Well, at least in Alaska, Markos Moulitsas and Rahm Emanuel are in bed together. They're both supporters of Ethan Berkowitz's Alaska Democratic Party Primary campaign for the AK-AL U.S. House seat, now held by Rep. Don Young (Pervert - CNMI).
Markos, after commissioning a United 2000 poll late last fall on both the AK-AL House race and the 2008 Senate race for the seat Ted Stevens now holds, donated $1,000.00 to the Berkowitz campaign for the first quarter of 2008. This wasn't at all unexpected, after Markos showed up on the roster of attendees at a San Francisco fundraiser held for Berkowitz this winter.
But the biggest donor to the Berkowitz campaign chest was Illinois Democrat, Representative Rahm Emanuel. Rahm's PAC, Our Common Values, donated $10,000.00 to Berkowitz in the first quarter. It wasn't only Berkowitz's biggest donation, it was the biggest amount Emanuel's PAC appears to have ever donated in a quarter to a yet unelected Democratic Party candidate in a primary against two solidly progressive and credible opponents.
Back on January 18, former Alaska State Representative Ethan Berkowitz spoke to the Mat-Su Democrats about his campaign in the Democratic Party primary for the AK-AL seat now held by GOP crook (and pervert?), Don Young. In the question-and-answer session after Ethan's talk, I asked him about Ray Metcalfe's claim to have delivered a packet of documents and information about former State Senator Ben Stevens, when both Berkowitz and Stevens were serving in the legislature. Ethan, in January, stated that his hands had been tied as a legislator, because of procedural rules, that APOC was investigating many of Ray Metcalfe's allegations, and that Ethan wasn't free to talk about some of the things he "might have done" with the information when he received it from Ray.
Back on January 18, Ethan also told me, "You could have called me."
Between last Thursday and Sunday, going through Ethan's 2008 first quarter Federal Election Commission, filing, I came across two donations that troubled me. The first was a $500.00 donation from Anchorage CH2M Hill director, Denis LeBlanc. CH2M Hill is Veco's successor, and has an environmental reputation in the lower 48 that stinks. The second donation, or set of donations, was the href="0,000.00 the Berkowitz campaign received from Illinois U.S. House Representative Rahm Emanuel's PAC, Our Common Values.
Over the weekend, I got in touch with Howie Klein, one of the founders of BlueAmerica, an on-line funding group which raised about $3,000,000.00 for progressive U.S. House candidates in the 2006 election. Howie has done more to expose the insidious politics of Rahm Emanuel, than has any other progressive figure.
Klein isn't alone in this, though. I spent a few hours over the weekend with one of America's most inspiring progressives, Jeff Cohen, founder of the Park Center for Independent Media, and endowed chair/associate professor of journalism at Ithaca College. Cohen is in Alaska this week, and was a leading participant in the Alaska Press Club's J-Week conference. Cohen is another huge critic of Rahm Emanuel. He was appalled that what appears to be the biggest quarterly candidate contribution by a PAC since Veco was busted, was made by Our Common Values. As Cohen exclaimed, when I informed him of Rahm's donation, "This is huge!"
Saturday, Howie Klein wrote to me that he had written a recent article for Down With Tyranny about Rahm's PAC. In the article, Howie described his feeling, as he looked at the list of PAC donors. "I know some of these people. I feel ill."
The donors to this PAC who gave Berkowitz $10,000 in the first quarter of 2008, reads like a "who's who" list of supporters of war with Iran, defenders of the worst aspects of our health care industry, opponents of net neutrality, and enablers of the financial deregulation that allows hedge fund managers to be taxed very little, and who helped engineer the sub-prime mortgage industry meltdown. The list includes the producer of Bill O'Reilly's radio show, several Fox executives, war criminal Henry Kissinger's main business partner, and a whole host of other people who make Alaska's Corrupt Bastard Club look like a kindergarten roster.
Klein, in his article about Emanuel's PAC, notes that those who, in the past have benefitted from this funding source, have gone on to be the closest allies to President Bush among Democrats in the U.S. House. Jeff Cohen, speaking about Emanuel and those loyal to him, said Saturday, that "Emanuel isn't really a Democrat, and doesn't have a remotely progressive agenda."
Sunday, I decided to call Ethan and ask him if he knew what he'd walked into by accepting the largest quarterly contribution Rahm Emanuel has ever given an unelected candidate in a U.S. House primary. According to Ethan, he had no idea that Rahm is as despised on the left as is the case. He said that he hadn't looked at the list of donors to Our Common Values. He seemed somewhat surprised about this.
Ethan went on to say that he is very much for an open internet, with free access to information for all. For the first time I've heard him go this far, he stated he is categorically against a war with Iran.
Berkowitz added that he'll look into how Emanuel is viewed in the Democratic Party as a whole, and will take a look at the Our Common Values PAC donor list. He says that under no circumstances will he feel obligated to Emanuel for the latter's largesse.
I pointed out that "that's what every candidate says, Ethan." He replied that he'll get back to me on this once he's more familiar with the reasons for Jeff Cohen's and Howie Klein's concerns. He also explained that the donation from LeBlanc was fom a longtime friend. LeBlanc was Anchorage City Manager before moving to CH2M Hill. Ethan says he doesn't expect to be getting any donations from the company itself, and would probably return them should they donate.
MORE TROUBLE FOR DON YOUNG:
For over two years, Dennis Greenia has been the main source of information on Don Young's contacts with Jack Abramoff, and on Young's role in turning the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands into a slave empire. His research was key tomy October 16, 2006 article on this for Down With Tyranny.
Cited in my article from 19 months ago, was also the research on some of Young's Abramoff contacts mentioned in articles for the Anchorage Daily News by Liz Ruskin.
Since October, 2006, I've written over 20 articles for Down With Tyranny, Daily Kos and Progressive Alaska on Young's ties to Abramoff, and about the continuing research being done by Greenia and by the Diane Benson campaign in this area.
Today's Anchorage Daily News has a very comprehensive article on this by Richard Mauer. Mauer, like me, has been in direct contact with Greenia on deepening the research. Dennis, or Dengre, as he is known to DailyKos readers, pays very generous tribute to Mauer in a diary he's written this morning on Mauer's article over at Daily Kos. And Mauer cites the importance of Dengre's research in his piece.
And I'm very happy that Richard's dedication is paying off here. His Young-Abramoff article today is the best research article at the ADN since Mauer teamed up with Tom Kizzia to write an article publshed February 10, about some of the shady aspects of Ted Stevens' relationship to the Seward Sea Life Center.
It is important to note, though, that over 80% of the information in Mauer's article was already out there, in very similar format, in my October 16, 2006 Down With Tyranny article on the same subject. At the time of that article's publication, Diane Benson's 2006 campaign manager drew it to the attention of editors and news directors of all major Alaska media outlets, Nobody called back. The lack of response upset me enough then, that, upon the urging of Aaron Selbig, I wrote an appeal to the Alaska MSM, for Insurgent49. I'm going to reprint that appeal now, to give a little bit of historical perspective:
October 27, 2006
Media Coverage of Young's Corruption Seriously Lacking
by Philip Munger, insurgent49
The past two weeks have seen the publication of several articles about Don Young that clearly show him unfit for continued service in the U. S. House of Representatives.
I documented twenty contacts between Young and convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff in an article published at two web sites. The Anchorage Daily News has written three times in the past week about aspects of Young’s arrogance and questionable campaign practices. The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner covered most of the points about the Young-Abramoff ties in an article published Saturday that asks more questions about those ties.
On Tuesday, the Juneau Empire featured a story by Pat Forgey that highlighted Young’s highly questionable contributions to the legal defense funds of Representatives Randy "Duke" Cunningham, Tom DeLay and Bob Ney. Of those three, Cunningham is now serving time, Ney about to begin serving, and DeLay soon to go to trial. Also on Tuesday, a high traffic web site posted an article about Abramoff that questions how long Young and several other Abramoff-tainted congressmen can remain free, even should they win re-election on November 7.
The last article raises interesting questions about how Young’s future is tied to the pace of revelations coming from Jack Abramoff’s cellblock desk. The article’s author, Howie Klein, a retired recording industry executive and co-founder of ActBlue, an organization which has raised over $14,000,000 on-line for progressive candidates this cycle, writes "FBI insiders, or at least those with inside info from FBI employees familiar with the Abramoff case, are betting that almost instant indictments are looming for Alaska's Don Young, Florida's Tom Feeney, John Doolittle, Jerry Lewis, Duncan Hunter, Ken Calvert and Dirty Dick Pombo of the Golden State and Phil English and Don Sherwood of Pennsylvania, as well as for former GOP Crime Boss Tom DeLay."
Klein further states "there are a whole lot of GOP solons from low information districts who will be re-elected only to face almost immediate indictment and the same eventual fate as former GOP congressmen/current prison inmates Duke Cunningham and Bob Ney."
Don Young is the number one recipient of political funding from Veco, a firm being investigated by the FBI. Our sole congressman didn’t even attend his own committee’s September hearings into BP’s business failures in Alaska. When he returned to Alaska for the October congressional recess, a time during which most incumbents of both parties are campaigning furiously, Young has chosen to campaign for one hour only – at Wednesday’s KSKA/KAKM debate. The rest of the time, he claims, he’s "traveling as a congressman."
He has refused to participate in public forums across the state with Democratic Party nominee Diane Benson, who has turned into a highly credible candidate who resonates with our serving military and their families, with veterans, with the Native community at large, and with the growing number of voters here who have "had enough."
Meanwhile, Young defends his threats, cancellations, and contributions of donor funds to questionable criminal defense organizations in an imperious manner.
<span style="font-style: italic;"> <span style="font-weight: bold;"> This has been handled rather poorly, in most part, by Alaska media. Alaska editors and reporters need to begin connecting the dots very, very soon in a responsible and comprehensive way on the patterns of abuse of power by our sole representative in Congress. Should Young be re-elected and then indicted for his activities without a deeper coverage of his shortcomings by the Alaska press, Young’s indictment will also be an indictment of the Alaska media’s inability or unwillingness to fully do it’s job.</span></span>
MY SUNDAY TALK WITH ANCHORAGE MAYOR MARK BEGICH:
At noon today, Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich announced his formal declaration of candidacy in the Alaska Democratic Party Primary - to be held the opening day of the National Democratic Party Convention, August 26.
Last week, in the comments to a post at Progressive Alaska about U.S. Senate Democratic Party candidate Ray Metcalfe's Wednesday April 16th meeting with the Party's Central Committee, Mayor Begich asked me to call him. I left a message for him, and he returned the call yesterday. He's been busy.
Although he said he wanted to answer any questions I have about Ray's statements regarding Mark's real estate dealings, or on any other matter, right then and there, I was busy thinning plants in my greenhouse and getting dinner on the table. So I asked that we set up a meeting sometime in the near future through his scheduling people. That's what we're going to do.
I've only met Mark once, at a ceremony honoring America's POWs and MIAs, at Bartlett High School on April 9, 2007, at which he spoke and I played bugle.
I suggested that Mayor Begich might consider finding some appropriate time in the near future to give credit to Ray Metcalfe for the efforts that the latter has made over the years to clean up corruption in Alaska politics. Mark doesn't appear to be any closer to that than Ray is to acknowledging the good things Mark has done over the years.