Gentle reader, two months ago I paused to review our progress and collated the first 34 editions of our work into a single document, making it all the easier for the casual visitor to get an overview and to delve as deeply as he chooses. That first volume may be found here http://www.dailykos.com/... and I encourage your attendance there, if only to see the scope of our journey. In the same spirit of collecting all those markers in one location, I offer a second volume to our anthology.
Again, happy reading!
http://www.dailykos.com/...
ME hits target, NPR misses it & Wal-Mart enters politics
In which Maine lawmakers speak their minds about Howie Rich’s so-called Taxpayer Bill of Rights, Grover Norquist’s role in the birth and delayed death of TABOR in Colorado is unearthed, while actual Coloradans attending the University of Colorado demonstrate their low opinion of TABOR through plaques on the walls of their new Wolf Law Building. Out of the blue, we find Wal-Mart, whose approval ratings rival those of the president these days, injecting its corporate girth foursquare into the American political landscape, now initiating voter registration drives in targeted locations.
http://www.dailykos.com/...
PBS NOW exposes Howard Rich connection to TABOR
In which Howie Rich of New York City is offered his close-up by PBS NOW correspondent Marie Hinojosa, who finds him not ready for it, and cameos are featured of Rich’s ideological soulmate Grover Norquist, his hapless man-on-the-ground in Montana, Trevis Butcher of Winifred, and a massive trailer-borne pig that provides a memorable mascot to the entire year’s sad, sordid business.
http://www.dailykos.com/...
ME schools hit TABOR; Howie Rich cameos in WA, CA
In which we uncover the appeal of TABOR to Colorado’s incarcerated population – giving Maine’s recidivists a glimmer of hope! – and we find a Montana reporter doing the necessary homework to refute ALG President John Tillman’s choruses from the ALG hymnal, as correspondents in California and Washington catch up to Howie Rich’s activities there.
http://www.dailykos.com/...
NE radio network bullied into pulling anti-TABOR ads
In which letters are used in a threatening way to halt the airing of anti-TABOR advertisements on Nebraska’s heretofore-public airwaves, facts undermining the argument for TABOR are found as abundant as Maine granite, an admission of Howie Rich’s intervention in Big Sky Country is extracted on live radio from a Montana state senator, and purring is heard near Greenwich Village as USA Today strokes Rich’s “regulatory takings” interest in the American West.
http://www.dailykos.com/...
Ads back on Radio Free NE, more Mainers kick TABOR
In which the rule of law – and a healthy regard for facts – prevails in Nebraska as radio station owners reinstate the properly-documented anti-TABOR advertisements, Coloradoans visiting the Cornhusker State and Maine tell tales of TABOR woes to their fellow Americans, the Maine Chamber of Commerce wobbles on its axis temporarily toward an endorsement of TABOR – with qualifications – and Howie Rich attains a new nickname from an Oregonian: Sugar Daddy.
http://www.dailykos.com/...
Nebraskans, Mainers separating facts from fiction
In which Trevis Butcher, aka Montanans in Action, serves up a whopper of an excuse for representing himself poorly in litigation, Coloradoan Carol Hedges outdoes herself in warning neighboring Nebraskans of TABOR woes to come – with footnotes – and one particularly fact-oriented radio station manager in Nebraska shines the bright light of truth on the flimsy arguments of pro-TABOR lawyers, all while Maine municipalities continue to tie themselves in knots over Howie Rich’s basket of snakes.
http://www.dailykos.com/...
Omaha World Herald opposes Howie Rich agenda in NE
In which one of Nebraska’s distinguished journalist-historians asks who among his fellow citizens voted for Howie Rich, Howie Rich’s friends in various states ask who among their fellow citizens told one another about Rich and TABOR using their office computers, South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford protects Rich’s investment in the Palmetto State’s chief executive office by attaching a prohibitive price tag to the justice proferred to average Americans, and your trusty Sandlapper exhorts those bearing slings and arrows to be generous in posting links, and to give credit where it’s due.
http://www.dailykos.com/...
Howie Rich `not available' for Wash. Post, may be in SC
In which states along the opposite coast give Howie Rich some attention – driving him to a Nixonian turn, denying a interview request by the Washington Post – while Coloradoan Carol Hedges continues her educational tour of Nebraska, Oregonian lawmakers put university funding on hold pending TABOR’s outcome at the ballot box, flinty Mainers inveigh against TABOR, Rich finds himself opposing the likes of Bill Gates in Washington state, and a colorful newsweekly in Greenville, South Carolina, mines Rich’s carpetbaggery into the public education policies and politics of that state.
http://www.dailykos.com/...
MT radio threatened, more Mainers knock TABOR
In which a boatload of Maine organizations and institutions show no love for Howie Rich’s TABOR, bolstered by a Center for Budget Policy and Priorities report predicting higher property taxes under it, which facts are of no use to Montanan in Action Trevis Butcher’s attorney, who threatens turrible calamities on radio stations if they continue airing anti-TABOR ads, all while University of Colorado students take matters – and construction financing – into their own hands, finally placing signage on university walls advising what lawmakers did and didn’t do to protect higher education from TABOR.
http://www.dailykos.com/...
The more Mainers learn about TABOR, the fewer like it
In which the Center for Budget Policy and Priorities study projecting TABOR pains earns second-day coverage in Maine and more rock-ribbed municipalities and Mainers themselves denounce the notion entirely, leaving Mary Adams and the leading lights of the Maine Heritage Policy Center to denounce the intervention of out-of-state interests, sensing no irony at all.
http://www.dailykos.com/...
Laird J. Maxwell goes fishing, sends taxpayers a bill
In which Howie Rich’s wild-west pardner Laird Maxwell files Freedom of Information Act requests amounting to a blizzard of paperwork on nearly 2,000 school districts and local governments across six states, at taxpayer expense, in a fishing expedition for anti-TABOR communiqués between hardworking Americans, and we’re introduced to a new character brought up from Rich’s minor leagues, the designated email reader Chris Kliesmet of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
http://www.dailykos.com/...
San Francisco Chronicle finds Howard Rich behind TABOR
In which the San Francisco Chronicle plays catch-up to a host of national media outlets in exposing Howie Rich but does a serviceable job compiling most known intelligence on the topic in one location.
http://www.dailykos.com/...
TABOR paper chase to cost millions of taxpayers
In which the paper chase first observed at Laird Maxwell’s hand in Idaho expands to more states as those in Howie Rich’s orbit lash out at the hardworking Americans, at their cost, who brought his ideology to the light of day, and his brother-in-law Paul Jacob predicts happily they will have covered all ballot initiative states by year’s end.
http://www.dailykos.com/...
New York Times catches onto TABOR's Howie Rich
In which Howie Rich makes the New York Times – surely bringing a flush of pride to someone’s cheeks – and the Omaha World-Herald, the Las Vegas Sun, the Kennebec Journal, and the News-Tribune of Tacoma, Washington all in one weekend, to add to the coverage he’s already won from the Oregonian, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Washington Post, the Lewiston Sun-Journal, the Helena Independent Review and PBS NOW, thanks to his $14-plus million investment in a faux-grassroots hijacking of several states’ fiscal policy.
http://www.dailykos.com/...
Egad! Howie Rich decries "outright lies and distortions"!
In which Howie Rich strikes a blow on behalf of Wizards of Oz everywhere against those who question the fog and the lights, and who sniff around the curtains where the real gears are being pulled, while real Americans rate his ballot measures poorly in Maine, Montana and Idaho.
http://www.dailykos.com/...
ME leaders hit Howie Rich's TABOR, ND front opens
In which only the place names change, with real people turning down Howie Rich’s signature issue in person and in full voice, and only a few pale souls issuing tepid endorsements by fax and press release, and in which columnist Edgar Allen Beem gives Grover Norquist a cameo as a quotable, foul-mouthed ideologue in a searing bit that comes and goes highly-recommended.
http://www.dailykos.com/...
L.A. Times: Now he's a victim of "character assassination"
In which Howie Rich leaves Los Angeles Times knowing that it’s hard out here for a multi-millionaire ideologue these days, though his lieutenants Laird Maxwell and Trevis Butcher get their own share of attention, as Maxwell announces his post-election decampment from Idaho and Butcher, yet again, copies someone else’s idea and begins issuing Freedom of Information Act requests.
http://www.dailykos.com/...
Gadflies, fishing expeditions and "pigs at the trough"
In which Oregonian reporter Laura Oppenheimer follows up her earlier expose on Howie Rich with extensive original research on the “orchestrator” who discovered Mary Adams of Maine, Laird Maxwell of Idaho, and one imagines Trevis Butcher of Montana and Mike Groene of Nebraska, but Oppenheimer’s report is trumped only by the news that the Roman Catholic Bishop of Maine has passed judgment against Rich’s TABOR.
http://www.dailykos.com/...
Taking stock of the Koch Machine, Part III
In which we continue our look at the pair of brothers who are arguably Howie Rich's two most successful friends, Charles and David Koch, the owners of Koch Industries of Wichita, Kansas.
http://www.dailykos.com/...
Owens on TABOR, Fund on judges, threats from Graves
In which Colorado Governor Bill Owens suffers a lapse of memory and announces his endorsement of Howie Rich’s TABOR – so long as it applies to Maine and not to Colorado – and Mary Adams announces her offense that the Roman Catholic Bishop of Maine didn’t consult her, ahem, before slamming TABOR, while Rich collects support from a truly odd pairing of sources: the Wall Street Journal’s editorialist John Fund and Leslie (Mrs. Eric O’Keefe) Graves.
http://www.dailykos.com/...
Early judgments issued on Howie Rich's TABORs
In which the Christian Science Monitor editorializes against Howie Rich’s TABOR, scooped as it was by the Roman Catholic Bishop of Maine by a week.
http://www.dailykos.com/...
Taking stock of the Koch Machine, Part IV
In which our look at Howie Rich's old friends Charles and David Koch stretches from a trilogy into a four-part series, dedicated to the 1,231-plus hardworking Americans who had jobs a year ago but do not have them today.
http://www.dailykos.com/...
MT rules, ME ponders, and Howie Rich buys S. Carolina?
In which Howie Rich garners the attention of U.S. News and World Report, the Nation and the Associated Press, and the condemnation of revered former Independent Maine Governor Angus King, and the rebuke of the Montana Supreme Court, and in which he apparently finds solace in his receipts for the campaigns of Mark Sanford, Karen Floyd and Richard Eckstrom of South Carolina.
http://www.dailykos.com/...
Howie Rich says he's the victim of a witch hunt
In which Howie Rich plays Goody Proctor of old Salem, Massachusetts, 300-plus years late and without rationale, and gets no sympathy from a host of Arizonans and Californians, the president of the University of Nebraska, Maine business owners and - maybe the worst news of all - Maine librarians.
http://www.dailykos.com/...
Howie Rich's election year ends happily for voters
In which Howie Rich’s TABOR and “regulatory takings” ballot measures are weighed and measured by voters, and found wanting, and his beloved Americans for Limited Government splits, spawning the brand-spanking-new Sam Adams Alliance led by his same old Libertarian pals, Eric O’Keefe and John Tillman.