http://www.studioglyphic.com/blog/
Please update your links, bookmarks, and RSS Feedreaders. All comments have been disabled.
« The Bubble of American Supremacy, or Soros' Sexy Title | Main | Joke of the day »
February 07, 2004
Kerry is so very...
...ugh.
Wonderful headline:
Kerry: Blocked Law, Donations Not Linked
Here's the backstory: Federal funding goes toward the Big Dig highway project, the project overpays the insurance company, the insurance company invests the money, then pays half the profits back to the project. That's right. Our federal tax dollars were being gambled on investments, and a big insurance company benefited. Sounds bad, right? Like something that should be stopped? But Mr. Kerry decided to block legislation designed to close this special interest loophole (you know, one of those things he always talks about) and profited from it:
Massachusetts Sen. Kerry said he had worked to block the legislation because it would have cost Boston's "Big Dig'" project $150 million. The legislation in 2000 aimed to close a loophole that had allowed the insurer to divert millions of federal dollars from the project.
...
In the two years after the Big Dig issue, 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 AP.
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.
Someone stop this sucker.
Posted by glyphic at February 7, 2004 01:22 AM