Can You Say "Pattern of Intimidation"?

According to the following press release from The Pennsylvania League of Young Voters Political Action Committee, there's been still more broken windows of Bruce Kraus supporters:

"Last night a business on South 15th street displaying a Kraus sign had a plate glass window shattered. (Pictures attached) No windows displaying Koch signs are known to have been damaged."

Here are pictures of the second Kraus supporter store to be vandalized:





Notice Kraus sign in the window on the right?
The League asks Mayor Ravenstahl and other City Officials to "step up and ensure safe, fair elections and to discourage voter intimidation and campaign violence in the days between."

The full press release:

Broken Windows, Stolen Signs Intimidate Kraus Supporters in District 3

Mayor: Please Step Up and Ensure Fair, Safe Election

Pittsburgh, PA: The Pennsylvania League of Young Voters Political Action Committee calls on Mayor Ravenstahl and City Officials to step up and ensure safe, fair elections and to discourage voter intimidation and campaign violence in the days between.

Just days after city workers were photographed wearing Koch shirts on city time and suspended for the violation, Kraus supporters and residents of District 3 have experienced increased levels of intimidation, violence and vitriol in this already heated race.

Throughout the campaign Kraus signs have repeatedly been stolen. But this week the negative campaigning escalated to violence. Two businesses displaying Kraus signs were vandalized on two consecutive days near the Carson Street business district. The first, located at the corner of 18th and Carson, was playing a commercial for Bruce Kraus on a large TV in its 18th street window. Sometime over night on Friday or Saturday someone threw a brick threw the window. Last night a business on South 15th street displaying a Kraus sign had a plate glass window shattered. (Pictures attached) No windows displaying Koch signs are known to have been damaged.

With the escalation in violence and shady campaigning the PA League of Young Voters PAC is concerned that Election Day will bring widespread efforts to disfranchise voters in District Three. PLYV PAC calls on Mayor Ravenstahl and city officials to take steps to ensure safe and fair elections for all city residents and in light of recent events, especially District 3.

"The Mayor and City Officials have an obligation, both ethical and legal, to end this sort of shady campaigning and ensure that citizens in District Three can exercise their conscience in the voting booth on May 15th" stated Lou Takacs, chair of the PLYV PAC.The PLYV PAC also calls on the officials to look into these incidents along with the continued incidents of city workers wearing Koch shirts even after several members of Public Works were suspended for the same violation.

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Vandals Toss Brick Through Window of Kraus Supporter

According to Kraus supporters, the window pictured below was broken sometime between late Friday night and early Saturday morning.


What was in the window?

A 62 inch TV that playing a Bruce Kraus full length commercial. The television was damaged along with the window.


The vandalism occurred at the corner of 18th and Carson Street.

The Kraus Campaign noted that in the last 6 weeks "nearly 100 of our campaign yard signs have been stolen, or defaced."

As many know, campaign signs are often "messed with" but that number seems a bit high to me for a City Council race. The Kraus campaign had remained silent on the stolen/defaced signs until the TV incident.

Of course, there is no evidence that the window and TV were vandalized by anyone connected with the Koch campaign -- as this happened on a weekend night on the South Side, it may have just been kids or drunks or drunken kids.

The Kraus Campaign is hopeful that a nearby PNC bank's surveillance camera may have caught the vandals in the act.

I'm trying to find out if it was this Kraus ad at YouTube.

Is it just me, or is it getting really ugly out there?
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See the Infamous Bodack Letter Here!

As I blogged here, the Len Bodack Campaign mailed out a letter in Pittsburgh City Council District 7 which branded his opponent, Patrick Dowd, a "LIAR." Furthermore, Councilman Bodack uses a "near exact replication of the Pittsburgh City seal" to do that dirty work. The letter also implies that the Pittsburgh Public School Teachers failed to endorse Dowd because they believe him to be a liar.

Here are .JPG files of the letter and envelope:





Here's a comparison of the official Seal of the City of Pittsburgh (left) and the seal that Bodack uses on the envelope and twice on the letter (right):

Official Seal Bodack Letter Seal

Despite the "seal" both the letter and envelope have the following printed on them "NOT PRINTED AT GOVERNMENT EXPENSE." I guess that's how you're supposed to figure out that the mailing is not officially coming from the City or Bodack's Council office -- that is if you somehow were not eagle-eyed enough to notice the differences in the seal being used. And, we all have the official seal memorized, right?

As I stated yesterday, Councilman Jeff Koch also mailed out a flyer (seemingly at the same time as Bodack's letter) which also brands his opponent, Bruce Kraus, as a "liar." I will try to have pictures of that flyer up today. I will also be posting some pictures of some dirty tricks reportedly done against the Kraus camp.

An Interesting Omission by Jack Kelly

In today's P-G, conservative columnist Jack Kelly compares newly elected French President Nicolas Sarkozy to the late Ronald Reagan:

How do you say "Ronald Reagan" in French? Many in Europe's establishment fear it might be "Nicolas Sarkozy."

And quotes the French President-Elect:

In his victory speech, Mr. Sarkozy said: "I want to make an appeal to our American friends: to say to them they can count on our friendship, which has been reinforced by the historical tragedies we have encountered together. I want to say to them that France will always be at their side when they need her help."

Wanna see what follows in Sarkozy speech? Wanna see the part that comes right after where J-Kel stops quoting?

I knew you would. Here's that section of the speech from the BBC. The words are a little different, remember, because Sarkozy's speaking French and different translators will translate the same words differently. In any event, I'll italicize all the material the P-G's conservative columnist dutifully omitted.

I want to issue an appeal to our American friends, to tell them that they can count on our friendship, which has been forged in the tragedies of history which we have faced together.

I want to tell them that France will always be by their side when they need it, but I also want to tell them that friendship means accepting that your friends may think differently and that a great nation such as the United States has a duty not to put obstacles in the way of the fight against global warming, but on the contrary to take the lead in this fight, because what is at stake is the fate of humanity as a whole. France will make this battle its primary battle.

That is different, isn't it? Gee, I wonder why Jack Kelly would omit from the French President-Elect's speech all that stuff about how "...the United States has a duty not to put obstacles in the way of the fight against global warming..."

Let's see. He's written that it's the sun that's caused the most recent global warming and that since sun spot activity (and with it it's correlated warming trends) are expected to go down in the next few decades, he's hoping that the current science (which he calls "hypothetical piled upon hypothetical and computer models which cannot duplicate the actual climate of the present or the recent past") is actually correct, because it's better to be warmer than colder.

Jack, Jack, Jack. Did you think no one was gonna check your work?

The Kerry Event

Just got back from the Kerry Book event (see the photos here).

Maria was correct. A few local bloggers were invited to attend and the cool part was that we were to be seated directly behind the two rows reserved for the local mainstream press.

• Row 1 - Reserved for the MSM
• Row 2 - Reserved for the MSM
• Row 3 - Reserved for us bloggers
• Row 4+ - The huge huge HUGE standing room only crowd.

As another blog-perc, we bloggers (a small group which included The Spork Incident, and a pair of heavy hitters from the John Kerry Blog and Democratic Underground) got about 10 minutes alone with the Kerrys - between Jon Delano's one-on-one and the book event itself.

On a completely self-serving note, here's the complete conversation between Delano and me:

Me: Mr Delano, good to see you! (I said this as we shook hands.)
Him: Well David, (he said as he shook back) when I heard there'd be some local bloggers here, I just knew you'd have to be one of them.

Cool thing here was that this occurred not 4 feet away from the Senator himself. See? It's ALWAYS about me.

Anyway as I said, we were graciously given a few minutes of the Kerry's time before the book event to ask a question or two. As I was the tallest of the bloggers there, it seemed only natural for me to go first. I asked when dealing with environmental questions, how does one deal with the large amount of pseudoscience masquerading as science?

Senator Kerry pointed out that all the science in his book is fully anotated, that there are 928 peer reviewed studies that all point out that human beings are actively contributing to global climate change. Peer-review, he added, is the system used by the scientific community whereby a study is submitted anonymously to a separate group of scientists (ergo "peer") for the methodology and data to be checked. The point being, of course, that if it makes it into a peer-reviewed journal, the science is solid.

Of the studies that disagree, he said, none are published in peer-reviewed journals. The evidence is so overwhelming that one would have to a member of the "flat-Earth caucus (Senator Imhofe, presiding)" in order to believe otherwise.

UPDATE: Here's the youtube clip of the Senator's answer:

The conversation (and it really was more of a conversation than an interview) went in a number of different directions. The Senator pointed out what he called the "Three Big Grabs" of coming to deal with global climate change:

1. Energy Efficiency
2. Alternative fuel sources
3. Clean coal technology

And as the Senator took a quick swipe of some lip balm, we were on our way to the Q & A.

Luckily a local photog (a woman with short hair and in a salmon colored shirt) snagged what was my seat, forcing me to stand. It was lucky as I was able to get some good pics from my scrawny camera phone - better than I would have gotten had I been sitting originally. Thanks Short-haired, Salmon-shirted lady!

If you've never been in that Barnes & Noble, take a look at the pictures in Maria's early blogposting (and I apologise for the low quality of the shots. I was using my camera phone). The space was maybe 30 feet wide and 150 feet long. Filled to capacity with people - so much that they had to move one of the speakers from the front all the way to the back in order for everyone to hear.

While pointing out that the environmental stuff is "Teresa's territory," the Senator laid the ground work for our understanding of the book. All the proceed of the book are given to environmental charities and the book itself grew out of their "deep frustration" at not being able to get people to "connect the dots" during the 2004 presidential election about the environment. Teresa Heinz Kerry pointed out that the book was not written for experts or pundits, but for regular people to read.

The rest of the question and answer period had to do with specific environmental issues (mesothelioma in women caused by the asbestos they laundered out of their husband's clothing, the quality of water in the rivers of North Carolina and so on). They took most of the questions from halfway down the crowd.

At one point, after a particularly sobering assessment by Teresa Heinz Kerry of the many dangerous chemicals found in stuff that should be safe and our government's seeming inability to deal with them, John Kerry took the mic and offered up an rhetorical sorbet of sorts. He stated that he'd noticed while his wife was speaking, the sorts of books displayed around him.

"Look at the size of the Romance section! I think we've been writing the wrong type of book," He said. He read off some of the titles - giving the crowd more than a few chuckles.

There was much too much information doled out at this half-book event half political rally to be addressed here. For more, go read the book.

UPDATE: Here's Jon Delano's story. For local blog-coverage, here's The Spork Incident. And for national blog-coverage, there are two; Democratic Underground and the Kerry Blog.

Ugly Bodack Campaign Lit Making the Rounds

I don't live in Pittsburgh City Councilman Len "My Opponet's Trying to Take the Food Out of My Kids' Mouths" Bodack's district (7), but I had heard from a friend that some misleading and ugly campaign literature was dropped to voters yesterday from the Bodack folks.

Today, I received a press release from the Patrick Dowd campaign referring to this lit drop. It says that the literature in question calls Dowd a "liar." But what's worse is that it apparently uses a "near exact replication of the Pittsburgh City seal" to do that dirty work. Of course, it would be illegal to use the actual seal in this manner.

Here's the press release:

For Immediate Release:

Council District 7 Debate Saga Approaches Final Chapter

Saturday, May 12, 2007 After receiving a scurrilous letter yesterday from Councilman Bodack that uses a near exact replication of the Pittsburgh City seal to dub Patrick Dowd “a liar,” the Dowd campaign delivered an automated phone message earlier this afternoon with the following text:

“Hello, this is Patrick Dowd, Democrat for City Council. My opponent, Lenny Bodack, Jr., has refused to be caught in public in any situation where he could be asked tough questions about his wasting of our tax dollars. About why he paid one ward chairman 28 thousand dollars for services that are almost entirely undocumented. About why he’s ducking the “Right to Know” laws and refusing to release information about his spending. Instead, he’s hiding behind mean spirited letters, accusing me of attacking his staff, and calling me names. My criticisms are not personal attacks. I am asking questions about public information and public dollars. He has avoided answering those questions time and again.

In fairness to Lenny I’m offering him one more chance to come clean, to debate the issues in front of voters and the television cameras so that everyone can see it. Here’s the invitation: Tomorrow night at 4326 Butler Street - in the heart of Lawrenceville - at 7 PM. Everyone is invited to join the television crews and me to see if he’ll show up. This is Patrick Dowd, Democrat for City Council.”

Patrick Dowd is open to taking an alternate location for tomorrow’s debate into consideration.

I will be posting later today on a piece of campaign lit which was mailed to me by the Jeff Koch campaign which also brands their opponent, Bruce Kraus, a "liar." No proof of any lies is offered in that literature. Do Bodack and Koch do their homework together or just copy off each others' papers?

We'll also get into the firing of yet another whistleblower -- this time in connection with the Koch campaign. Don't they ever learn?

I am also working on getting a copy of the Bodack letter and will post it here when I receive it -- likely tomorrow.

Patrick Dowd: http://www.dowdforpittsburgh.org
Bruce Kraus: http://www.brucekraus.net


UPDATE: You can see a copy of the Bodack letter here.
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John, Teresa, (Kerry) & David (2pj)

John Kerry and Teresa Heinz Kerry have co-written a book: This Moment on Earth: Today's New Environmentalists and Their Vision for the Future.


They are currently discussing and signing the book at the at Barnes & Noble Booksellers at the Waterworks Mall.

2 Political Junkies and some other local blogs were invited to the book signing and here are some pictures from David from this ongoing event:







Looks like an overflow crowd! I guess Pittsburgh still loves the Kerry's.

(FYI: I understand from David that the first couple of rows were reserved for the MSM with the invited bloggers sitting directly behind them, then the rest of the crowd.)

Public Works Crew STILL Wearing Koch T-shirts???!

Can it be true?

According to an email and phone call that I just received, someone saw the Koch T-shirts on a Public Works crew in a truck today at 10:15 AM at Ross Street.

The person said that they began to approach the truck to inquire about the shirts but before they could say anything the driver smiled at them and said, "Yeah, still wearing them!" and then they pulled away.

The person recorded the truck license number as: MG2116D

Anyone else see this?

Tune to 1360 AM now . . .

. . . To hear the dulcet tones of co-blogger David DeAngelo hosting for Lynn Cullen from NOW until noon on WPTT AM NewsTalk 1360.

The number to call in is: 412-333-1360

You can also listen online here.

THANKS!

Sounds about right for Pittsburgh

As I've mentioned here before, I designed the website for Rick Swartz, challenger to Dan Onorato in the primary race for Allegheny County Chief Executive, so it should come as no surprise that I disagree with the Post-Gazette's endorsement yesterday of Onorato.

I was already unhappy with Onorato as both a DINO and as someone who seems to have a real talent for arrogance (see here and here for the most recent examples), so I was happy to have someone else jump into the race if only to bring more attention to issues like public transit.

Additionally, Onorato also seems to be holding the strings to his puppet, Mayor Luke Ravenstahl. Ravenstahl has referred to Onorato as "The Boss" in a now infamous video. Ravenstahl of course has said he was joking, but many think that their relationship is not that funny and are uncomfortable with the vast amount of power that the County Chief Executive has as compared to the Mayor. (Then again, considering exactly who is our Mayor, he probably does need more minders than even the city budget has.)

At any rate, the last paragraph in the P-G's endorsement did give me real pause:

Rick Swartz has noble principles and a desire to engage more people in local decision-making. But Allegheny County is a metro hub with 1.2 million people, not a Vermont hamlet. He might make a responsive city councilman one day, but for county chief executive Democrats should stick with the name they know -- and nominate Dan Onorato.

Hmmm . . . Swartz "might make a responsive city councilman one day..."?!?

"might"?

"one day"?

As compared to whom?

Perhaps he only needs a few years inspecting roads or driving trucks in the Public Works Department to truly be qualified for a position on our City Council (see Motznik, Deasy, Koch). Of course, Rick's B.A and graduate-level study at Pitt’s School of Public and International Affairs and School of Social Work would be a real drawback.

Yeah, that sounds about right . . . for Pittsburgh.

Bill Richardson's New Ads

Democratic candidate for President and New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson has two new ads out. The first ad is running exclusively in Iowa, the second ad is web-only. Both can be seen here:



I think they're pretty cute -- let me know what you think.

Dowd Picks Up More Endorsements

Speaking of endorsements, in addition to receiving Democracy for Pittsburgh's nod this week, Patrick Dowd (running for City Council District 7) picked up three big endorsements from AFSCME District Council 84, New Pittsburgh Courier and the Pittsburgh Tribune Review.

Dowd has already received endorsements from:
Planned Parenthood Western PA Action Fund
PA League of Young Voters PAC
The Gertrude Stein Club
The Sierra Club
Steel City Stonewall Dems
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Candidate Website: http://www.dowdforpittsburgh.org

Democracy for Pittsburgh Endorsements

The results of the Democracy for Pittsburgh endorsement vote are in:

Allegheny County Chief Executive:
Rick Swartz, http://www.citizensforswartz.com

Mayor:
"Do Not Endorse" *

County Council District 13:
Brenda Frazier, http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07108/778789-183.stm **

City Council District 1:
Robin Rosemary Miller, http://www.robinrosemarymiller.com

City Council District 3:
Bruce Kraus, http://www.brucekraus.net

City Council District 7:
Patrick Dowd, http://www.dowdforpittsburgh.org

Judge of the Court of Common Pleas:
Cathleen Bubash, http://judgebubash.com
Wrenna Leigh Watson, http://www.wrennawatson.com
Joe Williams, http://www.joewilliams4judge.com
Jack McVay, http://www.jackmcvay.com

* Voters had the option to "Abstain" or to "Do Not Endorse" in races.

** If Brenda Frazier has a website that I've missed, please let me know.

Candidates needed to receive at least 70% of the vote to achieve endorsement so no endorsement was reached in some of the races up for consideration. According to DfP, the non-endorsees received less than 50% at most, and almost all of the endorsees got 85% or more.

Democracy for Pittsburgh is the coalition group for the Pittsburgh area for Democracy for America.

National Website for DfP: www.dfalink.com/pittsburgh
Blog: http://www.pghdfa.org

Disclosure: I am on the Organizing Committee for Democracy for Pittsburgh.

Reminder - I'M ON THE AIR THIS MORNING

I'll be guest-hosting the Lynn Cullen show THIS MORNING. The show's from 9 till noon.

Here's the tentantive schedule:

• 9 - Jon Delano
• 10 - Short call to my Mom for Mother's Day (the rest of the hour on politics)
• 11 - Andy Druckenbrod (He's the classical music critic from the P-G)

Feel free to call in.

GOP Moderates Get Blunt with Dubya

The New York Times is reporting:

Moderate Republicans gave President Bush a blunt warning on his Iraq policy at a private White House meeting this week, telling the president that conditions needed to improve markedly by fall or more Republicans would desert him on the war.

While over at the Washington Post, the story is less about the Republicans deserting dubya, but dubya's war hurting the GOP:

House Republican moderates, in a remarkably blunt White House meeting, warned President Bush this week that his pursuit of the war in Iraq is risking the future of the Republican Party and that he cannot count on GOP support for many more months.

According to Think Progress, NBC reported that at the meeting one member of Congress said:

The word about the war and its progress cannot come from the White House or even you, Mr. President. There is no longer any credibility. It has to come from Gen. Petraeus.

This Congressman reportedly also said:

My district is prepared for defeat. We need candor, we need honesty, Mr. President.

Would you look at that. This Republican member of Congress just told his President, the leader of the free world and the leader of his party, that he's been neither candid nor honest.

Imagine that.

Things are going very badly for dubya in some of these districts, for instance The Times is reporting that:

Representative Tom Davis told Mr. Bush that the president’s approval rating was at 5 percent in one section of his northern Virginia district.

5 percent?

That's bad, right?

Major General John Batiste, U.S. Army (Ret.) Speaks Out

The Text:

George Bush: I have always said that I will listen to the requests of our Commanders on the ground.

General Batiste: Mr. President, you did not listen. You continued to pursue a failed strategy that is breaking our great Army and Marine Corps. I left the Army in protest in order to speak out. Mr. President, you have placed our nation in peril. Our only hope is that Congress will act now to protect our fighting men and women.

Don't Reward Bad Behavior

A big part of what makes Pittsburgh "America's Most Leavable City" is the arrogance, hubris, and feelings of entitlement of its leaders. In a One Party Town where the local Democratic Committee makes endorsements in primary votes (Hey, kids, did you know that Dem parties in other towns don't necessarily do this and let the voters have a real voice?), far too many of our elected officials seem to believe that they do not need to play by the rules and that they do not need to be accountable to their constituency.

So you have a Mayor who plasters his face and name on every flat surface in town, crashes private parties in his quest for further celebrity, and only tells the truth when the MSM catches up to his lies.

You have County Chief Executive Dan Onorato who believes that elections only serve to "distract" the public.

You have City Councilman Len BoDUCK Bodack who refuses all debates and tells his supporters that his challenger is "trying to take the food out of my kids' mouths."

You have City Councilwoman Twanda Carlisle who spends tens of thousands of dollars on a worthless report written by her mother's live-in friend and is under suspicion of funneling tens of thousands more dollars into her own pockets via payouts and kickbacks.

And, now you have City Councilman Jeff Koch whose campaign created T-shirts that were the exact same color as Public Works Dept. shirts that ended up on the backs of Public Works employees during work hours and whose own Campaign Treasurer was one of the workers wearing the shirt. (Not to mention that Koch has a history of not listening to the wants and needs of his district to the point of "telling an 80-year-old woman to 'sit down and shut up.'" at a community meeting.)

Don't reward their bad behavior and arrogance!

Let them know that they serve us -- not the other way around.

Let them know on May 15th.

(Yes, you can still vote AGAINST Luke Ravenstahl. The new machines make it easy to write in a vote. Write in "William Peduto" or "Pierogie" or "None of the above!")

These are your public officials -- don't encourage them -- don't give them any more of a stage for their silly antics:


Create Your Own PaloozaHead - Visit Lollapalooza.com
http://www.writeinbillpeduto.com


Create Your Own PaloozaHead - Visit Lollapalooza.com
http://www.citizensforswartz.com


Create Your Own PaloozaHead - Visit Lollapalooza.com
http://dowdforpittsburgh.org


Create Your Own PaloozaHead - Visit Lollapalooza.com
Rev. Ricky Burgess


Create Your Own PaloozaHead - Visit Lollapalooza.com
http://www.brucekraus.net .

National Guard Shortages - Not Much of a Surprise

From the NYTimes.

I'll begin at the end of the article:

Late Tuesday, in a statement, Ms. Sebelius repeated her message:

“I have said for nearly two years, and will continue to say, that we have a looming crisis on our hands when it comes to National Guard equipment in Iraq and our needs here at home.”

The "Ms Sebelius" quoted there is Kathleen Sebelius, Governor of Kansas. Kansas is where on Friday a tornado touched down and basically wiped the town of Greensburg (pop. 1574) off the map. The National guard was called in to help, but:

“As you travel around Greensburg, you’ll see that city and county trucks have been destroyed,” Ms. Sebelius, a Democrat, said Monday. “The National Guard is one of our first responders. They don’t have the equipment they need to come in, and it just makes it that much slower.”

For nearly two days after the storm, there was an unmistakable emptiness in Greensburg, a lack of heavy machinery and an army of responders. By Sunday afternoon, more than a day and a half after the tornado, only about half of the Guard troops who would ultimately respond were in place.

It was not until Sunday night that significant numbers of military vehicles started to arrive, many streaming in a long caravan from Wichita about 100 miles away.

Tornado hits on Friday, and it's only Sunday night that military vehicles of "significant number" began to arrive.

And of course, the White House deflected any criticism:

Ms. Sebelius’s comments about the slow response prompted a debate with the White House on Tuesday, which initially said the fault rested with her. Tony Snow, the White House press secretary, said the governor should have followed procedure by finding gaps after the storm hit and asking the federal government to fill them — but did not.

“If you don’t request it, you’re not going to get it,” Mr. Snow told reporters on Tuesday morning.

While things have settled down between Kansas and the White House, the problems with the Guard remain. From Jennifer Lowen of the AP:

Sebelius has long spoken out about the fallout from sending National Guard units and equipment overseas. She says the war in Iraq is damaging domestic disaster readiness, because needed manpower is drained from states and the Pentagon is not replacing equipment at a fast enough rate.

And across the nation, the problem seems to be one of equipment rather than personnel. From the GAO this past January:

The high use of the National Guard for federal overseas missions has reduced equipment available for its state-led domestic missions, at the same time it faces an expanded array of threats at home.

Just some more fallout from dubya's mistake.

Another Pelosi Smear

Last February, I spent a little time on Ruth Ann Dailey's smear of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. I'm posting this as a pre-emptive strike against what would sure to be another smear from Ruth Ann.

A blog prophylactic, if you will.

Here's the story as it's shown up at the AP:

Republicans are accusing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of including a provision in a water redevelopment bill that could benefit property her husband owns in San Francisco.

Their details:

Pelosi's measure would authorize $25 million to improve San Francisco port areas, and also would put some areas off limits to navigation so cruise ships could dock.

Her investor husband gets rental income from four buildings in a nearby commercial district.

The smear begins. She inserted the project to boost the rental income for her husband's buildings nearby.

That's probably all you'll hear from Jack Kelly, Ruth Ann Dailey and maybe even Mike Pintek.

The AP story, though, has more information. Up front (as in, the second paragraph):

Aides to the San Francisco Democrat denied any connection, noting that the waterfront improvements were requested by the Port of San Francisco and the four rental properties in question are at least a mile away.

But we all know the response, right? OF COURSE her aides would say that! Doesn't necessarily mean that it's true, right?

Well, Greg Sargent over at The Horse's Mouth (a blog that took apart Ruth Ann once before) made one phone call and found out from Brad Benson, special project manager for the Port of San Francisco that:

"The port initiated these requests. They came entirely from the city and county of San Francisco. [The requests] were generated at the staff level. The port initiated our request through the city and county of San Francisco. Our requests were funneled through the mayor's office on up to Speaker Pelosi's office...If anyone is claiming that Pelosi initiated these requests in some way, that's completely false."

That about does it. Doesn't it?

We'll see. Never underestimate the local rightwing pundits on their ability to disregard reality.

Response by Bruce Kraus Campaign

Here's the official response by the Bruce Kraus Campaign to the illegal campaigning by City workers in the Public Works Department:

Misuse of City Workers Hurts People in District 3, City Tax Payers.

Allegations surfaced today regarding the use of city workers to campaign for Jeff Koch, Candidate for City Council in district 3. The Bruce Kraus Campaign reacts strongly to these allegations and expresses deep concern over the possible misuse of city workers time.

The campaign also expressed the feeling that this is a deep insult to the people of the district. "Every day dedicated volunteers take time out of their busy lives to campaign for me. They devote their personal time and resources to my campaign because they believe I will best represent their interests on City Council," stated Mr. Kraus. "This undermines and devalues the time and effort of all those good people."

Mr. Koch, elected just last year in a special election won that contest by only 151 votes. The Allentown neighborhood contributed nearly 300 votes in that election.

Mr. Kraus noted that "if my opponent cannot get volunteers for his cause, he cannot then turn to official resources for support. It is both unethical and illegal."

Though Mr. Koch claims ignorance of these efforts, the pictures clearly show his campaign treasurer Ray Sansone. If this was without the candidates consent, at the very least the treasurer should be fired from the campaign and disciplined by the city argued the Kraus campaign. "If my opponent is unaware of what is going on in his campaign, how can he claim he will be an effective representative for the people who live in our district?" asked Mr. Kraus.

In closing Mr. Kraus added that he "welcomes participation by all people in the campaign process, whether they volunteer for me or my opponent, democracy is strengthened. But," he added "when city workers are used for campaigning it hurts the people of our district, the taxpayers in our city, and democracy itself."

The campaign calls for the city to bring disciplinary action against any employee or elected official who violates the law in this manner.



--
Amber Steinmetz
Campaign Mananger
Kraus for Council

www.brucekraus.net