The Howard Rich fiasco is breaking nationally.
Breaking so abundantly into the open, in fact, that the mighty New York Times sent a reporter out to Idaho to break the story, and he busted it up pretty good. Only, like a blotter, he got it ALL backwards ...
Saturday, Oct. 7 2006
3:12 PM
Weekend Update #1
As predicted:
This is Howie Rich's right hand man, Paul Jacob. Eric O'Keefe of LEAD and Parents In Charge is on the board of "Citizens in Charge."
Well, here we go.
This is the political version of a 'denial of service' attack on your ISP's servers (e.g. "Mailbombing.")
Click here for the Oregonian story. http://www.oregonlive.com/...
Oregon, 6 other states blanketed in records bid
FOIA - A group wants e-mail pertaining to property rights and spending limits, an effort that will cost time and money
Saturday, October 07, 2006
GOSIA WOZNIACKA
The Oregonian
Close to 500 cities, school districts and state agencies in Oregon, and thousands more in six other states, have been hit with public records requests for all e-mails pertaining to any communication regarding measures on term limits, property rights or limiting spending, an undertaking most local municipalities say will take months and thousands of dollars to complete.
A Virginia-based group, Citizens in Charge, is mounting what its Web site calls "a study of public resource abuse" under the name CitizenFOIA (FOIA stands for Freedom of Information Act). Citizens in Charge is aiming its campaign, which also includes requests for Internet and e-mail use policies and their enforcement, at Oregon and other states where groups backed by Howard Rich, the head of Americans for Limited Government and U.S. Term Limits, pushed spending limits or property rights measures this year.
Citizens In Charge's president, Paul Jacob, says his group is nonpartisan. "Our goal is basically to find out to what degree public resources are being used for political campaigning and to make sure those resources are not abused," he said....
More as events progress.
Courage.
*******
Saturday, Oct. 7 2006
6:19 PM
Weekend Update #2
The LAS VEGAS SUN has picked up the story from the AP wire:
... Altogether 484 state, county and city agencies in Oregon were blanketed with two separate requests by fax during the last week of September, Jacob said. Similar requests also have been sent to about 2,000 government bodies in Arizona, Idaho, Michigan, Montana, Nebraska and Nevada, said Jacob.
Oregon state, city and school district officials said the mass-mailed requests would do exactly what Citizens in Charge says it is trying to prevent: eat up public resources.
"First question is, is this a real request or a scam?" said Gene Evans, spokesman for the Oregon Department of Education. "If it is real, it's certainly going to tie up our staff and computers for a while." Evans said he has never seen a request of this scope before.
But despite local governments' concern about the broadness of the records requests, Jacob said he "didn't think they would be too onerous" and that Citizens in Charge would pay for the records and staff time as needed.
He declined to say where the group's money comes from...
Where have we heard THAT refrain before. Hmmmm...
More as the story unfolds.
Courage.
**
Saturday, Oct. 7 2006
9:29 PM
Weekend Update #3
The mighty Jackson Hole (WY) Star-Tribune is on the story:
Big-government foes seek records
By JOHN MILLER
Associated Press writer Saturday, October 07, 2006
[oas:casperstartribune.net/news/regional:Middle1]
BOISE, Idaho -- With a month to go before the midterm elections, groups touting private property rights and limited government initiatives from Arizona to Idaho are putting the heat on.
They've targeted nearly 2,000 schools and local governments in six states with sweeping public records requests, hoping to learn whether taxpayer-funded resources such as computers are being used improperly to fight their political campaigns.
"I hope it has a deterrent effect, that people will wake up and say, 'This isn't right,' so that it will prevent actions that are against the law," said Paul Jacob, a limited-government advocate in Virginia who heads Citizens in Charge.
Some school and city officials call it a disruptive fishing expedition aimed at taxing scarce resources... The records requests have landed in Montana, Nebraska, Arizona and Michigan, as well as Idaho. In Nevada, agencies could receive a request this week, Jacob said ... After raising $330,000 from limited-government groups earlier this year to help qualify Proposition 2 for Idaho's Nov. 7 ballot, Boise activist Laird Maxwell said he wants to prove educators and government officials have been campaigning on the taxpayers' dime.
So where is the rest of the press?
Stay tuned.
Courage.
**
Saturday, Oct. 7 2006
9:42 PM
Weekend Update #4
The Santa Fe New Mexican (the oldest newspaper in the West) was on the story Thursday. My apologies for slighting them.
http://www.freenewmexican.com/...
By JOHN MILLER
Associated Press
October 5, 2006
BOISE, Idaho (AP) - With a month to go before the midterm elections, groups touting private property rights and limited government initiatives from Arizona to Idaho are putting the heat on....
"This is dark work," Maxwell said. "When they go out and campaign for or against the initiative, or give the illusion of campaigning for or against an issue, and when they do it on taxpayer dollars, there should be balance." ... Maxwell's request, under a law requiring public access to many government records, also demands all correspondence with phrases including "petition blockers" and "truth squad," as well as communications about possible student "sleepovers" at schools on election days.
Though Maxwell wants search fees to be waived, officials counter the sheer volume of research could swamp school and government employees already hard-pressed to do their jobs... Maxwell's request, he said, "Is at best a fishing expedition, and at worst a wild goose chase."
In Kimberly, the school district plans to honor the request, but Superintendent Garner says it's struggling to search its records in a timely way, while still protecting confidential information. The district must go through 400,000 e-mails, he added.
Maxwell says the information should be just a keystroke away.
"They're stonewalling us," he said. "Either we have transparent government _ or we don't."
More as it develops.
Courage.
**
Saturday, Oct. 7 2006
10:11 PM
Weekend Update #5
I'm getting ahead of the curve. Here's an article from tomorrow's Arizona REPUBLIC, dated Sunday, October 8. And they don't even know about the breaking news yet. The editorial says, in part:
Prop. 207 is Trojan horse
Oct. 8, 2006 12:00 AM
A Trojan horse initiative has rolled into Arizona. Proposition 207 is tricked up to seem like a simple defense of property rights.
But look inside. It's really an assault on reasonable planning for a growing state.
Proposition 207 masquerades as protection for homeowners.
[...]
Like the famous horse, which the Greeks used against the people of Troy, Proposition 207 was brought here by outsiders.
Virtually every single dollar in the campaign comes from two libertarian groups, Americans for Limited Government and the Fund for Democracy, bankrolled by New York City real estate investor Howie Rich.
Rich and his organizations aren't aiming to improve Arizona's future. We're just one of eight states in which they financed ballot measures to spread their rigid ideology.
The Trojans opened the horse and were conquered. Arizonans can make a wiser choice on Nov. 7: Vote "No" on Proposition 207. [end]
Yes. Howie's friends -- and ESPECIALLY Scott Tillman -- know about Trojan Horses. Perhaps that's what happened to the one Tillman was towing around Nebraska, Florida, et al, in 2005.
Oh, and by the by? The head of the campaign in Arizona is "consultant" Lori Klein*. Lori Klein married Laird Maxwell (Idaho's lead petitioner) July 29. Maxwell even traveled down to Arizona in the spring to help Klein get HER petition (HOPE) on the Arizona ballot. Then he went back home and got "This House is MY House" on the Idaho ballot.
[* The lead petitioners are listed as SPRINGER, CAROL and NORTON, JOHN R in the official Arizona documents online.]
Here's their wedding website: http://www.lairdandlori.com/
They met at a National Taxpayer's Union convention in 2005.
Lori Klein has the distinction of having made the only in-state Arizona contribution to the ballot measure during the petitioning process: $100 (2-23-06). Laird Maxwell has the same distinction in Idaho, contributing $50 on 3-15-06. Howie Rich supplied the other million dollars or so.
A unique couple in Western politics, one is compelled to note.
They're crabby. They're ideologues. And they threaten people: Modern day tax revolutionaries, say hello to the Libertarian Bonnie and Clyde. We wish all the happiness on the newlyweds that they would inflict on citizens whose states they seek to alter.
More as it happens.
Courage.
**
Saturday, Oct. 7 2006
10:50 PM
Weekend Update #6 - The NEW YORK TIMES
The almighty New York TIMES finally picked up on the story, and might I note that the journalists at the NYT are idiots.
They, in their condescending manner, manage to get it all wrong: An elephant is like a stick, said the blind man. And the KELO stuff is all about bucolic rage. Too bad they didn't notice that ... well, I shall bite my tongue. For shame, NYT. For shame:
http://www.nytimes.com...
October 8, 2006
Anger Drives Property Rights Measures
By WILLIAM YARDLEY
PICABO, Idaho -- Cheeks chapped, patience thinned, Katie Breckenridge had no trouble making up her mind about an Idaho ballot measure that would make the government pay property owners if zoning rules reduce the value of their land.
[...]
The more far-reaching proposals in the West -- in Idaho, Arizona, California and Washington State -- are citizens' initiatives supported by signature petitions, and they are often supported financially and logistically by national libertarian groups.
This House Is My Home, a group based in Boise that is sponsoring the Idaho measure, Proposition 2, is among groups in several states that have received strong financial help from Fund for Democracy, headed by Howard S. Rich, the New York real estate investor who is chairman of the libertarian group Americans for Limited Government. As of late June, Fund for Democracy had given at least $237,000 to This House Is My Home, about two-thirds of the money raised by the group. The next filing deadline is Oct. 10.
"We are essentially a `networking station' that brings together grass-roots activists, donors and community leaders who share a common interest," John Tillman, president of Americans for Limited Government, said in an e-mail message. "In this case, that common interest is in restoring property rights for the average citizen."
Affluent outsiders have been drawn to Idaho in recent decades, lured by technology jobs, mountain recreation and abundant sunshine. Boise, the capital, has boomed, as has Sun Valley, where newcomers from California build second homes not far from ranchers who herd sheep over the Sawtooth Mountains. About two-thirds of Idaho land is under federal control, and frustration runs deep in rural areas with newcomers who, after buying their piece of paradise, try to restrict land use further in the name of preservation and environmentalism....
No. Anger drives bloggers when the NYT can afford to send reporters out for a "he said-she said" story and still not have a clue.
Courage.
**
Sunday, Oct. 8 2006
12:32 AM
My letter to the NYT writer of the piece at:
http://www.nytimes.com/...
Send a Message to WILLIAM YARDLEY
RE: Anger Drives Property Rights Measures
http://www.nytimes.com/...
Sir:
I must protest. The Americans for Limited Government group is not local, nor
'grass roots,' nor do they "help" local anti-tax activists: they HIRE them.
Through the long summer, the stealth outside funding via "astroturf" groups
has been well and amply covered.
You have done the West a grave disservice with your superficial report. I
have been covering this story since early July, (and there is an 150 page
.pdf of it at my blog). The blog report was the basis -- as they say on
their website -- of PBS' NOW program on Sept. 22.
There is a wealth of information on this subject, and instead you published
the ALG press release. Please take a moment to see whether you might not
want to correct your piece. As it stands, newspapers from Omaha, to Kansas
City, to Seattle, to San Francisco, Portland, Missoula, Boise, and Phoenix
are sniggering behind your back.
These are all from the last week (if not the last two days) except for the
last, from 9-22.
http://www.hartwilliams.com/...
http://www.azcentral.com/...
http://www.lasvegassun.com/...
http://www.oregonlive.com/...
http://www.sfgate.com/...
http://www.csmonitor.com/...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
http://www.pbs.org/...
Bests,
Hart Wms.
**
Oy vey.
Courage.
Oh, and don't forget to check out Sandlapper's exceptional coverage at: http://www.dailykos.com/...
[Crossposted from http://www.hartwilliams.com/... if you have any questions. Thimk (sic) first.]