City council district 5Past recipients of Family PAC funds include McCain-Palin, Rick Santorum, Melissa Hart, Tom Corbett, Pat Toomey, Jane Orie, Phil Ignelzi and Sarah PAC.
Corey O'Connor raised just under $33,000 this year -- not an earth-shattering total, but thanks largely to the political inheritance of his father, he came into the year with more than $127,500 -- and still has more than $100,000 left. His biggest contributors are union PACs -- Steamfitters #449 gave him $2,000, for example. O'Connor's boss, Congressman Mike Doyle, helped his protege out with a $1,000 PAC contribution.
But progressives take note: O'Connor has also received $500 from Family PAC. That PAC, operated by the Donahue family (of Federated Investors fame), typically backs pro-life candidates. Family PAC also supported Republicans Tim Murphy and Heather Heidelbaugh so far this year. And it contributed $1,000 to the Susan B. Anthony List, which seeks to elect pro-life women around the country. [Emphasis added]
So where's O'Connor on this issue? Our very own Chris Young asked him that question awhile back. It seems safe to say that O'Connor was not as enthusiastic about the issue as Zurawsky is. But O'Connor did respond that if elected to council, "I would support the bubble-zone" -- a reference to a protester-free area that is maintained around the entrance to family-planning cliincs. O'Connor later added that he didn't think local elected officials "should make a decision on someone's personal life and how they want to choose."
 .... | Really want to go to Jon Stewart's Rally to Restore Sanity in DC, but don't want to deal with the hassle of getting there? You can find out all the details here (as well as order your tickets). Hmm, buses with Lynn Cullen, Chris Potter and like-minded folks headed to rally with Jon Stewart -- it's enough to make a tea-bagger weep. (And, don't forget to listen to Lynn Cullen Live at CPTV, Mon-Fri, 10:00-11:00AM.) [If this sounds like a paid advertisement -- it isn't -- I think of it more as a PSA for our readers. ;-) ] |
The Justice Department harshly criticized the Pittsburgh office of the FBI for providing misinformation, misleading testimony and false reports in connection with surveillance conducted at a 2002 anti-war rally sponsored by the Thomas Merton Center.And there's this from The Trib:
The 209-page report from the Inspector General's office was prompted by a 2006 congressional inquiry into whether the FBI was improperly spying on domestic groups and activities protected by the First Amendment.
Although the report concluded that the FBI was not improperly spying on anti-war protest groups, it noted that the Pittsburgh office had "no legitimate purpose for the FBI to attend the event."
The bureau is considering the inquiry after a separate Department of Justice investigation found that agents across the country improperly started investigations, put the names of environmental activists on a terror watch list and, in Pittsburgh, gave explanations for their actions that showed "extraordinary carelessness" or were "deliberately misleading."So what happened? Potter has a rundown:
The investigation by Inspector General Glenn Fine, which covered the years from 2001 to 2006, did not find the FBI targeted groups because of their political views. Fine's report includes FBI investigations involving the Garfield-based, anti-war Thomas Merton Center and the Pittsburgh Organizing Group, an anarchist organization.
FBI agents investigated the Thomas Merton Center and the Pittsburgh Organizing Group (POG) because they literally didn't have anything else to do. An FBI agent surveilled and photographed a 2002 Merton Center rally, because "work was slow" the Friday after Thanksgiving. The agent, a new hire on probationary assignment, began taking photos of Merton Center activists leafletting in Market Square to "show his supervisor that he was 'earning his pay'." Similarly, an agent confesses that an investigation into POG got underway because "work is light ... [W]e are looking for work, which is why folks in POG even get on the radar."And then:
When the ACLU demanded records relating to FBI surveillance of the Merton Center event, a cover-up apparently ensued. Someone in the agency wrote up a "routing slip" -- which seeks to redact certain information before a document is released publicly -- that made it look like the FBI was really tracking individuals suspected of terrorist ties. The report makes a pretty convincing argument for why that isn't true. And it surmises that the routing slip was intended to make "a stronger justification for the surveillance of the Merton Center anti-war rally than was in fact the case." The routing slip became the basis for a misleading press release issued by the FBI in the matter, and for false Congressional testimony made by FBI chief Robert Mueller.The P-G has some fallout:
Michael Drohan, board president at the Thomas Merton Center, said the fact that more than one-quarter of the inspector general's report is dedicated to his organization is "extraordinary and unbelievable."Good to know that in the years directly following 9/11 our nation's premier law enforcement service was doing such a good job protecting us. Who knew we'd have to be protected from them?
"The Merton Center is an organization devoted to the pursuit of peace and justice with an absolute strict commitment to non-violence," Mr. Drohan said. "To mention us in the same sentence as 'terrorism' is an outrage. Everything we do and have done is to stop war, prevent war and promote economic and social justice.
"They really owe the Merton Center a profound apology for incriminating us."
Nice to meet you, Jason! Thanks for reading us. :-) Here's a link to part three of Rich Lord's "Network" investigation for Carolyn. Thanks to Ginny for her shout-out to 2pj (good to finally meet you).
Beck said he was frustrated with the way the media covered his "Restoring Honor" rally this weekend.So, Glenn Beck and Scott Baker are are setting themselves up as the saviors of journalism.
"Too many times we see mainstream media outlets distorting facts to fit rigid agendas," he wrote on The Blaze. "Not that you've ever heard me complain about the media before. Okay, maybe once or twice. But there comes a time when you have to stop complaining and do something. And so we decided to hire some actual journalists to launch a new website."
So I gotta think that Sestak could hold his own against Toomey, Specter, or anyone else. He's already had lots of practice: Sestak noted that regularly mixes it up on FOX News and other such forums.Sestak will be in town today, by the way:
But that, of course, only raises the real problem he faces this year: Republicans like Monica Douglas know how dangerous Sestak can be. Democrats, though, don't watch FOX.
WHAT:
Congressman Joe Sestak and Pittsburgh Residents Shine a Light on Specter’s 30 Years of Failed Promises, Strategizes for Next 30 Years
WHEN:
Friday, May 7 at 12:30PM
WHERE:
Hill House Association, Conference Rm A
1835 Centre Ave
Pittsburgh, PA 15219
RSVP on Facebook or to Info@JoeSestak.com
Usually I leave deconstructing Tribune-Review articles to the good folks at 2 Political Junkies: God knows it's important work, but you know -- life is pretty short.He then goes on to dig into a passage from this Tribune-Review article:
The tea party patriots have been given a bum rap, according to Tim Hagle, an associate professor of political science at the University of Iowa.Chris Potter finds, to no one's surprise, that Professor Hagle is hardly the non-partisan disinterested academic the Trib paints him as being. Though, after looking at his CV, he's no strict ideologue either. There's more than a few papers for what look like strictly academic publications (Encyclopedia of Research Methods for the Social Sciences, for example).
"They've been treated unfairly in the media," he said.
The Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh, which represents reporters, photographers, copy editors and artists at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, is deeply disturbed by the indiscriminate and inappropriate arrests of more than 100 protesters, bystanders and journalists on the night of Friday, Sept. 25 in Oakland.
Most disturbing is that many of those arrested were attempting to lawfully exercise their First Amendment rights of peaceful assembly and of press freedom, rights that are essential to the survival of democracy. Others were bystanders who found themselves caught between lines of police ordering them to disperse and then blocking their dispersal until they were arrested.
We recognize that the police, especially in situations such as this, have an extremely difficult job. But that fact does not give anyone the right to disregard the First Amendment.
The Newspaper Guild calls on the City of Pittsburgh to drop all charges against those who were lawfully exercising their rights as citizens and journalists, and those who were nonviolently attempting to comply with police orders but were taken to jail anyway.
Further, we call on the city to launch a full and independent investigation into the events that led to these arrests to ensure that such a debacle does not happen again in the name of law enforcement.
We get near daily hits from folks searching for info on where they can listen to Lynn Cullen.Yesterday's show was pretty good - she had Chris Potter on.
Well, she's back -- not on the airwaves -- but live streaming audio courtesy of the Pittsburgh City Paper.
It will be a one hour, weekday show at 10:00 AM starting on August 18th. The shows will be archived and downloadable.
In partnership with Pittsburgh City Paper, local broadcasting legend Lynn Cullen will re-launch her talk show later this summer. And this time, she won’t be restricted by signal strength, broadcast schedules, or even the FCC.
[snip]
“I’ll be interviewing newsmakers and troublemakers. I’ll be providing an antidote to the incessant whining of radio’s doomsayers and fearmongers,” Cullen says. “I’m glad to be free of the constraints of commercial radio — and this beats screaming into a megaphone on Forbes and Murray.”
City Paper’s online audience has grown by 25 percent in the past year, thanks in part to a recent redesign and additional features. “Our Web site has experience exceptional growth over the past year,” publisher Michael Frischling says. “We believe Lynn’s show will be a key element in continuing this dynamic trend.”
“We’re excited to be able to restore Lynn to her audience — and to her rightful place at the cutting edge of local media,” says Chris Potter, City Paper editor. “Now, thanks to the magic of the Internet, she’ll be able to aggravate right-wingers all over the world, at any time of day or night.”
There's lots of really interesting numbers to support his conclusion. Payne was too cocky leading up to the primary and lost important support in Ward 5.So ... how did Tonya Payne, a one-term incumbent, lose to Daniel Lavelle? How could Payne, who beat Sala Udin in 2005, lose to Udin's former assistant just four years later?
On paper, these races were very similar. In both, Payne was running against either Udin or his ally. And in both, the same dark-horse candidate -- school board member Mark Brentley -- was also in the running. So how did Lavelle find the means to defeat her this time around?
The answer is simple: He didn't. Payne beat herself.
Maybe it doesn't really matter, since Lavelle won in any case. But Lavelle should make sure he doesn't get cocky. He won with just 44.5 percent of the vote -- almost exactly the same percentage Payne earned in 2005. And while a lot of folks outside the district are excited by his victory, the numbers show little evidence that people inside the district were swept up in the enthusiasm.Go read Potter.Other than a modest improvement in precincts near the arena site, Lavelle did nothing to expand on the base that Udin bequeathed him. In fact, Lavelle actually lost ground in the district's North Side wards (where perhaps other voters shared Sue Kerr's doubts about his commitment to the North Side).
This election was about voters turning on Payne ... just as 2005 seems to have been about voters turning on Udin. If he's smart, Lavelle will be mindful of the trend here.
Last night, City Paper received word that Richard Mellon Scaife's divorce has moved to the trial stage -- but that arguments are taking place in a closed courtroom, with no access to the public or press.And for those wondering why this is important:City Paper confirmed that information with Family Court judge Alan Hertzberg's office this morning. And in fact courtroom proceedings are taking place even now.
We asked for a copy of the order closing the proceedings this morning, but were told that the order, too, was under seal. In other words, we don't know what's going on inside the courtroom -- and we don't even know why we can't find out.
It's well-settled that courtroom proceedings should be open to the press and the public, who have a vested stake in how justice is carried out. Especially in this case -- where Pittsburghers have an obvious interest in how Scaife's marital estate is divided. Not only does Scaife own one of the city's two daily newspapers, whose future may be affected by the outcome of the case, but Scaife-controlled foundations contribute millions of dollars a year to national think tanks as well as local nonprofit groups like the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank and the Carnegie Library of McKeesport.Considering the prurient peekaboo bought and paid for by DickieCougarMellonScaife (can someone say Arkansas Project?) I am curious as to why he's concerned about his privacy all of a sudden.
The good folks at 2 political junkies reminded me of this gem of a story in the Post-Gazette this weekend. The piece is about Media Matters for America, the liberal media watchdog group which has labeled local talk-show host Jim Quinn as a "radioactive" media personality.And here's the nice:
Quinn invokes fear of the return of the "Fairness Doctrine," a long-discarded government policy of requiring equal time for diverse political viewpoints. The Junkies do a good job of showing how baseless the fear is, so I won't dwell on the fact that hardly anyone in Washington has shown interest in reviving the doctrine.(Note to Chris: I love Maria, other political junkie, to bits but only one of us wrote the piece you link to. Many thanks for the shout-out, though!).
But Quinn's hysteria on the subject is a perfect example of how right-wingers love to play the victim card. They have little patience when, say, blacks complain of racism ... but when they get back from the commercial break, they'll indulge in their own delusions of persecution, fantasies that would embarrass Minister Farakkhan.I think Quinn will just continue to blame everything on liberals and the creeping Alinsky-ism taking over this once great country.Apparently, Quinn also fears Media Matters because it has a base of "wealthy liberal donors." Quinn is OK with bloggers having speech rights, it seems, provided they have no money or power whatsoever. But if they get even a bit of leverage, Quinn cries "oppression!"
On some level, I understand the response. I mean, wouldn't pay Quinn any mind at all if he were just some old coot in the park, spouting his nonsense into a couple of tin cans joined with a piece of string. Instead, though, he's an old coot spouting his nonsense into a microphone paid for by Clear Channel, one of the country's largest media conglomerates. (And before that, his mic was paid for by the same folks who own City Paper.) So naturally I take him more seriously -- his ideas are silly, but the money behind them is serious.
But even so ... who knew that a conservative would distrust the speech rights of rich people? What next? Will Quinn espouse the dismantling of Fox News? Start arguing for a more progressive income tax, to relieve the wealthy of some of the money they use to control our discourse?
America where are you now?Or whatever.
Don't you care about your sons and daughters?
Don't you know we need you now
We can't fight alone against the monster
