tax giveaway to millionaires. She told her constituents that she voted against it because "at a time when our nation is facing a 9.8% unemployment rate, with Social Security recipients being denied a cost of living adjustment for the second year in a row, and the most obstinate economic down turn in a generation, I could not in good conscious vote to provide an estate tax give-away and extend the Bush era tax cuts to the wealthiest individuals in our nation. These are an extension of the same fiscal policies put in place under the Bush Administration that has dramatically increased our nation’s deficit as well as added to the challenges of the recovery of our nation’s economy... the damaging results these tax policies will have on the deficit will ultimately empower Republicans to attack and dismantle the social safety-net that residents of my district rely upon. I refuse to be complicit with policies that reward the greed of a handful of our nation’s wealthiest individuals, while hard working Americans and their families are left with policies that leave them struggling in the cold now and for generations to come.”

Another staunch Obama supporter, Florida Congressman Alan Grayson also voted against the bill. “This bill gives more money to the rich and their families, who do not need it. Large parts of it will not create a single job, but it will add hundreds of billions of dollars to the national deficit and debt. We cannot afford it and I do not support it... We got the bum rush. The President and Senate Republicans shut everyone else out of the negotiations. Congressional leaders shoved this bill through without a single hearing. We should not be giving away hundreds of billions of dollars to people who don’t need it, without asking questions in committees, marking up the legislation, or reading the bill." On top of that, he singled out 4 areas he was especially unhappy with:

·         Extending the Bush tax cuts for the richest of the rich, which will add an estimated $150 billion to the federal deficit over the next two years;
·         Revamping the estate tax to give six thousand of the richest families in the country an additional $23 billion to boost their children’s trust funds, without creating jobs or stimulating the economy;

·         Giving away $150 billion in corporate taxes, by allowing businesses to write off all capital expenditures in 2011 for items made in foreign countries, and items that they would have purchased anyway, which effectively will “zero out” the corporate income tax; and

·         Cutting the payroll taxes that fund Social Security, which creates the risk of weakening the program and/or forcing a reduction in benefits.

If Obama is losing Members of Congress like Yvette Clarke and Alan Grayson, he better hope there are a lot of Republicans out there who think like right-wing propagandist Charles Krauthammer... and figure out a way to get them to stop watching Fox and listening to Limbaugh.



The Health Care Bill Was Ruled Unconstitutional By A GOP Hack With An Outsized Ego And A Reputation As A Drama Queen

in 2007 Henry Hudson wrote a largely unread autobiography, Quest For Justice, in which he unmasked himself as someone primarily driven by a desire to be in the spotlight.

Throughout the book, he boasts of his ability to generate media coverage; describes relationships with celebrities in Washington and Hollywood; and recalls the boredom of legal work removed from the public eye. ("Perhaps it was ego," he remarks.) At one point, Hudson acknowledges that he was gunning for "a full-time gig as a network legal commentator." Hudson ultimately accepted that he "was never going to make it big in the broadcasting field," but he never lost his appetite for attention. And, if his ruling against President Obama's landmark health care law stands, Hudson might have finally completed his lifelong quest for glory.

The Ruling Elite vs The Real America

Let's end this episode with a discussion Jon Stewart had with some NYC 9-11 first responders on how they view the U.S. Senate's filibuster of their healthcare reimbursement. Notice John Boehner isn't the only weeping girly-man in the Republican congressional leadership... and if you think Hitler was somehow inately different from Arizona Senator Jon Kyl, watch the clip again:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
9/11 First Responders React to the Senate Filibuster
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