Folks, I think this could be VERY important.

[sofa king]

Today, Eugene posted this thread, which is worth quoting in part:
______________

Legal Aid Program Tried to Oust Auditor

By LARRY MARGASAK
The Associated Press
Saturday, September 23, 2006; 1:09 PM

WASHINGTON -- Directors of the government's legal aid program for the poor
secretly debated how to fire the auditor who exposed their expensive meals,
use of limousine services and headquarters move to a ritzy neighborhood.

Meeting transcripts obtained by The Associated Press show that Legal Services
Corp. board members in 2005 and 2006 disparaged Inspector General Kirt West,
whose job is to find fraud, waste and abuse.

______________

Then, LiberalFighter intrepidly waded into the details, giving names and backgrounds of the various members of the program. One of them is a fellow named Frank B. Strickland, a familiar-sounding lawyer from Georgia.

That rang a bell in my own head. I've certainly seen his name before, because back in 2004 I was interested in his buddy and fellow Fulton County Elections Board member Harry MacDougald.

We all were at the time, because Harry MacDougald was better known to freepers as http://www.zoominfo.com/people/macdougald_harry_599089178.aspx">Buckhead, the fellow who used his amazing typography training to cast doubt upon the President's draft documents presented by Dan Rather. It killed Rather's career.

Harry MacDougald, in turn, is the fellow who happily approved of Fulton County's electronic voting machines.

To me, this appears to be a classic example of the flying monkeys enjoying their unjust rewards for their nefarious deeds. Eugene and LiberalFighter deserve all the credit for bringing this story to light. I just happened to be one of the first people to read their work.

Now, lots of you spent a lot of time and research into Buckhead and all of that other suspicious crap that went down in the summer of 2004. There is only six weeks before the next elections.

I think all of us need to tear ass back through our previous research and see what else we can dig up on this group and what exactly is going on with them. We need to do it now, and we need to do it ourselves before the right-wing press can shout us down. Save whatever you find before it disappears from the Internet, and post the links here for now until someone better organized than me can take control of this.

I don't have much time to help and I have yet to hear back from LiberalFighter and Eugene, but I think the urgency of the matter justifies my going forward with bringing this to your attention right away. Remember, those two folks deserve all the credit for this if it is what I think it is. I'll happily take all the blame if it is not.

Get to work!

Sofa King

[MissWaverly]

1. Thanks for the heads up

1 vote for the Greatest Page!

;-)
Miss Waverly

[sofa king]

2. My lovely guardian angel still has my back.

Thank you, Miss Waverly. Again.

[MissWaverly]

12. You are welcome

I just sent this on, so the word will get out.

:-)

Put an article up about Fulton County primary 2006 here.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=203&topic_id=445151

[DoYouEverWonder]

3. I was wondering just the other day

what Buckhead and his buddy Roger Stone were up to lately?

[acmejack]

4. Thanks for the heads up on this!

[Peace Patriot]

5. I suggest you pass this along to Robt. Kennedy Jr. and Joe Papantonio

at Ring of Fire on AAR. They are leading a muckraking lawsuit against Diebold, ES&S and brethren. This sounds right up their alley--the Fulton County Elections Board connection, which they could follow wherever it takes them.

http://www.airamerica.com/ringoffire/

The listener call-in line is always open at 866-389-FIRE.

Ring of Fire
P.O. Box 12308
Pensacola, FL 32591

Phone: 866-389-FIRE (3473)
Fax: [phone]

http://www.ringoffireradio.com/contactus.asp

[Land Shark]

6. They will try to spin it as purely a story about too much $$ for legal

services for the poor. Or, too much "waste fraud and abuse" in the amount of present (under)funding, so as to justify further cutbacks in the access to justice for those who can't afford a lawyer.

[silverweb]

47. Exactly.

That was my first thought on reading this.

:grr:

[cspanlovr]

7. I live in Fulton Co. so I'm very interested in this. I wasn't on DU then.

I wasn't on anywhere till after the election. Total despair over it brought me here (so something good came out of it). I can say it was the strangest voting experience I've ever had. So many voting machines, I could have walked up to 15 empty machines. This, at 1 PM! It was also the first time I've voted in a church. Used to be Kroger's. Thanks for posting this!

[elehhhhna]

10. Hey! You have a star. Use that search functtion & dig some dirt..

then get on it!

And welcome (belatedly) to DU.

[ms liberty]

8. Very interesting...

The incestuous web of the Republicultists strikes again! I have no doubt there's more than meets the eye here. I'll be watching for updates!

Giving this another K&R for greater visibility.

[lildreamer316]

9. K&R.

Gimme some time on this...

[madmusic]

11. Did they intentionally lose "liberal" cases?

I put nothing past those dickheads and like the INTENTIONAL loss of the http://www.healthsystem.virginia.edu/internet/bio-ethics/buckbellmarker.cfm">Buck v. Bell, I have long wondered if these modern nuts were intentionally losing cases for their defendants now.

This is vital! Let's find out what cases they so-called fought and see if there is a pattern to their - intentional? - losses. Also, any connections to The Federalist Society?

If this be true, the Wingnut house of cards will tumble like we couldn't imagine.

[Joanne98]

52. Republican defense attorney's have been delibertly losing

cases for a long time. The first I began aware of it was in the eighties. I personally new a couple of people who falled to appear in court just to get rid of their attorneys. It seemed that these defense lawyers were asking for more time for their clients than the DA wanted to give them. If that was happening in the 80's, you can imagine how bad it is now. If you need some connection between these people besides being Republicans, I would look at the evangelical community. They keep coming up on all kinds of radar screens. I'm sure lawyers have been hearing the same thing. They need to start ratting out the bad guys!
May I suggest, getting the names of some of the people they represented. I bet they have a lot to say!

[bleever]

13. Buckhead to Rove: how many degrees of separation?

Not too many, methinks.

K&R.

[sofa king]

32. Nope, not too many.

Grover Norquist purportedly takes Karl Rove's phone calls. Grover also sat on the Council for National Policy, along with William J. Olson. Olson was Chairman of the Board of Directors at Legal Services Corporation in 1981-1982, according to that link. I don't really know what the hell that group is, but other notables include Senator Don Nickles, Oliver North and George S. Patton, III.

[grasswire]

14. thanks

very interesting

[madmusic]

15. Legal Services Corporation itself is wingnut!

The National Campaign to Repeal the Legal Services Corporation’s “Private Money Restriction”

The Problem for Low-Income Families and Private Philanthropy

A large and growing alliance of national and local organizations has come together to educate the public about the harm to America’s low-income families, and to private charitable efforts to help those families, caused by the Legal Services Corporation’s “private money” restriction.

The LSC private money restriction is a federal appropriations rider, originally enacted by Congress in 1996, that prohibits civil legal aid nonprofits receiving federal funds through LSC from using any of their more than $300 million in private funds (received from private, state and local sources) to finance certain important legal activities on behalf of our society’s most vulnerable members.

The restriction hurts low-income families and undermines our nation’s promise of “Equal Justice Under Law.”

For example, in many instances it prevents civil legal aid lawyers from effectively representing low-income families facing eviction, elderly victims of predatory lending, disabled children in need of medical care, migrant workers denied the minimum wage, and immigrant women who are victims of domestic violence. It also routinely denies access to justice for people in prison planning for reentry.

http://www.brennancenter.org/programs/pov/dobbins%20national%20campaign/index.html

"Legal Aid" my ass. It's anti-Legal Aid.

[madmusic]

16. High court appears skeptical of rules for legal services lawyers

By Tony Mauro
Special to
The Freedom Forum Online

Supreme Court justices seemed poised yesterday to rule that certain congressional restrictions on Legal Services Corp.-funded lawyers violate the First Amendment.

During oral arguments in a case testing the regulations, several justices appeared to tip their hand with comments sharply critical of the limits on litigation that legal services lawyers can undertake.

The restrictions were imposed by Congress in 1996 to rein in LSC, viewed by Republican leaders as a runaway agency that funded lawyers to pursue a social agenda and to make trouble for the government.

A ruling by the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld all the restrictions except one that prohibits LSC-funded lawyers from taking on cases that question the constitutionality of a state or federal welfare-reform law or regulation. In Legal Services Corp. v. Velazquez, and U.S. v. Velazquez, argued before the high court yesterday, the government is trying to resurrect the restriction.

The corporation, which funnels $300 million annually to local agencies for legal representation of the poor, fought the restrictions at first, but has defended them in court ever since they became law.

New York lawyer Alan Levine, arguing on behalf of LSC, defended the law as a permissible constitutional choice by Congress to fund certain activities and not others. The law was valid, he said, under the Supreme Court's 1991 decision in Rust v. Sullivan, which upheld Reagan-era restrictions on the ability of government-funded medical clinics to offer counseling on abortion.

http://www.freedomforum.org/templates/document.asp?documentID=3244

These cockroaches are everywhere!

[AzDar]

17. Interesting..... n/t

[LiberalFighter]

18. All I did was provided details about present members of LSC

With that I also added them to my database of almost 4,000 people to keep an eye on.

[LiberalFighter]

19. Federalist Society

Election law has long been a concern of hardcore legal conservatives, so important the Federalist Society has two subcommittees on it. Some of the movement's top legal figures, such as Frank Strickland, Charles H. Bell, and James Bopp (general counsel of the National Right to Life Committee) have spearheaded networking initiatives on election law for years. Manuel S. Klausner, a co-author of Prop 209, chairs the Federalist Society's Free Speech and Election Law Practice Group.

Being a member of the Federalist Society almost guarantees employment in the Bush Administration or clerk for any right wing judge.

Looks like there is more material and names especially connected with the state of Georgia at this article Equal Justice Society - Issue 2 - Fall 2004

Names of interest:
Strickland
Charles H Bell
James Bopp
Randy Evans
Hans von Spakovsky
Richard Nadler

Groups of interest:
Federalist Society
Republican National Lawyer Association
Georgia Public Policy Foundation
Voting Integrity Project
Americas PAC
Access Communications

[madmusic]

21. Excellent research.

The Brennan Center is also tracking them:

http://www.brennancenter.org/programs/pov/atj.html

and a list of "Elerts":

http://www.brennancenter.org/programs/lse/pages/view_elerts.php?category_id=1&print=1&print_all=1

[madmusic]

23. Strickland and Harry MacDougald both members FS, Atlanta Chapter

http://www.fed-soc.org/Chapters/Atlanta/Atlanta.htm

Looks like maybe Harry has a brother, too.

[madmusic]

27. FS and "Legal Services Corp"

President George W. Bush has announced five of the eleven individuals he plans to appoint to the Board of Directors of the Legal Services Corporation. No more than six board members may be affiliated with the same political party, and the U.S. Senate must confirm each nominee. President Bush's first five nominees are Republicans. They are: Lilian R. BeVier of Virginia, Robert J. Dieter of Colorado, Thomas A. Fuentes of California, Frank B. Strickland of Georgia, and Michael McKay of Washington State. BeVier is currently the Henry L. and Grace Doherty Charitable Foundation professor of law teaching "Constitutional Law: Speech and Press," "Seminars on Ethics," "Copyright Law," and "Property" at the University of Virginia. BeVier had been nominated by former President George H. W. Bush for the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, but the Senate never acted on her nomination, which lapsed when former President Bill Clinton was elected in 1992. BeVier is also on the Board of Visitors of the Federalist Society and is on the National Advisory Committee of the Independent Women's Forum...

http://www.brennancenter.org/programs/lse/pages/view_elerts.php?elert_id=&s_date=&e_date=&category_id=33&end_date=&page=44&search_text=

[madmusic]

29. The Council for National Policy

Neal Hogan - CNP 1996, 1998; general counsel, Dublin Castle Group, an investigative research firm; contributing author, Heritage Foundation's monograph on the abolition of the Legal Services Corp.

http://www.seekgod.ca/cnp.ho.htm

Looks like they couldn't abolish it, so they took control of it.

[sofa king]

34. Ralph Reed was after LSC, too.

http://jcgi.pathfinder.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,983071,00.html

"The Legal Services Corporation is the civil side of indigent legal assistance. It is the lawyer of last resort for poor people with family, housing, consumer or entitlement problems. But it has long been a target of conservatives. Senator Phil Gramm has called for LSC's possible abolition, although he may be backing down on that demand. House Budget chairman John Kasich has proposed deep cuts in LSC funding and aims to phase it out altogether. Traditionally, the right has taken issue with LSC's history of filing class actions against the government on behalf of the poor over welfare benefits, food stamps, and the like. But Christian Coalition leader Ralph Reed told the New York Times earlier this year that the corporation should be abolished because it "subsidizes divorce and illegitimacy" by providing legal representation in domestic disputes."

[madmusic]

38. It's a vast right wing conspiracy, I tell ya!

Council for National Policy
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from The Council for National Policy)
Jump to: navigation, search

The Council for National Policy (CNP), is an umbrella organization and networking group for conservative activists. The New York Times has described it is a "little-known group of a few hundred of the most powerful conservatives in the country", who meet three times yearly behind closed doors at undisclosed locations for a confidential conference.<1>

The CNP describes itself as "an educational foundation organized under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. We do not lobby Congress, support candidates, or issue public policy statements on controversial issues. Our over 600 members include many of our nation's leaders from the fields of government, business, the media, religion, and the professions. Our members are united in their belief in a free enterprise system, a strong national defense, and support for traditional western values. They meet to share the best information available on national and world problems, know one another on a personal basis, and collaborate in achieving their shared goals."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Council_for_National_Policy

They are attacking on so many fronts, from individual poverty cases to complete control of Legal Services Corporation. They don't need to have lawyers lose cases if that can prevent the indigent from filing any cases.

I had no idea LSC even existed. Wow.

[lonestarnot]

35. Holy shit there is some scary shit there!

http://www.seekgod.ca/ect.htm They appear to be seeking one world religion. And the nun speaks of coersion for noncompliance. These people don't believe in freedom of religion let alone freedom and the list of names is a mile long.

There are many entering into agreements to "unite" the world, either through denominations or causes. God calls His people to something else.

There are serious issues that cannot be ignored when looking to the Catholic Church. Mary Ann Collins, a former Catholic nun, writing about Catholic issues states:

"The Pope is called “Holy Father” and the Catholic Church is called “Holy Mother Church”. According to “The Catholic Encyclopedia,” the idea of freedom of religion is wrong. People are not supposed to use their own personal judgment to determine their religious beliefs. (This article is online.)

According to Canon Law (the official laws governing the Roman Catholic Church), Catholics are required to submit their minds and wills to any declaration concerning faith or morals which is made by the Pope or by a church council. They are also required to avoid anything that disagrees with such declarations. And they can be coerced if they don’t comply. (You can read these laws online.)

The Catholic Church teaches that only the Magisterium of the Catholic Church (the Pope and the bishops in communion with him) has the right to interpret Scripture. People like us are not allowed to interpret Scripture for ourselves. We have to check it out with Church authorities. (This is online.)

Catholicism teaches that Catholics are supposed to “receive with docility” any directives given to them by Catholic Church authorities. (This is online.)

Catholicism teaches that there is no salvation apart from the Catholic Church, its sacramental system, the priesthood, and the Pope

The Bible says, “Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers”. (2 Corinthians 6:14) By Biblical standards, the Catholic Church presents a Gospel that is badly distorted. It is salvation by “Jesus plus”. Jesus plus the Catholic Church. Jesus plus the sacraments. Jesus plus good works. Jesus plus Catholic tradition.

This is contrary to Scripture. The Apostle Paul said that requiring people to be circumcised nullifies the grace of God, with the result that people are not saved. It is such a serious thing that “Christ is become of no effect unto you” and you “are fallen from grace”. In other words, Jesus Christ no longer does you any good. (Galatians 5:1-4)

If just being required to add circumcision nullifies the grace of God, then what happens when you are required to add the sacraments and the Pope and Catholic tradition and good works and the Catholic magisterium?

Catholics have faith in the Catholic Church. (Their faith in Jesus Christ is through the Catholic Church, rather than directly in Jesus Himself.) Their rule of faith is the “Catechism of the Catholic Church” and other official Catholic documents. This includes the Catholic Bible, as interpreted by the Catholic magisterium..."

http://www.CatholicConcerns.com



A Little History

Freemasonry is one group that claims many fronts and forms, but whose goals and philosophy are embraced by adherents, as the "Universal Religion". Through much research into history one will find many other groups that have tried to unite different people and religions into one religion. One major conflict to that agenda was the Reformation. It was a major turning point for Christianity but also a time when the Catholic Church was grieved for those who chose to follow the Protestant religion. That grief has never subsided.

Since that time Rome has developed strategies and policies to bring "the lost sheep" back into the fold, under the required leadership of the Pope, while many outside the Catholic faith work their way back to Rome.

Many of those strategies were discussed in the book, "The Secret History of The Oxford Movement" by Walter Walsh, 1899. Though Walsh was writing about the work of the Catholic church in his time, many of the thoughts and ideas are applicable to many Christian organizations and leaders today.

[nolabels]

49. But obviously some of this proves that religion is just a facade for them

There looks to be a large array swimming in this stew of unethical creatures including a Karl. The hubris grows large but the shadows that follows it is always larger. One might also note that falls from those perceived heights is often dangerous.

[lonestarnot]

58. Of course just a facade for them, but certainly evidence of one

world order crap. Even mentions free masons and their shroud of secrecy. Yes, stand clear of the falling 200 lbs gorillas. They may make a grab for it on the way down or worse yet, land on the slow movers.

[Joanne98]

53. Hans is in Sourcewatch

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Hans_von_Spakovsky

[Straight Shooter]

20. Here's a DU link from late 2004, for what it's worth:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x1146495

<snip>
"In addition, the following people and companies have also been identified in the evidence below as part of this vast, facist operation: Bruce Eberle (scammer and friend of Ashcroft and Paula Jones), Richard Viguerie (CNP and Richard Scaife), Mike Krempasky, Roger Stone, Thomas Ellis, Paul Weyrich, Falwell, Harry MacDougald, the late Larry McDonald, Jack Abramoff, Carlton Sherwood (Stolen Honor), Floyd Brown (Willie Horton ad), Keyes, Jeb Bush (CNP like George and direct link to voting machines), Chief Justice Rehnquist (linked to CNP), Supreme Court Justice Scalia (Heritage Foundation, Starr and Ashcroft), and the list goes on and on.

Below is a huge amount of links that document everything above. It is getting very hard to organize, but I hope I've done an adequate job at summarizing the highlights. And yet, it's so huge that I find it hard to remember everything we have accomplished, and I apologize for that."

==================

It's a fairly intensive post, with lots of supporting links, for someone who can separate the relevant info from the nonrelevant at this time.

[madmusic]

22. If only starroute and Bozos for Bush were still around!

Thanks for the link. There is also one where starroute created a very detailed connection map.

[annabanana]

26. this?

Glad I kept it.

[madmusic]

28. That looks like it!

Way kewl!

[starroute]

51. I'm still around ... just not posting nearly as much

But I wanted to add a couple of notes:

1) A far as that chart goes, the Krempasky-Roger Stone link turned out to be a misreading of something on a message board. It was something that had been asserted on the series of threads I drew most of those links from and I hadn't checked out the original source myself until after the chart was in circulation. Krempasky himself claims to be just someone who was setting up multiple right-wing blogs at the time and registering every domain name he could think of, and I believe he's sincere about that.

2) The Southeastern Legal Foundation to which MacDougald belongs is only one of a cluster of non-profit right-wing legal foundations, most of them set up by the National Legal Center for the Public Interest (of which, as it happens, John Roberts is a member.) Here's some stuff on NLCPI from the exxonsecrets website:

http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/orgfactsheet.php?id=57

NLCPI was founded in 1975 . It does not engage in litigation, but provides "educational publications and educational forums" to advance its values, which include: "the rights of individuals, free enterprise, private ownership of property, balanced use of private and public resources, limited government, and a fair and efficient judiciary."

NLCPI was founded in 1975 after the The Pacific Legal Foundation commissioned a study to determine the best way to increase the impact of conservative legal foundations in the country. The study determined that the most effective method was to found a non-litigating umbrella organization that would in turn fund eight new regional public interest legal foundations and act as a unifying agent for the PLF and the new regional foundations. NLCPI filled this role until the 1980s when all the regional legal foundaitons were established. Since then, it has became a research organization, publishing scholarly legal writings, convening conferences, and fundraising. Initial funding for NLCPI came from J. Simon Fluor whose mineral, nuclear, oil and industrial fortunes had also bankrolled the Pacific Legal Foundation. General Motors, Ford, Texaco, Exxon, Gulf and Mobile also contributed seed money to help fund the new regional legal foundations. In addition, the philanthropic foundations controlled by Richard Mellon Scaife kicked in $1.8 million between 1973 and 1980 . In 1976, the NLCPI put up $50,000 and the Coors foundation $20,000 to found the Mountain States Legal Foundation, the first of the new regional legal foundations. (CLEAR report, NCLPI) NLCPI ultimately helped establish the Mountain States Legal Foundation, Mid-America Legal Foundation, Gulf Coast and Great Plains Legal Foundation (now Landmark), Mid-Atlantic Legal Foundation, Southeastern Legal Foundation, New England Legal Foundation, Washington Legal Foundation, and the Capital Legal Foundation

Much of the anti-regulation, anti-environmental legal work you hear about comes out of these foundations -- though, as I recall, the Southeastern Legal Foundation was anti-civil rights as well.

3) The National Republican Lawyers Association and Lawyers for Bush-Cheney are two other names that keep coming up in connection with campaign dirty tricks -- as I recall, Buckhead was a member of the latter, while the former is closely tied to the inflated claims of voter fraud that have been propelling abominations like the Real ID Act.

Much of the right-wing agenda is currently being run through legal channels (including the fundamentalist legal groups which keep attacking the public schools and libraries), and this will be even more true if the Democrats can take back Congress, so it deserves all the scrutiny it can get.

4) Finally, bozos for bush did some looking into the MacDougald family, and it turned out they were tied in with a cult-like movement involving something called the Yonan Codex -- a manuscript of the Syriac New Testament which was donated to the Library of Congress in 1955. As I wrote to him at the time, "As nearly as I can tell from all this, the codex is authentic but not all that significant. The MacDougald gang's claim that it is a direct copy of an early 2nd century version of the New Testament is unsupported and unlikely. And their use of a highly slanted translation of sections of it to support a Christianoid self-help movement, together with the stories about discovering it on a Kurdish mountaintop in 1966, is just plain cultish."

None of that ever tied back in with Harry MacDougald's politics -- but I thought I'd mention it because if people start digging into the MacDougald family they may run into it again.

[Joanne98]

54. Yonan Codex

http://www.whyagain.com/khaburishistory.htm

[madmusic]

55. Good to see you, starroute!

And thanks to you and everyone who put so much work into this.

Evidently, the The Legal Services Corporation Act was a coup de grace for the Right. How did it pass? Who was behind it? First guess, the Federalist Society.

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?court=US&navby=case&vol=000&invol=99-603">LEGAL SERVICES CORPORATION v. VELAZQUEZ et al.

certiorari to the united states court of appeals for the second circuit

No. 99-603. Argued October 4, 2000--Decided February 28, 2001*

The Legal Services Corporation Act authorizes petitioner Legal Services Corporation (LSC) to distribute funds appropriated by Congress to local grantee organizations providing free legal assistance to indigent clients in, inter alia, welfare benefits claims. In every annual appropriations Act since 1996, Congress has prohibited LSC funding of any organization that represented clients in an effort to amend or otherwise challenge existing welfare law. Grantees cannot continue representation in a welfare matter even where a constitutional or statutory validity challenge becomes apparent after representation is well under way. Respondents--lawyers employed by LSC grantees, together with others--filed suit to declare, inter alia, the restriction invalid. The District Court denied them a preliminary injunction, but the Second Circuit invalidated the restriction, finding it impermissible viewpoint discrimination that violated the First Amendment.

Held: The funding restriction violates the First Amendment. Pp. 5-15.

Though they lost some in that decision, they still more or less control the courts, and what is happening in California clearly indicates they will shut any defiance down with covert attacks (by claiming a social agenda, which means of course, a social agenda other than theirs).

How do they keep getting away with it?

[cosmicdot]

44. Paul Weyrich said pretty much what they're doing ...

"We are no longer working to preserve the status quo. We are radicals, working to overturn the present power structure in this country." Paul Weyrich

from a kos diary entitled: Sith Lords of the Ultra-Right
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/2/22/155525/061

~snip~ from the diary

Ever wonder how the right always seems so coordinated in the strategy. How all the multitude of organizations they've created all seem to use the same playbook? How they all manage to focus on the same talking points each day, day after day, year after year. Well it's no accident. But how do they do it?

The answer my friends lies in a little known organization with the innocuous sounding name The Council for National Policy. ~snip~

Howard Ahmanson is CNP. His money helped get Diebold off the ground which beget ES&S which beget coups d'etat right before our very eyes.

Jack Abramoff is CNP. Look at his tentacles.

The CNP just may be the head of the Octopus.

[madmusic]

45. Wow, check this, DUers

from cosmicdot's link:

The New York Times in a 2004 article (link) reported that Bush attended a 1999 CNP function, and Rumsfeld and Cheney have both been speakers since the Iraq war was initiated. So clearly the Bush administration takes these folks very seriously. Other speakers at the August 2004 event included Arnold Schwartzenegger and Rudy Guiliani, two supposedly "moderate" Republicans.

[madmusic]

24. DU History research (Googled)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=835262

[UTUSN]

25. Here's the lovely couple, Roger & Nikki STONE

This is an old, saved graphic. The addition of Alex CASTELLANOS is only relevant, I think, in the sense of dirty-birds-flocking-together. That means I don't know of any actual threesome among them.

STONE has surfaced in this thread, and I've suspected that he was involved with Buckhead in the CBS set-up. Recently I read the famous old biography of Roy COHN (cousin to Dick MORRIS and poet FERLINGHETTI), and THERE was Roger STONE's name in I-forget-what-context, but this flock of dirty birds goes WAY back.

Roger and Nikki were outed as advertising for swinging couples.

[madmusic]

30. Some history for the newer DUers:

Decades of Contributions to Conservatism

By Ira Chinoy and Robert G. Kaiser
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, May 2, 1999; Page A25

Over the past four decades Richard Mellon Scaife has contributed to hundreds of different organizations that in different ways have been pursuing the same goal: spreading the conservative faith while encouraging implementation of conservative policies.

Listed on this page are Scaife's "Top 40," the 40 conservative institutions, organizations and academic programs that have received the most grants from his trusts and foundations. Some of these grants went to support conservative scholars at programs affiliated with universities; others helped action-oriented groups promoting conservative policies, laws or judicial precedents.

Scaife's conservative causes can be divided into five broad categories, described below. Some groups fit into more than one category – the Heritage Foundation, for example, is a classical think tank sponsoring research; an activist organization promoting ideas on Capitol Hill and in the media; and a publisher, putting out its own conservative journal, Policy Review, every other month.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/clinton/stories/scaifegraf050299.htm

Just sayin', ya know, that it is not all tin hat paranoid. :)

[sofa king]

33. Here's where my memory must have been jogged.

In this thread I dumped a lot of crap showing that Buckhead and Stuart Bowen are at least in touch. Strickland is mentioned in one of those articles. Still don't know what that means.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=863069#863112

[madmusic]

36. Have you seen this?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuart_Bowen

A whole lot of people did a lot of work back then, and we thought we had them. We should have had them.

EDIT typo

[lonestarnot]

39. Sorry but in case people are to lazy to look, I had to post this.

From wikipedia on Bowen

[madmusic]

31. They are tying to close it down

Rural legal aid group in jeopardy

Posted on Sat, Sep. 16, 2006

Federal investigators accuse the group of violating funding laws; 90 percent of SLO office funding at risk

Conducted by the Office of Inspector General — an arm of the Legal Services Corp. — the report accused the legal assistance group of "behavior more akin to activism than providing basic legal services to the indigent."

Padilla countered by asking what is the proper way to define the group’s work to secure funding to educate migrant children or help sexually harassed women workers.

"Is that activism," he asked, "or is that trying to solve the very difficult problems of people affected by poverty? What they (the auditors) really mean is that it’s too political a business."

The report stemmed from a request by Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Visalia — a vocal critic of the group with strong financial ties to the dairy and agriculture industries. He accused Rural Legal Assistance of impeding business growth in the Central Valley, rather than helping the poor.

http://www.sanluisobispo.com/mld/sanluisobispo/news/local/15534535.htm

The agriculture industries got California Supreme Court Chief Justice Rose Bird and two other "liberal" judges removed from the bench.

[glitch]

37. Loathsome people. I am glad their actions are getting better known.

Looking forward to shunning them.

[Eugene]

40. The Repugs did the exact same things on Reagan's watch.

Like their Reganite predecessors, the Bushies are looting the program
at the same time as they are trying to limit its mission.
Today's piggies are much more brazen about it however.

[leveymg]

50. Similar ploy to the HUD scandal of the 1980s

If you don't like an Agency, colonize it, corrupt it, and loot it. They're doing the same thing to the nation.

[Eugene]

41. K & R

and special thanks to DUer deadparrot who originally
pointed out these parasites in August.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=2456335

[nolabels]

42. DU is the best and sometimes only place to look for real news

:kick:

[upi402]

43. Republican cancer has certainly metastasized.

:grr: :nuke:

[calimary]

46. Yep. I think we need to look into this guy Buckhead and his buddies.

Taste of their own medicine. See how they like it. Or how 'bout one of those nifty rumor campaigns that cast doubt on his reputation, personal and/or otherwise. I mean, this is how THEY play it. All bets off, no rules, anything goes, as far below the belt as you dare. Fair game. These people will stop at nothing. So why should we? UNTIL WE WIN, that is. And maybe even after that, after we've knocked 'em down - to KEEP them down. I say show ol' Buckhead exactly as much mercy as he showed Dan Rather.

[madmusic]

56. And does Dan Rather know about all this?

He is still doing special reporting and hopefully is working on this.

[demgrrrll]

48. What about the patches on the machines in Fulton County GA? The

Booman Times has an article about the new Rolling Stone/RFK article
about the 2002 race. Apparently they put "patches" on 1200 machines in heavily Democratic counties. Someone from Diebold is talking. It looks like Chambliss did not really win. I wonder if the man from Fulton was a part of that scheme.

on edit it is the Booman Tribune and the post was on Thursday the 21st I can't get the link. Perhaps the story was already linked and discussed here.

[GeorgeGist]

57. Swatting flies...

is a waste of time.... at this point...in time.

[Joanne98]

59. Have you considered that this story about Legal Services Corp

Could be sabotage from the right. I was just wondering because I found the story on the Heritage site. They hate free legal services for the poor and want to kill the program...
http://policy.heritageblogs.org/2006/09/lounging_at_legal_services.html


Lounging at Legal Services
In our efforts to expose the petty corruption involved in earmark abuses, we should remember that not all earmarks are pork and not all pork comes through earmarks. Earlier this week an AP story highlighted some questionable spending at the Legal Services Corporation, the federal agency that carries a mandate to provide legal assistance, at taxpayer expense, to those unable to afford it. Unfortunately, more of them do without legal assistance because some of the federal funding for the agency gets spent on other priorities:

Agency documents obtained by The Associated Press detail the luxuries that executives of the Legal Services Corp. have given themselves with federal money - from $14 "Death by Chocolate" desserts to $400 chauffeured rides to locations within cab distance of their offices.
The government-funded corporation also has a spacious headquarters in Washington's tony Georgetown district - with views of the Potomac River and a rent significantly higher than other tenants in the same building.

And board members wrote themselves a policy that doubled the amount they could claim for meals compared with their staff. …

The headquarters has multiple conference rooms and kitchen/pantry areas. Yet, the corporation's 11-member board of directors holds its meetings at hotels around the country, including Washington, at costs ranging from $20,145 to $55,125 - the latter in San Juan, P.R.


National Review picked up same story and provided more background. The tony Georgetown digs cost the LSC $17.1 million in leases, of which its Inspector General Kirt West estimates at least $1.3 million to be overpayment. West also noted that the lease includes arrangements for $2 million in payments to Friends of the Legal Services Corporation—an organization with “close ties” to the LSC’s board members. That, West told Congress, could represent a criminal conflict of interest.

Despite this track record of waste and abuse, Congress has voted to increase the agency’s funding, even while it had to intervene to keep the LSC’s board from firing West. The Senate has approved a $31.5 million increase, while the House gave the LSC $25 million more. No doubt the impetus for more funding came from reports that the LSC only services 50 percent of eligible clients, and that only 20 percent of all legal needs of low-income Americans are being met. However, one would think that Congress would insist on better money management by the LSC—and perhaps a more responsible board of directors—before giving them even more money to waste.

Or perhaps they would be better advised to cut all funding to the Legal Services Corporation. As Heritage Foundation President Edwin J. Feulner wrote earlier this month, plenty of questions surround the LSC’s own legal status. Despite explicit restrictions on representation of clients outside the U.S., the LSC actively recruited migrant workers in Mexico to join a lawsuit against American farmers. It also has violated prohibitions on allowing its resources to be used in class-action lawsuits in Georgia and California. Edwin Meese outlined these offenses to Congress in 2002—and the response to the waste and the abuse has been to give the LSC ever-expanding increases. Nor are these problems recent; Virginia Thomas and Ryan Rogers reported in 1999 that the LSC inflated its case workload in order to justify increased funding. This was no mere fudging, or a case of excessive rounding—LSC reported handling 370,000 cases in a year when they only handled 198,000, an overstatement of 86 percent. That’s significant even by Congressional budget standards, and indicates a systemic honesty issue at the LSC.

Reforming the mechanisms of appropriations in Washington, D.C. is an important first step in eliminating waste, fraud, and corruption. We need to make sure we’re keeping a close eye on all the other means that our government wastes money and under-delivers its services.


Posted by Ed Morrissey on September 22, 2006 01:37 PM in Captain Ed , Spending | Permalink

[Joanne98]

60. Friends of Legal Services Corp looks more interesting to me.

LSC sold their Georgetown prop to "Friends" for 2 mil. Friends will give it back to LSC once it's payed off?

http://www.oig.lsc.gov/reports/0304/fy2002_lsc_corp_audit.pdf

[Joanne98]

61. This looks like a money laudering deal to me.

The Legal Services headquarters in Georgetown was bought by a nonprofit group, Friends of the Legal Services Corp., that was formed to purchase a permanent headquarters.

The board chairman, Thomas Smegal, said the $38 per-square-foot rent charged Legal Services was a good deal even though other tenants were paying less than $30. Nonetheless, he said Legal Services was not getting ripped off.

Smegal said LSC's rent won't change for the 10-year lease, while other tenants' rents rise. The tenants paying low rent already had those leases when Friends took over the building, said Smegal, a San Francisco lawyer.

When the building is paid off, he said, it will be turned over debt-free to the Legal Services Corp.

Copyright 2006 Associated Press

http://www.lexisone.com/news/ap/ap081506d.html

Remember Duke Cunningham and how his bribe was paid by tacking the bribe on to his house price when he sold it?

This IS a kickback scheme. But it's confusing.
Friends bought building from LS . Friends overcharges for rent by 8 dollars per sq ft. When building is paid out it will be turned over to LS debt free. WHY? The names are confusing me but someone should look at this. it looks like a privatization, kick-back, money laudering scheme. Someone in DC should go talk to the other tenants. I bet they have something to say!

[Joanne98]

62. This reminds me of the HUD scandals.

Employees of LSC created another non-profit Friends of LSC and LSC OVERPAID THEM 9 million dollars for the 10 yr lease. When people started talking about firing Strickland CONGRESS said NO! Isn't this fucking interesting.



And Legal Services is overpaying in rent by close to $9 million for unneeded space at headquarters for more than 10 years, according to the U.S. Inspector General's office.

The landlord was a corporation started by people who were, at the time, Legal Services employees. Congress says it is a conflict-of-interest and has dubbed the building an "oversized lavish headquarters... absorbing large sums that should be used to serve the poor."

While there's plenty of room for board meetings, Legal Services spends more tax dollars to rent space to hold meetings at the luxurious Melrose Hotel.

Meanwhile, the non-profit says it needs more money to serve the needy and is asking Congress for an $85 million budget increase — up to $411.8 million dollars.

"Anybody ought to be able to look at this and say 'How could you make the argument to Congress that this is an underfunded program when you're, you know, living like Marie Antoinette?'" Boehm asks.

When asked how his employees can identify with the needs of its clients, Strickland, Legal Services' chairman of the board, said, "I do not think for one minute that any of those people is out of touch with the mission of LSC and is acting in a frivolous manner."

Strickland denies any wrongdoing and defends every penny — the limo rides allow busy executives to work while being driven. The hotel is more convenient better for serving meals.

As for the Georgetown headquarters? LSC says they're actually saving money, and that their administrative costs are low by any standard.

"Our total budget for administration is about 4 percent of the annual budget and less than one-tenth of 1 percent is for the board's expenses," Strickland said.

Attkisson reports that once the Inspector General began digging into the case, there was talk at Legal Services of firing Strickland.

But, Congress issued a warning saying that would be obstruction and retaliation and said it will not be tolerated.

[Joanne98]

63. The real estate transaction was conceived by John McKay..

Third, there has been no evaluation by the OIG of the substantial benefits to LSC from the transaction. These include efficiencies from LSC’s possession of space built to its needs and specifications; stabilizing LSC’s cost of space and removing its dependence on the D.C. commercial office market; and the long-term advantage of having a nonprofit landlord which was specifically created for, and whose charter provides as its purpose, to benefit LSC and support its mission of delivering legal services to the poor. No other landlord fits this description.

This transaction was conceived by John McKay, who President Bush appointed as and is now U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Washington. The K Street building was found, the details negotiated, and the contracts executed under the direction of former Congressman Erlenborn, with every key decision approved by my predecessors on the Board. I cannot say everything was done perfectly; I was not here at the time. I am confident, however, that the prior LSC Board acted honorably and properly every step of the way and that, if any mistakes were made, they were miniscule compared to the overall long-term gains that are and will be realized by LSC. The current Board has reviewed the reports of the Inspector General suggesting that our predecessors, previous management and the former Inspector General all erred in approving this transaction and we unanimously rejected that finding.


http://judiciary.house.gov/OversightTestimony.aspx?ID=436

[Joanne98]

64. Non-profit landlords...hmm

RENT CONTROL

Under considerable outside pressure from the county, the city council pushed through an ordinance creating rent control exemptions, even though the form of the overall rent control ordinance is still being hashed out and will not be written for months. Why? Because the county wants non-profit-owned, subsidized rental units NOT to be rent controlled.

If you think that is confusing, dear Reader, you are not the only one. Gilbert has been making The Mighty Effort to get his brain around this, and just when he gets one end secure, the other end snaps back - like trying to put a twin-bed-sized contour sheet onto a king-size mattress.

The urgency seems to be due to at least one pending sale of an apartment building to a nonprofit organization and this exemption must be passed into law so the purchase can go through. Otherwise, the property will go to other buyers who will likely convert to condos.

“Why?” you may ask, oh, confused Reader! Why do nonprofit landlords need rent controls to be lifted so they can make a profit, while “for-profit” landlords are subject to rent control and therefore not allowed to make as much profit (or no profit, according to many landlords). This apparent contradiction has been noted by for-profit landlords in tones ranging from loud to derisive. Litigation has been mentioned. Again.

Unfortunately for the proponents of rent control who support these exemptions, the explanation is a bit murky. This has had the effect of handing a blunt instrument to rent control opponents to hammer them with, as they have done for a number of weeks during “citizen comment.” Lately, that portion of the meeting has been more like “lawyers’ threat time.”

The reason non-profits have to make a bigger profit has to do with the potential profits from the eventual sale of a property being figured into the rent of a for-profit building. Selling the building for profit is something a nonprofit owner can’t do, so they need to have higher rents. That’s what your Gilbert understands, anyway. By the way, low income tenants in these non-profit-owned buildings will not pay the entire rent, they pay a percentage of their incomes and the government picks up the rest.

There was a lot of concern when the council started looking at exemptions to rent control, because homeowners with accessory apartments were afraid they would lose their current exemption. The city staff, who sometimes seem at odds with the council on rent control, had recommended that all exemptions other than for non-profits be dropped, and this rang alarm bells (and then councilmembers' telephones) all over the city.

The council kept the exemption for accessory apartments, however. It is in the new ordinance along with the exemption for non-profits.