From noquarterusa.net:
"2/26/08 – CTV reported that a senior member of Obama’s campaign called the Canadian embassy within the last month — saying that when Senator Obama talks about opting out of the free trade deal, the Canadian government shouldn’t worry. The operative said it was just campaign rhetoric not to be taken seriously. [CTV, 2/27/08]
2/26/08 – “Late Wednesday, Obama campaign said the staff member’s warning to Wilson sounded implausible, but did not deny that contact had been made. ‘Senator Obama does not make promises he doesn’t intend to keep,’ the spokesperson said.” [CTV, 2/27/08]
2/27/08 – “Earlier Thursday, the Obama campaign insisted that no conversations have taken place with any of its senior ranks and representatives of the Canadian government on the NAFTA issue.” [CTV, 2/29/08]
2/27/08 – Goolsbee: Canada’s consul general in Chicago contacted him ‘at one point to say ‘hello’ because their office is around the corner.’ [ABC, 2/29/08]
2/27/08 – Goolsbee: “I am not confirming or denying any meetings with anyone,’ Goolsbee told ABC News, directing queries to Bill Burton, Obama’s campaign spokesperson.” [ABC News, 2/29/08]
2/27/08 – “ABC News spoke to Goolsbee, Thursday, and who denied calling the Canadian embassy in Washington, or calling Rioux, but would “neither confirm nor deny” whether he had spoke to Rioux about Obama’s NAFTA rhetoric.” [ABC News, 2/29/08]
2/27/08 – CTV: “On Thursday night, CTV spoke with Goolsbee, but he refused to say whether he had such a conversation with the Canadian government office in Chicago. He also said he has been told to direct any questions to the campaign headquarters.” [CTV, 2/29/08]
2/27/08 – CTV: “The Obama campaign told CTV late Thursday night that no message was passed to the Canadian government that suggests that Obama does not mean what he says about opting out of NAFTA if it is not renegotiated.” [CTV, 2/29/08]
2/28/08 – Burton: ‘The news reports on Obama’s position on NAFTA are inaccurate and in no way represent Senator Obama’s consistent position on trade. When Senator Obama says that he will forcefully act to make NAFTA a better deal for American workers, he means it. Both Canada and Mexico should know that, as president, Barack Obama will do what it takes to create and protect American jobs and strengthen the American economy — that includes amending NAFTA to include labor and environmental standards. We are currently reaching out to the Canadian embassy to correct this inaccuracy.” [TPM, 2/28/08]
2/28/08 – Burton: “It’s telling that the Clinton campaign’s closing argument is based on a story run on a Canadian television station that’s already been debunked by the Canadian Embassy.” [ABC, 2/29/08]
2/28/08 – Burton: “Again, this story is not true. There was no one at any level of our campaign, at any point, anywhere, who said or otherwise implied Obama was backing away from his consistent position on trade. The only flip-flopping on NAFTA has come from Sen. Clinton, who talked about how good it was for America until she started running for President,” [ABC, 2/29/08]
2/28/08 – Sen. Obama: “The Canadian government put out a statement saying that this was just not true, so I don’t know who the sources were.” [CTV news, 2/29/08]
2/28/08 - Rice: “The Canadian ambassador issued a statement that was absolutely false. There had been no contact. There had been no discussions on NAFTA. So we take the Canadians at their word…period.” [MSNBC, 2/28/08]
2/29/08: Sen. Obama: “Our office has said the story is not true. It’s important for viewers to understand that it was not true.” Anchor: “So, completely inaccurate, did not happen, end of discussion.” Sen. Obama: “It did not happen.” [WKYC TV, 2/29/08]
2/29/08 - Goolsbee: “It is a totally inaccurate story…I did not call these people and I direct you to the press office.” [New York Observer, 2/29/08]
2/29/08 – Burton: ‘This story is not true. There was no one at any level of our campaign, at any point, anywhere, who said or otherwise implied Obama was backing away from his consistent position on trade.’ [Greg Sargent, 2/29/08]
2/29/08 – Plouffe: “The story’s just not true…. No one in our campaign has said or otherwise implied that he would back away from his position on NAFTA.” [The Page, 2/29/08]
2/29/08 – Burton: “There was no one at any level of our campaign, at any point, anywhere, who said or otherwise implied Obama was backing away from his consistent position on trade.” [Politico, 2/29/08]"
Showing posts with label Obama lies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Obama lies. Show all posts
Monday, March 3, 2008
Obama Campaign Caught Lying About NAFTA Meeting with Canadians
From NYT on March 3, 2008: "SAN ANTONIO, Texas (AP) -- Barack Obama's senior economic policy adviser privately told Canadian officials to view the debate in Ohio over trade as ''political positioning,'' according to a memo obtained by The Associated Press that was rejected by the adviser and held up Monday as evidence of doublespeak by rival Hillary Rodham Clinton.
The memo is the first documentation to emerge publicly out of the meeting between the adviser, Austan Goolsbee, and officials with the Canadian consulate in Chicago, but Goolsbee said it misinterprets what he told them. The memo was written by Joseph DeMora, who works for the consulate and attended the meeting.
''Noting anxiety among many U.S. domestic audiences about the U.S. economic outlook, Goolsbee candidly acknowledged the protectionist sentiment that has emerged, particularly in the Midwest, during the primary campaign,'' the memo said. ''He cautioned that this messaging should not be taken out of context and should be viewed as more about political positioning than a clear articulation of policy plans.''
Goolsbee disputed the characterization from the conservative government official.
''This thing about 'it's more about political positioning than a clear articulation of policy plans,' that's this guy's language,'' Goolsbee said of DeMora. ''He's not quoting me.
''I certainly did not use that phrase in any way,'' he said.
The meeting was first reported last week by Canadian television network CTV, which cited unnamed sources as saying that Goolsbee assured the Canadians that Obama's tough talk on the North American Free Trade Agreement is just campaign rhetoric not to be taken seriously. The Obama campaign and the Canadian embassy denied there was any inconsistency between what the candidate was saying publicly and what advisers were saying privately.
NAFTA is widely opposed in economically depressed Ohio, which holds its presidential primary Tuesday and is a key battleground between Obama and Clinton. Both candidates said in a debate in Cleveland last week that they would renegotiate the trade agreement between the United States, Canada and Mexico, which is the largest trading partnership in the world, and threaten to pull out if it doesn't include more protections for workers and the environment.
Clinton said Monday that Obama's campaign gave the Canadians ''the old wink-wink.''
''I think that's the kind of difference between talk and action that I've been talking about,'' Clinton told reporters while campaigning in Ohio. ''It raises questions about Senator Obama coming to Ohio and giving speeches against NAFTA.''
The memo obtained by the AP was widely distributed within the Canadian government. It is more than 1,300 words and covers many topics that DeMora said were discussed in the Feb. 8 ''introductory meeting'' between himself, Goolsbee and the consul general in Chicago, Georges Rioux.
Goolsbee ''was frank in saying that the primary campaign has been necessarily domestically focused, particularly in the Midwest, and that much of the rhetoric that may be perceived to be protectionist is more reflective of political maneuvering than policy,'' the memo's introduction said. ''On NAFTA, Goolsbee suggested that Obama is less about fundamentally changing the agreement and more in favour of strengthening/clarifying language on labour mobility and environment and trying to establish these as more `core' principles of the agreement.''
Goolsbee said that sentence is true and consistent with Obama's position. But he said other portions of the memo were inaccurate.
''I think we should use the hammer of a potential opt-out as leverage to ensure that we actually get labor and environmental standards that are enforced,'' Obama said in the debate last week.
Goolsbee said he has been surprised that such a banal and trivial meeting with a low-level consulate official has created so much controversy and resulted in such an inaccurate depiction. He said he was invited to the consulate to meet the officials and get a tour.
He said the visit lasted about 40 minutes, and perhaps two to three minutes were spent discussing NAFTA. He said the Canadians asked about Obama's position, and he replied about his interest in improving labor and environmental standards, and they raised some concerns that Obama sounds like a protectionist.
He said he responded that Obama is not a protectionist, but that the Illinois senator tries to strike a balance between the economic struggles of working Americans and recognizing that free trade is good for the economy.
''That's a pretty ham-handed description of what I answered,'' Goolsbee said of memo's description of ''political positioning.'' ''A: In no possible way was that a reference to NAFTA. And B: In no possible way was I inferring that he was going to introduce any policies that you should ignore and he had no intention of enacting. Those are both completely crazy.''
Tristan Landry, a spokesman for the Canadian embassy in Washington, said DeMora was not available for an interview Sunday. His only comment on the memo was to say that although consulate officials reach out to U.S. campaign officials to seek their views, ''Canada does not in any way seek to interfere in U.S. electoral politics.''
Canada supports NAFTA and does not want to see it interrupted.
The Canadian memo said that when Rioux ''asked whether we could expect to hear more of this as the elections progressed, Goolsbee thought not. In fact, he mentioned that going forward the Obama camp was going to be careful to send the appropriate message without coming off too protectionist.
''As Obama continues to court the economic populist vote, particularly in upcoming contests like Ohio, we are likely to see a continuation of some of the messaging that hasn't played in Canada's favour, but this should continue to be viewed in the context in which it is delivered,'' DeMora wrote in the closing section.
Obama spokesman Bill Burton said Goolsbee's visit was not as an emissary from the campaign, but as a professor from the University of Chicago. He was not authorized to share any messages from the campaign, Burton said.
Burton, who was on the call while Goolsbee described his visit to the AP, said, ''It all boils down to a clumsy, inaccurate portrayal of the conversation.''
Asked if he agreed with Burton's summary, Goolsbee said he did."
The memo is the first documentation to emerge publicly out of the meeting between the adviser, Austan Goolsbee, and officials with the Canadian consulate in Chicago, but Goolsbee said it misinterprets what he told them. The memo was written by Joseph DeMora, who works for the consulate and attended the meeting.
''Noting anxiety among many U.S. domestic audiences about the U.S. economic outlook, Goolsbee candidly acknowledged the protectionist sentiment that has emerged, particularly in the Midwest, during the primary campaign,'' the memo said. ''He cautioned that this messaging should not be taken out of context and should be viewed as more about political positioning than a clear articulation of policy plans.''
Goolsbee disputed the characterization from the conservative government official.
''This thing about 'it's more about political positioning than a clear articulation of policy plans,' that's this guy's language,'' Goolsbee said of DeMora. ''He's not quoting me.
''I certainly did not use that phrase in any way,'' he said.
The meeting was first reported last week by Canadian television network CTV, which cited unnamed sources as saying that Goolsbee assured the Canadians that Obama's tough talk on the North American Free Trade Agreement is just campaign rhetoric not to be taken seriously. The Obama campaign and the Canadian embassy denied there was any inconsistency between what the candidate was saying publicly and what advisers were saying privately.
NAFTA is widely opposed in economically depressed Ohio, which holds its presidential primary Tuesday and is a key battleground between Obama and Clinton. Both candidates said in a debate in Cleveland last week that they would renegotiate the trade agreement between the United States, Canada and Mexico, which is the largest trading partnership in the world, and threaten to pull out if it doesn't include more protections for workers and the environment.
Clinton said Monday that Obama's campaign gave the Canadians ''the old wink-wink.''
''I think that's the kind of difference between talk and action that I've been talking about,'' Clinton told reporters while campaigning in Ohio. ''It raises questions about Senator Obama coming to Ohio and giving speeches against NAFTA.''
The memo obtained by the AP was widely distributed within the Canadian government. It is more than 1,300 words and covers many topics that DeMora said were discussed in the Feb. 8 ''introductory meeting'' between himself, Goolsbee and the consul general in Chicago, Georges Rioux.
Goolsbee ''was frank in saying that the primary campaign has been necessarily domestically focused, particularly in the Midwest, and that much of the rhetoric that may be perceived to be protectionist is more reflective of political maneuvering than policy,'' the memo's introduction said. ''On NAFTA, Goolsbee suggested that Obama is less about fundamentally changing the agreement and more in favour of strengthening/clarifying language on labour mobility and environment and trying to establish these as more `core' principles of the agreement.''
Goolsbee said that sentence is true and consistent with Obama's position. But he said other portions of the memo were inaccurate.
''I think we should use the hammer of a potential opt-out as leverage to ensure that we actually get labor and environmental standards that are enforced,'' Obama said in the debate last week.
Goolsbee said he has been surprised that such a banal and trivial meeting with a low-level consulate official has created so much controversy and resulted in such an inaccurate depiction. He said he was invited to the consulate to meet the officials and get a tour.
He said the visit lasted about 40 minutes, and perhaps two to three minutes were spent discussing NAFTA. He said the Canadians asked about Obama's position, and he replied about his interest in improving labor and environmental standards, and they raised some concerns that Obama sounds like a protectionist.
He said he responded that Obama is not a protectionist, but that the Illinois senator tries to strike a balance between the economic struggles of working Americans and recognizing that free trade is good for the economy.
''That's a pretty ham-handed description of what I answered,'' Goolsbee said of memo's description of ''political positioning.'' ''A: In no possible way was that a reference to NAFTA. And B: In no possible way was I inferring that he was going to introduce any policies that you should ignore and he had no intention of enacting. Those are both completely crazy.''
Tristan Landry, a spokesman for the Canadian embassy in Washington, said DeMora was not available for an interview Sunday. His only comment on the memo was to say that although consulate officials reach out to U.S. campaign officials to seek their views, ''Canada does not in any way seek to interfere in U.S. electoral politics.''
Canada supports NAFTA and does not want to see it interrupted.
The Canadian memo said that when Rioux ''asked whether we could expect to hear more of this as the elections progressed, Goolsbee thought not. In fact, he mentioned that going forward the Obama camp was going to be careful to send the appropriate message without coming off too protectionist.
''As Obama continues to court the economic populist vote, particularly in upcoming contests like Ohio, we are likely to see a continuation of some of the messaging that hasn't played in Canada's favour, but this should continue to be viewed in the context in which it is delivered,'' DeMora wrote in the closing section.
Obama spokesman Bill Burton said Goolsbee's visit was not as an emissary from the campaign, but as a professor from the University of Chicago. He was not authorized to share any messages from the campaign, Burton said.
Burton, who was on the call while Goolsbee described his visit to the AP, said, ''It all boils down to a clumsy, inaccurate portrayal of the conversation.''
Asked if he agreed with Burton's summary, Goolsbee said he did."
Sunday, March 2, 2008
Obama & His Campaign Manager Lied (mispoke) About Senator Jay Rockefeller Today
From NoQuarterusa.net: "“Earlier today, Sen. Obama attacked Hillary on Iraq by invoking Sen. Rockefeller and incorrectly saying that the WVA Senator opposed the 2002 Iraq vote. The truth is that Sen. Rockefeller voted for the war resolution - not against it as Sen. Obama suggested to the people of Ohio. This seems to be an Obama campaign talking point since its top strategist also claimed that Sen. Rockefeller voted against the war resolution when he was on national television this morning.
“’Sen. Obama is so desperate to divert attention from his limited national security experience that he’s not just misleading voters about Sen. Clinton, he’s also misleading voters about his own supporters. That is not change you can believe in.’ — Clinton spokesperson Phil Singer” (Facthub)
(SusanUnPC’s note: I heard Obama campaign manager David Axelrod repeat the same lie about Sen. Rockefeller today on ABC’s This Week. I have relistened to the segment, which is still on my DVR. So it’s a widespread Obama campaign meme for today — to spread this outright lie. It is near the top of the show, at the 55:45 mark [i.e., 55:45 minutes left in the show].) UPDATE: ABC News’s blog, Political Radar, caught both Obama’s and Axelrod’s misstatements today. The quote is below.
QUOTES from ABC News’s blog, Political Radar:
[Obama today at a rally in Westerville, Ohio] then summoned up his newest surrogate, Rockefeller, as an example.
"Jay Rockefeller read it, but she didn’t read it. I don’t know where all that experience got her because I have enough experience to know that if you have a national intelligence estimate and the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee says, ‘you should read this, that’s why I voted against the war,’ then you should probably read it."
The problem? Rockefeller voted for war.
Obama’s statement left the impression that Rockefeller was the chair of the Intelligence Committee, read the NIE report and then voted against the war. Rockefeller, who is currently the chair, was not chair at the time and cast his vote for war, not against it.
The Obama campaign says that Obama was referencing former Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla., then Intelligence Committee chair, who read the NIE report, and voted against the war. They said that Obama knows Rockefeller and Graham’s record on the war vote, but was simply not clear who he was referencing.
Alrighty then. It’s easy to mix up Bob Graham with Jay Rockefeller. It’s easy to forget that Rockefeller cast his vote for the AUMF. It’s easy to recall that Rockefeller wasn’t chair of the Senate intelligence committee at the time. Hey. No big deal, right?
Well, then there’s your “Ax” out there using the same lie. Which means that it was one of today’s big talking points. Which means that you ALL shared the same memo this morning, and consciously spread this lie. And that your people didn’t fact-check any of it. Any of it. Again, from ABC News:
[…]
Slice Obama’s comment with that of the Obama campaign’s chief strategist, David Axelrod’s comments on ABC’s "This Week," when he told George Stephanopoulos Sunday morning, "Sen. Jay Rockefeller, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, who opposed the war in Iraq, who read the intelligence before the war, which Sen. Clinton concedes she did not, and who said that Barack Obama has the judgment and the maturity and the vision to lead."
The Obama campaign says that Axelrod just misspoke when he said Rockefeller opposed the war."
“’Sen. Obama is so desperate to divert attention from his limited national security experience that he’s not just misleading voters about Sen. Clinton, he’s also misleading voters about his own supporters. That is not change you can believe in.’ — Clinton spokesperson Phil Singer” (Facthub)
(SusanUnPC’s note: I heard Obama campaign manager David Axelrod repeat the same lie about Sen. Rockefeller today on ABC’s This Week. I have relistened to the segment, which is still on my DVR. So it’s a widespread Obama campaign meme for today — to spread this outright lie. It is near the top of the show, at the 55:45 mark [i.e., 55:45 minutes left in the show].) UPDATE: ABC News’s blog, Political Radar, caught both Obama’s and Axelrod’s misstatements today. The quote is below.
QUOTES from ABC News’s blog, Political Radar:
[Obama today at a rally in Westerville, Ohio] then summoned up his newest surrogate, Rockefeller, as an example.
"Jay Rockefeller read it, but she didn’t read it. I don’t know where all that experience got her because I have enough experience to know that if you have a national intelligence estimate and the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee says, ‘you should read this, that’s why I voted against the war,’ then you should probably read it."
The problem? Rockefeller voted for war.
Obama’s statement left the impression that Rockefeller was the chair of the Intelligence Committee, read the NIE report and then voted against the war. Rockefeller, who is currently the chair, was not chair at the time and cast his vote for war, not against it.
The Obama campaign says that Obama was referencing former Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla., then Intelligence Committee chair, who read the NIE report, and voted against the war. They said that Obama knows Rockefeller and Graham’s record on the war vote, but was simply not clear who he was referencing.
Alrighty then. It’s easy to mix up Bob Graham with Jay Rockefeller. It’s easy to forget that Rockefeller cast his vote for the AUMF. It’s easy to recall that Rockefeller wasn’t chair of the Senate intelligence committee at the time. Hey. No big deal, right?
Well, then there’s your “Ax” out there using the same lie. Which means that it was one of today’s big talking points. Which means that you ALL shared the same memo this morning, and consciously spread this lie. And that your people didn’t fact-check any of it. Any of it. Again, from ABC News:
[…]
Slice Obama’s comment with that of the Obama campaign’s chief strategist, David Axelrod’s comments on ABC’s "This Week," when he told George Stephanopoulos Sunday morning, "Sen. Jay Rockefeller, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, who opposed the war in Iraq, who read the intelligence before the war, which Sen. Clinton concedes she did not, and who said that Barack Obama has the judgment and the maturity and the vision to lead."
The Obama campaign says that Axelrod just misspoke when he said Rockefeller opposed the war."
Saturday, March 1, 2008
Obama Lied During Debate
From TheCommonIlls.blogspot.com on February 26, 2008: "Barack Obama fudged in the debate tonight. He declared that when he gave his speech he was laying it on the line: "I was in the midst of a US Senate campaign." He was in the midst of a STATE senate campaign. He was running for the Illinois state senate and they elect by districts. It was not a "statewide" contest. It was a district election and he was running for re-election representing a district against the illegal war.
There are 59 state senate districts in Illionois. You are elected for a two-year term. He won his state senate seat in 1996. He ran for re-election (and won) in 1998. He ran for re-election (and won) in 2000. He ran for re-election (and won) in 2002.
Here's the pertinent exchange in tonight's debate via the New York Times transcript:
SEN. CLINTON: Well, I have put forth my extensive experience in foreign policy, you know, helping to support the peace process in Northern Ireland, negotiating to open borders so that refugees fleeing ethnic cleansing would be safe, going to Beijing and standing up for women's rights as human rights and so much else. And every time the question about qualifications and credentials for commander in chief are raised, Senator Obama rightly points to the speech he gave in 2002. He's to be commended for having given the speech. Many people gave speeches against the war then, and the fair comparison is he didn't have responsibility, he didn't have to vote; by 2004 he was saying that he basically agreed with the way George Bush was conducting the war. And when he came to the Senate, he and I have voted exactly the same. We have voted for the money to fund the war until relatively recently. So the fair comparison was when we both had responsibility, when it wasn't just a speech but it was actually action, where is the difference? Where is the comparison that would in some way give a real credibility to the speech that he gave against the war?
[. . .]
SEN. OBAMA: Let me just follow up. My objections to the war in Iraq were simply -- not simply a speech. I was in the midst of a U.S. Senate campaign. It was a high-stakes campaign. I was one of the most vocal opponents of the war, and I was very specific as to why.
And so when I bring this up, it is not simply to say "I told you so," but it is to give you an insight in terms of how I would make decisions.
I didn't hear the debate. Ava and I were speaking on campus. Rebecca phoned while we were speaking (about the Iraq War) and when I returned her call after, she told me the quote she'd heard which is the quote that's in the official transcript.
October 2, 2002 was when Bambi gave his speech on a possible "dumb" war. He was not in the midst of a US Senate run. He was running for re-election to his state senate seat -- one of 59 state senate races taking place then.
He lied. This isn't "mispoke." He said "US Senate." It made him sound better. And it was a lie. That speech is not something new to him, he has referenced it over and over. He knows when he gave it. He's reference that over and over. He was not running for the US Senate. He thought he could get away with it (and during the debate he did)."
There are 59 state senate districts in Illionois. You are elected for a two-year term. He won his state senate seat in 1996. He ran for re-election (and won) in 1998. He ran for re-election (and won) in 2000. He ran for re-election (and won) in 2002.
Here's the pertinent exchange in tonight's debate via the New York Times transcript:
SEN. CLINTON: Well, I have put forth my extensive experience in foreign policy, you know, helping to support the peace process in Northern Ireland, negotiating to open borders so that refugees fleeing ethnic cleansing would be safe, going to Beijing and standing up for women's rights as human rights and so much else. And every time the question about qualifications and credentials for commander in chief are raised, Senator Obama rightly points to the speech he gave in 2002. He's to be commended for having given the speech. Many people gave speeches against the war then, and the fair comparison is he didn't have responsibility, he didn't have to vote; by 2004 he was saying that he basically agreed with the way George Bush was conducting the war. And when he came to the Senate, he and I have voted exactly the same. We have voted for the money to fund the war until relatively recently. So the fair comparison was when we both had responsibility, when it wasn't just a speech but it was actually action, where is the difference? Where is the comparison that would in some way give a real credibility to the speech that he gave against the war?
[. . .]
SEN. OBAMA: Let me just follow up. My objections to the war in Iraq were simply -- not simply a speech. I was in the midst of a U.S. Senate campaign. It was a high-stakes campaign. I was one of the most vocal opponents of the war, and I was very specific as to why.
And so when I bring this up, it is not simply to say "I told you so," but it is to give you an insight in terms of how I would make decisions.
I didn't hear the debate. Ava and I were speaking on campus. Rebecca phoned while we were speaking (about the Iraq War) and when I returned her call after, she told me the quote she'd heard which is the quote that's in the official transcript.
October 2, 2002 was when Bambi gave his speech on a possible "dumb" war. He was not in the midst of a US Senate run. He was running for re-election to his state senate seat -- one of 59 state senate races taking place then.
He lied. This isn't "mispoke." He said "US Senate." It made him sound better. And it was a lie. That speech is not something new to him, he has referenced it over and over. He knows when he gave it. He's reference that over and over. He was not running for the US Senate. He thought he could get away with it (and during the debate he did)."
Saturday, February 23, 2008
More Lies from Obama Campaign
Obama's campaign sent a mailer attacking Hillary's health care proposal using the same scare tactics that the insurance companies used against her plain in the 90's. So much for Obama's new kind of politics...
Saturday, February 9, 2008
Obama Lied to Iowa Voters - Claimed He Passed Nuclear Regulation in Illinois Senate When He Actually Sold Out to Utility Company Executives
Not much as been written about how Obama achieved his meteroic rise from Illinois Senator to Presidential candidate. Few have written about who his campaign conttributors were, who mentored him, and how he managed to escape untainted by what many consider the most corrupt state legislature. This NYT piece shine some light on one lie Obama told while campaigning in Iowa and exposes one instance where he sold out in Bush fashion to utility companies. The utility, Excelon, continues to ride roughshod over the people of Illinois, contributing heavily to legislative leaders to insure that Illinois utility rates were not rolled back after they more then doubled for consumers in 2007.
From February 3, 2008 NYT by Mike McIntire:
"When residents in Illinois voiced outrage two years ago upon learning that the Exelon Corporation had not disclosed radioactive leaks at one of its nuclear plants, the state’s freshman senator, Barack Obama, took up their cause.
Mr. Obama scolded Exelon and federal regulators for inaction and introduced a bill to require all plant owners to notify state and local authorities immediately of even small leaks. He has boasted of it on the campaign trail, telling a crowd in Iowa in December that it was “the only nuclear legislation that I’ve passed.”
“I just did that last year,” he said, to murmurs of approval.
A close look at the path his legislation took tells a very different story. While he initially fought to advance his bill, even holding up a presidential nomination to try to force a hearing on it, Mr. Obama eventually rewrote it to reflect changes sought by Senate Republicans, Exelon and nuclear regulators. The new bill removed language mandating prompt reporting and simply offered guidance to regulators, whom it charged with addressing the issue of unreported leaks.
Those revisions propelled the bill through a crucial committee. But, contrary to Mr. Obama’s comments in Iowa, it ultimately died amid parliamentary wrangling in the full Senate.
“Senator Obama’s staff was sending us copies of the bill to review, and we could see it weakening with each successive draft,” said Joe Cosgrove, a park district director in Will County, Ill., where low-level radioactive runoff had turned up in groundwater. “The teeth were just taken out of it.”
The history of the bill shows Mr. Obama navigating a home-state controversy that pitted two important constituencies against each other and tested his skills as a legislative infighter. On one side were neighbors of several nuclear plants upset that low-level radioactive leaks had gone unreported for years; on the other was Exelon, the country’s largest nuclear plant operator and one of Mr. Obama’s largest sources of campaign money.
Since 2003, executives and employees of Exelon, which is based in Illinois, have contributed at least $227,000 to Mr. Obama’s campaigns for the United States Senate and for president. Two top Exelon officials, Frank M. Clark, executive vice president, and John W. Rogers Jr., a director, are among his largest fund-raisers.
Another Obama donor, John W. Rowe, chairman of Exelon, is also chairman of the Nuclear Energy Institute, the nuclear power industry’s lobbying group, based in Washington. Exelon’s support for Mr. Obama far exceeds its support for any other presidential candidate.
In addition, Mr. Obama’s chief political strategist, David Axelrod, has worked as a consultant to Exelon. A spokeswoman for Exelon said Mr. Axelrod’s company had helped an Exelon subsidiary, Commonwealth Edison, with communications strategy periodically since 2002, but had no involvement in the leak controversy or other nuclear issues.
The Obama campaign said in written responses to questions that Mr. Obama “never discussed this issue or this bill” with Mr. Axelrod. The campaign acknowledged that Exelon executives had met with Mr. Obama’s staff about the bill, as had concerned residents, environmentalists and regulators. It said the revisions resulted not from any influence by Exelon, but as a necessary response to a legislative roadblock put up by Republicans, who controlled the Senate at the time.
“If Senator Obama had listened to industry demands, he wouldn’t have repeatedly criticized Exelon in the press, introduced the bill and then fought for months to get action on it,” the campaign said. “Since he has over a decade of legislative experience, Senator Obama knows that it’s very difficult to pass a perfect bill.”
Asked why Mr. Obama had cited it as an accomplishment while campaigning for president, the campaign noted that after the senator introduced his bill, nuclear plants started making such reports on a voluntary basis. The campaign did not directly address the question of why Mr. Obama had told Iowa voters that the legislation had passed.
Nuclear safety advocates are divided on whether Mr. Obama’s efforts yielded any lasting benefits. David A. Lochbaum of the Union of Concerned Scientists agreed that “it took the introduction of the bill in the first place to get a reaction from the industry.”
“But of course because it is all voluntary,” Mr. Lochbaum said, “who’s to say where things will be a few years from now?”
Others say that turning the whole matter over to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, as Mr. Obama’s revised bill would have done, played into the hands of the nuclear power industry, which they say has little to fear from the regulators. Mr. Obama seemed to share those concerns when he told a New Hampshire newspaper last year that the commission “is a moribund agency that needs to be revamped and has become a captive of the industry it regulates.”
Paul Gunter, an activist based in Maryland who assisted neighbors of the Exelon plants, said he was “disappointed in Senator Obama’s lack of follow-through,” which he said weakened the original bill. “The new legislation falls short” by failing to provide for mandatory reporting, said Mr. Gunter, whose group, Beyond Nuclear, opposes nuclear energy.
The episode that prompted Mr. Obama’s legislation began on Dec. 1, 2005, when Exelon issued a news release saying it had discovered tritium, a radioactive byproduct of nuclear power, in monitoring wells at its Braidwood plant, about 60 miles southwest of Chicago. A few days later, tritium was detected in a drinking water well at a home near the plant, although the levels did not exceed federal safety standards.
At least as disturbing for local residents was the revelation that Exelon believed the tritium came from millions of gallons of water that had leaked from the plant years earlier but went unreported at the time. Under nuclear commission rules, plants are required to tell state and local authorities only about radioactive discharges that rise to the level of an emergency.
On March 1, Mr. Obama introduced a bill known as the Nuclear Release Notice Act of 2006. It stated flatly that nuclear plants “shall immediately” notify federal, state and local officials of any accidental release of radioactive material that exceeded “allowable limits for normal operation.”
To flag systematic problems, it would also have required reporting of repeated accidental leaks that fell below those limits. Illinois’ senior senator, Richard J. Durbin, a fellow Democrat, was a co-sponsor, and three other senators, including Hillary Rodham Clinton, Democrat of New York, later signed on. But Mr. Obama remained its primary champion.
In public statements, Mr. Obama dismissed the nuclear lobby’s arguments that the tritium leaks posed no health threat.
“This legislation is not about whether tritium is safe, or at what concentration or level it poses a threat,” he said. “This legislation is about ensuring that nearby residents know whether they may have been exposed to any level of radiation generated at a nuclear power plant as a result of an unplanned, accidental or unintentional incident.”
Almost immediately, the nuclear power industry and federal regulators raised objections to the bill.
The Nuclear Energy Institute jumped out in front by announcing its voluntary initiative for plant operators to report even small leaks. An Exelon representative told an industry newsletter, Inside N.R.C., that Exelon was “working with Senator Obama’s office to address some technical issues that will allow us to support the legislation.”
Last week, an Exelon spokesman, Craig Nesbit, said the company sought, among other things, new language to specify what types of leaks should be reported, and assurance that enforcement authority remained with the nuclear commission and not state or local governments.
“We were looking for technical clarity,” Mr. Nesbit said.
Meanwhile, the nuclear commission told Mr. Obama’s staff that the bill would have forced the unnecessary disclosure of leaks that were not serious. “Unplanned releases below the level of an emergency present a substantially smaller risk to the public,” the agency said in a memorandum to senators, which ticked off about a half-dozen specific concerns about the bill.
Senate correspondence shows that the environment committee chairman at the time, Senator James M. Inhofe, Republican of Oklahoma who is a strong supporter of industry in battles over energy and environmental legislation, agreed with many of those points and held up the bill. Mr. Obama pushed back, at one point temporarily blocking approval of President Bush’s nominee to the nuclear commission, Dale E. Klein, who met with Mr. Obama to discuss the leaks.
But eventually, Mr. Obama agreed to rewrite the bill, and when the environment committee approved it in September 2006, he and his co-sponsors hailed it as a victory.
In interviews over the past two weeks, Obama aides insisted that the revisions did not substantively alter the bill. In fact, it was left drastically different.
In place of the straightforward reporting requirements was new language giving the nuclear commission two years to come up with its own regulations. The bill said that the commission “shall consider” — not require — immediate public notification, and also take into account the findings of a task force it set up to study the tritium leaks.
By then, the task force had already concluded that “existing reporting requirements for abnormal spills and leaks are at a level that is risk-informed and appropriate.”
The rewritten bill also contained the new wording sought by Exelon making it clear that state and local authorities would have no regulatory oversight of nuclear power plants.
In interviews last week, representatives of Exelon and the nuclear commission said they were satisfied with the revised bill. The Nuclear Energy Institute said it no longer opposed it but wanted additional changes.
The revised bill was never taken up in the full Senate, where partisan parliamentary maneuvering resulted in a number of bills being shelved before the 2006 session ended.
Still, the legislation has come in handy on the campaign trail. Last May, in response to questions about his ties to Exelon, Mr. Obama wrote a letter to a Nevada newspaper citing the bill as evidence that he stands up to powerful interests.
“When I learned that radioactive tritium had leaked out of an Exelon nuclear plant in Illinois,” he wrote, “I led an effort in the Senate to require utilities to notify the public of any unplanned release of radioactive substances.”
Last October, Mr. Obama reintroduced the bill, in its rewritten form.
From February 3, 2008 NYT by Mike McIntire:
"When residents in Illinois voiced outrage two years ago upon learning that the Exelon Corporation had not disclosed radioactive leaks at one of its nuclear plants, the state’s freshman senator, Barack Obama, took up their cause.
Mr. Obama scolded Exelon and federal regulators for inaction and introduced a bill to require all plant owners to notify state and local authorities immediately of even small leaks. He has boasted of it on the campaign trail, telling a crowd in Iowa in December that it was “the only nuclear legislation that I’ve passed.”
“I just did that last year,” he said, to murmurs of approval.
A close look at the path his legislation took tells a very different story. While he initially fought to advance his bill, even holding up a presidential nomination to try to force a hearing on it, Mr. Obama eventually rewrote it to reflect changes sought by Senate Republicans, Exelon and nuclear regulators. The new bill removed language mandating prompt reporting and simply offered guidance to regulators, whom it charged with addressing the issue of unreported leaks.
Those revisions propelled the bill through a crucial committee. But, contrary to Mr. Obama’s comments in Iowa, it ultimately died amid parliamentary wrangling in the full Senate.
“Senator Obama’s staff was sending us copies of the bill to review, and we could see it weakening with each successive draft,” said Joe Cosgrove, a park district director in Will County, Ill., where low-level radioactive runoff had turned up in groundwater. “The teeth were just taken out of it.”
The history of the bill shows Mr. Obama navigating a home-state controversy that pitted two important constituencies against each other and tested his skills as a legislative infighter. On one side were neighbors of several nuclear plants upset that low-level radioactive leaks had gone unreported for years; on the other was Exelon, the country’s largest nuclear plant operator and one of Mr. Obama’s largest sources of campaign money.
Since 2003, executives and employees of Exelon, which is based in Illinois, have contributed at least $227,000 to Mr. Obama’s campaigns for the United States Senate and for president. Two top Exelon officials, Frank M. Clark, executive vice president, and John W. Rogers Jr., a director, are among his largest fund-raisers.
Another Obama donor, John W. Rowe, chairman of Exelon, is also chairman of the Nuclear Energy Institute, the nuclear power industry’s lobbying group, based in Washington. Exelon’s support for Mr. Obama far exceeds its support for any other presidential candidate.
In addition, Mr. Obama’s chief political strategist, David Axelrod, has worked as a consultant to Exelon. A spokeswoman for Exelon said Mr. Axelrod’s company had helped an Exelon subsidiary, Commonwealth Edison, with communications strategy periodically since 2002, but had no involvement in the leak controversy or other nuclear issues.
The Obama campaign said in written responses to questions that Mr. Obama “never discussed this issue or this bill” with Mr. Axelrod. The campaign acknowledged that Exelon executives had met with Mr. Obama’s staff about the bill, as had concerned residents, environmentalists and regulators. It said the revisions resulted not from any influence by Exelon, but as a necessary response to a legislative roadblock put up by Republicans, who controlled the Senate at the time.
“If Senator Obama had listened to industry demands, he wouldn’t have repeatedly criticized Exelon in the press, introduced the bill and then fought for months to get action on it,” the campaign said. “Since he has over a decade of legislative experience, Senator Obama knows that it’s very difficult to pass a perfect bill.”
Asked why Mr. Obama had cited it as an accomplishment while campaigning for president, the campaign noted that after the senator introduced his bill, nuclear plants started making such reports on a voluntary basis. The campaign did not directly address the question of why Mr. Obama had told Iowa voters that the legislation had passed.
Nuclear safety advocates are divided on whether Mr. Obama’s efforts yielded any lasting benefits. David A. Lochbaum of the Union of Concerned Scientists agreed that “it took the introduction of the bill in the first place to get a reaction from the industry.”
“But of course because it is all voluntary,” Mr. Lochbaum said, “who’s to say where things will be a few years from now?”
Others say that turning the whole matter over to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, as Mr. Obama’s revised bill would have done, played into the hands of the nuclear power industry, which they say has little to fear from the regulators. Mr. Obama seemed to share those concerns when he told a New Hampshire newspaper last year that the commission “is a moribund agency that needs to be revamped and has become a captive of the industry it regulates.”
Paul Gunter, an activist based in Maryland who assisted neighbors of the Exelon plants, said he was “disappointed in Senator Obama’s lack of follow-through,” which he said weakened the original bill. “The new legislation falls short” by failing to provide for mandatory reporting, said Mr. Gunter, whose group, Beyond Nuclear, opposes nuclear energy.
The episode that prompted Mr. Obama’s legislation began on Dec. 1, 2005, when Exelon issued a news release saying it had discovered tritium, a radioactive byproduct of nuclear power, in monitoring wells at its Braidwood plant, about 60 miles southwest of Chicago. A few days later, tritium was detected in a drinking water well at a home near the plant, although the levels did not exceed federal safety standards.
At least as disturbing for local residents was the revelation that Exelon believed the tritium came from millions of gallons of water that had leaked from the plant years earlier but went unreported at the time. Under nuclear commission rules, plants are required to tell state and local authorities only about radioactive discharges that rise to the level of an emergency.
On March 1, Mr. Obama introduced a bill known as the Nuclear Release Notice Act of 2006. It stated flatly that nuclear plants “shall immediately” notify federal, state and local officials of any accidental release of radioactive material that exceeded “allowable limits for normal operation.”
To flag systematic problems, it would also have required reporting of repeated accidental leaks that fell below those limits. Illinois’ senior senator, Richard J. Durbin, a fellow Democrat, was a co-sponsor, and three other senators, including Hillary Rodham Clinton, Democrat of New York, later signed on. But Mr. Obama remained its primary champion.
In public statements, Mr. Obama dismissed the nuclear lobby’s arguments that the tritium leaks posed no health threat.
“This legislation is not about whether tritium is safe, or at what concentration or level it poses a threat,” he said. “This legislation is about ensuring that nearby residents know whether they may have been exposed to any level of radiation generated at a nuclear power plant as a result of an unplanned, accidental or unintentional incident.”
Almost immediately, the nuclear power industry and federal regulators raised objections to the bill.
The Nuclear Energy Institute jumped out in front by announcing its voluntary initiative for plant operators to report even small leaks. An Exelon representative told an industry newsletter, Inside N.R.C., that Exelon was “working with Senator Obama’s office to address some technical issues that will allow us to support the legislation.”
Last week, an Exelon spokesman, Craig Nesbit, said the company sought, among other things, new language to specify what types of leaks should be reported, and assurance that enforcement authority remained with the nuclear commission and not state or local governments.
“We were looking for technical clarity,” Mr. Nesbit said.
Meanwhile, the nuclear commission told Mr. Obama’s staff that the bill would have forced the unnecessary disclosure of leaks that were not serious. “Unplanned releases below the level of an emergency present a substantially smaller risk to the public,” the agency said in a memorandum to senators, which ticked off about a half-dozen specific concerns about the bill.
Senate correspondence shows that the environment committee chairman at the time, Senator James M. Inhofe, Republican of Oklahoma who is a strong supporter of industry in battles over energy and environmental legislation, agreed with many of those points and held up the bill. Mr. Obama pushed back, at one point temporarily blocking approval of President Bush’s nominee to the nuclear commission, Dale E. Klein, who met with Mr. Obama to discuss the leaks.
But eventually, Mr. Obama agreed to rewrite the bill, and when the environment committee approved it in September 2006, he and his co-sponsors hailed it as a victory.
In interviews over the past two weeks, Obama aides insisted that the revisions did not substantively alter the bill. In fact, it was left drastically different.
In place of the straightforward reporting requirements was new language giving the nuclear commission two years to come up with its own regulations. The bill said that the commission “shall consider” — not require — immediate public notification, and also take into account the findings of a task force it set up to study the tritium leaks.
By then, the task force had already concluded that “existing reporting requirements for abnormal spills and leaks are at a level that is risk-informed and appropriate.”
The rewritten bill also contained the new wording sought by Exelon making it clear that state and local authorities would have no regulatory oversight of nuclear power plants.
In interviews last week, representatives of Exelon and the nuclear commission said they were satisfied with the revised bill. The Nuclear Energy Institute said it no longer opposed it but wanted additional changes.
The revised bill was never taken up in the full Senate, where partisan parliamentary maneuvering resulted in a number of bills being shelved before the 2006 session ended.
Still, the legislation has come in handy on the campaign trail. Last May, in response to questions about his ties to Exelon, Mr. Obama wrote a letter to a Nevada newspaper citing the bill as evidence that he stands up to powerful interests.
“When I learned that radioactive tritium had leaked out of an Exelon nuclear plant in Illinois,” he wrote, “I led an effort in the Senate to require utilities to notify the public of any unplanned release of radioactive substances.”
Last October, Mr. Obama reintroduced the bill, in its rewritten form.
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