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Politics : WHO IS RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT IN 2004 -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Oral Roberts who wrote (60)	2/24/2002 5:01:42 PM
From: Tadsamillionaire	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10965

LEFT WING SORKIN BLASTS BUSH: WE'RE 'PRETENDING' HE HAS EXHIBITED UNSPEAKABLE COURAGE The force behind NBC's WEST WING is blasting off against the real West Wing in upcoming pages of the NEW YORKER, which names Aaron Sorkin "the country's loyal opposition." NY'ER reporter Tad Friend has penned a high-impact Talk of the Town set for release in March 4 editions. Sorkin, the creatorproducerwriter of WEST WING, tells Friend: "It's absolutely right that at this time we're all laying off the [Bush] bubblehead jokes. But that's a far cry from what the Times and CNN and others on whom we rely for unvarnished objectivity are telling us, which is that 'My God! On September 12th he woke up as Teddy Roosevelt! He became the Rough Rider!'" Of NBC's own look at a day in the life of the Presidency, 'The Bush White House: Inside the Real West Wing,' which aired as the lead-in to a WEST WING repeat a few weeks ago, Sorkin charges: "The White House pumped up the President's schedule to show him being much busier and more engaged than he is, and Tom Brokaw let it happen?" Sorkin continues: "The show was a valentine to Bush. That illusion may be what we need right now, but the truth is we're simply pretending to believe that Bush exhibited unspeakable courage at the World Series by throwing out the first pitch at Yankee Stadium, or that he, by God, showed those terrorists by going to Salt Lake City and jumbling the first line of the Olympic opening ceremony. "The media is waving pom-poms, and the entire country is being polite," Sorkin declares. "I just began reading Frank Bruni's campaign book AMBLING INTO HISTORY: THE UNLIKELY ODYSSEY OF GEORGE W. BUSH which begins with Candidate Bush at a service in Texas for seven people who were killed in a church by a crazy gunman. Bruni describes Bush making goofy faces at the press, and it reminds you of a junior high schooler on a museum field trip." Sorkin tells the mag that he is planning to revisit the BUSH-GORE Florida showdown in an upcoming episode. President Josiah Bartlet [played by actor Martin Sheen, who has called Bush a white knuckled drunk] is up for re-election this November. "Bartlet is going to be running against Governor Robert Ritchie, of Florida, who's not the sharpest tool in the box but who's raised a lot of money and is very popular with the Republican Party,? Sorkin says. More AT drudgereport.com

To: Oral Roberts who wrote (60)	3/4/2002 9:21:22 PM
From: Tadsamillionaire	Respond to of 10965

Antigua banker biggest donor to Daschle PAC After Clinton proposed anti-money-laundering law, group gave $448,000 to top leaders in Congress WASHINGTON - The owner of one of the biggest banks in the Caribbean nation of Antigua and Barbuda - known for years as a money-laundering haven - was the largest contributor to then-Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle's "soft money" fund-raising committee in the 12 months that ended June 30. Houston-based banker R. Allen Stanford, who has dual citizenship in the United States and Antigua, paid for a 1998 effort by Antigua to overhaul its banking laws. But the U.S. government complained that the new secrecy rules allowed the country to continue to hide money for tax purposes and said Stanford's financing of the changes and presence on a new regulatory authority was a conflict of interest. In April 1999, the Treasury Department issued an advisory telling banks to give enhanced scrutiny to all financial transactions coming out of Antigua. That advisory was withdrawn in August 2001 after Antigua enacted significant reforms. In September 1999, the Clinton administration proposed anti-money-laundering legislation. Soon thereafter - between February 2000 and June 2001 - Stanford and his Houston company, Stanford Financial Group, gave a total of $448,000 in largely unregulated "soft money" donations to the Republican and Democratic parties and to three influential members of Congress, according to a report on soft money released this week by Public Citizen, a Washington public interest group. The members were Daschle, then-Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott and House Democratic Caucus Chairman Martin Frost, the report said. Between July 1, 2000, and June 30, 2001, Stanford and his company gave a combined $40,000 to Daschle's political action committee, Dedicated Americans for the Senate and the House, or DASH PAC. Daschle became majority leader toward the end of that 12-month period, when Democrats regained control of the Senate in early June. DASH PAC spokeswoman Anita Dunn couldn't say whether DASH PAC's staff knew about Stanford's history in Antigua when the PAC accepted his donations. But the PAC vets all contributions and turns away any that are linked with legislation before Congress or whose donor has a criminal history, she said. "This (Stanford) is a businessman in the United States making a legal contribution and participating in the political process," Dunn said. Spokesmen for Lott and Frost didn't immediately return calls. Two months after Clinton proposed the money-laundering legislation, Stanford hired a Washington lobbying firm, Verner Liipfert, Bernhard, McPherson & Hand. Publicly available lobbying disclosure reports showed that the firm was engaged to represent Stanford on the money-laundering legislation. The Public Citizen report, citing interviews with eight sources, said Stanford "vigorously" opposed the legislation. Stanford, however, said he only disagreed with certain provisions in the bill that, according to him, would require financial service providers, rather than the U.S. government, to act as financial policemen. That would require firms such as his to hire more staff, making it tougher to compete, Stanford said. more @ argusleader.com