Mood:
smellyTopic: Lib Loser Stories
I'm wondering if there is a sudden $3.2M windfall over at Air America. Democrats trying to clear up $3.2 million discrepancy following FEC audit
DENVER - State Democratic Party officials on Monday said they were trying to clear up a $3.2 million discrepancy found by a Federal Election Commission audit in which investigators determined that the party may have misallocated campaign funds in 2001 and 2002.
Party chairman Pat Waak said the discrepancies are only a matter of finding documents to back up the reports filed with the FEC.
"This is a paper problem," Waak said.
State Republican Party spokeswoman Rachael Sunbarger said any complaint by the FEC is serious.
"This is an attempt to downplay a serious problem. This looks like a pretty serious matter," she said.
Darryl Tattrie, a political audit consultant based in Phoenix hired to help the party resolve the discrepancies, said state party officials failed to properly document spending on federal races for Congress and nonfederal races during the two years that were audited.
According to the FEC, the Colorado Democratic Party reported a payment for media consulting of $343,000 as a $343 payment, failed to report receipts from a third-party fundraiser totaling $99,802 in 2001 and $112,700 in 2002 and failed to return an illegal $10,000 contribution from the New Democrat Network in a timely manner.
The New Democrat Network check written in April 2002 was returned in July 2003.
Tattrie said most of the questioned spending involved money spent on advertising. Federal campaign laws at the time required state parties to determine what percentage of a postcard or television ad was used for federal candidates, including races for Congress, and what percentage of the ad featured state candidates, including governor or the state legislature.
Tattrie said the party has asked the FEC for more information, and subpoenas will be sent to vendors who fail to provide documents. He said if vendors do not have the documents, the party may have to transfer funds from federal races to state races, which could hurt the party in next year's congressional races. The FEC said the party could pay the money back over time.
Waak said the party only had $90,000 in the bank at the end of August, and it could take years to the money pay back if the party is ordered to do so by the FEC, but she said she isn't worried.
"We pay it back to ourselves, but we think we can clear it up," she said.
Waak said former state party chairman Tim Knaus was in charge at the time. Knaus did not return phone calls seeking comment.
Summit Daily News ~ Associated Press ** Democrats trying to clear up $3.2 million discrepancy following FEC audit
Posted by uhyw
at 2:12 AM EDT
cheeky
What???
NO KOOL-AID UNIVERSITY?
The Howard Dean School of Shriekanomics?
Nancy Pelosi Scholarship Fund for the Educationally Insane?
Martin Sheen Department of Anti-American Studies?
The Cindy Sheehan Fellowship of Craziness?
Al Gore Department of Environmentalism? 
More students are drawn to conservative colleges
Enrollment is up at smaller colleges with Christian values. Some think students hope it will launch political careers.
Catherine Shultis, a National Merit Scholar with a perfect SAT score, is a natural for the hallowed halls of academia: Harvard, Columbia, Georgetown. But last month, she began her freshman year at Franciscan University of Steubenville in Ohio.
Why Steubenville instead of Cambridge, Mass., or New York? The East Coast elite universities "lack a grounding in the Christian faith, and they're turning away from core principles and becoming more and more liberal," she says.
In these politically polarized times, a rising number of top conservative students are politicizing their school choices. Instead of going to a Princeton or Stanford, they're opting for less costly home-state universities or smaller schools that see themselves as standardbearers of Christian values and laissez-faire governance. Such choices are perhaps a boon to those who intend to pursue careers in politics, since conservative think tanks increasingly are recruiting from these colleges.
"Schools like Grove City, Brigham Young, and Hillsdale are some of our more popular schools," says Elizabeth Williams, intern coordinator for the conservative Heritage Foundation, in an e-mail. "Their students are usually of very high caliber."
That doesn't mean there has been an exodus from established East Coast schools, which consistently draw outstanding students of every stripe.
"We have far more students on the right than I used to know when I was vice president of Boston University," says Stephen Joel Trachtenberg, president of George Washington University in Washington.
But enrollment at several conservative Christian schools is on the upswing. For example: Patrick Henry College in Virginia, whose mission is to "prepare Christian men and women who will lead our nation and shape our culture with timeless biblical values," first opened its doors in 2000 to 87 students. This year, enrollment stands at 330, and the median SAT score for its freshmen has also jumped, from 1170 to 1340 in the same period.
At Franciscan, Ms. Shultis's new school, where a fledgling group of Democrats disbanded because of lack of interest, enrollment has topped 2,000, up 220 in the past four years. Average grade-point scores of incoming freshmen have also risen.
Job opportunities for these students have also increased, at least in the conservative political sphere. For example: five of the seven leading officers of the College Republican National Committee attend or have graduated from state universities. This summer, Phyllis Schlafly's Eagle Forum Collegians recruited an intern each from the University of Minnesota and Wheaton College, a small, Christian school in Illinois.
In 2002, three of the four fellows at the Collegiate Network, which promotes conservative college journalism, came from Princeton, Yale, and Stanford. Today, the two Ivy Leaguers are outnumbered by five other students from state schools, Notre Dame, or Holy Cross. Fifteen of this year's Heritage Foundation interns came from schools that provide a values-based, Christian education, triple the number in 2000.
Those students may find that their degrees carry all the weight of an Ivy League diploma if they choose to work with Republican politicians. "With a lot of the red-state government officials you have a near-total abolition of the preexisting strong bias toward Northeast schools," says David French, president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education.
Some families and students have even turned to conservative college guides.
"We kept getting calls from students and parents who said, and we agree, that their conservative values were viciously attacked on campus," says Jason Mattera, a spokesman for the Young America Foundation (YAF), which offers such a guide. "You have a crazy liberal college atmosphere where they show the 'Vagina Monologues,' [a one-woman play], and host queer parades. And many students and parents are concerned that they're not getting a decent education."
The YAF's list of top 10 conservative college list is weighted toward smaller, religion- oriented schools like Liberty University, the evangelical Christian college founded by Jerry Falwell in Lynchburg, Va., and Christendom College in Fort Royal, Va.
"Choose the Right College," released by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, promotes schools that adhere to "core curricula" - study of the foundational thinkers of Western civilization such as Plato, Aquinas, and Adam Smith. Editor John Zmirak praises smaller Christian schools, but he also includes Yale in his guide for its "liberal but tolerant professors." And he warns that small Christian schools run the risk of isolating their student bodies.
Many top students, no matter what their ideology, will still seek out top schools, Mr. Trachtenberg says. "They want to be rubbing up against the most competitive students they can find, whatever their political persuasion is."
chatty
A Clinton administration official who served as a top executive of Air America, the politically liberal radio network, says he was "sickened" to his core by the thought that the network was funded by money taken from a Bronx Boys & Girls Club.
The former White House official, David Goodfriend, said that Air America's investors created a new company soon after discovering the transfers. They were motivated, he said, in part by a desire to avoid the $875,000 liability to the Gloria Wise Boys & Girls Club.
Mr. Goodfriend's comments came under oath in a six-hour deposition conducted May 16, 2005, as part of a civil lawsuit by a creditor seeking to collect a New York State court judgment against Air America. A transcript of the deposition was obtained by The New York Sun from a source on condition of anonymity; it was confirmed as genuine by a lawyer, Randy Mastro of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, who represents the creditor suing Air America.
The deposition could boost Mr. Mastro's case in the $1.5 million suit against Air America.
Mr. Goodfriend said in the deposition that when investors found out about the money from the Boys & Girls Club, "They hear this and hear about other liabilities and conclude, I think we better just form a new company clean of any old liabilities."
Mr. Goodfriend, now a Washington based lawyer, said in the sworn deposition that he refused to sign an agreement that transferred ownership and assets of Air America to a new company, Piquant LLC, from Progress Media because he believed it constituted a "fraudulent conveyance."
A spokeswoman for Piquant has denied that the transfer of ownership was fraudulent.
Mr. Goodfriend, now 37, had met the founder of Air America, Evan Montvel Cohen, when they both attended Beloit College in Wisconsin. Mr. Goodfriend said in the deposition that he thought Mr. Cohen borrowed the Gloria Wise funds and disguised them as his own personal investment in the radio network.
"The notion that money left the Gloria Wise Boys & Girls Club so that Evan could pretend that he was investing in Air America sickened me to my core," Mr. Goodfriend said in the deposition.
Mr. Goodfriend said he was introduced to the Gloria Wise Boys & Girls Club by Mr. Cohen, who simultaneously served as chairman of Air America and development director for the Bronx nonprofit.
According to the deposition, Mr. Cohen had persuaded Mr. Goodfriend to join a Gloria Wise Boys & Girls Club advisory board and visit the facility in Coop City. Mr. Goodfriend testified that after he left the radio network he spoke several times to Charles Rosen, who served as executive director of the club, and that Mr. Rosen had approved the transfers of $875,000. Mr. Rosen did not return repeated phone messages left by the Sun at his home.
According to the deposition, sometime after Mr. Goodfriend left Air America in May 2004, he received a phone call from Charles Rosen's brother, Jacob, who said Mr. Cohen had offered to "invest" in his company.
"They had some small telecommunications startup that he wrote checks on the [Progress Media] account that were bounced for insufficient funds that led to the bankruptcy of their company. And they asked me for help to try to have some recourse," Mr. Goodfriend said in the deposition.
Mr. Goodfriend said he had been unaware that Progress Media was a vehicle for investment in ventures other than Air America. He said he learned of the transfers from the Boys & Girls Club in early May 2004 from Air America's vice president of finance, Sinohe Terrero, a former employee of the club who recently resigned from Air America.
The information about the Gloria Wise debt was passed on to Air America's investors in early May 2004, according to Mr. Goodfriend.
Charles Rosen resigned this summer as director of the club, which received million of dollars annually in city contracts and grants, amid a probe by the city's Department of Investigation into "inappropriate transactions" that included the transfer of $875,000 to Air America while the radio network was trying to get off the ground. Jacob Rosen could not be reached for comment.
Mr. Goodfriend said he was threatened with lawsuits when he refused to comply with the demands of several current investors, including entrepreneur Doug Kreeger and a Florida attorney who currently hosts a radio program on Air America, J. Michael Papantonio.
"I was told my life would be made very difficult if I didn't sign the document," Mr. Goodfriend testified. "I understood it to mean that they are all a lot richer and than I and could afford lawyers and could sue me whether they had a case or not. And that I would lose a lot of money as a result or that they would try to get the government to prosecute me or something of that nature."
Mr. Cohen said he would not comment on his interactions with Jacob Rosen or the Gloria Wise Boys & Girls Club. Previously, in an interview, he questioned whether Mr. Goodfriend was completely aware of his dealings with Gloria Wise and other entities.
"I am sorry David did not take a deep breath and try and ask me what was going on. He just got scared and created his own theories," Mr. Cohen said.
A spokeswoman for the city's Department of Investigation, Emily Gest, declined to comment.
A spokeswoman for the Gloria Wise Boys & Girls Club, Martta Rose, confirmed that Jacob Rosen had once approached the Gloria Wise board for a business loan, and that the board, at the direction of Charles Rosen, rejected the request.
d'oh
NY Times Cutting 500 Jobs, 4 Percent Of Work Force
NEW YORK - The New York Times Co. said Tuesday it would cut about 500 jobs, or about 4 percent of its work force, as part of an ongoing effort to reduce costs. The reductions come atop another 200 jobs that were cut earlier this year.
The Times said it expected 250 jobs at its main newspaper group to be affected, which includes the Times, the International Herald Tribune and the online operation of the Times. Of those job cuts, about 45 will come from the Times' newsroom, the company said in a statement.
Another 160 jobs will be cut from the Times' New England operation, which includes The Boston Globe and the Worcester Telegram & Gazette and Boston.com. The company did not provide a breakdown of those job cuts other than to say that 35 newsroom jobs would be cut at The Boston Globe.
The announcement came on the same day that The Philadelphia Inquirer and its sister newspaper said they would eliminate a combined 100 newsroom jobs because of lower circulation and revenue. The Inquirer plans to cut its editorial staff by 15 percent from 500 to 425, while the Philadelphia Daily News will cut its editorial staff 19 percent, from 130 to 105.
Both newspapers are published by Philadelphia Newspapers Inc., which is owned by Knight Ridder Inc., the nation's second-largest newspaper company.
Newspaper companies have been struggling with slow-growing advertising and a long-term decline in circulation amid changing media habits as more people go to the Internet for news.
Last week, Knight Ridder said its third-quarter earnings would fall about 20 percent because of declining ad sales, as well as higher interest expense and newsprint costs.
Knight Ridder cited weakness in its Philadelphia -- one if its biggest newspaper markets -- as well as Fort Worth, Texas and Kansas City as leading factors behind the profit decline.
The Times said it expects to begin making the staff cuts next month and complete them over the next six to nine months.
The company said in a statement that it plans to "manage the staff reductions in such a way that it continues to provide journalism of the highest quality, to function smoothly on a day-to-day basis and to achieve its long-term strategic goals."
silly
Howard Dean: I Saved the Democratic Party
DNC Chairman Howard Dean is now boasting that he's the savior of the Democratic Party, in a none-too-subtle slap at former party chief Terry McAuliffe, not to mention the last Democratic standard bearer, Sen. John Kerry.
Asked why he wanted to run the DNC, Dean told ABC's "The View" last week: "Somebody had to save the party."
He insisted that Democrats were heading in the wrong direction before he took over, telling "View" gabber Joy Behar, "We thought we were going to win by becoming Republicans."
The ex-Vermont governor suggested that Sen. Kerry didn't have the backbone to defeat President Bush in last year's election, saying, "If you want to win, it's not so much what you believe ... it's whether you're willing to fight for what you believe. And the Democrats had given up. We had simply not been willing to stand up and fight."
Dean's bizarre attack on his fellow Democrats went unnoticed by the mainstream press. But talk radio host Steve Malzberg told NewsMax he had a field day playing the clips while filling in on Atlanta's WGST.
After criticizing his predecessors for being too lame, Dean turned his fire on the GOP.
"The truth is, they are a white Christian party," he insisted. "They don't welcome and embrace diversity."
Dean also blasted the Bush administration for what he charged was a bid to deflect blame over Hurricane Katrina, saying, "That really was a [Karl] Rove inspired thing - to go attack the local people."
But when it came to New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, Dean turned defensive, saying it wasn't Nagin's fault that the city's school buses weren't used to evacuate his trapped constituents.
"The school buses were controlled by the school board, not the mayor," Dean insisted. "You can't blame the mayor for that."
spacey
don't ask
TRENTON - New Jersey Republicans yesterday called for a review of the state's election rolls, saying a four-month investigation by the party uncovered widespread irregularities.
More than 6,500 voters cast ballots both in New Jersey and another state in last November's election, while 4,755 ballots were cast by deceased voters, Republican State Committee Chairman Tom Wilson said.
In addition, 54,601 people are registered to vote in two New Jersey counties, and 4,397 of them cast ballots in both places last fall, Wilson said.
The party delivered a letter with its findings to Attorney General Peter Harvey's office, asking for a probe before Oct. 11, the last day New Jerseyans can register to vote before the Nov. 8 election.
In light of voter registration problems that surfaced in Florida in 2000 and in Ohio and Washington state last fall, Harvey should take an aggressive approach in New Jersey, Wilson said.
"Some people have chosen to ignore those clear and compelling warning signals, and that's what we've done here - taken a laissez-faire and lax attitude to enforcing and rooting out voter problems," Wilson said in a news conference.
Thursday's letter asked for Harvey to respond by Sept. 23. Otherwise, Wilson said, the party may seek a court order to compel better enforcement.
Harvey spokesman Lee Moore said the Election Law Enforcement Commission would review the Republicans' assertions to determine what course of action, if any, is appropriate.
"The attorney general is committed to making sure that election laws are enforced and making sure they are in all manners aboveboard," Moore said.
Democratic U.S. Sen. Jon Corzine and Republican businessman Doug Forrester are running for New Jersey governor this fall. While Wilson predicted a close race - making electoral integrity critical - for months polls have been predicting a healthy lead for Corzine.
The State Democratic Committee dismissed the opposition's conclusions.
"If the Republican Party conducted the investigation, it's safe to assume that the facts and figures are wrong and the findings are suspect," Democratic spokesman Richard McGrath said. "If an investigation is needed, it should be done the right way, not the Republican way."
WASHINGTON - Senior officials in Louisiana's emergency planning agency already were awaiting trial over allegations stemming from a federal investigation into waste, mismanagement and missing funds when Hurricane Katrina struck.
And federal auditors are still trying to track as much as $60 million in unaccounted for funds that were funneled to the state from the Federal Emergency Management Agency dating back to 1998.
In March, FEMA demanded that Louisiana repay $30.4 million to the federal government.
The problems are particularly worrisome, federal officials said, because they involve the Louisiana Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness, the agency that will administer much of the billions in federal aid anticipated for victims of Katrina.
Earlier this week, federal Homeland Security officials announced they would send 30 investigators and auditors to the Gulf Coast to ensure relief funds were properly spent.
Details of the ongoing criminal investigations come from two reports by the inspector general's office in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which oversees FEMA, as well as in state audits, and interviews this week with federal and state officials.
The reports were prepared by the federal agency's field office in Denton, Texas, and cover 1998 to 2003. Improper expenditures previously identified by auditors include a parka, a briefcase and a trip to Germany.
Much of the FEMA money that was unaccounted for was sent to Louisiana under the Hazard Mitigation Grant program, intended to help states retrofit property and improve flood control facilities, for example.
The $30.4 million FEMA is demanding back was money paid into that program and others, including a program to buy out flood-prone homeowners. As much as $30 million in additional unaccounted for spending also is under review in audits that have not yet been released, according to a FEMA official.
One 2003 federal investigation of allegedly misspent funds in Ouachita Parish, a district in northern Louisiana, grew into a probe that sprawled into more than 20 other parishes.
Mark Smith, a spokesman for the Louisiana emergency office, said the agency had responded to calls for reform, and that "we now have the policy and personnel in place to ensure that past problems aren't repeated."
He said earlier problems were largely administrative mistakes, not due to corruption.
But federal officials disagreed. They said FEMA for years expressed concerns over patterns of improper management and lax oversight throughout the state agency, and said most problems had not been corrected.
They point to criminal indictments of three state workers as evidence the problem was more than management missteps. Two other state emergency officials also were identified in court documents as unindicted co-conspirators.
"The charges were made after some very extensive reviews by FEMA investigators and other authorities, who identified issues they felt were of the severity and magnitude to refer them to the U.S. attorney's office," said David Passey, the spokesman for FEMA's regional office in Texas.
Passey, while acknowledging that the state had made some administrative changes, said it had not completed the kind of overhaul FEMA said was needed.
"It concerns us a lot. We are devoted to the mission of helping people prepare for, prevent and recover from disasters and we want these federal funds — this taxpayer money — to be spent and used well and in accordance with the rules," he said.
Keith Ashdown of Taxpayers for Common Sense, a Washington watchdog group, said recent Louisiana history showed that FEMA "money earmarked for saving lives and homes'' was instead squandered in "a cesspool of wasteful spending."
Louisiana's emergency office receives money directly from FEMA. It passes on much of the funding to local governments that apply for assistance.
The audit reports said state operating procedures increased the likelihood of fraud and corruption going undetected.
For instance, a Nov. 30, 2004, report by Tonda L. Hadley, a director in the Denton field office, examined $40.5 million sent to the Louisiana agency, mostly for the Hazard Mitigation program. The report found that the state's emergency office did not have receipts to account for 97% of the $15.4 million it had awarded to subcontractors on 19 major projects.
The report also said the Louisiana agency had misspent $617,787 between May 2000 and September 2003.
Questionable expenditures identified by the inspector general included $2,400 for sod installation, several thousand dollars for a trip to Germany by the deputy director, $1,071 for curtains, and $595 for an L.L. Bean parka and briefcase. The inspector general also challenged unspecified spending for camera equipment, professional dues and a 2002 Ford Crown Victoria.
The day before the report was issued, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Louisiana obtained an indictment against Michael L. Brown, deputy director of the Louisiana office of emergency preparedness. (Brown is no relation to former FEMA director Michael D. Brown who resigned this week.) Louisiana's deputy director oversaw the state's Hazard Mitigation program.
Brown was charged with conspiring to obstruct the inspector general's investigation and for making a false statement to a federal investigator.
Michael C. Appe, another senior state agency official, also was charged with obstructing the audit. Months earlier, Appe had been appointed as head of a "surge team" to review projects funded with FEMA money. The team's mission was to help spot abuses.
Both Appe and Brown hold the rank of colonel for their roles in overseeing elements of the state National Guard.
Appe was arrested in Baton Rouge last November, as was Daniel J. Falanga, the state agency's flood-mitigation officer. Falanga was accused of committing perjury before a grand jury investigating misuse of FEMA funds.
All three men have pleaded not guilty to the charges and deny wrongdoing, according to their lawyers. Trial dates remain uncertain because the hurricane disrupted court schedules.
According to the indictment, Brown and Appe conspired in 2000 to use $175,000 in FEMA funds to cover a shortfall in a related agency's budget. Later, when the inspector general began investigating the agency's use of FEMA money, the two men conspired to create a fake, backdated memo to cover up the earlier diversion of funds, the indictment says.
State agency spokesman Smith said Brown had traveled to Germany, but to attend a conference. He declined to answer questions about alleged improper spending, citing the pending trial. Smith said at the time, state officials believed the trip to Germany was a proper expenditure.
Brown's lawyer, Elton Richey, said his client tried to spend federal disaster funds wisely despite job turnover and confusion between state agency officials and FEMA overseers. He said FEMA kept changing the rules.
Marty Stroud, a lawyer who represents Appe and Falanga, said, "There are no charges that anyone in this case enriched himself at the expense of a federal program."
Hadley, of the inspector general's office, issued a second report on Feb. 25, 2005, which tracked state spending of FEMA money to pay for "extraordinary costs," a special category used for the administration of disaster assistance programs. It said the agency had improperly spent $247,166 for items such as a car, computers, membership dues and travel to seminars.
In addition to alleged misspending reported in the two audits, FEMA has asked for the return of $10.7 million allocated to a program for buying property in high-risk flood areas. Most of that money was passed on to local communities to determine which property owners would benefit.
FEMA alleged the Louisiana agency had not properly monitored expenditures, and failed to ensure that properties receiving the funds were eligible.
About $2.8 million of the refund sought by FEMA went to consultant fees. Most of that money went to Aegis Innovative Systems, a Baton Rouge firm hired by many parishes to administer the flood buyout program. Aegis owners include Mark Howard, a former official at the Louisiana agency.
State Sen. Reggie Dupre said it appeared that parishes employing Aegis were especially successful in winning money from the state emergency preparedness agency.
"It smells like a horrible brother-in-law deal to me," he said in a phone interview.
An Aegis attorney did not respond to a request for comment.
The hurricane exposed America's poor >>>>>
HARMAN: 'UK IS NEXT US'
Britain's black and poor communities could end up like those exposed in New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina, minister Harriet Harman has warned.
Her comments echo those of Trevor Phillips, chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality, who believes the UK must heed the lessons of the catastrophe.
Hundreds of America's poor were left homeless by the disaster which struck Louisiana last month. The majority of them were black.
Constitutional Affairs Minister Ms Harman said: "We don't want to get into a situation like America, but if you look at the figures, we are already looking like America - in London, poor, young and black people don't register to vote."
Ministers fear the failure of many to register is evidence of their disengagement from civic society - in the same way the poor of New Orleans had no power to improve their position.
Latest figures show that 20% of people aged 20 to 24 were not on the electoral register.
On Thursday, Mr Phillips will tell Manchester Council for Community Relations in a speech: "We are a society which, almost without noticing it, is becoming more divided by race and religion.
"Our ordinary schools ... are becoming more exclusive and our universities are starting to become colour-coded with virtual 'whites keep out' signs in some urban institutions."
In an assessment of the UK after the July 7 terror attacks, Mr Phillips said: "We are sleepwalking our way to segregation."