Iowa Presidential Watch
Holding the Democrats accountable

Q U O T A B L E S

August 8, 2005

"It is indeed criminal to steal an election and within two years run up a federal deficit of half-a-trillion dollars, send our young people over to Iraq to die for an unjust war. What they are doing is criminal," said Judge Greg Mathis, the star of the syndicated television program "The Judge Mathis Show."

"The last two elections were stolen. They were stolen and so we will not rest until we reclaim our democracy and this is what today is all about," said U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.).

"Here is the truth, we got to reinvent ourselves. We became old, we became stale. The world changed and we didn't. That's what you see in our union," said Andrew Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union.

"I think with the new leadership in the NAACP and the SCLC (Southern Christian Leadership Conference), we are beginning to see a new group of leaders who really understand, that in a global economy we have to be different. We can't look in the mirror. We got to look out the window into the future," said Andrew Stern.

"[If] a black is a tyrant, he is first and foremost a tyrant, then he incidentally is black. Bush is a tyrant and if he gathers around him black tyrants, they all have to be treated as they are being treated," said Harry Belafonte at the Civil Rights March in Atlanta.

 "The tax relief stimulated economic vitality and growth and it has helped increase revenues to the Treasury," Bush said, "We need to make the tax relief permanent."

"Federal court candidates, who serve for life, should explain their judicial philosophy and their method of legal reasoning," said Sen. Charles Schumer.

"There are very different and even opposing views about what our Constitution means in today's world, what legal structures are best suited for us to continue to offer opportunity and provide fairness and a level playing field. And your voices are absolutely essential in the debates we are having," Hillary Clinton told the American Bar Association's Commission on Women in the Profession.

 

J U S T   P O L I T I C S

Scapegoat

Paul Volcker’s investigation into the Oil-for-food scandal is expected to be released and will find that Benon Sevan, the former U.N. head of the program, received kickbacks. There was no indication that the several French, Russian, Chinese and other high officials involved in the scandal would be implicated. Nor, was their any hint about further revelations of Kofi Annan’s son’s involvement. Reuters reports:

Benon Sevan, the former executive director of the program, is to be accused of getting cash for steering Iraqi oil contracts to an Egyptian trader and of refusing to cooperate with the Volcker panel, his attorney Eric Lewis said. Sevan has denied the allegations.

On Sunday, Lewis distributed a letter from Sevan, 67, to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan resigning from his current job, which he was given after he retired.

Funding liberal thought

The Democracy Alliance -- a coalition of Democrats -- has raised $80 million of their goal of $200 million to fund liberal think tanks, according to the Washington Post:

Alliance chairman Steven Gluckstern, a retired investment banker, said that President Bush’s victory over Sen. John F. Kerry -Mass.) last year after millions of dollars had been poured into pro-Democratic "527" groups caused many contributors to think that a dramatically new approach is needed.

"It wasn't only the failure to win, it was the question 'What does it take to win?' " Gluckstern said. "Among the lessons learned was that to bring back the progressive majority in this country is not just a periodic election investment strategy."

The Democracy Alliance will act as a financial clearing house. Its staff members and board of directors will develop a lineup of established and proposed groups that they believe will develop and promote ideas on the left. To fulfill their million-dollar pledge, each partner must agree to give $200,000 or more a year for at least five years to alliance-endorsed groups.

Clashes of Civilization

Al-Qaeda Leader Ayman Al-Zawahiri on Al-Jazeera: "Oh Americans, What You Have Seen in New York and Washington, and the Casualties You Witness in Afghanistan and in Iraq... Are Nothing but the Casualties of the Initial Clashes."

The Middle East Media Research Institute has complied Zawahiri’s comments on Al Jazeera television.

 

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