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sbenois
Citizen
Username: Sbenois
Post Number: 10682
Registered: 10-2001
| | Posted on Tuesday, February 3, 2004 - 9:05 pm: |     |
Howie, you're toast. Can't wait to see you slash some throats later...
Now back to Channel 35 where "Ken, uh, Patterson" has voted contrary to Frederico again.
---> Brought to you by Sbenois Engineering LLC <-
Hey, it also wouldn’t look good coming out of a motel with your wife’s best friend saying you were just planning a surprise birthday party for her husband...- Arturo November '03
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jeffl
Citizen
Username: Jeffl
Post Number: 336
Registered: 8-2001
| | Posted on Tuesday, February 3, 2004 - 9:16 pm: | |
sbenois, Ed is one of your biggest supporters. Cut him some slack. So he thought the TC meetings were monthly at 8ish and his opponent was Ken Patterson...and he thinks George W. is God. Is that a reason to ridicule him? |
sbenois
Citizen
Username: Sbenois
Post Number: 10683
Registered: 10-2001
| | Posted on Tuesday, February 3, 2004 - 9:21 pm: | |
Probably is...
P.S. Lieberman as just dropped out. He is a good man and one of the few Democrats who stands by his convictions...
---> Brought to you by Sbenois Engineering LLC <-
Hey, it also wouldn’t look good coming out of a motel with your wife’s best friend saying you were just planning a surprise birthday party for her husband...- Arturo November '03
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Elmwoodian
Citizen
Username: Java_drinker
Post Number: 303
Registered: 8-2002
| | Posted on Tuesday, February 3, 2004 - 9:54 pm: | |
I think you mean to say:
one of the few Democrats who should be convictied |
cjc
Citizen
Username: Cjc
Post Number: 842
Registered: 8-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, February 5, 2004 - 10:54 am: | |
I was going to start a thread with this, but the title "Kerry Cleans Up" is already taken. I know Peter Jennings will lead with this item, followed by daily coverage by CNN.
By JOHN SOLOMON
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) -- John Kerry intervened in the Senate to keep
open a loophole that had allowed a major insurer to divert millions
of federal dollars from the nation's most expensive construction
project, then received tens of thousand of dollars in donations
from the company during the next two years, documents show.
American International Group paid Kerry's way on a trip to
Vermont and donated at least $30,000 to a tax-exempt group Kerry
used to set up his presidential campaign. Company executives also
donated $18,000 to his Senate and presidential campaigns, according
to records obtained by The Associated Press.
But Kerry, the current leader of the Democratic presidential
race, says there was no connection between his actions in 2000 and
the donations that followed in 2001 and 2002.
"John Kerry has long supported getting special interest money
out of the political system," campaign spokeswoman Stephanie
Cutter said. "If anybody believes that a political contribution
influences John Kerry then they are wasting their money."
But some government watchdogs said Kerry's story is a textbook
case of Washington special interest politicking that he rails
against on the presidential trail.
"The idea that Kerry has not helped or benefited from a
specific special interest, which he has said, is utterly absurd,"
said Charles Lewis, head of the Center for Public Integrity that
just published a book on political donations to the presidential
candidates.
"Anyone who gets millions of dollars over time, and thousands
of dollars from specific donors, knows there's a symbiotic
relationship," Lewis said. "He needs the donors' money. The
donors need favors. Welcome to Washington. That is how it works."
The documents obtained by AP detail Kerry's effort as a member
of the Senate Commerce Committee to persuade committee chairman
John McCain, R-Ariz., to drop legislation that would have stripped
$150 million from the Big Dig project and ended the insurance
funding loophole.
The Massachusetts Democrat actually was critical of the loophole
but didn't want money stripped from the project because it would
hurt his constituents who needed the Boston project finished,
Cutter said.
When the "AIG investment scheme (came) to light, John Kerry
called for public hearings to investigate the parties involved and
the legality of the investment practices. However, he firmly
believed cutting funding for the Big Dig was not the answer,"
Cutter said.
Instead of McCain's bluntly worded legislation, Kerry asked for
a committee hearing in May 2000. Kerry thanked McCain at the start
of the hearing for dropping his legislation and an AIG executive
was permitted to testify that he believed the company's work for
the Big Dig was a good thing even though it was criticized by
federal auditors.
"From the perspective of public and worker safety and cost
control, AIG's insurance program has been a success," AIG
executive Richard Thomas testified.
Asked why Kerry would subsequently accept a trip and money from
AIG in 2001 and 2002 if he was concerned by the investment scheme,
Cutter replied: "Any contributions AIG made to the senator's
campaign came years after the investigation."
The New York-based insurer, one of the world's largest, declined
to comment on its donations to Kerry, simply stating, "AIG never
requested any assistance from Senator Kerry concerning the
insurance we provided the Big Dig."
The Big Dig project has become a symbol of government
contracting gone awry, known for its huge cost overruns that now
total several billion dollars, and its admissions of mismanagement.
During the 1990s, Sens. Kerry and Edward Kennedy, D-Mass.,
helped win new federal funding for the project as its costs
skyrocketed and threatened to burden the state's government. In
1998, Kerry was credited with winning $100 million in new federal
funding.
But in 1999, Transportation Department auditors discovered that
Big Dig managers had overpaid $129.8 million to AIG for worker
compensation and liability insurance that wasn't needed, then
allowed the insurer to keep the money in a trust and invest it in
the market. The government alleged AIG kept about half of the
profits it made from the investments, providing the other half to
the project.
Outraged by the revelations, McCain submitted legislation that
would have stripped $150 million from the Big Dig and banned the
practice of allowing an insurer to invest and profit from excessive
premiums paid with government money.
"Any refunds of insurance premiums or reserve amounts,
including interest, that exceed a project's liabilities shall be
immediately returned to the federal government," McCain's
legislation said.
But Kerry and Kennedy intervened, and McCain withdrew the
legislation in 2000 in favor of the hearing.
At that hearing, the Transportation's Department inspector
general made a renewed plea for a permanent federal policy banning
the overpayment of insurance premiums and subsequent investment for
profit -- what McCain had proposed and Kerry helped kill.
"The policy is needed to ensure that projects do not attempt to
draw down federal funds for investment purposes under the guise
that they are needed to pay insurance claims," the inspector
general told senators.
In September 2001, AIG paid an estimated $540 in travel expenses
to cover Kerry's costs for a speech in Burlington, Vt., according
to a Senate report filed by Kerry.
A few months later in December 2001, several AIG executives gave
maximum $1,000 donations to Kerry's Senate campaign on the same
day. The donations totaled $9,700 and were followed by several
thousand dollars more over the next two years.
Kerry wasn't the only committee member to get AIG donations. In
1999 and early 2000 as the Big Dig issue was pending, McCain
received several thousand dollars in donations from executives of
the insurer, the records show.
In spring 2002, AIG donated $10,000 to a new tax-exempt group
Kerry formed, the Citizen Soldier Fund, to lay groundwork for his
presidential campaign. Later that same year, AIG gave two more
donations of $10,000 each to the same group, making it one of the
largest corporate donors to Kerry's group.
The insurer wasn't the only company connected to the Big Dig to
donate to Kerry's new group. Two construction companies on the
project -- Modern Continental Group and Jay Cashman Construction --
each donated $25,000, IRS records show.
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tjohn
Citizen
Username: Tjohn
Post Number: 2194
Registered: 12-2001
| | Posted on Thursday, February 5, 2004 - 10:58 am: | |
It is also the case that Kerry's position on this issue was consistent with that of all elected officials in Massachusetts and had more to do with protecting the Big Dig funding that wil compaign donations. |
Jurgnz
Citizen
Username: Jurgnz
Post Number: 12
Registered: 1-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, February 5, 2004 - 2:35 pm: | |
duped
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